Mex5150 » -
I have no idea what the OP does or doesn't believe, but I'm pretty sure you are wrong with this statement. The evidence for christ is laughably poor.
Which is why absolutley no Serious Historian doubts he existed, and only nutcases like Richard Carier, or Acharya S advocate this claim. Peopel ith nown and obvous hatred towards Christianity and hwo make a liign bashign it.
Sorry lad, the :"Laughabky poor" evidence that Jesus existed is so overwhelmign that it's not remotlly taken seriosuly by Academic Historians.
There are no contemporaneous writings about him what so ever
So, Socratese didn't exist? How about Alexander The Great? Or Hannibal? No Contemporary Evidence exists for any of them.
The real problem is that most of Ancient History comes ot us via secondary soruces. Over TIme many documents are sily lost, and other TImes peopel didn't even bother writting thigns down till well after the events occured.
In terms of Jesus, though,we have far mroe written abotu hin withi Living Mmeory than most other Ancient Fogures, which alone speaks of a rela man at the core of the stories.
And many of the EPistles were written by eoeplw ho knew him personally.
(despite there being being many people in the right place at the write time looking to write about just the type of things he allegedly did).
Such as Who? Mythers like to say this all the Time but really, most of the peopel they;d name either weren't actulaly there or else had no interest in an Itenerate Rabbi.
The earliest writings to speak of him as a historical person were the four gospels,
Well, if you either ignroe Paul's Epistles or buy intot he nnsnese that Paul beleived in a "Celestial jesus", despite him clealry calling Jesus a Man who livedon Earth several Times.
Oh, and the Firts Epistle of Peter.
And James.
all of which are obviously very biased
Name a single Ancient Historical Soruce hats not Biased.
and all of which were written one to three generations after the time he was said to have lived.
This is where Acharya S leads you astray.
All Fur Gospels were written in the First Century AD. That places them all within living memory of Jesus, not two or three generations removed from him.
If you think this is strong evidence, I hate to imaging what you think is poor evidence LOL
Well, you got the dates of the Gospels wrong, and seem to ignore the Epistles which were written before the Gospels, or else want to pretned Paul's EPistles never menton an Earthly Jesus, hich isnt True, and wish to date the Gospels ot much laer than they were actually written.
The thing is you have to question if The Bible is legitimate or notI completely agree with you.
No, from a Historical standpint you need to think of the Bible as a collection of different books written at DIfferent Times by different Authors, not as one big single book.
I often hear the lame arugment from Mythers that Genesis is cleslry mythical, exct, thus the Biel cant be reliedupon, but this is ridiculius when you reflecton hwo meanignless that is next to whether or nit the Gospels hold reliabel information. And at the same Time, the idea that it's either 100% Reliabke or 100% Myth is itself a ridiculous idea.
and the evidence points toward a resounding yes.I completely disagree with you.
But yiu dsagree withhim on the strenght of arugments you learned form peope who hate Christainity, and hwo got their basic facts wrong. You, in turn, got yoru facts wrong as a result.
That makes you unreliable.
The same Bible prophesies of his death and resurrection before his birthWow, it's almost like the people who wrote the new testament had read the old testament or something.
Which doens't really mitigate the fact that jesus the man, lived.
and it also says more than 500 people witnessed his resurrection.
No, it doens't. It says that 500peopel can verify they sw him as a livign man after his ressurection.
There is a difference.
By th way, when Paul wrot that he also said you cold ask them personally and didn't have to take his word for it. That's a pretty odd thing to say if youthink jeuss is a celestial deity who never lived on Earth, and equally odd if Jeuss never existed at all.
and not a single one of them bothered to write anything down about it,
Well, except the New testament. Also, how do yiu know more wasn't written and lost?
What's more, given this is the Ancient World which out mroe stock on living memory than on text, and had a low literacy rate anyway, do you relaly think the hole "No one write it dwn" argument holds?
And what if they had? You'd still argue it was them lyign or that the text actually came from 100 Years later.
or mention all the zombies wandering about (Matthew 27:52),
Yeah the Zombie gag is old now. Matthew 27 does not mention rottign undead corpsies wonderig around, which is what a Zombie is. The peoepl who were raised from the dead were fully alive, not Zombuies, and if you can't take the texgt seriosuly in a discussion and hve ot fall bakc on the Zombie routine it only oprives how you've decided in advance ot bash Chritainity, and how you don't cre about facts.
Also, there are Ancient texts which refer to similar events.
and anyway I've read loads of books where lots of people are said to have seen something, but unless specifics are given about these people and they later verify they actually did witness these events, it's nothing more than fiction.
No, its not. Foction by definition is soehign knwon to not be true. We dont count witness accoutns as Fictional even if they ae unreliable.
if your excuse is to question God and why he doesn't do this or that then I recommend rather looking into it. It will change your life.If only theists would put some thought and research into their beliefs.
This is another Trope that doens't fly. The ides that Theists don't quetion their beleifs and just accepthtem withotu Reaosn or evidence, combind whtthe idea that Athiests are Rational folks hwo always do researhc is nonsense. You don't quesiton yoru own beleifs, and your :"Research" is just you findign websites and a few books thta tekl you how Christianity is one big Lie and beleivign the claism in such materials withotu questiongn it.
The whole ChristMyth Theory is sheer stupidity that yoi beleive more becuse it undermiens Christanity than because it makes sense.
Meanwhle, plenty of Thisst spend years, or even their entire Lifetime in seriosu Reearch, and plent of htem have givne a lot of Thogyht to what they beleive and why.
So can this crap, it;'s demeanign and insultign and clealry not True.
The Caricature of Theisst as unthinkign followers and Athiests as Rational freethinkers is simly illegitimate.
The evidence is there. Plenty of it.
I know. And I love lookig at it so much I soent a small fortune gettign a degree in Religiosu studies.
You, on the other hand, beleive crp from peoepl lie Acharya S what's easy to disprove using a stabdard Search engine.
So why can theists never provide anything other than poor anecdotal evidence when asked?
Theists provide a lot mroe than poor anecdotal evidence. However, despite claimign to research things, you simply don't want to listen.
Des Carte, for example, put forward an arugment for God's existence, and so did Thomas Aquinas. (And the "Rebuttals" to Aquinases Five aruments you see online dont really work if you read whta he aclaly said.) An what about Spinoza? Or Paul TIllich? Or Spurgeon? Or heck even former Atheist now Deist ( And deism is a form of Theosm, nto an alternative to it) Anthoy Flew?
Have you even read these arugments?
The ides that Theists only have Anecdotal evidnece is stupidity.
If the evidence is as plentiful and clear cut as you claim, why are there so many competing religions (including around 30,000-40,000 christian denominations alone)?
How does that prove that God doens't exist? Are you relaly sayign that if we had evidence that Gid existed we'd not have multipel Relgiions? Bcause proving God exists is not the ame thign as proving yoru understanding of who God is, or how we shoudl live as Humans on Earth, is Right, and that's what causes diides in Chtianity, and in several other Relgiions, unless those Relgiiosn are Atheistic.
It doens't relaly prove anythign at all about God's eistnce that many Relgiiosn eist. This is like saying if Law exists then why do so many natiosn exist?
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