This is me being gentle:

Words that come from ONE SOURCE ONLY written by BIASED sources are NOT PROOF of Jesus' existence.

Words that come from sources that account for a man's MAGICAL abilities should be immediately discounted because these abilities ARE NOT POSSIBLE, nor have they ever been repeated.

That is what you would do to me if I proclaimed myself able to turn water into wine. Why is Jesus so special that he is above examination?

I'm not too sure carbon-14 dating has been all that accurate.

Gosh, I doubt just about everything, eh?

It would be great if they could prove by DNA analysis that the Shroud and the Sudarium were at least worn by the same man. How they are going to prove that man was Jesus, and then how they are going to prove Jesus had a special divinity is beyond me.

I definitely agree but it's something to consider at the very least.

I'd like to see a DNA comparison between the two as well.

I know what you are saying . but you didn't answer my question. Why do you beleive others existed? With no proof, or don't you? The question is not "is what jesus clains to have done ture or not" the question is do you think he existed. And if you don't why do you of others?
smiling be nice!

Except for when they've studied it in ways you cannot, unless you too followed in their footsteps.

I defer to scientists and trust their knowledge because I know their facts and evidence has been collected in trustworthy ways. You can go to their sources, see their research, etc. That's why they are trustworthy. And if they say the shroud of turin is debatable, I believe them, because they've actually done the research.

Did you know there are enough pieces of "the cross" to build like, 15 of them!? Clearly not all of them can be real, yet all of them are considered real by church-goers. No one wants to prove them false because it unsettles the religion.

Who/what Jesus is/was is wrapped up in what he did.

Maybe I should of been clearer from the get go. I made an assumption and I should not have. Here's what I mean:

Did a dude walk on this planet named Jesus?

Most likely. Hell, I have a friend named Jesus.

Did the Jesus as Christians worship or as a historical figure walk on this planet?

Most unlikely. Men cannot perform such acts ascribed to him, and I think events were easily manipulated to control people.

Is there proof some dude named Jesus walked on this planet?

Probably. My friend has a birth certificate, for example.

Is there proof that some dude named Jesus as Christians worship him walk on this planet?

Hell if I know. That's what I'm trying to find out.

Does that make more sense? I'm trying to find proof of the divinity of Jesus.

Do you know what a "strawman" argument is? It's when you take what I'm saying (Jesus didn't exist) and sorta twist it into a new argument (how do you know, say, Darwin existed?) It's faulty logic and a bad debate tactic.

This is something for the big nerds here. Eiri, get on board. So, you know the story of the Lord of the Rings. The quest, the war, blah blah, the ring, Mount Doom, right?

Well, the composer Richard Wagner wrote an opera cycle years beforehand called "Das Rein..." "Das...Ringen" um...anyways, it translates to "The Ring" and referred to in music-speak as "The Ring Cycle" and it centers around a magic ring stolen from a river that grants the gift of ruling the world. The ring enslaves whoever carries it, and there are dwarves and all kinds of bizarre creatures. The ring gets dumped back into the river at the end of the story.

Isn't that amazing? Isn't that bizarre?

I'm on my kneeds worshipping Siegfried (the hero) right now!

I'm being nice.



Except when it comes to matters you don't agree with...remember the 9/11 thread?

I can at leas consider those ideas. However, right now it's "cool" to believe in the conspiracy theories, so it will take many years to convince me of it. Once it's not "cool" anymore, I'll put more stock in it. Took me a long time to be convinced of Global Warming too, but now the evidence is quite undeniable.

Hold the phone, I don't know what "cool" is, and that's not the point anyways. You believed one argument set forth by a scientist about the 'conspiracy' because it fit with you, and dismissed another logical argument by the same scientist because it didn't fit what you think. So, when you make statement like "I defer to scientists and trust their knowledge" be sure to include the caveat "but only if they back up my opinions".

the question was about the historical existance of jesus as a person. some people just don't get it. is there real and substantive evidence that would proove the existance of all historical figures? alexander the great? buddha? mohammed? socrates? are we going to say that the other figures in the bible didn't exist because we don't believe in the theology of it? so king herod, king david, king solomon, the pharaohs of egypt, john the baptist, pontius pilate, and other figures in the bible didn't exist either? this debate just turned useless because it was supposed to be outside of the theology of it but apparently some people don't get that concept. even if you believe the gospels are not true accounts because they were not written by his contemporaries, they are accounts of oral histories which may have been inspired by this individual and embellished along the way (as oral histories almost always are). many legitimate scholars believe it is more likely than not that jesus was a person who existed historically.

the religion debate is not the point!

it seems like some people just take too much pleasure in bashing christianity and it seems to be the acceptable thing to do these days. why don't we start in on islam and the buddhists and the jews? why aren't we picking on hinduism? shintoism? wiccans? or even athiests? they can't really 'proove' that god doesn't exist can they? but they sure have a lot of conviction about it. they rail against christians and call them intolerant, but i, for one, do not go around picking apart other people's beliefs.

ugh. i can't believe i just wasted all this time writing this when i have a new baby and should be sleeping! it just irritates me.

congratulation on the new Baby girl! I read about her in the PG forum.. Very good point.. That is sort of what I was trying to say.. Names have been past down from years gone past.. There are past for a reason. At one point I think these people must have existed..

Nice thinking.
All good points.
I suppose that we should try to know what we don't know.
It twould be frivolously frivilous to only believe something that you did not know for sure.
What a circus eh?

Hey karebear, congrats on the baby!

Just a couple comments; Jesus' existence is tied up in his divinity. If he existed as some dude, what's the point of knowing that? It's knowing about his divinity that makes it a debate. I'm sure some plain old guy named Jesus walked the earth, but did the historical figure Jesus as he is worshipped walk around?

The other historical figures are for different debates, and you are welcome to offer a thread on that. What makes Jesus on the forefront is that so many Americans worship him, and many of the laws and moral standpoints are what they are because of belief in him. If I lived in a different society, I would question Buddha, Moses, etc. but Jesus gets this interest because of where I am.

It's not a matter of vilifying Christians...it's a matter of asking why they believe as they do (and you should ask these questions). Just because you want proof of their religion doesn't mean that you're burning them at the stake.

Best wishes to you!

I said what I said. Right now, I choose to not believe the conspiracy theories because it IS cool to believe the government is planning to kill all of us for oil money.

Yowzers.

Wait, you believed the theory on the Pentagon...but not on WTC1 & 2 & 7:



And instantly dismissing a theory because it's "cool" is EXACTLY the same as instantly believing a theory because it's "cool".

You have to think for yourself.

And I don't know what cool is anymore, I guess, because I don't see how it's "cool" to believe the gov't is lying and mu(derous.

I don't understand why it's cool either, but it IS. When the fervor about it has died down and other people start agreeing, maybe I'll listen.

Just like global warming. Almost all scientists agree that it is real now. In the past, very few people believed it.

I seriously hope that he didn't exist.
Because that was one messed up way to die.
He was betrayed, tortured, nailed to a cross, and then stabbed by a spear.
So no, I hope that that did not happen.

I meant...I literally do not know about this "cool" factor. I am not familiar with this point of view that believing or even questioning the gov't involvement in 9/11 is "cool". That is news to me, and I wonder where you get that from.

Methinks you're stting on a bandwagon if you wait for other people to start agreeing before you even listen. That is not a progressive, freethinking Eiri.

I get it from young people my age... O.o

I'm not sitting on the bandwagon. I'm refusing to get ON the bandwagon until there is irrefutable proof.

You mean, irrefutable proof that you can agree with. (re: the scientist you believe about the pentagon, but not the WTC towers)
(What's "O.o" mean?)

A conservative Christian, who believes in the inerrancy (freedom from error) of the Bible, and the inspiration by God of its authors, might cite passages from the Bible as proof of his existence. The gospels link Jesus' birth and crucifixion to historical persons and events. They describe his sayings, conversations, prayers and actions in great detail.
Many liberal Christians view Jesus as a great Jewish prophet and innovative, itinerant teacher. Even though they do not necessarily consider him divine, few ever question his existence.
Muslims also believe that Jesus was a great prophet. They do not believe that he died on the cross, but they definitely accept that he was born of a virgin, lived in Palestine in the early 1st century CE, and ascended to heaven without having previously died.
Many Jewish theologians regard Jesus as an itinerant rabbi of the 1st century CE who popularized many of the beliefs of the Pharisees and of the liberal Jewish thought at the time