That's kind of ridiculous. If you ask directions, do you completely disregard them because you don't know the guy giving you them? Do you ignore the dictionary because the person who wrote it is a stranger?

I understand not wanting to follow the Bible- I'm no Christian myself. But there's no point in completely dismissing something because you do not know the person who said it.

I think many things written ABOUT him were lies. That doesn't mean HE lied.

I don't think he lied..

I don't think you understand. You are using the present tense-the metaphysical meaning. I am talking about the flesh and blood Jesus. Some dude that walked around and wore Birkenstocks two thousand years ago who had a mother named Mary, a father named Joseph, and a brother named James.



I beg to differ; you've done no such thing.



You're still stuck in the present tense. That's not the point of this thread. You may go ahead and debate if "Jesus Lives", but that's not the goal here.

Still waiting on proof of flying purple unicorns. I mean, if you can't prove they don't exist, they must, right?



He couldn't of lied if he never said anything at all...

But don't we fall back on history about people in the past we have never seen, some being good others bad? Taking other peoples word for it.. From what has been “past down” everything said about Jesus was good. If that's the case he must have been, right? Or history would have portrayed him otherwise.

[color=blue]Give me a true, fact, without a doubt, can't be disputed, no matter what source that noone can argue about Jesus NOT existing. You can't[/url]
actually I can. There is not a single solid peice of evidence that the alleged 'son of god' existed. None. Lets look at your bible for 'proof' of itsself then..

"If I [Jesus] bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." (John 5:31)

"I [Jesus] am one that bear witness of myself..." (John 8:1

According to these scriptures, Jesus was a false witness.

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" (John 10:34)

According to this scripture, Jesus thought that the Jewish law (i.e., the Old Testament) reported that he said the Jews were gods.

So unless you buy into this; in which this myth allegedly says it isn't even able to bear witness of itsself why should anyone else?
read all about it

Well unfortunately any site pertaining to Jesus is going to be very bias either way. You site is from American Atheist. I'm sure I could find a site for Jesus that would explain what your Atheist site is stating. Like I said they would all be very bias..

Heres a few question about the alleged 'son of god' and a few points of interest:

The gospels were not written by eyewitnesses.
The names attached to the gospels are second century guesses.
The nativity accounts are 100% fiction.
The one account of his childhood is more likely a fictional creation by Luke based on Old Testament passages.
There are major problems with all the major events in his life: the Baptism by John, the temptation in the wilderness and even whether there were actually twelve apostles.
None of the miracle accounts seems credible. The nature miracles and the epiphanies are obviously false, while many of the healings are unimpressive and could be explained by non-miraculous means.
Jesus’s teachings were not that much different from the teachings of other major religious traditions and were well within the tradition of various contemporaneous Jewish itinerant preachers.
His personality was probably not that attractive: the evidence points to the fact that he was, like most Jewish preachers of his time, a xenophobic, rather fanatical, Jew.
He never claimed to be God.
Many events surrounding the "passion week" are of dubious historicity.
The account of Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin is obviously fiction as it contradicts everything we know about the procedures of the council.
The trial before Pilate is largely fictional as well.
The accounts of Jesus' crucifixion read like fiction.
The accounts of the burial and resurrection could not be true as they stand for they contradict one another openly.

the author of the books

how did you get so well informed girlfriend?

You're right, meblonde, but my point and why I made this thread is simply to determine if the man existed, not what he said, what kind of person he was, or if he really wore Birkenstocks.

If he didn't exist, that answers all the other questions about him.

Do you know what I mean?

Again, people cannot wrap around their heads the concept of the flesh Jesus and the spirit Jesus. We are not talking about the spirit Jesus.

Yup! I know what you are saying..

Ooh I'll tackle this one... I did see a painting of him with birckenstocks on once, plus my mom really likes them so maybe he invented them?

Since all we can do is wade through the biased documents and misinterpreted history, I can come to my personal conclusion- I do believe he existed, I believe he was a social activist.

Why? Because It seems logical based on what people generally reported about him (wading through the son of god and miracle stuff) and because that is what my idea of jesus is.

"Again, people cannot wrap around their heads the concept of the flesh Jesus and the spirit Jesus. We are not talking about the spirit Jesus. "

You can not seperate the two, he was both man and God, when you talk about the flesh Jesus you talk about the spirit Jesus, he is God made man.

You mean the belief of Jesus as a man or Jesus as God made man.. he did exist one only needs to examine the history of the Jews/Romans his "enemies" if you will not take his "friends" accounts seriously.

No he's not. Because not all people believe in the spirit Jesus. That whole relative truth thing that you can't seem to understand...

Like what in particular Guest?

There's no way in heck I'm reading 18 pages of Jesus stuff, so I'm just going to pitch in my 2 cents on the issue.

I believe Jesus existed in the flesh. I believe he was probably a very great, influential, amazing man.

I cannot get over the fact that A) The Bible was assembled based on "divine inspiration" .. and probably a lot of incredibly biased research, and B) People assert that what was actually in the 'authentic' bible was NOT manipulated by the total power that various Christian political systems had. There's no way the Bible (in the form it was created in) survived Christian Rome. The corruption and power was too great for the authentic bible to weather. And C) .. LANGUAGE. You can't perfectly translate something like the Bible into another language (especially from early Semitic/Greek/Latin languages) without losing important meanings.

I don't think Jesus wanted a sprawling, fragmented, over-zealous religion based on judgment modeled after his example. I think he'd be embarrassed if he were around right now.

^^^^^
good post from marvel


my only point of debate is..
"I believe Jesus existed in the flesh. I believe he was probably a very great, influential, amazing man. "
if he was indeed not the person the bible makes him out to be he would not have existed in the flesh, but would have been just another random guy named jesus and therefore the actual person they make him out to be would not exist at all.

not to mention in those days the end of the town was pretty much the end of the world for so people they never knew how big the earth was or about countrys and other places. so anywhere that heard this story it would have spread and spread, more "importent meanings" getting lost along the way.

i cant get over the fact that millions if not billions of people devote there lives to a book and to beliefs that has never been confirmed to be truth in anyway.

but really lets face facts.. even if proof does come that jesus never existed would it be enough for the christians? they dont go off facts so why would this prove anything to them in the end anyway. we could wave proof in the churchs faces and theyd still tell us its been put there to "test our faith".

when will people wake up and relise the only people who really know what happens inside the church will never tell you, which raises questions itself. the leaders of our churchs are telling you what you want to hear, making there dollars like everyone else does but just doing it there way. people still believe that tossing there money in a collection plate or helping out down at your local church will grant your place in heaven?? lol get real and start believing in YOURSELF and not what some religous koo koo tells you to

i don't know what the churches are like where you guys live, but, you know, there ARE churches who do wonderful work in their own communities and abroad. there are christians who take christ's message to heart and love their neighbours as themselves and do this with actions not just as some abstract concept. i know this because i know people like this. they work tirelessly to help those in need whether that need is spiritual, emotional, or physical and they do it with love in their hearts. these are the people that inspire me to try my best to do some of what they do. and most of those people happen to be church going christians. it just hurts me to see people talk about the church like it's some evil, money grubbing corporation here to oppress everyone. if you came to my church you would feel welcomed and loved and accepted for who you are and you would learn you can stop arguing about the meaning of the words of christ and just live them.

bear with me while i quote:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

loving god means loving all god's creation. that is why christ is so important. because through him all of the old testament can be interpreted in a loving way that prevents judgement and hate. i just felt the need to say this because christianity is not bad in and of itself and christians are not all a bunch of angry, judgemental and ignorant people. i think anyone saying these things about all religions is being hypocritical.

I don't mind the teachings of Jesus for the most part. I wish he could have asked people to love everyone and everything without bothering with the middle-man of God.