You're confusing what's being said by whom.

The religious people say, "we know what happened because it was written in these books by people centuries ago."

The atheists say, "I don't know."

I'm not aware of any scientist who pretends to understand it all. What you describe as the history of the universe is the description of what happened based on the evidence. But it is a work in progress and may be for many life times after we're all gone.

To say that atheism requires faith is to completely misunderstand the implied position.

Only one side claims to know the origin of the universe. (hint: theists) You can play with words to try and make it appear like atheists make this claim, but they do not. (on the whole. surely there are some atheists who claim to know how this all got here)

hi lawdude,

did the roman (non christian) historian tactius exist?

"Tacitus, in writing about accusations that Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed it on Christians, said the following:

". . .Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishment upon those people, who were in abhorrence for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. They had their denomination from Christus (Christ, dm.), who in the reign of Tibertius was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. . . .At first they were only apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards a vast multitude discovered by them, all of which were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. . . ." (Tacitus, Annals, 15, 44).

There's a debate as to whether that statement was even authentic. In any event, if it is even authentic, it was written in about 115 or 116 CE, which is almost a century after the fact, and I don't think anyone doubts that by that time Christianity was expanding. Further, though, note that Tacitus' alleged statement is a lot less specific in its claims than Josephus' alleged statement was-- he makes no claim that the Christians even contend that he was resurrected, only that he was executed and that Christians were later persecuted by Rome. (The latter fact, of course, is not denied by anyone, even the Jesus Myth people.)

Mormons believe that God is corporeal.

I agree but no one really holds that view as an absolute truth of the universe in the same way people do with Jesus.

jesus...the bbt doesn't say there was NOTHING and then it all asploded out to this. bobneptune, do you understand this?

The earliest surviving manuscript containing the passage is an 11th century Christian scribal copy.

The document has been altered to make it refer to Christians.



The first 'i' of the Christianos is quite distinct in appearance from the second, looking somewhat smudged, and lacking the long tail of the second 'i'; additionally, there is a large gap between the first 'i' and the subsequent long s. Under ultraviolet light an 'e' is visible in the gap, replacing the 'i'. The passage must originally have referred to chrestianos, a Latinized Greek word which could be interpreted as the good, after the Greek word χρηστός (chrestos), meaning 'good, useful'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus..._Chrestians.3F

How sick is that?

hi dude,

i understand you are a lawyer, but let's try to stick to the question at hand, namely, whether jesus existed as a historic figure. that was the question asked by lv.

first, there are a boatload of references to him in the bible, with intricate details of his ministries.

there are references to him by secular writers/historians by josephus and tacitus and more tangentially pliny.

so, to argue a historical figure named jesus never walked the earth you have to say the historian's work was perverted intentionally.

then, you have to say the authors of the bible james, paul mathew , mark, luke, john, peter and jude all got together and sat down and said, " i've gotta really neat idea. let's make up a fictitious guy who walks on water and does all this cool stuff, all the time while turning the other cheek. but for sure, the authorities will murder us for creating an insurrection!"

sounds like a great idea

and what did they get for their fakakta story? for the record other than john who died a natural death and judas iscariot who hung himself, this is what you got for being an apostle :

* Andrew: Crucified.
* Bartholomew: Crucified.
* James, son of Alphaeus: Crucified.
* James, son of Zebedee: Death by the sword.
* Matthew: Death by the sword.
* Peter: Crucified upside-down at his own request (he did not feel worthy to be crucified in the same manner as the Lord).
* Philip: Crucified.
* Simon the Zealot: Crucified.
* Thaddaeus: Death by arrows.
* Thomas: Death by a spear thrust.

i'm going with william of occam on the historic christ.

whether he is the son of god or not is way above my pay grade

no.... plz explain it to me without magic words like singularity and points of infinite mass.

i'd really like to know how the universe began.

I think Jesus existed because of some of this but more because of all the small sects and non biblical apocryphal writings about him.

This is all kind of meaningless because if we are going with the idea the writer/writers made up Jesus its not a stretch they made up his apostles. Unless you have proof they existed outside of the bible.

we are all aware creatures in someone's dream (god)

we have our own dreams

why is it when we dream our identity becomes absent?

wake up people

Why is everyone arguing about Jesus? The fact is no one in this thread who worships him has ever seen him or God. Thus the thread title.

Before I even get into this, I want to make clear-- I do think Jesus existed. It's obvious that he was an influential enough figure that there were a number of competing narratives that flourished regarding his teachings, until the Romans took control and suppressed the alleged heresies a couple of centuries out. To me, that indicates that Jesus existed, because otherwise, why would so many try to appropriate his name for their message.

But the argument that he did not exist isn't implausible, and is accepted by some respected people. At its core is an issue you don't touch on, which is the similarity between the Jesus story as told in the canonical New Testament and prior texts in other religions.

But as I said, I don't really buy the hypothesis. Your attempt to knock it down, though, is much worse.

The problem is, the "Bible" (more accurately, the canonical New Testament) wasn't written until decades after he is claimed to have died, and actually, for hundreds of years, competing narratives to what we now call the New Testament also flourished. It was the Roman church politicians, in ecumenical councils years later, who decided which stories would be accepted as true and which would not. So in order to take the New Testament as a historical source, you have to first accept that its authors, none of whom were around when Jesus was, got things right, and then further accept that the Roman politicians selected the right gospels at the ecumenical councils.

All of which are either contested on various grounds and/or don't say very much except that there were groups of followers of Jesus.

This statement is meaningless. All you have to do to reject the New Testament is to say that books compiled long after the fact by people with no personal knowledge and selected from among competing narratives centuries later, and which, by the way, contain a bunch of supernatural claims that aren't credible, aren't competent evidence of Jesus' existence. Not that hard at all.

There's so much wrong here. First of all, we don't know who the authors of the New Testament were. We have some inkling that Paul wrote some of his letters, and that the same person wrote the Gospel of John and Revelation, but just because you can buy a book in a Christian bookstore that starts out with a chapter entitled "The Gospel According to Matthew" doesn't mean that Matthew wrote it.

Second, since we don't know who actually wrote it, and it all happened 2,000 years ago anyway, we don't have any inkling of what their motives would have been to write it.

Third, the claim of martyrdom is itself without any supporting evidence. It's clear that the Romans persecuted Christians, but the claimed martyrdoms of specific early Christians is supported by nothing but the Catholic Church's say-so. And I don't need to remind you that an organization that sold indulgences, imprisoned Galileo, and protected child rapists isn't exactly a trustworthy organization, its claims of infallibility notwithstanding. I'll address this in a little more detail down below.

Fourth, even if all the claims of martyrdom were true, it wouldn't prove anything. People die for false beliefs all the time. Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith died swearing the truth of the Book of Mormon. David Koresh and his followers, Marshall Applewhite and his, and Muslim terrorists all died for their beliefs.

Before making any claims about these people, you might want to find out whether there was any actual evidence that they were martyred. (Simon) Peter, for your information, almost certainly never made it to Rome. He wasn't there when Paul visited the city. There are no documents (not even in the New Testament) that place him there. He did go to Babylon, which was quite far away. [Otto Zwierlein's "Petrus in Rom" compiles all the evidence on this.] There were important political reasons why the Roman authorities wanted him to be the first Bishop of Rome, so they rewrote history and put him there. As a result, we have no idea how he died. Crucified upside down? That's just a story the Catholic Church tells to add color to their claim of Papal authority.

Another person who probably wasn't martyred was St. Andrew. The legend is he was crucified on a cross shaped like an "X". The only problem is, the earliest document that actually makes that claim that anyone can find is from something like 1,000 years after the alleged event took place.

With Bartholomew and Simon the Zealot, there is simply no written evidence whatsoever as to how they died.

It benefitted the Church immensely to say that everyone was martyred. I hate to tell you this, but the reason they said it was in the hope that folks like you would make the exact argument that you are making-- that the martyrdom proved the faith. But don't confuse Catholic tradition with evidence. As I said, it isn't as though the teachings of the Catholic Church have escaped the past 2,000 years, or even the past 15 years, unscathed.

Very nice poast.

Very. Give that man a medal.

i'm pretty sure that was the point i was trying to get across.

so you agree with me, but you want to dazzle me with your lawyerly skills?

so, if you do think jesus existed and while it is possible the whole idea of jesus is a hoax, but you really don't buy that, what are we discussing?

Since you want a specific explanation:

I think it is likely Jesus existed. But I am not a historian, and I have not reviewed primary materials. Some historians and people who have reviewed primary materials conclude he did not exist. I don't find that conclusion persuasive, but it is certainly a colorable argument.

That said, I think that many of the arguments made by believers to justify their certainty that he existed (i.e., the Bible said so, there are a few fleeting references in disputed documents, people who supposedly knew him were martyred) are not persuasive at all.

Understand?

Because they were all made up, for various reasons.

You'll need to be a little more specific with your question.

My bible says that Jesus Christ was and still is the son of God, not God?

What bible do you read that overides the fact that God himself says that He has a son named Jesus Christ?

Also, what bible do you have that overides the fact that Jesus Christ says that he has a God, he also prays to his God?

Does he pray to himself?

How many Gods are there?

Mat 3:16 And Jesus, (God #1 on the ground?) when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

Mat 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven (God #2 in heaven?), saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

and then "holy spirit" (God #3?)

How can God be the father and God be the son also?

Why does Jesus pray to his father God in heaven? If Jesus is God then why would he need to pray to himself?

I can come up with probably no exageration about 500 more of these questions that literally and completely destroy your logic and understanding and explanation that Jesus Christ was and is God...

Yea Jesus is a horrible example of God being (becoming) visible.. on MANY levels.

Maybe God is vain. Not happy with his/her looks.. so he decided to make himself into Jesus! So that people would like him. LOL

Sure, before the monotheist mania invaded the world and made a mockery of the concept of God, people believed that Gods appeared all the time to the believers. Sometime it was in human forms and sometimes not. In shamanistic belief systems (of Central Asia as well as East Asia), the mystery of God is revealed constantly in nature: Sacred mountains, rivers, trees etc. were all manifestations of this mystery. Finally this accent was particularly strong in Greek mystery religions. Dionysus, for example, was the "God who comes". He was not a God that you "believed in", no, that would be absurd. You did not believe in Dionysus, you experienced him. In ecstatic frenzy of wine and love, he would "come" to you, inviting you to dance. Not only people swore that they saw him, they would "experience" his presence and be lost in his magnificence etc.

This "imminent" perception and understanding of God continued to live in a muted way of course in minority traditions such as Sufi Islam. Here is a poem by Rumi explaining this "imminent God" that you saw and experienced:

Rejoice for he who knows truth
Knows that bliss begets bliss
If you can drink of life's bitterness and laugh in the face of adversity
In your soul no bitterness will remain.
Arise, for the beloved has arrived
He who has stolen a thousand hearts,
In drunken ecstasy, he has come with drum in hand
To lift the veil and reveal to you his song.


And here is the song version of it, by Azam Ali:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up5PW2iorpM

Cheers

So, basically, "the man behind the curtain".. remains behind the curtain. Manifestations, revelations, incarnations, transference, mediums, spiritual dreams, drug-induced hallucinations.. etc etc.. all mechanisms used to connect to, experience, feel, talk to, relate to, communicate with, but not see, an invisible god.

Invisibility is now looking like quite the super power. I never would have imagined that.


God. He's invisible. **** with that!