If the trick is the only important thing, then you will murder and pillage if the trickster commands it or you will help the poor if he commands it.
On the other hand, if you have a personal ethical position then the ethics of the leader is the only important thing. He need not perform a trick to get you to follow. If he commands helping the poor then you will follow because you believe it to be good and you feel that he is good. If he commands murder than you will not follow because it is evil and he is evil. Even if he does perform a trick, you would still not accept him as your leader. Would you?
The DNA hypothesis could be confirmed if Khan’s body were found. Of course, that it is his body would likely only be established circumstantially so there would still be room for doubt. The legendary stories about Khan are typical of the kind told about historical personages in the pre-scientific age as are ones about Jesus’ virgin birth. I didn’t claim that it was a “confirmed hypothesis” or even claim that I had tracked the stories back to their origin. But, scholars have tracked the Jesus stories back as close to their origins as possible as Ehrman says:
And I am to take his word of it? Why, when it is clear religious have a blatant agenda. How does he know there was writing in the first place that didn’t survive? Was he there? How can he trace something of which has no existence of being anymore? He can’t, he is assuming. Just like the rest.
Why should we trust Christian sources for evidence, when they’re the very ones with agenda to heighten? That makes no sense.
Ah, good point. I was going at something else though. If there truly is a person who is capable of supernatural feats AND his ethics correspond with my, I would find that inspiring and decent evidence of some kind of a higher force/being. If he commanded me to murder people, I wouldn’t do it. Unless, of course, he gave me good reasons and proof why. Those would have to be REALLY good reasons and proof though
I don’t have any agenda. I am not trying to convert people to any specific cause.
Don’t care if he existed or not. But i’m not buying into it without sufficient hard evidence. I wasn’t there. Not only prove his existence in the first place, but to prove he was a magic man? Good luck. It seems people have hard enough time even proving him a real physical being.
He’s real yeah, in form of an idea not a man.
I can ask you the same question. Why do you have a problem with Jesus being an idea rather an a man? Why is it so essential he must be a human being that existed rather than an idea that may never die?
Do you see how Jesus could get a following without performing any miracles?
Do you see how he could be seen as being a messenger of God simply because of the content of the message?
I don’t. In fact, I have said on this site that it doesn’t make much difference whether Jesus was real or not. The ‘proof’ of Jesus requires testing the effectiveness of his teachings - if they work, then he is a messenger from God… if they don’t work, then he is not. He may be imaginary or real and you can still test the teachings.
In terms of a historical guy named Jesus - evidence indicates that there was such a person. Overwhelming evidence? No, but sufficient evidence.
Did he do a bunch of miracles? I doubt it but I cannot be certain. Did he rise from the dead? I doubt it but I cannot be certain.
Is it important that he performed miracles and rose from the dead? Not as far as I am concerned.
Gather all of the scientific evidence for the notion that the Earth orbits the Sun into one place. Call it the “Scientific Evidence for Earth’s Orbiting of the Sun”. But seeing that Science is in competition with the other religions, reveals that Science has an agenda. Because Science has an agenda, no evidence that it offers can be considered trustworthy, unbiased, or reliable. Thus such evidence must be dismissed.
As such, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the Earth orbits the Sun. It is all just a new-age fairy tale.
We can go dig up physical pieces of the revolutionary war. People wrote about it, much more than Jesus. They can prove that it fits into the timeline. Not only that but it is recorded in England as well? Followers? George Washington lead men he didn’t perform miracles and get worshiped. You provide the dumbest argument, i’m sorry…
Gather up all of that evidence and label it “X”. Then dismiss X because those who believe in X have an agenda of trying to convince others.
The Catholic Church gather every scrape of evidence they could find concerning Jesus and hid it in Rome so that those who so often attempt to “burn the books”, destroy evidence, and rewrite history could not destroy such evidence (as had been done before). So now, the non-thinking anti-christian simply declares that the RCC has an agenda and therefore none of their evidence counts. It’s kind of a dumb argument.
Books are evidence? I am talking we can go dig up revolutionary war pieces. Weapons, uniforms or pieces, etc. We could even go visit England. You going to go dig up Jesus’ bones, clothes, relics, etc? With carbon dating to match? I doubt it, because you won’t find it. It still hasn’t been found… Gee I wonder why.
I said evidence inside Christianity doesn’t count. If it did, why would they try to find evidence outside of it. Nice try. Non thinking? They don’t have any evidence in the first place. They have their own writings. They don’t have ANY physical evidence of his existence. What part of this do you not comprehend? Go find his fucking chalice then and prove his existence, until you do. Please, quiet your mouth with saying they have sufficient evidence from solely books written and interpreted a long time after.
We all know they have already tried to commit fraud in trying to gain more followers and strengthen their agenda. Typical religious.
Also, no one has an agenda concerning the revolutionary war. What are they going to do huh? start a George Washington cult? Lol, get real.
You daft religious junkies can’t even prove where Jesus went for 10+ years when he disappeared let alone his very existence.
It’s because it’s the same discussion every time, just different threads. I say to bring me sufficient hard evidence, people link me books. If I literally asked if Cthulhu was real, people would link me books, and guess what I would say. “You don’t have enough evidence to support Cthulhu’s existence.”… and trust me, that’s an existence you wouldn’t want at all, nor I.
it isn’t hard to find a physical piece, a historical artifact with proper carbon dating. We can find Dinosaur bones, yet no proof of gods son? All I want is some historical evidence. Yet am treated like a ‘fool’ for wanting it. Sorry for not believing the first story to come my way without proofs. If everyone believed the first story they read, we’d have people trying to find Truffula tree’s and the Lorax.
It’s like when people make a movie like Amityville horror and put the title of “Based on a true story.” under it. Everyone flips shit and believes that it’s real and exactly like presented.
I think that you take a good attitude to the extreme. Is there evidence for Jesus Christ, that is the incarnation of God who performed miracles? No. But there is evidence to support the existence of Jesus the apocalyptic prophet. For one, the occurrence would not be isolated. There were many others that also took the tittle of Messiah, which the Romans understood as claiming political power. The Gospel of Mark indicates that at the top of the cross, the Romans mocked Jesus was last time. All of this is not hard to believe.
Now it would be ideal if there were various sources that would mention the name Jesus, but the fact is that the lack of source is not evidence that Jesus did not exist. To the Romans, Jesus was not exceptional enough to require too much attention from historian. For decades there was no single idea behind the identity of Jesus, but an enduring effect was felt by all. Again, this is not hard to believe as many martyrs grow more powerful after death.
But lets suppose that Jesus never existed, that he was not a man but an idea, fiction for the oppressed. Then what? Well, for one I would wonder why they could not come up with a better myth! The ending at the end of the Gospel f Mark lacks the ingredients of a myth. For one, Jesus dies in anguish (which prompted the necessity for later additions). Jesus the man presents a stumbling block for what could be a cleaner narrative. As time passes, Jesus the man is ditched, and it is in the Gospel of John that Jesus comes into his own as the incarnation of God. This is not direct evidence for the existence of Jesus, but it should make you take pause and answer that question: Why even bother with Jesus the man, the prophet, the teacher? In fact Paul does not deal with the man. If you want to argue that Jesus is a myth created by Paul, I would almost agree, except for the fact that Paul was not dominant even within the Bible and there are scenes of conflict about the meaning of Jesus between Paul and the Jerusalem Council in Galatians and the Book of Acts. Again, this is not evidence for the existence of a man named Jesus, BUT, if it is all just a myth then why add scenes of conflict?
I believe that there was a man behind the myth. Historical figures are seen through a biased lens and never come across myth free. This is specially true of religious figures because those that tell us about them see the world through these bias. That does not mean that there was no natural, historical element behind the narrative, but that the bias of the narrator added elements that he or she felt were needed to give context to the imperfect facts.
Those that sought to tell us about Jesus had one question, one pressing question that still needed to be answered, decade after Jesus’ prophecies failed to materialized: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Rather than the Kingdom of God being evidently among them, it probably seemed that it was business as usual, specially after the revolt in the 60’s. Jesus, the man, was a failure…unless he was recast in a new light. If the oppressed have one consolation is this ability to re-interpret events in a way that concedes them power, even in apparent utter defeat.
So, again, I am not saying that the Bible is a history book, but there is some history there that is not hard to believe at all.
