Amen. And what Liberal ought to have said, if he wasn’t crazy and full of shit is: “I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about”.
But I’m sure you would understand those who do doubt it (or, at least, doubt the interpretation you and Lib are putting upon it).
All we can be “sure” of is that a consistent and revolutionary set of teachings arose in Roman-occupied Judea. We don’t know for certain whether a single person, or many different people, are responsible for those parables, phrases and teachings. That person, or one of them, may or may not have been called Joshua (Jesus), and he may or may not have been executed by crucifixion. Early followers of those teachings, who Tacitus talked to, might have attributed them to a single, crucified human called Jesus even if the true origin was otherwise. It is by no means ignorant to express such skepticism.
In other words, if you rule out all possible sources for evidence, there is no evidence. And you think that Christians argue from preconceived, slanted standards?
First of all, many Christians and Jews call God “God” (and sometimes called YHWH, or Iam, or whatever), but Muslims call God “Allah”.
When I refer to God, I generally mean the deity that theists believe in and atheists don’t. I wasn’t splitting hairs as to which god I was talking about. (Then again, I think most or all monotheistic religions are probably talking about the same deity, they just call him different things and have different stories…but that’s a tangent so I won’t keep on it.) Maybe being biased towards monotheism isn’t acceptable to some people, but I know I’m not the only one to use “God” as a term for the deity (or deities, I suppose) of any faith.
Now then, on to your comment about the numbers. It’s possible that that column was correct, but it’s also possible it was way off. This website implies that estimating the number of atheists in the world is difficult, and calls attempts to do so “hopelessly inaccurate”. For example, it says that the Graduate Center of the City University of New York took a survey of some 50,000 adults, and extrapolated that the number of atheists in America was about 900,000, but American Atheists claim the number is about thirty million. Actually, after going to the AA website, it appears that they have updated their pages, as the only number I could find in that neighborhood was that some 10% of Americans, or about 25 million people, claim to be doubters, skeptics, or atheists. This sounds more realistic than 30 million, but either way, the point is that, like so many other questions, the answers people arrive at can vary greatly and can be way off.
That said, I will now attempt to make a rather fruitless guess as to how many there are in the world, using these two websites as references. This website suggests that the number of people in the whole world who fit into the category of “Secular/Non-religious/Agnostic/Atheist” numbers between 850 million and 1.2 billion, and that atheism alone is probably somewhere between 200 million and 240 million. The former website I mentioned estimated the number of atheists in Asia at around 120 million, and it’s not a stretch to believe that, given that Asia comprises more than half the world’s population. I am inclined, therefore, to conclude (albeit with what is essentially a “stab in the dark”) that the number of atheists in the world is probably around 220 million. If this is correct, then atheists probably make up less than 5% of the world’s population - which, if I remember correctly, is a figure quoted in the movie Contact (I’m not sure why, but that just popped into my head).
You are correct, I should not have said that it was “an undisputed fact”. After all, even if it were completely provable, it still be denied by loonies. I was wrong to make that statement.
Yes, I have never heard anyone contradict that statement, but that doesn’t mean that no one has. I shouldn’t have resorted to sarcasm or insults, but there was no need for anyone else to be ugly, either. Regardless, I apologize for my inconsistencies.
What would you consider a reliable source of evidence for his existance? I’m afraid that I, too, cannot accept the Bible for many of the same reasons.
If you’d bother to inform yourself about the subject you’ll find that the Gospels are rejected as proof of Jesus as portrayed by Christianity for real, actual, reasons and logic. I’m an ex-Christian who has taken that trouble.
Settle down a bit. Polycarp is informed. You aren’t playing to a closed minded hostile audience here.
You’re right, I really don’t care what people believe so long as they keep it out of my life and my country’s laws. But if he/she is informed they should not be posting such an irrelevant and illogical response suggesting circular rather than informed logic. The distinction is pretty clear and understood and the arguments against the reliability of the Gospels well known and mainstream.
If someone wants to argue that the demonstrable geographical innacuracies that suggest the gospel writers sources never set foot in palestine, the non-existence of the slaughter of the Innocents, the Census etc doesn’t render the various contradictory Gospels invalid as eye-witness testimony either directly or ‘as told by’ an eye-witness then fine.
Appeals to the Bible without establishing its accuracy independent of Church Authority of one sort or another is just an appeal to authority. This is particularly reinforced by the absence of Jesus and the reported goings on in the Gospels from the historical record of the time.
I for one would have expected one or two of the momentous geological and astronomical events that followed the alleged crucifixion to rate the odd mention somewhere in the world let alone in Josephus.
Well said, Desmostylus. We (including myself…definitely including myself) could all use a bit of a settling down sometimes - I know we tend to get heated in discussions, especially ones that are so sensitive, bitterly opposed, and controversial as theology and religion. I, personally, realize I could have reacted more maturely, and I would like to think I will in the future. :smack:
I’ll take that pledge too. 
I just find it odd that Christianity as embodied in the major churches is given a free pass when it comes to logic and standards of evidence. As it uniquely claims to stem from a living, historical god-man then the burden of proof is on Christians to establish this physicality and demonstrate that the extant doctrines stem from the actual words of the guy and as things stand that just ain’t so. The beliefs or inner experiences of individuals, no matter how firmly held, do not make it so.
Cheers to you both.
But only no more than we should be skeptical of everything, and only in the sense that we really don’t know anything for certain. Lifetimes have been spent by people on both sides of the issue. Dismissing whole generations of scholarship on the basis that they are “conservative” or on the basis that someone has challenged them is intellectual hubris. As with any historical figure, it is a logical puzzle, and deference should be given to the best arguments from the truest premises. It is one thing to say, “There are scholars who disagree…”. It is quite another to say, “The people who believe this crap are ignorant.” The latter merely betrays the ignorance of its speaker.
This is by far the most ignorant thing I have ever witnessed on this board. Telling Poly that he’s uninformed about the history of Christianity? Please. :rolleyes:
I’m not a friggin’ mind-reader. I respond to what is written.
Well, I’d suggest that we can rank everything in terms of confidence, and that different statements about Christianity have enormous latitude in this respect:[ul][li]“Consistent, revolutionary teachings arose in Roman Judea”: As certain as anything.[/li][li]“They originated from a single person”: Highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That single person was called Joshua/Jesus”: Highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That person was crucified”: Highly, highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That person made appearances to vast multitudes”: Enormously uncertain, if not downright baffling.[/li]“The biography of that person is found in the Gospels”: Is this not so improbable as to warrant the response “verging on the ridiculous”?[/ul]
Old, too!
Not really all that uncertain, and then only if you are betting on it having been a single person. If you are speaking of multiple people in Roman Judea then the odds of one being named Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus approach certainty. You probably couldn’t toss a rock in Jerusalem without it bouncing off two or three.
They aren’t “dismissed because they’re conservative.” Traditional claims about authorship have been abandoned because they are unsupportable by the evidence. It is incumbant upon a person who wishes to attribute a specific author to an anonymous work of ancient religious literature to prove his case, not for anyone else to disprove it.
As it happens, the vast majority of contemporary NT scholarship (and most NT scholars are Christians) no longer accept any of the traditionally ascribed authorships for the gospels as having and credibility. There is a minority of religious conservatives (I was being nice and not saying “fundies,” but in point of fact, that’s pretty much who we’re talking about) who argue for traditional authorships and early dates, but I hasten to add that those conclusions are not based n or supported by historical methodology but on a priori positions of faith. They are apologetic positions not scholarly ones. They presume, for instance, the existence of genuine supernatural prophecy in Mark. This is a necessary position to take in order to defend the traditional date and authorship for Mark. (Mark describes the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple which happened in 70 CE. That means that either Mark was written after the destruction or that it magically predicted the future. What does Occam tell us to do? What does empirical, historical method require for extraordinary claims?)
Furthermore, the tradition that Mark was a secretary of Peter is undermined by the fact that Mark is a decidedly Pauline, anti-Jewish and anti-Petrine diatribe. Mark is very hostile to the apostles in general and to Peter in particular. He takes every opportunity to depict the apostles as being dense and not getting Jesus’ true message (reflecting the tension between Pauline communities and the Jerusalem cult in the last half of the first century). More to the point (and this is important) Mark does not give Peter any redemption after his betrayal. Mark does not grant Peter and appearance from Jesus. Mark’s Peter denies Jesus, runs away and that’s it. Now why would a Petrine memoir not include a Petrine witness of the resurrection? Wouldn’t that be the most important part? How does it make any sense to exclude it?
Let us add to this information that Mark is unfamiliar not only with Palestinian geography but with Palestinian customs and Jewish law (I won’t belabor the point with a list but Mark makes a number of errors on both counts).
Let us further add that the author of GMark never claims to have known Peter or any other apostle and never claims to have ever been to Palestine.
Now what is the evidence supporting traditional authorship?
It comes from a single claim by Papias who said (c. 130 CE) that he got the information from John the Presbyter (not to be confused with John the Apostle). That’s it. That’s the entire case for Mark as a secretary of Peter. Conservative religious scholars cling to this kind of weak patristic testimony like Kate Winslet clings to the floating door from the Titanic. It’s all they have. It’s not rigorous scholarship, it’s an argument from faith.
To summarize, the canonical Gospel of Mark is an anonymous book written outside of Palestine in a Gentile language to a Gentile audience sometime during or after the Jewish-Roman War. The author is hostile to Jews and to the apostles. He does not know Jewish laws or customs. He does not know the geography of Palestine. He does not like Peter. He never makes any claim to have known Peter or to have ever been to Palestine.
In 130 CE some guy said he heard from another guy that the author was a secretary of Peter’s.
I leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.
[QUOTE=SentientMeat]
Well, I’d suggest that we can rank everything in terms of confidence, and that different statements about Christianity have enormous latitude in this respect:[ul][li]“Consistent, revolutionary teachings arose in Roman Judea”: As certain as anything.[/li][li]“They originated from a single person”: Highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That single person was called Joshua/Jesus”: Highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That person was crucified”: Highly, highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That person made appearances to vast multitudes”: Enormously uncertain, if not downright baffling.[/li][li]“The biography of that person is found in the Gospels”: Is this not so improbable as to warrant the response “verging on the ridiculous”?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I’d say the first point is uncertain too in the light of gnostic and syncretic arguments and the body of evidence and supporting arguments underpinning those views. The gnostic gospels etc provide a very different view of God and Thomas for one is at least contemporary with the writing of the Gospels yet offers a very different theology from what Christians today believe although as noted below it shares with John a gnostic flavour unlike the other gospels.
IMHO gnosticism and gnostic christianity offered a much more sophisticated and christian theology than that which developed from the internicine struggles of the early Church. I see no relationship between the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, christianity today in its fundamentalist, hate-filled garb at least. And I certainly have no truck with any notion that I need an organised religion as an intermediary between me and whatever it is we inadequately call God.
If there is such a concept and if there is a state called the Kingdom of Heaven they are to be found within. The ‘big guy in the sky, do as I say in this book, even the contradictory bits’ theology is just too simplistic to even begin approaching being a true vision of the universe. It reduces Mystery to ‘do as I say or else.’
I can see it as the Literalist fables told to the outer forms of a mystery religion that has hardened into doctrine though and I think the congruence of so many aspects of the Jesus story with pagan mystery cults supports this.
I’ve been praying for you to come along. If I’d known God was listening I’d have asked for Kylie. 
[QUOTE=SentientMeat]
Well, I’d suggest that we can rank everything in terms of confidence, and that different statements about Christianity have enormous latitude in this respect:[ul][li]“Consistent, revolutionary teachings arose in Roman Judea”: As certain as anything.[/li][li]“They originated from a single person”: Highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That single person was called Joshua/Jesus”: Highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That person was crucified”: Highly, highly uncertain.[/li][li]“That person made appearances to vast multitudes”: Enormously uncertain, if not downright baffling.[/li][li]“The biography of that person is found in the Gospels”: Is this not so improbable as to warrant the response “verging on the ridiculous”?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
I’m going to disagree on the certainty of these a little bit. I will stipulate that none of them can be said to be known certainly but I think some of them are more plausible than you give them credit for.
Taking them one at a time:
- Uncertain but not highly uncertain, depending on how you define the “teachings.” There is a core sayings tradition (which by no mans inludes everything or even most things that are alleged to have been said by Jesus) which is stylistically and theologically consistent enough to have originated with one person. Some of them have multiple independent attestation as having been said by Jesus. These sayings would include the first layers of Q and Thomas and some things in Mark. They include most of the parables, a few memorable anecdotes and exchanges and the Sermon on the Mount (which does not have to be read as literal transcript of a real sermon but as a collection of quotations compiled into a “sermon” for literary purposes. Alternately, since it was SOP then as now for itinerant preachers to give basically the same sermon everywhere they went, the S on the M could be something of a summary of HJ’s standard “stump speech” as it were).
This would not include claims to divinity or even Messiahship. They would also not include predictive prophecies or any of the retrojected Christological/soteriological statements which emerged from Pauline Christianity.
But a basic, core sayings tradition coming from a single, authentic teacher is fairly defensible and eminently plausible (after all, somebody must have said that stuff).
- The sayings tradition is unanimously and independently attributed to someone called “Yeshua.” It was an extremely common and ordinary name, not the sort of name one would choose for a God. It would be like deciding that God was named Dave or Joe. I think the very mundanity of the name is an argument for historicity. Not certain, but not ridiculous either.
I will emphasize, though, that so far, I’m only talking about the plausibility of a 1st century Palestinian preacher who left a particular body of sayings which struck a nerve with his audience. I am NOT talking about a person who performed miracles or claimed to be the son of god.
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If there was a historical Jesus then the crucifixion is the most certain thing about him. It is the one thing, after all, which is attested to outside of the New Testament. It is also early (Paul knows about it by 50 CE), contains the most independent attestations of any other single claim about Jesus, and most importantly it meets the criterion of embarassment. Having your presumptive Messiah get executed as a criminal was about the worst thing that could happen to your case. A dead Messiah was actually considered to be ipso facto proof that the dead guy was NOT the Messiah. The crucifixion was something that had to be explained and re-conceived and apologized for. It was not something predicted by scripture. This is a huge reason that the Jesus movement did not catch on with Jews but with converted Gentiles who could be more easily “instructed” as to the definition and scriptural expectations of Ho Christos.
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I agree with you but in this case I think you’re giving it too much credit. It’s not just “highly uncertain,” it’s literally, physically impossible.
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Agreed. The Gospels are not biographies. They were written long after the fact by people who never met Jesus and probably never met anyone else who ever met Jesus. The narratives are largely manufactured from the OT, from oral anecdotal tradition, from a written sayings tradition, from each other and from the authors’ own imaginations.