They had the benefit of 200-plus years to know if the sources were reliable or not.
Given that the majority of stories would have been verbal, and handed down far beyond any time scale that people had to prove or show those stories as real you have no case. I bet when you're in the pub with your friends and one tells you he slept with 3 women the night before you can't even substantiate that let alone a story that has been handed down over several hundred years. For the latter parts of your argument, there is then no reason you would dismiss your friend as a fraud. Indeed I would wager money that you eventually repeat his story: "I have a friend that slept with 3 women in one night".
It is the indisputable way that people work.
If Jesus was a myth but the sources were unreliable, then they should have written nothing. If Jesus was a myth and the sources reliable, then they should have said, "This person never existed." But that is not the case.
Once again, if any of your statement here was valid then Anne Rice would have
never written about vampires.
Why perpetuate a myth if He never existed?
Because that is what stories are and that is what stories do. Even more so in a time when there was nobody to say "show me evidence to support your claim". You only suffer now because humans in general have progressed.
Therefore, Jesus existed. That is the only logical conclusion.
There is no validity or logic in your conclusion.
No one has built a belief around the lives of Macbeth, Hamlet, and Huck Finn either, so your point is not a reasonable response.
"Building a belief" was not the issue. For some reason you keep assuming that if something is fictional nobody would ever write about it. I keep pointing this out as being fallacious, and you seemingly enjoy ignoring it. Let it also be said that it never was a case of "building" a belief. Indeed people were told and forced what to believe. Until even now there are people that don't get a choice - it's a kind of "believe or die" situation that even coming up to the year 2007 still persists. Why over the millennia we have been told what to believe, who we can or can't marry, what we can or can't do. These people were not given choices, but given laws governing what they would or would not believe.
Right now there are millions upon millions that believe Santa Claus exists. We perpetuate that belief - indeed we shove it upon them whether it's wanted or not. But surely given that we all know Santa is fictional we "would say 'this person doesn't exist" and yet we don't. Proof positive that your statement is worth absolute nothing. We, us modern day humans boldly tell our children that Santa does exist even when we know full well he does not. Why do we do it? Why do we tell them to be good and not bad otherwise this fictional being wont visit them? It's simply a form of control - something that the religious have been under since day 0.
Nothing you have said even remotely points at the existence of a specific being - and yet you continue
not because the argument has merit, but because you
want it to be so. You have been handed those cards since before you could walk. People telling you what is and what isn't and you simply cannot let go. When someone challenges what you have been fed since birth you will savagely refute it because it would tear down the very fabric of who you are. Having said that I do somewhat pity the current level of argument you are providing. If that is all you have that fabric wont hold up for long.
On another note:
If someone wrote some text saying that "jesus doesn't exist" back then how long do you honestly think that text would remain intact? In 2007 it's quite alright, no matter what you write it should survive anything thrown at it because of our technology and advancement. Can the same be said of back then? Could a person happily and freely go "against the grain" as it were? How long would the text survive, how long would the person survive?
Instead you are trying to use the text of 'person unknown', the opinion of Mr. We don't have a clue who to try and claim that it is "logical" proof that a certain being existed. It's unfounded, its ludicrous and it has no value in discussion.
Take this for an example: you are an enemy to a belief. You know (or believe) that it is all based on a myth. You have years of research from many resources. Meanwhile this belief is growing among the people almost uncontrollable. You have a responsibility to respond to it.
"years of research from many sources" does not belong in your analogy. You have nothing to show what if any research was done or was possible. What you also failed to add is the probable price that would have been paid for such a thing, the expected life span of any text that dared go against state belief, and so on. You're a nobody in a world of people who's belief is "growing uncontrollably".
We can even test this right here and now in 2007. Go to Iraq and write a book debunking the existence of allah. Try and get your book out there in public and see how long either you or it survive.
This is 2007. You can't even do it now, what in the world makes you think it would have happened a millennia ago? Oh yes, "responsibility". Please, responsibility means shit.
You don’t write anything or any story with any commentary to perpetuate the myth. That would not be logical
I'm sorry but you're wrong. I would happily perpetuate any myth if I knew it would make me well known and quite possibly well off. Why, I would sit down and write a Santa novel.. People have been spreading belief in that fictional being for centuries, and given that he is a popular character at the right time of year would pretty much ensure my future comfort.
Nowadays it's probably somewhat harder considering pretty much everyone can write and pretty much everyone is educated. Those that could write and were educated were the ones in the position to "perpetuate myths". Their "responsibility" had nothing to do with going completely against society beliefs. Damn, they'd be the very next people crucified and nobody would even remember their names.
But Jesus is mentioned in the enemy’s book, The Talmud, with commentary.
Therefore, the correct conclusion is Jesus did exist.
An entirely faulty conclusion - based solely upon personal want than anything of even remote substance.
