seriously!?

[Balerion]

I guess Christians would care whether there was a historical Jesus, but in many other religions, the philosophy speaks for itself. I don't care if there was a historical Socrates, for instance, we have the words, and it's the ideas that count. I do think Christianity works for Christians whether or not Jesus was real. Their "having a relationship with Jesus Christ" is all in their minds.

It works for philosophy, yes, but in Christianity, the physical existence of the Messiah is required. His birth and death are both requisites for this new pact we're supposed to have with God. Without him, it means nothing. In other words, if we were to prove beyond any doubt that tomorrow that Jesus did not exist, then Christianity would collapse.

As to whether Christianity could begin without Jesus, it did begin without Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. If there wasn't a Jesus, it could be that Christian legends are based on another person, or an even older myth, or based on the stories of several people that were combined into one over time. I don't think there was a Moses, either.

I didn't mean it that way. I meant "was Christianity based on a myth, or was it based on a real person (around whom perhaps a myth was created)?" But you've answered the question well enough.

I tend to think there was. He's not well accounted for in history, but most people from that far back are not. There are clues, however, and one such is Luke's invention of the census, of which he gets every possible detail wrong. He does this to put Jesus in the town of Bethlehem, because doing so links him to David and thus fulfills the prophecy. Matthew fabricates an entirely different story, but the result is the same, with Mary ending up in Bethlehem. If Jesus was indeed a mythical figure and not a real person, why not simply make him from Bethlehem? The need for the lie hints that someone real was at the center of these stories.

 

[spidergoat]

I don't think one can prove that there wasn't a historical Jesus, either. But you make a good point about Bethlehem.

 

[Rhaedas]

Or Bethlehem could have been one fragment of many others, and to tie them all together later they had to fudge things a little. That was easier/better for the myth than to discount parts of it.

 

[spidergoat]

One author makes a case that Jesus existed, but he wasn't crucified. His twin brother actually took his place, and Jesus went off to the south of France where he married and had children.

I could also make a much stronger case that even if Jesus did exist, he wasn't like the image of him and his deeds depicted much later in the gospels, which were almost certainly fabricated. If there was a kernel of truth there, it is lost to history.

 

[wynn]

jesus's existence IS his "divinity", otherwise it isn't jesus.

But you are a Muslim, aren't you?

If you'd really believe in Jesus' divinity, you'd be a Christian, wouldn't you?


Other than that, I agree that Jesus' existence cannot be separated from his divinity.
However, people probably have different notions of "divinity" and so feel differently obligated to it - some not at all, some exclusively.

Sometimes, when people say "I don't believe in Jesus" what they mean is 'I do not feel obligated to Jesus.'


It's a complex topic ...

 

[Emil]

it's simply unreasonable to doubt Jesus's existence, considering the amount of people -of human history- who believe in his existence.

i know when you get too deep in atheism it gets hard to see, but it's so freaking unreasonable.
[/SIZE]

Come on, who doubted existence of Jesus ?!
Perhaps the myth created is doubted.

 

[spidergoat]

Lots of people doubt that there was a Jesus. I doubt it.

 

[Emil]

I think they have something in it.
Jesus, Moses, Muhammad I think that there were real people, but it was a myth created around them.

 

[Sarkus]

it's simply unreasonable to doubt Jesus's existence, considering the amount of people -of human history- who believe in his existence.
...
-this isn't an ad populum)

Actually it is almost the classic definition of an argument from popularity... "lots of people believe in his existence... therefore it is unreasonable to doubt it!"

Reason (i.e. what one considers reasonable) should not be based on popularity. It should be based on the available evidence... and while popularity is certainly evidence of popularity, it is not evidence of existence.

IF the popularity of the belief in the existence is based on the weight of evidence of their existence (e.g. news footage, cross-referenced documents etc) then it is still not the popularity per se that one should consider but that actual underlying evidence.

Most people, for example, believe Napolean Bonaparte was a short-arse... when in fact he was fairly average for the period - around 5-foot 7-inches tall.

The point: popularity can certainly be a reason to believe - but only until one actually bothers to investigate the evidence.

 

[spidergoat]

I think they have something in it.
Jesus, Moses, Muhammad I think that there were real people, but it was a myth created around them.

Mohammed was almost definitely a real person, the evidence for this is much, much stronger than the evidence for Jesus or Moses. This is at least partly due to him being born several hundred years afterwards.

 

[Yazata]

it's simply unreasonable to doubt Jesus's existence, considering the amount of people -of human history- who believe in his existence.

It's quite reasonable to doubt Jesus' existence. He's been dead for almost 2,000 years. Dead people no longer exist.

The question of whether somebody by that name existed 2,000 years ago is a different question. I think that it's likely that a historical Jesus did exist, but I don't know that for certain.

The question of whether that individual was God's incarnation (or God's prophet as the Muslims would have it) are different questions still. I feel quite reasonable in not believing either one of those.

i know when you get too deep in atheism it gets hard to see, but it's so freaking unreasonable.

Are you talking about doubts about Jesus existing today, that an historical Jesus existed in ancient times, or about that individual's supposed supernatural significance?

(- all of humanity believed the world was flat, doesn't change that it was reasonable to think so given the circumstances of that time. till we create a time machine to expose the myth of jesus, it's pretty dumb not to believe in him, and by dumb i mean preeeeeety dumb, uh, pardon the frankness.

-this isn't an ad populum)

Why do you think that your assertion isn't ad-populum? It looks like a textbook example of that informal fallacy to me.

 

[Michael]

There is no contemporary evidence for Jesus, Mosses, Mohammad or Khalid. It's all made up. This isn't surprising given that human's have been making up Gods and Goddesses for at least 8ooo years. What is interesting is some people's need to believe in them.

 

[Arioch]

@Sarkus --

Thank you!!! Someone else finally sees it.

 

[spidergoat]

There is no contemporary evidence for Jesus, Mosses, Mohammad or Khalid. It's all made up. This isn't surprising given that human's have been making up Gods and Goddesses for at least 8ooo years. What is interesting is some people's need to believe in them.

Mohamed was a real person, that is well supported by evidence.

 

[Robittybob1]

Ditto the Easter Bunny.

I knew you were an Easter Bunny fan!

 

[Robittybob1]

Mohamed was a real person, that is well supported by evidence.

Mohamed wrote about Jesus because he was real too.

 

[Robittybob1]

@Sarkus --

Thank you!!! Someone else finally sees it.

You still haven't seen the light?

 

[Aqueous Id]

it's simply unreasonable to doubt Jesus's existence, considering the amount of people -of human history- who believe in his existence.

i know when you get too deep in atheism it gets hard to see, but it's so freaking unreasonable.


(- all of humanity believed the world was flat, doesn't change that it was reasonable to think so given the circumstances of that time. till we create a time machine to expose the myth of jesus, it's pretty dumb not to believe in him, and by dumb i mean preeeeeety dumb, uh, pardon the frankness.

-this isn't an ad populum)

"Dumb" and "unreasonable" are the kinds of characterizations that come to mind when a person knowingly and intentionally takes an ancient hackneyed rumor of magic, and flogs that dead horse beyond recognition, insisting that it's true.

"Smart" and "reasonable" are characteristics that typify the person who takes best evidence, weighs it, tests it, and uses best practices and means of inferencing, to come to conclusions about the meaning, truth and accuracy of the question at hand.

Therefore it makes no sense whatsoever, from the standpoint of logic alone, that you would advance this proposition at all.

 

[wynn]

Actually it is almost the classic definition of an argument from popularity... "lots of people believe in his existence... therefore it is unreasonable to doubt it!"

Reason (i.e. what one considers reasonable) should not be based on popularity. It should be based on the available evidence... and while popularity is certainly evidence of popularity, it is not evidence of existence.

IF the popularity of the belief in the existence is based on the weight of evidence of their existence (e.g. news footage, cross-referenced documents etc) then it is still not the popularity per se that one should consider but that actual underlying evidence.

Most people, for example, believe Napolean Bonaparte was a short-arse... when in fact he was fairly average for the period - around 5-foot 7-inches tall.

The point: popularity can certainly be a reason to believe - but only until one actually bothers to investigate the evidence.

It's quite reasonable to doubt Jesus' existence. He's been dead for almost 2,000 years. Dead people no longer exist.

The question of whether somebody by that name existed 2,000 years ago is a different question. I think that it's likely that a historical Jesus did exist, but I don't know that for certain.

The question of whether that individual was God's incarnation (or God's prophet as the Muslims would have it) are different questions still. I feel quite reasonable in not believing either one of those.

Are you talking about doubts about Jesus existing today, that an historical Jesus existed in ancient times, or about that individual's supposed supernatural significance?

Why do you think that your assertion isn't ad-populum? It looks like a textbook example of that informal fallacy to me.

Social consensus and consensus of experts are forms of appeal to popularity.

And yet the ways at which we commonly arrive at "logical proof" or "empirical evidence" or at the notion that it is reasonable to believe in something, are impossible without social consensus and consensus of experts.

It is social consensus and consensus of experts that makes applying philosophical and empirical methods seem valid.

Each person does not live in a vacuum, independent of others and human culture in general.
Each individual does not invent the wheel on their own. Instead, we rely on social consensus and consensus of experts.

IOW, "appeal to popularity" is, strictly speaking, simply a way we go about knowing things or finding them reliable.

"Appeal to popularity" is an informal logical fallacy only in a limited sense, as long as we take for granted that other methods of arriving at knowledge of things or finding them reliable, are superior, and ignore the fact that those other methods are actually working out of an appeal to popularity (namely to social consensus and consensus of experts) as well.



To quote Quine:

The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

 

[Robittybob1]

When given the opportunity to know Jesus personally why don't more do it?
There were words like "I stand at the door knocking. Open it up and I will come and sup with thee." What do you think that means?
Go to your door and open it right now!