How To Get To Heaven When You Die

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I see you edited your post while I was making mine.
Well I have two words for you:
CONFIRMATION BIAS

so.....................

me editing my post... proves me wrong?

*thumbs up*

your home free. you dont have to prove jesus' existence, i just did it myself by editing my post.
bummer

Projecting contemporary archetypes onto a cult leader is really not extraordinary.

I was mentioning the edit to justify my second post. The fact that e-atheists engage in rampant cherry picking when it comes to arguing the historicalness of Jesus is something that seems *quite* likely to me.

Robert Price doubts that we can know anything about the historical Jesus, but that is not the same as doubting that a person named "Jesus" existed in the middle east. Price often compares Jesus to Sabbatai Zevi, a Jewish prophetic character who really did exist but who had myths that extended far beyond what actually occurred. Richard Carrier is likely in the same category, as he believes that a lot of what we think about Jesus is based upon mythology of the day. And the Jesus Seminar generally accepts that a man named Jesus existed, and even vote on the parts of the New Testament and other related writings were likely correctly attributed to Jesus and which were just inserted at some point.

This is different from Thor given that Thor is usually considered purely a myth given that he is placed in no historical circumstance and is considered to live in (I think?) Valhalla, while Jesus was considered to live the middle east and hang around a group of disciples around 2000 years ago, in a period of time full of desire for a messiah. Is it possible that Thor is a way-overhyped real person? Sure, but with Jesus, there is much more reason to think he actually was a real person as some things said about him could be considered true pretty readily without appealing to his mythical nature, but Thor is not the same in this regard.

I agree with twoshots, you are just gobbling up a minority opinion. Matters of history have great difficulty in proving them. All that has to be argued in regards to the Gospels is that they are reliable enough to be partially correct, and I would bet that this is so given that the Gospels are probably about as reliable as accounts of most other things at the time, so there is no reason to arbitrarily say "they all must be WRONG" without rejecting a number of other evidences. In any case, the statement "PROVE JESUS" is rather stupid, as shown with the statement below:

PROVE HISTORY!

well, skepticism isn't about negating things, right?

Second, prove any historical figure such as Aristotle, Plato, DaVinci or Newton to have been real or been to way History says, or perhaps they or some of them are as real as Thor?

History is bunk.

I'm a history major. On my last Soviet History final, the first two (out of three) choices for the comprehensive essays were (paraphrased and summarized):
1) Explain why the Soviet Union was an epic fail.
2) Explain why the Soviet Union was an epic win.

And for (1) there were two options given for how we could direct our essays: Was the Soviet Union an epic fail because they were socialists, or was the Soviet Union an epic fail because they were not socialists?

Even in recent history, with ample documentation, no one can agree on anything, and you can hold any of several completely contradictory viewpoints and still be taken seriously. If you're asking for "proof" of anything in history, you're more likely than not just being a dick.

davinci left notes, newton as well. thats better than... _nothing_

but otherwise, your right. absolutely right. every single historical person, that cannot be proven, are likely to be amalgams of values and symbols. some historians doubt that julius caesar existed, based on the same idea.

LOL ... I can't read any further in your post. Too funny.

In my defense, I don't plan on making my living from history. It has entertainment value.

And the first line is just a popular Henry Ford quote.

Dig it. This post makes you much more like-able.

Honestly, I know you mean well, but sometimes your approach rubs me the wrong way.

How so?

Most of them we have their own writings, writings about them from their own time - including critical ones. Not the case with Jesus.

well, I have heard that few scholars state the lack of evidence for the existence of Moses, and the exodus account, and others would claim there is evidence about the Exodus at least, so that seems an issue to be under debate, such as with Jesus, there are a good number of scholars and I would say many of them secular which support the existence of a man attribuited to Jesus and being an important factor into the raise of the new religious movement (Christianity), and well, rejecting that this man was a deity and the supernatural atttributions is one thing and the consideration of the possible existence of a person identified as Jesus at that period of time is another thing.

And the "Prove Jesus or he is as real as Thor" is problematic and inconsistent, considering some factors AG provided, and the issue above.

ZEGH8578, try this for size.

1: A wandering Jewish teacher, of whom there were many around in Palestine at the time. (Who may well have been called Jesus, because it was a very common name at the time.)

2: A political rebel, of whom there were also many around at the time, and a lot of whom ended up crucified. (And who may well have been called Jesus, either because it was a common name or because he'd actually taken the name in honor of its original bearer - see point 4.)

3: The mythical heroes of the pagan Mystery schools, notably Orpheus and Dionysus, who offered their followers spiritual rebirth. (OK, there's a strand of thought, euhemerism, which believes that all 'gods' were once historical people - Dionysus, for instance, being the guy who introduced the cultivation of grapes and winemaking to Greece - but it's generally agreed that if they did live, it was so far back in the mists of time that they might as well be totally mythical.)

4: The possibly historical, but by this time clearly quasi-legendary, Jewish hero, Joshua ( = Jesus) the son of Nun, who was a symbolic focus of national fervor in much the way St. George has been at time for the English, or Joan of Arc for the French.

All of those strands, and possibly more, could, I think, have gone together to create the Jesus of the Gospels (remembering, of course, that there were once many more Gospels than are now accepted, and that in early times nobody knew or agreed which were the 'right' ones).

I'm not an atheist, BTW. And I'm not denying that the figure of Jesus can have real spiritual power for some people. As can many other figures who are freely acknowledged never to have lived in the historical sense. Is that really such a problem?

Last edited by ThatRedHairedGrrl on 13 May 2009, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Helping people is giving food to a starving man or donating blood. Helping people is not trying to indoctrinate them with your propaganda. How would you feel if a fundamentalist Muslim told you that to get to heaven you must pray to Allah and read the Koran etc or you will go to hell? Would you regard him as helping you or trying to indoctrinate you? Similarly with anyone who tries to push their political or other beliefs down your throat and lacks the ability or willingness to support their propaganda with anything other than "believe this or else!". Your posts come across as self-deluded, patronising and very pushy.