Odds that Jesus existed are roughly 50/50. I have no problem admitting that he existed, though, because conceding that doesn't require conceding anything else about the validity of Christianity, any more than admitting that GWB existed requires believing that he's a superhero with the power to melt bra straps with his awesome mind rays.
50/50? I'd peg it much higher.
Like you said, conceding that he existed doesn't require conceding anything else about the validity of Christianity (because seriously, I don't understand how Jesus getting tortured wipes out thousands of years of sins, or how that is even necessary at all), and while all we have to justify that existence is hearsay, you have to remember he was a hippy. He wasn't conquering and slaughtering or something, getting his name mentioned across the empire.
There were two massive religions that were formed based on the texts of Laozi, who may not have existed. Buddhism somehow managed to spread without violence very well. In fact, of the major religions of the world today, it seems like (and I may be forgetting something important, so correct me if I'm wrong) Islam is fairly unique in that it was initially spread by its prophet via violence.
Also, you seem to forget that, after Jesus' purported death (I'm with Jeffe- 50/50-ish on his existence), there was lots and lots of fighting regarding the faith.
No dude, I'm just saying that Jesus wasn't riding around on horseback, rallying the people of Israel into violent rebellion, something that would get him instantly recorded by Roman historians and give us a piece of contemporary evidence that would prove his existence. Instead, because he was a much more peaceful figure than Mohammed (conqueror) or Buddha (prince), it's perfectly logical that there really isn't much contemporary evidence that you can point to and say proves his existence.
While it's clear his deeds were skewed, it seems unnecessary for 13 guys to get together and say "All right, let's make a religion, and just make up a prophet" rather than just use someone who actually does exist.
No dude, I'm just saying that Jesus wasn't riding around on horseback, rallying the people of Israel into violent rebellion, something that would get him instantly recorded by Roman historians and give us a piece of contemporary evidence that would prove his existence. Instead, because he was a much more peaceful figure than Mohammed (conqueror) or Buddha (prince), it's perfectly logical that there really isn't much contemporary evidence that you can point to and say proves his existence.
While it's clear his deeds were skewed, it seems unnecessary for 13 guys to get together and say "All right, let's make a religion, and just make up a prophet" rather than just use someone who actually does exist.
...and that lack of evidence is a large component of why I give him 50%.
How do you know that "13 guys" got together? It seems pretty easy for people to cobble together a mystical figure with a lot of elements common to other purported mystical figures of the time. Jesus could very well have simply been the most convincing story the Jews who didn't like the elites had.
Odds that Jesus existed are roughly 50/50. I have no problem admitting that he existed, though, because conceding that doesn't require conceding anything else about the validity of Christianity, any more than admitting that GWB existed requires believing that he's a superhero with the power to melt bra straps with his awesome mind rays.
50/50? I'd peg it much higher.
Like you said, conceding that he existed doesn't require conceding anything else about the validity of Christianity (because seriously, I don't understand how Jesus getting tortured wipes out thousands of years of sins, or how that is even necessary at all), and while all we have to justify that existence is hearsay, you have to remember he was a hippy. He wasn't conquering and slaughtering or something, getting his name mentioned across the empire.
There were two massive religions that were formed based on the texts of Laozi, who may not have existed. Buddhism somehow managed to spread without violence very well. In fact, of the major religions of the world today, it seems like (and I may be forgetting something important, so correct me if I'm wrong) Islam is fairly unique in that it was initially spread by its prophet via violence.
Also, you seem to forget that, after Jesus' purported death (I'm with Jeffe- 50/50-ish on his existence), there was lots and lots of fighting regarding the faith.
That's pretty misleading.
The prophet Mohammad and his followers were persecuted for their beliefs. For 7 years he preached Christ's turn the other cheek philosophy before he finally took up arms and told his followers to defend their faith.
Less than a century after his death of old age, Islam had become one of the largest empires on the face of the planet. Baghdad at one time was literally the center of world culture and science with all nations from the 'Old World' coming there to trade and educate themselves. It was possibly one of the most enlightened ages Earth has seen in the Modern Ear, barring the rule of Ashoka the Great.
it seems like (and I may be forgetting something important, so correct me if I'm wrong) Islam is fairly unique in that it was initially spread by its prophet via violence.
The prophet Mohammad and his followers were persecuted for their beliefs. For 7 years he preached Christ's turn the other cheek philosophy before he finally took up arms and told his followers to defend their faith.
Good call, "initially" was perhaps the wrong word- Muhammad initially was far more tolerant and peaceful, and became violently expansionist after he had a lot of followers.
Although, I have to question your "defend their faith" terminology.
Buddha pre-dates Jesus by several hundred years anyway.
Which would be why Jesus found Buddha.
Been reading some Thich Nhat Hanh?
It is a convenient explanation for the sudden sea change in Christian ethics from wrath-and-smiting to love-thy-neighbor.
Huh.
If one were to think that Jesus was influenced by a certain philosophical mentality, one would think Plato's dialogues and the whole grecian philosophical idealism and ethical ponderings were more influential than the teaching of Buddhism.
I don't understand how people can think he didn't exist. People make up much cooler stuff than what's in the bible to gain influence and power. Like Aliens and Thetans and junk like that.
I personally think the best teaching ever given was one by Jesus, written in the bible (tl;dr):
Theres no doubt that Jesus existed. He was not a 'hippie', which is a fatuous comparison often made by hippies themselves. His sense of spirituality was not open to interpretation but built firmly within strict Jewish tradition, and he most certainly did not believe in personal liberation. Still, by declaring himself the son of God he made himself a dangerous radical in the eyes of the Jewish authorities, who harshly (though understandably) had him executed. What he said and did in his brief two year ministry changed the whole course of human history.
it seems like (and I may be forgetting something important, so correct me if I'm wrong) Islam is fairly unique in that it was initially spread by its prophet via violence.
The prophet Mohammad and his followers were persecuted for their beliefs. For 7 years he preached Christ's turn the other cheek philosophy before he finally took up arms and told his followers to defend their faith.
Good call, "initially" was perhaps the wrong word- Muhammad initially was far more tolerant and peaceful, and became violently expansionist after he had a lot of followers.
Although, I have to question your "defend their faith" terminology.
Hmmm... no. That's gone down the wrong road as well.
The nation of Islam still didn't exist while Mohammad was alive. It wasn't until after his death that his tribe of followers began spreading the religion... but by that time they were of significant size. It was readily adopted by most Christians, as Mohammad preached that he was only a human follower of the ways of Christ, not God himself.
Some Christians complain that Mohammad wasn't crucified. He didn't die defending his faith. Instead it seems he served as a compassionate example of how a human being should live his life, trustworthy and just. A 'superhuman', if you will.
No dude, I'm just saying that Jesus wasn't riding around on horseback, rallying the people of Israel into violent rebellion, something that would get him instantly recorded by Roman historians and give us a piece of contemporary evidence that would prove his existence. Instead, because he was a much more peaceful figure than Mohammed (conqueror) or Buddha (prince), it's perfectly logical that there really isn't much contemporary evidence that you can point to and say proves his existence.
While it's clear his deeds were skewed, it seems unnecessary for 13 guys to get together and say "All right, let's make a religion, and just make up a prophet" rather than just use someone who actually does exist.
...and that lack of evidence is a large component of why I give him 50%.
How do you know that "13 guys" got together? It seems pretty easy for people to cobble together a mystical figure with a lot of elements common to other purported mystical figures of the time. Jesus could very well have simply been the most convincing story the Jews who didn't like the elites had.
Oh, I meant 12, as in the 12 apostles.
So you would give that same 50/50 chance of existence to Socrates, then? The only sources of knowledge about him are indirect, such as the writings of Plato and Xenophon speaking about the man who taught them so much. He taught mostly through speech. Sure, he caused quite a ruckus and was executed for his beliefs, but hey, maybe Plato, Xenophon, and I guess Aristophanes just made him up.
My point is that there is a lot of ancient history that is based around hearsay, but that hearsay tends to be grounded in truth. While obviously the miracles are suspect for their own reasons, Jesus's existence and teachings are much more likely to have existed.
Instead it seems he served as a compassionate example of how a human being should live his life, trustworthy and just. A 'superhuman', if you will.
Wow, no.
I didn't bring almost any of my books to China, so I'm not going to be performing well on specifics, but Muhammad was definitely not "compassionate, trustworthy, and just", particularly not in the latter portion of his life.
Instead it seems he served as a compassionate example of how a human being should live his life, trustworthy and just. A 'superhuman', if you will.
Wow, no.
I didn't bring almost any of my books to China, so I'm not going to be performing well on specifics, but Muhammad was definitely not "compassionate, trustworthy, and just", particularly not in the latter portion of his life.
Yeah, just for the record he was quite the conqueror, and united Arabia under his rule.
There sure as hell is plenty of doubt on the part of historians.
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
There sure as hell is plenty of doubt on the part of historians.
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
Instead it seems he served as a compassionate example of how a human being should live his life, trustworthy and just. A 'superhuman', if you will.
Wow, no.
I didn't bring almost any of my books to China, so I'm not going to be performing well on specifics, but Muhammad was definitely not "compassionate, trustworthy, and just", particularly not in the latter portion of his life.
You're just jealous because he could score multiple wives and you can't.
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
An honest historian will acknowledge the scarcity of evidence.
There's less evidence for Jesus than there is for Zeus or Odin.
Instead it seems he served as a compassionate example of how a human being should live his life, trustworthy and just. A 'superhuman', if you will.
Wow, no.
I didn't bring almost any of my books to China, so I'm not going to be performing well on specifics, but Muhammad was definitely not "compassionate, trustworthy, and just", particularly not in the latter portion of his life.
Yeah, just for the record he was quite the conqueror, and united Arabia under his rule.
Expansion of the Muslim empire:
Again.
Ashoka. Same story. Turns up in history after Buddha and united India, just like Mohammad followed Christ. The two stories are practically mirror images of each other.
Also, certain 'miracles' Mohammad performed, such as the apparent splitting of the Moon, bought tribes in without bloodshed or warfare. They simply acknowledged that they were in the presence of a divine, uneducated, illiterate who had angels whispering poems in his ear.
There sure as hell is plenty of doubt on the part of historians.
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
Dragons exist.
Can o' worms right there.
Is it? something also caused the profusion of dragon images independently in different cultures, like dinosaur bones.
...and that lack of evidence is a large component of why I give him 50%.
How do you know that "13 guys" got together? It seems pretty easy for people to cobble together a mystical figure with a lot of elements common to other purported mystical figures of the time. Jesus could very well have simply been the most convincing story the Jews who didn't like the elites had.
Oh, I meant 12, as in the 12 apostles.
So you would give that same 50/50 chance of existence to Socrates, then? The only sources of knowledge about him are indirect, such as the writings of Plato and Xenophon speaking about the man who taught them so much. He taught mostly through speech. Sure, he caused quite a ruckus and was executed for his beliefs, but hey, maybe Plato, Xenophon, and I guess Aristophanes just made him up.
My point is that there is a lot of ancient history that is based around hearsay, but that hearsay tends to be grounded in truth. While obviously the miracles are suspect for their own reasons, Jesus's existence and teachings are much more likely to have existed.
I'm not very familiar with the historicity situation surrounding the philosophers, but I don't think the situations are at all analogous, as there isn't a lot about Socrates, to the best of my knowledge,
that was fairly obviously made up out of whole cloth, and/or plagiarized from earlier traditions, as with Jesus. Also,
Plato, et al, didn't have any apparent need to make anyone up. Perhaps Socrates was a composite, but I see no compelling reason to hold it up as likely, unlike where Jesus is concerned. Christians had a vested interest in convincing people that their particular God-man was real, as compared to all those other god-men that had eerily similar stories.
I'm also not certain about the historicity of the apostles.
There sure as hell is plenty of doubt on the part of historians.
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
Dragons exist.
Can o' worms right there.
Is it? something also caused the profusion of dragon images independently in different cultures, like dinosaur bones.
Tah dah.
The chinese and some other cultures saw the bones of a dinosaur as a dragon, placing in their minds a mental image of what they may seem like. The same illusion can be said of alot of history. They see something, can't make a logical answer about it, and turn to imagination and fantasy to find answers.
I like to call it the car incident syndrome. A car accident happens, there are 7 witnesses all of which give a different or similar story. Much like the time Jesus supposedly existed, the people have different ideas and stories based on an event. No one can seem to get it right.
There are alot of holes in the stories surrounding the events of Jesus Christ, but alot of them are contradictions or too way out there to be classed as true. Mind you, people back then were not too sure about what they were or knew what we knew now. People still talk about supernatural and fairy tale events like demons existing and the chupacabra, but never have enough evidence that what they say is true. UFO abductions? It's always 1 person and a million stories.
...and that lack of evidence is a large component of why I give him 50%.
How do you know that "13 guys" got together? It seems pretty easy for people to cobble together a mystical figure with a lot of elements common to other purported mystical figures of the time. Jesus could very well have simply been the most convincing story the Jews who didn't like the elites had.
Oh, I meant 12, as in the 12 apostles.
So you would give that same 50/50 chance of existence to Socrates, then? The only sources of knowledge about him are indirect, such as the writings of Plato and Xenophon speaking about the man who taught them so much. He taught mostly through speech. Sure, he caused quite a ruckus and was executed for his beliefs, but hey, maybe Plato, Xenophon, and I guess Aristophanes just made him up.
My point is that there is a lot of ancient history that is based around hearsay, but that hearsay tends to be grounded in truth. While obviously the miracles are suspect for their own reasons, Jesus's existence and teachings are much more likely to have existed.
I'm not very familiar with the historicity situation surrounding the philosophers, but I don't think the situations are at all analogous, as there isn't a lot about Socrates, to the best of my knowledge,
that was fairly obviously made up out of whole cloth, and/or plagiarized from earlier traditions, as with Jesus. Also,
Plato, et al, didn't have any apparent need to make anyone up. Perhaps Socrates was a composite, but I see no compelling reason to hold it up as likely, unlike where Jesus is concerned. Christians had a vested interest in convincing people that their particular God-man was real, as compared to all those other god-men that had eerily similar stories.
I'm also not certain about the historicity of the apostles.
And I'm not talking about Jesus performing miracles, just that he existed as a real person who may have claimed to be doing so (or at the very least liked to talk about being nice).
There are plenty of things about Socrates that you could argue are rather superhuman, or at least the ultimate philosopher. The fact that he could have escaped execution but didn't because "a true philosopher does not fear death", his exploits as a soldier, his expansive knowledge of so much and how that relates to the ideas of his successors, and his defiance of the Athenian government along with his subsequent sentence to hemlock suicide make him a martyr for philosophy. He's a hero that validates Plato's ideas and shows the importance of philosophy in general, in the same way Jesus validated the ideas of Paul by becoming a martyr for his teachings.
Also, certain 'miracles' Mohammad performed, such as the apparent splitting of the Moon, bought tribes in without bloodshed or warfare. They simply acknowledged that they were in the presence of a divine, uneducated, illiterate who had angels whispering poems in his ear.
Uh, he also wrote verses in the Koran permitting killing in the defense of their religion, which I believe is where the idea of jihad partially comes from (the struggle can also be internal, a defense of your faith from other ideas).
022.039
YUSUFALI: To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;-
PICKTHAL: Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed Able to give them victory;
SHAKIR: Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed, and most surely Allah is well able to assist them;
022.040
YUSUFALI: (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, "our Lord is Allah". Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).
PICKTHAL: Those who have been driven from their homes unjustly only because they said: Our Lord is Allah - For had it not been for Allah's repelling some men by means of others, cloisters and churches and oratories and mosques, wherein the name of Allah is oft mentioned, would assuredly have been pulled down. Verily Allah helpeth one who helpeth Him. Lo! Allah is Strong, Almighty -
SHAKIR: Those who have been expelled from their homes without a just cause except that they say: Our Lord is Allah. And had there not been Allah's repelling some people by others, certainly there would have been pulled down cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques in which Allah's name is much remembered; and surely Allah will help him who helps His cause; most surely Allah is Strong, Mighty
After the Battle of Badr, Muhammed order the execution of any unransomed prisoners. Compassionate? I think not.
Yeah, this whole debate calls into question terms such as 'exist' and, well 'Jesus'.
As Loren said, there seem to be no reasons why anyone would falsify the evidence for figures such as Socrates. Jesus is a different matter.
Secondly, the question of whether Jesus existed or not is one which requires a much higher burden of proof than Socrates. If Socrates didn't exist, so what? The dialogues stand on their own. I'm not going to resort to analogy, because this never works and will become a circle-jerk of analogy-fighting, so I'll just say that a proposition which is intended to radically redefine the world requires a particularly high level of statistical probability.
Lastly, there's 'What do you mean by Jesus?' Do you mean just some Jewish guy? Do you mean some prophet? Do you mean the Son of God? I think no meaningful dialogue on his existence can proceed until those involved decide on their terms - i.e. who was he? If you don't clarify this first then the historical debate is used as a kind of smoke-screen by Christians to validate their interpretation of Jesus. Essentially, unless the parties in the debate agree on the terminology and stick to the definition of 'Jesus' agreed on, progress on the question is impossible.
...and that lack of evidence is a large component of why I give him 50%.
How do you know that "13 guys" got together? It seems pretty easy for people to cobble together a mystical figure with a lot of elements common to other purported mystical figures of the time. Jesus could very well have simply been the most convincing story the Jews who didn't like the elites had.
Oh, I meant 12, as in the 12 apostles.
So you would give that same 50/50 chance of existence to Socrates, then? The only sources of knowledge about him are indirect, such as the writings of Plato and Xenophon speaking about the man who taught them so much. He taught mostly through speech. Sure, he caused quite a ruckus and was executed for his beliefs, but hey, maybe Plato, Xenophon, and I guess Aristophanes just made him up.
My point is that there is a lot of ancient history that is based around hearsay, but that hearsay tends to be grounded in truth. While obviously the miracles are suspect for their own reasons, Jesus's existence and teachings are much more likely to have existed.
I'm not very familiar with the historicity situation surrounding the philosophers, but I don't think the situations are at all analogous, as there isn't a lot about Socrates, to the best of my knowledge,
that was fairly obviously made up out of whole cloth, and/or plagiarized from earlier traditions, as with Jesus. Also,
Plato, et al, didn't have any apparent need to make anyone up. Perhaps Socrates was a composite, but I see no compelling reason to hold it up as likely, unlike where Jesus is concerned. Christians had a vested interest in convincing people that their particular God-man was real, as compared to all those other god-men that had eerily similar stories.
I'm also not certain about the historicity of the apostles.
And I'm not talking about Jesus performing miracles, just that he existed as a real person who may have claimed to be doing so (or at the very least liked to talk about being nice).
There are plenty of things about Socrates that you could argue are rather superhuman, or at least the ultimate philosopher. The fact that he could have escaped execution but didn't because "a true philosopher does not fear death", his exploits as a soldier, his expansive knowledge of so much and how that relates to the ideas of his successors, and his defiance of the Athenian government along with his subsequent sentence to hemlock suicide make him a martyr for philosophy. He's a hero that validates Plato's ideas and shows the importance of philosophy in general, in the same way Jesus validated the ideas of Paul by becoming a martyr for his teachings.
Also, certain 'miracles' Mohammad performed, such as the apparent splitting of the Moon, bought tribes in without bloodshed or warfare. They simply acknowledged that they were in the presence of a divine, uneducated, illiterate who had angels whispering poems in his ear.
Uh, he also wrote verses in the Koran permitting killing in the defense of their religion, which I believe is where the idea of jihad partially comes from (the struggle can also be internal, a defense of your faith from other ideas).
After the Battle of Badr, Muhammed order the execution of any unransomed prisoners. Compassionate? I think not.
See Ashoka.
A mirror image implies that the two are similar, but inverted.
Ashoka was a butcher before his conversion to the peaceful way of the Buddha.
Mohammad was a simple man everyone liked. Then one day God sent and angel to whisper the divine into his ear. It was when he started repeating what he was hearing that he started gathering followers and others started to fear and persecute them. And they ran for 7 years before turning to fight. Islam had a much more peaceful beginning.
I don't consider the lesson taught to be a poor one.
Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in.
I'm only arguing that some Jewish guy named Jesus (or whatever his name is in Aramaic) has about a 90% chance of existing. The other stuff I could care less about.
Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in.
He executed prisoners of war because no one would pay for them. Two of the men he executed he killed without even considering ransoms, because they had bad-mouthed him.
He expelled the Banu Qaynuqa, a Jewish tribe, from Medina.
He raided caravans and villages that were barely associated with his enemies.
Please, tell me where any of this is something that you would based a religion around?
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
An honest historian will acknowledge the scarcity of evidence.
There's less evidence for Jesus than there is for Zeus or Odin.
Historians do note the scarcity of evidence, and they question skeptically what evidence they have. No credible biblical scholar mindlessly accepts anything as truth, but neither do they dismiss all evidence as worthless hearsay.
And as far as I'm aware, we have no evidence for the historicity of Zeus or Odin.
And as far as I'm aware, we have no evidence for the historicity of Zeus or Odin.
Last I read they've found evidence that the various major deities were names of actual clan leaders, possibly usurped or passed down between leaders for that "immortality" effect, much like how people like Caesar used various means to assert their divinity.
Right. To get back on track: Jesus could never have imagined as he died under Roman law that less than four hundred years later, Christianity would have triumphed, or that a Christian Emperor would sit on the throne of the Caesars. What accounts for the phenomenal success of an obscure Judaic sect, persecuted for hundreds of years? Was it the attraction of his own theology or the tenacity and organizational brilliance of the early Church?
Right. To get back on track: Jesus could never have imagined as he died under Roman law that less than four hundred years later, Christianity would have triumphed, or that a Christian Emperor would sit on the throne of the Caesars. What accounts for the phenomenal success of an obscure Judaic sect, persecuted for hundreds of years? Was it the attraction of his own theology or the tenacity and organizational brilliance of the early Church?
Right. To get back on track: Jesus could never have imagined as he died under Roman law that less than four hundred years later, Christianity would have triumphed, or that a Christian Emperor would sit on the throne of the Caesars. What accounts for the phenomenal success of an obscure Judaic sect, persecuted for hundreds of years? Was it the attraction of his own theology or the tenacity and organizational brilliance of the early Church?
Personally, I think Jesus was a philosopher who knew God was a powerful way to get people to pay attention to what one is saying. If he just went around preaching peace and tolerance with no religious basis, people probably would have ignored him. If he said "I am the son of God, and he wishes me to tell you this.", he's going to be heard by many more people, especially in that time period.
It's also very possible, even likely, that he had a strong sense of spirituality, and believed that his feelings of the way the world should be were, in fact, messages from a higher power. Seeing as how he was raised Jewish, that power would be God.
As far as I'm concerned, I think his teachings are great, and more people should live their lives the way Jesus taught (rather than say, Paul's teachings, the original "WWJD?" guy).
Mohammad is another story, and this thread isn't about him. I'll just say that all religions get messed up at some point. Mohammad was married to a powerful, older woman with a high status in society. And somehow sects of his religion ended up forcing women to remain uneducated and cover their faces. *shrug*
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No dude, I'm just saying that Jesus wasn't riding around on horseback, rallying the people of Israel into violent rebellion, something that would get him instantly recorded by Roman historians and give us a piece of contemporary evidence that would prove his existence. Instead, because he was a much more peaceful figure than Mohammed (conqueror) or Buddha (prince), it's perfectly logical that there really isn't much contemporary evidence that you can point to and say proves his existence.
While it's clear his deeds were skewed, it seems unnecessary for 13 guys to get together and say "All right, let's make a religion, and just make up a prophet" rather than just use someone who actually does exist.
Been reading some Thich Nhat Hanh?
It is a convenient explanation for the sudden sea change in Christian ethics from wrath-and-smiting to love-thy-neighbor.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
...and that lack of evidence is a large component of why I give him 50%.
How do you know that "13 guys" got together? It seems pretty easy for people to cobble together a mystical figure with a lot of elements common to other purported mystical figures of the time. Jesus could very well have simply been the most convincing story the Jews who didn't like the elites had.
That's pretty misleading.
The prophet Mohammad and his followers were persecuted for their beliefs. For 7 years he preached Christ's turn the other cheek philosophy before he finally took up arms and told his followers to defend their faith.
Less than a century after his death of old age, Islam had become one of the largest empires on the face of the planet. Baghdad at one time was literally the center of world culture and science with all nations from the 'Old World' coming there to trade and educate themselves. It was possibly one of the most enlightened ages Earth has seen in the Modern Ear, barring the rule of Ashoka the Great.
Good call, "initially" was perhaps the wrong word- Muhammad initially was far more tolerant and peaceful, and became violently expansionist after he had a lot of followers.
Although, I have to question your "defend their faith" terminology.
Huh.
If one were to think that Jesus was influenced by a certain philosophical mentality, one would think Plato's dialogues and the whole grecian philosophical idealism and ethical ponderings were more influential than the teaching of Buddhism.
I don't understand how people can think he didn't exist. People make up much cooler stuff than what's in the bible to gain influence and power. Like Aliens and Thetans and junk like that.
I personally think the best teaching ever given was one by Jesus, written in the bible (tl;dr):
Faith and Love is all you need to know.
Hmmm... no. That's gone down the wrong road as well.
The nation of Islam still didn't exist while Mohammad was alive. It wasn't until after his death that his tribe of followers began spreading the religion... but by that time they were of significant size. It was readily adopted by most Christians, as Mohammad preached that he was only a human follower of the ways of Christ, not God himself.
Some Christians complain that Mohammad wasn't crucified. He didn't die defending his faith. Instead it seems he served as a compassionate example of how a human being should live his life, trustworthy and just. A 'superhuman', if you will.
There sure as hell is plenty of doubt on the part of historians.
Red = no
Lime = yes
Oh, I meant 12, as in the 12 apostles.
So you would give that same 50/50 chance of existence to Socrates, then? The only sources of knowledge about him are indirect, such as the writings of Plato and Xenophon speaking about the man who taught them so much. He taught mostly through speech. Sure, he caused quite a ruckus and was executed for his beliefs, but hey, maybe Plato, Xenophon, and I guess Aristophanes just made him up.
My point is that there is a lot of ancient history that is based around hearsay, but that hearsay tends to be grounded in truth. While obviously the miracles are suspect for their own reasons, Jesus's existence and teachings are much more likely to have existed.
Wow, no.
I didn't bring almost any of my books to China, so I'm not going to be performing well on specifics, but Muhammad was definitely not "compassionate, trustworthy, and just", particularly not in the latter portion of his life.
Yeah, just for the record he was quite the conqueror, and united Arabia under his rule.
Expansion of the Muslim empire:
Among a small minority, yes. Among the majority, no, because while every source on Jesus' life is intensely subjective and partial, something caused their profusion. Between Christians and Atheists, the key argument is whether he was the son of God, not his literal existence. To historians, Jesus doesn't matter at all. What matters is the Church he founded.
Dragons exist.
Can o' worms right there.
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You're just jealous because he could score multiple wives and you can't.
An honest historian will acknowledge the scarcity of evidence.
There's less evidence for Jesus than there is for Zeus or Odin.
Again.
Ashoka. Same story. Turns up in history after Buddha and united India, just like Mohammad followed Christ. The two stories are practically mirror images of each other.
Also, certain 'miracles' Mohammad performed, such as the apparent splitting of the Moon, bought tribes in without bloodshed or warfare. They simply acknowledged that they were in the presence of a divine, uneducated, illiterate who had angels whispering poems in his ear.
Is it? something also caused the profusion of dragon images independently in different cultures, like dinosaur bones.
I'm not very familiar with the historicity situation surrounding the philosophers, but I don't think the situations are at all analogous, as there isn't a lot about Socrates, to the best of my knowledge,
that was fairly obviously made up out of whole cloth, and/or plagiarized from earlier traditions, as with Jesus. Also,
Plato, et al, didn't have any apparent need to make anyone up. Perhaps Socrates was a composite, but I see no compelling reason to hold it up as likely, unlike where Jesus is concerned. Christians had a vested interest in convincing people that their particular God-man was real, as compared to all those other god-men that had eerily similar stories.
I'm also not certain about the historicity of the apostles.
Again what? We say Muhammad was not "compassionate, just, and trustworthy", you start talking about Ashoka.
Have you been reading a lot of Karen Armstrong? The woman never met a Pollyannish view of Islamic history that she didn’t totally accept.
Nope. But I've met quite a few Muslims.
And if you'll read into Ashoka's history, you'll see he was quite the conquering butcher before his conversion to Buddhism.
Tah dah.
The chinese and some other cultures saw the bones of a dinosaur as a dragon, placing in their minds a mental image of what they may seem like. The same illusion can be said of alot of history. They see something, can't make a logical answer about it, and turn to imagination and fantasy to find answers.
I like to call it the car incident syndrome. A car accident happens, there are 7 witnesses all of which give a different or similar story. Much like the time Jesus supposedly existed, the people have different ideas and stories based on an event. No one can seem to get it right.
There are alot of holes in the stories surrounding the events of Jesus Christ, but alot of them are contradictions or too way out there to be classed as true. Mind you, people back then were not too sure about what they were or knew what we knew now. People still talk about supernatural and fairy tale events like demons existing and the chupacabra, but never have enough evidence that what they say is true. UFO abductions? It's always 1 person and a million stories.
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And I'm not talking about Jesus performing miracles, just that he existed as a real person who may have claimed to be doing so (or at the very least liked to talk about being nice).
There are plenty of things about Socrates that you could argue are rather superhuman, or at least the ultimate philosopher. The fact that he could have escaped execution but didn't because "a true philosopher does not fear death", his exploits as a soldier, his expansive knowledge of so much and how that relates to the ideas of his successors, and his defiance of the Athenian government along with his subsequent sentence to hemlock suicide make him a martyr for philosophy. He's a hero that validates Plato's ideas and shows the importance of philosophy in general, in the same way Jesus validated the ideas of Paul by becoming a martyr for his teachings.
Uh, he also wrote verses in the Koran permitting killing in the defense of their religion, which I believe is where the idea of jihad partially comes from (the struggle can also be internal, a defense of your faith from other ideas).
After the Battle of Badr, Muhammed order the execution of any unransomed prisoners. Compassionate? I think not.
As Loren said, there seem to be no reasons why anyone would falsify the evidence for figures such as Socrates. Jesus is a different matter.
Secondly, the question of whether Jesus existed or not is one which requires a much higher burden of proof than Socrates. If Socrates didn't exist, so what? The dialogues stand on their own. I'm not going to resort to analogy, because this never works and will become a circle-jerk of analogy-fighting, so I'll just say that a proposition which is intended to radically redefine the world requires a particularly high level of statistical probability.
Lastly, there's 'What do you mean by Jesus?' Do you mean just some Jewish guy? Do you mean some prophet? Do you mean the Son of God? I think no meaningful dialogue on his existence can proceed until those involved decide on their terms - i.e. who was he? If you don't clarify this first then the historical debate is used as a kind of smoke-screen by Christians to validate their interpretation of Jesus. Essentially, unless the parties in the debate agree on the terminology and stick to the definition of 'Jesus' agreed on, progress on the question is impossible.
tl;dr: The question is insufficiently precise.
I've met quite a few Christians. Most of them are really nice people. I dated two or three.
Doesn't mean Christendom (and Christian history as a whole) wasn't soaked in blood, war, oppression, and intolerance.
You have met quite a few Muslims. Okay. That does not address my assertion that Muhammad was not "just, trustworthy, and compassionate".
And I don't get why you're still bringing up Ashoka. Is this some kind of tu quoque?
It's pretty much just the standard "power corrupts" motif.
A very large number of people are only on good behavior when they're in a position of weakness. Once power is obtained, OH SHIT.
Based on the Bible, Jesus was showing the same tendency with his lake of fire threats.
See Ashoka.
A mirror image implies that the two are similar, but inverted.
Ashoka was a butcher before his conversion to the peaceful way of the Buddha.
Mohammad was a simple man everyone liked. Then one day God sent and angel to whisper the divine into his ear. It was when he started repeating what he was hearing that he started gathering followers and others started to fear and persecute them. And they ran for 7 years before turning to fight. Islam had a much more peaceful beginning.
I don't consider the lesson taught to be a poor one.
Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in.
He executed prisoners of war because no one would pay for them. Two of the men he executed he killed without even considering ransoms, because they had bad-mouthed him.
He expelled the Banu Qaynuqa, a Jewish tribe, from Medina.
He raided caravans and villages that were barely associated with his enemies.
Please, tell me where any of this is something that you would based a religion around?
Historians do note the scarcity of evidence, and they question skeptically what evidence they have. No credible biblical scholar mindlessly accepts anything as truth, but neither do they dismiss all evidence as worthless hearsay.
And as far as I'm aware, we have no evidence for the historicity of Zeus or Odin.
Last I read they've found evidence that the various major deities were names of actual clan leaders, possibly usurped or passed down between leaders for that "immortality" effect, much like how people like Caesar used various means to assert their divinity.
Paul.
Or Constantine.
Fuck, fire alarm.
Paul too.
Probably both.
It's also very possible, even likely, that he had a strong sense of spirituality, and believed that his feelings of the way the world should be were, in fact, messages from a higher power. Seeing as how he was raised Jewish, that power would be God.
As far as I'm concerned, I think his teachings are great, and more people should live their lives the way Jesus taught (rather than say, Paul's teachings, the original "WWJD?" guy).
Mohammad is another story, and this thread isn't about him. I'll just say that all religions get messed up at some point. Mohammad was married to a powerful, older woman with a high status in society. And somehow sects of his religion ended up forcing women to remain uneducated and cover their faces. *shrug*
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