Life after church & not believing in God
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Anonymous
wow guys we have a true scholar right here on the board 
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"whole cloth"
Anonymous
Who were their sources? Oh wise & intellectually-curious one. Or wait. You never asked. You just blindly accept whatever someone tells you. 
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Anonymous
Why don't you all start your own topics? I'm one of the posters that understood op because of my church background. It would have been nice to keep a dialogue going with her and a couple others with the same insights. This all just confirms me how dysfunctional everything is!! |
Anonymous
I find that hard to believe since in 64 AD (about 30 years after Jesus's death) a sect known as the Christians were persecuted by Nero, and that's documented. In in early 4th century the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity - so it's not like it took 1000 years to find the documents on which the faith is based. It spread like wildfire in the years immediately following Jesus's death. If someone just made the story up it would have had to be an incredibly elaborate hoax. Possible I guess, but I can't see who would be behind it or why. Paul? |
Anonymous
It was fine until some "believer" started ad hominem attacks. |
Anonymous
I don't think anyone here is claiming he definitely DIDN'T exist, just that it's not a proven 100% thing. We do know 100% there were Christians and they were pushing their story for many centuries, but we don't know 100% there was a historical Jesus. Many people believed in the Greek gods - Apollo, Athena, Zeus, etc. So does that mean they are real? |
Anonymous
EXACTLY and there's no need to think of it as an "incredible hoax" set up to purposely fool people, but rather a set of stories, like the ones about the Greek gods, that many people believed for years. The same stories were even taken up by the Roman empire, just changing the names of the gods. Greek "Mythology" as it's called now, is still taught in the schools - not for people to "believe" in but as ageless stories with valuable lessons. Maybe the same thing will happen someday with Christianity. Also, you could say that there's plenty of contemporaneous "evidence" for the greek gods, because the ancient greeks and romans carved so many statues of them that are in museums all over the world -- Plus all the temples still standing. There's lots of evidence for that religion, but no evidence that the stories about their gods are factual. |
Anonymous
You are confusing mythical figures with historical ones. There are many historical figures that have a similar amount of evidence for. How do we know that many of the Egyptian pharaohs actually existed? |
Anonymous
OK, take Achilles then. Was he a real person in history? Or just a compelling character in a historical story? People like a good story. There are a lot of primary sources and archaeological artifacts from Egypt so it's much easier to confirm the existence of some of the pharaohs. |
Anonymous
Figures become mythical when people stop believing (or never believed) that they are real. These days some people think god and the idea of his son being sent to die for us to forgive our sins is mythical, while some people believe it actually happened. There will never be academic evidence for it, because there is no such thing as evidence for the supernatural. It's just something that some people believe. There is some evidence that a 1st century preacher named Jesus existed, but it's not conclusive, and as discussed above and elsewhere in this thread, his physical existence has no bearing on his being "son of God" As for the pharaohs, we know some of them existed, because we've found their mummies in their tombs. Their culture and religion was very advanced for its time. We still study it today. But no one believes in their religion any more. The mummies are in museums and the pyramids are big tourist attractions. Maybe the same sort of thing will happen with Christianity someday. |
Anonymous
What evidence? No primary, contemporary accounts. No archaeological evidence. It's certainly possible that a man named Jesus existed, but there isn't a way to prove it with the information we have today. Some respected scholars say it's likely and that they think so, but none claim it's a sure thing for the simple reason that there is not the type of evidence, highlighted above, that scholars use for proof. As for Mathew and John -- they are stories that can't be used as "evidence" to prove a fact. What is factual about those stories is that they both say some similar things about Jesus. It doesn't make any of those things factual. Imagine that 1000 years from now, someone finds 2 Harry Potter books from the long since forgotten J. K. Rowling series and determines that Dumbledore is a real place because it's mentioned in two similar stories. EXACTLY I find that hard to believe since in 64 AD (about 30 years after Jesus's death) a sect known as the Christians were persecuted by Nero, and that's documented. In in early 4th century the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity - so it's not like it took 1000 years to find the documents on which the faith is based. It spread like wildfire in the years immediately following Jesus's death. If someone just made the story up it would have had to be an incredibly elaborate hoax. Possible I guess, but I can't see who would be behind it or why. Paul? I don't think anyone here is claiming he definitely DIDN'T exist, just that it's not a proven 100% thing. We do know 100% there were Christians and they were pushing their story for many centuries, but we don't know 100% there was a historical Jesus. Many people believed in the Greek gods - Apollo, Athena, Zeus, etc. So does that mean they are real? EXACTLY and there's no need to think of it as an "incredible hoax" set up to purposely fool people, but rather a set of stories, like the ones about the Greek gods, that many people believed for years. The same stories were even taken up by the Roman empire, just changing the names of the gods. Greek "Mythology" as it's called now, is still taught in the schools - not for people to "believe" in but as ageless stories with valuable lessons. Maybe the same thing will happen someday with Christianity. Also, you could say that there's plenty of contemporaneous "evidence" for the greek gods, because the ancient greeks and romans carved so many statues of them that are in museums all over the world -- Plus all the temples still standing. There's lots of evidence for that religion, but no evidence that the stories about their gods are factual. Statues don't prove someone is real, but they do prove that that real people sculpted them during the time (which can be scientifically documented) that people believed in the stories about them. There are no statues of Jesus that date from the time that he supposedly lived. Historians have ben scouting about for other artifacts from Jesus, but haven't found any. Of course, according to the story, he was a poor carpenter, not recognised as a god until after he died and not written about until decades after his death. |
Anonymous
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Whoever made the Greek analogy- it is dumb. Greek mythology is an expansive set of stories for which there is no archaeological proof. The existence of Jesus is far less tenuous than that of God’s flying around with lightning bolts.
And there is a contemporary witness to Jesus- Paul. Paul claims to have met Jesus after Jesus’ resurrection. He wrote about it extensively. So I guess if that is the proof you are looking for it exists. |
Anonymous
After his resurrection? Wouldn't a claim to have met Jesus have more credibility if it was during his life? Indeed, if the stories of Jesus were invented, or embellished beyond all recognition, there's no more likely culprit than Paul. |
Anonymous
+1 Not a credible source. |
Anonymous
There is no archaeological proof of Jesus either. Jesus and the Greek gods are all mythological characters. Lightning bolts vs resurrection. Many people believed in these characters and believed their stories to be true. Or compare with any of the other world religions, modern or ancient. |