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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][twitter][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]With his alleged birthday coming up, let's discuss the person that is being celebrated. Present your information and argument for Jesus, fact or fiction.[/quote]

Jesus was made up -- not of whole cloth, because a messiah was predicted.  But those were the olden days, before modern science and running water and a bunch of stuff that we now take for granted.

Kids can't imagine life without the internet.  Neither can I!  Remember those old movies where people would wait impatiently for the mailman to come?
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No he was not made up. [b]His existence and the words he spoke have been proven.[/b] What is likely made up is that he was the son of God. Probably not. Then again, how did such an extraordinary person come to have such extraordinary advice on how to be a good person?

In any event he was an amazing man and if we all followed his teachings the world would be a better place.[/quote]

Link? 
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Don't hold your breath waiting.[/quote]

[youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2SyPPhwNfqQ&pp=ygUcaGlzdG9yaWNhbCBqZXN1cyBiYXJ0IGVocm1hbg%3D%3D[/youtube][/quote]

And Ehrman undermines his own argument by stating something as true, when it is not in fact true. Not [i]every[/i] scholar believes in a historical Jesus, and there are plenty of scholars now that have made well-reasoned arguments to the contrary. Ehrman also acknowledges [b]there is not evidence[/b], and then he makes his own specious speculation. [/quote]

Exactly. No evidence. Just stories.

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“Just stories” is exactly how we know almost every non-emperor figure from antiquity.[/color]

-Socrates: no contemporary documents, only “stories” from Plato and Xenophon 10–40 years later.
-Hannibal: no Carthaginian records survive, only “stories” from Roman enemies 50–150 years later.
-Apollonius of Tyana: miracle-working philosopher, one primary biography written 150 years after his death. Nobody in classics or ancient history calls these people “mythical” on that basis.

[u]Jesus has more and earlier attestation than most 1st-century Jews.[/u]

-Within 20–30 years: multiple letters from Paul (undisputed: Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon) that casually mention Jesus was born as a human, of a woman, descended from David, had a brother named James (whom Paul met), taught specific things, was crucified under Roman authority.

-Within 40–60 years: Mark’s gospel (used by Matthew and Luke).

-Within 60–80 years: a Jewish historian (Josephus) twice mentions Jesus and his brother James. [b]That timeline beats almost every comparable figure from the Roman provinces.[/b]

The “stories” contain details early Christians had no reason to invent and every reason to suppress (historians call this the criterion of embarrassment):
-Jesus baptized by John (implies he was John’s subordinate and needed repentance).
-Denied by his own disciples.
- Crucified (a shameful, cursed death in both Roman and Jewish eyes).
-Family thought he was crazy (Mark 3:21). People making up a hero do not write these things.

Independent, hostile sources confirm the basic outline
-Josephus (Jewish, ~93 CE): Jesus executed by Pilate, brother named James, followers still exist.
-Tacitus (Roman, ~116 CE): “Christus” executed under Pontius Pilate in Judea, source of the Christian movement. These are not Christians repeating their own stories; these are outsiders who had zero interest in promoting Christianity.

A real movement exploded in Jerusalem within months of the supposed events Thousands of Jews suddenly start worshipping a crucified criminal as the Messiah — in the same city where he was publicly executed. That doesn’t happen with a purely mythical figure. It requires a real, recent, traumatic event that needs explaining.

[i]So no, it’s not “no evidence, just stories.”
It’s multiple, early, independent sources — some hostile — that align on a core set of facts, using the exact same kinds of evidence historians use for everyone else in antiquity.

If you reject that evidence for Jesus, you has to reject the existence of Socrates, Hannibal, Boudicca, Arminius, and dozens of other ancient figures on the exact same grounds. And literally no professional historian does that.
That’s the problem with the “no evidence, just stories” line. It’s not skepticism. It’s a double standard.
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And what evidence is there for God?  You know, Jesus's Dad.[/quote]

[b]There is no proof for God in the way there is proof for gravity or that 2 + 2 = 4.[/b]

There are arguments (cosmological, fine-tuning, moral, etc.), some of them pretty sophisticated, but none of them are universally accepted as conclusive.

Reasonable, educated people look at the same evidence and arguments and still land on both sides.

I’m not here to convince you. You asked for proof; I’m just telling you the actual state of play: there isn’t any proof that settles the question once and for all.

That’s why billions of people believe and billions don’t, and the philosophers are still arguing about it after 2,500 years.

Believe whatever you find most reasonable. It’s your call, not mine.[/quote]

Except there is ZERO data supporting gods and plenty to support the existence of gravity or 2+2=4. 
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The existence of God — in the classical philosophical or theological sense — cannot be definitively proven or disproven by empirical data or the scientific method. Here’s why, broken down clearly:

Most serious arguments (both theistic and atheistic) are about a necessary, uncaused, immaterial, eternal, personal being who is the ultimate ground of all reality (the God of classical theism: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and most philosophy of religion).
This concept of God is outside space, time, and matter by definition.

Science only deals with contingent, physical, measurable phenomena within the universe.

A being that transcends the universe (i.e., not made of matter/energy, not located in space-time) is by definition outside the domain that scientific instruments and experiments can access.

You cannot put “pure act,” “necessary being,” or “the ground of all existence” under a microscope or in a particle accelerator.

This is not a limitation of current technology — it is a category error, like trying to use a ruler to measure temperature or a scale to weigh an idea.

Data and science can:

1. Refute specific religious claims that make testable predictions → Young-Earth creationism (refuted by radiometric dating, cosmology, geology) → Global flood ~4,000 years ago (refuted by geology, genetics, archaeology) → Prayer healing cancer at statistically significant rates (large-scale studies show no effect beyond placebo)
 2. Make certain conceptions of God less plausible → A deity who constantly intervenes in trivial ways (e.g., finding parking spots) becomes improbable under a universe governed by consistent natural laws.
3. Provide evidence that is compatible with theism or atheism, but not decisive either way → Fine-tuning of physical constants (used by theists) → Evolutionary suffering and “hiddenness” of God (used by atheists)
None of these move the needle from possible → proven or possible → impossible.

No dataset will ever appear that lets us say “Here is the spreadsheet that proves/disproves God.”
The question ultimately lies in metaphysics, not measurement.
[color=red]Most professional philosophers of religion (the people who study this full-time) are theists (~70% in recent PhilPapers surveys), but a large minority are atheists, and almost none claim the issue is empirically settled. That distribution itself shows the limits of data.[/color]
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OK, so we all agree that there is in fact data supporting the theory of gravity and 2+2=4.

Very different than the existence of gods and supernatural forces.

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Empirical, knock-down proof is impossible either way.

[u]God, by (almost every) definition, is not a physical object inside the universe, so you can’t put Him in a particle detector. Science can’t verify or falsify that kind of being. That’s not a dodge; it’s a category difference. Philosophers have known this for centuries.[/u]

There are serious arguments that many very sharp people find rationally compelling:  Why does anything exist at all rather than nothing? (Leibnizian cosmological)

Why is the universe governed by elegant mathematical laws?
Why are the physical constants fine-tuned for life in a ridiculously narrow range?
Why does consciousness exist in a purely material universe?
Why is there objective morality if we’re just evolved primates?  These aren’t “God of the gaps”; they’re positive arguments from the existence of the universe, reason, math, and morality to a necessary, immaterial, personal foundation. Reasonable people (including plenty of scientists and philosophers) find them strong; reasonable people (also including plenty of scientists and philosophers) find the counter-arguments stronger.

[color=red]It’s an open philosophical question, not a closed scientific one.
[/color]
Belief in God is not like believing in Bigfoot or Zeus . Bigfoot would be a physical primate — we could in principle find hair, DNA, or a body. Zeus was a body on Mount Olympus who threw lightning bolts and raped mortals — plenty of ways that story could have been confirmed or debunked.

Classical theism isn’t making those kinds of claims. It’s saying reality itself has an ultimate, non-contingent ground that is pure existence. That claim is way more abstract and way harder to falsify.

[b]If your standard is ‘scientific proof identical to the Holocaust or moon landing,’ then no, there’s no evidence for God — and there never will be, because the question is outside science’s scope.[/b]

So the honest statement isn’t ‘there’s no evidence.’

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The fallacy is believing that there is something that exists outside of science.

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Science is a method, not an ontology .

Science is extraordinarily good at describing how the physical world behaves under controlled conditions. But it deliberately brackets off certain kinds of questions:
What is the meaning or purpose of existence? Are there objective moral truths? What is consciousness, and why does it feel like something to be me? Do mathematical truths exist independently of physical reality?

These are real questions that rational people can investigate, but they lie outside the domain of empirical science by design.

The claim “the only things that exist are those science can investigate” is itself not a scientific claim. You can’t put it under a microscope or test it with a particle collider. It’s a philosophical assertion masquerading as a scientific one. If the statement is true, it saws off the branch it’s sitting on, because philosophy (including that very claim) would then be illegitimate.

History is littered with examples of non-scientific knowledge.

Math proves things (e.g., Gödel’s theorems, the infinitude of primes) with certainty that goes beyond empirical induction.

Logic itself is prior to science—you need it to even do science.

First-person subjective experience (qualia) is real and undeniable, yet not publicly measurable in the way physics demands.

Even scientists don’t actually believe this in practice.  Most working scientists treat their own moral intuitions, aesthetic judgments, and sense of meaning as real, even though none of those are “scientific” in the strict sense.

[color=red]Science is the best tool we have for understanding the physical world, but the moment you say nothing exists outside its reach, you’ve stopped doing science and started doing bad philosophy. Reality is bigger than the test tube.[/color]
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I can daydream about whatever I want. Doesn't make it real.

Anything outside of the physical world exists only in your mind - pure fantasy. 
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That’s a philosophical claim, not a fact.

You are repeating a classic philosophical stance called materialism: the idea that only physical matter and energy are real.

Lots of extremely intelligent philosophers, scientists, theologians, and thinkers disagree with this.
There is no proof that materialism is correct, either; it’s an assumption.

Are numbers “physical?” Is morality physical?
Is justice?
Is love?	
Is logic itself physical? Are laws of physics physical (they describe matter; they are not matter)?

None of these exist as atoms. Yet they’re not “pure fantasy.”

If you deny these things, you contradict your own ability to argue, reason, or even speak meaningfully.

If only the physical exists, explain: Why does subjective experience (the feeling of “being you”) exist at all, and, why does a physical brain create a non-physical interior world?

Materialism has no answer.

Consciousness is the biggest hole in the worldview.

Hypothetical or mathematical objects are not “fantasies”

Black holes were theoretical before we ever detected them. Negative numbers don’t physically “exist,” yet they correctly describe the world. Quantum states exist as probabilities until measured.

Ideas can be real without being physical.

Non-physical doesn’t mean imaginary

There are three categories:
1.Physical things — atoms, energy
2.Mental things — images, thoughts, memories
3. Abstract/non-physical realities — logic, mathematics, values, meanings, time, identity

You collapses everything into category #2, but categories #1 and #3 clearly exist and interact.

Your statement is self-defeating

If “only the physical world exists,” then the idea that “only the physical world exists” is itself…not physical.

So by your own logic, your own statement is “pure fantasy.”

Most scientists do NOT believe everything is purely physical

Modern physics is not purely materialistic anymore:
Quantum mechanics, Information theory, Mathematical Platonism, Consciousness studies—&gt;

These fields all deal with real things that are not physical objects.

Even Einstein wrote that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible — meaning the laws themselves point to something deeper than matter.

[color=red]Challenge: If only the physical exists, prove to me that logic, love, numbers, or your own consciousness are made of atoms. [/color]
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These are all real things that exist in the physical world and can be studied.

https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_the_brain_in_love?language=en&subtitle=%28null%29

“Supernatural forces” exist only in your head. A figment of your imagination.

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