ATS: Catholic Church Challenged to Prove Jesus's Existence

As predicted:

Did Jesus exist? Case dismissed

An Italian judge has dismissed an atheist's petition that a small-town priest should stand trial for asserting that Jesus Christ existed, both sides said on Friday.

Yes, he never indulged in any wishful thinking, at least not as regards Italy, where the Church is still very much the power behind the (Berlusconi) throne, as he explains in an interview in early Jan. (that is, before the court session on the 27th):

Q: What is the most likely outcome of the case?
A: Italian law is subject to the authority of the Vatican. Judges are not objective. They seek to put an end to the trial and they illegally boycott it. I don’t expect to be told I am right nor do I expect them to issue a verdict on the existence of God, but eventually we will take the case before the Court of Justice at The Hague.

It’s not a recent affair, though. He’s been hounding the poor man for the past four years. In other words, the lawsuit has dragged on and on for four full years. Between 2003 and 2005 the Court in Viterbo, his hometown, rejected the accusation on three occasions and asked that it be filed away. He also took the case before the Court in Perugia, and finally before the Court in Rome, which was where the session was set for Jan. 27 in Viterbo.

Realizing at last that no one is a prophet in his own land, so to speak, he’s now taking his case before the Dutch, who invented tolerance when everyone was still burning witchies, or at least he will make sure that this time around the setting will be rather cooler, less passionate, less Mediterranean and less conspiratorial. Does The Hague believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God Almighty?
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(Edited to rectify a date: 2005, not 2004)



[edit on 20-2-2006 by Macrento]

The courts should throw this case out before it begins.

Of course Jesus exists. Not only because the Holy Bible tells us this, the Holy Spirit confirms this to those who seek these truths.

On top of this, the Koran (we all know what the Koran is don't we) tells us that He lived although it denies that He is the Son of God.

All I have to say is that stupid people bring about stupid lawsuits.

That's my belief and I'm sticking to it!

Intelearthling--

Does that mean “intelligent earthling”? If so then you will want to dwell on the following theory for a while.

A the end of every year villagers would cast their sins upon a goat and then take it out into the desert and push it off a cliff. That way they would unburden themselves and start the new year with cleansed souls.

Those who later on foisted the Christian faith on the Hebrew people took advantage of this ritual to create a new myth, that of a HUMAN scapegoat who forever took the blame on behalf of all others and died for their sins just like the goat, but voluntarily, and thus performed a once-only rite having such powerful effects that these would persist for all eternity, rather than merely one year. The advantages of this, as compared to the previous procedure, are huge, of course.

This is the big idea behind the symbol of the cross --self-sacrifice of a universal kind. Italian criminal law would call it “abuse of popular belief” (the belief in magical scapegoats in this case) and the Pope and all other heads of similar organizations should, in that point of view, be tried in court for this crime against the Israelites, even if it was committed 2,000 years ago, since Christians are, after all, something like a Jewish cult and a heresy.

Moreover, the myth, supposing that’s what it is, involves that other crime Father Righi was being accused of --impersonation-- since the Jewish-Christian hero is, in a way, impersonating a goat, even though this is stretching things a little, because a goat is not a person. It all depends on the value you are willing to place on animals other than humans.

A theologian will find his way around this by pointing out that the rite of the goat “prefigured” (foreshadowed) the coming of a scapegoat for the benefit of all humankind and is just one among the many matters in the Old Testament that anticipated the New ditto.

By the way, these are the relevant passages in the Koran:

1) Surah V, 171: "(...) say not 'Three' --Cease! (it is) better for you!-- Allah is only One God. Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son."

2) Surah XIX, 35: "It befitteth not (the majesty of ) Allah that He should take unto Himself a son."

Finally, would you please describe your personal experiences concerning the corroborations sent down by the Holy Spirit? Do you mean the “peak experiences” --Abraham Maslow’s expression I think --the miracle healings and the coincidences taken to be “signs”?

However, it COULD be that behind all, most, or some paranormal events, including the visions of the prophets and the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, lurks a sinister type of entity whose purpose it is to confound and control, and that it would be impossible for most of us to know the difference between the good and the evil sources.

Some believers are aware of this foul play. I once heard a preacher on a Christian TV channel saying that demons can heal, but not create matter --what Spiritists call “apports”-- like the Biblical fish and loaves of bread, but they might be mistaken about this.

Anyway, as theologians say, God is the First Cause but It works through second causes, which means that we are all instruments of Its will, even Attilla and the demons. They’re all the “scourges of God”, sent to teach us our lessons. All is for the best. Only a belief in this can avoid our falling into a state of panic and helplessness.
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Originally posted by marg6043
Actually the shroud was prove a fake, I don't thing that the Church claimed that was real.

What it did was to bring it forward and hint a link to Jesus and then let the faithful make their own conclusions and their own stories.

I think the church still owns the shroud.
I knwo that the piece they originally tested that they thougth proved it a fake, turned out to have been a fragmetn sewn on the rest of the cloth durign the middle ages.
When they retested the cloth it turned out to be plausible.