Why is there no real proof of Jesus existing outside of biblical references?

daskakik
reply to post by Logarock

 

I know what you said but it had nothing to do with my post so why reply to it instead of just posting to the thread?

Besides, the point of the OP is proof outside the bible because a spot on translation doesn't substantiate veracity, which we seem to all agree on, so why are some still posting bible verses and pointing out how the text existed decades after the alleged event as if that proves anything?

Well that issue became part of the question on this thread i.e. cant be real because the translations not even real.

The decades question is also part of the flap as some poster saying anything from the texts being manufactured several hundred years after the fact to within 10 to 40 years after when first hand witnesses and personal followers were still alive. Big difference and certainly germane to veracity of the accounts.

reply to post by Logarock

Doesn't matter, we have all agreed that it proves nothing and it still has nothing to do with the thread topic.

reply to post by Krazysh0t

should be killing these people like the passage states?

Is that what it states ? I'm not going to lead you by the nose.
You figure out what you are doing wrong.

daskakik
reply to post by Logarock

 

Doesn't matter, we have all agreed that it proves nothing and it still has nothing to do with the thread topic.

edit on 8-1-2014 by daskakik because: (no reason given)

Well kif it has nothing to do with the topic why did you even bring up one end of the issue?

dragonridr

Krazysh0t
reply to post by wildtimes

 

I'm an agnostic too, but I've gotten so tired of explaining that to these guys that I've just given up and let them call me whatever they want. I guess in the Christian mindset, you either believe firmly that God exists or you believe firmly that he doesn't exist, no inbetween.

edit on 8-1-2014 by Krazysh0t because: (no reason given)

Im confused there really is no middle ground between god exists or he doesnt. Unless you did a timeshare thing he exists thursday thru sunday and every other holiday. I think Just the mere fact you're in this thread shows you have made up your mind dont you think? So Trying to defend yourself by saying you have an open mind is silly everyone has a bias. For some reason Christianity scares you or you wouldnt put in the effort to fight it. Can i ask why see some people fear religion because they see it as controlling. Others have been let down and lost faith and finally there is the thinker who likes to disprove things he cant explain with science.But it all boils down to either you believe or you dont.

Christianity doesn't scare me. Stop accusing non-believers of that. You are at least the second person TODAY in this thread who has done that. First off, I'm an ex-Catholic, then an ex-Christian when I grew to hate the RCC due to their evils, now an agnostic.

By the way, the full term for agnostic that you are looking for is agnostic atheist. That term sums up what we believe, that God most likely doesn't exist, but as we cannot disprove God, we are open to the possibility that He may exist if shown the right proof.

Though in my mind, the most likely god that exists (if he exists at all), is a genderless being that is infinitely powerful to the point that it wouldn't care about one little planet in the vast sea of the universe. It would care about life in general and not hold humanity as special (no evidence to suggest that humans are any more special than say an ant, plus all Christian rhetoric like we are in the center of the universe or the sun revolves around the Earth has all been disproven). The god would be all loving of ALL life no matter what they say, did, or believe. It would have infinite patience if it wanted that life to live up to an ideal (probably utilizing reincarnation to achieve this if someone doesn't achieve the ideal in one lifetime). This god use evolution, abiogenesis (if that hypothesis is true), and other scientific principles to develop and evolve the universe, the objects in it, as well as life in general. If any human contacted this god, the human would be unable to describe it in any detail and would probably humanize it so that we could better understand it. Anyways, I'm rambling and feel I've gotten my point across which is to say that the most likely version of god isn't the Christian one.

Logarock
Well kif it has nothing to do with the topic why did you even bring up one end of the issue?

I was pointing out that it was offtopic and that in the end those pages of back and forth on that tangent still didn't prove anything.

That is what the thread is about.

randyvs
reply to post by Krazysh0t

 

should be killing these people like the passage states?

Is that what it states ? I'm not going to lead you by the nose.
You figure out what you are doing wrong.

edit on 8-1-2014 by randyvs because: (no reason given)

I'm not going to get into a bible interpretation debate with you but the passage CLEARLY says this:

For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death

It even uses the word "surely" in case there was any doubt. I don't know what interpretation YOU'VE come to (and frankly I don't care), but the literal one says that we put these kids to death (kill them).

Krazysh0t
reply to post by Logarock

 

No, my confusion lies with the fact that Christians can use Leviticus 20:13 as proof that homosexuality is a sin while ignoring Leviticus 20:9 that says that someone who speaks out against their parents should be put to death. That is hypocritical to the extreme.

Some christians point to Leviticus on these issues even though they are confirmed in the new testament.

What is not confirmed in the new testament is stoning people to death, but the sin remains.

You may not realize this but in bringing this to the point you are doing what the Pharisees did by bringing the adulteress before Him for stoning. Trying to test him on matters of the law.

reply to post by Logarock


So explain to me (since the WHOLE bible is the word of God) why the new testament is more relevant than the old testament. This is another oddity that I see Christians start talking about. I bring up things like the large killings from God, the passages I just quoted, slavery, and other evils in the OT then Christians turn around and say "well that is the OT, the NEW testament says this, 'yadda yadda yadda'" Um... what? So the bible only has to be listened to when it is convenient for your purpose? Again the bible is supposed to be the word of God. How can you discount His words because they do not align with your worldview?

Oh as for slavery, slavery in the NT:
Passages from the Christian Scriptures (New Testament)

I guess since slavery is acceptable in the NT, we should start owning them again.

reply to post by dragonridr

For some reason Christianity scares you or you wouldnt put in the effort to fight it. Can i ask why see some people fear religion because they see it as controlling.

Because it is almost entirely about control. Using fear and shame to keep people in line. Is that what Jesus did? No...

As for "there either is a god or there isn't" -

quite.
The problem is that there is no clear evidence, so we humans just keep muddling through trying to sort it out.

Those of us who self-describe as 'agnostic' are not on either side: we are waiting, watching, searching....for evidence.

Edit was to correct b/i formatting, but while I'm at it:
My PRINCIPLE objection to dogmatic religion is how children "receive" the information. Religion IS FOR ADULTS,

and shaming and scaring a child with an interminable fire-bath, telling them they are 'unworthy so much as to pick up the crumbs under [God's] table'....
IS
NOT
HEALTHY.

reply to post by texastig

I have told you and told you and told you that Jesus was real

Yeah.

So????

Doesn't make it true. One can't use the Bible to prove the Bible is true!!!

???

Seriously, tig?? WHAT do you not understand about that?

reply to post by wildtimes


Well anything can be used to control others heck look at the media. But as i see it your generalizing not all christians use it for control. Some use it for comfort or maybe just to stay grounded in a crazy world. Either way its not the beliefs its the individuals.

Whenever some Christians talk about being "under grace" remind them that here's what Jesus said about "the Law."

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-19, NIV)

(And before anyone goes there, the verb "fulfill" in 17 is NOT the same as "accomplish" in 18. The KJV is just shoddy translating.)

Jesus makes it clear in these verses that He did not come to remove the Law (i.e. the worst parts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and some of Exodus and Numbers). Some Christians want to weasle (and quote from Paul's letters) when you confront them with the harshness of the Old Testament (unless, you know, it's one of their favorites about the gays). He's very clear here that if you break even the smallest rule you've broken all of them.

Who are you going to believe most? The Son of God, or a tent-maker from Tarsus with a speech impediment?

So, faithful Christians, say goodbye to shrimp, bacon, and composite clothes, and you premenopausal Christian ladies, you need to make arrangements to stay in the yard, maybe in a shed or something, during your menses and about a week after. Because you can't come in the house with your family, because you will DEFILE it by your mere presence, at least according to God's Law.

Me? I'd take the easy way out and try to love my neighbor as myself, judge not (by the Law) that I be not judged (by the same Law) and treat others with respect and hope to get that back.

... that is, if I believed any of that silliness.

reply to post by dragonridr

not all christians use it for control.

Thank GOD!!!

Some use it for comfort or maybe just to stay grounded in a crazy world.

And that's just wunderbar. More power to them. I'm aware of that, and glad of it.

Either way its not the beliefs its the individuals.

Yep! Which causes the problem: individuals who shame, terrify, beat, and humiliate their kids ARE NOT PRACTICING what Jesus taught.

reply to post by Gryphon66

and you premenopausal Christian ladies, you need to make arrangements to stay in the yard, maybe in a shed or something, during your menses and about a week before and after. Because you can't come in the house with your family, because you will DEFILE it by your mere presence, at least according to God's Law.

Now see, that part I'm all for!

As long as there is a nice little "guest house" for the ladies, as I would imagine that most middle class households would have had, I would have been totally fine telling the hubby to get his other wife to make his meals and wash his clothing and take care of the kids, or to do it himself, because "I'm bleeding. baby!

LOL! Heaven forbid all his wives bled together! HeHe!

Classicist Michael Grant
"Modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory [Osiris, Mithras, etc.]. It has again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars." [Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (Scribner's, 1977), p. 200.]

"In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

"If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned." (Jesus, pp. 199-200.)

I think I've gone far enough in this thread to simply give my opinion on the topic. I don't think it matters that much if there was an actual 1st century Nazarene named Jesus who walked on water and returned from the dead. I think I stand pretty much with Thomas Jefferson on the matter, who said:

In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. ... There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.

I know that our friends here who are Christian literalists hate Jefferson's take on Jesus, but please friends, don't tell us again. Don't quote nineteen hundred Bible versus at us. (It's a pun.) We know; we KNOW.

FINIS

reply to post by texastig

1977

2014 - 1977 = THIRTY SEVEN (37) YEARS AGO.

I guess you're not keeping up.

Interest in this topic, and investigation into it, has come a LLllllooooooonnnnngggg way since 1977.