"Midwinter" <midwinter_m@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:IKednTioDKtSlAvanZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Jeckyl" <noone@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said :
>
>> So the evidence you claim for Jesus existing is stories that were
>> written (at best) many decades (if not centuries) afterward his
>> supposed death by those with an obvious agenda to promote such stories
>> as true.
>
> Personally, I have no problem with the idea of Jesus existing
> historically as a man.
Neither do I.
There were certainly lots of people around at the time called Jesus. That
one of them may have been a bit of a revolutionary and had a following is
not a problem.
> That doesn't stretch credulity or bend any known
> physical laws. And as we know from the likes of Elvis, or Diana,
> Princess of Wales, people can become popular legends very quickly
indeed.
> What we're told about Jesus even a few decades after the fact might bear
> no resemblance at all to the man himself or what he might actually have
> said and done.
Yeup.
It is quite possible that the figure ****trayed is a fusion of stories
about
a number of people at different times, then embellished to make it a more
entertaining story
> I have more of a problem with the idea that a historical Jesus - if
> indeed there was one - would have turned water into wine, or raised the
> dead, because that goes against our current understanding of the way the
> world works.
Indeed .. and further that there is no contem****ary accounts of any of the
major miraculous events that supposedly happened inthe period of he was
supposedly alive. Surely the dead walking the streets at his death would
have been noticed and recorded .. or the massacring of first born children
arount the time of his birth etc.
> In order for me to accept that, there's got to be evidence
> - and more than one source (even a collection of associated sources)
> saying that he did it. Which isn't to say that there mightn't be some
> *symbolic* significance in these stories of miracles.
Indeed .. not all stories were written to be taken literally.
> The modern mind
> has trouble dealing with the idea of 'truth' being anything other than
> absolute, literal, it-happened-just-like-it-says truth. If it isn't
that
> kind of truth, then to our minds it's an evil lie, obviously intended to
> deceive.
Indeed .. Personally I find many of the teachings attributed to Jesus very
wise and moral. His character was quite a good story teller as well.
> It's that mentality that brings us Creation literalists: they
> can't accommodate the notion that a story can have mythological merit
> without necessarily being a historical account of what happened. But
> ancient societies could handle mythology and legend far more gracefully
> and rationally than we seem to.
Yeup. I don't think any atheist would have any objection to the bible
stories (say) being regarded as myths and tales designed to teach the
people
/ society how they should live etc at the time. Whetehr or not all the
lessons taught were what we would regard to day as a civilised and moral
thing to do is another question
> The problem with devoting all your attention to ru****ng at the preferred
> conclusion is that it sometimes leads to baby-and-bathwater situations:
> many of those keen to disprove Christianity have decided that *any*
> possibility of a historical Jesus must be denied in order to do so.
Yes .. there are ceratinly some irrational people out there .. whether
theist or atheist.
> It
> needn't. If it's your goal to undermine the strict tenets of historical
> Christianity then all that's required is to show that there's no
evidence
> that he was anything other than a man.
And indeed, there isn't any evidence the he was anything other than a man
(nor that he even existed, although there is no also no reason to assume
he
didn't .. millions of people for whom there is no evidence actually
existed
:))
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