Christopher A.Lee <calee@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said :
>>It is a rationalisation in the sense that I am appealing for
>>rationality. As I said, there is little reason to deny the
>>possibility of his existence as a man - that a man might have existed
>>is, as I said, nothing out of the ordinary and does not in itself
>>stretch the bounds of physical possibility or imply the existence of
>>God.
>
> More im****tantly, there is nothing that leads to the conclusion that
> there was one.
No indeed. However, as I said, the possibility of Jesus having existed
as a man strains no-one's perception of the possible, and thus is a
neither-here-nor-there issue. Where the question is something that's in
violation of our view of how the world works it's fair to argue that if
it can't be proved it probably doesn't exist. Where it's something that
is entirely in accordance with that understanding, then a lack of
evidence doesn't give us reason to discount the possibility.
Again, challenging the established tenets of Christianity does not
require that we rule out the possibility that a man called Jesus existed,
or that he was a bit of a troublemaker. It would require that we rule
out the possibility that he might have performed miracles or been God
incarnate. Those things are so out of line with our current
understanding of the Universe that we could justly require solid evidence
before we accept them.
> Indeed the evidence is against it. Paul describes a divine Christ, and
> knows nothing of an historical Jesus. That came later when the Gospels
> were written for gentiles.
Well, I will have to defer to your knowledge on that one: for myself, I
have only the gospels as they appear in English today.
> There is nothing outside the Christian tradition apart from a passage
> in Josephus whose obvious tampering places it in doubt.
I think it's been reasonably firmly established that that particular
passage is a later insert. I may be wrong on that. But even so, as I've
said before, we would do well to bear in mind that the Church - as the
most powerful authority in the known world for a number of centuries -
has had ample time to claim and collate the available sources that refer
to this person. He is, after all, their central concern. Thus I would
not be surprised to find few if any easily-available references to him
outside of the Church's influence.
Again, we can quite rationally say that a lack of evidence for his
miracles probably suggests that he performed no miracles. However, a
lack of substantial evidence for the existence of a man means relatively
little, and can't really provide a foundation for any particular
conclusion. He might; he might not.
> Trouble is that gets things the wrong way round.
>
> One doesn't come up with something and then say there is no evidence
> against it therefore there is no reason to assume it didn't exist..
I know the argument well, and generally abide by that reasoning.
However, the argument is stronger where the proposition is one that
would, if shown true, challenge our understanding of how things work.
This could certainly be said for the idea that Jesus was God. The
possibility that Jesus as a man once existed, and perhaps has become the
central figure in some impressively elaborate stories, would not
challenge anything about our worldview. That a man was born in a certain
place, given a certain name, a caused a bit of trouble by mouthing off
about religion, and may even have been nailed up for it, as I said,
doesn't stretch credulity all that far.
> When there is no evidence for something, then one has no reason to
> believe it.
Indeed. But when the thing being proposed is in accordance with all the
laws of Nature as we understand them, then it is not necessary to make a
firm statement that the thing does not or did not exist. "We don't
know" will suffice.
> I don't think anybody else does - but it is too easy to forget that
> there are zillions of other things that can't be ruled out, however
> unlikely they are.
>
> It is a mistake to single any one of them out because this usually
> leads to emotionally prejudicial misrepresentation.
For myself, my position with regard to claims that Jesus was God are that
I have no reason to believe he was. This is why I'm not Christian. My
position with regard to the question of whether he existed as a man is
simply that he may or may not have done. I have insufficient information
to make a judgement: either possibility, that he did or did not, is
reasonable and rational.
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