Atheists. I know you don't believe in God..............?

Question

However, do you believe that Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth and, if nothing else, was an amazing prophet? I mean, much of our society is based around his birth and death like B.C. & A.D. / all the religious holidays (that I know replaced pagan holidays), the bible (which I know you think is a book of fables) is the best selling book of all time. I guess my question is based more on you if you believe Jesus existed from a historical standpoint. I know some of you are going to say this is a really stupid question, and maybe it is, however I am really curious re: this subject. And.....be nice ;)

Sam T. Do you believe Jesus was real? is that better?

and PS. you drug out yor answer without answering my question so why bother posting if you are just going to criticize the way I write my posts?

MALCOM - IT IS PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT GIVE ATHEISTS A BAD NAME. Why don't you go somewhere else? You are a hater and I feel sorry for you.

THANK YOU ALL - EXCEPT MALCOM - FOR YOUR HONEST AND INFORMATIVE ANSWERS.

Answer 1

Yes, I do think he walked the earth at one point and was a very outstanding, incredibly caring individual with a great message. I don't, however, believe him to be the son of God.

Some atheists don't believe he ever existed, however. It really depends on who you're talking to--we can pretty much believe in anything we want, excluding gods. You can have an atheist that believes in reincarnation and karma, and another who believes that he's got psychic powers.

Answer 2

No, I do not. Christianity was the ultimate product of religious syncretism in the ancient world. Its emergence owed nothing to a holy carpenter. There were many Jesuses but the fable was a cultural construct. Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs. Following a star would lead you in circles. The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimize the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin. That idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses.

Scholars have known all this for more than 200 years but priestcraft is a highly profitable business and finances an industry of deceit to keep the show on the road. "Jesus better documented than any other ancient figure" ? Don't believe a word of it. Unlike the mythical Jesus, a real historical figure like Julius Caesar has a mass of mutually supporting evidence.

Answer 3

It is possible that he was a real person. The Christian faith has had a huge effect on our culture, much of it good. Marx also influenced the world. Mao's little red book my be the most read book in history, having the advantages of A-being in Chinese, B-being a short read, and C-being a request to surviving The Cultural Revolution. I don't put much credence in what Marx or Mao wrote.

I like to judge a thing by what it is. The Bible is a guide to life as proscribed by a supernatural power. It's characters and stories are centered on this theme. Christ's story has little meaning outside of a spiritual context, which frankly appears to be totally without foundation.

He does say some nice things. The compassion and effective moral codes of the Church's teachings are laudable. These things have little or nothing to do with the creditability of the supernal clams made by the Christian faith.

It is odd how the positive effect of the faith have been downplayed or denied by many skeptics. It seem less than honest to not admit that Christianity has a generally positive effect on a culture. I'm not suggesting that blind faith is better than reason, but it is wrong not to accurately represent the truth.

Answer 4

" if nothing else, was an amazing prophet?"

Well, no. Unless he has been depicted very badly by those who wrote about him (an admitted possibility), and never claimed divinity.
This is where the divide with Islam comes in, and the Islamic assertion that a good prophet could never have claimed to be equal with God, and therefore the bible message must be distorted.
Having good sayings and teachings does not outweigh this basic issue, and there was little new morality or wisdom that Jesus introduced: almost everything can be found in other moral teachers. But for a prophet to claim divinity and be wrong negates everything else.
(See C S Lewis on this)
Lord, Liar, Legend or Lunatic are the options.
Great teacher or prophet is not on the list.

Answer 5

"is the best selling book of all time"

Mein Kampf is also among the top 10. Just thought I should throw that in there as info.

What is described in the bible can be almost completely duplicated in modern day. Washing your hands alone cures hundreds of diseases and ailments. It also doesn't usually mention anything about the persons he cured past the intial fairy tale they lived happily ever after. That person could have believed they were cured and wandered off and then died of the same ailment. I would have to agree with the first answerer and say 50/50 he existed.

By the way there is becoming a new accepted time denomination BCE and CE standing for Before Common Era and Common Era.



Mistress M made the best arguement I have ever heard against religion.

Answer 6

I don't believe Jesus ever walked the Earth. Here's what I said in another answer not too long ago:

"I don't believe he ever existed because there is no contemporary evidence of his existence (that is, nothing about him recorded during his alleged life)--the 'soonest' evidence we have is from Saul of Tarsus, who wrote about Jesus at LEAST 40 years after his alleged death.

Not only that, but Saul writes with NO knowledge of most of the alleged events of Jesus's life that are mentioned in the Gospels (which came long after Saul's writings (about 80,000 words), keep in mind). He mentions only the last bits about Jesus--him being crucified and rising up to heaven. However, Saul makes it quite clear that he is not talking about an earthly Jesus, but a mythical one, and places the crucifixion etc. in a mythical realm, not earth. The closest he comes to mentioning a Jesus who 'walked among us' is when he mentions that (paraphrasing, bear with me) 'if Jesus lived on earth, he would not be a priest' or something like that.

Yup--that is how shaky the foundation is. Saul's account is the strongest (because his account comes long before any other) link between Jesus's alleged life and the gospels which go into great detail about it. It's the strongest much in the same way that molten lead is the most refreshing drink to be found on Venus.

So basically, we got Saul's stuff, which strongly clashes with the gospels it preceded, and then we've got nothing for at least a few more decades after that (next account is the Gospel of Mark (which is attributed to Mark but is actually an anonymous work; further supporting this is the fact that there is a consensus that this gospel was written in the 60s or 70s CE--there's no way someone alive during Jesus's alleged life would still be alive in those times). Then suddenly we have all kinds of details about Jesus's life that just seem to pop up out of nowhere. Anyone looking at this objectively would quickly come to the very fair conclusion that the writers of the gospels were 'storytelling' as opposed to recording history when they wrote them. Their goal was to convert people, not to document history, which is why they were writing _gospels_ in the first place.

Now, taking all of that into consideration...is it any wonder that one would be quite skeptical of the earthly existence of Jesus Christ as the Bible describes him (it's not that he COULDN'T have existed, but when you take a step back and look at everything, it surely seems QUITE unlikely, wouldn't you agree)?

P.S. Theologians generally agree that the other three gospels in the Bible are clearly derived from Mark, which is why I didn't mention them specifically."

Answer 7

Actually I think you've asked a very good question. I am Atheist and I do not believe that Jesus was the literal son of God, born of a virgin, sacrificed his life to save the world from sin, etc. but I do believe that he was possibly a man. From a historical standpoint, I do believe a man such as Jesus who is described in the Bible is possible to have existed. I believe that if this man existed, he was crucified for this teachings because of political reasons and fear. I don't believe this man chose to die. I believe the legends on this man lived on after his death and were glorified and exagerated until they reached the levels of today's Christian belief system(s). If this man existed, I do not believe that he ever claimed to be the son of God or the living Christ. I believe he was a teacher, a prophet perhaps, a good man, but not the embodiment of any God.

Answer 8

While there is no verifiable proof that the Jesus of the Bible actually lived, I tend to believe that such a man probably did. I don't know whether he was anything like the Jesus described in the Christian scriptures, as it's highly likely that his deeds and sayings were embellished to make it appear that they fulfilled certain prophecies from earlier Jewish scriptures. I think it likely that he was a compassionate man who wanted to reform his native religion, Judaism, in order to make it more responsive to the common people. Did he think he was God incarnate? It's possible, but I seriously doubt it. I would bet that he would find the very idea shockingly blasphemous.

Answer 9

I believe the STORY of jesus was "amazing"...... Too amazing, in my opinion, to even be true.

There is no hard evidence aside the writings of the bible to prove that he was even a real person. Any artifacts today that claim to be relics of christ could've easily been falsified to give false hope to followers. the shroud of turin for example.... scientists were allowed a piece of it to do some dating, but it was a piece that had been handled quite a bit so the tests weren't very conclusive.... but of course the ones in possession of the cloth would not allow for testing on the major areas of the shroud even though it would prove that the shroud was as old as it claimed to be and wasn't just some elaborate hoax.

Answer 10

I do believe Jesus was a man. I think he had some very cool things to say, but he also said some things reminiscent of a cult leader. This is why I have to take the good from the Bible and ignore the bad. I will not love a 2000 year old dead man more than my family, for instance. That's the sort of thing Jim Jones and Charles Manson said.