Um, Boris, it just went right over your head AGAIN.
You are repeatedly committing a combination of two fallacies and looking silly doing so. To give you a hint, do you see the humor in this old Robert Benchley quote?
There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not.
I think that you are engaging in what psychiatrists call “projection.”
But since you’re calling me arrogant for believing something, would you mind pointing out where I told you what I do or don’t believe?
Is “I don’t know” an intelligent answer to many (even most) questions, Boris?
If you don’t know then why are you trying to argue with me? Because I do know. There are a bunch of you, most of whom have probably never even cracked open a Bible, talking to me at once. I’m not keeping track, just answering the posts as they appear.
Oh boy, the whataboutism here is becoming ubiquitous. We know who the founder of Christianity was and who decided what books would comprise the Bible: Constantine. Before him there were several diverse Christian cults with diverse ideas about who and what Christ was, all accusing each other of heresy, just as the different sects do today. Which one was the one Jesus founded may I ask? Often the more things change the more they stay the same. There is no need to try to find Jesus in history because he isn’t there and never was. Of the most common archetypes in ancient literature Jesus is an example of almost all of them: Hero, magician, sage, innocent, healer… You guys will never find Jesus because you’re looking in the wrong place. He’s right in front of you in plain sight but you refuse to look because you’d have to admit you’re wrong.
The diversity of the modern Christian community in no way invalidates the possibility that an entity called Jesus started the movement that led to the development of Christianity.
There are millions, if not billions, of people who you will never find in history. And if we kept going back, there are probably thousands of our ape ancestors that have no personal record in natural history. Despite this, you would not suggest they did not exist.
Yet, it does not rule out the existence of Jesus.
Similarly, we will never find the next door neighbors of Mt-Eve or Y-Chr-Adam but it doesn’t mean they did not exist. Until you provide good evidence to show Jesus was a contrivance, then we will take you seriously.
By the way, is it legal for someone’s introductory thread to exceed 200 comments in length?
The diversity of the early Christian cults pretty much does eliminate that possibility.
More whataboutism. On steroids. When your arguments have been reduced to that it’s time to give up.
That’s like saying the Theory of Evolution does not rule out the existence of invisible pink unicorns.
Post #176 I think it is on Aug 27 showing how the Gospel of Matthew is constructed should be enough evidence by itself to show any reasonable person that Jesus is a product of literature, not human parents. Excuse me, one human parent. Over 200 comments, but I’m not being taken seriously? You don’t realize how self-contradictory that is?
“I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me.” - Dave Barry
I don’t know and don’t care what you believe. You appear to be afraid to tell me. I’m just responding to posts here.
There are two classes of people in the world and it’s best to avoid both of them.
Name 'em and claim 'em.
All of you seem to believe Jesus was a real person or there’s a good chance he could have existed. He didn’t and there isn’t. I think most of you are either closet Christians or ex-Christians worried that you fell for the greatest story ever sold when the truth was right in front of you all along.
What is negative about my claims exactly?
You might note that this conversation I started appears to have more replies than any of the others.
On the contrary it exposes the weakness of the argument from silence that you are making. Since you cannot rule out the existence of people in the far past despite the nonexistence of any direct record of them then you cannot rule out the existence of Jesus as well even if we never find any direct evidence for his existence.
Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of invisible pink unicorns. If you think otherwise, then you have a pretty messy understanding of the nature of science.
Even if Christianity did not exist, the mere possibility of Jesus existing in Roman-colonized Israel remains. The Bible Jesus may have been blown to mythic proportions, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t an actual Jesus.
I don’t see the logical equivalence between “a good chance he could have existed” and what people have actually written, such as “doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t exist,” or “There seems to be no reason to expect contemporary documentation of Jesus, even if he really existed,” or “does not rule out the existence of Jesus.”
Just because my uncle Boris is in a cartoon doesn’t mean he didn’t exist. Are you going to arbitrarily rule out this possibility? The Rocky and Bullwinkle show is a parody on the Cold War but that doesn’t mean Boris didn’t exist. That seems to be going right over your heads. Its unlikely that all parts of Rocky and Bullwinkle are actual records of the early days of the Cold War, but it won’t be farfetched to think that some parts are historically accurate. I go with whatever is supported by evidence. Touche.
A rumor in his own time and a legend in his own mind.
Already done. You’ve consistently misrepresented virtually everyone’s position as black/white instead of gray. That’s a false bifurcation combined with a straw man.
Do you not understand these explanations if they aren’t labeled?
You’re claiming that something definitely did not happen while desperately trying to pretend that those disagreeing with you are claiming that something definitely did, even when they point out that there is insufficient evidence for either definite conclusion.
