The fabrication of Jesus.

[Elijah John]

Some go beyond the theory that a real, human Jesus existed and was later mythologized into the Divine person of "Christ".

Some hold that Jesus of Nazareth never existed at all, even as a completely human person.

For debate:

-Why would anyone have invented the tale that Jesus existed?

-Who "invented" Jesus, and why?

[Willum]

[Replying to bjs]

I am afraid I must dismiss your response as disingenuous. It is was written to be believed. The ratio of truth and falsehood is what it had to be.
Have you considered Buddhism? its a very responsible religion.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 9 by rikuoamero]

Your last paragraph strikes home, and is particularly chilling. That is indeed how many bills get through. We do brag that modern law and politics are based on the Roman, it seems very likely this has either been done for 2500 years, or just as conceptually, relearned recently.
Whatd you do today Riku, take too many smart pills?
Cordially, admiringly, and somewhat jealously submitted,

[marco]

Of course, one can dismiss him by pointing to the existence of the early Christian communities that Saul persecuted and would have had to pre-exist him...but I have to point out that if one wants to dismiss these communities because they are un-named...so too must one dismiss them when trying raise up Paul and the other authors of the New Testament as somehow not telling falsehoods of some kind.
After all...neither the Gospel authors, nor Paul, actually name their sources.

Yes, the communities that Paul apparently persecuted are quite mysterious, since Jesus was endorsing Judaism; he was using Scripture to spread his word. So Jews stayed Jews.
Paul is unusually modest on the astounding occurrence on the road to Damascus. One would suppose that had he actually encountered God, then his usual oratory would have been up to the task of advertising this while of course protesting the usual unworthiness. Taking one thing with a pinch of salt suggests we take it all in the same way.

[marco]

-Why would anyone have invented the tale that Jesus existed?

-Who "invented" Jesus, and why?

Why would anyone wish to make up the Piltdown Man as a paleoanthropological hoax? Perhaps Jesus was an elaborate hoax. However, the sincerity in what he is reported to have said, suggests something more than a passing hoax. Perhaps some wise friends got together and arranged his miracles with the intention of making inroads into the intransigence of Judaism. A "blind" man posted here, a "deaf" man over there and one or two spectacular resurrections. Joe was ready to step in to offer the already prepared tomb. Andif things went rong was there a contingency plan to use his twin?

The odd thing is that there is a chance that this is true, without invoking heaven's collaboration. But people would readily dismiss this as far-fetched, and prefer the more rational resurrection of a human god, ultimately defying gravity to go home.

[William]

[Replying to post 11 by Willum]

The seed was planted a while back. Watered more recently.

Christianity - a political device created for a specific purpose.

Credit where credit is due.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 13 by marco]

The odd thing is that there is a chance that this is true, without invoking heaven's collaboration. But people would readily dismiss this as far-fetched, and prefer the more rational resurrection of a human god, ultimately defying gravity to go home.

And that...is the biggest irony of all. The biggest joke. It is what almost drives me to tears the way the Comedian does in the Watchmen movie.

[William]

[Replying to post 13 by marco]

The odd thing is that there is a chance that this is true, without invoking heaven's collaboration.

Even with invoking "heaven's collaboration" one can still rationally arrive at this being the explanation;

ET and the notion of GODs...

But people would readily dismiss this as far-fetched, and prefer the more rational resurrection of a human god, ultimately defying gravity to go home.

Certainly 'far fetched ' or not, one has to wonder at the propensity of people to believe in the words of ancient manuscript to be 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' to the extent that they will purposefully stay ignorant as to any proposed explanations which have the potential to shake their faith in that department.

Such is the fear of 'offending the GOD' and ending up in hell. Losing one's promised position as saints in heaven is just not worth the risk of contemplating the obvious.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 9 by rikuoamero]

Your last paragraph strikes home, and is particularly chilling. That is indeed how many bills get through. We do brag that modern law and politics are based on the Roman, it seems very likely this has either been done for 2500 years, or just as conceptually, relearned recently.
Whatd you do today Riku, take too many smart pills?
Cordially, admiringly, and somewhat jealously submitted,

No no...this is how I usually am. I've described my childhood to some lengths on this forum, described the abusive parents. Being an autistic child prodigy (self diagnosed for the former, clinically diagnosed for the latter, I skipped grades), I took to learning what I had to learn in order to survive, physically, mentally and emotionally. One thing I did during my teenage years was meet up with my father when I wasn't supposed to (this was before I accepted what he was actually guilty of), and this meant having to come up with all sorts of deceptions.
I am NOT bragging when I say I have mastered the art of deception.

As for the bit about bills being stapled - before I came here to DC'n'R, I spent some years on a different site, much like I do now here. One thing they and myself were quite critical of was copyright law. While there, I learned that a person quite literally snuck into US government offices and did what I said - stapled in papers strengthening copyright law into an unrelated bill. This new conglomerate of a bill was then voted on and what was stapled in, became law. This person then joined the MPAA with a high salary. This has always been floating around in my mind as something that happens with US lawmaking.
At the moment, I'm trying to remember who this person is, so don't ask me for a name; all I'm sure about is it happened, and it was talked about on the site frequently as a case of revolving door between government and industry.

[bjs]

[Replying to rikuoamero]

I do not underestimate conspiracies. I dismiss them out of hand. Any major conspiracy, like that one mentioned here, requires a massive number of people to keep a massive secret their entire lives. There is no reasonable possibility of that happening.

[bjs]

[Replying to bjs]

I am afraid I must dismiss your response as disingenuous. It is was written to be believed. The ratio of truth and falsehood is what it had to be.
Have you considered Buddhism? its a very responsible religion.

Disingenuous: adjective; not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

My words may be many things, but they are in no way disingenuous.

I am confused by your statement that I wrote to be believed. Do you write things not to be believed? Indeed, I did write to be believed, since I make an effort to write only what is true.

I have considered Buddhism. I do not see its relevance to this topic.

If I might continue to be candid and avoid any charge of disingenuous words, it seems far more likely that you have dismissed my response because it completely destroys your argument.