Christianity and Apologetics

[GADARENE]

often, jesus myth theorists demand evidence- scientific, verifiable, repeatable evidence from those who reject their theories. however, frequently, they will not present evidence when asked to do so. why?

[Divine Insight]

the question though is why don't the jmt provide evidence to support their opinions during a debate

I'm not sure what you mean by "Jesus Myth Theories".

My observations of real life historical information indicate to me that the New Testament Gossips are most likely extremely exaggerated and superstitious rumors about some potential person who might have actually lived.

Does this recognition that the New Testament writings are most likely superstitious rumors coupled with potentially deceitful and outright false religious propaganda and politics qualify as a "Jesus Myth Theory"?

If it does then I certainly have a very strong "Jesus Myth Theory".

You ask for evidence to support my opinions?

Here you go:

1. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus strongly disagreeing with Jewish religious authority.

2. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus renouncing the immoral teachings of the OT and replacing them with morals far more in line with those of Buddhism.

3. Even the Gospels have Jesus saying "I and the Father are One" which is indeed the Buddhist philosophy, "Tat T'vam Asi" meaning "You are That", in a spiritual sense. You are the spirit you seek.

4. Even the Gospels have Jesus being defending himself against charges of blasphemy by pointing to the Jewish OT and saying, "It is not written in your law, I said ye are Gods".

That's his own defense according to the Gospels themselves when he was being charged with proclaiming to be God. He's basically saying that anyone can claim to be one with the father.

He also taught that what you do to the least of your brethren you do to him. Again, this is the pantheistic view of Buddhism.

Most of the evidence that Jesus was most likely a Buddhist and couldn't have possibly agreed with the OT are right in the Gospel rumors themselves.

Besides, this is only one tiny little part of it.

I can, and have, already given tons of reasons why the OT itself necessarily cannot be from any all-wise God.

Also, what sense does it even make to have a God who so hates the world one moment that he drowns out the bulk of humanity with a Great Flood, and then turns around and so loves the world later to give his only begotten son to pay for the sins of men?

That is to totally inconsistent that such a God would need to be seriously mentally ill and suffering from extreme emotional and character instability.

There is absolutely no way, that Jesus could have been the "sacrificial lamb" of the God of the Old Testament.

That's not even a remote possibility.

Therefore there necessarily has to be another explanation.

Either the rumors about this Jesus fellow were rumors about some actual mortal man that were blown way out of proportion, OR the Jesus myth is entirely made up fiction and there was no real person even associated with these fables at all.

I personally think it's more likely that they are just rumors about some guy who had a run in with the Jewish Pharisees and was crucified for disagreeing with the orthodox Judaism of his day.

So many things in these stories are way too absurd.

This God supposedly speak from a cloud to verify that Jesus is his son when there is no one important around to hear this?

Yet, when Jesus is being accused of blaspheme this God doesn't make a peep from any clouds?

It's utter nonsense.

Period amen.

That's my stance, and I've given plenty of evidence for it. Evidence that comes directly from these very rumors themselves.

Anyone who claims that I don't give evidence to back up my views is in total denial of truth.

[1213]

1213:

In your opinion, will a righteous atheist go to heaven? Can an atheist be "righteous?" If the answer to these questions is "no," then belief is still a necessary (if not a sufficient) condition for "salvation" on your view, meaning that your version of Christianity still depends on belief.

I think it may be possible. According to the Bible righteous person lives by faith. And I think it means that because person is righteous, has right understanding, he is faithful to God. And faithfulness to God means that person remains in truth and understands that God’s will is good and therefore keeps it.

Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith.
Habakkuk 2:4
But the righteous will live by faith. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
Hebrews 10:38
These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

I think righteous person is faithful to truth, and therefore he doesn’t say that God doesn’t exist. So if atheist claims that God is not, then he is not in my opinion righteous and so don’t have right understanding or wisdom of the just.

I think the Bible is really about righteousness, not about believing in God’s existence. And for example I think Thomas was righteous, even though he didn’t believe that Jesus had risen until he saw Jesus.

So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!�But he told them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger into them, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe!�
John 20:25
Jesus said to him, “Is it because you have seen me that you have believed? How blessed are those who have never seen me and yet have believed!�John 20:29

According to the Bible, even demons believe that God is one. But they seem to be not faithful to God. Therefore I think believing that God is, is not the crucial thing.

You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder.
James 2:19

Demons are not likely loyal/faithful to God’s word, so they are not righteous and have not eternal life. And in my opinion person can be loyal to God’s word, if he understands that it is good. And that doesn’t in my opinion need that person knows that God is.

Reason to be unfaithful to God is not that person don’t believe that God is, reason is that person doesn’t accept his will. Can atheist accept God’s will? That I think solves is he righteous.

[Star]

What's a Jesus myth theory?

I believe Jesus may have been a real man, but was neither a prophet nor the son of god.

[GADARENE]

What's a Jesus myth theory?

I believe Jesus may have been a real man, but was neither a prophet nor the son of god.

but, why do you think jesus may have been a real man? that's what i'm trying to learn from the myth believers. he wasn't a prophet nor the son of god, but perhaps a real man, why? what helps you figure this out? what evidence? what rationale? what logic?

is it more a gut decision, intuition, process of elimination, common sense?

[GADARENE]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Jesus Myth Theories".

My observations of real life historical information indicate to me that the New Testament Gossips are most likely extremely exaggerated and superstitious rumors about some potential person who might have actually lived.

Does this recognition that the New Testament writings are most likely superstitious rumors coupled with potentially deceitful and outright false religious propaganda and politics qualify as a "Jesus Myth Theory"?

If it does then I certainly have a very strong "Jesus Myth Theory".

You ask for evidence to support my opinions?

Here you go:

1. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus strongly disagreeing with Jewish religious authority.

2. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus renouncing the immoral teachings of the OT and replacing them with morals far more in line with those of Buddhism.

3. Even the Gospels have Jesus saying "I and the Father are One" which is indeed the Buddhist philosophy, "Tat T'vam Asi" meaning "You are That", in a spiritual sense. You are the spirit you seek.

4. Even the Gospels have Jesus being defending himself against charges of blasphemy by pointing to the Jewish OT and saying, "It is not written in your law, I said ye are Gods".

That's his own defense according to the Gospels themselves when he was being charged with proclaiming to be God. He's basically saying that anyone can claim to be one with the father.

He also taught that what you do to the least of your brethren you do to him. Again, this is the pantheistic view of Buddhism.

Most of the evidence that Jesus was most likely a Buddhist and couldn't have possibly agreed with the OT are right in the Gospel rumors themselves.

Besides, this is only one tiny little part of it.

I can, and have, already given tons of reasons why the OT itself necessarily cannot be from any all-wise God.

Also, what sense does it even make to have a God who so hates the world one moment that he drowns out the bulk of humanity with a Great Flood, and then turns around and so loves the world later to give his only begotten son to pay for the sins of men?

That is to totally inconsistent that such a God would need to be seriously mentally ill and suffering from extreme emotional and character instability.

There is absolutely no way, that Jesus could have been the "sacrificial lamb" of the God of the Old Testament.

That's not even a remote possibility.

Therefore there necessarily has to be another explanation.

Either the rumors about this Jesus fellow were rumors about some actual mortal man that were blown way out of proportion, OR the Jesus myth is entirely made up fiction and there was no real person even associated with these fables at all.

I personally think it's more likely that they are just rumors about some guy who had a run in with the Jewish Pharisees and was crucified for disagreeing with the orthodox Judaism of his day.

So many things in these stories are way too absurd.

This God supposedly speak from a cloud to verify that Jesus is his son when there is no one important around to hear this?

Yet, when Jesus is being accused of blaspheme this God doesn't make a peep from any clouds?

It's utter nonsense.

Period amen.

That's my stance, and I've given plenty of evidence for it. Evidence that comes directly from these very rumors themselves.

Anyone who claims that I don't give evidence to back up my views is in total denial of truth."


"You ask for evidence to support my opinions?

Here you go:

1. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus strongly disagreeing with Jewish religious authority" DIVINE INSIGHT

the gospel rumors have jesus disagreeing? they are rumors. you use rumors as evidence?

[GADARENE]

"Professor Marshall was correct that neither any earlier attempt nor Wells have swayed scholarly opinion. This remains true whether the scholars were Christians, liberals, conservatives, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, or Catholic. And even GA Wells himself has now conceded that a real figure called Jesus lay behind some of the teaching contained in the synoptic Gospels." CHRIS PRICE

the jesus myth theorists believe jesus was a myth.

[Divine Insight]

Here you go:

1. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus strongly disagreeing with Jewish religious authority" DIVINE INSIGHT

the gospel rumors have jesus disagreeing? they are rumors. you use rumors as evidence?

You are simply not understanding what is being claimed here.

I'm not claiming that the gospel rumors are evidence that Jesus was an actual person.

In the above I'm simply showing that even the Gospel rumors themselves provide [/i]their own evidence[/i] that this guy named Jesus didn't even agree with the Jewish religious authority.

Whether or not Jesus was an actual person, or a totally made up work of fiction, the Gospels are still claiming that Jesus did not agree with the mainstream Judaism of his day precisely because he disagreed with the mainstream Jewish religious authorities.

It's evidence that Jesus wasn't even in agreement with orthodox Judaism assuming that Jesus was even a real person at all.

I am in no way proclaiming that the Gospels are "evidence" that Jesus was a real person.

On the contrary, I'm allowing the assumption that some guy, possibly named "Jesus" (or something along those lines), might have potentially sparked the writing of these Gospels rumors.

And what I'm pointing out is that even if this guy was a real person, these rumors have him refuting orthodox Judaism anyway by constantly arguing with the mainstream orthodox Jewish religious authorities.

So I'm using that as my evidence that, "Even if we assume that Jesus was a real person, the Gospel rumors still have him rejecting mainstream Orthodox Judaism".

So even these Gospel rumors are loaning support to my theories that Jesus was far more likely to be coming from an entirely different philosophical mindset.

In fact, I hold that this is true even if Jesus is a totally made-up fictitious character. Whoever made him up was clearly arguing against mainstream orthodox Judaism in this fictional fairytale.

So my conclusions hold TRUE, whether Jesus was a real person, or a totally made up work of fiction.

~~~~~

I then go further and suggest that if the Gospels were totally made up fiction they are extremely poorly written and highly self-inconsistent and self-contradicting. So much so that's it hard for me to believe that anyone could have made up such a totally self-inconsistent and convoluted tale as a purely fictional story.

So it makes far more sense to me that these stories are indeed nothing short of superstitious rumors where various authors contributed their own superstitious spin on them. This would then explain why they are so convoluted and self-conflicting.

So it makes sense to me to view these rumors as the "New Testament Gossips", instead of the "New Testament Gospels".

As totally superstitious gossip it makes perfect sense why they are so outrageous and self-inconsistent.

Then we can move from there and try to figure out what might have actually happened to spark these outrageous superstitious rumors.

And so that is my approach. And I hold that it is a very productive approach.

Simply recognize that Jesus was a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva and that all these superstitious rumors sprang into being over misunderstandings of what this man was trying to teach, and suddenly the whole thing makes perfect sense.

That's my perspective on this.

And also far more to the point. Why should some God cast me into eternal damnation for merely coming to this very reasonable conclusion?

How could it be considered to be "immoral" to come to the conclusions I've come to?

I'm clearly not simply attempting to rebel against "GOODNESS".

On the contrary I hold that my theory of Jesus actually represents a higher moral picture than the original Gospel rumors demand.

Yet according to those Gospel rumors I should be condemned for not believing that Jesus was the "Son of the God of Abraham".

That doesn't make any sense to me at all. So all the more reason to reject them.

[GADARENE]

Here you go:

1. Even the Gospel rumors have Jesus strongly disagreeing with Jewish religious authority" DIVINE INSIGHT

the gospel rumors have jesus disagreeing? they are rumors. you use rumors as evidence?

You are simply not understanding what is being claimed here.

I'm not claiming that the gospel rumors are evidence that Jesus was an actual person.

In the above I'm simply showing that even the Gospel rumors themselves provide [/i]their own evidence[/i] that this guy named Jesus didn't even agree with the Jewish religious authority.

Whether or not Jesus was an actual person, or a totally made up work of fiction, the Gospels are still claiming that Jesus did not agree with the mainstream Judaism of his day precisely because he disagreed with the mainstream Jewish religious authorities.

It's evidence that Jesus wasn't even in agreement with orthodox Judaism assuming that Jesus was even a real person at all.

I am in no way proclaiming that the Gospels are "evidence" that Jesus was a real person.

On the contrary, I'm allowing the assumption that some guy, possibly named "Jesus" (or something along those lines), might have potentially sparked the writing of these Gospels rumors.

And what I'm pointing out is that even if this guy was a real person, these rumors have him refuting orthodox Judaism anyway by constantly arguing with the mainstream orthodox Jewish religious authorities.

So I'm using that as my evidence that, "Even if we assume that Jesus was a real person, the Gospel rumors still have him rejecting mainstream Orthodox Judaism".

So even these Gospel rumors are loaning support to my theories that Jesus was far more likely to be coming from an entirely different philosophical mindset.

In fact, I hold that this is true even if Jesus is a totally made-up fictitious character. Whoever made him up was clearly arguing against mainstream orthodox Judaism in this fictional fairytale.

So my conclusions hold TRUE, whether Jesus was a real person, or a totally made up work of fiction.

~~~~~

I then go further and suggest that if the Gospels were totally made up fiction they are extremely poorly written and highly self-inconsistent and self-contradicting. So much so that's it hard for me to believe that anyone could have made up such a totally self-inconsistent and convoluted tale as a purely fictional story.

So it makes far more sense to me that these stories are indeed nothing short of superstitious rumors where various authors contributed their own superstitious spin on them. This would then explain why they are so convoluted and self-conflicting.

So it makes sense to me to view these rumors as the "New Testament Gossips", instead of the "New Testament Gospels".

As totally superstitious gossip it makes perfect sense why they are so outrageous and self-inconsistent.

Then we can move from there and try to figure out what might have actually happened to spark these outrageous superstitious rumors.

And so that is my approach. And I hold that it is a very productive approach.

Simply recognize that Jesus was a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva and that all these superstitious rumors sprang into being over misunderstandings of what this man was trying to teach, and suddenly the whole thing makes perfect sense.

That's my perspective on this.

And also far more to the point. Why should some God cast me into eternal damnation for merely coming to this very reasonable conclusion?

How could it be considered to be "immoral" to come to the conclusions I've come to?

I'm clearly not simply attempting to rebel against "GOODNESS".

On the contrary I hold that my theory of Jesus actually represents a higher moral picture than the original Gospel rumors demand.

Yet according to those Gospel rumors I should be condemned for not believing that Jesus was the "Son of the God of Abraham".

That doesn't make any sense to me at all. So all the more reason to reject them.

this oft repeated, unintelligent, silly, convoluted, what feels like an endless justification, hasn't worked once. summarizing would be nice, too. long-winded, rambling nonsense is suggestive of a seventh grader seeking to fill five pages of bologna hoping to sucker a teacher into buying the myth you actually know your subject. but you do get an a for effort.

as someone hyper-critical of christianity as a contrived, rumored, pie-in-the-sky, pile of unsubstantiated fairy tales, you sport a remarkably similar talent.

get honest. your journey begins that moment

[Divine Insight]

get honest. your journey begins that moment

I've already given you the most pure and divine honesty possible.

You're refusal to acknowledge it is your problem.

My Honest Truth

1. The Old Testament is far too unwise and disgusting to be the word of any God.

2. The idea that any God would partake in a plan to have humans butcher his Son on a pole is even more disgusting, in my honest sincere opinion.

3. The fact that this religion must necessarily portray their God as being hateful is disgusting, in my honest sincere opinion.

4. I try my best to salvage a glimmer of respect for the man they have butchered, and for this they defile me.

5. It's crystal clear to me that Christianity is actually quite anti-Jesus.

These are all truths. Bare naked sincere honesty that I offer to any genuinely divine being that might exist.

The Christians would have their evil God condemn me for merely being honest and sincere.

Thus proving to me beyond any shadow of a doubt the dishonesty and insincerity of their religion.

Their religion preaches one thing, and one thing only. Hatred toward anyone who doesn't support their religion.

And that is the naked truth.

You ask for honesty, but you can't handle it when you receive it.

[Star]

What's a Jesus myth theory?

I believe Jesus may have been a real man, but was neither a prophet nor the son of god.

but, why do you think jesus may have been a real man? that's what i'm trying to learn from the myth believers. he wasn't a prophet nor the son of god, but perhaps a real man, why? what helps you figure this out? what evidence? what rationale? what logic?

is it more a gut decision, intuition, process of elimination, common sense?

Are you able to answer my question coherently? If the answer's no, then you and I are done here. I won't get into a debate with you on this until 1) I understand what you mean by JMTs, 2) you understand my position on Jesus, or lack thereof (which I can tell already you don't), and 3) I have an opinion on this subject that I care enough about to bother defending (which I won't know until you answer me).