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Some do, but to my knowledge that's not the prevalent theory.
I thought you said that isn't sufficient, that there has to be actual scientific evidence such as bones or dried blood. Contemporaries writing about him is the evidence we have of Jesus. So if it is good enought for Socrates it should be good enough for Jesus.
It's not sufficient proof he existed, but Occam's Razor favors Socrates' existence because nothing he supposedly did was extraordinary. And by physical evidence I'm pretty liberal, I don't only mean remains. The coins minted during Alexander's reign to me are pretty good evidence we're talking about a real person.
Re: "Short answer: historians deal in reality and actual people, places and events.
Mythology is a separate facet of study"
You know there was a Roman named Porphyry who in those early days of Christianity appeared to be so entranced with a character named Jesus that he went all the way to write a famous tract 'Against the Christians' where he denounced him , his teachings and all the 'Christians' who came after him. He thought Jesus to be a criminal justly put to death by the Roman state for his activities and preaching. From the looks of it, he apparently was not reacting to a ghost who never 'existed'.
Furthermore, his tract was so incendiary that the Roman state just didn't take to it very well. And they tried to stick it under the table for its criticism of the Christian religion and Jesus himself.
Re: "Short answer: historians deal in reality and actual people, places and events.
Mythology is a separate facet of study"
You know there was a Roman named Porphyry who in those early days of Christianity appeared to be so entranced with a character named Jesus that he went all the way to write a famous tract 'Against the Christians' where he denounced him , his teachings and all the 'Christians' who came after him. He thought Jesus to be a criminal justly put to death by the Roman state for his activities and preaching. From the looks of it, he apparently was not reacting to a ghost who never 'existed'.
Furthermore, his tract was so incendiary that the Roman state just didn't take to it very well. And they tried to stick it under the table for its criticism of the Christian religion and Jesus himself.
to say it plainly, GOD chooses to have Christ reasonably believed or not believed
at this point in time. that is your decision and anyone else's, or to not decide; however
what brought up this question was the statement that IF it was ever successfully proven
beyond any doubt that JESUS did not/was not as described and understood by the
subsequent generations since his time; would Christianity continue ? No, it would
be dead. For Christianity on principle and on point is only about that one life,
and not any other.
to say it plainly, GOD chooses to have Christ reasonably believed or not believed
at this point in time. that is your decision and anyone else's, or to not decide; however
what brought up this question was the statement that IF it was ever successfully proven
beyond any doubt that JESUS did not/was not as described and understood by the
subsequent generations since his time; would Christianity continue ? No, it would
be dead. For Christianity on principle and on point is only about that one life,
and not any other.
Invocation of a deity to prove one's point clearly signifies a departure from the path of reason, albeit the new path is one of faith.
But this is the History Forum, not the Faith Forum.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by valsteele
It's not sufficient proof he existed, but Occam's Razor favors Socrates' existence because nothing he supposedly did was extraordinary.
You keep repeating that but it isn't true.
You have to understand that the existance of Jesus of Nazereth, normal human, is indepedent of any myths regarding him.
Maybe in the future people will look back and say you were God Incarnate. Does that mean you don't exist right now? Your reasoning in this matter is fundamentally flawed.
Quote:
And by physical evidence I'm pretty liberal, I don't only mean remains. The coins minted during Alexander's reign to me are pretty good evidence we're talking about a real person.
ok......you realize that Alexander the Great was a LEADER in the ancient world, whereas Jesus was just a common man? You want everyone in Rome to have known of him, yet AT THE TIME he was nothing. It was LATER when people claimed he performed miracles etc. At the time, AD 1-37, no one knew who he was. He was just a Jewish carpenter.
Last edited by neutrino78x; 02-26-2015 at 09:13 PM..
He says in the book that the Church officially supports whatever the current physical theory is for the origin of the universe as well as human evolution. He says "God could have created the universe any way He wanted" and the joy of a Christian who happens to be a scientist is to discover how God created the universe. The Jesuits at the Vatican Observatory practice mainstream secular astronomy (they discovered planets orbiting other stars for example), and they see this as a way to practice Christianity.
He says that the Church teaches that the reasons why there is something rather than nothing, the Great Plan if you will, is where religion comes in, whereas science is used to determine how things happened. And as a Deist, I agree with him and the Church on that point.
Consolmagno has a PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona and a BS in the subject from MIT. He believes in the big bang theory and the multiverse and human evolution.
And yes there are both priests and brothers in the Society of Jesus aka the Jesuits.
Quote:
That will never happen, but if it did, it would destroy Christianity de facto.
Nope. The basis of Christianity is the same as Judaism and Islam: God has a personal nature, God intervenes in the affairs of man (through mysterious means), men can have a personal relationship with God. And according to most denominations, when you die you go to Heaven. I'm not sure what the Jewish or Muslim belief on that is, but my father is Catholic and my mother was a Baptist and I am non-Christian, a Deist but my understanding from my family has always been that we go to heaven when we die.
Although personally I do not believe in life after death. Deism certainly has no opinion on the matter (it is not an organized religion). I think if there is life after death, it would be like the movie What Dreams May Come.
By your logic, the discovery of evolution should have destroyed Christianity (as well as all other religions with a creation myth, such as Islam and Judaism), yet not only did it not destroy Christianity, Islam or Judaism, but the Roman Catholic Church teaches evolution in Catholic schools, as do schools owned by Muslim and Jewish organizations in the Free World.
Quote:
The Church has never made any statement that evolution is true.
lmao where have you been the past 100 years? Let's see here's one example:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pope Pius XII
the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God
There you go. That's from Humani Generis, a statement from Pope Pius XII in 1950.
With Jesus we have absolutely zero evidence of his existence from the years he supposedly was alive. While I can certainly understand disagreeing with the Christ myth theory I don't get why academia treats it as a flat earth theory when the hard evidence in favor of a real Jesus is non-existent. Until we find Jesus's grave or a contemporary account of his life written by someone who actually knew him personally I don't think we can say the Christ myth theory is ridiculous or impossible.
Not important at all. Its fodder for discussion, for debate, and for study, but nothing else. No one cares at this point. Who believes what and who does not was established a long time ago, and every theory in the world has already been explored. Nothing can be proven either way, short of a return, so life goes on, and none of that matters in real life anymore.
Occam's Razor requires you, valsteele, to come up with a pretty convincing set of evidence for the non-existence of a historical Jesus when there are multiple sources dating back to immediately after his life who write about him. You cannot simply dismiss the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles if the claim is merely that the individual existed.
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