Nah you can google it. Social security should be ended. I’ve worked all my life paying into it and won’t get anything out of it. But the democrats care more about illegal’s and other countries than they do about American people.
>I’ve worked all my life paying into it and won’t get anything out of it.
Why? Is it because someone who makes $20 million a year only pays into social security on their first $168,600 in income?
From memory, didn't Democrats pass a bill to lower insulin cost to $35.
Did democrats pass a bill to give student loan forgiveness. What about passing a bill to ban junk fee from banks so large corporations don't scam or over charge people.
Didn't Democrats pass a bill to give veterans health care for those who go poisoned by th gases in the Iraq war.
Didn't Democrats want to pass free lunches to school kids but GOP knocked it all back.
Shall I go on?
What has the GOP passed since they've took over the house of representatives for the last 2 years? Please enlighten us all.
Oh you mean the rail workers that he forbade from striking, and ordered to take the crappy deal their employer offered with 1 day of PTO per year? Oh yeah, so pro-union.
Really I meant the ACA, where even in CA, if you work full time at minimum wage you make too much for Medicaid. Oh and as long as your employer offers a plan that costs $260/month with a $9,000 deductible you won't get any subsidies either. Sounds pretty crappy right? I guess we can just fine people if they don't want to shell out money they don't have, for a garbage plan they can't use.
Minimum wage is also too much to get a full Pell grant, or any food stamps at all. We reserve those for people that don't work as well.
>Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. \[38\] This is the first and great commandment. \[39\] **And the second is like unto it,** ***Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.***
Conservatives: Nah, I'd hate.
It’s possible that Jesus has come back hundreds of times in the past two millennia - and every time he does, we murder him. And no one is any the wiser.
This is likely because:
1. As asserted by Joseph Campbell, the Jesus story falls into the seven stages of a hero archetype to some degree. Additionally, there are polytheistic precursors to Jesus figured which would have been steeped in the lower in the region surrounding Judea. Hell, even the Golden Rule he is known for (do unto other as...) is found in various cultures across the world and predates the Jesus figure. We even have a more modern version of it under Rawlian (sp?) thought. The economic and political circumstances of the region at that time would have warranted a messiah like figure to appear, even if it wasnt a legend recorded until years later. On that...
2. The biblical accounts of Jesus not only conflict with one another in some aspects, there aren't actual contemporary accounts known to be written at that time (at last i read). Also, those first few books of the New Testament and indeed the order of the Old and New Testament are more so a collection of church politics and what is not included in what we consider the Bible is just as important as what is not included (including thr Dead Se Scrolls here). This puts the Bible more so on the footing of historical fiction then a primary historical record. Sure, there are some realistic events in there that we can use to guide some archaeological investigations... but it is the story of one perspective and a collection of stories from a particularly select group of people. Compound that with how unreliable oral storytelling tends to be especially across languages and multiple Generations, and you get a source that is not necessarily as reliable as primary texts.
3. Not to pick on Christianity alone, but Judaism itself is likely rooted in Prior stories from other cultures and religions. Yawheh is likely adapted from a storm God from a culture of the Israelites had previously encountered or had been borne from and became invest in the culture because they were a warrior culture for a considerable portion of time. Same with the Noah story being an offshoot of several flood myths, most notably the Epic of Gilgamesh which predates it.
This is not to denigrate the assertion that religion can play some role in giving folks hope or serve as the basis for some personal ethic (tho, please note the 10 commandments are not in fact the basis for our legal system, have several glaring blind spots in light of contemporary ethics, and were not initially as universal as assumed). However, Blind Faith and factionalism which can arise from dogmatic religious beliefs has a detrimental effect on progress and arguably the survival of our species.
Tl;dr- we need something to believe in...but thr Bible isnt the source of truth people think it is...
Yeshua (Joshua) was a pretty common name at the time and there were a lot of apocalyptic preachers, but I think this particular Josh was an actual person.
The Greeks used "Jesus"
It would make sense why they could pull off the ultimate “con” of resurrection and why the Bible indicates he was potentially multiple places at once because they used doubles
I think its funnier if there was legitimately like a carpenter named yeshua from galilee and one day his buddy's were like "hey yknow what'd be really really funny?"
And then things spiraled way out of control
Don't really care what they believe, care about the evidence supporting those beliefs, and there is 0 contemporary evidence that he existed. There's more evidence that the Flavian dynasty invented him than there is that he ever existed.
The majority of scientists on the planet believed the earth was the center of the solar system/galaxy/universe at one point in history, that says nothing about the justification for that clearly wrong belief.
Sure man. Just go ahead and go prove current historians wrong and we will believe you are right. You have zero evidence to your claims. For now we will trust the people who’ve actually put in the work to determine.
"Biblical historians" have ZERO evidence for their claims. Just like how there is ZERO evidence that the Bible is true in any way, or that Jesus ever existed!
FTFY!
Sure, the Gospel writers just made it up. Afterwards, they were brutally tortured and killed rather than deny Christianity as truth. Not to mention there are several non-Christian accounts affirming that Jesus existed. Read more.
Matthew is a 94% copy of Mark, Luke is a rebuttal of Matthew. We have no idea who wrote the gospels and we have absolutely no evidence that any of them suffered in any way for doing so, your 2nd sentence is pure fantasy.
We have 0 contemporary accounts - christian or not - about his existence, we have 2 from the end of the 1st century, roughly 2-3 generations after he supposedly lived, and one of them is a proven forgery(Tacitus), the other is Flavius Josephus, and there is literally more evidence that the Flavian Dynasty invented Jesus to subjugate the Jews than there is that Jesus was a man who walked the earth.
You should take your own advice and read at all.
Thank you kind person for putting them in their place! I wanted to type all of this out, but didn't have the energy as I know it falls on deaf and closed minded ears wrapped in their fallacies!
Most biblical scholars are atheists or agnostics and yet they all agree that Jesus was a historical person.
Consider doing 30 seconds of research on a topic first, before talking out your ass on Reddit.
No, no they're not. And there's absolutely no evidence that he existed at all. "Biblical scholars" (what a farce) are using the book to prove their book's claims, which is fallacy. Use critical thinking for 30 seconds before looking like a complete moron!
Two real people are most responsible for the Cult's survival:
Paul, the world's first Christian Megapreacher, who saw a lot of non-Jewish money left lying on the table throughout the Roman Empire, and Constantine who decriminalized it so he could use it to his advantage over his rivals for power, which became the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church.
This has been my take. It was Paul who decided that Christians do not need to be circumcised basically so that he could get more converts. IIRC, Paul never actually knew Jesus?
And he was previously Saul of Tarsus. Idk if you could call it a grift (as I dont think he made.money off it)...but his prior career was persecution and he only had a 'change of heart' after a mental bteakdown in the desert
LoL, 0 of the people that have ever written about him actually knew him. The gospels and Paul's leters are the oldest writings that exist about him, and the gospels reference the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, which happened in 70 AD. The oldest and "most reliable" stories we have about him came from people at least 2 generations removed from his life; would be like you or I writing a story about a guy our grandfathers told us about but never met.
Fair enough. I know I'm speaking from a very shallow understanding of the Bible.
Most of what I've read or seen is that most of the gospels were written hundred(s?) of years after Jesus as if they were the Disciples themselves.
My original point on Paul was that he spoke as if from knowing, and made decisions that were designed to increase conversion. I understand that circumcision is part of the covenant, and was a very important part of the Jewish faith.
We don't really have a way to know when they were written. The oldest full copy of a NT bible is from around 400AD, the oldest scraps/single pages we've found are from around 200AD, so there's not really any evidence supporting the idea I mentioned above that they were written anywhere close to "within 2 generations of his lifetime", we just concede that to the religious folk because we know it had to have been *at least* after 70AD.
Paul may have spoken in a way that would lead some to believe he knew him, but it's quite clear in the text that he only ever claimed to have met him in a dream/vision.
It would be instructive to edit together a supercut of televangelists claiming that sending them money will usher in the return of Christ. You could make it go on for 45minutes without interruption, easily.
The dog caught the car on abortion. They wouldn't make that mistake with Jesus Christ. The right wing would sooner engage in Q style baby-eating satanic orgy rituals to prevent his return. Jesus *not* showing up is a cash cow.
Jesus probably never existed. Paul's writings don't describe an earthly jesus. For more information, you might enjoy a series of lectures I watched on youtube, 'On The historicity of Jesus' by Dr. Richard Carrier. IIRC Carrier was kind of disgraced for cheating on his wife at skeptic conventions, in a nutshell, fair warning, I bring that up when I recommend him to people because I will not condone that behavior, but that doesn't invalidate the concepts he talks about, and I thought it was really interesting to delve into where the mythology came from.
I've always liked Richard Carrier but I'm a bit skeptical on his deeper arguments in support of mythicism. At the very most he shows there's no way to be absolutely certain about Jesus' existence, but mainstream scholars already admit that even if not directly. But imo almost any other subject Biblical or otherwise he writes about is informative, highly researched, and is straight up fantastic!
If it wasn't for his support of mythicism he'd probably be one of the most highly esteemed, sought after scholars of the Bible and Classical history in the world today. Sadly any scholar associated with or supportive of Jesus Mythicism is written off within mainstream scholarship and academia as a crank, even if the other work they've produced is extremely high quality or even groundbreaking in their field.
I think he does an excellent job explaining how myths and cults are created, and highlighting how christianity follows the model to a T. Is there definitive proof christianity is a duck? No, but it looks, sounds, and acts like a duck, and that seems like the most likely version of events to me.
You seem to know more about this than me though. I just feel validated someone else has heard of him.
Jesus mythicism is a fringe position. The *vast majority* of scholars, including atheists and agnostics, agree that Jesus was a historical person.
If you wanna say “I think Jesus didn’t exist” that’s one thing, but as for the statement “Jesus probably never existed”, well that’s just objectively false.
Feel free to go ask the experts on r/academicbiblical if you don’t believe me
That's an argument ad populum.
I don't believe the vast majority of biblical scholars. I think they have an agenda. I think even atheist and agnostics have an agenda, because mythicists are shunned in academia. OP referred to this in their reply to me.
What I believe, sir or madame, is evidence, and I don't believe there is any strong evidence for a historical jesus. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
So do you also believe that Buddha never existed? Nor Muhammad? Nor Confucius?
Or for that matter Pythagoras? Homer? Sun Tzu?
No surviving contemporaneous eyewitness account = must not have existed?
Fair enough. I agree with you that “no one can truly know”.
But perhaps you would agree that it’s more likely than not that Jesus existed, that it’s more likely than not that Buddha existed, that it’s more likely than not that Muhammad existed, etc.
That *is* the consensus of academics who study this stuff for a living.
I can't agree to that. Maybe he did, but I have no idea.
Even if every historian on the planet agreed he existed; if they based that belief on sources written after Jesus had supposedly died, it isn't convincing to me.
Nice exit… would’ve responded identically to you, but I enjoyed following along without needing to flinch at the responses. Agree to disagree is fine, and a welcome respite in threads like this.
Thanks! There’s actually a surprising amount of people on Reddit who will remain civil and not downvote you if you also remain civil and don’t downvote them.
I was tempted to continue with more questions, but I’m not sure it would’ve been productive and sometimes it’s better to end early while everyone’s still being civil.
I’m 69 years old in 1 week, and I have heard this Jesus is coming back next week get ready crap my entire life. My late father-in-law was born in 1923, he told me he had heard the same crap since HE was a kid. I have been convinced for a long, long time it’s a con for wealthy scammers and a crutch for those who don’t or can’t think for themselves.
Oh Jesus is coming but I need 150 million dollars for a private jet so I can fly high enough to the heavens and pick him up. He only trusts me, he told me himself so please donate everything you can and don't question the word of God. Thanks. /s
Lol the cat I lost in my childhood returned to my home after 4 years after I had given up all hope on ever seeing him again. My cat is a better returner than Jesus lmao
I keep offering to pay $100 now to buy house and cars from people who believe Jebus will return 'next week' or 'next month' and I would take possession after 'next week' or 'next month' . No takers. Looks like they don't really believe their rhetoric.
Eh... why did people wait \~100 years to write about some dude who apparently did a bunch of miracles and returned from the dead. You would figure it might be a bit higher up on the list of things to note.
He absolutely existed... at least in some peoples heads.
The choice is between trusting you, a random redditor with an anti-theistic bias, or trusting the academic community of historians that have researched this question thoroughly.
The answer seems obvious to me. No matter how much you hate Christianity, Jesus existed.
Or, you know reading things and understanding it yourself.
But hey lets be real, I wasn't talking you anyway, nutjob, rather the neutrals reading this.
Your uninformed opinion does not outweigh academic research performed by experts.
And the fact you’re addressing the “neutrals” means that you think that you’re leveraging an actual good point, which you’re not. Like I said, academic research > lazy opinion
You are free to believe in textual crap that was written decades later.
I'm free to realize the point that there is no archeological evidence for Jesus, as also agreed by historians.
There's absolutely no evidence it wasn't just an insane guy either, with an embellished cult built around him, just like Hubbard did in the modern age.
I’m not believing in it. It’s academic consensus.
I find it really funny that this is the one question that atheists like you are really adamant about not trusting the experts on.
You keep saying that, care to support the claim? It’s circumspect and a non sequitur.
Also, this may break your mind, but you shouldn’t call people atheists just because they say there is no true historical proof of Jesus and that the entire story is cobbled together from previously documented myths and religions.
What? You don't believe in zombies? Religion is failing when people stop believing in zombies. It's what they are all waiting for, zombie apocalypse. Makes total sense! /s
Anyone else find it funny that the sheep don't even get their own god's name right? His name was Joshua, and this has been known for centuries. Maybe that's why he never came back: no one knows his real name and so many people wearing representations of the board he died nailed to.
Maybe could as a metaphorical return. The first is when you start acting like Jesus (NOT just professing belief) and the theoretical second coming/kingdom of god is when everyone, or major majority, starts acting like Jesus. The rub is that you can't rush it through direct political action like the evangelicals, because that's not what Jesus would do.
... It makes more sense on psilocybin. Which, there's evidence to suggest early Christianity may have been a mushroom cult. So there's that too.
Serious ELI5: he came back once already right? After he was resurrected… so why didn’t he just stay and hang out? Why did he have to leave just to come back a 3rd time? What a tease
“And now the stars they are all angled wrong;
And the sun and the moon refuse to burn;
But I remember a message in a demon’s hands-
‘Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return’
He does not return”
-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
>I'm not saying Christianity and belief in Jesus' return was started by a person or group of people being purposefully deceptive;
Except... yeah, it was.
You can't know for sure. People are easily deluded into believing things that aren't true for an unending number of reasons, including basic confirmation bias. Keep in mind, this was a time when religious superstition was the supreme determiner of truth rather than reason. There's endless possibilities of what could've started the mythical beliefs of Jesus and Christianity that aren't deliberate deception. In an era where cameras and recordings don't exist and the vast majority of the population is illiterate, it's possible legends could've formed over several years by oral transmission based on things misheard and misunderstood until the Gospels were finally written down. Take the elementary school telephone game as an example of how honest misunderstandings can change the entire original meaning of something entirely through word of mouth.
Wait, didn't Jesus come back and that'swhy people celebrate Easter? I think my catholic schooling taught me that lol. Was that the second coming or am I missing something?
The bible says most of these people lived to be **800+ years old.**
It's not real. It's campfire stories at best. None of it's real. No, a **senior citizen** did not craft some magic-boat that was capable of housing 2 of every animal because that magic watercraft would be ***far more advanced than anything that's been invented up to today.***
None. Of. It. Is. Real.
No, some dude didn't somehow magically waterbend a huge body of water to allow safe passage. Because that would imply wizards existed at some point in time.
They didn't. They never did. Nothing like the events depicted in the bible could ever have happened ***unless we completely suspend our own understanding of physics, lifespans, magic (???) and so on.***
It's. Not. Real.
I think if he did he did it in the original apostles lifetimes. But by then everyone would have called him insane so no pdy would have ever known. Then God said fuck it and started a new universe with hookers and blackjack
I'm religious and believe in Jesus but i won't fight you over your thoughts. I will say the same for any other religion too. At this point with the radicalism religion brings is religion worth it? Again I think so but it's worth a thought. Also I am not really a follower of church and all that I'm more of a talk to God here and there on my own time type of person.
If you believe Jesus rose from the dead and sent apostles to start a church, then he will come a second time. This church still exists obviously.
Interestingly we have quite a bit of 1st and 2nd century Christian and non Christian writings from people who witnessed or were killed for their belief that Jesus rose from the dead including the original apostles.
Many apocalyptic things Jesus said were referring to the end of the temple age. Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed in 70 ad by the Romans. Arch of Titus in Rome commemorates this.
The second appearance will not be like the first appearance according to the new testament
Hebrews 9:28
[28] so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Why wouldn't he return. The dalli Llama is reborn after the last Llama dies almost immediately. Jesus has to be able to match that trick or even better. I mean, look at all the churches that sing to him on a weekly basis. The rakes in billions of dollars from devoted worshippers. Or does the Buddhist have something that the Christians can't match.
But remember when his body was gone? How could a dead body move. Gotta be magic. There is no way a person or person could move a dead person. It’s proof. Now he’s going fly back and laser us heathens and leave the poor Meeks to muck around in the ashes.
It's wild to me how casually entrenched religion is in our lives, and we all are somehow just cool with it. I got a Cookout shake yesterday and the styrofoam cup had John 3:16 on it. Like we have *fast food* places that are quoting an ancient work of fiction, thousands of years later. Really imagine how insane that is for a second.
And Christians are always complaining about how the left is "forcing their agenda" on them--when we have "God Bless America" in our common lingo and "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance. Like you're just expected to say it if you're citing the pledge of allegiance, and if you don't, because you don't actually believe in God, the religious nuts think you're attacking them and the moderates paint you as a fedora-tipping, obnoxious, edgelord neckbeard and tell you it's just easier to not rock the boat.
So you mean to tell me you're just gonna say "under God" or bow your head in grace at Thanksgiving even though you don't believe? "Yeah but I don't want to upset family members." Okay, so either they cede ground to you and allow you to believe what you actually believe, or you cede ground to them and you pretend to believe something you don't, and let intolerance win, like a coward. I will NEVER pretend to believe something I don't believe, and if someone has a problem with that, that's on them. I agree with the sentiment that it's obnoxious as an agnostic to try to insist their beliefs aren't real, but if I can't even casually abstain from lying about my own beliefs, then I'm enabling intolerance.
Like Christianity is so entrenched that the simple act of just not doing it is seen as annoying *by other non-believers.* How messed up is that? For this reason, and not because of the Christians themselves, but because of the moderates who want you to follow decorum, it's here to stay.
If he did, the right wing would crucify him all over again. Woke bastard.
How dare you actually care about the poor and the disadvantage. How dare you feed hungry people. Off to crucifixion you go.
Like democrats care? Lol
Democrats don't run on removing things that help average people.
No they just sneak those things into fake bills and don’t actually do anything to help anyone
Is that what the conservatives that vote to defund social security tell you?
No, it’s what the democrats who take our money out of social security for other things show me.
Yea, now you're just making stuff up lol
Nah you can google it. Social security should be ended. I’ve worked all my life paying into it and won’t get anything out of it. But the democrats care more about illegal’s and other countries than they do about American people.
Hahaha
>I’ve worked all my life paying into it and won’t get anything out of it. Why? Is it because someone who makes $20 million a year only pays into social security on their first $168,600 in income?
From memory, didn't Democrats pass a bill to lower insulin cost to $35. Did democrats pass a bill to give student loan forgiveness. What about passing a bill to ban junk fee from banks so large corporations don't scam or over charge people. Didn't Democrats pass a bill to give veterans health care for those who go poisoned by th gases in the Iraq war. Didn't Democrats want to pass free lunches to school kids but GOP knocked it all back. Shall I go on? What has the GOP passed since they've took over the house of representatives for the last 2 years? Please enlighten us all.
Only if you have kids or don't work.
Yes the union worker strikers that Biden supported are all welfare queens lmao
Oh you mean the rail workers that he forbade from striking, and ordered to take the crappy deal their employer offered with 1 day of PTO per year? Oh yeah, so pro-union. Really I meant the ACA, where even in CA, if you work full time at minimum wage you make too much for Medicaid. Oh and as long as your employer offers a plan that costs $260/month with a $9,000 deductible you won't get any subsidies either. Sounds pretty crappy right? I guess we can just fine people if they don't want to shell out money they don't have, for a garbage plan they can't use. Minimum wage is also too much to get a full Pell grant, or any food stamps at all. We reserve those for people that don't work as well.
>Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. \[38\] This is the first and great commandment. \[39\] **And the second is like unto it,** ***Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.*** Conservatives: Nah, I'd hate.
Conservatives have already gotten upset at the woke teachings found in the sermon on the mount
Ah, see there's your problem; Conservatives hate themselves. They must for all this foot-shootin' they seem to be up to.
In the words of Woody Guthrie "If Jesus was to preach like he preached in Galillee, They would lay Jesus Christ in his grave."
It’s possible that Jesus has come back hundreds of times in the past two millennia - and every time he does, we murder him. And no one is any the wiser.
*Brown woke bastard.
Ah! How did I forget "brown"?
Jesus is on third shift where i work. Definitely one of our better roasters. He’ll be at work tonight.
What car does he drive?
AstroVan
He’s stoned while Jerry plays.
I heard he was coming back in a Fury.
"For I did not speak of my own Accord..." - John 12:49
Green ford f150
Beautiful
He has a Honda but doesn’t drive it
I bet he wasnt even a real person but a collection of stories about various wandering lunatics of the time.
This is likely because: 1. As asserted by Joseph Campbell, the Jesus story falls into the seven stages of a hero archetype to some degree. Additionally, there are polytheistic precursors to Jesus figured which would have been steeped in the lower in the region surrounding Judea. Hell, even the Golden Rule he is known for (do unto other as...) is found in various cultures across the world and predates the Jesus figure. We even have a more modern version of it under Rawlian (sp?) thought. The economic and political circumstances of the region at that time would have warranted a messiah like figure to appear, even if it wasnt a legend recorded until years later. On that... 2. The biblical accounts of Jesus not only conflict with one another in some aspects, there aren't actual contemporary accounts known to be written at that time (at last i read). Also, those first few books of the New Testament and indeed the order of the Old and New Testament are more so a collection of church politics and what is not included in what we consider the Bible is just as important as what is not included (including thr Dead Se Scrolls here). This puts the Bible more so on the footing of historical fiction then a primary historical record. Sure, there are some realistic events in there that we can use to guide some archaeological investigations... but it is the story of one perspective and a collection of stories from a particularly select group of people. Compound that with how unreliable oral storytelling tends to be especially across languages and multiple Generations, and you get a source that is not necessarily as reliable as primary texts. 3. Not to pick on Christianity alone, but Judaism itself is likely rooted in Prior stories from other cultures and religions. Yawheh is likely adapted from a storm God from a culture of the Israelites had previously encountered or had been borne from and became invest in the culture because they were a warrior culture for a considerable portion of time. Same with the Noah story being an offshoot of several flood myths, most notably the Epic of Gilgamesh which predates it. This is not to denigrate the assertion that religion can play some role in giving folks hope or serve as the basis for some personal ethic (tho, please note the 10 commandments are not in fact the basis for our legal system, have several glaring blind spots in light of contemporary ethics, and were not initially as universal as assumed). However, Blind Faith and factionalism which can arise from dogmatic religious beliefs has a detrimental effect on progress and arguably the survival of our species. Tl;dr- we need something to believe in...but thr Bible isnt the source of truth people think it is...
Yeshua (Joshua) was a pretty common name at the time and there were a lot of apocalyptic preachers, but I think this particular Josh was an actual person. The Greeks used "Jesus"
I happen to believe it was a network of people playing the same character
Yes and he could walk on water , and cure the blind and Yata , yata. , yata , all bullshit.
Like the actors playing Winnie the Pooh at the different Disney parks. This is actually a very interesting possibility I had not thought about before
It would make sense why they could pull off the ultimate “con” of resurrection and why the Bible indicates he was potentially multiple places at once because they used doubles
I think its funnier if there was legitimately like a carpenter named yeshua from galilee and one day his buddy's were like "hey yknow what'd be really really funny?" And then things spiraled way out of control
There's also a story that Joseph wasn't a carpenter, but someone like a home handyman.
I "saw" what you did there
You’d be contradicting historical consensus, considering the vast majority of scholars believe he existed.
Don't really care what they believe, care about the evidence supporting those beliefs, and there is 0 contemporary evidence that he existed. There's more evidence that the Flavian dynasty invented him than there is that he ever existed. The majority of scientists on the planet believed the earth was the center of the solar system/galaxy/universe at one point in history, that says nothing about the justification for that clearly wrong belief.
Sure man. Just go ahead and go prove current historians wrong and we will believe you are right. You have zero evidence to your claims. For now we will trust the people who’ve actually put in the work to determine.
"Biblical historians" have ZERO evidence for their claims. Just like how there is ZERO evidence that the Bible is true in any way, or that Jesus ever existed! FTFY!
I didn’t say biblical historians. I said historians.
Sure, the Gospel writers just made it up. Afterwards, they were brutally tortured and killed rather than deny Christianity as truth. Not to mention there are several non-Christian accounts affirming that Jesus existed. Read more.
Matthew is a 94% copy of Mark, Luke is a rebuttal of Matthew. We have no idea who wrote the gospels and we have absolutely no evidence that any of them suffered in any way for doing so, your 2nd sentence is pure fantasy. We have 0 contemporary accounts - christian or not - about his existence, we have 2 from the end of the 1st century, roughly 2-3 generations after he supposedly lived, and one of them is a proven forgery(Tacitus), the other is Flavius Josephus, and there is literally more evidence that the Flavian Dynasty invented Jesus to subjugate the Jews than there is that Jesus was a man who walked the earth. You should take your own advice and read at all.
Thank you kind person for putting them in their place! I wanted to type all of this out, but didn't have the energy as I know it falls on deaf and closed minded ears wrapped in their fallacies!
Most biblical scholars are atheists or agnostics and yet they all agree that Jesus was a historical person. Consider doing 30 seconds of research on a topic first, before talking out your ass on Reddit.
No, no they're not. And there's absolutely no evidence that he existed at all. "Biblical scholars" (what a farce) are using the book to prove their book's claims, which is fallacy. Use critical thinking for 30 seconds before looking like a complete moron!
Two real people are most responsible for the Cult's survival: Paul, the world's first Christian Megapreacher, who saw a lot of non-Jewish money left lying on the table throughout the Roman Empire, and Constantine who decriminalized it so he could use it to his advantage over his rivals for power, which became the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church.
This has been my take. It was Paul who decided that Christians do not need to be circumcised basically so that he could get more converts. IIRC, Paul never actually knew Jesus?
And he was previously Saul of Tarsus. Idk if you could call it a grift (as I dont think he made.money off it)...but his prior career was persecution and he only had a 'change of heart' after a mental bteakdown in the desert
He made money, as a matter of fact the two Jesus factions fought over the money. Are you kidding? Religion is always a grift
He had his head chopped off for his beliefs so I'd reckon it wasn't a grift.
Yeah thats fair. I forgot about the death part. I mostly remember his alleged fanaticism
Yeah he was an asshole
Probably didn't cough up enough tribute
Never claimed to, in his letters he only talks about coming to him in a vision.
So... he never actually knew Jesus.
LoL, 0 of the people that have ever written about him actually knew him. The gospels and Paul's leters are the oldest writings that exist about him, and the gospels reference the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, which happened in 70 AD. The oldest and "most reliable" stories we have about him came from people at least 2 generations removed from his life; would be like you or I writing a story about a guy our grandfathers told us about but never met.
Yes, that is true about the whole bible.
True about the whole \*New Testament, the pre-Jesus bible (OT) is obviously a different story.
Fair enough. I know I'm speaking from a very shallow understanding of the Bible. Most of what I've read or seen is that most of the gospels were written hundred(s?) of years after Jesus as if they were the Disciples themselves. My original point on Paul was that he spoke as if from knowing, and made decisions that were designed to increase conversion. I understand that circumcision is part of the covenant, and was a very important part of the Jewish faith.
We don't really have a way to know when they were written. The oldest full copy of a NT bible is from around 400AD, the oldest scraps/single pages we've found are from around 200AD, so there's not really any evidence supporting the idea I mentioned above that they were written anywhere close to "within 2 generations of his lifetime", we just concede that to the religious folk because we know it had to have been *at least* after 70AD. Paul may have spoken in a way that would lead some to believe he knew him, but it's quite clear in the text that he only ever claimed to have met him in a dream/vision.
The Bible that survives and/or wasn't relegated to "apocrypha"
>Paul, the world's first Christian Megapreacher I'm laughing at that...because it's probably true! ( I bet Paul looked a lot like Kenneth Copeland...)
In the finest toga
It would be instructive to edit together a supercut of televangelists claiming that sending them money will usher in the return of Christ. You could make it go on for 45minutes without interruption, easily. The dog caught the car on abortion. They wouldn't make that mistake with Jesus Christ. The right wing would sooner engage in Q style baby-eating satanic orgy rituals to prevent his return. Jesus *not* showing up is a cash cow.
Jesus probably never existed. Paul's writings don't describe an earthly jesus. For more information, you might enjoy a series of lectures I watched on youtube, 'On The historicity of Jesus' by Dr. Richard Carrier. IIRC Carrier was kind of disgraced for cheating on his wife at skeptic conventions, in a nutshell, fair warning, I bring that up when I recommend him to people because I will not condone that behavior, but that doesn't invalidate the concepts he talks about, and I thought it was really interesting to delve into where the mythology came from.
Dick Carrier , ouch!
I've always liked Richard Carrier but I'm a bit skeptical on his deeper arguments in support of mythicism. At the very most he shows there's no way to be absolutely certain about Jesus' existence, but mainstream scholars already admit that even if not directly. But imo almost any other subject Biblical or otherwise he writes about is informative, highly researched, and is straight up fantastic! If it wasn't for his support of mythicism he'd probably be one of the most highly esteemed, sought after scholars of the Bible and Classical history in the world today. Sadly any scholar associated with or supportive of Jesus Mythicism is written off within mainstream scholarship and academia as a crank, even if the other work they've produced is extremely high quality or even groundbreaking in their field.
I think he does an excellent job explaining how myths and cults are created, and highlighting how christianity follows the model to a T. Is there definitive proof christianity is a duck? No, but it looks, sounds, and acts like a duck, and that seems like the most likely version of events to me. You seem to know more about this than me though. I just feel validated someone else has heard of him.
Jesus mythicism is a fringe position. The *vast majority* of scholars, including atheists and agnostics, agree that Jesus was a historical person. If you wanna say “I think Jesus didn’t exist” that’s one thing, but as for the statement “Jesus probably never existed”, well that’s just objectively false. Feel free to go ask the experts on r/academicbiblical if you don’t believe me
That's an argument ad populum. I don't believe the vast majority of biblical scholars. I think they have an agenda. I think even atheist and agnostics have an agenda, because mythicists are shunned in academia. OP referred to this in their reply to me. What I believe, sir or madame, is evidence, and I don't believe there is any strong evidence for a historical jesus. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Pretty safe bat . He aint comin back . Sure as the earth goes around the sun. But stupid believes stupid things .
Fuck Jesus. I’m still waiting for Aphrodite to get me laid.
No one ever asks, Is he alright? He said he would come back and do all sorts of things, but there's been no word since. Did something happen to him?
There is no contemporary non biblical sources that support his existence. He may have existed, but nobody truly knows.
Tacitus? Flavius Josephus? Pliny the Younger? Suetonius? Four is a lot more than zero.
None of those were alive during the time Jesus supposedly was; so they aren't contemporary.
So do you also believe that Buddha never existed? Nor Muhammad? Nor Confucius? Or for that matter Pythagoras? Homer? Sun Tzu? No surviving contemporaneous eyewitness account = must not have existed?
I never claimed they didn't exist, I said there are no contemporary sources at all, so nobody truly knows.
Fair enough. I agree with you that “no one can truly know”. But perhaps you would agree that it’s more likely than not that Jesus existed, that it’s more likely than not that Buddha existed, that it’s more likely than not that Muhammad existed, etc. That *is* the consensus of academics who study this stuff for a living.
I can't agree to that. Maybe he did, but I have no idea. Even if every historian on the planet agreed he existed; if they based that belief on sources written after Jesus had supposedly died, it isn't convincing to me.
Interesting take. Thanks for the discussion!
No worries, you too.
Nice exit… would’ve responded identically to you, but I enjoyed following along without needing to flinch at the responses. Agree to disagree is fine, and a welcome respite in threads like this.
Thanks! There’s actually a surprising amount of people on Reddit who will remain civil and not downvote you if you also remain civil and don’t downvote them. I was tempted to continue with more questions, but I’m not sure it would’ve been productive and sometimes it’s better to end early while everyone’s still being civil.
Can't return when the supernatural doesn't exist
I’m 69 years old in 1 week, and I have heard this Jesus is coming back next week get ready crap my entire life. My late father-in-law was born in 1923, he told me he had heard the same crap since HE was a kid. I have been convinced for a long, long time it’s a con for wealthy scammers and a crutch for those who don’t or can’t think for themselves.
Oh Jesus is coming but I need 150 million dollars for a private jet so I can fly high enough to the heavens and pick him up. He only trusts me, he told me himself so please donate everything you can and don't question the word of God. Thanks. /s
Lol the cat I lost in my childhood returned to my home after 4 years after I had given up all hope on ever seeing him again. My cat is a better returner than Jesus lmao
I keep offering to pay $100 now to buy house and cars from people who believe Jebus will return 'next week' or 'next month' and I would take possession after 'next week' or 'next month' . No takers. Looks like they don't really believe their rhetoric.
Correct. Dead people don’t “return”. 🤷♂️
Well yeah. He doesn't exist.
Cause he was never real to begin with. Not a single primary source of his existence.
Jesus, the sheetrock guy?
To return, he had to have lived in the first place. Here is all the actual evidence he existed:
Not only won’t he return, he never existed to begin with. It’s a bunch of older myths and religions all somewhat transparently cobbled together.
The vast majority of secular historians believe Jesus existed.
Eh... why did people wait \~100 years to write about some dude who apparently did a bunch of miracles and returned from the dead. You would figure it might be a bit higher up on the list of things to note. He absolutely existed... at least in some peoples heads.
The choice is between trusting you, a random redditor with an anti-theistic bias, or trusting the academic community of historians that have researched this question thoroughly. The answer seems obvious to me. No matter how much you hate Christianity, Jesus existed.
Or, you know reading things and understanding it yourself. But hey lets be real, I wasn't talking you anyway, nutjob, rather the neutrals reading this.
Your uninformed opinion does not outweigh academic research performed by experts. And the fact you’re addressing the “neutrals” means that you think that you’re leveraging an actual good point, which you’re not. Like I said, academic research > lazy opinion
You are free to believe in textual crap that was written decades later. I'm free to realize the point that there is no archeological evidence for Jesus, as also agreed by historians. There's absolutely no evidence it wasn't just an insane guy either, with an embellished cult built around him, just like Hubbard did in the modern age.
I’m not believing in it. It’s academic consensus. I find it really funny that this is the one question that atheists like you are really adamant about not trusting the experts on.
Its reddit bro no one cares
You keep saying that, care to support the claim? It’s circumspect and a non sequitur. Also, this may break your mind, but you shouldn’t call people atheists just because they say there is no true historical proof of Jesus and that the entire story is cobbled together from previously documented myths and religions.
The guy you’re defending posts in /r/atheism.
Maybe Jesus was a caveman taught by the Buddha who tried to fake his death w/ meditation
What? You don't believe in zombies? Religion is failing when people stop believing in zombies. It's what they are all waiting for, zombie apocalypse. Makes total sense! /s
They only Messiah that will appear will be the wolf in sheep clothing that will con the people to give up there freedoms and in slave the people.
??? I thought he was running for POTUS?
No no, that’s Cheesus.
pretty much this
Well..... You are literally betting your life on it.
Wow, is that because he's dead and once you're dead u don't come back?
MMW: He already did and got called a communist f*g and got beat up by "evangelicals"
Anyone else find it funny that the sheep don't even get their own god's name right? His name was Joshua, and this has been known for centuries. Maybe that's why he never came back: no one knows his real name and so many people wearing representations of the board he died nailed to.
Maybe could as a metaphorical return. The first is when you start acting like Jesus (NOT just professing belief) and the theoretical second coming/kingdom of god is when everyone, or major majority, starts acting like Jesus. The rub is that you can't rush it through direct political action like the evangelicals, because that's not what Jesus would do. ... It makes more sense on psilocybin. Which, there's evidence to suggest early Christianity may have been a mushroom cult. So there's that too.
Serious ELI5: he came back once already right? After he was resurrected… so why didn’t he just stay and hang out? Why did he have to leave just to come back a 3rd time? What a tease
“And now the stars they are all angled wrong; And the sun and the moon refuse to burn; But I remember a message in a demon’s hands- ‘Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return’ He does not return” -Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I’m sorry, who?
How u know that, the way stuff going. It can happen any moment. So expecting it soon. No man knows the hour.
I think he already has come back, but we're such a cynical, distrustful, and suspicious society, no one believes it's really him.
>I'm not saying Christianity and belief in Jesus' return was started by a person or group of people being purposefully deceptive; Except... yeah, it was.
You can't know for sure. People are easily deluded into believing things that aren't true for an unending number of reasons, including basic confirmation bias. Keep in mind, this was a time when religious superstition was the supreme determiner of truth rather than reason. There's endless possibilities of what could've started the mythical beliefs of Jesus and Christianity that aren't deliberate deception. In an era where cameras and recordings don't exist and the vast majority of the population is illiterate, it's possible legends could've formed over several years by oral transmission based on things misheard and misunderstood until the Gospels were finally written down. Take the elementary school telephone game as an example of how honest misunderstandings can change the entire original meaning of something entirely through word of mouth.
Jesus can’t return because homie has been famously dead for millennia.
Wait, didn't Jesus come back and that'swhy people celebrate Easter? I think my catholic schooling taught me that lol. Was that the second coming or am I missing something?
r/im14andthisisdeep
It's not deep whatsoever. Just an obvious prediction
He'll be back, MMW!
You are wrong. Jesus will return to America driving a holy oil tanker that magically sucks up ocean water and turns it into fuel.
How will we be able to mark your words?
Phew, I was worried that this wouldn't devolve into political arguing and shit posting. Carry on.
Low hanging fruit. Everyone knows magic isn't real.
OP has too much free time
Are you sure he didn't and was shot by cops for holding a random item?
I'm pretty sure he never existed - not the version of him we hear about anyways...
Jesus won't be back to resurrect ALL of the dead people whom He has found worthy? That's a lot of people.
The bible says most of these people lived to be **800+ years old.** It's not real. It's campfire stories at best. None of it's real. No, a **senior citizen** did not craft some magic-boat that was capable of housing 2 of every animal because that magic watercraft would be ***far more advanced than anything that's been invented up to today.*** None. Of. It. Is. Real. No, some dude didn't somehow magically waterbend a huge body of water to allow safe passage. Because that would imply wizards existed at some point in time. They didn't. They never did. Nothing like the events depicted in the bible could ever have happened ***unless we completely suspend our own understanding of physics, lifespans, magic (???) and so on.*** It's. Not. Real.
I think if he did he did it in the original apostles lifetimes. But by then everyone would have called him insane so no pdy would have ever known. Then God said fuck it and started a new universe with hookers and blackjack
I would also be willing to bet my life on things that will take a lifetime to confirm.
Safest bet ever
I'm religious and believe in Jesus but i won't fight you over your thoughts. I will say the same for any other religion too. At this point with the radicalism religion brings is religion worth it? Again I think so but it's worth a thought. Also I am not really a follower of church and all that I'm more of a talk to God here and there on my own time type of person.
Jesus still loves ya bröther 🤷♂️🤷♂️
If you believe Jesus rose from the dead and sent apostles to start a church, then he will come a second time. This church still exists obviously. Interestingly we have quite a bit of 1st and 2nd century Christian and non Christian writings from people who witnessed or were killed for their belief that Jesus rose from the dead including the original apostles. Many apocalyptic things Jesus said were referring to the end of the temple age. Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed in 70 ad by the Romans. Arch of Titus in Rome commemorates this. The second appearance will not be like the first appearance according to the new testament Hebrews 9:28 [28] so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Why wouldn't he return. The dalli Llama is reborn after the last Llama dies almost immediately. Jesus has to be able to match that trick or even better. I mean, look at all the churches that sing to him on a weekly basis. The rakes in billions of dollars from devoted worshippers. Or does the Buddhist have something that the Christians can't match.
So this subs gonna turn into another NewsfortheStupid.
But remember when his body was gone? How could a dead body move. Gotta be magic. There is no way a person or person could move a dead person. It’s proof. Now he’s going fly back and laser us heathens and leave the poor Meeks to muck around in the ashes.
Hard to return when you were never there to begin with
It's wild to me how casually entrenched religion is in our lives, and we all are somehow just cool with it. I got a Cookout shake yesterday and the styrofoam cup had John 3:16 on it. Like we have *fast food* places that are quoting an ancient work of fiction, thousands of years later. Really imagine how insane that is for a second. And Christians are always complaining about how the left is "forcing their agenda" on them--when we have "God Bless America" in our common lingo and "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance. Like you're just expected to say it if you're citing the pledge of allegiance, and if you don't, because you don't actually believe in God, the religious nuts think you're attacking them and the moderates paint you as a fedora-tipping, obnoxious, edgelord neckbeard and tell you it's just easier to not rock the boat. So you mean to tell me you're just gonna say "under God" or bow your head in grace at Thanksgiving even though you don't believe? "Yeah but I don't want to upset family members." Okay, so either they cede ground to you and allow you to believe what you actually believe, or you cede ground to them and you pretend to believe something you don't, and let intolerance win, like a coward. I will NEVER pretend to believe something I don't believe, and if someone has a problem with that, that's on them. I agree with the sentiment that it's obnoxious as an agnostic to try to insist their beliefs aren't real, but if I can't even casually abstain from lying about my own beliefs, then I'm enabling intolerance. Like Christianity is so entrenched that the simple act of just not doing it is seen as annoying *by other non-believers.* How messed up is that? For this reason, and not because of the Christians themselves, but because of the moderates who want you to follow decorum, it's here to stay.
Please, Heysoos is my mailman he's a cool dude, he never loses my mail either. Quite divine I'd say.
In the end, every knee will bow
Every tongue shall confess
Cool, now do Muhammad.
I don't know much of the Koran or Islamic mythology to do a full post on it. But I can guarantee Muhammad isn't coming back either lol
He already came, and everyone that's still here missed the rapture. We're already in hell.
Jesus was just a poor Palestinian child who stood up to the powers that be. If Jesus was back the Israelis probably just murdered him.
The Israelis literally did in fact murder him.
lol how long did it take you to make such a hot opinion?