/atheism/ - Atheism

That's the thing, I don't pretend to know either way. So until god gives me evidence I won't believe in him.

>>9944

Almost every historian (regardless of faith, or lack there of) worth their salt would agree that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and was crucified by the Romans. Wouldn't you agree?

>>9946

In that case, it should be easy for you to find a reliable, contemporary document directly referencing him.

Go ahead, I'll wait for it.

>>9946

There were loads of guys calling themselves "prophets" back in the day

>>9946

And history is written by the victors. History is to be taken with a grain of salt.

>>9949

history of the ancient world often has one source in which we base all our knowledge from.

However with Christ there are several mentions from all kinds of authors outside of the bible.

You could argue that there more evidence that Jesus existed than Alexander the Great.

The first account of Alexander was written well over 300 years after his death by a single author. The first account of Christ was written within 20-40 years after his death by 4 authors. And other accounts written within a lifetime of his death

>>9947

There are dozens of books written about the subject anon, go to your library

>>9951

>However with Christ there are several mentions from all kinds of authors outside of the bible.

Because many people had to gain from this religion. It'd be like pointing out that today there are pamphlets from various ad agencies for a single person's political campaign.

>The first account of Alexander was written well over 300 years after his death by a single author.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_Alexander_the_Great

>The five main surviving accounts are by Arrian, Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius and Justin.[1] In addition to these five main sources, there is the Metz Epitome, an anonymous late Latin work that narrates Alexander's campaigns from Hyrcania to India. Much is also recounted incidentally by other authors, including Strabo, Athenaeus, Polyaenus, Aelian, and others. Strabo, who gives a summary of Callisthenes, is an important source for Alexander's journey to Siwah.[2]

>>9952

Again, if this information is so prolific, you should be able to find me just one reasonable supporting document with a quick search.

>>9946

That isn't even the case. There are very few fact about Jesus. It seems that even at his time almost no one mentions him. He simply was one of many prophets.

>>9956

Frederic Kenyon The Bible and Archaeology 1940

John McRay Arechaeology and the New Testament 1991

Ian Wilson Jesus: The Evidence 1975

Jack Finegan The Archaeology of the New Testament 1992

Clifford Wilson Rocks, Relics, and Biblical Reliability 1977

Philip Schaff The Person of Christ 1918

Michael Grant Jesus: An Historian's Review of hte Gospels 1977

Craig Bloomberg The Historical Reliability of the Gospels 1987

R.T. France The Evidence for Jesus 1986

These are a few that I found on my local library's website for rental. If you don't like the author's opinion you can go to the sources in the back for how he arrived at them

>>9960

Okay, here's the problem. You haven't looked at these books. You don't know what they have to say, nor what primary sources they use, nor how reliable any of those primary sources are. Hell, from these names, we can't even tell if these actually purport to have direct documentations of Jesus. For all we know, a book titled The Historical Reliability of the Gospels could come to the conclusion that nothing in the Bible stands up to scrutiny. Or, it could spend its time dancing around the issue, using might haves and may indicates.

Even so, even if you had provided me with a direct, contemporary source referencing Jesus, it would be completely impossible for that source to properly verify that he was the product of a virgin birth. It would be impossible to properly verify water into wine, or healing the sick, or resurrection days after death. For these kinds of miracles, I would demand nothing less than the equivalent of a Randi Foundation test to assess the power of this man. Without that, I am left to balance the possibility of miracles that have never been replicated against the probability of a charlatan fooling a bunch of superstitious and ignorant people into writing down a few of his tall tales.

Here's the thing OP. We're not sure. The vast majority of atheists are agnostic. We don't claim knowledge on things that may very well be outside our grasp.

And Jesus may have very well existed. That said, it doesn't necessarily mean he was a messiah. He very well could have been some dude who had his stories exaggerated by some crazy Romans.

>>9946

I thought we were talking about god and supernatural stuff. I have no disbelief in humans and crucifictions.

>>9941

>how can you be so sure of yourself that {Zeus, dragons,cosmic whales,Chtulu} doesn't exist when we don't know everthing? Seems a rather arrogant view to take

On the contrary. To believe in something that is not knowledge is a pretension. We don't claim to be 100% sure that the Hindu gods don't exist, just like we aren't 100% sure that neither do fairies. That's why our honesty requires us to not claim that they exist, i.e. to not believe in them. What we do know is that no valid argument of evidence has been given to support the idea that any of the claimed gods exist. That means there are no reasons to hold such a believe, at least not valid ones.

You have started a thread to criticize atheism without knowing what it actually means. I hope this helps you dig more into the subject. Go to Wikipedia and read just the first paragraphs if you want, and try to evaluate whether atheism means believe in the nonexistence of deities, rather than disbelief in the existence of deities as you assumed.

>>9946

you are making a straw man.

There's historical evidence to believe that Jesus existed. It's very thin evidence which either doesn't match with the religious texts for the most part, or which plainly shows core tenets of christian mythology to be wrong; but it is scientific evidence nonetheless.

However that doesn't mean that history showed that Jesus was god and that Christianity is true. It simply means that after a long and laughable search historians could found just the bare minimum to support the claim that there was a historical Jesus. Historians are much more certain about the existence of Mohamed, Lao-Tse and Siddhartha Gautama than about the existence of Jesus, but that doesn't mean that Mohamed left Earth on a flying horse as Muslims believe, nor that people reincarnate as Buddhists believe.