Unless, of course, an all powerful and all knowing being reveals itself to us.

Ironically the story of Abraham in his father's idol shop rings true.

birthed a few religions. Seems like the idea is that the stories of religions get old and reprocessed bc the world is so much older than we know.
Aside...what does that say that we are the generations killing her? Gods help us.

I think, at the time, Hillel, as a teacher and sage, was probably much better known in Jerusalem than Jesus ever was. In Judaism, Hillel is revered as a fount of wisdom, while Jesus didn't do as well in his home area, and Christianity really developed in the Gentile community.

It's also possible that time has confused the two identities, sometimes conflating them with each other. Since the Gospels were written by people who never saw either one in person, and since the New Testament is a hodgepodge of writings with uncertain origins and missing original manuscripts, it's hard to say what is what and who was who. It all dates back so far that much is obscured by time.

Religion is a collection of writings, myths, and tales told by and to a long chain of people. There is much we do not know about exactly what happened, when, and to whom.

Shouldn't true believers focus on the teaching rather than literalism?

to attach all those teachings to some individual, preferably an individual with direct ties to a deity. That gives them more weight. Some 2000+ years later, the actual information is lost forever. Since no eye-witnesses wrote any of what happened down at the time, we have only hearsay and a 2000 year game of Telephone to go on.

Add to that the most of the teachings that have to do with our relationships with our fellow humans are common to almost all religions and codes of laws and ethics, they have been developed independently in many places. Somehow, good advice for living is arrived at through reason, rather than revelation.

Stories of divine origins, miraculous events, conquering heroes, and the like, simply give things more weight in the minds of ordinary people. But, only if you can convince people of those divine and supernatural things, can you create a major religion.

So, no, it doesn't matter if they actually lived. It matters that people have been convinced that they did.

I have decided that literalists who wish only to impose their evil religions on me are Satan.

It's arguably a more honest approach to pretend all of it is real rather than picking and choosing which parts are and aren't.

while retaining believe in some portion of it all, works OK. Belief in some aspect, though, no matter how small, is still required. Something like an undefined "creator" that started the whole ball rolling down the hill.

So they invent or subscribe to hocus pocus. We are reminded that such convenient myths are irreplaceable and serve their purpose, at least to some I suppose.

All of It's a Sillyjocus
Abracadabara and Alacazam
Line up for your answers, Sir and Ma'am!

.. why can't texts written by Bronze Age people be a metaphor?

I bet, in the ultimate irony, those Bronze Age authors would have a good laugh at how gullible we are, kind of the same way as Unindicted Co-Conspirator laughs at the morons who believe in him.

It's just a bit dishonest to claim what you want it to mean is what the original authors meant.

It cannot be proven or disproven. I respect everyone's faith unless and until they misrepresent it as something more than faith and attempt to impose it upon others.

Your claim that reality is an illusion is not something that has been demonstrated.

As an initial premise, it is faulty, so logic based on that faulty premise is also faulty.

At least for almost all Christian sects.

That is a fatal flaw.

My point was that christians have an overwhelming bias toward convincing themselves that their myths are based on historical events.

I have found plenty of non-fundamentalists and as I understand it God, Herself has never appeared before anyone to settle anything.

As far as proof contained within the bible itself, you have different chapters written by different people in different languages all referencing the same person. While some of these chapters were undoubtedly sourced from the same lost reference, some were not. The weak point is at best it's 4th or 5th person accounts written decades if not centuries after this alleged person was long gone.

Outside the bible there's a couple of 3rd person (at best) accounts of a person named Jesus, although there's almost no testament to his ministry other than his name and manner of execution.

The fact that there's almost no Roman references to Jesus highly suggests he was insignificant in his own time, at least to the Romans.

It's easier to believe there was a person named Jesus who was probably a Rabbi over a non-mainstream sect of Judaism. It's not as if there would have been a shortage of such people from which a mythology could be built upon. The question is how closely the mythology matches the actual person, and it's much harder to believe they were all that close. Decades and centuries of oral tradition don't do much for fidelity of a story, particularly when much of it was made up from the very beginning.

I'm pretty sure it's the majority opinion of biblical historians that Jesus actually lived and was crucified. Any more similarities to the fictional tale, not so much.

Without objective proof it remains 100% faith. Whether you agree is irrelevant.

First of all, I'm talking about authoritative opinions, not uneducated speculation. So calling this appeal to popularity is specious.

Next, those opinions are based on evidence contained in independent accounts found in historical documents. "Whether you agree is irrelevant" works both ways.

Sorry but you still refer to someone's guess based on no real evidence, assuming you are even being truthful in your assertion.

And no, my demurer is not based on whether I agree. So you are wrong about that too.

You might want to give that statement some thought as being so sure you are right often leads to embarrassment eventually when your arguments don't pan out. I realize that works both ways which is why I was careful to just say I don't agree from the beginning and not that you are wrong.

As far as history goes, no amount of evidence is going to convince someone who has already decided they are right. That's why you have people who believe the moon landings are fake, the pyramids were built by aliens, and global warming is a Chinese hoax. The evidence has been referenced. Whether or not it convinces you is your choice, but I'm pretty sure most of the best authorities are basing their decisions on something better than a guess. YMMV.

Dude, there is no proof one wsy or the other. It is all faith. Period. End of story.

and join the theological faculty.

But just because you can doesn't mean you should. For example, telling someone how they feel is plain old ignorant and rude.

Facts are facts. Speculation is speculation. Speculation based on third rate Bronze Age fiction is nothing more than that. I don't need your approval, nor the approval of your alleged history professors.

If you find a real argument, you know where to find me.

When you learn something about the study of history, you can call me. I'll give you a hint though: it's not for people who think in black and white.

Nor do I care. The allegation makes about as much sense as your dichotomy.

It's right there. Ixnay the gaslighting.

You can't prove that Jesus existed or whether he did not exist.

If that's what constitutes ad hominem and gaslighting in your book, you really should look up what those terms mean(along with this one BTW) or just grow a thicker skin. You know, kinda like I did when you implied I was lying and I gave you a pass for that unnecessary insult.

I just wish you wouldn't engage in them.

Again you tell me what I am thinking. Why do you want to be rude?

"Reality is just an illusion." Speaking of logical fallacies...that was your initial premise, upthread.

You have billions of gamma rays passing through you as you type, hitting nothing. That is reality and yet we do not perceive it. Nor do have any awareness of most of the visual or sound spectrums. We perceive ourselves as residing in our heads yet we have no idea where we reside, nor what we are. Time is an illusion.

Need I go on?

As far as unenhanced awareness, what you said is true. However, we have instruments that are able to detect and display the entire electromagnetic spectrum, not to mention the light spectrum, which is part of that. I have, in fact, a dongle plugged into a USB port that lets me examine the elecromagnetic spectrum from 1 MHz to 3 GHz as a display on my monitor and that lets me manipulate signals in numerous ways. It cost about $20.

Other instruments let me, or other humans, explore the vastness of space or see individual atoms. We can examine both in a very wide range of visual, electromagnetic and even nuclear spectra.

We are not limited to our native capabilities. We can extend those dramatically. Why? Because all of those phenomena are real, not illusions.

I can't detect gamma rays, but I know a place where they can and do and study gamma rays. It's not my field, but I read about what people are doing in that regard.

Reality is not an illusion. It is real. We expand our view of it constantly.

But, please do go on, if you wish. It's a public forum.

The vast majority of the true nature of our universe and beyond remains unknown and probably will be beyond our perception.

Any fool can be snarky about it. Public forum and all of that.

We perceive certain things. We do not perceive other things. This does not mean the things we do perceive all illusions.

While it can be argued in a rhetorical sense, the idea that everything is an illusion is based on a denial of individual identity as separate beings. That's clearly not true. I'm typing on my computer in Minnesota. Others are typing on theirs wherever they are. While I could probably pretend to be the entity that identifies itself as Cary, I would know that I was not that entity.

Besides, I rarely disagree with myself, but do disagree with the entity that is Cary. That is adequate evidence for me to consider both of us to be real human entities.

The "Illusion" argument is a decidedly weak one.

We know and interact with reality through our senses. You can't use your senses to make an argument that they don't exist.

which gained some traction following that movie's release. A whole new generation discovered an age-old concept that has been argued and refuted more than once.

It's a fun thing to consider. "Does the world I experience exist only in my imagination?" I wondered that at about age 10, and quickly dispensed with the idea.

Meanwhile, here's the "I just landed" photo from the latest Mars mission:

Link to tweet

That was not the point I made, and you know it.

Your problem is that you cannot distinguish between my assertintion that there is much that we don't know and what you accuse me of saying, which is that we cannot detemine anything. You extrapolating and thus misrepresenting me.

Look at the thread. Most of it is arguments with you. None of it has to do with the subject of the original post.

While you have every right to do that, it's not a very nice thing to do, I think.

Here is a quote from one of your post titles in this thread:

"What we perceive as reality is indeed an illusion."

No. It is not. It is our perception within the limitations of our powers of observations. We have extended our ability to perceive many, many times, and are continuing to do so. None of those extensions have even scratched the surface of reality being real.

Bye, now.

The point I made originally WAS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE ONE YOU MADE later.

To wit: no one can prove or disprove whether Jesus actually existed.

If you have a problem with that then you have a problem, not me.

While you have every right to do that, it's not a very nice thing to do, I think. 

You can start new threads for yourself. There's no need to hijack mine.

Please be good enough to take out your frustrations on someone else.

Much of it is made up by our brains because processing consumes energy.

You process about 1 megapixel of visual information. You don't have much in the way of peripheral vision, your brain makes mozt of that up.

This has nothing to do with the matrix but I do give you credit for chasing me down this rabbit hole in order to deflect from the only real point I made, which is that you cannot prove or disprove whether Jesus actually existed.

I could just as well argue you've distracted from my only argument, which is that between proof/no proof there are a range of probabilities and evidences that historians actually use. If you'd like a name for this fallacy, it's the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. If you don't like a name for your own fallacies, then don't name fallacies.

So looking to their authority for proof of historicity is a bit problematic.

The majority of biblical historians have a predisposition to find that the jesus myth has a basis in historical facts. However there is zero physical evidence and almost zero documtary evidence. The documents we do have are almost all from centuries after the events. The one contemporaneous history is Josephus and the copies we have of that, almost everyone agrees, were doctored in at least one of the two relevant passages. It’s pretty slim.

Ancient historians in general work with slim evidence. 95% of ancient written records are lost forever. Most of what we do have are handwritten copies of copies. Archeology is basically about picking through garbage.

We have less evidence for Thales of Miletus than we do for Jesus, but historians think he existed. If it weren't for Jesus' religious significance few outside academia would care. We'd probably just take their word for it, and talk about something else.

Their credibility depends on how they control for those biases and there's numerous academics both religious and secular who have considerable credibility on the subject.

There are very few first century documents that exist today compared to the evidence we have for them. The reason is because such documents from that time were highly frangible and subject to being lost by fire, flood, theft, etc. The fact that no original documents exist isn't surprising. It would be more surprising if they did. So they were scribed and rescribed as necessary, all of which induced the possibility of modification. Historians are well aware of this and have all sorts of authenticity considerations and tests they apply. If you could throw out all evidence on the basis of a lack of original documents and copies that were subject to editing, you'd have to throw out quite a bit more like pretty much everything that references Aristotle and numerous other sages throughout history.

Just because a document dates decades or even centuries after an event, doesn't mean it's worthless. If author A publishes something that author B references, but author A's work is subsequently lost, that doesn't invalidate the writing of author B. Because so many historical documents are lost, much of what we know about history is established by such provenance.

Regardless of academic standards of evidence or bias or what you believe on the subject, the claim that there is "zero" is ridiculous. The evidence clearly exists. Whether you are moved by it or not does not mean it isn't there.

Which relies heavily on inference and guesswork, particularly in ancient history. Most of ancient history is based on one or two sources, with historians having to fill in the blanks as best they can, to figure out what "probably" happened.

So, when it comes to Jesus, we are taking a lot of educated guesses. It's not really "faith" for non-Christians because it really doesn't matter to them if Jesus existed or not, just like it doesn't matter if Homer existed. Strictly an academic exercise.

It's only a matter faith for Christians because they are basing their lives on it.

I still see no evidence.

Keep in mind that I never said that Jesus never existed.

One thing I find curious though is the similarity between Christian theogy and pagan mythology. The same is true of the Hebrew Bible and the archeological record indicates that the ancient Israelites were actually Canaanites. No Jewish slaves in Egypt. No 40 years in the desert. No Moses.

And also by the way, my proposition here is that it doesn't matter.whether Jesus ever existed, not that Jesus didn't actually exist. Whether Jesus was divine is yet another question that cannot be anawered. It is all faith.

The Bible is not a history book, but it contains historical information. What is actually historical is determined by historical methods with a certain degree of probability. It is more probable that an itinerant preacher named Joshua existed around 30 CE than it is that this preacher was the Son of God. You don't have to care about either question. But they aren't really matters of faith. Unless you make them so.

DNA evidence. Reliable first hand accounts.

Pretty much what we actually use.

I originally said it should not matter whether the story is literally true.

By the way this comports not only with my own logic, but also with the faith I was raised into. It is not the literal story (which is impossible) that matters, it is the deeper meaning. In my faith that means that God put a bit of.Herself in every person's heart, therefore serving people is serving God. In Christianity it is slightly different but similar enough.

What is so horrible about that? Would Jesus want you to fight with me on the internet about whether or not he literally existed, or would he want you to feed the hungry?

Most is 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand. Even when we have first hand accounts, historians weigh it with a critical eye. Lots of ancient "first hand accounts" are forgeries, fabrications or richly embellished by personal agendas, with no easy method of deciding which is which. We rely heavily on people like Herotodus who made excessive use of hearsay.

Archeology has it's limits. We rarely find written records. We mostly find artifacts, which can inform us about lifestyles, but don't tell us very much about persons.

DNA evidence is nice for ancient demography and things like that. It won't give you information that can only be gotten from written records, 95% of which are forever lost.

That Jesus existed because, as you claim, very little ancient history is objective?

Really?

There is a substantial areheological record. Sorry, but there is.

In a field built on shades of gray.

You are overestimating the value of archeology. 2000 years from now, how much will anyone know about your own life based on only the foundation of your house and your smashed dinner plates? They'll learn something, but it will also be a lot of educated guesses. And a lot will be wrong, subject to revision every time they find a new potsherd.

Why do want to engage in ad hominem?

Either an actual Jesus existed or not. You can say yes, an actual Jesus.existed. You can say no, an actual Jesus dis not exist. Or you can say, as I do, no one can prove or disprove.

My mind would not be more "open" if I concluded that Jesus didnor.did not exist. Your assertion is ridiculous.

You told me how I think! I made no ad hominen here. I never said anything about "open minded." That's a total fabrication on your part.

There is black and white non-probablistic thinking. Which seems pretty clear since you only admit of your predetermined evidence, which is all or nothing. It's either 100% objective information (based apparently on your own subjective opinion) or it's "faith." That's not an ad hominen. That's literally what you said.

You admit of nothing in the middle, and refuse to consider the actual methods that historians of the Ancient Near East actually use. So yes, black and white thinking. And lack of knowledge of history and historical method which I myself got from "alleged" teachers and so-called history "books."

Your faith is your faith, nothing more and nothing less. When you assert that it is more than faith, you are proselytizing.

Did you just commit the sin of telling me how I think? Shame on you.
/s

When multiple independent sources are all saying the same thing, the level of confidence in the conclusion increases dramatically.

Certainly there are well educated sources who say Jesus didn't exist at all, but they seem far more interested in selling books than actually making sound arguments.

There are millions of people who believe the Clintons murdered 30 people. You are saying that the number of people makes this right wing conspiracy theory credible.

Ridiculous.

Not that I am telling you how you think, but there is big difference between arguing that the majority of independent Ancient Near Eastern scholars think something and that millions of biased laymen think something.

That doesn't mean someone who claims otherwise isn't full of shit. There's all sorts of historical figures with "zero" first hand accounts that are known to exist. Equating that to batshit crazy conspiracy theories doesn't do your credibility any favors.

I stated fact: you cannot prove nor disprove that Jesus ever actually existed.

You responded with all manner of deflection and logical fallacies and emotional appeals.

If reality is an illusion, then we can't prove anything anyway, so what's the point?

Yet that didn't stop you from throwing that out there from left field as if the opinions of the most respected academics on the subject are somehow equal to batshit crazy conspiracy theories.

Also a nice touch throwing out your strawman nonsense claim once again after bullshit was called on it in the same breath you accuse me of logical fallacies.

Since you seem so concerned with narrowing the conversation, what you asserted that I challenged was...

depend on their existence for support. Teachings require a teacher to originate them.

Now, I cannot prove that either Hillel or Jesus existed. I can prove that the teachings attributed to them exist, however.

Sources matter. Really, though, there is more evidence of the existence of Hillel than of Jesus. Why is Hillel not the Messiah? Because there are no claims of divine origins for Hillel. There are for Jesus.

Wise sayings that come to us in writing all had an origin in some individual at some point. It is useful to know what individual.

So, yes, it does matter to some degree. For me, the existence of some wise teaching in multiple cultures or religions is far more important, though. That and an understanding of what makes a teaching wise, establish the usefulness of that teaching.

Lots of wisdom are attributed to both Hillel and Jesus. The origins of that wisdom remain unknown, however, with any real degree of certainty.

obviously, just a man...and like any historical figure, it's almost guaranteed that his stories are mixed with stories of other folks who weren't for whatever reason able to pierce the veil of history to his extent, and of course mixed up with a tremendous amount of folklore and grandiose retellings.

For anything that far in the past, our information is sketchy and unclear. There are no contemporaneous writings at all that mention Jesus, whose real name would have been Joshua or Yeshua or something like that. None. The gospels were written decades later. Nobody really has any evidence that such a person existed at all. However, it's entirely possible that some person with the name Joshua was rabble-rousing and making a nuisance of himself around that time. He could even have been executed by the Romans, who weren't averse do killing annoying troublemakers.

The rest of the story, however, might contain no actual factual information at all. We cannot and do not know. A few billion people believe the stories to one degree or another, but that's only evidence of their belief, not of the actual facts.

Wherever there are stories of deities and supernatural entities, evidence of their existence is nowhere to be found. That should be a clue to all of us. Stories are not necessarily records of actual events.

Despite him predating Jesus by several centuries.

"I think", and "probably."

religious leaders and philosophers.

than anyone else. Nobody even knows whether such a person even existed. It's all stories told after the fact by people who saw none of it.

There's lots of parallel stuff in all religions. Why? Because much advice on how to live is logical and can be derived through reason. So, it's natural that similar rules of behavior exist almost everywhere.

It's no secret. In fact, it's common knowledge, even if people don't actually follow the advice too well.

Some people present plagiarized sermons right here on DU and pretend they are original thoughts.

lots of anti-Roman political rhetoric. Galilee was a quasi-independent kingdom not controlled by a Roman governor as was Judea. Its ruler, Herod, was widely despised as a Roman quisling. Galilee and Judea, which included Jerusalem, were quite different around the first century -- is there any record of Hillel traveling northward past Samaria? For Jesus to travel as a boy to Jerusalem would have been a significant undertaking, and likely would have coincided with a Passover festival.

As an area with many traders crisscrossing between the Med and Mesopotamia, Galilee would have been a place where Jesus would have heard all sorts of different ideas, from as far away as India, no doubt.

Some of my favorite reads regarding this period:

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Apocalyptic-Prophet-New-Millennium/dp/019512474X

https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Figure-Jesus-P-Sanders/dp/0140144994

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061778192

https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Judas-Gospel-Shaping-Christianity/dp/014311316X

about the historical Jesus, assuming that such an individual actually existed. We know almost nothing about many years of his life. The information simply does not exist.

So, that blank space in the biography leaves plenty of room for whatever one wants to imagine.

Jesus was born. Jesus amazed temple folks as a child. Jesus disappears from view. Jesus shows up again, preaches, does miracles, gets crucified. Rises from the dead. The gap is important, but will never be explained. More mysteries.