No Historical References To Christ?

[saemo]

Sorry, upon reading what you wrote again (after a good night's sleep), it does seem I misunderstood your intent. Yet I'm still not sure what you meant to say...

Thanks!

It was a one line, abridged, observation based on my own experience as an atheist. Now a Roman Catholic. My own experience being, I came to see my own self assured, and nihilistic, view of the world as a construct itself. What is real to a secularist is only what can't be deconstructed, but the nihilist understands, everything is a construct. "Don't believe in anything, that you can't break."..sort of view of the world. Everything can be broken. Deconstructing Jesus, well then, you must deconstruct yourself. In 2000 years there will be no evidence of your existence, therefore, you don't exist now. Is that reasonable? I find that it is not.

Most atheists are nihilist to some extent, but most don't take nihilism to its final conclusion. Which is of course, everything is nothing, everything can be broken, including ones self. I made that conclusion, and found it lacking in truth and not rooted in reality. There is, actually, *something*.

[Stroopwafel]

Thank you saemo, I appreciate your response.

[Tacenda]

Me too Saemo, never quite looked at it that way. It helped though.

[pocogirl]

There is not one shred of evidence he existed. Don't you think some one during that time would have documented something?

[rodheadlee]

There is not one shred of evidence he existed. Don't you think some one during that time would have documented something?

You mean like Matthew, Mark, Luke or John? Their documentation doesn't count?

[Stargazer]

You mean like Matthew, Mark, Luke or John? Their documentation doesn't count?

No, she wants there to be an official government record. Like a birth certificate! Surely the Romans required such records to be kept? I mean, we do this routinely, why wouldn't they?

[Stargazer]

There is not one shred of evidence he existed. Don't you think some one during that time would have documented something?

An entire religious movement based on his teachings sprung up and grew to encompass multiple billions of mankind, and you're going to say "not one shred of evidence"? You might as well say that there's no shred of evidence that the Buddha or Mohammed existed.

[Stargazer]

Well, disputing the existence of historical figures has become quite a cottage industry lately.

How about "Did Muhammed Exist?" by Robert Spencer?

 

Did Muhammad Exist? reveals:

•How the earliest biographical material about Muhammad dates from at least 125 years after his reported death

•How six decades passed before the Arabian conquerors—or the people they conquered—even mentioned Muhammad, the Qur’an, or Islam

•The startling evidence that the Qur’an was constructed from existing materials—including pre-Islamic Christian texts

•How even Muslim scholars acknowledge that countless reports of Muhammad’s deeds were fabricated

•Why a famous mosque inscription may refer not to Muhammad but, astonishingly, to Jesus

•How the oldest records referring to a man named Muhammad bear little resemblance to the now-standard Islamic account of the life of the prophet

•The many indications that Arabian leaders fashioned Islam for political reasons

Or how about this one: "Did Moses Exist?: The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver" by Murdock and Acharya

Did Moses Exist? provides a massive amount of information from antiquity about the world's religious traditions and mythology, including how solar myths, wine cultivation and fertility cults have shaped the Bible and Judaism. This book may be the most comprehensive study to date, using the best scholarship and state-of-the-art research methods.

In the citations and bibliography appear numerous ancient sources such as the Bible, Anacreon, Apollodorus, Aristides, Aristophanes, Arrian, Cicero, Clement of Alexandria, Diodorus, Euripides, Eusebius, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Josephus, Justin Martyr, Megasthenes, Origen, Ovid, Pausanias, Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, Porphyry, Seneca, Strabo, Varro, Virgil and others, often in the original languages, mostly Greek, Hebrew and Latin.

Also discussed are texts and words in Akkadian, Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Ugaritic and other Semitic languages, along with Egyptian, Sumerian, Vedic and Sanskrit.

"The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story is disputed amongst archaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence and related origin myths in Canaanite culture." --"Moses," Wikipedia

"There is no historical evidence outside of the Bible, no mention of Moses outside the Bible, and no independent confirmation that Moses ever existed." --Dr. Michael D. Coogan, lecturer on the Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School

"We cannot be sure that Moses ever lived because there are no traces of his earthly existence outside of tradition." --Egyptologist Dr. Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian

[mfbukowski]

Well, disputing the existence of historical figures has become quite a cottage industry lately.

How about "Did Muhammed Exist?" by Robert Spencer?

 

Or how about this one: "Did Moses Exist?: The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver" by Murdock and Acharya

 

I think this is precisely why we need to know how to counter these arguments, and why I bring it up all the time.

 

There is no reason that these kinds of arguments should give anyone any grief whatsoever about their religious beliefs.

Edited October 27, 2014 by mfbukowski

[EllenMaksoud]

An interesting read from the Huffington Post which bluntly attempts to cast doubt on both Christianity and Mormonism:

 

There are two books. I think one is the book of Barabas, and the other is the book of Nicodemus. Both refer to him but one says he was taken up and the other says he was crucified. I looked all this up the other day, but did not write it down.   Then of course there are the Four Gospels.  I am not very pleased with the 4th century  Cannonization, or what happened in the 7th Century. Aw, I guess I needd t study more again.

[KevinG]

Sorry, but that isn't really Christlike.

 

Taking a scourge to their wicked backsides.  Now THAT'S Christlike.

[Calm]

No, she wants there to be an official government record. Like a birth certificate! Surely the Romans required such records to be kept? I mean, we do this routinely, why wouldn't they?

Photo Id with fingerprints preferred. Edited October 27, 2014 by calmoriah