There is no evidence for a biblical jesus

[Rational Gaze]

Am I the only one who finds bertatberts (who only enrolled a month ago...) to sound an awfully lot like a certain Lunchy that used to be around here?

What is the difference between bertatberts and a mallard with a cold? One's a sick duck... I can't remember how it ends, but bertatberts was dropped on his head as a child.

[Challenger Grim]

So he did go with the "No True Atheists" defense.

And (since he sounds so familiar...), I'm willing to bet 110% odds that the standards he just used to get communism to be "not atheist" would apply to his own stated beliefs. Thus, without reading his reply in detail (or his other replies) I'm willing to state right now that under his own standards... bertatberts is not an atheist.

Now someone check my bet.

[Darth Ovious]

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

The Sam Harris defence.

Well you started it, you linked Christianity with governmental systems first. Not our fault if you can't take your own medicine.

The facts are still the same, the leaders of these communist systems were atheists, therefore they are still atheists that committed atrocities, 100 million atrocities so to count.

this is a common mistake made by theists, typically those of the fundy type, they believe atheism is essentially socialist or communist in nature. Thus, atheism should be rejected since socialism and communism are evil. How stupid!

How stupid of you also to assume that theism is essentially evil in nature.

the first thing we should note is there is an automatic and almost unconscious assumption made by these theists that their religion is somehow equivalent with captialism.

Communism is not, however, atheistic. It is possible to have communistic or socialistic views while being a theist and it isn't at all wrong to be an atheist while staunchly defending capitalism, which is a combination often found among objectivists and libertarians.
their existence alone demonstrates, that atheism and communism are not the same thing.

Right, so by your same standards you can't compare Christianity to a Monarchy system then, but you did and you will continue to do so because you are an idiot.

is christianity opposed to communism? No, the opposite, actually. There is nothing in the gospels which even so much as suggests a divine preference for captialism, now is there.

quite a bit of what Jesus said supports many of the of socialism and even communism. http://latter-rain.com/general/commu.htm
He specifically said that that people should give all they could to the poor and that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

He stated that people should do that, but not any governmental system. Besides, thats not what communist leaders did. They took everything from the people and then gave most of it themselves. They didn't really believe their own system in this regards.

basic communism states to hold all property in common rather than privately, is practiced by numerous Christian communities now and throughout history. references to it can be found in Acts:

Acts 4:33-35 "With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. "
The similarity to Marx's principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" should be obvious.

and here again in Acts:

Acts 5:1-11 "But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. "Ananias," Peter asked, "why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!" Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it.

The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, "Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price." And she said, "Yes, that was the price." Then Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things."

their deaths served as an example to all the others of what would happen if they, too, held back profits for themselves instead of giving everything to the community.
so we can see that this was the first christian commune(ist) society.

As said above, this was not a governmental system.

so please lets get away from this silly reference to atheism and communism being the same, the bible is basically a communist manifesto.

Except that atheism was a strong part of the communist manifesto.

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/communism.htm

allaboutphilosophy

Communism - Atheism and Amorality
Communism doesn't end with economic and political reform. By definition, it further demands the abolition of both Religion and the Absolute Morality founded upon Religion. The irony is that Communism supposedly attempts to enhance civility within society, but removes all notions of Absolute Morality, the very cornerstone of civility. Furthermore, after Communism is instituted by the people, the system becomes Totalitarian, resulting in greater oppression of the people it was designed to "serve." This fact is well documented throughout the history of Communist nations.

© source where applicable

[bertatberts]

You are delusional, but that is no reason to go around trying to infect others with your mind-AIDS. Look around you. Are the people within your general vicinity:

* Hyper-extending their arms?
* Using safety pencils?
* Being supervised by people in white coats, armed with syringes and straight jackets in case you go mental?

Yes! I'm typing this in, to post to them right now.

If the answer is yes, which I strongly suspect, then kindly inform your supervisors that you are too stupid to be allowed to use the internet.

Ok, I'll inform the site owners, thanks for that.

[Darth Ovious]

Yes! I'm typing this in, to post to them right now.

Ok, I'll inform the site owners, thanks for that.

What?

The site owners are your psychiatric doctors? No wonder you're really annoyed then.

Sorry, but you've been told before. You're not getting porridge in a bowl for breakfast because you only throw it over the other patients while making chimpanzee noises. This upsets the other patients like we discussed before. Now be a good boy, finish your banana and take your afternoon nap.

[bertatberts]

The site owners are your psychiatric doctors?

No, not mine "Ours"

Sorry, but you've been told before. You're not getting porridge in a bowl for breakfast because you only throw it over the other patients while making chimpanzee noises.

I was only copying you, I thought imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. don't you like me copying then?

This upsets the other patients like we discussed before. Now be a good boy, finish your banana and take your afternoon nap.

You know I don't like bananas, it's you that eats them. but I will take a nap "yawn" kiss kiss night night.

[rogue06]

There are a few inscriptions and fragments but none worthy as to actually be contemporary written evidence, however there are Greek, Latin and oriental documents, that mention him by name, sadly after the fact, there are coins, and other relics with inscriptions of him.
Nothing even resembling this kind of evidence can be found for a biblical jesus.

Au contraire. Except for the coins it sounds like the evidence is precisely the same. We have multiple documents, many written within a generation, mentioning him by name.

Being the Grandfather of Gamaliel, he could have existed but there are no contemporaneous or extra-biblical evidence for him, so we will just have assume the information in the bible is correct in this instance, and we do know that some historical evidence is.

Wait. Are you saying that the Bible is sufficient to establish that Hillel lived yet the same Bible isn't sufficient enough to establish that Jesus lived?

[Darth Ovious]

No, not mine "Ours"

Speak for yourself, I'm not insane.

I was only copying you, I thought imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. don't you like me copying then?

No, if you were copying me then you would have done this.

You know I don't like bananas, it's you that eats them. but I will take a nap "yawn" kiss kiss night night.

Now, now, no need for a tantrum just eat your banana first before you go for your nap.

[rogue06]

No. Who are they, never heard of communist atheist. Can you cite a source.

That you have a severe problem cherrypicking your evidence becomes more and more apparent.

Several communist states opposed religion and mandated state atheism, including the former governments of the Soviet Union. I'm not aware of any serious scholars who don't think that Joseph "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God...all this talk about God is sheer nonsense" Stalin was an atheist and he slaughtered millions in his purges and efforts to starve the Ukraine into submission.

Stalin helped to establish the Society of the Godless* and discriminated harshly against people of faith. His treatment of the Russian Orthodox Church nearly led to its destruction in the 30s** (active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (though during WWII, desparate for allies, he allowed it to be revived as a patriotic organization)



* Another name for this organization was "The League of the Militant Godless" or "League of Militant Atheists" so if anyone wonders where I got the expression "militant atheists" from and want to see an example of them, you might want to check these guys out.

** At the end of the decade active parishes numbered in the low hundreds, down from 54,000 only 20 years earlier

[MWM958]

Denying that Jesus existed and denying that Communism has affiliation with atheism.

And religious people are the "irrational" ones?

[Rational Gaze]

Yes! I'm typing this in, to post to them right now.

Ok, I'll inform the site owners, thanks for that.

I'll put in a good word so they affix a tire and rope in your play area, thus, you will have a form of entertainment as simple as you are.

[OneSizeFit]

Kind of an overly simplistic response to the OP, but here goes, James the Just existed, hence Jesus existed. Per Robert Eisenmann, a non believer.

[Pilgrim]

"There is no evidence for the Biblical Jesus..." You mean, of course, besides the Biblical evidence, right. You know, the 27 books that are all about him. Because, you understand, the Bible is not a single book testifying to itself but a set of books around the same topic.

[Challenger Grim]

It's hard not to have bertatberts in mind when you read Jonah Goldberg's g-file for today.

One of the underlying themes of Liberal Fascism is that collectivism is a natural human impulse. We are hardwired to be tribal creatures. As a result, the same human compulsions keep re-expressing themselves. This explains why, in politics, we keep trying to divinize the masses, to make ourselves into "the ones we have been waiting for." It explains why socialism will never, ever go away. All socialism is a popular manifestation of the hardwired human desire to live in a tribe, albeit misapplied to national or international politics and economics.

When you remove the power and symbolism of religion in our daily lives, religious impulses start creeping in from other directions and sources (which might explain why Jill Abramson recently explained that the New York Times substituted for religion in her house growing up). As Eric Voegelin puts it: "When God is invisible behind the world, the contents of the world will become new gods; when the symbols of transcendent religiosity are banned, new symbols develop from the inner-worldly language of science to take their place. Like the Christian ecclesia, the inner-worldly community has its apocalypse too."

It's a sad day when I have to use DD as a good example, but even he grasps that if you want to get rid of religion, something will take its place.

[Kane]

"There is no evidence for the Biblical Jesus..." You mean, of course, besides the Biblical evidence, right. You know, the 27 books that are all about him. Because, you understand, the Bible is not a single book testifying to itself but a set of books around the same topic.

I think this is a fair statement. I also think this is why people have made the necessary distinction between the historical and the biblical Jesus. I wonder then, if the OP meant to suggest that there is no evidence for the historical Jesus, which is quite a different matter altogether.

When inspiring individuals are no longer with us, people have a tendency to embellish their lives and create a mythical figure out of them. For example, William Wallace was an historical man, but the legends surrounding his derring-do and freedom-fighting exploits are greatly exaggerated. Braveheart made a myth out of the man who was, for all of his passion, not quite the poetic warrior depicted in the movie.

I think the same could be said for Jesus of Nazareth: he was a man with inspiring ideals, profound insights (possibly what we might term 'exceptionally gifted'), and religious zeal. He also attracted a coterie of loyal followers, as would be expected in those days when religious insight provided greater social capital. As a matter of speculation, it would really not be unreasonable then to expect that legends of his deeds took on an exaggerated quality after his death. Thus the historical Jesus, who quite certainly existed, became the mythically proportioned figure also termed the biblical Jesus who, quite likely, never existed.