Atheists: Do you believe Jesus existed, and if so what made him so revered?

If someone can show me verifiable proof of his existence (besides the Bible) then I will certainly believe he existed.

@Rarebear So what about Buddha and Mohammed? I’m not aware of any proof they existed either (doesn’t mean there isn’t any), but I think there was someone from whom the legend arose.

i believe that there was possibly a man at the time named Jesus, possibly son of Joseph and so on, and there’s a decent chance that he may have been a philosopher. I believe there are is, somewhere, a record from roman times of a man named Jesus, and i believe even denoting that he was causing trouble. Can’t remember where, though. But, it seems easily believable that there was a philosopher at the time named Jesus.

Now, anything beyond that quickly becomes shaky. The crucifixion story too easily plays into prophesies of the ‘messiah’, so that probably didn’t happen. Maybe death by romans, but not Crucifixion. And, of course, anything after that is right out. Any miracles, same deal. Something similar may have happened, such as Jesus giving a wedding gift of lots of wine, or curing Lazarus of some generally considered fatal disease, etc, but nothing supernatural.

As far as famous, partially because people wanted to believe that the messiah was real, and the roman conversion is what really changed it from just another tiny cult into a real religion, so a lot of that was luck.

and as a side note, the Jefferson Bible is an interesting read. It was an ‘edit’ of the bible by Jefferson to leave only the bits that seem like they came straight from Jesus, and absolutely nothing supernatural. Basically an agnostic/atheist take on Jesus’ philosophy

To simplify: I may or may not believe Jesus existed as a human; if he existed, he was a smart guyy that nomaded (is that a word, who cares it’s Friday I’m drunk) around and taught people shit.

I think someone based on whom the fantasy was created existed.

I have no problem believing that there was an inspirational man who was crucified by the government for not believing in the religion of the time. I don’t even have a problem believing that the guy was born on December 25th (although given clues from the Bible suggest that he wasn’t).

Anything supernatural from his life, I have a hard time believing. His parthenogenesis to his resurrection and anything miraculous inbetween.

The Jesus of the bible seems to be a Frankenstein’s monster of previous mythologies.

I think he existed, their are way to many written records from other cultures (at that time) that mention him.

I do not believe the whole Son of God thing, that got pinned on him by others… I think he was revered by only a small group of people and they revered him because he cared.. He was the first socialist, atleast that’s the sense I get from the New Testament.

We have to be carefull though when we refer to the New Testament, as all 4 of them can’t be right. And we have to remember that a sellection was made from all the stories about him to form it… There are atleast 12 other evangelicas text… Heck even Judas and Marie Magdaline have one. So that book being “The Word of God”... euh… nope.

I’ll give you one example. The historical meaning of “Turning the Other Cheeck” and not the biblical misinturpretation of it.

To this day, we take it as meaning be nice, and if someone hits you just say : “thank you sir, may I have another”

This is utterly wrong if you look at it in a historical context.

The saying dates from Roman times and originated in Palistine. See, the Romans had a costum of slapping a slave or subordiante (a Jew for example) across the face with the back of the hand of their right hand, while slapping an equal (a fellow Roman) with the palm of the right hand…

So, if you got hit by a Roman with a backhand, turning your head and offering your “other cheeck” was a way of forcing him to slap you again “but” they could only slap you with their palm… hence recognizing you as an equal…

So historicaly “Turning the other cheeck” was a way of, well as the late great Bob Marley put it, standing up for your rights as a free man…

Kind of a piety to see how sayings like this get abused to keep people down…

Do I believe Jesus existed, yeah… Do I believe we know who he was, hell no… we only know what early christian leaders wanted us to know.

Taking the books to be the “Word of HIM” is… well, delusional

@cockswain Same thing with Buddha. I think that there is more evidence that Mohammad existed, although my knowledge of Islamic history is sketchy at best.

FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

I agree that his existence is plausible – as a man, as a prophet…sure, why not? Put to death by the Roman government for stirring up trouble and not towing the line? I’d buy that.

All the rest? Most likely hog wash.

If I can recommend a book on the subject…try Bart Ehrman’s “Deconstructing Jesus”.

I believe there is a very good possibility that he existed.
I would even venture to say that I think he had good intentions.

I think the stories that we hear today are grossly blown out of proportion.

Read a book about a son of a farmer named Nazareth Jesus who was a powerful motivational speaker. He was believed to have been the Christ.

@Cockswain
Buddha did exist…
Buddhism is a bit different from other religions in that there is no real god. Buddha was just this bloke who meditated a lot and reached an “understanding” and entered the so-called, “nirvana.” The related Up principles, the reincarnation theory are just additions into the Buddhist theory. Also there are the demi-gods(or I think thats what they are) called a bo-sal(called thus in Northeast Asia) that you become when you get an “understanding” which is what Buddha became. I’m pretty sure that’s the basic Buddhism stuff….by the way, Buddha’s original name was Siddhartha

Here’s what I have wondered all my life. If somebody you don’t know says something that somebody else writes down – and that’s assuming that what gets written down is exactly what the person said, and then that gets translated into another language by somebody who never heard what the person said, only what was written down by somebody he wrote what he thought the speaker said … and lots of time goes by, and now we want to know what the original person said but he’s dead, as is the person (or persons) who wrote it down so that all we only hope the translated version that many people have translated AND edited is true… well, you get my drift… it’s been thousands of years since Jesus lived (and I do believe he did), and whatever he preached or just talked about—not wrote but spoke—was overheard by others who scribbled down what he said or what they thought he meant, and then that got passed down through generations of scribblers, editors and translators… what I’m saying is, how can we believe what’s in the Bible? Not because we are unbelievers, but because there’s no way what we’re reading today in English could have been spoken in the original tongue so long ago.

@frigate1985 How do you know Buddha existed?

@frigate1985 Indeed Buddha started out life as an entitled Prince named Siddhartha Gautama. He is said to have lived from 563 till 483 B.C.E. in Nepal.

The first 29 years of his life he spent behind the walls of his fathers palace, living a life of luxury. His father was told upon his birth that he would either become a unsurpassed ruler or that he would denounce all material belongings and reach enlichtenment. His father fearing the latter, surrounded his son with beautiful young women that were at his beck and call. And locked him in the Palace far away from “real life” with all it’s struggles and strife.

At the age of 29 he started to contemplate his life and wanted to see what was beyond the palace walls. He snuck out at night with one of his servants. To his surprise he saw an old man, a sick man and a dead man. Because of his guarded life he had never seen an old, sick or dead human so he asked his servant to explain. His servant told him dat every human grows old, gets deseases and dies, that is was normal.

They also saw a calm and peaceful monk. Again he asked his servant what sort of man the monk was. His servant told him that the monk was a man who had willingly given up all his possetions to live a simple life, focussed on spiritual growth.

Shortly after that, he left the palace and his family (including his young wife and child) to live as a monk.

Of all the profits, it is only Buddha and buddist teachings that do not talk about “God” but rather he taught Vipassana. A process of selfobservation, with the goal of cleansing the mind of all negative and destructive influences such as anger, hate, greed and fear (Yoda, anyone ?) As these influences are stripped away from the student, positive aspects such as love, compassion, joy and equality start to evolve.

So he wasn’t a demi god. He didn’t have a God. He didn’t ascend… he died at age 80, so he is the only religionist that actualy didn’t go to heaven…

@rarebear We know he existed as some of his writings survived to this day… Not just texts written about him, but by him. These are the Pali-canon… That and the royal line of Nepal is know just as well as the Emperor’s of Ancient Rome…

It is entirely plausible that there was a prophet named Jesus of Nazareth that lived around the time depicted in the New Testament.

Jesus (or Yeshua) was the time-period equivalent of “Joshua” – not at all an uncommon name at the time.

I think of it in the same terms as Robin Hood – a legend based loosely on a person who might have existed at one time.

I didn’t know there was much doubt of his existence as a man. I grew up completely religion-free, but always assumed the non-supernatural parts of the New Testament were based on a true story.

@jaytkay I grew up religion free as well, but assumed the same as you. I’m surprised that many people doubt his existence.

I think there was a nice Jewish boy named Jesus who was very spiritual and inspired others. He was killed on a cross like many others during that time, the punishment of the day. People decided he was the son of God (seems that lets Mary off of the hook for pre-marital sex) and it caught on.

Recently my father mentioned that a friend of his, who almost became a priest 45 years ago, had learned of information that Jesus never did exist. I don’t know where he read this information. It doesn’t matter, I’ll just stick with my explanation, it makes no difference in my life whether he really existed or not to be honest.

I’m sure a man named Jesus existed at that time. While I don’t believe he turned water into booze, it’s quite possible that he was a very charismatic man with great leadership qualities, but maybe he had a psychological disposition which didn’t fit with the violent times in which he resided, and was offed by those in power for presenting something unknown to society at that point.

i think there was a real guy named jesus who was really awesome and all and did his best to help everyone around him and was quite the philanthropist for his time period but i dont think he’s all he’s said to be. its just a little much. i think stories of him got embellished to the point of them being essentially myths.

don’t know, but i believe the teachings attributed to Jesus are believably humane, in fact i don’t know many people who consider the teachings as counterproductive, unless you are a devoted Nazi or just someone who likes to beat up on homeless people before setting them on fire and stuff.

I’ve always assumed he existed, in a historical sense. Teacher/philosopher, etc, but not truly the son of God.

(Actually… Mahayana Buddhists turned Buddah into a god.)

This made me question his very existence. It is very thorough (read: long).

I was teetering on the edge between whether Jesus was a really famous preacher (most likely buddhist) or a myth all together, until I saw ”The God who wasn’t there Now, I’m leaning more toward the latter. There’s a trailer on the link, it was a really interesting movie.

There are more independent historical records about Mohammad compared to Jesus. There are more independent historical records about Paul compared to Jesus. It is very unlikely though that the existence of Jesus is a complete myth, but his life might have been quite different from what is described in the gospels and some parts clearly are myths like his birth in a manger. His attempt at reforming Judaism is most likely a historical event although the historical records are incomplete. Unlike Plato who lived around 400 BCE, Jesus himself didn’t write anything down nor did he give any interviews.

@DrasticDreamer really, how so?

@mammal Mahayana Buddhism is a mix of early Buddhism with amongst other things Taoism, Confuscionism and Hindousim… Just like Christianity took parts of heathen religions into it to be more accessable to the people they were trying to convert… The Christmas tree and Jesus being born on the 25 of december being good examples.

In original Buddhism Enlightment and Nirvana were only attainable by monks and nuns who devoted their entire lives to reaching it. In Mahayana Buddhism anyone can attain it, even in a single life time.

The bodhisattva is perhaps the defining characteristic of the Mahayana. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who remain in the world to assist those beings still suffering in samsara (the cycle of birth death and rebirth on our plane of existance.) The Mahayana pantheon is populated by thousands of bodhisattvas, as well as buddhas and goddess-like figures. These are influences from Hindousism.

It is the form of Buddhism that most Westeners follow.

Notice however that they talk about buddhas, in the plural form… Siddharta was but the first Buddha… there have been others that have achieved full elightenment since…

I think it’s possible, maybe even likely that he existed. My bet is that he was basically a political rebel who annoyed both orthodox jews and Romans, and he was executed because he was a nuisance. If he’d been born in modern times he’d be a pacifist hippy.

It has been said that Jesus was a rebel, not only politicaly… During those times there were a great many rebel gangs that fought the Roman occupation. They crusified him for that, not for his religion. What why attribute to Jesus was actualy his brother, who having seen his brother put to death was (or became) a pacifist…

I have no idea if it’s true ofcourse, just thought I’d add it to this thread for people that had never heard this story…

@Erulin agreed, but buddha isn’t a god, just a state of consciousness for want of a better definition.

@mammal I know, that’s what I posted in my first reply in this thread :)