@Val Killmore,
Quote:Of course, an atheist do not believe in God, but do atheists believe that Jesus is a real man who existed at some point in the human history?
Val, that sentence is a bit confusing because of its wording.
Even if worded better, it presumes that atheists can be lumped together—all having the same take on the question of the existence or non-existence of gods (or GOD). That just cannot logically be done—or as Set mentioned, it is like herding cats.
I think one thing atheists have in common is that none of them “believe” GOD exists…and I suspect none of them think gods exist…although that subtle difference sometimes produces surprises in discussion with them. In any case, every atheist I’ve ever been in contact with seem intent on asserting that he/she does not have a belief in the GOD’s that have so far been proposed by humans.
Many of them assert that they also have a belief gods do not exist…although a significant number go no further than asserting an absence of belief that gods exist and do not take the further step of asserting a belief that they do not exist.
I am agnostic on the question. I do not “believe” (or guess or suppose or estimate) that gods exist; I also do not “believe” (or guess or suppose or estimate) that gods do not exist.
On your specific question about Jesus: I do not “believe” Jesus existed and I do not “believe” Jesus did not exist. I simply have an absence of “belief” either way on the issue.
I suspect (guess, estimate, suppose) that a Jesus character (or characters) probably existed…in much the same way I suspect Homer existed. Someone wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey…and either it was a guy named Homer or someone who later became known as Homer in history. It doesn’t matter much in my estimation, because the books are here…and it appears the specifics cannot be verified.
Someone (or several someone’s) motivated a lot of Jews to move in a direction quite different from the mainstream Jewish moral and ethical tradition—and motivated proselytization of that departure. It may have been one guy; it may have been several…some may have been beaten and crucified along the way. We are here now…and if it was just one guy or many combined to make the mythology of the Jesus story…we apparently cannot verify.