Did Jesus Actually Exist?

On a balance beam, the importance of the belief to the believers would, I think, far outweigh the importance of the disbelief to the unbelievers. I just politely brushed off a couple of Mormon missionaries tonight (They're a thing here in Korea. They give free English lessons to anybody who'll listen to their spiel). It sure seemed to mean a lot more to them than it does to me. Granted, the Mormons don't push Jesus as hard as others of the Abrahamic religions, but his existence is nevertheless of greater consequence to them than to me. From my perspective, if he existed, fine. The next step is to prove that he was divine, which is a very different question.

Maybe in Korea. On A2K, the beam is more heavily loaded on the non-believer side, with all sorts of posters RABIDLY and irrationally arguing on this very thread against the scientific consensus. Each time I argued against their fallacies, they got so pissed off that they insulted me to no end... One of them, Timur, remains here forever with his jaw planted into my leg. I can't shake him off. The issue is massively important to him, evidently, much more than it is for any believer.

For a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim, the question is absurd. OF COURSE the dude Jesus existed. And for those who accept Jesus as a prophet or messiah, the people doubting the historical Jesus are like little ants doubting the existence of an elephant... The elephant couldn't care less. Jesus the gentle giant, as he is pictured in believers' minds, couldn't care less for his minuscule deniers.

So the issue is not even that important to believers. It is, at core, a canard peddled by non-believers for rhetorical gain in their endless (and endlessly boring) disputes with Christians. Another motive, IMO is to get rid of Jesus' intellectual and moral appeal. Like for all denialism, there is something there in Jesus that annoys the deniers, that make them afraid or nervous. That they want to erase. I think it's simply the allure of the guy and his message.

You are just imagining stuff, as you do to the very existence of Jesus.

I couldn't care less is Jesus existed or not and if people believe it.

It's only that from a scientific point of view you have no leg to stand on.

You, belittling non-believers, are also non-important.

The moral appeal that Jesus can have on people is of little effect, it seems.

Look how Christians act in life and then tell me that they are moral.

Your discourse is one of an hypocrite from the start.

If the non-believers stance is so boring, do you maintain your views on it just to get a rise out of them?

You are clownesque little proselytizer..

LOL. If you keep telling that to yourself again and again, maybe it will become true one day. And maybe that day, you'll stop howling at me as if you were a rabid dog sodomized with a red-hot iron...

You are getting better at insults but a lot less at logic and knowledge.

It doesn't improve your credibility.

You are a little man..

Thanks for the laugh, huge animal...

Lame French irony doesn't work on me..

Sorry, I don't have the time to entertain your fascination for me...

So, get your sorry ass out of here..

Out of A2K you mean?

Yes, i may leave A2K at some point. But it will be when I want it, not when you tell me. Just shouting at people like you do, just the hatred, and the ganging up against unpopular opinions like you and your gang do, are not enough to drive me out.

I will leave the day I conclude the board is just brain-dead. That WILL certainly happen if no new blood (new posters) comes in. It's just a mater of time, since current posters grow old and some of them are already borderline senile. And given that most newcomers are greeted with scorn and disbelief, A2K is flying straight into the senility wall.

I can see how troubled is your mind given the crappy assertions and inferences you do.

I don't gang up with anyone but you don't have the necessary clairvoyance to discern that.

You, on the other hand and unlike me, adhere to lamely common opinions like the one that asserts Jesus existed.

Here meant yesterday's moment when you couldn't conjure up any more insults.

You can stay on this forum as long as you wish, as far as I'm concerned.

I've been scorned too when I first came to this forum and somehow it continues.

Your opinion of A2K's impending demise is of little concern or import.

Given your age, not very different from mine, you will be soon hitting the senility wall too..

Ok so you meant nothing, as usual...

Yes, I will become senile too, and I stand to loose more than you do in that process.

The idea that there was a real preacher, really crucified, at the onset of the Jesus myths, that opinion is not "lame". It is not even that common, since believers have another idea of him. It just happens to be the current consensus among qualified historians. Just like the idea that fossil fuel consumption leads to climate change is NOT lame but simply a scientific consensus.

I'm glad you admit you are a loser..

Don't try that crap of argument from analogy on me.

My world will not change if someone happens to prove that Jesus existed.

My world will change if climate changes.

See the difference?

That's a crappy analogy YOU are making. The right comparison is about the degree of scientific consensus behind both theories, which is comparable. I couldn't care less what effect that has on little you.

You can always try to sell your snake oil, I'm not buying.

Are you going to keep changing your stance every time you are contradicted?

If one reads what you wrote at the beginning of this thread and now, one can see the difference.

No proof that Jesus existed no matter how hard you twist it..

You keep saying 'me me me'... This is not about you though. What you decide to believe or not is your problem, not mine.

Projecting, aren't you?

Try to think this through rather than shooting from the hip. At the end of the day, what you decide to believe is your choice, your responsibility. It is not mine nor anybody else's. And I don't care what you choose to believe.

Expecting me to mother-feed you with facts forever, while you chose to close your eyes and your mind to the evidence I provide, is simply ridiculous.

The question asked by the thread author was a very simple and objective question: is there a consensus among historians for some kind of historical Jesus. And the objective answer to that question is "yes there is".

If you have material facts that seem to indicate otherwise, do post. Whatever else you post is about bilious discharge.

No, you said Jesus existed and you had proof.

You went through dire straits to justify that and failed.

Now you are giving yet another version.

I'm not interested in your bowel movement, let alone the workings of your duodenum.

I did say that, yes, and I provided the evidence which you chose to ignore.

But that was NOT the question asked by the thread author. The PO asks is there's a consensus among scholars of antiquity that there was a historical Jesus.