Non-Christians - what do you know about Jesus ?

[Babybirdmum]

Atheists, agnostics, maybe raised as a Christian’s but not that into it…
I am just interested to see what ideas you have about Jesus. I was talking about it to my dad the other day and I said that I felt that a lot of people think Jesus is a made up fairytale, they don’t realise he is an actual historical figure.

Totally unconvinced by the claims jesus was a historical figure.

Beyond that - sandals, robe, commonly depicted as a white northern European despite living in the middle-east, allegedly responsible for random miracles that I can't quite recall the specifics of due to being bored to distraction while having it rammed down my throat in primary school nearly 50 years ago.

I think John Lennon once claimed he wasn't quite as significant as The Beatles.

That's about the extent of it.

Thank you for your reply!

Sandals, I love it! Yes I agree it is strange when he is depicted as a white man when he is a Middle Eastern Jew, probably with brown skin.

I am curious, what is it that makes you unconvinced he is a historical figure?

John Lennon did a favour by mentioning his mother in one of The Beatles songs then, eh! “Mother Mary comes to me, singing words of wisdom, Let it be…”

I grew up going to Church of England school, but I am an atheist now. I do believe he was a historical figure though. I am an archaeologist and have always been interested in near eastern archaeology.

Well I think I know more about Jesus than you do the Beatles - That was Paul McCartney, not Lennon.

Raised Christian and atheist. Imagine a really committed, grass roots charity worker started a commune and then started preaching to them that he was the messiah. That’s what I think of Jesus. A cult leader.

I am curious, what is it that makes you unconvinced he is a historical figure?

I've never seen anyone present any remotely convincing evidence that he was.

I'm open to being persuaded, but I don't consider accounts written by people with a vested interest in Christ's existence decades, or in some cases, hundreds of years after the alleged events to be "evidence".

If there are some credible, contemporaneous, objective and unbiased references to his existence, then I genuinely would be interested to see them. Especially so if they are also crediting all sorts of supernatural abilities to him.

Didn’t John Lennon sing it as well though?

Quite possibly, because I have zero interest in the Beatles.

Pretty much this for me.

Not really. He sang backing vocals on it but it's Paul's song. And "mother Mary" is Paul's mum, not Jesus's.

I'm happy to accept he may have been a historical figure, but obviously the miracles and resurrection and all that never happened.

Edited for typo.

I've no difficulty believing that the key figure of any religion is a historical figure - maybe not the miracles attributed to them! But it would seem odd for a large religion to be based around a non-existent person rather than an existing one. So there being an original Buddha etc - I don't see why not

I accept that he was a real historical figure. Like the founders of most religions and cults, I would assume that he was a very charismatic figure who clearly made an impression on the people he met. I just don't personally buy into the notion that he was the son of God etc. Each to their own though.

That was Paul McCartney, and as @Tophelleborine said upthread, it was about his (Paul's) late mother.
I posted before I saw her response.

I know a lot about him- ask me anything!

Incidentally- his historiography is not certain. All anyone can say is that it is possible he existed.

Fair enough! You’re naturally a skeptic it’s a good thing. But when you take a medicine from the pharmacy, are you always 100% sure it’s not been poisoned? No! Otherwise you’d bring your chemistry kit to the pharmacy. Everything we do requires a little faith.

Non Christian sources… hmmm… There was a Jewish man named Josephus who wrote about events during that period of time, he lived during the first century and wrote about Jesus death. He wasn’t a Christian himself. Tacidus was a Roman historian and not a Christian and he wrote about Jesus of Nazareth from an outsiders point of view. The Jewish leaders called him a “sorcerer” implying his “magic/miracles” were clever tricks rather than real miracles.
generally the Gospels are treated as ordinary historical documents because they were written in shortly after Jesus died. The week after Jesus death, the tomb was discovered empty by a group of his female followers (even though women couldn’t count as witnesses in Jewish society)- which I think was interesting, as if the disciples were “making up” the story of Jesus, then they wouldn’t have chosen him to appear to women first.
Then, various independent groups of people witnessed appearances of Jesus alive(approximately 500 people at once and various others over 40 days). Also, the original 12 disciples suddenly and sincerely went from denying Jesus, going back to their normal lives, mourning, to believing Jesus was resurrected despite not expecting him to be resurrected. Paul who was a Pharisee went from persecuting Christian’s to dying for his beliefs in Jesus after changing his whole life’s work. Jesus brother James went from calling him crazy to believing he was resurrected.
nonetheless is there more reasons why you don’t believe? Sometimes personal reasons like the issue of suffering or death?

Lots of religions are based around worship and veneration of beings who did not walk the earth as real human beings. In fact, I'd wager that's the majority of religions. All those Greek and Roman Gods, Egyptian cults who worshiped people with heads of various animals and so on.

It rather seems that non-existence is no bar at all to being worshiped. And then there are the cults that worship objects or symbols, the sun, planets and so on. Those exist, but they are not historical human beings.

Ah thanks I’ve learned something new today:)

Do you think the Roman, Greek and Viking gods existed?

Lots of things were retrofitted to make the story fit with Jewish prophecy.

Then more to fit with other festivals.

It was quite common then (and possibly now) for messiahs / gods to be born of virgins.

What about the fact that the vast majority of secular scholars maintain he almost certainly existed?

Yes he was quite different from the norm back then, however usually you’ll find in cults some sexual exploitation especially of women. Just look at Joseph Smith, Charles Manson etc.The thing with Jesus is no one could say a bad word against him, even when he was on trial. He didn’t need to use underhand tactics like blackmail, coercion, or control to get people to follow him.

Op, it's an impossible q to answer.

I grew up in a time when schools had religious assembly just about every day ( which meant Christian, in practice). I was sent to Sunday school. It was absolutely normal to give books of bible stories as children's presents. RE was compulsory in senior school until GCSE choices, and was basically bible study.

I have a bible - I also have a Koran.

So anyone with my background (and that's probably most English people of my age group) will "know" plenty of Jesus.

But it's a meaningless metric. So what if I can tell you stories from the NT?

In my view, adherents to organised religions are responsible for some terrible things across the world and across the millennia. I do not follow any religion, and feel the world might be a better place if people were more humanist rather than more religious.

Hello! Would you say you were a Christian then or no? If no then why? Thank you :)

nonetheless is there more reasons why you don’t believe? Sometimes personal reasons like the issue of suffering or death?

Why should the default position be to believe?

I am curious, what is it that makes you unconvinced he is a historical figure?

What is it that makes you convinced that he is?

The onus is not on atheists to prove that God doesn't exist.

is there more reasons why you don’t believe? Sometimes personal reasons like the issue of suffering or death?

Yes and no.

There are more reasons, but nothing to do with suffering or death.

I do not believe in the existence of the divine, again, because there is nothing whatsoever that suggests the existence of such things, and the universe functions perfectly well without the introduction of divinity into the picture, so I see no need to go introducing it.

Because I do not believe in the existence of the divine, there is no purpose in pondering religion, because in my view it's all completely fatuous and nothing more than a construct of the human imagination, and essentially no different to any other fantastical "fairy tale" invented by humans. I don't waste my time wondering about whether Rumplestiltskin was a historical figure or not.

Isnt this the first week of the Alpha course:

First lets all agree there was (most likely) a historical figure around the time, in Nazareth who was the son of a carpenter etc.

Now we all agree that, we have only 3 choices, was he mad (in claiming to be the son of god)…no, doesn’t seem to be. So was he a bad guy (ie deliberately deceiving everyone)…no?? Neither of those things work for you?…then all you are left with is ‘Son of God’…hey presto, you have been evangelised….