no doubt.

I am also skeptical about the Harris reference.

Any info on him?

After mentioning the book "Did Jesus Exist" By G.A. Wells

He writes:

Page 122 of the paperback edition of 'The God Delusion"

Hmm.. you may be right, Shelley.  My brain's just really fuzzy on this one.

Sam Harris is a 9/11 truther, i mean a Jesus Mythicisit? I wasn't aware of this. Anyone know of the supporting material for this claim? I know he was interviewed in the "The God Who wasn't there" film, but he didn't claim to be in the mythicist camp in there? Is there any evidence to support the claim that he is? Or is it just another instance of Rook stretching the truth like he's been known to do on several occasions? 

I beg your pardon?

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals by Sam Harris

Grammatical correctness is usually a prerequisite to detectable sarcasm or humor in an internet post.

Usually such an insult would call for a sarcastic and equally insulting response, but for obvious reasons, in this particular case, it is probably unnecessary.

hahaha, a claim that Jesus didn't exist is a positive claim, and the burden of proof falls on those who claim it. Just like a claim that the holocaust didn't happen is a positive claim, that requires that a whole slew of data to be reinterpreted in order to make the case of it being more probable than not. 

And unlike most individuals here I have a healthy understanding of historical method, the history of the new testament, and history of the world in which they were composed, that I don't need to rely on a blind faith in the majority vote. In fact I've already debated Rook, but he bowed out early, and has gone several months without returning to respond. 

LOL

No offense intended to any parties, but I didn't get the reference to Harris being sarcastic myself. Though that is at least partially because I don't know the terminology of "9/11 truther".

Jesus is subject to a claim of something that most figures in history are not. Special powers. In the case of special claims, special evidence is required to substantiate them. Therefore the assertion that Jesus existed is a postive claim, and the assertion that he did not exist is simply a claim based in historical lack of evidence for his existence and special powers. It is the same as the claim that there is no god. It is a default position, because there is no evidence to substantiate anything else. And in fact, there is evidence that leads one to the opposite conclusion. In the case of Jesus, it is the lack of contemporaries, and the failure of the Roman military to record an act when they recorded everything. In the case of god it is Occam's Razor that asserts a god is adding complexity to an already complex question, without providing anything to refine.

Hence the default is no: they do/did not exist. Any other claim is a positive claim, and must be accompanied by evidence.

Well, it seems you know little about ancient history. Many historical figures were afforded in their accounts "special powers", particularly religious figures, this was the norm no matter what region of the world one belonged to, from the Buddha, to Muhammad, to Hillel, and etc, even figures like Caesar were afford such miraculous attributes. In fact it would be quite bizarre if that weren’t the case.

It would seriously help if you actually venture to learn a little about the historicity of Jesus, since you assume weirdly that the historical consensus view (the view that most historians hold) is that Jesus existed with special powers at his disposal. 

But rather the question of if  Jesus existed in the historical sense is, is did the Gospels  base their accounts on a historical person named Jesus or not.

As the wikipedia article on the Historicity of Jesus has to say:

"With few exceptions (such as Robert M. Price), virtually all scholars in the fields of biblical studies and history agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, was baptized by John the Baptist, was accused of sedition against the Roman, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate was sentenced to death by crucifixion."

Notice that his consensus view does not claim that Jesus possessed supernatural abilities, but rather people thought of him as a healer, and this is the Jesus, the Gospel writers based their accounts on. 

Really? The Romans recorded everything? So every would be Jewish messiah and healer dude that came a dime dozen those days were recorded by the Romans? 

But again if this were true, and you were using the data as an argument for your doubts, you're only revealing that your doubt in Jesus existence is not the "default position", it's a position you derived based on supposed evidence.

I would find this to be a really irrational statement: "I doubt there was a historical Jesus whom the gospel writers based their accounts on, even though I have no evidence or reason for this doubt". A default position is the position every one should take, when they have no clue about anything concerning the historical Jesus, and that's neither doubt of his existence, or an affirmation of it. It's the simple: I don't know.

If I knew nothing at all about evolution, I wouldn't say that I doubt it happened, I would say I don't know if it happened or not. 

Regardless the Jesus Mythicist position is a positive claim. This is why Hawkins and his bandits don't rest just by claiming this is their position, but rather by attempting to reinterpret the data to fit their perspective and render it as the most probable explanation. This is why Rookey likes to make bizarre claims about how the writer of Luke is used Homer's Odysseus as the basis for the Jesus he's writing about, and not a historical person, and Paul believed in Jesus who was crucified and lived in some mythical realm somewhere. 

I'm guessing you don't really know what it means to be a Jesus Mythicist, and have little understanding about the historical method, and hence the explanation of your argument? Am I right friend? 

I tend to look at it this way. The Christians often claim that Jesus of the gospels existed. He's a god walking the Earth, performs miracles, casts demons into pigs, kills fig trees, heals the sick, walks on water that isn't ice, turns water into wine, feeds people, tells stupid parables to a band of numb skulls that follow him around, then get nailed to a piece of wood and is resurrected from the dead. All of these fantastic stories are quite the claim, and thus require extraordinary evidence. They can present no such evidence, so the claim that such a thing existed is ludicrous.

But, some of them say, what about the 'historical Jesus' claim? What if Jesus was a real man, but just a man, who taught some good things and got nailed to a piece of wood? Well, even if such a man existed, the gospels are still full of superstition and legends to turn him into some god-like figure. No christian bases his/her religion on a 'historical Jesus' (or at least, none that I ever talked to), they base it on the NT which is still full of unsubstantiated extraordinary claims.

So either way, it doesn't matter. Even if a real man existed to base the legends on, christians still believe in a book full of fantastic claims without any evidence. Epic fail either way.