I am only positive that there might or might not be a god, and that monkeys might fly out my ass. Go figure.

I believe in Jesus almost as much as I believe in Ghengis Khan. I hope the descrepency between what the two of us view I believe isn't too great. My motivations-- to entertain some notions? To unfold truth? Make the world a better place?

More of a figure of speech. Saying Jesus didn't exist implies a sort of conspiracy regarding the fabrication of the whole Jesus story as opposed to it simply getting embellished during the course of many many retellings of it.

The claim that he didn't exist is a speculation just as the claim that he did exist is a speculation. So you see we're back to where we started.

But the fact that one would be writing about Jesus implies a bias for doing it to start with. Let the man whom is without sin cast the first stone.

Don't take that too literally, but anyhow "objectivity" is an illusion in either of our cases since it is inseperable from "subjectivity." Both are illusory, the same non-duality. We see what we are.

My advise is to at least go easy on the absolutes there.

Umm could you fix that statement so that it makes sense??
"More certain" that "God exists", or that "God exists as a man with a white beard on a throne in the clouds that throws light'nin bolts", or that "God doesn't exist". Which one?

Logically we can be absolutely certain that at least one of those statements is true, therefore we can confidentlly state that we must be less certain that a particular person exists than "whether" one of those statements "or" the other is true, since A or not A is always true, whereas there must always be a tiny possibility that some actual observation of a natural entity may be in error.

Seems you don't know what a default position is. No wonder you want to unseat logic, it stands in the way of your arguments.

1) No positive claim can ever be the fallback. You can't just assume something is true, until disproven. If you did, then it would necessarily follow that every claim is automatically true, until disproven. To be logically consistent, you yourself would have to accept any assertion, made by anyone, concerning anything.

2) If 'jesus existed' but doesn't actually match the myth, then saying that 'jesus existed' is as irrational as saying Batman existed, because there was once a guy who wore a cape called 'Bruce'.

For "jesus' to have 'existed' a person resembling key elements of Mark's gospel's description of 'him' needs to have existed. But any such person would necessarily be a miracle worker... someone who would we could never call historically insignifiacant.

(although there's no need for a resurrection, seeing as Mark never wrote about one)

No positive claim can ever be the fallback? Then I guess your shit out of luck with your positive claim that "Jesus didn't exist."

And all this time I've been talking about the likely existence of Jesus, not this Jesus Christ fellow you guys keep going on about.

My point way up there is that any logical statement takes much for granted that is inconsistant. Look at the curvatures of space and all that you've possibly read from Wilber.

You say you're "sitting on a solid chair" but when you get down to it the chair doesn't look like a solid but more like a sea of molecules on a molecular level. Not only does the thing flow in waves, but the molecules never touch. Some of these truths really baffle the imagination when you kick the thing.

You can say that the chair is a solid in one instance, but at the same time in another sense it's not a solid chair at all. Any claim you can make on what the chair is is fragmentary in the the reality of the total chair. Something is overlooked to say anything about it. Here's your negative space, your nonduality, and how postmodernism could tie into the whole logic game.

Not that I'm necessarily a postmodernist...

The word for today is clueless.

You've reworded the statement of non belief - the fallback position, in an unnecessarily strong fashion, no doubt because the actual wording would refute you. No one needs to say "he didn't exist". All one has to do is hold that there's no rational grounds to believe 'jesus' existed, ergo non belief is the rational course of action.

This is the fallback, not a positive claim. Unless you can provide strong evidence otherwise, it is rational to hold to the fallback position of non belief.

If you disagree with the concept of non belief as the fallback, then for the sake of logical consistency, you're forced to accept any claim as true until disproven. Which means that any assertion I make you have to accept as true.

Now, do you really want to hold to that?

And all this time, I've been pointing out the problem in your claim. "Jesus' refers to jesus of the gospels. To refer to a 'jesus' that has nothing to do with jesus christ of the gospels, as if it were still "Jesus" is an equivocation fallacy.

One might argue that a real person helped inspire the legend, but this would just prove that there was no actual jesus. The term 'jesus' refers to the concept of jesus in the gospels, any 'other jesus' wouldn't be jesus at all....

Deductive statements are a priori statements. They do not rely on observation. They are tautologous and are therefore necessary truths.

So your claim here is demonstratably false.

I don't think you've mastered the material you're citing. It seems that you're just citing a bunch of things that seem to unseat induction, and confusing this for having some role in deductive logic.

A deductive argument leads to a tautology. Tautologies are necessarily true. If you actually were able to point to problems in observation of quantum events as a means to overturn tautologies, then you'd necessarily obliterate the axiom of identity. Which would mean that you couldn't argue your point in the first place. It would mean that you yourself can't argue any point, becauase you've eradicated the very ability to make any truth declaration. So oddly enough, if your 'argument' were true, it would also be false (!), because you've eradicated the very principles upon which we make truth claims.

In short, you're using logic to unseat logic, which is a self refutation.

You're referring to matters of induction again.

Yet you claimed that all logic is unseated by inconsistencey. Yet, matters of induction have no bearing on deduction, which is also a type of logic.Ergo your claim that 'the problem of induction' unseats all logic due to inconsistency, is false.

But there's no contradiction here, merely analyses working on two different levels. On the macro level, it's 'solid', on the micro level, it ... still actually is solid, but here we can see that what really supports us is a energy field, produced by sub-molecular particles...

There's nothing "fragmentary' here, merely a confusion of macro level and micro level. Provided one specifies which level of observation one is relying on, there's no contradiction.

And again, none of this has any role, whatsoever, in deductive logic.

Nothing needs to be 'overlooked', one is merely specifying a specific level of observation... only a Wilber would call this 'overlooking' things....

There's no need to make an microscopic observation of chair in order to sit on it!

Wilber's basic blunder is that he imagines that positivists can't use both reductionism and holism as tools, deciding upon which one to use, based on current needs. This is a strawman of positivism.. in fact, a good rule of thumb for Wilber is this: whenever he speaks about modernism or positivism, he's giving you a strawman. The guy even accepts irreducible complexity, and argues that evolution is telological!

Oy vey.

Nonduality is a meaningless term - unless you equate it with nothing. Which even Wilber is forced to do, right?

Look, I've read WIlber AND I know about logic. It's clear to me that you're just misapplying a bunch of concepts that you only half understand from Wilber. (You've confused induction for deduction.)

Don't feel bad, because that's not an insult: Wilber himself only half understands it.... if he really understood half the horseshit that pours out of his mouth, he'd be able to see what a complete load he is when he speaks outside of the realm of psychology.

He's a 'transpersonal psychologist' - he ought to stick to his field. We psychologists all suffer from what I call "physics envy', which is why you see people like Wilber embarrassing himself..... we just can't help it... must be something about being called 'Doctor' that makes you think you're able to explain the world.....

PS For others reading this, who really want to get an idea of what a load Wilber can be, one of Wilber's books is called "A Brief History of Everything"

Such humility.

In the same book, he endorses irreducible complexity, meaning that when it comes to biology, he knows less than a freshman bio student. Yet he's writing about 'everything', for you...... He even says his role is to read diverse subjects and present a brief overview for you.... I advise saying 'no thank you' and reading for yourself.

Negative space is a sort of implication. It's the outline of a bust, the white area in a scetch. The white in a black and white photo implies where the black is... a negative if you imagine.

In quantum physics the space implies where the matter is... as space is a relative absence of matter... and time is simply the relative arrangement of matter...

Nihilism is most certainly an assertion and belief in itself, for it is an assertion or leap of faith in the belief or relative absence of some spiritual presence or deity existence.

Nothing is something in itself, for it is the relative absence of another thing which implies the other. A blank is a negative space, a space. It is a silence that can be loud.

Hense by a grain of sand you can tell the whole origin of the universe, and where it is going.

This is the fruit of postmodernity.

I could very well hold that there's no rational grounds to believe that Jesus didn't exist, ergo belief is the rational course of action.

You say po-TA-to, I say po-TA-TOE. I like butter PEEcan ice cream, you prefer butter PUHcan.

But I do think it's a slightly stronger claim when you argue that Jesus existed as a man behind the Jesus Christ legend as opposed to demanding that Jesus and/or Jesus Christ have NEVER existed by ANY stretch, and in fact the whole story has been a COMPLETE hoax from the very start. This is much more extraordinary than the mere embellishment I am suggesting.

I could just as well say you are the irrational one, since rationality exists from a particular standpoint of seeming relativity when you look a bit deeper.

This could VERY well be the case in my eyes, since I have done quite a bit of credible studying in comming to the conclusion that a man named Jesus probably did exist behind the legend, inspiring the gospels in a way short of the supernatural, but extraordinary nonetheless.

It's quite a strong possibility that this was a teacher of some sort living roughly two thousand years ago, born some time other than Christmas whom embraced some sort of passive resistance in the face of this Goliath oppressor-- a dominator whom systematically crushed any opposition, especially the other more violent and bloody uprisings. Perhaps it's a profound instance in history when a man like this in a place like this pulled the rug out from under the oppressor/oppressed relationship leaving mere people holding holding on to props questioning all of it. This is very transcendental lesson, and worth a good story.

I'm sure his friends missed him a lot and never stopped telling stories about the whole affair.

"Jesus" refers to the concept of a guy that was crusified. "Jesus Christ" refers to the man of the gospels. Maybe it would be better for you to modify your definition of terms here, it seems mine work better.

http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn044/proof.html

But the whole concept of "contemporary" evidence is a loaded question to allow the denial of any kind of historical evidence by other history records from those days...

Right, therefor the burden is yours since you assert that Jesus didn't exist. I came upon your assertion first, I grabbed the skeptic hat first.

Oh, and to cut back on confusion just assume that when I say "Jesus" I'm refering to a poor sap that was crusified, and when I say "Jesus Christ" I'm talking about a mythical figure.

If I wanted more of the mythical position I'd go to some church, or read more Joseph Campbell.

Right! It happens nowadays too, mind you.

Because "rationality" seems to be more of a qualitative criteria for quantitative arguement or empirical data... but it isn't everything.

For instance, rationalize the number of thoughts that are in this sentence, or better yet rationalize what I am thinking from a CAT scan. What is the precise quantity of love a person must get before they're happy, after the age of 25.

See the problem?

Well, it was pretty incredible I got any studying done with my dog licking peanut butter off my balls.

Oh come on, you probably think there was a poor sap named Jesus crusified around year 33 or so.

Sure there is. The people who first wrote about Jesus lived only one or two generations away from his personal time line, and probably had some more "matter of fact" style reportings of the whole Jesus incident. Roman records at the least.

If you agree that there was a non-extraordinary myth creation process at work here, then given the small time frame along with the precise historical personages refered to in this story you'd likely agree that there is some factual presence.

It all just seems too uncharacteristic of a complete tall tale such as that of "Johnney Appleseed" or "Paul Bunyon" with all the everlasting neverending hinting indefinites you find in those. You see, the Jesus story works from a very worldly and mundane level.

It's a bit arbitrary how you draw the distinctions, imagine using mine if you haven't already.

No thanks, and I have been reading them. Don't get me wrong, I do see where you're comming from.

Usually it's disheartening to them that I've taken so much interest and care in examining their gospels.

Remember, the sin of the Jews in the eyes of the post-Constantinian Christian is that they were the closest witnesses to Jesus Christ, yet the firmest doubters. They still carry the negative baggage to this day. Once the Romans went Chrisitian, they proselytized everyone in the empire "unchristian" save the Jews--- the Jews were to be made an example of. They were to be evidence for how wretched doubters of the faith are.

Later on they couldn't own property (money lending is about all a Jew could do to make good money), popes made them wear yellow stars in public, and they had to live in ghettos. The Christians figured that the more it sucked to be a Jew, the greater incentive it would be for one to become a Christian.

There's still something "in our water" that just makes us crazy like this, even secular figures such as Karl Marx and Voltaire have been prone to this phenomenon.

Something just makes gentiles want to blame Jews.

No. Funny how you must continually go back to that strawman - that I'm saying he 'definately didn't exist" when that's an unnecesary standard for non belief.

1) I don't need to affirm that he 'didn't exist' and the fact that you find it necessary to word it that way ought to arouse your own suspicions. A complete historical silence on the matter of jesus, the christ, is rational justification for rejecting claims for the existence of jesus the christ. This is the same position of rational non belief you take, when you lack belief in Santa Claus. You hold to such claims based on the evidence, and you hold to non belief when the evidence is lacking. You don't need to actively disprove the existence of Santa Claus, but that's basically what you're asking of me here.

2) Non belief is the fallback. You can't just assume 'jesus' existed, but your agument does precisely that. There's no such thing as a burden of disproof.

I expect that you'll just go right back to asserting the same strawman - that I'm 'definately rullng out jesus the christ, a priori' when in fact I am holding to the fallback - non belief. So when you do, can you just cut and paste this response to your response? You don't even need to post here, you can do it at home. Consider the 'home version' of rational responders.

I refered you to his description to help clarify my position.

Indeed. So you admit that there's no need for a lie. So you've refuted your own claims here.

You didn't answer the question. If rationality is merely a point of view, then there's no need for discourse at all. So why are you here?

I really don't know why I must repeat myself to you. "Jesus' is a reference to the jesus of the gospels. I don't see any reason at all to believe that such a godman existed.

If some poor sap got hung from a cross, and died, then he's not 'jesus'.

You're begging the question here.

They might have believed that this was true, but if they were 'two generations away' then they'd being going on hearsay, myth. They'd have no way of verifying if the myth actually had a real origin.

If he did, where are they? You're not justified in simply assuming.

On the contrary, a real person might get in the way of a fine myth.

I hear assertions like this all the time, but you've not given me a justification for your analysis. It just sounds to me that you're speaking from personal incredulity.

It's the exact opposite. The jesus of christianity is jesus the christ. Dies, reborn. Miracle worker. Very cut and dry.

If so, then I find it strange all I need to do to respond to your posts is repeat what I've already said.

I certainly don't believe in hocus pocus but I believe it's a real possibility that a man named Jesus existed. This is certainly flimsy evidence at best but the theory of Jesus having a brother really irks the catholics so I thought to submit it anyways. No, I don't really expect the money. Enjoy:

http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbOOossuaryarchive.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=28&Issue=6&ArticleID=1

In reference to someone submitting the fake James (brother of Jesus) ossuary as evidence:

Wouldn't he have technically only been Jesus's half-brother anyway?

You heard wrong.

When discussing hearsay, never use this line. It is far from fact.

The point here is how non-chalantly you can claim without evidence. Where are your sources? What is your evidence? You claim alot and prove nothing. Typical of people trying to satisfy their need for something to exist.

We are, and if you took the time to read the rest of the boards you see just how much we see the big picture. This contest is to prove a point. It isn't our entire outlook.

But it would definitely really suck to show Christians just how backwards their beliefs are...believing in a myth - and finding out that you believe in a myth - is more devastating to said belief then saying "Your beliefs are backwards."

Comparing an assassination of a president we know lived to a mythical being 2/3 of the world population believed to have existed is a HUGE difference. They aren't even in the same ballpark. Not even the same game.

What are you talking about? It has almost everything to do with it.

This isn't conspiracy. This is the truth. The man behind the curtain.

And so is Jesus. And that is more then powerful then that.

Not really, because "his" teachings would no longer be "his" but somebody elses. Get it? They are no longer divine moral statements, and become mans poor subjective opinions. And when one see's that, everything else falls into place.

There are a few references to Jesus in 1st-century Roman and Jewish sources. Documents indicate that within a few years of Jesus' death, Romans were aware that someone named Chrestus (a slight misspelling of Christus) had been responsible for disturbances in the Jewish community in Rome (Suetonius, The Life of the Deified Claudius 25.4). Twenty years later, according to Tacitus, Christians in Rome were prominent enough to be persecuted by Nero, and it was known that they were devoted to Christus, whom Pilate had executed (Annals 15.44).
- Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article goes on to say that this is meager evidence, however the point is still there. Times were turbulent, and there were many emerging sects of Judaism. There was extensive mingling between religions also, adding to the emergence of new sects.

I regret saying, "In fact, he was one of many of these leaders. He certainly was not a Christian, however. This a central point."
I should have said, "In fact, he was probably one of many of these leaders."

First of all, I resent your charicterization of me. I am an atheist as much as you are. Of course Jesus was not a christian, because christianity did not exist. Christianity was not created until the gospels were written, years after Jesus' death. My sources? The publication date on the New Testament. This is obvious, so as anyone actually versed in the actual rules for source citation would know, I do not need to cite my sources in a matter of common knowledge. And yes, it is certainly public knowledge, as it is mentioned in many encyclopedias. Look it up.

You are completely misrepresenting my point. Religion is a social and scientific construct, and should be debunked as such. Yes, history is useful, in fact devestatingly useful, however this is only because it describes the social conditions that gave rise (and even now give rise) to religion.

No, here you are dead wrong. Christianity has had to back up its positions over time to deal with science. Now, almost all of Christians I argue with admit that much of the bible is myth. "However," they say, "It still has good morals and without religion society would have no humanity." Therefor, proving that their beliefs are backwards and immoral is an even more devestating attack than attempting to disprove the existence of Jesus.

This is a vast misrepresentation of my analogy. I am not comparing the existence of the president with the existence of Jesus, but the existence of a conspiracy to kill the president to the existence of Jesus. We do not know if Jesus existed, but that does not matter, for the religion exists without a doubt. We do not know who shot kennedy, but that does not matter, for we know that there was some sort of conspiracy.

No. The religion of christianity does not draw power from the existence of Jesus. It draws power from the ideals that Jesus spoke of. Those ideals are completely separate from Jesus' existence.

It most certainly is conspiracy! No conspiracy states, "BEWARE! THIS IS A CONSPIRACY ZONE!" No. They always say that they are fact. But, they almost all share something in common. They are all irrelevant. Whether or not Jesus lived has nothing to do with the christian religion, much as whether or not Jefferson had slaves has nothing to do with the ideals of American democracy.

Jesus is simply a teacher, whereas God was what he preached. Jesus was the SON of god, and was used to spread God's word.
Therefor, the idea of God is in fact more powerful than the idea of Jesus.

"His" teachings would still exist, however, and they would still have power. Of course they are subjective. that is the entire point of god. Religion replaces cold hard science with human subjectivity.

I hope I have blown all your puny little minds, but not really.
Sincerely,
I'm relatively sure I'm right.

PS - Bowing will not be necessary. Respond soon so that I may destroy you again.
PPS - I hope this doesn't sound egotistical (And yes, I am of course joking. I hope no one takes offence)

Look at the steps that the Catholic church has taken. They have slowly rolled back their views to science. First the world was flat and the center of the universe and everything was made in seven day. Then the world was round. Then it revolved in a circular orbit around the sun. Then that orbit was elliptical and no matter how heavy things were, they would both fall wih uniform acceleration. Now the church is in the process of rolling back its views on birth control, AND, most importantly for my argument, they have decided to "interpret" the bible. So now, evolution by the hand of God is being trumpeted by clergy everywhere. The point is that their views can change, but the religion stays because they only have to interpret the bible. If it was conclusively proved that Jesus did not exist, they would simply point out that he influenced the earth in spirit. Religion rises from social conditions, poverty, desperation, ignorance. For religion to be destroyed, those social conditions must also be destroyed. Religion flourishes in poverty, among the hopeless and uneducated. You will never destroy religion by science alone. Here is an example. The United States is in Iraq at the moment. I will not go into politics here because I don't feel like ranting. I can present my views on another forum (HINT! they're not liberatarian, conservative, or democrat - or green, I suppose. The point is, the United States has been hit by a terrorist attack, so they use this provocation to invade. Even though the greatest military might the world has ever seen has just been unleashed, we can't seem to stop the insurgents. Why? Because they will keep on popping up, no matter how many we kill or convert. This is of course because the conditions make people want to kill Americans. If there was no poverty in Afghanistan, Osama would never have had support. Do you see what I mean? To eliminate Religion, society itself must change. There must be no poverty or ignorance. Therefor, the solution is political in nature. Anyone who has argued with a Christian knows that no matter how much evidence you present, they will not renounce their god. I know how I would destroy poverty and ignorance. I'll see if you come to my solution.

I'm going to start writing in a second.

I'm not trying to sound like an arrogant prick, but, dude....this is turning into a five-hour second....

It isn't widely held because most people aren't informed enough to see the problem with accepting historicity. This isn't their fault. I'll get to the debunking sometime soon.

Victory!