It is also located in my BLOG:

Please do not repost identical information as that causes unnecesary work for the mods.

A thread can be moved if necessary, but you posted it in the correct forum originally and I will move it back, combined with the other post.

Many people use the "recent posts" feature instead of entering particular forums.  If you wish to keep your thread at the top of that list, you may "bump" your thread. 

Christ Myth please answer a couple of questions for me.

 1st - Why do you date Christ's birth to be on December 25th, when Chrsitians claim it is most likely that he was born sometime around March/April (or at least during spring/summer and not winter)? Also why do you ignore the fact that the Roman Catholic church chose this date because of the pagan celebrations that occured on Dec 25th and not because Jesus was born on that day?

2nd - Why do you ignore Passover as being the reason Jesus died during Easter? (As Christians believe) Would it not make more since that the Jewish writers of the New Testament would borrow the Hebrew event and not the Pagan event?

Simple Theist -

1. There are several things I left out to make the video as short as possible. I do make mention of this on my website in the Holy Days>Christmas> section:

In order to make it easier for the Romans to convert to Christianity without missing out on their festivities, Pope Julius I ordered that the birth of Christ be celebrated on December 25th. The date of Christmas was based on the date of Good Friday, the day Jesus died. Since the date of Jesus' death was believed to be March 25, the date of his birth would have been nine months after the date of Good Friday: December 25 (a rebirth after his death in March). Since the exact date of Good Friday is never given in the gospels, there were differing opinions on what day it should be celebrated. Some early Christians believed Good Friday should have been celebrated on April 6th. Nine months later is January 6th (when Christmas is celebrated in many Eastern countries). It is the twelve days between these two dates (Dec. 25 and Jan. 6) that are referred to as "the twelve days of Christmas"

and later:

"Before Pope Julian II established Christmas to be celebrated on the 25th of December in 345 AD, Christ's birth had traditionally been celebrated on March 25th, during the time of the Vernal Equinox (Eastertide). The 25th is 4 days after March 21st (the exact day of the Equinox). The 25th is the date of "the annunciation" to mary that she would be carrying the child of God."

2. The legend states that Christ's "death" was "chosen" to coincide with the passing over of the sacrificial lambs of the Pesach season. Since one of Christ's many symbols is the lamb, this date was obviously a good choice for his legendary crucifixion. There are several other reasons why this time period was chosen, however. Including those that are mentioned in the video.

 Christ Myth, I'll debate you here and now. Tell me why you deny Jesus existed? Didn't you know that the vast majority of Jesus historians affirm He was crucified? He could not have been crucified if he never existed.

 So, its ok for evolutionists to appeal to popularity, but we can't when it comes to Jesus research? That's not fair.

I'm not an atheist.

I agree with Broncosfan that these are opinions. It's unfortunate that there's no evidence to show that he actually existed, as that would bring something definitive to the debate. If there was some evidence for his actual existence, there would be no need for opinions on the matter. We would all know the truth.

 Before any of you go making any assumptions about me,  I wouldn't care if Jesus DID exist. If there were one shred of (real) evidence proving his existence, I would take it for what it was. There's no point in denying the truth.

 Anyone who has studied seriously the historical Jesus subject, would never claim there is no evidence for Jesus. You cannot possibly be serious. I can quote scholar after scholar on the evidence topic alone. Yale Historian, Edwin Yamauchi stated that there is more evidence for Jesus, then for the founder of any other religion.

Evidence:

The New Testament, which is corroberated by over 5,000 Greek manuscripts alone. Over 24,000 all together. In terms of classical antiquity, no one even comes close to this in terms of manuscript evidence.

Jesus tomb is located in Jerusalem. While no one can really prove that any ancient tomb is real, there is a strong collective cultural memory that it is his tomb.

We have the nails and parts of the cross that were handed down and preserved. I would also argue there is a strong case for the Shroud of Turin.

We have Jewish references: Talmud, Josephus, etc.

We have Pagan references

Gnostic references

Roman references

We have archaeological evidence for the places described in the New Testament

We have evidence that Jesus' apostles existed.

We have the evidence of all the lives Jesus has changed throughout history, and the strong impact He has made on human history. If anyone ever existed, it was Jesus.

We have the existance of the Christian religion and Church. All religions had historical founders. There is no reason to assume Christianity didn't.

Jesus birth dated the Calendar of the world. We are currently in the year of our Lord (Anno Domini) 2007

I grant that there could have been more contemporary evidence, but the question is: should there have been? Most ancient biographers only wrote about political and official figures. Not self-proclaimed "Messiah"s who suffered execution.

I have.

I do.

I am. 

[heavy Brooklyn accent]

Oy vey!

[/heavy Brooklyn accent]

I kinda like where this thread is going, so I'll put my 2 cents in. First-

Hence my belief that he doesn't exist. But I don't count this as proof that Jesus didn't exist.

I feel the same way. If Jesus, Allah, Zeus, Thor, Xenu or any other god were proven to exist,( with roughly the same burden of proof I'd need if on a jury in any criminal case - "beyond a REASONABLE doubt" ) I would believe that the god or gods proven to exist actually do exist. Whether or not I actually worship said god(s) is a different story.

"imaginary" is such a harsh word... Let's call them "legendary".

Most of these things have already been dealt with - those sources are all from way after Jesus supposedly lived, The main Josephus writing is almost certainly a forgery, and using the BuyBull is circular logic. And the shroud of Turin has been proven a mideval forgery.

They say ignorance is bliss. First of all, the oldest version of Josephus is in Aramaic and leading Josephus scholars have established the Jesus reference to be authentic. It is no longer disputed. Second, the Shroud of Turn has not been debunked at all. Why don't you people do you own independent research instead of relying so much on atheist propaganda. I can give you multiple resources showing that you people just have no idea what you are talking about. Think for yourself. Don't let other people think for you. The atheist agenda is is commited to stopping human thought and wonder. They want to poison your mind and control you.

It's not just atheists that doubt the shroud of Turin is anything but a fraud. Here's the article:

http://skepdic.com/shroud.html

 That website is replete with lies and disinformation. Its refuted here: www.shroud.com

The evidence for Jesus is accepted by historians. It is only rejected by a small minority of atheists because they are desperate to poke holes in anything that has to do with God. Don't take my word for it. Look up Jesus in any standard encyclopedia.

As I said before, the opposition has always been crushed. Madalyn O'Hair founded American Atheists and was responsible for taking prayer out of school. Her body was found mutilated in dozens of pieces. She was in such bad shape, they had to use dental records to identify her. Remember that atheist on the news who was trying to take "one nation under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance? He commited suicide. Of course we never heard about this on the news. Those are just recent examples. Christianity has stood the test of time because it is a Divine institution. Jesus promissed that the gates of Hell will never prevail over His Church (Matt.16:18-19).

 A few months ago I looked on Wikipedia under "Famous People who Commited Suicide," and I could swear he was listed. I looked again and it appears to have been removed. I know Wiki is not always accurate. Regardless, according to The American Journal of Psychiatry, religious suicides are significantly lower then atheist suicides.

Hinduism has stood the test of time for longer, does that mean it's even more divine?

How are you going to prove that a man who may or may not have lived over 2,000 years ago is a myth..??

How are you going to PROVE it (as opposed to expressing your opinion) - by referring to other books / websites that merely offer the SAME opinions that other people have voiced over the years.

Why don't we put this issue to bed once and for all..!!

You have an opinion - you have the EXACT same thing that me and billions of other people on this planet have - OPINIONS..!!

 You - along with Rook Hawkins can create 1,000 websites and create a wish list of 1,000,000 books and you'll be no closer to PROVING your position. 

I have no idea if Jesus of Nazareth existed or not - I believe that he did, but I don't know it for sure. And as far as the "burden of proof" is concerned, i don't owe you or anybody else squat..! 

 I choose to believe - you choose not to - congratulations, we can agree to disagree.  I rarely - if ever - dress up my opinions as facts.

The ONLY thing that bothers me is when the likes of this poster or Rook Hawkins, for example, try to present opinions as facts. 

Personally, I find it very amusing that he has a wish list of books that run into the thousands of dollars and somehow IF he manages to obtain these books and he's able to do his research, he's going to find THE ANSWER.

Right - in the year 2007, he's going to PROVE beyond all doubt that a man didn't exist in the year 20 AD or 30 AD or whatever. Or the author of this post is going to prove it.

 Personally, I don't see a whole lot of difference between a fundamentalist, who insists that evolution is a myth or that the world can't be older than 6,000 years despite the evidence and the atheist, who insists that Christ is a myth, despite the fact the overwhelming majority of historicans / scholars BELIEVE that he was a living, breathing person.

As far as I'm concerned, these people are cut from the EXACT same cloth - just opposite sides of the SAME coin..!!

Evolution"ists" as you put it do not appeal to popularity, they appeal to evidence. Evidence which is available to all.

Then you have absolutely no right whatsoever to dispute the claims of jesus mythicists, and you're wasting your time and everyone elses by posting in the first place.

Which lends them even more credibility than christianity. More so than just being older does.

Isn't it a little irrational to make a claim you can't prove? There is much evidence for Jesus being real, your just ignoring all of it. First Christianity is not a later incarnation of Osiris, you have no proof of this, only your speculation.

I sure stepped in it this time.

In and of itself it does not suggest anything regarding validity, for or against. But in my view, certain tenets and teachings of christianity have always been found as immoral to some. Tenets that to my knowledge, the religions raised as comparison(which was the foundation of my reply) do not share. Such as permanent punishment, punishment not fitting a crime, mass murder of societies. At best being presented as good. Or at worst, the fault of those who have fallen. There is good reason for a person of no faith or a religious person of a different faith to reject the idea of eternal punishment or simply death for something as benign as cussing or having multiple lovers. And yet, christianity claims to be the ultimate source of morality. The only source of morality. As Bush has said many times, you're either with us or against us. Chrisitanity fueled it's own opposition by opposing it's opposition. This is quite obviously a controversy in the making, no matter what time you are in. Yet the religion also claims that it is the foundation of the species. That without the christian god, life would not exist, let alone human life. Yet this knowledge was denied to us until the rise of the christian religion. In the face of the religions claims, this seems contradictory. Surely a god that created all life, human life, and morality would not deny the knowledge of this creation to it's creation, yet expect it's creation to follow it anyway. The reasonable response of the day to claims of such magnitude that are not proven or are contrary to accepted beliefs is oppression.

I rather doubt I've answered you properly, but in all honesty I made that claim in the face of the implication that christianity being able to survive a few centuries of opposition lent it any credibility at all, which is rather ludicrous. If he had asked me to back up my claim, I'd have asked him to back up his previous claim first, and that frame of the discussion would have ended as he would be unable to do so.

This sort of logic suggests that the remains of witchcraft and shaman religions have the best claim. They've existed far longer than christianity, and have been persecuted to a far greater degree, yet they still exist, though have been massively fragmented. Christians may have been crucified, but witches(or those fingered as such) were burned. The only thing they don't have is the numbers, which is quite understandable when considering they were actively hunted for close to a thousand years.

I don't think so. I've been in a few life threatening situations and was too busy trying to figure a way out to consider the notion. Perhaps if I had the time to deliberate, but more likely I'd just jump. A quick splatter is quite preferable to prolonged suffocation and burning.