And yet any human on this earth demonstrates more evidence for his or her existence than god.

The god you currently worship was introduced to you by a human or humans. Should you not take with a grain of salt what they told you, and what the preacher tells you every sunday?

We don't yet fully know how DNA developed, although your mention of "random chemicals" is innaccurate. That is not to say we will never know. Things which were previously attributed to god for lack of explanation, have now been found to have completely natural explanations (lightning, plague, epilepsy etc.).

You accept the evidence that the influenza virus evolves. Do you likewise accept the evidence that humans evolved with chimpanzees from a common primate ancestor?

In the first thread you started, I challenged you on the historical evidence for jesus. After one response, you dodged the question, never to return to it, impugning my character in the process.  You subsequently resorted to a series of fallacious arguments based on emotion or selective reasoning.  If you were at all concerned about "the truth", you would not have retreated from that discussion. Feel free to do so now.

You do this with almost every post.

....and among other irrational leaps.

How about only in evidence. Instead of making the leap to "god", how about holding judgement until we know exactly?

14.5 billion years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes, 17 seconds.... tick, tock, tick, tock. The clock has been ticking for an awfully long time, he is woefully procrastinating.

Glad you accept what is irrefutable.

See Zarathrusta's reponse to this.

14.5 billion years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes, 17 seconds.... tick, tock, tick, tock. The clock has been ticking for an awfully long time, he is woefully procrastinating.

[

And yet you keep blurting it, presumably because you have nothing else to go on. I could just as easily say that the nonexistence of god comes from "an internal sense of knowing". But since I know that is "hogwash" to anyone with a functioning intellect, I refrain from doing so.

I said we don't know "yet". I also said there are things which once we didn't know, which now we do.

Good for you. But you are implying that since we don't currently know, therefore god must exist. Bad for you.

You're going to waste time and say it anyway.

You can and you will. Because it's not the truth.

"Branded"? Are we on the jesus Ranch?

I have never implied that you weren't.

Indeed they can. Which explains why so many people still believe in jesus, when history, statistics and facts show no evidence for such.

I'd be very interested to know what you have "read or studied". Recall that your initial provision of data for the historical jesus was based on a "quick google search" -- and shown to be insufficient.

It's okay to consult your notes when making a post. I for one won't mind. Data and dates are far more convincing than emotional appeals.

Snap, snap, snap!

Well go ahead and conduct yourself, grrl. Just realize - whenever you use jesus in your arguments without having addressed something as basic as the lack of historical evidence for jesus, you are essentially, how should I say, building your house on sand.

By that logic you have to believe in Zeus before he makes himself known to you. Or believe that Elvis really is still alive. Or that there really are aliens abducting people.

Since noone else can go on your experience, it is useless to argue from your experience.

Then it is uselss to argue for god's existence based on what we (currently) do not know, as you were just doing.

Sugar, read this next sentence very slowly: There is no historical evidence for the person of jesus. The only thing that anyone can cite is the bible, which has been shown not to be credible. Not a single document or artifact from the first 3 decades of the 1st century corroborates the story of jesus. You cannot accuse me of misinterpretation, because there is no data to misinterpret. If there is data, please provide it (and do me the "honor" of using something more substantive than google).

Why worship a dead god.

Here's where you're wrong: If you have something credible to present, I will accept your arguments. If I'm wrong, educate me. But when your arguments consist of google searches and calling me angry, how am I to accept that?

The same argument can be made for any other god out there. You must first choose to believe in Allah/Buddha/blah, and then Allah/Buddha/blah makes it known to you that you made the right choice.

You did. You made the rule that this only applies to jesus, and not any other god.

Yet the majority of the world's population attests to an experience different from yours and "other believers". How do you demonstrate what makes your experience so special, without relying on the experience itself?

You are not very theologically educated, aren't you, Maragon.

Christians (the only kind of theists that profess "faith" in abundance) do not have "faith in God existing." If you have faith in X's existance, that is called a belief (not superstition, a belief.)

However, saying "I have faith in X" is an entirely different proposition. As that the "existing" portion of the argument is missing makes this not a claim that X exists, but tha tX will do something.

In the case of Christianity, that act that God will do is justify His followers from their own sin.

Your entire argument relies on a confusion of terms between "faith" and "belief." Because you don't really understand either, you lump them both into the same pot and call them the same thing.

"I believe in God" =/= "I have faith in God."

Quit attacking positions you do not understand. You do not have the ability to make, much less have actually made, an attack and have only proven your own ignorance by confusing ideas.

Changing the definition of words does not improve your argument nor does it make it true.  Also, as there are too many positions of faith to number, please do not assume Maragon is not well versed in  theology.  Attacking individual character is considered a logical fallacy by ad hominem. 

Faith/Belief is as individual as the person claiming it, therefore, it is just as ridiculous. 

Aw, an ad hominem attack to start off with? Well that makes me take your point seriously, doesn't it?

Perhaps you're only making that assumption because you don't like the ideas I've come up with.

And you sir, do you have a degree in theology? 

No, if you have faith in something existing, you have faith that it exists.  It's CALLED having faith. Get your weasel words outta here.

You cannot change the definition of 'faith' to suit your ideologies. 

Oh, so this means that you have proof of 'X' existing? Do share it.

You'd HAVE to have empirical proof to make this kind of absolute statement. 

 In order to believe that god will DO something, you have to have FAITH that he exists first.

FAIL.

Belief:

OKay, so what you're saying here is that the DICTIONARY is wrong, and you're correct?

I'm sorry, but you can't just arbitrarily re-define terms when they don't suit your purposes.

And apparently I understand your backwards, idiotic, egocentric posistion better than you do seeing as I actually UNDERSTAND WHAT THE DEFINITION OF THE WORDS I USE is. 

You're trying to debate semantics just because you HATE the fact that you have no proof for your invisible skygod.

I'm sorry that your FAITH IN GOD is so weak that you feel the need to re-define words. 

Someone's been trusting what they hear in church a little too much...

From Todangst's Blog (with Rook as coauthor)...

- Todangst (with Rook Hawkins)

"[T]here is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed." - Dan Barker

It may surprise Christians to learn that there are no contemporary historical documents for 'Jesus, the Christ'. (The writings of Paul are not comptemporary accounts: they do not appear until 15 years after the purported time of Jesus and they include a concession that Paul never actually met Jesus. The Gospels come much later (as evidenced by the fact that Paul never cites them) and there is good reason that all four of the surviving, accepted Gospels are based on Mark, which in turn is likely to be midrash, not historical documentation: (See: http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_gospels_are_midrash)).

While some apologists attempt to wave this problem away by claiming that "Jesus"would not have been a noteworthy figure, this apologetic tactic contradicts what the Gospels say about Jesus.

Even the relatively sober account of Jesus found in the first gospel, The Gospel of 'Mark', gives an account of Jesus as someone who garnered quite a bit of attention. Consider for example, Mark 2:1-12, where the crowd coming to see Jesus is so great, that a paralytic has to be lowered through the roof of a building Jesus is in, in order for Jesus to see him. Elsewhere Mark tells us that the crowds that Jesus drew were so overflowing that he has to lecture from a boat on the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus travels from Bethany to Jerusalem, throngs of people line the roads to welcome him. Mark also tells us of how Jesus performed miracles before thousands: on two different occasions Jesus feeds thousands through miracles (see for example, Mark 8:1).

In short, 'Mark' gives us a 'Jesus' who is bigger than the Beatles, and I believe the Beatles analogy is a good one: we even have a nice parallel between the story of Jesus' lecture from a ship at Galilee, and the Beatles famous 'rooftop' audition, where they were forced to play an impromptu concert on a rooftop, lest the crowds that would rush to see them cause a riot. In both cases, the crowds had reached, hysterical, historically noteworthy, proportions. Yet, John E. Remsberg, in 'The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence' (The Truth Seeker Company, NY, no date, pp. 24-25) makes the curious observation that no one from this era wrote a single word about the Jesus Hysteria. Remsberg notes: "(While) Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library, (no where)... in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged brief passages in the works of a Jewish author (Josephus), and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ."

There are Christians today who hold that Remsberg has 'been refuted' because many on his list either were not contemporaries, or were 'not the sort who would have been interested in Jesus'. They tell us, straight faced, that writers who were mainly interested in drama, or reporting war stories, wouldn't have bothered to write down anything about a throng drawing, miracle working, godman striding the earth.

Leaving aside this bit of insanity, it is a red herring to respond to this problem by saying "Remsberg has been refuted", for not matter how many problems one may be able to point out concerning his famous list, no matter how many people one removes fromt the list, there remain people on his list who should have noticed, and their silence is glaring.

Let's take a look at the more notable names on his list, just to get an idea, again, of how glaring this silence is... We can call this list:

"They Would Have Noticed"

Philo (~20 BCE - ~40 CE) was a Hellenized Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. He visited the Temple in Jerusalem, and corresponded with family there. He wrote a great many books on religion and philosophy which survive to this day, and mentioned many of his contemporaries. His main theological contribution was the development of the Logos, the "Word" that opens the Gospel of John. Yet Philo not once mentions Jesus, anybody who could be mistaken for Jesus, or any of the events of the New Testament. His last writings come from 40 CE, only a few years after the end of Pontius Pilate's reign, when he was part of an embassy sent by the Alexandrian Jews to the Roman Emperor Caligula.

Philo wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre (which also has no independent corroboration) supposedly occurred. He was personally very interested in the concept of ressurection. He was there when Christ supposedly would have made his triumphal entry in Jerusalem. He was there when the Crucifixion with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead would have taken place--when Christ himself supposedly would have rose from the dead. Yet, none of these events are ever mentioned by him.

It simply makes no sense that Philo would not have recorded something about the Markian conceptualization of Jesus.

Pliny the Elder (~23 CE - 79 CE) wrote a Natural History that mentions hundreds of people, major and minor; he even writes about the Essenes in Natural History, section V, 15 . Yet nowhere in his works is any mention of the Jesus phenomena described in Mark.

Pliny also provides us with a direct refutation of the Gospel claims of earthquakes and eclipses. Pliny collected data on all manner of natural and astronomical phenomena, even those which were legendary - which he himself did not necessarily regard as factual, yet he records no prodigies associated with the beliefs of Christians, such as an earthquake or darkening of the skies at a crucifixion, or any star of Bethlehem.

After Philo and Pliny the Elder one of the most damning omission would be in the works of Josephus.

Josephus (37-100 AD) . Theists may be surprised to see this name on the list, and the inclusion is debatable, but read on.

Josephus was not a contemporary and could not have been a first hand eyewitness of "Jesus", however, as a Jewish historian who focused on Jewish history and religion, he would have been greatly interested in the appearance of the Jewish Messiah. Josephus wrote The Antiquities of the Jews, See his works here: http://reluctant-messenger.com/josephus.htm This is a work that focused on Jewish history from "Adam" to Josephus' time. Yet, while Josephus devotes a good deal of time and space to John the Baptist and other historical figures mentioned in the Gospels (He gives a detailed account of Pontius Pilate in The Jewish Wars, http://www.inu.net/skeptic/gospels.html) he does not appear to have actually written anything at all concerning the life of Jesus the Christ! This is 'damning' considering that we would expect that the appearance of the Jewish Messiah ought to have dominated a work dedicated to Jewish history.

Furthermore, Josephus was interested both in the concept of ressurection, as well as in the histories of various Jewish sects which a real Jesus would have either 1) been a member of or 2) have had substantial discourse with. How could a man with these experiences, and with these interests, not have dedicated volumes to "Jesus" if there were any reason to believe such a messiah existed?

"When I was sixteen years old, I decided to get experience with the various sects that are among us. These are three: as we have said many times, the first, that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Saduccees, the third, that of the Essenes. For I thought that in this way I would choose best, if I carefully examined them all. Therefore, submitting myself to strict training, I passed through the three groups."
(Life, 1.2, 10-11)

Now we have a man with a keen historical interest in Judaism, combing this interest with a wealth of first hand experience concerning the very groups Jesus would have been numbered amongst, who doesn't mention a word about Jesus!

For this very reason, the claim that Josephus never mentions a Jesus the Christ was a concern for early Christians. Therefore, it is no surprise that a later interpolation of a reference to Jesus the Christ appears in the Antiquities. The infamous "Testimonium Flavium" appears to have been inserted into the Antiquities about the time of the 4th century. A key proof for this comes from the fact that while early Christians cited Josephus, none of them ever cited the Testimonium, even in situations where they were striving to provide historical proof for Jesus:

* Justin Martyr (circa C.E. 100-165) never once quoted the passage -- even in the face of charges that Christians had "invented some sort of Christ for themselves" and that they had accepted "a futile rumor" (Dialogue with Trypho 8; circa C.E. 135).
* Origen (circa C.E. 185-254), who in his own writings relies extensively upon the works of Josephus, does not mention this passage or any other passage in Josephus that mentions Christ. Not even when he is in dialogue against Celsus' accusations!
* Jerome (circa C.E. 347-420) cites Josephus 90 times, but never once cites the Testimonium.

Logic itself tells us that had Josephus written the Testimonium, he would have written more than 3 lines concerning the existence of the Jewish Messiah in a book dedicated to Jewish History! Remsberg writes:

"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly fourty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."

-- The Christ, by John E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books, New York, 1994, pages 171-3.

Logic also provides us with yet another powerful clue as to the falsity of the Testimonium: Josephus lived and died a Jew, never converting to Christianity. Even a Christian apologist, normally at home with warping logic well past its breaking point, ought to find it difficult to reconcile the claim that Josephus had evidence of Jesus as the Messiah with the fact that he never converted to Christianity. How could Josephus have good evidence for the existence of a messiah, and yet, at the same time, die a Jew?

There's really only one way to salvage the Testimonium: to use Jeffery J. Lowder's argument that the Testimonium was radically altered by christians, and that the original Josephus passage was a reference to a purely human Jesus who, while worthy of a brief note, did not merit more than a few lines of text, let along consideration as the Jewish Messiah. This would explain why christians did not cite it until it was radically altered: because it was an actual refutation of the gospel claim of Jesus, the Christ.

Lowder writes:

"There are many scholars who believe the original text contained an authentic reference to Jesus but was later embellished by Christian copyists. I have italicized the sections widely regarded as interpolations":

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.

Lowder continues:

"If the original passage contained only the non-italicized text, then it becomes quite easy to explain why the passage was not widely quoted during early Christian history. In its "pure" form, the passage would have only proved that (a purely human) Jesus existed, not that he performed miracles, rose from the dead, etc."

Lowder states that this may explain why no early christian cited the Testimonium: because it did nothing to support the existence of Jesus as Jesus the Christ. In fact, I hold it may well be damaging to the claim. It therefore seems that the two most plausible explanations for the Testimonium: that it is either entirely or partially a fraud, lead to a serious problem for the christian.

If the Testimonium is a complete fiction, it leaves the christian without any historical corroboration from Josephus.

If it is a tampered document, it indicates that Josephus did not consider this Jesus to be anything more than a revered teacher, and that this clearly embarrassed early christians to the point that they 1) ignored the passage for centuries and 2) later saw fit to deceptively alter the passage.

It should also be noted that some argue that Antiquities section 20.9 makes an indirect reference to Jesus. This claim is examined here: http://www.atheistnetwork.com/viewtopic.php?p=38864&sid=eae887916e8679c9cd9fd7af5fc065e5#38864
and also here: http://www.inu.net/skeptic/gospels.html There is good reason to believe that the reference to a "Jesus' here is actually a reference to Jesus, son of Damneus that has been tampered with by later christians, and not an actual refernece to 'Jesus, son of Joseph'. And again, the same point remains: the idea that a historian would mention the Messiah in passing while discussing an issue of minor relevance (and not elsewhere) staggers reason itself.

Plutarch (ca. 46 - 127), again, was not a contemporary, he wrote about the same time as Josephus, about contemporary Roman figures, oracles, prophesies, and moral, religious, and spiritual issues. A figure such as Jesus, whom the Gospels portray as interacting with Roman figures, making prophecies, and giving sermons on novel religious and spiritual issues to throngs of people, would have been of great interest to him. Yet we cannot find even a word about "Jesus" from Plutarch.

Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BC–AD 65) philosopher and statesman, who wrote both philosophical works and papers on morality. He lived during the purported time of Jesus, in the general area of Jesus, and would have had contact with Roman authorities who in turn would have had contacts with Jesus. Yet, he does not take note of any of the miraculous events reported in the gospels.

Justus of Tiberius ( ? - 95 ?) Remsberg states that "Justus was a native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He was a contemporary and rival of Josephus. He wrote a history of Jewish people Kings (who the gospels state Jesus had interactions with) covering the time of Christ's reputed existence. This work perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the 9th century, was acquainted with it and said, "
'I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias ... and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth. He makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did." (– Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, Bibliotheca, Code 33)."

Dio Chrysostom (c. 40–c. 120) was a Greek orator, writer, philosopher and historian of the Roman Empire in the first century. Eighty of his Discourses remain in existence. While Chrysostom was not a contemporary of Jesus' purported time (He was a contemporary of Plutarch, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger) he was both a historian and a person with great interest in moral matters. His philosophy has been considered a moral parallel to that of Paul of Tarsus and indicates that the early Greek Christians drew upon the Cynic and Stoic philosophies when developing their Christian faith. So we again have an early writer who certainly would have had interest in Jesus as Mark or any of the other Gospels, present him.

Epictetus (55-130) Again, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus was not born until sometime after the purported time of Jesus, however, his silence remains noteworthy. A translator of Epictetus, Elizabeth Carter, was baffled that he was not a Christian. “There are so many of the sentiments and expressions of Christianity in it, that one should be strongly tempted to think that Epictetus was acquainted with the New Testament,..” [p. xxii] Well, he was not and never even so much as mentions Christians in passing. He lived in Rome and as a slave to Epaphroditus, a senior member of Nero’s government would have known of the fire and the Christian sacrifice in the aftermath. However, all he has to say about Nero is his persecution of some good men who refused to attend his performances.

They all should have noticed. It appears that none did.

All that is left is to sum things up. The historian Edward Gibbons writes:

"But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe" (Rome, Vol. I, pp. 588-590).

Could the most amazing event ever go unnoticed? Only the intellectual dishonest can answer with a "yes".

Addendum:

Let's now consider a person who 'does' 'notice' Jesus:

St. Paul of Tsarus. (10-67)

As Franc Tremblay writes: "Such a deafening silence on the existence of any other historical figures would be extremely suspicious. In the case of an earth-shaking messiah who raised the dead and fed the multitudes, clearly we should find masses of testimonies and evidence, but we find none. It is clearly an argument for the non-existence of Jesus. But the clinching evidence is that even Christian leaders considered Jesus purely as a mythical figure and did not know anything about his life":

"In the first half century of Christian correspondence, including letters attributed to Paul and other epistles under names like Peter, James and John, the Gospel story cannot be found. When these writers speak of their divine Christ, echoes of Jesus of Nazareth are virtually inaudible, including details of a life and ministry, the circumstances of his death, the attribution of any teachings to him. God himself is often identified as the source of Christian ethics. No one speaks of miracles performed by Jesus, his apocalyptic predictions, his views on any of the great issues of the time. The very fact that he preached in person is never mentioned, his appointment of apostles or his directive to carry the message to the nations of the world is never appealed to. No one looks back to Jesus’ life and ministry as the genesis of the Christian movement, or as the pivot point of salvation history."

- The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty (Journal of Higher Criticism, Fall 1997)

We may add that Paul himself didn't know about the virgin birth. He never mentions it, and In Romans 1:1-3, he claims that Jesus was the son of Joseph, who was established as a descendant of David.

***********************

For those who wish to respond:

If you are a christian, looking to respond, unless you have entirely new points to raise, please save yourself some time and just post "Number 1" or "Number 2 or "Number 3"

1) No one would have noticed, because "Jesus" was a minor figure.

- This response simply ignores my essay.

2) "The people I listed wouldn't care about writing about a god striding the earth in earthly form, attracting throngs of people and working miracles... because they prefered to focus on other things... like philosophy."

Sure...and people dealing with philosophy -- the meaning of life, matters of the true nature of existence, would not be interested in um... god, because... um.. that has nothing to do with the meaning of life...

3) "Remsberg was refuted a long time ago."

This essay corrects the flaws in his argument. While many have pointed out flaws in Remsberg's original list, his main point still stands: it's ridiculous to claim that a historian or a philosopher wouldn't be interested in mentioning that he saw a god man working miracles.

Someone's been trusting what they read in weblogs a little too much...

The word "contemporary" was never used in the statement I quoted!

Very well built straw man I must admit! 

Was there a reason that you specifically ignored Parchment number 321 from cave 4 in Qumrân (4 Q 321)??? Secular science science has not ignored it! Once you agree with secular science, you agree with the census, which verifies the birth of Jesus Christ.