Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest

[Surlethe]

But shouldn't absence of evidence be taken as evidence of absence?

There is partisan evidence to the contrary. Given that moderately popular philosopher would draw crowds is logical I give his partisans the benifit of the doubt.

The partisan evidence is little more than propaganda; why give it any credulity at all, when there is no corresponding evidence?

Oral tradition is incredibly unreliable; I'm pretty sure there actually wasn't a blue ox named "Babe" who created the Grand Canyon with a plow, but that's an American oral tradition.

Of course not, conversely the entirety of civilization in the Americans prior to 1492 was illiterate. Should we ignore their edidact oral traditions of the Incan conquests or the exploits of various Mexica kings? Granted one may need a large dose of salt when dealing with oral tradition, but I'm confident that Monco Capac existed at least.

Generally, we also have archaeological evidence for such things: take Troy, for instance. We had the oral history of Homer claiming its existence, but until the city itself was discovered, there was no reason to believe Troy actually existed.

The historian has made the negative claim: he says there was no historical Jesus. How does that require positive proof?

There historian has claimed that all accounts of Jesus are actually misrepresented accounts of John of Gamela. That is a positive claim, requiring positive proof. In order to get his "impersonation" charge he HAS to make a positive claim.

I thought that was a secondary charge, and not central to the issue at hand.

[tharkûn]

The partisan evidence is little more than propaganda; why give it any credulity at all, when there is no corresponding evidence?

Mainly because that describes most history. With partisan evidence I give it the benifit of the doubt and carry some salt.

Generally, we also have archaeological evidence for such things: take Troy, for instance. We had the oral history of Homer claiming its existence, but until the city itself was discovered, there was no reason to believe Troy actually existed.

I listed people, not places. Should we simply ignore the oral tradition about the Incan and Mexica rulers who fought wars, built empires, and ruled massive populations?

I thought that was a secondary charge, and not central to the issue at hand.

Not from what I've read of the actual charges, though I admit I haven't been thorough. If you find different at the link I provided, please do correct me.

[Surlethe]

The partisan evidence is little more than propaganda; why give it any credulity at all, when there is no corresponding evidence?

Mainly because that describes most history. With partisan evidence I give it the benifit of the doubt and carry some salt.

That doesn't make it credible evidence.

Generally, we also have archaeological evidence for such things: take Troy, for instance. We had the oral history of Homer claiming its existence, but until the city itself was discovered, there was no reason to believe Troy actually existed.

I listed people, not places. Should we simply ignore the oral tradition about the Incan and Mexica rulers who fought wars, built empires, and ruled massive populations?

They left records, though, describing the conquests, much as the Egyptians did; and records are precisely what Jesus lacks.

[tharkûn]

That doesn't make it credible evidence.

This isn't a binary choice here. We drift from something very objective, reliable, testable, etc. like video from the lunar expeditians and move on down a continuum through photographs, statistics, deeds, newspapers, political oratory, partisan accounts.

I do not hold oral tradition to be worthless, in need of plenty of salt perhaps, but I give it the benefit of the doubt.

They left records, though, describing the conquests

No they didn't. The were a bloody illiterate society. The only recorded messages were knots tied into cords that were used by their equivalent of the pony express. The first recorded accounts of the Mexica and Incans come from the Spanish.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yet mysteriously, we know so much about Rome and it's popular figures. You are insisting a major event in history happened and the ruling power was so clueless it could lose it's only copy without anyone taking notice. This is a staggeringly unlikely event, and merely emphasizes the need for more than just the Gospels.

How is this comparable? Rome gave a lot more of a shit about its own nomenklatura than some kooky rabbi that a governor allowed to be killed by local clerics out in the backwater.

[Illuminatus Primus]

They left records, though, describing the conquests, much as the Egyptians did; and records are precisely what Jesus lacks.

The quipu can't be read aside from numeral tablets. I suggest you do your homework.

[Surlethe]

The quipu can't be read aside from numeral tablets. I suggest you do your homework.

No they didn't. The were a bloody illiterate society. The only recorded messages were knots tied into cords that were used by their equivalent of the pony express. The first recorded accounts of the Mexica and Incans come from the Spanish.

My mistake.

This isn't a binary choice here. We drift from something very objective, reliable, testable, etc. like video from the lunar expeditians and move on down a continuum through photographs, statistics, deeds, newspapers, political oratory, partisan accounts.

I do not hold oral tradition to be worthless, in need of plenty of salt perhaps, but I give it the benefit of the doubt.

Point conceded.

[Edward Yee]

Hold on, lemme check the criteria... is it just me, or did the judge order the priest to prove NOT that Jesus Christ = Son of God and Savior, BUT INSTEAD to prove that there was indeed a man named Jesus in the timeframe, historically?

(I think that the latter is indeed a non-religious question, hence my "hey, lemme take a look" and not something violating the SLAM Guidelines re: Me-Tooing #1.)

[General Zod]

Hold on, lemme check the criteria... is it just me, or did the judge order the priest to prove NOT that Jesus Christ = Son of God and Savior, BUT INSTEAD to prove that there was indeed a man named Jesus in the timeframe, historically?

(I think that the latter is indeed a non-religious question, hence my "hey, lemme take a look" and not something violating the SLAM Guidelines re: Me-Tooing #1.)

Signor Cascioli’s contention — echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites — is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.

Since the whole concept of Christianity requires a biblical Son of God, this paragraph makes it kind of obvious he's referring to the religious version. As opposed to simply wanting proof that someone named Jesus started a cult around the same time.

[tharkûn]

Since the whole concept of Christianity requires a biblical Son of God, this paragraph makes it kind of obvious he's referring to the religious version. As opposed to simply wanting proof that someone named Jesus started a cult around the same time.

In his own words, "During the last month of September, the undersigned presented an accusation-lawsuit against Don Enrico Righi, parish priest of Bagnoregio, for the offences of which at art.494 and 661 of the Penal Code because he publicly maintained the historicity of the figure of Jesus Christ, while I could ascertain, (after long and deep studies, summarised in my book: “The Fable of Christ”) that Jesus Christ is not a historical figure but an artificial one created by the posteriors, drawing inspiration from a certain John of Gamala.
For this reason there is abuse of popular credulity and substitution of person: if one wants to give a mythical personage as Zorro or Superman out to be a historical personage.
In the accusation-lawsuit I clarified that the object of my action is not the existence of God (everyone is free and has the right to believe or not that there is a God (or an Allah), but simply that I wanted to avoid that people are deceived giving out facts that are not so to be historical ones.
Together with my accusation-lawsuit, I deposited my book to let the Public Prosecutor examine carefully my reasons and realise that what is taken for granted after that catholic education with which we are all more or less imbued, is in reality a fable: the fable of Christ, actually. I enclosed also a copy of the parish bulletin from which it is clear that Don Enrico Righi states that Jesus Christ is a historical figure.
I have deposited also further memories, complete with further studies and replies to possible contestations of my thesis.
Subsequently, I made a request for a probative objection asking that a valuation was set out to ascertain the historical or non historical nature of Jesus Christ on the basis of all contemporary and extra textual sources."

He is quite clearly stating that Jesus as an historical personage is what he attacks and further that he is litigating against Don Enrcio Righi because "Don Enrico Righi states that Jesus Christ is a[sic] historical figure."

The more I read, the more I seem to think this historian is an ass or an ass trying a major publicity stunt to sell books.

[Gil Hamilton]

The partisan evidence is little more than propaganda; why give it any credulity at all, when there is no corresponding evidence?

Because propaganda is useful because it tells you alot about the people making it at the very least. Human accounts about what happened in antiquity, which are mostly partisan accounts, aren't going to be accurate or objective, but they do tell you what the people who made them cared about. While people are prone to making shit up, which is where mythology comes from, there generally exists a tiny kernel of truth which triggered the myth. The trick is sifting the kernal from the shit generated by religious faith and the "Telephone Game". Jesus probably didn't have superpowers and the reports of his death were certainly greatly exaggerated, but there is no reason there couldn't have been a dude named Jeshua bin Joseph from the town Nazareth who lead Yet Another Jewish Messiah Sect - of which there were countless.

[Gil Hamilton]

Even they did, do recall that the Judean office would have been sacked once by Jewish Zealots, again by Roman Legionaires, then by Arabs, Crusaders, Arabs, Mamelukes, and Ottomans.

Even if for some inexplicable reason they stored copies in Rome or better still Cyprus/Byzantium, you still have the fact that such reports would have 100 copies or less. Statisticly the odds of any one those surviving is nil. We have only a few thousand early copies of the Bible which was the most copied book in the world at the time, revered (so it was given special handling) and holy (so both Christians and Muslims didn't intentionally burn it). Survival rates for anything that wasn't prolificly copied are next to zero.

Not to mention the usual natural disasters that the Romans typically had in cities. The Romans invented Fire Insurance for a reason and our hypothetical Enormous Pile O' Jewish Messiah Cult documents would be a real hazard in that regard.

[Setesh]

SN do you beleive oral history has any evidentiary value at all? Even something as simple as we give the benefit of the doubt that they weren't lying and this dude called Jesus of Nazereth EXISTED?

There may have very well been a Jesus of Nazareth. As I recall, Jesus was quite the common/popular name back in those days, so there may have very well been dozens of such people. One of them may have very well actually been from Nazareth. Whether he was actually the son of God who worked miracles is another issue entirely, however.

it wasn't a name so much as a title
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm

[Zero]

I don't get why Tharkun's getting his head bitten off here. An oral tradition that was later recorded is a kind of evidence. It doesn't mean we have to accept everything said as real, but we do actually believe that the whole noah's ark myth is based off of an actual flooding, just not on the scale that the bible claims. Further, we can actually show that there was no global flood.

There's no such evidence against the existance of Jesus. The bible is actually a historically significant text, and really, how would such myths arise without a real central figure to base it upon? Why should we disreguard it simply because we don't find corroberating evidence that really wouldn't probably exist anymore anyways? Why would another false messiah be recorded by the romans in any significant way until the religion based around the fellow actually became popular? You're assuming that the bible is either completely true or completely false, but it seems quite obvious that most myths dealing with people are realities that changed over time to make the events seem more fantastic then they were.

[Skelron]

I Why would another false messiah be recorded by the romans in any significant way until the religion based around the fellow actually became popular?

Added I have to ask what would these reports have consisted of, to the Romans anyway. Here I present my two Joky Roman reports on Jesus.

Report A.

Some Guy in Judea preaching at the moment. (I know all my reports start like this, anyway) General gist of his preaching seems to be, that the Pharisees have added too many rules to their faith. On Roman law and order, when asked if it was right to pay taxes, he stated 'Render unto Ceaser what is Ceasers' or something along those lines according to my sources.

Action to be taken... None he's mostly just addressing the main religion here in Judea, and unlike some of the others is not hostile to Roman Rule.

Report B.

Pharises got anoyed at the guy in previous report. Seems he was calling himself their messiah and King. (Note he still did not question or oppose Roman Rule) Still it got them riled upand since he was a no mark Carpenter of no particular importence. Pilate decided it would be quicker and easier to have him executed rather than risk getting these rebelious peoples backs up.

So he was Crucified. Death was remarkably fast.

Action to be taken :- None he's dead.

Said reports would be kept in some out of the way storing cub-board and destroyed at some point.