Do atheists constantly change the goalposts?

Fervent · 2026-02-25T23:30:24-0600

Hans Blaster said:
That's right, they talk about *BELIEFS* of (then current) Christians, not the actions of Jesus. That those early Christians believed that Jesus was a real man does not make these passages as evidence that he was a real man.

This seems an arbitrary bit of skepticism that if applied to historical questions in general would completely destroy the endeavor. Every historiical account depends on people's beliefs about the history they witnessed, so it is rather specious to dismiss as evidence documentation because it's about what people believed to be the case. Unless you have some reason to suspect that their belief is ungrounded it should be granted that the belief is best explained by the existence of a historical Jesus without casting aspersions without cause.

ViaCrucis · 2026-02-25T23:58:42-0600

weary2025 said:
He said there was no proof for God. Anyway, my mistake.

Fideistic arguments make sense within a believing context; but if the goal is a more rationalistic argument with someone who doesn't believe (in any gods at all) than presumptive fideistic arguments are going to simply be viewed as opinion.

I agree, as a Christian, that Jesus is God, but that's not really a meaningful argument outside of a believing context. I believe and confess every word of the Nicene Creed, but the Nicene Creed isn't an argument for the truth of the Christian religion outside of Christianity.

That's why, generally, philosophers who have attempted to argue for the existence of God use different sorts of arguments. Are they good? Well, depends on the argument, and who you ask.

dlamberth · 2026-02-26T00:48:19-0600

stevevw said:
There are plenty of non biblical references to Jesus and the Christians. Theres no doubt on the historical truth of Christ.

If this was just about historical figures in history then this is widely accepted.

But as Christ is not just any ordinary figure and is connected to supernatural events atheists will automatically bring in Christs miracles and ressurrection as part of the historical Jesus. Or at least note that the supernatural events are associated with Jesus as part of who he is.

The problem is if one is to make a point that Jesus is a real historical person it means nothing to atheists as all this does is acknowledge that Christ was a real person historically. This has no influence or support that Christ could perform supernatural feats.

So theres no problem here. It only becomes an issue when we bring in the supernatural events. Then people ask for evidence like any historical figure who is claimed supernatural or superhuman feats. Like Hannibal or Hercules.

I'm not understanding all of this focus on supernatural feats. Jesus, rather He was a real human being or not, is about bringing God down to Earth. There's a light in the experience of the Divine that has nothing to do with anything supernatural. I think going at it from the supernatural perspective is barking up the wrong tree. Religions world wide can bring up supernatural examples as proof of one thing or another in their religious world. Should we be using their supernatural examples as proof of the validity of their religion?

Hans Blaster · 2026-02-26T01:04:27-0600

Fervent said:
This seems an arbitrary bit of skepticism that if applied to historical questions in general would completely destroy the endeavor.

It really isn't. I'm dealing with people looking for evidence to justify their belief. The evidence is question is evidence that others in the distant past held their beliefs. It is not evidence that the belief was true.

Fervent said:
Every historiical account depends on people's beliefs about the history they witnessed, so it is rather specious to dismiss as evidence documentation because it's about what people believed to be the case.

It's about their *religious* beliefs.

Fervent said:
Unless you have some reason to suspect that their belief is ungrounded

Of course I have reason to believe their supernatural claims are ungrounded.

Fervent said:
it should be granted that the belief is best explained by the existence of a historical Jesus without casting aspersions without cause.

I cast no aspersions and as I said already, I think the best explanation for a Jesus based religion is a Jesus.

stevevw · 2026-02-26T02:29:00-0600

dlamberth said:
I'm not understanding all of this focus on supernatural feats. Jesus, rather He was a real human being or not, is about bringing God down to Earth. There's a light in the experience of the Divine that has nothing to do with anything supernatural. I think going at it from the supernatural perspective is barking up the wrong tree. Religions world wide can bring up supernatural examples as proof of one thing or another in their religious world. Should we be using their supernatural examples as proof of the validity of their religion?

I am destinguishing the different propositions between Jesus the man and Christ the Son of God.

If we take the supernatural out of Jesus then he just becomes another religious figure and prophet and moral teacher. You can say Jesus has an aura or presense about Him that changed people. But the same can be said about Ghandi and Mohummad or Bhudda or any other religious figure to an extent.

You have to remember that this is the atheist worldview and they don't believe in God, Christ as the Son of God or any other divine being.

They may agree that Christ was an amazing religious figure who changed the world. Even the greatest. But still just a man like any other religious figure.

So the proposition that Christ is a real person in history is no big deal nowadays for atheists..

A New Dawn · 2026-02-26T06:25:54-0600

Hans Blaster said:
Yes...

No. They are accounts of people who believe things about Jesus. Where are the accounts of anyone saying they *spoke* to or met Jesus?

So, do you put Odysseus in the same category, then, with Jesus?

Hans Blaster · 2026-02-26T09:25:29-0600

A New Dawn said:
So, do you put Odysseus in the same category, then, with Jesus?

Greek legendary heroes? No. Jesus was neither Greek nor a hero.

While certainly neither is recorded as living person, Odysseus is only in mythical hero stories from long after the time of his tales. The Odysseus myths could have been based on a real warrior or not. Until there is a text about Wilusa speaking of some minor king, prince, or general with a name like Odysseus, I see no reason to think Odysseus is anything but an invention.

Accepting the traditional time frame for the letters and ministry of Paul of Tarsus, the early attestation of the existence of followers and believers, and the same early belief about Pontius Pilate running the crucifiction makes it highly likely that those early believers were referencing an actual man they thought had resurrected based on tales from those who'd known him in life. It's frankly hard to craft a fully mythical Jesus that could have triggered the beliefs of early Christians, as recorded, therefore I conclude that the core of the early Christian beliefs are built on a single man who lived and preached somewhere in early Roman Palestine around the year 30 of the common era.

Fervent · 2026-02-26T17:51:59-0600

Hans Blaster said:
It really isn't. I'm dealing with people looking for evidence to justify their belief. The evidence is question is evidence that others in the distant past held their beliefs. It is not evidence that the belief was true.

It is, because you're conflating issues that are more fundamental and are more at the hinge level than evidential disagreement

Hans Blaster said:
It's about their *religious* beliefs.

Which had to come from somewhere. Unlikely they were born into them.

Hans Blaster said:
Of course I have reason to believe their supernatural claims are ungrounded.

Uh huh, I'm sure you do.

Hans Blaster said:
I cast no aspersions and as I said already, I think the best explanation for a Jesus based religion is a Jesus.

A Jesus crucified, but why on Earth would anyone subscribe to something so outlandish as God coming in the flesh to die what is perhaps the most shameful death? How do you make sense of such an extraordinary contrivance?

essentialsaltes · 2026-02-26T18:00:27-0600

Fervent said:
A Jesus crucified, but why on Earth would anyone subscribe to something so outlandish as God coming in the flesh to die what is perhaps the most shameful death?

Certainly beats me!

partinobodycular · 2026-02-26T19:43:52-0600

Fervent said:
A Jesus crucified, but why on Earth would anyone subscribe to something so outlandish as God coming in the flesh to die what is perhaps the most shameful death? How do you make sense of such an extraordinary contrivance?

Based upon the prophecies of Daniel the Jews had been anticipating the coming of a Messiah King for just this time period. Groups such as the Essenes were openly preparing for the coming apocalypse. The Roman occupation only heightened this anticipation. Add to that Jesus' acceptance of the outcasts and sinners and He had a ready made following. Throw in the promise of a triumphant return and Jesus' message must have reached a fever pitch as the events of 70 AD approached. Afterward what greater hope did they have left but that of a resurrected Messiah?

Then take that message of inclusivity to the gentiles. Free them from adherence to the Mosaic laws, and promise them a resurrection based solely upon faith and loving thy neighbor. Rather than being surprised that such an extraordinary contrivance led to the rise of Christianity, one might well be surprised if it didn't. Then throw in the rise of the Catholic church and its persecution of any and all dissension, and the fact that Christianity comes to us today in the form that it does is almost a given.

If you want a textbook example of how to give rise to a religion... Christianity is it.

Hans Blaster · 2026-02-26T19:51:33-0600

Fervent said:
It is, because you're conflating issues that are more fundamental and are more at the hinge level than evidential disagreement

Which had to come from somewhere. Unlikely they were born into them.

Uh huh, I'm sure you do.

So many fundamental failures to understand.

Fervent said:
A Jesus crucified, but why on Earth would anyone subscribe to something so outlandish as God coming in the flesh to die what is perhaps the most shameful death? How do you make sense of such an extraordinary contrivance?

I don't need to provide a reason why, but if I had to guess, my guess would be that some of his followers thought he'd come back from the dead and the god thing developed later.

stevevw · 2026-02-26T20:15:04-0600

partinobodycular said:
Based upon the prophecies of Daniel the Jews had been anticipating the coming of a Messiah King for just this time period. Groups such as the Essenes were openly preparing for the coming apocalypse. The Roman occupation only heightened this anticipation. Add to that Jesus' acceptance of the outcasts and sinners He had a ready made following. Throw in the promise of a triumphant return and Jesus' message must have reached a fever pitch as the events of 70 AD approached. Afterward what greater hope did they have left but that of a resurrected Messiah?

Then take that message of inclusivity to the gentiles. Free them from adherence to the Mosaic laws, and promise them a resurrection based solely upon faith and loving thy neighbor. Rather than being surprised that such an extraordinary contrivance led to the rise of Christianity, one might well be surprised if it didn't. Then throw in the rise of the Catholic church and its persecution of any and all dissension, and the fact that Christianity comes to us today in the form that it does is almost a given.

If you want a textbook example of how to give rise to a religion... Christianity is it.

Actually I disagree. Remember that the Jesus followers were persecuted by the pagan Romans and the Jewish high priests and its the worst religion to start in those times. Peter and the disciples even denying they belong to such a religion and being too scared to acknowledge their leader.

Even being disowned by the Jews themselves and cast out of the Holy city. It was the worst kind of religion to promote at that time.

Yet despite all that, despite Christians more or less signing their death warrant for following such a religion it exploded from the cross. And still the Christians were persecuted for the first 300 years. Having to worship in secret for fear of being persecuted. Thats not a good formula for a religion.

In fact no one got what Christ was on about. It went over their heads. They thought Christ was some sort of King who came to defeat the Romans. When he was executed they were in dispair and bewildered.

It was not until Christ appeared to them after His death that they understood and became emboldened. Even to the point of copying Christ by laying their lives down. All the leaders were executed. Not a good start to promoting a world religion.

Fervent · 2026-02-26T20:51:49-0600

Hans Blaster said:
So many fundamental failures to understand.

Right. But whose?

Hans Blaster said:
I don't need to provide a reason why, but if I had to guess, my guess would be that some of his followers thought he'd come back from the dead and the god thing developed later.

That doesn't strike me as being in line with the evidence, since the earliest documentation we have is creeds and hymns that speak of Him being God and being raised from the dead in the past tense. But why let the available evidence spoil a good hypothesis?

partinobodycular · 2026-02-26T21:04:39-0600

stevevw said:
Actually I disagree. Remember that the Jesus followers were persecuted by the pagan Romans and the Jewish high priests and its the worst religion to start in those times. Peter and the disciples even denying they belong to such a religion and being too scared to acknowledge their leader.

Even being disowned by the Jews themselves and cast out of the Holy city. It was the worst kind of religion to promote at that time.

Yet despite all that, despite Christians more or less signing their death warrant for following such a religion it exploded from the cross. And still the Christians were persecuted for the first 300 years. Having to worship in secret for fear of being persecuted. Thats not a good formula for a religion.

In fact no one got what Christ was on about. It went over their heads. They thought Christ was some sort of King who came to defeat the Romans. When he was executed they were in dispair and bewildered.

It was not until Christ appeared to them after His death that they understood and became emboldened. Even to the point of copying Christ by laying their lives down. All the leaders were executed. Not a good start to promoting a world religion.

Popular argument, but not all that accurate. Right up there with all the apostles died as martyrs. Through the first century the persecution of Christians, as best as can be determined, was sporadic and localized. Mainly confined to Rome where they were famously blamed for Nero's fire. If you have evidence to the contrary, beyond the said example, please present it.

That's part of the problem with the history of Christianity, centuries of embellishment make it difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. Which is also what makes it as much legend as anything else.

Hans Blaster · 2026-02-26T21:28:46-0600

Fervent said:
Right. But whose?

Yours.

Fervent said:
That doesn't strike me as being in line with the evidence, since the earliest documentation we have is creeds and hymns that speak of Him being God and being raised from the dead in the past tense.

There is plenty of time for such a thing to happen. The oldest documents give at least 10 years (early letters of Paul).

Fervent said:
But why let the available evidence spoil a good hypothesis?

I didn't give a hypothesis. I gave a vague guess because you seemed to want one.

Fervent · 2026-02-26T21:31:31-0600

Hans Blaster said:
Yours.

There is plenty of time for such a thing to happen. The oldest documents give at least 10 years (early letters of Paul).

And within those letters there are earlier hymns and creeds that Paul uses rhetorically. But its not about the time for such things to develop, but the absence of any non-supernatural core for legends to even develop around.

Hans Blaster said:
I didn't give a hypothesis. I gave a vague guess because you seemed to want one.

Tomato, tomahto.

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Do atheists constantly change the goalposts?

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