I know Jesus! He's the Mexican kid who lives down the block and drives that low rider Chevy.

If Jesus existed as a real historical figure why does he only appear in the bible and not in history books? He only appears in the bible for the same reason Humpty-Dumpty only appears in Mother Goose -- he's a fictional character exclusive to his book of origin.

I think of Jesus as being a Jewish Hippy of his time, an enlightened person who had experienced Cosmic Consciousness as so many have throughout history and today.

You might be right. Also, Jesus of the bible might have come from legends of more than one man. Who was Jesus? Bible aside we have no evidence to ever know. We have no clues of his birth or death that are reliable. Just stories.

He played baseball for the San Francisco Giants: [en.wikipedia.org]

I am an "agnostic" on the existence of the biblical existence of what it says was a "Jesus" and think that it is just an amalgamation of what many were saying at the time. I also enjoyed the book The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur, yes he is also an expastor.

He plays for Manchester City and Brazil.

I personally worked with Jesus at a stamping plant in McAllen Texas he worked in maintenance

No, Jesus did not exist. Outside the bible, no contemporary historian, or any person AT ALL, made mention of him. All the "facts" (historical data) in the new testament are warped, twisted, skewed and distorted beyond recognition. For instance, there was no such place as 'Nazareth.' No town, hamlet, burg, waystation, nothing, and no collection of human beings called Nazarenes (unless you count an obcure Jewish sect, but that's an entirely different matter),. The place now called Nazareth was created long after the time in question by people needing it to exist for theological reasons. When 'Jesus' (didn't) live, that particular spot on the map was a graveyard, and there was perhaps one hut for the caretaker. The new testament was written by men who certainly didn't live in that area at that time, were in fact probably well-educated Romans who invented an anti-Jewish religion from bits and pieces of old "mystery religions" which preceded Christianity, and which themselves were invented by men. There is NO evidence of ANY kind, that a man fitting his description existed; in fact all the historical records indicate he did not. Look it up.

Jesus was one of the guys who replaced my roof. At their lunch break, Jesus knocked on my door holding a food container and asked for heat. So I let him, showed him to the kitchen, pointed out the microwave and said, knock yourself out, brother.

Devils advocate proposing he did exist: The prospect that Romans may have taken charge of a narrative of someone they executed, misinterpreted an OK message to their own ends and seized the opportunity to leverage their doctored/plagiarized story to build an empire of greed and horrendous oppression has a ring of truth to it. Knowing how similar the US is to the Roman Empire, that’s exactly the kind of shit we’d do if we had the opportunity to capitalize on MLK or JFK’s message, not that we haven’t already in some ways. It’s an attractive conspiracy to believe though. It may or may not be true but I’m positive it’s the healthiest way to look at Jesus’ words if you’re going to attempt to follow them. By remembering that at the very least, a lot of the shit about lists of sins and his divinity and exclusivity was added by the people who killed him for their own gain ostensibly. But that’s like the healthiest way to take heroin. Take the particulars of the Bible with a grain of salt obviously.

Most of the evidence that I’m aware of points to his story being entirely made up and patched together versions of other myths. The only thing that makes me think there may have been a real person behind all this is the curiosity: why would the romans make up someone popular, admit to having killed him, and then later somehow spin it into him being their savior and they now speak for him? I think it was most likely a pastiche of myths created by a cult of Israelites to conceal knowledge of psychedelic states and some eastern leaning philosophies. That’s what it was intended as, if it ever had any positive motive at all.

Whether or not Jesus’ story was based on a single individual is immaterial because most all of it is spoken in metaphors and allegories. It was a combined set of ancient myths that got filtered through a new oral history culture, and then was hijacked and repurposed a second time by the romans. It was too popular to be squashed and they saw an opportunity to use it as a boot heel by jumping on the bandwagon and becoming the sole authority for compiling/interpreting doctrine. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me after studying the Bible from both the eyes of a believer and later as a realist.

I can safely say that I don't care one way or another

As noted, there are no contemporary records of said Jesus. Most of the story is plagiarized from previous myths so that if there were a Jesus, stripping out the previous myths leaves practically nothing of significance in terms of moral or ethical teachings. Also, the New Testament also has huge gaps in moral teaching, again, nothing denouncing slavery nor equal rights, etc.

The most telling issue of all religious texts is the utter absence of informed understanding of humanity or of the universe. Nothing approaching divine wisdom is presented; just dopey stories that are ambiguous and readily misinterpreted. Definitely not the quality one would expect of an omnipotent deity.

I don't believe for one second that Jesus Christ was a real person who actually
existed.
He was a composite of myths that preceded christianity.

IF he actually were a real human that existed (and that's a mighty big IF), he was not much more than a political dissident that the occupying Romans executed as a result of his being a monumental pain in their asses.

There are no records of his existence. No record of his birth, his arrest, his little stroll with the cross down the Via Dolorosa, and his death.
Nothing.
If he had existed, there would have been a record of it.

Those who like to cite Josephus conveniently ignore the fact that he was completely
discredited.

Jesus Christ is nothing but a fictional character that an entire fake-ass religion was built around.
L. Ron Hubbard did the same thing with Xenu, when he created scientology.

Original drummer of the Grateful Dead

Richard Carrier: prolly the foremost knowledgeable about the non-existance of the jesus dude.

Jesus was my waiter in Venezuela the night before I returned to Canada. It was an excellent last supper and I tipped him well.

Here is who Jesus was:

1. He was an ordinary man, dark and short.

2. Born out of wedlock to a teenager girl called Mary. The story is of teenage fuck gone out of hand. Nothing more.

3. Because Mary was pregnant out of wedlock, she was sentenced to be stoned by death. The exception was that if a man stepped up to own and marry her. So elder Joseph stepped forward and said I will marry her and leave town.

4. Jesus was born en route to Jerusalem in Bethlehem in a stable. It is true. This is what happens to teenagers who get pregnant at parents' expense and run away. Children are not born in comfort and love.

5. Jesus was not born on December 25. No one knows what year and date he was born in and on. The date of December 25 was chosen by the lie-masters to coincide with the biggest Pagan festival at the time to make it easy to celebrate.

6. Jesus was not brilliant. He was mumbling and a slow brain. He was ranting and speaking incoherent. Mary was very worried. He was bullied all the time in the neighborhood. He was also uneducated.

7. He performed no miracles and spoke no truth. His speaking was ranting and mumbling mostly. As it happens even today, superstitious and ignorant people gather around weird people to see what the ranting is about.

8. Crowding was prohibited by the rulers due to the fear of a rebellion. So when Governor Pilate's soldiers got the wind of this crowding, Pilate asked to bring him to the court. Pilate asked him nicely what he was talking about. Jesus still spoke meaningless and ranted against tax collectors. As it would happen even today, no rebellion could tolerated by the government because it spreads quickly.

Pilate ordered punishment of Crucifixation which seems cruel by today's standards but was very common then, Spartacus and his followers were also crucified. More than 6,000 captured slaves were crucified along the whole road from Capua to Rome.

9. Then came the savvy assholes called the apostles. They saw a great opportunity to cash on the wave of sympathy and make it a sellable story by sprinkling miracles. They stole Greek stories, mixed it with Egyptian miracles. Any society loves miracles and quick fixes. From erection to big fixes. It still sells.

The rest is just lies, lies and more lies - not even history.

I try not to form opinions without some evidentiary basis, but I think it's possible that Jesus was a composite of many people including real men and fictional characters. There's no doubt that much of the story was made up to match messianic prophecy though.

Nope. Never existed.

"Story of Jesus Christ was 'fabricated to pacify the poor', claims controversial Biblical scholar"

[independent.co.uk]

Oh, that's Joe's step brat. You know the long haired hippie that looks like Cesare Borgia. Goes around spreading apple seeds throughout Sherwood Forest while keeping the world safe from the lizard people or some dumb ass thing like that.

Just an overblown legend, nothing more.

I think it is fascinating. While we are not Christian here we can not deny that Christianity has had a major influence on the world and its history.

Recently I read How Jesus became God by Bart Ehrman: [amazon.com]

It is excellent and gives some a good summary of what we know historically without the basis of a current Christian Ehrman is skeptic and former Christian. A good read. I recommend it.

I think he was a faith-healer, exorcist and cult-leader who preyed on gullible idiots. Same as we have today.

Harsh? Maybe, but I don't think it's a coincidence other cult leaders use the same tactics. Like telling your followers you have to hate your own family and love only "me", plus whomever I declare is ok for you to love within our isolationist community.

As for the nice things he preached; Not even Hitler was dumb enough to preach only hate and violence to his followers.

His name would have been Joshua to start with. There were many anti-Roman activists of the time which fed into the messianic expectation of the time. Bound to have been a few Joshuas around then. As in most oral traditions in the ancient world the narratives include an ideal to represent the lead figure drawn on extant models. My jury is out on the crucifixion but, but makes for a dramatic conclusion of the tale. If you want a marvellous literary romp around early C1st Judea read Matthew as literature away from the influence of Christianity. Treat it like a Stephen King short story and you won’t be disappointed, but you have to take it in isolation otherwise the 2,000 years of cultural influence will creep into the periphery of the story.

I'm a mythicist but considering that I don't see evidence of there being any evidence of a god either then it really doesn't matter because if a Jesus did exist he certainly wasn't god's son but merely a delusional madman.

There is no information concurrently recorded when the "jesus" dude has been reported to have been corporeal. No evidence.

Lots of evidence the myth is based in scripts and story hundreds of years old at the time.

It was all a marketing promotion tactic for the "church" gang. Look how criminal that business has ever been.