At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories or fables written by men. Like Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Never believed in an invisible god that resides somewhere beyond the clouds.

I chose rational thought, not magical beliefs.

Who cares!!

This is just beating a dead horse to death!!!

Anyone with any ware it all knows that Santa Claus or the Easter bunny or the tooth fairy could easily replace Jesus as the all paramount imaginary false idol to pray too or bear false witness!!!

Give it a rest!!!

Now this site turns your photographs sideways, complete BS just like religion, Jesus, and Mohamed!!!

Atheist here, I am convinced the Yeshua (Jesus is a terrible bastardized version of Yeshua) legend is loosely based on a character called the Egyptian that appears just before the temple was demolished. He raided the temple mound lost a couple of hundred men and disappeared from history. There was a Yeshua cult that was about a century and a half old at the time. The Egyptian’s partner was caught and beheaded in an ambush by the Romans on the Jordan river so the older John the Baptist and the partner were merged, as was the spiritual Yeshua and the Egyptian then the story moved back in time before it would have challenged Rome. The entire purpose was to give the Jews a way out of “sin” without animal sacrifice, which was impossible with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. About the time the first Gospels were written.
All the characters I’ve mentioned are in secular references from the time. Paul was about 40AD his letters that are verified make almost no reference to a physical Yeshua and the one comment about the brother of Yeshua could have been added later as they did that back then.
This story has all the same signs of organic growth as the legend of king Arther.

I think Jesus did exist and he was an ancient hypnotist or into metaphysics. He performed mind tricks which in those days seemed like miracles. Much like the Legend of Big foot and Loch Ness monster his fame grew over time. I think the Romans hijacked his story and created the Bible and Christianity we have today. A religion that is mostly pacifist and loyal to govt but can be ruthless when the leaders need it to be and use Bible to justify what they are doing

I believe he did exist the same as Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Davy Crockett; it's just the stories about him that I don't believe. But who cares really? If we believed everything from a book written in a world of superstition it would be even more unbelievable and show our vulnerability to the extent that it would be embarrassing.

Probably a charismatic man named Jesus did exist and did claim to be the messiah. However at that time period many men claimed to be the messiah. As most persons of the time were illiterate, stories were passed by word of mouth and thus changed over time before anyone actually wrote the stories down. In the mean time many familiar themes and features fro m other stories (miracle and super natural) were added along with adding segments that made it seem like Jesus fulfilled old testament prophecy. The theme and story were common for messiah stories of the time. Many messiah stories arose out of stoeirs about the stars and astrology.

A bronze age Somebody wrote a book about human Sacrifice to forgive the sin of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Born from a Virgin Birth and part of a Trinity. .......are you F*****g serious. Of course he did not exist

"Almost Black Lives Matter!" Or do they? Why is his existence important if his principles are what validates belief in him? Did he die for our sins? If so why do people keep committing them? I think he died for his own sins. Would belief change my life in any way? No. There's plenty of ire concerning the subject which makes me say that belief is a motherfucker, eh?

Does it really matter? I think we know the stories that he's referenced in are fiction. Yes, this could be debated, but in the end, the validity of the story is far more valuable than the characters within said story.

I think it's a very sophisticated hybrid of the real Jewish messiah figures and Gnostic belief.

Apparently, there was a "Jesus", a Jew, who had an insignificant cult following. The Christ-bit, walking on water, and all the other lies, is a very stupid joke.

Probably not as a person, and certainly not as a miracle worker.

If 'Jesus as in the bible' had existed, it would be ridiculous to believe that the Romans would not have contemporary records - and those records would have survived.

Yet Roman records of Jesus are NOT contemporary. They were written a century or more after the supposed events, and all they do is echo the myths of early christians.

I think Christians overstate what the evidence is, which becomes the baseline most people know. For example Tacitus is used as a great thorough historian who would have access to records. Yet nothing about the small bit onChristians indicated he did investigate and validate their claims. So the only thing it confirms is Christians not a Jesus. Brother of Christ is used to talk about fellow Christians, so it’s unclear that a James is in fact a blood brother, not a theological brother. The evolution of the story in the gospels changing to fit a different audience as pagans did not want to become Jews is interesting as is the increasingly mythical claims the farther removed you get from the claimed events. Knowing that there were in fact stories similar to the Jesus events that could be synthesized with Old Testament stories grants more plausibility to this. Listen to Tovias Singer talk about a Paul and the a Torah, and the deliberate mistranslation of the Torah into the Greek to create a new theology. In other words all the evidence is there to show it’s very possible the story was manufactured

Most likely, there were multiple "messianic" figures 2000+ years ago around Rome.

One of them may or may not have been named something like YHWH, the details are immaterial to the legend various people created for their own ends.

I don’t know.

I think the Jesus story is based on a real person...minus the miracles. Obviously Jesus was from Nazareth, but the Gospel writers invent a story that he was actually born in Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy that Jesus was born of the tribe of Judah. If the story were completely fiction why not eliminate the Nazareth stuff and just have him born of the tribe of Judah?

There is no convincing evidence that JC actually existed to date. Mankind has always created various God's/Religions. Remember, Christianity is a religion and will eventually die out like many other religions before it which was also created by mankind.

It is insulting when "legitimate sources" play childish religious games in order to keep their religious money base. They try to mix up a supposed historical Jesus with a supposed biblical Jesus. I couldn't care less about a historical Jesus or a biblical Jesus. It is a moot point and doesn't affect us one way or the other, because a historical Jesus would have no more effect on our lives than Gandhi would, and there is NO substantiated PROOF that a biblical Jesus ever existed at all.

Let's see them PROVE that the: virgin-born, water-walking, storm-calming, dead-raising, fish and bread multiplying, fig tree-cursing, mud in the eye blind-healing, lame-healing, devil-exorcising, palsy-healing, wine-making, resurrected, heaven-ascending, eternal god-man, and so forth kind of Jesus existed. THAT is the Jesus they must prove existed, because THAT is who they are really pushing their nonsense about. A FALSE HOPE THAT PACIFIES THE MASSES, WHO ARE TERRIFIED OF DEATH, IN ORDER TO KEEP THEM SUBJUGATED AND TO USE THEM FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES.

The absurdity of the following verses alone is extremely evident, "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is TRUE (John 21:24)." Oh really, because they say so? So now you don't even need faith, just childish presumption, oh wait, that's the same thing.

"Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written (John 21:25)." So, we're supposed to believe that Jesus performed so many miracles that they couldn't write them all down because "the whole world would not have room" for them, so they repeated the same tired miracles over and over and over again in a few books. Not only is that a lie, it's ludicrous.

On a side note, it would be horrible for a historical Jesus if he was able to know how people would believe in him in the future, how religion has used his life and sermons to deceive, control, harm, and kill people, and then justify it in the name of a god that hasn't been proven to exist.

Here are some excellent books that you may like by David Fitzgerald called "Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All" and Jesus: Mything in Action, Volumes 1 through 3.

This is an old argument that many on here, including myself, have thought through long ago and come to our own conclusion. It's pointless for me to go through it again. I gave up searching through the gospels and old testament when I became an atheist. There is no evidence for Y'shua apart from the mythology of the gospels so what's the point.