Since there is no credible evidence that the Jesus Christ of the Bible ever existed, I'd say that was the biggest threat.

I had a conversation with a person where he said something like, "The proof of God is the fact that Jesus Christ walked the earth." I then pointed out that there is no actual evidence that Jesus Christ of the Bible ever existed. He was shocked that I didn't believe there was evidence. He pointed out that it's "all over the internet" and that he could find me such evidence with little effort.

I told him to do so. After about a month of my pointing out the logical falacies and obvious assumptions of the "evidence" he provided, I haven't heard about it again. It apparently shook his world that he actually couldn't find what he thought should be easily available; evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ outside of the Bible. Realizing it was not easily available and that his assumptions were so easily disproven, he's apparently started to question his faith.

He also stopped having conversations with me. Small price to pay to put a chip in the armor of religion.

Oof...
Well, we don’t even know for sure if he existed. I think that should be resolved first.
Then we need to stop making him white...
Then we can discuss your questions about the Magical Zombie Rabbi
For now watch this.....

The biggest threat to the credibility of Christ, the irrefutable threat to it, is the existence of the 1st council at Nicea in 321 or whenever it was. They INVENTED orthodox christianity and mary and jesus at that event. Then they got together later and INVENTED the New Testament of their bible.

The person, who apparently existed as a person was Jewish and their Talmud holy book is the old testament so that was his background as a jew

No one knows for sure what the actual Jesus did or said. He did not have a scribe following him around taking notes. All we have are redacted, copies, of copies of copies of copies... of often redacted writings, written years after he lived, by people who never knew this person, and based on nothing but tales, and supposed revelations, about him.

Most "Christians" are actually Paulists and don't even know it. Whoever Paul was, or whoever wrote as this person, is what most of Christianity is based on. And, the trinity nonsense is based on the writings of John--how many years later? It was he who turned this person into not only a god, but the God.

I think there was a historical figure, likely named Jesus, who was a Jew, absolutely believing in the God of the Jews, but thinking religious leaders of his day had become corrupt. This person had a following and was likely put to death; and after his death became something that is in conflict with who he actually was.

But, it does not matter because the Bible is so full on contradictions, different people can read it and draw different conclusions--and all of them can quote scriptures to back up their beliefs. I learned well how to just ignore that which didn't fit well with what I was being taught.

This said, one of the biggest problems I had as a believer was in trying to reconcile the god of the OT with Jesus and the god of the NT. I investigated my doubts rather than ignoring them and closing my mind to cold hard facts; which, of course, is why I stopped believing in this god. And, later, after learning more science, I came to stop believing in any kind of god.

who is Jesus Christ? There is only a fictional jesus, the moniker Christ was adopted by the church authorities who wanted to link the fictional jesus with the prophecies of the old testament that mentioned in greek a Kristos, or annointed one, or messiah. Easy to do after the fact, right?

First of all, Christ was a creation of Paul, a Greek deity whom he commandeered Jesus to represent that character. Second, there was nothing else.Jesus was a Jew, and he never questioned that. He never claimed to be anything else. Jews have only the one book, what the rest of us call "The Old Testament." The first gospels were written between seventy to one-hundred-ten years after Jesus was killed. And third, Jesus thought he was a messiah in the Jewish tradition... a Davidic character who would restore the temple and rescue Israel from foreign overlords. Those are all very Jewish concepts.

He could not based on the belief system. He was a reformer, not a revolutionary. Paul created Christianity.

Well considering all we know of his teachings are through the writings that were done many years after the fact. I believe that if Jesus was a teacher and his teachings were transcribed, the transcribers took a lot of license with anything he said and did. I've always thought the miracles were another layer added and that they never happened. I do believe though that it is quite possible that there was a historical person who became known as Jesus who taught and was opposed to many things that were happening in his time.

Religious books are just story books, they change over time to suit the needs of the powerful so of course the Old Testament has been kept in the Bible. Jesus is just a character in the story book for Christians, that's why he can be black or white or even a bit jewish looking, although is quite infrequent as who on earth would want to worship a guy who looked jewish as their savior, certainly not the Christian Right. lol
It is much easier to manipulate the majority of the population into doing cruel and heinous acts like war and oppression and sexism if you keep around texts from the Bronze Age like the Old Testament. As for Jesus, well he's just like any other imaginary friend - hopefully you outgrow them and learn to stand on your own two feet like an adult.

I would say an equally big threat to the credibility of Christ is his portrayal as a blue-eyed, white man - as in the picture included in this post.

The O;d Testament was written by the Jews, for the Jews. Along come the Xians and they say "We like this basic idea but we need a softer, less bloodthirsty psychopath to be God and he needs a son who's perfect and loving around whom we can build our faith so we're gonna tweak your book a bit and call it New."

The Jews shoulda charged the Xians a perpetual licensing fee for the use of their book. It woulda been worth billions across centuries. How did the Jews miss that -- they're Jews, for Crissakes!

Okay, that was moderately racist but still.

No, wouldn’t work like that. The Christ of NT was the culmination of the Messianic ideal. Take away the rabbinical teachings and Christ is not in the frame. As @altsmerz points out, Jesus was not a reformer. He falls into the category of Messianic preacher

There is a great deal of discussion here about whether or not christ was real, was he invented by Paul or a composite developed by various authors over the ages.

To me this is a moot point. There is wisdom in some parts of the NT. It is like a smorgasbord--you take what you like & leave the rest.

Philosophy & literature through the ages is filled with wise & beautiful passages, much of it mouthed by fictional characters. The reality of christ has no bearing on the value of what he is reported as saying.

You must decide what to believe. Gautama Buddha said,

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

According to original language and concepts Jesus would be a superhuman elohim angel. Lord of host Lucifer the devil.

I think Jesus would have had zero credibility with Jews who he was supposed to have come to if he had not embraced the Old Testament. These books were the only scriptures at the time since all of the New Testament was written after he died.

I'm not convinced that much of anything written about Jesus is trustworthy, and I think Paul had much more influence over Christian doctrine thsn Jesus. The Gospels wrre all written decades after Jesus' death and Luke as well as the Book of Acts are believed to have been written by a companion of Paul. About a third of Paul's letters are understood by biblicsl scholars as being forgeries (not written or dictated by Paul). Given these facts, we can't say that Jesus was a chrismatic Jewish preacher whose cause was taken up by Paul and adapted to his sense of what it should be and Jesus (who Paul never met while he was alive) and his life was created and embellished to meet Paul's need.

I have not read all the comments, but there is NO chance; none whatsoever that Jesus ever existed. Don't read the bible, read the history of the bible. Dan Barker is very good at explaining how Christ never existed. Read his book "Godless". (read all his other books too)

nope. not even a little bit. first of all, his name wasn't jesus christ (christ being a mistranslation of messiah, which does NOT mean christ or savior, and jesus being a greek name). second of all, he probably never existed. and third of all, daily judaism never was, and certainly isn't, based on a literal reading of the old testament. all the stuff jesus is credited with inventing came from the judaism of his time and before it too. the last supper was a passover seder. i speak of this as i would speak of any work of fiction, of course. but why bother? his most fatal flaw is not existing, not having existed and not even being portrayed today as he was originally portrayed, albeit fictionally. he has no credibility to be ruined.

g

I am always amazed that all the pictures we see of Jesus where he is portrayed as a white man.

I often wonder from a work of fiction, cobbled together by rich folk to keep the masses happy and believe the lies that were and still are propagated today to manipulate people into believing in higher things ect...I need to write me a best seller like that....lol

Totally agree. I suspect that some Christians turn away from religion when they learn this.

Christ believed in flat Earth, believed the sun went around Earth. Not to mention the other harsh and archaic beliefs the Judeic religions are founded on.

It was always a wonder to me when I questioned some of the behavior of the god of the OT that my elders would claim "Oh, that's OT. We have a new covenant now in the NT". OK but you have also taught me the scripture “For I the Lord do not change..." Malachi 3: .

I would say that the biggest threat is credibility itself. Exactly like Kryptonite.

I think you have to first prove christ was real. One thing to remember, the bible is the claim, not the evidence.