Atheists who maintain their own unproven statements which get them nowhere, on the next Oprah.

@rainmanjr My statement is factual. What is STILL unproven is the existence of ANY god at any point in human history.
There is no there there.
If anyone contends that their god is real, it is on them to prove it. They cannot.

@KKGator You claim that Jesus did not exist. He did not have to be a God to have existed, as a first point, but nobody has ever proved that Jesus (as a human being) did not exist. Jesus was a fairly common name, I gather, and he is mentioned in Quran. It may be, as we all have talked about repeatedly, that a traveling philosopher (or Gypsy), saw opportunity in the area but the effort went South for 300 years. Then he was resurrected. That's a possibility so stating his non-existence as a factual thing automatically removes your authority for the subject and those listening roll their eyes.

@rainmanjr Okay. Enjoy your day.

@rainmanjr That's a disingenuous argument. The question "Did Jesus exist" specifically means "did God incarnate walk the Earth". To claim that there was probably some dude named Jesus is answering a different question. That's like me saying, "Of course God exists. My friend named his Great Dane 'God'. I was petting him yesterday, so he definitely exists."

@ChestRockfield No it's not. In fact, this is a common supposition. A philosopher who was later given divine nature by humans (John, Peter, and Constantine specifically) is extremely possible and has been theorized many times before me. Your argument automatically equates him with god just like Christians do. I admit that IDK if he existed or not but, in a discussion to change a mind, it is of greater value to offer that he did but, obviously, as a non-divine human. That starts the conversation on an agreeable note from which other concessions may be granted during the debate. If not done the debate tends to be about what The Bible says vs intellectual reasoning. His human existence is a minor point, actually, so once that's dispensed with the real bullet points against his divinity can begin. Maybe you save a Christian. But to make any statement of fact concerning the story is to lose the argument since it rides on faith, not reasoning.

@rainmanjr
"His human existence is a minor point, actually, so once that's dispensed with the real bullet points against his divinity can begin."
I don't know how this is different from my premise, that the existence of some dude named Jesus is irrelevant and the actual question is his divinity??

Either way, any argument against divinity would still be valid whether or not you admitted there was a philosopher named Jesus.

Furthermore, the central focus of this entire post is on Jesus' return to Earth, which is literally only possible with some metaphysical explanation, thus, the existence of some dude named Jesus who wasn't divine is completely irrelevant.

@ChestRockfield KKGator made the statement that he didn't exist. That's what I was replying to and the poll (which held this central focus you refer to), being in the OP, was not a target of my reply to KKGator. IDK what your premise was because I barely pay attention to you but you're the one arguing with me about Jesus. I mean, literally, Jeeeeesssssus! You folks have my permission to say stupid things that, therefore, weaken the effort of your arguments if it pleases you. Humans are all about pleasing themselves.

@rainmanjr Nothing we said was stupid. @KKGator even referenced "coming back" in her comment, so not sure how you didn't know what she/we were talking about. Also not sure how you're just scrolling through the comments and responding to people if you don't know what the OP is about...

@ChestRockfield I'm not going to get agreement from you so let's stop. I don't really care what you think anyway. I appreciate your belief that coming to KKGator's aid was gallant, and being male I understand wanting to be gallant, but my points stand without further reenforcement. Peace.

@rainmanjr Don't put your chauvinist shit on me. I actually had to go to her profile to check before using "her" in the 3rd comment in this exchange. I would have said the exact same thing regardless of the member, gender, race, political affiliation, etc. I take your points (sort of, you never addressed the fact that "any argument against divinity would still be valid whether or not you admitted there was a philosopher named Jesus" ) but they were misplaced in a thread about the return of Jesus. You've been super rude and dismissive of me ever since that argument about abortion [I think] a while back. For years we used to see eye to eye on almost everything, but now you're just kind of an asshole to me, so I stopped giving a fuck what you think, too. But that's not going to stop me from pointing out when you're wrong.

@ChestRockfield I have lost patience with bullshit and that is what you are handing me with this professed ignorance over how Jesus might have just been a man whom other men, and women, turned into a Deity. Some religions call them martyrs but the first one is a God. I suspect you know that but pick and choose what I wrote to make it more dodgy and then say I haven't answered you. I did. Wrong and right are much like good and bad. One creates the other (which is the supposed point of The Bible) so neither should be pursued. I merely pointed out a logical fallacy; that saying Jesus didn't exist is an unproven, therefore factual, error. As such it has a negative effect on credibility right off the bat. The Oxford Debate Club would probably call weakening your authority a stupid thing to do.

Good luck. I hope you make millions.

Bart Centre 'The Atheist Camel' did that ten years ago.

Why not? No matter how kooky an idea might sound, there's always a chance that it grows legs.

Most Americans are more gullible, and it shows in our politics.

No, but we do lie to surveys for fun.

I say fuck all those things all the time without believing in god.

@Gwendolyn2018 Jesus comes back every day and he is real!

@Gwendolyn2018 He is too intelligent for that.

@Gwendolyn2018 I don't know about the gym, but there will be trouble if he misses his shift in the kitchen at El Matador!

@Gwendolyn2018
I prefer this Jesus. He exists, not the fictional clown of the Xians

@Gwendolyn2018 Being kitchen help is real, so it's a step up in that regard.

My late partner had 2 Jesus' in her classroom. Whenever the other kids called them Jesus they would cry and say my name is hesus.

Actually, it does...

@ChestRockfield Good catch. I did a search for the word atheist and it came up with no results. Apparently the search can't find it in an image so my methodology was flawed and I'll have to make adjustments for the future. But even then I challenge the number as how could someone who doesn't believe in a god believe that one is coming "back"? The logic is incredibly flawed and given the margin of error of most polls I think it would be fair to ignore a 1% metric.

@redbai 100% agree with you. I'm shocked that this was PEW. I joked about it in another comment, but if they had a poll for bachelors, and some of them responded about their wives, shouldn't those respondents' answers get tossed? Who can have confidence in the results when there's no integrity in the methodology?

Maybe the 1% are not atheists but from religious who can't believe atheists exist.

I do that daily.