Justice

Okay. Who was arguing that? justsoyouknow, or so I thought.

Hey, aren't those the voters that Howard Dean wants to represent :lol: ?

Yeah, truly. We should get a history board. I'd absolutely love it.

You can't prove that someone or something never existed. That's nonsensical. You can only prove that we have ZERO records of Jesus or anyone like him ever having existed. Well, my beef was more with the argument that the ideas behind his teachings were invalid because he "didn't exist", which I find to be straight BS. Ideas are ideas no matter how you look at them. Okay, so let's go with the theory that Jesus didn't exist. Does that mean that his teachings are suddenly wrong? No. The ideas there are still a fantastic moral base for mankind, whether created by a group of Christians or the man himself. I find that foolish and childish. If a brilliant quote or tenet is put forth but its creator remains anonymous, does that immediately make what he said wrong? No, because the idea is still there and it still has power. I believe in Jesus, but I believe in the ideas he set forth more. It's wrong to carry out stuff in his name that directly contradicts what he says (Much of the Catholic Priesthood crisis of simply hiding the problem rather than addressing it). Like the Constitution, the words and the meaning behind those words far more valuable in life than those who spoke or wrote them. So I believe in him, but I believe I'll please him far more by living out what he asked rather than just praising him for being who he is. It's not all the philosophy for me, but it plays a greater part in my life than he does.

I have to say that's pretty badass to be a Knight Templar today, and that letter is just golden. Beautiful.

Bullshit. We are only questioning whether the man himself existed, that he was a historical figure. That's the whole flaw: You believe that it being part of religion somehow seperates it from history, but we are talking the historical "Not the son of God" Jesus, which is completely possible. I do like, however, that despite the doubts with the others, you completely accept them as historical figures. What does it matter that he has a whole book based around him? How does that have any bearing on whether he existed any more than Socrates or Alexander when the same doubts exists with these figures as well? What if everyone believed that Alexander was the Son of God instead of Jesus. Would you say the same thing? Your whole argument hinges on the fact that there's a religion based around one and not the other, which has absolutely NO BEARING on whether he existed or not. There's no proof that he didn't exist. You have nothing that can say that right now definitively. I have nothing definitively that can say he does. It's a stalemate: Neither of us have the evidence to prove our stances beyond a reasonable doubt without putting a massive amount of faith into it.

Zsasz, you are very correct. I've saw stuff about that a while ago. Honestly, this is just dumb. Do you believe Socrates existed? There are serious doubts to that. Do you believe Alexander the Great existed? There are major doubts that he did as well. Hell, aren't there doubts on Hannibal himself existing? Seriously, if you accept those, what should Jesus matter? Just because some people believe he's the son of God means nothing to the argument since both the Jews and Muslims acknowledge his existence but they don't recognize him as their savior. He could just as well been a normal man, so that argument lacks point outside of the circular argument "Do you believe he is God?". It's pathetic to think that evidence could support one side more than the other when there isn't enough to even point in a direction.

First off, wasn't Santa Claus based off a Scandinavian Saint? Why shouldn't I? Does it make a difference to you if I believe that there's a higher power or not?

What I'm getting at is why believe it? If you're going to believe something at least believe Mythra. It's the same story, but he was around first. It's one thing to wonder about if he was telling the truth, its another to think he might've not even have existed at all. Indeed. It's all choice. But to act as though there's no logic behind it when even you can't prove that he didn't exist is subsituting one leap of faith for another. Again, it's all faith and one's personal choice to believe or not. You can't claim to be right or wrong here.

Then again, we lack any definitive proof of the existance of Alexander the Great, yet he's accepted into historical fact. And, well, Ramses was a Pharaoh. Jesus was a carpenter for most of his life. See the diff? Except for 3 major religions telling me he did. The argument is pointless because there's no way you can prove one way or another he did or didn't. No one can be proven in the right unless we were actually able to go back then and look.

Personally, I don't see the point in this argument besides people trying to push each others' opinions on one another (And yes, I'm guilty of this as well). For something 2000 years old, we'll never likely never to have definitive proof to whether he existed or not; it's like trying to guess the picture behind a 2,000 piece puzzle with only a few dozen pieces. Kahran is right: the only real deciding fact is what we believe to be true.

It's fine if all you take it as is a good philosophy book, but there's plenty of people that worship the guy, believe it or not. Yes, they worship him for what he represents: That particular philosophy. You really can't seperate the man from his teachings. You don't worship a guy because of his philosophy. You worship him because you think he's the son of God. You can't even prove that he didn't exist, so how can you prove he wasn't the son of God?

It's fine if all you take it as is a good philosophy book, but there's plenty of people that worship the guy, believe it or not. Yes, they worship him for what he represents: That particular philosophy. You really can't seperate the man from his teachings.

So what if we aren't sure? That doesn't mean he's automatically invalidated along with all his teachings. This is a real piss-poor argument to somehow invalidate what the man supposedly preached.

Then again, we are talking about a difference of 2000 years. Records lost, changed, erased, no eyewitnesses that can be called upon. Weren't the stories of Alexander the Great written something like 200 years after his death?

... That doesn't really mean anything, man. It shouldn't matter if he exists or not, it should be the substance of what he 'supposedly' taught and said that should matter. That's a real superficial way of looking at it.

What the FUCK? I don't think this seems all too unbiased anymore...

Oh, I understand that, though you come off as prickish and inciteful rather than insightful. Just a tip there.

And an idiotic poster. Not a big George Carlin fan, are we? Well, you look like you are trolling at the moment. It'd didn't click until now, though :\.

And an idiotic poster.

Interesting site, but in all honesty, it doesn't really convince me much that he didn't exist. I dunno why, but maybe how the Christians were suppressed could his name have possibly been purged or erased from records after a while? I suppose for him not to exist and then suddenly spring up out of nowhere just rings odd to me.

They've actually found his name in Roman records, but there's a legitimate question on whether or not they were modified by someone at a later date. The way the data was shown to me (In a post a while back, I can't quite remember where) I was convinced that it had been falsified. Personally, I could care less if Jesus were real or fiction: His tenants should really matter more than him.

Aww, weren't you and Tyler talking about how close Bush was to losing the election a year in advance? You know, maybe we should all stop posting useless polls stuff until we are within a month or so of the real election because it doesn't matter right now, m'kay?

You shut your hole! Look at MY match! And only 4,000 fricken words! AHHHHHHHHHH!

OMGODREAS HAPPY BIRTHDAY!&@*(#)&!@$*()!&@3