Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[JesseB]

@SteveII maybe it would help you to know a bit where I come from so you can better understand my perspective. That is if you give so much as a flying fuck about what a non believer thinks.

I grew up in a deeply fundamentalist religious home. And yes it was abusive but that's not really so much a function of religion as much as it's just a function of how people used to be, especially poor people. To be fair they still are that way more often than not. I assumed the adults in my life were being honest with me, and from a certain point of view they kinda were, I mean they really did believe. So I went through the baptism shit at age 6 and.... nothing. I was very confused about this. Now I know like the pastor in the video I linked above having intelligence of any kind is the number 1 danger for a christian, I've heard it all my life. The corruptible force known as logic. However I am who I am, and if that is the case then clearly your god decided I was going to be born with no chance for going to heaven. So fuck it. Anyway I started bugging my mom the very night I was baptized (and I'm not going to play the asinine game of well you weren't born into the right religion I mean christian denomination bullshit, that is really stretching the limits of my patience if you attempt to go there so I'll stop you now preemptively). Eventually my mom said "well if you said the words and you meant them, and you got baptized then your'e saved. And that's that." I realized at that point that there was nothing there. Nothing supernatural like I had been expecting. I was fucking 6 mind you. I asked my mom how she knew she was saved and well she got mad and hit me over the head for asking. I already knew though that she didn't know. She assumed. And she  hoped. And she wanted to believe. Of course I'm kinda an ass so I sum it up to she was lying to herself and me. However I was intrigued. My parents went to seminary and had hundreds of religious books laying around. Histories, one of my favorites was a book about a crazy guy who thought he could channel the soul of a dead roman soldier that met Jesus, fun story thick read as it was a fucking ancient story, the book itself was as big as the bible. I read it 3 times. I taught myself to read Greek. I studied the justifications for the various denominational stances despite my family coming from a devout missionary baptist denomination themselves. Eventually I got bored with it, I mean I still enjoyed it and would make friends with pastors to talk about it. The entire time I was forced to live in hiding. My dad put a gun to my head when I told him I was getting married, in front of my now Ex wife. He's pulled the trigger on more than one occasion. Not going to church wasn't an option. So I sang in the music, I led Sunday school classes. I had no choice in the matter, blend in or die or be thrown on the streets. When it came time to leave high school I worked construction, the creation of flammable gasses, and on an oil rig because my family thought I was "retarded" To quote one of my aunts "Well you must be a retard because every time you open your mouth you sound like an alien." The dangerous work gave me a lot of perspective on suffering and death, more so than my abusive family. It also taught me about keeping sharp to keep my fingers and my life intact. After my high risk lifestyle caught up to me and I couldn't work anymore I started going to school. I am a computer science major, not a historian, not a theologian. I have experience and training in digital forensics, I understand the philosophy behind forensics. History, Anthropology, and Archaeology also all have their roots in forensics. So I consider myself reasonably well equipped to understand how to interpret historical evidences within a correct context and with the correct evedentiary standard. When I say that there is no historical evidence, there's a fucking damn good reason for me to say that. Perhaps instead of insulting me and being an ignorant ass, instead of sitting there on your high horse assuming you know everything and you need to come here to educate us poor pathetic heathens. Maybe you should remove the wax from your ears and fucking listen for a change. I read a whole fucking lot. I analyse obsessively. It's just what I do. It's compulsive. I don't speak without some understanding of what I'm saying ever. And I never say anything without a damn good reason. I also know a lot of the guys you're talking to are like that, they have good reason for what they are saying and I take exception to your continual insults insinuations and unsubstantiated accusations of them. It makes you look like a real ignorant ass.

I'm sorry for your upbringing and thank you for sharing.

You demand I take the wax out of my ears and listen to your assertion that there is no evidence. Forgive me if I require reasons to reexamine my reasons I have given and not just accept your assertion. In case you think I am reading any of Buck Ball's fringe nonsense and I'm somehow required to address it, I am not--I don't even see it. Carry your own argument.

First.  That there is no evidence is my opinion.  You haven't presented any.  And from what I've seen I don't think there is any. Personally.  However, I have given some evidence to support my reasoning and you have thus far ignored it. 

All you've put forward so far are assertions.  Provide evidence for your claims oe we're done.  If you think the bible is the only evidence you need then why not go with Thor or Ra. This far every argument you've made to support your god works equally well for all ancient gods myths and even modern ones.  You know Jedi is a religion right? I can say it's asinine because it is. But that does not change the fact that you've provided no reason that makes it less valid than the bible.