What do atheists think of Jesus?

[Unknownfromheaven]

There is no evidence to support a historical Jesus, beyond the Bible, which is an extremely unreliable source due to bias, contradictions, and the censorship/editing of the council of nicea.

There are more over 42 authors who mention Christ.
New Testament traditional writers - Matthew, Mark, John, Luke and Paul
20 christians writers aside New Testament (Clement of Rome, 2 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp,
Didache, Barnabas, Hermas Pastor, Papias fragments , Justinian the martyr,
Artistides, Athenagoras, Theophilus from Antioch Quadratus, Artisto from Pella, Metito of Sardis, Diognetus,
Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, Epistula Apostolorum.
Talmud ”(it has been taught: on the eye of the passover they hanged Yeshu, but, not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of passover.”

Gnostic writings (outside the bible)
Gospel of Thomas, John apocryphal,
Treatise on resurrection, The Book of Enoch, Gospel of Judas, etc

9 non-christian sources - (Josephus, Tacitus (guvernor of Asia in A.D. 112), Pliny the younger, Phlegon, Lucian (greek writer), Celsus
Mara Bar-Serapion, Seutonius, Thallus.
Only 10 authors mention Tiberius Cesar, so the refference falls on 42:10 and nobody questions the existence of Tiberius.

Tacitus - ”To supress therefore the common rumour, Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishments upon those people who were...commonly known as christians.
They had their denomination from Christus, who in the reign of Tiberius was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. This permicious superstion, though checked for a while, broke out again, and spread not only over Judea, the source of this ”evil”, but reached the city (Rome) also.”
Lucian.
”You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion
which are so common among them, and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers.
from the moment that they were converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws
All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.”
Suetonius - roman historian A.D. 69 - 122.
”He banished the jews from Rome, who were continually making disturbances, Chrestus being their leader.”
”...punishment by Nero was inflicted on the christians, a class of men given to a new mischievous superstition.”
Pliny the younger A.D.101- 110 roman governoer.
”..made them curse Christ, which a genuine christian cannot be induced to do.
They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when thay sang
in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn death.”
”Not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.”
Thallus carturar secular A.D. 52
”in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun - unreasonably
as it seems to me unreasonably, of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon,
and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died.”
Phlegon - pagan historical writer A.D. 138
”During the time of tiberius ceasar an eclipse of the sun occurred during the fool moon.” the same refference can be found on Origen and Philipon

Mara Bar-serapion - syrian stoic philosopher A.D. 70
”What advantage did the athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime.
What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? in a moment their land was covered with sand.
What advantage did the jews gain from executing their wise king? it was just after that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men:
The athenians died of hunger, the samians were overwhelmed by the sea, the jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion.
But socrates did not die for good, he lived on in the statue of Hera, nor did the wise king die for good, he lived on in the teaching which he had given.

Even if the gnostic writings have been considered heresy, these are mentioning the figure of Yeshu.

Valentinus and Thomas a.d. 140-200 were considered pantheistic yet revealed him. This figure is also recognised in islam writings, zoroastrianism and some buddhist writings (such as those who considered that Jesus was in Tibet).

[Deathdude650]

I'm new to the forum and was wondering if anyone has any thoughts to share on Jesus. I've noticed that I'm the minority on the forum [i.e. a theist] which I think is a great opportunity to learn and discuss with people who have a different worldview than I do.

First I would like to say that I am glad that there are theists on here! Most discussions about religion I have had online has been on reddit, and theists get downvoted just for being theists, and as a result, never speak up.

There is no evidence to support a historical Jesus, beyond the Bible, which is an extremely unreliable source due to bias, contradictions, and the censorship/editing of the council of nicea.

The character of Jesus mirrors previous gods such as Horus, Mithra, Krishna, Osiris, and many more.
In my opinion, the character Jesus was used as a tool to convert people, by mirroring their gods, it would make them more comfortable in their new religion.

I disagree with his philosophy of love and selflessness. I believe in kindness/love to those who deserve it "instead of love wasted on ingrates!" And as for selflessness, I put myself first. I help my those who can help themselves, or if it benefits me.

There's quite a lot here, thank you for your answer all my questions, I really appreciate all the feedback I've been getting on this thread. I have some questions about some of your answers:

1. You mentioned censorship or editing at the Council of Nicea. From my understanding of church history the Council of Nicea simply established the canon of Scripture and no changes were made to actual text. Could you be more specific? What was edited? What was censored? How do you know?

2. Can you provide specific examples of how the character of Jesus is mirrored in previous gods? I'm familiar with Horus and Osiris, but I'm less familiar with Mithra and Krishna. If you could point in the right direction to learn more and be more specific I'd be happy to consider this possibility.

It would be great if you could answer my questions and allow me to do some more research so I can interact with your answers more than I've been able to here. If you have any questions for me, please don't hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer.

[SkepticSatanist]

There are more over 42 authors who mention Christ.

I'm just going to go through a few of these for now

Tacitus wrote about the persecution of Christians. This just confirms the existence of Christians, not the existence of Jesus.

Your quote form Lucian is incomplete.

"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property."[2]

Lucian, The Passing of Peregrinus

The Passing of Peregrinus is Satire. But once again, only talks about Christians and their claims. Does not confirm that Jesus existed.

Suetonius, again, does not provide evidence for the existence of Jesus. He only talks about Christians.

Pliny the younger is only talking about Christians, not the existence of Christ.

Thallus and Phlegon talk about an eclipse during the time Christ was killed. They did not write about this event at the time it was happening.

such as those who considered that Jesus was in Tibet

Citation please.

All of these writers wrote about Christians in their time. Not about the existence of Jesus Christ.

[SkepticSatanist]

There's quite a lot here, thank you for your answer all my questions, I really appreciate all the feedback I've been getting on this thread. I have some questions about some of your answers:

1. You mentioned censorship or editing at the Council of Nicea. From my understanding of church history the Council of Nicea simply established the canon of Scripture and no changes were made to actual text. Could you be more specific? What was edited? What was censored? How do you know?

2. Can you provide specific examples of how the character of Jesus is mirrored in previous gods? I'm familiar with Horus and Osiris, but I'm less familiar with Mithra and Krishna. If you could point in the right direction to learn more and be more specific I'd be happy to consider this possibility.

It would be great if you could answer my questions and allow me to do some more research so I can interact with your answers more than I've been able to here. If you have any questions for me, please don't hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer.

1. I am mistaken about the Council of Nicea. Did some research to refresh my memory, and turns out I am wrong about the council deciding what books were in the bible and so on. But there is some controversy and unknowns as to how the Bible was compiled. Lets take a quick look at a Christian source (to avoid the bias of the Nicea myth) http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html It was several different councils and groups/authorities that decided what books were canon or not, from their on discretion. Books were cherry picked.
I made a mistake bringing up the subject of censorship.

2. Mithras comes from the religion Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism I'm having difficulty finding reliable sources on the details of Mithra right now. Every source I've been finding are extremely Christian biased, and the article on Mithras compared to Christianity on wikipedia currently has a neutrality dispute. Take a look at the general page about him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra The myth of Mirthras is heavily disputed, based off of conjectures of philosophers so take it with a grain of salt. But basically it parallels Christ with virgin birth, birth on the 25th of December, salvation, and a water miracle. This is still very little known about Mithras, and as such it is not a very good example, but is still a valid example. I find the controversy over it posited by Christians to be silly "no we did it first! Nuhuh!"

for more information regarding gods previous to Christianity and their depiction of Jesus, I high recommend reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He is a much better source for this than I can be. I got it from a college Library a few years ago and uh... Well I'm pretty sure its under my bed somewhere lol

[Deathdude650]

1. I am mistaken about the Council of Nicea. Did some research to refresh my memory, and turns out I am wrong about the council deciding what books were in the bible and so on. But there is some controversy and unknowns as to how the Bible was compiled. Lets take a quick look at a Christian source (to avoid the bias of the Nicea myth) http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html It was several different councils and groups/authorities that decided what books were canon or not, from their on discretion. Books were cherry picked.
I made a mistake bringing up the subject of censorship.

2. Mithras comes from the religion Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism I'm having difficulty finding reliable sources on the details of Mithra right now. Every source I've been finding are extremely Christian biased, and the article on Mithras compared to Christianity on wikipedia currently has a neutrality dispute. Take a look at the general page about him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra The myth of Mirthras is heavily disputed, based off of conjectures of philosophers so take it with a grain of salt. But basically it parallels Christ with virgin birth, birth on the 25th of December, salvation, and a water miracle. This is still very little known about Mithras, and as such it is not a very good example, but is still a valid example. I find the controversy over it posited by Christians to be silly "no we did it first! Nuhuh!"

for more information regarding gods previous to Christianity and their depiction of Jesus, I high recommend reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He is a much better source for this than I can be. I got it from a college Library a few years ago and uh... Well I'm pretty sure its under my bed somewhere lol

I found a book on my shelf that I got when I first started looking into the supposed similarities between Jesus and other pagan deities (at the time I more concerned with Horus and Osiris). The book is called The Gospel and the Greeks by Ronald H. Nash and while I haven't read through the entire book the parts that I have read, on the supposed similarities between Jesus and Osiris were very informative and interesting. In Chapter 8, Nash writes about specific mystery religions and has a chapter specifically on Mithraism. According to Nash, "Mithra appears first in Iranian religion as the twin brother of the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda. In later Zoroastrian literature he assumes more prominence as a judge of the dead;" (Nash 2003, pg. 134). Roman Mithraism is the most likely to have influenced Christianity because it began in the late first century around the same time Christianity was in its infancy. On Roman Mithraism Nash writes, "Attempts to reconstruct the beliefs and practices of Mithraism face enormous challenges becuase the scanty information that has survived. We do know that Mithraism, like its mystery competitors, had a basic myth. Mithra was supposedly born when he emerged from a rock; he was carrying a knife and a torch and wearing a Phyrgian cap. He battled first with the sun and then with a primeval bull, which then became the grounds of life for the human race." (Nash 2003, pg. 134). The chapter goes deeper than that, I encourage you to read it if you get the chance.

As for the link you gave on Mithra, I read through it and it was interesting, but rather not very compelling. Perhaps I ought to give it another read, but I didn't see anything that seems to parallel the story or character of Jesus. Granted, this topic is very hard to research because people see very little need to cite sources, that was one of the most frustrating things about my research on Horus and Osiris. I hope that we can keep this dialog going, its very interesting and intellectually stimulating.

Also, I hope to get the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins soon, I've been wanting to read it for some time because I hear both Christians and Atheists refer to it.

[SkepticSatanist]

As for the link you gave on Mithra, I read through it and it was interesting, but rather not very compelling. Perhaps I ought to give it another read, but I didn't see anything that seems to parallel the story or character of Jesus. Granted, this topic is very hard to research because people see very little need to cite sources, that was one of the most frustrating things about my research on Horus and Osiris. I hope that we can keep this dialog going, its very interesting and intellectually stimulating.

Also, I hope to get the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins soon, I've been wanting to read it for some time because I hear both Christians and Atheists refer to it.

Sadly Mithras is hard to research, and there is a lot of conflicting information. I'll be checking out that book you mentioned.

I also encourage you to watch debates with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, which can be found on The Vegan Atheist's youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... OBdce80MKz

[Deathdude650]

Sadly Mithras is hard to research, and there is a lot of conflicting information. I'll be checking out that book you mentioned.

I also encourage you to watch debates with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, which can be found on The Vegan Atheist's youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... OBdce80MKz

Mithra is rather hard to research, which is largely why I'm so skeptical about the supposed similarities with Jesus. Its rather easy to make the claim the Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25, had 12 disciples, and died to redeem humanity, etc. (I'm not sure if people make these specific claims about Mithra, but I'm naming several that are common among other gods I've researched.) However, its not as easy to back up the claims by, for example citing the mythology.

The same can go for Jesus, but I would argue that there is good reason to believe that the gospels are historically accurate and the Jesus was a real historical person. I won't get into why I believe this unless you'd be interested though, I recognize that once someone has discussed religion and world views for a while the same arguments come up quite often.

I've watched some of Dawkins' and Hitchens' debates in the past, I may have to watch some of them again. Both of them are brilliant. I'd recommend Alvin Plantinga and John Lennox, both do more lectures than debates, but here's a debate between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw

I haven't watched as many of Plantinga's debates and I won't recommend something I haven't read/watched, but I am reading an essay he wrote. Here's a link if you're interested: https://www.calvin.edu/academic/philoso ... nality.pdf

[SkepticSatanist]

Yeah.. I an redacting my statement about Mithras for now, seeing as how there is very little evidence. I have to admit I've mostly heard about from other atheists while we were discussing Jesus.

I think the John Lennox vs Richard Dawkins was the first debate I had seen with Dawkins I'll rewatch it sometime today

I'll read that essay when I have time later today. Being at work is too distracting to read a serious essay lol

[atheistnerd]

I grew up Mormon and Jesus was a major part of my faith. I am now an atheist and my opinion of Jesus has changed. First off I think the new testament has a lot of aweful passive aggressive language. Jesus called people hypocrites, vipers, swine and other disrespectful names.
I don't know if Jesus actually existed or was just a myth started that spread throughout various cultures. Some authors seem to be inconsistent as to the accounts of who this supposed Jesus was.
Jesus taught that belief would divide families as though this was a good thing. He even told a man to avoid burying a family member and instead come follow him. Jesus told people to advoid washing their hands which if followed could spread disease. Jesus taught of a rich man who died and begged for a drop of water from a slave to quench his thirst. Jesus taught the laws of the culture he was in were expired and condemned the people for not accepting his new set of rules. I could go on but I think in modern terms Jesus would be known as a "troll". He would have known that his speech would anger the people even to his crucifixion but he still said what he did. Trolling is dishonest and uncivilized. With such behavior I don't feel it is reasonable to see such a being as perfect or even ethical. Jesus the myth or man should be discredited for these reasons.

[Deathdude650]

I grew up Mormon and Jesus was a major part of my faith. I am now an atheist and my opinion of Jesus has changed. First off I think the new testament has a lot of aweful passive aggressive language. Jesus called people hypocrites, vipers, swine and other disrespectful names.
I don't know if Jesus actually existed or was just a myth started that spread throughout various cultures. Some authors seem to be inconsistent as to the accounts of who this supposed Jesus was.
Jesus taught that belief would divide families as though this was a good thing. He even told a man to avoid burying a family member and instead come follow him. Jesus told people to advoid washing their hands which if followed could spread disease. Jesus taught of a rich man who died and begged for a drop of water from a slave to quench his thirst. Jesus taught the laws of the culture he was in were expired and condemned the people for not accepting his new set of rules. I could go on but I think in modern terms Jesus would be known as a "troll". He would have known that his speech would anger the people even to his crucifixion but he still said what he did. Trolling is dishonest and uncivilized. With such behavior I don't feel it is reasonable to see such a being as perfect or even ethical. Jesus the myth or man should be discredited for these reasons.

Thank you for your reply. I have some questions about your answers to the original post.

First you mention that Jesus calls people disrespectful names. This is true, but are you suggesting that the use of that language is never appropriate or simply inappropriate within the context Jesus would have said it?

Second, you said that authors seem to be inconsistent as to the accounts of who Jesus was. Do you mean modern scholars writing about the historical Jesus or the authors of the New Testaments, specifically the gospels? If you meant modern scholars, I'm interested in who you've read on this subject.

Then you indirectly cited several instances in the New Testament where you disagreed with Jesus' teaching. I was aware of most of these instances, but couldn't find a specific passage. Where did Jesus tell people to avoid washing their hands?

Also, when you said, "Jesus the myth or man should be discredited for these reasons." what did you mean by discredited? Should his all his teaching be ignored or what did you mean by this?

Thank you again for your reply to my post, I'm looking forward to interacting with more.