Dominus-Tecum

Why did you dress up as Jesus for a fictional character day? His existence isn’t really up for debate, even amongst atheists, his divinity is.

Raphael Lataster is a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Sydney. He is author of ’There Was No Jesus, There Is No God’.

Lmao 3edgy5me

His criticisms of the methods used can be applied to cast doubt upon the existence of many 1st century and prior figures, but it really does seem kinda desperate.

The way it’s written reminds me of the Creationist ‘science’ books that start with a conclusion and use shaky evidence, half-truths and gaps in history to build up around their ideology. Plenty of non-religious scholars have affirmed the likelihood of Christ’s existence, and the methods they used were perfectly sound and accepted by historians for multiple other historical figures.

There’s disagreement amongst historians on basically everything, there are some serious historians who claim the holocaust as we know it didn’t happen, that doesn’t mean there isn’t general consensus, just that historical revisionists exist, often stemming from certain political or religious biases. This guy’s opinion is in the minority even in atheist circles.

Jesus, as a first century Jewish preacher, most historians agree existed, only very niche, hyper-atheist scholars dispute that, and they have ulterior motives. Just as we don’t look at the minority of Creationist scholars who maintain that the earth is 6,000 years old and say “well I guess there isn’t any academic consensus!”, we shouldn’t look at an vehement atheists work condemning Jesus as purely objective. The academic consensus is that Jesus, the Jewish preacher, probably existed. Whether he was God on earth is just a matter of faith.

Do you consider yourself a trad/conservative Catholic or a liberal Catholic? Has your faith changed your outlook on politics?

You're comparing questioning the historical existence of Jesus with holocaust deniers

No, I'm applying your idea of academic consensus to the holocaust deniers, and I think you know that. My point was, it doesn't matter if a few niche people disagree, especially if their stance may stem from ulterior motives. Hardcore atheists love the idea of disproving the historical Jesus, hardcore right-wingers love the idea of absolving the Nazis of the holocaust, hardcore creationists love the idea of redefining the age of the earth, hardcore Christians love the idea of historical proof of Jesus' miracles - but the fact is, even if they manage to spin together some facts and evidence to come up with a semi-defensible position, it doesn't change the academic consensus.

I am clearly not comparing the event of the holocaust to the historicity of Jesus, I am saying if people can disagree about something that happened within living memory, then they can certainly disagree with and cast doubt upon sources from 1,000's of years ago, the fact that most historians agree there was a Jesus and he was a Jewish preacher in Israel 2,000 years ago is pretty incredible considering, if you don't believe he is the Son of God, he is a pretty insignificant figure until the Catholic Church gains momentum. That alone should speak volumes.