Jesus Christ - reasons for skepticism

Just thought to allow people to vent a little as to why they feel intensely skeptical of the truth behind the existence of Jesus Christ as depicted in the New testament of the Christian Bible.

The issues I personally have a problem with are numerous but to start with I shall list some of them below:

1] Illogical use of one man to convey a message. If God is as he is supposed to be why would he limit the conveyance of his message to the immediate contacts that one man Jesus would make. Why not tell the entire world simultaneously?

2] If Jesus as portrayed performed many healing including resurrections of the Dead, why is there no evidence given by those that had been resurrected or by families of those resurrected?
Resurrecting a dead person would in any century be an amazing event and surely humans being human we would see ample written or other wise independent documented evidence that would support the notion of this extraordinary ability that Jesus is said to have had. None is presented and I ask why not?

3] The focus of evidence in support of the Christ is focused only on his disciples and possibly other small accounts that are incapable of being falsified. Eye witness accounts that are too few when there must have been thousands of eye witness accounts worthy of historical recording if Jesus existence had been real and true.

4] That the account of Jesus appears to have been deliberately established in a way that can not be falsified. In other words the church at the time appears to have generated a story that can never be proven or declared false thus leaving it entire up to the work of evangelists to market the notion.

5] From a morality perspective I find it abhorrent and absurd that the church can condone and even worship the crucification of Jesus as being a necessary requirement of his so called father God. This says an awful lot about the nature and morality of that said God. To string his own son up on a cross after having him beaten half to death and claim that it is a necessary thing to do given his all powerful position this reeks of nothing but abuse.

6] Being heavily involved in marketing strategies over the years suugest to me that the Church has exemplified the most persuasive marketing technique known to man kind.

That being "generate a perceived need [ apply the fear factor] and then supply the solution. Perfect marketing.

The movie Mission Impossible shows this form of marketing used as an extreme form of manipulation.

Create a virus and also create an antidote. Release the virus surreptitious and then sell the antidote.
"your sin can only be redeemed by your....."

very powerful marketing indeed.
hence it is little wonder that modern man is cynical.

So at least 6 points of arguement as to why the account of Jesus is difficult to accept as having the possibility of credibility.

any others and care to discuss?

 

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a newborn baby died and 20 minutes or so later came to life.

did you hear about that?

isnt it odd that the only people we have here talking about Jesus are the ones who dont believe.

for myself, i never read more about him until i came to sciforums.

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so if your child died and was resurrected 20 minutes later your entire family , society and certainly the child would want to say something about it wouldn't they....?

But alas they didn't. Obviously resurrection must have been such a common occurrence in those days....[ excuse the sarcasm in reaction to yours]

 

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i am afraid i have no idea what you are trying to say. and that story with the child is true.

 

I didn't think so....hmmmmm

If you re-read the OP you will find that it is offering a chance for people to state why they find the notion of Jesus difficult to accept as valid.

get it all out in the open so to speak....

 

and this effects you?

 

it's not about me...

 

For the record I am agnostic. This is pure food for thought.

Indeed why not. Apart from the fact that we are all individuals and we experience events and emotions subjectively. Perhaps a charismatic (alleged) prophet like Jesus can be used as a conduit for the ingestion of individual belief?

The success of the Christian religion establishing itself, surviving and thriving for the past two millennia could be evidence enough that something miraculous occurred.

Well I suppose not EVERYONE had a notebook at the time. And the New York Times had a shortage of reporters in the area?

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Yes it is indeed strange that such events only found their way into the 4 gospels and no other contemporary chronicles seem to have been aware of the momentous events as described in the NT.

Well, the search for evidence regarding the historical Jesus continues. The jury is still out. But what would Christianity be without faith?

I have no words to offer regarding this outrage!

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Yes, and for only a couple of dollars more we will throw in a years free supply of indulgences.

Unforunately fear is the key as far as the OT goes. And as for the NT, a moral flaw of Jesus is that he believed in and condoned the principle of eternal damnation and pain in hellfire. Best explained by Bertrand Russel in "Why I am not a Christian".

To be fair, there are millions of Christians who have changed their lives around for the better and have found great comfort once they embraced the faith. The exact mechanism for this could be explained in various ways however. Also a significant tenet of Christianity is faith, so lack of credibility is not necessarily going to be a deterrent.

 

Perhaps because his disciples who must have known him better than anyone else and would therefore at the very least have looked upon him as a very dear friend if not the saviour/messiah, had such little regard for him that that didn't even stay awake with him in the garden of gethsemane ...

 

strawdog,

Just like the long term belief that the world was flat for an even longer period.

So using your reasoning we must assume that the world was indeed flat at sometime in the past because so many believed it.

No, it is a logical fallacy.

Mythmaking and allegories were rife in those early days with little to no regard for accurate reporting and with overwhelming ignorance of how the universe actually functioned giving rise to many magical ideas and superstitions.

In the end we remain with absolutely NO evidence that anything miraculous has ever occurred and we have no reliable evidence that a Jesus actually existed.

 

john,

Do you have a web ref for that claim please?

 

Strawdog,

Agreed, and often a truth is not always something pleasant.

Christianity includes a particular set of lifestyle rules that are mostly positive in terms of social morality and cooperation. It is these aspects that people can relate to and at the same time have a sense of meaning and purpose to their lives. This is a good thing in many ways.

If, however, Christianity was say disproved entirely overnight then what would happen to the life rules that people were living by? While I suspect that the popularity of religions will gradually fail as we learn more about how the universe and our brains operate, that doesn’t mean we would necessarily be happier unless there is a replacement set of lifestyle rules. Atheism by itself doesn’t offer such a cohesive rule set, and without something in this area chaos is more likely to result.

Or would it? I live entirely outside of religious beliefs of any kind and have developed a lifestyle for myself that I feel is highly moral. But I also observe that many others have no regard for such lifestyles, whether religious or not. It is that divisive group of people that will perhaps determine the ultimate fate of mankind, although I cannot quantify their numbers. To some extent the question is one of – is the gene pool improving in the right direction, or is the wrong set of people over breeding and it is that fact that will ultimately cause a failure to our race?

 

hi chris,

it was 33 hours. i saw it on UNSOLVED MYSTERIES.

 

yeah that could make a point number 7 I reckon...
and that Peter is said to have denied his relationship with Christ three times and even when he knew that Christ had foretold this would happen he still was compelled to deny the Christ.

 

Cris, I agree in the main with your post and wish to extend the thinking a little.

There is no reason at all why learning to love each other , with respect for human rights, individual freedoms and collective needs can not be met with out the need for a religious focus.

None what so ever!

The need for a Christ Focus is becoming obsolete as you mentioned.


Gaining personal value in the act with out the need for a reward after death etc etc would validate the morality issue and make it more concrete in the present moment and not at some time after we die.

"When the moral or ethical act and it's effect is reward enough"

 

John,

That's an entertainment program. I couldn't find any relevant reference on their website. Can you be more precise?

 

i know what the show is about but it is more of a reality based kind of show than a dramatic series.

another one is a baby who was dead for 30 minutes and the thing is they dont suffer any effects.

so far i know of one for 33mins. and one for 30.

 

A logical fallacy, yes. But a grain of truth for a flat earth exists in the context of perspective. From the limited perspective at the time, the earth was to all intents and purposes flat.

How else can one explain the rise of Christianity if it were not for a significant event? What exactly that event was seems to have been blurred by the passage of time.

Or perhaps magical ideas gave rise to the material and concrete world? And we are today perhaps ignorant of the importance and value of magical thinking?

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The evasive historical Jesus. Perhaps Docetism can shed some light on this mystery?

 

What about the success of the Morman religion, established by a convicted con man on highly dubious (totally phoney) grounds?

 

yeah but he was real cool.