this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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Well that's may be your belief but the consensus among historians is that there was a man called Jesus of Nazareth that existed.
But many religions create their own alternate versions of history, so I wouldn't expect atheism to be any different. But it's important to recognize it as a belief and understand your belief is inconsistent with the consensus of experts in the relevant field.
Atheism is as much a religion as not playing any sports is a sport.
Eh, based on how many people put so much effort into treating their lack of interest in sports as a personality trait, and in demonstrating how they don't care about sports even more than other people who don't care about sports...the analogy seems...at least amusing if not entirely accurate.
In my experience "atheism is a religion" is only an argument religious ppl make when they have no real argument otherwise. It's semantics and frankly, who cares? Call it a religion if you like. Idgaf.
"I hate the NY Yankees, but I'm not a sports fan" said no one ever.
How about "I used to be a fan but the Yankee's fucking ruined the entire sport for me?"
I hate all teams equally.
"I hate God" said no atheist ever.
You say it like it matters if the experts said otherwise. Like if the consensus was there never was a Jesus of Nazareth, would you no longer have that oh so important 'faith'?
What makes you think SpaceCowboy has a religious faith? Nothing they've said in this comment gave me that signal. Fwiw I am not religious, but I know religious people who I respect, and who are intelligent, rational people, knowledgeable about and interested in science and history etc. I don't think having 'faith' automatically makes a person stupid or contemptible, and I don't think being an atheist automatically means you're more rational or intelligent than someone else
Their reference to atheism as a religion (it isn't) which 'creates its own history' tipped me off.
And their lack of reply to my simple question really says it all. A non-religious could simply reply 'no, obviously I would not believe in him if the experts consensus was they did not exist'. SpaceCowboy however cannot state this, as my suspicion is the expert consensus has no impact on their beliefs whatsoever. Which I was I asked ... why even talk about the expert consensus at all?
Also this comment chain further reinforces my view. Referring to atheists as 'they' implies SpaceCowboy is not an atheist.
And I'd argue that you actually don't know any truly 'rational' people who are also religious as those concepts are fundamentally at odds with each other. There is no rational basis for the supernatural. I'm sure they are generally nice, well-meaning, intelligent and knowledgeable people though, most religious people I know are too. And yes I also know asshole atheists too, lots of them. But I don't see what that has to do with what I stated/asked. I made no assessment on religious or non-religious people being good or bad, smart or stupid. I made no claim that atheists are magically more rational or intelligent than someone else, although on average they may be but I would have to review the data before jumping to any conclusions. I didn't attack SpaceCowboy in any way, I just asked a simple question.
There were hundreds of men named Jesus, it was a popular name during that time. Also, prophets were everywhere. So it stands to reason there was probably a prophet named Jesus during that time period. The "Jesus" talked about in the Bible? Lol nah.
What do you think is more likely: disciples telling taller and taller tales after their master died that spun out into the Bible after a while, or a mythological preacher being invented a few decades after his death?
From what I understand, the consensus view of historians is that Moses and the exodus is probably wholly legendary - there's no archeological evidence of the exodus and the Torah was written 500+ years after the events supposedly happened.
By contrast, the earliest sources for Jesus are from within a century of his death. It's way more likely that we have a mythologized story of a real preacher named Jesus than that we have a wholly legendary story.
First, there is no consensus, a fairly small group of mostly religious historians believe that.
Second I gave you, by far, the most likely answer.