Atheist Memes

I'm about as atheist as they come, but it seems pretty settled history that the man existed and was politically impactful

The consensus among historical scholars is that some itinerant preacher who we can reasonably call the historical Jesus existed. That is the state of the field. There was lots of religious fervor at the time, it was already probably clear to everyone that something bad was going to happen to the Temple, there were lots of similar guys running around.

Arguing that the man probably existed is not arguing that he advocated for the things he was saying in the Bible, that he was in any way divine, or that one should believe in Christianity. It’s not arguing for leftist hippie Jesus either. Just that at this point in history, some sort of Jewish rabble rouser claimed to be a messiah and started a small group of followers. This is not a crazy claim - rabble rousers exist, Jewish people exist and have a complex religious/political figure called a messiah, and the group of followers was causing problems in less than a hundred years.

Remember that historical argumentation and proof looks fundamentally different than argumentation and proof in physics or math. You can’t do “Josephus minus The Testimonium Flavianum plus Pliny’s letters equals Christ.” No one is going to be able to trot out a photo of Jesus. Although here’s something fun: here’s one of the first depictions of Jesus.

The one true JC

I remember reading about this.

IRC before Emperor Constantine there was still a bit of a religious taboo of portraying Jesus (a god), due to the whole bible being against idolatry thing. So it was mostly metaphorical images of a buff shephard, if there were pictures at all, because Jesus was a shephard to his followers, and buff because why wouldn't you make him buff?

After Constantine converted, Christianity was romanised. The Romans loved idolatary so that taboo went out the window ASAP. The image of Jesus was partly inspired by images of Apollo and Dionysus (hence white, fit and feminine) then later Zeus (hence the authoritative beard). It's not actually inspired by actual Jesus, whose appearance was (perhaps deliberately) not described properly in the New Testament. The Church basically adapted its product to the tastes of the Roman market, just like the whole Christmas tree and Saturnalia gift giving becoming Christian traditions.

Apparently there's a similar thing in Islam, where a lot of the stuff that's supposedly a core Islamic value, is just Arabic culture that predates Islam. Something that annoys non-Arabic Muslims. From what I can tell, Muslims are even more likely to pretend their religion came fully formed and never changed/adapted in its long history. Understandably, I tend to avoid discussing this with devout Muslims. LOL

Obviously, religious extremists can't admit that their religion changes and adapts, or they'd have to admit that that one value they think is really important might be changed too or that their religious texts aren't the inerrant word of their god. Which is probably one of the reasons why different religious sects love to fight each other over stupid shit, rather than admit that they're both the same religion, but just a bit different based on local tradition and history because their religious texts were written by humans not gods.

Or at least, that's my theory.

You forgot supply-side Jesus

Dear Jesus. Not responding to every "prove it" remark. But look, you people know that just because the supernatural clearly isn't real, does not mean that Jesus was not a real historical figure. No serious historian thinks he wasn't real. Most who study this period of history believe he was a real apocalyptic preacher, who was killed somewhat unexpectedly by the Romans, and whose followers at least claimed to have visions of him after his death.

None of these things are particularly far out there claims. There are many apocalyptic preachers today, no today we don't kill them, but their followers also often claim they've seen some crazy things.

Jesus was a cave man from the upper paleolithic era who survived and studied under the Buddha, then went west to try and spread those teachings, and was unintentionally ascribed godhood by his followers.

If you got that reference, I'll buy you a drink of your choice should we ever meet.

Nah, Jesus existed.

A lot of people were called Jesus back then.

Jesus of Nazareth on the other hand ...

Darkmatter2525?

I made American Jesus

Confirmed John Cena is Jesus.

I’m “white” and look like the dude in the middle.

Honestly we need to stop using the words “white” and “black” to refer to skin. All the humans I’ve ever seen are brown. Maybe we should call albinos “white people”. Maybe. Probably not.

Jesus on the left looks like he’s got jaundice.