1000 years from now, people will be saying that George Washington and Ben franklin never really existed. :lamo
I agree with you, but that's not my argument. Soguks is making the claim that he must have existed due to the sheer number of believers, that in itself is not conclusive evidence and cannot be accepted.
Really then tell me which non-Christian contemporary wrote of Jesus? Josephus is the only one listed who lived during Jesus's supposed lifetime, and his work was a forgery all the other Greco-Roman sources listed in that wikipedia article weren't even born until 50-100 years after Jesus's supposed death.
Pliny the Younger b. 61 AD.
Tacitus b. 56 AD.
Suetonius b. 70 AD.
Mara Bar-Serapion of Syria doesn't identify Jesus by name but a "wise king" the original letter doesn't exist and the copies are only found in 6-7th century manuscripts and no date is given for his birth.
Your article mentions Lucian who wasn't even born until the 2nd century.
Your article lists some more Jewish sources but again they are from the Tannaitic Period between 70 and 200 AD and they provide nothing but recitation of the early Christian scriptures.
It makes people fight.
They are well documented as was Cengiz Khan, i highly doubt that.
None of them, including Josephus, lived during Jesus' lifetime, but Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius were all born within 70 years of Jesus.
Josephus' work is a legitimate historical document, not a "forgery."
The passage in question is widely considered to be corrupt, but that's not unusual with ancient texts. It's also generally considered to be a reference to Christ, even if we don't know exactly what it originally said about him.
There are also the Christian writings, of course, which you have no real reason to dismiss other than the fact that they're Christian.
That in itself doesn't mean that they aren't legitimate sources. The idea that they were invented out of whole cloth is pure supposition and isn't supported by any non-Christian contemporary writings, whereas the existence of Jesus has about as much support as one would expect considering that the primary concern of Roman historians was Rome.
And what if civilization collapsed (as with the fall of Rome} and only a few scraps o written records remained of them? When civilization rebuilt, they might end up becoming legendary figures about whom many were skeptical.
to be idiot is easy and free, even you have some degrees. I wonder why 'Some' people in Usa are in race to create new lies about Islam,and to insult Islam. btw, insulting the religion of 1.5 b people is seen 'democracy/freespeech', killing people up to 50-60 in afghanistan is seen 'mistake', practising the religion of Islam is seen 'concession' etc. i did read a book about Nazi's Germany and there were similar approachs to 'inferior' people by 'superior' Germans .
don't blame it on all Americans, there are plenty of Muslims here, and Christians that know Muhammad existed as well.
These men lived centuries ago. It's not like they had the best records then that cold survive all these years.
people believe that muhammed lived without confimatble evidence because they want to. they accept an oral history because it satisfies a need to believe and includes them in a community of believers'
people believe that the oral history is false without evidence because it facilitates the rejection of the faith based upon the acceptance of his living. although it is impossible to show that the premise is false, it is not impossible to show that the premise was fabricated.
the belief that muhammed lived has greater rational basis than the belief that he did not. oral history has greater historical provenance than personal likes and dislikes.
geo.
for most of human history, most of what we could be said to know was transmitted orally. to reject something that we claim to know based on the fact that it is "only oral history" rejects most of what we knew prior to the invention of writing.
that, as a scientific OR philosophical premise, is nonsense.
the reason to accept it is that the history has survived for a millenia and a half and there is no reason equally good to reject it.
it is pretty certain, as i said above, that the bloody carnage accredited to joshua and the hebrews in conquering cannaan never actually happened. to extrapolate from that and the fact that no nonhebrew writings confirm joshua's existence that he did not exist is completely unsound as reason.
provability is not a trait of existence only of knowledge. that a thing can not be proved does not make it false. the earth was round before copernicus or galileo.
geo.
How about any records from contemporary non-Muslims or non-Christians?
Jesus was just some obscure Jewish preacher, and Mohammed was some preacher/warlord out in the middle of Arabia. There may have been records, but they were lost. We accept many things in history without mountains of evidence.
Buddha existed because we know Siddhartha existed... there is proof of it.
Also, his teachings have been passed down unbroken for more than two millennia. Unlike Christianity and Islam, the core Buddhist text have remained unaltered from the day they were recorded.
No there isn't.
Ya from Buddhist sources.
How does that not qualify as proof? Do you want scientists to time travel to use their modern diagnostic techniques or what? In the pre-scientific eras, it was these kinds of traditions in Asia that preserved knowledge.
Exactly. If people want to believe in Mohammad, Jesus, the easter bunny, tooth-fairy or Santa Claus, who cares? As long as they don't tread on me, I could care less what they think. Although, I do find them to be illogical and perhaps a bit delusional, who cares?