posted September 18, 2007 02:17 AM         

A case on behalf of Jesus Christ has reached Kenya's High Court after two millennia.

A group called Friends of Jesus is seeking to clear the name of Jesus Christ. They say his human rights were violated when he was convicted and crucified without a fair trial. They also want a ruling on whether Jesus' sentencing was legal, arguing that the correct penalty for blasphemy at the time was stoning, not crucifixion.

Click Here to watch the short news video

posted September 18, 2007 09:58 AM         

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Interesting to see how that case turns out, though, given that there is no historic evidence that the victim ever even existed

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Errr, yeah there is. Check the records of Roman officials and historians.

posted September 18, 2007 08:10 PM         

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Errr, yeah there is. Check the records of Roman officials and historians.

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I probably shouldn't have said that... Dumb...

But yeah, I have looked at the history. Of the 43 or so historians operating in the region during the time, none even mentioned this guy who raised the dead, healed the blind, ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of god for eternity etc. etc. etc.. There were two accounts that have been exposed as hoaxes for centuries, and I think one other much later account by Tacitus that gives passing mention to 'the anointed one." But that's as far as it goes. The hoaxes are pretty widely touted around today, though, ridiculously.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm (Hard to find anything about this that isn't on a Christian apologist website, funnily enough)

"The Christian religion is a parody of the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun." - Thomas Paine

posted September 18, 2007 09:31 PM         

I don't trust people...the altering of history.

I can like a person like Jesus...but I do not need to join a religion, worship statues, or even label myself to do it.

posted September 18, 2007 09:32 PM         

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Anyways, just know that I know what I believe, I don't need to justify it to you, the end.

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"The truth shall set you free, but first it will make you mad." - Forgot who said that.

No issues with religion here, just with murder and mutilation and mass control in the name of willful ignorance. But nevermind. I totally shouldn't have mentioned that thing about Jesus; makes too many people really angry.

P.S. About Santa Clause...

posted September 18, 2007 09:39 PM         

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Look, I don't even want to argue on the existence of Jesus with someone who obviously has some deep-seated issues with religion. There are historians from that century that make reference to him: among them, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder,Julius Africanus, Lucian just to name a few. Hell, he's even mentioned in the Jewish Talmud...the Anti-Christian section of it.

Anyways, just know that I know what I believe, I don't need to justify it to you, the end...DL

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posted September 18, 2007 09:45 PM         

Except this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-qmglGWMsdk

posted September 18, 2007 09:45 PM         

My mom never did that to us.

She said she doesn't want us to worship things if she herself doesn't know if it exists. Obviously duh. Santa doesn't really bring the presents.

But we were nosy children anyways. So we knew there was no Santa when we had our first Christmas.

Why were we even celebrating Christmas?

Don't know. I don't even have a religion.

All gifts are welcome though

posted September 18, 2007 09:49 PM         

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I never plan to teach my kids to worship santa.

My mom never did that to us.

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My parents never did, either. But I had to keep the terrible secret safe from all my cousins, heh.

You have a familiar typing style, Omg Jay. Are you a Gemini, by chance?

posted September 18, 2007 09:53 PM         

No I am not.

But maybe you want me to be?

LOL

posted September 18, 2007 09:56 PM         

For example...worshiping a person they tell us to worship...without even questioning it.

posted September 18, 2007 10:07 PM         

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Typically when this question is asked, the person asking qualifies the question with "outside of the Bible." We do not grant this idea that the Bible cannot be considered a source of evidence for the existence of Jesus. The New Testament contains hundreds of references to Jesus Christ. There are those who date the writing of the Gospels in the second century A.D., 100+ years after Jesus' death. Even if this were the case (which we strongly dispute), in terms of ancient evidences, writings less than 200 years after events took place are considered very reliable evidences. Further, the vast majority of scholars (Christian and non-Christian) will grant that the Epistles of Paul (at least some of them) were in fact written by Paul in the middle of the first century A.D., less than 40 years after Jesus' death. In terms of ancient manuscript evidence, this is extraordinarily strong proof of the existence of a man named Jesus in Israel in the early first century A.D.

It is also important to recognize that in 70 A.D., the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and most of Israel, slaughtering its inhabitants. Entire cities were literally burned to the ground! We should not be surprised, then, if much evidence of Jesus' existence was destroyed. Many of the eye-witnesses of Jesus would have been killed. These facts likely limited the amount of surviving eyewitness testimony of Jesus.

Considering the fact that Jesus' ministry was largely confined to a relatively unimportant backwater area in a small corner of the Roman Empire, a surprising amount of information about Jesus can be drawn from secular historical sources. Some of the more important historical evidences of Jesus include the following:

The first-century Roman Tacitus, who is considered one of the more accurate historians of the ancient world, mentioned superstitious "Christians " ("named after Christus" which is Latin for Christ), who suffered under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Suetonius, chief secretary to Emperor Hadrian, wrote that there was a man named Chrestus (or Christ) who lived during the first century (Annals 15.44 ).

Flavius Josephus is the most famous Jewish historian. In his Antiquities he refers to James, “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” There is a controversial verse (18:3) that says, "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats. . . . He was [the] Christ . . . he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him." One version reads, "At this time there was a wise man named Jesus. His conduct was good and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who became his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."

Julius Africanus quotes the historian Thallus in a discussion of the darkness which followed the crucifixion of Christ (Extant Writings, 18).

Pliny the Younger, in Letters 10:96, recorded early Christian worship practices including the fact that Christians worshiped Jesus as God and were very ethical, and includes a reference to the love feast and Lord’s Supper.

The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a) confirms Jesus' crucifixion on the eve of Passover, and the accusations against Christ of practicing sorcery and encouraging Jewish apostasy.

Lucian of Samosata was a second-century Greek writer who admits that Jesus was worshiped by Christians, introduced new teachings, and was crucified for them. He said that Jesus' teachings included the brotherhood of believers, the importance of conversion, and the importance of denying other gods. Christians lived according to Jesus’ laws, believed themselves immortal, and were characterized by contempt for death, voluntary self-devotion, and renunciation of material goods.

Mara Bar-Serapion confirms that Jesus was thought to be a wise and virtuous man, was considered by many to be the king of Israel, was put to death by the Jews, and lived on in the teachings of his followers.

Then we have all the Gnostic writings (The Gospel of Truth, The Apocryphon of John, The Gospel of Thomas, The Treatise on Resurrection, etc.) that all mention Jesus.

In fact, we can almost reconstruct the gospel just from early non-Christian sources: Jesus was called the Christ (Josephus), did “magic,” led Israel into new teachings, and was hanged on Passover for them (Babylonian Talmud) in Judea (Tacitus), but claimed to be God and would return (Eliezar), which his followers believed - worshipping Him as God (Pliny the Younger).

In conclusion, there is overwhelming evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, both in secular and Biblical history. Perhaps the greatest evidence that Jesus did exist is the fact that literally thousands of Christians in the first century A.D., including the 12 apostles, were willing to give their lives as martyrs for Jesus Christ. People will die for what they believe to be true, but no one will die for what they know to be a lie.

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posted September 18, 2007 10:17 PM         

I went to Catholic school but I am not catholic. Some of my family is.

I even drew a beautiful picture of how he is SUPPOSED TO LOOK in art class and the teacher hung it on the wall for years.

But lately with all the stuff going on in the world. makes me nervous. Don't know what to believe.

I always felt comfortable only towards him...or Buddhism.

I believe in a universal power. I just don't know what it is.

I rather see it with my own two eyes.

Lately I haven't believed in death either.

weirdddddd.

posted September 18, 2007 10:18 PM         

But I'm sorry...I need to see it.

posted September 18, 2007 10:23 PM         

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It is also important to recognize that in 70 A.D., the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and most of Israel, slaughtering its inhabitants. Entire cities were literally burned to the ground! We should not be surprised, then, if much evidence of Jesus' existence was destroyed. Many of the eye-witnesses of Jesus would have been killed. These facts likely limited the amount of surviving eyewitness testimony of Jesus.

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Translation: Jesus cannot be proven to not have existed, so he must have. Utterly fallacious argument, called an argument from ignorance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

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The first-century Roman Tacitus, who is considered one of the more accurate historians of the ancient world, mentioned superstitious "Christians " ("named after Christus" which is Latin for Christ), who suffered under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.

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Chrisus only means 'the one anointed with oil." We get the word Crisco from this.

Beyond that, Tacitus' account is mere hearsay.

From my above link:

Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.

If you do not understand this, imagine yourself confronted with a charge for a crime which you know you did not commit. You feel confident that no one can prove guilt because you know that there exists no evidence whatsoever for the charge against you. Now imagine that you stand present in a court of law that allows hearsay as evidence. When the prosecution presents its case, everyone who takes the stand against you claims that you committed the crime, not as a witness themselves, but solely because other people said so. None of these other people, mind you, ever show up in court, nor can anyone find them.

Hearsay does not work as evidence because we have no way of knowing whether the person lies, or simply bases his or her information on wrongful belief or bias. We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person.

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Flavius Josephus...

Julius Africanus quotes the historian Thallus ...

Pliny the Younger...

The Babylonian Talmud...

Lucian of Samosata was a second-century Greek writer...

Mara Bar-Serapion...

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Pure hearsay. Sorry, arguments from ignorance and appeal to tradition simply don't cut it. Believe what you want, if that gives you the secure, caring universe you need, but don't pretend that objective facts support the superstition.

posted September 18, 2007 10:31 PM         

-Gerald Massey, Egyptologist and historical scholar

"What one believes and what one can demonstrate historically are usually two different things."

-Robert J. Miller, Bible scholar, (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p. 9)

"A god outgrown quickly becomes a life-destroying demon."

- Joseph Campbell, Hero with 1,000 Faces

"It has served us well, this myth of Christ."