ComradeDavo
Formerly God
I suppose people look at things differently based on their opinions. For me I don't believe in God so I look at these religions and compare them to Christianity from a neutral viewpoint, and I see alot of similarities. I find there to be far to many occasions and similarities for it just to be coicidences.I recall Plotinus thoroughly debunking most of these. Most of those Pagan myths had to reinterpreted to be closer to Christianity before it made any sense to claim that Christianity borrowed from them. The other resurrection deities were clearly associated with the yearly cycle of seasons, which Christ was not. The Roman Cult of Mithras is younger than Christianity, and none of the aspects that Christians supposedly borrowed from it are found in Persians sources about the deity upon which it may or may not have been based. Things like a December 25th birthday are not very relevant, as no one in the early church believed that Jesus was born then.
As for ressurection dieties being related to seasons and Jesus is not, well he is, isn't he? Christmas is the tradional winter festival and Easter the tradiotional Spring festival? I pointed that out already.
As for Roman Cult of Mithras, well actually the timing was the same as that of when the first alleged writings of Jesus appeared, the end of the 1st century CE. Strange that I think.
In the case of Jesus, a would consider a solid historical source to be a primary source that was not written by a Christian. There are none that we know of. In fact there are even any primary sources at all. All secondary sources.What is your definition of a solid historical source?
Not off hand, I don't any primary sources from then, but given there was the First JewishRoman War 6673 CE it wouldn't surprise me if much information from that time was destroyed. I imagine much of the information from that time is Roman sourced anyway.Do you know of any solid historicial sources that are more contemporary to the events in Judea between 29AD and 33AD?
Allegedly died, according to Christianity.You said 93-94AD is 60 years after Jesus dies. How can he die if he never existed in the first place? What date do you give for the death of Jesus? What solid historical source did you use to arrive at that date?
Same could be said of thsoe who believe in Jesus as 'the son of God'. All ready made up their minds, so don't want to hear opinions otherwise.If you have already decided on a conclusion, that Jesus never did exist, then you can cherry pick your solid historical sources to support your conclusion. This is why your arguments were dismissed as 'cherry picking' and 'illogical.' This Wikipedia Article claims "virtually all modern scolars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed and biblical scolars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existance as effectively refuted."
My belief that Jesus did not exist as the figure that we are 'taught' about is based on lack of reliable sources from the 1st Century CE, and the fact that Christianity became such a dominant religion over the past 2000 years that it's 'assertions' about history have rarely been questioned.
Additionally given how turmoil the region was at the time it makes perfect sense that 'chinese whispers' would have developed perhaps a religious leader of some sort into a myth such as Jesus. I'm just speculating now though, don't take this as part fo my debate. People need leaders when fgaced with an oppressive foe such as the Romans, and the Jesus figure makes a very strong icon in such a struggle. Can see why people would have so easily wanted to belief in him, and then perhaps this is what people in later years when the wars had settled down heard about, and thus started to write about. Who knows?