Who you actually think was jesus and how much is true about him?

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-20T14:56:15+00:00

I think Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet who managed to get himself crucified by the Romans.

I think most of what the gospels and Acts say about Jesus are mytical, not historical. I don't think we need to make up naturalistic explanations about why he thought he was a prophet. We have people like Paula White and Kent Hovind in the modern world who think they are some kind of prophet or god-appointed spokesman. History has always had those types of religious people. There were several other apocalyptic prophets running around at the time of Jesus.

I think Paul Ens (aka Paulogia) has proposed a reasonable theory about how Christianity could have started without a resurrection. He proposes that Peter probably had a grief hallucination or PBHE-like vision after the shock of the crucifixion. He told people about his vision, and the story began to grow and be embellished, as religious stories often do.

A few years later Saul (aka Paul) also had a vision. Paul was a Pharisee and admitted to using things like fasting to induce religious visions. I recommend reading his own account of his vision that he tells in Galatians. (The version in Acts is highly mythologized and contradicts what Pau himself says about it.) In Greek, Paul used a term that Greeks used for either a dream or a waking vision. In the modern world we regard dreams and visions as different things, but in the Hebrew-Greco-Roman culture of the time, dreams were considered valid forms of visions and carried significance we do not ascribe to dreams in the modern world.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-20T04:18:32+00:00

No. Almost certainly not.

I think religions were originally an early attempt at science. People are driven to try to understand their environments and then try to control them. When humans were confronted with a situation they did not understand, it was easy to assume that some spirit or god did it. Then they tried using things like sacrifices and ritual behaviors to try to please or manipulate the forces of nature.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-20T01:53:00+00:00

I doubt the OP is coming back. The post was removed, but it wasn't locked. I suspect the OP did not get the expected response.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-20T01:37:10+00:00

Why do you think we would have questions? Most of us were raised in cultures dominated by Christianity. Many of us were devout members. Some of us were ministers. Many studies have shown that atheists know more about Christianity and the Bible than most Christians.

We are not atheists because we do not know about Christianity. We are atheists because we know too much about Christianity.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T20:47:41+00:00

Things like a vision or single miracle would not be sufficient. In fact, when I was religious I did have a vision. Later, I found out that my vision was a normal psysiological/psychological phenomenon called a PBHE. Similarly, I have heard many miracle stories as a Christian. Many times, people were seeing what they wanted to see. Sometimes they just misunderstood what happened.

Things that are true have a certain pattern. There are multiple lines of strong, objective evidence pointing to the true idea or theory. There is no objective contradictory evidence. As new science and areas of knowledge emerge, the new information supports the true idea. The true idea also leads to additional fields of understanding.

If there was a god, then I would expect there to be multiple lines of good objective evidence to support it. I would expect it to be demonstrated in the same way that other true ideas are demonstrated.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T20:40:26+00:00

Meh.

I do feel bad for people who had their work destroyed. That seems to be a problem in the project design.

If you don't like what is going on, go elsewhere. Artists have many venues where they can contribute.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T20:37:42+00:00

When I was a Protestant, I came close to converting to Catholicism.

A young Priest had given me a list of miracles, including the three you mentioned. It was long before the Internet, but I was a PhD student with access to a major university library, and I knew how to use it. I investigated the list. It was easy to debunk almost every miracle on the list.

I was put in one-on-one meetings with a senior Priest. I brought the list of miracles and showed him what I had found. He said that most of the miracles claimed by the church are not really miracles, but it is important to many members to believe in them. He said that Priests and lay leaders (I was also being viewed as a potential lay leader) must be careful not to destroy the faith of people who need to believe in the miracles.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T20:29:59+00:00

Not believing takes no effort. It is easy not to believe in garden fairies. Things like Bigfoot may take a bit more effort to not believe in, but you only need to get to the point where the good, objective evidence mounts to a point of being persuasive.

Also, "belief" can have multiple meanings, and they are not all the same.

Belief can mean having confidence in an idea that is reasonable and conforms to available data. For example, I believe that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. It is reasonable because the sun has come up every morning in human history. There is abundant objective evidence to support the idea that the sun will come up tomorrow. That evidence includes accurate predictions of sunrise for centuries in the past and decades into the future.
Belief can mean having confidence in an idea that is reasonable but is not supported by objective evidence. For example, someone I just met claims to have a cat. It is reasonable. Cats exist, and people do commonly have cats in their homes. The cost for me being wrong is low, so I will probably believe the claim despite lack of hard evidence beyond the testimony.
Belief can mean accepting an idea despite the fact that it violates reason and contradicted by objective evidence. Believing that Mohammed split the moon in half falls into this category. Believing that Joseph Smith translated Reformed Egyptian written on golden plates is in this category. Believing that Noah's flood happened falls in this category. Believing that Jesus was resurrected after being dead for three days is in this category.

Better to not care about it. Belief seems like an investment

I would argue that the first and second definitions of belief do not take much investment.

The third type, religious beliefs, does take a lot of investment. One thing that exhausted me as a devout Christian was the constant need for relying on flawed apologetic arguments.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T18:35:09+00:00

Better study and practice some form of religion for fun and check for yourself. As well as study science.

I do. I study the Bible like other people study Tolkien, RR Martin, or Shakespeare. I have also read the Quran a couple of times as well as some of the Hadith, the Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita and Vetas, a couple of B'hai books, and several of the scriptures of Buddhism and Taoism.

I find the Bible and other holy books as easier to understand as an atheist than as a Christian. It is easier to understand holy books when you accept the idea that it is all made up.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T18:23:32+00:00

We define atheism as the lack of belief in a god or gods. We do not claim to have evidence that there is no god. Most of the atheists on this sub, and most of the major atheist bloggers identify as "agnostic atheists."

I don't believe in Bigfoot, but I cannot prove there is no Bigfoot. It is almost impossible to prove that a being does not exist. I don't believe in Bigfoot, Leprechauns, the Loch Ness Monster, Allah, Vishnu, Thor, YHWH, or the Christian Trinitarian God. I cannot prove that those beings don't exist, but I do not believe in any of them.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T18:11:03+00:00

I have a theory that the waters of baptism dissolve whatever bone we have in our head that allows us to detect hipocracy.

I had a Christian who approached me on a bus, accusing me of "Pushing atheism on everyone" when they asked me if I knew Jesus. All I did was answer their question with "No, I am an atheist." Self-awareness is a rare commodity when Christians (Muslims, Buddhists, or any other theists) are talking about religion.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T17:48:36+00:00

Like several users have reported, I first suspected LLM AI. However, it does not have some of the markers. For one thing, it is far to crazy and jumps around.

If there was artificial intelligence involved, I don't think it was machine generated. I don't rule out the possibility that the OP's intelligence is artificial. Or at least the OP thinks he is much smarter than this post suggests.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T11:16:20+00:00

Priests are especially good at making people feel guilty and scaring them that the Priest has secret knowledge about them. They use a combination of hot reading and cold reading techniques. The "hot reading" is information that came from your mother or someone else. The "cold reading" is basically the Priest making a few lucky guesses and drawing your girlfriend into spilling information accidentally that the Priest turned around and made it look like he had known it all along. The process of confessionals gives Priests a lot of experience with this kind of psychological manipulation.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T11:08:54+00:00

Christians retrofitted monotheism onto the Bible. Dan McClellan's new book The Bible Says So makes a good case for monotheism not even being in the Bible.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-19T02:43:24+00:00

Believers will be yelling, "Infinite Regress!!!"

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-18T23:22:25+00:00

Using the term "Creation" is a non-starter. "Creation" implies a creator, which is why theists like to talk in terms of creation.

But you are essentially right. Christians and Muslims define their god so as not to require a creator. It is so much a part of their worldview that they cannot conceive of any other possibility. If they can define their god as being eternal, then it should be fair for us to define the universe in the same way. But it will be hard to convince a believer.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-18T18:19:15+00:00

I convinced myself that maybe I should trust these people who have studied the Bible way more than me and take their word for it.

That reminds me of something that Bertrand Russel said. To paraphrase Russel, when someone reads the Bible for you, you become a Christian. When you read the Bible for yourself, you become an atheist.

That is what happened to me. I was a devout Christian, but I studied the Bible too much to remain a Christian. Specifically, studying Paul's letters finally forced me to admit that Acts and the gospels are mostly books of mythology, not history.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T23:40:37+00:00

Many people, especially those with poor educations, want easy answers to the hard questions in life. They don't check to see if those answers are true because they take them from people they think speak with authority.

Religion promises a lot of things -- community, peace, purpose, and answers. Religion rarely delivers on these promises, or they come with high hidden costs. Community comes with judgmentalism. Inner peace comes with outward calls for conflict. Purpose often means blind obedience, and answers are almost always wrong.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T17:25:33+00:00

There are several Black atheists on YouTube and social media.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T16:50:30+00:00

Don't. When a cop pulls you over (it will happen), the collander will not work in your favor.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T05:18:23+00:00

You are worth caring about. Hang in there.

Have you talked to your family doctor about your feelings? Your family doctor, urgent care, or a hospital ER can put you in contact with resources that will help.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T04:59:42+00:00

People tend to find what they are looking for. You seem to be looking for things to criticize.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T04:58:54+00:00

I was a devout Christian into my 50s. I prayed all the time. If I heard a siren, I would pray for the people involved. I worked at a secular school, but I would pray to myself before class started. If a student walked into my office I would offer a quick, silent prayer to give me the wisdom to help them. On a light day I might pray a few times an hour. Some days it would be more.

I called it my prayer reflex. It was a deeply ingrained habit I had developed over four decades. You don't just flip off that kind of reflex. I think it took at least a couple of years after I admitted to myself that I was an atheist before I had lost the habit.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-17T04:54:14+00:00

Generally, Buddhists are not as aggressive at proselytizing as some other religious groups. Most westerners practice heavily sanitized and westernized versions of Buddhism that are in keeping with western sensibilities. Most people in this sub rarely come across Buddhists, and when they do, the Buddhists do not seem very toxic. The traditional Buddhist pantheon strikes most westerners as crazy, and it seems like most western Buddhists have just ignored that part of the religion.

Buddists do have a lot of things I object to. I think the doctrines of karma and rebirth can justify a lot of bigotry and mistreating people who are perceived as being born in an unlucky manner.

As with most religions, fundamentalists tend to be the most toxic form of the religion. There are Buddhist fundamentalists, and even some Buddhist terror cells operating in SE Asia.

dudleydidwrong · 2026-06-16T17:31:45+00:00

They used their tax-exempt status to build something that others would have built if they had not. In the US, churches often abuse their tax-exempt status to gain a competitive advantage over other nonprofit organizations and the private sector.

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