If Jesus Was Proven Not To Exist...what Would Happen?

[Kurari]

I got into an interesting discussion this afternoon with my Baptist roomate. Barring the idea that yeah, Jesus probably didn't exist and we all know he didn't do any of the goddy things, just hear me out...

 

If it was proven without a shadow of a doubt to the whole world that Jesus never existed, would that be the end of Christianity?

 

My roomate said yes, and I said no. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[RankStranger]

I think the question is moot. 'Cause to somebody with Faith™, it simply isn't possible to "disprove" Jebus.

 

I mean... some of these clowns believe that the whole damn universe is 6000 years old. They believe in Noah's Ark, talking donkeys, and whores riding dragons. No sort of "proof" will dissuade some folks.

[Ouroboros]

It wouldn't change much, because there is proof in science for many things which Creationists just overlook or give lame excuses for. When faith is in the building, facts and proof jump out the window.

[Neon Genesis]

Fundies would deny the evidence and claim that Satan planted false evidence. Liberal Christians will symbolize the bible even more and turn Christianity into a life philosophy rather than a religion and the rest of the world wouldn't care.

[mwc]

It would not end "Christianity" if "Jesus" never existed because "jesus" never existed and yet...here we are.

 

But my personal view point aside ( ) it's simple...

 

People would simply alter their beliefs to say that they follow the "teachings" of the book as opposed to the teachings of a "jesus" fellow. They already do this for the most part anyway so it's no a stretch. They "think" there's really some great teachings in there for some reason (okay, 1 line out of a 1000...woo hoo!).

 

They'd then say "Well, 'Christianity' means 'Christ like' so I never followed 'Jesus' anyhow but 'Christ.' The 'TRUE' anointed one of the REAL God of the Bible." So, "Jesus" out and "Christ" in. "God" is still there. Most people don't know what a "YHWH" is so who gives a shit.

 

Spin the terms so "Christ" relates to something meaningful for people and "God" still can be prayed to and all that jazz and the religion is alive and well. Blame the "jesus" thing on a scribe that was fucking around with the "originals" and with a little hand waiving he's taken care of.

 

People don't simply give up on this shit. Cognitive dissonance is playing too strong a role for xianity to just disappear even if there was an actual "GOD" of the universe and it came down and announced it to be false.

 

mwc

[Thurisaz]

If it was proven without a shadow of a doubt to the whole world that Jesus never existed, would that be the end of Christianity?

 

If Oceania was shown to really be at war with Eastasia and not Eurasia, would that be the end of Ingsoc?

 

Same shit, different arsehole. To morontheists (for all I know) it doesn't matter what reality they consciously deny.

[Badger]

If it was proven without a shadow of a doubt to the whole world that Jesus never existed, would that be the end of Christianity?

Maybe, maybe not. But if that was proven, it would change at least my beliefs no doubt.

[mwc]

I forgot to ask...

 

Exactly how does one go about proving "Jesus" did NOT exist?

 

mwc

[Neon Genesis]

I forgot to ask...

 

Exactly how does one go about proving "Jesus" did NOT exist?

 

mwc

Wasn't Brian Flemming going to be making a fictional movie about a girl who proves Jesus never existed? Whatever happened to it?

[BeckyJ]

I'm not real...sciencey...but how do you disprove a negative?

[par4dcourse]

If Jesus Was Proven Not To Exist...what Would Happen?

An entire industry of hokey velvet paintings and gawdy statues would perish. The toll of the collapse could run into billions of pesos, or hundreds of dollars,

[Overcame Faith]

Think again about fundies. They maintain that the bible is the literal truth. If it were absolutely proven that Jesus never existed, it would cause quite a stir among fundies because they would be forced at least to consider that they were wrong. There would have been no virgin birth, no miracles, no crucifixion, no resurrection and thus no sacrifice to save their souls from hell. Sure, some would probably overcome it by saying things like Satan planted a deception, but I'll bet that many of them would finally be forced to face the truth that Christianity is a false religion. I think it would have less of an impact on more liberal Christians since many of them do not take the bible so literally anyway.

[Guest ikant]

The simple truth is, the Jesus of the bible has already been disprove and they dont give a shit. There is absolutely no evidence to support their beliefs, and any person applying a modicum of honest honest logic to their quest will know that there is no more validity to the belief that Jesus did anything miraculous at all. In fact, the logic of the bible has been disproven a long time ago. But, because people either can not or will not accept the obviousness of the falsity of their belief, there is no reason to believe they would no matter how compelling and obvious the evidence. Not to mention, it is almost impossible to "prove" anything from history, especially ancient history.

[Thegodthatfailed]

How about instead of proof that Jesus did not exist, say they merely found his body.

That would destroy the resurrection story and at least put a dent in the fundamentalist doctrine.

Of course, they would probably just try to spiritualize it and say the Jesus body wasn't brought back to life

but he now lives as a spook with the sky daddy. There is just no rationalizing with some people no matter

how strong the evidence is for something.

[Ouroboros]

But how would we/them know it was the body of Jesus? Even if it had a sticker on the skull with the name "Jesus" on it, and even if it had holes through the hand-bones, it could have been another Jesus. Jesus was a extremely common name during that time, at least according to the scholars who refuted the tomb.

 

Think about it. They found a tomb with the name "Jesus" in there, and the name of the people who were part of the Jesus cult. It has been declared not to be the family of Jesus and not be Jesus's tomb, because the names were so frigging common. So based on that, even if you find the bones, which Jesus was it? The Bible Jesus or one of the other Jesus-es?

 

Faith never bothers to consider facts. That's how simple it is. So Christianity wouldn't be affected even then.

 

And if you found earlier Gospels than the ones we have, and even if they explained every step how the myth came about, they would discredit them as anti-propaganda Gospels from that time, perhaps produced by the anti-Christian Jews in the Sanhedrin.

 

The only way to prove it is to make a time machine, and take people there on a round-trip. (Except they could claim we tricked them with drugs or holographic mind control, or whatever...)

[OpheliaGinger]

Even if you found the body, with the name of the body, the name of the family/followers, and something proclaiming him as the messiah, the fundamentalists will still shout that it was the work of Satan--just like the other messiahs of other religions that came before Christianity were concocted by Satan.

[Neon Genesis]

Think again about fundies. They maintain that the bible is the literal truth. If it were absolutely proven that Jesus never existed, it would cause quite a stir among fundies because they would be forced at least to consider that they were wrong. There would have been no virgin birth, no miracles, no crucifixion, no resurrection and thus no sacrifice to save their souls from hell. Sure, some would probably overcome it by saying things like Satan planted a deception, but I'll bet that many of them would finally be forced to face the truth that Christianity is a false religion. I think it would have less of an impact on more liberal Christians since many of them do not take the bible so literally anyway.

When it was proven that Earth was round instead of flat, fundies were forced to consider they were wrong but instead of giving up their belief in the bible, instead they just denied that the bible ever said the Earth was flat and now claim the bible predicted it was round all along. A literal belief in the bible should have ended a long time ago with Galileo and Darwin yet people continue to deny evidence and even if some of them accept the evidence, they'll just steal the credit for it by claiming the bible supported it all along.

[Thegodthatfailed]

But how would we/them know it was the body of Jesus? Even if it had a sticker on the skull with the name "Jesus" on it, and even if it had holes through the hand-bones, it could have been another Jesus. Jesus was a extremely common name during that time, at least according to the scholars who refuted the tomb.

 

Think about it. They found a tomb with the name "Jesus" in there, and the name of the people who were part of the Jesus cult. It has been declared not to be the family of Jesus and not be Jesus's tomb, because the names were so frigging common. So based on that, even if you find the bones, which Jesus was it? The Bible Jesus or one of the other Jesus-es?

 

Faith never bothers to consider facts. That's how simple it is. So Christianity wouldn't be affected even then.

 

And if you found earlier Gospels than the ones we have, and even if they explained every step how the myth came about, they would discredit them as anti-propaganda Gospels from that time, perhaps produced by the anti-Christian Jews in the Sanhedrin.

 

The only way to prove it is to make a time machine, and take people there on a round-trip. (Except they could claim we tricked them with drugs or holographic mind control, or whatever...)

 

Good questions! I was just trying to use that as a hypothetical, but it would be near impossible to prove it was the body of Jesus.

Even if there was undeniable proof it was his body, fundies would still come up with some conspiracy theory as to why it couldn't

be the real body of Jesus. Or just try to spiritilize his life much like Paul did.

[Ouroboros]

Good questions! I was just trying to use that as a hypothetical, but it would be near impossible to prove it was the body of Jesus.

Even if there was undeniable proof it was his body, fundies would still come up with some conspiracy theory as to why it couldn't

be the real body of Jesus. Or just try to spiritilize his life much like Paul did.

Agree. It's very similar to how conspiracy theorists think.

[SilentLoner]

I agree, its a moot point.

[R. S. Martin]

The only way to prove it is to make a time machine, and take people there on a round-trip. (Except they could claim we tricked them with drugs or holographic mind control, or whatever...)

 

A hypothetical situation like this was put to William Lane Craig as follows:

 

 

In my twenty minute discussion with Craig, in the process of getting his signature, I asked him about his views on evidence (which to me seem very close to self-induced insanity). In short, I set up the following scenario:

Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let's pretend that a time machine gets built. You and I hop in it, and travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, still nothing happens. There is no resurrection- Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb.

I asked him, given this scenario, would he then give up his Christianity? Having seen with his own eyes that there was no resurrection of Jesus, having been an eyewitness to the fact that Christianity has been based upon a fraud and a lie, would he NOW renounce Christianity? His answer was shocking, and quite unexpected.

He told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the "holy spirit" within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me.

FROM: Contra Craig

 

You have to scroll down a ways. There's more there.

[Jedah]

Christianity has already been disproven as far as I'm concerned. If Xianity had a lick of truth to it, then theoretically non-Christians should be raping, murdering, divorcing, and whatever other evil you can think of on a rate that is significantly higher than xians. This just isn't so...in fact, the opposite is true.

 

Christian response ? The Devil did it. He makes non-xians pretend to be good to make xians doubt their faith. Either that, or they refuse to accept the passages in the bible that claim this should be happening via the wonders of intellectually dishonest interpretation skills. They use circular logic such as "Well its not true good unless they are a xian like us, therefore the claim that you can't be good without Jebuz is true, therefore Jebuz exists...*repeat circle*". Whatever their excuse-of-the-day happens to be, it's always an irrational load of bullshit.

 

The evidence that the earth is older than the bible claims - again... Satan planted the evidence, Scientists are wrong, Maybe the bible originally didn't mean "day" but "Period of 120 million years", blah blah blah, whine whine whine.

 

Any evidence that comes in opposition to their delusions will simply be explained away with the same cop-out they always use.

[Vixentrox]

They wouldn't trust or accept Jesus as not existing. You could have freaking aliens come down from space and show evidence that our ancesters were really from a crashed alien ship and they would still believe thier Jesus crap and label the aliens "demons".

[Badger]

Do we sucks this bad?

 

I know we do.

[DarthOkkata]

Why, if Jesus was proven wrong...

 

Cookouts would be catastrophic!

 

Santa would be sleepy!

 

Summers would be sweltering!

 

And a hole would tear right through the universe!

 

Thankfully, Jesus is safe, and so is the world.