The point I'm making is that just a few months ago, you believed Jesus did exist, and now after watching a single skeptic publicly proclaim the contrary, you have made a rather dramatic shift.
No. That's not how it happened. Why are you making things up?
What I saw on the tube surprised me. The atheist said that there was no secular evidence that Jesus had ever lived. I was expecting a big fight to ensue between the atheist and the religious leaders. Instead, there was silence. The religious figures let the comment slide. Literally, I was dumfounded by their behavior.
Still bothered by the whole thing, a week later, I brought up the subject on this thread. Harris provided me links with pros and cons on the subject. I was stunned to see the cons [against Jesus's existence] were much more factual and better documented. The more I searched and the more I asked questions, the more it looked as if he did not exist. There is no one more flummoxed by this turn of events.
And even though he is an atheist, Z had a similar reaction. At first, he even chided me for suggesting that Jesus did not exist; I think he said that he thought Jesus existed but that he wasn't divine. And then, he said that a friend who just grad. from divinity school offered that Jesus might have been a well known religious figure or a compilation of well known religious figures from that time. However, the more he has searched the subject, the more he doubts Jesus's existence. We were both coming from a place that Jesus was a real person. The evidence against that is so strong that's its changed my views [and I suspect Z's too]on Jesus that I have held since childhood.
In fact, the evidence is so damning to the contrary, that its becoming harder not to believe that this is one of biggest hoaxes in the history of humanity. How this could have happened is beyond me.
And btw, the link you provided to me was so strange that, if anything it made even more convinced that there is some serious fire with all this smoke.
So, suggesting that I am loving Jesus one minute and hating him the next, or using his good name when it suits me and then blowing him off later is just ridiculous and serves no good purpose other than to maybe make you feel better.
I am pretty upset about the whole thing and wishing it weren't as true as it appears.
ted |
