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Originally posted by Thagrastay
Only fools would die for a joke.
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to expand on what art was saying, remember david koresh in waco? i would have to call him a joke, and he had lots of followers, and oh, yeah, they died for him. all it takes is a charismatic leader and people will follow and do things you wouldn't expect.
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Originally posted by SecretMethod70
And, historically speaking, he most likely wasn't known far and wide. In fact, his followers were probably a fairly small number at the time of his death - perhaps only in the hundreds. Of course, what must also then be realized is the equally valid question of why a person who did have so few followers when he died eventually gave birth to a new world religion. Many other people have had a couple hundred followers and the same did not occur.
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i've heard the far and wide thing before, but i'm not sure where it's from. if someone could find it, that would be super. either way though, a few hundred followers is all it takes. they themselves didn't really make christianity what it is today, rome did. it's very likely that christianity would have died a backwater religion if constantine didn't pick it up. and how do we know that what david koresh taught his followers wouldn't have become a new powerful religion? his failure in doing so is because they all pretty much died with him. also, look at scientology. we don't take it seriously, but others do. it's not that hard to create a religion, especially in superstitiuos times.
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Originally posted by RippedSock1
Yes, Jesus did exist. He managed to get many personal followers. These people believed in this man so much that they died horrible deaths in His name. Either all of these men were high on Hebrew mushrooms or they actually, positively believed in Him.
There were also many enemies of Jesus who wrote about Him. I, unfortunately forget this particular person's name, but he was a political ruler some 20 years(?) after Jesus' death. He talked of Christianity being laughable but admitted that Jesus was an extraordinary being.
The arguement about Jesus existing can also be asked in other ways: Did George Washington really exist? He's written down in History books but I haven't seen him, you haven't seen him, no one today has seen him. I little trust is involved. I can easily say that everything written in history about George Washington is false just as another person could say that everything written about Jesus is false. It's just accepted that they both existed and we trust that most of what is universally written about them is true.
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for all you know, it was only the crazies that did follow jesus. i bet malaria was probably a problem back then...
there are currently no documents within 40-60 years of his supposed death. if i'm wrong, prove it, please. could you be more specific of this political ruler? find the source?
and there's a big difference between believing george washington and jesus existed. for jesus we have stories by people who did not live during his lifetime, or were no more than kids when he died telling stories. there is no other proof. anytime you hear about J after the bible, it's not about a historical J, but the religous icon. and that doesnt' make proof... i can write aobut the easter bunny, based on a book i read about him, doesn't make it historically accurate. for Washington, we have lots of historians mentioning him, we have treaties, we have other signed documents, we have portraits from while he was alive, we have transcripts of speeches, etc. There's more than compelling evidence he lived, not so much for J.