Lately I’ve heard people attacking the veracity of the fairy tale book with statements like “Jesus wasn’t real” or it was a psy op operation by the Romans that got out of control. And I hate talking about reddit but it’s basically the atheism mods policy over there that Jesus wasn’t real.

I usually rely on the Wikipedia as my litmus test through life, which shouldn’t work in theory but is great in practicality:

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

Virtually all scholars agree that a Jewish man called Jesus of Nazareth did exist in Palestine in the 1st century CE. The contrary perspective, that Jesus was mythical, is regarded as a fringe theory.

  • bostonbananarama@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    This standard of proof invalidates a massive chunk of historical figures that are commonly accepted as having existed.

    And? It does not affect my life in the least if Alexander the Great didn’t exist.

    The only evidence we have of Socrates existing comes from his students; how do you know Plato and Xenophon didn’t make him up?

    I don’t, but I also don’t care. If there is wisdom in the words that are attributed to Socrates, what else matters? The existence of Socrates is meaningless. The Socratic method is great for instruction, and it remains such irrespective of who developed it.

    It is not a reasonable null hypothesis to state that all sources describing a historical figure were lying, misled, or delusional. That is a positive claim that should not be accepted without evidence.

    And no one is saying that, I’m afraid you don’t understand and the null hypothesis. I am not making a positive claim that these figures are in fact fictitious. But someone is claiming they did exist, and they bear the burden of proof.

    I think it’s ridiculous to claim that an actual standard of evidence is too high of a bar. If you cannot reasonably demonstrate that a person existed, then why would you believe it? It’s certainly shouldn’t be accepted as truth, perhaps conjecture or hypothesis at best.