So that's it for the election.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Alawen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Congratulations, sir. You have learned the hard lesson of researching backward to the primary sources of your references. You introduced Robert Price into this discussion, not me. If you check your other primary sources, every one of them uses a qualifier. The Wiki entry is misleading at best. Personally, I would call the phrasing disingenuous; it is not representative of the statements made by the experts it references.

I don't recall asking for any such things. You're projecting onto me a generic argument you've apparently had with one or more atheists in the past. I doubted the historicity of Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. You took issue with that. You've gone on several rants full of ad hominem cuts. Your posts on this topic are rife with insults and both formal and informal logical fallacies.

It's not me that has a big issue here. I actually think religion is very beneficial. I think it minimizes a lot of behavior that would be disadvantageous to me and the people I care about. It also provides tremendous opportunities in social networking. I know the Bible well enough to quote from memory and many people in my personal life would swear to you that I am a devout Christian. I might even be able to orate Pascal's Wager with a straight face.

Nah, I'm not that good of an actor.

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (who is a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees"

Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more."

Robert E. Van Voorst Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence Eerdmans Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9 page 16 states: "biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of non-existence of Jesus as effectively refuted"

James D. G. Dunn "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus" in Sacrifice and Redemption edited by S. W. Sykes (Dec 3, 2007) Cambridge University Press ISBN 052104460X pages 35-36 states that the theories of non-existence of Jesus are "a thoroughly dead thesis"

The Gospels and Jesus by Graham Stanton, 1989 ISBN 0192132415 Oxford University Press, page 145 states : "Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed".

Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0-06-061662-8. "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."

Eddy & Boyd (2007) The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition Baker Academic, ISBN 0-8010-3114-1 page 127 states that it is now "firmly established" that there is non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus

It's not Wikipedia, me, or a plethora of scholars that are being disingenuous. It's you. So again, if you were the unbiased evaluator you claim to be, why do you continue to disregard the overwhelming evidence and general consensus of scholars?