What are all the reasons you don’t believe in Jesus?

[Belle RoseParticipant]

Whether you turned away or never believed that Jesus is God what are your reasons for saying that it’s not true?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I believe in Jesus as a teacher and an exemplary person, but I don’t believe Jesus is God since I don’t believe in God.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

The “miracles” are either not true, or are the work of an extraordinary human being.

I think that the New Testament is a mixture of fact and fiction.  One of Jesus’ messages is that an ethical cooperative life is the best possible life to live under the circumstances, and I agree with this.  Also his central formula “love God and love your neighbour as yourself” lines up with the ethical formula I came up with.  So, philosophically, he hits the nail on the head, as far as I’m concerned.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

The only miracle is that there are no miracles.

The Bible was written by people who never met anyone called Jesus many years after his supposed existence, for which there is no credible evidence. I am not so sure if I would agree with how exemplary he was as he is quoted in the Bible, the only place he exists, as making some very shameful statements. I would not be a fan.

[_Robert_Participant]

Pretty much anyone could very easily improve the bible in 5,000 ways. What does that tell us? The things that are missing from the bible are the reasons I am no longer onboard. Germ theory would have been a great start.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

If God was real, it would make sense that He would want to send a person down to Earth to teach us His ways.  i.e. the right way to live is cooperatively.  This coincides with what we find in evolutionary ethics.

If this was the case, I think it’s plausible that Jesus wouldn’t know everything God knows, since he was a human being.

[toddayoungParticipant]

To believe in Jesus? Is like the lowly Private Solder is in charge of the War & he is trained to lead the armies? Then to be told that even the unforgivable sins that are committed daily by all Earthlings. Can be forgiven? Nope. My Grand mother RIP. Was the most Christian person I have ever known. My ex mothers in laws both said that My whole family is going to hell for our un godly lives? There sins from lies to murder all 10 commandments broken & they are judged to have repented? So they have a free pass to the afterlife? I think not. But I am a horrible person as judged by the little old ladies? I give up. Sorry I just don’t believe that Jesus is the one to believe in. He was sent down by his father to teach us? We still have a lot to learn.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

toddayoung wrote:

There sins from lies to murder all 10 commandments broken & they are judged to have repented? So they have a free pass to the afterlife? I think not.

I don’t believe that Jesus’ sacrifice means that now, sins can be forgiven – I don’t see that this scenario makes sense.  But I do believe that following Jesus’ teaching (“love God, and love your neighbour as yourself”) results in a good conscience (cooperative identity) and therefore, a happy afterlife, if such a thing exists.

[NoelParticipant]

I don’t think he ever existed.

Dont believe in anything supernatural so miracles are out.

My reasons? Other than the Bible there isn’t documented proof by the romans, who documented everything, or any other society that he ever walked among us in the time period he supposedly was here.

We homo sapiens have a knack for taking a story and making it grander than it actually was. Take the story of Spider-Man (aka Peter Parker). In the comics his ability to shoot webs came from an apparatus that fit on his wrists that he invented. In one of the movies his webs shoot out of the bottom of his wrists. He actually produces the webbing in his body. See? How easy was it to take that simple little story and change it. I’ll never be the same again. Spider-Man producing his own webbing? in his body! The idea!

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

But I do believe that following Jesus’ teaching (“love God, and love your neighbour as yourself”).

He did not teach this. He commanded it. At least according to Matthew who wrote about it about 90 years after it was alleged to have been said. Matthew relied on hearsay and on the writings of others who also relied on hearsay.

I think Simon you might be able to make a stronger case if you referenced the Golden Rule which predates the gospels by about 700 years.  When I saw my neighbor with a black eye I had anything but love in my thoughts for her partner. I also have none for the god I don’t believe exists.

If you keep mentioning “sin”, the “afterlife”, the merits of following the teachings of Jesus in your arguments for morality then you end up sounding like a Christian apologetic. Christian morality standards are set too low to be followed.  Sin is a Christian concept. Atheists don’t commit sin. There is no afterlife only a return to “beforelife”.  We will exist just as we did in 1805.

[Daniel W.Participant]

I also don’t believe Jesus ever existed. I’ve read the books. Many nonbeleivers give the Jesus story the benefit of the doubt, as far as “yes there was a wise man, but no he wasn’t a diety” but I don’t see the necessity of that. We can speculate about how the various legends, stories, etc agglomerated into the story of Jesus, then was embellished by people who followed, like urban legends. But in the end, it’s an issue of there is no proof, of a story that if true would have to be provable. That the creator of the universe would have a son who he had killed then re-enlivened, then took away again, but somehow left no good evidence, but wants everyone to believe in order to be saved from the eternal punishments the creator doles out to people who have no evidence he exists, is just too psychotic even for a god.

The documentation in the bible is full of contradictions, the creator’s priorities are just plan sick, a sociopathic diety, the people who follow him pick and choose what they want to believe and follow, and there’s no reason to believe the god of the bible, over any other god.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by  Daniel W..
• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by  Daniel W..

[DavisModerator]

I don’t think a particular reason is necesary. His existence, story, qualities, abilities is based on an enormous heap of stupidities…one after another. It’s a monstrous mountain of ridiculousness that would never fly in any other context or outside of forced belief or aggressive conversion. Raymond Tallis notes that he isn’t an atheist because the Bible has many errors…hes an atheist because the Jesus package is an absurdity.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

If there’s nothing to it, then why does “Jesus save”?  How can people have their lives turned around, over nothing?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Jesus does not save. The idea might help some people in the same way that healing crystals or astrology helps some people. But they are suffering from a variation of the same delusion brought on by an irrational belief in supernatural entities. Such beliefs may appear to be beneficial to the believer but in reality they are still mentally immature because they are not dealing with reality. That is they are not using reason to understand the natural world.

People tell me that I am too dismissive of religious faith but that is only because I do not want the believer to think for a minute that I give any credence to their supernatural claims. I have no time for it. Nobody should.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

The idea might help some people in the same way that healing crystals or astrology helps some people.

But those things don’t get people off drugs, and keep them off, for example.  They are puny compared with the force of Jesus, whatever that might be.

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