@GodlessLiz Jesus of Nazareth was an actual person who roamed this planet, did wonderous works, challenged the religious authorities, and taught a radical gospel. Whether or not you believe that he is the Son of God, does not negate that his existence is better documented than Nero’s.
@MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz Nope. Jesus is probably pure myth. Regardless of whether there was an historical Jesus, the evidence for Nero is voluminous, while for Jesus it's nearly nil.
@vjorgensen @GodlessLiz People don’t allow themselves to be tortured, fed to lions, and crucified upside down for a person that never existed. 10/12 original apostles died horrendous deaths. Judas committed suicide. And John’s death was never recorded.
@MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz People die for lies all the time (e.g. Heaven's Gate, Waco, Jonestown, 9/11). That isn't evidence, it is faith.
@mournfulwatcher @vjorgensen @MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz Not really. Historians sometimes claim that the fictional character of Jesus may have been inspired by one or more real people, none of whom had any of Jesus' most important biographical details. It's like saying Superman is a historical character since we know journalists exist.
@mournfulwatcher @vjorgensen @MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz Good grief.
@mournfulwatcher @vjorgensen @MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz Let's say their was a fairly normal public person - 0 call him John McCain. A couple decades after his death, someone writes a "biography" containing multitudes of magical fictions. When ordered to bomb innocent vietnamese rice farmers, for instance, the bombs 1/
@mournfulwatcher @vjorgensen @MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz turn into rainbows as they fall. When his plane gets shot down, he floats gently to the ground on a cloud of flowers. He delivers a sermon to the Viet Cong so moving that it ends the Vietnam War - nay, the Cold War! - nay, Communism! - 2/
@mournfulwatcher @vjorgensen @MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz before being teleported to wander the desert of Arizona for forty days, staving off the temptations of Nathan Bedford Forrest. (It's a mystery how the author of the book knew the exact wording of both conversations despite writing decades later 3/
@mournfulwatcher @vjorgensen @MrsJLovesJesus @GodlessLiz without any sort of reliable source, but we'll just have to take it on faith!) He once was so furious at the thought of universal healthcare that he farted loudly enough to shatter every window in Washington (yet that somehow wasn't recorded by any contemporary source) 4/