They think, “Jesus was cool. I like him, and I’m gonna try to be like him.” Kind of like their guiding light is what would Jesus do? But there isn’t a focus on identification, recruiting others, judging others based on their religion, fear of God, fear of punishment for sinning, respect for clergy as an authority, rituals, worship, etc. Basically, just the example of Jesus’ life.

inb4: Christian lol!! got em!

  • dandelion
    3·
    2 months ago

    We have no direct evidence of Christ’s existence, there is no “scientific proof” of Christ’s existence as a person. Instead what we have is historical evidence, i.e. people wrote about him, so he probably existed. It’s the best evidence we have that Christ lived, and it’s generally good enough in the discipline of history - but it’s not the same standard of evidence as used in science.

    • Rolando@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 months ago

      You’re right, but just to rephrase:

      • The natural sciences aren’t in the business of saying whether or not a given person existed.
      • If you think of history as a social science, then there may be “scientific” methodologies that determine whether or not a given person existed, but that’s not what’s generally though of as “scientifically proven”
      • dandelion
        2·
        2 months ago

        Right, I’m not trying to indirectly make a point about Christ not being likely to have existed or anything, just making a point about the language: Christ’s existence hasn’t been scientifically proven, it’s just that historians agree that it’s a reasonable guess based on the texts that were left behind and mentioned him.

        Archaeologists might use scientific methodologies, e.g. carbon dating, to estimate how old a text is, for example, but I wouldn’t consider this scientific proof that someone existed.

      • dandelion
        1·
        2 months ago

        I don’t see the point in policing whether he is referred to as Christ or Jesus from Nazareth - is there some meaningful distinction here?

        Also documents are not scientific evidence. The documents are enough evidence to consider it a historical fact, but that’s, again, not the same thing as a scientific fact, and it is not backed with any material or physical evidence. Not that we expect or demand such evidence, I’m only pointing this out because you claimed there is scientific proof where there is none.

        Regardless, I would be curious to get your receipts on those documents referencing Christ that predate the gospels, I hadn’t heard of that before!

        Speculation about the resurrection being faked with sedatives is irrelevant to this discussion, but since you brought it up, why not entertain more likely alternatives: towards the end of the book of John, Mary saw the resurrected Christ in the tomb and was the first to see him, yet she did not recognize him:

        “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

        He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

        Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

        If he took sedatives, why did he look like a different person such that she thought he was the gardener? Why not think the resurrected person was just falsely claiming to be Christ, since he didn’t look like him anyway? Why resort to more elaborate explanations when we have more simple ones at hand?

        There is also the issue about how Christ supposedly survived being eviscerated and tortured before being hung on the cross, even if he did have access to sedatives. It’s just not likely he survived that, and the sedatives don’t explain that away.