So it’s almost the end of 2024 and many of us are still in the “New Atheist Movement” mindset (not dissing on atheism, just the movement).
I was in a conversation with someone recently and it made me think of the title question. We had an adventure in philosophy. The person said they were from Pitcairn, as in the country known as Pitcairn, the one with only fifty people living in it. I naturally responded with “uhhh yeah that’s going to be a big pill to swallow.”
“Where are you from” the person asked?
“I’m from so-and-so.”
“Oh, that one village in the Southern US with only forty citizens? I’m going to take a while to register that.”
“But you said you were from an island.”
“Literally the only difference between where you’re from and where I’m from is it’s surrounded by water. Does the water affect the odds?”
The message she was getting across seemed clear. “Proof” is relative.
At another point, we spoke about religion.
“Can you prove Jesus existed?”
“No. Can you prove Genghis Khan existed?”
“No, but Jesus made some high claims.”
“And look at what people said about Genghis Khan who was said to conquer a whole continent.”
At one point, we spoke about God.
“Can you prove God exists?”
“Well… have you ever heard of the church of Google? Is it impossible for something to be considered a true god? Are some things not based on proof but rather criteria?”
“So basically you’re saying anything can be a god if you try hard enough?”
We also spoke of dating at one point.
“You got these guys who say ‘pics or it didn’t happen’ but here I am, belonging to a subgroup of humanity that consists of approximately fifty percent of the population if not more, and suddenly I’m held in suspicion because the demographic of the specific community I was in had my subgroup of humanity slightly outnumbered, yet you can say you have something rare like ELS syndrome and people take your word. Go to Lemmy and ask what separates a claim that calls for proof from a claim more fitting in peoples’ minds to take their word for it.”
“Maybe don’t make claims then.”
“Why not? On the world’s largest source of knowledge I can’t make descriptors?”
“I tend to think peoples’ definitions of claims-that-need-proof to be subjective.”
“Hence why you should ask. But… does each individual have a consistent sense of it? Can they describe in words why claim A can be taken in their mind as is while claim B requires proof? And while some will say it’s a matter of knowing someone and trusting them, if someone came running through Walmart saying ‘run for your lives, there’s a bad entity on the loose’, I’m sure people would panic even though they have no proof of anything.”
So I’m asking you. What separates them?
Yeah if I’m not mistaken there are contemporary records of Genghis Khan, no?
The first ever mention of Jesus at all is in a writing from 300+ years after his supposed life. Also, Jesus is a character from a religious text which we all know cannot be trusted as historical fact. I think - but I could be wrong - that Genghis Khan is written about in numerous corroborating texts from the actual era? Someone check me on that please.
Edit: yeah I looked it up GK was in the 12th century that’s really not ancient. He’s written about in many sources from across Asia and Europe in many languages. That’s corroborating evidence. Jesus is not mentioned anywhere other than scriptures from hundreds of years after his supposed existence.
Plus there have been numerous figures in other mythologies that have many or most of the same characteristics which make it more likely a classical kind of archetype. Mithra, Horus, Krishna… and a handful of others who predate Jesus’ supposed existence. That’s actually counter-evidence that supports the idea that he was not real, in fact.
A bit off topic, but this is an exaggeration. There are several sources from the first century. That’s decades at most, not centuries. The letters of Paul and the gospels, obviously, but also Jewish historian Josephus and some Roman governor from somewhere in what is now Turkey I think. There is actually not that much debate among historians that Jesus existed. Whether or not you want to believe he was saving the world is another thing of course.
Epictetus mentions Jesus at least once. He lived during the reign of Nero.