People have long debated the existence of Jesus and called into question the details of his life. The four Gospels of the New Testament provide enough contradictions to fuel the debate alone; throw in the 52 Gnostic Gospels and lack of corroborating testimony in secular historical records and you're looking at a difficult case to crack.
To make matters even more difficult, those who maintain that Jesus was real and that the Biblical accounts of his life are 100% literal and accurate cannot be swayed by evidence or a lack thereof. Why should they care that the only clear references to Jesus are contained in the New Testament and no where else? To these people, the Bible is the perfect word of God and contains all the evidence they need regarding the existence of Jesus.
Here's how we can resolve the historicity debate: we can stop having it.
It's another pointless argument that leads both sides to a place I like to call butt-fuck no where. Neither side can win but more importantly it's a pointless debate because both sides are focusing on the wrong thing.
Whether a flesh-and-bones Jesus ever lived is irrelevant. The Christ meme--the idea, mythos, or character of Jesus Christ, the son of God who traveled the Levant performing miracles and teaching the masses, died, and was resurrected--exists and is alive and well. It thrives in the minds of millions around the world, affecting how they think, speak, behave, and believe.
If one can't deny Christ's effect on the millions who worship him, how can we deny his existence?
Memes are selfish replicators. They try to achieve two simple things: survival and reproduction. Religious memes are particularly good at this because they learned long ago to exploit our fear of mortality and hunger for meaning. By offering followers a special purpose in life and continued existence after death, religious memes secure their prolonged survival.
Christianity is by far the most successful religious meme in history. A few hundred years after its birth it spread across the whole of Europe, pushing all other religious and philosophical memes to the brink of extinction.
"Hold up!" I can hear some of you atheists shouting. "Christianity only achieved supremacy by using violence, barbarity, and other underhanded tactics. The Church forced people to adopt Christianity. There's nothing special about that!"
Like I said, memes don't give a shit how they survive, just so long as they do. They will throw people under the bus, wipe out entire populations of non-believers, cheat, lie, steal, whatever.
Even so, Christianity didn't start off burning witches and torturing pagans. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history will tell you that early Christians were literally fed to the lions by the Romans.
So how did Christianity go from Rome's favorite whipping boy to dominant state religion? And why is it that millions continue to identify as Christians despite clear evidence that the Bible is just a collection of quasi-historical myths and stories?
In other words, what is it about this particular meme that captures the human mind so easily and firmly?
First, Christianity's success in Rome was due by and large to its adoption of existing pagan symbols and themes, the most influential of which is the Solar Saviour myth.
Allow me to summarize.
Throughout history we find essentially the same legend told over and over again. The legend is allegorical, a reflection of events that take place annually in the heavens above, and is remarkably consistent in its many incarnations. The story revolves around a hero or savior figure, typically born of a virgin, whose coming is heralded by a prophet in the wilderness and who gathers around him twelve disciples. The hero eventually dies and, three days later, rises from the dead.
I could go on but this topic is far too lengthy to tackle in a 1,000 word rant. If you want to learn more or just want to have your mind blown, check out this video. And if you want a more in-depth look, I highly recommend Tom Harpur's book "The Pagan Christ." Needless to say, a large part of the Jesus meme is simply a rehashing of time-worn myths.
Adopting this well-known motif might've helped early Christians convert pagans and become the dominant religion of Rome but it doesn't explain how Christianity continues to sway so many humans in the modern age. People nowadays aren't attracted to Christianity by the miracles Jesus supposedly performed. In fact, many Christians eschew literal interpretations of the Gospel altogether in favor of symbolic or metaphorical readings.
Christianity's power lies not in a list of plagiarized miracles but in the message attributed to Jesus (and moreover to the Apostle Paul, whom many believe to be the true father of Christianity as we know it). The message is in no way unique--we can find bits and pieces of it in Buddhism, Stoicism, Platonism, Zoroastrianism, and Taoism--but Christianity is perhaps the first meme to bring so many fragments together under one roof.
What is this message?
That we are all God's children; that God's Kingdom resides within each and everyone of us; that this Kingdom is accessible only through the Logos (the author of John's Gospel calls it the "Word" and equates it with Jesus, but more on that Friday); and finally, that God is love.
Byproducts of this message include loving your neighbor, treating others as you would like to be treated, turning the other cheek, living in the now, and holding in low regard earthly or material possessions.
Christ's message contains within it elements of Truth, hence why it continues to resonate with so many people. Unfortunately for those people, centuries of literal interpretation and meddling from religious and political organizations have obscured Jesus' teachings and fragmented the Christian community into countless sects and sub-sects.
Nowadays, most people who identify as Christian know very little about the man (whether real, fabricated, or a little bit of both) who gave them their name. They support political parties that claim to be Christian but whose deeds prove the opposite.
Any politician who spews lies and hatred, cuts funding to welfare and education, or who attempts to impose his personal beliefs onto others by way of government, is announcing his apostasy to the world.
Whether physically real or not, Jesus was a wise dude and more so-called Christians would do well to abide by his teachings. If everyone who claimed to be a Christian actually acted like it, they wouldn't have to wait to go to paradise: they would already be there.
/rant over
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