(AP) Italian Court Told to Prove Jesus Existed

[Judi Lynn]

(AP) Italian Court Told to Prove Jesus Existed
Jan 20 2006

Lawyers for a small-town parish priest have been ordered to appear in court next week after the Roman Catholic cleric was accused of unlawfully asserting what many people take for granted: that Jesus Christ existed.

The Rev. Enrico Righi was named in a 2002 complaint filed by Luigi Cascioli after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus did indeed exist, and that he was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Cascioli, a lifelong atheist, claims that Righi violated two Italian laws by making the assertion: so-called "abuse of popular belief" in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and "impersonation" in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone.

Cascioli says that for 2,000 years the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people by furthering the fable that Christ existed, and says the church has been gaining financially by impersonating as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.
(snip/...)

http://www.townhall.com/news/ap/online/headlines/D8F8HM2GA.html

[xchrom]

1. a little amuse bouche for the afternoon!

[ewagner]

2. oh-oh

this could be explosive.....

[C_U_L8R]

3. here...

have some matches

hahahaha

[ClintonTyree]

4. Nah, I 'm an atheist and I believe he existed..............

I don't believe the "son of god" stuff though, naturally, since I don't believe in the bible's god to begin with.

It's not jesus' existence I have trouble believing, it's the rest of the myth.

[phrenzy]

5. Do you believe in Mirthra?

Because the story is just as plausible?

Most of the research into Mithraism, a religion with many parallels to Christianity, comes from two writers, Cumont and Ulansey with a variety of other writers input. Some Similarities Between Mithraism and Christianity are:
Virgin birth
Twelve followers
Killing and resurrection
Miracles
Birthdate on December 25
Morality
Mankind's savior
Known as the Light of the world

[Barrett808]

6. Really, there's almost no evidence for JC's existence

Check out Professor Wells's excellent analysis:

The Jesus Legend
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812693345/qid=1137784265/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-8154201-6838264?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

The Jesus Myth
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812693922/qid=1137784307/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-8154201-6838264?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

And even less evidence of the miraculous.

[Khaotic]

7. Did Jesus Exist?

Check out this article: http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html

It really gets into the nitty gritty of it.

In the end, it's faith ... plain and simple.

The Romans persecuted the Jews, naturally the Jews used a different tool to overcome their persecutors. It was religion.

They didn't have weapons or power, but they had belief. A character that put the little man, the poor, up onto a pedistal. A man that said that a rich man can not get into Heaven.

Why question that logic huh?

I'm sure the Romans did, but the creation of the resurection and the son of God stuff ... well, that was and still is the exclamation point.

Without that the story would be as popular as Bram Stroker's "Dracula," and would be filed in the same category ... fiction.

Making it fact was the tool, the means to and end to overcome Roman rule and the Pegans. If Constantine didn't convert to Christianity, then I doubt it would have spread like it did. Eventually it would have died out and become excepted as myth.

Read the article in the link and see where you go from there.

If you want to believe in something believe in humankind and the ability to strive to make life better.

Like the words of Jesus? Cool ... I wish more people lived by the words attributed to Jesus. Doesn't really matter if they were made up or not, they are great words to live by.

[htuttle]

8. The Jesus movement that existed before Constantine...

...and the religion that emerged from Empire's Councils of Nicea bear very little resemblance to each other. In fact, I'd argue that Constantine, and the leaders of the 'official church' back then, had FAR more effect on Western Civilization than Jesus did himself.

My first thought upon reading the 'Nicean Creed' (what is supposed to 'define' Christianity) was that it had absolutely NOTHING to do with what Jesus taught. I'm no bible scholar, but I don't recall Jesus ever stating that his whole point was to die for your sins -- that was from Nicea (and some from Paul, who never met Jesus, and seemed to have his own unique motivations).

Jesus spoke about changing the world, Nicea spoke about accepting the world as it is, since we are all already 'saved'. Jesus seemed to act like the 'kingdom of heaven' wasn't particularly easy to enter if you were living 'wrong'. Read his prescription of 'penance' to the young man in Matthew 19:24, 'give all you own to the poor'. Can you imagine any priest of the modern Church giving such an order? Nope. Nowdays, it's just 'say you love Jesus, and everything will be okay." Sort of like a loyalty oath, I guess.

The more I learn about the precursors to Christianity, the more it seems like Constantine and Co merely revamped the old Zeus/Hercules myth, and instituted some sort of Old Testament 'Judaism for Gentiles', with the name of 'Yahweh' changed to 'Jesus'.