If Jesus didnt exist, or if he was just an ordinary man, then how did so many people get to believe in him so quickly?? and there were many people claiming many things back then, yet none of them had such a profound impact such an Jesus Christ. I would like to see a logical explination for this.

There is clear historical evidence to support Jesus Christ written by eyewitnesses who even say themselves that they are eyewitnesses, and they were all written within 30-40 yrs of jesus' death.

Sally,

Please present your evidence. I don't believe you have it.

Perhaps Christianity spread because it promises an infinite afterlife of perpetual orgasm for the small price of believing in some guy. There was no down side to believing. Now, we can see the harm of the religion--all the killing, lying, and con games.

Most scholars or ancient historians can be sure to say that Jesus was a real man, the evidence is simply overwhelming.

I have seen many clips of the Atheist experience, and Matt and other hosts continually say that the gospels were written after 70AD and by non eyewitnesses, i would like that to be explained with clear and logical evidence.

thankyou

Sally,

It doesn't matter if Jesus was a real man. Only the supernatural claims about Jesus are of interest. If you want to claim he was only a real man, then I have no argument with you, but most Christians would claim he was more than that.

As for the dates of the gospels, 70AD is the earliest date that the earliest gospel could have been written. Read wikipedia or any scholarly article on the history of the Bible. Jesus supposedly died around 30AD and people's life expectancy was around 40 at that time. The math just doesn't work.

As for eyewitnesses, it is not known who wrote the gospels. It's well known it's not the apostles to whom they are attributed. Those were just names given to the gospels.

The only person who claimed to be an eye witness in the Bible was Paul's "vision" in the desert of "something" (not a human). You know what he did after this vision? He sat around for 8 years. That's a long time for someone's mind to invent rationalizations.

Again, if you have evidence of first-person eyewitness accounts of Jesus, I'd love to see it.

I'm of the opinion part of the Reason Christianity spread as much as it did was because Christians were better at killing than many of the other religions. There is also a great number of the millions of Slaves that were indoctrinated and further the indoctrination of rape victims.

Considering the time scale of these indoctrinations we have generations of children being born into a religion that was forced onto their parents having greatly expanded the Christian population.

I mean just looking at American history some 4.8 million Africans were forcefully converted to Christianity. I meant that is roughly 40 million Christians by slavery in the past 150 years?

If 40 million in just the US slave trade in the past 150 years, then imagine the nearly 2,000 year period in which slavery was more abundant and when Christians went around raping women of other faiths(so long as they were virgins) and the Men were punished(by being forced to marry them).

As for eyewitnesses, we have eyewitness testimonies of Psychics who have been confirmed as frauds in modern society. Even when they are exposed people still believe in that nonsense. Same goes for all sorts of paranormal claims around the world and lets not forget Faith Healing.

Firstly, the only accounts of Jesus' life were written after his death by people who couldn't have been alive when he was. The health back then simply wouldn't allow it.

Second, this is no evidence for Christianity at all. You may as well be asking how any other religion spread. For example, you don't believe in Vishnu, but Hinduism was a very dominant religion in many parts of the world. If Vishnu doesn't exist, then how did so many people get to believe in him so quickly?

Do you see what's going on here? I'm asking the same question, but with a different god that you don't believe in. This applies to every religion. Religion is passed down from generation to generation.

People in power grab hold of the religion, and force other people to believe in it, or they condemned, and sometimes even hurt people who do not believe. People involved in religion convince others through trust (Remember, this is a time where literacy wasn't even very common. You had to trust what someone said). Parents would have many children, and then convince each child about this. Because the children trust their parents, they are helpless.

For these and many more reasons, religion, even if it's wrong, spreads fast.

Are you saying that the quick spread of Christianity implies that it might be the true? I cannot agree with this connection.

Counterexamples: There are things that are true, but not easy to understand...like quantum mechanics. There are things that are true, but are not appealing...like the need to reduce our usage of fossil fuels. These true statements don't move nearly as quickly as a Justin Beiber rumor in today's attention-deficit culture. So it's not the truth value of Christianity that makes it spread - it's the nature of the message itself. Three things: exclusivity, blind faith, reward. Exclusivity is "you may have no other gods before me". Blind faith shuts down your reasoning capacities and puts the religion in a tightly locked category. Reward is the claim that heaven awaits after death IF you believe.

Like others have mentioned, the existence of Jesus adds nothing to the claims that he was supernatural.