Italian court to decide whether Jesus existed
 

Italian court to decide whether Jesus existed

ROME (AFP) - An Italian court will this week ponder the existence of Christ after an atheist accused a priest of misleading the public by presenting Jesus as an historical character.

The atheist, 72-year-old Luigi Cascioli, first filed a complaint against 75-year-old Father Enrico Righi, a parish priest in Bagnoregno, central Italy, in September 2002.

Righi had asserted the historical existence of Christ in a parish newsletter

"This complaint does not wish to contest the freedom of Christians to profess their faith...but wishes to denounce the abuse that the Catholic Church commits by profiting from its prestige to present historical facts as if they are real when they are only inventions," the atheist says on his website.

The trial, beginning Friday morning, will consider article 661 of the Italian penal code which, under the term "abuse of popular gullibility", sanctions people who mislead others.

Cascioli has said he will withdraw his complaint if he receives proof of the historical existence of Christ.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060124...eligionoffbeat

he was a historical person, dumb thing to question even for atheists

soon these bastards will even question tupac's existence

http://www.myimgs.com/data/djshovelp...esusloaves.jpg


Doubt at your peril.












2hp

even back then cgi effects were pretty good

of course he existed

so there wont be any problems to prove that he existed, right?

Who cares if some one named Jesus was born in Nazareth at the right time. Its irrelevant. Like all cults, Christianity doesn't care about fact at all, so the outcome of this trial will have no impact either way.

Amen
Exactly what he says
Short resumes everything

i think there are letters from Roman soldiers where they discuss him.

not really solid proof..but it is a start

i dont really buy the son of a god story. More likely he was 6 foot tall when every other tall guy was 5 foot 2...he spoke 5-6 languages...and he miracuously cured villages by telling them not to get water from the same place they shit....wow the whole village is no longer sick...miracle

Was the man questioning a true Atheist or was he actually agnostic?

I'm under the impression that a true Atheist wouldn't even give conscious thought to whether or not Jesus or even God himself/herself exists. Basically that thought pattern would simply allow him a superiority complex of sorts and rise above whether or not other believe that a God exists.

Life is passing by and we always give ourselves these kind of questions... Maybe it's time to stop thinking and start living? :disgust I believe in god because if i didn't than i wasn't interessted to live...

This isn't merely about proving the existence of a man named Jesus Christ - if that were the case, the Italian court would find some guy in Puerto Rico.


IIRC, the case also requires proof of who Jesus said he was.

They got too much time on their hands.

i dont doubt he existed... I just doubt he was the son of god.
thats the debate for all rational people.

duke

http://www.thegodmovie.com/

Not what you'd think judging from the URL...

Well if the billion copies of a book written about his life don't convince ya, no wonder you're an athiest.

He existed.. he still does exist. He's having a shot of tequila in Tijuana right now.

Jesus Gonzalez saves!

He existed.. son of god.. i doubt.. im sure he did do great things for people who had nothing... but thats about it

i watched this the other night...pretty good except for the last few minutes

The belief of a God and religion in general are a crutch for the weak. Its something people need to believe in to get through their day/year/life.

Its the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. To ask me to take such a leap of faith and accept that we're God's chosen beings placed in an infinite universe is a joke at best.

there were historical records outside of christianity that mention Jesus - one such popular writer was Josephus

http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/james.html


In Rome, in the year 93, Josephus published his lengthy history of the Jews. While discussing the period in which the Jews of Judaea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Josephus included the following account:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
- Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 hahaha167;63


In 1995 a discovery was published that brought important new evidence to the debate over the Testimonium Flavianum. For the first time it was pointed out that Josephus' description of Jesus showed an unusual similarity with another early description of Jesus. It was established statistically that the similarity was too close to have appeared by chance.

Further study showed that Josephus' description was not derived from this other text, but rather that both were based on a Jewish-Christian "gospel" that has since been lost. For the first time, it has become possible to prove that the Jesus account cannot have been a complete forgery and even to identify which parts were written by Josephus and which were added by a later interpolator.


For me - it's not whether Jesus existed or not - it's how man and the church manipulated the text for their own benefit. I always say, "in the beginning God created man - later man decided to return the favor"

It's also been established statistically that global warming has had a direct effect on the number of pirates in the world.

http://www.venganza.org/index.htm

All hail FSM. May you be touched by his noodly appendage.

I only enjoy this topic immensely as I know it probably annoys some very far right wing religious zealots...

:thumbsup

but seriously, what an idiotic question, it won't be hard to prove his historical existence, but fun to fuck with people I guess...

it should be very interesting to see what the outcome is

its an interesting case. i fail to see how you can conclusively prove or disprove his existence without a body or more substantial records (which there are none). further, a court probably cannot accept that someone turned water into wine etc etc etc. will be interesting to see what happens with this case.

agreed..even if I don't agree with whatever it says It would be interesting to see how they came about their verdict

must be nice to have time and money to waste

He must be causing double posts . . . if that doesn't prove something, I don't know what will

I agree with you totally. That is my exact feeling on the man called Jesus. I never doubt his existence, but I doubt that he was the son of God.

My other thought on Jesus is this...

If he allowed himself to be crucified and killed AND God allowed this... then who's to say that Jesus did not return, though to be a fruit cake and is now locked up in a mental institution doped up on medicine. If he was unable to stop his own crucifying, he would be unable to stop a lock up in a mental ward. First he dies for our sins, now he is serving time for them. He probably thinks he is doing a good things, but this time his story will never be told.

I mean think about it, if some man just popped up claiming to be the son of God... JESUS CHRIST... all are to follow him to the promise land... he would sadly be locked away and never heard from again. Said to be a religious fanatic and dangerous to society. And if he DID perform miracles the United States government would take him and study him... lock him away... because the moment they admit to his existence, they would lose all power throughout the world. But even they would probably never even think he is real, only a freak with dangerous powers and he would be kept in Area 51 with the alien. :1orglaugh

The moment Christ returns and it is known... the white man loses all power. Whitey will never let that happen, therefor Jesus will never make the come back he is said to be making.

Jesus serves the powers that be the most by continuing to live only in legend.

Think about it.

Jesus the man existed for sure.
Jesus the son of "God" I doubt existed.
Man has made him into what he is today, especially the Catholic church.
I believe in god, but I also know this "messiah" was alive 2000 years ago.
One mans miracle is another mans trickery. :2 cents:

Trickery that lasts 2000+ years even among intelligent people?

Wrong country to do that kind of shit.

there are still tons of pending cases in the court that deserve better attention

Agreed. :thumbsup

Well, it could be aruged that if they really could prove one way or another it would be the most important case of all time.

Lmao, nice call.

:upsidedow :upsidedow

I hope this was meant as a joke ?

Have you noticed that ALL big religions are thousands of years old ? That when someone tries to start something new, he's a crazy mother fucker and no one beleives him ?
Also, who's right (if true) ? How the hell can you actually say;
Hummmm i think this religion is DA THING, this one sucks ass blahblahblahblahblah.

I ain't saying nothing exists, but i like to think here and there hehehehehehe

Hahahahaha en sacrament ! Why on earth start something like this in Italy :1orglaugh but then again, their new "king" is a former Nazi :1orglaugh now this is something huh ?