Greatest wrote:
The most radical mythicists hold the “Jesus atheism” viewpoint, that is, there never was a historical Jesus, only a mythological character, while scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, the baptism and the crucifixion are two events in the life of Jesus which are subject to “almost universal assent”.
The Talmud, a collection of Jewish traditions from the third century tells the story of Christ’s death:
On the eve of Passover, they hanged Yeshu of Nazareth, and the herald went before him for forty days, saying, “Yeshu of Nazareth is going forth to be stoned in that he hath practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel. Let everyone knowing aught in his defense come and plead for him.” But they found naught in his defense and hanged him on the eve of Passover.
Roman historian Tacitus referred to “Christus” and his execution by Pontius Pilate in his Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44. The very negative tone of Tacitus’ comments on Christians make most experts believe that the passage is extremely unlikely to have been forged by a Christian scribe.
Greatest wrote:
In modern scholarship, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory, which finds virtually no support from scholars, to the point of being irrelevant and almost completely ignored. The Christ myth theory has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars, the view that Jesus did not exist is “the view of extremists”, “demonstrably false” and “professional scholars generally regard it as having been settled in serious scholarship long ago”
From your link you gave me an inkling of where you are coming from…
KAREN ARMSTRONG: The Pope is the world’s last, great, absolute monarch. He not only controls doctrinal and spiritual affairs, but also the political, social and economic fortunes of his church. And because he’s believed to be directly guided by God, his decisions have the ring of absolute truth, which is strangely out of kilter with the democratic tenor of today’s world.
The apostle Paul cited this type of pride as the Antichrist’s greatest crime:
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).
It is also noteworthy that Christians throughout the ages were prepared to suffer persecution and even death and the entire human history has been divided into a pre- and post-Christ era