Religion and Jesus

Somehow a friend and I entered a conversation about religion (he is Catholic), and I said that religion is basically mythology. After his jaw dropped, he said, "but they have proven that Jesus existed a bunch of times!" When I asked about these "proofs" he spoke of, he gave me nothing. I would love to know what the hell he was referring to. Maybe he was referring to the Shroud of Turin? Does he have a valid case in referring to that? I simply told him there is no evidence that Jesus ever set foot on this earth.

There is no proof (that I know of) any prophet or early religious figure, from Moses to Muhammed ever existed. What would qualify as valid proof? There are no Roman records of Jesus, and I doubt Jesus existed during Roman times. When people and things are so old and in the past its hard to know what's really true or real.

Did they have proof of everybody that was born back then?

And something I just thought of, though I don't know how well it'll hold up: Maybe they destroyed His records, for fear that people will see it as proof of His divinity. Such a figure might've incited a rash response from the gov't.

quote:Originally posted by Merlinman2005:

Did they have proof of everybody that was born back then?

And something I just thought of, though I don't know how well it'll hold up: Maybe they destroyed His records, for fear that people will see it as proof of His divinity. Such a figure might've incited a rash response from the gov't.

Yeah Christians often say that, and what the Jewish people sometimes say about the lack of records of Moses from Egypt. My belief is that these characters existed prior to these civilizations. Proof of this theory is the earlier civilization of Babylon having as part of its mythology, the even more ancient story of a baby who was put in a basket and floated to the house of the king and the whole story, also the Flood story of Noah. Judaism tends to push up dates. I believe these things happened prior to Babylon which allowed Babylonians to pick up the stories.