Atheists..Answer this for me please.?

Yes, and I've said this dozens of times. Most serious scholars, historians, of early Christianity believe that Jesus did actually exist. Many of them are atheists or at least skeptics, so of course they don't believe that he was a divine figure of any kind.

While we have absolutely no contemporary evidence, produced during his lifetime, that Jesus existed, the indirect evidence is fairly strong. For one thing, the Gospels are reasonably specific as to time and place. For another, the little Jewish movement that became Christianity had to have coalesced around someone, there had to have been some sort of leader. I'm quite prepared to believe that this leader was a man called "Yeshua ben Yosef" or something similar.

The reason Roman documents known to us don't mention Jesus is probably that he simply wasn't a person of any consequence to the occupying authorities. It's also worth pointing out that MOST of the documents generated by the Romans at the time would not have survived. We have very little from that era. There could have been a brief trial record, or perhaps a list of people to be crucified on such and such a date, but something like that would not have come down to us, it would not have been preserved.

So, yes, I think there was a "Yeshua," but I don't think he was the son of a god.

He existed, he was a master con artist, but he existed.

I think Jesus is an amalgam of the good men of his time, like King Arthur was. I also think he was created for the same reasons as King Arthur and Robin Hood, because, sometimes, the world needs a hero.

No I don't acknowledge that jesus existed as there is no historical evidence that he did.

There are many stories about King Arthur and Robin Hood but no reason to believe they were real people.

Sure. He was an ordinary man, who was a gifted teacher, a rabbi.We know he existed because Paul knew personally his brother James, and surely James would know if he had a brother Jesus or not. As well, there were over 40 gospels written about him...yes all from oral tradition, and yes, decades after he was dead. The four in the bible were written by educated Greek speaking Christians in Greek, not Hebrew nor Aramaic. It would be extremely difficult if a ficticious character were the source of all of these. Mark was written first, using a source called "Q". ML copied from him. And in these first three, Jesus comes off as a Doom's Day Prophet.... and there have always been dozens of those folks, both before him and after him, right up until today. Google Doom's Day Prophets....zillions of them, even in modern times.

What isn't very likely are all the miracles. People just don't float up into the skies, walk on water, and bring truly and totally dead people back to life. Does't happen today, didn't then. As well, no one who knew Jesus was even literate. And Jesus wasn't either. The best we have in the gospels is that he "scratched in the sand"..... So, everything until written, came from oral tradition.

If this stuff interests you, read some of the books by Bart Ehrman, Ph. D, and this eras best authority of Early Christian HIstory.

PS. And dump the gun avatar. Truly silly on this site, don't you think? What the world needs now is peace, not threats of violence, don't you think?

While I don't have any problem with the idea that there might have been an actual 1st Century preacher named Jesus of Nazareth, there is no evidence beyond Christian claims and a few scattered secular sources that are all in dispute as later Christian forgeries or interpolations. Paul is the earliest Christian author whose writings survive and even he makes no mention of anything to indicate that Jesus had ever been a real person living on Earth in what to him would have been the recent past. He speaks of learning of Jesus through the scriptures (of which he means the Old Testament because the New Testament had yet to be written) and personal revelation. As a result, I do not see sufficient evidence to accept that there definitely was such a person.

I'll admit it's possible. but totally irrelevant to my lack of belief in god(s).

there a saying and it's SOOO true.

"if truth were a requirement, history couldn't be told.". ponder that a while.

The vast majority of history scholars have established the consensus that Jesus was a real person. The existence of a man, 2000 years ago, has no significance on the issue of whether there are gods or not.

It is possible. Though I wouldn't call him a "historical figure" any more than I would do the same for Santa Claus. Both may be based on a real person, and actually there is much more reason to believe St Nicholas was a historical figure than Jesus... making Santa Claus more real.

My personal opinion is that there was a real charismatic apocalyptic preacher who gathered a following that Paul later exploited to invent his new religion.

It's possible. Best case scenario he was like an ancient David Blaine, worst case scenario and more likely he was a convincing sexual predator who was able to corrupt a lot of people. This would explain why the Romans decided to kill him.