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This guy in Italy is taking a priest to court to prove the existence of Christ because he says that the church is breaking the law by teaching that Christ existed. Here's the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/04/italy.jesus.reut/

Crazy, isn't it? I think the fact that Jesus' existence being ruled in court is another sign of the end of the world.

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Guh...Fuh...Buh...

Ok. That's stupid. What religeon is that guy? I thought it was accpeted by most people the Jesus does exist.

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Read the article...the plaintiff is an Athiest.

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Geez, people are absolutely crazy these days.

Sorry, I just kind of skimmed through. Seriously though, what does he hope to accomplish by proving Jesus never existed? All it would really do is discourage people, nothing good could really happen because of it.

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Some people are just tards... Pretty simple.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Wha? I thought it was accepted as fact that Jesus was a real person. I realize that everyone has a different opinion on who He really was, but I thought everyone acknowledged that He existed, the way one acknowledges any historical figure's existence.

I'M CONFUSED! I'd like to read that guy's book and see where he gets his facts.

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I guess the most we can do is hope that the judge is a Catholic...or at least a Christian.

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It'd be even better if he wasn't... Imagine that, a non-christian judge throwing this out..

The guy bringing the suit sounds like an atheist's Pat Robertson

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

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Come on, even by the Athiest standards Christ existed. He WAS a real person, there's no debate about it anymore. If you're gonna debate something, debate the existance of God.

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Well, this is going to be interesting. And humorus.

*grabs popcorn*

it's by no means a historical fact that Jesus existed, there's very little evidence for it beyond the Christian Bible. in my opinion, he was probably a composite of several different guys going around First Century Judea pretending to be the messiah.

Hahaha. This is hilarious. What an idiot. I can't wait to see the US Fundie backlash "reaction" of suing people who teach Evolution because it isn't proven.

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CLOCK

Actually it is. According to the Romans, in 30 AD, they crucified a man in Judea for the crime of rebelling against the authority of Rome. There have been documents found that point this out.

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they crucified thousands of people in Judea for rebelling against the authority of Rome. there were numerous uprisings going on at the time. Pontius Pilate was actually recalled by the Emperor for being unnecessarily brutal with the population. so that's hardly proof.

that said, i still think this guy who's bringing the lawsuit is silly and probably just trying to stir up controversy for no real reason.

Well, from my little knowledge of rome, it seems like "Rebelling against the authority" was pretty easy. And I'm not sure if Judea was very common or not, but it sounds like it.

Still, if Jesus didn't exist I think someone would have figured it out by now.

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Here's the scary part.

If that atheist wins his case, he could very likely have the Roman Catholic (and very likely other Christian churches) shut down and unable to practice their faith in Italy through that loophole about "misleading the people," should the court decide Jesus wasn't real.

That's just an if, however. Italy is one of the nations that expressly grants freedom of religion, so I expect (hope) a ruling like that is found unconstitutional.

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i really doubt it. i mean, first of all there's a range -- there's saying that it's a FACT that Jesus existed, there's saying it's a FACT that he didn't exist, and then there's saying that he may or may not have existed. teaching suppositions as if they were facts in school is one thing, but you can't really go after churches or other religious institutions for expressing their beliefs to other believers. i don't think there's any legal way to do that, anywhere.

It's an interesting case from a legal perspective and I encourage everyone to actually read the article before jumping into discussion. Of course even if the church lost they could never "shut down" the church itself--as you know, it's based in Vatican City, a sovereign nation. And obviously the courts realize that Italy is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and it's inconceivable that they'd actually bar the church from operating there. There would be riots, literally.

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I was linked to this case from another news site a few days ago as well as googled it to see what other sites had to say, so I do know what's going on and why.

Surely you don't think that I just glanced at the topic replies without any knowledge of the actual event?

If that wasn't really meant for me, well, your post does seem to address mine in a offhand manner (without quoting me but using parenthesis on phrases and things I said), so I've assumed your opening remark is primarily about me, as well.



Yes, I know that. Even though I edited my post for clarification a few minutes after you posted, I was talking about them being shut down in Italy.

Also, note I said "other Christian churches"--is the Anglican church headquarted in Italy? No. But they, like the Roman Catholics and a vast majority of Christian churches, teach Jesus was (is) real.

I'd think that a ruling from a court declaring Jesus non-existent would affect any and all Christian churches. It might even affect Muslims, because their religious doctrine holds that Jesus was real, as well as the Baha'is.



Oh, there's no doubt that there'd be resistance. However, don't forget about instances in history such as the Prohibition ...

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I would think that a ruling in the Christ did not actually exhist is not likely. There is more documentation of the existance of Christ than any other person of his time period. I doubt that any court could prove that Christ didn't exist, beyond any doubt.

I heard it put rather nicely that (paraphrazing) "It takes faith acknowledge that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, it takes non to acknowledge he existed."

This is just one more example of those with no respect for others beliefs and rights trying to compell others to disregard theirs.

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Bingo.

I'm just trying to participate in the conversation. Why is everyone on attack-mode lately?

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This is an entirely frivolous case. Even the idiotic defendant knows that he won't win, and he states it himself. This should take about half a second to rule on. I mean, even if you do not believe that Jesus was the messiah, or if you don't believe that there is a messiah at all, there is little doubt that he exists.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

Hey hey hey! I thought you were on attack mode! D:

Okay, how about we just dig two trenches, glare at eachother, occasionally throw French's Mustard bottles and tennis balls until one of us gets trench foot and dies?

No seriously, what I said about the loophole in response to your post does apply though--and things like the Prohibition--there's been times in history where a nation's government has made judgements that were incredibly unpopular.

While I do agree that this kind of thing is highly remote as far as winning (especially, as Rogue Leader pointed out, even the atheist pushing this knows "it'd take a miracle" (*groan*)), there still is a probability.

Concerning the actual focus of the debate--the historcity of Jesus--I know little about that, and an early attempt at looking into it through Wikipedia ... well, that's probably not a good place to start. You can look at the articles on Wiki, but they're heavily disputed where neutrality and factual accuracy are concerned.

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clearly not the case. pretty much all the major players in the Jesus story (Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas the High Priest, several of the members of the Sanhedrin, etc) are far more well documented than Jesus. there are a few references -- beyond the Christian Bible -- to someone who could have been Jesus, but they're far from airtight.



i totally agree with you here, though. it's probably impossible to prove that someone never existed, even if it's not 100% certain that he actually did exist. it is a frivolous lawsuit, for sure.

Ah, nothing like hilariously idiotic lawsuits.

Re-reading my post, Trev-MUN, I see that my tone wasn't exactly congenial. In other words, my bad.

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oi..... if this case is in favor of that atheist guy, then the Second Coming of Jesus is at hand. if my calculations are correct, this case may be over before june 6th, and if it is won by the atheist, then on that day i mentiond, it might happen.

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What calculations would those be?

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