Help Me Jebus!

No, but seriously, what's with this Jesus dude? Well, I recently found myself in the middle of a debate of sorts about Jesus (and the whole religion train wreck thing), so when I came across this piece, I made note of it:

http://www.y-jesus.com/bornid_1.php?gclid=CMfD2puS_Z0CFRUwpAodl1mgrw

Now, that thing is pretty biased for something purporting to be objective, but that shouldn't come as any sort of surprise. There's a pretty rampant inability in this country for people to behave in any sort of rational way, but nevermind that for the moment. The main argument of this piece is that Jesus did exist as a historical figure (it also goes somewhat further than that, so keep that in mind). Being trained as a historian, I'll be quick to point out that the piece offers no references, offering only non-cited stories to support the argument. Okay, fine, then we'll take it with a grain of salt, shall we? That said, the article's contention that Jesus existed as a historical figure is indeed supported by most historians based on secular evidence. True, there aren't any written records of Jesus contemporary with his life, but this isn't uncommon for this time period. So we look instead to circumstantial evidence, which largely suggests that yes, Jesus the person did exist. Hell, even religious texts from Judaism and Islam mention the guy! The general consensus of these and the more objective writings is that Jesus was around, and he was a good guy with some good, if idealistic thoughts on how to live your life, and that he was very influential among a select circle. Frankly, though, there just is not any objective evidence which suggests that he was anything other than a mortal man. What is much more likely is that his exploits were, well, exploited posthumously. That is to say, he was made out to be much more than he actually was, or perhaps even claimed to be. This is not uncommon; a number of historical figures have either been deified (though most not as much as Jesus) or demonized after their lifetime far beyond what they actually were. And, well, if you're going to build a religion around a guy, you'd probably do well to play up his strengths and exaggerate them wherever necessary.

Now, I know, then you've got the whole "faith" argument and all that. I'm not arguing against that; if you want to have faith, go ahead. There are some things that I have faith in myself, even without any particular empirical evidence to support the belief. My point is, it isn't unreasonable to try to establish a balance between faith and logic in your life (forgive me, I'm a Libra, I love balance), so if you're going to have faith, it might as well be faith in something reasonable. Savvy?