Atheists... if historical Jesus really did exist, is it meaningless to compare him to the Christian version?

Short answer: Most atheists currently seem to think that (non-magical) Jesus existed. Note that some people get a tad touchy when you tell them that there favorite person never existed, especially when you show them the reliable evidence. Here's the long answer (with evidence), which is needed to cover all bases: All reliable evidence points to Jesus Christ being just a myth.

There is no reliable evidence that Jesus even existed, and significant evidence that he didn't. The evidence is in the Bible, the other religions of the time, and the lack of writings about Jesus by historians of the time. The story of Jesus can be shown to be just a myth created to fulfill prophesy, cobbled together out of stories from the Old Testament and previous gods and myths -- created in the 40's and 50's by Paul of Tarsus (who exhibited symptoms of epilepsy and had delusions of Christ talking to him), the other apostles, the unknown authors of the gospels in the 70's or later, and many other people.

The reliable evidence for this is overwhelming. Paul and the other epistle writers don't know any biographical details of Jesus' life, or even the time of his earthly existence. They don't refer to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Calvary or Golgotha — or any pilgrimages to what should have been holy sites of Jesus' life.

They also don't mention any miracles that Jesus was supposed to have worked, his virgin birth, his trial, the empty tomb, his moral teachings. To them Jesus was largely a sky-god, who existed in the spiritual past. If Jesus had actually existed, Paul would have written about his life, disciples, and teachings.

Paul did not write about any of this. Paul wrote (in Romans 16:25-26, Galatians 1:11,12) that he knew Jesus through revelation, which is another term for fantasy. We can also tell that people were accusing Paul of lying, because he attempted to defend himself in Romans 3:5-8.

If Jesus had actually existed, the gospels would have been written in first person format. Instead, they were written in third person fiction format like a Harry Potter story, with Matthew and Luke extensively plagiarizing from Mark. The gospels were also written in Greek, which the disciples would not have known.

If the Jesus story were true, his trial would have been legal. Instead, the purported trial was illegitimate under both Roman and Jewish law. The story of the trial is just a re-telling of the Jewish ritual of scapegoating, where one goat is set free (i.e.

Barabbas, which means "son of the father") and one goat is sacrificed (i.e. Jesus). If Jesus had actually existed, at least one of the approximately 30 local historians of the first century would have written about him.

No historian of the first century (including Josephus and Philo of Alexandria) wrote about him or his disciples. Therefore Jesus didn't exist. The Jesus story also shows extensive similarities to other myths of the time (especially Dionysus, Mithra, and Horus).

Some early Christians attributed this to Satan who went back in time and created the religions that "copied" Christianity. Jesus is worshiped on Sunday because he is a sun god, like Mithra, Zeus/Jupiter, Horus, Attis, Dionysus, Adonis, Tammuz, Hercules, Perseus, Bacchus, Apollo, Helios, and Sol Invictus -- whose birthdays are also on the old winter solstice of December 25, when the sun is “reborn.

No credible scholar doubts that Jesus, the man, existed. As for the claims made about him, yes, there is doubt (of course), but, his existence is generally accepted. However, some atheists are so anti-Christian that they reject pretty much any mention of Jesus anywhere, and thus do not accept the evidence, even the non-religious sources.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.