There's more logic to worshipping the sun. It's a physical object that can be observed. It gave warmth, food, and light. I can certainly understand how earlier humans would think it was a god
I mean you're not wrong. Jesus existed in some form, as the leader of a doomsday cult. His insane followers went around and preached in other places because no one took them seriously in their homeland. Jesus was just your average doomsday preacher. Christianity is basically Mormonism if the Church of LDS was started a couple of thousand years ago.
However, Jesus is/was also considered God and the son of God. Obviously, Jesus was never a god.
I agree with you. However, just like John smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Buddha, (this is the edit) Muhammad, he was just a human with convincing words for the time he was in. He ultimately was no more or no less than you or me, but he did exist
Did some carpenter dude called Jesus exist? Sure, I once had a dude called Jesus install some cabinets at my home. Did the religious character described in (among other works of fiction) the Bible exist? No he did not, or at least he existed as much as other historical fiction characters.
It's very hard if not impossible to figure out if stuff written down thousands of years ago was fact or fiction. Even persons that seem to be reliable sources from that time have had works of fiction or embellishments mixed in. Almost all we know about thousands of years ago is because people wrote shit down and the amount that actually survived is very little.
The sources you claim are from well past the time Jesus was alive, so it's questionable how reliable sources they are. I also would not trust anything written down by cult followers about the cult leader, this is basic common sense.
And if you're going to link Wikipedia, you can at least read the article instead of just the blerb.
I did read it. I chose to ignore the evidence written in the Bible of his existence and went to the writings of Flavius Josephus and Tacitus. And it wasn't a very long time past his death. Both less than a hundred years. Did you read it?
And with the same logical of not having physical historical evidence, then Diogenes of Synope didn't exist either
Less than a hundred years? That may seem like a small time compared to the thousands of years that have passed in the meantime. But we are talking about human beings, who at that time didn't live more than 60 years. Imagine writing something that happened a lifetime ago and have people take it for fact.
Josephus wrote about Jesus about 60 years after the death of Jesus. And his works have been transcribed by Christians hundreds of years later, so it isn't clear what was original and what wasn't. The Christians most certainly made errors, embellishments and changes to the story. So even if there is a kernel of truth there, it's impossible to know what was real now and most experts agree it's fiction.
Tacitus wrote about Jesus about 80 years after the death of Jesus. Most experts think Tacitus wrote about Christians and what they believe, not as a description of what actually happened.
It seems to me you are under the impression of sudden media like today. It took a long time for widespread media at the time. They didn't have social media, nor print presses. Every thing had to done by hand. Spreading the information within that time seems very accurate for the time. And Josephus died at 63. Not a big gap, but still a gap compared to what you're saying. He was born around 37 AD (4 years after the death of Jesus). You're telling me that he couldn't have got real explanations of it through his life? If we're going to say that, then all the people born a few years after WW1 are lying