Researcher carefully combs through 126 texts from around the time of Jesus, finds no mention of him. Well that's awkward.

Courtesy of the Inquisitr:  

Jesus never existed. That is the conclusion of a researcher who says he has combed 126 texts written during or shortly after the time Jesus is supposed to have lived — and found no mention of Jesus whatsoever. 

The claim that Jesus, the messianic figure at the center of the world’s largest religion, Christianity, was simply a fictional character is not a new one. Advocates of the “Mythical Jesus” theory have been around for years, arguing that the story of Jesus bears a close resemblance to numerous other mythological stories of ancient gods who were born of virgin mothers and performed miracles. 

In a new article entitled “The Fable of the Christ,” Michael Paulkovich summarizes his findings, or lack of findings, which lead him to believe that Jesus never actually existed, but is instead a fictional character, made up to give followers of the religion founded in his name a central icon worthy of their worship. 

Just last month I posted another article that also called into question the evidence for the existence of Jesus. This newer article takes that doubt and runs with it.

Here is how the author, Michael Paulkovich, sums up his findings: 

When I consider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not, and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumran and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions, I must conclude this "Jesus Christ" is a mythical character. "Jesus of Nazareth" was nothing more than urban (or desert) legend, likely an agglomeration of several evangelic and deluded rabbis who might have existed.

If all this evidence and non-evidence including 126 silent writers cannot convince, I'll wager we will uncover much more. Yet this is but a tiny tip of the mythical Jesus iceberg: nothing adds up for the fable of the Christ. In the Conclusion of No Meek Messiah I summarize the madcap cult of Jesus worship that has plagued the world for centuries. It should be clear to even the most devout and inculcated reader that it is all up for Christianity, and in fact has been so for centuries. Its roots and foundation and rituals are borrowed from ancient cults: there is nothing magical or "God-inspired" about them. The "virgin birth prophecy" as well as the immaculate conception claims are fakeries, the former due to an erroneous translation of the Tanakh, the latter a nineteenth century Catholic apologetic contrivance, a desperate retrofitting. 

Jesus was no perfect man, no meek or wise messiah: in fact his philosophies were and are largely immoral, often violent, as well as shallow and irrational. There have been many proposed sons of god, and this Jesus person is no more valid or profound than his priestly precursors. In fact, his contemporary Apollonius was unquestionably the superior logician and philosopher. 

Christianity was a very minor and inconsequential cult founded late in the first century and then—while still quite minor—forced upon all the people of the Empire, and all rival kingdoms in the fourth century and beyond, as enforceable law with papal sanction. Christianity has caused more terror and torture and murder than any similar phenomenon. With its tyrannical preachments and directives for sightless and mindless obedience, the Bible is a violent and utterly useless volume, full of lies and immoral edicts and invented histories, no matter which of the many "versions" you may choose to read—including Thomas Jefferson's radical if gallant abridgment. 

The time to stop teaching the tall tales and nonsense to children, frightening them with eternal torture administered by God's minions, has long ago passed. Parents who do so are likely deluded, and most surely are guilty of child abuse of the worst sort ... 

Wow! And here I thought I was sometimes a little too direct in my denouncement of religion.  This guy takes it to a whole new level. 

The problem with seeming to attack the foundation of Christianity is that Christians believe it is an attack on them personally, an attack on the very essence that makes them who they perceive themselves to be.

As Atheists we can discuss all of this, and examine new evidence, in a clinical manner with very little emotional attachment to the findings. However to a Christian it feels like their very character is under attack.

That makes these posts a little tricky as I am not somebody who wants to hurt people, but rather simply wants them to examine what they believe and why in the hopes that at the very least they will no longer blindly echo the fables, myths, and lies told to them as innocent, trusting children.

I think this conversation is vitally important for the future of our country, and the future of mankind in general. After all "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." Which interestingly enough is a passage found in the Bible.

So hopefully this post will be read in the spirit in which it is presented.