Welcome to the Cross examiner podcast, the Internet’s courtroom in the case of rationality versus religion. Here, our host uses his experience as both an attorney and an atheist to put religion on trial. We solemnly swear that it is the most informative, educational, and entertaining jury duty you will ever do. And now it’s time for the cross examiner.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Cross examiner podcast. I am your host, the cross examiner. I am an attorney, I am an atheist, and I am alarmed. I’m alarmed by the rise of christian nationalism in the United States. But more importantly, I’m alarmed by the massive amount of misinformation that is powering that rise. This is part two of my discussion with godless engineer. I hope you enjoyed part one. We talked about him, his journey from, being raised as a, in the south as part of a religious family, to discovering, through attempting to defend his belief, discovering that he no longer believed in what he does now to advocate for a secular country. Today, we’re going to be delving into a little bit of a specialty, for him, which is the topic of mythicism. What is it? What is the evidence that might support that position? That’s what we’re going to discuss. Excuse me. That’s what we’re going to discuss now. So I hope you enjoy part two of my interview with godless engineer. Now, I know it’s been a while. How do you have a few more minutes? Because there’s a topic I’d like to get to that you’re sort of focused on, that my audience is really probably not that familiar with. so, if you don’t mind, I will ask, you about mythicism, because I know that’s one of your focuses. So, first off, what is mythicism?

>> Godless Engineer/John: well, so mythicism is, specifically the context that is talked about, now is, Jesus mythicism. And that’s where, you don’t believe that Jesus was a real historical person, that he was this sort, of messiah figure that was, I guess, for the lack of a better way to describe it, invented by early Jews and jewish Christians. but it was, it’s more. I guess it’s more accurately described, as being, interpreted out of existing jewish scriptures as, this Jesus figure or this messiah figure that did certain things. And then, this new form of Judaism sprung forth that eventually turned into christianity. And so, Chris, christianity didn’t need a physical person, named Jesus to do anything. It was just the mere belief in the messiah that sort of started christianity gotcha.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. And people, I have found, are shocked when they hear this sort of line of thought. I’m not going to call it an argument. I’m just going to sort of say a line of thought because I don’t know exactly what your position is. I don’t even know what my position is because I haven’t done enough reading to actually hold a position, which, is one of the lessons we all teach is it’s not that it’s true or it’s false. It can also be, I don’t know. And I don’t know. But I am open to the idea that, yes, there was no human named Jesus. There was no actual individual. There was an itinerant rabbi who walked around and said, be nice to each other. Right. I’m willing to concede that for the sake of having a conversation. So if somebody calls into the atheist experience when I’m hosting, I don’t go into the, well, you don’t even know if Jesus was real. We don’t have any evidence. We have no eyewitnesses. The gospels were written 30 to 90 years after he died, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can go to that as far as reliability, but I don’t actually have, I haven’t done the studies or read the arguments as to why it’s a plausible case that he is a historical figure. And for my audience, think of, Robin Hood and King Arthur, or even more recently, stories about known figures like, George Washington saying, oh, I cannot tell a lie, I cut down the cherry tree. Well, we know George Washington existed, so we’re not a mythicist about him. But that story was apocryphal. That didn’t happen in his lifetime. There were a bunch of stories about things that never even happened to him. So, when you think of Robin Hood and King Arthur and those sorts of figures, that sort of, I think if I’m understanding the position more in line with mythicism of there wasn’t one figure. There was folklore, and folklore became a story, and then that story became, over time, taken to be literal, when maybe it was never originally intended to be literal. am I on the right path here? Is that sort of the theory?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Well, kind of with the exception that folklore kind of comes later in the development of Christianity, because, from what we can tell the early jewish christians what they were expecting, ah, as a messiah varied. So there were some jews that expected a military messiah to come in and conquer and free Jerusalem from m roman rule or, just any of the oppressors that were there. And so there was definitely an expectation of a military messiah, but then there’s also this expectation of a dying and rising savior that was going to provide everlasting life to those that believed in him and all that kind of stuff. So they, what they did was they reinterpreted or what’s called in scholarship called creating, peshers, peshurim. is this, reinterpreting, ah, of Old Testament scripture in order to illuminate, information, about this coming messiah that they were expecting? And so interesting. Yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: In the reinterpretation, as far as literally, the words of the original text have not changed or the original, let’s say oral tradition or whatever it may be, but we are going to reinterpret it. Like, literally reinterpret. Like we, vocabulary level think that the words are different, or reinterpret, as in we believe the point of the story is different than we had said before. Like, where is the interpretation taken?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah, it’s the latter that you mentioned, because, And a good example of this is Isaiah 52 and 53. because the original intent of those chapters is to talk about Israel, like the nation, or the people group, but later jewish and jewish christian believers, they reinterpreted those, scriptures to be, talking about the Messiah. So, like when he’s talking about Israel or talking about, you know, being punished or whatever, in Isaiah 53, they’re taking that as meaning, oh, well, this is God, because they believe that scripture was inspired by God. This is God talking about the Messiah that is to come. And, so they were reinterpreting, various scriptures. There’s all over the place, there’s. There’s scriptures that they interpret as being about the Messiah. Some of the scriptures, directly sort of allude to them being about the Messiah. And others, they’re, changing the interpretation that they once had to better fit a messiah reading of it. And so what they did was they did these things in order to explain things that were going on. Like in the first century BcE. Like there was this one, and I can’t, I can’t remember which, which guy it was, but there was somebody in like the first century bce that they felt was the messiah, but then he died. And what we find is that Jews then came up with this dying and rising, messiah idea. and this is, so, the, the dying and rising part was actually a syncretization with, mystery cults. That were in the area that, definitely influenced the Jews. and so basically, these mystery cults would be things like, zoroastrianism, the ISis and Osiris cult, the nana cult. and, there’s a lot of different, missionary cults that were around at that time. One of the key aspects of a mystery cult is the fact that their supposed savior in, each one of these mystery cults, dies, resurrects, and then provides eternal life, for their adherents. And typically, you’re inducted into the faith, through, like, a baptism, a, sort of symbolic death and rebirth. That rebirths, you into this, you know, eternal, everlasting life that you have through the savior. The savior is the one that brokers all of this. There’s even communal meals that are shared, like the last supper, as dictated by the gospels, and everything like that. And so, I mean, what we basically have here is a yemenite, a, jewish version of mystery cults. All other mystery cults, all of them have fictional saviors, at the core of them that all this teaching is centered around. And what we find in Judaism, or Christianity, is that the Jews took Judaism and mixed in a whole bunch of different concepts that they got from these other mystery cults in order to create this christian religion. So that’s where. That’s where we’re at when Paul is writing. Paul is our earliest indication of any kind of Jesus. There’s no, absolutely clear, passages in Paul that state that Jesus was a human that walked on earth. And all this other stuff, what we get are they.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I’m going to jump and explain for my audience, who may not be familiar with Paul. Paul never places Jesus on earth. Paul, implies throughout his writings that Jesus is a spirit and is in heaven with the father and all of those sorts of things. And this is important because Paul is sort of the founder of the church, that he is the first one talking about Jesus. He is Saul, if I recall correctly, that has his conversion on the road to Damascus because of these events. And when you read it, it really does feel sort of trippy, like, you know, he’s having these experiences. He’s not having a conversation with a guy next to him. so that’s Paul. And it’s the earliest documentation we have in this space talking about Jesus, if I understand correctly.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay.

>> Godless Engineer/John: And Paul. Paul does have some verses that a lot of people like to say.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Specifically,

>> Godless Engineer/John: has, Paul specifically stating that Jesus was like a human regular human person. But that, I feel like those verses require a lot of, additional, like, interpretation laid upon them that doesn’t exist within the text. And, so there are verses in Paul that people regularly point to that say, oh, this proves that Jesus was a historical person. But, Paul only ever tells us that he gets his information either directly from Jesus, like through a vision or revelation, or from the scriptures. And so all the information that he gets is technically, quote unquote, from God. And so given that, it kind of makes it a lot more vague, like, where is he getting this information from? And you know, it. I’m sure that there might be people talking about very specific verses. but I’ve covered those in various videos on my channel. So if you’re really interested in it, you can go and you can, look up videos of mine that talk about the specific verses. But, essentially they’re all just way too vague to actually come to a conclusion that, yes, Paul definitely meant Jesus as a historical person.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right?

>> Godless Engineer/John: And so that’s when folklore starts, creeping in, because it’s after the religion or this belief system initially forms that. Then they decide to make like, earthly tales about him. And this is similar to the ISIS and Osiris cult because one of the prime components of a mystery religion is that there are earthly tales that are told to the outside masses, like the uninitiated. Right. So they have earthly tales that are told, to the public. But then once you’re inducted into the religion, the cult, you are told the secret mysteries of the cult. And the secret mysteries of the cult is that all of this stuff took place in a heavenly realm. and it was all a divine sort of situation where all of this death and dying and rising, was, occurring. And so we don’t get that explicitly from anything in like, Paul’s documentation or any other documentation. but what we do have is Paul using, the verbiage of mystery cults, talking about how, you know, the teachings of Christianity are the mysteries and all. So he uses all the language of a mystery cult. And there’s no reason to think, at least in my opinion, that the jewish mystery cult differed so wildly from like the IsIS and Osiris cult or other mystery cults, at the time, as to having a real figure that started it.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. And you’ve got a, For people who are listening to this and thinking, well, that’s crazy. That’s not what my church told me, or that’s not the story I know, I’ve got two sort of observations and maybe a question here. First, this happens all the time. And it’s not just two, thousand, 3000 years ago. Look at Scientology. Scientology is a mystery cult. What they tell the outside world is different than what you were told once you got into the inside circle and you were then told about project, ah, Phaeton and ot levels, and, that there’s an otherworldly being that was planting hydrogen bombs on a certain planet and killing billions of species. And all of this sort of stuff, all this crazy stuff comes out once you’re on the inside circle. I’m not saying that they’re necessarily a missile cult, but it’s the same pattern of human behavior. There’s something in human psychology that creates these situations where there are groups, they have sort of what they recognize are unpopular beliefs that are hard to sell. So they create a front, they create a symbolic story that they use to introduce these concepts to the wider world. And then when somebody has sort of committed themselves and made a life change, then they will come in and say, well, what’s actually going on? I’m glad you’re on the inside now, because what’s actually going on is this. And you as a human might feel betrayed, but you also might feel privileged. Plus, you’ve already made this, usually some sort of objective commitment to the organization. And once humans do that, they are less likely to retreat from that stance. Once they have openly and publicly said, I am committed to this, then, to hear something that’s a little crazy might, not be enough to force you to leave. And then that’s how the membership grows. And the fact that it happens today, the fact that we have documentation of it happening in the time that all of these religions were bubbling in the Middle east, including Judaism. And then eventually Christianity is taken by somebody. And I’m getting to my question, is taken by somebody as me as like. Yes, that raises a lot of questions. I start applying Occam’s razor, right? Like, what’s the simpler solution here? Christianity, is just another one of these examples, or. No, no, Christianity was the one that was right. It’s, it looks, smells, walks, talks like a duck, but it’s actually a fox. And that’s where I think I, where I come in when I start hearing these stories. And first of all, I guess, what do you, this is the question, what do you say to people? And this is an argument that I’ve heard who say, well, yes, there were other false religions around at the time that were mystery cults that have these elements of Christianity, the dying rising again, granting eternal life, baptisms, born of a virgin, the whole mystery elements of it. But those were just created in humanity by Satan to confuse, to sow confusion. That’s the answer I’ve usually heard from religious people. What is your response to that?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Well, oddly enough, that’s one of the oldest apologetics about how similar Christianity is to, other, like, I guess, pagan religions that teach the same thing about their own personal saviors. tip, I mean, if somebody, you know, said that to me, I’d be like, well, you know, I don’t believe in Satan either, so, Satan didn’t. Right plant anything like, I, that’s not a compelling, like you. Now, in order to make that work, you have to prove that Satan exists, and so you’re going to have to prove some kind of magical aspect to reality. So there’s, it piles on a whole lot of, onto your whole hypothesis that, oh, this was something that was done maliciously by a malevolent force in order to confuse people about it. I’m like, I don’t believe in magic, so I don’t think that’s likely. And that’s a good, yeah, well.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I’m reminded of people who threaten me with hell as an atheist, like God, you know, Satan is going to kill you or Satan is going to torture you in hell. And I’m like, that’s like telling me I should be afraid of Sauron and the lord of the Rings. Like, I don’t believe that either. And people view that as being malicious or a mean or a mocking answer, but it’s not. It’s, I’m trying to convey to somebody my state of mind that threatening me with hell or threatening me with Satan because you have so little evidence for it, that is none. it carries as much weight as, as Lord Voldemort is going to come get me. So, yeah, in that same space.

>> Godless Engineer/John: I’m really glad that you brought up Occam’s razor, just a little bit ago because a lot of people misunderstand or misapply Occam’s razor because, it, at its heart, it is, you know, the simple, the simpler explanation is most likely correct. I mean, that’s a pretty good way of putting it. Putting it. But in this particular context, as far as, like, comparing different hypotheses for, like, historical figures and whatnot, what you’re really looking for is the hypothesis with the least amount of ad hoc or unsupported claims that are needed in order to make the argument work or to make the hypothesis work.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: So like to clarify for everybody that is the actual, like that’s how you properly structure Occam’s razor. The argument with the least, assumptions, or the argument with the least undefined moving parts, or however you want to put it. But yeah, the more complex the argument has to be in the unknown areas, the more troublesome it should be to you to accept it.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Right. And typically that’s the, the kind of thing that’s brought up like against me as far as like, oh, well, your hypothesis, mythicism is far too complex, when compared to just assuming a person existed, that started the religion. And it’s only simpler if you discount the fact that you’re having to presume or ad hoc, you know, say that there was a guy that existed. And once you actually start trying to prove that a guy existed, you’ll find that it’s a lot harder to definitely say. Because like, you know, if we take let’s say Alexander the Great, right? We take Alexander the Great. We have so many different things in history that actually point to the fact that Alexander the Great existed. We have coins minted in his visage. We have you know, statues that supposedly depict him. There are historical events that could have only happened if, Alexander the great, was a, a ruler or a king that did certain things.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: we have very nice correspondents talking about him. We have all that stuff.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah. And so like if you compare that to what we have for Jesus, we literally only have Paul writing vaguely about Jesus. And the only way that Paul got his information about Jesus was from the resurrected Jesus. So, you know, divine or, you know, this magical version of Jesus. And so like you can’t really compare Jesus, like the evidence we have for Jesus to other historical figures because other historical figures that we know are historical actually have evidence of, for them existing. So like if we were to presume Alexander the great existed, that’s because we have evidence to support it. But if you’re going to just presume that a guy existed because we have gospels or you know, you’ve always been taught that there was a guy at the beginning of it, then you’re, you’re just ad hoc assuming that particular point.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. And I wanted to, I’ve been thinking about this question for a while and I’m glad we got to this point because this is kind of, to me, the core issue or a core issue as to why people feel betrayed, by religion, when they deconvert. And that is, we can all look at this, right, and say, okay, we see this pattern of human behavior before the Jesus story. The Jesus story either is another one that fits the exact same pattern, or this one’s different because there was actually a guy. And to be clear, in mythicism, we’re not even addressing Jesus’s supposed divinity. We’re literally just adding the. The presumption that there was a human being that did at least some of this or inspired this. Right? So it’s not a huge leap to say that there was a human being, but it is a leap, right? Because in every other story, there doesn’t need to be a human being. Now, we have one that fits all of those other stories. Yet for this one, we want to special plead it and say, well, in this case, I need it to be a human being. So my question is, the angry atheist side, or the people get frustrated when they’re deconverted, is if you are taking a Bible study class in church, none of this, and I’m not even talking about the mythicism, but mythicism included. But none of the fallibility, anonymous nature, the hearsay elements of the gospels is taught. None of the history of these other religions that were bubbling up at the same time is taught. None of these questions about the historicity of Jesus is taught. It’s literally, you go to Bible study class. Okay, let’s open up to Matthew, verse one, and we’ll just start with the story of Jesus. And that’s it. that frustrates me to no end. I think it’s misleading. I think it’s unfair. It goes back to what I talked to earlier, which is people in power. And this is a theme of my podcast. My listeners will know would get sick of me hearing this. People in power will lie to you, possibly by giving you half truths, in order to get you to do what they want. And this is another case of it. Why is it that we don’t start Bible study class with, okay, how. How was this book put together? I cannot. I cannot picture a Bible study class run by a church that starts with, okay, we don’t have any originals. We have translations of copies of copies of translations of people who were. Who were not eyewitnesses, etcetera, like, really setting the tone as opposed to any other book. we sat down and we said, let’s study Washington’s diary or something like that as a class or Lincoln’s papers. You would start with how we know that these are Lincoln’s papers and what was the context of the writing that he was doing at the time, and then read biographies about the man to then understand what he was writing about. In, in church, you are told there was a guy named Jesus. And when you go to study the Bible, you study mostly the gospels, unless you are going to seminary school. And it is not an uncommon story for people to go to seminary school, be exposed to the information that you are giving us here and other information, and lose their faith. And I think the church knows that. Has that been your experience, that people hear this information and they ask, well, why wasn’t I told this? Or maybe more likely that can’t be true. My church would have told me, yeah.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Well, so I guess I don’t get that reaction necessarily, like, oh, my church would have told me this because in my experience, churches, they don’t like to teach critical thinking skills, like, as far as the religious faith goes, because critical thinking is caustic to religious faith. And so they’re, they’re not, they’re obviously not going to tell anybody. But typically, I guess the response that I get, is just pretty much like canned responses that they get from their pastor. Like, you know, that you’ll have your pet. the pastor will speak about the historical reliability about the gospels, and they’ll talk about how, oh, well, the gospel. Luke starts out and he says that, you know, I am a historian, and I’ve collected these and I’ve read all these different sources and everything like that, and they either fail to or on purpose. They do it on purpose to hide it. But the fact that the very beginning of Luke reads as if somebody is trying to impersonate a historian, but they don’t actually do the things that ancient historians do because, like, if we, we were talking about Alexander the Great, if we look at arians account of Alexander the Great’s life, he has whole sections where he discusses his sources and he talks about why they’re good sources and all that kind of stuff. And you’re not going to get, like a pastor explaining how, well, yeah, Luke, very beginning of Luke. He tries to be a historian here, but this differs from how other historians do it. But don’t worry, this is all, very historical.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Like, I mean, or more honestly, hey, here are all these problems. What do you students think? Like, you know, like, it’s not even, it’s not even an honest, teaching. It’s, it’s Bible study is not the study of the Bible. It is a lecture. And you are told that it, you’re all operating under the presumption that it’s true. And you don’t go anywhere near any reasonable method to assess its source, much less its veracity.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah. You know, I can only imagine that people that decide to go into seminary, I’ve heard at least some people say that they are just, totally taken by surprise at, you know, what they learn in seminary versus what they’re taught and what they do teach, you know, in their churches.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Talk about mystery cult, right?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: You’re sold this public story. You go to seminary school and you realize, oh, shit, this is, this is built on a pile of sticks. There’s, there’s no substance here, right?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Because, like, in churches, you’re not going to hear the pastor explain, the complex theology of Paul and how Paul thinks of Jesus as a pre existent angelic being, right? Like, it’s literally in Paul’s epistles, but you’re not going to hear, you know, the pastor talk about how Jesus is a pre existent angel. at least not in the way that, you know, you’re, you’re looking at explaining how, you know, Paul considered Jesus to be more angelic than, you know, human and, and all that. Like, you’re not going to, I don’t see a pastor, like, explaining that kind of aspect to it. Although I don’t, I don’t think that that would really affect too many believers if they’re like, oh, he’s a pre existent angelic being. It’s like, oh, yeah, sure, John one, one directly says this and all this other stuff. So, I mean, the, you’re talking about an audience that’s already primed to believe in magical things, and so adding more magical things to it is probably not going to affect them.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: But if you take it in totality. Right. We go to Bible study class and I raise my hand and I say, I’ve got this teaching, Bible, and, before the gospels, it says, we don’t know who actually wrote the gospels, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It was only attributed to those people out of a called church tradition. The pastor is going to be like, ignore that. We’re starting on page two. Like, they, they don’t even get to that level. It’s not, it’s not the, was Jesus a vision or an angelic presence to Paul? It’s literally, they ignore the fact. Let’s put it this way. I’ve had very, very, very close, dear friends who were Christian, where during the course of a conversation, I have, as an aside, in an attempt to start, my main point mentioned, well, because we don’t know who wrote the gospels. And they would stop me and say, what are you talking about? Of course we know who writes the gospels. It was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And I’m like, I think you’ll find this, that, and the. And they would, like, mock me for not, like, not understanding that the name’s right on the book. What are you questioning about? And it. The first time it happened, I was so taken aback that I sort of backed down. I said, well, maybe I’m wrong. I’ll need to go look. But sure enough, when I went and read the academics on, I’m like, oh, yeah, I was right. We have no idea. So if you tie this into what you’re talking about, the mythicism, the. The, the cloud of uncertainty and ignorance, and just. We don’t know where any of this came from. It’s. It’s overwhelming to somebody like me, who is not yet convinced. Like, if I’m exposed to this information about the ignorance we have about any of this, then my main question is, how can anybody draw a conclusion based off this information? It seems like you said, the occam’s razor, the simplest solution seems to be it’s just another religion that was bubbling up at the time, and it just sort of took hold.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Oh, yeah, definitely. And, I’ve actually been memed on Twitter, for saying statements like, jesus was probably not even crucified. like, we don’t have evidence for that. Yeah, he was even crucified.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: The Romans were meticulous records keepers, and we don’t have any records.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Right. Well, and, I mean, Christians, they will always present the lamest arguments for it and mock me because I’m like, you know, Jesus probably wasn’t crucified. And they’ll be like, we have four gospels that say it. Okay? That doesn’t prove that he was, or.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And that goes to the point I was just making. I’m sorry. But, you know, that’s the whole point is the church knows that information’s coming, so they choose to skip over the fact that we, again, do not know who wrote the gospels. They were written generations after the events depicted. They were not eyewitnesses. some of them say that they had access to someone who might have been an eyewitness to some of the events, but that’s hearsay, and we don’t because we don’t have the originals, we don’t know how reliable that information is. There could have been a hundred copies before the first copy. We have, like, it’s so shaky, like, I could not introduce the gospels at trial as evidence to support the claim that Jesus existed because it’s, there’s no chain of custody. There’s no, it’s all hearsay. There is something in the rules of evidence about his ancient, documents, but it usually has to do with businesses having documents that are older than 20 years. That’s an ancient document in trial. We’re not talking about that. But I could not introduce the gospels as somebody, have somebody sit on the stand and say, what does it say in this book as an argument for this book is true. We know that as a, as a society, the federal rules of evidence in the United States have developed since the magna Carta 8900 years ago, and they have developed through our experience of what’s reliable and what’s not. And it’s so unreliable that we don’t allow that sort of, that sort of evidence for multiple reasons. Yet, as you, as you experience, people will cite it as the evidence. The book is the evidence, not the book is the claim. That’s got to be frustrating for you to put this much effort into putting this message out and get that answer back. What is, what is it? Where’s your mind go when you hear that?

>> Godless Engineer/John: I, mean, I guess I just start laughing. and I don’t mean it in, like, in disrespect, but it’s just kind of laughable that some. That, that somebody would hear me say what I’m saying and act like I don’t. Like I haven’t read the gospels or I don’t know, the basic, like, folklore story of this Jesus that’s contained in the Bible. Like, I feel, I feel like anybody can just assume, like, if I, if I’m saying, oh, Jesus wasn’t crucified, that I, at least know the story says that he was crucified. I’m saying that that didn’t happen as a matter of history. But, you know, they, they have been taught to just take the gospels at face value and that they are eyewitness accounts and all of that. I actually had somebody also say, well, we have pieces of the Holy Cross.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right, right. I talked about this, gosh, I don’t even remember when, but there was a, there was a, I was going, I was going through the definition of sacred. I think it was in one of my maybe it was the two and a half hours I recorded yesterday, and that’s the example I gave, is we have churches that will trot out this thing and say, this is a piece of the cross that Jesus was crucified on. And people will cite that as evidence, like, oh, well, we have this information. It’s almost like Indiana Jones and the last crusade was a documentary.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. Wow. Oh, man. All right, so where do you stand? Like, after your analysis, I know we’re way over time. I appreciate it. I have one more question for you. After all your analysis of the mythicism discussion, where do you stand? Are you convinced that there was a human named Jesus, or are you convinced that there was not, or do you not know?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Well, so I’m very convinced by the mythicist arguments and the hypothesis in general. So I think that the likelihood that Jesus was a real historical figure is, pretty low. but I think that if we found new evidence, it could totally overcome whatever prior probabilities that we have about Jesus’s existence. Because right now, the prior probability sits at, you know, just another mystery cult with a fictional savior figure that the cult was built around and all this other mythology that was layered on top of it, you know, for the cult. And so that’s like, that’s the prior probability. Now, does that mean that there’s not evidence or that we can’t find evidence that would say, oh, yes, Christianity is the lone exception that has a real historical figure at the center of it. Obviously, with an. With good enough evidence, you can definitely overturn, like, the prior probability of it. And so right now, as the evidence stands, I feel like it’s far more plausible that Jesus was just another, was, the figure of just another mystery cult. It was just that this mystery cult was jewish, and later we called it Christianity.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right.

>> Godless Engineer/John: And so that’s where. That’s where I stand. I’m more convinced by the mythicist hypothesis than I am a historicist one.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. It’s such an interesting conversation. I remember the first time I heard people present this as a theory, as a hypothesis, I guess I should say. And, it, even as somebody who was not raised to be a Christian and was not christian at the time I was an atheist, it sort of blew my mind. It was like, yet another example of even I had been culturally influenced to assume that the default position was Jesus existed. There was historical evidence for it, et cetera, et cetera. And that somebody had to raise their hand and show me, actually, we don’t know that for sure. And when you actually look at it, it looks a lot like everything else that was sort of we, we say is made up. It blew my mind. So I’m glad that there are people like you out there sort of making this observation, because in the end, the observation is not necessarily going to convince somebody to not be christian, but it will put information, true and accurate information combined with good reasoning, out into the zeitgeist of the country. The more you repeat it, the more that we talk about it and what that can do. And people that are my listeners will know that. This is my theme is I’m not trying to teach people or instruct people or argue people out of believing in Christianity. My main focus is just to try to get them to moderate their behavior, because we. Ever since January 6, I’ve been very concerned about christian nationalism and people using religion to convince the masses to do things that are bad for me, bad for my friends, and against their own self interest. And the more you can put out into the Internet, into the blogosphere, into the cosmos, these sorts of data points, you’re going to affect people, you’re going to cause them to moderate that, to be slightly less convinced of the surety of their position, and that’s a good thing. If everybody in the world was less so cocksure that they were right about their God, I think we would be in a lot better place. I don’t know if that’s your goal. if you’ve ever. Have you ever convinced anybody using this argument that, oh, well, I’m not a Christian anymore, or do you, do you do this for this sort of, this effect of, let’s just add some more information out there to make people less likely to be extreme.

>> Godless Engineer/John: well, so I guess my interest in the topic is more. More, kind of just interest in history, like knowing, you know, how Christianity actually arose and all that kind of stuff. that’s, I guess, where my interest lies. I don’t think that, you know, that the mythicism topic should necessarily affect anybody’s faith. or should it also not be used as, like, an argument against Christianity? Because I feel like, when you’re arguing against Christianity or against, like, christian nationalism, I feel like, you know, more or less attacking the claims of Christianity, not even touching on, like, whether or not Jesus existed. I think that typically, that’s going to be way too far, for a lot of religious people.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right?

>> Godless Engineer/John: So, like, if you’re, if you’re really looking to, combat, you know, common Christians or somebody that’s not trying to have a discussion about christian origins and where Christianity came from. I think that, you know, attacking more of the resurrection or, any of those other things or like, the idea that morality can be found in the Bible and all this other stuff, like, I feel like attacking those particular points is probably going to get you farther along than bringing up like, whether or not Jesus existed. and that’s just because of how it’s taught in churches and how generally religious people are. if you go as far as to say, well, Jesus didn’t even exist, then I feel like they’re probably going to just shut down, probably a bit harder or more so, than saying, well, I don’t believe Jesus resurrected from the dead. I feel like they’re more used to people rejecting the resurrection claims and they are rejecting Jesus, the person in general.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah.

>> Godless Engineer/John: And so, like, I haven’t met anybody where like, the whole mythicist topic or argument has caused them to disbelieve, but I have met people that were historicists and then saw like, actually read the literature about mythicism and was like, this is actually a reasonable position to take.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right?

>> Godless Engineer/John: Or like, there’s, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this position, even if they still disagree with it. They’re like, well, this is, you know, this could be the case. And so, like, I’ve seen people soften on it a little bit, but they really have to get past that dogmatic hold that typically Christianity takes on a person. if they’re not already past that, then, you know, it’s, it’s kind of like a non starter for a conversation.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah, I agree. I, when I, especially when I take calls on the atheist experience, I don’t even bring up a lot of this stuff. It’s just in, sitting there in my mental toolbox in case I need it. If somebody comes back, comes in and says, so you and I both been on these shows. You know, the typical question is, tell us what you believe, and more importantly, why do you believe it? If they come back with the why and it is because Jesus was a real figure and we have evidence of that, then that’s an open conversation. Right. Let’s, let’s go to town on that. But typically you’re right, it’s going to be, I, believe in God because I was raised that way, or I believe in God because I’m afraid of hell or all these other reasons to then say, let’s have a conversation about that. Is that a good reason to believe in something and the mythicism doesn’t come up to it. But I still, I’m very happy that you’re putting that content out, because I do think that when people stumble upon it and they see that, not just me sort of mentioning it, like, I’ve heard about this, but people like you who have dove into it, have read the documents, understand the arguments, and can sort of have a very informed conversation about it, it is going to, as you said, soften people here and there. People who are exposed to information will soften their views and be less extreme if they’re willing to have the smallest iota of an open mind and realize maybe I’m nothing, 100%, right, all the time. Maybe there are aspects of what I believe that maybe aren’t true, and I need to back into that more moderated view. And finally, I wanted to congratulate you on a point you made that I found very ironic that we’ve done a long discussion here on mythicism, and at the end you said, but I could be exposed to new information and it could change everything. We could come up with new evidence, right? we could find correspondence court, you know, correspondence from. Hey, I, it’s Magi. I, I, Margie, I should say, I was at this supper and this guy named Jesus showed up and he turned loaves into fishes into a whole bunch of food. And, and, I wrote my cousin about it, and here’s her letter back to me about her experience, which we could find all this correspondence, we could find all sorts of stuff that, like, wow, okay, maybe there really was this Jesus guy and you were open to that possibility. That’s my point. I was reminded the minute you said that of, a debate that Ken ham was in against Bill Nye, the science guy. And the moderator said, what would change your mind? And, Bill Nye’s one word answer was evidence. And, Ken ham, the apologist’s answer was nothing. And I think that that speaks volume. So I’m very glad that you, you are in the camp of, hey, I might be wrong.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that, you know, mythicism is definitely falsifiable. You can provide evidence that definitely shows that Jesus was a historical figure against all of the other evidence that we have that’s going to trumpet, you know, no pun intended there. but, you know, it’s, it’s going to overwrite, you know, that prior probability and all it takes is good evidence. And the problem is, is that just haven’t seen that evidence yet.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah.

>> Godless Engineer/John: And so I’m just. I’m not. I’m not solidly convinced that he was a historical figure, but, like, I guess I go. Whenever I describe my position, I just say, I think that it’s, you know, more than likely he did not exist, which Lee, I feel, is, that kind of wording leaves it open to, you know, being proved wrong in the future. And I usually try to leave myself open to being proved wrong or for our knowledge, about, you know, either history or physics or, you know, reality in general, that knowledge to be, like, reversed or overturned and, some new piece of knowledge to sit in its place. And so I’m always open to, you know, new ideas or new ways of, you know, viewing the world. And so as long as. As long as the evidence is there to support it, then I’m more than likely going to be convinced by it.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: That’s great. That’s. That’s. If everybody had that attitude, the world would be a better place. So thank you so much for your time. I know we’re way over. You’ve been very generous. as a reminder, people can find you, as you said, pretty much everywhere. Facebook is a, huge, page that you have, but you can just google godless engineer and find you, anywhere. Same way with me, if you go to www. dot thecrossexammer.net, that’s the best way to find me. But you can just google the cross examiner podcast, and you’ll find me as well. again, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I hope that everybody was fascinated by the topics that you brought up and your story of what you do. I got to tell you, you’re one of those people that’s just consistently out there. I’ve gone and watched a lot of your content over the years. As I told you when we. When we met on the 8th experience, I’m a big fan, and I feel really thankful, that you were. You were willing to come on my show. So thank you.

>> Godless Engineer/John: Oh, thank you for having me. I always, always love talking about all the topics that we talked about today. I could. I could yap my head off, like, for hours about it, so.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yep, same here. All right, well, great. I guess we’ll call it there and we’ll say see you later.

>> Godless Engineer/John: All right, bye bye bye, heathens.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And there we have it. That’s the end of the second part of my interview. With godless engineer. I appreciate you listening. I hope you found him as interesting and as well informed as I do. Please do visit all of the channels he discussed in the show. You can just google godless engineer and you’ll find him. He’s been everywhere for a very long time. I really do want to thank him for all the time. He was very generous with his time, and I hope that you do. Visit his channel, give him a like and subscribe. And, please stay tuned on my channel. You can, you can always like and subscribe here if you want. You notice that I do not monetize, any of this right now. This is my advocacy. I’m trying to help save the country, basically, in one tiny, tiny part of it, by arming you with information like you’ve heard over the last two days that will help you push back against misinformation. So please, like, subscribe, visit my site @ thecrossexaminer.net and, until next time, I hope you have a good one. Bye bye.

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