[somenameforme]

On a meta level this would seem to leave discussion of any sort of revolutionary concept mostly censored. So for instance go back in time to when the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe was near universally believed. If one studies the stars this is precisely what one would tend to believe, and you can even create highly accurate predictions for things like where the stars will be, based on this assumption.

Claims that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun, including by people like Galileo, tended to have extensive initial flaws (for instance Galileo also incorrectly assumed circular orbits, which causes lots of problems) and were completely unproveable given the technology of the time. So you have somebody saying something hat many would have considered plainly offensive and/or pseudo-scientific, that had negligible public support, that had proveable flaws, that contradicted centuries of expert knowledge, and was also spread by somebody who was in general somewhat anti-social - he initially had extensive support from the powerful Church of the era, but lost it largely through publishing what, for the time, were quite vile insults directed at them for not immediately jumping on board with him. His former relationship is the reason he was able to spend out the remainder of his years in the relative comfort of house arrest.

Obviously any sort of 'new vision' of speech policing that would effectively censor Galileo is a terrible idea. And this isn't just an issue of the past, the person who discovered handwashing/germs faced similar issues among countless other examples that are outside the scope of this post.

[quacked]

This is a crucial point that many in the thread are missing.

A "fact" as a unit of information is itself subject to the whims of people and cultural attitudes. Is it a "fact" that a whale is a mammal? No, it's a fact that the majority of modern biologists classify a group of animals collectively referred to as whales as a member of a group of animals they call mammals. Is it a fact that "X murdered Y"? No, but it is a fact that a group of people working together to investigate agreed to formally write down that X is a murderer and retaliate accordingly. (You can't even say for sure that they all believed that X murdered Y because each may have a different understanding of what "murder" is, or that they had doubts but when along with the vote, etc.)

When people say "I only believe in statements that are supported by facts" they rarely think about the nuances of the "supporting facts". 600 years ago it was a fact that Christ died for our sins, etc.

[dcow]

Well it’s incredibly likely that someone who most people referred to as Christ did indeed die <for our sins>. I think you mean to challenge the reliability or interpretation of the other stuff that allegedly happened afterward.

[quacked]

It can't be considered a fact, because it's unverifiable. The "fact" is that certain parties (museums, Vatican, etc.) claim to possess genuine historical documents that describe events that occurred in the past that Christ existed and was killed by the Romans.

I believe it's probably true, but it's important to realize that I'm taking the word of these historians and archivists on faith; I've never seen these documents, and I could not verify their authenticity were I allowed access to them.

It's only through careful examinations of what we as individuals can personally verify can we start to identify what kind of informational waters we swim in, and start to protect ourselves from "fake news".

[marcosdumay]

The most likely is that that one person the Bible is about never existed.

There would be documentation if he existed.

[somenameforme]

This is such an extremely interesting comment, given the context of this conversation, because it sums up so much with so little. There is indeed overwhelming documentation (and other evidence) of Jesus' existence [1], and essentially no doubt of such. The Bible in general corresponds quite well with historic evidence on most topics*. Where it diverges from history is obviously in the divine.

But does this mean one shouldn't be able to publicly express doubt of Jesus' existence? I would say no. Because while there is both overwhelming evidence and consensus, there was also overwhelming evidence and consensus for the Earth being the center of the universe. And the greatest leaps in society's state of knowledge tends to come from the times when these 'things everybody knows' end up simply being wrong.

It's okay to say, or even believe, things that are most likely wrong. The whole point about Freedom is having the Freedom to make choices, even when those choices or views may not be what somebody else would consider appropriate. When such choices become sufficiently detrimental, like theft or murder, we prohibit them by law. But prohibiting having the 'wrong view' just seems very myopic. If you change your view after reading those articles, that's cool. If you don't (or even more likely don't even check them out), that's also cool.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of...

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* = Interestingly this exact observation led Thomas Jefferson, who created his own sort of sect-of-1 Christianity, to compose his own Bible, the Jefferson Bible [2]. He took all the likely factual context and writings in the bible, and removed all the supernatural aspects of it - essentially turning it into a historical text with moral lessons. Quite a shame no copies remain.

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible