Atheists by and large do not become Bible scholars

No, but many Bible scholars become atheists after they realize how nonsensical their study material is.

It seems likely to me that there was some person who served as the nucleus for a Jesus myth, just as it seems likely there was a real Briton general who served as the nucleus for a King Arthur myth. But we have no way of knowing anything about either, and I don't see that it matters much either way.

Please don't do this. The sarcasm and weak argumentation. This is beneath the standards of LessWrong. Millions of first-century people would be very surprised at lots of things that are nonetheless true.

Citation needed, or clarification what you mean by "anyone substantially like him". Because I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a real person named Jesus who was really crucified at the roots of the proto-Christian movement -- I'd probably assign less that 5% chance that Jesus was completely fictional. (though of course many other elements, like the birth at Bethlehem are almost certainly fictitious)

There is absolutely no direct evidence that dates from the time Jesus supposedly lived that any such religious leader was born, lived or died except for one contemporary reference to a rabbi called Jesus with a brother called James. Given that Jesus was not supposed to be a rabbi, and that both Jesus and James were common names from the time, and that Jesus had several other brothers and sisters who were also named in the Bible multiplying the possibilities for a false positive substantially, this is very weak evidence.

Given that Jesus was supposedly a very noteworthy figure who died in a noteworthy way founding a major religion, the total absence of any historical record of him or anyone substantially resembling him would be very surprising if he was real.

Given that lack of evidence the most parsimonious explanation is just that Jesus is fictional. An alternative, unfalsifiable hypothesis is that someone existed who played a causal role in the founding of Christianity but that they were so boring they left no trace in history and hence bore very little resemblance to the figure described in the Bible.

"Very surprised", indeed. The thousands of first-century Christian martyrs would be very surprised, too at this unfortunate news from our PhilosophyTutor.

Not just the first century ones, I would say, but this is not evidence.

However, people do memetically-wise genetically-foolish things (i.e. die for their beliefs) all the time and for lots of reasons. So the Christian martyrs are not strong evidence that biblical Jesus is true (whatever one means by "biblical Jesus is true").

However, people do memetically-wise genetically-foolish things (i.e. die for their beliefs) all the time and for lots of reasons. So the Christian martyrs are not strong evidence that biblical Jesus is true (whatever one means by "biblical Jesus is true").

What you may not appreciate is that some RC beliefs, while incredible to outsiders, nevertheless are logically inseparable from other beliefs that are shared with other Christians; once abandoned, other cracks form, and it all falls down, including parts which are widely accepted as true.

Internal consistency is a virtue to be sure, although differences in degree of internal consistency between Christian sub-sects all of whose beliefs are based on multiple irrational and/or self-contradictory premises do not mean a great deal to me personally.

RC is, as you say, the religion which "tried hardest to rationalise" all its beliefs, depending on the absolute minimum of non-rational arguments (i.e., from sacred scripture or human authority). It does this with a vocabulary which, I admit, is extremely challenging to the uninitiated. (Aristotelian/Thomistic logic and hylemorphism.) Nonetheless, within that philosophical system, it is quite consistent. It's like picking up a book on string theory -- you ain't gonna "get it" on the first pass (nor the second pass, in all likelihood.)

As a philosopher I think that it's good intellectual exercise to get to grips with bad arguments like those the Catholic church use. However there's no truth in those arguments to "get", and there are other forms of intellectual exercise which might well be more beneficial for the general LW readership.

(Sorta off-topic) I was not aware that people doubted the existence of the founder of Buddhism. If he did not exist, could a reasonable religion be attributed to him? <scratches head> :-)

A religion could be the most rational and consistent of religions if its sole departure from reality was a fictional founder. Christianity, for example, has a fictional founder (the Biblical Jesus never existed according to the available evidence nor anyone substantially like him) but has lots of other departures from reality as well.

Christianity, for example, has a fictional founder (the Biblical Jesus never existed according to the available evidence nor anyone substantially like him)

Citation needed, or clarification what you mean by "anyone substantially like him". Because I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a real person named Jesus who was really crucified at the roots of the proto-Christian movement -- I'd probably assign less that 5% chance that Jesus was completely fictional. (though of course many other elements, like the birth at Bethlehem are almost certainly fictitious)

Catholicism has an interesting intellectual culture in that they do make a real effort to tie together the grab-bag of kooky beliefs that make up Catholicism with an apparently logical structure. From inside the Catholic culture they are even apparently successful, although from outside the Catholic culture it's immediately obvious that their "logical" arguments attempting to derive apostolic succession, papal infallibility, Mary being without sin, confession to an ordained member of the Catholic church being necessary to avoid eternal torture in a very specifically-imagined Hell and so on from Biblical texts are very weak.

It's almost but not quite analytic philosophy, in the same sort of way that a cargo cult almost but not quite emulates an airfield.

I don't agree with the grandparent. The versions of Buddhism that didn't allow supernatural accretions to build up around the philosophy of the (real or fictional) founder of Buddhism seem more rational and consistent to me than the self-contradcitory business of an all-loving, all-powerful God ritually sacrificing his son who is also himself so he could forgive humans for following the impulses he gave them and spare them from the eternal torture he would otherwise subject them to. However I can see how someone could say something like the grandparent and not be totally wrong. It's certainly the religion that has tried hardest to rationalise it's idiotic doctrines as far as I know.

it has been rightly said that Catholicism is the most rational and consistent of all the religions.

What are you talking about? That's nonsense.

(Reposted from the wrong thread, per Kutta's suggestion)

If by "rationalist", the LW community means someone who believes it is possible and desirable to make at least the most important judgements solely by the use of reason operating on empirically demonstrable facts, then I am an ex-rationalist. My "intellectual stew" had simmered into it several forms of formal logic, applied math, and seasoned with a BS in Computer Science at age 23.

By age 28 or so, I concluded that most of the really important things in life were not amenable to this approach, and that the type of thinking I had learned was useful for earning a living, but was woefully inadequate for other purposes.

At age 50, I am still refining the way I think. I come to LW to lurk, learn, and (occasionally) quibble.