Claiming that his works were written by someone else is one thing, but disputing his existence when we have actual documents he signed (including his will), records of lawsuits he was involved in, financial records of companies he co-owned, not to mention his family tree with parents, wife, children, etc. seems…

Socrates is attested in The Clouds by Aristophanes (who was not a fan), but otherwise well said!

Many people never traveled very far, but some people (sailors, merchants, soldiers, pilgrims, missionaries... not to mention slaves, hostages and other captives) regularly did. Good communications was one of the things that kept the Roman Empire together.

The earliest Gospels were probably written more like 30-40 years after the events, and Paul talks about Jesus being born, betrayed and executed in letters written maybe 20 years after his death. In other words, within living memory.

I think you’re getting away from the main point, though. The question is not what the origins of all the Bible stories or Christian beliefs are. The question is whether Jesus actually existed. Or to be more precise, whether:

Well, as I said they could check, since they were in contact with the Jerusalem church through rival missionaries and by letter. If you read Paul’s letters, you’ll see that he devotes an inordinate amount of time to arguing why the congregations should listen to him and his deputies rather than to other missionaries,…

And yours is no logic at all.

I basically agree with you, but want to point out that even if we accept the existence of Paul and Peter and James the Just etc., the evidence that they were all martyred is not that firm, relying mainly on the Acts of the Apostles and Christian tradition. Paul was definitely arrested at various times, but nothing in…

Who were the Christians who burned under Nero worshipping then?

Shakespeare definitely existed. Some people over the centuries have speculated that he didn’t actually write the plays and sonnets attributed to him, but that theory is stupid.

He said it to people who were in contact with the Jerusalem church through other missionaries. Claiming that he knew the leaders of that church if the people he mentioned didn’t exist wouldn’t have been very convincing, now would it?

No, most scholars believe the Tacitus reference is genuine (though it’s not necessarily proof of anything except that there were Christians who believed in Jesus), and that at least one of the mentions in Josephus is based on an authentic reference, though it has most likely been embellished by Christian copyists.

The Jews and Romans may have been fastidious about record-keeping, but most of those records have been lost to us. The vast majority of people who lived then are not documented in any surviving records, and even the people we know about very often cannot be verified in “independent” records.

True, I suppose it depends on what you want to focus on, and it may be outside the site’s self-defined scope.

There’s a website discussing the various Star Wars inspirations (though it’s missing the Valérian comics) that has a pretty good breakdown of the parallels to Dune:

I disagree. There are multiple possible explanations for why replicant-Deckard doesn’t have superhuman abilities: it could be a tradeoff for longer lifespan, it could be a safety feature for a replicant meant to operate on Earth, it could be because he would quickly figure out his true nature if his physical…

I feel like a crazy person, because to me it didn’t really look like Rachel at all. The CGI was fine, but it just... wasn’t her. There’s something off about her eyes, nose, cheeks, lips, facial expression... even the hair-do seemed a bit off to me.

Well that’s definitely wrong, since they rigged the whole special effects shot to give Deckard glowing eyes while filming. Also, the origin of the idea is well documented, coming from a version of the script where Deckard’s hands freeze up (like Batty’s) while he’s playing the piano.

It might be necessary if they’re doing the stunts for roles where the main actor is darker-skinned.

That’s very interesting. Thanks!