This is what He wanted.

It’s certainly possible that sayings of other people were later attributed to him, but to really make this case you’d need to have quotations that were attributed to multiple sources, including him, if you see what I mean. Absent that, it could be true, but there’s no particular reason to believe it.

There are enough specific biographical details about Jesus of Nazareth to make it likely that there’s a specific, real central figure. For example, the fact that he was from Nazareth was a problem for his early followers (it didn’t match the Messianic prophecies), which is why they invented the odd story of the census, so that they could claim he’d been born in Bethlehem, the hometown of King David, from whom Jesus was supposedly descended. That seems unlikely to have happened if there hadn’t been a real, central historical figure.

Also, none of the early non-Christian sources claim he wasn’t real, which they surely would have done if there was any doubt on the matter.

I agree with you that Jesus wasn’t God, who doesn’t exist, and that there were no miracles, which are impossible. However, this is not the same thing as saying that there’s no evidence for the existence of Jesus, the Jewish apocalyptic preacher.

The earliest documents about Jesus, such as the Pauline Epistles, were written by people who knew people who knew him. In a mostly illiterate society 2,000 years ago, this is about as good as evidence gets. It’s also the exact same kind of evidence as a journalist or researcher writing an account based on interviews with people. This was how, e.g, Herodotus wrote his histories. When Herodotus says ‘A guy rode a dolphin once’ we dismiss that. But we don’t say ‘The people in the Histories didn’t exist’. We do much the same with Jesus and the miracles.

If the Apostles had wanted, for some reason, to invent a guy, that would have been risky. Other people would have just said, ‘That guy didn’t exist’. If they had anyway decided to invent a guy, they’d have invented someone who actually fulfilled the Jewish propehcies of the Messiah, instead of inventing Jesus, who obviously didn’t. This suggests they didn’t invent him, which strengthens the plausibility of the evidence we do have.

A third way of looking at this is to ask if there are any comparable figures, religious founders from the historic era, who we now think were wholly made up in the way you’re suggesting. But there aren’t. The Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Zoroaster - they all certainly existed. Indeed, I can’t think of any figures form the time period who were actually imaginary.

Dinosaurs aren’t people.

No. But physical proof is not the standard we use for determining someone’s historical existence.

True, and worth noting. But what he says is inarguably true: no votes have been cast and if people assume they don’t need to bother voting, that could have a dramatic effect on the final result.

I don’t see how this can be the case. Labour were miles behind the Tories for the entire campaign on every metric, having been behind for virtually the entirety of the previous five (or more) years!

This is the kind of thing I mean when I say that some of the Tories’ own goals should be partly credited to Starmer.

It’s similar to all the ridiculous flag shagging: that suddenly paid off when Sunak made the unforced error of bailing on the D-Day celebrations, which left Labour an open goal but only because Labour had set themselves up well in the first place. There’s suddenly an obviously ‘patriotic’ party for the people who think that matters (and that it’s indicated primarily by flag shagging). Ditto the Truss budget. Labour wouldn’t have benefited from that if they hadn’t already been banging on about fiscal responsibility.

Yeah, I agree. They have to reform the planning system in a way that ignores nimbys, otherwise this will come to nothing.

This is a fair point, as far as it goes, and I’m happy to accept ‘mass shooters curently engaged in a mass shooting’ as an exception to the rule!

I’d suggest checking the recent actual election results (previous GE, locals and any by-elections), then checking a few different tools to see the predictions, and kind of taking the average of that.

Of course, you can always donate money and/or campaign somewhere other than where you live. I’m in a 100% Labour hold, according to electoral calculus, so I’ve been doorknocking elsewhere.

🫡

You cannot achieve any good by hurting people.

People are so convinced that if we’re more cruel to criminals, they’ll stop committing crimes, or if we’re harsher to workers, we’ll work harder, or if you’re tough on border controls, immigrants will go away. It does not work and it cannot work.

Well, you’ve convinced me! What should I do, o wise one?

Cool, well now the link’s working, and not to sound like a looping spambot, but I wouldn’t use this MRP to decide your vote. The MRPs have such huge variance this time because of the historic size of the swing from the Tories to Labour (and everyone else) that it’s really difficult to be accurate with this analysis.

Link is broken for me! Is it this one?

https://news.sky.com/story/check-which-party-could-win-in-your-constituency-under-yougov-projection-13155613

MRP’s are going to be very inaccurate this time around due to the size of the swing. That’s why they’re producing such massively divergent results between different pollsters.

Interpreting this sympathetically for a moment: Her aim was to give a much-needed boost to economic growth. That’s also Labour’s ‘aim’, per their manifesto. It wasn’t a bad objective, but she deployed a terrible strategy and no discernible tactics.

That said, I fully expect - indeed, as a member of the Labour party, demand - that Labour will interpret this unsympathetically and run as many attack ads as possible saying ‘JEREMY HUNT EXPRESSES UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR LIZ TRUSS’. After all, the Tories won’t shut up about Starmer supporting Corbyn to be PM, and he never even was PM.

Final call on this.

Registration closes at 23:59 tonight! Don’t miss out on your chance to send the Tories into the abyss!

Thanks, I’ll take a look!