Jesus’ life was not being well documented until he came on the public scene as a popular teacher. It does make sense that we don’t know much about his childhood and early adult life because he spent it, not as a teacher, but as a carpenter and carpenter’s son.

Paul never mentions Jesus: I did a search at Bible Gateway on the word Jesus. Paul mentions the name “Jesus” at a rate of about three or four times a chapter in his books. I don’t understand what you are saying.

This blog, as well as the comments, provided some interesting reading on why athiets believe the way they do.

What I think of Jesus: I know of some good rational arguements for His existence and diety but personally I accept him pretty much by faith. I used to fear/hate Him and God until I realized I had greatly mistaken who He is and what motivates Him. The idea that God would come to earth to reach us and live as one of us and then die for us is moving for me.

Unless, of course, you piss him off, and he’ll send you to a fiery pit of pain, suffering and despair.

Pfft. All religions are contradictory, hypocritical mind-numbing silliness, and christianity is the worst one I can think of. Islam is a close second because of how easily the Quran can be read to promote violence.

1. Intellectual self-denial
As an atheist, I don’t believe in any god b/c I don’t believe in the existence of things that cannot be proven. I cannot take the statement “God exists” on faith because I have intellectual doubt, which negates faith. First of all, “God” means too many different things to too many different people/religions to have any coherent meaning. Secondly, “God” is unproven by rational, scientific means and only “evidenced” by “miracles,” which are unexplained or misunderstood phenomena. A lack of an explanation implies nothing more than a lack of an explanation. I am willing to deal with unexplained phenomena, but intellectually, I will not deny myself and pretend to know a god exists when I do not know it rationally, which is the parameter I have set for me or anyone else to know anything.

2. Emotional self-denial
I have emotions that are labeled by some religions as wrong and sinful. I feel anger, inconsolable sadness, envy, greed, and lust. I behave morally towards others, and will not deny my emotions by believing in a god that would punish me for emotions (which are difficult to control) and not actions.
I may engage in behaviors that are labeled by some religions as sinful but harm nobody. I will not submit to a god that will force me to deny my true feelings and label my behavior as wrong, when I and other reasoning people disagree.
I do not feel the existence of any god, and when I tried to believe, I often felt angry towards “God” when I was supposed to feel love and worshipful adoration. My anger towards “God” was not immoral but based on despair and righteous frustration at the continual injustice and random misfortune I saw in this world and recognized in the”afterlife” concept when “God” was promised to be loving and omnipotent. I knew that if I had “God’s” power I would prevent injustice and senseless misfortune, especially that carried out under my own name. I will not deny my feelings by pretending to worship and love a “God” that made me feel so powerless, fearful, and enraged, and I will not claim such feelings as immoral when they were rooted in morality.

3. Psychological Self-Denial
Attempting to believe in “God” was painful to me psychologically. First, it didn’t elevate my sense of self-confidence, which was very shaky at the time. “God,” being the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent didn’t provide comfort; it revealed a standard I couldn’t measure up to. Religion also smacked a heavy dose of guilt into my head over things I shouldn’t have felt guilty about (doubt, my emotions, behavior that harmed nobody) and made the already excessive guilt over things from my past continue to linger, since I feared the wrath of “God.” By the way, I was afraid of “God,” because I didn’t know how this deity would react to me, my “sins,” and the things that I knew I was supposed to feel guilty for but couldn’t change about myself. The “God” concept I had built up in my head made me feel helpless, weak, and powerless as a human being, while as an atheist I feel relatively secure. I didn’t recognize my own power when I tried to believe: I gave “God” credits for achievements that I accomplished and became too dependent on the “God” concept in my daily life, which prevented me from empowering myself. When I tried to practice religion, it turned into a toxic psychological disorder, and there is just no way, for my own mental health, that I will believe something that makes me crazy.

4. Moral self-denial
It is immoral to punish those who have committed no crime and immoral to punish people for characteristics they cannot change. I cannot believe in a god, and I particularly will not believe in some god concepts for moral reasons. I should not be punished for the doubt I cannot (and believe me I tried to) extinguish. It is so much easier to be a theist, why would I voluntarily decide to be something that made people stereotype me, refuse to accept me and consider me immoral and evil? There is nothing wrong with said doubt anyway. I refuse to attempt religion and make myself miserable. Should I be punished for having conscience, doubts, and a lack of masochistic tendencies?
The same as written above could be said of many other groups religion has historically (and continues to) marginalize: GLBT community (people don’t choose these things and live in a very difficult situation in because of it like atheists, and expecting them to deny themselves and be something else when they hurt nobody is immoral, yet religion asks this of them, like atheists), people of other religions ( religion is often determined primarily by upbringing), people with mental illness (a person who commits suicide is not immoral and shouldn’t suffer in “Hell” because a person in that situation is more often than not severely mentally ill, not able to think rationally, and they are more often than not unaware of how their behavior harms others–as someone who faced suicidal thoughts, I know).
See last point in number two. In that point, I mentioned the presence of injustice and random misfortune in the world. Best case scenario with an omnipotent and omniscient god, “God” is negligent. Free will is not a good excuse, because throughout religious literature, “God” intervenes in events of this world. Besides, human societies have police officers that enforce the law, and this isn’t considered to impinge on freedom and free will, so why couldn’t “God” only intervene to prevent/stop misfortune and injustice? If “God” isn’t negligent, “God” is complicit to some degree.
Many stories in the Bible contain examples of God-sanctioned behavior I consider immoral. The fall is a story of immense immorality, since it punishes people for the crimes of their supposed ancestors. Same occurs with the Jesus crucifixion story, since it blames all Jews, now and forever, for the false and baseless report given in the gospels that a few killed Jesus.The flood is another Biblical example of sanctioned immorality, wherein “God” kills innocent animals for the sins of humanity. Then “God” convinces Abraham to murder his son, encourages genocide throughout the Old Testament, and degrades women relentlessly. I could go on and on.
Morality is fundamental to my self-concept as a decent human being. I will not change my morals to please any authority figure or respect an immoral authority figure, supernatural claims aside. Might does not make right in my book.

Conclusions: I suppose this whole argument rests on how much you value yourself and other human beings. Personally, I value myself quite a lot. So I’m not going to deny my reason, my emotions, my psychological needs, or my morals, which constitute the essence of myself. On a more interpersonal note, it’s true that being an atheist does alienate me from people sometimes. But I’m not going to force myself into a belief system of any kind that denies human beings on the basis of differences in viewpoint regarding gods, which closely ties into my morality on the subject. For me, there are multiple, ridiculously heavy costs of belief, especially regarding morals, which is what really sealed it for me. All of the costs of belief and benefits of atheism outweigh the supposed benefits of belief and the costs of atheism. Maybe it’s different. If we are talking about Pascal’s Wager, my main objection is in regards to morality. If I believe your god concept to be an immoral monstrosity, I won’t worship it, even if it means I go to “Hell.” Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

There are no contemporary historical witnesses to St Paul. His travels are highly dubious and if you actually trace them, they don’t make much sense. Acts doesn’t accord with Paul’s own accounts. The earliest canon list of Paul’s writings comes from the late 2nd Century.

The most likely assembler of material that would make up the ‘canonical’ writings and history of Paul is Marcion.

That is no argument for the belief in something.
I would rather die having lived my life the way I saw fit, than to have lived according to ancient dogma in a fully hypocritical manner.
When I die, I will die knowing I am moving on, not worrying about my soul.

Doing away with religion is not a goal, it is a by-product of a goal. The goal is to advance society and the human race to the point where we can work together to achieve greater knowledge. This is done through the production of ideas, which are then publicly vetted against all scrutiny. The protection given to religion is bizarre. We have deemed it inappropriate to openly recognize incorrect beliefs. I would not respect someone’s belief that 1+2=4, I would politely demonstrate the accurate answer. And afterwards, if they refused to accept it, this would not be a scenario of contradictory but valid belief sets. When people say that the Earth is 6000 years old, or that people lived side by side with dinosaurs, this is not an alternate belief set. This is excrutiating ignorance. I find it seriously concerning that we are waffling on identifying whether or not to respect ignorance. It is a severe danger to our society, and casts grave doubt on the likelihood that we will survive our own technological development. At the core, it is not religion that is the problem. But respect for religion is a shield for mental deficiency, ignorance, and stupidity.