Exactly. It's debatable whether Jesus really even existed. It's far more likely that he is a conglomeration of different older gods and legends, after all. Jesus isn't as sound a historical figure as many think.
Horseshit.
I don't often agree with Christian apologists, but if you will take the trouble to actually read their responses to rubbish like
The God Who Wasn't There, you will find that your position has been thoroughly debunked.
Saying that "it's debatable that Jesus ever existed" is like saying "it's debatable that the Holocaust ever happened" or "it's debatable that we went to the Moon." It's tinfoil-hattery.
Jesus of Nazareth was an historical figure. Jesus
Christ, by contrast, is a figure of myth and legend.
What's more: Jesus Christ is regarded by Christians as a
god--one of the three figures of the Christian Trinity--the "dominus" in "anno domini".
You're trying to separate the religion from the "man," which simply cannot be done. The story of Jesus affected society through religion, and by no other means. That is why it is a matter of semantics.
No. The problem here is that
you don't know what you're talking about, and are stubbornly persisting in your own error, 'as a dog returns to its vomit.'
In fact--that's one of the worst arguments I've ever heard. Let's go through that line by line.
You're trying to separate the religion from the "man," which simply cannot be done.
Wrong. In fact--the religion didn't even
exist when the man was alive. See Barrie Wilson's
How Jesus Became Christian for some recent scholarship on this subject.
Arguing that "you cannot separate Christianity from Jesus" is like arguing "you cannot separate astronomy from Copernicus" or "you cannot separate physics from Newton."
In fact, you not only
can separate these things--you
must. Subsequent research has shown that what both Copernicus and Newton said was only approximately true. Their works now possess only historical significance.
The story of Jesus affected society through religion, and by no other means.
Irrelevant. It is possible to recognize the religious-historical significance of Jesus of Nazareth without believing that he was god.
In fact, the Islamic calendar does something just like this, by using the Hijra--the emigration of Mohammed and his followers to Medina--as its epoch.
And
that is the problem that you are perversely
refusing to recognize. That the terms BC and AD explicitly refer to Jesus, not as a man,
but as a god--as Christ, and Lord. "Anno domini" is a contraction of a longer phrase--
anno domini nostri iesu christi--"the year of our Lord Jesus Christ."
As I said: to use either term is to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That may seem like a trivial thing to you. But it's a very serious matter to other people.
Take Jewish people, for example--some of whom consider it taboo even to write the word "Lord":
Jews do not generally use the words "A.D." and "B.C." to refer to the years on the Gregorian calendar. "A.D." means "the year of our L-rd," and we do not believe Jesus is the L-rd. Instead, we use the abbreviations C.E. (Common or Christian Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era)
Source:
Jewish Virtual Library.
That is why it is a matter of semantics.
I have already explained--
three times, now--why the difference between BCE/CE and BC/AD is
not simply a matter of semantics.
Those two expressions
do not mean the same thing. Not in practice, and not in theory. If they
did mean the same thing, then there wouldn't be a problem.
You may not think so, but other people
are smart enough to recognize a distinction without a difference when they see one. This is a distinction
with a difference, whether you're willing to acknowledge it, or not.