I’m writing this as someone who has mostly lived in the US and Canada. Personally, I find the whole “lying to children about Christmas” thing just a bit weird (no judgment on those who enjoy this aspect of the holiday). But because it’s completely normalized in our culture, this is something many people have to deal with.
Two questions:
What age does this normally happen? I suppose you want the “magic of Christmas” at younger ages, but it gets embarrassing at a certain point.
And how does it normally happen? Let them find out from others through people at school? Tell them explicitly during a “talk”? Let them figure it out on their own?
Source?
Exactly. There is about as much proof of Jesus of Nazareth existing as there is of King Arthur existing.
Saying “he probably did exist” is like saying “my dog probably speaks English to his fellow dogs.” It is meaningless without objective evidence.
People tend to say “he probably did exist” simply to hedge their bet or to not go against the grain of the mainstream belief system. I, for one, have been provided no objective evidence (by claimants such as religionists) of the existence of such a person and therefore I have no reason to accept the mainstream belief of his existence.
Agreed. People don’t take into account the fact that historians have existed for a long time and probably would have noticed a person as revolutionary as the one mentioned in the gospels - miracles or not. The Romans were excellent record keepers, and that is how we know for a fact - for example - that Herod’s timeline does not jibe with the virgin birth myth, nor did the Roman survey methodology jibe with the Bethleham journey myth, to cite two examples among so many others
Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory.