BORN IDENTITY Was Jesus a real person? “Well, I’m here to give the reality point of view, I guess,” declared Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists. “Because the reality is, there is not one shred of secular evidence there ever was a Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and Christianity is a modern religion. And Jesus Christ is a compilation from other gods: Horas [sic], Mithras, who had the same origins, the same death as the mythological Jesus Christ.” Johnson and a blue-ribbon panel of religious leaders were discussing the question, “What happens after we die?” on a Larry King Live CNN broadcast. The usually unflappable King paused reflectively and then replied, “So you don’t believe there was a Jesus Christ?” With an air of certainty, Johnson responded, “There was not. It is not what I believe; there is no secular evidence that JC, Jesus Christ, ever existed.” King had no follow-up and went to a commercial break. No discussion of any evidence for or against Jesus’ existence was forthcoming. The international television audience was left wondering.1 Fifty years earlier, in his book Why I Am Not a Christian, atheist Bertrand Russell shocked his generation by questioning Jesus’ existence. He wrote: “Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one.”2 (Next)