Religion is truly in trouble when two magicians/comedians can make more cogent fact supported arguments regarding human existence than those armed with the culmination of 5,000 years of of Judeo/Christian religious study. The faithful have little chance of success when support for creationism is derived from an attitude of arrogant ignorance combined with a rejection of supported facts by those who have dedicated their lives to discovery as opposed to dedication of supporting a single myth from amongst the myriad of creationist myths around the world. But have hope, years after torturing Galileo Galilee for discovering that the sun did not revolve around the earth, the church capitulated. We can now discuss this science without fear of the persecution of the intelligent by the ignorant.

Number one, to Gervaise.... I don't claim any of that as my own. Do I cite my sources exactly? No. Nor do I have to in an informal online discussion. Thanks for doing it for me though! I could have written the information I provided about the historians and articles that support the claim that Jesus is a historical figure as I have a degree in Religious Studies (golf clap) but for the purpose of this discussion, simply copy and pasting it from an online source is much more efficient professor, I promise I won't plaguerize my next paper. Now, back to the TOPIC... the one you seemed to ignore.

As for Mauz15, hey again! Glad to see you are still around. My basis for that statement has already been made. You would of course, have to explain to me what your definition of "middle ground is". My point, however, was that either Jesus was real or he wasn't. If he was real then he was either a raving madman claiming to be the Son of God... or he was the Son of God. There is no middle ground... he's either insane or the genuine article.

Frankly it's the fault of bible that the bible is being read as litreal fact. When I was in Africa I went to a school called Lake Round High School, there one of the classes that was mandatory was Religious Studies. It was a thorough discussion and analysis of Old and New Testament. That was the best class ever, approaching the bible as a work of fables, that teaches you moralistic choices. But at the same time we looked at the contradictions in it.

One of the biggest contradictions especially in Catholism is
that if you do not believe in God you are damned forever. You can commit robbery, killing, adultery but if you confess your sins you will be forgiven and you will be allowed into heaven. The same thing goes for homosexual's, yep damned forever!

Come stop treating the bible like a time capsule from God. Because it's not.