: : I was taught all that too. I don't believe it now, but I respect your right to believe in Jesus. Do you respect my right not to believe in Jesus as god but believe in Jesus as man?: Of course I can respect you no matter what your beliefs are. Really, I don't care what you do or don't believe, it's your life and you can do whatever you want. The thing is, scientists and athiests believe that Jesus actually existed (even if he was just a regular guy).
Yup; there is incidental evidence to suggest that a working-class proto-Communist called Yeshua advocated peaceful revolution and Romans out of Israel.
There is archaeological and documentary evidence that the Romans used curcifixion as a method of slow execution in the time concerned; as is evidenced by the remains of prisoners like Jehanohan; although he was crucified in a different posture to the "classic" one.
: So if you or anybody believed the part of the bible where it says Jesus existed how can you not believe the stuff he did?
Which is rather like saying;
"If you believed that a war-leader named Artos the Bear existed, who was titled Dux Bellorum ("leader of war") and Count of the Saxon Shore, led a guerilla resistance to the Saxon forces of Hengist and Horsa (and the Britons who sided with them) comprising a force of mobile and highly-trained light cavalry, how come you don't believe in Camelot, Merlin, Morgana Le Fay, the Round Table and watery tarts lobbing swords at people?"
Any good story should be believable. And many of the legends have their roots in truth; but have been re-interpreted in allegory to make a point.
To take two more examples; was it really "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon" who killed the Midianites in the book of Judges? Or was it a relatively small band of guerillas making a stealth commando raid on an army base with lax security?
And was it the Angel of the Lord that killed Sennacherib's troops before the walls of Jerusalem; or was it the fact that Hezekiah put a lot of work into constructing the Siloam tunnel to provide Jerusalem with a clean supply of water inside the walls - and then had a few commandos slip out and poison the wells outside the walls under cover of night?
"...and lo, when they woke up in the morning, they were all dead."
Sounds like poison to me; you don't need divine influence to explain either of the above two "miracles"; especially when there's ample arhcaeological evidence.
: To me, that would be like saying "I believe in Columbus but I don't believe he was the one who discovered the earth was round" or "I believe in Lincoln but I don't believe he was assasinated". "I believe in Jesus but I don't believe he was ressurrected" It all sounds the same.
On the contrary; the "scientific" events like Lincoln's assassination are all well-documented; you could exhume Lincoln and show people the bullet hole in his skull.
Can you ever "prove" that Jesus was anything more than human?
No; the only "evidence" you have is the Bible itself; and that is only a reliable source if you believe it from the start; a classic circular argument, as you can never "prove" the Bible; the most you can do is say that certain snippets reflect contemporary folk tales and records of the times.
It ain't falsifiable; therefore it ain't evidence.
I'm not saying you're automatically *wrong*; just pointing out the flaws in your argument.
Gideon.
(..and don't get me started on the shifts of meaning involved in translation; I'm currently trying to learn Hebrew...*oy*)
None.
