Yeah, good question: what makes Jesus special?
Is it virgin birth? But Samson was also a virgin birth and we can do it for decades. An egg can easily be taken from a virgin, be united with a sperm in a test tube and be reinserted into the uterus without any physical contact being involved. Indeed, the parents need never have met. Where is the miracle? Not to mention that several figures in the Old Testament had births of an even more miraculous nature like Melchizedek who had no father, mother, or genealogy. Or Eve came from a rib. Or Isaac that came from a very old woman past her menstrual age.
Or is it the Resurrection? But how can that be of any real importance when so many people rose from the dead before Jesus? Elijah rose and lives somewhere in heaven, the widow of Nain's son rose from the dead, Jairus's daughter rose from the dead, Elisha raised the dead son of a Shunammite, Lazarus rose from the dead, and many others followed suit. And all of these people rose before Jesus. So by the time Jesus rose, rising from the dead was actually a rather common occurrence.
Or miracles? Well they are very fanciful and ridiculous. It is really hard not to observe that if people like Jesus, who apparently knew everything, failed to mention stuff like penicillin but instead gave warnings about Evil Eye and not washing your hands before eating.
Is it virgin birth? But Samson was also a virgin birth and we can do it for decades. An egg can easily be taken from a virgin, be united with a sperm in a test tube and be reinserted into the uterus without any physical contact being involved. Indeed, the parents need never have met. Where is the miracle? Not to mention that several figures in the Old Testament had births of an even more miraculous nature like Melchizedek who had no father, mother, or genealogy. Or Eve came from a rib. Or Isaac that came from a very old woman past her menstrual age.
Or is it the Resurrection? But how can that be of any real importance when so many people rose from the dead before Jesus? Elijah rose and lives somewhere in heaven, the widow of Nain's son rose from the dead, Jairus's daughter rose from the dead, Elisha raised the dead son of a Shunammite, Lazarus rose from the dead, and many others followed suit. And all of these people rose before Jesus. So by the time Jesus rose, rising from the dead was actually a rather common occurrence.
Or miracles? Well they are very fanciful and ridiculous. It is really hard not to observe that if people like Jesus, who apparently knew everything, failed to mention stuff like penicillin but instead gave warnings about Evil Eye and not washing your hands before eating.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
