Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Crossless2.0]

One problem with this entire thread is that comparing Christianity to some other religions isn't an apple-to-apple comparison. Take Buddhism, for example. One could argue that Buddhism might be 'true' in some sense without Siddhartha Gautama ever having existed. We could posit, for the sake of argument, that he is an entirely legendary character, and this claim would in no way speak to the truth or falsehood of the teachings and practice attributed to him. You simply can't do that with Christianity without undercutting the foundations of the movement, which is based on allegedly historical events that fulfilled certain prophesies.

So for purposes of this conversation, are the Buddhist writings (or the writings of Hindu mystics) -- which dwarf the Bible -- to be considered as evidence for the claims made by those religions? I can't speak much to the question of Hindu scripture, but in the case of the Buddhist writings, we have "first hand" testimony of the efficacy of Buddha's teachings and practice by adherents who submitted themselves to the discipline and found enlightenment. It shouldn't matter that much of it was written centuries after Siddhartha allegedly lived, since Buddhism doesn't stand or fall with historical claims or even the actual existence of one man. It's the teachings and practice that matter.

^This^

But you know, the only reason Christianity isn't looked at the same way is that the people who claim to be an authoritative member of one of its countless sects insist on promoting their literalist interpretations.  A legendary Jesus with a message of hippy peace and love is an option not chosen - not one that is impossible.  Hell you could even have a mystical sub-sect which promotes allegorical self-transcendence a la Jesus.

There have been some outliers who chose that option. The problem is that with Christianity you have a "holy book" supposedly inspired by God and therefore the perfect vehicle of his message to humanity, and within that book are Paul's fevered ramblings. You can cobble together a hippie Jesus of sorts, but it flies in the face of this supposedly divinely inspired book, and Paul's message of the cross.

I find the Christian mystics interesting. They wrote in terms of Christ, but if you scrape away the veneer of Christian orthodoxy in their writings, you find a group of people who seem to have much more in common with their Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist counterparts than they have with most of their fellow Christians.