How did the writings of the NT come to be?

[Darkstar]

he started a church where?

Rome, corinith, Galatia, ephusus, and everywhere inbetween
http://www.matthewmcgee.org/paultime.html
And why isn't that one of the "leading churches"

Because theri isn't 'One form/denomination of christianity.'

There was when it first began.

Who's to say he didn't draw inspiration for those writings from himself?

God.

It says so in the book. Who wants to bet that the Flying Spaghetti Monster could make a similar claim. Or, he [the person] could have had a mental disorder like schizophrenia.

What would you think oThe account itself states:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle[/url]]while traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus on a mission to "bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem", the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a great light. He was struck blind, but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus, and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God.

If someone who would claim such a thing today?
hint: Van Gogh.

Would you trust them?

It completely depended on what he had to say.

Like tobacco, religion is hard to get rid of once you have it, but if society had never introduced either until today, both would surely recieve ridicule.

I know, I wouldn't trust their mental sanity.

That is because you have aligned your value system on what you peers tell you is ok, rather than going out on a limb and judging for yourself.

Judging the ramblings of someone who has a serious mental disorder, and taking their absurd claims at face value? Seems a bit too credulous for brain's my taste.
(P.S. rated thread 4 stars to even it out)

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Note to mods/admins: When I hit reply parts of the text in the original post were missing. This problem only appears to have affected this post, but it is the same every time I hit reply, so I had to go back and fill in the missing text manually.