How to tell a real freethinker

[Esquilax]

The whole reason for the Durant quote was to show the rational basis for belief the the Gospels are true. Adding "it doesn't matter even if it's true" is certainly moving the posts because you then demand Durant prove his divinity as well as the veracity of the Gospels. Durant suggests that Jesus "swooned" BTW, and thought he had risen from the dead. Durant's theory is a bit of a stretch I'm afraid. "Yeah it's all true including the ressurrection stories, but maybe Jesus just swooned, fooling even himself."

My point was never that "it doesn't matter even if it's true." My point is that "Jesus was a good person," is a very different claim to "Jesus was literally god." "Jesus was a good person," is a fairly mundane claim, and though still debatable, is one that can be resolved without saying a thing about the truth of the christian religion or the gospel accounts of Jesus. It says essentially nothing, because fictional characters can still be good people within the context of their fictional world.

Now, I figured that you were trying to assert that Jesus was the son of god, but if you're just trying to say that he was a nice guy, then whatever. I could produce a nice guy character in my writing too, that doesn't mean I'm justified in erecting a religion around him or her.

That's not my job. It's yours. If you actually wanted to know, you would compare what Jesus taught with which Christians best follow it.

Funnily enough, I've never been able to ascertain which of the thousands of christian denominations really follows the teachings of the bible. I mean, they all claim to with utter conviction, but they can't all be right, now can they? And strangely, each of them believes that all the others aren't doing it quite right either, so...

I am saying you get to decide which part is divinely inspired yourself, and you have ways of doing that. I didn't believe half of it when I was taken up to what I believe is the third heaven. I believe more than I used to but not all of it. I further claim that if one book is true, it's your job to diligently determine which one, and God will draw near to you if you try. That said, could the narrators have innocently made mistakes or reported hearsay? Sure. But juries allow for that in fact-finding and even allow for hyperbole. They are mainly interested in what motives people telling a story have to lie. In the case of the Gospel writers, no one has made any convincing argument they had anything to gain but persecution, jail or death. That's powerful evidence they are telling the truth as best they know it. No one has ever explained how a few fishermen could have written similies like Shakespeare, or "the most sublime an benevolent code of morals ever recorded."

Well, if you're making room to allow for the fact that some of the gospels might be incorrect, why not just go whole hog and make room for the possibility that all of it is? And if all of it could be incorrect, why follow it as a religion?

Similarly, I'd strenuously object to this talk of "sublime and benevolent" morality, given that the bible features some of the most immoral stuff I've ever read, made so because it passes it all off as divine command.

And I'm rather puzzled by your inability to grasp the motives of the gospel writers: given that there are plenty of religions you don't follow, it seems you're very capable of ascribing motivations to people who've developed false religions, why not extend those to the gospel authors? It's essentially the same stuff.

Ah so you do accuse them of lying. At least you are honest. I just got a lecture on how another commentator accused no one of lying. Actually he did, logically. I see your point, except it is once again your job to show the Gospel commentators are liars. That burden is ethically and legally on you.

Well, okay, let me amend that: lying or mistaken. And I figure the burden of proving that has already been fulfilled, given just how much of the bible has been revealed to be false by science, or to be immoral by simple logic. For a book purporting to be inspired by a constantly correct creator deity, it certainly has a lot of mistakes in it.