Ok.....So you killed off Religion...

[Brian37]

Suppose you omit George Washington. Would a child be more likely to view him as (a) important to the founding of the United States ; or (b) unimportant to the founding of the United States?

George Washington is not a mythical figure, and his existence is directly relevant to the history of the United States. If Jesus ever actually lived, he should be included in history texts as the man he really was and for the effect he had on history, but he should not be recognized as a god because that is specifically endorsing a particular dogma, and this is not only unconstitutional, it is intellectually dishonest as long as the claim remains unproven.

So we're supposed to leave out Jesus altogether because he claimed to be something more than a philosopher? Would you exclude Augustus Caesar? He claimed to be a god, too.

You may correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked, nobody in America worships Augustus Caesar and nobody consults his opinions on matters when it comes time to write legislation. Your questions are irrelevant.

The bible like the Egyptian Pyramids, SHOULD be kept around, not because of an of the fantastic myths depicted by those cultures were ever true, like virgin births or the sun being a god. They should be studied as a reminder as to what superstitions do in straying humans from finding answers to the realities in nature.

Jesus is important as a literary figure, not because the cherry picking of the fraction of stories of compassion, which are negated by the tribal violence condoned by the god character, but we today are still affected by the governments and believers that run our governments and make our laws.

Jesus is important because people still worship him as if he is a god. At best, the only thing that could be said if we found his bones and DNA tomorrow and confirmed his existence(which in reality no honest historian claims) the only thing it would mean is that a man started a cult and managed to market the religion.

Just like if we found Mohammed's bones and DNA it would not make Allah real, it would merely mean a deluded man started a cult and successfully marketed it.

Otherwise if magic exists because a myth is peppered with real places or real people, then the original book Peter Pan and all the fantastic claims in it would be true because the book mentions the city of London.

No one thinks the polytheistic gods of the Greeks or Romans are real because real people believed in them.