Christian Apologetics and Arguments are Futile

[bennyboy]

BennyBoy, are you admitting that the gospels of Christ stem from a true person that actually existed?

Or are you making unfounded claims made popular in today's culture by prominent fiction?

Because admitting that Christ was a real person that actually existed is actually the first step to becoming a believer.

I don't know whether the person existed, or is an idea of an archetypal mythological Man that was created at that time. I find it highly plausible that he's a real person, and that through his influence, a religion was started.

Unlike others here, I see some real value in religion and in religious ideas and experiences. I think much of human experience is better described in anecdotes, in metaphor or poetry than in scientific terms. Mythology captures no physical truth, but rather the essence of the human experience. And I personally feel that essence is beyond the grasp of any objective system of inquiry.

But when people move away from the ideas of a metaphorical system of thought to fighting over the existential reality of a God walking on the Earth that I pull the emergency stop cord on the crazy train. If you want to talk about whether "turn the other cheek" is a good idea, I see much merit in it, and imagining a handsome blue-eyed, wavy haired hippie saying it does nothing to turn me off from it. But if you want to say the handsome blue-eyed, wavy haired hippie existed, and was also God incarnate, and died after asking himself why he had forsaken himself, and was reanimated but nobody recognized him, then no. That's dumb.