Is Christianity based on older myths?

[Mudhammam]

Exactly why is believing the gospels are accurate special pleading? What other 4 historical documents attesting to the same basic series of events and backed up by other period writings are dismissed as inaccurate? You say I cannot assume anything about any of these writings because there is no proof. Well, yes I can. I can assume they are correct until proven wrong. That is not an irrational position.

Of course that is an irrational position, just like you would acknowledge for every other religion that isn't yours. Stop being so deceitful, man, what would the mouthpiece named Jesus think of it? You're also ignoring the fact that the Gospels differ from each other to the point of incoherence and irreconcilability, so you have to decide, which ones are accurate? Do you realize that Matthew and Luke shared the same sources for their Gospels, including a version of Mark, which they then elaborated and changed to suit their purposes? And John's Gospel, of course, reveals a different tone entirely including the evolution of Jesus to full-blown Lord of all Gods.

Your problem is the content. Your philosophy prevents you from believing the content so you are forced to come up with theories about why they contain the content they do.

Do you have ANY idea how historians attempt to reconstruct a plausible scenario to explain the context of ancient documents or do you just go along with whatever the standard drivel for current Christian apologetics is, which apparently teaches, "Believe everything you hear and read until someone can prove it false"?

It is your burden of proof to falsify the claims and I have not heard any evidence--

You may have selective hearing but I've heard plenty---from the examples of Christ-like figures featured in numerous myths prior to yours, from the utter silence outside of your sanctified cultists by the rest of the world who knew nothing about the miracles your god-on-earth allegedly performed, from internal inconsistencies of the stories themselves, and of course, the fact that you can't even convince yourself that the Jesus myth is any different from the thousands of other charlatans who have amassed a following by making the same superstitious and unfounded claims. I have evidence that this is just part of the run-of-the-mill trend of silly things people believe---including that gods begot sons and daughters who then suffered, went to the underworld, returned to the throne in triumph, and stood on the skull of a serpent, redeeming order in the world; maybe you'll produce one shred of evidence that any of that actually happened.

But no you won't, of course.

only theories peppered with incredulity. Is your only proof that miracles cannot happen your presupposition that miracles cannot happen? That is begging the question is it not?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A miracle is by definition an extraordinary claim. You can't provide ANY evidence. Saying so and so witnessed it is not evidence. I can produce for you many "true" religions and conspiracy theories if that is your criteria by which your credulity is satisfied. The problem is, they can't all be true, so your criteria sucks.

Another thing, the fact that we do not know who wrote them is irrelevant. There is no evidence that they were "anonymous"--which implies that the author wished to separate themselves from the content. The first Christians almost certainly would have known the provenance of the documents. Justin Martyr, mentioned just a few pages ago, called them the Apostle's Memoirs. He quoted them in his writings. He was born in 100 AD. Was his understanding of their provenance and/or content wrong?

What specifically does Justin Martyr quote? How do you know he's deriving that information from the Gospels and not a work actually called "the Apostles Memoirs" or oral tradition or a sayings' compilation like the one found in the Gospel of Thomas and the hypothesized Q? Do you know which words he actually wrote and which later scribes may have interpolated as everybody knows they frequently did?

And so, my belief in the events of Jesus' life are almost identical to those worshiping only 100 years from Jesus' death.

Minus the Gnostics, the Docetics, and every other "heresy" that the "orthodox" authors of the New Testament spent so much time condemning.