[Zhavric]

Quote by: Anmon Well I believe he existed, there is no reason to make up something like that in the first place, I mean if you were going to make something up, it would be a lot grander than born in a stable, died nailed to a piece of wood like a criminal.

This tells me that you're not in touch with what was going on in Judea in the seventh decade of the first century or Jewish history/folklore.

Understand that things sucked for the Jews back then.

The Romans had conquered them (the latest in a long line of oppressors). The temple had been destroyed. The Romans had levied an EXTRA tax on the Jews for the burning of Rome. All in all, it was a really terrible time to be a Jew.

If Jewish history/mythology has anything consistant about it, it's that the Jews always have a hero show up to save the day. Always. Look at any point in Jewish history and you'll see it.

So, if you were a Jew living circa 70ce, you REALLY wanted to see god send you that hero to save everyone.

Into this mix of desperation comes a story of a messiah. God sent his only son (who bears a STRIKING resemblence to all the rabble rousing rabbis who opposed the Romans decades ago) who was killed by the Romans/corrupt Jewish authority. He did rock-star-like magic tricks and was allegedly going to show up again any second to put the smack down on the Romans. Add into this a healthy dose of guilt and you have the beginnings of the Christ myth.

No I believe there are other accounts of his life between boyhood and later adulthood that have been kept back by the Catholic Church for their own reasons.

Nope. You're wrong. The church has no motivation to hold onto these. If they existed and they portrayed Jesus positively, we'd have seen them. If they exist and portrayed him negatively, they'd have destroyed them. Do you have any evidence to support your assertion?

The basic simple teachings of Jesus- love and brotherhood rather go against creating a huge lie, a world wide empire/religon with millions of followers, pretty good going for a person you claim never existed.

Again, this tells me you haven't studied up on your world history.

We owe the world wide empire on Constantine's and Rome's bloodthirsty greed for world domination. The great irony of Christianity is that this religion of "love and brotherhood" was spread by force throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The rise of Christianity in Rome has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus and everything to do with the greed of Rome for world domination.

Imagine for a moment that it wasn't Christianity that rose to prominence in ancient times, but was instead Scientology. Do you think that Scientologists today would talk about L. Ron Hubbard's little quote about starting religions for money? Do you think the Scientologists would record history as it happened or put their own spin on it? Do you really think Christianity was any different?