Brian,

You wrote:

> Jesus-the ignorant carpenter from antiquity-if
> He was not God, He surely knew how to
> seamlessly merge theology and philosophy.

> How did He know to do that?

"Seamlessly"? I guess if ignoring reason and science allows one to seamlessly accept the double-talking scientifically-illiterate mythical Jesus.

Love is the greatest commandment and Jesus was the Prince of Peace, according to the biblical teachings of Jesus and his disciples, but He also claimed to have come to separate fathers, mothers, and children from each other and to bring the sword, not peace. If parts of your body or family or friends lead you away from Christ you were supposed to discard them or chop them off. Is that love? Was it love and respect for his mother and for (wives?) Mary and Martha that led him to treat them the way He did?

Illness is caused by evil spirits. Huh? Didn't Jesus know about micro-organisms?

The world should have entered a period of great peace and learning after the arrival of the Son of God. Such did not happen.

There were three Gods, but not three, but one. Huh? I don't blame the early Christians for this one. It was later Christians that made of the incomprehensible Trinity doctrine.

If you have belief in Jesus you're supposed to be able to do great miracles, but no one seems to be able to accomplish this.

Christianity developed in a time in which Greek philosophical ideas were available. It's not surprising that Christianity would be better off philosphically than Judaism was.

The God taught in the NT was a much better being than the blood-thirsty Yahweh of the OT, but does that prove anything about God? Maybe people just got better by that time, so their gods also improved. If you look at modern beliefs about God, they are changing from the views the original and Medieval Christians had. Evidently, God changes as people change.

Christian religious works that were superior were canonized, the inferior ones were rejected. Does this prove Christianity is true? No, just that the canonizers were somewhat skilled at picking the best myths of all those available.

If His teachings were so seamlessly perfect, why is it that the rest of the non-Christian world doesn't think so?

Your comments are appropriate, but what about the archaeological and historical evidence Zindler points to in his conclusion that Nazareth did not exist as a community during the days of Christ?