what is your opinion on christians.

Go and read the Havamal and the Volsung sagas the we can discuss.....I am not wasting my time summarizing key points of my argument to facilitate a discussion with someone

 

Annoying isn't it?

 

I guess you can see where I'm coming from then and why I didn't want to type out a book long summary of the evidence on an internet forum, lol.
But I suppose I will read it.

 

I think, with greatest respect to all, that anyone who takes the bible or any holy scripture literally is at best fooling themselves and at worst voluntarily living out the wishes of successive politicians.

The new testament was written almost 2000 years ago. It has been translated and interpreted many times since then.

If I was a king or a senior politician that wanted things to go my way, would I not be tempted to have some very big and ugly men work with the monks as they worked on their translation?

Even the church can't agree. If they did, you wouldn't have catholics and protestants and evangelists etc. Incidentally the church of England is modern proof of exactly my point. King Henry the 8th wanted to get divorced. The church said he couldn't. So he scrapped the church and invented his own.

For a lot of the history of Christianity in England, church and state were one and the same. Even today, in England there is still the concept of the parish, and unfortunately some parishes, the church can still demand a tax for the upkeep of church property.

With all the blatant, indisputable political influence in the church, I can't understand how anyone can think that in 2000 years, nobody has made deliberate omissions or changes in emphasis to their own ends.

I was once chatting to a Mormon chap. I must admit I was prejudiced at the time, and was getting ready to mock him. Then he said they believed in jesus, but that they think he was a fairly ordinary chap, who entertained the ladies and saw divinity in nature. They had yet another interpretation of the new testament.

For me personally, I like the concept and sentiment, but taking it literally is like watching the movie Sakura Killers and believing it's a well researched documentary about traditional Japanese martial arts.

 

No that's not the point that am making at all

I CANNOT see where you are coming from and was mirroring your argument style.... which is a ridiculous one

Ironically in parodying your debate style I made a stronger case for Odin than you have for Jesus....

 

Good points.
King James is another. He had his scholars remove seven books of scripture from the bible and made thousands of changes.

 

You're claiming that people would have called out something that didn't happen, I'm pointing out that there are all kinds of miracles documented in the past that most likely didn't happen. Documents calling out early Christians would have also needed to be preserved, despite most of the region deciding that this was how it really happened. History and popular conceptions of it are rife with errors - even now we have people who have reconstructed current events.

Some were. Some were willing to die because they believed Jim Jones and committed suicide willingly. They had already moved to South America for the guy. People believe strange things and some will even die for them. Look up the Cargo Cults.

You keep claiming that without evidence.

Peter was killed because Nero blamed a fire on the Christians. I doubt a deathbed "Yo, I'm not with that guy!" confession would suffice to stop those events. Regardless, people die for strange beliefs, their death doesn't imply that those beliefs are correct.

You seem to want special privilege granted to your myths - they do not deserve that.