Little Hawk.. Come on, don't start a real debate!

Jesus appeared to be a person. Roman records show the local leaders felt threatened by a bloke of that name and asked the Roman authorities to execute him, which they did.

Now.. How much of what is written can be ascribed to him is another thing. Ignoring all the silly folklore borrowed from other cultures about a virgin, stable, conjuring tricks and coming back for a while after dying... There may have been something in his getting followers? Something in going apeshit at the money lenders in a temple? Something in being betrayed by a follower?

We don't know. We only know that the story grew in the telling. If a quarter of the stories about Errol Flynn, Michael Jackson, {any '70s rock star} whatever were true, then the tabloids of today would be justified in the bollocks they spew.

Different gospels? Different tabloid newspapers? Different internet blogs?

Easy to see how the bible came about really. And from that came the blueprint for a religion. So, following Jesus rather than the religion created in his name would seem to make sense to me if I were that way inclined.

But I'm not superstitious, so my interest in this thread is in the abstract really. I can take things on the chin and presume them to be true on the basis that someone told me they were. But to go from presumption to belief requires fact, laced with irrefutable evidence. The conjuring tricks and the big bloke with the big beard are absurd in reality terms. If it can't be done, there is a 100% chance is hasn't been done. Raising Lazarus, water into wine, surviving crucifixion, talking to a God and getting answers, healing people without modern methods and no training as a doctor?

Teachings of real people do form into movements, but this is a largely fictitious character who many believe to be more than just a bloke with a mission to be nice. John Lennon may be called the second coming in about two thousand years?