Donuel: "Some would say things have improved since the Inquisition but "fundamentaly" the fundamentalists are the same, even on my street. Only our weapons have "improved".


We have other inquisitions today..... are you a communist / terorrist / do you have ideas that differ from those of the President and others like him? / do you want to be quizzed about all this in our facility at Guantanamo? Ve have vays.....

Human 'moral progress' hasn't been linear, it's been circular since time immemorial.

Mrrrzy: "there isn't even good historical evidence of the existence of Jesus"

I think this might be taking rejection of the Bible a tad too far. OK, if you don't believe it is the word of God, no problem (for me, anyway). If you don't believe Jesus said and did all those things... well, some of the acts might seem incredible I suppose.

But there's 'no historical evidence'??

Why couldn't you accept at least that Jesus was a historical person, even if you decide not to accept he was the Son of God? At least four different writers thought this man remarkable enough to write a kind of biography of his short but remarkable life. They each tell a similiar story in the main points while adding other details that complement this story. Couldn't it be that the details of such a remarkable life might be well enough known to the whole community for the four writers to be familiar with them?

Amos accepts the existence of Zoroaster as a historical person quite freely and without any problems ("Prophet Zoroaster is generally accepted as an authentic historical figure, circa 1200 BC" - though I love that use of the passive voice: 'generally accepted....' yes, but by whom?) . Why is there such a problem accepting Jesus was a historical person? And that's before we get into other historical evidence such as the Roman Census etc., There are indeed good reasons to believe Jesus was a real person whether or not you accept he was God.

Could there be some bias here? Why do we even believe Julius Ceaser ever existed? Afterall we only have references to him in a few tatty ancient books (could have been a fictional character in a novel!), a few coins (could have been of an imaginary person!) and a book apparently written by him about an imaginary place called Gaul (but could have been written by anyone who decided then to use the name Julius Cesaer). The whole thing could have been an elaborate hoax for reasons that are lost to us today....and the plot thickens!!