Nickhere,

You said: "But if I dare say it, those of you demanding some rational, scientific proof are being a tad un-scientific in your approach. A scientist does not start out on the premise that something does not exist and 'rationalise' away all evidence s/he finds, when those rationalisations are really suppositions (how do we know it IS a mass hallucination/ schizophrenia/ conjuror's tricks and not something else? We don't!) with no evidence to back them up. A scientist sets out with an OPEN mind on the theory to gather what evidence he can, make the observations and do the experiments."

I maintain that are quite a few non-believers who will keep an open mind and when the experiments yield verifiable evidence, they might change their minds. That hasn't happened yet.

You also say: "1)       the Bible contains most of what believers claim about God and Jesus. There are good sound arguments to accept it as an accurate record and account especially the particular area that concerns this thread, that on the nature of Jesus. The four gospels couldn't be more clearly written (I recommend the New International Version if you find all those Thees and Thous off-putting). "

There are also good reasons to not accept it as being an accurate record. The four gospels are not clearly written and they were not written by the four names attached to them. I recommend you read Bart Ehrman's account on his studies of the bible.
"Misquoting Jesus" (I think that's one title) that is worth reading. The bible has been rewritten countless times and changed radically. First it was written down by scribes who didn't know how to read what they were writing. Not many could read in those days.
Then it was rewritten by clerics with a definite agenda. There are so many radical inconsistencies in the current bible that it would take intensive scholarship to sort them all out. Bart Ehrman has done this.

You say: "If what St.Augustine said wasn't true, I doubt so many posts would be made about something many people say doesn't even exist. Would we bother posting and posting about Santa Claus? "

It becomes quite clear early to most school children that Santa doesn't exist and yet his
mythology continues. Posts are made protesting the use of religion as some kind of
factual data that is used to elect politicians. I have to remind you that atheists and agnostics never make it to public office which is an indictment of what is supposed to be
democracy and a violation of Church and State. Meme (ideas that model genetic replication) can in fact be historical and be perpetuated without their being factual or true.
Ideas about systems of political theory still prevail in spite that many of them such as Nazism or Totalitariansim are no longer useful to society. Just because these ideas are prevalent and handed down from generation to generation does not make them somehow more useful.

I have been exposed to some of CS Lewis and I must say that I am more impressed with
Philip Pullman's "Golden Compass" than I am with tales of Narnia. (I really had a personal
problem with Lewis when I saw his PBS special and he was puffing on a pipe throughout.)

You are welcome to your views and even though I don't share them, I can respect you as a person and answer your assertions not with malice or condemnation but in a spirit of exploration. I think that science can shed a lot of light on this issue if we don't dismiss it
as being outside the area of inquiry.

Respectfully,

Frank Hamilton