With apologies for not rereading some of my typos. I am visiting my mother and typing on an unfamiliar keyboard using an unfamiliar operating system (Windows). But I am sure you get my point.
I'd likely be persuaded by your arguments if we were discussing Tommy Jones who witnesses say they saw running from the bank shortly after the robbery. But this is not about a bank robbery. This is not about the unprepared statements of witnesses caught off-guard. This is supposed to be a divinely inspired historical account that we can use to guide every act in our lives and follow into the grave whereupon we will be wisked up to heaven to meet the creator of the universe.
I sense that you are caught here. On one hand you are struggling for arguments that will affirm your faith. And for that you have my sympathy. But the problem is that far smarter people than both of us have shot at this target and they always end up with the fact that you must accept religious teachings on faith (there is no proof) and you can't convince a true-believe that logic matters. Why is the death of a disciple any more meaningful than the death of a Japanese kamikaze pilot? Didn't both die for their belief? Does this make the Emporer divine? How easy for you to dismiss one while clinging to the other: Why?
Why is the torture of one man for about one day any more significant than the torture of millions? The suffering in Nazi concentration camps and cancer wards trumps anything supposedly dealt the son of god. And Mohammed is going to stand up and claim a trip to the Dana Farber Cancer Research Center never happened.
And even if you come away from this feeling like your faith survived. Why didn't Jesus know about penicillin? Why did he, split-personalitied to the Lord God, create smallpox?
In science it is not good enough to claim a theory because it explains one observation while sweeping the balance of recorded observations under the rug. The question I put to you is can you, based on any reasonable use of your intelligence, explain all of the known facts?
1. The genocide of every person on the planet excpet the members of one family?
2. The cold blooded murder of all males in a country.
3. The invention of smallpox, malaria, childhood leukemia?
4. The creation of Satan? the Apple? the Snake?
5. The intentional creation of flawed humans ... whose flaws include the torture of other innocent living beings (human and otherwise)?
And the list is very very long.
You have my respect for coming back and facing what you knew would be coming. But that does not mean that I believe any of your points is sharp.
