Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

You know, people who claim the New Testament is complete fiction always weirded me out a little. It's really hard to make the claim that Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist as a human being. I don't even think most skeptics claim that. It's the whole Son of God part that the atheists tend to have a problem with. People who try to claim that Jesus didn't exist at all are just arguing a losing battle.

I would go as far as to agree that there probably was some guy who got a few followers to believe that he was of divine origin (maybe he really performed miracles, maybe he was good with slight of hand) and their teachings spread through the community and eventually the world. The popularity and spread of these teachings can be attributed to how it favored the lower classes and was a rebellion against the contemporary religion which funneled money away from the poor. (I know, ironic isn't it?) Heck, the gospels had to come from somewhere, either a bunch of guys got together and decided to write a collective novel about this Jesus dude or this person with these grand ideas of charity and forgiveness actually existed. I'd say that odds are heavily in favor of the latter, otherwise we are all victims of one of the greatest and least funny literary jokes of all time.

Really, the only REAL question for anyone who thinks about it is: was Jesus the Son of God and did the whole resurrection thing actually happen? And quite frankly, that's something you just have to take on faith.