Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

It seems to me, though, that by saying that what you've said is as true as what I've said, that you're saying that an idea, that you came up with, entirely out of your own head and without any research or documentation or science of any kind behind it is exactly as true as an idea which was arrived at from several years of intense study, including college level courses, of the only extant documentation of the actual events.

I feel that truth is important, that it ought to be backed by evidence, and that ideas or theories or notions about how things might have been are interesting and fun, but that they're not truth, and shouldn't be presented as such. Speculation and fact are not equal. The recorded facts say nothing at all about rebellion against the Roman Empire. Christ's parents were not recorded as being rebels, or lawbreakers, or anything but ordinary law-abiding subjects. Christ himself is not recorded as being a rebel, nor as having broken any Roman law, but he is recorded as having broken the Sanhedrin's interpretation of Jewish law. When you read, in the original account, that Pilate went out of his way to try and have Jesus released, and when you put that with the previous complete lack of any sort of rebellion against Roman authority... and then you draw the conclusion "I think he was a political rebel" from it, you're speculating, you're not presenting truth.

I don't care if you believe in Christ or not, I'm quite aware you think of him as just another man. That doesn't bother me one bit. I just am rather irritated by this notion of yours that theories completely unsupported by evidence are as valid as theories based on the available facts. You're giving me the Young Earth Creation equivalent here. It's something you happen to think is possible, but it's not something supported by any evidence, and is directly contradicted by quite a lot of the evidence present.