Quote Originally Posted by Gofer Blue View Post
Sludge - I don't think there is anything more I can say to you to try to answer your questions. At the end of the day it's all about faith, a single step of faith. I wasn't born a Christian. I didn't become one until my late 30's having been a skeptic from my teenage years on. All I know is now I would not go back to my old way of life, I have a new life in Christ. It's not a life of ease, far from it, as Jesus has warned: "I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation". (John 16:33). I have that peace but obviously being human I am clinging on by my fingertips sometimes!

Jesus has shown the way but you and the rest of mankind are free to do what you want, believe what you want, so let's leave it there eh. Maybe one day there will be that light-bulb moment for you too - I pray there will be.
There's no proof that Jesus said as much (and not that most Abrahamists think that Jesus was the son of God in the first place). You have simply believed something written down by someone else way after the event and with no audit trail of proof whatsoever. Do you also believe in the talking snake, as reported in the Bible just because it was written down at some stage (and when Adam and Eve and their progeny would have been illiterate)?
This Christian god can't even get most people on the planet (i.e. the very people he created himself) to believe in 'him' and those that do don't all have the same perspective on who Jesus supposedly was or believe in the same collation of 'holy book'. Even the threat of eternal damnation doesn't do the trick.
Oh, and many of the stories in the Bible came from earlier religions in the vicinity; the virgin birth, the story of Noah (Ziusudra in Sumerian culture and who was re-packaged as Atrahasis in Old Babylonian culture and then as Ushnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh), the story of a Moses being cast adrift as a baby to avoid being murdered (as in Mesoptamian stories), the story of Moses and receiving the 10 commandments (extremely close to ancient Egyptian writings), the forgiving nature and ability to heal the sick (as Asclepius in Greek culture), the Virgin birth (as in the cases of Mars the ancient Roman god and Horus the ancient Egyptian god). One could go on ad infinitum.
It's all folklore and exceedingly fascinating. To believe one version of a so-called holy book as literally all true because it is stated in one particular compendium (and one that contains contradiction) is amusing. Christianity took hold due to the expansion of the Roman Empire and the subsequent expansion of those cultures affected.
Abrahamism simply demonstrates the endless schisms that take place in respect of religions (e.g. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Bahʼ Faith, Samaritanism, Druze, Rastafari etc. Even Christianity has its own endless schisms; Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodism, Baptism, Lutheranism, Eastern Orthodox, Calvinism, Baptist, Pentecostalism etc etc etc).
In the absence of evidence, folklore is down to interpretation and it will be interpreted and and modified by its adherents as it goes along (and Christianity is simply a part of that process after taking onto The Torah (which itself lifted stories from elsewhere).
Whatever god you believe in, her/she/it isn't doing a great job in getting the majority of the world's population to believe in him/her/it - and religiosity is generally declining in countries where autocracy is not the flavour of government and where the population is educated.