Originally Posted by adidasss

FINALLY! thankyou, this is what i was after as a response.
constantine combined the two dominant religions of his time, and is largely respected by historians for this. he was babtised against his wish on his deathbed, believing that would attain for all his sins.
as for a historical jesus, i believed that there was historical evidence also. apparently not. the romans reported everything they did. everything is documented, especially the enforcing of the law. you would think that messiah being judged and crucified would be somewhere? but it is not. there is nothing anywhere in roman documents from that time or before it about a man called jesus. he is m entioned, briefly i believe in the late 2nd century as the leader of the "mischieveous christians". if you can find something, please send it to me, as i have looked for a few months and can find nothing.
the 25th of december and 6 of jan(which early christians also celebrated) were pagan festivals, celebrated in egypt for centuries.
i went to christian schools for 13 years, im aware of the new testament. AND its hypocrassies. over half of them have been proven forged. if youw ere aware of the rediculously large amountof similarities, you wouldn't refer to them as "insignificant".
there were actually hundreds of christian gospels. but the four of the new testament are said to be eye witness accounts. but they agree on very little.
in matthew and david they both go to great length to show jesus is of the line of david, as the messiah should. both see jesus as fathered by joseph, but the lines of heritage are extremely different after the first generation. david continues all the way to adam, and thus to god. but this is fairly ridiculous as both claim joseph is not jesus' father at all, and mary is a virgin concieved of the holy spirit. this contradiction must have been noticed by the original writers? mark, however, doesnt mention bethlehem, the virgin birth, or jesus' lineage. these are fairly important points arent they? why omit them? some are even humorous. luke states that jesus was born in 6CE at the time of the census of Quirinious. then he contradicts himself saying john (the baptist) and jesus were concieved six month apart during the reign of Herod who died in 4 BC, which means he has created another miracle-a ten year pregnancy. even the events of jesus's crucifixionare not uniformly accounted in the gospels, and the historicity of jesus is what the literalist church is built upon! paul even states that jesus was not crucified but "hanged on a gibbet" and peter in the acts of the apostles "hung on a tree". the same indecisiveness is recorded about judas iscariot and even jesus' last words. even jesus himself isnt consistent in the gospels. in matthew peter asks his master "lord, how many times shall my brother wrong me and i forgive him? up to seven times?" jesus replies "im not telling you up to seven times, im telling you up to seventy seven times!"(18v22) and yet, why peter had to ask is uncertain, one paragraph earlier jesus stated:
"if your brother wrongs you, go have it out with him, just you and him. if he listens, you've gained your brother back. if he doesnt listen, bring one or two along with you, so that everything said stands on the word of two or three wtinesses. if he wont listen to them, speak up at a meeting. if he wont listen to the assembly, let him be the same to you as the foreigner and the tax-collector."(18v15-17). the gospels are inconsistent, and to early christians were 'phrase one' of christianity. thus pauls claim of reaching the "third tier of heaven" makes sense. and though the teaachings are as you say wonderful and beautiful, they are in no means original