You did get the foreshadowing part right.

And rather than fill this post with someone else's quotes and passages; anyone curious enough is able to use search engines and find counter arguments to each of your points. We'd end up waving books at each other and comparing authors' credentials, all to a big yawn for any reader. Only scholars are interested in volumes of minutae, and any one point would take too much room to spell out. Libraries on this subject, pro and con, duel endlessly.

Any Adversary (i.e. Satan) worth his salt is going to have good counter-arguments.

The controvery started the day after He resurrected, I'm not surprized 2000 years has accumulated even more doubt and denial.

How far back do you have to un-do to erase Jesus? All the way back into most of the Old Testiment, to undo the prophicies that were fulfilled by His birth, life, and death.

The original arguement when He was alive was, 'was He the Messiah'. Then it was, 'was He God'. Then 'did He really die'. Then 'did He resurrect'. Then 'is He really coming back'. Then 'does He indwell in the believers'. Now we're all the way back to 'did He ever exist'.

For a fairy tale, based on a non-existant character, written down only to be mutilalated, deleted, and forged; it certainly has staying power. It sways history, nations, and individuals.

Sort of like what I would've expected from something that had a Divine hand on it.

Deny the message because frauds exist, or because you only have partial fragments, or faulty translations, or what ever presumed defect; is looking for an excuse not to recieve the message. Jesus read the crowds no gospel, He was the Gospel.

Whether only one chapter of one epistle survived, or one page from one gospel; God would assure that that one source would contain enough to transmit the point of God's message. And given that maybe one or two accounts were written by actual eye-witnesses to His events, recalled long after they occured; most stories were of oral transmission (most of the Old Testiment is of oral tradition, and only written down later. So too the New Testiment, when it became apparent He wasn't going to return when they assumed He would; and found they had to record for prosterity, and for travelling distance across the R.Empire.); so at every hand, error could occure.

And yessiree, right away, there was exploitation, distortion, manipulation, human shitheadedness of every sort; to nullify what He came to do. No surprise, humans turn anything into a tool, usually for their own devices. The Gospel is no exception.

The whole story of the Bible is the restoration and reconciliation of humans back to their Creator.

If you deny the existance of a Creator; stop here. No need to argue further about a historical Jesus, without first determining whether there's a God, to make the existence of Jesus a necessity. I don't particularly want to discuss that point, because usually an unbeliver's line of thought doesn't include god type concepts, and semantics and definitions bog down into discussion of Root Causes, Prime Mover, Ultimate Source, and Reality, etc. The difference in world view so colors the very meaning of concepts that we use, that it becomes a tedious process to come to common definitions we both can perceptualise the same.

Get a definition of Love from someone who doesn't believe there's a God, and compare it with a believer; and because of the belief in 'where' Love originates is bound to be different, the definitions will be going off in separate directions. Results may look the same. But the implications of, for example, saying the universe is composed of particles, or it's made of waves; leads to the formulation of differing laws and equations to explain that composition.. Both based on the same object, but because of the fundimental differences, they are practically having to invent their own particular language to discribe their viewpoint.

I find enough evidence (without any Book) (but because having been pointed out by the Book, being fuller and more clear) in the universe around me to satisfy my rather critical self that God exists.

So if you do believe in God, the next wrassle with words is what your concept of God is. In this, I go by the Book.

And further is a discussion of what your interpretation of the Book is.

And on and on.

So if your point is that my belief in Jesus is in error; I see no error. You've been arguing from your world view; while christians have been responding from theirs. And each group is marvelling over the hard-headed blindness of the other.

Nit-pik details from your viewpoint are not going to change the basic story of christian belief. (I should get a stamp or a macro to write this):

Creator.

Made humans.

Humans rebelled.

Rebellion has no fellowship with God.

God is Mercy and Justice.

Justice demands separation.

Mercy provides substitution for penalty /separation.

Only acceptable substitue is a God/Man.

Belief in and application of this Mercy is restoration to fellowship.

The Bible provides the details of what each element is and how it relates and works.

This Jesus you deny is intergral to the Story. No Jesus = no story.

No other explaination for the Meaning of Life makes as much sense, or is as full and deep and complete as the Bible, at least for me. Most are rip-offs and bastardizations from the Bible. Hybrids of gnostic and hindu, scientific materialism, and daydream fantasy abound. Religions are a dime a dozen.

What you believe better make sense on every level that you can conceptualize on, and still leave room for the mysterious and beyond human.

"The Bible is full of uplifting sayings, that's good enough." That may be that it's full of guidence, and uplift, and advice; but that's all incidental to the purpose of the Book. If it was just guidelines, or prayer talk, or geneology tables, or whatever; it would be of no more worth than any other spiritual book about God. The whole point of the Book was the revealing of the plan of God, to reveal Himself to His creation as Love.

So maybe this didn't answer you in the way you wanted, but we're speaking two different languages, pretty much like we're two different Peoples. I'll never be able to see things as you do, Faith fortunately has made that impossible. I used to see as you do now. Why would I go back to a belief system that ultimately had only Me as its Root and Validator? With only external physical reality as a foundation, there were no Absolutes, only subjective interpretation of how I felt, or what (incomplete) science could give.

And any guru or swami was in the same boat I was in, it just begged the question "from whence we came, and where are we going".

If the Source was within me, what was the sense in having an external God at all?

And if I was god, why was shit so hard?

If I have a world view that can integrate all aspects of Reality, and everything fits; why would what you say be even considered?

Not that I don't consider all things, but something that's diametrically opposed to my foundation, has nothing that my spirit even desires to touch.

AC (1)? (2)?? --

Actually what you describe is what will be after He comes back. It´s the transition time now that desides if you have faith to believe what He says, to declare yourself His so you´ll be with Him in that time to come.

Doesn´t work to want to skip to the answers in the back of the book, no learning, and no testing.

Justice demands there is no unconditional love, justice means meeting conditions.

We didn't meet them. Mercy extends unconditional love, but has to be asked for.

And I´ve heard this "spiritual evolution"

hundreds of times, without it ever being described. Exactly what consitutes ´spiritual´ and ´spiritual evolution´? All I´ve seen is be ´yummy´ to others.

God builds in a conscience. You are judged by you yourself, did you love others more than yourself?
And it´s a free will choice, if you have no intellect (the retarded, infants, etc.) to use free will, then you have nothing to rebell with, and I´m sure His mercy covers them. No justice would be served by their condemnation. Worry about it if you´re retarded, otherwise leave it to trust in Him.

read previous carefully. Your conscience will be your judge. Enough of the story is imbedded in everyone, even those who have never heard.
Jesus didn´t need no convoluted crap from anyone. One thief is in heaven just for believing that he deserved to die and Jesus didn´t.

Think about it.

I find little in common, but the core tenets of belief, in any organized religion. Organized is always muddled and exploited by humans. And religion implies appeasement to a distant god.