Ranking the Gospels

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When are you guys going to wake up to the point that the existence of God is a fond hope for which there is not an iota of empirical evidence? No proof. No evidence and it also requires a suspension of logic and reason to even think a personal type God created the heavens and the earth six thousand years ago. The entire belief is based on a primitive prescientific set of stores told by bronze age dudes three or four thousand years ago. People who did not even know about the existence of atoms or bacteria.

ruveyn

And why is it that so many people are hell bent on destroying that hope? What is so offensive about it that you have to post literally hundreds of times that there is no empirical evidence to support it? Did it ever occur to you that we know that? It is not like you have provided evidence that our hope is vain.

Excuse me? When is pointing out a vain and futile effort an act of destruction? I am simply being a good neighbor.

I am simply pointing out that the Emperor is bare-ass naked. If you want to believe he has Invisible Clothes on, go right ahead. This is still a semi-free country.

ruveyn

If changing the game was unconscionable--which is the point I'm making--then yes.

And ruevyn--I feel compelled to point out yet again that belief in deity does not entail belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis. The idea of a "conflict" between science and religion was literally something that occurred to me and was solved in a day, when I was somewhere between 4-6 years old. I never asked my family the question. And no one beat it into my head...my parents were simply free with information. They gave me almost any kind of book I could ask for, be it the Bible or books on evolution, with no reservations. (Obviously they did wait until I was old enough to understand certain subjects, but once I was old enough I got all the scientific information I could want.) Given such open access to information, and the support from my family, it was pretty easy for me to determine that there wasn't a conflict and didn't need to be.

"The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions".

An observation that applies equally to all theological speculation.

I'm not sure there is a gnostic theology other than the belief that the birth of the spirit is only the beginning of the conversion process, not the end. I agree though, that John's theology was at odds with many of the early gnostics. It is mostly John who upholds the divinity of Jesus (something many gnostics denied) with his “I am” quotes: I am the way, I am the light, and before Abraham was, I am.

The question I am still considering is, should these quotes be considered suspect with the lack of any corroborating witnesses?

The other Gospels are much more subtle in how they introduce Jesus' deity, but it is there.