<<My point was that, without even considering what alternatives might exist,
the fact that people from all walks of life have believed in Him over 2000
years is difficult to dismiss. He might be able to fool some people, but
the spectrum of people you would have to label as fooled, deluded, etc. is
so braod, you'd be indicting essentially all of humanity. Mass delusion
over 2000 years seems absurd to me.>>
This is an excellent point, and applies with greatest force to the rise of
Christianity itself. It strains credulity to the breaking point to think that
Christ's followers would go to death for him if he had not risen from the
dead. Perhaps one could have lost it and gone to his death for a lie; but all
of them? Hardly.
And what else but the conviction born of direct experience could have kept
them all preaching in the face of opposition from their own religious leaders
and the might of Imperial Rome?
All one need do is apply reason to the real world and the case becomes
overwhelming.
Jim