This little piece from the Department of Extremely Obvious Things causes me to want to ask a question. I know we've got the occasional Christian and Christianist reader here (although, one less, it seems) and here's what I want you to tell me: upon what does your belief that Jesus Christ was a real person rest? I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm curious.

As the article discusses, people are running around buying images of a guy, who if real, was probably darker than I am. Those shoppers seem to have no problem believing that the icon of the man they worship should approximate an Aryan guy fresh from a ten year sojourn in a sunless cave. Similarly, I wonder about belief and faith that comes entirely and only from one book, or rather, a highly redacted and heavily edited version of a selection of writings by folks who didn't even meet the man, or weren't there for key parts of his life. Don't get me started on translation questions, "If English was good enough for Jesus it's good enough for me!"

Put another way, if you're a believer in the existence and life of Christ, do you also believe that Shiva loved Parvati and shook the world with the force of his love for a thousand years? Or that in an earlier incarnation, the Buddha was a talking dolphin who spoke with fisherman? Because the evidence for all three is about the same- one very one-sided text. To the best of my knowledge, there are exactly no non-Biblical, contemporaneous reports of a person called "Jesus Christ." The Romans were pretty good record keepers, and it's...shall we say a little odd, that this so-called revolutionary figure who caused kings to slaughter babies en mass and rocked the very foundations of a religious establishment in one of their more important provinces, um, escaped their notice. Or wasn't worth a diary entry or two.

Just doing my part as a dedicated Warrior against Christmas. Hear that elf scream, baby!

Update: Terry C points us to this fascinating report from the frontlines of the War on Christmas. Dangerously "jolly."