The question should be: does a Supreme Being/Creator/Divine Intellect exist? Why or Why not...

••

These are all parts of the same great question -- tho, really, in the light of what we know in the 21st Century, to even call it a "question" is a dubious use of English. It's akin to those who insist on labeling Evolution a "debate"

But if the "question" is to be considered in any real way, all the elements that compose the question must be considered. The reality of Jesus is one of these elements. It flows in both directions, in fact. If Jesus was provably real, then we would be several steps closer to answering whether he was provably divine. And if he was, then that is several steps closer to proving the existence of God

In the greater scheme of things, neither question is really valid. When I see television "documentaries" that look for proof that God exists, or ask whether science has "found" God, I find myself wondering if such things exist in other cultures. Do people in India watch programs about their gods, with "archeologists" digging around looking for proof? (Goes back to an old question of my own: if we prepare ourselves for the Apocalypse, what if we pick the wrong apocalypse?)

Realistically, whether God or Jesus are/were "real" has no impact on our world. As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, "The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."

The universe exists, precisely as it is, with or without God. For believers to acknowledge just that would be a giant stride forward.

There should be a bumper sticker: "I believed in Intelligent Design...until my appendix burst."

••

For years now I have been disproving "Intelligent Design" with two words: umbilical strangulation.

••

Neither do atheists.

Conner, Ehrman says there are two dozen points of disagreement between himself and Metzger, not with the texts of the Bible.

---

No the quote is about what the New Testament looked like not the disagreement between Erhman and his Mentor.

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions - he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not - we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands.  The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.