Of course, we're at an impasse, I'm starting with the assertion that Jesus was the son of God, you're starting with the assertion that the Gospels are a fabrication. All the numbers above make both answers plausible, but you're making just as many assumptions as I am, so don't presume yourself to be more 'logical'. You have just as much of a philosophical/spiritual/whatever axe to grind as I do.
I agree with this statement to a limited point.
It's topically accurate in context of the current discussion.
On a more relevant use of occam's razor, I would like to point out that the belief of the gospels as accurate and divine accounts of the events is the foundation of your faith, but merely an offshoot (and a trivial one, at best) of ours.
The fact that there is an impasse on this topic is a bit irrelevant, because I don't require these documents to have been written on a certain date by a certain person who witnessed a certain event that was inspired in a certain way and was worded in a certain fashion in a certain language which lead to a perfect translation for my own belief system to be self-supporting.
In fact, my own belief has really nothing to do with some ancient manuscripts.
If Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all lived to 70-100 years old (as would have been required by the estimated dating of the original documents) AND sent these letters, we're still left with letters from 70-100 year old guys recounting magic tricks from their youth, 50-80 years earlier, all written 1,975 years ago as the sole basis for an entire belief system, which I'm still not convinced is even internally consistent.
I have to admit, when something like Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" was written, it was a pretty far fetched concept.
But the fact that something like 7 million individual examples have been found, none of which undermine the fundamental concept... and the fact that disparate studies, such as radioactive dating is brought in and almost exactly matches early guesses of the ages of things. And when theories about geologic formations of rocks are hatched independently but then exactly match with theories about the evolution of animals in such an environment and then later, those exact animals are found in the exact rock strata...
And the sheer volume of contradiction with these findings that a literal (or even semi-literal) reading of holy texts must endure...
I used to buy into the media crap about "we're just not quite sure". But when it comes down to it, a literal reading of the bible as an ancient factual text just deflates so completely that it's almost worthless.
That makes it very difficult to even approach the allegorical value, let alone the value as an exact, word-for-word account of historical events (not even bringing to bear, the religious significance).
Oye, so many holes, it's blinding to even try to approach all of them.
Do you believe the earth was flooded completely enough to wipe out all living things, just 6000 years ago?
Do you think a sufficient genetic pool of every animal on earth could fit on a boat... even a boat constructed with the best modern alloys and composites? For months? And then repopulate the entire earth (even the non-attached continents) in just a few decades?
Did you know that people who start from the basis of believing this book claim that the grand canyon was carved in 1 week and the end of the flood? :-P
Were dinosaur bones put there to fool me and the other unbelievers? Or is the entire old-book just an allegory?
Do you find it at all ironic that after hundreds of years of putting together a pretty good estimate about evolutionary heritage, that modern DNA sequencing and the concept of genetic drift would almost exactly corroborate these theories?