>>@Walter: on first glance that truth page author looks like a candidate I'd group more with tin foil hats - perhaps reading the longer text gives better impresson - reserve judgement as you usually know what you are talkng about, but the text read alone reads even more improbable than some religous passages.
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>Thomas, my point is simply that we don't know. Everyone claims their own truth. There are a lot of questions that will never be answered a 100%. The scientist in me wants to explain miracles and out of the ordinary events. since the bible is full of such things, the link to the 'truth' does give a shot into explaining some of the things in a rational way, giving us insight how the text can be interpretated other than literally. Do I beleive it is the absolute truth? To be honest I don't know, however it does do a decent attempt to give an alternative and explain who jesus really was, his motives, and how he lived.

The attempt to link via inheritance to Arthur characters over 600 years flies so much in the face of everything we know about genetics and human sexual behavior that some divine/superman/extraterrestial Influence seems more probable than belief in "normal" ways. It might also just be false ;-)
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>The problem I've got with the bible is that it could have well been written about Ghandi or Nelson Mandela if they were born 2000 years ago. And the stories would have been written in the same cryptic and ambigious language, selectively selected for inclusion or exclusion and bended for political purposes to control the masses.
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>Bottom line is that I'm convinced that the Jesus was a lot more human, rational person who was trying to get into power in a non traditional way by uniting people (he needed everyone he could get) than the bible wants u to believe. The dead sea scrolls give a lot more clues pointing into this direction.

IMO everybody should decide for himself what to believe - as there is so much diversity, just declaring one path to be true without some of the mystical expirience Charles talks about is wrong for me. But as such expirences are personal, talking about them is kinda useless ;-)
I do have a hard time believing that an omnipotent creature - much more evolved compared to me than I am to bacteria - is thinking/acting in ways dependant on my belief. Such things are easier to visualize with permanently adolescent olympian gods - if one needs such "higher beings" in his world view. The norse version of them has a twist I think is nice; after Ragnarök a new world is created with almost nothing knwon about it. More fitting than eternal bliss/stagnation (See "Ein Münchner im Himmel" as you probably know enough bavarian). As most religions have parts that fit descriptions found in newer physics, the idea that we know only parts from big bang on and our universe might collapse into a black hole is only nice topping...