Yes. Conviction does not imply guilt. You cannot make a strong case that Christ was a criminal by virtue of the fact that he received a criminal's punishment.
With all due respect, one cannot make a strong case about anything concerning Christ given the source material we have at our disposal.
How does the source material for Christ compare to that of other historical figures from the same century?
Be more specific.
You simply have nothing solid on which to proceed here. I don't think I can be much clearer.
You are going to have to try. When did I make an argument from the position of ignorance?
Well, you brought it up. Using Charles Manson and pogroms as analogies is in very poor taste.
It is pertinent.
The Bible goes out of its way to absolve the Romans of responsibility in Jesus' death. Hell, it even has the Jews declare themselves guilty of it.
You have already admitted that you would accept anything submitted to you by Manson's "family" concerning his trial at face value if it were the only available account. I apologize if you found the analogy offensive, but it has rendered some extremely interesting insight. Rest assured that your moral indignation, whether feigned or not, was not provoked in vain!
But the only thing that Manson had in common with Christ was that they were both punished. Is that enough for you to assume that they both deserved what they received?
A better comparison would be the execution of Socrates, as it doesn't carry the immediate negative connotations we associate with Manson. Assuming that you only had his testimony and that of his followers to go on, would you consider his death to have been justified?
We are not guilty because of Adam's sins. If that were the case then how could Christ have been considered perfect, given that he too was descended from Adam?
I'm not going to try and reconcile discrepancies in your religion. All I know is what the Bible tells me.
The Gospels are rife with people being cursed because of the actions of their forebears. We are still apparently paying for them to this day.
People suffer because of the actions of others, but Christ addressed this issue specifically when the disciples asked him about it in John 9:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” "Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
But this is beside the point. You were making the case the the Bible supports the idea of
guilt by association in order to justify using it as an argument against Christianity. It simply does not, but even if it did, you would still be a hypocrite.
But whereas I site written evidence suggesting Christ's innocence, all he has to go on is a hunch that it was a conspiracy.
What evidence? There is no reason to assume the Evangelists were anything more than apologists for a convicted criminal.
Again, you are utilizing the appeal to ignorance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance.
Your statement amounts to the following:
"You have no proof (that I am willing to accept) that Jesus was not a criminal, therefore I must conclude that he is".
If we are going to accept this as a valid argument then I must concede that you are correct. Then again, you have no proof that Jesus was not a walrus. Prove me wrong or I will be forced to conclude that he was!
As you can see, I cannot prove a negative.
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