What reasons do you have for NOT believing that Jesus lived as God amongst men on earth?
1. I've done an examination of how every other religion seems to have started from later exaggerations or fables about an initial mundane set of events. The same goes for folk legends like Paul Bunyan, King Arthur, or Baba Yaga, as well as exaggerated supernatural feats of the founders of martial arts schools, like Morihei Ueshiba who founded Aikido. This is something humans do, with countless confirmed examples illustrating this tendency. By contrast, we have zero examples of confirmed miracles. Simple induction indicates that the Jesus stories arose from such legendary development. Biblical scholarship also tends to confirm that conclusion.
2. There is a lack of supporting evidence for any of the specific claims about Jesus. In particular, there are no first hand accounts of anything Jesus said or did. The NT is a set of third-hand or many-hand, usually anonymous accounts, usually contradicted by other accounts in the NT, and unsubstantiated by any writings outside of the bible itself. Again, we have many other examples of religious zealots pushing false propaganda, or openly admitting that lying to promote their faith is acceptable, and zero examples of miracles actually occurring.
3. I would have to sustain an incoherent worldview if the evidence provided was sufficient for me to accept the claims about Jesus. I would of course have to believe in Mormonism, since the accounts and circumstances are much better attested to. The evidence is far, far better for Mormonism (although still terrible). Islam also has better evidence. So do UFO sightings. All of them also make many mutually contradictory claims. So I would have to accept contradictions, and believe in all sorts of strange things.
4. Separately, everything we've discovered by examining objective reality has yielded explanations that have no need for any god existing. Gods are beyond the realm of demonstration or confirmation, and claims about them are evidently indistinguishable from anything anyone could imagine or post hoc rationalize. Such belief has no justification, and no explanatory utility.
5. As an internal critique, Christianity is incoherent. Yaweh and Jesus seem like opposite personalities with different goals and values. Free will cannot exist under an omnipotent, omniscient being who created us, nor would such a being derive any utility from our worship and subservience. A being that created a scenario containing hell cannot be omnibenevolent, and should be considered omnimalevolent. The theology is awash in contradictions, tensions, and incoherence that requires a cognitive dissonance I could not sustain. Nor have I heard apologetics that come close to harmonizing these clear problems.
6. People who argue for "Jesus living as God" consistently make fallacious arguments, structuring their reasoning in a way that we've confirmed does not reliably lead to true conclusions. Given continuous Christian efforts over thousands of years to produce evidence or a good argument, this is a good indication that no valid, sound arguments for these claims currently exist. Belief is therefore not warranted.
