This doesn’t support your interpretation of 5:16.

Herod died in 4BCE, Quirinius didn't reign until about c.6CE. This gap renders the Luke gospel account historically impossible. Mark 1 has "Jesus" going off to the wilderness after his baptism. This is contradicted in John 1 & 2, which has "Jesus" going to a wedding. It looks like the "divinely inspired" writers had trouble getting the facts straight. Despite being one of the more well-documented periods in ancient history, there is NO extra-biblical record of the alleged slaughter of the infants in Matthew 2:16. There is no extra-biblical corroboration of the fantastic aberration of Nature which allegedly occurred at "Jesus" crucifixion:

Surely this would have been noted and recorded by others, as would the alleged opening of the graves and the

But despite the errancy, incongruity, lack of extra-biblical corroborative evidence, etc. it's still considered the "word" of "perfect" biblegod. (and I didn't even touch on the error and archaeologically unsupportable Myths of the OT) The greatest evidence of biblical untruth however, comes from the believers themselves.

According to the following verse, ANY and ALL believers should be doing exactly what Jesus did in the above cited verses:

"JP", MG, MD4, CIL, et al,......it is up to you to provide documented veridical evidence in support of the above verse as it applies to YOU personally, who claim to be believers. Of course, if you were unable to demonstrate said evidence, there would only be two possibilities:

1. You weren't really believers.
2. You were lied to.

In the event that nothing happened, you would also be forced to apply this:

How do you show it is history? I assume you’re talking here about John 20:14, which is part of the John’s Passion narrative, which contradicts the other three.

And in fact, John seems to be using the Book of Tobit here to construct what Jesus is saying and Mary’s response in his Gospel. Much of Jesus’ language seems to be taken over from Raphael, and Mary’s response is similar to Tobias’ when he first saw Raphael. See Helm’s Gospel Fictions, 146-7.

I'm going to give you my take on religion and Spirituality again.
I define Spirituality as an Internal Process:
1. Devotion to the Divine within
2. Dedication to Metaphysics
3. Respect for the Individual Rights of others.

I define religion as an external framework, consisting of traditon, dogma, observances, ritual, etc.--whatever you want it to be.

Can you see the difference?

To the Pagan, the "coherant alternative framework" is basically Nature, and the unfolding evolvement that is observed. There are some here who say that the observed unfolding evolvement is unguided, and some, including myself, are of the opinion that it is Guided.
The point of "overlap" in the Guided group, Dennis, is the commonality of acknowledgement of Universal HigherPower/Intelligence, and supposedly, Esotericism.

Now let's get to the crux of the problem:

As myself, AUB, SH & others have pointed out, by what authority or stretch of the imagination can Christianity substantiate its claims of being "the only way", the "only true religion", the "only true revelation is the bible", "going to hell" if you don't convert, having the "one true" God, etc. in light of biblical errancy, self-contradiction and incongruity? NB hit the nail on the head with:

It is with this same arrogance that fundamentalist dogmatists will always say "we have the only 'true religion'", i.e. their focus is on the external elements I previously described, (e.g. subscribing to the "correct" dogma will "save" them) and not the Internal Process, which should be Common to all. Lana alluded to the utterly abhorrent violence, destruction and barbarity has been perpetrated throughout history in the name of primitive tribal biblegod, and by the religionists subscribing to those "scriptures". I'm an "atheist" when it comes to biblegod, Dennis.

Classical Philosophy virtually came to an end with one of the most heinous and abominable murders committed in annals of humankind. Pulled from her chariot, Philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, daughter of the Mathemeticain and Astronomer Theon, was stripped naked, stabbed and subsequently flayed (with sharpened oyster shells) in Alexandria in 415CE (in a "church" no less) by canonized "Saint" Cyril's man Peter the Reader and his band of crazed, lunatic monks, who do not even deserve to be called animals, let alone humans. Her remains were then burned by the same mob of Christian devils. But, this has been typical of Christian control-mongering, corruption and insanity since its inception, culminating in recent times with the Deanna Laney (of Tyler, Texas) tragedy (she stoned two of her own children to death with a rock because biblegod allegedly told her to do it), and the Mancini child-sacrifice horror, which fortunately did not come to fruition.

SM, Dennis...let's go back in time.....

Some Words of Wisdom Hypatia left us:

EL was the chief deity of the Pagan Canaanite Pantheon. According to Armstrong, the Hebrews emerged from the Canaanite population, and they used the name EL as their name for God. EL is included in the OT Hebrew texts: "El Shaddai", "El Elyon", "Elohim", "ImManuEL" (Manu is a Hindu name for Deity), IsRaEL, etc. Yah was the Egyptian Moon God, and is also included in OT text. So we find that biblegod is a construct from varying sources. Additionally, the Goddess Asherah (consort of EL) was in use at least up to the 8th century BCE, but as the consort of YHWH:

Shaitan was the Sumerian God of light. (and was demonized into Satan) Lucifer is a character from Roman Mythology, where he was the son of the Dawn Goddess Aurora. So we see the same holds true for bibledevil.

Christianity, as Lana said, gets some of its dogma from dualistic Zoroastrianism (hell, the final battle between good and evil, etc.) which were also adopted by Jewish apocolyptic thinkers, Christians and fundamentalist Islamists and found their way into the book of Revelation, etc.

The Logos was in use in Pagan Greece, way before it was used in John 1:1 - The Thinker Heraclitus lived in the 6th century BCE, and was a native of Ephesus. Not a lot of his work has survived, but some has:

This passage is important, because it suggests the Internal Unity of all, which is in opposition to the externality of fundamentalist legalistic idiocy, which has done nothing but ruin humanity. And:

The Madonna and Child/Triad were on the walls of Egypt for millenia before they appeared as human literalizations in the NT gospels. In ancient times, Esotericism was encoded in Myth. Kuhn goes into this in his excellent book 'Who Is This King of Glory?' You can read this on-line at http://members.tripod.com/~pc93/kuhn.htm .
Since my personal perspective is also Mystical Kemet, the reader should understand that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES is this an attempt to: preach at, proselytize, convert, dictate what position should be held or say how things should be viewed. Additionally, NO CLAIMS are made that what follows is "absolute truth", "inerrant" "revealed" text, "the only true word of god", "the only way" to be "saved", "the only true religion/dogma", "going to hell" if they don't believe it etc.

My view of Kemet is somewhat more Universal and Eclectic as opposed to Orthodoxy.
The Concept in Kemet is One Divine Power (Netjer) manifesting as many Essences or Divinities. (a form of Polytheism known as Monalatry) Physics has demonstrated the existence of the Primordial Field (the late Physicist Dr. Bruce DePalma goes into this in his paper 'On the Nature of the Primordial Field' at http://depalma.pair.com) DePalma's conjecture is that the Field is Intelligent (Energy or Force), and I agree with him.

In electricity in Nature, we observe polarities: -(female),+(male). When we take a (+)male rod, and place it in a (-)female sheath, both of appropriate materials, we have something called a battery. When a bulb (load) is connected in the circuit, POWER is the child. The child brings forth LIGHT in the bulb. The triadic circuit is ONE. We see this happen in the physical sun. When enough simple hydrogen atoms (1 electron-, female and 1 proton+, male) come together, a sun is born. The sun "makes" all of the other elements. Again, power is the child and the child emits light.

For lack of better terms, at the Higher Vibratory Level/Dimension of Spirit, I refer to the Intelligent Polarities of the Universe as "God" and "Goddess". I also see Them as Living Principles. At the Spirit Level, Esoterically, the Logos, or Upholding Power in the Universe, is also the Divine Child or Soul Spark, who comes in the hearts of men. At no point, did the ancients ever consider the Logos coming AS a man of flesh.

The Divine Child was said to be "crucified" on the cross of matter, and "rose from the dead" on the Transformation of the individual.

There were numerous S(u/o)n God Saviours....Horus, Apollo, Buddha, Krishna, and many more. The Esotericism is the same. Unfortunately, exclusionistic, legalistic, fundamentalist religionist dogmas have no use for such things. It's bullshit like "don't do this" and "you must do that" and "you can't have that", and "you have to wear this"....the BS goes on and on...

The Infinite Living Universe, having no beginning and no end, can not be compared to the finite, which has a beginning and an end. This Principle is also illustrated by the fact that the infinite circle can not be compared to the finite line. This is why the Pi calculation will never repeat, even though it has been carried to billions of decimal places. The Profoundness of Sacred Mathematics, the triadic prism which breaks white light into its colors, the Auric Life Energy display in a kirlian photograph, etc to me are indicative of Higher Organizing Power. DePalma writes of the Primordial Field:

and...

But we do have clues....Triadic Signatures are observed in Nature. The Absolote One is the Unmanifest Nothing. Together, They Manifest as TheAllThatIsConveyed. It is a Profound Mystery, but IMO One of Great Delight and Awe.