Whiffey I am not inflamed by Christianity, neither do I ever attack it per se.
Believing the Jesus story is purely a matter of faith, and a Christian is one who has chosen to hold that belief without regard to the story's origins. I have no argument with that: what other people choose to believe is no business of mine.
Unfortunately, many Christians are not content to leave it there but try to claim that the story has a firm basis in fact and in history, and that is simply not true - for the reasons that I have explained many times, to the boredom of some.
Stick to your faith, Whiffey, and it's fine by me. Start on history , fact and evidence and you've a lot to learn before you can make a serious contribution.
Like naomi, I like to find the truth where I can.
naomi, no, there is no indication, even in the gospels, that Jesus was trying to form a new religion. If he existed, he seems to have been a Jew who preached only Judaeism to Jews.
When Paul first introduced the idea of Jesus in his epistles in AD55, his aim was to make the posthumous following of Jesus open to all people, Gentiles included. The tradition is that this was opposed by the "Jerusalem Church", the remnants of the original followers of Jesus. Whether this is true or not, the idea was certainly opposed by a lot of people, and the dispute wasn't resolved until the 4th Century when the newly-converted Constantine called the Council of Nicaea, bashed heads together and told them to sort it out. The Pauline idea was narrowly accepted and Christianity (with its Creed) became a religion its its own right, completely separate from the Judaeism of Jesus.
I am quite certain that Jesus would have been quite shocked at what has been invented in his name - if, of course, he existed!