Except that, according to the gospels, Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah, not in public anyway. The gospel of Mark, especially, shows him ordering anyone who guessed his Secret Identity to keep it a dread secret. In public Jesus was not the Messiah, but a wandering faith-healer and exorcist who encouraged people to abandon their families to follow him because the end of the world was near. Those who followed him would hit the jackpot (spiritually speaking of course) and those who didn’t would burn in unquenchable fire forever — again, spiritual fire, but no less painful for that. I wouldn’t vote for a fanatic like this even if people had elections in those days, and I sure wouldn’t vote for a guy like that now. I don’t consider Jesus a good guy even in hindsight. But like the present occupant of the Oval Office, I don’t see any reason to think that Jesus wanted your votes anyway: you were to do what he said, or else.

Dr. Pants, I understand your point, but there are plenty of atheists who are scumbags, morons, zealots, and one-dimensional puppets of the Illuminati, and will mandate that you believe the same thing they do. If you don’t want to look at Richard Dawkins, there’s always Ayn Rand.

If we go back a couple of thousand years to New Testament times, you just described the views of the Jews with respect to the “absurd” claim of Jesus being the Messiah. In their eyes he was clearly a con man claiming to be the King of the Jews, as every one of his miracles could have been explained away. I guess if you were alive during that time you couldn’t have voted for a Christian.

We can go even further…. There was another “con man” named Moses who claimed to have spoken with God face to face on a mountain top out of a burning bush that wouldn’t burn (what?). Guess that also rules out Jews for you.

Well, there go two groups who, according to your argument, clearly lack a “rational understanding of complex issues.” Where do you turn to now? Logically, an atheist (or close enough).

Wait, that came out wrong.

All I know is that I’d like to have a leader I didn’t suspect of being a scumbag, a moron, a zealot or a one-dimensional puppet of the Illuminati. He could believe Shirley was God and Lambchop was Jesus, just as long as he doesn’t mandate I believe the same horseshit.