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[Andrej]

"There is nothing to gain from marcion"

History says otherwise. He was a Marcionite of course, who had many similarities to the Gnostics ? and Gnosticism was massive. He produced the FIRST NT canon. This canon included what was essentially a "stripped down" version of Luke and ten Pauline epistles. The curious thing is, there is no evidence for the existence of these books BEFORE Marcion?s canon. The more I look at it, the more it looks like our traditional NT canon (which isn?t universally accepted by all Christians even today) was half written by a "heretical" Christian.

It may be a shock, but it was indeed Marcion who produced the FIRST NT canon, and thus the "original" NT. A horrendous thought for those that hate "heretics", but one that is corroborated by history.

Marcion also shows what many early Christians thought of Judaism and the OT. That it is evil and should be kept separate from the wonderful (and rather Eastern) messages of Jesus. Keep in mind it weren?t the Gnostic Christians who tortured and killed orthodox/catholic Christians en masse and burned their texts. It was the other way around. You could say these "heretical" Christians were more Christian, more Christ-like, than the "real" Christians.

Now, you seem like a smart enogh guy. i do not know what you have been reading though. i may be wrong, but i am fairly certain this is what really happened (not opinion, just historc research): Marcion did formulate the first formal canon. He also edited the Books according to his liking without giving any real reasons (just that he didn't like the texts) and THEN he included them in his canon. He never wrote any bible books. His church also was quite large.
BUT, though the christians at his time had no formal canon, they did already heavily used most, if not all of the 27 books, long before Marcion came around. They just never felt the need for a formal statement, which is true for all christian doctrines and issues. Nothing is original about Marcions canon, nothing at all. He was a rebel that thought he had some kind of higher calling or something and had the only claim on truth (remember, neither Peter nor Paul did such a thing).

The first time Marcion formally presented his ideas, he was rejected. Not that i agree with what the christians back then did in general, but they were right in rejecting him. Most of his false doctrine is based on a false reading of Galatians 1, which every 5 year old could do better. He got stuck at his idea of "one gospel", and that led him to beleive all kinds of other errors. His OT-NT "contradictions" are the funniest of their kind.

""The Tao te Ching, which i have read at least 3 times myself, you say, contains more wisodm than the Bible, but almost every thought in it is contained in the Bible ""

Perhaps you are right. It's just hard to find in between the "kill your relatives who leave the faith" and the "kill all the baby boys but keep the young virgin girls for yourself" biblical verses. Not only is the dao de jing full of practical wisdom, it also lacks such atrocities.

You should also see that you only percieve this in such a manner because of your (supposedly) western moralsthat are conditioned by your social and cultural environment. Not everyone what you immediately percieve as good/evil is exactly that.

At the end of the day, it really all comes down to evidence for me.

i am fine with that, but why would an almighty creator that himself claimed to only reveal himself to those that please him need to be proven scientifically? As i said, i have plenty of proof, some hard to refute, but at the end, you need your own proof.

To illustrate what i mean (not as a proof of God, just the dilemma in general): If, for example a dead man in your family was to raise from the dead today, that would be quite interesting. Suppose this man would be your grandfather or great-grandfather. Now, you may know this person, and you may recognize who he is and be able to say that he is not an impostor. The doctor that was with him at the moment of death may know with 100% certainty he died. But, when this guy comes and claims to be risen from the dead, that will mean nothing, as it is not generally accepted that people rise up from their grave. Thedoctor will believe in a long lost twinbrother, you will believe he and the doctor faked his deah together, and others will believe a combination of both.
Now, there was proof of a supernatural event, but that proof was not "good enough" to convince anyone. i have experienced this kind of situation first hand, in many situations where one couldn't believe the thigs that get rejected (people that get healed of unthinkable sicknesses like cancer and aids and then they just end up concluding it was some kind of coincidence). Of course there is always personally irrefutable proof of the supernatural, but never universal proof. The best proof i have seen is private prophecy (where a guy knows things about you he simply cannot know, like your inner thoughts etc. and then offers a solution). i have experienced such things in a christian framework only, never outside of it (though i am aware such things may exist elsewhere). On a personal level, and summed up, these things can serve as a proof of God (among other things).