Jesus. Did he exist? Where was he born?

I have been thinking on this for a while. Doing lots of reading and studying to see just what I could find out. My conclusions are as follows:

1. - I have come to the conclusion that someone named Jesus did exist at some point. Much like Mohammad and Buddha there is just too much empirical evidence to deny that a person named Jesus did exist.

2. - Jesus was NOT a son of a supreme being. He was an enigmatic philosopher that had a lot of good ideas, many of them borrowed from other cultures and religious foundations. Still in all, they were good ideas and decent philosophies to live by. Golden rule etc.

3. - There is no empirical data showing that Jesus came back to life after being hung on the cross with other criminals ( he was considered a criminal since many of his ideas and his claim to be the son of god were considered blasphemous at the time ). The Shroud of Turin has been shown to be a forgery so there is no actual data showing anything of Jesus or anyone else being resurrected.

4. - The biblical story of him being born in Bethlehem cannot be verified. The date of his birth is in doubt and since there is no biblical connection (IE books by Jesus) in the Bible we can only assume that either he was illiterate or his ideas that he did write were too radical for the Bible. Since his birthplace cannot be verified as well as the date of birth, we have to assume that he was not the son of god as stated earlier. If he were the son of god as claimed, his place of birth and date should have been well known and documented in more that just a minor passage in one book.

5. - Proof of miracles. There isn't any. Just the word of someone that saw something or thought they saw something. You would logically think that if he were performing ACTUAL miracles, there would be independent corroborating stories and witnesses of these "miracles". There isn't any.

After all this thought and consideration I have come to the conclusion that someone named Jesus Christ did exist at some point in the distant past. Much like David Koresh and the Branch Dravidian's or the Heaven's Gate cult or Jones town he lead a group of people and preached a set of values. His 'cult' lasted much longer but is still just that, to borrow a term from the band Living Colour,  he had a great "cult of personality".

Was he the 'son of god' -- No.

Did he perform miracles? -- Nothing can be substantiated so, no he did not.

Did he rise from the grave? -- eww Creepy. No he did not.

Was he an enigmatic philosopher with a cult following? -- Yes, from all the evidence I believe he was.

Feel free to disagree with me. Or, conversely agree.

Did the Biblical prophets talk to god?

This question has vexed me recently. Not so much because I am concerned that maybe the "prophets" of the bible talked to god, but more so from the point of reference that they BELIEVE they talked to someone or something.

Here is my take on this:

They did NOT talk to god. At least NOT the god that they describe in the bible. What I think they did was talk to someone that due to their TECHNOLOGY appeared to be "god-like" to them and therefore god in their eyes. Was this being god? I don't believe so. I am going to put forward a theory that what these folks 2000+ years ago saw and talked to were visitors from somewhere else.

These visitors came here, met different people on different continents and in different cultures and in ALL cases were described as beings 'descending from out of the sky on chariots of fire' etc. These encounters are consistently described in much the same way across time-lines and cultural divides.

Before you discount this theory, think about this: If YOU were ancient man with NO understanding of technology outside of what you can make with your two hands out of rudimentary equipment with the highest technology you have being possibly Bronze metallurgy. Then you see a "pillar of light and fire" and from out of that fire a being emerges with bright light flooding from behind them. There is a loud sound like thunder (the crafts engines) and the being speaks to you.

How would you with your limited knowledge of the world and technology, never having read anything remotely close to sci-fi or fantasy. Hell, you probably can barely read your own language. How do you describe what happens? You probably equate it to what YOU know which would be a 'god theory' or experience.

This brings me to miracles. Specifically walking on water. You can walk on water. Is it a miracle? No, it's simple physics. If you can move quickly enough over the surface of the water, not breaking the surface tension on the top layer you will APPEAR to walk on water. If you would like an example of this google straw mats walking on water and you will see what I mean. You can do it if you have the right equipment in the right environment. Water is after all a non-Newtonian fluid.

What do you think?

Could it have been aliens in the bible and other cultures and not really a supreme being?

How do you explain it?