Alright, so you probably don't take the Old Testament literally. But where do you stand on Jesus and the New Testament?
Did Jesus perform miracles? Did he die for our sins? Did the resurrection happen? Or is the Jesus story a creation of the Gospel writers and based largely on earlier Messianic figures?
And if you don't believe in a literal historical Jesus Christ, how do you reconcile that lack of belief with a religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ?
Not exactly a christian as such... but it's probably the closest to any religion currently. I try to look at things from multiple perspectives though and take the one that makes the most sense. For alot of the stuff regarding christ, I find alot of it to be... on shaky ground at best.
There's a few issues though; most of the miracles Jesus reportedly performed were just as easily meant to be interpreted as metaphorical. For example, the whole fish and bread thing, it probably meant more that it took jesus to give the little food they had around, before anyone else was willing to share the food they had and were keeping to themselves. One act of kindness shows that people really WEREN'T starving but were just too greedy/worried about themselves to share. Turned out they had tons of food in the first place and just didn't use it. Which's a perfectly acceptable message going with most of the scriptures, so I'd consider it a valid interpretation, though not a miracle.
Ressurection after 3 days? Pretty common actually, especially back then. These days it's not so commonplace due to more advanced medical knowledge and the fact that embalming replaces yeur blood with poison, which kills yeu if yeu weren't dead before. Even as little as 100 years ago, the term 'dead ringer' still applied, because they'd bury someone, and have a string in the coffin that went up to the surface so if they woke up and really weren't dead, they could pull the rope to ring the bell and let a guy sitting next to it for 3 days to hear if they were alive and needed unburied. This was an actual profession. The fact that jesus died by BLOOD LOSS also highly elevates the chances of his having merely gone unconscious, as it's noted that everything that signaled his 'death' occured at the instant of his going unconscious. Someone being bled to death like that usually passes out significantly before they die, and if they just took him down immediately, chances are he wasn't dead at all. Of course, there's also the minor technicality that the romans at the time were rather extensive in their record keeping of criminals, and that there were very few cases of crucifixions to begin with, and that such a high profile case would have warranted a large amount of notations in their records, of which there have never been any found. Unfortunately, this, the carbon dating of the shroud of turin, and several other pieces of evidence, suggest that Christ was either only a mortal with very strong charisma, with great PR, or didn't exist in the first place.
Now... that being said, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here as well.
Jesus himself, according to the new testament, specifically stated several times that he was NOT there to replace the old testament, and that it was required to be followed still.
There's also the matter that most of the old testament was just written records of the cultures at the time and alot of the "yeu must follow these laws of god!" are actually just the laws of a city or country at the time and have no basis in god's word at all, and are just mis-attributed to such.
Also Leviticus is total crap, just pretend that part doesn't even exist.
As for the historical ramifications? Let's say that Christ DIDN'T exist, or if he did, he was *NOT* the son of god. Then whot? Do the christians, every single one of them, burn in hell for worshiping a false god? Whot of the message itself?
Honestly, I think the whole "peace, love, and understanding" thing goes a long way, though there are admittedly some discrepancies there as well, such as the 'turn the other cheek' thing not actually meaning whot most people think (there were strict laws about which hands were used to hit people; turning yeur other cheek meant they'd have to hit yeu with their other hand, which would mean they are calling yeu their equal, it's pretty weird tradition/law/taboo related stuff that's not included in the story itself), the destroying of a temple, and withering of a plant. I wouldn't exactly call Jesus to be 'perfect' either, despite being supposedly a 'perfect' being.
Regardless, the message of this Jesus, regardless of whether he lived or not, or was the son of god or not, still holds true for the most part. Don't be an asshat towards others, and try to get along with people even if yeu really hate their guts. He didn't need to be the son of god to have the right idea on being nice to each other. He didn't even need to be real; how many bedtime stories do we tell our children about fictional characters in order to present concepts of morality?
As such, the validity of existence, though in question, is irrelevant to the message presented.