Can I be a Christian if I know that Jesus did not come back to life after three days? I think I can. Jesus never said, "In order to follow me you must believe that I rose from the dead." That wasn't a condition. He just said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "If you want to go to heaven, do what I do." By that, I don't think he meant *get nailed to a cross until you are dead* -- I think he meant "Follow my teachings and live by them." As for the whole scene in Acts where Doubting Thomas puts his fingers in the hole in the side of risen Jesus ... come on, man. You know that the Bible was written by human beings, right? You know that some of them probably slanted things to suit their narrative, and maybe added a line here and there to support doctrine? My assumption is that the obviously impossible things -- for example, Jesus rising from the dead -- are obviously the parts that have been invented by biblical writers. That's just common sense. In this, I'm pretty much coming at the Bible the same way Thomas Jefferson came at it. No, I don't intend any disrespect, and no, I am not giving any disrespect, when I say that some of the things in the Bible are absurd, and should be understood to be fiction.