I think you've conceded too much ground here.

There is no evidence for the divinity of Jesus. These are simply stories from ~2000 years ago.

I feel like the Bible constitutes some kind of evidence for the divinity of Jesus. Weak evidence for sure. But evidence none the less. As I see it, even "Jimmy down the bar told me..." constitutes evidence of some kind.

Isn't that just anecdote?

There is no evidence the guy existed, either. They are most likely just stories meant to motivate a movement — nothing wrong with that in principle. Especially given that a lot of the message is “be kind”.

If you really believe that there's no evidence Jesus the man existed, then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in general. The evidence does exist, and it is in fact convincing evidence, at least of historicity (even the Gospels are evidence, though several extrabiblical sources mention the historical Jesus as well, including ones opposed to Christianity like Josephus). IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not solely empiricism.

Also, Jesus said quite a bit more, and quite a bit more often than "be kind," though admittedly that's sort of the Therapeutic Moral Deism version spewed out popularly and in a lot of churches today.

I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.

> then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in general.

Without opening up a broader epistemic discussion: the question of the existence of specific people is quite a reasonable question. Because Socrates rejected writing, there is some question as to whether he really existed or was a rhetorical invention of his student plato. On the other hand, say, Sophocles is described by various contemporaneous sources. Caesar, Augustus and Marc Antony pretty definitely existed -- there is a lot of surviving contemporaneous evidence.

On the other hand the existence of a much more recent figure, Shakespeare, as the author of a body of work is still hotly debated in some circles (there is evidence that someone by his name was alive at the same time, but was that the person in question?)

There are no contemporaneous accounts of the life or death of Jesus; even Josephus whom you mention was born after the events described in the gospels.

> I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.

That's a particular stance that requires judging terrible people who claim to have religious backing to have not been in alignment with a god. Both sides in a war claim divine support, after all. It's quite possible to live in harmony without any gods.

> IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not solely empiricism

If the evidence of Jesus's divinity isn't empirical evidence, then what sort of evidence is it? I've always thought of faith as meaning "belief despite the lack of evidence".

> I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.

In general people seem to be pretty terrible if they lean on religious understanding too. I don't see much evidence that religious people are more moral than others. Personally I'm a big fan of Jesus's vision of living in harmony with one another, but I don't see why this needs to have anything to do with a god.

I'd go as far as Jesus being a collection of stories himself along with his teachings. There's no good evidence he even existed. None of the authors of the bible was even alive when Jesus supposedly lived. The youngest of the authors(cant remember which one) was born a couple of years AFTER Jesus supposedly was killed. Not even 1 text from any historian at the time has any mention of Jesus Christ.

Beyond the narratives in the gospels, Jesus the man is attested to in several extrabiblical sources. See, for example, Eusebius and Josephus. We have more evidence that the historical Jesus was real than, say, Cicero. And of course the gospels themselves and the existence of the apostles (also real) who almost all went to their deaths proclaiming that this Jesus guy was real are in fact evidence that He was.

Very, very few serious Bible scholars, even the atheist "textual criticism" ones, deny that the man Jesus of Nazareth existed. And almost all of them will acknowledge that, for example, the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3 dates to within a few years (possibly months) of Jesus death. The denial of the historical Jesus is more a meme in New Atheist Internet forums, rather than a serious examination. It's about as serious as Ancient Aliens.