Posted on 12/04/2013 3:17:41 PM PST by servo1969
A sixty-seven year old proud atheist friend of mine recently interjected the sweeping statement “all religion is irrational” into one of our conversations. I replied, not with a direct rebuttal but, instead, with the unexpected question, “who is Jesus Christ?” He replied, “I don’t know.” If I were to ask some of you why I pulled that question out of left field you might also reply with a bewildered “I don’t know.” So keep reading. Please.
If you have never really pondered the question “who is Jesus Christ?” then you simply cannot consider yourself to be a committed intellectual – at least not yet. Let me say that in a different way: if you have never given serious thought to the true identity of the most important individual ever to walk the face of the earth then you are either a) suffering from severe intellectual hernia, or b) possessed of an intellect impaired by a fear of knowing the true answer to the question.
Let me begin by defending the assertion that Jesus Christ was the most important individual ever to walk the face of the earth. 1) We divide time using the date of Jesus’ birth. 2) More books have been written about Jesus than anyone else in recorded history. Case closed. Now we can move on to the issue of fear and intellectual curiosity.
The options we are given for understanding the identity of Jesus are so limited that no one who is truly intelligent can be behaving rationally if he just avoids the question altogether. Take, for example, my friend who has lived 2/3 of a century on this planet without so much as attempting to work through the options. I don’t want you to be one of those irrational people so let’s get to work.
When addressing the question of Jesus’ identity, there are only four available options. Anyone who has ever read C.S. Lewis or Josh McDowell knows that Jesus was either: 1) A legend, 2) a lunatic, 3) a liar, or 4) the Lord.
The idea that Jesus was merely a legend, as opposed to someone who actually lived, is simply not an option we can take seriously (at least not for long). Independent historical accounts, by that I mean accounts written by non-Christians, are enough to put this option to rest. Jesus is cited by 42 sources within 150 years of his life, and nine of those sources are non-Christian. By contrast, the Roman Emperor Tiberius is only mentioned by 10 sources. If you believe Tiberius existed, how can you not believe in a man who is cited by four times as many people and has had an immeasurably greater impact on history? You can believe that if you wish. But then you risk forfeiting any claim to be considered rational.
Nor is it rational to consider Jesus to have been a lunatic. Perhaps you could maintain that belief if you’ve never read the Bible. But how can a person claim to be educated if he’s never read the Bible?
World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky once entertained the notion that Jesus was a mere lunatic. But, then, in the early 1970s, as an atheist and a communist graduate student, he examined the words of Jesus for the first time. He was traveling to Russia on a ship and wanted to brush up on his Russian. But all he had with him to read (that just happened to be written in Russian) was a copy of the New Testament. And so he read. And he was transformed.
Marvin recognized immediately that the words of Jesus represent a profound level of moral understanding that rises above anything else that has ever been written. Read for yourself the words of Jesus. Then read the words of Charles Manson. Try to convince me that they are one in the same – merely two lunatics who mistakenly thought they were the Messiah. You have a right to that opinion. But you don’t have a right to be considered rational if you cannot detect a glaring difference between the teachings of Christ and Manson.
So, now only two options remain. And this is where the real trouble begins. If we call Jesus a liar (who falsely claimed to be God) then we cannot also call him a great moral teacher. One cannot be both. But many look at the final option of calling him Lord and panic. To go there means to accept belief in the supernatural. And surely that couldn’t be rational. Or could it?
Science has taught us a lot since the Bible was written. For one thing, we know that the universe had a beginning. It is expanding, it is finite, and it was not always here. Put simply, Carl Sagan was wrong. In fact, he was dead wrong. The cosmos is not all that is or was or that ever will be. It had a beginning. It is irrational to dismiss the obvious implications of this: that the universe was caused by a supernatural force existing outside of space and time.
People have to let go of the idea that the natural world is all there is because that is not where the science leads us. It instead leads us away from the philosophical commitment to only considering naturalistic explanations for the things we observe in the physical universe. This also leads us to one very important question: if a supernatural force was great enough to create the universe could the force or being not also reenter creation? And another related question: is the force or being responsible for creating life not also able to conquer death?
Arguably, the resurrection is a pretty small accomplishment in comparison with the creation of the universe. But that doesn’t mean it happened. The evidence must be judged on its own merits. I recommend that serious intellectuals start here.
Of course, you could just keep avoiding the question while judging others to be irrational. But there’s no avoiding the plank in your own eye.
I would suggest that putting someone to death for what they say is a fairly strong way of expressing disagreement with what that one said.
It isn’t a verbal contradiction.
As for the “Where is the body” question, one could also ask where is Peter’s or Paul’s body, or the Buddha’s body?
Buddhists normally practice cremation.
One legislature (IIRC it was Tennessee) passed a law making Pi = 3.
I think 1 Kings uses 3.
“His friends said it, indifferent sources said it, even His enemies said it”
At least as recounted by the gospels.
Normally nuts who say crazy things don’t leave much record at all of their ravings. The Unabomber was an exception.
Kings does not use 3. That value was from some clumsy English translators. The value in the Hebrew text is 3-5/12.
Hebrew fractions are all in 12ths, and the bone-head limeys couldn’t figure it out.
Don’t waste your time on this troll. I viewed several of his posts and he is all over the map on everything.
My recommendation is to let editor-surveryor have a crack at him and the troll will go back under the bridge:)
Depends on if you use the outside of the vessel or the inside. If you think they used the outside for both it is 3. If you think they used the outside for the diameter, and the inside for the circumference, and throw in a compensating factor for thickness, you can get what ever you want based on your compensating factor.
You have to properly count the value of the Hebrew characters, but they didn’t get it correct. I may not be correct either, but if you find a Pharisee Rabbi, they usually can show you how to get the numbers right.
Their value for the circumference was not complete. They quit after finding the integers, but gave up on the fractional parts.
There are original documents that evidence George Washington. Start with his commission from the Continental Congress.
But yes, all of history is suspect. That is why people who love history love to find old shipwrecks to get past the narratives that people added.
One Pharoahs went off and fought a great battle and lost. He then came back and announced that it was a great victory. That right there should make you suspect of history.
Napoleon did the same thing.
That is also why governments do things like take fingerprints, issue biometric drivers licenses, passports, and check the continuing document trail looking for things that are out of place. It is also why the Census counts people, AND makes estimates based on sampling.
I think he’s good for humor, but little else.
At that time the irrational numbers hadn’t been discovered.
The Pythagoreans had a brilliant member who proved that the square root of 2 was irrational.
They killed him as a blasphemer.
So you can’t find my errors either. That is high praise.
Of course a curved line has different asympotes at different places along its lengths.
Measure in one place, you get one slope. measure another you get another place.
That is part of the point of relativity. Newton made his measurements of the gravitational constant using a swinging weight. If you measure that at near light speed, you get a different value.
Rules based on the measured asympote will be different at different locations along the curve.
Now now, don’t fight over me.
And none of that can be falsified, now can it?
Like for people in a witness protection program for example. Right?
And just who WAS Shakespeare anyway?
You don’t need to lecture me about relativity.
I am plenty familiar with it.
So, as a creationist, I am now going to state that the laws of physics and constants CAN change, and indeed have in the past.
That is why scientists cannot disprove creationism or the Bible using science.
Of course it can be falsified. Falsifying all of it is hard.
Falsifying your old service records previous passports, old drivers licenses when copies of documents are securely retained by by the government is hard for you to do, but possible.
It is probably better than accepting everything at face value, in a world where evil men seek advantage.
And how do you know that the evidence you are investigating is genuine or authentic and that your interpretation of the evidence you are investigating accurate and unbiased?
All we can do is demonstrate the validity of the rules we know in a particular time and place.
Or we can demonstrate the invalidity of the rules we know, in which case some real science needs to happen.
Rather like Rutherford’s experiment with X ray penetration of metallic foil. that lead to about 40 years of real science.
Of course Rutherford could have just said ‘G-d moved the particles differently this time’ and shut off his brain.
Of course you don’t know. You can fool yourself. That is why science shows new findings around to see if others have different ideas.
You note the subtle distinction between a creationist and a scientist?
A creationist supports conclusions that end with “because Creation”.
A Scientist looks at facts, evidence and theory, and tries to come up with experiments that gather new facts, measurements that quantify the new evidence, and new theories that explain the facts and evidence.
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