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 dont 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 dont 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 dont want you to be one of those irrational people so lets 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 youve never read the Bible. But how can a person claim to be educated if hes 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 dont 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 couldnt 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 doesnt 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 theres no avoiding the plank in your own eye.
I would if hundreds and thousands of witnesses saw the cow jump over the moon. God in the OT did many things for many to witness. Jesus Christ did all of His miracles in front of hundreds and sometimes thousands. After His resurrection, Paul tells us this:
1 Corinthians 15:
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
You've created a strawman god.
One that you REFUSE to believe in.
You've created a strawman god.
One that you REFUSE to believe in.
I think what you are getting at here is that YOU have not done anything to deserve such punishment.
I'm sure that most kids who are stood in the corner feel the same way.
Then perhaps Catholicism is for you.
They will let you out of purgatory after a while.
Or for those who use that as an excuse to reject the Lord Jesus who died and rose to save you from whatever degree of pain you deserve. I honestly doubt if such would believe even if the SDA misinterpretation was correct.
I’ve dealt with these fine folks until I’m blue in the face. Of course I never had any hope of convincing anyone. That’s just the nature of it.
I used to be in their shoes. For 30 years I was a devout and committed Christian. I served as a pastor for many of those years. And I am familiar with the thinking. Any concession towards agreement with anything I have said (such as that forever dangling a screaming humanity over the fires of hell is not nice)would be met with pangs of conscience.
I call bull hockey on that statement.
Well done! Thank you for that information.
In fact if the information gleaned from a copy of Buddhist Scriptures, belonging to the leading Buddhist teacher of ChiangMai Province in Thailand, is correct then it would seem that Buddha may have even believed that a Holy One would be born one day that would be the savior of mankind.(image from book below)
***Perhaps, like for the old testament prophets & jews, it will be accounted to him as righteousness that he believed. He would have been a christian...
At least as recounted by the gospels.
***You don’t know your history. Indifferent sources confirm it. Opposing sources confirm it. There’s never a stronger fact in history than when an enemy acknowledges the fact.
Indigenous tribes in America acknowledge that Columbus sailed across the ocean. It would be foolish to hold the pretense that they don’t acknowledge it. They just don’t like it.
Gallic tribes acknowledge that Julius Caesar defeated them in battle. They didn’t like it, but they acknowledge it. It would be foolish to hold the pretense that they don’t acknowledge it.
Your anti-christian attitude makes you blind to simple history.
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.
***Then when both sides of the courtroom say, “yes, Jesus claimed divinity in front of the highest court of the land”, then REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY AGREE WITH WHAT HE SAID, it is a FACT that he said it.
You’ve got serious idealogical blinders on.
After all of those years and you have never done a study of the Hebrew and Greek words that have been translated hell to see what the misunderstanding might be? If in fact you were actually pastor how sad it is that you lack that understanding. Had you done that, and understood, you would be making none of the statements you have made here.
“I call bull hockey on that statement.”
Why? Do you just like making assertions about people you don’t know? You don’t believe people can make a significant change? That I am a former Christian pastor is no more incredible than that you are a former homosexual. Is it?
Oh ye of little faith.
Dang!
It took you 30 years to figger out that HELL thing???
(I don't think I would have admitted that!)
True.
History is replete with those who did NOT endure to the end.
Well, Moses got some law all right; but them folks who drowned when the rains came surely were doing SOMETHING wrong!
You are judging the punishment; using MAN's ideas and concepts.
What gives you the right to do that?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.