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.
Prove that there was a concoction of pious frauds that made it into the canon. I will wait.
And while you’re at it, prove that Julius Caesar’s chronicles of the Gallic wars were not fraudulent. Your impossibly high standard for history is unscientific.
Historians run across such things all the time. What you’re doing is making a huge, big, giant deal over what amounts to a typo. Do you apply this impossible standard to any other figure in history? If so, you throw out ALL history. None of the historical references meet this idealogically driven unscientific standard.
It could easily have said:
“...a certain Jesus of Galilee, an apostate preacher whom we had crucified;
Big deal; as we ALL die.
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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 was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
Believe it or don't - the choice is yours to make.
Petulance comes to mind...
Then you acknowledge the historicity of Rabbi Eleazar Hakkapar saying that Jesus claimed to be God? That’s why this rabbi was commenting on Jesus.
I know, I know, with your impossible anti-scientific standard of history, you’ll find some way to wiggle out of this obvious example of an enemy of a historical figure agreeing with the concurring sources about what happened. Not one other historical figure EVER meets your standard. In order to throw out Jesus, you throw out all of history. Irrational. Just like the title implies.
Big deal; as we ALL die.
***How many historical figures died for claiming to be God Himself?
Best wishes for you trying to get Don Meaker to accept the historicity of the resurrection when he won’t even accept the historicity of the Death of Jesus. You work your side of the street, I’ll work mine.
You demonstrate that you have no grip on our number system, nor on the history of numeric computation.
Pi has been known since before the recorded history of mathematics. The use of the ratio 22/7 was for simplification of construction layout, and nothing more. The circumference of Solomon’s laver given in the early scrolls was 31 cubits and 5 ‘inches’ or 12ths. This value gave a value of Pi very close to the same 22/7 number that has been in use for construction purposes for about 4500 years.
The KJV Bible never defined Pi.
You demonstrate that you don’t know much about the history of math. your comments are exactly wrong.
Until the discovery of irrational numbers, it was thought and religiously held that integers were enough, and that ratios of integers provided all the numbers that were needed. Eventually negative numbers were invented, effectively doubling the number system. Then imaginary number increased the available numbers again. Cantor drove himself mad considering the difference between countable and uncountable infinities.
Irrational numbers were discovered later. I recommend A Brief History of Mathematics by Ball.
My needs are simple, my wants are few.
Have G-d send me an email, or perhaps a phone call.
That is all that it takes.
Was he a witness? When did he write, when did it happen?
If they are too far away, he can’t be a witness.
If he was responding to the Christian heresy, he has to state some variation of the Christian position to debunk it. That doesn’t make him an eyewitness, any more than you stating that I don’t accept your pretended eyewitnesses makes you a Christ denier.
I don’t claim that David, Moses, etc are still alive.
Pontius Pilate did leave behind a stone carving with his name and title. That appears to be more than the contemporary evidence of Jesus that is available to us.
But God DID write and He calls out to the whole world through the Holy Spirit, who convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. In talking to unbelievers, I've heard more than once or twice the claim that if Jesus Christ appeared before them, then they would believe. However, Jesus said himself that such unbelief is a symptom of a stubborn and wicked heart and that even if someone were to come back from the dead and appear before them, they STILL would refuse to believe. For those who hang onto their rebellion against God, nothing will really convince them to change their minds. There needs to first be a softening of the heart towards God and a diligent, truthful, humble and repentant spirit that seeks after the truth in order for the light to get through.
So is it Jam yesterday, and jam tomorrow, but never jam today?
All I want is an email. Is that too much for G-d?
There are sufficient prehistoric structures remaining to prove you and Ball to be idiots.
Liberals have such difficulty coming to grips with the fact that the ancients were vastly more intelligent than present day men. So they make up fantasies to puff themselves up. At least there are enough of their ilk out there to buy their ignorant books and keep the author out of the poor house.
>> “All I want is an email. Is that too much for G-d?” <<
.
You don’t even know Yehova’s name, but you want his email address?
Even a ghetto brat has more smarts than that! You wouldn’t last 10 minutes on the street.
I don’t claim that David, Moses, etc are still alive.
***Follow the ball. David died. So did Moses. Neither died due to claiming equality with God. Jesus died due to this claim, even his enemies acknowledge it. There is no other person in history with this much evidence of what happened at his death, and why he was put to death.
Pontius Pilate did leave behind a stone carving with his name and title. That appears to be more than the contemporary evidence of Jesus that is available to us.
***Is that your standard? That there has to be contemporary evidence of the person? in rock, rather than on paper?
The John Rylands papyrus is the oldest piece of paper with New Testament writing on it. It’s dated to AD 130, and was found in Egypt. Modern historians accept manuscript evidence of historical persons such as Julius Caesar dated several CENTURIES after their death. How do you defend your position against all of modern history?
There is another stone inscription which verifies bible factual history: the title of treasurer for Erastus. Historians use these titles as a way of dating things, because if a document was written many years later they tend to have the wrong titles of the people mentioned.
http://www.facingthechallenge.org/erastus.php
So there appears to be 2 people in the new testament whom you accept as historical because there’s a piece of rock with their name on it. Does this mean you do not accept Julius Caesar as historical if his paper chronicles are thrown out but he has to have a rock with his name on it? There’s only a handful of people in history with this distinction. Having this as a standard is irrational. Look at the title of this thread.
People were posting christian symbols on their tombs before the year AD 70. Is that contemporary enough for you?
http://www.esgetology.com/2012/02/29/discovery-earliest-archeological-evidence-for-christianity/
He has a rock with his face on it, wobbling on his shoulders.
You just need to pray. God answers prayer. That is all it takes.
I doubt you’re honestly seeking God. I’m just a numbnuts fallible human and you can’t fool me. What makes you think you can fool God?
I figure an all knowing G-d will know mine. He will also know what he has to tell me for me to believe.
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