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 guess you have fooled yourself.
Paul DID name many of them:
Do you have any eyewitnesses handy who can give you their testimony that the Apostles all lied???
I don’t doubt people were more intelligent BCE. After all, there were no Christians then....
The bible records that there were over 500 eyewitnesses to Christ’s resurrection. Do you accept them as witnesses? I sincerely doubt you will.
If he was responding to the Christian heresy,
***Then by that early date in history, this “heresy” was already claiming that Jesus was put to death for claiming equality with God. There’s no evidence that this creeped in over hundreds of years. It was being loudly proclaimed by the year AD30-AD35, right out of the gate.
So do you accept that this rabbi was a historical person dealing with his own contemporary issue surrounding christianity at his time? Or does his name have to be written into stone for you to accept historicity?
Keep in mind, Jesus putatively died about CE 27 to CE33. That would be contemporary.
AD 70.... not so much.
Imagine if there was noone who had ever written about G. Washington until 1825. What a loss that would be.
I can’t accept the 500 as witnesses until I know their names. I can’t evaluate their testimony until it is provided.
Absent that, they may have witnessed something, but we don’t know what, and don’t know them from the drunk who drove the beer wagon.
And we have from the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Peter, John various things that they could not have witnessed, that are combined with things that are impossible.
Normally when a witness perjures, their testimony on all else is thrown out.
We have no evidence that it was proclaimed in AD30-35.
It may have been. We don’t have any evidence of that until much later.
Based upon your utterly irrational approach to history, you are the one fooling yourself. I have seen this kind of idealogical blind side before. It’s a sign of simple dishonesty.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2316798/posts
If you cannot be honest with the simplest of historical evidence, you are fooling yourself. The sad part is, the price is going to be more than you will want to pay.
Imagine if there was noone who had ever written about G. Washington until 1825. What a loss that would be.
***Julius Caesar’s writings are dated several hundred years after his death. Do you throw him out as a historical figure? Historians don’t.
Paul’s letters began circulating within perhaps 20 years of the departure of Christ. Historians know when Paul died.
We have plenty of evidence, it’s all across the new testament. But what we don’t have is evidence that meets your completely irrational standard of history, a standard that no other historical figure would ever have been able to meet.
Who do you think is being fooled by this? I doubt that even IF you got your email or phone call you would repent of your stubborn unbelief and return to the faith you once rejected. What happened in your life that injured your spirit so deeply you cast aside your faith and now live to draw as many others as you can to your faithless side?
Here's a poser for you:
The old adage, "Seeing is believing", doesn't work with Almighty God, instead, he says, "Believing is seeing.".
various things that they could not have witnessed, that are combined with things that are impossible.
***And they also wrote down very mundane things that are not in dispute, such as the fact that Jesus was put to death for claiming equality with God. Even the enemies of Christ acknowledged that claim.
Normally when the enemies and friendly witnesses all agree on certain facts, those facts are not in dispute. But your irrational standard is simply intended to weed out anything to do with Christianity. Since no other historical figure will ever meet such a standard, I conclude that you’re simply irrational. You’re not credible. You’re willfully arrogant about historicity, not honest. Matthew 7:6 applies to you.
"An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah." And He left them and went away." (Matt. 16:4)
Now...what was the "sign of Jonah" again???
Now...what was the “sign of Jonah” again???
***There’s evidence written in stone that aligns with biblical sources on this topic.
People were posting christian symbols on their tombs before the year AD 70.
http://www.esgetology.com/2012/02/29/discovery-earliest-archeological-evidence-for-christianity/
Your error is in presuming that because someone testifies to seeing miracles or about things you reject as "not possible" that they must be lying. I haven't seen your answer as to why these people would have wanted to "invent their own religion" - as you put it - when all that it brought on them was persecution, ostracization and execution - sometimes in the most brutal ways. Guys like L. Ron Hubbard invented his own religion and it made him a millionaire. Mohammad got his followers to conquer, loot and pillage entire countries for him. Tell me what, other than actually witnessing the teachings of Jesus Christ, his many miracle and his resurrection, would have motivated these people? Many people die for what is a lie, but NO ONE dies for what they KNOW is a lie.
I get the impression from reading your responses to the many challenges thrown your way that you probably never did have a personal relationship with the living God and that you have closed your heart to any evidence that might shake your basis for your rejection of Christianity. I probably won't spend anymore time discussing this with you but I AM praying for you and mean you no disrespect or animosity. I know, without a doubt, that the truth WILL be found when we search for it with all our heart.
I guess you are suggesting that I won’t be getting that email...
They all agree on some facts. Good for them. Still, “False in one, false in all.”
So after that, you subtract the witnesses that are proven fabulists. What is left is what you know.
Your standard for history is so stringent that not a single soul in history would meet the standard. Look at the title of this thread. Your position is utterly irrational.
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