Deal!!
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.
they might not be lying... they may be deluded. That doesn’t speak well for their credibility either.
Again, the early Christians (1) didn’t write down the gospels until the adults of that time were dead, and (2) wrote down things that could not be true.
So they were in error, and we are trying to decide what was error and what was not. Gosh, what could go wrong with that?
To be fair, they call Herodotus ‘the father of history’ and he was notably credulous in putting down travelers tales. That doesn’t mean that his stories of people with one leg and a single large foot who lie on the ground and use their single large foot as a sunshade should be given credence. As evidence goes, it isn’t worth much.
Have G-d send me an email, or perhaps a phone call.
That is all that it takes.
That still wouldn't be enough. NO phone call and no email would suffice. You would not accept them as from God. You would find some way to explain them away. Even if you saw someone rise from the dead, you would not believe.
Luke 16:27-31 And [the rich man in hell] said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/crucifixion/1.html
So is it 3 days, 72 hours, after three days, on the third day, or after two sabbaths?
in the crazy mishmash of conflicting stories among the sources that you accept, which is right?
Or is it a crazy mishmash of conflicting stories because noone knows, and people competed to tell the most outlandish stories.
Rather like the holy relic salesmen when Helena, Constantine’s mother came to give official imprimatur on the local cult?
My favorite is when a woman had a headache, and they dug up three crosses. Each in turn was applied to the woman, and the true cross was selected, because it was after that one that she felt better.
If you believe that whopper, well, you will believe that Obamacare guarantees free blue cheese with every meal.
You’re attempting to deflect from the simple historical issue of whether Jesus claimed to be equal with God, which even his enemies acknowledged at the time.
I know you have already posted you reject the historicity of the claim, but it is so outlandish, so irrational, and so ridiculous that one needs to ask again how you can hold such a position which throws all the rest of recorded history into the trash bin.
yup
They were placed in the WPP.
"Why do you ask my name?" the angel of the Lord replied. "It is too wonderful for you to understand."
That is NO way that you KNOW the things you so easily claim.
YOU are relying on someone elses testimony.
I suspect you've blocked all mail from that Sender.
You know nothing - by your own admission.
You do NOT apply that same standard for 'believing' to the things you accept as you do to the things you reject.
You are only deceiving yourself.
Would you accept integers only; or would irrationals also be ok?
Let him hack me. Surely he knows how...
Like the story about the two hikers, good friends, far up into the Tetons.
One of them took a break to relieve his bladder, and was bit on the end of his male bit by a poisonous snake. He goes into shock and passes out.
His hiking buddy whips out his cell phone, and calls 911. The dispatcher connects him with a doctor, who tells him that for his friend to live, he will have to suck the poison out.
The damaged hiker awakes from his swoon, and tells his friend to call for help.
“Already did” says his friend. They say you are going to die.
I asked what verses tell you that Jesus asserted that.
Specifically, what verses in the New Testament do that. My limited recollection is that Jesus tried to avoid that, and in the Gospels, someone else always ends up saying it.
So what is your verse in the NT where Jesus claims to be divine?
I thought he taught that ‘the son of man’ or other intermediary phrases were the subject of his teaching.
But there is not evidence in stone that the evidence in stone means what you say it means.
Right in front of the highest court in his nation, Jesus said “I am he”. Specifically, that was the aramaic form of “ani hu” which was only uttered on high holy days by the priests at that time. Then he pushed forward and said that even though you guys are judging me now, I will be judging you in the future — “you shall see the son of man sitting on the Right Hand of Power (that means equality with God) and coming on the clouds of heaven (only God came on the clouds of heaven in Daniel).
It was enough for the Sanhedrin to loudly proclaim they heard blasphemy and to start tearing their robes. There was NO mistake about what they heard and what it meant.
But 2000 years later, arrogant people will enjoy twisting it into something that it was not.
So... learn from history, learn your history. Know exactly what it is that you’re throwing under the bus in your ignorance and arrogance.
Joseph Smith died for what he knew to be a lie. He just didn’t expect to die.
And which one of the apostles was there, a member of the Sanhedrin? Who was the eye witness?
Peter? Paul, who asserted he only met Jesus once, on the road to Damascus?
Your witnesses turn to dust when you finally get to it.
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