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.
Christianity didn’t grow at first. it grew very slowly until the 4th Century when it became the Established Church of the Roman Empire. After that, it was stylish, and even required for the corrupt Byzantine court.
“The virgin birth prophecy was a simple mistranslation from young girl in Hebrew to virgin in Greek, and the Hebrew version had been fullfilled already by Hezikiah.”
This ‘mistranslation’ claim of donmeaker is of course demonstrably false.
The Hebrew OT was translated into Koine Greek several hundred years before Christ’s birth by a committee of 70 Jewish scholars in Alexandria Egypt. This being at a time when Hebrew was little used among Jews and the common language of the educated was Greek. The text they produced is the Septuagint, and they translated the Hebrew word in question as the Greek word parthenos, meaning virgin. They could easily have used the Greek word for ‘young girl’ if that is what they wanted to convey, but they didn’t.
The claim of mistranslation of this particular passage is a perennial favorite among atheist true believers and we should congratulate donnie on memorizing his ‘scriptures’.
And what ‘magical testimony’ would that be donny? Christ’s own account of the Sanhedrin to his apostles?
Why the tomb was empty-
First, Buddhists cremate, so their tombs are empty.
Second, Jewish practice was to reuse tombs. After some period of time bones were removed, cleaned, placed in an ossuary, and reburied to conserve space. Of course a high value tomb, only borrowed, would be empty.
Third, the evidence of an empty tomb is easy to fake- you take the body out and dispose of it. There is an interesting burial scene in “paint your wagon” a musical with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin.
And that is without getting all conspiracy theory and asserting that the sponge with wine was drugged so Jesus would simulate being dead withing hours, rather than taking days to die as was common with crucifixion.
You are assuming that fulfillment of prophecy is independent of the prophecy. It isn’t. When you want to convince the credulous that believe in magical prophecy, you read through everything that might be a prophecy, and claim as many as possible, and probably some that are not possible, as your own.
That is why birth in Bethlehem was claimed, despite the putative Jesus being from Galilee. and to be sure, sent him off to Egypt.
I can claim 6 rolls of any number doubles in a row. Just let me report my results, and let me declare any roll I want as non-relevant. That breaks the simple statistics that you use to justify your assurance.
So it looks like I know more about the Bible than you do about Statistics.
The tomb was closed by a large stone and guarded by Roman soldiers, soldiers who would imperil their own lives if they abandoned their post.
Removing the body in such a situation is only easy to do in the fantasies of the atheist true believer.
Gravity may be due to the nature of the universe itself, with no outside agency required.
That is simpler than an assertion that some unknown outside agency by some unknown method, for some unknown reason created gravity.
Occam’s razor.
I will agree immediately that the supernatural force exists, if I see evidence of it.
A simple email will suffice, or a phone call.
You could do it, whey can’t G-d do it? Or are you greater than G-d?
So tell me how a star can hover in one place, not on a pole.
If you explain that report, I will be surprised.
Ok, explain how a Jesus could be born 4BC during the reign of Herod the Great and during the census of Quirinius at 6AD.
And of course, the eclipse during the full moon.
That is another thing: The gospels disagree on who was guarding.
Mark:
No guard
Matthew:
The Pharisees went to Pilate the day after preparation. Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” 66 And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone
Luke
No guard.
John: No guard
No Roman guards.
Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians: No resurrection! apparently that was developed later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Tomb_of_Jesus
Magical testimony, from a magical man, who magically rose from the dead a few days after he died, but not before Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians in which he did not mention the resurrection.
Gosh, who could doubt that? (/sarc)
It took you 30 years to become this cynical?
I wouldn't believe this either:
Oops!
That darn Luke didn’t include any NAMES of these folks.
I guess they don’t count after all.
No; it would have BONES in it - you just SAID so!
Needs more straw...
Wow!
What a claim!!
Knowledge about inaccurate, bogus, and fanciful information!!!
I guess they didn't 'know how' good enough.
So, Don; would YOU wait around to guard an EMPTY tomb or a FULL one?
And, according to you, he SHOULD have?
It appear that Paul DID include YOU in his letter:
As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”
But, then again, this is a mere reference to something in the Older testament; an even MORE suspect assortment of writings.
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