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.
No, no, no! His inspiration is G.A. Wells, rank amateur and wannabe theologian. That is where the skeptics go for their source material. Of course German Professor Wells changes his opinions with temperature changes.
I would accept G-d at his word. The question is what is G-d’s word.
Not everyone or everything that asserts it is G-d’s word it.
G-d still hasn’t emailed me or called me, so I am lacking in experience of G-d’s word. So glad for you that you are not.
The Convent of St. Catherine was apparently not involved in translation work.
The letter of Polycarp seems to indicate that by 140 there was quite a cottage industry in copying out religious manuscripts for circulation. That Luke, for example, was not quoted before then is an argument for its late composition.
Sir, Cornwallis would have asked for terms by now.
Not even Ignatius.
I have given you my terms.
Evidence.
So since you are doubtless none of those things, You probably get emails and phone calls on a daily, nay hourly basis.
Would it be presuming on you to show me a copy of some of your emails from the divine?
I find skepticism a sound basis for investment, theology, and politics.
So glad for you that your experience is different.
I don’t call G-d a liar. I do have standards for what I would accept as his word, as opposed to the word of religious frauds who peddle their pigs bones as relics, their manuscripts as the word of G-d, and their fairy tales as history.
Freer Logion is in one old manuscript, but not in any others. It got in there somehow. It must have been copied in. It may have been copied in to intentionally add to the manuscript, or it may have been copied in accidentally.
If copied in to intentionally add to the manuscript, then it was essentially a marginal note. If copied in accidentally, then it may have been honestly copied in, using a previous marginal note as a model.
Never heard of GA Wells. I will have to look him up.
What did Jesus say to those who were expressing their hatred for Him by crucifying Him?
"Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do."
Romans 5:6-8 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So, yes, while we were in the midst of hating God, He sent His Son to DIE for us. Not to preach at us, or lecture us, or set a good example for us. But to DIE for us.
If you were God, would you have anything to do with God-haters who at every turn questioned your very existence?
Yes, because God did and God does.
I did. And He forgave me, because God is in the business of forgiving and restoring.
He knew what He was doing when He sent Jesus. Do you think any of that took Him by surprise?
If you were God, what would you say on Judgment Day to those who called You a liar regarding the record you had given regarding Your Son?
Probably, something along the lines of, *I would have forgiven you if you had simply asked.*
Jesus came to seek and save the lost. His wrath was for the religious hypocrites, not the down and out prostitutes and tax collectors that Jesus ate and drank with.
a fun article....
Please don’t use my name to post your Roman Pagan propaganda.
Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (1 Jn 5:10). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
You are. Disguising it as skepticism or whatever, is still calling Him a liar.
Tell me, without the Bible, how do you expect to know about God?
What is your source of knowledge about the supernatural? Including God?
Rather, if I asserted that I believed, and I didn’t, I would be a liar.
If I honestly don’t believe, and I say so, that is honesty.
I don’t know much at all about the supernatural. My limited understanding, offered in humility is that the natural is what we see, hear, touch, smell.
I have been told by Christians that G-d created the natural world, but that I do know know.
God has sent you letters, but you have rejected them.
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