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.
The important thing to remember is that evolutionary theory is a scientific theory about how life has developed — this means that it begins with the premise that life already exists. It makes no claims as to how that life got here. It could have developed naturally through abiogenesis. It could have been started by a divine power. It could have been started by aliens. Whatever the explanation, evolutionary explanations begin to apply once life appears and begins to reproduce.
Another related error made by some creationists is the idea that evolutionary theory cannot explain the origin of the universe while creationism does — and, once again, evolution is inferior to creationism. However, the origins of the universe are even further removed from evolutionary theory than is the origin of life. There is some connection in that scientists seek naturalistic explanations for both, but that is simply due to the fact that they are both scientific pursuits and not because of any inherent relationship such that problems with one will undermine the other.
In both instances described above
creationists spreading this misunderstanding are doing so for one of two reasons. The first possibility is that they simply do not understand the nature of evolutionary theory. In not having a clear idea about what evolution is, they mistakenly include ideas which do not belong. This failure to understand the topic sheds some interesting light on their attempts to critique it, however.
The second possibility is that some creationists do understand what evolution is and do understand that neither the origin of life nor the origin of the universe are really relevant to the truth or validity of evolutionary theory. In such cases, the creationists in question are being consciously and deliberately dishonest with their audience. Perhaps they imagine that by confusing people as to the true nature of evolution, they will be able to gain more support for their own position — a position which is, according to them, more in accordance with the will of God and Christian doctrines.
So which are you, the confused or the dishonest?
Please by all means eat your dinner, and don’t forget to eat your peas.
Hardly.
Believing in Jesus releases you from Hell. Hell is separation from God. Condemnation to Hell is the result of rejection of God and also doing all the evil that results from it.
Believing in Jesus isn’t a good act; it’s grabbing onto the lifeline to pull you out of the death that you put yourself into. It’s not exactly God’s fault if you choose not to grab onto it.
And for that matter, who decides that the punishments fit the crime? You?
Ah, yes, but we DON’T have just one text. We have many texts, all proclaiming the same message, with just enough differences between them to discount collaboration and conspiracy between the authors.
We don’t have the original documents of many of the early founding fathers either. They were destroyed or rotted away or were lost. But we have copies of them, and copies of copies, and copies of copies of copies, and we still tend to agree that those were what were on the original papers. Sure, some copies might have spelling errors or translation errors, but the same message is still there.
So why can’t we believe that what was written in Scripture accurately reflects what was originally written?
“Obviously just another one who quotes but doesn’t read.”
Is it really that obvious? I thought I read something about “He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who disbelieves will be condemned.”
Are people who disbelieve condemned or not? Does the reason for their disbelief matter? What if they disbelieve because they never heard? Are some disbelievers “in Christ”? Will some people be saved outside Christ?
I have read the Bible a few times (I have a degree in Biblical Studies from a conservative Christian university), but I have never read that someone who never heard of Jesus will be saved by their ignorance. If that were true, ignorance would save more people than belief. Given that the majority who hear the gospel will reject it (remember the parable of the sower and seed), it would be criminal to evangelize. The act of evangelism will condemn most people to hell who would otherwise be saved in their ignorance.
In other words, telling people about Jesus who are otherwise ignorant of him, will condemn the majority of them to everlasting torture. Right?
Evolution adding information huh? And yet 99% of all life forms are now extinct. The feds have not stopped even one endangered species from being lost - devolution is the answer if you only re-examine the evidence and strain to separate assumptions, conjectures and story-telling from cold hard facts.
It’s what you learn after you know-it-all that counts.
Not everyone will receive the same punishments but I trust God to judge rather than those who so heavily doubt their faith that you wonder - did they ever have it to begin with?
Be careful of your doubts that you don’t begin to judge God yourself - we are all puny sin-filled people in His Sight.
So that is information. In environment A with competition 1, species 2 will go extinct.
That the government doesn’t change that doesn’t suprise: Government can screw up a 1 piece puzzle.
“Of course the universe doesn’t need to be eternally expanding.”
That isn’t the only model for which they proved it mathematically impossible. They also demonstrated it was impossible for a cyclical model, or the current standard model to be without a beginning. Basically, any model that can account for the observed type of expansion cannot extend infinitely into the past.
“And the rules by which it expands can change as scales change, just as quantum mechanics is different from macro mechanics, making any ‘proof’ that posits similar rules at differnt scales rather irrelevant.”
This is a mathematical proof. The rules of mathematics are scale independent.
You do realize don’t you that you said a bunch of things in your post #85 that I didn’t say and in the process created yourself a strawman argument. You do realize, don’t you that this is a major tactic of the progressive leftist democrat socialist movement - don’t you?
Well I realized it anyways...
No, we have all kinds of errors, from copying errors, to different observer biases, and wholly different events that support those biases.
Then, disgusted with all the crap on their version of the internet, the Roman government decided to censor, and tried to get rid of some of the crap. Bad copies like P46 survived the best, because noone wanted to have to read that error filled document, so it is among the oldest we have.
People scraped off writing and reused it, and scraped off writing and rewrote it. Look up Freer Logion some time, a fun little bit appended to Mark.
One of the 3 copies of the Magna Carta was found by a fellow looking for scrap parchment to sew into linings of coats. Thanks to the Brit public education system, he could read it! And that copy is the one at Salisbury today.
Siniticus is the document that a monk was going to tear up to make a fire. Oldest complete new testament we have.
Not just the gov - you can’t stop it either. And if evolution was on the solid footing you think it is then the controversy would simply wither away - but it hasn’t now has it?
When math assumes things are scale independent it departs from reality, and the proof is worthless.
Ignorance and dishonesty is always born afresh with every generation.
From dishonesty comes dishonest arguments. From ignorance comes ignorant arguments.
Which are you being today?
And yet the message is a clear as a the sounding of a bell.
Name me another book with 40 different authors, 66 different ‘books or letters’ written in different centuries, languages, and continents that has one cohesive message of salvation.
Peas be to you!
Another leftist - another strawman. Well at least you attempt to read the Bible, God help you cause I sure can’t.
No, that wasn’t an argument, it was a question.
If you want an honest discussion, lets go to male. If you are showing off, and offering dishonest arguments, stay right here.
Without me.
Showing off? Really?
OK, I’ll go easy on you no more origins questions.
What is your explanation of the cambrian explosion?
Or maybe you could explain polystrate fossils?
Or maybe not...
You’re leaving out a third option, which you might not have considered. Both the origin of life and the origin of the universe are not within the scope of standard, biological evolutionary theory, that is true. However, they are within the greater scope of evolutionary thinking, which has crossed disciplines long ago and extended to diverse areas like geology, astronomy, and cosmology. This is the scientific philosophy aspect of evolution that they are taking issue with, which does include how life started and where the universe came from.
Granted, some laymen creationists don’t understand that distinction and may truly confuse these issues, but to imply that all who bring these topics into the debate about evolution are making that error is incorrect.
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