Who is Jesus Christ and Who is Irrational? (Mike Adams)

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.

OK. The Bible is God's word to us, telling us about Himself and His dealings with mankind and our dealings with Him.

God, being God, is perfectly good. As an omnipotent, omnipresent entity, He cannot be otherwise. If He was, He would be all evil, which, in not being able to tolerate any competition, would annihilate anything that wasn't Himself. We wouldn't be here. Nothing would be here.

Now, there are standards for good and evil that we all work by. You have demonstrated that yourself by the way your hackles were raised when you thought someone was calling you a liar. You have shown that you think lying is bad.

Now, God, of necessity, being perfectly good, cannot lie.

Therefore, in His word, by which we ALL have our concept of God come from, even you yourself even if indirectly, tells us something, then it's true.

Granted, you are going to continue to argue that Scripture if manufactured, just as Jesus was manufactured to fulfill the requirements of being the Messiah, but really, have you ever read the Bible? Is that the work of a deluded raving individual?

Is such literary style, grammatical context, written by so many people over so many thousands of years, the product of deranged, manipulative people who were out to control people? And for what purpose? What would they have had to gain by gaining adherents to their religion? Once they're dead, they have nothing to gain from it.

And even at this point in time, neither do I or any of the other FReepers here who have been trying to tell you the truth. I will not get any money from you believing, you will not join my *cause*, my *church*, my religion, or anything else in which I will benefit from your faith.

If I had the cure for cancer and really believed that it worked, I would be remiss for not sharing it. Your blood would be on my hands for not giving you the opportunity to avail yourself of it. I have no doubt you would consider it unconscionable and reprehensible for me to not doing so.

Likewise, I believe that in the person of Jesus Christ, I have the cure for the infection of sin that condemns mankind with the ultimate end being eternal separation from God, in hell. I would be remiss for not sharing it, indeed I am obligated to share it, not only by command, but by obligation and gratefulness to the one who saved ME, someone who at one time also denied His existence and actually believed that it was the *Chariots of the Gods* kind of stuff, records of ET visits to earth.

Now, you can choose to believe or not believe. That is your option, given to you by God himself. He is not going to force salvation down your throat, but He can appeal to you to do it for your own good, and He does that through those who HAVE accepted that gift of life He's given us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Him, making His appeal to you and others like you for Him.

Do I know you or have an reason to care a whit about what happens to you? No. I have nothing to gain by your believing. It affects me not in the least to the point of (theoretically) being able to say that I don't care if you do or not, but that would not be true. I DO care where people end up for eternity, including you.

So there you have it.

Life and forgiveness of sins is being offered to you through Jesus Christ, free for the asking, no strings attached, by one who is His ambassador.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The ball is in your court now.

I have gone on and on. In short, I am not convinced. YMMV

You have been going on and on. And you have been refuted on every account. You just refuse to read the responses to you. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians were the earliest epistles, and earliest NT documents we have. This is what it says about Jesus Christ:

1 Thessalonians 4:

13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 5:

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. 11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

So we have here in the earliest dated epistle the preaching and exhortation of Paul saying: Christ had died, Christ is Risen, and Christ is Coming Again. Your first claim refuted, therefore the remaining points are irrelevant.

If you want to peddle a more than 4,000 year conspiracy theory drawing billions throughout history to God, then just say so. There are plenty of those websites out there peddling all sorts of revisionist whoppers.

The question to ask is, what normally would have happened to the body of a crucified criminal from the lower classes which was allowed to be removed from the cross in deference to Jewish burial sensitivities? The answer seems to be – a ground burial, probably in the Kidron or Hinnom valley, with nobody attending except for an indifferent burial crew who only cared to mark the site with whiting or a pile of loose rocks to give warning of uncleanness.

What is their evidence that there ever was any such Jewish person with a Mexican name? And their evidence that he was buried in a particular tomb? Why, it’s the same book which tells us that the resurrection occurred!

Just as the same book which tells me that Paul Bunyon was born in the state of Maine also tells me about his creating the Great Lakes.

In short, it seems to me that there is a plausible natural explanation for the rise of the beliefs and traditions in 1 Cor 15:3-7, exactly what Wright is asking for. If true, this comes full circle and impacts on the historical reliability of the gospels. Why? Because 1 Cor 15:3-7 is used by traditionalists as “external evidence” for the historical reliability of the gospels, including the gospel burial accounts, the discovered empty tomb, and the corporeal postmortem appearances. But if there is another plausible explanation for the rise of these beliefs and traditions, there is nothing about 1 Cor 15:3-7 itself that supports the conclusion that the gospels are more likely historical rather than legendary expansions of these beliefs and traditions. One can always reject a plausible natural explanation for the rise of the beliefs and traditions in 1 Cor 15:3-7 on the conviction that the gospels are historically reliable, but to avoid being circular, such a person would need to modify their argument for gospel reliability to not enlist the help of 1 Cor 15:3-7.

Every time I am reminded that there are people who argue for the historicity of the resurrection, I realize there’s pretty much no point to having debates.

Explanation of what facts? Do you feel any obligation to explain the holy texts of any of the other world religions? I highly doubt it. I’m pretty sure we CAN just dismiss the resurrection on face value, for the same reason we dismiss Sathya Sai Baba on face value.

Well, first of all, I disagree with Luke, because I see basically no evidence for the resurrection. For example, the Iliad is certainly a book of myth, but it turned out to say the much vaunted “true things about the world” when it turned out that Troy was a real place. Does this mean we should believe in Achilles?

The 4 Gospels are best explained as all basing their stories on Mark and Q, so calling them 4 independent documents is highly misleading.) The Gospel writers were anonymous, they were Greek speakers, none of them were eyewitnesses, and the earliest we have was written at least 40 years after Jesus’ death. Paul never met Jesus, etc.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to be able to force myself to believe that an itinerant Jewish preacher sprung out of the ground after a few days of being dead, materialized into a closed room to eat some fish, and flew into the air — like superman — in front of a handful of disciples. Not to mention walking on liquid water and feeding thousands of people from one lunchbox.

In conclusion that the earliest Christians had to be diabolical frauds for the appearance traditions to the 12 and the Apostles to be group designations of authority does not follow. From our perspective 2000 years later, the emergence of such traditions for the sake of giving authority might seem like an implausibly large lie. But from the perspective of the earliest Christians, the inaccuracy would not have been of much consequence if they genuinely believed Jesus was raised from the dead, some of the Twelve and the apostles saw Jesus individually, many or all of the Twelve and the apostles shared in group ecstatic experiences where it was believed Jesus was present, and such an understanding added to the authority that the Twelve and the apostles deserved and needed. According to controversial Mormon historian Grant Palmer, a similar well intended and from their point of view minor distortion of the truth happened in the early Mormon movement:

“On 25 March 1838, Martin Harris testified publicly that none of the signatories to the Book of Mormon saw or handled the physical records…. [Rather, Harris said he and the others saw the golden plates] in vision or imagination….His statement, made at the height of Ohio’s banking-related apostasy, became the final straw that caused Apostles Luke S. Johnson, Lyman E. Johnson, and John F. Boynton, and high priest Stephen Burnett and seventy Warren Parish to exit the church. (An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, 2002, pg. 204)”
Can we be sure from this that Martin Harris did not believe in the Book of Mormon and that he was a diabolical fraud? Hardly. As Palmer points out, Stephen Burnett, one of those present at Harris’ testimony, reported on Harris’ steadfast belief in the Book of Mormon despite knowing that the nature of his witness to it had been exaggerated: “he [Harris] was sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he [still] knew it was true….[Harris lamented that] he never should have told that the testimony of the eight was false, if it had not been picked out of him but should have let it passed as it was…” (pg. 204).

3] There seems to be an undertone from some in the conversation here that the non-believer bears the burden of proof; that Jesus resurrected unless an alternative explanation for the Christian Origins evidence can be presented. While I do think the lack of an alternative explanation is a powerful argument in favor of Jesus’ resurrection, it does not follow that Jesus then resurrected. It is also worth noting that many people already find various theories to be a plausible alternative to the Christian Origins evidence. Along these same lines, it is interesting too the comment by someone that “Kris is not a believer and will find every way to not believe.” Can’t someone look into this stuff being honest about their doubt without being accused of having some desperate underlying desire to have it come out one way or the other? This actually leads to a final point. The non-believer should have no problem if the Christian Origins evidence can be assembled toward the conclusion that Jesus resurrected from the dead; after all, in any complex problem where there is some ambiguity and gaps in the evidence, there are often multiple different ways to read the evidence, and obviously there are many people who see a coherent pattern in the evidence leading to Jesus’ resurrection. But I wonder how the believer would react to a hypothesis of Christian origins that, even though they disagreed with it, they had to admit it was a reasonable and honest – an honorable – position.

Our earliest written accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection (1) were written only by Christian evangelists, (2) were compiled 20-70 years after the events they describe, (3) are so old they cannot be confirmed by physical evidence from the time, (4) come from a superstituous age of many similar mystery cults, (3) are internally contradictory, (4) and are contradictory between sources, too.

We have much better evidence than that for the angel Moroni’s revelation to Joseph Smith, the Hindu milk miracle of 1995, visitation by space aliens, the dancing sun at Fatima, and many other modern phenomena. And yet most Christians do not believe those were genuine events.

Why not? After all, the evidence is much better for these than for the ancient Resurrection of Jesus!

I can tell you why. Christians do not believe those things happened because they are so inherently improbable that they are much more likely to have a natural explanation than to have actually occurred.

Just as the same book which tells me that Paul Bunyon was born in the state of Maine also tells me about his creating the Great Lakes.

If you want to look at yardsticks versus the New Testament, I’ll mention the real world as a good one. In my experience, God doesn’t appear and miracles do not occur, ever. But people lie, get confused, religions get started, the credulous get misled, and cultists convince themselves that they are not deluded. Using that yardstick, it’s pretty obvious how to properly measure the various claims of the New Testament.

That’s it for me. All the best.

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