Posted on 02/25/2023 7:58:10 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Could two highly intelligent men with two entirely different perspectives possibly help you come to your own personal conclusion concerning the central figure of history? Perhaps. Let’s find out.
History’s central figure, of course, is Jesus Christ. And the two men I have in mind are American New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman and Canadian astrophysicist Hugh Ross.
Ehrman professed faith in Christ as a teenager but is now an atheist; whereas Ross grew up in a non-religious home but is now a Christian. One man abandoned Christianity, while the other embraced it.
Ross said, “I didn’t know any Christians or serious followers of any religion while growing up.” Ehrman, on the other hand, said, “For most of my life I was a devout and committed Christian.”
At age 17, Hugh Ross became the youngest person yet to serve as director of observations for Vancouver’s Royal Astronomical Society. And Bart Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ross came to faith in Christ after first investigating the world’s major religions. Ross said, “I reasoned that if man invented a religion, it would reflect human error. But, if God communicated, His message would be error free and as consistent as the facts of nature. So, I used the facts of history and science to test each of the ‘holy’ books.”
He stated, “One by one each book failed the factuality test, and I gained confidence that my initial skepticism would be affirmed — until I picked up a Bible.” He found that the Bible “described the 4 fundamental features of big bang cosmology."
After much personal Bible study, Ross said, “I clearly understood that Jesus Christ was the Creator of the universe, that He paid the price only a sinless person could pay for all of my offenses against God, and that eternal life would be mine if I received his pardon and gave Him His rightful place of authority over my life.”
Bart Ehrman, on the other hand, reversed course from his earlier profession of faith. Ehrman said, “I had solid Christian credentials and knew about the Christian faith from the inside out … but then … I started to lose my faith. I now have lost it altogether. I no longer go to church, no longer believe, no longer consider myself a Christian.”
In my recent CP op-ed titled, “When Textual Variants are a Convenient Excuse,” I quoted Bart Ehrman in explaining what led him to walk away from Christ: “It wasn’t problems in the Bible I was wrestling with. It was why is there so much suffering in the world? That’s why I left the faith.”
Ehrman’s attitude toward Jesus became darkened, separating him from the One who said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Ehrman thinks the Bible misquoted Jesus. Hugh Ross disagrees, and says, “The fact that there is no historical record of called-out mistakes or corrections to the four Gospels by contemporaries of the gospel writers testifies to the accuracy of Jesus’ quotes within them.”
Bart Ehrman no longer believes Christ rose from the dead. Hugh Ross said, “Ehrman is also wrong about the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus being based on visions alone. There is the empty tomb. The powerful enemies of the emergent Christian faith, the Jewish religious leaders and the Romans, were unable to produce the body of Jesus. Also, it would take more than visions to persuade the 10,000+ Jews living in Jerusalem at that time — more than a third of the total population — to become Christians in the few days that followed Jesus’ death on the cross.”
Bart Ehrman's unanswered questions about suffering in the world spawned his atheism, whereas Hugh Ross discovered that God’s book of nature is in alignment with God’s revelation in Scripture. This remarkable realization led Ross straight into the arms of our Creator.
Dr. John Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist. Lennox said, “Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence … It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.”
English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking said, “Heaven is a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.” John Lennox responded, “Atheism is a fairy story for those who are afraid of the light."
Hugh Ross has witnessed time and time again how the evidence in nature is fully consistent with the message of the Bible. Dr. Ross established Reasons to Believe in 1986. This ministry helps people “discover how scientific research and clear thinking consistently affirm the truth of the Bible and of the Good News it reveals.”
Bart Ehrman and Hugh Ross are heading in opposite directions. Jesus identified the wide road to Hell and the narrow road to Heaven in Matthew 7:14,13. You can either believe what Jesus said about these eternal destinations, or what Bart Ehrman says about them.
But know this: Your personal beliefs will not change God’s book of nature, Scripture, the good news of the Gospel, reality, truth, Heaven, Hell, etc. Your beliefs will only change your heart and your eternal destiny.
Bart Ehrman and Hugh Ross provide some context as you investigate the book of nature, the message of Scripture, and the historical facts of Christianity. Thankfully, there is still time for you to base your faith upon the breathtaking evidence God has graciously provided.
(In addition to Dr. Ross’s website, you could explore even more reasons to believe in Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.)
Dan Delzell is the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska.
RE: Hugh Ross is such a disgrace.
I’m sure a lot of readers of this thread will be interested in reading your reasons as to why you think he is a disgrace.
Will read this in more detail, but looks to be very well reasoned.
I was wondering if God had these choices as well, but seeing as He is perfect, I don’t think that God has a choice.
But - Jesus, being fully man, DID have a choice. And He chose to suffer and die on the cross for us. And what an important choice it was! And we all have important choices to make.
Sounds like some folks from either SLC or Warwick NY has influenced this one.
I see what you did here!
Entropy gets ya every time!
A lot of atheists are fairies.
Dismissing something as a "fairly tale" does not literally mean tales from fairies, but refers to something that is mythical, not warranting belief, which is how antitheists dismiss the Bible. Thus their own faith can be dismissed likewise, as it is also one of faith.
Well said, praise God.
Oops - you are correct. Well, change Jesus to some O.T. guy, but it was amazing to see the bias in the headline when a verse as one word that is slightly different but means the same thing becomes “Proves the Bible is full of errors...”
Dudes, it was tongue in cheek; like Paul writing letters to the churches in KJ English.
Faith in what?
See post 30 above: https://freerepublic.com/focus/religion/4133963/posts?page=30#30
an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, exquisitely finely tuned for life...
Not only is the universe not particularly systematic, (from what I can see, it looks like an explosion in slow motion), it is most definitely not fine tuned for life. If it were, every planet would be inhabited. As it is, they aren't, and even this particular planet is has huge swaths that are uninhabitable.
To put it more simply, let's just look at one factor: temperature. Temperatures in the universe range from -450 to 10,000 degrees. In that huge range, life can only survive in a tiny sliver of it.
Not only is the universe not particularly systematic, (from what I can see, it looks like an explosion in slow motion)
Which is simply a superficial look. The reality is, that rather than randomness being the overall state, the universe exists as an orderly system of orbiting bodies or otherwise predictable paths and in which what is seen as disorder is an aberration. To which even secular minds attest:
“The order of the universe is not an assumption; it’s an observed fact. We detect the light from distant quasars only because the laws of electromagnetism are the same 10 billion light years away as here. The spectra of those quasars are recognizable only because the same chemical elements are present there as here, and because the same laws of quantum mechanics apply. The motion of galaxies around one another follows familiar Newtonian gravity. Gravitational lenses and binary pulsar spin-downs reveal general relativity in the depths of space. We could have lived in a universe with different laws in every province, but we do not. This fact cannot but elicit feelings of reverence and awe.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark[Spinoza admirer] Albert Einstein observed, "We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations." , it is most definitely not fine tuned for life. If it were, every planet would be inhabited. As it is, they aren't, and even this particular planet is has huge swaths that are uninhabitable.
Context, rather than ignoring links. What is referenced is earth life, and while there are virtually no places on earth that lack life, and some form of bacteria may yet be found someplace else, the earth, and thus the solar system and galaxy and universe in which it exists, is uniquely fine tuned for the only intelligent natural life we know of. Meanwhile, if you want to belief in aliens based upon craft that defy the known laws of physics, then then at the least you should have no objection to supernatural beings.
The Universe Really Is Fine-Tuned, And Our Existence Is The Proof - https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/19/the-universe-really-is-fine-tuned-and-our-existence-is-the-proof/?sh=6ef154444b87
"according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/ A listing of such follows.A list of 60 aspects is by Ross, cited as regards the above from Ross is https://wng.org/roundups/a-fine-tuned-universe-1617224984 ,
I think if the universe were systematic and built for life, as I said, all the planets (or most) would be inhabited, and our own world would be much more inhabitable than it is. If you look at this mess and see order, good for you, but I just see a hodge-podge, of which one tiny, tiny speck is inhabitable, and only sometimes. The rest of it is freezing cold or blazing hot, or devoid of oxygen or gravity, and... we found a niche. Lucky us.
Absurd, meaning dismissing actual observable science, and basing your superior opinion on a superficial appearance of an hodge-podge explosion of matter while ignoring the orbital and or predictable courses that bodies are, all related to each other to some degree. Remove even one planet from our solar system That collisions happen btwn bodies in their predictable courses is true, but there is a symmetry to the universe that is observable and well attested to.
I think if the universe were systematic and built for life, as I said, all the planets (or most) would be inhabited,
I explained that yet you insist on a scenario that was not conceptually argued for. It is earth life - the only proven intelligent life we know of - that our solar system, and thus the galaxy is finely tuned for, and even the universe as to some degree all are related. There are so many possible variables that are necessary for our intelligent life and so little tolerance that the odds of this happening by chance are simply astronomically astronomical. And the fact that all this complexity is for earth life actually supports the premise of special creation.
But seeing as you dismiss all evidence and insist on your own ignorant perception then why should I argue further? Yet may God grant you "repentance unto the acknowledging of the truth." (2 Timothy 2:25)
As for the odds of our planet having a limited zone that can support intelligent life being "astronomical," funny you should use that word. There are billions of planets out there. If we are one in a billion, there's your odds.
But yes, it's useless to argue. If you want to see patterns, you'll see them, just like people looking up at the stars saw constellations, or clouds that look like bunny rabbits.
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