Did Jesus Really Exist as a Person?

[lo country]

You either believe or you do not. It is called Faith for a reason.

Something said to me, that is a simple illustration is that if Jesus was not the Son of God, then he and 12 uneducated persons perpetrated the world's greatest hoax by spreading the message of Grace across the entire known world and got, through history, millions of people to believe. Also most of his immediate circle were imprisoned and martyred. Unsure how many folks would die a horrible death to keep a hoax going. (Assuming you believe that the Disciples and Apostles were actually those killed). Pretty incredible if based solely on a lie.

If anyone is interested, a site I always point out is carm.org It is a Bible apologetics web site that has some good info from a Biblical perspective that answers a lot of questions people have. Good stuff IMO, if you are looking for "reasons" of Biblical issues.

Take care

 

[NUance]

So if Jesus didn't exist I guess the gospels were just a very elaborate hoax. And an expensive hoax too, given that the writers were killed for their efforts.

Since we don't know exactly who wrote the Gospels, it's rather hard to say they were killed for writing them, isn't it?

Well, if Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul didn't write them, I'll bet they were pissed at whoever did. Because most of them got killed for it. (John didn't.)

edit: I guess the new Testament books by Peter and Paul are not gospels. But you get the point.

The early leaders of Christianity may very well have been killed for their beliefs. However, this would not authenticate any of the books accredited to them.

Some of the Gospels are authored anonymously and the others were written based on second-hand information. I may be mistaken, but I think most historians agree that the earliest copies of the Gospels that have been found are from the 2nd century. There are also discrepancies between Gospels, which show that at least one contains fabricated or misinterpreted information.

Given the penalty for being a Christian leader in those days, why would anyone write about Jesus is he didn't exist? If Jesus did not exist, what was in it for Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul and the other early Christian martyrs?

That logic would old true for basically any religion on its origin period in most of human history. Religious changes in an area tended to be bloody affairs.

I guess I don't know enough about other religions to know whether that's true. Were the early disciples of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. killed for their beliefs?

 

[strigori]

You either believe or you do not. It is called Faith for a reason.

Something said to me, that is a simple illustration is that if Jesus was not the Son of God, then he and 12 uneducated persons perpetrated the world's greatest hoax by spreading the message of Grace across the entire known world and got, through history, millions of people to believe. Also most of his immediate circle were imprisoned and martyred. Unsure how many folks would die a horrible death to keep a hoax going. (Assuming you believe that the Disciples and Apostles were actually those killed). Pretty incredible if based solely on a lie.

Tricking an uneducated populace. Then it becomes a matter of indoctrination after the first generation believers.

Seriously, take the events described in the Bible and change the year to now, you would look at them like they were insane. And immediately start thinking about the methods used to fabricate the stories.

Why would they do it? Why do criminals do anything that might be dangerous? (Yes, by the standards of the era they would be criminals) After they started doing the Jesus sales pitch, do you recall stories on why any of them, or Jesus for that matter, actually did any work? Why do it? Money, food, shelter, ego. A cynical way of looking at it? Sure, but people behave like that now, and people would have behaved like that then also.

 

[Husker_x]

Seems to have been about perfect timing to me, actually, joking aside.

It's one thing to say so, another to make an argument. Given two options--

A. Manifesting a deity in a remote province of the Roman empire roughly two thousand years before any reliable methods of verifying it were invented and during a time period when reports of prophets and messiahs were common throughout the known world.

or

B. Manifesting a deity in full view of a camera so that the event can be witnessed by everyone and simultaneously copied and stored on millions of independent servers and personal computers so the authenticity could not be seriously questioned--

I'll take option B. In the Christian tradition God knew in advance that these technologies would one day exist. Even a rudimentary printing press would have radically improved the preservation of the so-called 'inerrant' word of God. Instead, what we get is a bunch of second hand reporting followed by hand copying, a thousand years of which can't amount to the quality of a single Xerox machine flashing a "low toner" warning.

Also, one thing I'll mention that's worth mentioning:

The Biblical accounts of Jesus are independent sources, written by different people at different times to different audiences. Just because we group them all together into one book now, doesn't discredit the strength of evidence in originally having multiple accounts independent of each other testifying to the same things.

Yes, but in the case of the synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke borrow from Mark. We've got a little game of telephone going on even there. They're only sort-of independent sources, but more importantly, none of them are actually "witnesses." They only tell second or third-hand accounts (no real way of knowing), and there's no argument to be had on this point because we don't even know who wrote them. The names were attached later.

This brings up a second point, which is even if all four of these books were independent, eye witness accounts, they would still be very poor evidence for something like the resurrection. You can find plenty of independent, first hand, eye witness accounts of alien abductions, but almost nobody believes in that stuff. With religion it seems the rust of age miraculously makes the evidence stronger (but no one seems very eager to explain why).

Going along with that, the minute details of the accounts just aren't made as emphasis. A lot of Biblical literature is unique in genre - it's not historical, but it does record history. It's not fiction, but it does have elements of legend. It's not poetry, but it does use illustrations. The gospel accounts were, according to Christian tradition, never meant to be academic or scientific and contain "errors" in details, even quotes that aren't verbatim. That doesn't mean they aren't inerrant or uninspired by the Holy Spirit, it just means that our presupposition towards what they're purposed for is mistaken. It's like saying, "Jesus can't be true or the Son of God because he said mustard seeds are the smallest of seeds and we know there are smaller seeds than that." Well, no, because Jesus isn't a botanist and wasn't teaching biology.

Okay, but why would an all-knowing God add elements of fiction to his revelation of supreme and absolute truth? Why muddy the waters, especially when doing so makes your half-history/half-legend story indistinguishable from every other half-and-half myth before, during, and after the one you're trying to convince the world is the only authentic one ever written?

I've made this argument before, but it bears repeating. God's resources are literally infinite to spread a pretty simple message. Given that this is the case, the sheer amount of confusion and bluster surrounding Christianity (and the gospels), the endless and ongoing schisms, misunderstandings, and misinformation is itself an argument against divine origins. When uneducated primitive humans record legendary stories, this is exactly what we expect them to look like. Why is it God couldn't do any better, given his power? It's an honest question.

 

[lo country]

You either believe or you do not. It is called Faith for a reason.

Something said to me, that is a simple illustration is that if Jesus was not the Son of God, then he and 12 uneducated persons perpetrated the world's greatest hoax by spreading the message of Grace across the entire known world and got, through history, millions of people to believe. Also most of his immediate circle were imprisoned and martyred. Unsure how many folks would die a horrible death to keep a hoax going. (Assuming you believe that the Disciples and Apostles were actually those killed). Pretty incredible if based solely on a lie.

Tricking an uneducated populace. Then it becomes a matter of indoctrination after the first generation believers.

Seriously, take the events described in the Bible and change the year to now, you would look at them like they were insane. And immediately start thinking about the methods used to fabricate the stories.

Why would they do it? Why do criminals do anything that might be dangerous? (Yes, by the standards of the era they would be criminals) After they started doing the Jesus sales pitch, do you recall stories on why any of them, or Jesus for that matter, actually did any work? Why do it? Money, food, shelter, ego. A cynical way of looking at it? Sure, but people behave like that now, and people would have behaved like that then also.

Well, Stephen in Acts 7 did it to simply spread the message that Christ was the Messiah, he really didn't get much other than the stoning.

Saul ,later Paul was far from uneducated, not to mention Phillip and the Eunuch (who was the treasurer of the Queen of Ethipia).

I think you can look at modern day missionaries as an example. They do it to simply accomplish the great commission to spread the Gospel. The ones I know do not do it for any other reason than that. It was also done to spread the message that we are all born into sin, each and everyone of us, Jesus, as the Son of God took that sin on the cross, for all who believed so that we could be free of sin and have His Grace. Pretty sure that was their motives. I know a few who had very lucrative jobs that provided all the above you mentioned and left it to spread the Gospel.

Again, when Jesus said follow me and take up the cross, it was a literal reference to "following me you will die" as the cross was a sign of capital punishment in that day. They knew what they were getting into.

Unsure if this even remotely answered your question.

Lastly, to quote Tadaschi, "Selfishness, even in the face of self preservation, is still selfishness". I think this sums up the early Apostles attitude. They selflessly spread the Word, to their own detriment.

<img class="UMSRatingIcon" id="ums_img_tooltip" />

 

[lo country]

Seems to have been about perfect timing to me, actually, joking aside.

It's one thing to say so, another to make an argument. Given two options--

A. Manifesting a deity in a remote province of the Roman empire roughly two thousand years before any reliable methods of verifying it were invented and during a time period when reports of prophets and messiahs were common throughout the known world.

or

B. Manifesting a deity in full view of a camera so that the event can be witnessed by everyone and simultaneously copied and stored on millions of independent servers and personal computers so the authenticity could not be seriously questioned--

I'll take option B. In the Christian tradition God knew in advance that these technologies would one day exist. Even a rudimentary printing press would have radically improved the preservation of the so-called 'inerrant' word of God. Instead, what we get is a bunch of second hand reporting followed by hand copying, a thousand years of which can't amount to the quality of a single Xerox machine flashing a "low toner" warning.

Also, one thing I'll mention that's worth mentioning:

The Biblical accounts of Jesus are independent sources, written by different people at different times to different audiences. Just because we group them all together into one book now, doesn't discredit the strength of evidence in originally having multiple accounts independent of each other testifying to the same things.

Yes, but in the case of the synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke borrow from Mark. We've got a little game of telephone going on even there. They're only sort-of independent sources, but more importantly, none of them are actually "witnesses." They only tell second or third-hand accounts (no real way of knowing), and there's no argument to be had on this point because we don't even know who wrote them. The names were attached later.

This brings up a second point, which is even if all four of these books were independent, eye witness accounts, they would still be very poor evidence for something like the resurrection. You can find plenty of independent, first hand, eye witness accounts of alien abductions, but almost nobody believes in that stuff. With religion it seems the rust of age miraculously makes the evidence stronger (but no one seems very eager to explain why).

Going along with that, the minute details of the accounts just aren't made as emphasis. A lot of Biblical literature is unique in genre - it's not historical, but it does record history. It's not fiction, but it does have elements of legend. It's not poetry, but it does use illustrations. The gospel accounts were, according to Christian tradition, never meant to be academic or scientific and contain "errors" in details, even quotes that aren't verbatim. That doesn't mean they aren't inerrant or uninspired by the Holy Spirit, it just means that our presupposition towards what they're purposed for is mistaken. It's like saying, "Jesus can't be true or the Son of God because he said mustard seeds are the smallest of seeds and we know there are smaller seeds than that." Well, no, because Jesus isn't a botanist and wasn't teaching biology.

Okay, but why would an all-knowing God add elements of fiction to his revelation of supreme and absolute truth? Why muddy the waters, especially when doing so makes your half-history/half-legend story indistinguishable from every other half-and-half myth before, during, and after the one you're trying to convince the world is the only authentic one ever written?

I've made this argument before, but it bears repeating. God's resources are literally infinite to spread a pretty simple message. Given that this is the case, the sheer amount of confusion and bluster surrounding Christianity (and the gospels), the endless and ongoing schisms, misunderstandings, and misinformation is itself an argument against divine origins. When uneducated primitive humans record legendary stories, this is exactly what we expect them to look like. Why is it God couldn't do any better, given his power? It's an honest question.

In a cave man logic kind of way, here is how a lot of the above was described to me as it relates to the Gospels and other books in the Bible relating to events.

We are all at an intersection of a four way stop. Each of us on a separate corner. An accident occurs and we are all interviewed. The accounting would be similar, but slightly different based upon what we actually saw. It doesn't make the accident less real. It actually authenticates the truthfulness of the account as all 4 could not have seen/experienced the same thing in the same way.

 

[strigori]

You either believe or you do not. It is called Faith for a reason.

Something said to me, that is a simple illustration is that if Jesus was not the Son of God, then he and 12 uneducated persons perpetrated the world's greatest hoax by spreading the message of Grace across the entire known world and got, through history, millions of people to believe. Also most of his immediate circle were imprisoned and martyred. Unsure how many folks would die a horrible death to keep a hoax going. (Assuming you believe that the Disciples and Apostles were actually those killed). Pretty incredible if based solely on a lie.

Tricking an uneducated populace. Then it becomes a matter of indoctrination after the first generation believers.

Seriously, take the events described in the Bible and change the year to now, you would look at them like they were insane. And immediately start thinking about the methods used to fabricate the stories.

Why would they do it? Why do criminals do anything that might be dangerous? (Yes, by the standards of the era they would be criminals) After they started doing the Jesus sales pitch, do you recall stories on why any of them, or Jesus for that matter, actually did any work? Why do it? Money, food, shelter, ego. A cynical way of looking at it? Sure, but people behave like that now, and people would have behaved like that then also.

Well, Stephen in Acts 7 did it to simply spread the message that Christ was the Messiah, he really didn't get much other than the stoning.

Saul ,later Paul was far from uneducated, not to mention Phillip and the Eunuch (who was the treasurer of the Queen of Ethipia).

I think you can look at modern day missionaries as an example. They do it to simply accomplish the great commission to spread the Gospel. The ones I know do not do it for any other reason than that. It was also done to spread the message that we are all born into sin, each and everyone of us, Jesus, as the Son of God took that sin on the cross, for all who believed so that we could be free of sin and have His Grace. Pretty sure that was their motives. I know a few who had very lucrative jobs that provided all the above you mentioned and left it to spread the Gospel.

Again, when Jesus said follow me and take up the cross, it was a literal reference to "following me you will die" as the cross was a sign of capital punishment in that day. They knew what they were getting into.

Unsure if this even remotely answered your question.

Lastly, to quote Tadaschi, "Selfishness, even in the face of self preservation, is still selfishness". I think this sums up the early Apostles attitude. They selflessly spread the Word, to their own detriment.

<img class="UMSRatingIcon" id="ums_img_tooltip" />

Apples and oranges. Indoctrinated zealots a couple of thousand years removed are not the same as the hucksters that start pitching a scam to avoid working. You are taking the stance that they are above reproach, and giving them every benefit of the doubt. And it would ONLY apply to the guys who started the scam.

Look at it like a modern day cult. (It was a cult when it started) A charismatic guy creates a story and convinces some people to believe him. The suckers for the cult leader can be educated, or not. Level of education has nothing to do with gullibility.

Nothing yet to rule out the theory. I'm talking outside accepted scripture, as obviously it would back the scam. Particularly anything surviving to this day, as there would be far too much money and power at stake to let some contrary document continue to exist. Most people don't even want to believe that the Bible, in its current form, was assembled by the Catholic church several centuries AD.

 

[Husker_x]

Seems to have been about perfect timing to me, actually, joking aside.

It's one thing to say so, another to make an argument. Given two options--

A. Manifesting a deity in a remote province of the Roman empire roughly two thousand years before any reliable methods of verifying it were invented and during a time period when reports of prophets and messiahs were common throughout the known world.

or

B. Manifesting a deity in full view of a camera so that the event can be witnessed by everyone and simultaneously copied and stored on millions of independent servers and personal computers so the authenticity could not be seriously questioned--

I'll take option B. In the Christian tradition God knew in advance that these technologies would one day exist. Even a rudimentary printing press would have radically improved the preservation of the so-called 'inerrant' word of God. Instead, what we get is a bunch of second hand reporting followed by hand copying, a thousand years of which can't amount to the quality of a single Xerox machine flashing a "low toner" warning.

Also, one thing I'll mention that's worth mentioning:

The Biblical accounts of Jesus are independent sources, written by different people at different times to different audiences. Just because we group them all together into one book now, doesn't discredit the strength of evidence in originally having multiple accounts independent of each other testifying to the same things.

Yes, but in the case of the synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke borrow from Mark. We've got a little game of telephone going on even there. They're only sort-of independent sources, but more importantly, none of them are actually "witnesses." They only tell second or third-hand accounts (no real way of knowing), and there's no argument to be had on this point because we don't even know who wrote them. The names were attached later.

This brings up a second point, which is even if all four of these books were independent, eye witness accounts, they would still be very poor evidence for something like the resurrection. You can find plenty of independent, first hand, eye witness accounts of alien abductions, but almost nobody believes in that stuff. With religion it seems the rust of age miraculously makes the evidence stronger (but no one seems very eager to explain why).

Going along with that, the minute details of the accounts just aren't made as emphasis. A lot of Biblical literature is unique in genre - it's not historical, but it does record history. It's not fiction, but it does have elements of legend. It's not poetry, but it does use illustrations. The gospel accounts were, according to Christian tradition, never meant to be academic or scientific and contain "errors" in details, even quotes that aren't verbatim. That doesn't mean they aren't inerrant or uninspired by the Holy Spirit, it just means that our presupposition towards what they're purposed for is mistaken. It's like saying, "Jesus can't be true or the Son of God because he said mustard seeds are the smallest of seeds and we know there are smaller seeds than that." Well, no, because Jesus isn't a botanist and wasn't teaching biology.

Okay, but why would an all-knowing God add elements of fiction to his revelation of supreme and absolute truth? Why muddy the waters, especially when doing so makes your half-history/half-legend story indistinguishable from every other half-and-half myth before, during, and after the one you're trying to convince the world is the only authentic one ever written?

I've made this argument before, but it bears repeating. God's resources are literally infinite to spread a pretty simple message. Given that this is the case, the sheer amount of confusion and bluster surrounding Christianity (and the gospels), the endless and ongoing schisms, misunderstandings, and misinformation is itself an argument against divine origins. When uneducated primitive humans record legendary stories, this is exactly what we expect them to look like. Why is it God couldn't do any better, given his power? It's an honest question.

In a cave man logic kind of way, here is how a lot of the above was described to me as it relates to the Gospels and other books in the Bible relating to events.

We are all at an intersection of a four way stop. Each of us on a separate corner. An accident occurs and we are all interviewed. The accounting would be similar, but slightly different based upon what we actually saw. It doesn't make the accident less real. It actually authenticates the truthfulness of the account as all 4 could not have seen/experienced the same thing in the same way.

I've heard that argument before, but it doesn't really address my point. God had no reason to stage this event--the most important ever, you'll concede--like four people watching an accident. Instead he could have put four cameras at the same stop and just given us the facts. His reliance on human interpretation, riddled with error as it is known to be, is suspicious considering how many options he has (and this isn't even getting into the sci-fi sh#t he could spring on our consciousness, stuff beyond our current understanding). Even my polite suggestion of using modern technology is way undervaluing God's capabilities.

 

[lo country]

You either believe or you do not. It is called Faith for a reason.

Something said to me, that is a simple illustration is that if Jesus was not the Son of God, then he and 12 uneducated persons perpetrated the world's greatest hoax by spreading the message of Grace across the entire known world and got, through history, millions of people to believe. Also most of his immediate circle were imprisoned and martyred. Unsure how many folks would die a horrible death to keep a hoax going. (Assuming you believe that the Disciples and Apostles were actually those killed). Pretty incredible if based solely on a lie.

Tricking an uneducated populace. Then it becomes a matter of indoctrination after the first generation believers.

Seriously, take the events described in the Bible and change the year to now, you would look at them like they were insane. And immediately start thinking about the methods used to fabricate the stories.

Why would they do it? Why do criminals do anything that might be dangerous? (Yes, by the standards of the era they would be criminals) After they started doing the Jesus sales pitch, do you recall stories on why any of them, or Jesus for that matter, actually did any work? Why do it? Money, food, shelter, ego. A cynical way of looking at it? Sure, but people behave like that now, and people would have behaved like that then also.

Well, Stephen in Acts 7 did it to simply spread the message that Christ was the Messiah, he really didn't get much other than the stoning.

Saul ,later Paul was far from uneducated, not to mention Phillip and the Eunuch (who was the treasurer of the Queen of Ethipia).

I think you can look at modern day missionaries as an example. They do it to simply accomplish the great commission to spread the Gospel. The ones I know do not do it for any other reason than that. It was also done to spread the message that we are all born into sin, each and everyone of us, Jesus, as the Son of God took that sin on the cross, for all who believed so that we could be free of sin and have His Grace. Pretty sure that was their motives. I know a few who had very lucrative jobs that provided all the above you mentioned and left it to spread the Gospel.

Again, when Jesus said follow me and take up the cross, it was a literal reference to "following me you will die" as the cross was a sign of capital punishment in that day. They knew what they were getting into.

Unsure if this even remotely answered your question.

Lastly, to quote Tadaschi, "Selfishness, even in the face of self preservation, is still selfishness". I think this sums up the early Apostles attitude. They selflessly spread the Word, to their own detriment.

<img class="UMSRatingIcon" id="ums_img_tooltip" />

Apples and oranges. Indoctrinated zealots a couple of thousand years removed are not the same as the hucksters that start pitching a scam to avoid working. You are taking the stance that they are above reproach, and giving them every benefit of the doubt. And it would ONLY apply to the guys who started the scam.

Look at it like a modern day cult. (It was a cult when it started) A charismatic guy creates a story and convinces some people to believe him. The suckers for the cult leader can be educated, or not. Level of education has nothing to do with gullibility.

Nothing yet to rule out the theory. I'm talking outside accepted scripture, as obviously it would back the scam. Particularly anything surviving to this day, as there would be far too much money and power at stake to let some contrary document continue to exist. Most people don't even want to believe that the Bible, in its current form, was assembled by the Catholic church several centuries AD.

We can go back and forth all night and I would still believe in Jesus. It proves nothing, again that is why it is called faith. No worries. It is late and I am out of here.

Have a good one.

 

[Roark]

Gospel of Matthew ~70-110

Gospel of Mark ~70

Gospel of Luke ~60-100

Gospel of John ~85-90

Your statement specifically refers to copies, and that's correct, we don't have any original manuscripts in existence today, but the range of scholarly opinions date the authorship to around these dates. I'm not sure which you're actually referring to.

The discrepancies between the gospels, which do exist, are easily explained without being problematic, in my opinion. Firstly, they existed as oral tradition long before written accounts. Now, removed 2,000 years from that time and culture, we immediately get hit with a huge dose of skepticism claiming, "You mean these stories were passed down by telling them? Then there's no way they're anywhere remotely close to accurate." But that's being fairly ignorant of the emphasis and importance, the 'sacred' nature so to speak, of oral tradition for the Jews. It was absolutely nothing like 21st century American gossip, but was a devoted and faithful retelling and preservation of stories when the means to record them were really limited.

Going along with that, the minute details of the accounts just aren't made as emphasis. A lot of Biblical literature is unique in genre - it's not historical, but it does record history. It's not fiction, but it does have elements of legend. It's not poetry, but it does use illustrations. The gospel accounts were, according to Christian tradition, never meant to be academic or scientific and contain "errors" in details, even quotes that aren't verbatim. That doesn't mean they aren't inerrant or uninspired by the Holy Spirit, it just means that our presupposition towards what they're purposed for is mistaken. It's like saying, "Jesus can't be true or the Son of God because he said mustard seeds are the smallest of seeds and we know there are smaller seeds than that." Well, no, because Jesus isn't a botanist and wasn't teaching biology.

First, in regard to the video you posted, I think that Carrier, while looking woefully unprepared for debate, makes a number of excellent points, which aren't addressed by Craig. Craig's argument hinges on the belief that the Gospels are individual accounts of Jesus, when in actuality, it's likely that the writers were well aware of this story through a common source. Craig makes a huge assumption when he states that this source is first hand knowledge. Also, I find it odd that Craig so easily dismisses Carrier's evidence of literary devices in scripture. In fact, the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabus, which is believed to have been written ~70-130 specifically mentions the comparison of Jesus to that of the temple scape goat. This, at least, shows that early Christians were certainly aware of this idea.

Which leads me to the core question of their debate: how do we know which stories to believe? Should we accept all other oral traditions and ancient writings as mostly true? Even within Jewish oral tradition there exist stories which are obvious works of fiction.

To me, all credibility is lost if historical inaccuracies exist in a text that is used as evidence to support a historical event. The fact that fabrications and forgeries are quite common in early Christian writings also causes alarm and raises questions about the 'sacred nature' of traditions in the early church.

 

[Landlord]

Most people don't even want to believe that the Bible, in its current form, was assembled by the Catholic church several centuries AD.

That's because that's not even remotely close to true.

Okay, but why would an all-knowing God add elements of fiction to his revelation of supreme and absolute truth? Why muddy the waters, especially when doing so makes your half-history/half-legend story indistinguishable from every other half-and-half myth before, during, and after the one you're trying to convince the world is the only authentic one ever written?

I've made this argument before, but it bears repeating. God's resources are literally infinite to spread a pretty simple message. Given that this is the case, the sheer amount of confusion and bluster surrounding Christianity (and the gospels), the endless and ongoing schisms, misunderstandings, and misinformation is itself an argument against divine origins. When uneducated primitive humans record legendary stories, this is exactly what we expect them to look like. Why is it God couldn't do any better, given his power? It's an honest question.

Bare with me, as I have a few different threads of thought going around right now.

While it would be true that an omniscient God would have infinite resources to spread his message (you can call it simple, but let's be honest; if the message is real it surpasses all amount of human understanding), an effective author is one that can cater to his reader. So I mean, I don't think it's that God couldn't do any better, it's that we couldn't receive any better. I can be the most accomplished dog trainer in the world, but I won't ever be able to express to a dog about my job and my family in a way it would understand. That only says something about the dog, not about me. Same thing with God the Father and God the son - patriarchal language. A skeptic will look at that as evidence that they're a contrived human invention - I think it's just as logical that God would choose to reveal Himself in an approachable and comprehendable way; a sexless deity would have severely freaked people the f*** out.

You're a smart dude x, but one thing I think I see from your responses is that you don't really seem to give proper respect to the infinitely gaping chasm between the power/knowledge of a hypothetical deity and our own. Your arguments are educated but they seem to just make a supposed God out to be a dummy. And I agree with what someone above said - if God's messiah were to reveal himself today, in this age of information and technology, your argument is that it would help his cause but my belief is that it would actually worsen it. While we might have better information across the board, we also have humongous amounts of cynicism and skepticism from being spoon-fed these huge quantities and told to believe them. That's only part of the picture, admittedly, from my perspective (answering the question of why Jesus didn't come now instead of 2k years ago), since I'm content in trusting that part of the reason for his timing was providential and divine and not something so obvious.

Lastly, as far as muddying the waters and not being distinguishable from any other myth, a lot of that I admittedly don't have a concrete response to, but the resurrection is the distinction. Even if every single other element were the same down to names and dates and places compared to ever other religious faith, the resurrection is the crux.

 

[TGHusker]

Just to add my 2 cents: There are many good books on the subject that are written for the 'lay person'. Just a few that I would recommend - not an exhaustive list by any means:

Any books by Josh McDowell - Evidence that Demands a Verdict 1 & 2, More Than a Carpenter, and others - Addresses the reliability of the Bible - which faith hinges on

http://www.amazon.co...tripbooks%2C157

Books by Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and other Case for books

http://www.amazon.co...e+strobel+books

Timothy Keller - The Reason For God - excellent chapter on the problem of evil

http://www.amazon.co...+timothy+keller

Randy Alcorn - If God is good... Addresses the whole issue - If God is good, why all of this evil

http://www.amazon.co...ds=randy+alcorn

Randy Alcorn - Heaven - addresses the concept of well, heaven & afterlife

What's so Great about Christianity

http://www.amazon.co...ut+christianity

Total Truth

http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/1433502208

But also there are 100s of millions of 'living books' - people who's lives have been radically changed to the better by faith in Christ. The apostle Paul wasn't the only one to have a Damascus Road experience - maybe most aren't as dramatic but still equally life changing. From the drug addict to the smug intellectual - changed lives have come from all cultures, status, races and nations. It is the work of God's spirit and a mind that has been enlightened to understand the Bible in a new way - other than poetry, history, or stories.

 

[Landlord]

But also there are 100s of millions of 'living books' - people who's lives have been radically changed to the better by faith in Christ. The apostle Paul wasn't the only one to have a Damascus Road experience - maybe most aren't as dramatic but still equally life changing. From the drug addict to the smug intellectual - changed lives have come from all cultures, status, races and nations. It is the work of God's spirit and a mind that has been enlightened to understand the Bible in a new way - other than poetry, history, or stories.

While I don't deny the supernatural healing that can be the fruit of faith in Jesus, and rejoice in hearing incredible stories of redemption and restoration, you can't really use that as compelling evidence in a conversation like this. The reason being that drug addicts and smug intellectuals from all cultures, statuses, races and nations have had their lives changed by many other different idols and ideologies that aren't Christianity as well.

There's nothing compelling or inherently unique in this when everyone has testimony to the same things.

 

[TGHusker]

But also there are 100s of millions of 'living books' - people who's lives have been radically changed to the better by faith in Christ. The apostle Paul wasn't the only one to have a Damascus Road experience - maybe most aren't as dramatic but still equally life changing. From the drug addict to the smug intellectual - changed lives have come from all cultures, status, races and nations. It is the work of God's spirit and a mind that has been enlightened to understand the Bible in a new way - other than poetry, history, or stories.

While I don't deny the supernatural healing that can be the fruit of faith in Jesus, and rejoice in hearing incredible stories of redemption and restoration, you can't really use that as compelling evidence in a conversation like this. The reason being that drug addicts and smug intellectuals from all cultures, statuses, races and nations have had their lives changed by many other different idols and ideologies that aren't Christianity as well.

There's nothing compelling or inherently unique in this when everyone has testimony to the same things.

Yes I agree, but it is a demonstration of the affects of faith - and a Biblically based faith. We become what we believe - our thoughts and actions come from our deepest held beliefs. A bad tree cannot product good fruit. Unfortunately, we cannot use the 'scientific method' on faith. I don't believe in blind faith - faith has to have a hook to hang its hat on. So, you have to go back to the reliability of the information that the hat is hanging on. I think Knapp in his post above hit it correctly, we cannot base our faith on men (as he found he had) - we have to base it on something we deem to be reliable. But faith in itself has a mix of the unknown. We weren't there 2000 years ago. So we do have to trust the word that has been handed down. Yet, this doesn't have to be blind faith. Josh McDowell does an excellent job of documenting the reliability of the Bible (the foundation), which my faith in Christ is based, he then looks at the historical record of Christ, eye witness testimony, etc. While we sometime down play that these were guys who lived 2000 years ago - it doesn't mean they were dumb in comparison to modern man - Luke was a doctor and a historian, Paul would have a PHD in theology in today's world, etc. and yes many were common people. The writers of the Bible (some 44 over 100-1000s of years) came from very diverse backgrouds, some were profound leaders still admired today and some were very common people - but there was a central theme throughout the Bible - God's love for man and His redemptive plan through Christ.

All of us have a world view by which we base our life around that helps us to interpret the world. I have choose a Biblical world view because I believe it to be reliable. 100% scientific method proven - no. Most world views cannot be scientifically proven 100% - unless science is your god and you have faith in that god - but as we all know science changes wt time as well.

 

[Roark]

Your arguments are educated but they seem to just make a supposed God out to be a dummy.

I think what Husker_x is saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that if we are to believe that the Christian god is both omnipitent and just, then he should have chosen a more credible means to spread his word than the fallible word of man. If God is omnipotent, then he would have known that the doubts cast by these texts. If he is just, then how can he sentence those to Hell for not believing?

Instead of appearing on CNN, I would have suggested that God send giant indestructible stones recording the true events of Jesus' life and death. If such monuments existed, and were clearly of supernatural origin, then countless Christian lives would have been saved along with a great many more souls. This shouldn't have been a problem for God, who was clearly willing and able to defy natural law (ie: by raising the dead) to prove his existence.