Who is Jesus?

[OneLight]

808, here is a link to a site where you can find where other, non-biblical writings about Jesus ... http://www.reasonableanswers.org/11-Historical-Extra-Biblical-Evidence-concerning-the-Resurection-of-Christ.html

[LuftWaffle]

The issue is the "evidence" being offered to me is based on something that can't be verified. It's simply based on an assumption. And what I'm pointing out is since it can't be verified, the possibilities of what really happened are a lot broader than simply what is stated in the Bible. That's what my entire point is. We're dealing with a book that is making supernatural claims. Historically speaking, supernatural claimants don't have a great track record. So, why should I trust this one over the others? That would be a good place to start if you want to provide evidence.

It looks like you're saying that, since the resurrection is a supernatural explanation, the evidence isn't valid because supernatural phenoma can't be verified.

There are two problems with this position.

First, you're confusing the evidence with the explanation of the evidence. The evidence itself isn't supernatural at all. Jesus was crucified, buried, and Mary Magdalene followed by numerous others discovered the tomb to be empty. Based on the belief that Jesus was raised from the dead Christianity spread despite serious oppression. Which of these pieces of evidence are supernatural in and of themselves?

In my view and the view of many the best explanation FOR the evidence though, is the resurrection, which isn't the evidence itself but what can explain the evidence best.

Secondly, if you're going to reject something because it isn't verifiable naturalistically then you're limiting your explanatory toolkit to only natural explanations. But what if Jesus really was risen from the dead? Based on this self-imposed rule of accepting only natural explanations you could never get to the truth. It's like looking for a treasure on an Island, but before you even start digging you declare a no-dig zone. What if the treasure is precisely there? You've doomed yourself never to find it.

This also makes your entire position circular. You claim there's no supernatural reality based on lack of evidence, and you reject out of hand any evidence that points to the supernatural.

1. How many followers did Jesus have at the time of his crucifixion?

2. Did the authorities perceive Jesus and his followers to be a threat?

3. How widespread was the news of the resurrection initially?

1. It depends on how you define 'follower'. The only disciple who actually stuck around was John. The rest scattered. One must wonder why these very disciples who ran for the hills when Jesus was captured, denying having ever known Him, ended up after the resurrection boldly proclaiming the gospel to a point where they boldly faced death for it.

2. Yes

3. I'm not sure.

Can any of the answers to these questions be verified outside of the Bible?

Again one must ask why it matters. Remember, the Bible is a collection of books and letters written by different people at different times. Rejecting a historical account of events because years later these accounts were complied in a single book we call the bible is not based on anything other than a philosophical bias against all things Biblical.

For the purposes of a historical investigation into the resurrection, each account qualifies as an independent attestation of the events.

Well, I'm imagine the disciples wanted to be consistent with the teachings of the Old Testament. Doesn't it clearly say that his dead "body" will rise, not spirit? Besides, a body rising from the dead makes for a much more compelling story.

There was absolutely no expectation from Jews in general of the followers of Jesus at that time that He would be executed as a criminal and that He would rise bodily from the dead. The Jews expected the Messiah to be a conqueror. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem shortly before He was crucified the jews of Jerusalem were shouting "Hoshana, Hoshana" which means liberate us. They were expecting a freedom fighter who would set up the throne of David forever.

But when Jesus riding on that donkey didn't turn left to attack the Roman compound but instead right and instead chased Jews out of the temple with a whip, they hated Him and saw Him as a blasphemer.

Firstly, would it have mattered if it was a man or woman considering they probably wouldn't have believed them either way?

It mattered in those times.

Using a woman also gives the disciples more of an excuse as to why many people wouldn't believe them to begin with.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here. If they *needed* an excuse a far better excuse would have been to claim that Jesus' resurrection was a resurrection in a spiritual sense only. But making a bold and falsifiable claim such as a physical resurrection, is crazy if you're making up a story.

This is not a tactic. Obviously, I would fall in the "nonbeliever" category. It's not obvious to me why Christianity is more reliable as Truth than other religions. You would have to demonstrate that.

I'm not going to do that. You're here, at a Christian forum and we're talking about Christian doctrine. Since you're a non-believer, there's absolutely no need for me or anybody else to debunk religions that you don't believe in anyway.

I think it's apart of human nature to want the good things to stay and the unpleasant things to go away. What we are craving is a consistency to things that we have experienced before on earth. The feeling of wanting to connect to something bigger than ourselves/the Earth is apart of that. It's the way to do that. There's a big unknown there. And we naturally fill up the big unknowns with a consistent version of those good things we experience here on earth. We attach familiar characteristics to it. It's like in ancient religions when people used to worship the sun.

You're saying what we do, but not why we do it. Why does humankind have this built-in desire to transcend? If this world is all there is, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to desire to transcend it.

As beautiful and amazing as this world is, there's a sense of wrongness about it. There's a sense of wrongness about us. As if it and us are broken. You can't deny it, 808state. If you think about it, deep down I'm sure you agree.

And here's something else to think about. If the material world is all there is, then life ultimately has no meaning, and if it has no ultimate meaning, then it also doesn't have any immediate meaning. Now, I know what you're going to say, because you've already said it, "We just have to make the best of the time we have and enjoy the time we have". But that's artificial meaning isn't it?

Edited February 13, 2011 by LuftWaffle

[Guest shiloh357]

Well, first, much of the New Testament was written anonymously, correct?

No, that is not true.

Regardless, if they did flat out fabricate or exaggerate the stories, their motive doesn't have to be self-glorification. Like I said before, a likely reason could be to move society in a different direction with a new religion.

The problem is that the disciples did not see Jesus as the founder of a new religion. They saw Jesus as the "Messiah" who was the fulfillment of their own Jewish religion. They did not teach that Jesus came to start a new religion, but that He was the fulfillment of words of the prophets, and that they were eyewitnesses to not only His life, but were eyewitnesses that He was alive.

The point of making themselves look bad could have been for the sake of representing the more negative aspects of human nature and to show how you could fight against those negative aspects of yourself with the teachings of the religion. They were demonstrations of what the religion could do for the masses. It was a selling point. If the everyone in the story was perfect, how could followers sympathize with them? And if they can't sympathize with them, how would these stories inspire change?

The problem is that that is not what they taught. The disciples taubht that we are unable under our own strength to fight against the sinful nature. Rather, they taught that it was only through Christ that a person could be transformed from the inside out. They did not teach any kind of behavioral modification or reform. Rather they taught not to rely on self, but to rely on Christ. Sorry, but their teachings reflect the exact opposite motives you try to ascribe to them.

That's a good thought. There are many possibilities. Again, we don't know much about Jesus outside of the Bible.

That is not really very relevant. The Bible is an excellent historical source, as many archeologists (Christian and nonChristian) will attest.

It could be that Jesus did not get himself a nice new tomb like it says in the Bible, but was thrown in the town garbage dump, which was typically where the executed were "laid to rest" in Ancient Rome. If that were the case, there's a good chance that no one would want to go looking/digging to find his body in that situation.

The problem though goes back to witnesses. It would have been easy to simply produce the Roman soldiers who disposed of His body. Remember that Jesus was "celebrity" and many people came to witness His death. Had Jesus' body been dumped in the garbage, it would have been attested to.

Especially if they were Jewish, since they are not allowed to be near dead bodies without breaking ritual cleanliness.

There are ways around that, even in Jewish law, and particularly because Jesus was such a threat to His enemies, they would have not given up the chance to end the ministry of the disciples the first chance they got.

It could also be that they simply didn't care to. They could have thought that he was like any other Messiah claimant of the time, and didn't anticipate the influence he would have later on.

Again, that simply doesn't wash. Jesus was more of a threat after His resurrection because. They had plenty of incentive to quiet the discples primarily because the religious leaders were tasked by their Roman rulers with keeping things quiet and quelling any uprisings that might jeopardize Roman interests. A Messiah was exactly the kind of thing that they did not want, and given the brutality of Rome, they had every reason in the world to keep a lid on this whole "Jesus" thing and silence the disciples by any means necessary up to and including capital punishment.

Well, like I said in my original post, Joe did fly in my presence. And my friends. We know what we saw. But Joe died. So, you're just gonna have to take our word for it.

The problem here is that your example is not analogous to the biblical accounts of Jesus. Its not like Jesus did some random miracle that only a select group got to see. Jesus healed people that EVERYONE knew were leprous, blind, lame, demonically possessed. He publically raised people from the dead. So in His case, its not just the people who saw the events, but you also have to account for the people who received the healing or were otherwised cured by Jesus of ailments. It is not just the eyewitnesses, but also the recipients who lives were changed.

Again, you're evidence only works if we assume that everything in the Bible is true.

This is faulty logic. You poison the well by assuming the Bible cannnot be trusted and unless I can prove the Bible is true, you are going to operate from the position that the Bible is be default untrue until proven otherwise. It doesn't work that way. If evidence cannot be brought forth to demonstrate that the Bible is basically unreliable, then by default it is true. There is a principle in literary analysis called the the prinicple of general trustworthiness. A document is given the benefit of the doubt as reliable until evidence comes forth to show it is not.

Even in our courts of law, the benefit of the doubt is always given to the testimony of a witness unless the witness can be found to be unreliable through discovery. The defendent is given the benefit of the doubt unless proven guilty. Your approach to the Bible is counter-intuitive to how things are done in the real world.

Ok. So let's say Jesus was neither a "lunatic" or a "habitual liar." Let's just say he lied about things to get people to believe he was the Messiah. It wouldn't have been the first time someone had successfully lied about being supernatural in some form.

The problem is that Jesus' proof He was Messiah was not in the things He said, but in what He did. Jesus fulfilled all of what the prophets said the Messiah would do AND even fulfilled extra-biblical signs of the Messiah in the Mishnah. Most the signs were not anything a mere man would have the ability to make come true. A mere man trying to "fool" people into thinking He was the Messiah would have to have control over the location of his birth, the timing of His birth, who his parents are, and thus the race and tribe he was born into. Many of the signs of the Messiah' first coming would have been out of the control of a mere human, and the odds of a person who is not the Messiah fulfilling them all is virtually incalcuable.

[Guest shiloh357]

Again, you've misunderstood me. Like I said in my previous post, I was not comparing Jesus in general to Greek Gods in general. I specifically was referring to the claim that any of them were actually miracles workers. As far as I am currently concerned, none of them were, and in that regard, they are in the same boat. I was not speaking about what kind of character they had, or what kind of miracles they were preforming, I was only referring to the assertion that they performed any miracles at all.

But you cannot separate what they did with who they were. A person is revealed in what they do moreso than in what say. The miracles of Jesus were of a different character. Unlike the pagan gods, Jesus did not use miracle to exact revenge to satisfy personal desires and urges. Jesus' miracles were never for Himself. This is contrasts entirely with the pagan gods who supernatural deeds were selfish and vindictive in many cases. The pagan gods were nothing but an amplification of humanity, and usually the worst in humanity. Jesus' on the other had demonstrates through His miracles that He transcended human failings. Jesus miracles cannot compared on any level with the pagans.

To say they are in the same boat simply on the basis of being able to perform a supernatural deed is intellectually shallow.

I can only speak for myself. I don't believe them because there is no evidence to their claims along with other issues I personally have with the Bible.

The problem is that you cannot produce any evidence that should give a reason to disbelieve them. That you see no evidence for their veracity is really not a valid basis for disbelief. Until now, you had no evidence I existed. That did not mean I was any less real simply because you had no evidence to go on.

I am curious, though. What other issues do you have with the Bible??

[Botz]

Would the bottom line be, for you, that you know Christianity has made you and your life better? Throw away intellectual analysis and all that, but you know through your experiences that Christianity has a positive effect on people's lives?

Nope....it is all about an intimate personal relationship with the Living G-d.

When I ended/laid aside, my search and my arguments and was prepared to believe that Jesus died for my sins...I reached out for G-d and was amazed that He actually responded and came into my life, cleared out all the sin and guilt, and literally gave me an awareness of His presence. I went from being an atheistic happy go lucky individual drifting around the world, to actually knowing the Creator of the Universe....I can't describe how amazed I was, it was the most mind-blowing thing that I could ever have dreamed of, and I look back at that point of connection in my life to Him, with undiminshed awe.

From there and the knowledge that G-d dwelt in me through His Holy Spirit, life has been a road of following Jesus, learning about Him, becoming a disciple, wanting to live life to its fullest, and naturally wanting to share Him with others. I realise that for many my experience of a personal encounter with G-d is subjective, but the Bible describes the same thing occuring with people who came to turn from their old life and embrace a new one, literally as a different person.

2Corinthians 5:17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

[enoob57]

Would the bottom line be, for you, that you know Christianity has made you and your life better? Throw away intellectual analysis and all that, but you know through your experiences that Christianity has a positive effect on people's lives?

Nope....it is all about an intimate personal relationship with the Living G-d.

When I ended/laid aside, my search and my arguments and was prepared to believe that Jesus died for my sins...I reached out for G-d and was amazed that He actually responded and came into my life, cleared out all the sin and guilt, and literally gave me an awareness of His presence. I went from being an atheistic happy go lucky individual drifting around the world, to actually knowing the Creator of the Universe....I can't describe how amazed I was, it was the most mind-blowing thing that I could ever have dreamed of, and I look back at that point of connection in my life to Him, with undiminished awe.

From there and the knowledge that G-d dwelt in me through His Holy Spirit, life has been a road of following Jesus, learning about Him, becoming a disciple, wanting to live life to its fullest, and naturally wanting to share Him with others. I realize that for many my experience of a personal encounter with G-d is subjective, but the Bible describes the same thing occurring with people who came to turn from their old life and embrace a new one, literally as a different person.

2Corinthians 5:17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

That nail was struck so squarely it drove it all the way to eternity... Love Steven

[808state]

It looks like you're saying that, since the resurrection is a supernatural explanation, the evidence isn't valid because supernatural phenoma can't be verified.

I'm not saying that. I'm not automatically discounting evidence simply because it's supernatural, but I'm not going to take it as fact at face value either. I'm going to be a bit more skeptical than that. If someone makes a claim of supernaturalism, the burden of proof is on them.

Again one must ask why it matters. Remember, the Bible is a collection of books and letters written by different people at different times. Rejecting a historical account of events because years later these accounts were complied in a single book we call the bible is not based on anything other than a philosophical bias against all things Biblical.

For the purposes of a historical investigation into the resurrection, each account qualifies as an independent attestation of the events.

There's definitely historical accuracy in the Bible, but that doesn't automatically make everything in the Bible accurate. Anyone can look at the events happening around them and then add fictional bits. There's historical accuracy in the Qu'ran and it was also written by many different people, but that doesn't make everything in the Qu'ran true.

There was absolutely no expectation from Jews in general of the followers of Jesus at that time that He would be executed as a criminal and that He would rise bodily from the dead. The Jews expected the Messiah to be a conqueror. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem shortly before He was crucified the jews of Jerusalem were shouting "Hoshana, Hoshana" which means liberate us. They were expecting a freedom fighter who would set up the throne of David forever.

But when Jesus riding on that donkey didn't turn left to attack the Roman compound but instead right and instead chased Jews out of the temple with a whip, they hated Him and saw Him as a blasphemer.

We're talking about if the writers of the Bible made up the resurrection. if they made up the resurrection, they would want a bodily one over a spiritual to keep consistency. I don't see why the above matters in this context.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here. If they *needed* an excuse a far better excuse would have been to claim that Jesus' resurrection was a resurrection in a spiritual sense only. But making a bold and falsifiable claim such as a physical resurrection, is crazy if you're making up a story.

But that wouldn't be consistent with the Old Testament. The fact is, people claimed to see ghosts all the time in Ancient Rome. Ghosts were usually associated with negative things. If they had claimed Jesus was resurrected as some ghostly figure, it probably wouldn't have the desired effect they would want it to have.

I'm not going to do that. You're here, at a Christian forum and we're talking about Christian doctrine. Since you're a non-believer, there's absolutely no need for me or anybody else to debunk religions that you don't believe in anyway.

I'm not asking you to debunk other religions, but to demonstrate how Christianity is actually superior to other religions.

You're saying what we do, but not why we do it. Why does humankind have this built-in desire to transcend? If this world is all there is, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to desire to transcend it.

As beautiful and amazing as this world is, there's a sense of wrongness about it. There's a sense of wrongness about us. As if it and us are broken. You can't deny it, 808state. If you think about it, deep down I'm sure you agree.

And here's something else to think about. If the material world is all there is, then life ultimately has no meaning, and if it has no ultimate meaning, then it also doesn't have any immediate meaning. Now, I know what you're going to say, because you've already said it, "We just have to make the best of the time we have and enjoy the time we have". But that's artificial meaning isn't it?

I'm not ruling out that there could be something more in the universe (though i'm not sure agree about the "wrongness" part). I'm simply saying that when I look at religions, they seem like they're just a matter of humans filling in the blanks themselves.

As far as life ultimately having no meaning, people make their own meanings in life. The universal meaning is probably survival.

[808state]

No, that is not true.

Could you elaborate on this?

The problem is that the disciples did not see Jesus as the founder of a new religion. They saw Jesus as the "Messiah" who was the fulfillment of their own Jewish religion. They did not teach that Jesus came to start a new religion, but that He was the fulfillment of words of the prophets, and that they were eyewitnesses to not only His life, but were eyewitnesses that He was alive.

Yes, but Jesus certainly had his own teachings that were not written in the Old Testament. Naturally, with people following those new teachings that was going to create a new spiritual movement.

The problem is that that is not what they taught. The disciples taubht that we are unable under our own strength to fight against the sinful nature. Rather, they taught that it was only through Christ that a person could be transformed from the inside out. They did not teach any kind of behavioral modification or reform. Rather they taught not to rely on self, but to rely on Christ. Sorry, but their teachings reflect the exact opposite motives you try to ascribe to them.

Ok. So, they would fight against the sin by letting Jesus into their heart and fight for them while following his teachings. This doesn't take away from my point.

That is not really very relevant. The Bible is an excellent historical source, as many archeologists (Christian and nonChristian) will attest.

And as I mentioned in my above post, just because somethings in the Bible are historically accurate, it doesn't make everything in the Bible true. it would be very easy for someone to record what was really happening at the time while adding fictional parts. Look at the Qu'ran.

The problem though goes back to witnesses. It would have been easy to simply produce the Roman soldiers who disposed of His body. Remember that Jesus was "celebrity" and many people came to witness His death. Had Jesus' body been dumped in the garbage, it would have been attested to.

The problem with this argument is that it's still based on unverified information in the Bible. We don't know if the Romans/Jews actually viewed him as so much of a threat at the time of his death that would request the body to be shown to his followers. We don't know when they got news of the resurrection, it could have been long after the body had begun to decompose.

This is faulty logic. You poison the well by assuming the Bible cannnot be trusted and unless I can prove the Bible is true, you are going to operate from the position that the Bible is be default untrue until proven otherwise. It doesn't work that way. If evidence cannot be brought forth to demonstrate that the Bible is basically unreliable, then by default it is true. There is a principle in literary analysis called the the prinicple of general trustworthiness. A document is given the benefit of the doubt as reliable until evidence comes forth to show it is not.

I'm only saying that the certain things in the Bible can't be verified as true (or false). Because of this, there are many possibilities as to what the truth is. It could be that everything written in the Bible is true, but it could be that not everything in the Bible is true. Only the writers know the truth. As a result of this, the burden of proof is on those that are making the claims that they know what this truth is. I'm not. I can say what I believe, and give reasons for this belief. But I'm not claiming to know the truth.

The problem is that Jesus' proof He was Messiah was not in the things He said, but in what He did. Jesus fulfilled all of what the prophets said the Messiah would do AND even fulfilled extra-biblical signs of the Messiah in the Mishnah. Most the signs were not anything a mere man would have the ability to make come true. A mere man trying to "fool" people into thinking He was the Messiah would have to have control over the location of his birth, the timing of His birth, who his parents are, and thus the race and tribe he was born into. Many of the signs of the Messiah' first coming would have been out of the control of a mere human, and the odds of a person who is not the Messiah fulfilling them all is virtually incalcuable.

Right. That's what it says in the Bible. There is no way of knowing whether or not these miracles actual occurred, and we don't know a lot about Jesus himself outside of the Bible.

[j102]

Well, first, much of the New Testament was written anonymously, correct?

No, that is not true.

The point of making themselves look bad could have been for the sake of representing the more negative aspects of human nature and to show how you could fight against those negative aspects of yourself with the teachings of the religion. They were demonstrations of what the religion could do for the masses. It was a selling point. If the everyone in the story was perfect, how could followers sympathize with them? And if they can't sympathize with them, how would these stories inspire change?

The problem is that that is not what they taught. The disciples taubht that we are unable under our own strength to fight against the sinful nature. Rather, they taught that it was only through Christ that a person could be transformed from the inside out. They did not teach any kind of behavioral modification or reform. Rather they taught not to rely on self, but to rely on Christ. Sorry, but their teachings reflect the exact opposite motives you try to ascribe to them.

That's a good thought. There are many possibilities. Again, we don't know much about Jesus outside of the Bible.

That is not really very relevant. The Bible is an excellent historical source, as many archeologists (Christian and nonChristian) will attest.

It could be that Jesus did not get himself a nice new tomb like it says in the Bible, but was thrown in the town garbage dump, which was typically where the executed were "laid to rest" in Ancient Rome. If that were the case, there's a good chance that no one would want to go looking/digging to find his body in that situation.

The problem though goes back to witnesses. It would have been easy to simply produce the Roman soldiers who disposed of His body. Remember that Jesus was "celebrity" and many people came to witness His death. Had Jesus' body been dumped in the garbage, it would have been attested to.

Especially if they were Jewish, since they are not allowed to be near dead bodies without breaking ritual cleanliness.

There are ways around that, even in Jewish law, and particularly because Jesus was such a threat to His enemies, they would have not given up the chance to end the ministry of the disciples the first chance they got.

It could also be that they simply didn't care to. They could have thought that he was like any other Messiah claimant of the time, and didn't anticipate the influence he would have later on.

Again, that simply doesn't wash. Jesus was more of a threat after His resurrection because. They had plenty of incentive to quiet the discples primarily because the religious leaders were tasked by their Roman rulers with keeping things quiet and quelling any uprisings that might jeopardize Roman interests. A Messiah was exactly the kind of thing that they did not want, and given the brutality of Rome, they had every reason in the world to keep a lid on this whole "Jesus" thing and silence the disciples by any means necessary up to and including capital punishment.

Well, like I said in my original post, Joe did fly in my presence. And my friends. We know what we saw. But Joe died. So, you're just gonna have to take our word for it.

The problem here is that your example is not analogous to the biblical accounts of Jesus. Its not like Jesus did some random miracle that only a select group got to see. Jesus healed people that EVERYONE knew were leprous, blind, lame, demonically possessed. He publically raised people from the dead. So in His case, its not just the people who saw the events, but you also have to account for the people who received the healing or were otherwised cured by Jesus of ailments. It is not just the eyewitnesses, but also the recipients who lives were changed.

Again, you're evidence only works if we assume that everything in the Bible is true.

This is faulty logic. You poison the well by assuming the Bible cannnot be trusted and unless I can prove the Bible is true, you are going to operate from the position that the Bible is be default untrue until proven otherwise. It doesn't work that way. If evidence cannot be brought forth to demonstrate that the Bible is basically unreliable, then by default it is true. There is a principle in literary analysis called the the prinicple of general trustworthiness. A document is given the benefit of the doubt as reliable until evidence comes forth to show it is not.

Even in our courts of law, the benefit of the doubt is always given to the testimony of a witness unless the witness can be found to be unreliable through discovery. The defendent is given the benefit of the doubt unless proven guilty. Your approach to the Bible is counter-intuitive to how things are done in the real world.

Ok. So let's say Jesus was neither a "lunatic" or a "habitual liar." Let's just say he lied about things to get people to believe he was the Messiah. It wouldn't have been the first time someone had successfully lied about being supernatural in some form.

The problem is that Jesus' proof He was Messiah was not in the things He said, but in what He did. Jesus fulfilled all of what the prophets said the Messiah would do AND even fulfilled extra-biblical signs of the Messiah in the Mishnah. Most the signs were not anything a mere man would have the ability to make come true. A mere man trying to "fool" people into thinking He was the Messiah would have to have control over the location of his birth, the timing of His birth, who his parents are, and thus the race and tribe he was born into. Many of the signs of the Messiah' first coming would have been out of the control of a mere human, and the odds of a person who is not the Messiah fulfilling them all is virtually incalcuable.

for those that always say we dont know much about jesus outside of the bible, well why dont you ask him to come into your life so you can know him better, if you really are interested in knowing him.

[LuftWaffle]

I'm not saying that. I'm not automatically discounting evidence simply because it's supernatural, but I'm not going to take it as fact at face value either. I'm going to be a bit more skeptical than that. If someone makes a claim of supernaturalism, the burden of proof is on them.

Fair enough. As long as you're objective about this and not merely shooting down everything we say because of a personal bias.

If you're honest, and you keep searching, then I believe God will reveal Himself to you in time.

Can I ask you a question? Suppose you could know the truth about God right now...would you accept it, knowing that once you've accepted it, you'll have to submit to it?

There's definitely historical accuracy in the Bible, but that doesn't automatically make everything in the Bible accurate. Anyone can look at the events happening around them and then add fictional bits. There's historical accuracy in the Qu'ran and it was also written by many different people, but that doesn't make everything in the Qu'ran true.

Yes but potential isn't necessarily actuality. That people could potentially add fictional bits doesn't mean they did. If you're going to assert that, you'll have to prove it.

The nature of any historical evidence is that it cannot be 'proven'. There isn't anything more the gospels written could have written that wouldn't be vulnerable to hyperscepticism.

This is the same for all of human history. How do we know Julius Ceasar really crossed the rubicon, or that Jerusalem really fell in 70AD?

The burden of proof is indeed on us, and we've provided sufficient evidence. If you're saying more extra biblical writers should have written about Jesus, then their extra-biblical accounts would have probably been added to the Bible, and then you'd reject them too for being part of the Bible. If there were a thousand corroborating gospels, then a true sceptic would expect more and reject it based in there not being ten thousand. Or it could simply be wiped off the table as, "they're probably just lying about it".

Such is the nature of all historical evidence.

We're talking about if the writers of the Bible made up the resurrection. if they made up the resurrection, they would want a bodily one over a spiritual to keep consistency. I don't see why the above matters in this context.

...consistency with what? As I said there was no expectation of the Messiah being killed as a criminal and rising from the dead. The expectation was of a conqueror who'd set up the throne of David forever. When Jesus was arrested even His closest followers denied Him. They left in disappointment, believing that it was all over.

But that wouldn't be consistent with the Old Testament. The fact is, people claimed to see ghosts all the time in Ancient Rome. Ghosts were usually associated with negative things. If they had claimed Jesus was resurrected as some ghostly figure, it probably wouldn't have the desired effect they would want it to have.

I don't understand what you're meaning. You mention consistency with the Old Testament, which you substantiate with people seeing ghosts in ancient Rome. Neither ghosts nor Rome feature much in the Old Testament.

And still you haven't dealt with the primary issue here. It is much easier to convince people of a spiritual resurrection then a physical one, because a spiritual resurrection needn't leave any physical evidence behind, whereas a physical one does. Speculating about ghosts in Rome, in that a real live dead criminal would be seen in a more negative way than a spectral one is nonsensical.

I'm not asking you to debunk other religions, but to demonstrate how Christianity is actually superior to other religions.

Which by implication involves comparison.

I'm not ruling out that there could be something more in the universe (though i'm not sure agree about the "wrongness" part). I'm simply saying that when I look at religions, they seem like they're just a matter of humans filling in the blanks themselves.

Well, the Christian God poses serious problems if it's merely a made up entity. Most pagan gods are like humans only bigger. They have the same desires and lusts as we do, they war amongst each other and they can even be defeated under the right circumstances.

The idea that people would come up with a trice Holy triune God is absurd.

The Christian God is also inconvenient, because He's too powerful, too big and too pure. It's not the sort of God that people invent. The other unique and inconvenient thing about Him is that there's nothing we can do to please Him. He needed to save us for Him, whereas all other gods generally bargain with their subjects, "If you do these things, then I'll reward you with heaven or nirvana or valhalla or whatever". This is pleasing to the human ego because through the power of will and deed, you can end up in a situation where god is indebted to you. The Christian God slays the ego, by saying, "even your best deeds are like filthy rags to me, but fear not I will save you".

As far as life ultimately having no meaning, people make their own meanings in life. The universal meaning is probably survival.

Subjectively making your own meaning is artificial, without ultimate meaning the each individual's actions also become meaningless.

The philospher J.P.Moreland uses this illustration to demonstrate the point:

Suppose I invite you to play monopoly at my house. You get the first turn and you roll the dice and get a 5, and you move your token 5 spaces up.

Now it's my turn, I turn the board upside down and arrange some houses in a circle and say, "your turn!".

You turn the board rightside up again, giving me a glance of disapproval, you put your token back where is was, roll the dice and more your token up.

My turn: I pour custard on the board and glue some of the monopoly money onto the custard.

Your turn: You roll the dice, maybe buy some property.

My turn: I turn on the TV and start watching something, saying "your turn"

Your turn: You pass go and collect $200

My turn: I take your $200 dollars fold it into a paper hat and put it on my head.

At some point you'll realise that the game is meaningless, and you'll stop playing, right? Why? Because if the game is ultimately meaningless, then your invidual actions stop mattering and there's no point in continuing.

If people make their own meaning, in the absense of ultimate meaning, then life becomes pointless, and nothing really matters.

Onto your next point. Survival by itself cannot be an ultimate meaning or a purpose, because then the question comes "Why must we survive?"

Also living in order to survive is a rather dreary reason to keep living, not so? In fact, when people say, "I;m just surviving right now, not really living" we understand as them being down in the dumps, depressed or unhappy.

Moreover it seems tautologous...surviving only to survive.

Edited February 15, 2011 by LuftWaffle