Faith-killing questions from the trenches, and answers
Top 10 Reasons to Not Be a Christian
Q & A Session Audio
- “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
- “The Jesus story just is an accumulation of myths of legendary people, all rolled into one über nice guy.”
- “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. Separate realms that should be kept separate.”
- “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
- “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300AD.”
- “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a nice rabbi named Jesus into a god.”
- “Evolution disproves God.”
- “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
- “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
- “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”
This story starts with my brother Bryan, a tough-questions seminary student. He got a Masters degree in theology at a very conservative seminary where they work them real good, and he toed the line and he learned all the stuff that he’s supposed to learn, and he moved to China.
He’s in China for a couple of years and he basically turned into an agnostic and came within spitting distance of becoming an atheist, which really shook me up.
Bryan is a very smart guy, and one of the questions that he asked was this.
He goes, “Okay, Perry, I’ve been to seminary. I know Greek, I know Hebrew, I know Aramaic, and when I read the New Testament I do not see any reason whatsoever from the text why we should not have miracles today. So where are they?
1. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
And I’m like, “Uh…let me ask my sales manager and get back to you.” I hate it when people ask ‘elephant in the room’ questions.
Now, if you’ve been in any strand of Christianity for any length of time, you will encounter miracle stories. For example, “We prayed for my sister Debbie and she had cancer, and all of a sudden she didn’t have cancer anymore.”
Every now and then, I don’t care where you are in Christianity, you will hear those. I’ve heard a few of them, but I was in very short supply of such stories and I hadn’t thought about it much. I had always been taught that those miracles went away and they either don’t exist anymore, or at least never happen “on command.”
And Bryan’s cutting to the chase; he’s like, “Well, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t.” And I knew he was right. So what’s the deal? Let’s start in on this.
I went looking and I’ll teII you that one interesting book that I found along the way was by Richard Casdorph, who is a medical doctor. He wrote a book in the 1970s called Real Miracles. This is an older version of the book. It’s called, The Miracles – A Medical Doctor Says Yes to Miracles.
What this guy did was there was this lady back in the 1970s named Catherine Kuhlman and she would do these healing services. He followed her around and he documented what happened to these people. He documented the “before” and the “after” and he did so with X-rays, medical reports, letters from doctors, all of that kind of stuff. This book is 10 case studies. I’ll tell you what some of the chapter names are:
- Malignant Brain Tumor
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Atherosclerotic Heart Disease
- Carcinoma of the Kidney
- Mixed Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis
And he goes through, one by one, with X-rays, doctor’s reports and everything and says, “This guy had this before and it’s gone now. Here’s the X-ray, here’s the letter from the doctor, and there it is.” This is not by any means the only such book, but they exist.
Another example of this is God and The Sun at Fatima. Catholics will know what Fatima is (probably most Protestants won’t) but I think back somewhere around 1913, just before World War I, some children were playing and they had a vision of the Virgin Mary. She said that something really amazing is going to happen here at this certain date and they told everybody. Everybody showed up and they all saw it.
This book is by Stanley Jaki, who is a physicist and a Catholic priest and a science historian. He goes into 360 pages of interviewing people and documenting all this. This is as close as you can get to a scientific investigation of a miracle.
Another book that I ran across that I found real interesting that isn’t really about miracles but is about the metaphysical world is called Margins of Reality, by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne.
They worked at the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Lab. The lab was closed in 2007, but for almost 30 years there was a lab at Princeton and they would investigate paranormal phenomena. And they proved to five 9’s of statistical confidence (that’s almost six Sigma) that people could deflect falling objects by concentrating. They proved that they could send and receive telepathic messages.
Now, most of the scientific community does not know what to do with this stuff. It freaks them out, but it’s there. This is a fascinating book. So I started investigating this, and I also started looking for personal experiences.
A couple of years ago I was in India with my friend, Jeremy. He has spent a lot of time doing healing and practicing Biblical healing. We were at a little church service and Jeremy goes up to the pastor and says, “Tell these people that if they want healing prayer at the end of the service, I’ll pray for them.” So the pastor tells all the people and everyone was like, “Well, okay, I’ll go over there!”
Jeremy was like, “Perry, Perry, come over here and help me!” I’d never done this before. There was a woman whose whole left arm was paralyzed. She had had brain surgery a year and a half before. She had an indentation in her head from the surgery. She had been having seizures ever since the surgery and she had no feeling in her left arm. She wanted us to pray for her.
So Jeremy’s like, “Okay, Perry, start praising God, start praying for this lady!”
I’m like, “Okay, me Robin, you Batman, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do,” and we started praying. He would poke her on the hand – “Can you feel that?”
“No, can’t feel that.”
He’d pray some more and ask, “Can you feel that?”
“I’m starting to feel something!” So he would pray some more and at the end of 20 minutes, all the feeling was back in her left arm. She was so excited, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
A guy came in with a broken wrist, holding it like that; by the end, he was jumping up and down, he was so excited.
There was another lady who had a severe shoulder injury and she couldn’t move her shoulder past about here. I put my arm on her shoulder and I could feel this crunching going on in her shoulder and we prayed for her for about 30 minutes. The crunching was all gone and she was moving her shoulder and she was all excited.
Then I go home and I’m like, “I wonder if this actually stuck. I wonder if it did.” So I emailed this guy and I asked him, “How are these people doing, anyway?”
He said, “In the glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Mr. Perry Marshall, I am so excited to tell you, they are telling everybody they can’t wait for you to come back!”
I said, “Wow, this is great!”
Now, I’ve got to cover 10 of these things in 50 minutes, which is kind of insane, so I don’t have time to go any more. The church that I attend, a Vineyard Church, we practice this.
I of all people know what it’s like to sit here and pray for someone and go, “I feel really stupid! What if this doesn’t work?” You know, sometimes there’s no obvious result, but sometimes there is. You know what? It’s less risky than going to the emergency room.
I have a few friends who actually go to the emergency room every Tuesday night and they pray for people, and trippy stuff happens sometimes. If you want to read some more of these stories, go here. You can read the whole India story in more detail.
This brings up another thing. You know a lot of the people talk about Christians living by faith. Well, I totally understand and agree with that, but I also think that as you mature as a Christian, you live more and more by experience. That faith leads to results which gives you experience, and there’s kind of an upwards spiral and it’s not just like, “Well, you know, life is miserable, but by and by in the sky, someday God’s going to make the world a better place.”
No, it can be now. I think the Kingdom of God is now. I think a lot of Christians kind of have this, “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the higher gifts, and I guess the question that I’d like to raise for people that want to take that approach is, well, if we took the New Testament and took all of the miracle stories out, what would we have left?
I think my brother was right. I don’t see any place in this book that says these miracles are supposed to stop. There’s a little challenge for you on that.
Note: For more information on documented healing events, see my extensive article on miracles which includes videos of live healings taking place, links to mainstream media coverage and recent reports in scientific journals. Read and watch here.
2. “The Jesus story is just an accumulation of myths of a legendary people, all rolled into one über-nice guy.
Let me expand on that a little bit. People say, “The God and the Jesus that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a virgin birth, a burial in a rock tomb, a resurrection after three days, eating a body, drinking blood, had nothing to do with Jesus.
“All those things were already in other myths and legends before that, so they just took them all and they kind of rolled them into these Jesus stories. So Christianity is a snowball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions and as the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts.”
By the way, I got this verbatim from an email that a guy sent me, so I just went and fished one up, and there you go. This is a very common thing. Well, I would like to reduce this to a question, so let’s look at the logical question behind the question.
I think the question is this:
“If a myth precedes a fact, does that make the fact a myth? Does it logically follow?”
Well, let’s take 9/11 as an example. On 9/11/01, as we all know, two planes flew into the Twin Towers. The Last Jihad by Joel Rosenberg, on the first page puts readers into the cockpit of a hijacked jet, on a kamikaze mission into an American city, but it was written nine months before 9/11.
Does that make 9/11 a myth? Or how about Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy. 1996 – a Japanese 747 crashes into the Capitol, killing most of the top functionaries in the U.S. government.
Or here’s a good one – The Lone Gunman TV series. The pilot episode was about an attempt to crash an airliner into the World Trade Center. It was a government conspiracy to increase defense spending by making it look like a terrorist attack. It aired in March 2001.
So the next time someone tells you that Jesus was a myth, ask them this question: “Name one other resurrection story that stuck. Just one.” I don’t know of any. I think there’s a reason for that.
3. “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. They are separate realms that should be kept separate.”
I’ll tell you a little story. Back in the early 20th century there was a great deal of optimism in the mathematical profession that we were closing in on a theory of everything. What mathematicians were looking for was a set of constructions that made all of the propositions of mathematics form a nice, tidy, complete circle.
Let me explain what I mean by this. How many of you took high school geometry and it was stuff like, “This triangle has three equal sides; therefore, it is an Equilateral triangle.” And then you do all these proofs and you work all this logic from it.
Well, if you take that high school geometry book, there are always four or five things that the book starts with as premises that everybody knows are true but no mathematician has ever been able to prove are true.
For example, “We know this is true, no one has ever been able to prove it. We know it’s true because it works and it’s all consistent, but we can’t prove it.” And they were like, “Someday we’re gonna prove it!”
Well, in 1931 a guy named Kurt Gödel proved that it would never happen. And actually, I think that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is just as important as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Most people have never heard of it, but let me explain what his Incompleteness Theorem says.
This is the kindergarten version. It says, “Anything you can draw a circle around requires something on the outside to explain it, which you cannot prove.” This applies to everything. It applies to a bicycle; if you build a bicycle, the fact that it’s there relies on something outside of the bicycle.
It’s true of a geometry book, a software program, the English language, or the universe. Gödel’s Theorem was a crushing blow to mathematicians. It was as if they realized, “You mean, we’re never going to make everything flow into a perfect circle?” No. Can’t be done.
Actually, the universe is like an MC Escher painting where you climb up the steps and all of a sudden you’re at the bottom again. There’s a book called Gödel Escher Bach, which takes Gödel’s Theorem, Escher’s paintings, and Bach’s music and shows how they’re all basically the same.
For instance, in Bach’s music the notes escalate and they go up and up and somehow all of a sudden it starts with bass notes again and you didn’t even notice. What does this have to do with the question, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking”?
Gödel’s Theorem says that you cannot do science without faith; it’s impossible. You start with a fact – “I know this because of this, and I know this because of this,” you always go back to some fact that you can’t prove.
Now, what does science do? Science says, “If I drop this cup from my hand onto the ground, it’s going to fall every time. Only past experience shows that to be true. I cannot prove that it’s going to fall again. I always have to rely on some assumption that I can’t prove in science.”
One little extra thing I want to throw in here; the statement that, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking, separate ways of thinking that should be kept separate,” is that a scientific statement?
No, it’s a philosophical statement.
Even a statement about keeping science and philosophy separate requires philosophy. And the statement itself presumes that philosophy gets to say something about science.
That’s exactly what Gödel was talking about.
I’ve written a much more thorough treatment of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem here: http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/incompleteness/
4. “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
I want you to think about something:
Where did science come from?
If you study the history of science, you’ll find out that it got started in Greece and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in Rome and it fizzled out and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in ancient Egypt and in China – didn’t really go anywhere there either. It got started in Islam, and every time in those places, it stalled.
Why did it succeed in Europe after failing everywhere else? We all know it launched there and took off like a rocket.
Here’s why I think it happened. In the Apocrypha, the part of the Bible that the Catholics read and the Protestants don’t, Wisdom of Solomon 11:21 says:
“Thou hast ordered all things in weight and number and measure.”
I submit to you that this verse is where science started. That all things are weigh-able, measurable and countable. That there’s a systematic explanation for what goes on in the universe. So far as I know, no one else in the ancient world made a more definite statement about science than Solomon did right here.
Western Christianity believed that the universe was governed by fixed, discoverable laws, and that’s what gave birth to science. The reason that science succeeded in the West and failed in all those other places was that in all those other places, there was no theological basis to believe this.
If you believe that it rained today because Zeus is in a snit with Apollo, how are you going to come up with a systematic explanation that doesn’t invoke some kind of arbitrary, whimsical source?
Christian theology believed that God could create the world and then on the seventh day that He could rest and the universe would continue to do what He told it to do. Therefore, the great scientists viewed the study of science as a way of studying the mind of God.
I would rewrite the question to say this: “The history of science is a story of faith in a harmonious universe being rewarded in weight, number, and measure.”
1,000 years ago you couldn’t take that for granted. Now we all take it for granted, because we figured it out.
5. “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300 AD.”
People make a lot out of this. Constantine got everybody together and they hammered out what they agreed was going to be the Bible. “You know, we just don’t buy these books, we’re going to keep them.” A lot of people have this idea that this is when the Bible that we have today came to exist.
I want to show you a book that will correct that notion. This is called Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens. I have to mention here that this is another Catholic book. I was raised Protestant. I was a preacher’s kid. We were uber-studious Protestants. We took ourselves real seriously. Some of you know what I’m talking about – “Oh, that kind…starchy!”
We thought that Catholics were bad people. You know, “Go tell them how bad they are!” Well, then I grew up and my brother-in-law, Alan, studies church history. He gets a Ph.D. in church history at Iowa State, not some conservative place.
He went to Iowa State because they had the biggest and best library he could find on church history.
It turned out that most of his professors were atheists. To get a dissertation pushed through these guys was a Herculean task. But he and I would talk about theological stuff, and it was kind of funny because every time I would raise some theological question, he would always say something like, “Well, yeah, the first people to probe that question in detail were the monks in Western Italy in 800 AD and what they said was…” and he’d go off on something.
Anything you could come up with, someone had already thought about it and written about 1,200 books on it. I thought Christianity started all over again with Martin Luther after this burned-out period…oh, come on! Heavens, no.
So this is a Catholic book. I have great respect for Catholics and Catholic theologians and all that. I know somebody will probably want to get in a fist fight about that with me at the end, but I’m telling you anyway.
This book is a collection of all of the earliest writings, and actually there’s three of them. I just brought the first one. It starts at about 80 AD and it’s letters from all these guys that ran churches. Letters from pastors to their congregations, and letters to disciples from their mentors, and it ends somewhere around St. Hilaire of Poitier and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. I don’t know what year this was, probably about 400-500 AD, and it starts at 80.
It goes in order, so you can read 80 AD and then you can read 110 AD and then you can read 125 AD and 300 AD and so forth. In every chapter there are footnotes of the Bible verses they’re quoting. It’s exactly the same.
Pastor Bill Hybels at Willow Creek could use this to preach a sermon out of any page in this book and it would be just fine. It would be scriptural and it would be original Christianity, no different than we have today. Most of these early letters sound an awful lot like the New Testament letters that Paul wrote.
Anyone that tells you that Christianity started in 300 AD is just as ridiculous as saying it started in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door.
6. “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a rabbi named Jesus into God. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were just later fabrications.”
Obviously, the book that I just talked to you about does speak to that, because you can go all the way back to 80 AD and you have a whole body of literature that’s already telling a consistent story.
What’s usually said is that Paul wrote his letters in 40-50 AD and the Gospels were written in 60 – 90 AD and that’s too long. All of these myths would have accrued, so yes, Jesus was probably just this radical guy and he had these radical teachings and then they wanted him to be God and so they made the story about Him being God, and the people were so desperate and oppressed by the Romans that they found it believable – well, let’s do a comparison.
Paul Tibbetts was the pilot of the Enola Gay, which was the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He wrote a book in 1998, shortly before he died, called Return of the Enola Gay. How many years after 1945 is that? Fifty-three years after the bomb was dropped.
I found this book at my father-in-law’s house because he’s into World War II. You go over there and he always has The History Channel on. I started thumbing through this book, and the reason Tibbetts wrote the book was to correct revisionist history.
Revisionist history said, “If we had just been a little nicer to the Japanese, we should have just gone over there and talked to them, and they would’ve…”
Tibbetts is saying, “No! Let’s get this straight.” He goes into extensive detail about the political situation and all this stuff that was going on behind the scenes. He tells what it was like to get in that plane, what it was like to let the bomb loose and go into a 135 degree angle and feel the shock wave from the bomb and the brilliant flash of light and think, “Oh my word, what did I just do?” and all that.
Now, does anybody doubt that his autobiography tells you more or less accurately what happened? Is anybody going to reasonably doubt that he doesn’t remember what happened, 53 years later? I don’t think so!
So if Jesus died in 33, what’s 53 years out from 33 – isn’t that 86? That’s like getting to the outside limit of when they said the Gospels were written.
Is there any reason to think that the Gospels were any less reliable?
Considering there are four of them and considering they don’t all perfectly line up or quote everybody verbatim the same way, they don’t all tell stories the same way – four independent accounts – can anyone reasonably think that the Gospels are any less reliable than his story? I don’t think so.
And if you compare it to other things in history, a lot of those things were written even further after the fact than that. I would like to point to the consistency of early teachings about Jesus and raise the question: Why do substantially different teachings about Jesus only appear after 150-200 years? Isn’t that kind of what you would expect?
I rest my case.
7. “Evolution disproves God.”
That’s a good one. I like that one. I have a question for you. Who knows what that is? DOS – how many of you have used DOS somewhere in your early childhood? This is a screenshot of DOS 3.0, 3.3, which is about 1985. You all remember DOS:
C:> dir
C:> dir /w
C:> format c:
When you tried to format the hard drive, did it say “Are you sure?” I don’t remember. Early versions did.
Now here we have Windows XP with Internet Explorer, which is about 2005. Let me ask you a question: let’s say that DOS never got modified by the guys in Redmond, Washington and it evolved into Windows XP all by itself.
Imagine that DOS adapted, that it had a capability built in to where it would sense that it needed an Internet connection and it needed a web browser and it needed Outlook, and that it needed a mouse and updates and antivirus software. And let’s say that it would rearrange its code and then test different versions with some version of natural selection until the pieces started to work.
Did that happen? No. If DOS had actually evolved all by itself, off without any exterior tampering, tinkering or code writing from any software engineers, and it had just done that, would you be more or less impressed with the person who wrote the first DOS program?
You would go, “How did you do that?” You could go to China and for $2 you can buy a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of Windows. All those versions, especially the ones in China, they don’t have the little 3D thing on them. It’s grey and it has Magic Marker on it ‘Windows XP’.
Now, the copies of copies of copies of copies, they all had mutations, didn’t they? And the marketplace had a chance to select them. Does anyone know of copies of Windows that were better because of the mutations?
No.
Now, I just tried to apply the usual theory of evolution to DOS and everybody got a chuckle out of it. First of all, everything that evolves that we have any experience with, evolves because of some ability to do so or some kind of design or something acting upon it.
At the very least, if we’re going to even imagine that DOS could have evolved into Windows XP, we have to imagine that it has some kind of special program inside that’s ready and willing to rearrange all the pieces.
You know what? I am totally open to the possibility that God planted a cell in the ocean and that cell had some kind of magnificent program that could eventually evolve into everything that’s on Planet Earth. I am open to that.
And if that happened, then God is even more impressive than the version of God that says, “Well, OK, now we need apes, so let’s put an ape there, and now we need people, so let’s put a person there..”
I’m not trying to get into some debate about Genesis 1; this is simply an engineering argument. If evolution is true, then God is even more impressive than they thought God was before anyone thought of evolution!
8. “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
Let’s get the most riling questions out on the table. I want to point some scriptures out to you. Little things are kind of tucked in there that are easy to miss.
John 15:22 – Jesus says, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.” Hmm, that’s interesting.
Luke 11:30 – Jesus said, “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom and now one greater than Solomon is here.”
Let’s look at this again. “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them” – so what does this tell you about judgment? This isn’t like some cowering guy staring at God, getting pounded; this is anybody who has anything to say about what he knew, didn’t know, did and what he did not do, and what they did perhaps in a comparable situation.
Let’s look at this one. Matthew 11:21 – “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
Well? That’s a statement about two people, now, isn’t it? “Tyre and Sidon would have believed if they had Me.” Do you think that gets taken into consideration? I think so.
Acts 17:29 – Paul refers to idol worship and he says, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.”
Now, this always comes up, somebody always says, “Well, what about the guy in Africa that never heard about Jesus?” They’re like, “I have to get this guy figured out before I decide if I’m going to go for this Jesus thing. I’m not sure if this is fair. I think this is all a setup. What about all these people?”
Here’s my concern: If you’re that guy, I’m not real worried about him. Not that the missionaries shouldn’t go talk to him and all that. In the Great Commission – “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” – God told us to do that for a reason.
This is just my opinion, but I suspect that guy in Africa, he has no missionary, Bible, or anything, I think if he looks up in the sky and goes, “Somebody made all this, whoever You are, I’d like to know you,” I think God can respect that prayer.
What I’m concerned about is that guy will rise up in the judgment and testify against the guy who used him as an excuse. If you look at all of these verses, the theme is, “Hey, guys, you knew an awful lot. What did you do with it?”
“If Tyre and Sidon had seen what you have seen, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” The people he was talking to saw a lot. They saw the dead raised, they saw the blind see.
9. “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
I’m going to take an interesting approach with this. I brought with me three different versions of the Bible. I’ve got a King James New Testament, a New Living Translation Bible and a New American Standard. I could have brought an NIV, but all you guys probably have one, because that’s kind of the popular Bible translation.
Do they all read the same? No.
I had to sign this thing before I came that I understood that Willow Creek has a doctrinal statement. One of the things in the thing that I had to sign was that I understand that Willow Creek says that the scriptures are inerrant in their original writings. That’s a very common thing that you’ll find in the Protestant church, that scriptures are inerrant in their original writings.
Do we have the originals? No. What we have are thousands of Greek manuscripts and there are slight differences with some of them. You could make a whole little tree of this copying error and that. You could put it all together and we could open all three of these Bibles up to John 5 or Ezekiel 34 or Revelation 12 or any book and we could read them side by side.
And rather than getting 12 decimal places of precision, I think what we get is more like there’s an outer edge on one side or the other on how you can interpret something, and then there’s something sort of in the middle.
Maybe the King James seems to be here and maybe the NIV seems to be here, and maybe the Catholic Bible seems to be here. But they’re all kind of within this range of variation. So there’s some wiggle room, not like 12 decimals of precision, but more like maybe two.
No matter what Bible you read, did Jesus rise from the dead in all of them? Is adultery a sin in all of them? Is it not all right to lie, cheat, and steal in all of them? Is there a debate between predestination and free will in all of them? Yes.
I had this realization one day; “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t have to sit here and nitpick every last verse that some skeptic wants to pick a fight with me about and make me explain everything that doesn’t quite seem to fit together, because you know what? This is like a puzzle that you’re trying to put together and some of the edges are fuzzy and I can’t put it perfectly together. And that’s all right.”
I was emailing back and forth with an atheist and he’s quibbling about the different tomb stories of the Resurrection. I don’t think they contradict each other, but in order to make them fit, you have to make a couple of assumptions before they fit.
He’s trying to duke it out and I said, “I don’t feel like defending the idea that the Bible is infallible. I’ll just say for today that I have four stories that were pretty close! So what do you think?”
He didn’t know what to do.
I said, “Well, Jesus died on the cross, you are a sinner, God created the world, 12 disciples went out and preached. The story’s pretty clear. How many of these little nit picky things from the New Testament that you brought up because you found them on some website do you have to get all straight before you get the big picture here?”
Try this on for size; the Bible is the word of God with a lower case w. But if we’re going to use a capital W, what is the Word of God? Jesus! Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is the written testimony, inspired by the Holy Spirit, testifying to the Word of God. There’s a verse that says, “No one can confess Jesus Christ is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit.”
Let’s not put the Bible above the Holy Spirit.
You realize if you want to sort out all those puzzle pieces, you need the Holy Spirit to help you do it. And a person who does not have the Holy Spirit is not even going to be willing to do that. That’s why they’re arguing with you.
So when I get in these debates, I say, “Let’s just assume that this is like any other piece of history. Someone wrote it down as best they could, and here we have it. Let’s make a judgment from what’s in front of us. So what do you think?”
Did they just make all this up? Like perhaps, Jesus didn’t really die; they pried him off the cross and he was almost dead and then he was in the tomb, and people in the Middle East had these clever ways of reviving almost dead people and then he popped out. He looked so good, he looked like Superman, and everybody said, “Wow! You’re the Son of God!” Yeah, that’s what happened! Sure, that’s what happened!
Guys that are pulled off crosses when they’re almost dead always inspire people three days later to like change the world! That’s what happened!
Sorry, I’m getting a little sidetracked… here’s a fun one:
10. “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”
Let me show you a book, called The Black Book of Communism. How many of you think this is cheery? Oh, yeah, if you’re feeling a little too good today, just read this one. This book documents the genocide of 160 million people in the 20th century alone – mostly by atheist governments.
Remember the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao? Well, that was a great period in China’s history, wasn’t it? How about Stalin? Oh boy, Stalin loved children. Yep, that guy just loved puppy dogs and children. He was such a nice man. 160 million people! Do you realize that’s more people than all the religious wars of the whole history of the world put together?
Some people say, “Well, it was just a coincidence that they were atheists.” All right, well, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but there does seem to be a correlation. Let’s recognize the question behind the question.
First of all, I don’t think you can overstate just how dangerous a worldview atheism actually is. I’m sure there are atheists here, and I’m glad that you’re here and you’re welcome.
When my brother slid into his faith crisis, I wanted to argue with him and he wouldn’t; and I’m not sure that would have been the healthiest thing if we had argued. I think it was probably a good idea that he declined, but I was ready to go. In truth, he was dragging me with him. I was scared because he was raising all kinds of questions.
I started going to Willow Creek 15 years ago and I started leading Seeker Small Groups. Those groups are where people who do not necessarily believe the Bible or Christianity get together at a table, and so every other Sunday for a couple of years I got seekers in there pummeling me with questions, and I thought I’d heard everything. Well, when Bryan and the Internet came along, I had no longer seen everything!
It was intense. Bryan was asking all kinds of penetrating questions and I was going to all these websites and it was like walking into machine gun fire. One of the things that I did was decide that I had to duke this out. So I started this website, www.CoffeehouseTheology.com, and it has emails that you can sign up for and see what it’s all about, if you like. If people replied to the emails, the emails came back to me.
The reason I did that was that I wanted to know if enough people came through the website and sent me emails, if Christianity cannot stand up to the test, I was going to find out! I decided that I was going to take everyone on and I was going to see if someone can punch a hole in this thing. And there were some scary moments. I was like, “Oh my goodness, these are big questions!”
I probably answered 10,000 emails during the last 6 years. There have been a LOT of people and a lot of conversations. The first thing I’ll tell you is that nobody’s punched a hole in Christianity. I think it stands up very well. If you have a question, there’s a book or website or something that has a good answer to it.
Here’s the other thing; nobody comes out swinging like the new breed of atheist like followers of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and all of those guys. These guys are furious! People talk about Muslims being extreme? Well, I get emails from a lot of Muslims and none of them come out swinging like the atheists do. They’re angry. And Richard Dawkins says things like, “Teaching your children that there is a God who would reward or punish you, people that do that are worse than child molesters.” That’s what he says.
It’s a war. What’s the track record? 160 million dead people. Now, this is not a battle of guns, because the pen is mightier than the sword. This is a battle of the pen. This is a battle of truth and belief systems. I think Christians have a moral obligation to know what’s going on, because if you don’t know what’s going on, you’ll get picked off by a skeptic.
The reason we have science today is because Christianity said there is a logical rational universe that was designed by an intelligent Creator. And the reason we have democracy is because Paul said, “There is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free; all are equal in Christ Jesus.”
The most cherished Western values come from Christianity. Don’t surrender them to someone who has an axe to grind.
Hi Perry, I want to thank you for the witnessing emails you’ve sent out, very good. You really have a way with words, and with making your point articulately. I’ve been a Christian a long while, in fact I was with Willow Creek from in its beginning years starting with the theatre. I’ve been dialoguing with one of my grandsons on this subject. He’s a Helicopter pilot in the US Navy, and professes to be an agnostic. Right now his biggest problem appears to be with the Trinity. I gave him some information garnered from the commentaries but that didn’t seem to make any headway. Do you have any material on that subject?
Frank Hines
I appreciate, cause I found exactly what I was looking for. You’ve ended my 4 day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye
Hi, Jonas Michaels.
I answer you:
Carlos: Ok, say that is a physical impossibility. Define “all the kingdoms of the world” in the first place. Isn’t that just trivial? To disregard the heap of social and personal benefits of the rules written in the Bible, for the sake of another bunch of -assuming you regard them as such- nonsense lies like the impossibility of seeing all the kingdoms from a mountain…well, to me is like using time to complain of a bad crop instead of using it to eat the good grain. (And to me is like complaining for a bad grain after you have been told many, many times from your childhood and beyond, you will receive only absolutely perfect, top quality and “inerrant” grains.)
We’re all entitled to out own beliefs, like believing God doesn’t exist and this is a result of a huge explosion that created something from nothing? isn’t that also faith in something that cannot be proven? (No, it isn’t faith. It is science) You call it a physical accident, we call it God’s hand. (My friend, you can name a physical phenomenae as you like, and worship it too. Other people, we, prefer investigate and understand it)
How worthless is your life if your only objective in it, is being part of an energetic cycle -simple as it is- and leaving behind, say, your offspring (of people that will also die eventually and go into oblivion in a hundred years, like you). (As worthless as yours, also involved in the same energetic cycle)
In the meantime, why not use the rules of moral teachings to guide you…the Bible’s teachings are a good start, just disregard the parts that empirically cannot be proven -to you-, take into consideration those that can in an objective manner. (Why the Bible? Is it special perhaps? I don’t believe that: there is in excess much blood, violence and homicide in it. Much better, Buddhist teachings or any good philosophy scientifically based)
Dear Jonas: I am grateful for your interest in a debate with me. But I have no time for getting involved in long discussions and arguments. I offer answer you again a pair of times, but not much more. I apologize.
Greetings
Carlos
Hello, Jonas:
Author: Jonas Michaels
Comment:
Alright Carlos, I apologise as well, unlike the majority of blokes here, I never intended to get into a heated debate here. You needn’t reply any more, we aren’t here to convince other people about our beliefs; I get nothing in exchange for anybody’s change of mind.
I quote: “And to me is like complaining for a bad grain after you have been told many, many times from your childhood and beyond, you will receive only absolutely perfect, top quality and “inerrant” grains.”
Excuse me? Are you saying that as a former Christian, you were told something as a child, and because you never had an epiphany of such events to come (I assume you’re not young anymore), you decided to focus on the bad grain, to justify your alienating from that philosophy? Oh dear sir, I should stop right now, I cannot even write down what I think about that explanation, without being improper. Please refer to my last paragraph, about focusing on the good things, instead of the bad.
((If something is defined, thaught, spreaded, marketed, as perfect, excel, absolute and so on, you don’t need not having an epiphany to became deceptioned and upset, it is enough with a pair of falsities. Besides, with that “method”, taking away its faults, anything is perfect. I am afraid you are reasoning in the bad way or else you are being very, very concessive and lax))
“No, it isn’t faith. It is science”
Science? Big bang is science, what happened before it, what fed it, and what detonated it, is NOT science, but mere speculation, it yet cannot be proved, so until it is proven beyond any doubt, it will remain speculation, which sounds like faith to me. ((What you are saying sounds like this: “Because doctors doesn’t know the ultimate and final cause of cancer, what they supposedly know is not science”. The same for the Big Bang: “If they don’t know “previous” conditions to Big Bang, then they don’t have a scientific knowledge”. It seems to me a bit exaggerated. Besides, it could sounds like faith to you, but IT IS NOT FAITH. Especulation or conjecture reckons, estimates, hypothetizes, but doesn’t say by sure “this facts are so and so” as faith constantly does.)) I reckon their definitions are very much tied. The difference between a microbe and a whale are so small compared to a bunch of vitamins, minerals and life. There’s a connection/process of converting simple matter into life that, as of today, cannot be proved. ((OK. Cannot be proven –yet– but, in such a scenario, faith assures “God did it” also unproved, from the thin air))
“As worthless as yours, also involved in the same energetic cycle” My life could be as worthless, albeit “mine”, therefore I choose to be grateful for the minimal probability that I was born and not some other one instead of me, and whenever I see this world and all the universe’s phenomena, I cannot say thanks you enough to a higher being (not just blind-“worship” inside a Church as you name it) ((OK. Your life is yours and so my life is mine, worthless or not. The issue of worth of one’s life is independent of who one is. If you or I had been another person, the issue equally had appeared. You choose to be grateful to some high being, very well. I don’t need such a being to be grateful because such being doesn’t exist. There is not a “who”. I was borned by the universe, by the matter itself, supposedly inert and barren. And that is really cool!!)
Last, I reckon Buddhism is a great philosophy, funny how a “militant atheist” seeks a way of life under certain rules (because, there are rules in it), and I applaud it. The only exchange of living those rules is having a social understanding and living accordingly, call it “peace”. Haven’t you stopped to think whether the Bible teaches the same? ((Yes. The Bible teaches that and teaches also about eternal punishment, fear from God, God’s vengeance and jealousy, God’s wrath, about annihilation of “others”, punishment for not believing, human sacrifice, punishment for not having faith, rejection of doubts, plus “cry and grind one’s teeth”. No. That is crazy homicidal, brutal, barbaric, primitive and terrifying and besides unproven: not for me, thanks.)) Forget if it also talks about honouring a God or if it has blood in it, focus on the New Testament, less blood. ((The New Testamente is the history of a man supposedly “all-powerful”, looking for being killed, what he finally got. It is also the history of a man that accepted the injustice of his own punishment, without fight against. A man who any time did say a joke? Not that heavy dramatic madness, thanks)) That is precisely what I explained in my previous post sir. ((You want I “pick up” in the Bible “This not, this yes, Old Testament not, New Testament, yes, I like this, I dislike that”. It sound not serious to me. I could do so if that Bible was a “men made” book as many other books. But this book is “marketed” as “the perfect word of a perfect and loving God”, so very special, selective and strict criteria must be taken in consideration regarding it: complete truth and undoubtable fulfillment, for instance. And that sometimes doesnt happen))
But I never invited you to read it over any other book or principle, I said it was a good start, not the ONLY way.
((Well. I answered you regarding things better than the Bible, in order to drive the own life))
Greetings
Carlos
Hi, unfortunately we are not saved by proof but by Faith, John3:17. For God did not send His Son into the World to be its judge, but to be its saviour. The life force in our bodies comes from God, who gives us freewill to use it to find Him or loose it. In Luke’s Gospel Mary’s response to Elizabeth Luke1:50. And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation. please remember seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened amongst the many promises to those who seek the Lord…….Thanking You for Your Kind Attention…..John Foley
Hello, John Foley:
And John Foley says that “…we are not saved by proof…” and that John3:17 says ” For God did not send His Son into the World to be its judge, but to be its saviour….” and that in Luke’s Gospel Mary says to Elizabeth “And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.(…) and “Knock and the door will be opened…” and bla, bla, bla and ble, ble, ble … Now, everybody says, and says and says, In the Bible even snakes and donkeys have something to say, but where is the undeniable proof. the undeniable FACT, where is the REAL THING, please, instead of words and words and words?
Greetings, John.
Carlos
Hello John Foley,
I certainly don’t mean to sound cynical or sarcastic, but can you or anyone else tell precisely what we are supposed to be saved from. Why do we need His mercy so much? According to the Bible, man was made in the image and likeness of God. Since things equal to the same things are equal to one another, wouldn’t that suggest we are logically just what God wanted and still wants us to be? “And His mercy is on those who fear Him”. Why do we need to Fear God? After all, He made us and imbued us – priest or sinner with the personality that we possess.
Hi, Bert Pursoo, sorry for taking so long to answer Your question but here goes. God originally made us to have dominion over every living thing on Earth. As a matter of fact he made us…….. To have a Family……and instructed us to pray to Him as…….Our Father. He gave us instructions and we….. Disobeyed Him. God is Holy….. to a degree beyond our comprehension, and as a result of our disobedience we lost our inheritance……Eternal Life with our Creator. He sent His Only Son Jesus to sacrifice Himself on the Cross, and all those who believed in Him the right to become ……Children of God. Once people recognize what they have lost and believe that through the Precious Blood shed for us by Jesus on the Cross that they are reconciled with God they live in Awe and Fear of Gods Judgements of those who continually,,,,,,,Disobey Him……Regards……Thanking You for Your Kind Attention…….May God Bless You……John Foley
Brilliant website, sir. God bless you and your wonderful family, and enlarge your territory.
Thank you sir! Blessings back atcha.
Dear Mr.Perry Marshall,
Ya ya & ya… I’m just feeling weird for or you comment about Jesus was a Profit of God
. In the other words, Jesus was a Product. I said that Jesus was a fail product in the hand of human being who still have an making their egos!
For example, what do you think about Protestant & Chatolic ??? As we know from the history, Chatolick made their own think to prepare and choose which one could be posted in bible. You can find it. There are lot of history in old testament had been pass. So as a human being who let this things happened, show the most you and your product could bring to others(african,albanian,yankee that had no job etc.. Not only internet freaky.
Religion was a God(-o?) product for human(indirect) who created by human too, but that product made confession of faith. Badly that confession unstable and become confession of ego! lol, is that God product wants? He just feed… All of you made his feed as PRODUCT!
Peace,
SufferingCalma
http://donnymontang.blogspot.com
http://sickpeacer.blogspot.com
Upss sorry forgotten, Protestant made their own way to breaking the rule who created by chatolik, so was it a wrong idea by Protestant?! I said no in other words they try to made it representing pope as a Jesus hand was too ego,
What happen in Protestant them selves? All ego created! They protest chatolic wisdom was an ego, and what happen inside of them? Lot of variant of their protest.
By the way my protest to chatolic and protestant was an ego too right?! That’s why God pure product are in each heart of human being. Well, I just wait your comment to grow up my blog too sir…
I need revenue by writing my opinion. Actually I want to buy your adwords but you are too ego by my ego think that I don’t have even a credit card and paypal. Just bank account.
Nothings free, but that was my and your ego playing….. Money or deposit crated by human too, deal?
KarmRegards
Suffercalma
http://donnymontang.blogspot.com
http://sickpeacer.blogspot.com
Hi, to experience the fullness of Gods love for us i would recommend the following (1) a boat trip on The Sea Of Galilee (2) Be baptised at the baptismal site on the Jordan (3) Pray at the Temple Wall in Jerusalem. When I was at the Temple Wall myself and my wife experienced the presence of God and on discussing it with some Jews who were near us they said they believed the Arc Of The Covenant was Buried nearby and God promised His Presence would remain over It. I believe that anyone who prays that the people of Israel accept Yeshua as their Lord and Saviour even if they cannot afford the Trip God will provide the Means and the Way…….John Foley
Perhaps you should visit the site of the German camps in Europe where millions of Jews were massacred and while there go to Romania and Hungary and France then take a side trip to Ireland before returning to Libya and Syria and Yemen and if you are American back to Washington and New York and Philly… But I think you get the point!
What you experienced in the places you referred to above was not God but a concerted consciousness of years of socialization in myths that merely surfaced when you visited those places. These things are possible. The mind is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Hi again Jun,
Unfortunately there is no documentary evidence that Jesus was either Divine or conceived by the Holy Ghost and born out of immaculate conception.
Also did you know that Jesus never wrote anything and that everything you know about him was written by someone else whose opinion is all that we are able to read?
“Unfortunately there is no documentary evidence that Jesus was either Divine or conceived by the Holy Ghost and born out of immaculate conception.”
Hi Bert. Thanks for your comment. In a sense you’re right. There is no document that says in a way that leaves no room for contradictory interpretation that Jesus is God.
But I will also admit to you that I have no document that says that I am a human being. I do have a diploma, a birth certificate, etc. but none of them says that I am a human being in a direct and explicit way that leaves no room for a contrary interpretation.
Scriptures, are a form of documentary evidence, i.e. documents that bear witness to certain truths. One of them is that Jesus is God.
“Also did you know that Jesus never wrote anything”
I have read that that is so. I do not know that for a fact. I have merely accepted the testimonies of some trustworthy authors.
“and that everything you know about him was written by someone else whose opinion is all that we are able to read?”
What’s the significance of this in relation to Jesus’ divinity?
@ Martin Lagerwey: Your argument is flawed, sorry to say. Rising from the dead does not undermine the sacrifice in any way. He is perfect, He has no evil in Him. If He didn’t rise, then His death did not |OVERCOME| death. THAT is why it is important for Him to rise. If He didn’t, then the Bridge into Life is still broken, and those who ask to go cannot go. Does this clear it up?
Here’s my contribution to the discussion on why it was important for Jesus to resurrect:
By overcoming death, Jesus showed that he was victorious over sin which is the cause of death. By overcoming sin and death Jesus gives us hope that victory is possible and is already a reality. His resurrection is the sign of the good news of our salvation.
This is the most ridiculous nonsense that has ever been written. He became Man the moment he “came” down to earth is what we have been told. That was necessary in order to mingle among us even though he was God (Which of course is a logical impossibility)If that be so, the moment he became man would have had to at least temporarily lose his perfection. Did you know that the concept of Divinity, Resurrection and Ascension were created by Rome to make Jesus “magical” and beyond human understanding – that is Roman Catholic understanding even though those who perpetrated this insidious falsehood on an unsuspecting people did not need to believe what they were were saying. After all, they were the world’s greatest salesmen and what’s interesting is that they are still at it. Isn’t it ironic – like the men who manufacture and sell cigarettes do not themselves smoke!
Caleb.
I understand your belief but you have not answered my question.
Jesus paid for the sin of mankind, not his own.
If Jesus is God and immortal (and also man and mortal?) then he rises because he can.
But if he paid for the sins of mankind then why are none of the saints resurrected yet?
Surely they should if Jesus could! “He came to set them free”
Why wait for thousands of years if the debt is paid already?
If you pay your time in prison, you’re released immediately!
If the principle worked, the saints should be raised from the dead already.
If the principle doesn’t work we will be waiting for well over 2000 years.
The evidence looks a bit worrying.
Martin, that you keep repeating yourself speaks volumes about _you_ rather than the evidence.
It has repeatedly been pointed out that coming back from the dead _adds_ significance. Jesus’ resurrection represents the forgiving of sins, whereas death represents the punishment for sins. You are assuming that the representation is the same thing as what it symbolizes. Once we realize the fault, your argument falls apart. And who can forgive sins of their own authority, other than God in the Christian worldview? That is why the saints do not rise.
You say that our death pays for our sins, but that is not true. Our death is simply our death, and is only a representation of something else afterwards. Death is not the bridge from God to man that sin has broken.
It has repeatedly been pointed out that it was promised that men would rise. Why must a promise be raised immediately, when it was promised to happen at the end of things? You’re being unreasonable.
If you reply, it better be a thought out response. We’re tired of hearing this malarkey.
If Chriatians defend creationism as opposed to evolution using the argument that everything created needs a creator how do we respond to the question “Who created God”?
First of all not on;y Christians but most if not all religions reject evolution in favor of creation for no other reason that it is easier to accept that we don’t know and therefore ascribe it to a Higher Being, one who cannot be questioned one whose unspoken wishes we must simply obey like slaves and idiots and ask for forgiveness for things we haven’t done and probably will never do.
Who created God is easy for the theists to answer. God was and is. God is beyond our feeble comprehension. After all He sanctions the massacre of millions every year, but his purpose is too complex for us humans, but we have to believe that he loves us equally!
“If Christians defend creationism as opposed to evolution using the argument that everything created needs a creator how do we respond to the question “Who created God?”
The Christian concept of God is One who is always there, uncreated and the creator of all. So who created God? How can an uncreated being have a creator? Only those beings who came to be at some point have a creator. The Christian God is the God who is always there.
Wayne
An evolutionist like myself will agree that everything came to exist but need not have been created by an external mind. A philosopher may suggest that possibly something always existed. Both theists and scientists share a problem of explaining something that happened so long ago. If evidence is absent it either never was or got lost. You will select the view that you believe is closest to the truth.
Scientists can measure ages of rocks and stars. Scientists measure mass of atoms and planets. Scientists maps evolution of species of life on earth. We put theories out there with the invitation for better explanations to supersede them. “God did it” is considered an assertion and not an explanation at all since it cannot be tested and proposes no mechanism. A mystery cannot explain a mystery.
Jun,
You are quite right. However, history shows that not on;y the supposed birth place of Jesus is incorrect but his supposed time of birth is also in contention. Of course it has long been known that Jesus could not have been born on December 25th.
In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar in his Julian calendar established December 25 as the date of the winter solstice of Europe.
This previously recognized pagan day of celebration was hijacked by Rome and has since become Christmas or Christ’s Mass and the birthday of Jesus.
Now have you ever wondered why each of the four gospels give different accounts of a man they knew so well? Have you ever wondered why there is no evidence that Jesus ever wrote a single word and that everything he is supposed to have said and done was written years after his death?
Did you know that Mary Magdalene was no prostitute but was supposedly born of noble blood and that the Church in order to demoralize women and make sure they do not become priests felt it necessary to reduce her to the lowest rank?
Yes, my friend, when reason and logic replace blind Faith all of biblical history may need to be revisited and classified as pure fiction which is what it really is you know!
I can refer you to some good writings and provide you with names like Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens, Dr. Stephen Hawkins, Lawrence Crowe and others but that would require an open mind and the willingness to think, which is something religion frowns upon – in fact adamantly eschews.
(Do you know for example, that Filipinos were told by their padres that they didn’t need schools because all they needed to know was how to worship God?)
Mr.Perry, I have found a page on why the Apocrypha’s books don’t belong as Deuterocanon, http://www.atruechurch.info/apocrypha.html. It has not critiqued all the books though, so I don’t know how you’ll go with this. Given what I’ve read, at the very least, they mean well. I am currently reading Genesis (one chapter a day), and planning to get all my theology straight, so sorry if I am making a poor reference. (Matthew was a very good book the first time!)
@Bert Pursoo
“This is the most ridiculous nonsense that has ever been written. He became Man the moment he “came” down to earth is what we have been told. That was necessary in order to mingle among us even though he was God (Which of course is a logical impossibility)If that be so, the moment he became man would have had to at least temporarily lose his perfection. Did you know that the concept of Divinity, Resurrection and Ascension were created by Rome to make Jesus “magical” and beyond human understanding – that is Roman Catholic understanding even though those who perpetrated this insidious falsehood on an unsuspecting people did not need to believe what they were were saying. After all, they were the world’s greatest salesmen and what’s interesting is that they are still at it. Isn’t it ironic – like the men who manufacture and sell cigarettes do not themselves smoke!” Your first claim is that God is logically impossible. Two problems with this claim: i) God is logically consistent. ii) In order to argue that God doesn’t exist, you have to assume that He /does\ (this is why the first claim is true). Go ahead, provide a rational explanation for the existence of logic.
Your second claim is that Jesus would have to loose His perfection in order to be human. This only makes sense if we have assumed /a priori\ that Christianity is false. In Christianity, humanity WAS perfect in the beginning, so the argument makes no sense whatsoever.
Your third claim is that the Roman Church then “made Jesus magical” for their own benefit. This is very much false, if Jesus wasn’t God to begin with, then He didn’t rise, so there is no saviour. When you can explain why nobody tried to recover His body (without resorting to absurdity), this claim will make sense.
Your fourth claim is that the Disciples might not have believed that what they said was true. Why did they martyr then? They surely would have fessed up to save their own skins! At least one of them. Did you read any of the other pages, which point out why this claim is dead?
Sorry sir, but your entire message really fails to make an argument at all. If you truly are searching for truth, try again. “Try Jesus. If you don’t like Him, the Devil will gladly take you back.”
Hello Perry:
I received your news about Mr Morgan conversion. It is very interesting and worth of being scientifically studied, because of the sudden happening of facts, after years of atheism.
I saw the first minutes of video only. Somebody that hss not proofs to offer, doesnt merit 49 minutes watching. I read a text about him but it gave me nothing: personal and subjective experiences lack of significance, to me.
Anyway, thank you for your offering.
Carlos
Andrew Lobb
Reply to your October 10, 2011 post
There’s no reply link to your comment so I hope you find this.
((Adam’s punishment was not physical death, but separation from God.))
((Only fundamentalist christians beleive there was no physical death before Adam, and they are a minority.))
((When a Christian speaks of death it is ambigous without context. In the context here, we are talking about the “second death” or Hell.))
I presumed the consequence of Adam’s sin was believed to include physical death.
I presumed this because Jesus was required to die physically as payment.
If only spiritual death was required then he could have paid that in a spiritual way such as in the wilderness during the temptations.
Sometimes I ask questions, such as “why did Jesus get raised from the dead instead of those he died for being raised?” and who best to ask than people who believe it? Now I have another question “Why did he have to die physically to pay a spiritual debt?”
Please don’t assume that I am confused.
When I try to accommodate theology into a logical framework, I do usually find it confusing.
But I don’t believe ideas based on faith and scripture.
I think you can easily understand that I find the scientific method very satisfying and enlightening.
Kind regards
Martin
Hi
“I presumed the consequence of Adam’s sin was believed to include physical death.”
This is not so.
“I presumed this because Jesus was required to die physically as payment.”
Jesus cries out “Father, Father, Why have you forsaken me?” If he was not separated from God, that is in the process of dieing spiritual death, why would he do so?
Jesus was raised from the dead, and there is nowhere in the bible that says his followers will not be raised from the dead. How did you look at Christianity and miss the theme of apocalyptic judgement? On “the last day?”
Jesus was raised *first* to prepare the way. In all things theologically speaking Jesus must be first. The time frame for others to be raised is not relevant here.
Jesus had to die physically, because spiritual and physical death are not unrelated. It was also in accordance with prophecy and the symbolism of a sacrificial lamb. In addition, His death and resurrection drew people too him. Who would you follow, someone who claimed to die spiritually for you or someone who died physically and was resurrected physically? Jesus’ death and resurrection form the proof of his claims. But his claims are not just that proof.
Your scientific method is based on a list of unprovable assumptions. While I may agree that they are probably good assumptions, at the end of the day you are still operating on faith. There are many logical reasons to accept the bible. I suggest you look into textual criticism.
Regards
Andrew
Martin, I couldn’t find where you wrote your response, so I apologize for this being un-attached.
“Why didn’t all the saints resurect already?” Very good question, but it fails to point out that Jesus never said when He would resurect them.
“Surely they should if Jesus could! “He came to set them free”.” Yes, and He did. From spiritual death. Physical death is just a seperation from this matter-lump we call the universe. He only promised to bring all people up again at the last day. NOT to bring them to life now.
“Why wait for thousands of years if the debt is paid already?” Why should He bring them back now, if He stated that it would happen on the last day?
“If you pay your time in prison, you’re released immediately!” Yes! However, death is not the penalty. Job was saved, and he was here and died before Jesus. ‘All those who believe will not be judged. But all those who don’t believe are already judged.’ As I said before, Jesus as a man stayed down there (Hell?). All who accept His salvation (“I know that my Redeemer lives.”—Job) are free from being thrown to prison when the appointed time comes. No, my analogy is not perfect, but I shouldn’t need to add the appointed time part.
Hello Again Caleb:
In your last comment you state
“As a Christian I can account for…”
Sorry, Sir, but You cannot account for anything as a Christian, simply because everything you claim to know is based on Faith and not on fact.
Don’t make science your enemy; it is because of it you are even able to engage in this discussion. You cannot use the Bible to prove anything because the Bible was written by man – NOT by the Christian God or any other God for that matter. When a Christian can explain why it was necessary for a God who can do anything to sacrifice his son to save us I will listen again.
When a Christian can tell me what we needed saving from, I will listen again
When a Christian can tell me why this merciful Christian God allowed the massacre of over 6 million people by a man who said he was doing it for God and Country, I will listen
When a Christian can tell me why Jesus on the cross said : My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me *if he knew this was supposed to be his fate), I may listen
When a Christian can explain why the the most religious country in the world is the most corrupt, I will listen
When a Christian can tell me why the world’s most evil people are allowed to commit the greatest crime against their so called brothers and sisters I will be inclined to listen – Think my friend of Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Cambodia, North Korea, and many many more – tell me that it was the Will of your Christian God for after all in one christian prayer it says” …Thy Will be done, Amen!”
But let’s get close and modern. Rome and specifically the Vatican is the pillar of Christianity, yet Italy is the birthplace of the most feared mafia kings and henchmen. Is that how we are supposed to interpret Thy Will be done?
There is one country that hides the ill gotten gains of the most evil people on earth by claiming neutrality. This country has become and continues to get rich by knowingly hiding these criminals from the arms of the law. Not on;y that, the country provides the Christian Pope with the best security.
I hardly think it’s necessary to go on. You see science which you may spurn provides evidence and proof for what it says. Christianity asks only that we believe. That the world exists in not pr off.
Remember knowledge is not the same as truth or facts. Knowledge I believe will help us to understand the world. The truth is like shifting sand. It fit time and place.
Just because we don’t understand something yet, is no reason to assign a mythical value to it.
One Indian philosopher remarked that the Christian God so botched up his work that he had to send his son down to die but yet that was not enough. Insensitive, wouldn’t you say?
For my part, I want to believe but I can find no reason yet to do so? After all, if the Christian merciful God is responsible for the sorry state of the world as we know it today, He must be one hell of a cynic!
Hello, and thank you for making your statements. I will only focus on the comment you open with.
Actually, I can account for laws of physics, existence itself, the laws of logic, and so on. These only make sense if God exists. Not necessarily the Christian God, but this God would need to be personal (if not, then why did they go to all the trouble of creating the universe?), self-consistent (or else where come the laws of nature, and logic?), and omnipotent (how else would they cause the universe?). Being omniscient and omnipresent merely logically follow from Him trancending the universe, so that He could create it. Given that there seem to be absolute right and wrong (I will accept any disputes on this claim), it would make sense that I need forgiveness for doing wrongs. Given that Islam falls into a logical pit, we have either Judaism, or Christianity.
Your objections , if I am understanding them properly, are theodicy. “Why does God allow evil in the world?” Contrary to what most Young Earth Creationists think (thank you very much, KEN!), this world was not intended to be `perfect` as we define it. We make our choices, and I think that Perry Marshall is right when he gave his ideas about punishment. I am not going to try to answer theodicy, I am merely making my case that a God makes sense.
I think I will answer your problem about sending Jesus for us. That philosopher didn’t understand the purpose of the universe is to make choices. Jesus dying is to pay for the mistakes that we can’t fix for ourselves, amoung them including our lives before we choose God. This, by definition, includes all of them. This world, just as Gottfried Leibniz said, is the best of all possible worlds (assuming it is perfect for God’s purposes, rather than ours!). Indeed, God works it out for those Who love Him, and I believe, for those who don’t know Him. Thank you for reading this over sized wall of text!