A christian question

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Only if you accept the Bible at face value, which is what I meant when I said that the evidence is only convincing if you already believe.

It's logically invalid to use the Bible to support itself; it's a fallacy known as "principio principii," or, in plain English, begging the question. If you want to support the events described in the Bible, you need to do so using sources completely independent of the Bible. This applies even more strongly when the claims in question are extraordinary, as much of the Bible is.

For example, consider the claim that Jesus was born to a virgin. What is the evidence of this, apart from the Bible? How would anybody know Mary was a virgin? Was there a medical examination? Can we see the records? The problem with this approach is that the objective evidence that Jesus even existed is fairly scant, and details which would confirm or dismiss messianic prophecies are more or less nonexistent.

Since you believe the Bible is inerrant, of course you find it easy to believe the prophecies were all fulfilled. But, since I regard the Bible largely as fiction, the fact that the New Testament is mostly compatible with the Old Testament is no stranger than the fact that the last chapter of The Lord of the Rings follows smoothly from the first. The Bible portrays Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy because it suited the purposes of the authors to do so.



Accounts of the resurrection are no better supported than accounts of Sai Baba's magic powers, or the "resurrection" of Elvis, for that matter.

As an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about, suppose, a few thousand years from now, an archaeologist unearths a battered copy of The Wizard of Oz. Now, he knows from his history classes that there was indeed such a place as Kansas, and the details match: in the late 1800s, it was dominated mostly by farmland, and tornadoes were common. The descriptions of farm life are realistic. What's more, through intense genealogical research, he discovers that there was indeed a girl in Kansas named Dorothy Gale, who was around the right age and who had an aunt named Emily.

Would it be reasonable for this archaeologist to conclude, based on the presence of all those accurate historical details, that a real girl named Dorothy Gale did indeed travel to a magical fantasy land populated by witches, wizards, and tin woodsmen? Of course not. He would (rightly) conclude that the presence of fantastic elements in the story meant the story had to be fiction.

I don't see why we should treat the Bible differently. Despite the fact that it does contain many historical details, the fantastic elements of the story are too extreme for it to be taken literally. Things like magical healing and creating food from thin air, not to mention arks that can hold millions of animals and angels of death killing every firstborn child, simply don't happen in the real world, at least as far as rational examination can tell, so claims that they happened must be viewed extremely skeptically.

Jeremy

Actually, using the Bible to support claims made in it is completely feasible. I will point you to this site as I can't type all this out. http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp005.asp

Also the Bible has been completely supported historically and via archaeology
Ark: http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c013.html
Resurrection:http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t009.html http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose.html
http://www.equip.org/free/DR153.htm
Miracles: http://christiananswers.net/q-aiia/aiia-miracles2.html
http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/rfsm-miracles.html
Using the Bible as support: In answer to that:

As shown, even many liberals believe that there is overwhelming evidence that Christ affirmed biblical inerrancy. Such independent support of Christ’s statements proves that evangelicals do not necessarily commit the fallacy of arguing in a circle, of using the Bible to prove the Bible.

It is not circular to use Matthew to prove Genesis (Mt. 19:3–6, cf. Gen. 1:27, 2:4), Paul to prove Luke (1 Tim 5:18, cf. Lk. 10:7) or Peter to prove Paul (2 Pet. 3:15–16). Finally, allegedly circular reasoning at least demonstrates the internal consistency of the Bible’s claims it makes about itself. If the Bible had actually disclaimed divine inspiration, it would indeed be illogical to defend it.

Evidence for Christ's existence: http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/jesusexisthub.html
Plus Tacitus http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html
Josephus http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/josephus.html
Pliny http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/pliny.html
Lucian http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/lucian.htm

And, just for fun http://www.tektonics.org/parody/fundyath.html

Well, it's unlikely you'll convince me of this, and equally unlikely I'll convince you otherwise. Your sources have a certain bias, and no doubt you'd feel the same about any links I posted to refute yours, so I won't bother. Like I said in my earlier post, I've already read just about everything you're saying, and I don't find it convincing. It tells one side of the story and omits the other. I'm confident in the ability of anybody else reading this to decide for themselves what is reasonable.



Even if I took that evidence at face value, that doesn't mean anything -- if the Bible is wrong, then Jesus was just a man, and his word that the Bible is inerrant doesn't mean anything. It's still circular reasoning because Jesus's divinity cannot be proven without an inerrant Bible, and an inerrant Bible cannot be proven without a divine Jesus.



Of course it's circular. They could all be dead wrong, or competely fictional. This is like saying The Adventures of Tom Sawyer must be true, because Huckleberry Finn says so.



Internal consistency is an admirable quality in historical accounts, but it's also an admirable quality in literature. It says absolutely nothing about the truth of the subject matter.



I'll see yours and raise you a http://www.fstdt.com/.

ETA: After reading more of that link, I sure you hope you don't think that I or most other atheists are anything like the caricature that site talks about...we have our loudmouth idiots just like Christians do, but please don't judge us based on what a few bad apples have to say. I'm happy to talk with you further if you'd like to know more about what atheists really believe.

Jeremy

"It would not be prone to scientific error or false beliefs held by the people of that time."
The Bible does not follow this rule held by "http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp005.asp"

Why didn't you talk about the North Star, Moses and the Red Sea or the Arch theories?
The facts on the arch really grossly estimate "proof". Yes that was a boat, I can certainly believe that. But The boat which carried every living creature? There are many possibilities.

There is a theory for Moses and his separation of the water. A comet traveled directly beside the earth and it flipped, then came around and flipped the earth again. A very imaginative theory I agree but not proven.

Now the North Star theory has the most proof behind it.
I will let you look it up, there is some interesting astronomy.

This is the central point of my position. The supernatural claims of the Bible are so extraordinary that simply pointing out that other parts of the Bible are accurate is insufficient reason to accept everything in it at face value.

Also, the same site you quoted also said the Bible, if divinely inspired, "would be completely accurate historically." This is also not the case. There are some small historical inconsistencies in the New Testament (the date of the census, etc.), but the Old Testament is where the biggies are.

We can start with the flood. Many creationists like to claim that there is overwhelming scientific evidence of the flood, but you have to wonder why only Biblical literalists accept this evidence. How come Hindu scientists haven't been convinced by this "overwhelming evidence?" Indeed, even most Christians aren't convinced. If this evidence really is overwhelming, then there should be no doubt. The only way to explain this is by invoking a huge conspiracy of scientists, which is laughable to anyone who works with them on a regular basis: Scientists love to prove each other wrong. No conspiracy would last more than ten seconds, especially since nearly all scientific research is published and made available to the public.

Plus there's the fact that the Chinese were well into the Xia dynasty at the time the flood supposedly occurred. I guess they didn't get the memo. Likewise, the Egyptians were already building pyramids. Indeed, Egyptian written records begin several hundred years earlier.

There are similar historical problems with things such as the Hebrew captivity in Egypt, which the Egyptians curiously have no records of, and of course much of the chronology of the early Hebrews is way off. The Bible is a very interesting blend of history and the supernatural, but "completely accurate" it isn't.

That page also says the Bible should "present true, unified answers to the difficult questions of life." But even this doesn't really seem true to me. For example, take the simple question of how to react to someone who has wronged you. Do we take an eye for an eye, or do we turn the other cheek? If the Bible really does present a unified, divinely-inspired code of ethics, then why does it so often simply reflect the morality of the time in which it was written? Why do the early passages condone slavery, and treat rape simply as a property issue? Why does God command his chosen people to kill all the Midianites, except the virgin girls, whom they should keep for themselves? Those are all understandable attitudes for a nomadic bronze-age warrior tribe, but hardly what you'd expect from a loving God.

In short, I don't believe the Bible is the unique piece of historical literature that many make it out to be. Certainly, if you asked a Muslim, he would say the Koran is much more meaningful and correct. Likewise, a Hindu would say the Vedas contain more spiritual truth. People who regard the Bible as unique revealed knowledge do so because they already believe it, not because it objectively deserves the label.

Jeremy

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/ ... luke2.html




Flood Timing: "a straightforward reading of the Bible indicates the Deluge must have taken place in the third millennium before the birth of Jesus Christ — possibly between 2500 BC and 2300 BC." (Based on the computations of how long Adam and decendants lived)
Xia Dynasty:(2,205 – 2,197 B.C.)
http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-c001.html
http://www.grisda.org/origins/22058.htm
Biblical Congruency: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/ ... uency.html

Supernatural: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/ ... acles.html
http://christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a009.html
http://www.biblestudy.org/maturart/bibl ... bdef5.html (rest of article on links at bottom)
Old Testament God: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/killergod.html
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/unicorns.html
http://christiananswers.net/q-aiia/aiia-cruelgod.html
http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/grace-god-ot1.html
http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/grace-god-ot2.html


Egypt and Hebrews:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/8830/exodus.html
http://chabadstanford.org/pages/wisdom_ ... le/39.html
http://www.bibleandscience.com/archaeology/exodus.htm (particularly the conclusion)



I would have to definitely disagree with this statement. There needs to be support for it, as to just claim that something is true does not make it so. There is plenty of evidence that indicates that the Bible is divinely revealed knowlege, from very specific prophecies that were written hundreds of years before their fulfillment to the unity of hundreds of very different authors. http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibletru.html

You certainly have a lot of links. Instead of boring you with my own set of dry internet sites, I'll say that I find it interesting that yours all have names like "christiananswers.net" and "biblestudy.org".

How come there are none like "Cambridge Archaeological Society" or "American Journal of Geology?" How come not a single one ends in .edu? If all this evidence is so persuasive, why is it only a relatively small number, all Biblical literalists, who believe it?

Jeremy

Sorry for that. I suppose that I should have written something out in my own words, but I was in a rush and had little time to formulate answers. The small number is the result of an anti-supernatural bias in much of the scientific community. Many scientists are Bible-believing Christians who have researched and found many evidences to discount evolution. However, since much of the scientific community has this bias, they discount anything that may have a Creator involved, no matter how persuasive. This was recently referenced in the book What the bleep do we know, a fact that I fond interesting as it was a secular scientific book. The anti-supernatural bias is the "taboo" taboo because it is there, but you cannot mention it. Also, many reputable scientists that are respected in thier fields are Bible literalists (interesting name by the way, I don't take offense, as I see that this is the only way to correctly interperet Scripture). The acceptance of evidence has less to do with scientific proof in my experience, than in the acceptance that there is a God and that they will be judged for their actions by a holy God.

Saying that there's an anti-supernatural bias in the scientific community is kind of misleading: science, by definition, is completely unconcerned with the supernatural. It's like saying there's an anti-prose bias in the poetry community. There's no bias; the two just don't go together.

Conversely -- and this is the important part, at least in the United States -- any theory which contains supernatural elements is, also by definition, not scientific. Science is concerned with the rational study of predictable physical phenomena, and the supernatural is, by nature, fundamentally unpredictable.



There are some scientists who are Biblical literalists, yes, but not really very many.

But regardless, this is always the end stage of attempts to combine Biblical literalism and science: the conspiracy theory. Like I said in an earlier post, this is a completely silly notion to anyone who works closely with scientists. They would love to be able to prove the establishment wrong. They would love it. Proving a young earth or disproving evolution would be a career-making event.

If you think researchers conspire to trample on results which contradict the current establishment, you don't know much about the history of science. The entire timeline of progress, from the Renaissance on up, has been one string of revolutionary upheavals after another. Think about things like the heliocentric model of the solar system, or the Big Bang, or, yes, even evolution. Whether you believe them or not, the fact remains that they were completely revolutionary at the time. They came out of nowhere and contradicted everything the scientific establishment knew! But in the end the evidence was undeniable, and so the old ideas were abandoned. If there were similarly compelling evidence of a global flood, or intelligent design, why do you think the same thing wouldn't happen today?

As another good example, think of quantum mechanics. That was an idea which was so revolutionary that even now, an entire century later, we're still reeling from the way it yanked all of our long-held ideas about physics, and even reality itself, out from under our feet. Einstein spent half his life trying to reconcile his new discovery with the way he felt the universe ought to be, and in the end he failed. But science went on anyway, taking the new discovery in stride, and one of the practical applications of this revolutionary idea is the computer you're reading this on.



What the Bleep Do We Know isn't a secular book, and it's certainly not a scientific one. It's a propaganda piece by a woman named JZ Knight, who claims she can psychically channel the spirit of a 35,000-year-old warrior prince from Atlantis named Ramtha. Seriously. She even has her own website.



They mention it all the time. They call it science's "epistemological privilege," and it's one of the main underpinnings of post-Enlightenment philosophy. In short, it states that science is allowed to reject the supernatural out of hand, because it works so much better that way. If you don't agree with that, I'm afraid you're fighting an uphill battle, because it's pretty hard to dispute the historical fact that science only really took off once we decided to stick to empiricism.



Have you seen the List of Steves, which is a list of accredited scientists who have gone on record to say they accept evolution -- but only the ones named Steve? There are over 640 Steves on the list so far.

It's intended as a parody, but think about it: Do you think you'll be able to find 640 Biblical literalist scientists with any first name, let alone just the Steves? For that reason, I don't think it's fair to say that "many" reputable scientists are Biblical literalists. It's a pretty small percentage.



I'm glad, because I certainly didn't mean to offend. I thought that was a commonly used term, and it wasn't meant to be derogatory in any way. Is there another term you'd prefer?



I'm afraid I'm not really sure what you mean by this paragraph. Can you clarify?

Jeremy

dont want to be rude
but why do a lot of christians shove their beliefs and peoples mouths and try to convert them and why do they get offensive when somebpdy uses curse words on an album when that happen i really think the CHRISTIANS should keep their mouths shut.
to me religion as a whole is a bunch of tall tales.

Whoa did not know that. I've heard about her before and I very creeped out by her statements.

And yes I have seen the list of steves

I'll raise you this http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... coMainPage

What I meant by the last paragraph was that it has less to do with scientific evidence and more to do the refusal that men will be held accountable for their actions.

BTW, I hope you do not think that I am like the caricature presented by the TheViking. I have studied the evidence for and against God's existence and concluded that it is more reasonable to believe. Also, no amount of evidence, no matter how compelling, will convince those who do not want to believe in God. The assertion that you make that one has to have prior belief to beleive-- how does this explain those atheists who have come to Christ? I also never said that there was a conspiracy. There is a bias in the philosophy of doing science that is that you cannot have any supernatural. It is really between naturalism and Christianity, not science and Christianity which are perfectly compatible. You are a respectful person and I appreciate this

Let me ask you a question, what is the evidence for God's nonexistence?

Also, "But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." (1 Corinthians 15:13–19)

But praise God, Jesus did rise from the dead, as we know by faith, and from the testimony of the many eyewitnesses (1 Corinthians 15:4–8), witnesses whose willingness to suffer martyrdom for their faith powerfully attests to their credibility.


Referencing slavery in the Bible: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html

I note that you have not responded to my arguments via the links. Can you try to respond to at leat some? Thanks.

At last we agree on something!



Why do you roll your eyes? Your link contains a list of 400 scientists who have doubts about evolution, but the List of Steves has 640 people who support it, and that's just Steves alone! If there are 640 Steves, there must thousands and thousands of non-Steves who feel the same way.

To compare apples to apples, let's take all the Steves from your list. There are four: Stephen Crouse, Steven Gollmer, Stephen Meyer, and Stephen Sewell. That's four anti-evolution Steves next to 640 pro-evolution Steves. From those numbers, it seems pretty clear to me that the scientific community overwhelmingly supports evolution -- by a factor of over 160 to 1.



Ah. I disagree with this, since there are a large number of Christians who don't think the scientific evidence supports a literal interpretation of the Bible, and they're not running away from anything. Not to mention the fact that non-Christians are perfectly capable of taking responsibility for their actions; they just don't believe God (or at least the Christian God) is involved in that process.



I don't think you're like that caricature at all; you don't seem interested in pushing your beliefs on others. I do think, however, that the strength of your belief has colored your interpretation of the scientific evidence, i.e. it has made you more willing to accept interpretations consistent with the Bible and more likely reject evidence which contradicts it. I'm sure you think the same thing about me, though.



I didn't say one has to have prior belief to believe; I said that Christian apologetics were only convincing to those who already believe.

Lots of non-Christians convert to Christianity; I'm not denying that -- though of course lots of Christians "deconvert," too. The short answer is that people believe because they want to believe, for whatever reason. They feel like something is missing from their life, maybe, or they have what they believe to be a religious experience. Or they fall in love with a Christian. Religious belief is an emotional thing, not an intellectual one, and I think it's a mistake to look too hard for intellectual reasons for why people convert.



You can be a Christian and support science, sure. But science cannot acknowledge the supernatural. It's not a matter of a bias, or a rejection. Science assumes that nature operates according to fixed laws. If something violates those fixed laws (divine intervention, for example), then science simply doesn't apply.



I'm not asserting the nonexistence of God; I'm open to the possibility that some kind of universe-creating entity exists, although that's a pretty extraordinary claim and it would require equally extraordinary evidence to support it.

Anyway, asking for evidence for the nonexistence of something is silly. There are lots of things I can't prove to be nonexistent (unicorns, elves, 35,000-year-old Atlantean warrior spirits), but that sure doesn't mean they're real.

Jeremy

Well, like I said at the beginning, I'm not really interested in discussing the details of individual arguments of apologetics. In fact, I'm afraid I've already gone a bit further than I usually prefer. I will say that I got the timeline of ancient China wrong, however, so I'll retract that statement...although I'd also argue that the supposed timing of the flood seems to be a somewhat open question, too.

Anyway, what I'd rather discuss is the legitimacy of the idea of apologetics. You see, I believe it's possible, through use of liberal interpretation of language, science, and logic, to come up with a consistent rationale for just about any belief system. The fact that people can find a way to resolve apparent contradictions and logical flaws in the Bible is therefore unsurprising. The problem stems from the fact that you can use this variety of apologetics to support anything: Islam, Zen Buddhism, Scientology, Last Thursdayism, whatever.

The issue, to me, is the dividing line between explanation and rationalization. I can't help feeling that the bulk of Christian apologetics falls into the latter category. The real test of a claim is whether it stands up to scrutiny on face value alone.

Christianity has had some very good minds working on its flaws for two thousand years, and they have come up with some ingenious arguments to fill in the logical gaps in its theology. But that just makes me wonder...why were there logical gaps to fill in in the first place? Why was it necessary for great thinkers to devote centuries to resolving them? If the Bible is indeed the inerrant word of God, why does it need sites like christiananswers.net and biblestudy.org to explain away the apparent inconsistencies and errors? You'd think God would be able to write a book which didn't have any of those to begin with. For that matter, if God wanted to reveal his presence to us, I would've expected his message to be obvious and completely undeniable. It should be written in the stars. The microwave background radiation should transmit his message. I like Carl Sagan's idea that his word should be encoded in the decimal expansion of a mathematical constant like pi -- that would be something which would convert the most hardhearted atheist out there.

If there were something like that, I'd be all over it. I'd spend all day, every day, reading it and trying to understand it. The Bible is a remarkable and great book, absolutely, but, at the end of the day, it's a book which requires dozens and dozens of websites of explanations in order to render it consistent with what we know of reality. I'm just not comfortable with something which requires such a large investment of intellectual gymnastics.

Jeremy

When critics of the Bible point out apparent contradictions, what they are doing is failing to understand the context of the passages they are examining.

http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html (The link explains what I want to say)



Actually, it doesn't require that. Apologetics are the defense of Christianity, which is perfectly legitimate. The basic message is that Christianity is a relationship with the true and living God through the person of Jesus Christ by whom we are forgiven of our sins and escape the righteous judgment of God. It is not a set of rules and regulations.
Defending the faith is not the large involvement of intellectual gymnastics that you postulate, but careful and researched defense of the accuracy and validity of Christianity.


The Bible was written so that it would only look like Jesus fulfilled prophecy.


Then what you are saying is that the New Testament writers lied about Jesus. He really didn't rise from the dead and all those miracles about Him are really false, right?
I could see your point, but there is just one problem. How do you account for the writers of the New Testament teaching about truth, love, honesty, giving, etc. all based on lies? Why would they suffer hardships like beatings, starvation, shipwreck, imprisonments, and finally execution for nothing but lies? What you are saying doesn't make any sense and raises more questions than it answers.
The only logical explanation is that the fulfilled prophecies really did happen. Jesus actually rose from the dead. He performed miracles and He forgave sins. He forgave sins then and He can still do it now. My sins are forgiven, are yours?
Please note that many cult members will die for their faith as well. But they die for something they believe in, not that they have seen. Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses all die for their faith. But the New Testament believers died for what they saw and believed, not for what they believed only. That is a big difference. The NT writers died claiming that they had seen the risen Lord. The cult members die for what they believe and we know that believing doesn't make it true.

http://www.carm.org/apologetics/intro.htm

Or else the passages are simply not correct...



I don't mean to offend, but that link is simplistic and ill-informed. The arguments presented there are put forward by people who don't have a thorough grounding in philosophy, math, or science.

Here's a brief response:



While most cultures have believed in some kind of supernatural being or beings, they disagree wildly on the nature of that being. If this universal belief in deities were really inspired by an actual god, why the huge discrepancies? Why did some view their gods as petty and capricious, and others view God as a serene abstraction of tranquility? Why did some preach love and forgiveness, while others engaged in human sacrifice? How could one god possibly encompass such diverse properties and, even if it did, why does it necessarily have to be anything like the Christian God?

I also addressed this point in an earlier post. It seems likely to me that religious belief provides an important social function, or at least did in the past. Religion often provides a cohesive force in society, which eliminates infighting and strengthens personal bonds. It gives people something in common, and thus a reason to care about and for each other. Thus, it's not surprising that religious societies were more successful than non-religious societies, and eventually supplanted or conquered them.



This point ignores something called the weak anthropic principle, which is really just a very common-sense idea: if our universe couldn't support our kind of life, we wouldn't be here to see it. Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised to look out and discover that our universe appears "finely tuned" to support us. Of course it can support us! What's the alternative? That we live in a universe that can't support us? Now that would be evidence of the supernatural!

This argument is like getting a pair of pants, and then being amazed that the pants happen to have two holes which are a perfect fit for your legs. Which is more logical to conclude, that your body was designed to conform to the pants, or that the pants were made to fit your body?



But "mere chance" is not what anybody is saying! This is probably my number one pet peeve about people who don't understand science. The "imagine a tornado blew through a junkyard and assembled a 747" thing is just silly. That's not how evolution works at all! It's not a bunch of molecules floating around willy-nilly and *BAM* assembling themselves into a bunny.

Molecules don't just float around randomly, they operate according to fixed physical laws, which are anything but random. There is a certain amount of chance at some stages, but it pales in comparison to the consistent, well-understood processes that govern the whole.

As an example, take a big bag of potato chips and shake it gently for a minute or two. You're introducing random motion into the chips -- "mere chance," as the site puts it -- but, because of the physical laws at work, an orderly result will arise: the big chips will rise to top, and the crumbs will sink to the bottom. That's a very simple example, of course, but it's the same basic principle as abiogenesis or evolution. The individual chemical changes that happen in a string of DNA may happen somewhat randomly, but they way the grow and spread (or fail to grow and spread) is not random, but is governed by physical laws.



Of course it can. Humans are a social species. Individually we're weak, slow, and easy prey for pretty much any predator in the wild. Our strength comes from the way we work together, and our main hope for surviving in this world lies in our complex social structures. If our behavior were selfish and we had no consideration for others, then the group would fall apart and everyone would suffer. On the other hand, if people cooperate and help each other, then we thrive.

Altruistic behavior is exactly what we'd expect to see in a social species such as ourselves. Surely you'd agree that people can accomplish a lot more by working together then by working separately? Altruism, compassion, and love are not only what make us civilized, they are also critical for our very survival.



Well, "lied" might be a bit harsh. Perhaps they were being allegorical, or perhaps they were taking some poetic license for the benefit of their later students, or perhaps the story simply became embellished a bit over time. The gospels weren't written until decades later, remember.



Why would David Koresh choose to burn to death in his Waco compound? As you point out, why would cultists drink poisoned kool-aid in the hopes that their spirits would be taken up to a UFO hiding behind a comet? Many people have given their lives for their beliefs, but that doesn't mean their beliefs are right.

I don't doubt that the authors of the gospels believed that Jesus was divine. I just wonder whether the story they told was really the literal truth. I wonder if they may have added or exaggerated some of the supernatural elements so that others would find it easier to believe alongside them.



Not really. People of many religions have seen miracles specific to their beliefs. I mentioned Sai Baba before. Do you know who he is? It might be interesting to look him up. He has thousands of followers who believe they have seen him perform miracles. Many people have even devoted their lives to serving him, and I don't doubt that some would die for him if they had to.

Jesus had a handful of people who claimed they saw his miracles, and you consider that significant (ignoring the possibility that they were embellishing the details to begin with). If that's the case, on what grounds do you dismiss someone who has thousands of eyewitnesses?

Jeremy

This wouldn't be in consistency with what they preached. They certainly had a bias, but it was toward honesty and truth, not deceit. Furthermore, the fact is that there were plenty of people around who could have discounted what the apostles had written if what they wrote was inaccurate. Yet we find no evidence of any such thing in any writings of the time. Yes, the disciple were biased. But to what? To lying? To exaggerating? Or were they biased towards the truth of who Jesus is and what He had done?
Of course, just because eyewitnesses wrote about Jesus rising from the dead does not mean it actually happened. This is true, but why would the disciples lie about this? Why would they risk the lives, their families, their cultural ties, and even end up dying for it all if they knew it was all a lie developed out of their "bias"? It doesn't make sense. But what does make sense is that the disciples were telling the truth.

Also, can you provide any textual or historical support that the passages are incorrect?

Take this one for example: Matthew 27:3-8 and Acts 1:16-19

The solution is simple. What happened here is that Judas went and hung himself and then his body later fell down and split open. In other words, the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight and his body fell down and his bowels spilled out.
Also, notice that Matt. 27:3-8 tells us specifically how Judas died, by hanging. Acts 1:16-19 merely tells us that he fell headlong and his bowels gushed out. Acts does not tell us that this is the means of his death where Matthew does.



Since he has been the subject of some scandal and of committing psychological and sexual abuse to his male followers, I am fairly confident that he cannot be used as an adaquate comparison to Christ. You state that you do not doubt that some would die for him if they had to, what about the apostles who did die for what they believed?