We can test the work of Isaac Newton and verify it, debunk it, or build upon it. It doesn't matter if he was real or just a fake persona created by an unknown scientist to publish work he didn't want credit for, or if the sources corroborating his existence were in on the gag. If we are unable to verify that Isaac Newton existed, or that certain specifics of his life are accurate, it doesn't stop us from testing his theories.
If people believed that Jesus was just another philosopher, they would discuss and debate his ideas as just that. But that isn't what Christians believe about him. They believe that he was (a) god and that he performed supernatural acts, including coming to life again after dying. We cannot reproduce his "work" or verify the claims of what he did. If we cannot verify that he existed and that he was who the Bible says he was, the claims about him are nothing more than fantasy.
If people believed that Jesus was just another philosopher, they would discuss and debate his ideas as just that. But that isn't what Christians believe about him. They believe that he was (a) god and that he performed supernatural acts, including coming to life again after dying. We cannot reproduce his "work" or verify the claims of what he did. If we cannot verify that he existed and that he was who the Bible says he was, the claims about him are nothing more than fantasy.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
