Proof of Christianity

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Do you mind replying my previous post and address all the other religions in this world and why it's easier to create them than Christianity?

Please accept my apologies. Experience has shown that it is not sensible for me to try to engage more than one person at once.

And to add on to Esquilax's point: what about the claims of other religions? Is Islam true as well because why would mohammed make all these things up? What about those elaborate polytheism? There are literally hundreds of deities and why would anyone make them up?

I'd rather not get into more than one heavy line in the same thread. I did already say that I look at the claims of each religion on a case by case basis, and have yet to find one that has the explanatory strength of Xianity (1).

It's ok if you choose not to reply, but you'll understand that I can't let this stand because that would look like I accept this as a valid argument, I do not.

(1) This is a different point. How explanatory a religion is has nothing to do with how true it is. A true religion HAS to be explanatory. A religion that has explanatory strength isn't necessarily true. If we're comparing what explains the most, science wins every time.

@Vicki, are you really saying that Christianity is true because no one can think up a religion like that?

I wouldn't summarise my argument in that way, and as I said, summary is hard to do (it would be helpful for you to look at my other posts). (2) I am asking the question of why a Jewish group made dramatic changes to their beliefs. These involve massive, core issues about national identity, central religious praxis and the splitting of the general resurrection into two parts, with it moving to the centre of belief from the fringes. Not to mention key ideas about God. (3)

(2) I have.

(3) You may have noticed that I'm not nitpicking with you about what you said regarding what is the jewish expectation and how drastically different jesus is. That's because I know next to nothing about the history of Christianity and I've forgotten most of what I once knew about the bible. What I'm saying is: the argument you're making right now, can be applied to a lot, if not all, religions. I'm no impressed with how incredulous the Jesus story would have been when it first started out, it's equally incredulous now and people still buy it. Every outrageous belief starts somewhere. Otherwise there'd be no wrong beliefs in this world.

It seems clear that these are driven by events. The types of changes are those made by people reacting to what has been put in front of them.

No, it's not all that clear. It could've been driven by faith, motive, profit, may even have been rewritten (someone else probably knows if it's actually been).

You do know that there are several living humans claiming to be messiahs right now and they all have a following?

Now you earlier raised the important question “If you accept these changes came from perceived experience, why could that not have been a mistake?”

What sort of mistake? If they had wanted to use the language of dreams and visions, they had plenty of available ways of doing it. But, be in no doubt, the claim is of a physical, hands on, fish munching, bread breaking set of experiences, not some dream or vision.

Well, I think it's pretty easy to be mistaken in a time where no one takes photographs. And jesus was supposedly tortured really badly before he was crucified (I'm going with the bible's accounts of events here, which are likely baseless), since he probably had a lot of facial hair coupled with their desire to see him resurrected, if someone claims they're jesus resurrected, it's likely some would be convinced. And then the rest feel like they're not convinced because they lack faith, so they pretend. I don't know, Vicki, I wasn't there, a million things could've happened.

My mother died last month. If she turned up at the door and ate dinner tonight, it would dramatically change my understanding of a whole lot of things. That's what the disciples said happened. And it kept happening. I'm not sure where a mistake would have arisen.

I'm sorry about your mother.

They were living in a time where news spread by word of mouth. And even if they wrote things down, most were illiterate to read and reproduction of what they wrote would be difficult and likely inaccurate. Maybe someone heard something wrong, and then this belief started, and then the disciples thought it'd be a good idea to keep it going.

You see what I'm trying to say? That anything could've happened. I'm not claiming that my speculations happened, but they very well could have, they're within the constraints of physical laws, while your version of events are not. That's why I said your argument can be applied to every religion there is.

Ask a muslim about mohammed, they'll say why would he make all these things up? Where would he get it from? Gabriel must've told him.