(January 15, 2014 at 1:47 pm)Sword of Christ Wrote: Book of Mormon/Scientology yes certainly, the Quran seems likely and the Bible much less likely. Take into account the level of sincerity St Paul writes with here in Corinthians.
"But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.…"
I doubt St Paul was lying about what he believed/experienced, neither he nor any of the other Christians would have stood to gain by lying about this anyway quite the opposite. Joesph Smith and L Ron Hubbard, Mohammed to some degree did stand to gain something by making some shit up. So I think that's a decent point to bear in mind. Of course there is the possibility that everyone involved Jesus himself were nuts/crackers but they acknowledged this a as a possibility themselves yet stood by their faith in the face of persecution against them, in many cases they even ended up martyring themselves they wouldn't do this for a deliberate lie obviously.
Paul converted from Pharisaic Judaism, in which he was also a fanatic. There's no reason to think he was deliberately lying. Many gullible people STILL die for their faith, no matter how unsubstantiated or irrational their beliefs are.
