RE: Do Christians actually want evidence?
January 17, 2014 at 4:03 am
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2014 at 4:04 am by Aractus.)
(January 13, 2014 at 7:11 pm)FreeTony Wrote: 1) There is sufficient evidence to believe the Jesus/God claims in the bible, therefore no faith* is required to believe.You've skipped a step.
There is sufficient evidence to show that Jesus was a real person and not a legend, and some basic facts about his life - that he was baptized by John, that he called disciples to follow him, and that he died on a cross and was buried in a wealthy person's tomb.
From there you can ask the logical questions - did he believe he was the son of God, and if so was he deluded, and did his disciples believe and accept him as the son of God and were they deluded? And of course, importantly, did he really raise from the dead? If he didn't raise from the dead then of course he's a false prophet. There is no counter evidence though that he didn't - and that's the important part. Yes it still requires faith, but if he didn't raise from the dead then somebody had his body - it wasn't the disciples because they didn't have the opportunity, nor the motivation to take it. And if the Romans stole the body then they would have produced it the second that the Christians claimed that they had seen Jesus raised from death in the flesh. That leaves the Jews - or rather the Jewish elders - and they too would have displayed the body and burned it publically to prove that he was mortal. So if Jesus didn't raise from the dead then somebody stole his body, and they weren't Christian, and they weren't Jewish and they weren't Roman and that's very unlikely, and no one has shown a plausible motivation for this mystery person to steal the body from the grave.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke