Theists: would you view the truth?

[Minimalist]

Augustus Caesar died 8-19-14 CE
Tiberius Caesar died 3-16-37 CE
Pliny the Elder died 8-25-79 CE
Caligula died 1-21-41 CE
Claudius died 10-13-54 CE
Nero  died 6-9-68 CE
Vitellius  died 12-22-69 CE
Galba died 1-15-69 CE
Vespasian died 6-23-79 CE

Roman emperors, major, minor, hated and loved we know the exact dates of their deaths.  And early xtians couldn't even be bothered recording the date of a man who supposedly rose from the dead?  Sure.  Makes perfect sense.

[Ignorant]

They might have been less interested in the importance of the DATE and more interested in the importance of the SELF-PREDICTED RESURRECTION OF A MAN.

Would you doubt the reality that the Spanish Inquisition condemned people to death just because the reports vary between 800 and 95,000,000 death sentences? No, you wouldn't.

I think you might be losing the forest for the trees.

[Cyberman]

As distinct from not even knowing or caring where the forest is.

[Ignorant]

Exactly

[robvalue]

Okay thanks for the answers

I'm a little surprised no one would leave it up to faith, but pleasantly so.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think I was pretty clear in listing various considerations: conformity with prior traditions or revelatory expectations, uncanny accuracy of prophetic statements, and reliability of witness testimony.
Evidence means that which is evident. Of what it is evidence requires judgment and discernment. If an everyday person makes an uncanny deathbed prediction I would consider it a real example of precognition whereas I would consider the same coming from a professional mentalist a clever stage trick.

So confirming what you already believe and some stage magic is all it takes for you?  I'm surprised.

Well-established beliefs can be difficult to shake. There is an old saying that science advances one funeral at a time. At the same time, my personal history suggests and hopefully my time here has demonstrated that I do not have particularly rigid beliefs.

As for stage magic let me tell you a story. For my nephew's 2-year birthday, I bought a unique gift: a small wallet. No one knew about it except me and my wife. Just for fun I wrapped it in nested boxes, so it would look like a much bigger present. When I brought it into the party, my nephew looked at the box and without any prompting said, "Oh! my wallet!"

We can pretty much rule out stage magic.

Now I know full well that a skeptic will say that I' haven't accounted for all the thousands of times people make guesses and fail. Plus it's just an anecdote. And both are true. They'll say it is only a coincidence. Perhaps, but to my mind the odds are so astonishingly remote and hit incredibly direct and specific suggests more. Giving a wallet to a child is a very unusual gift - one based on my distant childhood memory. The parents never asked for it. Nor were our intentions communicated to them. My nephew never expressed any interest in anything having to do with money. The outer appearance of the package was intentionally deceptive. No one prompted him to make a guess.

Could it be merely chance? I guess that depends on what one believes about the role of chance in natural events. Depending on how you count them there less than 200 recorded miracles., but otherwise, again depending on how you estimate the timeline, one miracle occurs about every 20 years. And really these are all clustered around very short periods, like 40 or so in the 5 years surrounding the Crucifixion or 10 plagues over however many months that took. What IS important is how the Lord works within history, within the natural course of events and through the lives of people. Does it matter if Joshua blew his horn at the exact moment of an earthquake? Does it matter more than the story of the Hebrew people's rise to nationhood? People focus too much on the purported miracles of the Bible, but in the grand scheme of things those are far less important than the consistent theme of the Lord's Providence. The only miracle during the Passion was Christ's display of loving self-sacrifice.

So in summary, I find it a bit comical when skeptics think that by reducing miracles to naturally occurring phenomena they have invalidated the witness of Holy Scripture. Yes, my nephew's uncanny guess could indeed be coincidence, but not merely coincidence. That event has become part of his story and we just have to wait and see how that plays out in his life. In what way would it change the story of Our Lord's Mercy and our Salvation, if I substituted the phrase 'string of uncanny coincidences' for every claim of the miraculous in the Word. To my mind, not much, if any.

[vorlon13]

"Theists: would you view the truth?"

It just occurred to me, for example, all the divorced and remarried Christian theists would (or should) be aware of that specific conduct being ruled adultery by Christ Himself, who asserts Christian marriage is indissoluble, so they have viewed the 'truth' and dismissed it out of hand as it would be inconvenient for them to comport themselves in accord with Christ's teaching on that matter
So when we find nuggets in the Bible itself regarding disagreement on whether or not the crucifixion provides atonement for sin (without which there is no Christian religion), and gospels that don't agree on the day or the time of day of the crucifixion, or Christ's demeanor on the way to the cross, or what He said on the cross, or whether or not Christ demonstrated signs of who He was, the topic of this thread is asked and answered:

No, the Truth is clear from the Bible itself: Christianity is a false religion,


yet belief persists.

[Neo-Scholastic]

....and gospels that don't agree on the day or the time of day of the crucifixion, or Christ's demeanor  on the way to the cross, or what He said on the cross, or whether or not Christ demonstrated signs of who He was...

Mining for biblical contradictions seems like an odd pass-time for a group of people who profess to "simply lack belief". I would direct your attention to one of my posts from quite some time ago. Generally, I dismiss this kind of textual nit-picking but these types of objection are so common that I took it upon myself to investigate the series of apparent contradictions between the 4 accounts of the Resurrection. Mind you these apparent discrepancies were part of why I used to reject the Christian faith. On the advice of fundamentalist friend I did a side-by-side comparison with the express intent of confirming my initial impression and justifying my dismissal of the Bible. I came back to him with my list and we went point by point. Frankly some of his rationalizations seemed a bit far-fetched. But he did challenge my assumptions and with a fresh perspective reexamined them to see if I was being fair, i.e. was the contradiction blatantly clear or just an undocumented gap, etc. Nevertheless, I remained an atheist for many years after, but without depending on "contradictions" to justify my disbelief.

Empty Tomb Puzzle

Look, YMMV, maybe you have given the text a fair reading and still see the differences as true contradictions. I don't know you and I should give you the benefit of the doubt that you have done your own research in earnest. At the same time, I don't think such unsupported certainty plays well outside the small circle of skeptics already inclined to agree. (The same is true for believers lapping up the weak arguments of pulpit apologists, BTW.)

[vorlon13]

why'd you leave out the BIG one ?

[RoadRunner79]

why'd you leave out the BIG one ?

The following link, I believe answers your question.

http://christianapologeticsalliance.com/...-examined/