Politesse
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Josh. The modern English version of the same name is Josh. The classics never get old.
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The Case for Christianity
- Thread starter Brunswick1954
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Jimmy Higgins
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The interesting thing is that we are how many OP'er posts into their thread, and I have yet to see any post that provides a case at all for Christianity. At best, they have made a case for continuing having a sense of spirituality.
Brunswick1954
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- Agnostic who became a Christian. I think the main tenets of Christianity is true but not the way it is commonly understood. I think science actually points towards the existence of God.
One of the most important lessons in science is to learn to ask the right question. First of all, is the epistemology in this instance a scientific epistemology, capable of being unravelled by science? If, as I am suggesting, it is a different kind of epistemology, what kind of truths are we looking at, and what kind of evidence do we need to support it?
I suggest that we are asking the wrong questions and looking for the wrong answers. But let us address those "scientific" questions first.
Did Jesus even exist? And are the accounts of him in the Bible largely correct? On the whole, the broad consensus is yes. Jesus was a real person and the accounts in the Bible were recorded truthfully as understood by the people involved at that time. In taking this view, there are a few caveats. The original authors of the Bible believed in miracles and may have interpreted natural events as miracles and perceived normal people as angels. Their view of reality is a different lens from ours. Their priorities are different from ours and their society had more irregularities than ours, e.g. their weighs are measures were different in different places and likely not as accurate as ours. We simply cannot view the historical evidence with the same expectations we have of other scientific arguments.
Did the resurrection happen? Well, the scientific view is that it cannot have happened so the apostles must have been mistaken. But, mistaken or not, there's little doubt that they were recording what they thought actually happened.
The Bible, as I have said before, were written by human beings. At no time was there any pretence that the Bible was written by God nor even dictated by God to the authors who recorded what they were told.
Interestingly, by the way, at no time in the Bible was it recorded that Jesus told anyone to put together the Bible so that everyone can reference it. But anyone reading the Bible will notice two things - the writers tried to be accurate and they didn't attempt to impose an external, more coherent narrative. They allowed the contradictions to remain. Yes, they picked and chose what they thought were more reliable, and perhaps what they thought were the best. But I don't see any evidence that they tampered with the evidence itself. Within their limitations, they tried to tell the truth as they see it.
In that sense, the Bible is a fairly reliable historical document in that the authors were trying to truthfully depict their reality. From that perspective, I think we can safely say that the resurrection was believed by the authors of the New Testament to be true. We don't believe it because we don't believe that it could have happened. If it weren't so unbelievable, it would have been accepted as historical fact. For example, we don't doubt or question the Last Supper.
Given the uncertainties around the Bible as well as the difference in fundamental worldview, we might be forgiven if we disregard the Bible altogether. Unfortunately, what Jesus claimed and did is far too important for us to do that.
The context of Jesus and his claims are interesting, particularly when considered from the human "logical" context. He claimed that he was the Messiah the Jews were waiting for, but everything he did and the whole circumstances surrounding his birth and ministry contradicted their expectations. They were expecting a king, someone like King David perhaps but much better. Instead they got a pauper who roamed the countryside. They probably expected him to round up an army and conquer the world through powerful battles filled with the supernatural acts of God. He couldn't be more disappointing.
Instead of taking their side, he opposed their religious practices and many of his criticisms were towards their religious leaders. He didn't uphold their religious laws but showed compassion and love for the rejects of society. He turned their religion upside down. And this at a time when religion was the identity of a whole nation.
He claimed that he was here to bring people to God but he died a disgraceful death and at the time of his death, his followers were completely disillusioned and were in disarray. Even his most faithful follower, Peter, denied him three times.
His ministry only lasted 3 years. He didn't plan anything beyond that. After his resurrection, his appeared to his disciples and essentially told them to tell the world what happened. The key to his ministry is that he came, he died and he was resurrected. He didn't tell them what to preach in the sense of a new code of behaviour and the rules that follow it. His message was, he came to set us free.
At the time of his death, he said that his work was done. He predicted everything that happened to him, including telling his followers that they would betray him and telling them he would rise again after the days. They didn't believe him. And were genuinely shocked when he did. And excitedly spread the word of his resurrection as a result. They were not told to start a new religion. They were told to tell everyone about him, that he existed. To tell everyone the story of his life. The Bible is an attempt to do just that.
C.S. Lewis said that if you were to read the Bible, and take Jesus Christ at face value, he is either a lunatic or the Son of God, exactly what he claimed to be. He did not claim to be a great teacher in the sense of presenting us with the a new set of moral laws. He said he came to fulfil these laws. Most of his parables were interpretations of our innate moral code. He sets up a situation and presented a response that he claims to be the right response. It often contradicted the religious practices at the time, but it rang true.
So, the question we need to ask is not around the validity of Jesus in terms of historical facts but whether his story as depicted in the Bible rings true for us today.
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Lewis presents a forced choice that is facile but shallow. He ignores at least one other option: that words have been put in Jesus' mouth to suit the purpose of writers who made him into a jerry-rigged literary figure. He has been retrofitted to make him the Messiah ("this was done to fulfill the prophecy that...") In some of his NT teachings, Jesus is a thoroughly Jewish teacher of Torah law. That Jesus would have been bewildered by Christendom's abandonment of Jewish ritual. He apparently told his disciples that they would have judgment over the Twelve Tribes of Israel. (Note: this included Judas at that point.) What meaning does this have for Christians today? How much attention is this given in the Sunday message of today's ministers? The night before his execution, he celebrated a Jewish holy day, one that his followers ignore today. How could a holy day be of major importance to Jesus, but mean nothing to 'Christians'? Reality has been stirred, roiled, distorted to an extent that makes Jesus and his motivations impossible to reconstruct. That's why 'Christology' is a concept.
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Easy. It could be done today, with social media and a gaslit fan base.
Jesus: Born to Mary, said to be the Christ.
Donald: Born to Mary and Fred Christ.
Jesus: Criticized for consorting with whores.
Donald: Yeah, well.
Jesus: Called his opponents vipers.
Donald: Called his opponents vermin.
Jesus: Stunned the world with the words that came out of his mouth.
Donald: Stunned the literate world with the words that came out of his mouth and tweets.
Jesus: The blameless lamb, persecuted by wicked authorities.
Donald: The innocent public servant, persecuted by the criminal deep state.
Jesus: Healed a guy with a severed ear.
Donald: Seemed to heal miraculously fast from a bullet to the ear.
Jesus: "Eli. Eli, lema sabachthani?"
Donald: "Elon, Elon, how could you abandon my big beautiful bill? Cocksucker!!"
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Unfortunately a case of Christianity is not like a case of the Clapp. With the Clapp a few shots in the butt and you are good to go.
Michael S. Pearl
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What religious laws did he not uphold?
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Execution for adulterers?
Working on the Sabbath?
Just don't ask how this comports with 'not one jot or tittle', because it doesn't.
Working on the Sabbath?
Just don't ask how this comports with 'not one jot or tittle', because it doesn't.
NoHolyCows
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Thank you for the careful and thoughtful engagement. You’ve laid out your position with nuance, and I appreciate the intellectual sincerity. But there are several important points here that need to be unpacked—because while much of what you’ve said sounds reasonable, it subtly shifts the terrain from critical inquiry to narrative acceptance without fully addressing the standards of truth.
You begin by asking a valid epistemological question: is this the kind of claim that belongs to science, or is it a different kind of knowledge altogether? But if we’re talking about an event in space and time—namely, the resurrection of a human being from the dead—then yes, that is precisely the kind of claim that can be assessed with historical and scientific tools. This isn’t a private vision or a metaphor about spiritual renewal. It’s a concrete assertion about something that either happened or didn’t. If it happened, it changes everything. If it didn’t, then the entire theological structure built on it collapses. That’s not a matter of interpreting meaning—it’s a matter of establishing fact.
Now you suggest that the Gospel authors wrote honestly, from within their cultural lens, believing they were telling the truth. That’s entirely plausible. But sincerity is not the same as accuracy. People across history have sincerely believed in miracles, apparitions, and divine messages—and been wrong. The New Testament was written decades after the events it describes, by people already invested in the belief system it proclaims. We don’t dismiss the resurrection because it’s “unbelievable”; we withhold belief because there’s no independently verifiable evidence for it—only circular testimony from within the movement itself. This is precisely why no historian today treats the resurrection as a historical fact—at best, it’s acknowledged as a belief held by early Christians, not as a confirmed event.
You say the Bible doesn’t pretend to be written by God, only by people recording what they believe happened. That’s fair. But again, that brings us right back to the need for scrutiny. If the Bible is human testimony about extraordinary events, then those events need extraordinary evidence. Instead, we’re asked to believe that the laws of nature were suspended, once, in a remote part of the ancient world, and the only people who saw it happen were the same ones spreading the belief system built around it.
As for C.S. Lewis’s “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord” trilemma—it’s rhetorically powerful but philosophically thin. It assumes Jesus really made the exact claims attributed to him, in the precise form we read today. That assumes the Gospel accounts are verbatim records of Jesus’ actual words, which no critical scholar accepts. It also ignores a fourth option: legend. That the theological claims about Jesus grew over time, shaped by interpretation, memory, myth-making, and religious agenda. That’s not heretical—it’s historically plausible, and well-supported by textual scholarship.
Finally, you conclude by saying we shouldn’t ask whether the facts of Jesus’ life are valid, but whether his story “rings true.” That’s the soft landing—turning a truth claim into a feeling. But “rings true” is a test of emotional resonance, not epistemic reliability. A story can move us, inspire us, even transform us—and still be fiction. What you’re describing is the power of myth, not the verification of fact.
And that’s the crux of the whole debate: If Christianity is just a story that resonates—like the story of Odysseus, or the Buddha, or the Ramayana—then let’s call it myth, and we can appreciate it as part of humanity’s moral imagination. But if it’s a claim about what is literally true about the universe—if it says a man rose from the dead and you must believe it or be lost—then it must face the same burden of proof we apply to any truth claim. And “rings true to me” doesn’t meet that burden.
So yes, let’s ask the right questions. But let’s not let emotional resonance substitute for critical inquiry. Because what’s at stake here isn’t just how we feel about the story—it’s whether the story actually happened. And that matters.
NHC
pood
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The gospels were not recorded. There were written decades after the fact.
If the people who wrote the bible were making literal truth claims about the world, then we must view those claims with the same expectations of modern science and historiography. You are undercutting your own argument. You are saying they may have interpreted natural events as miracles and normal people as angels. Indeed, they did seem to view it that way, but to the extent that they did, they were wrong. Just because they did so interpret events and people obviously does not make it true.
And ancient Greeks viewed the sun and moon as gods. We get that. But they were wrong. Even back then, one of the ancients — his name escapes me at the moment — came along and said, “No, the moon is a rock. The sun is a hot rock.”
No, they recorded nothing. There is no surviving contemporaneous accounts of Jesus at all.
Correct. And human beings make mistakes all the time.
How do you know? Of course, the opposite is true — they did impose an ex post facto account of Jesus’s life because none of the people who wrote the gospels were around to witness what they wrote about.
What evidence? They had no evidence to tamper with.
It’s nor reliable at all. Just because they writers were trying to “truthfully depict their reality” — and it is not at all clear they were in fact trying to do that at all — does not mean they succeeded. And, as you yourself said, they interpreted natural events as miracles and people as angels. So even if they were trying to faithfully depict reality, they failed.
And, of course, many events described in the bible simply did not happen. The world was not made ins six days. There was no first man and woman — there was a first evolved population of humans. There was never a worldwide flood. And so on.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they were writing fiction. Maybe they were producing something on the order of the ancient Greeks — what they acknowledged was the “noble lie” to make society cohere better. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence for Greco-Roman influences on the biblical texts and that the story of Jesus has parallels with that of Dionysus.
But even if they believed the resurrection to be true, that does not make it so!
Well, actually, many do. Some even question whether a literal Jesus existed at all. But say the last supper did happen. So? People eat suppers, even last suppers, all the time. It is not an extraordinary claim.
Why?
Assuming all these things attributed to Jesus actually happened. But even if they did, the idea that there was an itinerant preacher saying this and that is not an extraordinary claim. We get such roaming the streets even today.
It’s not at all clear that he failed to uphold the core Jewish religious laws, but whether he did or not is irrelevant to the truth claim of the resurrection and the literal existence of God.
Evidence absent. And yes, since this is a truth claim, we must examine by modern evidentiary standards, not by the standards of people who erroneously interpreted natural events as miracles and some people as angels.
We have no idea what his message was because he left no writings behind and there are no contemporaneous records.
Evidence absent that he rose again after three days. If he did not, he made a false prediction. And there is no evidence that it did happen, not even by ancient standards, since no eyewitness accounts survive.
Evidence absent that he rose after three days.
Except these accounts occur decades after his death.
Classic false dilemma which has been deconstructed many times.
Rang true in what sense? If you mean in the sense of a coherent moral code, a binding mythology around which people could gather and agree, sure. That is why we have churches even today. If you mean “rang true” is the sense about being literally true, that he rose from the dead and there is a literal God, then no. I hear no bells ringing at all, and you’ve given us no evidence that they are ringing.
Not for anyone who is not a Christian already.
You seem at this point only to be responding to NHC, which is perfectly fine. However, in this post and others, I’ve made a number of cogent rebuttals to your posts that you have ignored, which suggests to me you are not really interested in having a true dialogue, except with NHC. Again, that his fine — he does a splendid job — but unless I get responses from you to my posts, I’ll withdraw from the thread.
Elixir
Made in America
Guy goes to doctor, says “I feel like crap!”Doc gives him a bottle, tells him to take two every morning and two at night. A couple of weeks later he goes back for a refill and tells the doc “I don’t feel any smarter”. Doc tells him to keep it up and gives him another bottle. The next month, same thing, and the month after that.
On the fourth month he mentions to the doc “You know, these pills taste like rabbit pellets!”
Doc says “Now you’re getting smarter!”
I think Brunswick may have chosen that user_name as a way of acknowledging his proclivity for “re-sets” between posts.
Michael S. Pearl
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Just as would be expected of an actually good teacher, the Jesus in the stories focuses on the spirit behind the law. Such teachings are not failures to uphold the law - unless endorsing a more prominent role for mercy, for example, is mistakenly regarded as necessarily contrary to the law. Mercy is certainly extraneous to law, but even mercy was not unprecedented and, therefore, was not contrary to the law. Likewise, mercy neither replaces nor modifies the law.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
You are cherry-picking spirits.
ideologyhunter
Contributor
It would have made no sense for Jesus to give "anyone" directions for compiling a "Bible". He knew Jewish scripture, but there was no such thing as a Bible in his lifetime. This is like saying that Jesus left no directions for safety features in jumbo jets.
They certainly did. The gospel writers conducted a scavenger hunt through the OT, looking for any prophetic tie-ins, no matter how tangential or inappropriate. Trying to pull a virgin birth out of Isaiah 7 is one easy example.
Severed ear of Malchus the slave: This appears in all four gospels. Only Luke has Jesus healing the ear.
Crucifixion of the two thieves: This is in all four gospels, although in John, they are just called 'two other men'. Matthew and Mark specifically state that the two thieves joined the Roman soldiers in reviling Jesus. Luke has the elaborate good thief/bad thief story, where one of them repents and is promised a spot in heaven by Jesus.
The stone in front of the tomb: Mark, Luke and John have the women arriving to find the stone has been rolled away. In Matthew, there's an earthquake, and an angel visibly rolls the stone away.
You can say the writers haven't tampered with the evidence. At best, it's an unstable oral tradition. It makes more sense to me to find that the narrative has been embellished to fulfill a theme.
Extreme stories that appear in only one gospel:
Matthew claims that at the hour of Jesus' death, many dead came to life, left their graves, trudged into Jerusalem, and were "seen by many". It is ridiculous to suppose that this happened and left only one informant source, who reported only to Matthew.
Lazarus is raised from the dead only in John, and Jesus does it in front of witnesses, some friendly and some hostile. The hostiles run and report the event to the Jewish council. Ridiculous to suppose that this would not have been the key, singular, galvanizing event of the time, and that Jesus' path wouldn't have been swarmed with supplicants begging him to return their dead relations. Not a peep about this, outside of John 11, where it serves as a platform for a Jesus "I am..." speech.
I'm not a believer, as you are. My common sense tells me that these stories are pure inventions, whether made up by informants, or, as is likely with the wildly inventive and poetic author of John, one of his visions, made to order to tie in to his theme, with which he opens his gospel.
pood
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The ethical teachings attributed to Jesus, and role of mercy, are a different matter from discussions of divinity. In The Brothers Karamazov, the brother Dimitri is a sensualist, Ivan an intellectual, Alyosha the sensitive, spiritual one who eventually gravitates toward the ministry and is taken under wing by Father Zosima, who teaches that you cannot change the world but must change yourself by inhabiting the ethical teachings, including mercy, of Jesus; and, to the extent that more and more people do these things, thereby is the world gradually remade. In the novel Dostoevsky seems to set up a great conflict between theism and atheism, but in the end the novel, and possibly even Dostoevsky himself, straddles and inhabits two apparent contradictions, belief and non-belief, theism and atheism. It’s possible that Dostoevsky was a Christianity aheist.
This is dramatized by the scene in which, after Zosima has died, his body is not treated or embalmed. Believers think he is a literal saint, glossing over his real teaching that one must change one’s self. The body of this new saint is left out in the open to be worshiped, whereupon it rots.
Brunswick1954
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- Agnostic who became a Christian. I think the main tenets of Christianity is true but not the way it is commonly understood. I think science actually points towards the existence of God.
In a way, yes. I'm saying that the claim of Jesus’s resurrection is not just about scientific or historical proof. And part of the fundamental problem with historical proof is its uncertainty. The further back we go, the less certain we are. Our discourse belongs to a different domain of inquiry, one that includes philosophical and existential considerations.
Rather than fixating solely on historical verifiability, I suggest we can more profitably compare the moral and philosophical weight of different traditions—Christianity alongside Buddhism, Confucianism, or Socratic thought, for example. We may even include modern philosophical ideologies, like Existentialism itself. Or modern psychology. Many of the earlier traditions emerged in antiquity, where historical documentation is sparse. Yet we do not and should not dismiss their validity on that basis.
You mention the problem of circular testimony. That’s fair, but it's also worth noting that the New Testament includes figures like doubting Thomas who initially doubted, suggesting that skepticism was present from the beginning. Moreover, if someone truly witnessed the resurrection, wouldn’t that experience almost inevitably convert them? In that sense, any evidence of the resurrection would be by necessity internal to the movement.
But the heart of my argument is this: even if we could prove beyond all doubt that Jesus rose from the dead, would that compel our allegiance? Suppose the risen Christ asked us to do something we know to be wrong, like kill someone — would we comply simply because of the established miracle? Surely our concern here is not just on the event but on the character and teachings of the one who is risen.
You suggest that if Christianity is merely a resonant story, then it belongs in the category of myth. But I would distinguish between stories that originate as myths (like Odysseus or Ramayana) and historical lives that acquire mythic resonance over time. I believe Jesus was a historical figure—like Buddha or Socrates—and that his mythologization happened later.
When I speak of something “ringing true,” I do not mean that emotional resonance substitutes for evidence. I mean that truth must also be discerned existentially—through the coherence, depth, and moral clarity of the teaching. That, too, is a kind of truth, perhaps even, a more important truth.
I agree that emotional appeal alone cannot ground belief. But neither can factual proof, if our concern is with meaning and moral discernment. The real question, in my view, is not merely whether Jesus rose, but whether his life and teaching still speaks to us as something true.
This is sensitive and insightful. It is what I had hoped I would find on this website when I first came here over twenty years ago. The future is definitely in this reconciliation of Christianity (ie. Judaism) and atheism.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Jesus reaffirmed Mosaic Law especially marriage, divorce, and fornication. He mentions the along with murder.
I doubt a Jesus who was called a rabbi in the NT who invoked Moses and Jewish prophets would have ate pork.
Paul reinforced dietary laws, but sai
d essentially don't let such rules lead to conflict.
As to the ruies of god to be followed in tyhe bible The 613 Miztvot
The Koran is broadly similar to the OT. Mohamed refers to Jews as the People Of The Book who lost their way.
Conservative Islam as in Saudi Arabia is probably a glimpse into what ancient Jews were like.
The Saudis have tried to change their image, but still behead as punishment for both religious and civil offense. Beheading people for apostasy and sexual offense.
As I member it in the 80s a Saudii royal woman who had sexual religions when in Europe was beheaded. A BBC crew who just happened to be around got the beheading on film.
I doubt a Jesus who was called a rabbi in the NT who invoked Moses and Jewish prophets would have ate pork.
Paul reinforced dietary laws, but sai
d essentially don't let such rules lead to conflict.
As to the ruies of god to be followed in tyhe bible The 613 Miztvot
The Koran is broadly similar to the OT. Mohamed refers to Jews as the People Of The Book who lost their way.
Conservative Islam as in Saudi Arabia is probably a glimpse into what ancient Jews were like.
The Saudis have tried to change their image, but still behead as punishment for both religious and civil offense. Beheading people for apostasy and sexual offense.
As I member it in the 80s a Saudii royal woman who had sexual religions when in Europe was beheaded. A BBC crew who just happened to be around got the beheading on film.
Jimmy Higgins
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Not merely whether Jesus rose? Jesus rising is the keystone to Christianity. It is the only thing that matters. You look to Jesus's teaching as a smoke screen because you can't demonstrate Jesus rose, period. No one really can. So you need to provide some other element to make your "case for Christianity".
Your faith is your faith, and faith is almost by definition not based on verifiable information. You are free to believe as you choose. The problem here is that you are trying to present a rational argument to support faith... and those two things aren't compatible.
Learner
Veteran Member
I like the thinking (in entertaining terms). Jesus is a common name of the times?
Yes, you could make the argument then that there were many Paul's, Luke's, Moses's or John's etc.. & etc. Why should it be Jesus only? That'll stump the Christians.
Not.