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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Evidence for Christianity
Message-ID: <567@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 17:00:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: bunker.567
Posted: Wed Oct 10 17:00:41 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Oct-84 05:38:13 EDT
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Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
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Daryel Akerlind asks:

> So why don't you christians out there figure out whether you derive the
> truth of your beliefs from personal, incommunicable experiences or from
> evidence that can be presented to all of us?  In the first case, you
> will grant that we doubters, who have not had a similar experience,
> have no basis for believing your claims.  In the second case, you can
> present your evidence, and then we can all decide just how good the
> evidence is.

I think I've been here before, but I'll try to answer anyway.  The
question is well put, in my opinion.

As far as I am concerned, both personal experience and external
evidence are important.  I wouldn't give a nickel for the evidence
for Christianity if Christianity didn't promise wonderful personal
experiences.  Conversely, though, I wouldn't have given a nickel
for Christianity's promises if they hadn't been backed up with some
evidence.  When, as sometimes happens, I doubt the truth of
Christianity (strangely enough, such times seem to correlate highly
with those times when following Christ requires that I do something
I would rather not), I still recall the evidence presented to me at
the beginning, and I still cannot totally dismiss it.

Now I must say something about the kind of evidence I am talking
about.  I cannot make God do tricks for you, along the lines of,
"If God would only make the stars line up and spell, in my native
language, 'God did this', I would believe."  Now when I was first
being presented with Christianity, I asked for something much
simpler; I said that I would believe if He would make a pencil
float in midair after I let go of it, instead of having it fall
as gravity is wont to make it do.  So if you are going to insist
on that kind of evidence, I am sorry to say that you will continue
to be disappointed.

Similarly, no laboratory experiment is going to prove, or even
suggest, that Christianity is true.  If the results of some
experiment were always the same, I could easily say that it
was due to a (perhaps undiscovered) natural law.  If the results
were not always the same, I could as easily say that the
experiment was inconclusive, since the results were inconsistent.

Basically, I think that leaves historical evidence.  Christianity
is based on the teachings of a historical person, one Jesus (or
Y'shua or Iesous) of Nazereth, who was born nearly 2000 years ago.
It is also based on the life, death, and resurrection of that
same Jesus.

It is the resurrection, as a real event in real history, which
originally convinced me that Christianity had a basis in reality
(stubborn person that I am, it took two more years before I was
really ready to become a Christian).

So, I would pose the following as a debate topic: The historical
evidence supports the contention that Jesus of Nazareth was killed
by crucifixion and was subsequently raised from the dead.

Unfortunately, I am an expert on neither debating techniques nor
on history, but I'll give it a try  (It shouldn't be necessary
to be an expert, anyway; God supposedly wants to be found).

I do need to know at what point to start, however.  Do I need to
prove that Jesus, a carpenter turned wandering preacher, lived
at all?  Or that he was crucified?  Do I need to show the textual
reliability of relevant documents (including, but not limited to,
the gospels)?  (Strange that other documents don't appear to be
subjected to the same scrutiny that the Bible is (e.g., I have
never heard it disputed that Julius Caesar wrote the works about
Gaul attributed to him, which is not to say it hasn't been disputed,
only that I haven't heard it), but that is another topic).

If the above were accepted, either as given or after presenting
acceptable evidence, then the argument, condensed for the sake
of brevity, goes something like this:

Crucifixion, when done right, and the Romans knew what they were
doing, is invariably fatal.  A gratuitous spear in the side
confirmed that Jesus was really dead.

Later, the disciples believed and claimed that Jesus had risen from
the dead.  Their own belief is shown by the fact that they were
transformed from insignificant fishermen, a tax collector, and
whatnot into some of the most influential characters of all time.
I therefore think it silly to claim that the disciples stole the
body, not even counting the fact that a guard of soldiers was posted
to ensure that exactly that did not take place.

Now if the enemies of Christianity knew where the body was, they
would surely have produced it.  They didn't; as far as I know, they
never even claimed to.  They claimed only that the body was stolen
by the disciples while the guards slept.  (How did the guards -- or
anyone else -- know what happened while they were asleep?  How did
the disciples move a rather large rock without waking them up?
And how often did guards sleep during their watch, anyway? (never
more than once)).

Now, if the disciples couldn't get the body, and their enemies
couldn't produce it, and it couldn't walk away on its own accord,
what happened to it?

Gary Samuelson		"When the impossible has been eliminated,
bunker!garys		whatever remains, however improbable, must be
			the truth."   -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle