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From: notes@iuvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Converts from Evidence - (nf)
Message-ID: <334@iuvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 01:06:30 EST
Article-I.D.: iuvax.334
Posted: Thu Apr 12 01:06:30 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 08:20:56 EST
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#N:iuvax:1700018:000:4688
iuvax!dsaker    Apr 11 21:43:00 1984

Larry Bickford challenged me with four people who started out not believing,
but were converted, apparently, on the basis of evidence:

Frank Morison, author of _Who Moved the Stone_
Josh McDowell, of _Evidence that Demands a Verdict_
C.S.Lewis, _Mere Christianity_ and others
Lew Wallace, _Ben-Hur_, who was converted while working on a book "to
	forever destroy the myth of Christianity"

My reply became so long that I decided to post it here.  Also, the books by
Morison, Lewis and Wallace have been mentioned several times in this group,
so why not start discussing them.

REPLY:

Ben-Hur did not seem to contain any argument for the truth of christianity.

I haven't read J. McDowell's book.

Who Moved the Stone has flawed arguments and contains too many suppositions
about the nature of the relationship between the jews and the roman officials.
For example, Morison asks why, if Jesus' body was still lying in the tomb, 
didn't the Roman officials just take a bunch of these trouble-causing 
christians to the tomb and show them that there had been no resurrection.  
The trouble is that there is no evidence to suggest that the roman officials 
were in any way concerned about the christians at that time.  The bible gives 
the impression that people were converting to christianity in droves, but 
there is no other evidence for this.  I have read a couple of hefty  History 
of the Jewish People  type books for this period.  In the 100 year span 
around Jesus' time, Judea was full of crazy religious sects.  During this 
period, there were at least 8 people who claimed to be the prophesied messiah.
(By the way, these people all peformed various miracles and so forth.)
The romans generally ignored these people.  Presumably, they ignored the 
christians in the same way.
The problem is that we just don't know enough of what was going on at that 
time to reason out what people's motivations were for actions that might not
even have been performed.

I haven't read Mere Christianity.  The book recommended to me to get the
"real story" as to how and why Lewis became a christian was Surprised by Joy.
I was very disappointed by that book.  Lewis' main reason for becoming a 
theist seemed to be that the world and everything needed an originator.  As 
for his movement from theism to christianity, he just seemed to do it.  I
never could divine his reasons.  Now, this book had been described to me, by 
my christian friends, as the most transparent and detailed rendering of how 
and why a rational, thinking man became a christian.  When I pointed to the
pages and complained, these same christians countered by saying that the
conversion to christ is too hard to describe.  It seemed to me that none of 
them had ever critically read the book.  The same problem as when I presented
these friends with my criticisms of Morison's arguments.  My impression was
that they had only skimmed his book, feeling delighted with the idea that a
clear-thinking lawyer could be overwhelmed by the evidence for christianity,
but never troubling to critically examine what they read.

Now, I am not, at this point, trying to say that christians should give up
their faith because of lack of evidence.  What I am trying to say is that
the objective evidence is really not strong enough to be convincing.  
Thus, I, who have no subjective evidence for the truth of christianity,
despite praying and so forth, cannot possibly be expected to believe.

Actually, the objective evidence for christianity is so weak that I really
have trouble accepting that anyone is converted by that evidence alone.
As I stated in my note 171, whenever I have questioned a convert
closely, I have found that the evidence was not really the basis of his
conversion.  I can't help but wonder whether any of those who claim to be
convinced by the evidence are telling the truth.  If someone out there has
been convinced by the objective evidence alone, then I guess that all I 
can do is feel surprised.  But surely, even if someone was themselves
convinced by the evidence for the truth of christianity, they would have to
admit that the evidence is not compelling and that one can logically remain
unconvinced by the evidence.  That is, they could not demand of me that I
believe on the basis of the objective evidence.

I find the issue of objective evidence interesting because here is something
that can be discussed objectively (although the state of being convinced
by evidence is itself subjective -- like the state of being convinced by a
logical deduction).  I have more to say on this issue, but I will sit back and
wait for some more replies.

     Daryel Akerlind
  ...ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!dsaker