Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gymble.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian Subject: Re: ... talk to God ... (Really apologetics) Message-ID: <123@gymble.UUCP> Date: Fri, 22-Mar-85 01:19:22 EST Article-I.D.: gymble.123 Posted: Fri Mar 22 01:19:22 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 26-Mar-85 03:32:51 EST Distribution: na Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD Lines: 109 Xref: watmath net.religion:6271 net.religion.christian:504 >From mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Wed Mar 20 22:40:29 1985 >Message-ID: <422@cybvax0.UUCP> > >In article <119@gymble.UUCP> bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet) writes: >> [That] the Bible is true needs to be >> established only to the extent that the Gospels are reliable as historical >> documents... This sort of work is discussed >> at length in Josh McDowell's book _Evidence_That_Demands_a_Verdict_ ... >> His argument >> is basically that the accuracy of the NT historical books (Gospels and Acts) >> are much better established ... >> than many classical works of similar age, such a Caesar's writings, so >> that to throw out the NT as historical work means to throw out most of >> classical western history. > >There is no denying that the Bible is historical.... I don't care how >laboriously McDowell details >confirmations of common knowledge of the time, like where cities were or who >was emperor. He provides ZERO valid evidence of the extraordinary claims >of miracles... > >Some claims in the bible should be given a great deal of credence. Others, >such as miracles, we have no reason to believe in, because they are >unsupported. Thus your arguments 1-4 remain unimpressive. > By way of reminder, we were discussing the validity of 5 arguments for Christianity which came from Scott Deerwester (scott@gargoyle) as follows: - the resurrection (see "Who Moved The Stone?") - fulfilled prophesies in the life of Jesus - the testimony and lives of people who were with Him - His words and wisdom (C.S. Lewis' "Lord, lunatic or liar" argument) - the Earth (the creation implies creator argument) These first 4 arguments do not require the truth of any biblical accounts of miraculous events: The argument based on the resurrection is basically this: 1. The rapid rise of Christianity was assisted by the early christians' claims of Christ's resurrection. (Book of Acts; claiming things is not miraculous.) 2. There were people who would have preferred that Christianity not rise so fast, the Jewish establishment for one. 3. It would have been useful for such people to produce Jesus' body in order to throw some cold water on St. Peter & Co. 4. This apparently did not happen. (Josephus does not record it, though he does record the resurrection as fact. Josephus was not a Christian. I'm not sure how strong our general knowlege of Christ's time is, but both the Romans and the Jews generally were good keepers of records.) So what became of it? 5. No one would have likely stolen the body since it was guarded by Roman soldiers, who were not people to be messed with. 6. The Romans themselves would have had no reason to hide to body. If they cared enough to take any action at all, it would have been in opposition to the Christians. 7. It is unlikely that the early Christian fathers were deliberate liars since they had a funny habit of being martyred for what they said. That's a little far to take a joke... 8. So where's the body? The fufilments of prophcy often refer to non-miraculous events in Christ's life that were predicted in prophetic writing in the OT. One example is that Christ would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Selling someone out for money is not a miracle. Testimony of witnesses is pretty much what history is about. The trilemma argument requires only information about Christs words. Speaking is not miraculous. I'm sorry for all the vebiage (I'd never read an article that was this long), but I think the objection that these arguments require acceptance of miraculous accounts is false; they do try to establish the truth of such. Of course, if you assume at first that any miraculous story is false, I suppose it would be hard to convince you otherwise by arguments. >> The argument from creation, classically, is a lot more than disputing about >> fossils and dating with radio-isotopes. (I think Christians waste a lot >> of time on this.) The real issue deals with harder questions such as >> "Why are there physical laws?" and "If matter has existed for eternity, >> why hasn't everything run down yet?" > >If an argument is purported to explain a great many things, it may be >attacked for ANY where reality contradicts it. Evolution is a major >contradiction of literal interpretations of genesis. So is most of modern >day astronomy. I agree. But there is no fundimental conflict between belief in God and belief in evolution; God is capable of creating the world in any way he pleases. I do not see that there is any real conflict between Genesis and the theory of evolution; I think you can show from the text that a "day" is not 24 hours, etc., etc. By the way, why _are_ there physical laws? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Bennet @ Univerity of Maryland Comp Sci Dept ..!ihnp4!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet "Do you believe in God, Winston?"