Can Christianity Be Proven?

Well at least he won't be bothering you in the afterlife...

 

One of my college classmates was born-again. We worked together a lot on EE projects, so we ended up spending a lot of time together. He wasn't a teetotaler, so we'd go out drinking too. He was totally respectful of my "lapsed Catholicism/atheism". Only once did he make an attempt to proselytize - he saw an opportunity to invite me to church, and did. I politely declined, and that was that. Painless, and didn't affect our personal or "professional" relationships.

 

A couple of my best friends likewise got born again. They had already suffered through my derision when they were flirting with flaky new age cults, so they didn't bother me too much. They, too, claim that Catholics aren't Christians. I forget why, the reasons are pretty silly. We arrived at a truce - they don't bug me with silly born-again stuff, I don't ridicule their beliefs.

Worse was when my uncle became a life-insurance salesman. Man, talk about becoming insufferable.........

 

In regards to the "where did God come from" question, it's obviously a fair one. But, at some point, something had to have always existed or come from nothing. If not God, then the gases that were necessary to create the big bang. I just think it's more feasible that a God has always existed rather than some finite matter or gases.

 

Just out of curiousity, no judgement here, why do you think this:

Or, put another way, why is it more feasible to belive in the infinite existence of God/Buddah/Allah/Whoever than it is to believe in the continued and repeated expansion (Big Bangs) and contraction (Big Crunches) of matter?

 

Gases didn't create the big bang. Remember e=mc^2, mass-energy conversion.

At a very basic level, there is no difference in having faith that "God has always existed" and faith that "some finite matter or gases" always existed. By Occam's Razor, however, the least complex is likely the right answer, and requiring a magical "being" that can create matter out of nothing is more complex than believing that energy or matter can be created out of nothing.

 

Here is the dilemma I find interesting:

Most folks will at least admit that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher but they will never admit he was the Son of God.

If that is the case, and they recognize the wisdom of his teachings, how do they square the idea he allowed himself to be murdered with the idea of being a great moral teacher. Only a lunatic would allow that to happen. No truly great moral teacher would allow himself to be murdered in that fashion.

Either he was who he claimed he was, or he was a raving lunatic. He can't be a great moral teacher and a lunatic at the same time.

 

This already happened once in Jerusalem circa 30 AD.

 

there were also a lot of lunatics that followed him who were also killed for their beliefs.

Science and religion don't mix...ever. One relies on facts, the other relies on faith. Using one to prove/disprove the other doesn't work.

 

So, may I assume you are in the camp that says, "Jesus Christ was NOT a great moral teacher?"

 

He could have been many things. He could have been self-deluded. He could have been misrepresented in the Bible. He could have been fictional.

 

Interesting fictional book on this very subject written by Dan Brown (of The DaVinci Code fame) called Angels and Demons. Obviously it is fiction, but it does provoke a few thoughts along the way. Great book too. IMHO, better than The DaVinci Code.

 

Yeah, the C.S. Lewis trichotomy (of which your dichotomy is a variant) only really works for those people who accept Jesus as a moral being whose representation in the Gospels is accurate. It is very much a product of the time it was created.

 

Being a great moral teacher and being a lunatic are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Plus, if you consider that JC's martyrdom was a part of the message, then having himself be captured and executed was less an act of lunacy than dedication to his mission.

In any case, I don't believe that JC was a son of god, though I don't discount the idea either. It's just something that wouldn't make much of a difference to me either way - I think too often, the myth is overemphasized at the expense of the core message.

 

and Jesus' "core message" was what ...?

 

Love one another.

 

I'm trying to decipher your cryptic reply, but if you mean "accept me as your savior and whatnot", then I would say that too many followers take it too literally and are missing the message - which was my point, that the myth isn't the message, but merely a path to the message.

Otherwise, please explain.

 

I think the choices were a raving lunatic or great moral teacher i forget.

I was just pointing out that the people who followed him were also killed for their beliefs. So either they were drinking the same kool aid or they actually believed in his cause.

 

The Man in Black,

Yes, other followers were killed for their beliefs and your observation affirms the question. We are all placed in the position of making that choice.

 

The core message was His death and RESURRECTION. Without those, the entire structure of Christianity falls.

The basis for Christ's existence was atonement for the sins of all. That was achieved only through his death, and resurrection. Without both of those, none of the rest of it matter. It is His resurrection that completed the entire process of overcoming the sins of the world. Nothing short of that would be adequate.

So, while there were many great things He preached while on earth, none of them matter if not for the final great act.

Hence there is no way to accept one without the other. Either he was the Son of God, who was raised from the dead, or he was a raving lunatic, whose resurrection is a fantasy. In that latter case, there is no factual base for Christianity and the morality of His teachings has no basis.

 

That's the saddest story I've ever heard.

 

Jesus' core message is John 3:16.

16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

But, please read this in context of John 3:1-21. Many people do not know that the 16th verse is a quote from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in which Jesus explained the purpose of his life, a prophecy of his death and the means of attaining eternal life.

This is but one instance where Jesus pointed to himself as the prophesied Messiah in the Old Testament. You must be intentionally blind to read the gospels and miss this core message.

 

What?

"Love one another", "Do unto others", "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (I don't know if Christ was the original artist wrt any of these hits, but you get the point. Whether he said them or not, they were part of his message)? They don't matter unless we agree with the fine print?

We can't apply any of those good words to our daily lives without buying the prime Okefenokee acreage?

That's not true.

Plenty of people were willing to give their lives for ideals that others considered unworthy of their time. Some of those people were painted with the "crazy" brush (John Brown comes to mind immediately). Christ didn't have to be completely correct for his influence to be positive, and he doesn't have to be the son of God for his influence to matter. Plenty of nonreligious people look to parts of his life and words for inspiration. Are they wrong to do so? Don't answer that- I'll do it.

No.

 

This is absolutely not true.

I don't want to turn this into some huge side discussion, but Christianity can not be proven. Science and religion answer different questions ("how?" and "why?"). I just don't think the 2nd question is a) all that interesting, and b) very important.