I read a discussion on Facebook yesterday that centered around an atheist’s objection to Romans 10:9.
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
A bit into the conversation the atheist wrote, “Remember your claim is…”believe in your heart that god raised Jesus from the dead.” I don’t necessarily have a problem with “Jesus rose from the dead.”
As an English teacher, let me enter my protest to writing “god” when English grammar and convention requires “God.” Some atheists, among others, are in the habit of doing this. What really is a pet peeve of mine is when Christians write “bible” when English grammar and convention requires “Bible.” That is a poor testimony. You surely ought to have learned better in English class!
The atheist in the discussion brought forward his belief that there have been several people who came back from the dead and lived to tell about it, so Jesus was not necessarily returned to life by God.
Of course, that fails to account for the fact that Jesus Himself, and the prophets in the Bible before Him, predicted His death and resurrection after three days.
The atheist repeatedly brought forward his argument that one convinced person can easily persuade others to believe his lie. Then those persons, convinced of the truth of what really is a lie because impossible, can easily convince others to believe what they do. Leslie in his work, Four Marks: A Short and Easy Method with the Deists, fully refutes such reasoning.
My friend on Facebook responded to the atheist, “The issue then becomes your determination to deny God.”
The atheist responded:
“It’s not a determination to deny God…its a simple logical argument that doesn’t follow. Jesus rose from the dead doesn’t necessarily follow to “God did it.” I know at least 3 stories where people rose from the dead, did God raise them also? And if they claimed it…would you believe them?”
Then the atheist responded to another well-stated affirmation by another person writing in the discussion thread:
“The best way to interpret the text in Corinthians [1 Corinthians 15:3 and context] is that this is a belief which was commonly held, with witnesses that were still alive and could be consulted (and hence, proven to be false) if the claim was untrue”
- That’s not the best way to interpret Corinthians
- A Witnesses claim cannot be proven false
- A LOT can happen in 20 years [alluding to Paul writing that long after the event]…correspondence is the key. It only takes ONE to convince someone of something. Keeping in mind, most of the bible is contradictory…especially the gospels.
- There are MANY other possibilities, the idea that a god did it, especially when there is no evidence for a god…is very far on the back burning [sic., writer meant “back burner”]. Bart Ehrman [Erhman] does a great job of explaining some of this.
Every PIECE of information you gave is BIASED towards the subject matter. So what I will prematurely accuse you of is an account of special pleading. The historicity of Jesus’s Resurrection suddenly exists in a class of its own where evidence that would normally not be used by historians to prove an event happened suddenly is allowed to be used.
Shortly after this point in the discussion I jumped in with the following comment:
“This is a good discussion of the validity of belief in the resurrection of Christ. Citing Bart Ehrman is hardly relevant to the issue, for he himself is clearly an unbeliever, and his scholarship is slipshod. Some years ago I wrote against his claims against the “Johanine coma” to show his claims were unfounded and did not conform to known documentary evidence that refuted his claims. Citing him is mere poisoning the well.
“Suggesting you know of three stories of people who have come back to life after experiencing death has no relevance to the record of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ not only came back from the dead, he kept on living and did not die physically a second time.
“The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a matter of historical record. Gilbert West and Lord Lyttleton have written solid defenses of the truth of the Biblical record about these matters. William Paley’s Horae Paulinae is a solid, probably irrefutable argument in behalf of the veracity of the Apostle Paul. Far as I know, his argument has never been addressed, let alone actually refuted.
“There is no other major event of past history [that far back] that has as much evidence and testimony on its behalf as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that evidence is contemporaneous to the event. We have the written testimony of eight direct witnesses to the facts of these events. Read Leslie’s Short and Easy Method with the Deists. Leslie’s argument actually does not depend directly on the records of that time. Read Simon Greenleaf’s Testimony of the Evangelists. C. S. Lewis has likewise argued ably in his writings, and he was once an atheist. Norman Geisler and many other careful writers and scholars have likewise in our own day written good defenses of the truth of the New Testament accounts.
“To suggest the New Testament accounts are untruthful or unreliable is nonsense. Read the writings of Sir William Ramsey who specialized in his research on these very matters.”
The atheist answered me as follows:
“Bart was a believer and then became an unbeliever after he looked at the evidence. That’s much more convincing than somebody who already has a preconceived idea that Jesus Christ must have been raised from the dead and then proves it. And his statements are very relevant…he’s a scholar in the field. And I’m sure you think you’ve refuted him but I’m positive he would disagree…as would I. Keeping in mind also we’re talking about reasonable belief. Bart doesn’t deny that it could have happened he simply says you can’t justify it reasonably through historic study. Which is why neither I nor he affirms it happened.
“Actually, everything about citing the case of someone coming back to life IS relevant. Since it’s about a comparison to a similar experience and whether you believe it ALSO was a divine miracle. And how you can tell if it wasn’t. It shows that you special plead the case for Christ whereas you would hold a reasonable belief with the rest of us that we don’t know or the body heals itself sometimes.”
My Facebook friend gave a short but powerful reply:
“Your body doesn’t heal itself from a spear into the chest cavity and a burst heart.”
A little later in the discussion the atheist shares some personal information that sheds light on his current position regarding spiritual things:
- I’m not talking about events not occurring, I’m talking about reasonable belief.
- In China a grandmother was in her casket for 6 days. One day the family awoke to her being alive and making breakfast. [Another poster provided a link to this event which shows the grandmother was determined to not have been clinically dead at the time of burial–if I were better at this Internet/Facebook stuff I would share the link: Chinese woman, 95, comes back to life by climbing out of her coffin six days after she ‘died’].
- I once believed in a god and was a JW as you know and then realized how fallacious the reasoning truly is. I am now an agnostic atheist and I see no reason to believe in God for the same reason I see no reason to believe in Santa Claus.
The word count for this post already exceeds 1244 words.
I will simply comment that there are NO atheists who have ever read through carefully with understanding even ONE of the classic works written in defense of the Bible and/or Christianity. At least that is the life-long conclusion drawn by Irwin H. Linton, author of A Lawyer Examines the Bible. That is so far my conclusion, too, for I have never yet personally met such a person, nor even read of one. I debated informally the head of the law firm in Dearborn, Michigan that does the legal work for Ford Motor Company, at the request of one of the members of the Lamplighter’s Sunday school class who worked for him. It was an amiable discussion. I asked him to share with me, if he would, what had led to his loss of faith in Christ and the Bible. It turns out he had read and been convinced by several books, including Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and other works of unbelievers and atheists. Then I asked him what scholarly works had he carefully read and studied that have been written in defense of the truth of the Bible and Christianity. He said he indeed had read some, but could no longer remember the titles. I said, “That is fine. I’ll start naming authors and titles, and when we reach one you recall reading, we can discuss it.” I started naming authors and titles, and finally reached one he thought he recalled reading. I pulled the book out of my briefcase, handed it to him, and began the discussion. It was not long before he had to admit that no, he had not read that one, nor any other. I hope that visit from me that day helped point him in the right direction.
I commend the reading of the resources I have given in my comments above for any atheist who thinks he or she can honestly withstand the evidence and logic brought forth in these solid works. Some of the works are not currently in print, but many if not all can be found archived at Google books, where they can be read on that site, or downloaded for free as PDF documents.
Gilbert West, The Resurrection of Christ, and George Lyttleton, The Conversion of Saint Paul, were both written by unbelievers who set out to examine the evidence to prove the Bible, the New Testament, and Christianity wrong. They were not believers special pleading to support a case for Christianity. I dare you to read them.
Simon Greenleaf wrote The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice. This was his field of expertise. He was a noted legal scholar, and wrote a two-volume work on the laws of evidence. Chief Justice Fuller, of the United States Supreme Court, once asserted of Greenleaf that “he is the highest authority cited in our courts.” The London Law Journal wrote in 1874, “Upon the existing law of evidence (by Greenleaf) more light has shone from the New World than from all the lawyers who adorn the courts of Europe.”
Disagree with me? Let’s talk. Post a comment below. I promise, I won’t eat you alive!
So far on this site, atheists continue to remain strangely silent, despite my invitation to participate here.