Originally Posted by kirklancaster
(Post 7310002)
No I'm a monotheist.
“Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer - except faith.”
― Charles Sheffield, Brother to Dragons
Some people on here assert that people of 'faith' believe without any shred of credible evidence, but that is simply not true - in my case at least. For example;
I believe in the Old Testament God - Yahweh, and if I was a Jew, I would be a 'Jew for Jesus' because I also firmly believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. I believe that he lived, died on the cross and was resurrected.
I was not 'conditioned' into my beliefs by fanatically religious parents, nor by any absorption of religious doctrines at any of the schools I attended, and I was not exposed to any religious cult. Nor did I 'turn to God' in desperation as a result of some crisis in my life or nervous breakdown, as can happen with some people. I chose to believe.
From a young age, I was always curious about what life was all about, where did we come from, what the Cosmos really was, and a hundred other questions. As I got older, I literally, spent years seeking definitive answers to questions which I now know have no definitive answers. But, after delving (as deeply as I was intellectually able) into subjects as diverse as Agnosticism, through Christianity, Buddhism and Existentialism, to Deism, and even Ancient Astronaut theory, and after experimenting with mid-altering drugs like LSD, I 'gave up the ghost' and resorted to pure hedonism for a time.
Then, when I was in my late 20's, I witnessed something which was so unbelievable, so incredible, that I knew at that moment that there were some other laws at work in our universe besides the ones we have been taught to accept as 'natural'. I should add here, that 'no', I was not on drugs and hadn't touched LSD for years. Neither was I drunk or deluded, and also that this incident was witnessed by three other people - a young couple, who frankly 'were not the sharpest chisels in the box', knew what they'd witnessed, but seemed to merely accept it, metaphorically 'shrug' and subsequently seemed to give it no more thought. The third - a typical party loving, skirt chasing male - didn't change much publicly, but did become a regular church-goer - something I have never been drawn to because the 'Church' is man's creation and I don't believe in Man. Anyway, he spent a long time with me thereafter, privately analysing and discussing what we'd seen. Years have gone by, and he is still one of my close friends today.
At the time, I did not change much publicly either, but privately, I started to re-examine philosophy and religion.
I will state here that I do not believe without questioning. I do not question without seeking answers, and I do not blindly accept answers without further researching.
Anyway, I developed a belief in God. I haven't all the answers - if, indeed I have any - because I am mortal and ordinary, and not God, but my faith in God is built on both logic, and intuition. I cannot actually identify which God I believe in but I believe there is a God - some supernatural force, some entity - and I think of God as Yahweh, the Hebrew Old Testament God, largely because I firmly believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Messiah.
My belief in Jesus as the Christ is not only based on logic and intuition, but also on an acceptance that the evidence needed to justify such a belief, is both, preponderant and wholly convincing. So can I start with a case for the historical Jesus?
Can there really be any dispute that a man called Jesus Christ lived 2000 years ago? Because, in addition to all the overwhelming Biblical testimony, there is a wealth of extraneous secular evidence. There is neither space here nor need to list comprehensively, so briefly:
Flavius Josephus - a Ist Century Romano-Jewish historian widely considered to be one of the greatest and most credible historians of antiquity. Josephus did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God - and therefore denied Christianity, yet in his book 'The Antiquities of the Jews' he confirms that not only did Jesus Christ exist, but also corroborates the New Testament teachings about Christ, including the fact that Christ was Crucified on the cross under the orders of Pontius Pilate:
“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
And:
“But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.”
(It's very important here to bear in mind, that Josephus was not a Christian but an orthodox Jew, that his books were primarily written to recount the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience, and that Christ was mentioned only incidentally and briefly in small passages which formed a very minuscule part of a huge tome.)
Tacitus - a Roman Historian 55-120AD. who - in his book the Annals - when writing of the 6 day fire which all but destroyed Rome (Nero fiddling while Rome burned) , wrote:
" Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus (meaning 'Messiah') from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”
(Tacitus detested Christians but none-the-less confirms here the existence of Jesus, and His crucifixion on the cross. Further he corroborates that Pontius Pilate was the procurator who oversaw the crucifixion of Christ.)
Pliny the Younger - 61 AD – ca. 112 AD : Ancient Roman Lawyer, Magistrate and Author who is famous for a huge collection of letters which are an invaluable historical source, Pliny - accepted as honest and moderate - was relentless in pursuing Christians and in correspondence with the emperor Trajan, he asks the Emperor for instructions dealing with Christians and explained that he forced Christians to curse Christ under torture:
“They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of a meal–but ordinary and innocent food.”
Tallus -- 1st century non-Christian historian. (Quoted by Julius Africanus -- 160 – c.240) in his 'Chronicles' explains the reason for it being so dark during the day time on the day of crucifixion of Jesus Christ:
“An eclipse of the sun ’unreasonably, as it seems to me (unreasonably of course, because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon) and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died.....”
(As a derider of Christ, Tallus tried to come up with a 'scientific' reason for the sky inexplicably darkening at Christ's crucifixion. Of course his 'scientific' explanation is nonsense, but this not only corroborates that Christ lived and was crucified, it also corroborates the biblical claim of the sky blackening at the hour of Christ's 'death')
Lucian of Samosate -- 115 AD -- was a Greek satirist and travelling lecturer who mocked Christians in his writing, but provided evidence that Jesus really did exist in doing so
:
“He was second only to that one whom they still worship today, the man in Palestine who was crucified because he brought this new form of initiation into the world.”
Seutonius-- 69/75 -- a Roman historian and author:
"The emperor Claudius reigned 41 to 54 AD. Suetonius reports his dealings with the eastern Roman Empire, that is, with Greece and Macedonia, and with the Lycians, Rhodians, and Trojans. He then reports that the emperor expelled the Jews from Rome, since they “constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Christ”
I do not think that any rational man can dispute that a man called Jesus Christ lived and died on the cross 2000 years ago. The evidence for this is simply overwhelming.
The evidence that Jesus was the Messiah is another post.
This is my opinion and I am not trying to indoctrinate or convert anyone else.
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