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I’ll step in it again and ask you a couple of questions:

Do you believe that God exists?
Do you believe that Jesus was the Messiah?
Can you answer yes or no?

If it were me, I think I'd use something other than math in my self righteous comparisons when preaching the word..............

Math is tangible, verifiable and has rules. Religion ................

George

You made the categorical claim it matters not what one believes,

but you still desperately to want to know things you clearly have already deemed as irrelevant.

the following applies to you perfectly:

James 1:8 (KJV)
"A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

Meh, the skeptics that post here are as self assured and self righteous as others.
They feel free to show and stomp on others beliefs.

Ok Starman, you win.

Congrats to ou TF49. In conversing with AS you have met one of the biggest fools on the 'fire.

Hes stupid enough to think Jesus walked the earth giving the Good News knowing it wasnt true and hoping to hoodwink millions of people to spend billions over the ages supporting churches and pastors without seeking financial gain for himself.

Sheesh.

What was Jesus to get out of life for his charade other than crucifiction? Dumbasses never consider these things.

Hey rimfire, Jesus only wanted to pull the wool over on guys like me,

Or, "If it were not so i would not have told you so".

There is some circular reasoning here. On the same criteria you cannot prove that Jesus never rose from the dead. You were not there--you did not guard the tomb to confirm the presence of the body till decay. In your belief system you choose unbelief--yes a belief system that is based on faith in your own rational conclusions on what to doubt with a high degree of certainty. Furthermore your approach would invalidate all history as fact because you cannot personally validate the events as an eye-witness. However on the basis of faith in the historical evidence professors teach history. They look at the evidence and try to make reasonable conclusions and then they teach history.

Disputing the evidence for the resurrection of Christ is equal to trying to dispute that the American Revolution actually occurred. We all "believe" it occurred on the basis of evidence. We have a strong faith in the certainty of because of the reasonably indisputable evidence from the historical record.

Likewise:
1. we have reasonably indisputable historical evidence from various sources that Jesus was crucified in a public event
2. we have indisputable evidence that some of the early believers "claimed" that He also arose because they were eyewitness of His resurrected body
3. they spread the stories of their resurrection claims throughout the whole world
4. the world was hostile to the resurrection claims of the early Christians
5. the apostles and early Christians were put to death for making these claims and promoting the teachings of Christ
6. the early Christians did not have the favor or aid of the government to protect their faith
7. the story continued to spread and grow and could not be dismissed
8. all the events surrounding the death and crucifixion were in the gospel accounts and could be investigated and disproven
9. the critics and enemies of Christianity were never successful in refuting those claims and the church grew
10. Diocletion ordered all the Scriptures apprehended and burnt and Christians executed if they would not recant their faith
11. But the story grew to the point where the succeeding Roman Emperor Constantine officially embraced Christianity. While this also began to introduce some corruptions into the church it still establishes the fact that the basic story of Jesus was validated on the basis of evidence.
12. Emporer Julian comes along and tries to make intellectual arguments to dismiss the resurrection of Christ. His arguments fail and the story grows even further.

Friends, in the early ages of Christianity when it was being persecuted, everyone had access to the data needed to refute the resurrection claims--more data than we have today. Eye-witnesses could be interviewed, stories of the gospels could be investigated, the public crucifixion under Pontius Pilate could be verified. The man Jesus was crucified by the Romans and guarded because Jesus said in advance He would rise again--what happened to the body? The only thing the critics needed to do was prove that Christ never arose.

Our faith is based on indisputable evidence. The Bible defines our faith as such:


Our faith is a strong belief based on reasonably indisputable evidence. Unbelief is based upon blind faith that refuses to acknowledge the testimony of reasonable evidence because of a strong prejudice against moral absolutes.

.. Furthermore your approach would invalidate all history as fact because you cannot personally validate the events
as an eye-witness. However on the basis of faith in the historical evidence professors teach history. They look at the evidence and try to
make reasonable conclusions and then they teach history.

.... on the basis of faith in the historical evidence professors teach history.

I'm a little late with this, but here goes. Tell me what's wrong with contradictions.

Initially you claimed it as FACT, now you say its merely based on evidence.

Evidence does not necessarily amount to Proof or established Fact,
and that can be seen in courtrooms across the land on a regular basis.



I rely on a lack of proof being provided by christians , and because of such lack , also the absence of establishedFact.

no proof = no established fact.

[quote=Thunderstick]

Our faith is based on indisputable evidence. The Bible defines our faith as such:


You earlier cited proof based FACT being the basis from the start [that the resurrection took place],
yet there's no biblical mention of it in that definition of faith.

and how do you substantiate proof that cannot be seen?



who decides what genuinely constitutes reasonable evidence?

and just because you adopt a 'strong belief' approach doesn't give purported evidence any extra weight.




again its what you choose as a Christian to deem a reasonable evidence, not everybody.

Could you go into a US courtroom today with your evidence and prove/provide establiish fact,
that a man died and came back to life 3 days later,.. some 2000+ yrs ago?

As for the passage in some copies of Josephus, the Testimonium Flavianum it's a 4th century interpolation added by Eusebius.

I have no doubt Jesus of Nazerath was a man who did walk the Earth. I have no doubt that he had a mother named Mary. And I have no doubt that both were tools used by a faction of the Jewish Priesthood bent of splintering The Church and taking it in a new, more benevolent direction.

Either Mary was impregnated by these Jewish Priests, who later confirmed her virginity, or else the entire "virgin birth" was a myth born of whole cloth used to impress superstitious peoples and gain converts. Heck, we impregnate cows everyday with a straw small enough to leave the hymen intact.

David Copperfield could easily replicate any of the "miracles" performed by Jesus in front of illiterate, peasant crowds. Modern fakirs heal people in front of crowds quite often, and none of them are God incarnate.

And as far as the man dying, coming back to life, and disappearing again. That is certainly not an illusion which would be difficult to replicate in any time period. body doubles? twin brothers? possibilities abound.

God exists because a fictional book says so? That makes as much sense as FREE healthcare for all.

[/quote]All these things you state about early Christian teachings and writings could also be stated for The Book of Morman.[quote]

I have no doubt Jesus of Nazerath was a man who did walk the Earth. I have no doubt that he had a mother named Mary. And I have no doubt that both were tools used by a faction of the Jewish Priesthood bent of splintering The Church and taking it in a new, more benevolent direction.

Either Mary was impregnated by these Jewish Priests, who later confirmed her virginity, or else the entire "virgin birth" was a myth born of whole cloth used to impress superstitious peoples and gain converts. Heck, we impregnate cows everyday with a straw small enough to leave the hymen intact.

David Copperfield could easily replicate any of the "miracles" performed by Jesus in front of illiterate, peasant crowds. Modern fakirs heal people in front of crowds quite often, and none of them are God incarnate.

And as far as the man dying, coming back to life, and disappearing again. That is certainly not an illusion which would be difficult to replicate in any time period. body doubles? twin brothers? possibilities abound.

Contradictions happen when two propositions (or more) are logically not compatible, therefore both cannot logically be true. In the simplest terms, if an object is described as being entirely white, it cannot be described as being entirely black....one description or the other must be false. Both cannot be true.

If God is described as a God of Love, who has no jealousy. who is good to all, love your enemy, etc, and God is described as being a jealous God, punishing generations for the sins of their fathers, ordering slaughter, killing guilty and innocent alike, etc.... both descriptions cannot be true, it can one or the other....or God is bipolar.