Quote Originally Posted by joel31 View Post
- The reliability of the bible. The bible has been compared with ancient manuscripts (which there are more of than pretty much every other text in history) and has found to have barely changed since its original writing. Also the NT was written quite closely after events so people who were witnesses would be still around to correct it, if they believed it was false
- There is historical evidence pointing towards Jesus existence as a man and supporting biblical events and thus reliability of bible
- The complexity of the universe: IMO chance could not have produced this complexity.
- The universe: something can't come out of nothing. There needed to be a catalyst to start its creation whether it came from the big bang or otherwise
- why are there uniform laws of nature? As Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."
- People in the early church who KNEW Jesus were willing to die because they were so convinced that Jesus was God and their saviour. If they weren’t absolutely convinced then surely they would admit it was false and save their lives
- Un-Darwinian sacrificial actions of humans and moral conscience - How could have humans developed a conscience and sense for morality if the universe is meaningless and it is all about survival of the fittest.

I'm happy to elaborate if wanted on historical evidence, etc

I've no doubt JC lived it's the whole "son of god" thing I struggle to understand people's faith in. No disrespect.
Happy to be corrected but wasn't the NT largely written a few hundred years after.... Except some of the early stuff..... And if the timeframe you suggest is accurate, it'd be pretty easy to explain an inability to have things edited by way of rates of illiteracy and the literates being the ones in power.

I'm still to be convinced these early documents, and their translation/interpretation where not massively subject to political grabs for power and control of populations either by the church or whatever feudal/democratic system may have existed at any period of time, and is still happening today.

I'm sorry, but the "his disciples believed him and were willing to die" can be pretty easily argued against by looking at some modern day cults that saw leaders convince their followers that they too were some heavenly incarnation and many followers being willing to die in their name too.



Humans are largely two things, gullible or greedy, as we've become more literate and educated as a species the influence of the church has wained..... I'm not calling anyone of faith to be gullible, you have listed a number of points I've not got an answer to, I suppose what I am saying is that I can't help but think the greed of those in power has always played on the gullibility of the masses of populations they sought to control and all religious texts are being written, interpreted and re-written by power hungry people wanting to remain in power.