If you wanted to convert an atheist who wanted to believe....

Wicknight wrote: »

Who said they were trying to convince them? You think the Romans were in the habit of trying to politely convince the hundreds of cults and micro-religions at the time that they were in fact mistaken? Why would they be interested in showing them the body of Jesus?

The Romans wouldn't care that much but the Jewish Leaders who proclaimed Him a blasphemer and who had enginereed His execution for His blasphemy through Roman authority would be very interested to stop this preaching because if this preaching was true then that put them out of business. If they had the clout to enginieer His crucifixion then they had they clout to organise the removal of His body to show the poor deluded disciples that they were duped.

Wicknight wrote: »

Who said they even had the body of Jesus (assume the resurrection is based on someone stealing Jesus' body.. or that his body never made it to a tomb at all). Some of these people were put to death years after the cruxifiction was supposed to have happened.

Well let us assume for a second that you are right. And that someone stealing the body was a good explantion of the empty tomb. Then how do you explain the disciple's preaching that they saw Him alive again after His crucifixion? And that they seen Him bodily asscend into heaven? If the body was taken by someone other than them then they were lying about the rest of the story not just that the tomb was empty. So assuming that the body was stolen, who do you think stole it? If the Discples stole it then they were liars and decievers, if the Jews stole it they would have produced the body in a second to shut up the preaching and like you say yourself the Romans wouldn't have cared enough to steal it. So who stole it and why?

Wicknight wrote: »

Again you guys are talking about plausibility while the elephant in the corner is the totally implausible explanation that he actually resurrected himself.

You're coming at this with a bias against miracle and not from logical deduction. The explantion that best fits the facts is that He rose. Now just because that is impossible for man doesn't not mean it didn't happen. The New Testament never says that Jesus rose naturally from the dead after 3 days, it specifically states that God raised Jesus from the dead, so only when you can conclusively prove that God does not exist can you say that God did not raise Jesus from the dead.

Wicknight wrote: »

If that was the way it worked you would never have a rumour in Dublin. Remember the rumour a few years back (even in the papers) that asylum seekers from Africa got free 200 euro for fancy hair cuts.

How many people who went around spreading this rumour would have been willing to suffer a hideous death for it even if the rumour were in fact true? A big fat zero.

Wicknight wrote: »

Why didn't the Social Welfare Office simply bring everyone who believed that rumour down to the local health care office and spend the day showing them the procedures used in allocating money for emergency needs to asylum seekers?

Why should they? Like the Romans they didn't care, they had no vested interest in disproving the rumour. The Jewish leaders had a vested interest in disproving the ressurection story though, and the best they could come up was that the disciples stole the body. That at least is an admission on their part that the tomb was in fact empty, if it wasn't then they would have produced the body.

Wicknight wrote: »

That sounds like religious propaganda story rather than reality. They all have clinched personalities and they all change for the better?

Well if it was truly a lie then why would these liars include their prior bad traits in the first place? Why not just say that all these poeple who are now trying to convince everyone that Jesus rose from the dead always had these good traits even before the ressurection? It doesn't make sense that liars would hurt their story by indicting each other as being dull of hearing, selfish, cowardly and faithless if all they were out to do was use propaganda. When you read the accounts, the changed natures depictions flow natrually with the narrative, their addition doesn't sound like later lengendary embelishment in order to make them look good. If looking good was all they were worried about then they wouldn't have included the bad traits to begin with. That make sense?

Wicknight wrote: »

Why not? If the purpose was to spread the propaganda of Christianity it makes little sense to say it only effect some people?

You ever hear a Scientologists tell you that Dianetics only helps 1 in 5 people?

So why include the story of Judas's betrayal? Peter's denial? Thomas' doubting, and James and John's calling fire from heaven on anyone that got in their way attitude? If they were merely propagandist then surely they wouldn't have added these embarresments into the narrative?

Wicknight wrote: »

How many reporters are you counting when you say "all" the reporters?

Four. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now before you say it, I know Mark and Luke were not eyewitnesses to the events they describe in their gospels but they had got access to many eyewitnesses when compiling their gospels.

Plus even the names of the gosples themselves with the exception of John show honesty. If the names were made up or used by writers who didn't hold those names, then why use names that were not high up in the impotant stakes in the accounts that they record? If the writers were not infact Matthew Mark and Luke then why call themselves that? Matthew was a hated tax collector and Mark and Luke play very minor roles in the story, so while call yourself Matthew, Mark and Luke when you could have called yourself Peter or James?

Wicknight wrote: »

You don't do you? Do you find people rising from the dead?

Degrees of plausibility. How can you say this doesn't happen or is so unlikely to happen that it can be disregarded as so unlikely, and then embrace a man rising from the dead?

Again your bias against the miraculous is dictating your reasoning. Please explain why simple minded people like these dsicples would suffer hideous deaths for holding to a lie that they know is a lie. I know that people don't generally rise from the dead, but when you look at the whole gammit of evidence in hsitory and the New Testament writings it is the only explantion that makes sense all be it an impossibel thing for man to do. But they were not claiming that a mere man rose from the dead, rather they claimed that God raised Jesus, - the self professed Messiah of the Jewsih people and of the world - from the dead.

Wicknight wrote: »

How can you talkin about something being "inconceivable" in the same breath as a resurrection?

It is totally conceivable and plausible that a group of men would knowingly make up a lie like this if you have lowered the standard of plausibility to include things like resurrections.

This just highlights the nonsense of the double-think going on here guys, the compartmentalisation with one standard over here and then a completely different standard applied to other things.

Look at what you are claiming. There is no plausible explanation for this so therefore a man rose from the dead. How does "resurrection" make it into the set of plausible explanations?

That is a perfectly valid argument and if we had proof that God didn't exist and that miracles were impossible then we can be done with the story about Jesus once and for all, but we don't have this do we?

But, Jimi, I cannot see us agreeing here, so why not just leave it as us agreeing to disagree, and not get into a prolonged arguement on it.

Morbert wrote: »

To tie this conversation back to the OP: The Bible is certainly a reason to consider christianity, but it is not going to convert atheists. Atheists would need to be shown that the God described in the Bible is real.

That's what God does for them - via their hearing the Word. He makes them know He is real. God the Holy Spirit makes us spiritually alive (regeneration), and we then are able and willing to recognise the Truth and embrace it.
Romans 10:8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”(that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

wolfsbane wrote: »

Yes, I do think atheists do in reality believe in God but just choose to deny it.

I definitely definitely do not believe in any God.

Wicknight wrote: »

Yeah thanks for that PDN, I understood exactly what Jimi was saying, but both of you have apparently missed my point.

And once again you, like Jimi, are introducing a straw man (they must have been indoctrinated from birth!).

Who are you to say that Tom Cruise has not witnessed an event that is as convincing to him as a Christian seeing Jesus walk on water?

You can substitute Tom Cruise for any cult follower who believe he has witnessed miracles.

My oh my oh my. I can only smile at this point tbh.

ned78 wrote: »

I definitely definitely do not believe in any God.

Yeah, it's called DENIAL.

Just the same as with those who love their addiction so much that they are definitely definitely not addicted.

I'm not questioning your conscious belief - just your inner, deepest one.

ned78 wrote: »

If all Catholics are like you, it's no wonder Athiesm is great

FYI: Wolfsbane is not a catholic. You'll find that most aren't around here. Pamela111 and Kelly1 are the only two that spring to mind.

chop86 wrote: »

.
It is entirely ILLOGICAL and IRRATIONAL to continue believing in a fairy tale story created to: counter-act peoples fear of death and to answer questions on our origin before science did.

To still hold on to these silly ideas of a creator or after-life is just self delusional and harmful.

It seems to me that so many atheists need to believe they've got it all licked, and that the most important thing is that people think they're logical, rational, intelligent etc etc. It seems to be a real insecurity. A form of Penis envy for the brain. Other people thinking your smart seems to be the crutch, a security blanket of sorts. So many declarations of 'Your dumber than me' or 'I'm smarter than you'. Alot of you seem to be the most insecure of folk. But ho hum, if it works for you.

Morbert wrote: »

God does not make atheists know He is real. I, for example, am an atheist, and no God has made me know He is real.

Sure he does. He just hasn't got to you-yet!
Out of curiosity, do you want to know Him? I won't preach-promise