Right. As a Christian, it is frustrating to see someone like Russell dismiss revelation so superficially, while criticizing Aquinas who extensively documented every objection he heard of to any of his claims.
It's not exactly a philosophical treatise, but there is a modern work I recommend commonly for understanding whether scripture/revelation is reliable. An atheist man's wife decided to become Christian. He was an investigative reporter, and he thought it was really important to show his wife how mistaken she was, so he used all his skills as a reporter to write the story of why the Bible, particularly belief in the Resurrection, isn't reliable. He read extensively, and he flew around the country talking to experts, all to disprove his wife's new faith.
He published his notes on this investigation under the title, The Case for Christ, and ended up converting to Christianity as well.
Maybe put the Old Testament down for now and explore the New Testament, starting with one of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Continue to pray and ask God to give you faith in him. You might consider reading this book. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
I found The Case for Christ to be a pretty good summary of why the Resurrection was a real event. It was written by an atheist trying to prove to his wife that the Resurrection wasn't real by talking to all the best experts he could, but he ended up converting. Otherwise, even though I grew up Catholic, I like the stories of those who converted later in life, like CS Lewis (see his book Surprised by Joy), or a less famous but more recent Holly Ordway (Not God's Type).
I often recommend The Case for Christ. The author started in a similar position as you - doubting the resurrection was a real event or that the Bible was a reliable source, and it details him raising every objection he can think of and researching the objection thoroughly by talking to experts.
I hope it helps!
(3 OF 3, CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS COMMENT)
THE GOSPEL
Do you know for sure that you will go to heaven when you die? And when you stand before Holy God, and He asks "Why should I let you into My heaven?", what reason will you give? What are the requirements for getting into heaven anyway? Jesus said in John 3: 3, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." So isn't going to church, being sorry for your sins and asking forgiveness enough? No, and here's why: we have all broken God's Law, the Ten Commandments. Who hasn't told a lie, stolen, used God's name in vain, or lusted after another person?
We will all stand before God on Judgment Day, just like standing before a judge in a courtroom, and answer for everything we have ever done. Everyone must pay for their crimes, and God's standard is total perfection in everything we say, do and think. None of us measure up. Then the Judge will pass sentence—even if we ask for forgiveness, because the Judge is bound by the Law to see that justice is done. Those that are guilty of the crime will do the time, and will end up in God's prison, which is hell. So what can we do?
Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins in His life's blood. You broke God's Law, Jesus paid your fine. That means your case can legally be dismissed and you can walk free from the courtroom on the Day of Judgment. But what you must do to receive this free gift is trust in Jesus Christ alone to save you, like the kind of trust you have in the pilot of an airplane when you fly. Then God will enable you to repent—this is more than just telling God you are sorry and ask for forgiveness; He will enable you to turn from your sinful life and begin to live for Him instead.
What does this look like? Suppose you’re sailing your boat out on the ocean when a big storm comes up. Your boat begins to fall apart and you find yourself in the water, hanging onto one little piece of wood with the waves crashing over you. You’re about to drown when a Coast Guard cutter comes up and the captain leans over the railing and yells, “I’m throwing you a life preserver. Grab on and we’ll pull you to safety!” One of the crew throws a life preserver into the water, right next to you. The only way you can grab the life preserver is to first let go of the waterlogged piece of rotten wood that was keeping you afloat. And so it is with repentance. Jesus throws the life preserver of eternal life, and after placing our trust in Him we must let go of our old life and grab onto the new life that He offers, living for Him instead of ourselves.
As soon as you do that, God will forgive every sin you have ever committed and you will be made righteous in His sight. Romans 8: 16 says "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." What this means is that the Holy Spirit will come to live inside you, and will help you change your life to be an obedient follower of Jesus Christ. You will know you have been changed like nothing else you have ever known before.
The truth is, you don't clean up your life first and then come to Jesus. We can never be good enough for God to save us based on our actions. You come to Jesus first and He takes control of your life and begins to clean it up for you. The more you are obedient, the more you will see the old life slip away and be replaced by one that honors Christ. There is nothing you can do to earn your salvation. Ephesians 2: 8-9 says, "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast." Good works are only proof that you really are a Christian.
There are many people today who "believe in God" or have "asked Jesus into their heart" or are "religious" but have never repented of their sins or been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit, and they continue to live just as they did before they were "saved." Jesus talks about these kinds of people in Matthew 7: 21-23, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons and in Your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from Me, you evildoers!'"
Many people want the benefit of going to heaven without turning from their sin. They want to have their cake and eat it too. But following Christ means giving your life to Him to do with as He wants to. The truth is, when we repent, it doesn't mean that we will never sin again. It means that we try our best not to sin because we want to please God, and that we regret it when we do sin and then confess and forsake it. But God enables us to repent through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that is given to us when we trust in Christ.
Once you are a born again Christian, then 1 John 1: 9 applies to you as well "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is a promise for the Christian, not for just anyone. God will take your broken life and transform you day by day to be more like Jesus. But you have to completely sell out to Him and trust in Jesus alone to save you, and then repent of your sins. In Luke 15:10, Jesus says "Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Does this make sense to you? If so, you can pray to receive Christ right now and have eternal life. You could pray something like this, in your own words, "God, I am sorry for all my sins against You. I turn from my sinful life right now and ask for Your forgiveness. Please save me and help me live a life that is obedient to Your Word, the Bible. I place my trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Thank You, Father, for the gift of everlasting life! Amen."
Your prayer will be shown to be real by your obedience to God's Word, so get a Bible and read it every day, starting with the gospel of John. You can also read or hear the Bible online, or download the Youversion Bible app if you have a smartphone. Find a good Bible-believing church to attend so you can fellowship with other believers, be encouraged and grow in faith. Also, begin to share your faith with others so they can have eternal life as well, and God will never let you down!
I know I have written a lot in these comments, but you seem pretty sincere in your questions and I wanted to give you the best overview of what I think are the most important details for non-believers to consider. Also check out The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel.
>Strobel states he was an atheist. He received a journalism degree from University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School, becoming a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers for 14 years. He began investigating the Biblical claims about Christ after his wife's conversion. Prompted by the results of his investigation, he became a Christian in 1981.
The book is a very thorough investigation of the evidence for Christ by a person who was a non-believer at the time.
It boils down to Jesus Christ who claimed to be God. Do you believe in him? Do you believe he died for your sins?
The bible says there were 500 witnesses who saw him after his resurrection. https://www.shortform.com/blog/500-witnesses-to-the-resurrection/
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Evidence for the Reliability of the Gospels, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IDoPNo-IbQ
Evidence in the Undesigned Coincidences, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3SmRkiBcec
Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDo9mldPybs&feature=youtu.be
Check out "The Case for Christ," by Lee Strobel, https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
Check out "Evidence that Demands a Verdict," by Josh McDowell. https://www.amazon.com/Evidence-That-Demands-Verdict-Life-Changing-ebook/dp/B01MYP99J3
James White has a lot of great resources so I'll share the link to his website and YouTube channel. How we got our Bible, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTeLO-61FAA
Can you trust the New Testament? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05aK7itUvho
Have you read the Gospels? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? That's the place to start. You can start John here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=NASB1995
The book, "The Case for Christ" is a great book. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01863JLK2
This is great. Who Do you Say I am? https://www.gty.org/library/articles/A335/who-do-you-think-that-i-am
I would encourage you to read some Apologetic books, which are defense of the faith books.
The Case for Christ, https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
Why I trust the bible, https://www.amazon.com/Why-Trust-Bible-Answers-Questions-ebook/dp/B08NHYZ1G1
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Also, check out James White, who is an apologist. He has tons of videos. https://www.youtube.com/c/AominOrg/videos
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If you go to his website and click on Bookstore, you will see a lot of different books on different subjects (written by different people).
Have you ever heard of the 10 commandments? They are one example of God's moral law. There are others, but those are the most well known. Here they are if you want to read them. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A1-17&version=NIV
Jesus said that the whole law rests on loving God and loving your neighbor. For example, one of the commandments is to "not have other gods before me." If you love God, you won't do that. Another command is not to commit murder. If you love others you won't do that.
The questions that you brought up: Instead of asking "Is it a sin" you should be asking "How do my actions glorify God?" or to put it another way, "Are my actions saying that I treasure Christ most?
This is another way of loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is part of what sums up the law.
Disobeying one of the commands is a sin. Everyone has sinned. The law (10 commandments plus other commands in scripture) shows us how incapable we are of meeting God's perfect standard. But he sent his son, Jesus to die for us on the cross and take the penalty for our sin. That means that because God is just, he has to punish evil, but he provided Jesus to take our place. On our end, we must put our faith in Jesus and what he did on the cross if we want to be saved.
What determines if someone goes to hell? If someone does not put their faith in Jesus, repent of their sin, and follow him, they will go to hell.
The Good Person Test, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCSUKIhjevo
Here is a great summary of the gospel and what it means. https://www.gty.org/library/articles/A335/who-do-you-think-that-i-am
You mentioned how do we know if Jesus really resurrected. I recommend reading Lee Strobel's book, "The Case for Christ" which goes into all that. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
I would encourage you to start reading the Bible with an open mind. Pray and ask God to reveal himself to you. Start with the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel is a popular book for people in your position. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
CS Lewis wrote about how faith is not the absence of doubt or reason, but rather that faith and reason together combat emotion and imagination:
>For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anaesthetics do not smother me and that properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. . . . In other words, I lose my faith in anaesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other
So the question then is, why should we believe? God is real because Jesus was a real person, whose story is described in the Gospels, and any inconsistencies in that story are consistent with how police observe testimony given by independent witnesses (see The Case for Christ). God is real because of miracles - yes, the ones in ancient times, but also the ones that took place beginning in post-revolution France at Lourdes, which have been verified as being beyond medical understanding by doctors that are not themselves religious.
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>I've read so many testimonies of people hitting rock bottom
A suggestion: try not reading people who have hit rock bottom, but try reading conversion stories of those who were just going about their life. Surprised by Joy is one of my favorites. Even if you've grown up as a Christian, I think we can all relate to Lewis's conversion in our own continuous calls to reconversion:
>Even my recent attempt to live my philosophy had secretly (I now knew) been hedged round by all sorts of reservations... Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, were demanded... The demand was not even "All or nothing..." Now the demand was simply "All..." That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed.
There was a journalist once whose wife decided to become a Christian. He thought this was stupid, and that she was joining a cult. So, he set about trying to save his wife, by proving to her definitively that Christianity was wrong (and that atheism is right). He did this by trying to disprove the core of Christianity: the Resurrection.
He talked to all sorts of experts on history, textual analysis, archeology, and so forth. After spending a lot of time researching, he had enough material to write a book about what he found. And why he decided to become a Christian.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01863JLK2/
It's worth a read.
1 & 2) I'm saying that morality, etc, comes from God, without him you can't have it. You say "ah, but i do have it". Right, because you aren't without God. You are actually living in God's universe which is why it makes sense that you are a moral person, as this universe was created by a moral, first-cause, person. So the question for you is according to your worldview how do you account for an objective morality, for personhood, etc. It's not enough to simply assert that you believe in them. I agree that you do, I just think you don't believe in the foundation for them.
3) Your understanding of Christianity is pretty ad hoc. God is referred to as the one true God, the only God, and the living God, implying the other "gods" are false, nonexistent, or "dead" by comparison. You shall have no other gods before me is extremely relevant as the recipients of the commandment then go on to worship other gods again and again. I think we both agree that worshiping something doesn't make it real.
Ba'al makes no appearances. He is worshipped, he has followers, he has prophets, but he is never portrayed as being a being. Obviously Ba'al worshippers would believe him to be, but that's not the position of the bible. The story of Elisha on mt carmel is relevant for Yahweh vs Ba'al.
Dagon is a fish god and the god of philistines, sea people, but also of Ninevahites. We see dagon's temple destroyed by samson, we see dagon's statue toppled by God in 1 Samuel 5, and we see a metaphoric defeat of dagon when Jonah, swallowed by a great fish (dagon?) is then spit out on land and ninevah repents and follows Yahweh. The great fish was of course just an animal used by God and not another deity.
I don't understand your reference to the Moabites. Ahab is a wicked king, but nonetheless Elisha says that God will give them victory over the moabites...then they go and slaughter a bunch of moabites. That's hardly an example of yahweh losing.
I'll admit the Jacob wrestling thing is weird. He loses the wrestling match, but somehow also has the power to strike Jacob's hip and make him lame? Also God doesn't have a body so how's a wrestling match work? Regardless Jacob is a follower and worshipper of God so he doesn't seem to have lost respect for Yahweh in their tussle?
Chariots of iron: Unstoppable! I think it's clear that Judah is the one who is stopped by the chariots and not God. Of course the question is if God is with him to conquer the one spot, then why not the other? I don't know. It's a side note and not a main story line. There are tens if not hundreds of examples of God giving his people military victory in a large variety of ways, so it doesn't seem like the point of the text was to indicate God having a specific weakness like cryptonite.
The Bible clearly teaches that God knows and sees all. You are smart enough to know that asking questions does not indicate you don't know something...or are you?
As far as evidence for the resurrection you can read Lee Strobel's The case for christ
Also Ravi giving a more eloquent treatment than I can
Just FYI the apostle Paul is with people when he sees his vision, immediately goes to stay with other Christians (who he was on his way to persecute), and then later meets up and argues theology with Jesus's apostles. At no point is he alone or murdering people who disagree with him or enforcing conversion by sword point or marrying a dozen wives, or burning cities. Very much different than Mohammed.
TSS
> Paul (1 person) claims 500 people saw the resurrected Christ. That's completely different from 500 testimonies from eyewitnesses.
Granted. But Paul also pointed out to his Corinthian readers that "most of whom are still living." What Paul was saying is, "If you don't believe me, you can ask them yourselves," indicating that these people were known in the church and able to verify his statements.
It's important to remember that historical analysis is much like a courtroom. When one "witness" says something his character and honesty are taken into account. Paul's is impeccable. Also a witness who testifies that there are plenty of other witnesses that can verify his claims, is someone who holds great sway with the court.
I know this argument is not unimpeachable, (what is?) however, it is a solid opinion.
> 10 out of 11 were killed testifying to this. Source?
There are dozens. Here's a few: national geographic christianity.com credohouse.org The Case for Christ
> The general scholarly view is that... the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety.
Yes, you're right there is debate regarding possible Christian interpolation. But the claims of interpolation are based on the use of textual criticism - or content analysis. There has never been any hard evidence to prove interpolation actually occurred. Also remember we have a second source that concurs with the resurrection claim. An Arabic version (10th Century) of the "Testimonium" (translated into English) is in basic agreement with the existing Josephus account.
Again, this does not stand as irrefutable, but a cogent argument nonetheless.
-Peace.
Law journalist Lee Strobel's wife converted to christianity...
That bugged him...
He decided to attack it like a case, dimension by dimension, going to the top person in each field.
The Case For Christ is the hardest core, crunchiest, most fact-oriented book I read in many years.
After digging into the case ( for 2 years of research? more? ) he converted.