"I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt!" - Sir Lionel Luckhoo, listed in the Guiness Book of Records as the most successful attorney in history


One of the last statements that the atheist George Bernard Shaw said before his death in 1950 was that he had pinned his hopes on atheism, but he had found that atheism did not solve the problems of the world. "The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt. Its counsels, which should have established the millennium, have led directly to the suicide of Europe. I believed them once. In their name I helped to destroy the faith of millions. And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist who has lost his faith." (Too True to Be Good).

H. G. Wells also rejected God and the Bible, yet never could find lasting peace, and at the end of his life lost confidence in what he believed. Many well-known atheists ended their life in similar despair. Atheism is a "faith," but it is not a saving faith. It is a faith that gives no hope.


"The system of revealed truth which this Book [the Bible] contains is like that of the universe, concealed from common observation yet...the centuries have established its Divine origin." --Sir Isaac Newton

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one
without faith, no explanation is possible." --St. Thomas Aquinas

"The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in
your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path
of God just before you." ---Robert Louis Stevenson

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." ~Dr. Robert Jastrow

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. -- Quoted in D.A. Wilson, Carlyle at his Zenith Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish historian

"I believe in God as I believe the sun has risen, not because
I can see it, but because by way of it I can see everything
else." --C.S. Lewis


The Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.



We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, . . . .And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


The Constitution was signed as follows:

“Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth. “


I could never be entirely satisfied with my role as a psychiatrist, struggling to find a safe pathway so that I might lead a few lost souls out of the wilderness of mental abnormality. What was needed, I felt sure, was some new and enlightened recipe for living a sane and satisfying life...

I dreamed of writing a handbook that would be simple, practical, easy to understand, easy to follow. it would tell people how to live--what thoughts and attitudes and philosophies to cultivate, and what pitfalls to avoid in seeking mental health. I attended every symposium it was possible for me to attend and took notes on the wise words of my teachers and of my colleagues who were leaders in their field. And quite by accident I discovered that such a work had already been completed! If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene--if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbage if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison. For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here . . . rests the blueprint for successful human life with optimum mental health and contentment. - A Few Buttons Missing: The Case Book of a Psychiatrist, by James T Fisher

Then it's not "faith"...it's "knowledge" like the existance of the Sun or gravity...

and therefore all talk of "faith" in the Bible is meaningless, isn't it?

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.---------------Isaac Asimov, in Free Inquiry, Vol. 2, Spring 1982, p.9.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.--------------Albert Einstein, Gutkind Letter (3 January 1954), "Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear", The Guardian, 13 May 2008.

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!------Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Mother Night

God's power is infinite, Whatever he wills is executed; But neither man nor any other animal is happy; therefore he does not will their happiness. Epicurus' old questions are yet unanswered. Is he both able and willing to prevent evil? Then whence cometh evil?-----David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779), cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

CD - every single supposed point you're trying to make, has been discussed already, many times, in the pat 10 months.

I'm sorry you have such a short term memory.

I suggest you get a doctor to check that for you.

I am operating on Vista. How do you give CD those plus one thingys? I wish everyone would give CD a plus one. Is ten the max? I think everyone on Slate should read CD's post, push him to the top. Imagine, CD, the voice of Christianity... Slatewide, most read, every week. That would be a good goof, wouldn’t it?

The code word is (wink, wink)

You seem to have become awfully fond of this "James T. Fisher" fellow. Yet his book appears not even to have been in print for 50 years or so, and his own name comes up pretty empty when you run google on him. From this I can only conclude that you found the quotes somewhere and liked them. Odd.

Regarding the sad ends of Shaw and Wells, well, so what? Just because committed atheists may have died in disappointment doesn't make theism of any sort, much less Christianity, any more true. It almost sounds like you're arguing (and so is Fisher, when you get down to it) that if religion makes people happy and gives them hope, it doesn't matter if the hope is illusory or the religion itself simply a bunch of made-up stories.

Informative, and oh, so terribly uncivil. You nasty man, you. heh heh heh.

Dd

A fundamentalist mine of out of context quote. Now there's something original....Oh,....wait.., no it isn't.

Reptilicus:

Then it's not "faith"...it's "knowledge" like the existance (SIC) of the Sun or gravity...

and therefore all talk of "faith" in the Bible is meaningless, isn't it?

Answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou be like unto him.

...but I think repticulus is capable of responding to your posts without such an adverse consequence.

New Evidence That Demands a Verdict
by Josh McDowell

Page 100
The Bible is supported by archaeological evidence again and again. On the whole, there can be no question that the results of excavation have increased the respect of scholars for the Bible as a collection of historical documents. The confirmation is both general and specific. - Millar Burrows of Yale

Page 120
Some writers may toy with the fancy of a “Christ-myth,” but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. - F. F. Bruce, Rylands professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester

Page 122
The Gospel account of the darkness which fell upon the land during Christ’s crucifixion was well known was well known and required a naturalistic explanation from non-Christians. Thallus did not doubt that an unusual event had occurred in nature which required an explanation. What occupied his mind was coming up with a different interpretation. The basic facts were not called into question. - F.F. Bruce

Page 138
Jesus certainly does not fit the mold of other religious leaders. Thomas Schultz writes: “Not one recognized religious leader, not Moses, Paul, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, etc., has ever claimed to be God that is, with the exception of Jesus Christ. Christ is the only religious leader who has ever claimed to be deity and the only individual ever who has convinced a great portion of the world that He is God.”

His teachings were ultimate, final - above those of Moses and the prophets. He never added any afterthoughts or revisions; He never retracted or changed; He never guessed, ‘supposed,’ or spoke with any uncertainty. This is all so contrary to human teachers and teachings. - F.J. Meldau

Page 155
The world-renowned historian, Jaroslav Pelikan makes this clear: “Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse and in his name that millions pray.”

Page 159
If Jesus was a liar, a con man, and therefore an evil, foolish man, then how can we explain the fact that He left us with the most profound moral instruction and powerful moral example that anyone has ever left? Could a deceiver - an imposter of monstrous proportions - teach such unselfish ethical truths and live such a morally exemplary life as Jesus did? The very notion is incredulous.

“About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality combined with profundity of insight in the very first rank of men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast.” - Agnostic, skeptic, and philosopher John Stuart Mill

Page 193

Fulfilled Prophecies
1. Place of birth (Mic. 5:2)
2. Time of birth (Dan. 9:25; Gen 49:10)
3. Manner of birth (Is. 7:14)
4. Betrayal
5. Manner of death (Ps. 22:16)
6. People’s reactions (mocking, spitting, staring, etc)
7. Piercing
8 Burial

We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017 (10 to the 17th power). That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. If we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas, they will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and blindfold a man. He must pick up the one marked silver dollar on the first try. What chance would he have of getting it right?

Page 194
We find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10 to the 157th power.
(The balance of the chapter recites many of these fulfilled prophecies.)

Page 216
The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it. - Edwin Gordon Selwyn, noted scholar

Page 217
… I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead. - Thomas Arnold, author of the famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the chair of modern history at Oxford

Page 218
Indeed, taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ. - Brooke Foss Westcott (1825 - 1901) regius professor at Cambridge

… the Resurrection of Christ is a fact… - Benjamin Warfield of Princeton

Page 219
We, as Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be skeptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what He proclaimed Himself to be, must surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favour as living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.” - Lord Darling, former Chief Justice of England

Page 224
There remains, therefore, no supposition possible to explain the recorded phenomenon except the combination of the fructification and rupture of the heart. - Samuel Houghton, M.D., great physiologist from the University of Dublin

Page 596
The most interesting thing about objective truth is that there are people who deny that it exists.
/
They are deeply hostile to the thought of anything that in any sense stands in judgment over them. The idea toward which they are most hostile is, of course, the idea that of there being a God. – Professor Peter Van Inwagen

New Evidence That Demands a Verdict
by Josh McDowell

Page 100
The Bible is supported by archaeological evidence again and again. On the whole, there can be no question that the results of excavation have increased the respect of scholars for the Bible as a collection of historical documents. The confirmation is both general and specific. - Millar Burrows of Yale

Page 120
Some writers may toy with the fancy of a “Christ-myth,” but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. - F. F. Bruce, Rylands professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester

Page 122
The Gospel account of the darkness which fell upon the land during Christ’s crucifixion was well known was well known and required a naturalistic explanation from non-Christians. Thallus did not doubt that an unusual event had occurred in nature which required an explanation. What occupied his mind was coming up with a different interpretation. The basic facts were not called into question. - F.F. Bruce

Page 138
Jesus certainly does not fit the mold of other religious leaders. Thomas Schultz writes: “Not one recognized religious leader, not Moses, Paul, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, etc., has ever claimed to be God that is, with the exception of Jesus Christ. Christ is the only religious leader who has ever claimed to be deity and the only individual ever who has convinced a great portion of the world that He is God.”

His teachings were ultimate, final - above those of Moses and the prophets. He never added any afterthoughts or revisions; He never retracted or changed; He never guessed, ‘supposed,’ or spoke with any uncertainty. This is all so contrary to human teachers and teachings. - F.J. Meldau

Page 155
The world-renowned historian, Jaroslav Pelikan makes this clear: “Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse and in his name that millions pray.”

Page 159
If Jesus was a liar, a con man, and therefore an evil, foolish man, then how can we explain the fact that He left us with the most profound moral instruction and powerful moral example that anyone has ever left? Could a deceiver - an imposter of monstrous proportions - teach such unselfish ethical truths and live such a morally exemplary life as Jesus did? The very notion is incredulous.

“About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality combined with profundity of insight in the very first rank of men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast.” - Agnostic, skeptic, and philosopher John Stuart Mill

Page 193

Fulfilled Prophecies
1. Place of birth (Mic. 5:2)
2. Time of birth (Dan. 9:25; Gen 49:10)
3. Manner of birth (Is. 7:14)
4. Betrayal
5. Manner of death (Ps. 22:16)
6. People’s reactions (mocking, spitting, staring, etc)
7. Piercing
8 Burial

We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017 (10 to the 17th power). That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. If we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas, they will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and blindfold a man. He must pick up the one marked silver dollar on the first try. What chance would he have of getting it right?

Page 194
We find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10 to the 157th power.
(The balance of the chapter recites many of these fulfilled prophecies.)

Page 216
The fact that Christ rose from the dead on the third day in full continuity of body and soul - that fact seems as secure as historical evidence can make it. - Edwin Gordon Selwyn, noted scholar

Page 217
… I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead. - Thomas Arnold, author of the famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the chair of modern history at Oxford

Page 218
Indeed, taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ. - Brooke Foss Westcott (1825 - 1901) regius professor at Cambridge

… the Resurrection of Christ is a fact… - Benjamin Warfield of Princeton

Page 219
We, as Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be skeptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what He proclaimed Himself to be, must surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favour as living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.” - Lord Darling, former Chief Justice of England

Page 224
There remains, therefore, no supposition possible to explain the recorded phenomenon except the combination of the fructification and rupture of the heart. - Samuel Houghton, M.D., great physiologist from the University of Dublin

Page 596
The most interesting thing about objective truth is that there are people who deny that it exists.
/
They are deeply hostile to the thought of anything that in any sense stands in judgment over them. The idea toward which they are most hostile is, of course, the idea that of there being a God. – Professor Peter Van Inwagen

and Josh McDowell Ministries...

(Oh and the book quoted above was published in 1979. )

<link>

Rebuttals here:

<link>

<link>

<link>

Okay CD you've posted/quote mined what Josh MacDowell thinks. What do YOU really think. (or do you 'think' in quotes of others?)

Wrenn:

and Josh McDowell Ministries...

(Oh and the book quoted above was published in 1979. )

<link>

Rebuttals here:

<link>

<link>

<link>

Okay CD you've posted/quote mined what Josh MacDowell thinks. What do YOU really think. (or do you 'think' in quotes of others?)

1. You're cheating your employer while at work. tsk, tsk

2. You have repeatedly claimed that you do not "take me seriously" and could care less what I think. Why then do you tail me like a lonely little forlorn teenager? Your childishness is compounded by your dishonesty and ignorance so common among the godless left.

I was at work today?

Stalk you? as if.

And stop picking on me because I'm left handed. That's childish.

You have no content, CD. you post 1) quote mined stuff, old stuff at that. and 2) personal attacks.

I'm just waiting for the stroke.