conservative

The Quality of Evidence For the Truth of Christianity

by John Ankerberg

When one examines all the attacks made against Christianity for 2,000 years, by literally some of the greatest minds the world has produced, guess what one finds? Not one is valid. And not one, individually or collectively, disproves Christianity. Even with the most difficult problems, such as the problem of evil, Christianity has the best answer of any found in other religions or philosophies and the best solution to the problem. If the leading minds of the world have been unable to disprove Christianity, this may explain why many of the other leading minds in the world have accepted it. As James Sire correctly points out in Why Should Anyone Believe Anything At All?, an argument for belief, religious or other, must be secured on the best evidence, validly argued, and able to refute the strongest objections that can be mustered against it.46

If the God of the Bible has revealed Himself and if He is the only God—and if Christ is the only way of salvation—then we would expect convincing evidence in substantiation. Not just some evidence, or inferior evidence—so that a person has a dozen equally valid options—but superior evidence.

As Dr. John Warwick Montgomery asks:

What if a revelational truth-claim did not turn on questions of theology and religious philosophy—on any kind of esoteric, fideistic method available only to those who are already "true believers"—but on the very reasoning employed in the law to determine questions of fact?….Eastern faiths and Islam, to take familiar examples, ask the uncommitted seeker to discover their truth experientially: the faith-experience will be self-validating…. Christianity, on the other hand, declares that the truth of its absolute claims rests squarely on certain historical facts, open to ordinary investigation…. The advantage of a jurisprudential approach lies in the difficulty of jettisoning it: legal standards of evidence developed as essential means of resolving the most intractable disputes in society…. Thus one cannot very well throw out legal reasoning merely because its application to Christianity results in a verdict for the Christian faith."47

If we assume that a God of truth is dedicated to truth and desires men find Him, then what is the most logical place to begin our search for the one true religion? And is there a religion God has made stand out? Logically, the best, and only practical, way to see if one religion is absolutely true is to start with the largest, most unique, influential, and evidentiary religion in the world. It is much more reasonable to determine whether or not this religion is true than to seek another approach to the issue. Experientially based religions, essentially all nonChristian religions, prove nothing because of their inherent subjectivism, so even having profound religious experiences alone cannot prove such a religion is true. And, obviously to attempt to examine all religions (whether the sequence is random, preferential, or alphabetical) would be a daunting and confusing, if not impossible, task. Regardless, if there is only one God and if only one religion is fully true, then one should not expect to discover sustainable evidence in any other religion. And indeed, no other religion, anywhere, large or small, has sustainable evidence in its favor. If no credible evidence exists for any other religion and only Christianity has compelling evidence, why should any time at all be spent examining religions that have no basis to substantiate their claims? Especially if there may be significant consequences for trusting in false religion, whether in this life oR the next?

Thus, it is much easier and more logical to start by examining probablities of truth on the higher end of the scale.

In "The Value of an Evidential Approach" William J. Cairney (Ph.D., Cornell), discusses some of the possibilities that constitute genuine evidence for the fact God has inspired the Bible and the Christianity based on it:

History Written in Advance. We can all write history in retrospect, but an almighty, omnipotent, Creator would not be bound by our notions of space and time, and would thus be able to write history before it occurs. Suppose that we encountered a sourcebook that contained page after page of history written in advance with such accuracy and in such detail that good guessing would be completely ruled out.

Prescience. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, we were able to find accurate statements written ages ago demonstrating scientific knowledge and concepts far before mankind had developed the technological base necessary for discovering that knowledge or those concepts....

Historical Evidence. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, we were to find historical assertions that time after time were verified as true as historical scholarship continued....

Archeological Evidence. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, statements that are difficult to verify are made about people and places, but as archeology "unearths" more knowledge of the past, time after time the sourcebook is seen to be true in its assertions.

Philosophical And Logical Coherence Suppose that this same sourcebook, even though written piecemeal over thousands of years, contains well-developed common themes and is internally consistent.

And suppose all of these evidences hang together without internal contradiction or literary stress within the same anthology. Collectively, we could not take these evidences lightly.48

Overall, the evidence strongly asserts that Christianity is true whether that evidence is internal (the documents), philosophical, moral, historical, scientific, archeological, or when compared with the evidence found in other religions. For example, "The competence of the New Testament documents would be established in any court of law" and "Modern archeological research has confirmed again and again the reliability of New Testament geography, chronology, and general history."49

Further, as the noted classical scholar Professor E. M. Blaiklock points out, "Recent archeology has destroyed much nonsense and will destroy more. And I use the word nonsense deliberately, for theories and speculations find currency in [liberal] biblical scholarship that would not be tolerated for a moment in any other branch of literary or historical criticism."50

In essence, only Christianity meets the burden of proof necessary to say "This religion alone is fully true." And no one can argue successfully that Christianity has not been thoroughly investigated: As the 5th edition of Man’s Religions by John B. Noss points out, "The first Christian century has had more books written about it than any other comparable period of history. The chief sources bearing on its history are the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, and these—again we must make a comparative statement—have been more thoroughly searched by inquiring minds than any other books ever written."51

Among many possible converging lines of evidence for Christianity we have selected two. We feel these will command the attention of any open minded person. First, the existence of supernatural prophecy in the Bible cannot be denied except on the basis of philosophical (anti-supernatural) bias. For example, the internal and external evidence clearly supports a pre-neo-Babylonian composition for the book of Isaiah and a neo-Babylonian composition for the book of Daniel.52 Yet Isaiah predicts and describes what King Cyrus will do (by name) over 100 years before he even lived (Isaiah 44:28-45:6).

Isaiah described the specific nature and death of the Jewish Messiah 700 years in advance (Isaiah 9:6; 53:1-12); and the Babylonian captivity of Judah 100 years in advance (Isaiah 39:5-7). Indeed, the Assyrian-Babylonian captivities are hinted at as early as 1400 BC in Deuteronomy 28:64-66. Similarly, in 530 BC, hundreds of years in advance, the prophet Daniel (Matt. 24:15) predicts the Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman empires so clearly that antisupernaturalists are forced, against all the evidence, to date this book at 165 B.C. and thus imply it is a forgery (Daniel chs. 2, 7, 11:1-35 in light of subsequent Persian, Greek and Roman history and the dynasties of the Egyptians and Syrians).52a I Kings 13:1-2 predicts King Josiah 300 years before he was born, and Micah 5:2 predicts the very birthplace of Jesus 700 years before He was born. How are we to account for such things if the Bible is not a book inspired by God? Nothing like this is found in other religions.

Second, the historical resurrection of Christ cannot logically be doubted and if true, based on the teachings of Jesus, proves Christianity alone is fully true. On the authority of accepted principles of historic and textual analysis, the New Testament documents can, as noted, be shown to be reliable and trustworthy. That is, they give accurate primary source evidence for the life and death of Jesus Christ. In 2,000 years the New Testament authors have never been proven unethical or dishonest, or to have been the object of deception. In the Gospel records, Jesus claimed to be God incarnate (John 5:18; 10:27-33); He exercises innumerable divine prerogatives, and fully rests His claims on His numerous and abundantly testified, historically unparalleled miracles (John 10:37-3 and His forthcoming physical resurrection from the dead (John 10:17-1. No one else ever did this.




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Technocratic_Utilitarian

This premise is wrong or unsupported:

1. He claims, without any evidence or reasoning himself, that all the arguments against Christianty are wrong. It's an unsupported assertion which assumes the intrinsic validity of Christianity. He provides no reasoning that they are wrong. He simply claims it emphatically.

2. The second problem is that he expects people to disprove Christianity. That's backward. It's not the responsibilty of the skeptic to disprove Christianity anyway; the burden of proof is on those who claim Christianity's truth to provide evidence for it. You don't need to "disprove it." Also, the fact that someone hasn't disproven it, assuming he's correct that no one has, doesn't mean it is true. That something isn't disproven doesn't prove something. So, that someone didn't disprove it is meaningless.

3. Another problem is that they want "proof." Their claims cannot be proven because their claims are metaphysical and of a being that is not amenable to the methods of empircism or observation. It's a supernatural being which, by definition, is not "natural". If it's not part of nature and is beyond nature, you cannot observe it. If you cannot observe it, in some way, you cannot substantiate the existence or validity of it. The concept becomes meaningless.



This is another unsupported assertion, and it's arrogant in the assumption that Christianity has a real answer to this problem. That is by no means universally true.

THeir "explaination" is woefully inadequate. Evil, as in the absence of morality, as well as tremendous suffering exists in a system in which there is posited a God who is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. For God to be good, he must conform to a meaningful concept of good, and no good God would allow tremendous suffering of evil beings to come to the innocent, yet it does, if he were truely all knowning, all-powerful, everywhere, and all-altruistic and beneficent. It's not logically possible. One of the premises behind God's nature is simply wrong.



He again build off of the unsupported first assumption to lead to another unsupported assertion. It's not true that the "leading minds" have failed to disprove Christianity. It's not hard at all. Many Christians simply have a totally different standard of evidence and proof than rational individuals.

They don't believe in the validity of logic and empircal evidence when it comes to their religion. Christian religion is based on faith, no reason or evidence. Therefore, there can be no evidence or reason that could ever, by their standard, refute their claims. This is why they can literally believe in Noah's Ark, despite technical impossibilities, or that people can raise from the dead, heal people with a single touch, or hover over water. These things, as well as many claims in the Bible, are easily refutable using the scientific method and basic logic, but neither of those are acceptable. The doctrine of the Church is faith, and faith is inherently anti-reason.

Trying to refute Christian claims in a debate is like trying to play tennis with the net down whenever it's the turn of the theist to make his argument. When it's his turn, logic and evidence don't matter in his defense. When it's the atheist, "proof" is logically necessary. You cannot debate with the above type person because they have different sets of rules.

This is the only true thing he's said. Belief should be based on the best evidence, validly argued. He however, doesn't follow the advice of the man he quotes. It's just there for filler.

Perfect example of the above provided nought by a paragraph after he quoted him. He goes on in the rest of the essay, like in the beginning, to assume the truth of the Bible and Jesus and God uncritically, arriving at "evidence" from already present belief in the concept.

Like many Chrisitans, they endeavour to use the Bible and the prophets as evidence of the divinity of Jesus and his miracles. That is not a valid methodology. That it's in the Bible doesn't prove anything, and there's no evidence outside of the Bible that corroborates ANY of the mystical, deity-claims of their faith. That is entirely based on faith.

As Dr. John Warwick Montgomery asks:

This is a lie. A pathetic one at that. Christianity was never based on open inquiry and investigation. The actual church doctrine was just that--doctrine and dogma propagated as absolute truth by the Pope as the vicar of God.

Christian religion is based on and justified by the Bible. He assumes that there's a verdict in the "legal reasoning" which favoures Christianity. That's absurd. He doesn't comprehend how debate works. Debate isn't a court of law, and a belief isn't assumed true until proven false. It's assumed false until substantiated. The right position is skeptical position in the face of overwhelming claims of the nature that Christianity provides.

Christianity isn't proven by historical facts, since many of the core claims aren't open to such investigations.


In not searching for something you already assume is true. He uses the word 'logical' but clearly has no idea what the term means. He's using it to mean "whatever I think is reasonable."

Of course! But only because he says so. It's "logically" true to find the "one true religion" by looking at the most popular, "biggest one." This assumes that the biggest, most powerful one has anything to do with truth, but it doesnt.

the-daily-technocrat.blogspot.com my blog

Technocratic_Utilitarian

Again, because he says so.

He assumes Christianity is different, but it's not.


Unsupported assumption.

There's no reason to assume there's:

A. One God
B. That God exists anyway
C. No other religions are true

He's already starting from an unsupported assertion that there's only one TRUE God, and that GOD just happens to be the one of the religion he starts out with to the total ignorance of the others! Jee-wiz batman. Coincidence?


Another unsupported assumption.

Because your claims are all unsupported assertions that are based off a starting point in believing in Christianity. His entire argument is just a nonsense piece written to preach to the Choir. He doesn't want to spend time examining othe religions in the first place because he already assumes Christianity is true and uses criteria based on that belief to justify it and the ignoring of other religions.

Again, poor methodology.

[quote]
Especially if there may be significant consequences for trusting in false religion, whether in this life oR the next? [/quote

This is a clever way of attatching an appeal to consequences fallacy to an already unsupported assertion. That something has good or bad consequences doesn't make it true, nor does it necessarily justify belief in it, especially since his argument isn't substantiated that other religions are false. He's trying to appeal to Pascal's Wager, which has been refuted for hundreds of years.

Because he says so.

When it doubt, appeal to the credientials of a random authority.

Good thing the Bible hasn't made any scientifically veirfiable predictions of history! Oops!

Not to mention that a being unbound by space and time is itself meaningless drivel.

[quote]
Prescience. Suppose that in this same sourcebook, we were able to find accurate statements written ages ago demonstrating scientific knowledge and concepts far before mankind had developed the technological base necessary for discovering that knowledge or those concepts.... [/quote

Appeal to the "science of the Bible" which is often just a clever literary interpretation of people too primitive to have come up with such ideas. He's reading into it.

A lot of Biblical archaeology is just pseudo-science.

[quote]
Philosophical And Logical Coherence Suppose that this same sourcebook, even though written piecemeal over thousands of years, contains well-developed common themes and is internally consistent. [/quote

If he has a "logical and philosophical" proof of God, let him provide it instead of cowardly just alluding to something for which he, nor anyone else in the article, has dared substantiate objectively.

Here he's making the outright false claim that the Bible has no contradictions. This article is a parody of scholarship.

No, the evidence doesn't "strongly assert" anything. The author of this article does, though. Good thing "strong assertions" don't equal evidence or validity.

He also appeals to some wishy-washy bullshit "moral evidence." That category doesn't even exist. He just pulled it out of his ass. You cannot prove the validity of a religion by showing it created a system of ethics.

His "new testament geography" comment is also a lie and unsubstantiated. THe Bible is riddled with countless errors, omissions, mistakes, and gaffes. Christ, just go to SAB and they list hundreds of them, in context, using the Bible online. This guy's clearly never read the Bible he proclaims proves his religion. The Chronology is also fucked up; it's absurd to claim it is inerrant.

Not to mention that you cannot use the Bible, written by God, to prove the existence of God. That type of circular reasoning defies reality.

He is right that archaeology has destroed much nonsense, and will destroy much more, but he's dishonestly taking the man's quotation of out context. It's not a statement in support of Christianity's archaeological record at all.

The nonsese destroyed by archaeology is Christian claims. Notice how he added the word "liberal" to it, when no such instance of it existed. Now, you can alter sentences and structure of sentences and retain good scholarship, but you can't alter the meaning of the sentence to do it. He altered the meaning of the quote, which should righly read "biblical scholarship." How honest.

For example, if someone were to take the following quote: "Johnathon proved his claim by showing that Bob is [not] gay." The "not" didn't belong there. It changes the meaning of the sentence.


"Snips rest of bullshit" It's just a rehash of the above fallacies.

the-daily-technocrat.blogspot.com my blog

thenextbesthang

i'll pretty much say ditto to what my man techno has said.

BUT

I'll add this:

if you are going to make claims about whats true in life, you need to have a firm foundation.

This guy provides no such firm foundation.

Secondly, I skimmed your post, but I basically found this to be the underlying theme:

a) Christ existed, and performed miracles.
B) The bible is a good predictor of events.

To A:
- Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. All I have to go on is words, on faith. Just because someone else who seems to be honest says something, doesn't make it true. Theres no actual fact that I can see, taste, touch. Furthermore, there is no basis for jesus in the old testament. I'd like you to show me where there is.


To B:
1) so is nostradamus, does that mean he is gods prophet too?
2) If you understand human nature, you may be able to see vaguely what is going to happen. Does the bible give any specific dates and times?

conservative

Question: "What is the Skeptic's Annotated Bible?"

Answer: The Skeptic's Annotated Bible - http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ - is a website dedicated to pointing out all of the supposed errors, contradictions, and discrepancies in the Bible. The Skeptic's Annotated Bible divides the supposed errors into the following categories: injustice, absurdity, cruelty and violence, intolerance, contradictions, family values, women, good stuff, science and history, prophecy, sex, language, interpretation, and homosexuality. It is not the purpose of this article to refute every issue the Skeptic's Annotated Bible raises (there are currently 5,481). For excellent point-by-point refutations of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, we highly recommend:
http://www.tektonics.org/sab/sab.html
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org/

It is the purpose of this article to point out the fallacies behind the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. First, we commend the Skeptic's Annotated Bible for giving the "Good Stuff" section - http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/good/long.html. It is rare for an atheist / anti-Christian website to say anything positive about the Bible and/or Christianity. At the same time, the "Good Stuff" section is the only place the Bible is treated with any respect, or logic. In regards to the "contradictions" and "absurdities" sections, please read our article on Bible errors, contradictions, and discrepancies. The sections on homosexuality and tolerance can be answered simply and concisely. Speaking the truth and not tolerating sin is the most loving thing we can do. Ignoring evil and promoting ungodliness may be tolerant, but it does not result in anything truly positive.

The sections on "injustice," "family values," "cruelty and violence," and "women" fail to account for an important concept - the Bible was written to reform our souls, not our societies. While the teachings of the Bible were revolutionary in the protection they gave to slaves, women, etc. - some of the commands and statements seem brutal and unjust to our modern minds. God "breathed out" the Bible in an ancient culture. God approached the sins of man from the "inside out." If a man comes into a relationship with God, God will reform his heart, teach him to love, to respect, to forgive. Yes, some of the laws in the Bible are brutal and primitive, but if a person had a genuine relationship with God, the laws would not even be necessary.

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible's section on "sex" does nothing but point out all the various verses in the Bible that mention sex. Why is this section even necessary? Yes, the Bible talks about sex. Sex is, obviously, an important aspect of life in this world. It is normal, therefore, for the Bible to address sex. The "interpretations" section is filled with difficult verses and passages. However, these difficulties are answered in detail in nearly every major Bible commentary. A difficult passage in the Bible is meaningless in verifying or rejecting the inspiration of the Bible.

Again, if you have questions about the Skeptic's Annotated Bible or have found something in the Skeptic's Annotated Bible that you cannot explain, please visit the two sites mentioned above. If you are still unable to find a clear and concise answer, please feel free to ask us, and we will be happy to provide an answer / solution to the problem.
Recommended Resource: When Critics Ask by Norm Geisler.

Related Topics:

Does the Bible contain errors, contradictions, or discrepancies?

What does it mean that the Bible is inspired?

Is the Bible truly God's Word?

Do I have to believe the Bible is inerrant to be saved?

Does the inerrancy of the Bible only apply to the original manuscripts?

"You ain't seen nothin yet!"

thenextbesthang

I am Jewish conservative, FYI.

We are god's chosen people.

What you gotta say to that?

Technocratic_Utilitarian

The Skeptics Annotated Bible, although a parody at times, actually is quite accurate in many of the critiques. Christians simply don't like a source that shows how absurd Bible claims really are, so they will go to any and all rabid attempts, not even short of lying, to discredit it.

There has been no refutation of the SAB. It's absurd because most of it's true.

Tektonics.org is hardly a legitimate source. It's one of those crazy creationist websites. It's "refutations" are bogus. Most of the "rebuttals" to the contradictions and immorality found in the SAB are clever weays of backpeddling or weasling out of the sheer stupidity of the Bible.

They love to use the "mistranslation!" nonsense or "thats not the right Bible!" or "it's out of context" when it clearly isn't.


The reason the Skeptics Annotated Bible frequently talks about sex is that a core asepct of Christianity is the sexual repression of followers. CHristians are puritan purudes, quite often, who demonize sex and attack "immorality of sex" in everything they see.

Yet, their own Bible is riddled with the very smut and pornography they decry. It clearly shows their "moral sexuality" is hypocritic when they complain of "think of the children" when it comes to pornography and "dirty material." If they really were worried about dirty material, they would censor their own Bible, since it's a book of smut.

They are also absurdly defending the Bible's intorance by appealing to the fact that, according to their belief, intolerance is ok if God says so. They are so retarded tehy can't even realize they are providing evidence for what SAB is saying. It's hilarious. They are walking examples of the validity of SAB.

the-daily-technocrat.blogspot.com my blog

Common Sense Craig

A) I've yet to hear anyone say that their relatives physically touched Jesus or talked to Jesus. If Jesus has been dead for 2,006 years, then at least a couple of people would have some family history "tied to" Jesus. Maybe there is and these theologians can enlighten me. Because it seems even in Church, children's religious studies and Bible school, Jesus and the Bible are presented as something to "have faith in," not something and someone that actually physically existed.

B) That's what I say, too! Nostradamus!

conservative

Yes you are....what is it you are looking for me to say?

"You ain't seen nothin yet!"

conservative

Nostradamus texts are not exactly highly defined. Many take the quantrains and try to make them fit historical occurances...whereas the Bible has many prophecies which are not vague which have been fullfilled.

"You ain't seen nothin yet!"