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by blitz_skull 1059 days ago
Apologies for the delayed response! I urge you to take a look at a few of the books I listed in a sibling comment. While I have neither the time nor desire to expound at length the copious amount of evidence for the deity of Jesus of Nazareth, there are several men who have done so for me! In addition, these guys were not your devout raised-from-birth Christians who believe simply because they were told. Rather, they believed because they could not disprove the evidence for Jesus. In fact, I believe all 4 men were atheists who set out to disprove Jesus, but came to the conclusion that the evidence supporting his claims to deity are monumental!

- Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell

- More than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell

- The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel

- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis

Finally, this is addressed in probably each of these books, but as for your last comment. It's not unthinkable to imagine Jesus was so insane he was willing to die for his "personal views on ethics" (Although there's precious little evidence to support this, see the "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" argument). Nor is it outside the realm of possibility to think that perhaps his closest 12 followers were willing to die for a charade (Although again, there's no logical reason to support this idea)—I imagine stranger situations have occurred.

But consider the vast history of Christianity, littered with martyrs whose only mandate to escape death was simply, "Deny Christ" and were yet unwilling to do so. It begins to become disingenuous to suggest that across 2,000 years people have been willing to die for one man's "personal views on ethics" when all that would be required to avoid said death is to simply say, "Jesus is not God", unless of course you were utterly convinced it was true.

1 comments

> there are several men who have done so for me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

> I believe all 4 men were atheists who set out to disprove Jesus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_anecdote

> It begins to become disingenuous to suggest that...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

Indeed fruitless.