That is an assertion for which you have provided no evidence. The majority of Christians with whom I have discussed this, or whose views I have read, or heard, declare their faith in Jesus and his word. I understand the principle of accepting matters on faith. I am not arguing against it (on this occassion). However, if you are basing your acceptance of Jesus based on independent evidence feel free to present it. I will be astounded if you can do so.
Well, examining scripture is all the evidence one needs. There are many books in apologetics that present evidence, which is throughout scripture and history as well, that Jesus has in fact changed the world and His death and resurrection are true.
"Evidence That Demands a Verdict" and "More Than A Carpenter", by Josh McDowell, are great books that examine the evidence.
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taken from Mathematical Probabilities of Fulfilled Prophecies
"In another article on this site we have discussed 61 major Messianic Prophecies fulfilled in Yeshua Ha'Natseret. In this article we will demonstrate the mathematical probably that Yeshua’s fulfillment of just these 61 prophecies proves with absolute certainly that Yeshua, and only Yeshua, is the Messiah of Israel.
A common objection to using fulfilled prophecy to demonstrate that Yeshua is the Messiah is that “you could find at least some of these prophecies fulfilled in Kennedy, King, Nasser, etc.”
While it may be true that you could find one or two prophecies fulfilled in other men, you most certainly could not find more than a very few. In this article we will conclusively demonstrate that you absolutely, positively will not find any man except Yeshua who has fulfilled all these 61 major prophecies. (We won’t bother to extrapolate the mathematical probability of any one man fulfilling 324 prophecies; the number is beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend.) In fact, if you can find someone other than Yeshua, either living or dead, who can fulfill only half of the predictions concerning Messiah that are given in Messiah in Both Testaments by Fred John Meldau, the Christian Victory Publishing Company of Denver is ready to give you a $1,000 reward. There are a lot of men in the universities who could some extra cash, but the offer has been standing for nearly 30 years without a single taker!
H. Harold Hartzler, of the American Scientific Affiliation, Goshen College, in the foreword of Peter Stoner's book, Science Speaks, writes: “The manuscript for Science Speaks has been carefully reviewed by a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation members and by the Executive Council of the same group and has been found, in general, to be dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented. The mathematical analysis included is based upon principles of probability which are thoroughly sound and Professor Stoner has applied these principles in a proper and convincing way.”
The following probabilities are taken from Peter Stoner’s work in Science Speaks to show that coincidence is ruled out by the science of probability. The analysis is concerned with the following eight prophecies:
1. Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; fulfilled in Matt. 2:1-7; John 7:42; Luke 2:47).
2. Messiah is to be preceded by a Messenger (Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1; fulfilled in Matthew 3:1-3; 11:10; John 1:23; Luke 1:17).
3. Messiah is to enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; fulfilled in Luke 35-37; Matthew 21:6-11).
4. Messiah is to be betrayed by a friend (Psalms 41:9; 55:12-14; fulfilled in Matthew 10:4; 26:49-50; John 13:21).
5. Messiah is to be sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12; fulfilled in Matthew 26:15; 27:3).
6. The money for which Messiah is sold is to be thrown “to the potter” in God’s house (Zechariah 11:13; fulfilled in Matthew 27:5-7).
7. Messiah is to be silent before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7; fulfilled in Matthew 27:12).
8. Messiah is to be executed by crucifixion as a thief (Psalm 22:16; Zechariah 12:10; Isaiah 53:5,12; fulfilled in Luke 23:33; John 20:25; Matthew 27:38; Mark 15:27,28).
Stoner says that by applying the modern science of probability to just these eight prophecies, “… 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.” That would be one in 100,000,000,000,000,000. In order for us to be able to comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that:
“… 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 stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote in their own wisdom.
“Now these prophecies were either given by inspiration of God or the prophets just wrote them as they thought they should be. In such a case the prophets had just one chance in 1017 of having them come true in any man, but they all came true in Christ [Mashiach].
“This means that the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of those [eight] prophecies to a definiteness which lacks only one chance in 1017 of being absolute.” [Stoner, Peter W. Science Speaks. Chicago: Moody Press, 1963, pp 100-107.]
Stoner considers 48 prophecies and says, “… We find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10157.
“This is a really large number and it represents an extremely small chance. Let us try to visualize it. The silver dollar, which we have been using, is entirely too large. We must select a smaller object. The electron is about as small an object as we know of. It is so small that it will take 2.5 times 1015 of them laid side by side to make a line, single file, one inch long. If we were going to count the electrons in this line one inch long, and counted 250 each minute, and if we counted day and night, it would take us 19,000,000 years to count just the one-inch line of electrons. If we had a cubic inch of these electrons and we tried to count them it would take us, counting steadily 250 each minute, 19,000,000 times 19,000,000 times 19,000,000 [nineteen million times nineteen million times nineteen million] or 6.9 times 1021 years.
“With that introduction, let us go back to our chance of 1 in 10157. Let us suppose that we are taking this number of electrons, marking one, and thoroughly stirring it into the whole mass, then blindfolding a man and letting him try to find the right one. What chance has he of finding the right one? What kind of a pile will this number of electrons make? They make an inconceivably large volume.” [ibid., pp 109,110]
The chances of finding the correct electron out of the pile of electrons that Stoner uses for this last illustration is something on the order of picking one single correct electron out of all of the electrons in all the known mass of the entire known universe.
Such is the chance of any one man fulfilling any 48 prophecies. Yet Yeshua Ha'Natseret fulfilled not just 48 prophecies, not just 61 prophecies, but more than 324 individual prophecies that the Prophets wrote concerning the Mashiach.
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The notation 10157 is the representation of the number 1 followed by 157 zeros, and it looks like this:
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000000,000,000,000,000.
This is approximately the total number of electrons in all the mass of the known universe. "
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"A Case For Christ" by Lee Stroebel is another. Lee was an atheist, an award winning investigative journalist, a lawyer, who sought out to disprove the story of Jesus, His death and resurrection. When he examined the evidence, it was overwhelmingly convincing and he became a believer.
If you seek Him, you will find Him. But it must be with humility. Pride and arrogance keeps us away from God. This is why the Bible tells us we must come to him like a child.
Faith is a gift, but it is based on knowledge, it's not blind faith. I had a hundred questions when I became a Christian. I did not accept the Old Testament stories - thought they were far fetched myths. So, I started with the NT. Once I believed, then the OT fell in place.
That is debatable. You might be correct. You might not. However, the extent of his influence (or, I would argue, the influence of his reputation) does not establish his divinity.
Also in those books I've mentioned, the argument that Jesus was either
1. a liar;
2. a lunatic, or
3. He was who He said he was
These are the only options you can choose from. You can't just say He was a good man, or just a prophet, He didn't leave that open as an option. Prophets did not forgive sins, they did not receive worship, they did not die and come back from the dead and they do not transform billions of lives.
If He promised eternal life and couldn't deliver, He deceived all and was a liar. If we are to put our faith in Him and He was lying, then He is worse than the most evil person.
Now one could make a promise like that and believe He was God in self deception -- but then you'd have to say He was a lunatic.
No, the things He said and did, were the most loving and truthful things. These kind of things do not come from a liar or a lunatic. Liars and lunatics are in a different category.
You don't know me. It is presumptuous of you to imagine you understand my motivations. (It's also rude, but that seems in character, so I'm not fussed by it.)
Those verses are applied to all people who have not received the Holy Spirit, who have not been spiritually transformed by the blood of Christ. I do not have to know you, only that you claim not to believe in Jesus. Therefore you are a natural man, apart from the Spirit of God. We are all born apart from God, spiritually separated. I was too. Our purpose in life is to be reconciled to God. So it was not a personal attack. You are either a natural man or a spiritually transformed man. If you think that rude, just wait a few years, you'll receive a rude awakening!
Right, the gift to a select few. Many must suffer decades, centuries and millenia of pain and despair, so tha a few may benefit. And a proportion of the those who so suffer are then faced with an eternity of further pain and suffering. And these are the consequences of a world established by a merciful God.
I do not believe hell is eternal (of course this is against the traditional doctrine) ... oh well, I'm a black sheep.
Oh! I just tend to base my understanding of what people mean by what they say. Your words: "So all the above stuff won't mean anything."
If something doesn't mean anything to me, it means I am ignorant of it.
OK, fair enough. Someone can give us directions and we know exactly what they mean, but then proceed not to take them. So what's worse, not understanding the directions or refusing to take them? Let's say are riding a dirt bike in the wilderness, but a person stops you and says, "Don't take that fork in the road, it leads to a cliff and your doom!" You tell him, Sure buddy, I have a map, I've studied and there doesn't seem to be any cliffs in it. I'll be fine, thanks anyways!
Here's a tip for you. The tone of the few posts of yours I have read conveys a sense of satisfaction that you are saved and others are not. I accept that such is not your intention. However, if you want to increase the chance that individuals may listen to your warning you might want to change the tone.
Salvation is an awesome sense of security. Knowing that we live our lives for a purpose, we will not waste it and lose everything we've learned. Knowing that there is meaning to it all, not that we just go through all the motions and then suddenly die without warning and it's over. I am not reveling in the damnation of the world of unbelievers. God says He will wipe away every tear and I'm sure there will be some for those who didn't make it.
What kind of tone should one have when telling others that the wages of sin is death? The tone I convey for the other path is positive. Darkness always has a dark tone does it not?
