Wiccan_Child said:
Is there any evidence that the Universe was created by a divine entity? Is there any evidence that this is the same Divinity as a particular terrestrial monotheism, namely Christianity?
As a side note, I read in another thread that 'The Big Bang and Evolution hypotheses fail terribly" in terms of evidence. Where do either fail? We have doppler shift, background microwave radiation, the fossil record, pæleogeographical and geological dating evidences, etc etc.
How about the personal testimony of thousands of people, including kings and rulers, over thousands of years?
It is "easy" to dismiss certain things - until you stop and look at it a little more reasonably.
That Egypt freed the slaves seems to be an easily accepted part of history.
You don't have any Egyptians objecting to the Jewish presentation of that history either. No one standing up going, "No, no. That isn't what happened!"
Now, get into more details. Moses said he spoke to God on numerous occasions. Moses says God performed miracles that resulted in freeing the people from slavery.
The biblical accounts talk about the people seeing things like the parting of the Red Sea, the column they followed, etc.
If Moses was "insane" and "making it up". . . . . . why did all those people follow him? Wouldn't they have seen (or not seen) the truth or the lie of his claims?
Why would generation after generation teach this as "history" and not "myth" if they had lived through the events?
Lest you point to a few cults - let me remind you - we are not talking a few dozen cult-members, or even a few hundred. We are talking THOUSANDS of people.
And that is just one part of the biblical accounts that generation after generation taught as fact.
Somewhere along the way, if it was all a lie, others would have decried it as such near the times the events are reported to have taken place.