Greg Jennings
New member
Every single religion teaches different and even contradictory things. Things that contradict other things cannot all be true.
You could spend several lifetimes looking at all the religions of the world to find out which one is absolutely true. But to save yourself time, you could look at all the religions that are exclusive. That narrows it down quite a bit.
Christianity is one of the only (if not the only) religions that claims complete exclusivity in their teachings.
Paul says "if Christ did not die, then [Christianity] is in vain." If that's true, then the opposite is true as well. If Christ did rise from the dead, then all other faiths/beliefs are in vain, and Christianity is true.
So the best way to show that Christianity is wrong is to show that Christ did not rise from the dead.
Sure, but as I said, two or three witnesses establish a matter (which I will explain below, since you seem to have jumped to the wrong conclusion about with the court system).
I don't know much about the Rigveda, but I do know a little about the Quran.
What I know is that the Quran teaches that Isaac and Ishmael are swapped. The Quran (or at least those who follow the teachings of it) believe a completely different story than what the Bible teaches about Abraham offering up his son, the most notable differences being: Ishmael instead of Isaac, a great sacrifice instead of the ram caught in thee thicket, and a piece of copper stopping Abraham's hand instead of God Himself.
It also teaches (if I remember correctly) that Ishmael's descendants are the chosen people of God, and not Isaac's, which doesn't fit the narrative of established history at all.
Speaking of which...
How many details of the Bible have been confirmed over the course of history? I could list off a few for you, if you like.
Unlike most other religious texts and religions, the Bible has the flavor of realism.
If you were to look at any other account made by a prosperous nation about itself, you would find very little in the way of its shortcomings.
However, the Bible speaks of its own people, the Jews, as a wicked and evil nation, constantly falling away and rebelling against their God.
Ok, so you've misunderstood the phrase, "two or three witnesses shall establish a matter."
When the Bible says "two or three witnesses," It doesn't mean ONLY two or three, it means to weigh the evidence, and consider what the evidence is saying.
If God had said that court cases were not needed, Moses would not have put Exodus 18 in the Bible, which shows how courts should be set up to be efficient at bringing about justice, without wearing down the people.
There used to be a saying, "don't make a federal case out of it." Today, we make a federal case out of everything, even the smallest matter, and it grinds the people down, and court cases can take upwards of several years to establish what the punishment for a crime should be, if the criminal could even be convicted.
God says "two or three witnesses (not necessarily "eyewitnesses") shall establish a matter."
For example.
SpoilerLet's say a criminal stabs a man in a back alley somewhere, and is able to flee from the scene before the body is discovered. A few hours later, someone sees the body and calls it in, the police arrive, and they begin their investigation. They find out after autopsying the body that the blade the criminal used was of a certain length, blade type, and shape by examining the wound. They can rule out suffocation, because there's no petechial hemorrhaging (I watch too many crime shows haha), and blood tests show that there was nothing bad in his system. So they've established that the cause of death was stabbing. By examining the man's hands, they find scratches and bruising, which indicates that he put up a fight before he was killed, and after finding skin cells under the man's fingernails, they run the DNA and bring up the profile of the criminal, which shows that the man is wanted for several previous crimes, including murder. Police find a knife tossed in a dumpster a few streets down, but are unable to find any fingerprints on the handle, which suggests that the criminal wore gloves. They find blood on the blade, even though it was wiped off somehow, and are able to confirm that it was the knife used in the murder. After recreating the murder using a 3D modeling program, the determine that in order for the blade to have entered at the angle that the wound indicates, the criminal would have to be a certain height. They also find footage from a traffic camera of the criminal coming out of the alley, even though his face was hidden by a mask, so they are able to determine about how tall the criminal is and his body type. The police then put out an APB (all-points bulletin) on the criminal, so that if someone sees him, the police can get to him and catch him. A few hours later, the criminal is spotted, and the police are able to pick him up, and bring him in for questioning. He gives them an alibi, which doesn't check out, so they examine his body, and find a few bruises and scratches that he is unable to provide adequate explanations for, which places him at the top of their suspect list. The police, after interviewing other persons of interest, dismiss them all, as their stories check out, and nothing can tie them to the murder. They also find out that the criminal purchased the same model knife a few days ago that was used in the murder.
So, (and I'm going to use a Biblical court system here, and then I will contrast it with what we have here today in America) in the Biblical justice system, the criminal would be locked up while the investigation is ongoing, and at the conclusion of the investigation, the evidence and the criminal would be brought before the judge who had jurisdiction over the area and people where the crime happened. The evidence would be presented, and the Judge would ask questions to the criminal, cross-examining him with the evidence, and determines the following:
1. the criminal is about the same size and mass of the man in the video, and he matches the requirements for the swing of the knife into the victim's body
2. the criminal is wanted for previous murders
3. the skin cells found underneath the victim's fingernails points to the criminal
4. the criminal purchased the same kind of knife used in the murder
5. the criminal has no valid alibi for the time of the murder, along with bruises that cannot be matched to his explanations for them
6. no other persons of interest could logically be tied to the murder
After considering those 6 facts, the Judge convicts the criminal of murder. The judge then offers to the victim's family the opportunity to be the ones to execute him, they accept, and the judge sentences the man to death by stabbing, sets the execution for the next morning at 0800, to be televised to the rest of the nation on the morning news. This entire event, from the time of the murder, to the execution of the criminal by the victim's family on public television, took less than 48 hours.
Now, here's just a summary of what would happen in our current system. We'll use the same scenario as above.
The police catch the criminal, and put him in a room for questioning, but the criminal says nothing but the infamous phrase, "I want a lawyer." and because the law demands that if a suspect demands to have a lawyer present, then one should be given to him. So a few hours are wasted waiting for a lawyer to show up, after which the lawyer demands to have some time alone with the criminal away from the police, during which the criminal tells the lawyer what happened and asks what he can do to get out of the punishment, and so they devise a strategy to help him get away with murder. An hour or so passes, and then the lawyer allows the police to begin their interrogation, in which they are unable to establish any solid details from him. However, as they still have 5 of the 6 pieces of evidence listed above, they have enough to take him to court. So a date is set for a few weeks later, and the criminal is put in jail until the court date. Fast forward a few weeks to the trial, and the evidnece is presented, and of course, the criminal's lawyer claims his client is innocent, and yada yada yada... This goes on for a few weeks, wearing everyone involved down, and since the evidence is overwhelming that the criminal is guilty, the jury gives their verdict, and the criminal is given 30 years in prison, but manages to get out in 15 for good behaviour, during which, every year the criminal makes an appeal to the judge, claiming he's innocent. During the entire time this is going on, the victim's family is grieving, and wondering if justice will ever be served to the one who took their loved one away from them.
Total time from crime committed to end of punishment? A little over 15 years, during which the criminal was able to mock his victim's family every day by using their tax dollars to keep himself alive.
Now, out of the above evidence, could you rate for me each piece of evidence on a scale of 1-10, with 10 very strong, and 1 being very weak?
Well based on your elaborations I have no real issues with the above except this:
Why does claimed exclusivity mean much?
Many details of the Bible have been confirmed such as Pilate's existence, the likely locations of Sidon and Gomorrah, the line of David, Solomon's Temple, even Goliath's existence.
However many important stories, such as Noah's ark and the flight of the Jews from Egypt, have been abetting but verified. Many historians now believe that in fact the Jews escaped slavery in Canaan, not Egypt, and the story was altered to fit a new world where Egypt was the oppressor. Just food for thought.
However, very good, informative post
