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collegerunningprobs · 5 years

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Evidence for God

There is overwhelming evidence that God not only exists, but that the words he gave us through the Bible are true and inspired by him. In the following, I will lay out some of the main points of evidence for God and Christianity, but I will still barely even scratch the surface. You will find that the more you look into evidence for God, the more you will discover.

Martyrs- When Jesus walked the earth, he gained many followers, and he even had 12 close ones called his “disciples” who followed him everywhere he went and learned from him. They, along with many others, including people who were not his followers, were with Jesus when he died. They witnessed him being nailed to a cross, they saw him take his last breath, they watched as the soldier stabbed him in his heart to make sure he was dead, and they buried him. Three days later, these same people watched in complete shock and awe as the same Jesus walked amongst them, performing miracles and showing off the holes in his hands, feet, and sides. Thousands of people who witnessed his death gave eyewitness accounts to the writers of the gospel that they saw Jesus with their own eyes just days after he was killed. Not only this, but most of his disciples, and many of his family members, friends, and followers were murdered later on because of their belief that Jesus was God in the flesh and that he came to bring forgiveness to anyone who would turn from their sinful ways and follow him. Even in the face of painful deaths, torture, ridicule, isolation, and excruciating pain, hundreds of people did not waver in their beliefs or take back what they had said. Think about this: if these people were lying, and just trying to trick people into believing something for their own gain, why would they die for it? There’s no way all of them were crazy. The only explanation could be that they truly saw Jesus die, they saw him resurrected, and these things convinced them beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything Jesus had said was true. He was the son of God, and his message of forgiveness was so important that they would rather die than give up on telling people about it.

The Bible’s Consistency- Have you ever played the game “telephone”? The game starts with one person whispering a word or phrase in the ear of the person next to them and then that person whispers it in the ear of the person next to them, and when you get to the end of the circle the last person tries to repeat the original word or phrase. After being passed around so many times, it is usually so twisted and changed that it hardly even matches the original. If the Bible was conceived from human minds, this is what you may expect it to be like. Inconsistent, with conflicting views and stories, which would make it completely unreliable. But this is in fact the opposite of what we see in the Bible. The Bible contains 66 different books, written by 40 different authors over the span of 1,500 years. It wasn’t put together into one book until recently. As a result, many of the authors never read each other’s books or even met each other. They all claim to have received their words from God. The Bible never once contradicts itself. Not. Once. Even different accounts of the same event may present different details of the same story, but they never disprove the other by contradicting the other. There is one common, unifying theme throughout: of God’s vast power and greatness, and of his love for the people he created which ultimately results in him sending his own son to die to save us.

Prophecies: R.C. Sproul once said, “The very dimension of the shear fulfillment of prophecy in the Old Testament scriptures should be enough to convince anyone that we are dealing with a supernatural piece of literature… God himself has planted within the scriptures an internal consistency that bears witness that this is his Word.” The Bible contains about 2,500 prophecies (predictions) about future events such as the life and death of Jesus Christ, the end times, and important historical events. The only prophecies that have not been fulfilled are the ones that are about the end of the world, about 500 of them. The other 2,000 have all been fulfilled to the letter. The Bible not only backs this up, but scores of other historical records as well. The odds of all of these prophecies being fulfilled by chance without any errors is less than 1 in 10 to the 2,000th power. So basically, the chance of these coming true by chance and not divine intervention is next to impossible. Here’s an example:

Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel’s King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah’s (Jesus’s) death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.

For examples of a few more of them, go to http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible.

You can also Google biblical prophecies and see examples of many others.

Jesus was who he said he was- The ex-atheist turned Christian C.S. Lewis once said, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” One of the arguments for Jesus being the son of God and not just a great teacher is this: that the only three options for us to believe is that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or he was who he said he was. Those are the only three options, considering that Christians and atheists alike cannot deny at least the existence of Jesus based on historical evidence. If he was a liar, he would not have been able to do the things he did. Eyewitnesses reported Jesus performing many miracles: healing people they had known their whole lives who were blind, deaf, and paralyzed, calming a storm, multiplying a few fish and a couple loaves of bread into enough to feed 10,000 people, and even bringing people back to life who had been dead for days. A liar also probably wouldn’t allow himself to be tortured and die if he was just trying to trick people. Add to these the fact that he himself resurrected from the dead, and it’s pretty easy to tell that he wasn’t just trying to fool people into thinking he was God. Second, he could not be a lunatic. Thousands of people would not follow a lunatic or someone who was not what he said he was. Look at Jesus’s words and you can see that what he says are not the rantings of a madman. He was intelligent, he was consistent in his teachings, and his teachings make sense in light of the person he claimed to be: God. Not only that but his followers later were tortured and died for what they believed. That many people just don’t die for the random teachings of a madman- what he said they believed to be true based on what they witnessed and saw in him.

History does not contradict the Bible, but reinforces it- The more historical records and artifacts that are found, the more confidence we find in the Bible being true. Nothing that has been found has contradicted the Bible, but agrees with what the Bible says. Not even atheists dispute the historical accuracy of the Bible. Here are just a few of many examples (again, you can find tons of examples just by googling):

-A common flood story: In Genesis, the Bible tells of a great flood that wiped out almost all of mankind and animals. This has been proven scientifically, and also historically. Other cultures, such as the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, and the Egyptians all have records of a great flood in primordial times. Even Native American cultures have legends about a great flood. The reality of a great flood occurring at this time is also now supported by fossil evidence.

-In Genesis, the story of the tower of Babel tells how in the beginning of the world, all the people spoke one language but God confused their language and created many others. Ancient Sumerian and Babylonian tablets have records of this event occurring.

-The Bible’s records of the Kings who ruled in certain countries and times have been shown to be completely accurate. In addition, the Bible chronicles many battles, wars, and the downfalls of many civilizations which have likewise been recorded in other sources.

While this alone doesn’t prove that the Bible was divinely inspired, it does add more depth to the reliability of the Bible. The more reliable we can find the Bible about historical things, the more we can count on the reliability of other things. For example, think about the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. He told the townspeople there was a wolf about to devour their sheep several times when there wasn’t a wolf in sight. Then, when there was actually a wolf about to kill all their sheep, they did not believe him because he had lied so many times before. If the Bible was wrong about historical events, we would not be able to confidently say that it was right about other events, like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, because people would be able to point to that and say, “Well it was wrong about this battle or this king’s reign so how can we trust anything it says?” It’s like if there was a weatherman who was accurate 100% of the time. Suppose he told us it was going to snow in Southern California in the middle of July. We might think that’s crazy or outrageous, but if he had been right about other seemingly impossible predictions before, we would be more likely to believe him.

The Bible predicts many scientific findings YEARS before they were discovered- The Bible talks about many scientific things that were not discovered until centuries later. However, it does not predict even one thing that is inaccurate. Many other religions, books, and cultures have predicted future scientific discoveries but none with the accuracy of the Bible. If a human were to predict future scientific advancements you would expect that they would be wrong a lot, probably more times than they were right. But what we see with the accuracy of the Bible is exactly what you would expect if it were inspired by God himself- it contains no errors. Here are a few examples of many:

-The Bible says the earth is round; for years it was believed the earth was flat. Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth.”

-The Bible says that the earth hangs in space: “He stretches out the north over empty space, He hangs the earth on nothing.” -Job 26:7. It was widely believed at this time that the earth was supported by something. Other cultures believed the earth sat on the back of a turtle or an elephant, while others believed gods like Atlas held it up.

-Job 38:16 talks about “the springs of the sea.” Until the 1970’s, scientists believed the ocean was fed by rivers and rain. It wasn’t until we were able to create the technology in the 70’s to explores the depths of the ocean that we found out the ocean is fed by underground springs.

-Blood is the source of life and health: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11), and “For the life of every creature is its blood, its blood its life” (Leviticus 17:14). At this time, people with all kinds of medical conditions were usually treated by being “bled” to get rid of whatever was infecting them and making them sick. Now we know that blood is essential for life and that we must have enough of it to stay alive and functioning.

-The Bible also contains many instructions to the ancient Hebrews about sanitary laws that were not discovered until much later. For example, God warns against drinking out of stagnant pools of water, which we now know cause diseases like cholera. He also instructs them to bury their feces and to bury it away from their camps. Soldiers were even dying in World War I due to keeping their waste too close to them, so the Bible was way ahead of its time in this. This also shows us that even when we may not understand God’s commands or see the point in them, God sees the bigger picture and ultimately has our best interests at heart.

Personally, one of the most compelling aspects of Christianity is in the sheer complexity of our universe. If we were even a fraction of an inch closer to the sun, we would burn up. If we were a fraction of an inch further we would freeze. We are sitting on a ball, covered in 70% water with a core of magma and lava, spinning at thousands of miles an hour and yet we don’t fall off. I see God in the beauty of nature and in the variety. There’s caterpillars with their tiny little legs and their antennae for sensing and then there’s massive elephants with trunks that act like an arm to reach to the tops of trees for food and to reach down to drink from pools of water. Then there’s humans, the most complex and remarkable creatures of all. We have thousands of nerves for sensing the world around us, and we have more nerve endings in the places we need them like our hands. We have all these systems in place inside our bodies to maintain homeostasis like our blood buffering system. God could have created us like the plants to eat: he could have created us so that all we have to do is stand in the sun and get our energy. But he created all kinds of different foods for our enjoyment and creativity. He gave us feelings, which we aren’t always thankful for but don’t they make life worth living? That feeling you get when you see someone you love that you haven’t seen in a while. That feeling you get on a still, quiet morning watching the sun rise before the rest of the world is up. That high you get when you do something daring, the peace you feel when you’re in nature, the love you feel when you look at your kids or your spouse or your friends. God is present in everything around us. There’s no way something this spectacular arrived out of nothing, and I think deep down we all know that. The problem of a God arises when we realize that the presence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, righteous, perfect God means that we have someone to answer to at the end of our lives. That we can’t just live our lives the way we want to and get away with it in the end. But the good news is that God doesn’t exist just to judge us or give us a bunch of rules to follow that we can never accomplish. God gives us rules to live by because he loves us. Think about it, if a parent let their child run around and play in a busy street all the time, the kid might love it. No rules, no one to answer to, just complete freedom. But that’s not loving the child. If a parent truly loves their child they will set boundaries and tell them to play in safe areas because they don’t want them to be hit by a passing car. Even if the child doesn’t understand it, it is up to the parent to do what is best for the child because he or she loves their child. And it is up to the child to follow the rules because even if they don’t understand the rules, they trust that a loving parent knows better than they do and that the rules their parent is setting is for their own good. In the same way, God sets rules for us. He tells us not to be jealous of those around us, because he knows jealousy is going to make us dissatisfied with our own lives and cause us to not be thankful for all the ways he has blessed us. He commands us to take care of the poor and the widows because he wants all his people to be taken care of. He commands us to love him with all our hearts, souls, and minds because he knows that ultimately, we can never be fully satisfied by anything but a relationship with him. And God doesn’t expect us to be perfect either. He knows we will mess up, but lucky for us his forgiveness never runs out. He sent Jesus to die the death we deserve so that we can stand blameless and pure before him. He doesn’t seek to take from us, but rather to give. He doesn’t want to take our freedom from us, he wants to set us free from the weight of sin. He wants to provide us with the joy, peace, security, ultimate acceptance, and sense of purpose that we can only get from him. He only asks that we stop running from him and instead run to him, turning from our old selves so that he can make us new. He wants you so desperately, but he loves you so much that he gives you the free will to choose him for yourself.

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