In the current pool of skeptics who say they need proof of God to believe in Him, the notion struck me as to whether they would have believed in Him if they had been alive in Jesus’s day.
So, if you would have seen him do signs, wonders, heal the sick, and make the lame walk, would that have been enough? If you had witnessed Him die on Calvary and ask God to forgive His executioners would you have accepted Him then?
There was a group of skeptics in Christ’s day as well, who denied Him of His deity and eventually His life, even though they witnessed many supernatural acts He did. I struggle to understand agnostics/atheists (and I’m sure that you don’t see were I’m coming from too-so don’t get angry)…I’m sure the God skeptics of His day must have had some reasons for holding to their humanism…Answers, anyone?
BTW, I won’t have a great deal of time tonight to respond to posts.
Yes. If I had seen that I would have accepted him. It’s a moot point though. He didn’t do that, he performed no miracles. Would I have accepted some crazy Jew running arround saying he was the son of God and my messiah. No.
Excuse me, sir, but this post is addressed to those who were not alive during the time of Christ, so based on your response this disqualifies you. Thank you.
A) I had directly witnessed miracles (walking on water, etc), and
B) I did not believe in magic, then
possibly I would be willing to accept his divinity. But possibly not. I mean, puh-leeze . . . someone walks up to you and says “Hi, I’m God??” Right. IIRC, little Charlie Manson did the same thing, should I follow him?
'Course the NT is a little inconsistent about that. Sometimes Christ says he’s God, sometimes he doesn’t. Go fig. If he was healing people and generally preaching peace and love, without claiming to be God, I’d be much more likely to believe him an emissary of the Lord.
But then, there is no God but God, and Christ was His prophet
Actually, if you look at the quotes from Jesus in the Gospels (you know–the stuff in red), I’m not sure Jesus ever unambiguously claimed to be the son of God. He seems to leave others to draw their own conclusions.
The closest he came (if I remember correctly) was when he asked the apostles “Whom say men that I am?” And the apostles answered John the Baptist, risen from the dead, or one of the prophets. Then Jesus asks “But whom say ye that I am?” Then Peter steps forward and says “the son of the living God,” to which Jesus replies “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”
Even in this exchange, notice, Jesus does not explicitly claim for himself the title of son of God (though he does seem to express approval of Peter for doing so). I always thought that was an interesting quirk in the Gospels.
What if Christ had come during during the twenty century, would people have believed? No. The problem is that we have watched too many false prophets on TV. Too many Jim Bakker’s exposed as frauds. Have seen the dangers of total submission in both Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. I can recall a dozen or more doomsday predictions by small cults come and go. If I see a guy perform I immediately begin to wonder, “Is he using slight of hand? Was the person he healed a plant? Was the man only pretending to be blind?”
People assume that people disbelieved Christ because they were hard-hearted, but isn’t it possible that they were weary of false prophets?
Really? Who were these people who had actually seen Jesus do the things the Gospels claimed he did?
Mind you, the oldest of the Gospels (Mark) was written 40 years after the alleged events it describes had taken place. If these “skeptical witnesses” are only mentioned in the Gospels themselves, I’m not as inclined to put much credence in their existence.
I thought I would just like to add an extra few questions to the OP for those who are answering. Certainly these are related to the original question but are not quite the same.
Question 1: What would you consider to be proof that God exists?
Question 2: If you received that proof would you then worship God?
Question 3: In relation to question 2… why or why not?
Enlighten us here, Jenkins. I’m more than a little sure I’ve seen what you’ve posted in the OP in those very same words. Where’d you lift them from & why didn’t you cite that source?
Well, ambiguity is often the hallmark of the Bible. But after his resurrection, he ate with his friends:
Ambiguous, certainly, but it sure sounds like he’s blowing his own trumpet, so to speak.
'Course it also depends on the translation. From the NIV again:
No admission of deity, of course, but an admission of royalty. However in the King James (which for some bizarre reason is favored by many milleniarists and evangelistics), we get the “your words, not mine” line:
Two different translations, from two different original sources, with two very different meanings. Go fig.
And to think that I get in trouble for laughing at Christians who claim Biblical inerrancy.
So few actually witnessed the miracles, or even saw JC, that it would be highly unlikely that I would have been one of them. Before Paul, there were 1-200 Christians.
But, YES, Jenkins, if I was one of the few who saw & witnessed, I am sure I would believe. But remember, even JC left it up to us to decide who he was, as pointed out earlier, he never actually said he was the Messiah, so one could very well have witnessed and still came away with the impression that JC was “only” a great Teacher, and perhaps no greater than John the Baptist.
I should have known Luke would have something like that in there. If I’m not mistaken, Luke is generally considered to be the latest of the Gospels, written long after the facts it purports to describe.
I believe the consensus is that Mark is the earliest Gospel. (…And one might therefore conclude, the most accurate account. The later versions would be more likely to have embellishments designed to win converts.)
In Mark, I am almost certain, there is no passage wherein Jesus even indirectly avers that he is the son of God.
jenkinsfan, I’m curious. Most of your threads seem to be variations of “What would it take for all of you to believe the same way I do?”. Why don’t you just ask that question, accept our answers(such as they are), and leave some board space for other questions? Or at least do a little bit of research in the Archives, because most of these questions have been answered repeatedly by a lot of us.
Your enthusiasm is admirable, but you have to be willing to hear our answers to your questions, o.k. ?
Eagles may soar free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
