I want to post about something that is lacking in our culture - critical thinking.
I was reading the Amazon reviews for a book called "The World's sixteen crucified saviors" written in 1875 by a man named Kersey Graves. In this book, Graves talks about 16 savior gods that supposedly predate Christianity. The implication was that Christianity borrowed all of its story of Christ from these other myths. There were two that really stuck out in my mind: Beddru of Japan, Quetzalcoatl of the Axtecs. Here's the link to the Amazon reviews: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1930097735/ref=cm_rev_prev/104-0363091-4511178?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&s=books&customer-reviews.start=1
I didn't want to hear any explanation how first century Hebrews could have borrowed from the Aztecs (although I'm sure Kersey had interesting theories involving time travel or aliens or something like that.) But something that really saddens me is the positive reviews here.
Never mind that "Beddru" of Japan has been shown to be a complete hoax: http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/beddru.html (and one truly wonders how the Hebrews could have borrowed from the Japanese.)
How do people get sucked in like this? Like JP Holding, I attribute it to a lack of critical thinking in our culture. Let me clarify this...I don't say people should be told what to think, but they should be told HOW to think.
When you're reading something, how can you determine the reliability of what's being told to you? Here are some tips:
1. Check their sources. If the book has no sources, like Kersey's book, disregard it. If it has a lot of sources that are extremely old, unless the book is a historical account, toss it out. If it refers to the same sources repeatedly, chuck it. You can find better information.
2. Check their credentials. G.A. Wells is a professor who espouses the Christ-myth theory. Jason Long over at Debunking Christianity is a doctor who has written "Biblical Nonsense". The only problem is G.A. Wells is a professor of GERMAN, and Dr. Long has his doctorate in PHARMACY. You can treat their opinions accordingly.
3. Try to go for the newest sources you can. Scholarship from 1875, like Kersey, is useless compared to modern day scholarship.
4. Don't be afraid to read books that argue another position. Don't say "I won't read this, it's based towards atheism". Every source is biased. Heck, even the Bible is biased. Holocaust accounts are biased, does that invalidate them immediately? This is a tactic used by Christ-mythers, "don't trust that source! It's written by a Christian!" What you should do is read books advocating both positions, check up on their sources as much as you can, check the credentials of the authors, and come up with the position that makes most sense to you.
Critical thinking means neither automatically dismissing, or blindly accepting what anyone says. It means analyzing what they're saying.
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Yeah, there's not much to argue here, is there? The problem is that too many people, whether they're Christians, atheists, Muslims, or whatever, either uncritically accept or uncritically reject whatever they're reading. I see a lot of examples of people who are gullible, unquestioning Christians, then they read pure garbage like Kersey Graves, then they become gullible, unquestioning atheists. The key is to NOT be gullible and unquestioning!
As for myself, here's a few things that I've discovered: The historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is such that a bodily resurrection of Christ is the only conclusion that really makes sense. Therefore, considering the evidence, the only real reason to reject Christ's resurrection is the belief that miracles just don't happen.
Two, the incredible fine tuning of the universe which allows life to exist is either the result of an incredible string of improbable events, or there is some sort of intelligent force behind all of it ensuring the existence of life.
If you listen to the audio lecture here:http://bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=276&TopicID=2&CategoryID=1, you'll find out about how many events had to occur the EXACT way that they occurred in order for life to exist in this universe.
Let me see if I can explain one of the factors.
Scientists now commonly accept that the universe was created with a Big Bang. The problem is, not just any "Bang" would have resulted in a universe in which life is possible. If the rate of expansion of matter had been too slow, gravity would have sucked everything back together into a black hole. Too fast, and gravity has no chance at all to pull matter together to form stars and planets.
The chances that any random "Bang" would have created a universe in which life is possible, according to this audio lecture from a man who is an astrophysicist and a pastor, is probably somewhere in the range of 10,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. This is one event that had to happen exactly the way it did for life to exist in this universe.
Hmmm...recommendations as far as rational reasons for Christian faith? Am I understanding you correctly? As far as that goes, I'd recommend Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ", Amazon link here:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0310209307/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-6861594-9423269?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155 which is a good, solid introduction to Christian apologetics. It talks about why the gospels can be considered to be trustworthy accounts of the events of Christ's life on earth (including the resurrection). I'd also recommend a book called "Reinventing Jesus", Amazon link here:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082542982X/sr=8-1/qid=1152588809/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6861594-9423269?ie=UTF8
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