Posted on 04/15/2006 11:39:53 AM PDT by rhema
This weekend I will fall to my knees and thank God for His son.
Why? The evidence of the early Church, the eyewitness accounts from neutral or even hostile sources, the ever-increasing tangible proof from archaeological digs and the abundantly meagre nature of the standard objections.
It was the greatest atheist of modern times, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, who on his deathbed was asked what he would say to God if he found that He did in fact exist.
The grand old man replied that he would ask God why He had not given humanity more evidence of His existence. Which reveals just how little even the wisest of doubters understands about Christianity.
God does not give us absolute proof because this would work against our free will. He gives us just enough evidence so that we can find Him and just enough to reject His existence if that is our desire.
Don't blame the God in whom you do not believe because He asks you to work just a little before you have faith.
Bertrand Russell, by the way, eventually abandoned his atheism even though he had been its champion.
If I cannot believe in God because I have not seen Him, he wrote, I thus have to have seen everything to know that He is not there. I have not seen everything, therefore I cannot conclude that there is no God.
In other words, the materialistic opposition to God implodes when investigated with an open rather than an empty mind.
Russell became an agnostic. Those who claim to live by logic must, if they are honest, live by logic's immutable laws.
Russell was also a pacifist -- and one of the arguments against Christianity is that it causes war. Problem is, this is nonsense.
There is no doubt that wars have been and are fought in the name of religion, but this is hardly relevant.
As we surely know, it is not guns that kill people but people with guns who kill people.
Equally, it is not religion that kills people but people with religion who kill people.
Misguided individuals do all sorts of horrible things in the name of religion, just as they do in the name of freedom, love and any other motive that they can pervert.
If we want to rationalize cause and effect, we're better to argue that lack of religion leads to war.
Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot were all aggressively atheist and murdered more people than all of history's wars of religion combined.
Again, logic is on the side of the angels. As is science.
Contrary to what some would have us believe, there has been no discovery in the history of the physical sciences that has contradicted Christian belief. If anything, Christianity has been the midwife of science, promoting it for tens of centuries.
Then comes the accusation that God cannot be love because He allows bad things to happen to good people. But why would bad things not happen to good people?
God doesn't guarantee a good life but a perfect eternity, and Christ himself warns of persecution for true believers.
Are Christians sometimes hypocrites? Yes. Christian hypocrisy is one of the strongest proofs of the reliability of the Christian faith. Any secular or man-made institution that contained so many flawed members would not have survived 2,000 years and still be growing.
Just a few thoughts for those who are willing to see past the cliches and, perhaps, join me and millions of others in thanking Him this Easter.
yes
Thank God, for He has risen!!!!!!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.