In high school, for some reason I really struggled with the concept of the Resurrection (nothing else though oddly).
I questioned it since I would think surely there would be records of such a huge event in secular sources; there was some pretty big stuff that happened with it, like the Earth shaking etc.
But, things like this turned me around. It’s absolutely absurd they would have made up an elaborate idea to “invent” a savior who would DIE and come back alive. What a silly concept to human ears. You would just have him destroy his enemies.
Instead, God sent his Son to live the perfect life for us and then die in our place before rising victoriously to again plead our case in Heaven daily before the Father. Now that, that my friends, is not something some elaborate plot of Jews in the First Century could conceive of, much less actually create!
Tim Keller does a great job of going into hostile territory (think places like the Google Campus and U Cal Berkley) and explaining the rationality of the Christian faith. His YouTube videos are fabulous.
I once heard him say that is easier to evangelize in New York City than in the South. Why? Because they are openly atheist and there are no pretentions. Here in the South everyone will say they are Christian, but in reality they are idol worshippers of one type or another.
“....I really struggled with the concept of the Resurrection (nothing else though oddly).”
.
The Incarnation is so much more difficult to accept.
Once one accepts Jesus to be divine, the Resurrection becomes an automatic result — it is not acceptable that God would remain in a grave.
Sorry, but while I believe most of the same things the author does, this just isn’t a very good argument.
To give a couple of other examples of groups of men who fought and died for a cause, Muslims and commies.
The depth of commitment and willingness to sacrifice of the members of a movement simply is no evidence as to its truth.
This is, BTW, exactly what the left believes. They extrapolate from the intensity with which something is as evidence that it is true.