John A. Broussard

If I remember correctly, he had an epileptic seizure on the road to Damascus and heard a whole lot of things at the time--right directly from god.

Atheos

8th Grade? Wow! You may be the most literate 8th grader I've ever seen online. It's an honor to have an opportunity to share in a discussion an intelligent young person such as yourself.

There are many theories as to where Paul got his information. Many (christians) believe that Paul's information was fed directly to him by revelations from Jesus. That would constitute the most popular view by far.

There is a signifigant group of more critical people who believe that Paul was largely responsible for the origins of Christianity and that the "Christ"/"Messiah" concept evolved constantly during his ministry (a period of around 15-20 years).

Regardless, there is little debate that the earliest books constituting the canonical New Testament were Paul's letters. The first book written was probably I Thessalonians. The earlier writings do not tend to picture Christ as a man at all. Only in the later writings do people make claims that Christ actually lived on earth. For this reason many secular scholars believe that Paul may have been largely responsible for inventing christianity.

Note that I am not attempting to offer evidence, just summarizing some of the more common viewpoints I'm aware of.

There is considerable debate as to how many of the letters attributed to Paul were actually written by him. Some believe that the "Pastoral epistles" (the letters to Timothy and Titus) may have been written by someone else using Paul's name and style.

Hope this helps. I responding to this email only as it pertains to the existence of God question as asserted in the OP, i.e., "is there evidence of 5000 (or 500) witnesses to the resurection of christ?".

If you want to delve more explicitely into the question of Paul, his sources and writings then you really need to go to the "Biblical Criticism and History" section of this discussion board. There you will find many people much more knowledgable than I am about such things, and a discussion of these issues would be more appropriate there.

-Atheos

alexjohnc3

Thanks a lot Atheos. ^^

Hmm... my father seems to basically have withdrawn that and now says that Jesus had to either be God's son or insane and that he couldn't have been insane (we are assuming he existed, based on Roman records that recorded his travels) because if he was he couldn't have been so "moral". So therefore he was God's son and God. I find this to be flimsy evidence, but that isn't it.

Before Paul was, Paul, I think his name was Sol. Sol was against Christianity and he became blind. Jesus converted him, even though he was a leader against Christianity and Sol became not blind anymore, to sum it up.

Then I'd like to ask how billions of people could be fooled so easily, including some of our most intelligent. I don't speak for anyone else, but I don't think I'm as intelligent as many theists... which means I most likely wrong about agnostic atheism (unless there are more intelligent agnostic atheists then myself, who are also more intelligent then all the few billion theists, which I doubt).

MrWhy

We can't even determine facts from events in todays news. There are claims, counter claims, special prosecutors working for years, and we still don't know what happened. How can anyone believe ancient stories of miracles that were verbally passed, interpreted, and translated?

FFT

1. What records, exactly?
2. On what evidence has he made the claim that insane people can not be moral?
3. Saul, if I recall correctly.
4. The billions that adhere to Christianity were fooled just as easily as the billions that adhere to Islam, as well as every other religion. Intelligence is not a reliable factor for determining gullibility.

alexjohnc3

So how was Saul converted then (<-- Edit: Ha, I just noticed how desperate that looks)?

I don't doubt the evidence of my father's points, since he has basically forgotten his sources. Hmm... I'd have to get him to post here, not too sure about that though. =P

DBT

THE APOSTLE PAUL'S CONVERSION
"The Book of Acts contains three accounts of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. All of three accounts contradict each other regarding what happened to Paul's fellow travelers.

1. Acts 9:7 says they "stood speechless, hearing the voice..."

2. Acts 22:9 says they "did not hear the voice..."

3. Acts 26:14 says "when we had all fallen to the ground..."

Some translations of the Bible (the New International Version and the New American Standard, for example) try to remove the contradiction in Acts 22:9 by translating the phrase quoted above as "did not understand the voice..." However, the Greek word "akouo" is translated 373 times in the New Testament as "hear," "hears," "hearing" or "heard" and only in Acts 22:9 is it translated as "understand." In fact, it is the same word that is translated as "hearing" in Acts 9:7, quoted above. The word "understand" occurs 52 times in the New Testament, but only in Acts 22:9 is it translated from the Greek word "akouo."

This is an example of Bible translators sacrificing intellectual honesty in an attempt to reconcile conflicting passages in the New Testament."

lenrek

You are absolutely right. Let's help him to go there. Thread moved.

Weltall

Ahh, a variation of the old trilemma (he just left out 'or he was a liar'). It fails to account for the possibility that Jesus never existed and also the fact that he could have existed, been sane and been dead wrong. Basically, it presupposes the first point (divinity) and doesn't account for all the alternatives.
I'm going to guess that just as you heard it from him, he heard it from someone else (who heard it from someone else etc.) and hasn't seen these records for himself. The problem is, the records don't exist. If anybody finds some, I'd like to hear about it.
Intelligence is not a surefire indicator of correctness. People who are considered very intelligent can be spectacularly wrong and people of reduced intelligence (or whatever the politically correct euphamism for people one step above the plant kingdom is these days) can be surprisingly right. In other words, even if the person everyone acknowledges to be the 'Smartest Person in the World' believes something, that doesn't automatically make it true.

TedM

Hi alexjohn. Here's my take on these issues, including your father's new stance.

1. The passage about the 500 in 1 Cor 15 is generally considered to have been a creed known to the early Christians and passed along to Paul. The passage states that "most" of the 500 are still alive. Either Paul says that as his own commentary or the creed itself has it. If Paul said it we don't know if Paul was assuming it based on the time that had passed, he heard it from others, or he actually knew them. If if was in the creed at the time the creed began, we again don't know the circumstances--did those who began the creed know the 500 people? If 500 people did see him, what were the circumstances? Did Jesus walk among them and talk to them, or was it a ghost-like appearance that came and went quickly? Could it have been a hoax? We just don't know. The claim by itself is impossible to investigate so faith in it is determined by how much faith you have in the source to have made sure that the statement was accurate. Since we don't know the level of his research (if any) we can't have a good sense of how much faith to have in the claim IMO. It COULD be true, but it is not unreasonable to be doubtful.

2. Someone here said that Paul's writings don't refer to Jesus as though he existed as a man on earth. That is not true at all. Paul refers to Jesus as one would refer to a man on earth over 90 times in his writings. However, what he doesn't do is clearly pin down sayings and doings to specific events and times and places that some would expect him to have done. As such, some believe that the references that sound like they are to a man on earth are actually to a heavenly being in some other place than earth. Paul never states that is the case though. IMO Jesus did live here and was crucified and some thought he came back to life, and within a few years Paul thought that also.

3. Regarding your father's statement about Jesus' character, my thoughts are that he may be correct, but that it is hard to know. Some people are capable of tremendous self-deception. Some doubt that Jesus willingly died. Some doubt that he really thought he was the Messiah. It depends on how much one thinks the gospels were telling things as they really happened.

In the end, I encourage you to seek knowledge by listening to both sides of arguments. I also encourage you to always seek the good in your life--including in your relationship with your father. I think we all desire a connection with people who we care about and respect, but sometimes doubts and disagreements can sever those connections, resulting in a lot of pain. Threads like these foster a lot of knowledge and curiousity, but if one isn't careful one can also develop a very argumentative personality, which I think only hurts a person in the long run because our connections to others are more fulfilling than convincing others that we are right. It should be enough to know that we are comfortable with our own beliefs inside, and that others have their beliefs often for important emotional reasons in addition to intellectual ones.

You are wise to recognize that many intelligent people have religious beliefs. No one can prove that God exists or doesn't exist, or that God is accessable to people or not accessable. No scientist can prove or disprove these things. In the end our religious beliefs are personal, affected by many factors which may or may not be the same from one individual to another. I hope that on your journey toward truth, you find answers which bring you peace and confidence, yet foster humility toward others and their beliefs.

ted