Johnny Skeptic

Apologists claim that there is a lot of evidence other than faith that reasonably proves that the Bible should be trusted, but they would surely reject THE VERY SAME EVIDENCE if the evidence said that everyone would go to hell. In other words, the number of eyewitnesses, the number of gospels, or the number of copies of ancient manuscripts would not matter at all, in fact, even if the evidence was twice as good as the evidence that is found in the Bible.

Regardless of the evidence, self-interest ALWAYS presumes that whenever a person is confronted by evidence that claims that he will go to hell, it is best to argue against the evidence, or if a person is uncertain to hope that the evidence was wrong. There would be no possible advantage in doing otherwise.

If a powerful being came from outer space, claimed be a God other than the God of the Bible, demonstrated FIRSTHAND in front of everyone in the world, not hearsay evidence in a small geographic area like in the Bible, that he could convert energy into matter and destroy a large building in one second, said that he was going to destroy the earth in six months, and left the earth, most Christians would hope that the supposed God would somehow not be able to carry out his threat. On the other hand, if a being from outer space came to earth, claimed that he was Jesus, and demonstrated THE EXACT SAME POWERS, Christians would hope, in fact assume, that the being was actually Jesus.

Hypothetical arguments are often excellent means of revealing inconsistent arguments. Christians frequently use them whenever they believe that it suits their purposes to do so. A good example is C. S. Lewis’ ‘Lord, Liar, or Lunatic.’ Evidence that cannot be credibly consistently applied is not evidence at all.

Dargo

Many Christians would assume that this was the anti-Christ and was therefore lying about being Jesus. A former Sundy school teacher of mine from my fundie days believed in a similar scenario during the "end times."

Johnny Skeptic

But almost no early Christian would have initially defended the evidence if it had been exactly the same with the single exception that a man named Jesus showed up and claimed that one day he would send everyone to hell. That proves that early Christians accepted what they believed was evidence, but ONLY because the evidence appealed to their own self-interest. How many Gospels there were, and how many eyewitnesses there are, didn't really make any difference at all. Why would anyone want to defend evidence, no matter how good it was, if the evidence promised to send them to hell? It is no accident that most or all religions promise good things to believers.