Yahweh

... what would be the strongest reason to doubt Christianity?

I think this is an interesting question, because it was mentioned by someone who I work closely with on a regular basis. She gave me a very generalized way to imagine the soundness of an argument, which is made by giving into an intellectual gambit; that is, conceding a point to a critic, and letting the original position stand on the merits of the remaining arguments.

I'm going to ask the same question in two different ways, just to get a variety of responses:

1) In the case of atheism, the intellectual gambit would be allowing that the historical Christ could have existed, and that to some extent his sayings and life are recorded in the Bible and some non-Biblical sources. So, without making the argument that Jesus never existed or that we have no written records of him, what persuasive reasons remain to argue against Christianity?

2) In the case of Christianity, the intellectual gambit likely involves the inerrancy of the Bible; I suppose then the Christian would concede that the Bible is errant in some places, even to the extent that the whole of Genesis is symbolic (I think this would be characterized in a very liberal form of Christianity). So, without making the argument that the Christianity is dependent on the inerrancy of the Bible, what would be the most persuasive reasons to argue against Christianity?

Mountain Man

There is no reason to make the assumption jesus ever existed. Anyway, the bible is pure myth. The authors it's attributed to were not witnesses to any of it, old or new testaments. They were written from 5 to 1000 or more years after the alleged events.

Zeichman

Paul claims to have been a witness to the ressurrection. What's your evidence otherwise?

anthrosciguy

Shouldn't you be the one to come up with some evidence that he did? Or is that slim unsupported claim enough to hang a worldview on?

Zeichman

1 Corinthians 15 Paul claims to have seen the risen Jesus. Robert M. Price (?) and Burton Mack are the only credible scholars I know of who deny that Paul believed himself to have the risen Christ. Your friend's unqualified statement about the distance between major theological events and New Testament authors, I believe, is wrong. My objection is not in the least apologetic, as far as I know.

I'll ignore your irrelevant ad hominem attack. Be careful about assuming too much about the belief systems of people you don't know.

Kosh

However... there is a huge difference between believing that you have seen a vision of the risen Christ, and to have actually witnessed the ressurection itself.

Especially a good three years after the "ascension".

Zeichman

I don't think the appearance to Paul was any different than the one to Peter, James, the twelve, the apostles or the 500 brothers. He certainly didn't distinguish it from those, despite the fact that he's ragging on himself in that same verse. One would reasonably expect him to do so, had the ressurection experiences been different.

If your distinction is between "believing" that one has seen the risen Christ versus actually having done so, I'm not sure that it's within the realm of historic inquiry. If that wasn't your qualm with my response, then nevermind.

Random Evil Guy

because the bible is basically based on miracles and such. however, not one 'miracle' has been documented. that tells me the bible is just nonsense, ergo christianity is nonsense.

Kosh

You're right, they didn't witness the ressurection either.

To wit, your comment:

is not correct. Pauls claims to have seen a vision of the risen Christ three years after the alleged event, not witnessed the resurrection. Do you see the difference?

Diogenes the Cynic

Paul makes no claim to have seen a physically risen Christ. He claims to had hallucinations of some sort many years after the alleged resurrection but he does not say he actually saw Jesus in the flesh and, contrary to your earlier assertion, he makes no claim of any sort to have witnessed the resurrection. In fact, there is no claim in the NT that ANYBODY witnessed the resurrection.

The best answer to the OP is that even if a HJ existed, any and all claims of miracles associated with him can be dismissed out of hand as lacking even the most fundamental plausibility. We know that Jesus did not come back from the dead because it's simply impossible. Anything that's impossible disproves itself. Conversation over.