chrisrkline

Most standard modern apologetics begin with the assumption that Acts describes a rough outline of early Christianity: Jesus died, was buried, the tomb was empty, and something caused the earliest disciples to quickly mount an evangelical ministry, in the face of death and persecution. Because this has affected all scholarship for nearly 2000 years, even skeptics try to deal with the issue by first accepting the assumptions and then looking for outs, such as outright deception (the disciples lied), fraud, or later myths added to the real Jesus.

What has to happen is to look past Acts. Acts does not even hit the radar screen until around 180, and can be seen as a Catholic response to the "heretic" Marcion's canon, which was Paul's letters and a shorter version of Luke. The orthodox Luke is simply "fixing" Marcion's gospel and Acts is clearly an attempt to Catholicize Paul (making him a mirror of Peter).

Grad Student Humanist

I won't argue that an atheist should definitely avoid Strobel's books, though I would say, to paraphrase Schopenhauer-- life is too short to read bad books.

I just wonder sometimes what the atheist reader expects to find in Strobel's books, or in Xtian apologetics in general. It seems to me that if god could be proven, the person who could do it would be a philosopher or a theologian, after decades of scholarly work, not a journalist or some other hack writer, in a book meant for consumption by the masses. And given that Western philosophers have been grappling with the question of god for centuries now, I doubt Lee Strobel has stumbled onto something they missed. Plus, the fact that Xtians tend to praise this book doesn't appear to me to be particularly relevant given the almost universal praise heaped on C.S. Lewis' ridiculous apologetics.

Really, what could Lee Strobel say that hasn't already been said a million times before by Xtians and theists of every possible creed and denomination?

Minimalist

Which "Jews" were those?

Tars Tarkus

A Christian gave me Strobel's "Case for Christ" as a x-mas gift. After I read it and gave him my assessment that I was far from being swung as he claimed I would be, he demanded it back.

chrisrkline

I think God's a little like that too.

Gullwind

I have a cousin who is a fundamentalist Baptist. We don't talk much (he lives several hundred miles away) but he once sent me a student version of The Case for Christ, with an offer to discuss it via e-mail. I read it and sent him a rundown on some of the problems I found with it.

Never heard back.

Edit: Yay! 666 posts! Do the black helicopters come to me or do I have to meet them somewhere?

butterfli429

I just finished reading Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and I began reading his book The Case for Faith. These books have only solidified my belief in God and the empty tomb. How else would you be able to explain the fact the existing scrolls date back to with in 20 years of the Jesus' death? That is not long enough for legends or false stories to have developed. People were still alive that could have refuted the written evidence, yet no one did.
Here is a quote from the Case for Faith in the defense of an Intelligent Designer:
* British physicist P. C. W. Davies has concluded the odds against the initail conditions being suitable for the formation of stars- a neciessity for planets and thus life- is one followed by at least a thousand billion zeroes.
* Davies also estimated that if the strength of gravity or of the weak force were changed by only one part in a ten followed by a hundred zeroes, life could never have developed.
Here is my favorite passage from the Case for Faith so far.
"...atheism treats people cheaply. Also, it robs death of meaning, and if death has no meaning, how can life ultimately have meaning? Atheism cheapens everything it touchs-look at the results of communism, the most powerful form of atheism on earth. And in the end, when the atheist dies and encounters God instead of the nothingness he had predicted, he'll recognize that atheism was a cheap answer because it refused the only thing that's not cheap- the God of infinite value."
I have a good reason to believe that I will never visit this site again. Most people I encounter are searching for truth. The people I have found on this website are narrow minded and ignorant. For people who are atheist, you all spend an alot of time thinking about God.

Toto

Yes, that is all they are good for - reinforcing those who already believe.

There are no existing scrolls that can be dated to within 20 years of Jesus death. Not even Lee Strobel is craven enough to claim that. You have probably confused the claim that Paul's letters can be dated to about 50 CE, which is about 20 years after much later gospels claim that Jesus died. But the dating of Paul's letters is based on assumptions and conjectures.

But Paul's letters were only available to believers, if they were indeed written that early. They were not in general circulation. And Paul did not make any clear claims about Jesus that could have been refuted. The gospels were written later, but by that time, Jerusalem had been leveled and there were few or no witnesses left.

But if those odds hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here. It's like shooting at the side of a barn and then drawing your target around the spot where your bullet hit.

Strobel is just disgusting. In atheism, people's lives are valued since there is no heaven. It is Christianity that cheapens life. Communism is dead, but there is still atheism.

Hmm, one post and you think you know all about us, enough to insult us.

And I don't spend any time thinking about God, myself. I do try to understand people who do.

Godless Dave

The empty tomb argument seems like the sword in the stone argument. If Arthur wasn't the rightful king of Britain, how could he have pulled the sword from the stone?

Godless Dave

Says who? 20 years is more than long enough for false stories to develop in modern times. I was getting false stories in my inbox 20 days after 9/11, some of which are still believed by many people, despite being shown to be false.