Dear, Dr. Shermer

Dear,
Dr. Shermer

Christ prayed before the cross that the church would be unified, so men wouldn't doubt Him. Sweat blood actually. Which is an actual medical condition. Then, he died of a heart attack where the water lining cushioning his lungs and heart was ruptured, and it poured out His side when the Roman pierced Him.

Frankly, out of those 34,000 denominations of Christians, a very small number of them are heretical in the traditional sense. Christianity is complicated. And like all complicated things, people are going to have differing opinions about minutia stuff---such as whether there's free will or choice, which is probably what fractures the church the most. In my estimation, both. I believe Free Will and Determinism exist simultaneously. It's just human folly to believe that it's an either/or problem.

This gets to the meat and potatoes of why I believe in Christ. A Carpenter's Bastard, somehow develops a moral philosophy more cogent than Aristotle, Plato, Mozi, Confucius, Maimonides, Socrates, Lao Tsu and the entire schema of prior Religious Thinkers combined. I find that a miracle in itself. The fact that Christ's morality is more cogent than any other in history. Men find radical grasps at it---but Christ's is so self evident and He with no education finds this. He's either a genius---a very superb genius---with godlike intellect, or He's actually God.

And, it's unlikely His apostles would have even suffered an ounce if they had believed He didn't raise from the dead. People don't die for what they expressly don't believe. Men don't fight in revolutions for a cause that they think isn't worth dying for. So, it's about a 100% chance that the disciples saw Jesus after He died. And, the medical evidence found in the Bible suggests that He only could have died. 

And if you're going to suggest that he had a twin---I highly doubt that's the case. As, His birth records and death certificate are still housed at the Vatican, and no record exists of Him having a twin. I've had professors who've seen the certificate, and the Vatican hides it because it says something different than what the Gospel say. But, frankly, it's just what the Pharisees wanted to put above Jesus' cross in the first place. So, it's actually more convincing on that account.

It's almost hard to deny the evidence that Jesus is God. I've studied it for so long, listened to so many different debates on it---even what Academia commonly distributes about the Gospel and Judaism confirms what the Bible says. They interpret the facts, but the facts on their own prove what the Bible has already been saying. A good example of this is the so called "Cult of Righteousness" that turns up in Mesopotamia around the establishment of the Hammurabi's Code. Well, genealogically Abraham lines up right with that, if you backdate the records of Genealogies from the Persian Restoration of Israel. And Moses, coincidentally, lines up right with the Cult of Aten. And that's interesting because what on earth would cause a Pharaoh to abandon polytheism? I'd think seeing frogs fall from the sky, the Nile turn to blood and the Red Sea parted would be a good reason for him to convert to Monotheism.

Anyways, there's also the direct reference to Jesus in Zechariah 3 and 6. It quotes Him by name. There's Isaiah 53, there's Psalm 2 and 22, which are all proven to exist prior to Christ and Christianity. There's plenty of evidence that Jesus is the LORD. Too much, actually, for it to be ignored by someone like myself.

Now, I'm a big fan of Lucretius, as I just bought him today. I understand your arguments. But, the fact remains that it would make sense that if there were a God, He would directly reveal Himself to the world. And I think He did that through Prophets and Apostles, and at the center of that He came Himself and demonstrated what He meant. Leviticus 27:29 literally says that a man devoted to God must die. Abraham had to sacrifice Isaac, and God stopped him and said "I will Provide". I'm a student of literature. That seems more consistent, in theme, than most books have. 

There's a few errors in the Modern Bible. But, even that, I think Kierkegaard is right that the faith is more important than the object of faith. Because the Bible gets significantly more right than those very trivial details it gets wrong. Very trivial. And frankly, I don't trust Archeology is a complete enough field to reject the Bible's claims. And what the Bible says is often corroborated by Archeology, like the Tel Dan Stele, Nebuchadnezzar Chronicles, Isaiah 53 in the Dead Sea Scrolls---there's tons more. And then the ubiquity of flood myths. Even in the Americas there's flood myths. I mean, it's almost 100% certain that God is the God of the Bible.

Sincerely,
B. K. Neifert