Christianity versus Naturalism (Atheism)
. . . which view is credible?
Using physical evidence
This page presents and discusses "physical evidence" related to the historic person of Jesus Christ. A substantial amount of archaeological evidence has been unearthed, which makes the Christian faith credible. And since external evidence supports the Christian faith, we can compare the Naturalists (Atheist) world view to the Christian world view (using math as a decision-making tool). This evidence leads to two very important questions related to spiritual beliefs.
- How credible is a spiritual belief system if it only uses a book as its spiritual guide with no external evidence to support it?
- How credible is the Naturalists (Atheist) belief system since it requires people to believe in imaginary universes that will never be verified to exist?
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Did Jesus Die on the Cross,
(then Rise from the Dead)?
What is the physical evidence that supports Jesus was a historic character that died on the cross?
How can we analyze this evidence?
To begin, physical evidence discovered in the 20th century verifies New Testament characters existed, who according to the New Testament were eyewitnesses to Jesus' death on the cross. The biblical texts claim that some of these eyewitnesses later became Christians and proclaimed that Jesus conquered death by rising from the dead.
However, the most important "key" to bringing this information to bear on finding spiritual truth is based on answering a basic question using physical evidence. This question and the evidence confront the Naturalists (Atheist) belief system. "Why did early skeptics of Jesus become Christians?"
This question can be evaluated using math as a "decision-making" tool.
Consider the Naturalists (Atheist) viewpoint, which assumes that supernatural events are not possible. According to Naturalists (Atheists), even though Jesus died on the cross, Jesus could not have risen from the dead since it is a supernatural event. Two foundational ideas, based on science and archaeological evidence confront the Naturalists world view as follows:
- Scientific Evidence that Confronts Naturalists: The Naturalist (Atheist) world view requires a person to believe that the only universe we know exists to have began as a completely random event. Scientists believe that an energy source exists that caused our universe and multitudes of "unseen" universes to have begun. We are the "lucky" ones since we live a universe that somehow evolved life by chance.
Several insurmountable problems confront this belief system. To begin, the energy source or "mother universe" cannot be subject the natural laws of thermodynamics. Otherwise, the universe we know about would have run down an eternity ago. Logic and science require this conclusion. Since the mother universe would not be capable of running down, it would exist in a state above natural law. In other words, it has become a necessity to refer to the mother universe as a supernatural energy source (not subject to decay like our universe). Therefore, we logically arrive at the requirement of a supernatural source for our universe as well as all the "unseen" universes to exist.
The paragraphs above reveal that the denial of a supernatural source is flawed at its foundation. The assumption that supernatural events cannot occur has no valid support mechanism based on logic and the laws of thermodynamics. It is logical to derive that for any universe to exist, a supernatural source is required. This concept combined with the next few paragraphs leads to the idea that assuming Jesus could not have risen from the dead is a logically flawed assumption made by naturalists.
How much faith is required to believe that unseen universes exist?
Since the Naturalist (Atheist) is required to believe in unseen universes that no one has ever observed, this world view requires blind faith. The amount of faith required is equivalent to the size of untold numbers of unseen universes (gargantuan blind faith is required). Logic and scientific evidence support that the Naturalist (Atheist) belief system is flawed at its foundation due to the blind faith requirement, which is the source of spiritual deception.
- Archaeological Evidence Confronts Naturalists: Did Jesus rise from the dead based on the evidence of skeptics becoming Christians?
Biblical texts claim that skeptics became Christians only when they saw Jesus resurrected. For that reason, if Jesus did not die on the cross and rise from the dead, no skeptics of Jesus would have become Christians. Without evidence, skeptics continue living as skeptics.
The greatest skeptic of the early Christians was Saul of Tarsus, who went about terrorizing Christians. Saul declared, “I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, . . . I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus
” (
Acts 22:4-5).
Since Saul had letters addressed to Christians living in Damascus, he traveled there to arrest them. But as Saul walked to Damascus, something happened. "About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, `Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?' " `Who are you, Lord?' I asked. " `I am Jesus of Nazareth.” (Acts 22:6-8). As a result, Saul became the Apostle Paul, who worked to spread faith in Christ across the Roman Empire. Is Paul’s story true?
Luke recorded Paul’s travels in the book of Acts. Imagine going into a town with Paul and recording “unique details” such as their legal system, language, titles of local rulers, etc. And when you travel to the next town, unique details are again recorded for those people. Was Luke’s record true or fictional?
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In the past 200 years, details related to Paul’s travels have been found, such as ancient papyri, burial tombs, and other items. Scholars have studied this evidence to conclude that Luke’s writing is accurate. Luke (and Paul ) had to be there to write such unique and accurate details.1
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On the next page, scholarly research that compares archaeological evidence to biblical texts support that the Christian world view is credible at the 99.9% confidence level.
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Archaeological Evidence Validates the book of Acts
References for Research:
1: Hemer, Colin J., The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, data taken from "Specific Local Knowledge" pages 109 - 158. Dr. Hemer is a classic scholar, whose research led him to conclude a written date of AD 62 for the book of Acts.
1: White, Jefferson, Evidence and Paul's Journeys
Return to Reference 1
