The terrifying thought of no afterlife

[Persimmon Hamster]

Did you miss the part where I said there is verifiable historical data that does not appeal to the Church or the New Testament?

You originally claimed this verifiable historical data does not appeal to the inspiration of the New Testament.  I took that to mean that the argument does not rest on the Bible being "divinely inspired", not that it does not rest on anything in the Bible.  Are you saying that the Bible is entirely absent from the argument?  If this is true then let's hear your "verifiable historical data".

To try and veer this back on topic

Nice try.

I've got two points for you to consider:

1) Read your first post in this thread.  Read the original, #1 post in this thread (which is what traditionally defines the "topic" of discussion).  Then read both again.  And again.  Until it becomes as apparent to you as it is to me that your very own first post was not "on topic" in any strict sense.  Hint: look for the question asked by the original poster and then ask yourself honestly whether your first post was any kind of answer to it.

2) Your self-imposed topic in this discussion, beginning with your first post, has been Pascal's wager.  If you continue to assert that your interpretation of God and the associated afterlife is correct, it will forever remain "on topic" (as far as your position is concerned) to question the basis for that interpretation.  Do you wish to drop this assertion now and contemplate the idea of "life after death" in general, divorced from concepts of God/heaven/hell?  If so, fine -- but that means you can't bring them into your arguments from here on or you will yourself have veered off the topic as you have now redefined it.

Davin, I'll bring up some studies here in just a moment but before PH responds I would like to bring out the following:

I would like to recommend three books related to the historical Jesus topic that helped me a lot in my own journey, since this was a big issue for me as well.

If you wish to draw in a specific argument from a particular source, feel free, I will address it.  I'm not going to spend my entire day reading every one of your links & books to piece together your argument by myself, just to further discussion with a person who so far has shown little interest in actually responding to counterpoint.  Note, however, that I have read skeptical evaluations of a couple of the books you've mentioned so far, and I've also listened to some debates on the subject and have read some other things online.  I remain so wholly unconvinced of any kind of verifiable argument for the resurrection that even the phrase "I remain unconvinced" might suggest too high a degree of possible convincedness.

[Ihateyoumike]

Did you miss the part where I said there is verifiable historical data that does not appeal to the Church or the New Testament?

Oh. Well if Achronos says it's verifiable, then I -for one- will accept it without question or need to actually see any proof.
 
 

[Achronos]

Yet Christians have moral and objective basis for their argumentation, and its logical end is love.

Hello Achronos,

I have no intent to prove that your God does not exist as I cannot prove it. I am not going to spend time reading the literature you are pointing out as I know as yet there is no conclusive proof that your God exists.

What I am interested in is your statement with regards to the logical end of love you have stated with regards to Christians. With this in mind can you please tell me your stance on the following:

Recreational sex
Contraception
Premarital sex
Divorce
Homosexual intercourse
People that perform homosexual intercourse
Euthanasia
Women equality within the Church (let's face it, the top positions are only going to men)

http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/3/14.aspx
Should be a start, but for your last question

[Achronos]

If you wish to draw in a specific argument from a particular source, feel free, I will address it.  I'm not going to spend my entire day reading every one of your links & books to piece together your argument by myself, just to further discussion with a person who so far has shown little interest in actually responding to counterpoint.  Note, however, that I have read skeptical evaluations of a couple of the books you've mentioned so far, and I've also listened to some debates on the subject and have read some other things online.  I remain so wholly unconvinced of any kind of verifiable argument for the resurrection that even the phrase "I remain unconvinced" might suggest too high a degree of possible convincedness.

Quit your arrogance. If you can't bother to read a couple of books, there is no reason to respect your claim to have any interest in the subject, and much less your pose of intellectual argumentation. If you want to stand on the ground of reason, intelligence and culture, reading source material is the very least you have to do about any topic. In school, in university, in life. Put your time and effort where your mouth is.

By the way, I was not making a point. I was giving you a study schedule. You obviously lack even the premisses to comprehand an argument in this issue and has to acquire them, a fact that would not have to be addressed explicitily had you not tried to vest your ignorance with a gelatinous mask of intellectual superiority that I doubt that even you believe. Reading just one side of the argument is not "intelligence", is just your laziness showing and you know that. It will not be easy to be the kind of person you're pretending to be. Be humble and get to study.

[Stevil]

I can see a trend here, rather than simply answering questions with succinct and to the point answers you simply refer to very lengthy and convoluted published material and put the hones on the questioner to try and find the answers. I could spend a lot of time reading all this just to glean a very small amount of useful information.

What I have found so far is
"the Church does not sanctifies marriages contracted between the Orthodox and non-Christians", "provided the marriage is blessed in the Orthodox Church and the children are raised in the Orthodox faith"
Which shows me that the love of your beloved Faith does not freely accept people of other faiths, and they provide conditions as to the love they have to offer. These conditions would be conflicting with the conditions of other faiths and hence a seeming acceptance is actually a clear statement of nonacceptance.

"The Church insists that spouses should remain faithful for life and that Orthodox marriage is indissoluble"
Your faith is intolerant of the ability for people to change as time goes by, intolerant of people falling out of love and would rather people live in potentially a loveless and unhappy marriage rather than to accept that changes have happened and it is time to move on and find Love elsewhere. The love of your faith does not appear to be concerned or interested in the love that is within the lives of its followers.

"the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, recognised as valid, besides adultery and a new marriage of one of the party, such grounds as a spouse's falling away from Orthodoxy, perversion, impotence which had set in before marriage or was self-inflicted, contraction of leper or syphilis, prolonged disappearance, conviction with disfranchisement, encroachment on the life or health of the spouse, love affair with a daughter in law, profiting from marriage, profiting by the spouse's indecencies, incurable mental disease and malevolent abandonment of the spouse"
So here your faith has overridden the word of God as it is in the bible. I guess either God does not know best or possibly God did not think of these situations and hence a revision was necessary. This revised interpretation still does not consider the love between the two people it affects.

"the Church cannot misconstrue the words of St. Paul about the special responsibility of husband who is called to be «the head of the wife» who loves her as Christ loves His Church, and about the calling of the wife to obey the husband as the Church obeys Christ"
It's nice to know that your faith sticks to the bible when it suits them. Man is the boss, woman is to obey. That is some kind of love.

"Fornication inevitably ruins the harmony and integrity of one's life, damaging heavily one's spiritual health"
Wow, it seems that the churches stance is that Fornication is evil and not part of love. It's a wonder why God gave men and woman such dangerous body parts as penises and vaginas. I guess God has been known to make mistakes, maybe the Orthodox Church can fix God's mistakes by enforcing rules around the appropriate time and nature of using these dangerous body parts.

"mass culture sometimes become instruments of moral corruption by praising sexual laxity, all kinds of sexual perversion and other sinful passions."
Another indication on how intolerant your faith is. Your followers are perverted and sinful they should feel guilt and remorse not love.

"the Church cannot support those programs of «sexual education» in which premarital intercourse and, all the more so, various perversions are recognised as the norm. It is absolutely unacceptable to impose such programs upon schoolchildren. School is called to oppose vice which erodes the integrity of the personality, to educate children for chastity and prepare them for creating solid families based on faithfulness and purity."
Here your faith is advising to deny the realities of life, to ignore what is actually happening and only to support what the church sees as a moral stance. Does this mean that the Church is turning their backs on those that stray, offering no support, help or guidance. To me this seems a very loveless hard line. I for one will support my children whom I love without condition, I will always be there for them as long as I am alive. I will accept them for who they are, for being mortal humans, for making mistakes and I will provide all the love that I have. To me my children will always be pure, their sexual activities do not in anyway impact my perception of the purity of my children. Does this mean I am more accepting, more forgiving, more loving than your church and/or your God? If so, how does one go about applying for a sainthood?

"In case of a direct threat to the life of a mother if her pregnancy continues, especially if she has other children, it is recommended to be lenient in the pastoral practice. The woman who interrupted pregnancy in this situation shall not be excluded from the Eucharistic communion with the Church provided that she has fulfilled the canon of Penance assigned by the priest who takes her confession."
So here we have a statement that a woman who chooses to have an abortion so that she herself can live should be made to feel guilty (above how bad she may already be feeling) and should perform Penance. It also seems if she doesn't already have a child then instead of having an abortion she should sacrifice her life for the possibility of carrying this only child to term. I struggle to see the logic in this one, what does it matter if she has had a child previously or not. It also does not seem to show love by suggesting she should sacrifice her life.

I don't think I will go through the whole page you gave me a link to as I think I have highlighted enough cases that show the love of the Christians especially those following the Orthodox faith.

[Achronos]

What I have found so far is
"the Church does not sanctifies marriages contracted between the Orthodox and non-Christians", "provided the marriage is blessed in the Orthodox Church and the children are raised in the Orthodox faith"
Which shows me that the love of your beloved Faith does not freely accept people of other faiths, and they provide conditions as to the love they have to offer. These conditions would be conflicting with the conditions of other faiths and hence a seeming acceptance is actually a clear statement of nonacceptance.

First, your wording makes no sense - the Church does not sanctifies...and then...provided the marriage is blessed in the Orthodox Church.

The Church allows Christians to marry.  Therefore, if one partner is Orthodoxy, they are allowed to marry another Christian.  However, not a Muslim, Budhist, Hindu, etc.  Faith should be at the core of your life.  Therefore, if do not share core beliefs, how do you expect that marriage to last?  It's not that Orthodoxy does not accept people of other faiths...it's that Orthodoxy views marriage as a Sacrament.

"The Church insists that spouses should remain faithful for life and that Orthodox marriage is indissoluble"
Your faith is intolerant of the ability for people to change as time goes by, intolerant of people falling out of love and would rather people live in potentially a loveless and unhappy marriage rather than to accept that changes have happened and it is time to move on and find Love elsewhere. The love of your faith does not appear to be concerned or interested in the love that is within the lives of its followers.

"the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, recognised as valid, besides adultery and a new marriage of one of the party, such grounds as a spouse's falling away from Orthodoxy, perversion, impotence which had set in before marriage or was self-inflicted, contraction of leper or syphilis, prolonged disappearance, conviction with disfranchisement, encroachment on the life or health of the spouse, love affair with a daughter in law, profiting from marriage, profiting by the spouse's indecencies, incurable mental disease and malevolent abandonment of the spouse"
So here your faith has overridden the word of God as it is in the bible. I guess either God does not know best or possibly God did not think of these situations and hence a revision was necessary. This revised interpretation still does not consider the love between the two people it affects.

...the Church does not tell anyone they should divorce.  If they are still in love, even if one or the other has committed any of the things you mentioned...by all means, stay together.

However, if one of the two feels their life is in danger, or that their spouse has broken their oath...then, while not recommended, they may still divorce.  There is such a thing in Orthodoxy as Economia.

"the Church cannot misconstrue the words of St. Paul about the special responsibility of husband who is called to be «the head of the wife» who loves her as Christ loves His Church, and about the calling of the wife to obey the husband as the Church obeys Christ"
It's nice to know that your faith sticks to the bible when it suits them. Man is the boss, woman is to obey. That is some kind of love.

Key words..."as Christ loves His Church".  Christ would never do any harm to the Church.  Therefore, the woman obeys her husband only to the point he does no harm.  If for some reason he asks or does things against the Faith, she does NOT need to obey.

"Fornication inevitably ruins the harmony and integrity of one's life, damaging heavily one's spiritual health"
Wow, it seems that the churches stance is that Fornication is evil and not part of love. It's a wonder why God gave men and woman such dangerous body parts as penises and vaginas. I guess God has been known to make mistakes, maybe the Orthodox Church can fix God's mistakes by enforcing rules around the appropriate time and nature of using these dangerous body parts.

Well, let's see..."fornicating" with a different partner each day, with no emotional bonds....yes, I can see how that might be good for a person...NOT!  Are you for real?

"mass culture sometimes become instruments of moral corruption by praising sexual laxity, all kinds of sexual perversion and other sinful passions."
Another indication on how intolerant your faith is. Your followers are perverted and sinful they should feel guilt and remorse not love.

Orthodoxy is most tolerant of things that benefit the soul.  The things you mentioned, don't.  You should feel guilt if you have done something immoral...otherwise you are a psychopath.

"the Church cannot support those programs of «sexual education» in which premarital intercourse and, all the more so, various perversions are recognised as the norm. It is absolutely unacceptable to impose such programs upon schoolchildren. School is called to oppose vice which erodes the integrity of the personality, to educate children for chastity and prepare them for creating solid families based on faithfulness and purity."
Here your faith is advising to deny the realities of life, to ignore what is actually happening and only to support what the church sees as a moral stance. Does this mean that the Church is turning their backs on those that stray, offering no support, help or guidance. To me this seems a very loveless hard line. I for one will support my children whom I love without condition, I will always be there for them as long as I am alive. I will accept them for who they are, for being mortal humans, for making mistakes and I will provide all the love that I have. To me my children will always be pure, their sexual activities do not in anyway impact my perception of the purity of my children. Does this mean I am more accepting, more forgiving, more loving than your church and/or your God? If so, how does one go about applying for a sainthood?

The Church is always there to help everyone. The doors are never closed to any believer. In fact, they can get all manner of guidance and assistance from the clergy for any issues they might be battling with.

"In case of a direct threat to the life of a mother if her pregnancy continues, especially if she has other children, it is recommended to be lenient in the pastoral practice. The woman who interrupted pregnancy in this situation shall not be excluded from the Eucharistic communion with the Church provided that she has fulfilled the canon of Penance assigned by the priest who takes her confession."
So here we have a statement that a woman who chooses to have an abortion so that she herself can live should be made to feel guilty (above how bad she may already be feeling) and should perform Penance. It also seems if she doesn't already have a child then instead of having an abortion she should sacrifice her life for the possibility of carrying this only child to term. I struggle to see the logic in this one, what does it matter if she has had a child previously or not. It also does not seem to show love by suggesting she should sacrifice her life.

The reason for considering "previous" children is not to leave them motherless, if she dies during the current pregnancy.  

Additionally, she not made to feel "guilty"...but, the Church helps her to get over her loss...not repress the loss of the unborn child, but, work through it.

I don't think I will go through the whole page you gave me a link to as I think I have highlighted enough cases that show the love of the Christians especially those following the Orthodox faith.

The love is there....but, you seem not to see it.  I think you need to do some self examination before you throw accusations on the Orthodox Church.

All your issues are simply with you, not with the Church.  You see them, because you want to see them.  You make issues where none exist.

Praying the negativity you have leaves you, and that you find peace and love.

Take a deep breath....let it out.

Here's a cyber hug!

[Persimmon Hamster]

Quit your arrogance. If you can't bother to read a couple of books, there is no reason to respect your claim to have any interest in the subject, and much less your pose of intellectual argumentation. If you want to stand on the ground of reason, intelligence and culture, reading source material is the very least you have to do about any topic. In school, in university, in life. Put your time and effort where your mouth is.

So, because I do not want to spend a tremendous amount of time reading the same tired, regurgitated apologist arguments that you are feeding me in substitute for your own thoughts (arguments which I have already considered), I am ignorant and arrogant?

Your assumption that I have not already read & contemplated enough to be convinced of my own position is entirely incorrect.  I have.  But I am not about to dive in and explain every single angle you might argue preemptively, and why they are all unfounded or circular, because by the time I am finished I'll have written my own book and I don't expect you or anybody else would pay me for it.

I asked you to offer specific points here and then we can address them.  You seem to be attempting to weasel out of an honest debate by putting the burden of understanding your personal position in its entirety upon me and me alone.  You say "well I am right because the Resurrection has been proven as fact and here are all of the resources that will reveal this to you but I don't feel like explaining it myself".  For this, I could similarly make wild accusations about your own ignorance and arrogance -- I could easily suggest you aren't even familiar enough with the material you reference to present it to me yourself, couldn't I?  But I don't assume that, I just ask you to present the important points of your case yourself, directly, here -- not by proxy.  If your answer is "go read all of these books" then what do I need you for?  I could easily refer you to books & articles against your argument, that others have written, but then what do you need me for?  You can do independent research all by yourself.  So can I.  This is supposed to be a discussion between two (or more) individuals on a forum, not a debate by proxy in which we toss books others have written at one another.  You can certainly cite things as you make your case, but to expect me to read a giant list just to have the "honor" of entering into debate with you is ridiculous.

By the way, I was not making a point. I was giving you a study schedule. You obviously lack even the premisses to comprehand an argument in this issue and has to acquire them, a fact that would not have to be addressed explicitily had you not tried to vest your ignorance with a gelatinous mask of intellectual superiority that I doubt that even you believe. Reading just one side of the argument is not "intelligence", is just your laziness showing and you know that. It will not be easy to be the kind of person you're pretending to be. Be humble and get to study.

Keep telling yourself all of that.  It won't make it any more true.

[Persimmon Hamster]

I can see a trend here, rather than simply answering questions with succinct and to the point answers you simply refer to very lengthy and convoluted published material and put the hones on the questioner to try and find the answers. I could spend a lot of time reading all this just to glean a very small amount of useful information.

Ding!  We have a winner!

[Gawen]

I can see a trend here, rather than simply answering questions with succinct and to the point answers you simply refer to very lengthy and convoluted published material and put the hones on the questioner to try and find the answers.

Yes. That his MO, so far. And that's why I'm about to debunk Strobel for him.

I noticed, Achronos, that you listed Lee Strobel at the top of your list in a post on the last page. Here's a critique on Strobel's The Case for Christ.
Lee Strobel is an ex-investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune who describes himself as a "former spiritual skeptic” and now a teaching pastor. You will find, after reading this that Strobel does not know the meaning of investigating and balanced reporting.

The Case for Christ is a summary of Strobel's interviews with thirteen leading Evangelical apologists. He did not interview any critics of Christian apologetics, even though he attacks them in the book. Strobel devotes a chapter to his interview of Greg Boyd, a  faultfinder of the Jesus Seminar. Strobel does not interview a member of the Jesus Seminar. On the other hand, he repeatedly criticizes Michael Martin, author of Case Against Christianity, but he never bothers to get Martin's responses to his attacks. One may be tempted to dismiss the entire book on this alone.
 
The book asks the reader in the preface to shelve all subjectivity and view both sides of the topic. It then plunges into logical fallacies and spin-doctoring. Not that I mind Strobel presenting only one side of an argument â€" he is after all making a ‘case’. However, to pretend that he had any objectivity at all makes Strobel’s intentions suspect from the first page.
This book is for Christians by a Christian apologist.
Strobel examines five areas of what he believes constitutes evidence:
1) The eyewitness evidence,
2) Documentary evidence,
3) Corroborating evidence,
4) Scientific evidence, and
5) Rebuttal evidence.

Eyewitness Evidence
Strobel devotes two chapters for Craig Blomberg and the four gospels. Blomberg acknowledges that "strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous" (p. 26). Yet, Blomberg turns about face and suggests that the four gospels were in fact written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and that the canonical gospels are eyewitness testimony. According to Blomberg, this fact is confirmed by Papias and Irenaeus.  Blomberg dismisses the Q hypothesis as "nothing more than a hypothesis" (p. 31).
Yet the two - source hypothesis-that Matthew and Luke were written with a copy of Mark and Q in front of them - is not just some arbitrary assumption. If the two-source hypothesis is correct, Matthew and Luke are based heavily on Mark. It is therefore unlikely that Matthew and Luke constitute independent accounts. Moreover, the traditional authorship of Mark is open to serious question. Finally, it seems John has been heavily edited.

Blomberg says, "If [early] critics could have attacked it on the basis that it was full of falsehoods or distortions, they would have" (p. 66). Yet Edwin Yamauchi (also interviewed in Stobel's book) gives the decisive objection to this fallacious argument from silence just 48 pages later. As Yamauchi points out, "When people begin religious movements, it's often not until many generations later that people record things about them" (p. 114).
This was certainly the case with early Christianity. Robert L. Wilken, a Christian historian, notes, "For almost a century Christianity went unnoticed by most men and women in the Roman Empire. ... [Non-Christians] saw the Christian community as a tiny, peculiar, antisocial, irreligious sect, drawing its adherents from the lower strata of society."

Strobel asks, "How can we be sure that the material about Jesus' life and teachings was well preserved for thirty years before it was finally written down in the gospels?" (p. 53). Blomberg replies, the disciples lived in an "oral culture, in which there was great emphasis placed on memorization" (p. 53). Yet psychological studies have shown that human memory is often incredibly unreliable, especially when it is memory of an unusual event and the older that memory gets, oral traditions (about Jesus) are more than likely not historically accurate. Either way, Strobel never addresses the point.

Documentary Evidence
Metzger points out, we have many ancient copies of the New Testament than we have of Homer's Iliad or Tacitus's Annals of Imperial Rome. Since I am not aware of any classical scholar who seriously questions the textual reliability of those works, I am willing to accept the textual reliability of the New Testament. What I don't accept is the empirical accuracy of the New Testament.

Strobel asks, "What about allegations that church councils omitted legitimate documents because they didn't like the picture of Jesus they portrayed?" (p. 85). Metzger:  "the New Testament contains the best sources for the historicity of Jesus" (p. 87). This next part, Achronos, you're going to like since you're so wrapped up in church history. He (Metzger) says the early church adopted three criteria in evaluating documents for inclusion in the New Testament:
•   Was the book written by an apostle or by a follower of an apostle?
•   Did the book conform with what Christians already believed?
•   Had the book been continuously accepted and used by the church at large? (p. 86)
Metzger admits that "church councils squelched equally legitimate documents because they didn't like the picture of Jesus they portrayed!"
Now, consider the implications of that statement:
(i)   Excludes a priori the testimony of non-Christian historians;
(ii)   Rules out the possibility of books that did not conform to what Christians already believed; and
(iii)   Ensures that only books popular with the Church were accepted.
 
The implications of this are obvious. If, say, the first-century Roman historian Suetonius had written a book documenting in intricate detail that the Resurrection was a hoax, the early church would have excluded such a book from the New Testament. Therefore, the criteria for inclusion to the Canon identified by Metzger do not support his claims of historical reliability. To paraphrase a comment made by Strobel, these criteria were "loaded from the outset, like dice that are weighted so they yield the result that was desired all along" (p. 156).
Had enough of Strobel yet? If he's still your hero, read on.

Corroborating Evidence
Edwin Yamauchi for extra-biblical evidence that confirms the New Testament. Yamauchi first mentions Josephus's references to Jesus, stating that both the shorter and longer references provide independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus (pp. 101-107). I think it is significant that Strobel did not interview someone who rejects the authenticity of both of these references. More important, the references to Jesus in Josephus don't corroborate the central theological claims of Jesus. Josephus does not provide any corroborating evidence for the virgin birth, divinity, miracles, or Resurrection of Jesus.

Yamauchi also claims that other ancient sources provide independent confirmation:
Tacitus,
Pliny the Younger,
Thallus,
the Talmud,
and the writings of the early church fathers.
Frankly, there is no good reason to believe that any of these sources provide any good evidence at all. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Tacitus referred to the resurrection, as Strobel suggests. Indeed, one wonders if Yamauchi rejects that interpretation, given that Yamauchi "ducked" Strobel's request for an opinion (p. 108).
There is no reason to believe that Tacitus or Pliny the Younger relied on independent sources. As for Thallus, the date of his writing is not known and therefore the reference could be based on Christian sources. Furthermore, it is not known that Africanus correctly interpreted Thallus. As the NT scholar R.T. France writes, Africanus does not give Thallus' words, "so we do not know whether Thallus actually mentioned Jesus' crucifixion, or whether this was Africanus' interpretation of a period of darkness which Thallus had not specifically linked with Jesus."
The Talmud is inconclusive because it is late and much of the Talmudic portrayal of Jesus is a polemical response to Christian claims. Finally, the writings of the church fathers do not provide any independent confirmation; they were late and based on earlier Christian sources. But Strobel finds this as positive proof. Go figure.

Scientific Evidence
John McRay notes that archaeology "doesn't confirm that what Jesus Christ said is right. Spiritual truths cannot be proved or disproved by archaeological discoveries" (p. 127). However, Strobel argues that archaeology can increase the overall credibility of an ancient text if it shows the empirical claims of the text to be accurate. According to McRay, archaeology provides precisely that sort of evidence concerning the gospels. McRay claims that archaeological discoveries have corroborated several of the incidental details of Luke, and that archaeology has bolstered the credibility of John and Mark. But...

Yet at least three stories of the gospels are suspicious:
1) The census in Luke claims that Augustus initiated a worldwide census; that a Roman census took place in Judaea or Galilee before the death of Herod in 4 BCE and that Quirinius was governor of Syria before 6 CE. Many historians reject these claims, arguing that there is no support for any of these claims and that the idea of an empire-wide tax is contrary to documented Roman practice. As for Luke's claim the authors of Luke simply conflated the death of Herod (4 BCE) and the exile of Archelaus and the incorporation of Judaea into the empire (CE 6).  Historian Larry Taylor writes, "Fitzmyer, in the Anchor Bible, surveys the wreckage of all the attempts to save the accuracy of Luke. All of the approaches are failures."

2) The existence of Nazareth - Although there are no references to Nazareth in any written source outside the gospels before the fourth century, it is possible that Nazareth existed. Even Earl Doherty (a person I admire highly), writes, "It is impossible to 'establish' that Nazareth did not exist in the early first century, since no one tells us this fact. And ... no one makes statements or offers other evidence which would lead us to draw such a conclusion."  The existence of Nazareth is simply not intrinsically improbable.
 
3) Matthew's claim that Herod ordered the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem is unlikely because the Gospel of Matthew is the only source to report this alleged event. McRay offers various reasons why the incident would not have been of interest to other biblical writers. It is more than likely that the Slaughter of the Innocents never happened. Even Strobel admits it is "difficult to imagine" that no other writer mentioned this event (p. 140).

There are many stories completely unsupported by biblical archaeology. Here’s three more: 1) The three hours of darkness during the crucifixion (Mark 15:33 and synoptic parallels)
2) The resurrection of the saints, and their subsequent appearance to many in Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53)
3) The Jesus's tomb has never been located.
If some are suspicious, then all must be seen as possibly suspicious until they are not.

Strobel sometimes refutes at great length objections not made by critics (the claim that Jesus was mentally insane). He doesn't address objections the critics do make. For those of us who are primarily interested in the truth, however, we want to hear both sides of the story. One assertion after another is unchallenged. Metzger claims there are over 5000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, so the reader is left with the impression that each manuscript is evidence of the reliability of Scripture. But Strobel fails to ask how many of those 5000 are actually useful for determining the actual text. Strobel fails to ask how many centuries have passed between the time of Jesus and the time the vast majority of those manuscripts were written.
Notice how many times I said "Strobel fails"?

Donald Carson claims that Jesus fits the profile of God revealed in the Old Testament. Surely not, but Strobel should have asked Carson about Marcion, who found no similarity between YahWeh and Jesus, and in fact claimed they were two entirely different deities.

Blomberg claims that the disciples all died martyrs deaths (except John), giving added weight to their witness of the Resurrection. This assertion by Blomberg was left unchallenged by Strobel. How do we know how any of the disciples died and evidences that we have for their deaths? The reason is that the accounts of their deaths are from legendary sources.

If Christ has a case to be made, that case should stand up against the strongest argument Strobel can build. Yet Strobel is content with the weakest of arguments, leaving any obvious follow-up challenges unasked. And like any good objective book, the fact that it includes instructions on how to ‘receive Jesus into your heart’, leaves Strobel hawking Christianity like bad Amway.  
As far as I’m concerned, Strobel's work is religious propaganda by a journalist who left his professional skills at the Tribune along with any concept of a logical argument. It also makes me wonder if Strobel had any professionalism when he worked at the Tribune.

I'm not done yet. Let's look at Vardaman and the conflict between the date of the Nativity in Luke versus Matthew. Luke 2:1-2 claims that Jesus was born while Quirinus was governor of Syria. Josephus says the birth could have only taken place after Herod died, and after his successor, Archelaus, was deposed. But Matthew 2:1-3 claims that Jesus was born when Herod was alive (See also Matthew 2:7-16).
Since Quirinius was not governor until 6 CE, and Herod died in 4 BCE, these two passages seem to contradict each other.
But here’s how Strobel attempts to resolve the problem. He posits that there was either a second Quirinius, who was proconsul in Syria from 11 BCE to the death of Herod, or that Quirinius was governor on two subsequent occasions, one of which coincided with the rule of Herod the Great.
Well, that’s fairly reasonable. What’s Strobel’s evidence? From the bottom of page 101: “An eminent archaeologist named Jerry Vardaman has done a great deal of work in this regard. He has found a coin with the name of Quirinius on it in very small writing, or what we call ‘micrographic’ letters. This places him as proconsul of Syria and Cilicia from 11 B.C. until after the death of Herod.”  The problem is that Jerry Vardaman is not an “eminent archaeologist.”
Vardaman a complete and utter crackpot, described by other professionals as “insane” and fabricated this story beyond all reasonable belief. Vardaman claims to have found coins from the Roman Empire with teeny-tiny letters inscribed on them - that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye. In these ‘microletters’, seen only by Vardaman, we find the reference to the second Quirinius (and all sorts of other crackpot claims).

Now, there are a few obvious problems with Vardaman’s claims:
1. Vardaman has never published any of his accounts in any peer-reviewed journal, or ever subjected his work on ‘microletters’ to any critical review of any kind by any other party.
2. Probably most damning, Vardaman has never produced any of the coins that he claims contain micrographic letters. Nor has he produced, say, photo enlargements of the coins. Instead, he’s produced hand-written drawings of what he says the coins look like.
3. Comically, those drawings of coins dating back to the first century CE contain the letter ‘J’ â€" even though the ‘J’ was not invented for another nine centuries.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other obvious errors in Vardaman’s so-called “scholarship;” you can read for yourself.

Strobel has been confronted about the Vardaman claims dating back to 2004 from Richard Carrier (another man I admire). Strobel repeated the same claims while appearing on the John Kasich program on FOX. Strobel called Vardaman’s magic-Js-microletters-invisible-two-Quirinius-coins as “the strongest example of archaeological confirmation” that the Bible is true.
Seriously.
 
Now, that statement in red above, by Strobel, is a lie. It’s a lie that any reasonable researcher would have recognized from the moment he was told about it. It’s a claim so indefensible that it even arose the hackles of the folks at the conservative Christian apologists - Real Clear Theology.

The Vardaman example shows exactly the kind of approach Strobel takes to these “interviews.” They are not the critical, hard-hitting questions of an investigation journalist â€" they are the exact opposite; they’re uncritical, unquestioning, sycophantic suck-up questions to people who share only the very narrow ideological point Strobel wants to advance in the first place.

And that is why I think Christians should avoid commending Lee Strobel to anyone.
Oh...
I have very little else to say other than Kreeft is simply…an idiot.

After reading Strobel's book, why on earth would I want to read any off the other apologists books you list?

[Chandler M Bing]

There's one thing that always gets me when atheists discuss any idea of an afterlife. It's not that I don't undertand their point, it's just that I disagree. The point being, that theists believe in an afterlife because they fear being in a state of not existing anymore, and so the idea of something after death seems like acomfort to us. On the one hand, there is an element of truth in that, but a very small one, and really, there is much more to it. For theists, the idea of there not being something after physical death is simply ludicrous. It should be pointed out that that is the main motivator for believing in life after physical death. much more so than any actual fear of there being nothing. For example, if I felt half convinced that when you die you cease to exist, it would be a bit scary. But it would be scary in the same sense that if anybody were half convinced that the reality which they think is real, is in fact something totally different, they would feel some feart's always uncomfortable to doubt a long held worldview. My point is that for theists, an afterlife makes sense, so naturally, just like with anything else, the thought of what you believe to be fact not being fact, is always scary. It's like if an atheist / materialist were to suddenly feel that perhaps the physical world is not all there is, aside from any excitement or confusion that would occur, there would probably be some fear too. It's just natural when your worldview is challenged (ie, challenged within yourself, as in, you have doubts).

I totally believe in life after physical death. Not because oif fear of no life after death, and not because of any feeling of arrogance. It's just what I believe. In fact I believe it so strongly that I know it. It is a fact as far as I'm concerned. I you have any rules here about theists saying "I know", I suppose I would have to go along with that. But my true thought is always "I know", even if I only say "I believe".

[Gawen]

By the way, I was not making a point. I was giving you a study schedule. You obviously lack even the premisses to comprehand an argument in this issue and has to acquire them, a fact that would not have to be addressed explicitily had you not tried to vest your ignorance with a gelatinous mask of intellectual superiority that I doubt that even you believe. Reading just one side of the argument is not "intelligence", is just your laziness showing and you know that. It will not be easy to be the kind of person you're pretending to be. Be humble and get to study.

Are you talking about yourself here? What are we to make of someone (you) who makes all sorts of assertions and can't back them up with his own words? Who can read Lee Strobel's books and believe them? You. Belief through faith has got to be more lazy. And you come off claiming that he doesn't read both sides of an argument???

Humble yourself, Achronos...it's the Christian thing to do. Read your apologetic books and sites. It's the lazy Christian thing to do. Don't doubt, close that mind God supposedly gave you...remain virtuous.

[Gawen]

I totally believe in life after physical death. Not because oif fear of no life after death, and not because of any feeling of arrogance. It's just what I believe. In fact I believe it so strongly that I know it. It is a fact as far as I'm concerned. I you have any rules here about theists saying "I know", I suppose I would have to go along with that. But my true thought is always "I know", even if I only say "I believe".

Your critical thinking skills leave much to be desired...

[Whitney]

For theists, the idea of there not being something after physical death is simply ludicrous.

I am not incliced to accept that you can speak so generally of all theists.  I'm also not even sure you can be speaking for all Christians...there are a good portion of Christians who think "hell" is simply being away from god and going to hell is ceasing to exist (ie no afterlife).

So...can you explain why a theist ought to consider the idea of no afterlife ludicrous?  I use to be a theist (liberal Christian) and don't get where you are coming from.

[Stevil]

What I have found so far is
"the Church does not sanctifies marriages contracted between the Orthodox and non-Christians", "provided the marriage is blessed in the Orthodox Church and the children are raised in the Orthodox faith"
Which shows me that the love of your beloved Faith does not freely accept people of other faiths, and they provide conditions as to the love they have to offer. These conditions would be conflicting with the conditions of other faiths and hence a seeming acceptance is actually a clear statement of nonacceptance.

First, your wording makes no sense - the Church does not sanctifies...and then...provided the marriage is blessed in the Orthodox Church.

The Church allows Christians to marry.  Therefore, if one partner is Orthodoxy, they are allowed to marry another Christian.  However, not a Muslim, Budhist, Hindu, etc.  Faith should be at the core of your life.  Therefore, if do not share core beliefs, how do you expect that marriage to last?  It's not that Orthodoxy does not accept people of other faiths...it's that Orthodoxy views marriage as a Sacrament.

The wording that you point out makes no sense comes straight from the page you referred me to. It is not my wording, that's why I have put quotes around it! I could have highlighted the grammar issues as well but I try to work out what the point is that the author is getting to rather than worrying about rules of grammar.
It's nice that the Church allows..., what would probably me more important is what God is happy with, rather than what the church allows. I also don't see how "what the Church allows" has anything to do with being a good and moral person with a goal towards love.

I certainly don't agree that Faith should be the core to your life. I would certainly be more for LOVE being core to my life, but really I try not to say should or shouldn't as it implies I know better than others with regards to what they should or shouldn't do with their lives, which is untrue as I have not lived in their shoes, I try to reserve judgment on such matters.

A couple who are close friends of mine have different beliefs, one is Christian and one is Bhudist. They have four lovely daughters and have been happily married for over 15 years now. I am grateful that the Orthodoxy don't come knocking on their door telling them that their marriage is destined to fail. It seems Orthodoxy doesn't understand how powerful love is and that it can conquer many obstacles, even the obstacles that organised religion thrusts on to people. BTW - it was good of you to highlight that organised religion can be  an obstacle to love between two people. Athiesm and Agnosticism are tolerant and would always put love ahead of the rules and obstacles made up by organised religion.

"The Church insists that spouses should remain faithful for life and that Orthodox marriage is indissoluble"
Your faith is intolerant of the ability for people to change as time goes by, intolerant of people falling out of love and would rather people live in potentially a loveless and unhappy marriage rather than to accept that changes have happened and it is time to move on and find Love elsewhere. The love of your faith does not appear to be concerned or interested in the love that is within the lives of its followers.

"the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, recognised as valid, besides adultery and a new marriage of one of the party, such grounds as a spouse's falling away from Orthodoxy, perversion, impotence which had set in before marriage or was self-inflicted, contraction of leper or syphilis, prolonged disappearance, conviction with disfranchisement, encroachment on the life or health of the spouse, love affair with a daughter in law, profiting from marriage, profiting by the spouse's indecencies, incurable mental disease and malevolent abandonment of the spouse"
So here your faith has overridden the word of God as it is in the bible. I guess either God does not know best or possibly God did not think of these situations and hence a revision was necessary. This revised interpretation still does not consider the love between the two people it affects.

...the Church does not tell anyone they should divorce.  If they are still in love, even if one or the other has committed any of the things you mentioned...by all means, stay together.

However, if one of the two feels their life is in danger, or that their spouse has broken their oath...then, while not recommended, they may still divorce.  There is such a thing in Orthodoxy as Economia.

You misread my post. I was suggesting the Church is telling people not to divorce. This is the problem I have. There are many circumstances where I have seen people being miserable in unhappy marriages, they have divorced and remarried and have gone on to live happy lives with a loving partner. I am unsure why the Church would rather people continue with an unhappy marriage. Also it concerns me that the Church tries to put much pressure, guilt, eternal damnation pressure on these people to stop them moving on into a more loving relationship.
BTW i wasn't mentioning those things. Please pay attention to the quotes. these bits come directly from the page that you wanted me to read.

"the Church cannot misconstrue the words of St. Paul about the special responsibility of husband who is called to be «the head of the wife» who loves her as Christ loves His Church, and about the calling of the wife to obey the husband as the Church obeys Christ"
It's nice to know that your faith sticks to the bible when it suits them. Man is the boss, woman is to obey. That is some kind of love.

Key words..."as Christ loves His Church".  Christ would never do any harm to the Church.  Therefore, the woman obeys her husband only to the point he does no harm.  If for some reason he asks or does things against the Faith, she does NOT need to obey.

There is certainly some spin going on here. The fact of the matter is that Atheists and Agnostics most likely agree with equal rights. Men and Women are equal. No-one is the boss and no-one must obey. If this relationship does occur then it is not because of the random gender of the participants. Your Church and possibly your God would be advised to get with the times and learn about the merits of equal rights.

"Fornication inevitably ruins the harmony and integrity of one's life, damaging heavily one's spiritual health"
Wow, it seems that the churches stance is that Fornication is evil and not part of love. It's a wonder why God gave men and woman such dangerous body parts as penises and vaginas. I guess God has been known to make mistakes, maybe the Orthodox Church can fix God's mistakes by enforcing rules around the appropriate time and nature of using these dangerous body parts.

Well, let's see..."fornicating" with a different partner each day, with no emotional bonds....yes, I can see how that might be good for a person...NOT!  Are you for real?

What's the big deal with sex. It is an enjoyable activity. Of course it would be good if people were fully informed of the dangers e.g. STDs, Pregnancy etc and informed of precautions that can be taken to minimise risk. But really, I don't know what the issue is with informed adults partaking of consentual sex, regardless of how often or with whom they partake it with.

"mass culture sometimes become instruments of moral corruption by praising sexual laxity, all kinds of sexual perversion and other sinful passions."
Another indication on how intolerant your faith is. Your followers are perverted and sinful they should feel guilt and remorse not love.

Orthodoxy is most tolerant of things that benefit the soul.  The things you mentioned, don't.  You should feel guilt if you have done something immoral...otherwise you are a psychopath.

What if I was feeling particularly randy and masturbated, would that be seen as immoral? If I didn't feel guilty about it then would you label me as a psychopath? Sorry if this seems a stupid question but I am not sure how extreme Orthodoxy is. Does the Church promote love and tolerance or guilt and self restraint?

"the Church cannot support those programs of «sexual education» in which premarital intercourse and, all the more so, various perversions are recognised as the norm. It is absolutely unacceptable to impose such programs upon schoolchildren. School is called to oppose vice which erodes the integrity of the personality, to educate children for chastity and prepare them for creating solid families based on faithfulness and purity."
Here your faith is advising to deny the realities of life, to ignore what is actually happening and only to support what the church sees as a moral stance. Does this mean that the Church is turning their backs on those that stray, offering no support, help or guidance. To me this seems a very loveless hard line. I for one will support my children whom I love without condition, I will always be there for them as long as I am alive. I will accept them for who they are, for being mortal humans, for making mistakes and I will provide all the love that I have. To me my children will always be pure, their sexual activities do not in anyway impact my perception of the purity of my children. Does this mean I am more accepting, more forgiving, more loving than your church and/or your God? If so, how does one go about applying for a sainthood?

The Church is always there to help everyone. The doors are never closed to any believer. In fact, they can get all manner of guidance and assistance from the clergy for any issues they might be battling with.

OK, so if a young person came to the church and said that they were going to have sex and wanted to know if they did it standing up whether that would avoid an unwanted pregnancy, how would the church respond? Would they simply say to abstain or would they inform the person about Condoms, Diaphrams, the Pill etc?

"In case of a direct threat to the life of a mother if her pregnancy continues, especially if she has other children, it is recommended to be lenient in the pastoral practice. The woman who interrupted pregnancy in this situation shall not be excluded from the Eucharistic communion with the Church provided that she has fulfilled the canon of Penance assigned by the priest who takes her confession."
So here we have a statement that a woman who chooses to have an abortion so that she herself can live should be made to feel guilty (above how bad she may already be feeling) and should perform Penance. It also seems if she doesn't already have a child then instead of having an abortion she should sacrifice her life for the possibility of carrying this only child to term. I struggle to see the logic in this one, what does it matter if she has had a child previously or not. It also does not seem to show love by suggesting she should sacrifice her life.

The reason for considering "previous" children is not to leave them motherless, if she dies during the current pregnancy.  

Additionally, she not made to feel "guilty"...but, the Church helps her to get over her loss...not repress the loss of the unborn child, but, work through it.

OK, so the church values her life if she is needed to be a mother to her current children otherwise the Church doesn't value her life. Nice!
Penance is to confess to sin or to undergo a punishment in token of penance for sin. This sounds like guilt to me. Don't you think the woman would be feeling terrible enough about having to make such an awful decision. She certainly does not need salt rubbed into her wounds. It does not seem to me that your Church shows compassion and love in this instance.

I don't think I will go through the whole page you gave me a link to as I think I have highlighted enough cases that show the love of the Christians especially those following the Orthodox faith.

The love is there....but, you seem not to see it.  I think you need to do some self examination before you throw accusations on the Orthodox Church.

All your issues are simply with you, not with the Church.  You see them, because you want to see them.  You make issues where none exist.

Praying the negativity you have leaves you, and that you find peace and love.

Take a deep breath....let it out.

Here's a cyber hug!

Please don't waste your prayer on me. Nice gesture but a waste all the same. Pray for world peace, equal rights, end to world hunger, happiness and love instead. Maybe one more prayer request will be all it takes for God to decide to grant these prayers, I would hate to think you wasted that important prayer on me. If there was a God who fulfilled prayer, I would never be selfish enough to pray for myself when there are much bigger issues in the world to solve. Again, please direct me to the form I need to fill out in order to nominate myself for a sainthood.

It is interesting to hear from you that you think that the problem is me and that I need to be aligned with your church. From your responses it seems that you are totally aligned with them, which is an amazingly good fit, I am truly happy for you. I hope that your church allows its other followers who may have differences to question the church and diverge on matters that are important to the individual followers.

[Achronos]

Please don't waste your prayer on me. Nice gesture but a waste all the same. Pray for world peace, equal rights, end to world hunger, happiness and love instead. Maybe one more prayer request will be all it takes for God to decide to grant these prayers, I would hate to think you wasted that important prayer on me. If there was a God who fulfilled prayer, I would never be selfish enough to pray for myself when there are much bigger issues in the world to solve. Again, please direct me to the form I need to fill out in order to nominate myself for a sainthood.

It is interesting to hear from you that you think that the problem is me and that I need to be aligned with your church. From your responses it seems that you are totally aligned with them, which is an amazingly good fit, I am truly happy for you. I hope that your church allows its other followers who may have differences to question the church and diverge on matters that are important to the individual followers.

You're anthropomorphizing God. This statement assumes that God can be overloaded with requests. Not to mention that God is ignoring the world. The world is constantly being saved and subsequently trashed by the will of man.

Although I do appreciate you finally showing a sense of humility, but I can see plain and clearly that you are just spinning your wheels, and I have been there, and we are always going through. God is perfect, but not us. We are all flawed, fractured and hurt. We turn to God to continually heal our wounds. We don't doubt Him just because our wounds hurt, just like we don't doubt the love of our mothers when we were children just because it stung when we scrapped our knees. We Christians feel all the pain, and we love you the more so for it, because we truly empathize with you.

By the way, you don't need to be aligned with my Church at all, but it would be best if you aligned yourself with the intuitive Spirit of God to heal your wounds of life and scrapped knees of living, just as we all do, but we ourselves find this healing in the Church. Just as you go to the hospital, and take the treatment prescribed by the doctor for a physical healing, and if you skip your medication or your therapeutic treatment your disease or injury or ailment will not fully heal, so to if we did not follow our Church, our spiritual wounds would only continue to fester, burn and scar deeply. I can only testify to you and others out of love, what good things God has done for us, when we are surrounded by a confusing world of pain, but only Jesus Christ is the healing of the pain, and a clear Light through the darkness of confusion, apprehension and fear.