What is your strongest reason for believing in Christianity?

[bluegreenearth]

What is the single strongest reason that supports your belief in Christianity?

How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?

Note: Discovering you have an unreliable reason would NOT mean your belief is false; only that you require a more reliable reason to justify a high degree of confidence in the validity of the belief.

[Eloi]

[Replying to post 9 by Eloi]

That's what I just said: you want to debate about the criteria to follow to trust a document or a person.

We don't need to have the same criteria, and it is very interesting to know yours, thanks for telling, but that is not relevant for this thread. I will reserve my criteria for the appropriate subject, so you can know about them ...

Again, and this is about the question here: the strongest reason I have to believe in Christ is his resurrection from the death.

[Tcg]

Again, and this is about the question here: the strongest reason I have to believe in Christ is his resurrection from the death.

That seems to address the first question from the OP, but not the second:

• "How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?"

On what basis do you determine if your reason is reliable or unreliable? Stated slightly differently, what verifiable evidence can you present to support your acceptance of the resurrection tales?


Tcg

[Eloi]

It is a reliable reason because I trust in the persons who wrote about it.
They lived their whole life dedicated to what they saw ... they knew Jesus and finally died because of it: since they saw him alive again, they trusted. I trust them because of the life they lived ... and thanks to them, every second of human history from that moment on there have been people who continue to testify to that original testimony.

[Tcg]

It is a reliable reason because I trust in the persons who wrote about it.

This reveals once again that you accept the tales based on faith. This does nothing to provide verifiable evidence that the tales are reliable. It is nothing more than your personal testimony that you accept them as reliable.

Once again the question is this:

• "How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?"

The question you have answered is, why do you accept them as reliable. That, however, is not the question under consideration.


Tcg

[Eloi]

If you call faith to trust in persons ... I have not any prejudice about that faith. Some people have "faith" in their partners, in their friends, in their teachers, in their fathers, ... I can have faith in whoever I want.

[Zzyzx]

.

It is a reliable reason because I trust in the persons who wrote about it.

Do you KNOW who wrote the Gospels? Christian theologians and scholars are not certain and disagree about identity. But you know?

Following are several CLAIMS. In honorable discussion or debate claims are open to challenge and the maker is expected and/or required to substantiate claims made (though most duck that responsibility, perhaps thinking that readers will not notice).

They lived their whole life dedicated to what they saw ...

Do you KNOW that Gospel writers actually / personally witnessed the events and conversations they describe? Kindly present verifiable evidence to show who saw what.

they knew Jesus

Do you KNOW that Gospel writers knew Jesus? Verifiable evidence?

and finally died because of it:

Do you KNOW the manner of death of Gospel writers? A bit of research might be in order before making such claims.

since they saw him alive again, they trusted.

Which Gospel writers ‘saw him alive again’ – and what verifiable evidence supports the claim?

I trust them because of the life they lived ...

What, exactly, do you KNOW about the life of Gospel writers (whose identity is not known to – or disputed by – Christian theologians and scholars)?

and thanks to them, every second of human history from that moment on there have been people who continue to testify to that original testimony.

This is a variation of the classical blunder in logic known as Argumentum ad populum (a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it).

[Tcg]

If you call faith to trust in persons ... I have not any prejudice about that faith. Some people have "faith" in their couples, in their friends, ... I can have faith in whoever I want.

Of course you can. That is certainly one method to ignore the deeper issues the question asks, but ignoring them doesn't address them.


Tcg

[Eloi]

We believe in a lot of history books, a lot of them very old and we don't even know if they were written by the ones we think they were ... however, our modern historians try to know our past based on those books. The New Testament is not that old compared to many of those books by ancient historians. Probably everything is a matter of prejudice. I don't have any prejudice about Bible writers, why should I?

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 2 by Eloi]

What is your single strongest reason for believing Christ was raised from the dead?

How can we determine that reason is reliable or unreliable?

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 3 by Zzyzx]

I respect your perspective, but the goal of this post is to foster critical thinking and not to necessarily prove or disprove Christianity. Full disclosure: I identify as an agnostic atheist.