Message from @Iakovos
Discord ID: 535177944021073931
Christian, Muslim, and even Jewish tradition holds that Jesus and his followers performed all sorts of public miracles.
Roman pagans and Jews never denied any miracles.
The Babylonian Talmud actually says he practiced sorcery.
According to the religious narrative, a lot of people actually saw these things happen.
According to history, undeniable fact, and the written accounts of the Romans themselves, Christians were tortured to death in that era for their beliefs. A significant number of the people who claimed to have actually seen the miracles.
The Jewish historian, Josephus, actually admits that the miracles really happened. Keep in mind, he was a Jew. Not a Christian. Never converted.
He also wrote about the resurrection. He was in fact a Pharisee, the sect that had Jesus killed.
Josephus' writings are considered reliable by all historians.
The Ebionite Jews believed Jesus was a mere prophet like any other prophet in the Old Testament, but did not deny his miracles.
We cannot deny the non-Christian accounts of Jesus' life and miracles, and the slaughter of Christians, unless we are also willing to deny all the other history written down by the same people. Including the 1st Jewish Revolt according to Josephus, whose accounts have since been substantiated by archaeology.
The law of Rome, and the writings of their leaders, correspondence with each other etc was that accused Christians be given an opportunity to renounce Christianity, and sacrifice to the Roman gods, for which they would receive a pardon and go about their lives as normal.
Over two million refused. People who said they saw the miracles, watched Jesus die, buried him, and saw him alive again.
If you told me you brought someone back to life, even if I was a superstitious person who would believe you, and later I was going to be fed to a lion if I didn't reject you, then I'm rejecting you.
I see
I will think about this.
Jesus: "I'm God."
Guy: "No you're not"
Jesus: "Yes I am, watch me bring Lazarus back to life. I'm gonna do this for all of you when the time comes."
Guy: "Ok you're God, and Jupiter is BS."
Roman: "Ok, he brought a dude back to life, but he's not God. Worship Jupiter or I'll feed you to a lion, cook you to death, or something else horrible."
If Jesus really didn't perform a miracle:
Guy: "Ok we were just kidding. Hail Caesar."
If Jesus was legit:
Guy: "No."
Third argument for God: Miracles. I touched on it a bit already. But they still happen. A person who has made up his mind already will never be convinced. But an open minded person, especially with a bit of scientific knowledge, will see. A quick Google search will find you all sorts of people coming back to life when they should have been braindead. I wasn't born yet but it happened in my family and there were several eyewitnesses including non-believers, and doctors said it defied all medical science.
There is also the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, an institution within the Catholic Church that is responsible for investigating miracles today. Things they have investigated were often witnessed by a lot of people. There is a process to recognizing a miracle as legitimate and many are never ruled on because we don't know.
If it were just a BS rubber stamp there would be many more approved miracles, especially without witnesses.
That's probably the best person for it. I already believe in God. Showing me a miracle isn't gonna change me.
However showing someone who may not believe or their faith is weak, is a powerful persuasive argument
But it does happen to both. Christians and non-Christians.
The most famous example is probably the conversion of Emperor Constantine.
In 312 AD, prior to the Battle of Milvian Bridge, the emperor saw a cross or chi-rho (☧) in the sky and the words "in hoc signo vinces"
In this sign, conquer
He ordered the chi-rho to be painted on the soldiers' shields, won the battle, and refused to perform the customary pagan sacrifices after the victory.
He then legalized Christianity and returned all confiscated Church property
Why would a pagan emperor who is killing off a minority religion, suddenly convert to that religion, legalize it, and give them all of their stuff back?
This would be like the King of Saudi Arabia suddenly becoming Christian, giving a crapload of land and money to them, and legalizing it
Link me an article that goes in depth with it.
Google is your friend, friend. "Conversion of Emperor Constantine"
Fourth argument for God: the continued church. Religions that were mainstream in some countries a thousand years ago are all but lost to us. We do not know much about Germanic/Saxon/Norse pagan religion except the basic stories and that all three were essentially the same. Same can be said for any other religion, there is so much lost knowledge.
Meanwhile from the time of Christ until today, the Church believes and teaches the exact same thing, using the same scriptures, same prayers, same basic form etc.
Despite the Muslims, pagans, Protestants, and even several corrupt popes, the Church was not extinguished and none of its teaching has been lost.
By itself that is a weaker argument and does not give us supremacy over Jews and Muslims, but at least it does show a miraculous preservation of an institution despite being attacked from all directions and occasionally its own leaders.
Fifth argument for God: Biblical prophets. Isaiah wrote in the 700s BC about the fall of the Babylonian Empire, conquered by a King Cyrus, and some other details, all of which actually came true two centuries later as documented by the Greek historian Herodotus.
There's also a ton of OT writing predicting Jesus and John the Baptist. Not just actions that a person can choose, but things people cannot. Such as family tree, birthplace etc.
Sixth argument for God: Europagans. It is an established historical fact that the pagan Saxons, Germans, and Norse all followed basically the same religion, and things like chattel slavery, human sacrifice, massive infanticide of females, mass war rape, torture, polygamy, and other incredibly strange and horrible stuff was standard practice for them. Their religion was that only a warrior who died in battle would enter Valhalla, their whole society was built on this. Particularly the Norse did not have good land for farming, so they made their living by killing people and taking stuff from them. While a lot of internet dumbasses might say otherwise, it is an established fact that the vast majority of these people converted to Christianity without bloodshed. They abandoned centuries of a religion that actually sustained their needs quite well to adopt one that pretty much banned their only livelihood (raiding) as well as slavery, polygamy, infanticide, and other cornerstones of their society that they actually believed necessary for their survival.
In particular, the miracle of Saint Boniface. Somewhere in modern Hesse, Germany, was a giant sacred tree called Thor's Oak.