Going for the jugular 5

 in Apologetics

Dear Friends,

Theism has long seemed like a freebie to me. This quote (1) from evolutionary biologist (and perhaps the world’s most famous atheist) Richard Dawkins…

“Everything about biology has become almost a branch of information technology because DNA is so exactly like a computer language.”

…tells me that an intelligent Programmer, a transcendent, uncreated Mind, has written some code inside of me. From a simple logical perspective, it really shouldn’t be that hard.

So for now, I want to move on to the next logical question.

Open series outline: Going for the jugular
 

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Who is God?

Is God Allah? Is God the Trimurti? Is God more of a wallflower, like in deism?

I’ve always been taught that Jesus was God, and I’ve believed it for a long time, and continue to believe it to this day. But I’ve also had a desire to investigate this question from a historical perspective. In other words, without appealing to the divine inspiration of the Bible, what evidence do we have that Christianity is true?

I have spent a lot of time (2) listening to, and dialoguing with, atheists over the years, but I haven’t dug into other religions much.

I don’t have the bandwidth to investigate all religions…or even all the claims of Christianity.

So, I’ve decided to, in the words of Kenny from the film version of The Case for Christ, “go for the jugular”.

Did Jesus rise from the dead, or not?

My curriculum

To that end, I’ve chosen to read the following four books:

From a Christian perspective:

  • The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas
  • TBD

From a skeptical perspective:

  • How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman
  • The Resurrection: A Critical Examination of the Easter Story by Jonathan M. S. Pearce

A bloggier blog

Instead of writing my usual series of long blog posts accompanied by my kids’ brilliant artwork, I’m minded this time to treat it more like an actual “blog”, i.e., a weblog. In other words, I want to provide a running account of my findings, rather than essays. I’m thinking shorter posts, but more of them.

I hope you will dig into this with me. I am super excited. Even my survey of the available literature, before I started reading any of it, was quite interesting, and I might make some comments about that as well.

God, please guide us through this study!

(1)  Richard Dawkins Guardian interview

(2) Almost every time I engage with atheists, theism seems ever more rational

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