So why do atheists do it?

This is the ninth and final post in a series dealing with the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In their desire to cast doubt on eyewitness testimony to the resurrection of Jesus, one of the things that anti-theists run up against are details in the account that simply wouldn’t be there if the accounts were invented, exaggerated, or flat out lies.

Yet, run-of-the-mill atheists continue to propose the most ludicrous ideas of why Jesus’ resurrection didn’t happen the way it is described in the ancient accounts of Jesus’ life. Some, who obviously reside in the lunatic fringe will say that Jesus never even existed. I’m not worried about those people. But why in the world would the more rational members of that group attack the resurrection story from such improbable points of view? Well, when you think about it, what else can they do?

The claustrophobic atheist world operates from within a narrow band of allowable evidence. This stricture forces them to exclude any evidence that doesn't fit their preconceived notion of how things work. This forces them to defend some very untenable suppositions.

For example, physicist Victor Stenger states, “So where did the laws of physics come from? They came from NOTHING.” That is the logic and reason of atheism. Smithsonian paleobiologist, Douglas Erwin, “One of the RULES of science is, no miracles allowed. That’s a FUNDAMENTAL PRESUMPTION of what we do.” Biologist Barry Palevitz, “The supernatural is AUTOMATICALLY off-limits as an explanation of the natural world.” Astronomer and physicist Lee Smolin, "If the universe started at a point in time, this leaves the door open for a return of religion. It seems to me that the only possible name for such a cause is God, and that the theory is to be criticized as being unlikely on these grounds.

Atheism a priori rejects anything that can’t be detected with our five senses. This leaves them with no other option than to say that “it never happened” or that “it can’t happen” when confronted with things they don’t understand, even if those things are standing right in front of them staring them directly in the eye. Atheists have taken a philosophical stance that prevents them from experiencing all of life, a life where 95% of the people in the world intuitively understand that there is more going on that what meets the eye.

We know that whatever Caused the coming into being of the universe existed beyond and outside of time, space, matter and the laws of physics.

This is the working definition of a miracle.

And if God can bring the universe into being, if God can in fact create life itself and if God can create the exquisitely finely tuned conditions for the sustaining of that life, then raising Jesus from the dead is absolutely possible.

In fact, given the historical evidence surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus, it’s the BEST explanation of what took place in time and in space roughly 2,000 years ago. Something totally “other” happened with the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth. All that is required in order to understand or put into perspective what is recorded as historically accurate information is to allow in your mind the possibility of the existence of God. And as long as the existence of God is even remotely possible, it’s the most likely explanation of what happened during the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Sceptics would have you believe that the Gospel accounts were written by New York Times best selling authors or a potential Nobel Laureate in literature who wrote a fiction so refined and so diabolical that billions of people have been duped.

Reality is, the writers were not refined or gifted authors. They did not band together to form some type of conspiracy. They did not exchange ideas so as to come up with the best way to fool the public and take over the world. The writers of the documents that have now been compiled into what we know as the New Testament had no idea that their letters and accounts of Jesus’ life would become part of the biggest and more influential movement that the world has ever known. They would have never thought to include in their accounts some of the things that I’ve described in this series of nine posts if those events hadn’t taken place.