Many years back when I visited Sydney, we stayed with a friend of my mother's and her family. The mother was very much an opponent of Christianity and most organised religion, and it was no surprise that the two children in that family very well schooled in asking tough questions, more than the 14 year old me could handle at that time.
In one of our many discussions (the car ride from Sydney to the Gold Coast was 12 hours, so there was plenty of those) the eldest son raised this question to me:
"What if you died today and found out that all you believed as a Christian was false?"
I grasped for a satisfying answer to prove that we still got a better bargain, but to no avail.
Just a few days back, I was listening to a podcast (also here)by the White Horse Inn en route to Singapore for a family trip. The topic being discussed was the historical validity of the Christian claims, and arguing that if these events, namely the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, did not happen in real history, then we were to be the most pitied people on Earth. In fact, if Christianity were to be proven false, there will be no 'well, at least you lived a better life than others'. We would be the saddest, most pitiful people on this planet. In hindsight, it was a good thing that I had no good retort to my friend's question.
Quoting Paul in the letter to the Corinthian church (1Cor15:12-19, ESV):
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
If Christ had not lived, died, or risen from the dead, not only are we guilty of misrepresenting God, speaking of something that He never did, but our sins have not been atoned for, and we are still under judgement. If we are still under judgement, then there is no hope for those who had died trusting in Christ, and there will be no hope for us who are still living, and so our sacrifices of time, relationships, entertainment, comfort, riches, and so much more for the sake of the Gospel would have been in vain. We would have been better off indulging ourselves. We would be the most sorry people on Earth.
Christianity is the only religion in the world which places so much on a truth claim. It wouldn't matter if Gautama Buddha wasn't a real person, Buddhism wouldn't collapse. It doesn't matter if the Prophet didn't actually hear from God, Islam wouldn't collapse. It doesn't matter if 孔子 (Confucius) didn't say what people claimed he said, Confucianism would still thrive on. It doesn't matter if Baha'i is wrong about all religions being right, Baha'i wouldn't close shop. But the moment you can prove that Jesus didn't exist, or that eyewitness accounts about him were fabricated, or that he didn't actually die, or he didn't physically rise from the dead, you have effectively pulled the rug from under Christianity.
To side track for a bit, the reason Freud's psychosexual theories have gone out of fashion today is because of one thing - falsifiability. Falsifiability is the trait of a statement, hypothesis, or theory whereby it could be shown to be false if some conceivable observation were true. This means that the claim had to be testable, and could be proven false. Freud's theories, because they were so heavily entrenched in the subconscious, a region of one's mind which was inaccessible, it was therefore not testable, and therefore not falsifiable, and therefore could neither be proven wrong nor right. Applying the same concept to the claims of Christianity, you would find that Christianity is very falsifiable from what we have seen. Can Jesus be proven to not exist? Hypothetically, yes. Can Jesus be proven to not have died? Hypothetically, yes. Can Jesus be proven to not have physically risen from the dead? Hypothetically, yes. Yet, for every juncture where you would expect to find proof against his existence, death, and resurrection, you find an
abundance of supporting evidence instead!
Which leaves us with a decision to make: Is what the Bible says about Jesus true?
So what if you don't like some Christians? That's like saying you won't believe that the sun will rise tomorrow because you don't like UV rays. Such reasoning is non sequitur! And since every fact affects how we live our lives, like how we don't go jumping out of 10 story buildings with no parachute because, hey, gravity; in the same way, if what the Bible says about Jesus is true, what are you going to do about it?
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