The title is from the episode of The Simpsons where Homer decides to stop attending church.
Marge: I can’t believe you’re giving up church, Homer.
Homer: Hey, what’s the big deal about going to some building every Sunday? I mean, isn’t God everywhere? And don’t you think that the Almighty has better things to worry about than where one little guy spends one measly hour of his week? And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder.
Bart: Testify!
Marge: [Groans]
In one of those odd ways where someone speaks some truth without knowing it, it reminds me of this important passage:
1 Corinthians 15:12–18 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.
So the Apostle Paul seems to agree with Homer, at least in one sense: If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we are misrepresenting God – and that’s never a good place to be. And the writers even have Homer realizing that not all religions are the same. How do you discern which is right? Look at the facts.
But the evidence points to the fact that He did rise from the dead, and that changes everything.
—–
As I noted in a recent post, Christianity is unique in that it is testable and falsifiable. You can research the truth claims yourself. Christianity involves knowledge, truth claims and faith in evidence. Many people think religions are just a matter of opinion or are the result of “blind faith,” but that is the opposite of Christianity.
There are all sorts of apologetics resources (see the links to the right of this blog) or even simple things like the minimal facts approach, where nearly 100% of historical scholars from 1975 – present agree with the following statements and 75% of the same scholars agree that the tomb was empty:
- Jesus really lived and was killed on a Roman cross.
- Jesus’ disciples believed He appeared to them.
- Jesus’ brother, James, went from being a pre-crucifixion skeptic to a post-crucifixion church leader.
- The Apostle Paul believed Jesus appeared to him and he wrote most of the books attributed to him, including Romans, I & II Corinthians, Philemon and others. He converted from persecuting Christians to being the greatest evangelist ever, despite nearly constant challenges, persecution and ultimately dying for his faith.
The Christian view that the physical resurrection of Jesus best accounts for these facts is highly supportable and logical.
Eternity Matters 
Excellent post, Neil!
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Very true. however what of the Sabbath the holy day is that of any relevance or significance in gods eye. I mean Jesus was called the son of man and he was of the holy trinity so does that mean that Jesus saw that the Sabbath was so important that he himself kept it or did he keep it for the sole purpose of abolishing it. It seems to me that something that seems of great importance and relevance to Jesus couldn’t have been done away with. On the other hand if it has no relevance and is a waste of time why would the lord command us to remember the Sabbath? I am curios because Jesus kept the Jewish Sabbath Saturday but many Christian religions today maintain that Sunday is the day of worship and/or that the day has been done away with and if this is the case what of the other 9 commandments is it all right to kill my neighbour take his wife and steal from his parents?
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The Sabbath is a day of rest. Nowhere is it stated that it is a Saturday or Sunday. Translation in 30 languages translates Saturday from Sabbath, but this may be a social consequence instead of a factual one. A day to rest socially in recognition of God’s reference to a Sabbath. God referred to the recognition of the Sabbath, a day of rest. Not to a Saturday or Sunday. My guess is, if he wanted it to be a Saturday or Sunday, he would’ve just said that.
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I am afraid this just boils down to, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”
This argument relies, as proof, upon the Christian Bible and the works of the Apologists, all writing after the fact and all of them from a position of belief. Oh, and let us throw in a few historical texts that do not explicitly _deny_ that some of these events occurred (though I would think the earthquakes and the blotting out of the sun and the dead rising from their graves after Christ’s death might have been mentioned by at least _one_ historian), and that there were in fact groups who appeared to believe in this Jesus fellow (of course, contemporaneously, there were also groups who believed huffing the fumes from Mt. Etna would give you messages from Apollo, or that bathing in the blood of a young bull would give you invincibility in battle, etc.).
But, you are coming at the “evidence” from a position of belief, so it _feels_ convincing. I understand; I really do. As an interesting experiment, do a bit of reading on Mormonism and then apply your same standard of proof to its truth claims. This guy named Joseph Smith claimed a revelation from God, most people thought he was bonkers, but, he had a _book_ to prove it, then he had witnesses, witnesses who signed legal documents confirming everything Smith had to say, and then a body of believers grew up, and there was persecution, but God protected them…
Sound familiar? Sound like the main argument you are making, or that has been made in such popular works as “The Case for Christ”? Either Joseph Smith was telling the truth, or all of these people were liars or insane. Clearly, though, all of these people would not lie about such a thing, and it is impossible that so many could be insane and still found functioning churches and societies, which they did, therefore, Smith’s claims must be true…
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Not at all. Did you read the post?
No, I see you didn’t read the post. I specifically pointed to evidence outside the Bible. That undermines your credibility. I hope you are more disciplined in the future and take these matters of eternity more seriously.
And just because it is in the Bible doesn’t mean it isn’t evidence. That would be like me saying that anything written by a Darwinist has to be excluded from evidence because of their bias.
That’s bad logic. You don’t have all records from antiquity and can’t prove that they weren’t recorded anywhere. In fact, you don’t appear to be aware of references about the darkness that day.
And of course, the existence of false beliefs doesn’t mean all beliefs are false.
That’s a straw man argument. You have no idea how we came to believe. Many of us believe because of the evidence.
I am very familiar with Mormonism and why it is demonstrably false. That’s a bad analogy.
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God sent God to die for God so that God could forgive God’s creations according to God’s unbending rules. ~ LanceThruster
Too Rube Goldberg for my tastes.
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Hi Lance,
If you think you get to sit in judgment of God based on your tastes then you don’t understand your problem. All of your sins, including your deepest, darkest secrets, will be judged by the standard of Christ. Suppressing the truth in unrighteousness will not help you.
I hope you reconsider. Eternity is a mighty long time.
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