Saturday, April 23, 2011

Christianity = Falsifiable

Carl Popy, one of the gents who regularly goes to UCI to hand-out coffee, sent me a text this morning that asked, "What do you think about making a sign that says Christianity = Falsifiable?"

So in case you aren't familiar with older posts, we hand out coffee at University of California Irvine and often times put signs on the front of the table to promote religious conversation that opens the door to presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Usually we use "Religion is for the Weak" or a "Contradiction" sign made up of different religious symbols.  Or we just have the "Free Coffee" sign.  That works well.

I really like Carl Popy's latest idea sign idea though.  If anyone getting our free coffee handouts asks what does this mean pointing to the sign, we instantly get to speak about the Gospel and how it can be historically tested.  Jesus was a historical individual and as a historical individual the claims written about him can be tested and verified like any other person in ancient history.  In the case of Jesus, however, there are miracles attributed to him.  Divinity being attributed to him isn't very unique, because lots of ancient leaders, rulers, and emperors claimed divinity, but unlike Jesus, they didn't have the miracles attributed to them, and they definitely didn't have a resurrection from the dead to back up their claims to divinity.

Christianity is falsifiable because if the resurrection didn't happen, Christianity is not true.  If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, Christianity is a hoax.  Prove that Jesus didn't rise from the dead and you've proven that Christianity is false.  Therefore Christianity is falsifiable.  To have faith in Jesus, the Christ, a person doesn't have to have blind faith.

Since it's the day before Easter, I'd recommend reading 1 Corinthians 15.

It's Saturday.  But Sunday's coming. 

To learn more about the falsifiable nature of Christianity, read 1 Corinthians 15.  It's clearly stated in the Bible that Christianity can be false and the apostle Paul lays the heart of Christianity bear for anyone in the first century, or now, to run a stake through.  But no one has, not yet. 

3 comments:

  1. Nice post. Your use of catch phrases and slogans is akin to Paul quoting pagan poetry on Mars Hill.

    Well done

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  2. I like the slogan... You might want to read up a little on Karl popper just to make certain you don't fall into any traps from the intelligent atheist... But, definitely, I like the slogan...

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  3. Karl Popper, huh...

    OK. Thanks for the advice.

    ReplyDelete