Convince me that the Christian faith is the truth

Given the enormity of my burden of proof in this debate (affirming an entire religion), I will put forth a few clarifications in order to make my job slightly easier. Firstly, as my opponent has noted, this debate does not need to end in a concession for me to win; if I successfully put forth and defend sound arguments fulfilling my burden of proof, then I should still win, regardless of whether or not my opponent ends up being personally convinced. Secondly, I do not need to prove every single aspect and doctrine of Christianity in order to show that the Christian faith in general is true-- I just need to provide evidence for its core tenets. With that all said, let us proceed. == Negating Evolution == Since the primary focus of the resolution is clearly on whether or not Christianity is true, and since my opponent seems to be genuinely interested in exploring the plausibility of Christianity, I will go ahead and try arguing that I don't actually have to refute the theory of Evolution in order for the Christian faith to be true. And that, of course, requires attacking the idea that a literal interpretation of the Bible must be regarded as the ultimate authority on Christian doctrine. The key part of the term "Christianity" is "Christ", which implies that it revolves primarily around the figure and teachings of Jesus Christ, rather than the Bible. There is simply no reason to believe that the Bible was inspired by Christ or by God; it is a collection of stories, written independently by various people at various times and passed down throughout the course of Hebrew history. The compilation of all those stories into the Bible was not a project endorsed by Jesus or any other divine authority- it was carried out centuries after Jesus died by a random priest [1]. So the genealogy of the Bible suggests that there is no divine inspiration associated with the Bible at all. At best, it can only be considered as a source of historical information; of course, that does mean that the Gospels can be considered a somewhat reliable source for learning about Jesus's eachings and actions, but that is the maximum extent to which the Bible can really be considered "Christianity"s book". In other words, Christians are *not* obligated to believe in the infallibility of the Bible, and can safely reject a literal interpretation of Genesis. This is accepted by the majority of Christians, as is shown by the Catholic Church's open acceptance of Evolution [2]. The Christian faith and the theory of Evolution are not mutually exclusive, and thus I shouldn't have to refute the latter in order to affirm the former. == Affirming Christianity == I aim to show that the most essential and universally-accepted tenets of the Christian faith are true. To me, it boils down to three: 1) a personal creator God exists, 2) humans are inherently sinful (original sin), and 3) Jesus was crucified and resurrected. If we accept these three premises to be true, then there is really no reason to doubt the standard Christian narrative as a whole (i.e. Jesus being the Son of God, dying for our sins, opening the path to salvation, etc.), as it is the only narrative which accounts for and creates a coherent context for all three premises. I can expand on this later if needed. P1) A personal creator God exists a. Transcendental Argument In order for us to engage in any sort of rational discourse, it is necessary for us accept the existence of logical absolutes, as we rely on them to reach sound conclusions. My opponent has already conceded that logical absolutes exist by creating this debate, as he is assuming that we can, indeed, engage in meaningful rational discourse. With the existence of logical absolutes established, we are then posed with the question of where they come from. We can clearly observe that, just like mathematical laws, these logical absolutes transcend the physical universe; there is no need for any physical objects to exist in order for statements like "1 + 2 = 3" or "If A=B and B=C, then A=C" to be true. In other words, they exist independently of the universe. However, this poses quite the dilemma-- if these logical absolutes transcend the naturalistic universe, then how is it possible for them to be explained through naturalistic means? It isn't possible; such transcendental laws can only be rooted in a similarly transcendental source. And since the said laws are purely abstract and conceptual (i.e. mental) in nature, it plausibly follows that they must have originated from a conscious mind of some sort. Thus, we reach the conclusion: a transcendent mind which exists independently of the universe (aka. God), is responsible for conceptualizing the laws of logic which govern reality. b. Fine-Tuning Argument It is a well-known fact that the universe's physical constants had to be within extremely precise ranges for universe to have ever even existed. According to theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, "If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed before it ever reached its present size," [3]. Similarly infinitesimally tiny ranges of precision are there for a number of other physical constants, including the ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity, the ratio of matter to anti-matter, the universe's mass density, and the cosmological constant [3]. Unlike logical absolutes, these physical constants do have naturalistic explanations. However, even the most basic knowledge of probability allows us to calculate that the likelihood of all those constants lining up perfectly to result in the universe coming into being "just by chance" (i.e. naturalistically) is so unimaginably small that I can't even find a metaphor to describe it... Meanwhile, under theism, it is fairly obvious why physical constants happen to fall into those precise ranges-- because God set it to be that way with the specific intention of creating the universe. Theism provides a FAR more likely context for the existence of the universe than atheism does, and given that the universe does exist, theism is that much more likely to be true. This argument has the additional benefit of showing that God most likely is invested in the future of his creation, as it makes very little sense that he would go through the trouble of fine-tuning the universe to support life only to just stand back and leave it that life to its own devices. Thus, God is probably a personal deity, as described in Christian theology. P2) Humans are inherently sinful That humans are inherently sinful is obvious. We clearly do violate the commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus; every human regularly engages in numerous acts of impiety, selfishness, promiscuity many other actions explicitly condemned by Christian doctrine. Children do not grow up and learn sinful behaviors-- they have to be disciplined and taught by their parents NOT to engage in those types of behaviors from a very young age; without that discipline, such behaviors seem natural to them, which is why children who were neglected as children often end up engaging in criminal behavior as adults. With all this in mind, denying the doctrine of original sin becomes ridiculous. P3) Jesus was crucified and resurrected a. Historical Reliability of the NT The New Testament may have some contradictions between its various accounts of Jesus's life, but there is a majority consensus among historians that the books of the NT are generally reliable sources of historical information; they were all composed within several decades of Jesus's death by people who lived through the events being described and many other historical documents from Greek and Roman times, which are readily accepted by secular historians as being mostly accurate, actually have less factors lending to their credibility than the NT does [4]. There could, of course, be some parts of it which are exaggerated, but unless given significant reason to believe otherwise, we should accept that the major events which all the NT accounts agree on probably did occur as stated-- such as the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. b. Fulfillment of the Messiah Prophecy Very few disbelieve that Jesus was crucified; the real controversy is regarding whether or not he was resurrected. However, what many fail to realize is that a miracle like the resurrection was necessary in order for Christianity to survive Jesus's death. Consider the following: Jesus had spent all his life claiming that he was the Messiah-- the divine savior which the Jews strongly believed would eventually appear due to a prophecy made centuries before by Isaiah; this is the primary reason why so many Jews were so eager to follow his teachings. However, Jesus was brutally crucified before he could even begin to fulfill that prophecy; this should have made it blatantly clear that Jesus was NOT divine certainly NOT the Messiah. No follower of Jesus could still reasonably believe that Jesus was anything more than a false prophet who got what he deserved. Christianity should have died out, yet Christianity continues to thrive two milennia later. The only reasonable explanation for why Christianity was able to retain its followers is that something happened which caused them to believe that Jesus was indeed divine and still capable of fulfilling the role of the Messiah. The miracle of the resurrection certainly fits this bill; appearing to all his followers after death and promising them a second coming in which he would fulfill the prophecy was a very effective way of convincing the early Christians to continue believing in his divinity and spreading his teachings. Thus, there is good reason to believe that the resurrection did occur, regardless of the historicity of the NT. ****************** Having demonstrated that Christianity is most likely true, the resolution is affirmed!