Reasons to Believe in God In Simple English

Often the debate about God's existence feels like it belongs to the philosophers with their doctorates and essays full of complicated words. But God is for everybody, and so his existence should be clear to everybody - just like the book of Romans suggests.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. -- Romans 1:20 (NIV)

But the book of Romans also tells us about truth being suppressed. It seems to me that a lot of God's truth has been suppressed. So it might not be the case that each individual suppresses the truth for themselves, but they might be victims of other people suppressing it for them.

I believe it is hugely important for this information to be public knowledge, and not just kept by the intellectual elites who's careers revolve around it. There is far too much misinformation in the world, especially with the internet and the ease that anybody can share their opinions. There are people who believe that the Earth is flat, there are people who believe that we never landed on the moon, there are people who believe dinosaurs never existed, there are people who think the Holocaust never happened. These are extreme cases, but just like these people, there are many people in the world who have been duped by other ideas in exactly the same way. People believe that all cowboys wore stetsons, people believe that knights needed to be put on horses by crane, people believe that Captain Kirk said "Beam me up Scotty". Misinformation spreads easily, and for many reasons. When this happens, the truth becomes suppressed. So it is very important that we take care to check what we believe and make sure it lines up with truth.

So what follows are a few reasons, based entirely in truth, that tell us without doubt that God is real. I aim to keep this as simple as possible, so I will not go into much depth on each, and I encourage you to read more on any subject that takes your interest. I'll also comment that these are not even all of the reasons that are available to us. This is just a small selection of some of the best.

What was the Date of Jesus' Resurrection?

John the Apostle helps to give us a very precise date for Jesus' crucifixion. If we follow a few historical and Biblical clues, we can find the answer!

In 'John 2:20' the Jews tell Jesus during his first year of ministry that the temple has been under construction for 46 years.

The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” -- John 2:20

The historian Josephus in his Antiquities tells us that construction began in the 18th year of Herod the Great, 734–735AUC.  (AUC = "ab urbe condita" a Latin phrase meaning "from the founding of the City" (Rome), 0AUC = 753 BC).

And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and after the acts already mentioned, undertook a very great work; that is to build of himself the temple of God -- Josephus ANT XV.11.1

So the year construction began is 734 more than 0 in AUC, or 734 less than 753BC which counts in the other direction.
753BC-734AUC=19BC.

Is Christianity Based On Blind Faith?

Some people seem to have the impression that religious belief is always the same as 'belief without evidence'. They even seem to think that questioning a religious belief is supposed to be a sin, and the reason that so many people have faith is because they are scared that doing some research might send them to Hell.

It might be like that for some faiths... I don't know, I haven't checked them all... but Christianity is on very safe ground.

Why Do We Have Faith?

Faith is so often misrepresented by non-believers. Richard Dawkins describes it this way:

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

As usual, Dawkins is spouting complete drivel. Here's a great quote from John Lennox, a professor of mathematics at Oxford, who has debated Dawkins a few times, and each time utterly torn his worldview to shreds.

"Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence… It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion."

That's the difference. We're all on Dawkins' side if he's talking about blind faith - believing without thinking. But actual faith is not that. The faith that most people talk about regularly is not that. As Lennox will tell you, the word 'faith' comes from the Latin 'fides', which means trust. You have faith in your family, faith in your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife, faith in your government (maybe). And you usually say that you have faith in them because they've never let you down before or you know them well enough that they will come through. You trust them. The phrase 'faith in humanity' gets thrown around a lot, although more often than not, it's mentioned as a 'loss of faith'. It's still talking about trust.

Pretty much the only time I hear faith being bundled up with blind faith as the same thing is when fundie atheists are using the word in reference to religious belief.

As John Lennox said, faith/trust is based on evidence and that is the Biblical definition too. The number of preachers and prophets throughout the book who ask questions and want a bit more evidence to keep their faith strong should be plenty enough to destroy this stupid definition of faith completely. Doubting Thomas is probably one of the most famous episodes of Jesus' story. He wanted evidence, Jesus gave it to him, his faith was strengthened.

So when Dawkins, Harris or the other New Atheists talk about faith, they're talking about 'blind faith'. And that is not something any Christian is into! So they're wasting everyone's time...

So what is the evidence that Christians have?

What Are The Established Facts About Jesus?

There are several facts about Jesus' life and ministry that the vast majority of New Testament scholars and historians accept as truth. Of course there are a couple of wildcards that don't accept them, but there are always gonna be those kind of guys who aren't willing to accept stuff even if it's indisputable.

Here's a rundown of the things we know for certain about Jesus:

1) Jesus lived. Born around 4BC and died around 33AD (give or take a few years).
2) Jesus was from Nazareth.
3) Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist.
4) Jesus was a great moral teacher.
5) Jesus preached radical new ideas.
6) Jesus had several disciples.
7) Jesus had a reputation as a healer and exorcist.
8) Jesus was beaten and crucified to death for blasphemy (claiming to be God/God's son) by the request of the Sanhedrin under the orders of Pontius Pilate.
9) Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimethea - a sympathetic member of the Sanhedrin.
10) Jesus' tomb was found empty by some female disciples.
11) Jesus' disciples claimed and truly believed to have seen him risen from the dead.
12) Creeds referring to Death, Deity, & Resurrection can be dated to within the same year as the crucifixion.
13) Christianity spread quickly.
14) Several of the first disciples/apostles were martyred for refusing to denounce Christ.

Considering all these taken together, there is no explanation that makes sense of it all except that the story of Jesus as presented in the New Testament is true.

Is The Shroud Of Turin The Ultimate Proof For Christianity?

Until recently I was among the crowd that would immediately think 'proven hoax' whenever the Shroud of Turin was mentioned.
However, New Testament scholar Gary Habermas has a sideline in studying the supposed burial linen of Jesus Christ. What he's discovered is actually quite incredible.

Naturalist Explanations For The Resurrection of Jesus

There aren't any good ones. They're all pretty much rejected by the majority. Yeah, some people (even scholars) cling to some of them, but that's because it's all they have.

Any explanation has to cover a few historically certain facts:

1: Jesus was crucified and died on the cross.
2. Jesus was buried in a tomb which was found empty a few days later.
3. Several witnesses came to believe that they had seen Jesus risen to life again.
4. The disciples became leaders of a new faith movement which grew into Christianity. Converts included friends and enemies, believers and sceptics, Jews, Romans, and pagans.

Disciples Stole The Body

They had no reason to. Their great leader had died. As far as they were concerned he was another false Messiah. He had been a good friend, but all they had left was his memory. The death of Jesus was proof to them that the mission was over. Most of them ran out of town! They didn't expect a resurrection of any kind until the end times and Judgement Day.
Stealing the body would have made no sense to them.

It didn't make sense for them to do it, but maybe they got some crazy idea to attempt it. So what would that mean? Jesus was locked in a tomb wrapped in linen, behind a two ton boulder sitting in a groove, sealed with a gubernatorial stamp, guarded by a number of Roman soldiers, in a burial plot reserved for Jewish leaders.
The disciples would need at least two of them (probably more) to be involved to have the strength to move the boulder. They'd have to be sneaky enough in numbers to get past armed, alert, trained guards who were there for the sole reason to stop grave robbers. They'd have to somehow remove a two ton boulder silently! Then for some reason they decide to unwrap Jesus from his deathbed clothing and neatly arrange it where he was laying before making off with the body and resealing the tomb silently so that no one would notice he had gone missing. If they were being sneaky, they would want to be in and out quick, so undressing Jesus while they were still in the tomb would have been absolute madness. Seeing as he had been dead some time, the smell would have been enough for them to want to leave as fast as possible.
They wouldn't have bribed the guards, because they had no money. The guards would have been punished for accepting the bribes anyway and there would be nothing to stop them from telling anyone the truth.
They wouldn't have killed the guards, because that would mean more bodies to hide, and require an explanation of where the missing soldiers had went. It would have made the theft more obvious.

No means, motive, or opportunity. Didn't happen.