Skeptics

You are the entire jury for the following case. Brought before you is the man Jesus Christ claiming to be the Son of God. He claims to be the only way to heaven. You as the jury must decide if the claims made are true. You must do this (as any good juror would) by considering only the evidence. You must put aside your personal bias, preconceived ideas or prejudices, consider only the evidence, and then you must reach your verdict.

The prosecution will attempt to show Jesus didn’t even exist; He is only a myth of some misguided religious fanatics. At best, even if He did exist, He is severely misunderstood. He never believed He was God, and certainly didn’t want anyone to think He was. He is just another of the good teachers, similar to Buddha. Thus He was not immortal, and certainly wasn’t God. And the resurrection? Just a fabricated legend of His followers. Jesus had no power to save Himself, so He is incapable of saving anyone else.

The defense will attempt to show not only that Jesus lived, but that He died, and rose again the third day after His death, validating His claims. Since He was who He said He was, He must be followed and worshiped as God. He is the only way to heaven.

A Note about the presentation: The prosecution arguments presented come from many sources — some from searching the web, others from e-mail, others from speaking to people. They are real problems real people have presented to the author or have been discovered by the author in research. The most common arguments have been summarized and presented here - these issues come up repeatedly.