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Dear Michael Moore, It seems to me that, upon my examination of your statement, you do not truly know the basics and foundations of Christianity. In this letter, I hope to inform you about why Christianity is not “…blind unreasoning faith…” and I will present some facts about the historical Jesus. First off, Christianity is not simply “…blind unreasoning faith…” Christianity involves a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a belief that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and a belief that he is the Savior of those who put their trust in Him. Christians are not expected to follow something that is simply fabricated, but to model their lives after Christ’s life. As it can be expected, one cannot follow Christ if he does not truly believe in the existence of Him. To put to rest any doubts about the realism or reliability of the Jesus story, let me give some facts about it. For one, Jesus can definitely be considered historical. In fact, there is no doubt that Jesus existed. After all, even those who do not trust Jesus as their personal savior do not deny His existence. One reliable source to back this theory up is the historical writings from Jesus’ time period. The renowned and widely trusted Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, wrote about Jesus just shortly after His death, confirming the facts about the historical Jesus. Even those who put Jesus to death, (in an attempt to silence Him) do not deny the existence of Jesus. Now, as you may know, our main evidence that we have about the life and times of Jesus is the Holy Bible. At first thought, one might say, “how do we know that the Bible really is reliable”?. As a Christian myself, I would immediately say that we know the Bible is reliable. But, to prove it, I will give a small comparison of the Bible to other widely trusted sources. Lets look, for example at the writings of Aristotle; a noted scientist whose works are widely accepted as a means to gain scientific knowledge. When testing documents there are two elements of which to test the document by. These are: How close to the date of the original writing are the earliest manuscript copies that we have. How many early manuscript copies of the work do we have. A good rule of thumb to use when testing with the first element, is that the closer the copy is to the original the more reliable the document becomes. In the case of the New Testament book of Mark, the earliest copy was 80 years after the original. In the case of Aristotle’s works the earliest copy was 1400 years later. This therefore makes the New Testament book of Mark more reliable than Aristotle’s works that are used widely in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. For the second element, the writings of the New Testament have 24,633 manuscripts. However, Aristotle’s works only have 49 attributed early manuscripts to his writings! This therefore, proves that the New Testament is much more reliable than even the works of a noted scientist! The Bible can be proved in so many more ways than I have even presented in this letter. True, if I were to write about all the conformities of the Bible to other sources I would exhaust the topic in no less than a full-length book. In a conclusive response to your statement, I say with feeling, “No, Christianity is not just another religion based on blind, un-reasoning faith, and the Bible is a true historical book that conforms with other sources”.
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