<p>I guess from your posting that your friend is either a-religious or irreligious. In either case, he or she would also presumably have to make sense out of the world with some god-less world view, just as another person would have to make sense of the world while considering religion.</p>
<p>Either there is something supernatural in the world or there is not. If you believe that there is not, then you are required to have faith in science to explain away the many amazing coincidences, miraculous healings, and unexplained phenomena that have ever occurred in the world. You may be able to convince yourself, for example, that 100 percent of all miraculous healings that have ever occurred can be explained by modern science or will at least some day be able to be explained away. I personally have a hard time believing this (and I certainly understand science better than most, with a PhD in engineering from MIT).</p>
<p>An atheist must also be able to dismiss the revelations related to religions such as Christianity, such as the Christian belief that NO ONE IS WITHOUT SIN. Again, perhaps you have met someone in your lifetime who has always done the right thing 100 percent of the time on all occasions. But my experience is completely compatible with Christianity. It seems from an evolutionary standpoint, it would certainly be an advantage to be without sin. Why does no one ever simply DO this? (if you are to consider someone you know obeying like the Ten Commandments, make sure to consider the FIRST one).</p>
<p>With respect to your primary question (When an event happens, how come it isnt confirmed in other peoples writings?), I would respond that there are certainly many religious events that are recorded by many peoples who are not adherents to that religion. For example, I find it interesting that many, many cultures (not just those of middle eastern cultures or European influence) have histories of an ancient flood of Biblical proportions. Other events are not necessarily recorded by opponents of a particular religion. First of all, there is not a great deal of documentation of the times when these events occurred (it is not like there are hundreds of histories of the middle east written by different authors that have survived the millennia). Even if a particular truth had been known at a time in the past, there certainly are POLITICAL reasons why it may not have been reported accurately. For example, if hundreds of years from now you were to read an early 21st Century history book or newspaper printed in the middle east, chances are that it would say that Americans bombed our own World Trade Center and fraudulently tried to blame it on radical Muslims. Recent polls in the middle east, such as in Saudi Arabia, indicate that something like 90 percent of middle easterners believe Americans, rather than Muslim terrorists, bombed the World Trade Center on 9/11. Another possibility is that perhaps the internet bloggers were tied up writing about something else the day some religious event occurred.</p>
<p>Response to your particular questions (paraphrased): Was Jesus death and resurrection written about by other historians at the time? It was certainly documented by several different authors in the New Testament. Furthermore, many of these men gave their lives rather than deny the deity of Christ. I would think an atheist would have to explain away why men who had been around with Jesus would behave in such a manner. Were they all stupid or simply duped?</p>
<p>Why do Jews and Christians have a story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac but Muslims think God was going to sacrifice Ishmael? The Judeo-Christian story of Abraham and Isaac was around for hundreds of years before the advent of Islam. I am not enough of an expert on Islam to know how they relate this story to Ishmael. On this issue, from your description, it sounds like at least one of our religions is WRONG, but that is not surprising to me. Judaism and Christianity are incompatible with Islamic beliefs, just as Islam considers Jews and Christians infidels. Although we may agree that there is only one god, exactly WHO this god is has mutually exclusive answers for Christians and Muslims. It is not possible that we are both right.</p>
<p>Do the Egyptians write about the parting of the Red Sea? Besides a lack of writing from thousands of years ago, another simple explanation is available. In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow hears two guards retelling a story of the dreaded pirate ship which purportedly captured an American ship
and all on board were killed. No one escaped? he asks. Then who was around to tell the story? In the same way, the Bible is very clear that the entire Egyptian army that was chasing the Israelites was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of Israelites escaped into the desert, but no Egyptian witnesses survived. (As an aside: havent you seen The Ten Commandments? Fortunately, someone around there was forward-thinking enough to have a camera handy at the time.)</p>
<p>Ultimately, both religious and non-religious people all need to make sense of the world in terms of history, peoples temperaments and orientations (e.g. Christians believe that all people have a natural orientation toward selfishness and sin), explaining possible miracles, the creation, etc. As an evangelical Christian, I can see very clearly in the Bible that no one is going to be convinced strictly from logic that Christianity is true. We believe that without the Holy Spirit it is impossible for a man to believe. Throughout the Bible, it is noted that to an atheist, Christianity is utter foolishness. Nevertheless, many non-Christians would also consider most atheistic and agnostic world-views to be utter foolishness, if one examines them closely enough.</p>
<p>If your friends objective is to justify his/her current beliefs by finding at least one hypocrite who claims to be from each religion, then that can be accomplished quite easily. If, on the other hand, he/she wants to find a world view that is consistent with history, experience, etc., then that is a much more difficult quest.</p>
