Why Christianity?

Plato,  Greek philosopher.  427?-347? B.C.

“Friends have all things in common.”

Cornelius Tacitus, born A. D. 52-54, Roman historian, Governor of Asia, son-in-law of Julius Agricola-Governor of Britain

Writing at the time of Nero in his Annals XV 44:

“But not all the relief that could come from man, not at all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite  tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief  had originated, but through the city of Rome also.”

John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), 1767-1848

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

Suetonius, A.D. 120, Roman historian, court official under Hadrian, annalist of the Imperial house:

Life of Claudius, 25.4:

“As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Christus, he expelled them from Rome.”

Lives of the Caesars, 26.2:

“Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.”

Plinius Secundus or Pliny the Younger, Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor A.D. 112

Wrote to emperor Trajan in his Epistles X.96:

• seeking council on how to treat Christians.
• explaining that he had killed so many men, women, boys and girls that he wondered whether it was worth it to kill any more since there were so many and that maybe he should kill only certain ones.
• He had made them bow down to the statue of Trajan.
• He also goes on to say that he: “…made them curse Christ, which a genuine Christian cannot be induced to do.”

  In the same letter, he says of the people who were being tried: “They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.”
  
  

Lucian of Samosata, second century satirist, who spoke scornfully of Christ and the Christians

From The Passing Peregrinus:

“The man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world…Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.”

John Adams, sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), 1767-1848

“The general principles on which the founding fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.”

The Cambridge Ancient History

“and there was no inducement in those days to profess Christianity unless one was passionately convinced of its truth.”

Napoleon Bonaparte,  emperor of the French, 1769-1821

“What a master, and what a word, which can effect such a revolution.”

“Paganism was never accepted as truth by the wise men of Greece; neither by Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Anaxagoras or Pericles. On the other side, the loftiest intellects, since the advent of Christianity, have had faith, a living faith, a practical faith, in the mysteries and the doctrines of the gospel; not only Bossuet and Fenelon, who were preachers, but Descartes and Newton, Leibnitz and Pascal, Corneille and Racine, Charlemagne and Louis XVI.”

Benjamin Franklin, American printer, author, diplomat, philosopher, and scientist, 1706-1790

“He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will revolutionize the world.”

Literacy Rate:

Wilberforce, converted through Wesley’s preaching

- helped abolish slavery in England and devoted all his energy to the overthrow of African slave trade.

Telemachus

- Roman Christian who leaped into the arena to separate two gladiators and held them apart. He was slain by their swords at the Emperor’s signal but caused the gladiator show to end as crowd went silently away.

Comsomol, world youth communist movement

-1^st of 10 commandments stated that #1 enemy of communism is the Christian clergyman.

Good words

- all the hospitals, orphanages, charity organization date their origins to Jesus Christ.

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, social critic, and writer, 1872-1970

Reluctantly admitted in Impact with Science:

“There are certain things that our age needs…the root of the matter is a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean, please forgive me for mentioning it – is love, Christian love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.”

Astronomers

- 90% believe in God.

John Lennon, British musician and composer who was a member of the Beatles, 1940-1980

“Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink. We are more popular than Jesus Christ. I don’t need to argue that the Beatles will outlast Jesus.”

Will Durant, American historian, 1885-1981

From the Plight of Freedom:

“The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. capitalism, not Russia vs. America not even the East vs. the West.  It is whether man can bear to live without God.”

Time Magazine, December 9, 1991

Time magazine discovered the following in a Time/CNN poll: 78% of those polled said voluntary Bible classes should be allowed on public school grounds; 78% favored voluntary Christian fellowship groups on public school grounds; 73% favored prayer before athletic games; 56% favored church choir practices on school grounds; 78% favored prayer in school; 89% favored silent meditation; 55% said there was too little religious influence on our students; 67% favored Nativity scenes or a Menorah on government grounds; 74% opposed removing references to God from all oaths of public office; and 63% said they would not vote for a president who did not believe in God.

More believers have died for Christ in the 20^th Century than in all the other 19 centuries combined. The World Evangelisation Database has calculated that since AD 33 at least 40,724,000 Christians have been martyred. Of those, 26,625,000 were killed for their faith between 1900 and 1990—most by communist governments. Every day an average of a thousand believers die for Christ world-wide— mostly at the hands of Muslim or Marxist persecutors.

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P. Carnegie Simpson

Concerning Christianity, he said it’s based on:

“the most patent and accessible data, “

And that Jesus:

“Is a fact of history recognizable as any other.”

D. E. Jenkins, British ecclesiastic, Bishop of Durham, born 1925

“Christianity is based on indisputable facts.”

J. S. Mill

“the very first rank of men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast.”

Mitsuo Fushida, the man who led 360 planes on December 7, 1941 to bomb Pearl Harbor

“Little did I dream that my life would be so revolutionized. I believe the only answer to peace is Jesus Christ.”

In Communist Countries and Past Times

- Christians are usually not killed but persecuted, because their enemies know that if they die they will go to heaven.

The Orlando Sentinal,  April 11, 1991

Study paints Christian Portrait of U. S.

Survey breaks down religious choices among Americans

"Immigration from the Far East and Arab world has barely dented the overwhelmingly Christian composition of the U. S. population, a 13-month survey of 113,000 adults has found.

Study director Barry Kosmin of the City University fo New York Graduate School called the findings the most extensive religious profile available of 20^th century America.

The survey found 86.5 percent of Americans identified with Christian denominations, including 26 percent Roman Catholic and 60 percent Protestant.

Only 2 percent refused to reveal their religious identification, and only 7.5 percent said they had no religion.

Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things, a monthly journal on religion and public life, said it should come as no surprise that Americans are so pervasively religious.

Neuhaus said the one surprise for him in reading about the survey was the researcher’s conclusion, after accounting for language barriers in the poll, that Muslims represent 0.5 percent of the U. S. population, or 1.4 million Americans.

“I think over the last five years, most of us in this business have used the figure of 3 million plus,” Neuhaus said Wednesday.

The finding indicates that half of Arab-Americans either have Christian origins or converted in America.

About 40 percent of the Muslims are black, but only 2 percent of the blacks surveyed are Muslim.

The survey also found that most Asian-Americans are not Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus, but Christians. And most of those who say they are of Irish ancestry are Protestants, not Catholics.

Kosmin said his estimates should not be expected to match figures given out by denominations, which use varying standards for counting. “This is not religious affiliation. These are people’s perceptions of what they are,” Kosmin said.

The U. S. Census does not ask about religion. Nationwide polls often do, but their samples of 1,000 or 2,000 people include too few Muslims, Hindus and other minorities to make reliable conclusions about them.

The City University researchers had ICR Survey Research Group of Media, Pa., provide information from standard poll questions used in 2,000 telephone interviews a week with a random cross-section of adults in the 48 contiguous states. Much of the survey was conducted last year, and the results were released this month.

Sampling error should not cause overall results to vary from what all Americans would say by more than a fraction of a percentage point.

The researchers also adjusted estimates for groups such as Buddhists that include people who don’t speak English or Spanish.

Jews, at 2 percent, made up the largest non-Christian group, with more than 3 million adult adherents. Other estimates were 46 million Roman Catholics, 34 million Baptists, 14 million Methodists, 9 million Lutherans, 5 million Presbyterians, 3 million Pentecostals, and 3 million Episcopalians."

John Foxe, English martyrologist, 1516-1587

Concerning the Christian martyrs as opposed to other religious fanatics said:

“Doubtless it may be said that Buddhism and Mohammedanism have had their Votaires who have willingly risked and even sacrificed their lives. But great and palpable is the distinction between these and martyrs of the Christian church. The Hindu, at the bidding of his priest, promptly casts himself under the wheels of the juggernaut,  for he hopes by his act of self-immolation to insure the salvation of his soul. The Mohammedan soldier, at the word of his general, rushes boldly on the soldier or the infidel, for he expects as his reward a seat in the paradise of God. Is it not plain that neither of them dies so much because he loves his religion, as because he fanatically hopes to receive a large recompense for the sacrifice of his life? And rarely indeed do we find that this fanatical spirit will support the deluded devotee except under unusual excitements, which carry him beyond the control of treason, and leave him the mere creature of superstition or passion.

But the Christian martyr, again and again, has been just as willing to endure long years of captivity, under which all enthusiasm might well be expected to die away, as to embrace the stake, and shout ‘Hosanna’ in the flames. The thought that he was suffering for the truth has strengthened him to bear loads of calamity, beneath which mere fanaticism would, a thousand times over, have given way.

…He perished not willfully or fiercely, but in the calm and immovable rejoice, that not even the fear of death should induce him to sacrifice the truth.”