your-god-is-too-small May. 2016 | Page 24

Some Christians will claim that Jesus spoke to 300 people after the resurrection, because that’s what it says in their stories. But does it lend any credibility to my story if I tell you that there were 300 people watching my grandfather beat up a bar full of drunken Texans? Does it lend any credibility to the story of the mermaid if the story includes the claim that 300 people watched it jump out of the ocean? The problem with including witnesses within the story is that they are still simply part of the story. They are characters, no different from all the other characters mentioned within a story. For Want of a Better World It’s easy to see the attraction of fantastic stories, and want them to be true. It’s understandable that some people want to live in a world with some form of universal justice, a way to exist even after we are dead and to be reunited with the loved ones we have lost. But wanting it won’t make the Bible’s stories true any more than it can make a monkey’s head into a mermaid. Original article URL: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/leemyers/once-upon-time-texas P a g e | 24