THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY: WHY BELIEVE?

IN DISCUSSIONS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, I HAVE ASKED VARIOUS FOLKS WHY THEY BELIEVE AS THEY DO. I HAVE HEARD ANSWERS SUCH AS "BECAUSE I PREFER TO BELIEVE IN A GOD WHO IS KIND" OR "BECAUSE (INSERT NAME OF RELIGION) PROMOTES (INSERT IDEAL OR IDEALS). I SCARCE EVER HEAR SOMEONE GIVE THE ONLY VALID REASON FOR BELIEVING ANYTHING, Which is "because it is true".

Now, Christianity consists of the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is Jehovah God; that He became a human being born of a virgin and the Holy Spirit; that He lived and died as the perfect Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world; and that he was raised from the dead on the third day, and lives forever and will soon return.

So the question must be "why do I believe this is true?"

Since today is Easter, I think it a fine time to answer that. The linchpin of Christian belief being that of the Resurrectiion. Without the Resurrection the rest is mostly just twaddle and adages. With it, you have the Truth. To arrive at the Truth, you must have evidence. Here it is.

EXHIBIT A: JESUS TOLD EVERYONE HE WOULD DIE AND RISE FROM THE DEAD. This was as well known in that day as Barack Obama's election is in ours. People were looking for this event.
EXHIBIT B: JESUS'S ENEMIES PLOTTED TO KEEP THE RESURRECTION FROM HAPPENING. They did this by sealing the tomb and posting a guard of Roman soldiers on it, in case Jesus' disciples tried to steal the body and point to the empty tomb. What chance would a collection of unarmed fishermen, townspeople and women have against Roman Legionnaires?
EXHIBIT C: IF JESUS'S ENEMIES WANTED TO DISCREDIT HIM - WHICH THEY VEHEMENTLY DID - ALL THEY NEEDED TO DO WAS PRODUCE HIS CORPSE AFTER THE THIRD DAY. They could not, because He had risen.
EXHIBIT D: JESUS SHOWED HIMSELF ALIVE AFTER HIS DEATH. The evidence for this is in the next Exhibit:
EXHIBIT E: ("E" stands, of course, for "Easter"). Jesus's Disciples went far and wide telling everyone of having seen, first hand, His Resurrected Self. This did not sit well with those who hated the new religion, Notable among these was the Roman Emperor Nero. Nero offered St. Peter and St. Paul a choice: Either renounce their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead; and in that case go free as wealthy men; or else maintain that they had seen Jesus alive after the Crucifixion, in which case they would die horribly by torture. Now if you had been confronted on a lie and given the choice of sticking to the lie and dying slowly and painfully OR publicly admitting that you had been putting everyone on, well, if you say you would die under torture for a frivolous con game, you are either lying or you are nuts. Peter and Paul were not the only ones, either.

So that is why I believe in Christianity. The evidence that it is true is absolutely irrefuteable.