(5) Darth Harley begins to think about Christianity:
Harley sat in his bed with his mom and talked about his day at school.
H: In Social Studies we started to learn about Christianity. They think God raised Jesus from the dead and that he appeared to his followers.
M: Do you think God cast a magic spell and raised Jesus from the dead?
H: I don’t know. I think there are probably explanations that are better than supposing magic occurred. Long ago they didn’t know what caused things to fall to the ground when dropped, but “magic” wouldn’t have been a good guess.
M: They say Jesus was missing from the tomb …
H Corpses can go missing from tombs without needing magic for an explanation.
M: They say the risen Jesus appeared to Peter, then the 12 apostles, then to 500 people a once …
H: It’s not uncommon for people to have unusual experiences when they are really hurting because of the loss of a loved one. They may hear or see weird things, but that doesn’t mean it’s their loved one was brought back to life.
M: What about Jesus appearing to the 500 people at once …
H: It reminds me of the children predicting the miracle at Fatima, and then a huge crowd saw weird things in the sky. I think it tells us more about how our minds plays tricks on us rather than thinking the Fatima miracle really happened.
M: They say the touched Jesus’ wounds …
H: Those were later stories that were trying to convince people Jesus really did die and come back to life. There’s no reason to think there were any early stories about people touching the resurrected Jesus.
Harley’s mom smiled: “So you’re not convinced Christianity is true?” she asked
“Not yet,” Harley replied. “Magic could have happened, but I think there are better explanations where we don’t have to use magic as an explanation to support our ideas.”