If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said... That is how the first hearers felt who heard reports of the resurrection. They knew that if it was true it meant we can't live our lives any way we want. It also meant we don't have to be afraid of anything, not Roman swords, not cancer, nothing. If Jesus rose from the dead, it changes everything (The Reason for God, 202).
Other myths have stories of dying and rising gods like Balder, Osiris, and Isis, but they are mere myths. Christianity is myth but not mere myth. It is, as C.S. Lewis said, "myth made fact" or the true myth. The difference is that Christian myth actually happened in time and space history. Jesus was born under Caesar Augustus and crucified under Pontius Pilate and the disciples talk about:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)
When unbelievers say that Christianity only borrowed its mythology from earlier pagan stories, the proper response is to smile and say no, Christianity fulfilled them.
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