Religion

Religious traditions make claims about history, about texts, and about the world. Some of those claims are empirical — they can be checked against evidence. The essays in this section examine those claims: the historicity of events, the textual history of scriptures, the archaeological record, and the logical structure of theological arguments.

This is not a section about whether faith is justified or whether religious experience is meaningful. It is a section about claims that can be investigated — and what the investigation shows.

What you'll find here:

• Christianity — the historicity of Jesus, resurrection claims, and the textual history of the New Testament.
• Islam — the Quran's textual preservation, the historical Mohammed, and early Islamic history.
• Judaism — the Exodus, the archaeological record of ancient Israel, and the Documentary Hypothesis.
• Hinduism — Vedic cosmology, the historical development of Hindu traditions, and scriptural claims.
• Buddhism — rebirth claims, the historical Buddha, and the Pali Canon.
• Comparative — miracle claims across traditions, the structure of religious argument, and common patterns in sacred texts.

The approach is the same as elsewhere in this archive: derive, don't assert. Show the evidence, cite the sources, and be honest about what the evidence does and does not support.