DEBUNKING THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

[Minimalist]

What is your explanation for the five minimal facts (accepted by atheist and theist scholars alike) which we examined here?

These are not facts. They are the opinions of people who read your fucking stupid book and agreed that this is what they said.  That does not make them "facts."

Significantly, even according to that fuckhead Habermas, 25% of the so-called 'scholars' he consulted...and it seems that he has never released the names of them... disagree with his premise.  This would be unusual.  99% of biologists accept the theory of evolution but Habermas doesn't.

The man is full of shit.  And so are you, Randy.

[Pizza]

Vision hypothesis, swoon hypothesis, and stolen body hypothesis are still more plausible than the existence of the undead. :

[Nope]

Small number of conspirators

A conspiracy depends on secrecy, and the smaller the number of people involved who could “spill the beans”, the more likely it is the secret can be maintained. The ideal number of conspirators is two. In fact, in a perfect scenario, two people would agree together to commit a crime, and then one would kill the other thereby improving the odds of the secret being maintained.

In the Waco Compound, 80 people were willing to burn to death with David Koresh. That is certainly a much larger number of followers than the 12 who supposedly fled when Jesus was killed

Short time frame that the conspiracy must be maintained

In an ideal situation, the conspiracy only needs to be maintained for a short amount of time. The longer the silence must be sustained, the more likely it is that someone will break it.

Two decades later there are still followers who believe that David Koresh is god

Excellent communication between conspirators

After a conspiracy has been initiated, it is important for the participants to maintain good communication with one another so that they may respond uniformly to questions from outsiders seeking to gain information. Skilled investigators seeking to uncover a conspiracy will usually seek to isolate the parties so that they cannot collaborate on responses to questions. Additionally, an experienced investigator will also attempt to convince one party that another has confessed the truth—even when this confession has not actually happened. This ploy puts pressure on the one being questioned to break the silence. When one conspirator believes that others have already confessed, the odds of breaking the conspiracy are greatly increased.

Again, we don't know if the apostles even lived much less if they died in the manner that tradition claims. I am not certain if the Romans could be considered skilled interrogators in the way a modern detective would be today. It does appear according to the articles that I found that some of Koresh' surviving followers still agree that he was a god and will be resurrected.

Familial connections between conspirators

This is the only one that I don't know if it applies to the followers of David Koresh

Little outside pressure or effort to break the conspiracy

When a conspiratorial group faces little or no opposition or challenge, it is easier for the group to remain true to the conspiracy. However, when pressure is brought to bear upon the group or individual members, the chances of maintaining the conspiracy are reduced.

The people who followed David Koresh were thrown in prison. They have been mocked and treated like crazy people. They still maintain their faith in him.

Should we all follow our lord Koresh? People, even intelligent ones, can believe a lie is true. Their sincerity doesn't make their religion true.

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/20/178063471/...ll-believe

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/14/waco.koresh.believers/

[Longhorn]

Oh, but Randy isn't here to listen to your objections. He already has copypasta prepared for every scenario.

Good job Randy. Jesus is proud of you.

[Randy Carson]

Wow, notice that it took only one additional post to change from "five factors" to "five facts". You naughty monkey. 

Is this resurrection day? Seen some necro posts, Randy is back.

You are not paying attention.

In the the thread, http://atheistforums.org/thread-34162.html, I presented five "minimal facts" accepted by even atheist scholars.

In this thread, I have presented five factors necessary for maintaining a conspiracy.

Although both threads feature five elements, the five facts and the five factors are two different lists.

[LastPoet]

[Randy Carson]

We've been over this. "5. Jesus' tomb was found to be empty" is not a fact agreed upon by historians. End.

Actually, about 75% of all NT scholars do accept this fact.

And obviously, not all of them accept the supernatural explanation.

[Randy Carson]

Couldn't care less if it was found empty anyway. There's still plenty of explanations for that, even assuming it happened, which are humongously more probably than "magic zombie man".

If you used this level of scepticism in other departments you'd sell your house for 5 quid because a bloke warns you an asteroid is going to hit it.

I'm interested in reading any theories that you have care to share with the group, rob.

The Swoon Theory is one. The Conspiracy Theory is another.

Since you do not believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, you must have some theory that you believe explains the five minimal facts.

What is it?

[Randy Carson]

Many people believe that the Apostles knew that Jesus had not really risen from the dead and that they fabricated the accounts of his resurrection.

Who are these many people?  

Richard Carrier. Members of this forum. People like that.

And do you really think that showing that such a conspiracy is unlikely gets you any further towards proving the resurrection because:

1) No matter how unlikely such a conspiracy might be, it is still much more likely than a man returning from the dead;

Sure. But it's not the slam-dunk that mythicists and other skeptics believe it to be. This realization enables a more open-minded person to say, "Damn, that's a good argument...perhaps I should take a second look at the Christian argument."

It's a numbers game, Jenny. I don't expect that all of you can or will be saved.

However, I'm willing to bet that one or more people reading this thread will realize that their reliance on the Conspiracy Theory as a way to explain away the claim of resurrection is not as well-founded as they have thought to this point.

[Randy Carson]

Has God or Jesus done anything since then? If not, they're not very relevant are they. This is the most recent thing people think they can reasonably demonstrate. Pretty laughable.

How would you be able to determine whether He has or hasn't?

Your presuppositions exclude any possibility of God's action...and this is most un-scientific of you, btw.