MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[DeistPaladin]

I am of the religious type, so I believe that if God exists, you can have lunch with your deceased father...

What do you base that on? I realize that as a Christian, the word "God" means only one thing to you: Yahweh, of course. However, even if we assume God exists, there are an indefinite number of possibilities (Allah, Zeus, Odin, Ra, Shiva, Krishna, Dagda, Quetzalcoatl, Marduk, and millions of other gods that humans have believe in plus the indefinite number of possible gods never imagined by any religion). Some of these gods offer an afterlife, some a cycle of reincarnation and some offer no existence after death at all.

Read your OT. Your own god was not always keen on the idea of an afterlife.

Job 7:7-9 O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

Psalms 115:17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

Eccl 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Much of the Christian concepts of the afterlife, including Hell, salvation and the intercessor-type deity have pagan origins. Christianity itself is an amalgamation of many different faiths, cobbled together in a land that was a crossroad between three continents. Sorry if you thought that it all began with a wonder-working godman born of a virgin.

Now, whether or not I am to believe that actually HAPPENED in your case...I would need more evidence. The point is not to believe EVERYTHING, but take everything on a case by case basis...and being open minded.

So which are you more likely to believe with just my testimony then?
1. I had lunch with my wife.
2. I had lunch with my resurrected father.

If you picked "1", congratulations! You are a normal person who evaluates claims based on how extraordinary they are, demanding an increasing level of evidence that scales with the extraordinary nature of the claim.

The same reason a man rising from the dead is. [an extraordinary claim just like abiogenesis]

Please cite for me peer reviewed science journals where the resurrection of Jesus is discussed and you can place scientific research on the origin of life on par with it.

Btw, do you know what "peer review" is in context with science?

You are talking a good game...the problem is, no freakin' evidence. Go in a lab, prove it. Until then, kill the noise.

What? Are you asserting that terrestrial life existed over 5 billion years ago, before the earth existed? What exactly are you saying?

I was saying, just to clarify, that we both believe that life came into existence, that we haven't always been here on this planet. The planet itself hasn't always been here. The difference is you believe that the world and all life was poofed into existence magically by your god. Scientists are trying to study how life came to be.

The only difference is you say GodDidIt while science is interested in finding out what the answer is.

Clear?

SMH

Why? You yourself said that the resurrection was an extraordinary claim, just like abiogenesis. Why do you shake your head now?

The Gospels, Paul's epistles, the non-Christian accounts, Jewish history, the spread of Christianity...stuff like that...it isn't just one thing, it is the totality of it all that gives historians reasons to believe that at BEST, Jesus of Nazareth existed. They reason that at the very least, the man existed...at least that much.

Oh fuck me, I just can't resist riding the Scholars Say Merry Go Round one more time...

The Gospels: Christian mythology

Paul's Epistles: Half of which are considered inauthentic and the other half I take as seriously as you take Muhammad's writings.

Non-Christian accounts: The best we have are the Annals of Tacitus and even this is late (2nd century) and is so oblique it doesn't even mention Jesus by name.

Jewish history: Doesn't mention any "Jesus" until the 4th century Talmudic entry about a Yeshua prosecuted for sorcery. This Yeshua had a 40 day trial, five disciples and was a wealthy, powerful man "connected with the government".

The Spread of Christianity: Actually, real history works against you here, and my sources include your own Bart Ehrman. There were a wild variety of different Christianities. It seems your Jesus, if he existed, didn't make much clear to his followers.

I mean of course, there are skeptics...hell, there are some that don't believe that Socrates ever existed...these things can't be proved with 100% accuracy...but based on all of the evidence, it seems most likely than not that Jesus existed.

I hold Jesus to a higher standard than Socrates. A miracle working godman is a more extraordinary claim than some guy who wrote philosophy.

If, on the other hand, Jesus was nothing more than some mortal religious leader who ran afoul of the authorities and was deified by his followers after his death, some of whom claimed to have seen him much the same way Elvis was sighted after his death, then your claim rises to the level of "it may be so, and what then?"

Stay tuned.

Truly, I'm on the edge of my seat. *yawn*

[GrandizerII]

But not all individuals referred to in historical sources must be historical figures.

Well then, certain historical figures that you have no problem believing existed: the contemporary sources that we allegely have for thoses guys doesn't mean that they actually existed... the contemporary sources could be lying.

And, no, my point is relevant because atheists are non-Christian "sources" as well. Yet, they'll mention God when referring to someone as a believer in God. This does not mean they are implying God exists.

Right, so the sources in question mentioned Tiberius and Pontius Pilate...so that would mean that those two guys didn't exist either.

Maybe you don't realize this, but you're just molding my argument into something you can argue against easily.

I never said that if any individual is mentioned in a historical document, he/she must not have existed.

What I said is that it is not necessarily the case that an individual actually existed just because he was mentioned in a historical document.

It takes more than just second- or third-hand accounts of an individual to accept his historical existence. By your argument, the Greek god Apollo was a historical person. After all, people back in the days often referred to the oracle of Apollo and seemed like they treated him as if he actually existed. But you know you can't accept that he existed just from that.

And one other thing to note, even in the days of Jesus, the evidence for his existence is lacking compared to the evidence for other prominent figures in his time.

[Minimalist]

I was waiting for this horse's ass to trot out 'Socrates.' Fortunately, Carrier compares the jesus v Socrates evidence issue.

I'm sure our newly arrived moron will run shrieking from the room but for all you smarter people....

To understand the rest of this chapter, it will help to grasp the analogy of Socrates. He is comparable to Jesus in being a fa mous sage whose influence was profound and everlast ing (he is the fat her of what we now mean by Philosophy, in essentially the same way Jesus is of Christianity) without having written anything himself, his influence being entirely through his 'disciples', who each developed communities that then fr agmented and modified his teachings into many competing sects.

And yet Socrates' existence is not in any doubt, nor plausibly doubtable. Why? Because very much unlike Jesus, we know the names of over a dozen eyewitnesses who wrote books about Socrates; in some cases we
even know the titles of these books, and a number of paraphrases and quotations from them survive in other sources. And in two of those cases, the books even survive: we have the many works of Plato and Xenophon, each of whom was an eyewitness and disciple to Socrates, who each recorded his teachings and reported stories and other information about him. We have nothing at all like this for Jesus. Even more unlike Jesus, we also have an eyewitness account of Socrates from a relatively unfriendly source as well: The Clouds of Aristophanes is a comic play specifically written to poke fun at Socrates and his teachings and disciples, written by an eyewitness contemporary to both; Socrates even sat in the audience of its first production! What we knew of Jesus would be vastly more credible and quantifiable if we had anything even remotely like this for him. Yet we have none of the above: we have no eyewitness records at all, much less from neutral or hostile parties; we don't even know of any written eyewitness accounts ever having existed (much less dozens upon dozens of them), and we certainly don't have anything like identifiable quotations from them or their titles and authors.

Socrates 1
jesus 0 Final

[His_Majesty]

If this is supposed to be a list of non Christians historians you are either a liar, or you don't read.

John Dominic Crossan is ex priest with a degree in divinity. He has remained remained a Roman Catholic. He is not an atheist or an agnostic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dominic_Crossan

First off, as the wikipedia article states, John "is an Irish-American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and former Catholic priest who has produced both scholarly and popular works. His research has focused on the historical Jesus, on the anthropology of the Ancient Mediterranean and New Testament worlds and on the application of postmodern hermeneutical approaches to the Bible".

Based on the fact that the man is a "historian of early Christianity", and he has "produced both scholarly and popular works", some may say he is a leading authority on the subject, Jenny.

And guess what, Jenny, old Johnny body doesn't believe in the Resurrection. Dr. Craig gives a vivid picture of Crossan's version of a "resurrection"...after all, they debated the topic of the "Real Jesus", which you can see for yourself...here is Craig's assessment of Crossan's views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw9jvJp_nAo

Bart Ehrman is an ex Christian with a degree in divinity.

Right, Bart is an ex Christian, which means he doesn't believe in the Resurrection, but he clearly believes in the existence of Jesus as a man, and he vehemently denied anyone that claims otherwise (about this belief). He is a new testament scholar..and he said himself that he has spent 30 years of his life studying and researching this stuff...he is one of the leading authorities on the subject of the historicity of Jesus and he is constantly cited as an authority by lots of people within the field.

E.P Sanders is another guy with a degree in divinity. "Sanders identifies himself as a "liberal, modern, secularized Protestant." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._P._Sanders He does not identify himself as an atheist.

Good stuff, Jenny. My bad. Just replace E.P Sanders with Michael Grant...and go ahead and do your research on him, and just to show you appreciation for your correction, I will give you this: http://www.bede.org.uk/price1.htm

Read the "Michael Grant" part. Go ahead.

I can't pin down Gerd Ludmann's degree with certainty, but it appears to have been theological. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_L%C3%BCdemann

Well, if since he debated WLC on the Resurrection, we at least know that he wasn't a Christian, the only question is whether or not he believes in the historical Jesus as a man...and the answer is...Yes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MWcFv0ySm0

Starting at around 33:45, Gerd states, "I agree with Dr. Craig that it is probable that there was a Jew named Joseph of Arimethea who buried Jesus". Hey Jenny, Gerd isn't a Christian, and he believes that Jesus was buried, and if he believes that Jesus was buried, he believes that Jesus existed.

Jame Tabor has a degree in Biblical literature.

With an emphasis on the origins of Christianity and Judaism, which is a field that he has spent 30 years in, according to him. That info will be provided to you in the same link below.

It's not clear whether he thinks Jesus is historical or not:

Richard Wightman Fox, professor of history, the University of Southern California, writing in Slate (April 2006) said, "Ultimately Tabor leaves the reader confused about whether he thinks the Jesus dynasty is a historical fact or merely an intriguing conjecture" and that "Tabor seems stuck in an endless loop, squinting across the sands of time as much as the terrain of Galilee and Judea, holding out for some imagined "real" contact with the historical Jesus"

Its funny you mention that, because in this link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-d-ta...00409.html , which is an article authored by James himself, he states:

"Paul never met Jesus. The chronological facts are undisputed. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified during the reign of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor or prefect of Judea, in April, A.D. 30. As best we can determine it was not until seven years after Jesus' death, around A.D. 37, that Paul reports his initial apparition of "Christ," whom he identifies with Jesus raised from the dead."

Not only is he behind me on this one, but it even looks like he is using the same sources I used (and everyone else uses, for that matter).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tabor It's not clear whether he would call himself a Christian.

Well, it certainly isn't clear on whether he is a Christian, but it is clear that he believes in the historical Jesus. As far as him being a Christian is concerned, I have two sources which state that is he is Christian skeptic...

There isn't a man educated as a historian on your list. One of them may not believe in a historical Jesus, and another couple remain Christian.

Bullshit. There was only one person on there that can be listed as a Christian, which was my bad...and that was E.P Sanders...and he was replaced by someone that is an atheist and still believes in the historicity of Jesus....None of the sources on the list are Christians...and I challenge you to name one person on the list that is a Christian. Second, all accounts that I've seen show James Tabor as a skeptic, but still believes in the historicity of Jesus. Third, look at the wikipedia article on the historicity of Jesus where it states that the vast majority of historians believe in the historicity of Jesus, and you can feel free to check their citations. Third, I already posted the video where Bart Ehrman also confirms this majority view from historians regarding the historicity of Jesus. Fourth, everyone on the list is a historian in some capacity...whether it is a new testament historian, historian on the origins of Christianity, whatever...all men are leading figures on the topic at hand...and none of them are Christians, and they still believe in the historicity of Jesus.

[Esquilax]

So because you don't like it, presumably because of how inconvenient it is for your argument, it's not true, based solely on that assertion from you alone?

"Extraordinary" is a subjective term, anyway.

Yes, but I don't see any definition of extraordinary that resolves to just "some guy who was never involved in the event in question said something that some other guys, who he never sees fit to identify, might have believed about it."

I notice also that you've chosen to cover for your baseless dismissal with vague deflection; did you really think that would work? That I wouldn't remind you, and everyone else, of your total failure to address the point I made?

That's why we aren't taking the simplistic, binary path you want us to, with those claims. We're using a scientific, probabilistic approach.

Use the scientific, probabilistic approach to demonstrate life from nonlife, then.

We know that life exists, and that things that are not alive also exist. We do not have any indication, despite the best efforts of chumps like you, of the existence of magical designers of life. We also have never observed life being created from nothing with magic, which means that no matter your objections, both naturalistic and supernatural means of life-creation have the same level of direct observation.

However, since we can readily determine that the things required for natural life exist, and we cannot do the same for supernatural things of any kind, probabilistically it is more likely that natural things were involved, than supernatural.

That was easy.

Oh, and by the way, did god come from life? Did his consciousness come from consciousness?

No and no.

So, you believe exactly the same shit that you keep making fun of us for believing in. Thank you, you hypocritical ass.

Your answer to both of those questions is probably no, and if that's the case then how dare you pretend that what you just said doesn't also apply to you? And if the answer is yes to both of those, then all that blathering you do about infinite regressions was either a lie, or is a problem for you.

Wait a minute, what???

Do I really have to go this simple? If you believe god didn't come from anything alive, then you believe that nothing living was involved in his existence, which is another way of saying you believe god came from non-life. You might be tempted to respond by saying god is eternal, that he always existed, but that's just a semantic trick to avoid the issue. If he didn't come from anything living, then he violates the rules you're trying to mock us for not following.

If you believe god is conscious, but that his consciousness didn't come from another consciousness, then you believe his consciousness came from non-consciousness. Again, don't bother going to eternal: aside from being an obvious deflection you spent quite a long time in the other thread telling us how eternal things aren't possible. Don't go violating your one argument to preserve another (for the one post it'd take me to remind you that it's total bullshit.)

The short version is that you believe in the existence of a life that required no other life to start it, and a consciousness that didn't require another to develop. These are precisely the things you just got done telling us are impossible, and if you thought you'd just be able to palm that card and expect us not to notice, you are fucking wrong. You believe in everything your argument hinges on asserting is impossible; thus, you are a hypocrite, and the entirety of your position against atheism- which was an argument from ignorance from the get go- loses all power.

You really are a dishonest little git, aren't you?

Dude, I just told the freakin truth. Is the truth a foreign concept to you or something?

I don't think you've said one truthful thing since you got here. Remember, your very first post of any substance contained a demand that we all believe things that none of us do, and you continued to argue that actually, we do believe the things that none of us believe, but that you don't believe those things, because that would be foolish.

Only the truth is, you believe every last thing that you've been saying we're unreasonable for believing. Life from non-life, consciousness from non-consciousness, matter just suddenly getting up and being alive and talking... all features of your religion, all things you believe, and all things you've been taunting us for believing. Your every argument, since you got here, has been hypocritical, fallacious trash, that you haven't even had the decency to be ashamed of.

I don't recall claiming that "god's life coming from non-life". Can someone sayyy, straw man?

Did god require another life to come into existence? No? Then god is alive, without requiring another life to be so; he's alive, coming from non-life. Just because you think his life requires no matter at all to happen doesn't somehow make it okay.

Hey man, just open your heart...be open minded. I am not trying to deceive anyone...I just think we have good historical evidence for the existence of Jesus. That is my opinion, and yeah, a lot of historians share that belief with me. Just open your heart & mind.

"Just be open minded!" Said every conman working with insufficient evidence ever, when a rational person doesn't immediately follow his every word.

At least try not to poison the well, eh?

[Minimalist]

WLC is a fucking moron. You deserve each other.

Simply repeating the same gibberish over and over may impress the religious... you fuckers do it all the time. But it proves nothing.
Craig is evidence for the empty head rather than an empty tomb....but he makes a lot of money telling jackasses what they want to hear. Con men frequently succeed using religion. Believers will believe damn near anything.

[pocaracas]

"Paul never met Jesus. The chronological facts are undisputed. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified during the reign of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor or prefect of Judea, in April, A.D. 30. As best we can determine it was not until seven years after Jesus' death, around A.D. 37, that Paul reports his initial apparition of "Christ," whom he identifies with Jesus raised from the dead."

This sort of claims remind me that Harry Potter's facts are "undisputed", too. Harry went to Hogwarts, in the UK. Prior to that, he lived in London.

In 1993, Fudge met with the Prime Minister to inform him of the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban. Due to the fact that Black was convicted of murdering 12 Muggles, along with Pettigrew, and was thus a severe threat to both communities, Fudge felt that it was important that the Muggle Prime Minister be informed.

In 1993, the UK had a prime-minister, indeed... we know it was John Major, although he is never mentioned by name, perhaps as a way to keep the book intemporal.

It is all rather well documented here: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Prime_Minister

[Mudhammam]

Has His_Majesty addressed the fact that Justus of Tiberius in Galilee, historian and close friend of Agrippa II, born and writing during the first century, compiled a now lost work entitled A Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews, and that Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, writing in the 9th Century, stated that "I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias ... and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth, he makes not one mention of Jesus, of what happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did"? Not even a mention of any disciples of Jesus? Or how about Irenaeus, early Church Father writing in the second half of the second century who blasted "heretics" who said that Jesus was crucified a young man and instead argued that Jesus died in his forties during the reign of Claudius (c. 41-54)? Strange stuff to be saying (or not saying) about a historical man who supposedly lived just a century earlier whom everybody should have known quite well.

[DeistPaladin]

WLC is a fucking moron.

I disagree. I personally think WLC is a shrewd if sleazy con artist. He just seems to ooze all over the stage as he speaks. Every instinct I have tells me he knows damn well he's lying his ass off and he's defending a bullshit story but he's motivated by the damn fine gig he's landed for himself. He has a nice, cushy job which he's no doubt overpaid in the extreme to do, selling his snake oil to suckers.





But that's just my impression. Maybe he is stupid enough to believe in the product he hocks.

[Mudhammam]

I don't think WLC is stupid or dishonest... he's just deeply indoctrinated with dogma.