Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

The point at issue is the whether there was a resurrection of the dead body of Jesus. This is a claim about biology. Dead bodies don't normally resurrect. Something as unlikely to me as ghosts existing and the apostles seeing a ghost, not a resurrected body, would be more likely than a body resurrecting. People report ghost sightings more than bodily resurrections, this is all common sense.
Give me evidence like biologists resurrecting dead people after days of being dead, and I'd likely change my mind or at the very least be more sympathetic to Christianity. It doesn't matter how reliable the gospels are. They are not enough. Claiming a dead man walks again is a claim about biology of the human body. You can't ignore biology and the evidence on this. Assuming theism is not enough, because again the question at issue would be whether god causes dead men to walk. According to the common sense evidence, dead bodies don't get up after days, so god likely doesn't resurrect the dead. That's a natural theology argument against the resurrection of Jesus for you. Resurrections aren't a dime-a-dozen and if they are that would undermine the theological importance of Jesus's resurrection.
You can't just assume god did in fact resurrect Jesus, because that assumes Christian views of god are true which begs the question because the goal for the arguing for the resurrection is to argue for the truth of the Christian view of god.
Please stop dancing around these problems.

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:

Jesus died by crucifixion.
The women who went to the tomb found it empty.
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.
Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddently converted.

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

[Cato]

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

Insufferable.

These are not all facts. The resurrection is a story. Stephen King doesn't have to believe as fact the supernatural events he commits to paper. Get a grip.

Can you seriously not conceive of more plausible reasons why the tomb could have been empty? Assuming there was a tomb.

Again, the 'Jesus witnessed roaming the countryside' tale was a fabrication later added to the original story.

Paul was likely struck by lightening, which short circuited the reasoning part of his brain. Besides, Paul is simply older than Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard. You really don't need to know any more about Paul's motivations.

[Jenny A]

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:

Jesus died by crucifixion.
The women who went to the tomb found it empty.
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.
Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddently converted.

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

When you actually demonstrate that the above are facts, it will be a live question.  Right now it's just a hypothetical. But, just supposing the above were true, just about anything is a more likely explaination of them than a resurrection:

It would be more likely that one hundred men got together and conspired to make up the resurrection and Paul was one of the conspirators than that there was a resurrection.  But there are much better explanations than that beginning with the fact that people do hullucinate and they are more likely to do so under stress.   And there are precedents for mass hallucinations. And many people really do believe that they were abducted by aliens, saw their dead mother, etc.,  etc.  So Paul and the disciples are easily explained.  They are either liars or mistaken.

People suddenly adopt all sorts of beliefs including atheism.  James suddenly did.  So?

The empty tomb is laughably easy to explain.  Someone took the body away.  And that is the conclusion that any rational person looking at an empty tomb would reach.

[Minimalist]

Jesus died by crucifixion.
The women who went to the tomb found it empty.
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.
Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddently converted.

WE don't know any of that shit.  You believe it.  That's the difference.

[Longhorn]

Jesus died by crucifixion.

How do you know that for certain?

The women who went to the tomb found it empty.

How many women? The gospels can't seem to agree on that

The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.

Proof?

Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddently converted.

So what? What does that do for the validity of your claim?

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

I don't need a better theory, those are not facts and a violation of fundamental laws of nature should never be your go to explanation.

[robvalue]

I've got an alternative narrative that is much more simple and believable:

Some guy was causing a commotion for the Romans with his preaching and ended up getting executed, possibly crucified. Later on, some people who had never met him made up a load of extra shit about him*.

Fits like a glove.

* (It's easy, try it! Today, I killed 54 people with a spoon, then died, came back to life and ate a planet sized pizza! I can get a bunch of my mates to write it down too, making it 98% more true.)

[Minimalist]

I've got a better narrative.

This shit was made up by primitive assholes....just like every other religion.

[Pizza]

The point at issue is the whether there was a resurrection of the dead body of Jesus. This is a claim about biology. Dead bodies don't normally resurrect. Something as unlikely to me as ghosts existing and the apostles seeing a ghost, not a resurrected body, would be more likely than a body resurrecting. People report ghost sightings more than bodily resurrections, this is all common sense.
Give me evidence like biologists resurrecting dead people after days of being dead, and I'd likely change my mind or at the very least be more sympathetic to Christianity. It doesn't matter how reliable the gospels are. They are not enough. Claiming a dead man walks again is a claim about biology of the human body. You can't ignore biology and the evidence on this. Assuming theism is not enough, because again the question at issue would be whether god causes dead men to walk. According to the common sense evidence, dead bodies don't get up after days, so god likely doesn't resurrect the dead. That's a natural theology argument against the resurrection of Jesus for you. Resurrections aren't a dime-a-dozen and if they are that would undermine the theological importance of Jesus's resurrection.
You can't just assume god did in fact resurrect Jesus, because that assumes Christian views of god are true which begs the question because the goal for the arguing for the resurrection is to argue for the truth of the Christian view of god.
Please stop dancing around these problems.

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:

Jesus died by crucifixion.
The women who went to the tomb found it empty.
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.
Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddenly converted.

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

I get the feeling you're not listening to me and I'm getting tired of repeating myself. Why are we to hold the explanation that there was a bodily resurrection more likely than other explanations of the gospel writings? The simplest, and most consistent with the facts about dead bodies is that the resurrection narrative is (1) disciples lied and died for it because recanting wasn't a live option for them (ex. the Romans didn't care and would kill them regardless of recanting, and it would be better to die a heroic martyr than as a lying con-man), (2) outright folklore like urban legends we have today which given that historians don't know who actually wrote the gospel accounts this is very likely. There, I named two explanations that have the explanatory virtues of simplicity, not ad hoc and consistent with and supported by biology and commonsense folk psychology. My explanations are even consistent with a god existing and natural theology. What do you actually have? If you assume Christian views on god and metaphysics you beg the question against me. So, if you want to get me to Christianity you need to back up and defend those claims. We need common ground here and I'm just not seeing it. If it's okay to argue in a circle in the bigger web of arguments then I see no reason why rivals to Christianity like other religions, irreligious theism, and strong atheism can't argue the same way.
As for supernaturalist explanations, "Jesus was a ghost and not a resurrected body" is more likely than bodily resurrection since people report seeing ghosts all the time.

If we are going to allow for events that conflict with regularities like dead bodies not normally resurrecting after days, then why not allow for other such irregularities like people willing to dying for a lie, naturalistic resurrection, swoon theory, ghost-Jesus, Alien-Jesus, false prophet-Jesus? Humans reason using regularities and generalizations there is no way around this. If I throw them out I'm going to have no way to decide which irregularity to choose.

Note, you can't just use gospel writings as evidence of the likelihood of the your explanation when they are what you're aiming to explain. That's would be viciously circular reasoning.

[Randy Carson]

You're right. They don't NORMALLY resurrect. Here's what we know:

Jesus died by crucifixion.
The women who went to the tomb found it empty.
The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.
Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddently converted.

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

When you actually demonstrate that the above are facts, it will be a live question. 

Jenny, these are facts that professional NT scholars accept...even those who are skeptics. Now, you can continue to deny them if you like, but these are not the issues that keep the "big boys" up at night. They are accepted as "facts" by the vast majority of NT scholars. In light of that, perhaps YOU might provide some scholarship which shows why we should NOT accept them.

Right now it's just a hypothetical. But, just supposing the above were true, just about anything is a more likely explaination of them than a resurrection:

It would be more likely that one hundred men got together and conspired to make up the resurrection and Paul was one of the conspirators than that there was a resurrection. 

1. Conspiracy Theory.

But there are much better explanations than that beginning with the fact that people do hullucinate and they are more likely to do so under stress.   And there are precedents for mass hallucinations.

2. Hallucination Theory.

And many people really do believe that they were abducted by aliens, saw their dead mother, etc.,  etc.  So Paul and the disciples are easily explained.  They are either liars or mistaken.

Okay. 1 & 2. Both of these theories have solid refutations which I will post later today.

People suddenly adopt all sorts of beliefs including atheism.  James suddenly did.  So?

But why, Jenny? James was a skeptic for three years...Jesus walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead...allegedly. But none of that moved James to believe that Jesus was anything special. And then something changed. Scripture records that James saw Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars accept that as a known fact.

But you know better. So, what is your explanation for James' conversion?

The empty tomb is laughably easy to explain.  Someone took the body away.  And that is the conclusion that any rational person looking at an empty tomb would reach.

Laughably? We'll see who's laughing once the evidence is examined.

So, who was it, Jenny? Who took the body? You're chuckling, so you must have a theory....

[Randy Carson]

Jesus died by crucifixion.

How do you know that for certain?

I posted the extra-biblical support for this. I don't even need a single book from the NT for this point.

The women who went to the tomb found it empty.

How many women? The gospels can't seem to agree on that

Witnesses did not agree on whether the Titanic broke in two. But it did sink, right?

A group (two or more) of women discovered that the tomb was empty.

The disciples believed that they saw Jesus alive after the crucifixion and were willing to suffer rather than recant.

Proof?

You're just stalling now, aren't you?

Paul, an sworn enemy of the Church, was suddenly converted.
James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddently converted.

So what? What does that do for the validity of your claim?

It's called being a "hostile witness", and it is one point of additional credibility agreed upon by professional historians. Paul was hostile to the gospel right up until the moment that he met Jesus after the resurrection.

What theory do you have that account for these facts BETTER than the resurrection of Jesus?

I don't need a better theory, those are not facts and a violation of fundamental laws of nature should never be your go to explanation.

Actually, you do. You need to have an explanation that is better than the resurrection; otherwise, the resurrection IS the best explanation of the facts, and knowing this will haunt you because you do not want it to be true.

So, got something?