Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[robvalue]

No number of textual accounts can ever be enough evidence on their own for an unprecedented event. I'm not picking on Jesus for once. Any unprecedented event.

I don't care if every single person alive back then wrote down that a man came back to life. It's not enough evidence. It needs to be extraordinary evidence, or else it is always more likely people are making it up, having mass delusions, spreading rumours or trying to fit in. Always.

What evidence would be extraordinary enough? Jesus coming back and doing it again. I'd be happy with that.

I don't have to say categorically it didn't happen. I would simply rather withhold belief than believe on insufficient evidence. And sadly I take it more seriously than most Christians seem to, and it doesn't even matter to me if it happened or not. Isn't that worrying?

[Jenny A]

And the police say "that's fine and good, Randy, but we have thirteen dead and injured with bullets in their bodies that the ballistics report says came from the gun your wife was recorded on CCTV as firing, as well as her fingerprints on the weapon found in her possession when she was picked up."

Call me when you have anything even accidentally similar to that for your (or any) god.

If you served on the jury and you were presented with such evidence by the prosecutor, you would have no choice but to convict my wife of the crime, would you?

Are you being willfully obtuse?  There are two different sorts of evidence:

1. Witness says I saw Randy's wife shoot 13 people. 

2. We have her gun which was found on her, 13 corpses with bullet wounds from that gun, her finger prints on the gun, and burn marks on her fingers.

Type one is eye witness testimony, and I wouldn't blame you a bit for not believing it without some type two evidence.  Type two is the physical evidence.  Present some of that along with the eye witnesses and things are looking bad for your wife.

My reports of a three hour tour would be type one evidence, so is Paul's experience, and that on the disipiles presuming of course they really had such an experience.  If I came back from heaven with a new and impossible to create chemical, or better yet could set up shop as a tour guide, then we have some type 2 evidence, and things are looking rosy for heaven.  But heaven would not be proof of everything in the Bible, just of heaven.  Similarly physical evidence linking your wife to one crime is not proof she committed all the others.

Which brings me back to that eternal life type resurrection. You don't even have type one evidence of the eternal Jesus.

[Jenny A]

The police come to my office and tell me that my wife has just been arrested for shooting 13 people in our neighborhood.

"This is impossible", I say. "I've been married to her for more than 26 years, and this sort of thing is not in her."

I know my wife, and I have evidence about her character that the police do not have. When you know God, you have evidence that those who do not know Him do not have.

Not really.  You see, your wife is a verifiability extant person.  God not so much.  

Fact #6: Jenny, the inveterate atheist, believed she toured heaven and was suddenly and dramatically converted.

Fact #7 Jenny, the inveterate skeptic believes she was kidnapped by aliens who performed medical experiments on her.  Her life is changed forever and she now spends her time protesting the government coverup of alien visitations.  (There are people like this out there right now.  Are they being kidnapped Randy?)

Facts 6 and 7 are of the same value, which is to say practically nothing.

[KevinM1]

No matter how hard Randy tries to grasp them, those straws remain forever out of reach.

[Randy Carson]

No, I will not be surprised that some simply refuse to worship God. The hardness of the human heart is well-documented.

My greater disappointment would be if God showed me that I could have said something that made a difference in someone's eternal life and didn't.

Yes, but you don't have any control over that, so I suppose you can't take it to hard to heart.  It isn't your fault that the catholic god made shitty choices that might prevent a person from worshiping it on moral grounds regardless of it's existence.  That's the burden you toil under.  I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the hardness of the human heart....but hey, aggrandize your god by insulting human beings -all day long-....I'm sure it'll help you win those souls, lol?

Glad to see that you believe that you and your pedo priests are living a superior life to my own, btw.  I wish you'd say shit like that more often.  In any case, if this were true, apologists would only help people if they were -convincing-.  You are the opposite of convincing...so perhaps you should give it a rest?

You could go play somewhere else if hearing me talk about God is too convicting.

[Randy Carson]

How many days later did He come back to life, Nemo?

Do you have a natural explanation for this event?

Yes, just keep repeating things. Works great.

Do you know what permanent means, Randy?

And you haven't even proven that it did happen, what do you want me to have an explanation for? Things keep not happening all the time.

Hmmm...I know...we need a thread on the evidence for the resurrection, don't we?

[Randy Carson]

Wouldn't that depend upon the evidence itself? Some is stronger and more compelling than other.

Do you have any evidence that God does not exist that I should consider?


When you make the positive assertion that "God does not exist" then the burden of proof is on you to provide some support for the claim.

If you have not made that claim, then you're off the hook.  


Think of each of these five facts - accepted AS FACTS (not opinions) by professional NT scholars of all faith positions (believers and non-believers alike) - as signposts pointing toward a destination - namely, that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.

They do not PROVE that Jesus rose from the dead in the sense that we can prove that water freezes at 32 degrees or boils at 212 degrees. However, the resurrection does appear to be the most probable explanation for the events they describe.

Is there a reason you're ignoring EVERYTHING I'M SAYING? I'M NOT SAYING GOD DOESN'T EXIST. Stop twisting my words, and stop shifting the burden of proof. You're making the assertion that god exists, and so it's YOU'RE JOB TO PROVE IT.

According to the majority of religious people, no matter what evidence you provide for them, they will never change their mind, so no it doesn't depend on the evidence. They explicitly say that.

Gee. Thanks for taking me off the hook when I was never on the hook to begin with. I was never making a positive assertion. You're just presenting a straw man, accusing me of saying something I never said in order to escape the burden of proof you placed on yourself.

And I did take into consideration your five "facts," just as any skeptic would, but they didn't add up. Sorry.
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Remember when I said you were being intellectually dishonest? Well, you just proved my point.

Or you proved you didn't understand what I was saying. It's okay. We can move on.

[Randy Carson]

If you served on the jury and you were presented with such evidence by the prosecutor, you would have no choice but to convict my wife of the crime, would you?

Are you being willfully obtuse?  There are two different sorts of evidence:

1. Witness says I saw Randy's wife shoot 13 people. 

2. We have her gun which was found on her, 13 corpses with bullet wounds from that gun, her finger prints on the gun, and burn marks on her fingers.

Type one is eye witness testimony, and I wouldn't blame you a bit for not believing it without some type two evidence.  Type two is the physical evidence.  Present some of that along with the eye witnesses and things are looking bad for your wife.

My reports of a three hour tour would be type one evidence, so is Paul's experience, and that on the disipiles presuming of course they really had such an experience.  If I came back from heaven with a new and impossible to create chemical, or better yet could set up shop as a tour guide, then we have some type 2 evidence, and things are looking rosy for heaven.  But heaven would not be proof of everything in the Bible, just of heaven.  Similarly physical evidence linking your wife to one crime is not proof she committed all the others.

Which brings me back to that eternal life type resurrection.  You don't even have type one evidence of the eternal Jesus.

So, just to be clear: would you have any choice but to convict my wife if you saw that evidence against her?

[Longhorn]

Yes, just keep repeating things. Works great.

Do you know what permanent means, Randy?

And you haven't even proven that it did happen, what do you want me to have an explanation for? Things keep not happening all the time.

Hmmm...I know...we need a thread on the evidence for the resurrection, don't we?

There is none. You don't have facts, and even if you did, historical facts do not prove a biological phenomenon. It's just not the appropriate type of evidence.

[Randy Carson]

The police come to my office and tell me that my wife has just been arrested for shooting 13 people in our neighborhood.

"This is impossible", I say. "I've been married to her for more than 26 years, and this sort of thing is not in her."

I know my wife, and I have evidence about her character that the police do not have. When you know God, you have evidence that those who do not know Him do not have.

Not really.  You see, your wife is a verifiability extant person.  God not so much.  

Fact #6: Jenny, the inveterate atheist, believed she toured heaven and was suddenly and dramatically converted.

Fact #7 Jenny, the inveterate skeptic believes she was kidnapped by aliens who performed medical experiments on her.  Her life is changed forever and she now spends her time protesting the government coverup of alien visitations.  (There are people like this out there right now.  Are they being kidnapped Randy?)

Facts 6 and 7 are of the same value, which is to say practically nothing.

The truth is out there.