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In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?
#7
RE: In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?
(September 15, 2019 at 6:24 am)Grandizer Wrote: I think the belief in a risen Jesus is better explained by potential naturalistic explanations than by a potential supernatural one, and you don't even need to argue the Gospels are complete myths to come up with a naturalistic explanation that's more compelling than a miracle case. One example: Joseph of Arimathea ended up moving Jesus' body to a private place during the night, in the hope that it would make things easier for the Messiah to come back to life and fulfill the expectations that he was supposed to meet. When that didn't happen, Jesus' body nevertheless stayed there and was never moved back to the original tomb. Joseph also decided not to let anyone know about this, so when rumors spread that Jesus had risen, he chose not to say anything about it.

Or it may be he decided to lie to the other disciples and have them believe Jesus rose from the dead (he or one of his men could have been the "angel" in the empty tomb when the women came to visit Jesus' body). Perhaps to spark some strong faith-based rebellion against the Romans.

Too many necessary information withheld from us so that one cannot really make any confident case for what triggered the Christ faith, but the point is the case for the Resurrection is just damn weak.

For one, if you start from a position where the supernatural is impossible, then an explanation of something being supernatural is never going to be the best explanation. Any naturalistic explanation given, will always be more likely than what's impossible. 

Now, if we start from a position where this is possible, such as with a belief in an existence of God that could make such things possible, then why the resurrection might be the best explanation makes more sense. 

But regardless, even if we both start with different presuppositions, all that would need to be indicated is why any such naturalistic explanations is less preferable than saying it's unexplainable as a natural phenomena. 

There's seem to be no real motivation for making this story up. Jesus would have been the worst messiah claimant to suggest a rebellion against Rome. He seemed to be entirely uninterested in the Roman Political order at all, let alone exhibiting any indication that he wanted to over throw it. There were plenty of other Messiah claimant that would have been more useful for this purpose. 

Secondly when Messiah claimant dies, their communities and followers tended to die along with them. There's no coming back from the Cross, hence why the cross was such an effective tool of Roman power. 

Another naturalistic explanation suggested is that his followers made it up to preserve the Christian community? Why? They wouldn't be preserving that community but putting them on path to the cross as well. Why be willing to die, suffer for the sake of something you didn't truly believe in, that you knew was false? 

His followers, his early community, passionately and fervently believed he conquered death in the resurrection. There's no signs of diminishment of their beliefs, but rather a sort of wildfire, and awakened sense of passion and commitment to it. 

It all defies attempts for naturalistic explanations. Perhaps that's why many opponents of christianity, would rather sell us on naturalistic explanations of a non-existing Jesus, more so than naturalistic explanations of what transpired after his death.
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RE: In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation? - by Acrobat - September 16, 2019 at 8:44 am

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