Quote:Or- and please, try to follow me on this one- it was made up. Or it was embellished after the fact. Or the witnesses were fabricated, or their stories were twisted by their perception of events, or any number of other things.
It's technically possible but it's still going to be far less likely to be a fabrication than say the revelations of Mohammed, Joesph Smith and L Ron Hubbard due to the complexity of the situation and the number of people involved. So if you had to pick one religion that was based on God and hiss revelation to humanity then you will probably have to agree that this is the one to go for. There are for other reasons for choosing this one specifically but at any rate this a is a good start.
Of course this isn't going to be compelling enough by itself to convince an atheist/naturalist or perhaps a deist of anything. The first thing you would have to do is take out all those specific supporting belief structures and assumptions of reality you have assembled/constructed before something like this can be driven in and conquer yo from within in the name of Christ. You know in Return of the Jedi when they had to take out the power generator on Endor before they could go in and attack the Death Stars power core? It will be like that. While your force field is fully operational nothing will get through.
Quote:You are assuming, from the outset, that what was described in the story is literally true, and then challenging the atheist to come up with a way for this real and true event to have happened without a miracle. You can't do that, because we have no confirmation that the event actually occurred at all, just an old storybook.
That's because you're making all these naturalist assumptions about the nature of reality. You get to the resurrection once these assumptions have been cleared away. And they are just assumptions they don't necessarily just represent the "scientific worldview" or the "default setting "everyone is born with and you must maintain this primal rational purity or whatever. The existence of God is a fully rational and scientifically compatible concept and the association of miraculous events and a loving human relationship with this God is a fully rational and scientifically compatible concept as well. Nothing about the nature of reality would be violated if this is in fact the nature of reality. On this understanding you can accept the resurrection of Christ and the empty tomb and our eternal salvation through the grace and love of God, which is the central "Good News" of the gospels.
