Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

Here's another set of minimal facts:

1) The bible is the claim. The truth of what it says is the subject of debate. Any attempt to demonstrate the truth of one part of the claim by using another part of the claim at best only shows internal consistency. The gospel accounts are certainly not independent sources; at best they amount to two accounts rather than four and there's no evidence that they are anything other than hearsay.

It appears you have not been paying attention. In this thread, I have posted material from NON-BIBLICAL sources in support of the minimal facts. But your problem goes deeper than this, and it is addressed by Bart Ehrman:

"[There] is another group insisting that the books of the Bible need to be given special treatment. These are certain agnostics and atheists who claim that since, say, the Gospels are part of Christian sacred scripture, they have less value than other books for establishing historical information. As odd as it might seem, the nonbelievers who argue this are making common cause with the fundamentalists who also argue it. Both groups treat the Gospels as nonhistorical, the fundamentalists because the Gospels are inspired and the atheists (those who hold this view) because the Gospels are accepted by some people as sacred scripture and so are not historical. The (sometime) atheist opinion of the Bible as nonhistorical is no better than the (typical) fundamentalist opinion." (Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 72)

Additionally, if you were REALLY up on the subject, you would know that the list of independent sources for the existence of Jesus includes:

Q
M
L
Mark
Matthew
Luke
John
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Peter

plus all of the Jewish and Roman sources that I have cited previously in this thread.

2) The claims that are of any importance (the magical ones) are of an extraordinary nature. Anyone approaching the claims objectively and with any kind of rigour should therefor expect a similarly extraordinary standard of evidence before believing such claims. To accept anything less is the result of special pleading or points to someone who believes anything they are told at face value.

And I have pointed out repeatedly that this is incorrect. Like ALL claims, an extraordinary claim only requires sufficient evidence. And this I am attempting to provide to you via this thread.

3) The only evidence we have outside of the claim is a bunch of vague references to the mere existence of one of the characters, and people's opinions and beliefs about him.

Which from a historian's point of view is a staggering wealth of information unlike that available for virtually any other figure of antiquity about which you would not even begin to argue. And remember, these historians are highly educated professionals, fluent in multiple languages, who have spent YEARS studying the material which you so quickly gloss over.

4) This level of evidence is barely enough to establish that one of the characters was based on a real person. It is about as far away from extraordinary evidence of these magical claims as you could get.

The existence of Jesus is a historical fact. The skeptic John Dominic Crossan admits, "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be."

This should be of utmost importance to anyone who makes life decisions based on whether or not these claims are true. As it happens, I'm not one of those people. It wouldn't change a thing for me even if the magical claims were true. But I take it seriously anyway because such a large number of other people do.

I think it is more troubling that ignorant people make decisions based upon dubious "facts" gleaned from Internet sources and filtered through their own personal biases.

[Randy Carson]

Why do think this to be the case regarding Luke?

Because reality is devoid of magic.

Why do you believe that supernatural miracles do not occur?

[Randy Carson]

Maybe we should test how easy it is to make stuff up.

Can anyone make stuff up about a real person?

David Cameron once battled a thousand lizard warriors, armed only with a teacake and a VCR instruction manual.

Wow, that was quite easy. David Cameron is a real person. So does that make what I just made up about him true?

No? Well, what if I reeled off a bunch of towns that I live by, and other easily obtainable information first? Would it be true then? What if I got my mates to write it down too? How about in 2000 years?

What if you were to actually stop spending all your free time posting nonsense like that and started reading good books instead?

That way, you'd actually have something to say when you did post?

[Randy Carson]

To be fair, maybe it wasn't Luke, the writer, who made stuff up... but someone most likely did and he wrote that.

So, I can put you down as being in the Conspiracy Theory Camp?

The disciples made up the whole thing and conspired to spread what they knew to be a lie. That's your view?

[IATIA]

Even if it can be proven that jesus lived and was crucified, it cannot be proven that he rose from the dead. It cannot be proven that he was dead. And it damn sure cannot be proven that he was the son of some invisible deity. So unless you are willing to accept Zeus as a real god, quoting religious mythology is useless for anything other than entertainment, poorly written at that. Your bible speaks of Zeus and 33 other gods at last count.

[Randy Carson]

I'm pretty sure Matthew was making up his own stuff to add to the made up stuff

Yup, the Abe Lincoln analogy is perfect. There is no counter to it, from someone who is desperately trying to conflate a normal person and a magical person.

I would have thought by now Randy would realize this trick doesn't work on us, just like it didn't work when he joined. Maybe one day he'll reflect enough to consider that the problem could actually be the evidence, rather than atheists using god-like denial powers.

Not much of a "trick" here, rob. I'm giving you facts that scholars of all faith positions AGREE on after they have examined the evidence that you claim is problematic.

See, here's the thing: YOU are the one who is significantly out of sync with what the consensus is.

[Randy Carson]

I thought the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter analogy was a pretty good one, and all Randy did was sip his coffee and fail to respond, so he's probably gonna gloss over this one, guys. Selective reading is, like, a super-power for the Catholics around here, I've noticed. Then again, I guess it would have to be after all that cherry-picking.

Come on... everyone knows that's a recent Hollywood movie.
World leaders playing Mahjong, on the other hand, now that's completely new to Randy (and maybe most of you).
And, who knows?... if we use his tactic of just repeating the same argument, but with slight differences, maybe he'll start seeing the merit in the argument...
(I know it's the same hope that he has we'll ever see the merit of his own argument(s))

I skip over cartoons, videos, memes, etc.

[Randy Carson]

Still no real evidence in this thread, I see.

Surprise, surprise.

Still no rebuttal to the evidence already presented.

Surprise, surprise.

[Randy Carson]

Humans don't survive rigor mortis.

Right. You'd have to be like God or something to do that.

There is no such thing as zombie gods.

Right. Because God isn't dead.

[Randy Carson]

Humans don't survive rigor mortis. There is no such thing as zombie gods.

I already pointed out that a resurrection goes against biology, but the Gary Habermas clone replied, "I'm not talking about a natural cause, I'm talking about a supernatural cause." What a joke. Special pleading is funny stuff.

Yes. Yes, you have. Big whoop. The God who created all life forms out of nothing by speaking them into existence is not constrained by your puny laws of nature.

But hey, why not actually make an argument as to why God would NOT be able to suspend His own laws if He chose to do so? Why not attempt any argument at all? See, if you're going to assert that the resurrection violates what we know of biology (which NO ONE disputes, btw), then your real mountain is to explain in no uncertain terms why God is somehow bound to obey the laws and priniciples which He himself created. You have not begun such a climb.

He still hasn't given an argument for holding one supernatural explanation as more likely than another. We still don't know why we are to hold supernatural explanations more likely than not either. Nor do we know why we are to hold one irregularity more likely than others.

See my CONCLUSION above. Feel free to offer your own alternative theory which explains ALL of the five facts.