Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

As I said, if Jenny were to be taken up into heaven by Jesus for a three-hour tour, you would not believe anything she said upon her return.

You wouldn't read her book, and you wouldn't go to see the movie.

If Jenny got that three hour tour, but couldn't take the rest of the world on a return visit, Jenny would be asking many questions more medical than religious.  Which is really just a way of saying what Kevin said all over again.

If Jesus took you on a three-hour tour of heaven, would that be sufficient evidence for you to believe that he exists? Or would you presume that you were have a bad reaction to some meds?

If such a tour did take place, would you be willing to acknowledge and submit to Him as God?

[Jenny A]

Randy,

You seem to like hypotheticals, Dawkins has one in The God Delusion.  Roughly it goes like this, he looks out his window one afternoon and sees a huge dinosaur going by.  It's huge and he recognizes the species.  Maybe the color surprises him though.  He rushes out after and follows it a block or two but loses it. 

But real as this experience was, sight, sound, the shaking of the house, perhaps even smell, there is no trace left of the the dinosaur.  There are no foot prints.  No windows were broken by the concussion of those heavy steps.   It left neither scales nor feathers.  It didn't leave dino poop.  It didn't crush a dog in it's jaws and leave a mangled corpse behind.  It didn't break upper tree limbs.  And no one else in the neighborhood saw it.

Conclusion: Dawkins didn't see a dinosaur.

If Jenny got that three hour tour, but couldn't take the rest of the world on a return visit, Jenny would be asking many questions more medical than religious.  Which is really just a way of saying what Kevin said all over again.

If Jesus took you on a three-hour tour of heaven, would that be sufficient evidence for you to believe that he exists? Or would you presume that you were have a bad reaction to some meds?

If such a tour did take place, would you be willing to acknowledge and submit to Him as God?

See above dinosaur experience.  Not to mention ghost sightings, big foot, and premonitions.

However, give me some physical evidence on that three hour tour, or a way to replicate it and then we're cooking with gas.

[The Grand Nudger]

Aren't you jumping the gun a bit, Randy, imagining that if a gods existence could be proven (either by you or by that god itself) submission would simply follow?  How disappointing your greatest apologetic triumph would be, if you could prove that god existed...and only then, after what must be a lifetime of very hard work.... realize that it didn't matter at all..lol.

[IanHulett]

Why do you guys insist on shifting the burden of proof? If you're trying to convince someone, you need to show the evidence. I'm not trying to convince anybody. The name of this thread is implying YOU'RE the one trying to do the convincing. Thing is, you're not proving anything. You were just making claim after claim after claim, but no evidence/proof.

You wrote:

"Randy, will anything convince you to become an atheist?" and "Actually, not being willing to change your mind based on evidence is one way a person can be intellectually dishonest. "

Since you are asking me whether I would change MY mind and become an atheist based on "evidence", I think it is fair for me to ask what evidence you have that God does not exist.

You're twisting my words. Asking if whether or not you're willing to change your mind based on evidence is not the same as making a claim about something. It's criticizing the way a lot of religious people are close minded, that being that they would never ever change their mind no matter what argument/evidence is presented even if they lived to be 1,000,000. So, I don't need to provide evidence that god doesn't exist. I don't claim to know that God doesn't exist, I simply am not convinced he does, believe it or not, there is a difference. Since I'm not trying to prove anything, it's not my job to prove anything.

The name of this thread is "Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach" So, if I'm not mistaken, you're the one trying to prove something... The Resurrection. I'm still waiting for that proof.

[KevinM1]

And that's supposed to be an indictment of myself and other atheists how?

Eyewitness testimony is the weakest form of evidence there is.  Not only do we forget things, get confused about things, and otherwise have faulty memories, we can 'remember' things that didn't actually happen:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/01/p...committed/

Do you begin to understand why we put zero stock into eyewitness testimony?  It's utterly unreliable.  It's why legal professionals use it to corroborate actual evidence rather than relying solely on it.  By itself, it just creates a narrative.  Narratives aren't proof of anything.

In other words, Jenny's hypothetical experience may indeed be valid, but unless she can produce actual evidence of it, evidence that can't be more easily explained by something else (Occam's Razor is a bitch, innit?), her claims of the divine are meaningless.

So, to sum up, you would not believe her.

No, I would not. Don't feel bad. I don't accept any extraordinary claim at face value. My need for evidence isn't limited to gods.

[Spooky]

Mental Masturbation.

[Minimalist]

If Jesus took you on a three-hour tour of heaven, would that be sufficient evidence for you to believe that he exists?

It would depend on what medications I had taken prior to the hallucination.  Drugs are real.  Your god boy is horseshit.

[robvalue]

Why is it that God only gives out "evidence" indistinguishable from hallucinations? He should be able to do better. Scepticism > God it seems.

God is allergic to people with consistent critical thinking. He never shows up around them.

[Longhorn]

All this talk of resurrection, when Jesus didn't even die according to the story ._.

death
\ˈdeth\
noun
Full Definition
1 a :a permanent cessation of all vital functions :the end of life

If he came back to life, it means he's never been dead in the first place, by definition, and there can't be any talk of resurrection. That's my *1* fact for you, Randy.

[Randy Carson]

Randy,

You seem to like hypotheticals, Dawkins has one in The God Delusion.  Roughly it goes like this, he looks out his window one afternoon and sees a huge dinosaur going by.  It's huge and he recognizes the species.  Maybe the color surprises him though.  He rushes out after and follows it a block or two but loses it. 

But real as this experience was, sight, sound, the shaking of the house, perhaps even smell, there is no trace left of the the dinosaur.  There are no foot prints.  No windows were broken by the concussion of those heavy steps.   It left neither scales nor feathers.  It didn't leave dino poop.  It didn't crush a dog in it's jaws and leave a mangled corpse behind.  It didn't break upper tree limbs.  And no one else in the neighborhood saw it.

Conclusion: Dawkins didn't see a dinosaur.

If Jesus took you on a three-hour tour of heaven, would that be sufficient evidence for you to believe that he exists? Or would you presume that you were have a bad reaction to some meds?

If such a tour did take place, would you be willing to acknowledge and submit to Him as God?

See above dinosaur experience.  Not to mention ghost sightings, big foot, and premonitions.

However, give me some physical evidence on that three hour tour, or a way to replicate it and then we're cooking with gas.

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.

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