DEBUNKING THE CONSPIRACY THEORY

[Minimalist]

[Pizza]

Vision hypothesis, swoon hypothesis, and stolen body hypothesis are still more plausible than the existence of the undead. :

[Nope]

[Longhorn]

Oh, but Randy isn't here to listen to your objections. He already has copypasta prepared for every scenario.

Good job Randy. Jesus is proud of you.

[Randy Carson]

[LastPoet]

[Randy Carson]

We've been over this. "5. Jesus' tomb was found to be empty" is not a fact agreed upon by historians. End.

Actually, about 75% of all NT scholars do accept this fact.

And obviously, not all of them accept the supernatural explanation.

[Randy Carson]

Couldn't care less if it was found empty anyway. There's still plenty of explanations for that, even assuming it happened, which are humongously more probably than "magic zombie man".

If you used this level of scepticism in other departments you'd sell your house for 5 quid because a bloke warns you an asteroid is going to hit it.

I'm interested in reading any theories that you have care to share with the group, rob.

The Swoon Theory is one. The Conspiracy Theory is another.

Since you do not believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, you must have some theory that you believe explains the five minimal facts.

What is it?

[Randy Carson]

Many people believe that the Apostles knew that Jesus had not really risen from the dead and that they fabricated the accounts of his resurrection.

Who are these many people?  

Richard Carrier. Members of this forum. People like that.

And do you really think that showing that such a conspiracy is unlikely gets you any further towards proving the resurrection because:

1) No matter how unlikely such a conspiracy might be, it is still much more likely than a man returning from the dead;

Sure. But it's not the slam-dunk that mythicists and other skeptics believe it to be. This realization enables a more open-minded person to say, "Damn, that's a good argument...perhaps I should take a second look at the Christian argument."

It's a numbers game, Jenny. I don't expect that all of you can or will be saved.

However, I'm willing to bet that one or more people reading this thread will realize that their reliance on the Conspiracy Theory as a way to explain away the claim of resurrection is not as well-founded as they have thought to this point.

[Randy Carson]

Has God or Jesus done anything since then? If not, they're not very relevant are they. This is the most recent thing people think they can reasonably demonstrate. Pretty laughable.

How would you be able to determine whether He has or hasn't?

Your presuppositions exclude any possibility of God's action...and this is most un-scientific of you, btw.