Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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Resurrection skeptics
Atheists and agnostics like to pretend the Bible story of Jesus Christ’s resurrection was made up by the faithful, who were perpetrating a fraud.
The problem is – everybody abandoned Jesus at the end. As soon as he was arrested, all his friends left him. Mark 14: 50 – “And they all left Him and fled.”
While Jesus was being interrogated, a maid accused Simon Peter, one of his disciples, of being an associate of Jesus, and Simon vehemently denied knowing Jesus. Mark 14:66-71 – “But he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know this man you are talking about!’”
Another speculation of the skeptics is that Jesus’ followers stole the body and made up the story of His resurrection. But the problem with that is – the Jewish and Roman authorities expected that very thing to happen, so they posted guards to keep it from happening. Matt. 27:62-66. Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish Council, asked Roman permission to bury Jesus’ dead body, and Roman Governor Pilate made sure Jesus was dead before the burial was permitted. And had the tomb sealed with a large stone. Mark 15:43-46. After Christ arose, the guards reported to the Jewish Chief Priests that this had happened; but the priests bribed the guards to tell the Romans that His disciples had stolen His body while they were sleeping. Matt. 28:11-14.
On Sunday morning, after Jesus had died late the prior Friday afternoon, three women who had been friends of His went to his tomb to anoint His body in a burial ritual. They found the stone rolled away and a stranger sitting there, who told them Jesus had risen from the dead and was no longer there. At that announcement, the women fled in fear and astonishment. There is no indication that these women believed what they heard at that time. Mark 16:4-8.
The first eye-witness of Christ’s resurrection was Mary Magdalene, one of the three women who had witnessed the empty tomb and fled in fear. The risen Christ appeared to her in person. She then went and told his disciples she had seen Him alive, but they were grieving and refused to believe her. Mark 16:9-11.
There were then two more eye-witnesses to whom the risen Christ appeared, while they were walking in the country. These two went and told the other disciples they had seen the risen Christ, but again the disciples refused to believe these eye-witnesses either. Mark 16:12-13. John 20:24.
Finally, the risen Christ appeared to the original 11 disciples all together and rebuked them for not having believed the prior eye-witnesses. Mark 16:14 – “Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen.”
The risen Christ appeared to these disciples again at the Sea of Tiberias, while they were fishing, but had caught nothing. He told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, and they caught so many fish, their nets could hardly hold them all. This was his third post-resurrection appearance to some or all of the disciples. John 21:1-14.
The Apostle Paul wrote later that the risen Christ had appeared to over 500 eye-witnesses at one time, and appeared to Paul himself at a time when Paul was an a skeptic. 1 Corinthians 15:6-9.
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Comments (20)
@bearnlbk - Thanks! I truncated that and started a pulse column saying:
Cezar said: There were two trees. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge. We think (too much). Yet, we believe, therefore we live.
I rarely say anything that short! That's why I've had no pulse. :)
Thanks for dropping by :)
I agree that ''overly-smart'' but people have to tendency to complicate things...
Some are just fascinated by complications, while some use those complications to seek ''attention'' and fame with their radical ''insights''
@HaigLaw - Well dag-nabbit! I always knew you had a pulse, regardless of what Beck says about "Mr. Excitement."
El C.
@bearnlbk - Well, she says boring is good, so I should be ok for awhile anyway.
This is all fine and dandy, but it's still mere anecdote. Even if the four gospels told the exact same events (and they do not - there are a lot of inconsistencies among them, even just focusing on the alleged resurrection), that is still nothing but hearsay. Sagan's quote stands. What is more likely - that a dead body comes back to life, or...ANYTHING else? I'll go for the latter. No one has come back from the dead after three days, EVER. And the accounts of people that allegedly saw your saviour are not enough to establish such an unnatural, incredible event. Like Hume said - no human testimony is enough to establish the occurrence of a miracle. I've heard all this before, almost to the letter, and it proves nothing. Nice try, though.
@bearnlbk -
@qccan -
@nekorinchan -
@H_loves_C - HLC cites Sagan and Hume as against the Bible. They come up with all these rules that must be followed before anyone can prove a miracle. Who put them in charge of making these rules? God did not need to get permission from them to perform a miracle. God has performed a few miracles in my own life, and He didn't even get my permission to do that. So where do these guys get off? They demand proof from God; but what proof do they have?
As for the 4 gospels telling the same events -- if they were verbatim the same, we wouldn't need 4 of them, would we? Hahaha. As for inconsistencies -- no; each one merely tells the story a little differently.
Hearsay? No; the Bible records what the people saw and heard, just like any court would do. There were over 500 eye witnesses of Jesus Christ's resurrection. It generally only takes 2 witnesses to prove anything. Where did these skeptics go to law school?
No one has ever come back to life after 3 days? Actually, it was only 2 days, the way we count time. But in the Jewish culture of Jesus's time, they counted from Friday night to Sunday morning as 3 days, because they counted Friday as day 1. But I digress. I also cited a modern example to these skeptics of a man in Nigeria who was resurrected after being dead 2 days; but they've conveniently not mentioned that case in saying "never."
-Grampa D
You can believe whatever you want, and be as gullible as you want. Taking the bible as true, and seeking verification in the bible itself, or simply accepting it as the word of god because it is presupposed to be so is CIRCULAR REASONING, i.e., invalid. Have a nice life based on fairy tales that are no more valid than any other fairy tale before or since. There is just as good evidence for Vishnu, Brahma, Zeus, Mithras, and any other god or deity as there is for your fairy tales. Believers in any of those can hide under the absurdity of presuppositionalism and equally justify literally any creature they want. You have not shown one scrap of valid evidence for any of your beliefs, and that's the bottom line. Have a happy delusional life. The real world has enough wonders to behold, and real life based on observable facts are enough to keep me busy. I got no time for unnecessary fairy tales.
@H_loves_C - And you are presupposing that "real life based on observable facts" is all there is.
I have experienced otherwise; and you are presupposing that my experience is invalid, just because you never experienced it yourself.
You are limiting yourself to never accepting anything as valid unless you can experience it yourself -- very limiting indeed. And very sad.
-Grampa D
It all requires you to have FAITH, Gramps. You believe in something you have no solid evidence for at all. Hey, I can believe I'll win the lottery, but it dosent mean I will. But shit, at least I know for sure that the lottery is THERE.
HLC is correct. Have a happy delusional life bud.
Personal experience is not sufficient to establish the universal validity of the existence of ANY claim. Nice try. How is it sad to uphold reason and the pursuit of knowledge as the guiding force of my life? You really make me laugh. YOU are sad - a life led by anecdotal, unverifiable claims that at best fall flat on its circular ass when you make those feeble attempts at justifying them. Again, you have not even remotely provided one scrap of valid evidence for your beliefs.
Lastly, I never said that I would never accept anything unless I directly experienced it myself. Way to put words in my mouth. Very honest, very xtian, I see. There are many wonderful things to be learned by reading a book, for example. I don't have to unearth a dinosaur fossil myself to accept the idea that there were such things as dinosaurs, for example. But, this would be a long and pointless discussion which would lead nowhere, as you would desperately cling to your utterly unfounded assumptions and invalid (circular) logic.
I would not bother responding if I were you. Have a nice delusional life.
@H_loves_C -
@GodAintGood -
See my defense of presuppositionalism and comments thereto, here:
www.xanga.com/haiglaw/644874904/presuppositionalism-simply.html
And if you have some rational answer, something other than name-calling, I'd be happy to read it.
@HaigLaw - You said that I called you names. Here's the challenge: Quote the part of my comment where I called YOU any names. I dare you. I am going to call you one name now: crybaby.
Presuppositionalism is circular.
You have no evidence for any of your beliefs.
Goodbye.
You haven't offered one true shred of evidence. You must be tired from all that dancing. I
@GodAintGood -
@H_loves_C - "Quote the part of my comment where I called YOU any names."
How about "delusional" and "gullible"?
But more to the point, how about answering my last comment to EGM at:
www.xanga.com/haiglaw/644874904/presuppositionalism-simply.html ??
If you can???
Unless the "goodbye" meant you're picking up your marbles and going home.
I said "have a nice delusional life" - if the shoe fits... (look up "delusion." Dawkins used it in the title of his book precisely because the definition of delusion fits the religious mentality like a glove.) Try getting a clue. Names usually refers to adjectives addressed directly to the person, such as moron, dimwit, etc, which I've NEVER used, except now to illustrate a point. *sigh* Oh, well. I'm not amazed a bit that you wouldn't even be able to differentiate one thing from the other. Par for the course with you.
Yes, I'm going home. I got better things to do than argue with a wall. If you had ANY sort of valid argument, then perhaps I'd use some of my time. As it stands, I am horribly and pointlessly wasting it because all you have is circular (INVALID) arguments and mere anecdotes, which also prove nothing. Which makes me wonder, what the hell am I doing replying? Oh, well...
@GodAintGood -
@H_loves_C -
Well, since you ignored my link, I'll paste it here and challenge you again: Do you agree with EGM's two life assumptions:
· There are laws of physics and they never change.
· Nothing exists but what we can perceive by our senses.
Those are the only two, right? And how do you prove these are true, btw? If you say, by the laws of physics and perceivable senses, you are proving them by themselves, and thus using circular reasoning. If you say that you prove them in some other fashion, then that other fashion becomes your presupposition, and you’ve not honestly admitted what those are.
What about resolving issues related to grammar, numbers, the internet, past events, future contingencies, memories, dreams, love and beauty? (A few of these courtesy of the Bahnsen-Stein debate-http://www.bellevuechristian.org/faculty/dribera/htdocs/PDFs/Apol_Bahnsen_Stein_Debate_Transcript.pdf. I realize this drives you AA’s up the wall, because your guy didn’t do too well, but your senses still have to perceive it.)
Will your two “assumptions” always work for those?
And how did things exist before man discovered these laws of physics? Just chuck those pre-physics things, I suppose, to the AA’s ash-bin of non-existence?
And what about the tree that falls in the forest, when there is no one there with senses? Did it have a sound? Or what about the man out in the forest with no women around; is he still wrong?
Pardon me if I’m having just a little too much fun with this.
@H_loves_C -
@GodAintGood -
Now they're saying we're "delusional," "retarded," "asinine," and bed wetters.
(some guy named brasher5o.)