William Lane Craig (apologist)...

I think opening up the whole "how much of the bible is true" question is the road to Locksville myself.

On Galvasean's point - and coming back to something that has bugged me since reading that sermon...

If he was really so dead when he came off the cross why were the Romans guarding the tomb? Why would you guard a dead man?

So we now have explanation A - He was down so fast that he may not have been dead so the Romans posted guards in case he survived. Explanation B - that the Romans were dumb and regularly guarded dead people. Explanation C - that they knew in advance he might come back from the dead.

If it's A the the whole resurection thing is pretty dead in the water. Since they pretty much ruled the world I doubt it was B. If it was C then that implies he was a diety and I'm not sure the average uneducated grunt of 2000 years ago would have willingly attempted to kill someone they considered to be a bona-fide diety (remember how wrathful gods were back then). So I'm not convinced that the Jewish authorities or the Romans bought the whole son of god thing in the way it's being pitched now. As far as they were concerned he was just another rabble rouser, so up on the cross he went.

Which opens up explanation D - the tomb may not have been guarded. In which case all bets are off as anyone could have gone in and done anything.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Ok, to try and answer everyone at once. If there is any other explanation to the story other than the supernatural resurrection story then the reporters were liars.

I can believe any of the alternative stories if we were just dealing with a mortal man. But this man claimed divinity. If He wasn't who He claimed to be then all options are plausible but, if He actually was who He claimed to be then a resurrection is not a big deal to Him. The bigger deal (to Him) would have been to die in the first place if He was He who He claimed to be?

That is like saying if the story is true then it isn't a big deal for the story to be true

The point is the story is highly implausible, so it probably isn't true. Yes, if someone already believes in God, and for some reason already believes that Jesus was the Son of God, then the story rises steeply in terms of plausibility, but that doesn't mean very much when assessing the story in a non-biased fashion

Think of it this way, would you say a similar story (and there are plenty) was highly plausible if it was any other religion?

Soul Winner wrote: »

But only as implausible as God existing or not. If God does exist then it is highly probable, if He doesn't exist then highly improbable, nay impossible for a truly dead person to come back to life after being truly dead for three days and nights.

Well yes, that is the point. God existing hasn't be demonstrated in historical terms, so from a historical point of view it is highly improbable to the point of being impossible.

Of course even if God existing was demonstrated that still doesn't rise the probability that much. You would still need to demonstrated that Jesus actually was the Son of God (a clarification of what that actually means would be handy as well).

Of course none of these things has ever been done. You believe them sure, but that isn't the same thing at all.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Is there a such thing as a non biased fashion though? Skeptics are biased towards the impossibility of such events before they even start to consider the facts.

No, skeptics are skeptics because they do not accept facts on face value.

Christians say we should believe the claims made in the Bible because they are made in the Bible. A Skeptic says that is being biased towards a particular religious position that cannot be demonstrated as correct in any meaningful independent fashion. This is what I mean by non-biased.

Soul Winner wrote: »

I don't care how many people claim to be Jesus or who claim all these divine things, they are not the same as the Jesus presented to us in the Gospel records, and they do not claim the same things that He did and did not claim to provide the salvation for men's souls like He did.

But don't you see that you are betraying your bias here. You believe Jesus was real because it offers you something. In reality what is offered to you by a thing being true has little if no bearing on whether or not it actually is true. I would really really like to win the Lotto next week, but that has no bearing on if I will or not.

To say that Jesus' story is more authentic than a some Hindu wise man coming back to life because it provides you with more than the Hindu man provides you is rather baseless from a rational perspective.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Its not that someone came back from the dead that I find amazing in itself, it is that it’s the person who made the claims that Jesus made including the claim that He would raise after a specific amount of time that rose.

Yes but you have no way of verifying that he actually did make the claim that he would rise after a specific amount of time. All that was recorded after he died, even by Christian admission.

It is very easy to predict things after they have happened.

Soul Winner wrote: »

How many of these "plenty" prophesied their own death, resurrection and gave meaning to these like Jesus did?

Well hundreds, but that is also beside the point. How does them claiming that their death and resurrection will give meaning to your life effect whether or not their claim is actually true or not?

That is simply wishful thinking. If we assign a greater probability to things that we want to be true, than to things we don't want to be true, we would end up with a very pecular view of the world that had little or no bearing on how reality actually worked. We would walk around thinking its great that we are going to win the lottery next week and that girl in accounting is madly in love with us, while never wearing a seat belt or worrying about smoking because disease and injury are so unlikely as to be near impossible.

Soul Winner wrote: »

How many of their disciples suffered horrible deaths instead of reneging on their testimony? How many followers we tortured and burned alive to light the likes of Nero's courts at night just because they believed in the founder of their religion?

Religious persecution happens all the time. People die for their (often non-Christian) religions all the time, even to this day. People die for ideals such as Communism all the time, and they aren't even promised after lives when they do.

But again this is irrelevant. It simply demonstrates that the disciples believed in what they believed, but I doubt anyone is questioning that. That doesn't demonstrate that what they believed was actually true or not, simply that they believe it was. I'm pretty sure plenty of Christians today would die for their faith, again that has no bearing on whether or not their faith is actually an accurate reflection of reality.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Plus the accounts in the Gospels simply read like people telling a story that actually happened to them in their lives. They don’t sound like they are lying to me.

If they where lying do you think they would sound like they where?

This is one of the weirdest arguments for Christian authenticity, from an atheists perspective, because it seems ridiculous that those forming Christianity wouldn't form it to be plausible and pleasing to those who they wished to convince.

People aren't really in the habit of making up religions that don't appeal or that seem fake, at least to some people.

I think your religion looks very fake, but obviously quite a lot of people don't, so obviously this shows they are doing something right. You can say the same about any religion, but the obvious example is Scientology. It is easy for me (and probably you) to also look at that and go that that is nonsense, it is obviously made up (as I do with your religion). But clearly the properties of the religion appeal to a great deal of people, so they are doing something correct in how they shaped their religion.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Call me gullible if you like but maybe things are really as simple as that.

Reality tends to be simple in quite a very different way to how humans imagine "simple" to be. Look as something like Einstein's early work in realising that space and time are inter-linked. It is an incredible simple idea, but it goes against intuitive human perception of the universe, and as such is very difficult for people to get their mind around.

The faster you move, the slower the passage of time is for you. Your velocity through space is liked to your velocity through time, which is where the concept of spacetime came from. Space and time are kind of the same thing. You have a finite velocity to use with travelling through all 4 dimensions. Travel through space at any speed and you slow down your travel through time, and vice versa.

To most people when they first hear that it seems like nonsense. But it is not. It has been demonstrated accurate by experiment. We don't notice this because we very rarely travel at significant speeds relative to each other to cause much of a difference between your perception of time and mine (at the most we are talking trillions of milliseconds) in the speed through time, so it appears through our limited frame of reference, that speed through time is uniform for all.

One of the things that science tends to show us the more we study the universe, is that how we naturally view the universe, what appears intuitive and simple to us, is really just a particular, limited, view point. The universe is simple at a certain level but it is simple in a way completely alien to how we naturally view things.

Soul Winner wrote: »

The only proof that you will accept is God peering through the clouds and shouting at you for all to see that He exists and then drifts back into the heavens. No, maybe that wouldn't convince you either.

That would certainly be a very good start.

You seem to be implying that such equally convincing things have already happened, and are ignored. I think we can both agree that isn't true.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Ok so let us assume that the existence of God was a well established fact. And then along comes Jesus claiming the things that He claimed. Then Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic or who He claimed to be.

Well no. You see this is the problem one faces when we introduce the supernatural into the mix. The rules go out the window. Jesus could be anything. He could be demon, a dimensional teleporting spirit imp, a mischievous extra-dimensional alien.

What religious people want to do is introduce the supernatural in a very limited and confined manner to only demonstrate or support their specific beliefs. In reality it doesn't work like that, onces Pandora's box is open one can't really start picking and choosing what completely reality bending thing the will or will not allow into the mix.

So it doesn't remain a question of Jesus being either a liar or a lunatic. Jesus could be absolutely anything you can imagine, or cannot even imagine.

Soul Winner wrote: »

What could vindicate these claims? If He in fact was raised from the dead as He had prophesied then that would sort of vindicate Him wouldn't it?

Not in the slightest. Because with the supernatural now introduced into the mix Jesus could be anything pretending to be anything.

Again this is the problem. You want only the reality bending aspects of the supernatural that support your specific position. And you want to go back to all the normal natural rules when dealing with other things. As I said it doesn't work like that.

This is a point that keeps being brought up and is consistently ignored by believers. It is impossible to determine elements of the supernatural in any meaningful way. You can claim that you "know" God exists and is what you think he is, but that is a meaningless statement because by the very nature of the supernatural you have no way of determining that.

So any rules you wish to apply to the resurrection story are ultimately pointless. If a man can rise from the dead then he can do anything, including misleading you about rising from the dead.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Let us assume for a minute that the reports of these events where telling the truth and that Jesus was really dead and did really prophesy His death and resurrection before His death and that He did really die and rise as He had said prior to His death, if you were privy to thee events wouldn't seeing these things convince you? You would have to be made of stone to be other than totally convinced about who Jesus really was.

No, you would only have to spend a few seconds thinking about it. I would certainly be amazed and awe struck about him coming back to life, but would also not trust anything he did or said because ultimately it is impossible to judge anything a person who can alter reality says or does.

That isn't to say I would hold negative feelings or anything, I would be like "I don't trust you you bastard or anything like that" It would simply be the same way I wouldn't trust a waking dream, because with such a person one has lost the ability to determine what is reality and what isn't.

Soul Winner wrote: »

That position is biased toward the aforementioned position that miracles cannot happen so therefore they did not happen.

No, the position is that it is more likely that someone is mistaken than that the nature of reality was altered.

Your assert that this is being "biased" is rather a misrepresentation of what that word means. Being biased towards a position means lacking objectivity. Are you honestly suggesting that is lacking objectivity to be skeptical of claims that the fundamental laws of nature just changed when the only thing that is suggesting they did are verbal claims of people who claim to have met people who claim to have witnessed this?

Soul Winner wrote: »

He will not prove Himself to you until yo first throw yourself onto Him.

But you see that excuse has been used by every religion and cult under the sun to get away from having to actually demonstrate anything of what they say is true.

- You can only see the pink unicorn if you really believe it exists.
- Well I can't see it.
- Because you don't believe it exists?
- Well, no I don't, I can't see it.
- But that is because you don't believe it exists.
- But I can't see it.
- Because you do not believe
- But why would I believe?
- Well I've seen it, why don't you just trust me?
- Because you could just be mad
- But I'm not
- But you believe you see invisible pink unicorns
- Ah, touche.

:pac:

A little light hearted, but I hope you see my point. You believe you see or experience something that you cannot demonstrate in an external or verifiable way, and that I do not see or experience it because I do not have the belief or faith that you do.

You could just be wrong.

Now you religion has this in build defense against that by saying that too much evidence or proof goes against God's plan. You can't demonstrate in any externally testable or verifiable fashion God's existence because then my faith in God would be meaningless to him. ie you can't see the invisible unicorn unless you really believe.

I find it highly implausible that any super intelligent being who would actually wish to communicate his presence to us would actually set things up in this way.

A far more plausible explanation is that all this is simply an in build excuse, or defense mechanism that your religion (and most others) long ago adopted to avoid challenge to the core beliefs.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If He doesn't exist then we are truly idiots for believing all this but if He does exist and this is the way He is then this is always going to be the way He is. It is not going to change so in the end the non faith person will be the ultimate looser.

Well no, I would consider that we have one life and it is a shame to waste it focusing and theorizing over the fantasies of a bunch of middle eastern men who lived and died 3000 years ago.

There is so much more to life. Particularly if this is our only one.

Soul Winner wrote: »

What do they say that I can pivot my life around? What plan do they have for me? Nothing!

What does that have to do with anything. You think because Jesus appeals to you it is some how more historically accurate?

Soul Winner wrote: »

Great, you've just prove that the reporters were liars. They have it that Jesus said these things before He died but they know that He didn't, that makes them liars. If He did actually rise as reported then why would they add this falsity?

But he most likely didn't, so they would add the falsity without fear of eternal punishment.

You should also be careful about branding them "liars". The Lewis argument that they were either lunatics or liars is a rather simplistic generalization that really doesn't hold up. As already mentioned on this forum there has been a lot of research into the psychology of mass rumors and things like Chinese whispers. The idea that false stories either start by people lying or being mad is not true.

It is easy to see how the reports of the story of the resurrection could arise without anyone consciously lying at all. Things like this happen all the time, there are plenty of modern examples of fictional stories emerging naturally in a culture without anyone actually consciously lying, heck they keep late night call in radio shows ticking over. Remember the story about the asylum seekers who get free hair cuts.

So your assertion that if they were believers their stories must be accurate because believers wouldn't lie doesn't really stand up to much assessment. Fictional stories can originate between the back and forth discussions of believers, particularly in fundamentalist religions and cults, without them all, or even any of them, being consciously aware of making up stories.

Soul Winner wrote: »

I pick Jesus.

Wonderful, but that has nothing to do with whether or not you can historically assess if Jesus actually rose from the dead or not. What speaks to you personally is utterly irrelevant to that question.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Exorbitantly terrible analogy of what we are talking about. So much so that it pains me to read it.

Well it goes back to what I said earlier about picking and choosing when and in what context we suspend belief in the natural laws of the reality around us. We clearly don't do it all the time. But religious people pick certain things to do it over, particularly when trying to support a position they feel is pivotal to their faith.

Soul Winner wrote: »

And yet they all died these horrific deaths save one alone.

As has been pointed out many times there is nothing particularly significant about that. Things like that, unfortunately, happen all the time even to this day. People have died (alone) for far lesser things than the promise of eternal paradise in heaven.

In fact I would imagine that facing death would make someone dive head first into their belief in salvation and an afterlife, rather than the other way around recanting what they believed.

I suppose it isn't a good time to point out that if they all died alone who recorded how they died?

Soul Winner wrote: »

But it is an horrendous strong indication that what they did believe was true.

Not in the slightest Soul Winner. If you apply that to these men you must apply that same logic to any one who has ever been put to death for a belief in a supernatural happening. Which is nonsense.

It is a horrendously strong indication that they believed what they believed, but little more.

Soul Winner wrote: »

ABSOFRICKENLUTELY.

Well that is incredibly naive of you. Who sets out to make up a religion that looks like it is made up.

Soul Winner wrote: »

One thing the New Testament scholars all agree on and that is that the reporters were not lying.

One thing the Christian New Testament scholars all agree on is that the reporters (who were reporting on the reports of the resurrection) were not lying.

Ask a Muslim scholar if the New Testament reports are lies, see what he tells you.

Soul Winner wrote: »

You should read some of the hard sayings of Jesus, not very appealing to anyone wishing to make up a religion. "Deny thyself and follow Me, forsake all that you have and follow Me, prefer Me to father, mother, wife, children etc..." Not very appealing and yet these sayings have been there from the beginning.

And I think you will find the vast majority of Christians (including yourself), now and then, didn't follow that to the literal letter (and you can get plenty of reasons why all Christians aren't homeless and estranged from their families). They still believed they were going to eternal paradise for ever and ever.

The most appealing thing about Christianity is that it is rather flexible in interpretation, meaning it can be many things to many people, all offering them wonderful things such as an after life.

How else do you explain all the Christians out there who don't lead particularly Christian lives (in your view)?

Soul Winner wrote: »

The simplest things in life tend to be the most profound.

I certainly agree with that, which is why I think the convoluted and overly complicated model of reality that your religion puts forward is most likely not true.

I am currently reading a book about physics by Brian Greene that I would heartily recommend. I challenge anyone not to get a tingle in their spine when they fully realise the implications of what Einstein discovered when he realize that velocity through space and time are connected, and the faster one moves in space the slower time is for them.

The true nature of reality, as counter-intuitive as it turns out to be, is far more profound that anything you will find in the pages of the Bible.