Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

[Leumas]

...
The supernatural being could have prevented decay from occurring, and later repaired the injuries, or used a copy of the information in his brain that was preserved in an external storage medium (i.e., a "soul") to recreate him later.

I think that's a ridiculous thing to believe happened, but I can't prove that it didn't happen.

The only way to prove it didn't happen is to prove that there was no kind of poly-potent god-like entity meddling in those events. And that's something we can't do.

No... there is another way to prove the claim is false.... it is called Reductio ad absurdum.

Why would all this magic be needed? Couldn't God just use magic to forgive the world.... why use all this intervening magic to end up at exactly the same state of affairs before the whole farce... couldn't God have used different magic to forgive the world.... isn't god capable of doing any kind of magic?

If the whole death and resurrection was nothing but a magic trick...then what is the point.... it makes the Christian claims associated with it — mainly the expiatory human blood sacrifice — totally untrue.... there was no sacrifice or death.

I am not sacrificing a goat if after I slice its throat open and watch it give up its last gargle, I know that it will promptly reanimate and start breathing allover again and trot along to join the rest of the herd and start munching grass.

So God was not sacrificing his son if he knew that he was going to reanimate him.

Jesus was not sacrificing anything if he knew he was a god or son of god and that his father will bring him back.

So do you see how absurd the whole thing becomes?

If we grant that Jesus was resurrected by magic then we also must agree that the whole thing becomes a very pointless and meaningless gay BDSM session and not the redemptive human blood sacrifice of an expiatory lamb.... or maybe the whole thing was a Satanic TRICK to dupe the world.

In other words even if we grant fully the magic, we still arrive at a position that contradicts itself.... the magic is claimed as a redemptive course of action....but granting the magic shows that there is no redemption.... thus a self contradictory situation .... thus illogical and thus irrational and thus a pointless mental and semantic onanism nothing more.

God committed suicide for you?

More like God had a gay bdsm exercise for you. He got tied to a cross and tortured and humiliated a bit, while knowing full well that he'll be ok on Sunday, and being in control all the time (by virtue of being an omnipotent God.)

That's neither sacrifice, nor even suicide. It's what some people actually pay a dominatrix to do to them. And if God felt more like playing with some muscular and sweaty guys in the uniforms of an oppressive empire, hey, I'm not gonna judge

 

[Leumas]

THIS!

Proving a negative is impossible.

I could state that I saw a genuine fire-breathing dragon in my garden, and nobody could prove that I didn't. If I fail to provide proof to substantiate the claim, this is not the same as proving that my claim is false.

Have a look at this article.... the blue highlighted bit is basically what is called Reductio ad Absurdum.... even if we grant them their claptrap, the "reality" created by granting it contradicts its own claims.... by granting them their god-claims it proves that he is not a god after all... thus the claim is false.

....

Christians attempt to preserve their proposed theory by moving it into the set of unprovables that lack all evidence. They do this arbitrarily, and for no other reason than to save the proposed theory, by creating impassable barriers to observation, just as requiring us to look in every corner of every universe creates an impassable barrier for one who is asked to decisively disprove the statement "there are big green Martians." For instance, the advanced theory holds that God alleviates suffering in heaven, which we conveniently cannot observe, and he has reasons for waiting and allowing suffering to persist on Earth, reasons which are also suitably unobservable to us, because God chooses not to explain them, just as he chooses, again for an unstated reason that is entirely inscrutable, to remain utterly invisible to all my senses, external and internal, despite being always around and inside me and otherwise capable of speaking to me plainly.

.....

Of course, even these groundless "solutions" to the Christian 'theory' do not really save the theory, because, to maintain it, at some point you must abandon belief in God's omnipotence--since at every turn, God is forced to do something (to remain hidden and to wait before alleviating suffering, etc.) by some unknown feature of reality, and this entails that some feature of reality is more powerful than God . And this feature cannot merely be God's moral nature, since if that were his only limitation, there would then be no barrier to his speaking to me or acting immediately to alleviate suffering or designing the universe to have overtly moral or linguistic features, since any truly moral nature would compel, not prevent, such behavior. Thus, the Christian hypothesis is either incoherent or unprovable, and in the one case it is necessarily false, while in the other it lacks justification, so we have no reason to believe it, any more than we have a reason to believe that there is a big green Martian on some planet in some corner of some universe. This is what it means to "prove a negative."​

 

[Brian-M]

Why would all this magic be needed? Couldn't God just use magic to forgive the world.... why use all this intervening magic to end up at exactly the same state of affairs before the whole farce... couldn't God have used different magic to forgive the world.... isn't god capable of doing any kind of magic?

What are you talking about? This discussion has nothing to do with any of the other claims of Christianity.

You're argument might be relevant if the discussion whether Christian doctrine as a whole were valid, but it doesn't apply when looking at any specific event within Christian doctrine.

We don't even have to assume that the resurrection had anything to do with Christianity, it could be a completely unrelated incident that was later woven into Christian mythology.

 

[devnull]

So if I sold you a car, and every thing I told you about its features proved to be incorrect ("hey! Where's the damn cupholder!"), but I also made the extraordinary claim that it could fly at the speed of light, you would expect it to fly at the speed of light until proven otherwise? This wouldnt count as evidence in your book?

BTW, I have this bridge in SF Im looking to sell.

 

[Leumas]

What are you talking about? This discussion has nothing to do with any of the other claims of Christianity.

You're argument might be relevant if the discussion whether Christian doctrine as a whole were valid, but it doesn't apply when looking at any specific event within Christian doctrine.

We don't even have to assume that the resurrection had anything to do with Christianity, it could be a completely unrelated incident that was later woven into Christian mythology.

Seriously??

 

[Leumas]

So if I sold you a car, and every thing I told you about its features proved to be incorrect ("hey! Where's the damn cupholder!"), but I also made the extraordinary claim that it could fly at the speed of light, you would expect it to fly at the speed of light until proven otherwise? This wouldnt count as evidence in your book?

BTW, I have this bridge in SF Im looking to sell.

In fact with the bridge in SF one can see it and be duped at least by a real thing.

In the case of Christianity it is more like I have a dragon treasure in Middle Earth I would like to sell.

 

[skeptichaggis]

I do appreciate that brian-m's and some others position is not that the supernatural is real, just that its not 100% possible to completely disprove. Can't prove a negative and so on. I respect and understand that position. Plus I'm humble enough to concede I could be wrong.
I don't think I am wrong though. Bringing god abracadabra in to the ressurection is plain silly. Why not claim time travelling magic Josef Stalin ressurected Mr Christ. Or say Christ's pet goat gave him mouth to magic mouth and revived him.
Everything we know about biology tells us the ressurection is impossible. I enjoyed reading world war z(hated film) but its not real. Zombies don't exist. Even in the iron age.

 

[devnull]

I do appreciate that brian-m's and some others position is not that the supernatural is real, just that its not 100% possible to completely disprove. Can't prove a negative and so on. I respect and understand that position. Plus I'm humble enough to concede I could be wrong.
I don't think I am wrong though. Bringing god abracadabra in to the ressurection is plain silly. Why not claim time travelling magic Josef Stalin ressurected Mr Christ. Or say Christ's pet goat gave him mouth to magic mouth and revived him.
Everything we know about biology tells us the ressurection is impossible. I enjoyed reading world war z(hated film) but its not real. Zombies don't exist. Even in the iron age.

There's a difference between absolute knowledge and practical knowledge.

You cant *absolutely* know *anything*. Not a damn thing.

Practically, we know there's zero chance Jesus was resurrected, even assuming he existed. Dead people dont reanimate. Period.

People like to split hairs and carry on. I have better things to do personally.

 

[Garrette]

Hello, Garrette.

Yes, I think a civil tone is more effective because it clarifies arguments. But sometimes people on the internet think bullying is a more effective way because it can browbeat people into submission. I got browbeated very successfully before online when I was defending Palestinian rights with a very intense "pro-Israeli", so I know that the tactic can work, unfortunately.

Turning to the 3 days and 3 nights issue, I think that the mid-day darkness is the best answer for those like you who prefer to read the "days and nights" phrase in an exact, literal, individual sense.

For me, if the sun's shine is blocked from the earth and "darkness covers the land", then this is effectively night for purposes of prophecy. To give an example, when Jesus said that he would be in the heart of the earth, did he mean that the earth had an actual heart organ pumping a liquid that he would be in? By this he must have meant "the heart of the earth" in a prophetic or poetic sense, which could the earth's magma zone or Hades, commonly depicted as a fiery place in the earth.

And since we are dealing with prophecy we don't have to expect a literal fulfillment. For example, if a person dreams of flying on a white bird, then perhaps the dream is "fulfilled" if he/she tries parasailing. The Old Testament gives examples of other dreams in which literal fulfillment of the dreams is unnecessary. So since we are dealing with prophecy, the idea of three "nights" can also be flexible. In an exact literal sense a "night" can be a hiding of the earth from the sun through rotation. But in a prophetic, symbolic sense, the earth could be hid from the sun through an eclipse or some other intervening event as described in the gospel in order for the prophecy of a "night" to be fulfilled.

Perhaps you will not agree with my answer, but I don't know how to explain the prophetic meaning of nights, heart of the earth, etc. without reformulating or expanding on the allegorical meanings of the term and how prophecy works.
Regards.

That's just it, though (the part I highlighted). To make it fit, you are required to reformulate or expand on what is already something open to interpretation ("allegorical meanings"). And if you can make both comprehensible and consistent "how prophecy works" then you will have accomplished what no one else ever has because prophecy has not been shown to work at all, really.

 

[pgwenthold]

Ted: X can't happen.
Bob: Yes it can because you can't prove magic never made it happen.

Stunning. Simply stunning.

This reminds me of the "god is outside of logic" apologetic toward contradictions in the bible (actual logical contradictions, like "God is Love; Love is not Jealous; God is Jealous).

As soon as you abandon the concept of logic, there is no such thing as proof anymore. Proof only works if you have a rational set of rules.

If you are working in a paradigm where you can just abandon any rationality, then the concept of proof (or disproof) is meaningless.

"How do you overcome the logical contradiction?"
"It's just that logic doesn't apply in this case. Can you disprove the claim that logic doesn't apply?"

 

[skeptichaggis]

There's a difference between absolute knowledge and practical knowledge.

You cant *absolutely* know *anything*. Not a damn thing.

Practically, we know there's zero chance Jesus was resurrected, even assuming he existed. Dead people dont reanimate. Period.

People like to split hairs and carry on. I have better things to do personally.

You can't absolutely know anything. I don't know(ha) if that's tounge in cheek or not but I hope so. I know I'm siting on my bed, and I(like you)also know I've invested too much time on this thread. But then again its not like society will collapse without my undivided attention or anything.
So one last(really) time I will maintain the position that supernatural claims,ressurection included,are completely disprovable.
One thing I also know for certain is that when you trod on a upturned electric plug in your socks it really really REALLY hurts. I did it ten minutes ago and am not currently a happy bunny. Ouch!.

 

[sackett]

...One thing I also know for certain is that when you trod on a upturned electric plug in your socks it really really REALLY hurts. I did it ten minutes ago and am not currently a happy bunny. Ouch!.

Shocking!

 

[smartcooky]

Practically, we know there's zero chance Jesus was resurrected, even assuming he existed. Dead people dont reanimate. Period.

Nonetheless, many Christians believe that he did. I personally consider such a belief to be irrational in that it defies what we know about medical science, and in any case, when has anything about belief in God; Magician been rational.

However, the story has persisted for two thousand years, been discussed for almost that length of time and is widely known and believed by over two billion people world-wide. Mass delusion? Intentional fabrication out of whole cloth? I don't think so. There must surely at some time been an origin to that story.

Like Brian-M, I believe the whole Judeo-Christian mythology of the OT & NT is a mishmash of separate stories, for example the burning bush, the resurrection, water into wine, fishes and loaves, the stopping of the sun in the sky, walking on the water and other, that each have practical, non-mythical or non-mystical real world explanations, but which have been misunderstood or misrepresented (either intentionally or unintentionally) and woven into the mytho-historical account by the numerous authors of those stories. The challenge for a non-believer like me is to speculate what might have been the seed of those stories, and in my case, I believe mis-declared death is a valid explanation for what Christians believe to be the resurrection.

 

[Leumas]

Nonetheless, many Christians believe that he did. I personally consider such a belief to be irrational in that it defies what we know about medical science, and in any case, when has anything about belief in God; Magician been rational.

However, the story has persisted for two thousand years, been discussed for almost that length of time and is widely known and believed by over two billion people world-wide. Mass delusion? Intentional fabrication out of whole cloth? I don't think so. There must surely at some time been an origin to that story.

Like Brian-M, I believe the whole Judeo-Christian mythology of the OT & NT is a mishmash of separate stories, for example the burning bush, the resurrection, water into wine, fishes and loaves, the stopping of the sun in the sky, walking on the water and other, that each have practical, non-mythical or non-mystical real world explanations, but which have been misunderstood or misrepresented (either intentionally or unintentionally) and woven into the mytho-historical account by the numerous authors of those stories. The challenge for a non-believer like me is to speculate what might have been the seed of those stories, and in my case, I believe mis-declared death is a valid explanation for what Christians believe to be the resurrection.

Goodness gracious.... here is the list of illogical fallacies the above three paragraphs entail.

1. Special pleading
2. Appeal to popularity
3. Appeal to antiquity
4. Shifting burden of proof
5. Argument from repetition
6. Argument from incredulity
7. Argument from ignorance
8. Argument to moderation
9. Proof by assertion
10. Begging the question
11. Nirvana fallacy
12. Wishful thinking

The challenge for a non-believer like me is to speculate what might have been the seed of those stories, and in my case, I believe mis-declared death is a valid explanation for what Christians believe to be the resurrection.

EXTREME tortuous special pleading of the highest caliber.

Billions of people also believed for thousands of years in vampires, fairies, demons, satyrs, Cyclopes, golden fleeces and Hercules.

The list of woo and supernatural claptrap is as long as the history of humanity and as convoluted as their languages and imaginations.

Do you think nonbelievers in all this claptrap ought to be searching for historical grain of truth behind all the poppycock ever conjured up by infantile benighted frightened imaginations or fabricated by wily poltroons and huckstering shysters?

Do you think we should be searching for historical germs for Zeus or Achilles or Romulus and Remus?

How about Baal and Moloch and Quetzalcoatl and Osiris and Anubis do they have historical spores too that we as nonbelievers ought to be searching for?

Do you think there was a historical sperm of truth behind the story of Zeus swallowing his wife before she gave birth to Athena and then giving birth to his daughter out of his head like you think there is a historical basis for Moses meeting god as a burning bush in the middle of a desert?

Do you think there was a historical ovum for a story about Earth fornicating with the Sky so as to engender Titans one of whom eventually used a sickle to cut off the penis of his Sky Daddy while he was penetrating his Earth mummy?

If you think the story of Gaia the earth mummy and Uranus the sky daddy castrated by his son Cronus is the result of the fecund benighted imaginations of ancient peoples that had absolutely no basis in reality let alone historical ovules.... why then all this TORTURED special pleading for the Bible fables?

Do you think the nonbelievers in Nosferatu have the challenge to find the historical kernel for the stories of vampires?

What do you think is the historical sperm for Satan?

What do you think is the historical semen for Alien Abductions?

Why all the tortured special pleading for the Biblical myths?

 

[tsig]

Goodness gracious.... here is the list of illogical fallacies the above three paragraphs entail.

1. Special pleading
2. Appeal to popularity
3. Appeal to antiquity
4. Shifting burden of proof
5. Argument from repetition
6. Argument from incredulity
7. Argument from ignorance
8. Argument to moderation
9. Proof by assertion
10. Begging the question
11. Nirvana fallacy
12. Wishful thinking

EXTREME tortuous special pleading of the highest caliber.

Billions of people also believed for thousands of years in vampires, fairies, demons, satyrs, Cyclopes, golden fleeces and Hercules.

The list of woo and supernatural claptrap is as long as the history of humanity and as convoluted as their languages and imaginations.

Do you think nonbelievers in all this claptrap ought to be searching for historical grain of truth behind all the poppycock ever conjured up by infantile benighted frightened imaginations or fabricated by wily poltroons and huckstering shysters?

Do you think we should be searching for historical germ for Zeus or Achilles or Romulus and Remus?

How about Baal and Moloch and Quetzalcoatl and Osiris and Anubis do they have historical spore too that we as nonbelievers ought to be searching for them?

Do you think there was a historical sperm of truth behind the story of Zeus swallowing his wife before she gave birth to Athena and then giving birth to her out of his thigh like you think there is a historical basis for Moses meeting god as a burning bush in the middle of a desert?

Do you think there was a historical ovule for a story about Earth fornicating with the Sky so as to engender Titans one of whom eventually uses a sickle to cut off the penis of his Sky Daddy while he was penetrating his Earth mummy?

If you think the story of Gaia the earth mummy and Uranus the sky daddy castrated by his son Cronus is the result of the fecund benighted imaginations of ancient peoples that had absolutely no basis in reality let alone historical seeds.... why then all this TORTURED special pleading for the Bible fables?

Do you think the nonbelievers in Nosferatu have the challenge to find the historical kernel for the stories of vampires?

What do you think is the historical sperm for Satan?

What do you think is the historical semen for Alien Abductions?

Why all the tortured special pleading for the Biblical myths?

Many have left Christianity but can't quite let go of Christ.

 

[Leumas]

Pathetic Christian Atheism

Many have left Christianity but can't quite let go of Christ.

Exactly.... this is the reason for this pathetic Christian "Atheism"

....

I have my own hypothesis for why.... it is an attempt to assuage their throbbing pangs of a chronic cognitive dissonance on so many levels and variations touching their inner psyches.

Much like children who are driven to tears and dismay after discovering the extent of the duplicity of their society and parents in deceiving them for so long and in so many ways with the Santa fable. They are desperate to prove that it is not all a big hoax like all the other woo they are increasingly beginning to realize is claptrap.
So they carry on ferociously debating against the fictiveness of the Jesus fables postulating tenuous modicums of possible likelihood of perhaps maybe something approaching a near similarity to some kind of similitude of a real person or an amalgam persona who they begrudgingly and with extreme consternation concede might maybe possibly not have had anything magical about him, but could have been a xenophobic zealously benighted fanatically religious Rabbi or terrorist or freedom fighter or old-new-age hippie or cult leader according to one's own wishful thinking for what one needs this Jesus to be.

 

[devnull]

I know I'm siting on my bed

No you dont.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

 

[devnull]

Shocking!

He survived. More power to him.

 

[tsig]

No you dont.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

Yanks out Occam's Razor and slices the wires leading to the brain in a vat.

 

[smartcooky]

Goodness gracious.... here is the list of illogical fallacies the above three paragraphs entail.

1. Special pleading
2. Appeal to popularity
3. Appeal to antiquity
4. Shifting burden of proof
5. Argument from repetition
6. Argument from incredulity
7. Argument from ignorance
8. Argument to moderation
9. Proof by assertion
10. Begging the question
11. Nirvana fallacy
12. Wishful thinking

EXTREME tortuous special pleading of the highest caliber.

Billions of people also believed for thousands of years in vampires, fairies, demons, satyrs, Cyclopes, golden fleeces and Hercules.

The list of woo and supernatural claptrap is as long as the history of humanity and as convoluted as their languages and imaginations.

Do you think nonbelievers in all this claptrap ought to be searching for historical grain of truth behind all the poppycock ever conjured up by infantile benighted frightened imaginations or fabricated by wily poltroons and huckstering shysters?

Do you think we should be searching for historical germs for Zeus or Achilles or Romulus and Remus?

How about Baal and Moloch and Quetzalcoatl and Osiris and Anubis do they have historical spores too that we as nonbelievers ought to be searching for?

Do you think there was a historical sperm of truth behind the story of Zeus swallowing his wife before she gave birth to Athena and then giving birth to his daughter out of his head like you think there is a historical basis for Moses meeting god as a burning bush in the middle of a desert?

Do you think there was a historical ovum for a story about Earth fornicating with the Sky so as to engender Titans one of whom eventually used a sickle to cut off the penis of his Sky Daddy while he was penetrating his Earth mummy?

If you think the story of Gaia the earth mummy and Uranus the sky daddy castrated by his son Cronus is the result of the fecund benighted imaginations of ancient peoples that had absolutely no basis in reality let alone historical ovules.... why then all this TORTURED special pleading for the Bible fables?

Do you think the nonbelievers in Nosferatu have the challenge to find the historical kernel for the stories of vampires?

What do you think is the historical sperm for Satan?

What do you think is the historical semen for Alien Abductions?

Clean out your cloth ears or take your blinkers off. You appear to be utterly incapable of reading what is placed in front of you without torturing and twisting it to mean your version what you think I mean.

There are no logical fallacies at all in what I said, for the simple reason that I claim NOTHING other than I beleive there may be a valid basis for what early Christians BELIEVED was a resurrection.

Why all the tortured special pleading for the Biblical myths?

I do not think it is beyond reason that many myths have a basis fact (note, I said many, not all). Either way, I cannot prove that this is correct, equally, you cannot prove that it is not. I happen to enjoy speculation, and if you don't like it, tough!!