Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?
- Thread starter rakovsky
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All three of your suggestions can be supported from a reading of one gospel or another, suggesting that there is no "kernel" to the resurrection story. It is entirely artificial.
Mass delusion, not shared by all participants. Matthew 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
Intentional fabrication. Mark 16, per New International Version. "The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9–20." Which relate the story of the resurrection.
Cause of survival of misdiagnosed death. John 19:32 So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him; 33 but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.…
Was Jesus Gay?
I love speculating, especially about Biblical myths....
Now here is a bit more speculation for the fourth item on the list .... Warning!!! Not suitable for Christian "Atheists".
I love speculating, especially about Biblical myths....
- Was Jesus the devil?
- Is religion the work of the devil?
- Was Isaac Pharaoh's bastard son resulting from Abraham pimping his half-sister-wife Sarah to him?
- Was Jesus in a gay relationship with Judas?
Now here is a bit more speculation for the fourth item on the list .... Warning!!! Not suitable for Christian "Atheists".
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I love speculating, especially about Biblical myths....
- Was Jesus the devil?
- Is religion the work of the devil?
- Was Isaac Pharaoh's bastard son resulting from Abraham pimping his half-sister-wife Sarah to him?
- Was Jesus in a gay relationship with Judas?
Now here is a bit more speculation for the fourth item on the list
Was Jesus Gay
[imgw=200]http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/4/4/1301910349208/jesus-christ-gay-004.jpg[/imgw]
Consider Mark 14:51-52 it does not specifically say he was sleeping with the almost naked lad who ran away when the soldiers came to catch them in the act perhaps, although the nakedness and following him with nothing but a linen cloth around his naked body lead one to raise an eyebrow or even gape a little.
14:51 And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:
14:52 And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.
However in The Secret Gospel Of Mark there is a very specific passage that elaborates further on the above episode and leaves very little to the imagination.
And they came to Bethany. And there was a woman there, whose brother was dead. And she came and fell down before Jesus and said to him: Son of David, have mercy on me. But the disciples rebuked her. And in anger Jesus went away with her into the garden where the tomb was; and immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb; and Jesus went forward and rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And immediately he went in where the young man was, stretched out his hand and raised him up, grasping him by the hand. But the young man looked upon him and loved him, and began to entreat him that he might remain with him. And when they had gone out from the tomb, they went into the young man’s house; for he was rich. And after six days Jesus commissioned him; and in the evening the young man came to him, clothed only in linen cloth upon his naked body. And he remained with him that night; for Jesus was teaching him the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. And from there he went away and returned to the other bank of the Jordan.
Also don't forget this eyebrow raising scene where Jesus takes off his clothes and puts a towel around him and then instead of using another towel with which to dry the feet of the disciples, he uses the towel that he "girded himself with".
John 13:4-5 He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments ; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
Also ponder this COZY scene which followed immediately after the naked washing of feet orgy.... where the disciple Jesus loved very much is laying on his breasts.
John 13:22-27
Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
Ok…ok… the last highlight is a bit of a joke.
However, it can be seen that this "disciple whom Jesus loved" was a “special” disciple and Jesus' love for him was noteworthy because John keeps repeating it all the time.
And with all that naked washing of feet and drying with his loincloth and reclining on his bosom one cannot ignore the possibility of something not quite hunky dory going on there.
John 20:2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
John 21:7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.
John 21:20-22 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following ; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee ? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come
Yet another "interesting" episode....Why the hell would the blind guy have to get naked to have his blindness cured?
Mark 10:49-51 And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?
Here is another "interesting" episode (John 21:2-7).
Peter is fishing NAKED with the guys. One can only speculate why the hell he was fishing naked (nudist?), but it is also obvious the other guys were not naked.
Now, notice that Peter was not shy at all about being naked in front of the guys.... nor was he perturbed when a stranger from shore was talking to them telling them where to cast their nets to catch more fish.
What is strange is that none of the disciples recognizes the stranger for who he was. Only the "disciple whom Jesus loved" managed to recognize Jesus.... why?
This "special" disciple pointed out to Peter that it was Jesus and suddenly Peter scrambles to cover himself up and then jumps into the "sea" (which by the way is the size of a small lake and is freshwater not saltwater and can never have waves large enough to threaten any but the flimsiest of dinghies, but that is another issue).
One cannot help but wonder
- Why was Peter fishing naked?
- Why was he the only one naked?
- Why was he not shy being naked in front of his friends?
- Why was he not even circumspect in front of a "stranger" looking on from shore?
- Presumably if a stranger could see them and talk to them, then others could see them too, so why wasn't Peter bashful about his nakedness in front of any passersby?
- Why didn't anyone recognize the stranger except the "special" disciple?
- Why did Peter get so coy about being naked when he realized it was Jesus?
Did Peter know something about Jesus (who was supposed to be a guy afterall) that we are not explicitly told but are supposed to implicitly infer?
John 21:1-7
21:1 After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself.
21:2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.
21:3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.
21:4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
21:5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.
21:6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
21:7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.
I have always wondered why Judas needed to point out Jesus with a kiss, couldn't he just point at him or even touch him on the shoulder?
Maybe the Sanhedrin arrested Judas as a sodomite and they offered him a deal to out Jesus as one too. Of course they could not just take his word for it, so they needed Judas to give Jesus a good passionate wet kiss and if Jesus participated and kissed back then that would be a good proof.
Do we have any evidence for that?
From here
Both Matthew (26:47–50) and Mark (14:43–45) use the Greek verb kataphilein, which means to kiss firmly, intensely, passionately, tenderly, or warmly. It is the same verb that Plutarch uses to describe a famous kiss that Alexander the Great gave Bagoas.
Bagoas
Bagoas (Old Persian: Bagoi, Ancient Greek: Βαγώας Bagōas) was a eunuch in the Persian Empire in the 4th Century BCE, said to have been the catamite of Darius III, and later the Eromenos (Beloved) of Alexander the Great.
catamite
In its modern usage the term catamite refers to a boy as the passive or receiving partner in anal intercourse with a man.[1]
In its ancient usage a catamite (Latin catamitus) was a pubescent boy who was the intimate companion of a young man in ancient Greece and Rome, usually in a pederastic relationship.[2] It was usually a term of affection and literally means "Ganymede" in Latin. It was also used as a term of insult when directed toward a grown man
Well, your fine
Do you ever have any original thoughts?
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I agree... there may not be a "kernel", and it may all be totally made up fiction....but how do you prove that?
On the other hand, there may actually be a "kernel" and it may not be entirely made up out of imagination... but again, how do you prove that?
The answers to both questions is, of course, that you can't. You can make a reasonable guess, or you can speculate, but that is all it will be, speculation. Sans a time machine, there is not, never was and never will be definitive, stone-cold proof either way.
I guess there are few people here who don't understand the difference between claiming something to be true and accepting the possibility that something might be true.
* * * * *
But to be honest, this subject is not important enough to me to get into peeing contest with a Googleversity student like Leumas. He can believe what he wants to believe. Who cares? Not me!
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You do not.... the burden of proof is on the person claiming the fictive stuff.
If only you valued more the ability to read references you might have read about what the Burden of Proof means and then you would not have committed the illogic of shifting it onto the person who says fiction is fictive while you wish it to be true and just assert that it might be true and relying on the fallacious illogic of arguing from ignorance claiming it might be true because no one can prove otherwise despite not having proven it to be true.
Besides, I bet you have not even bothered to read this post.
I know you seem to dislike research and citations and references .... but again... I just wish you knew how to read references or books if you want.... please do yourself a favor and read some books on logic and rhetoric.
Arguing by just asserting things and wishing them to be true and then shifting the burden of proof are not a logical way to proceed in a discussion.
Also ridiculing people who point out your illogic is committing yet another failure in logic.
Again... I realize you really dislike people who point out your illogic.... but unfortunately you are again shifting the burden of proof and arguing from ignorance and moderation and engaging in really tortured special pleading.
Would you defend belief in the resurrection of Osiris the same way?
So are you saying that Jesus could have resurrected from the dead after having died and been dead?
Notice in the English language and in logic the word dead does not mean mistaken for dead!
I would have given a google reference but I know you do not like that.... by the way Wikipedia and Google are different things... although Wikipedia is an internet Encyclopedia it is still an Encyclopedia... do you know what Encyclopedias are used for? Also Google is a search engine... do you know what the word REsearch means? If you notice it has the word SEARCH in it and using SEARCH engines to RESEARCH things is in fact a skill they teach people in universities whether, "Googleversity" or any other university.... maybe you ought to try and attend one.
If Jesus was mistaken for dead, then it does not mean that he resurrected from the dead.... to resurrect from the dead you have to have died... you know actually died and not almost died or mistaken for dead.
In the context of this discussion "accepting the possibility that something might be true" means accepting that Jesus might have resurrected from the dead after having died and been dead... not .... accepting that people might have mistaken him for dead and later when he got up people mistook him for resurrected.
So it looks like it is you who does not understand what you are in fact arguing for.
I am not the one who is believing things.... I am the one who is not believing your illogical beliefs.... here have a look... they are your own words.... no googling or even needing a Googleveristy degree.... just ability to read.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
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There you go yet again claiming things without proof and asserting things without knowledge. And that is on top of the appeal to ridicule and ad hominem.
How do you know it is Gish Gallop? You admit with your own words that you have not read it because your eyes glazed over.
Do you even know what Gish Gallop means? Have you even bothered to read the definition beyond the first few words?
It does not mean text one is not able to read because one cannot keep up one's attention span long enough to read it.
If that were the case then as far as you are concerned the whole of human literature would be Gish Gallop.
Also it does not mean text one does not like and does not want to read because it points out one's failure in logic and/or has content one does not want to learn.
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tsig
a carbon based life-form
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IOW you got nothing.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
All of this would be really interesting to someone who actually cares about it, which I don't.
Your problem is that you are proceeding from a false assumption, being that I am actually claiming something to be true. . I am not.
I'm not interested in reading references regarding burden of proof because I am not trying to prove anything to be true or false or otherwise. The fact that I accept that I might be wrong obviates any need to supply a proof. Proof is required only when a claim is made. I am not making a claim.
I actual fact, what I dislike is people like you; an internet bully who likes to shout at other posters and try to intimidate them using walls of emboldened links, irrelevant references and random passages of scripture. There is only one thing worse that a religious zealot, and that is zealous atheist.
I neither know what that is or care about it enough to bother finding out, but this statement of yours does point up a further example of you proceeding from a false assumption; that I am defending the resurrection. I am not and have made that very clear in a number of posts in this thread. I will, however, defend with my last breath the right of anyone to BELIEVE what they want. If people want to believe in mythical deities (which I don't) then they have every right to do so. Furthermore, it is none of my business if they do, and its none of yours either. It becomes my business only when they try to convince ME that their god is real... at that point they are making a claim and they are going to require proof.
This post tells me that you haven't even read my posts at all, because if you had you would never have made that statement.
For the avoidance of doubt, I will again state my position on this issue, as stated as far back as post #16 of this thread
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10583063&postcount=16
which I will reprint here (with highlights)..
To be clear....
I am an atheist. I do not believe that Historical Jesus (as writ in the Bible) actually existed as an individual. I believe the accounts of Jesus in the Bible are more than likely to be based on several different characters. This might partially explain the vastly differing and sometimes wildly conflicting accounts of "his" life.
I don't believe that a corpse which has rotted for three days can be reanimated. However, grant for a moment that the resurrection may have been based on some real occurrence of an apparently mortally wounded man seemingly dying and then coming back to life a few days later, then the only thing I can think of to account for this is the wounded man falling into a coma and showing such minimal signs of life that everyone thought he was dead, only for him to come out of his coma in the tomb. There are any number of modern day examples of people waking up after being pronounced dead.....
https://www.google.com/search?num=10...ronounced+dead
THERE ARE NO CLAIMS HERE. I am merely expressing my opinion... an opinion that I have every right to make, and which I freely admit might be in error. All I am doing is saying that I accept the possibility that the account of the so-called resurrection might be based upon something that the writer or writers either saw or heard about, and that they could have woven into their story. I have further speculated that a mis-declaration of death could be an explanation.
* * * * *
Consider all the great theories and great advances in the history of mankind, from 5000 BCE when Leucippus & Democritus suggested that matter consisted of atoms, to Rutherford's splitting of those atoms in 1917; from Isaac Newton's derivation of the Laws of Gravity in 1687 to Einstein's Special and General Relativity theories in the early part of last century; from Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 to Watson & Crick's discovery of DNA’s double helix structure in 1953. Every one of them began with speculative question like... what if?
Speculation is a vital part of discussion and debate. It is the beginning of knowledge; ideas and knowledge do not spontaneously appear fully developed. Carl Sagan once said "We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact."
Factual claims require proof, speculation does not. I believe I have been very careful to distinguish between them.
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Brian-M
Daydreamer
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Leumas, I'm tired of seeing you throw around names of fallacies when you clearly have no understanding of what you're referring to. So let's look at the latest ones you've spouted...
Refraining from reaching a conclusion (eg, not concluding that it's provable that something didn't happen) on the basis of insufficient evidence is not an argument from ignorance.
Also, we know for a fact that the entire Bible is a mish-mash of different stories, so it's not an argument from ignorance to say so.
And even if we didn't know it for a fact, it still wouldn't be an argument from ignorance unless we were saying that must be a mish-mash of different stories because we don't know that it isn't.
Even if he were talking specifically about the resurrection in that post, it still wouldn't be argument from ignorance to state that we can't prove it didn't happen. Stating that we can't prove something didn't happen is not the same thing as claiming that it did happen.
I honestly don't see how you think the argument from ignorance is supposed to apply in this case.
In this case the burden of proof lies on the person trying to prove that the resurrection didn't happen.
That should be obvious. The burden of proof is on you.
Smartcooky is simply stating his own position that these stories probably started on the basis of real-world events that inspired them, not that the truth must lie part-way between completely true and completely false. Therefore he's not committing the "argument to moderation", he's just speculating about the origin of the stories.
(I don't entirely agree with his position, because I suspect that many of the stories were completely invented from start to finish.)
Okay, onto the next post...
How is that relevant? He was simply pointing out that neither side can prove their position, not demanding that the other side prove the position.
If you'd bothered reading the whole post before responding with a Wiki link it would have been obvious he was asking a rhetorical question.
This is your response to a post where he freely admits that his position is merely speculation?
None of those things apply to idle speculation. They only apply to truth-claims.
It's doubly ironic that you still responded that way to a post where he said this:
And you respond with:
Clearly you've forgotten that in his preceding post he stated that his position was that these stories "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".
In other words "mistaken for dead" could easily be "misunderstood or misrepresented" for "raised from the dead", which then could easily be embellished with invented or speculative detail and woven into the Christian mythos.
But I suppose, after taking all this effort addressing your responses to someone else's posts and positions, I should probably go back and try addressing your last response to my own posts.
Refraining from reaching a conclusion (eg, not concluding that it's provable that something didn't happen) on the basis of insufficient evidence is not an argument from ignorance.
Also, we know for a fact that the entire Bible is a mish-mash of different stories, so it's not an argument from ignorance to say so.
And even if we didn't know it for a fact, it still wouldn't be an argument from ignorance unless we were saying that must be a mish-mash of different stories because we don't know that it isn't.
Even if he were talking specifically about the resurrection in that post, it still wouldn't be argument from ignorance to state that we can't prove it didn't happen. Stating that we can't prove something didn't happen is not the same thing as claiming that it did happen.
I honestly don't see how you think the argument from ignorance is supposed to apply in this case.
In this case the burden of proof lies on the person trying to prove that the resurrection didn't happen.
That should be obvious. The burden of proof is on you.
Smartcooky is simply stating his own position that these stories probably started on the basis of real-world events that inspired them, not that the truth must lie part-way between completely true and completely false. Therefore he's not committing the "argument to moderation", he's just speculating about the origin of the stories.
(I don't entirely agree with his position, because I suspect that many of the stories were completely invented from start to finish.)
Okay, onto the next post...
How is that relevant? He was simply pointing out that neither side can prove their position, not demanding that the other side prove the position.
If you'd bothered reading the whole post before responding with a Wiki link it would have been obvious he was asking a rhetorical question.
This is your response to a post where he freely admits that his position is merely speculation?
None of those things apply to idle speculation. They only apply to truth-claims.
It's doubly ironic that you still responded that way to a post where he said this:
And you respond with:
Clearly you've forgotten that in his preceding post he stated that his position was that these stories "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".
In other words "mistaken for dead" could easily be "misunderstood or misrepresented" for "raised from the dead", which then could easily be embellished with invented or speculative detail and woven into the Christian mythos.
But I suppose, after taking all this effort addressing your responses to someone else's posts and positions, I should probably go back and try addressing your last response to my own posts.
Brian-M
Daydreamer
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Seriously??
Hypothetically.
My point is that we're addressing the resurrection claim independently from all the other claims made in the Bible.
Even if we proved everything else in the Bible was completely false and nonsensical, that still wouldn't prove that the resurrection didn't happen.
Trying to prove that the resurrection didn't happen by attempting to discredit or disprove the other claims in the Bible is also a logical fallacy (although at this point I can't be bothered to try and look up the name for it when it's much quicker to provide an example of why the logic is flawed).
If Bob says he had a pet lamb, but no longer has the lamb because a fire-breathing dragon ate it you could follow this chain of thought...
Bob claims he had a pet lamb.
Bob claims the lamb was eaten by a fire-breathing dragon.
The fire-breathing dragon claim is false, because dragons don't exist.
Therefore the claim that he had a pet-lamb is false.
But the conclusion is fallacious. Even if there were no fire-breathing dragon, this doesn't mean Bob never had a pet lamb. The fire-breathing dragon is a side-issue to the question of whether or not Bob had a pet lamb.Bob claims the lamb was eaten by a fire-breathing dragon.
The fire-breathing dragon claim is false, because dragons don't exist.
Therefore the claim that he had a pet-lamb is false.
If you want to disprove the claim that Bob had a pet lamb you have to address the actual claim that he had a pet lamb. The side-issues, such as the existence of fire-breathing dragons, are irrelevant.
Likewise, if you want to disprove the claim that the resurrection occurred you have to address the actual claim of the resurrection. The side-issues, such as every other claim in the Bible, are irrelevant.
The claim we're discussing is that a person (referred to as "Jesus") was killed by crucifixion, entombed, and on the third day of death a violation of the laws of physics (referred to as a "miracle") returned that person to life.
We know that people, crucifixions and entombment were all commonplace at the time the events were supposed to have occurred, so the point in contention is the "miracle".
You could argue that the miracle couldn't have happened because it violates the laws of physics.
But since a miracle is by definition a violation of the laws of physics, you'd essentially be arguing that the laws of physics can't be violated because it violates the laws of physics.
This would be the fallacy of circular logic.
So unless you can also prove that the laws of physics can't ever be violated, then that argument doesn't stand up.
This isn't to say that a miracle can't ever be disproved.
Take the great flood, for example. The claim being that some time within the span of human existence the entire world was covered in water caused by a massive and sudden miraculous flood which only a small number of each species managed to survive.
We don't need to go into related claims about how any people or animals managed to survive. That's a side-issue.
We disprove that claim by looking directly at the evidence, such as geology and DNA. The geological record shows no signs of such an event, and DNA evidence shows no sign of a genetic bottleneck simultaneously occurring for all species during that time-span.
That's ample proof that the flood didn't happen.
But for the resurrection we have no evidence to examine, so no proof either way.
Of course, we have ample and compelling reasons for concluding with an extremely high degree of certainty that it didn't happen, but that's not the same thing as proving that it didn't happen.
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Donn
Philosopher
In two thousand years time the Scriptures of Spiderman will be spread from webhead to webhead across the Solar System.
I get what you are saying, but I don't see how it's "surely". Back then stories had more impact for their slower telling. A person would spend an entire lifetime in one village. The stories that were sticky — stuck. All it takes is a mind wanting to be entertained and when the fun is all bundled-up with some moral lessons and handed-down from authority, it's a potent brew.
tsig
a carbon based life-form
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Leumas, I'm tired of seeing you throw around names of fallacies when you clearly have no understanding of what you're referring to. So let's look at the latest ones you've spouted...
Refraining from reaching a conclusion (eg, not concluding that it's provable that something didn't happen) on the basis of insufficient evidence is not an argument from ignorance.
Also, we know for a fact that the entire Bible is a mish-mash of different stories, so it's not an argument from ignorance to say so.
And even if we didn't know it for a fact, it still wouldn't be an argument from ignorance unless we were saying that must be a mish-mash of different stories because we don't know that it isn't.
Even if he were talking specifically about the resurrection in that post, it still wouldn't be argument from ignorance to state that we can't prove it didn't happen. Stating that we can't prove something didn't happen is not the same thing as claiming that it did happen.
I honestly don't see how you think the argument from ignorance is supposed to apply in this case.
In this case the burden of proof lies on the person trying to prove that the resurrection didn't happen.
That should be obvious. The burden of proof is on you.
Smartcooky is simply stating his own position that these stories probably started on the basis of real-world events that inspired them, not that the truth must lie part-way between completely true and completely false. Therefore he's not committing the "argument to moderation", he's just speculating about the origin of the stories.
(I don't entirely agree with his position, because I suspect that many of the stories were completely invented from start to finish.)
Okay, onto the next post...
How is that relevant? He was simply pointing out that neither side can prove their position, not demanding that the other side prove the position.
If you'd bothered reading the whole post before responding with a Wiki link it would have been obvious he was asking a rhetorical question.
This is your response to a post where he freely admits that his position is merely speculation?
None of those things apply to idle speculation. They only apply to truth-claims.
It's doubly ironic that you still responded that way to a post where he said this:
And you respond with:
Clearly you've forgotten that in his preceding post he stated that his position was that these stories "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".
In other words "mistaken for dead" could easily be "misunderstood or misrepresented" for "raised from the dead", which then could easily be embellished with invented or speculative detail and woven into the Christian mythos.
But I suppose, after taking all this effort addressing your responses to someone else's posts and positions, I should probably go back and try addressing your last response to my own posts.
Since it is impossible to prove him wrong he might be right.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I think the likelihood of something like your Spiderman Scriptures is tiny, given that information in the modern age is passed quickly, accurately and in bulk. Nonetheless, there are still stories that gain popularity, spread like wildfire but which are either completely untrue or a distorted version of the truth. A quick trawl though the "pages" of snopes.com or io9.com will confirm that.
But harking back to stories told during the biblical times, from what I know of those times, books were rare, handwritten and were only able to be made one at a time. Only a tiny percentage of people could read, so stories were told and passed across and down through the generations verbally. Of all the forms of human communication, the passing of oral traditions from person to person is the least accurate and most unreliable. Information would be added, deleted, distorted, modified and rephrased at every telling ("Chinese Whispers"). Even the manual copying of books (which is how it was done in those days prior to the invention of the printing press) can lead to inaccuracies, as the copy writer misreads the handwriting of the previous writer. Language translations create even more inaccuracies as certain phrases and expression sometimes don't have a simple translation into another language. With the invention of the printing press however, copy to copy accuracy improves dramatically, and the mass production aspect makes multiple identical copies (even so, there are over 50 different versions of the two bibles in the English language alone) not to mention that there are a plethora of inconsistencies with multiple accounts of the same stories within the bible differing in more than just minor detail.
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So what you are saying is that claiming to have resurrected from the dead is the same thing as claiming to have a pet lamb?
AMAZING!!!
I am going to use your example to demonstrate how silly your above argument is.
How do you know this? Could there have been a fire breathing dragon that aparated from Camelot acceoed the lamb and then disaparated back to Hogwarts?
How can you claim that dragons do not exist? Do you know for sure?
Is it possible that during that time period when Bob observed the lamb being eaten the laws of physics just suspended themselves after having convened a meeting and voted to change themselves for a few minutes until a dragon from another universe was able to aparate eat the lamb right in front of poor Bob and then those nasty laws of physics in keeping with their tricks changed back to being as they have always been and thus poor Bob although he was right no one will ever believe him?
Can you prove my speculation is wrong?
Are you able to deny the possibility that the laws of physics conspired to rob and befuddle poor Bob?
Do you see how silly it can get if one starts saying that it is possible for the laws of physics to have changed to allow Jesus to resurrect and then they became normal again.
This is basically what you are claiming.... you are saying the resurrection is possible because we cannot prove that the laws of physics were not momentarily different during the time of the resurrection.
Now let me correct your example to be more in tune with the silliness of the resurrection claim.
- Bob claims to see demons and devils everywhere he looks.
- Bob claims that god is three gods in one and one god in three.
- Bob claims ghostly gods commit adultery and impregnate women.
- Bob claims that gods ooze out from between the legs of virgin girls.
- Bob claims that all this is because god wants to have a gay BDSM session with men dressed in oppressive imperial soldier uniforms.
- Bob claims that gods pretend to be crucified.
- Bob claims that gods die.
- Bob claims that those same gods who died FOR REAL also resurrected from the dead.
- Bob claims that all this is to atone for human sin due to a couple having eaten from a magic tree after having been fooled by a talking snake.
- Bob claims that god had no other means of forgiving this sin except to come down and ooze out of the womb of a virgin and then thirty years later to participate in a FARCE or BDSM session.
And why.... because Brian-M believes that since no one can prove that the laws of physics did not change for a few moments while Bob's claim # 8 was taking place then it is possible that Bob was right.
The rest of your post below is the most excruciating Christian "Atheist" casuistry I have seen.
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Are you sure God or the Devil did not wipe out the evidence for the flood?
Are you sure God did not hide the evidence of his crimes of genocide and infanticide?
How do you know the laws of physics were not changed after the flood?
How do you know the laws of physics did not conspire to help god out with his "free will" pursuit by making it only a matter of faith to believe in the flood?
How do you know that a wormhole did not swallow Noah's arc and transport him from his flooded earth to our parallel universe Earth where we are now?
Can you see how silly things can get when one wants to be a Christian Atheist who believes that it is possible that the laws of physics can change in 33 CE for a few moments?
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Leumas
Up until now, I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were simply not reading people's posts correctly.
It has become plain that this is not the case, and that you are in fact wilfully misunderstanding what we have been posting and intentionally misrepresenting the content of those posts in your "replies"
This has to rank as just about the most stupid response in this thread so far. Of course that is not what he is saying. Brian-M made it absolutely clear to anyone possessing an ounce of commonsense that he was illustrating a logical fallacy by use of an example; an instance serving to illustrate the rule or precept or to act as an exercise in the application of the rule.
I can't be bothered debating with a cyberbully who intentionally misrepresents what I say and then tries to beat me over the head with it. You win the interwebz Leumas, congratulations, and here is your prize...
Up until now, I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were simply not reading people's posts correctly.
It has become plain that this is not the case, and that you are in fact wilfully misunderstanding what we have been posting and intentionally misrepresenting the content of those posts in your "replies"
This has to rank as just about the most stupid response in this thread so far. Of course that is not what he is saying. Brian-M made it absolutely clear to anyone possessing an ounce of commonsense that he was illustrating a logical fallacy by use of an example; an instance serving to illustrate the rule or precept or to act as an exercise in the application of the rule.
I can't be bothered debating with a cyberbully who intentionally misrepresents what I say and then tries to beat me over the head with it. You win the interwebz Leumas, congratulations, and here is your prize...
Yup... that's what I thought.... how skeptically erudite of you!
But thanks for saying so... enough said!
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I was wondering if you would eventually say that.
But thanks for saying so.... enough said!
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