Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

[Brian-M]

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?

No. I'm not saying that it's an equivalent claim. I was using it to demonstrate the flaw in the chain of reasoning, not as an analogy for the resurrection.

The point is that disproving surrounding claims does not disprove the claim which they surround.

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?

I don't "know" that dragons don't exist. This is an assumption made for the sake of the example. It makes no difference to the example whether or not dragons actually do exist. Either way, the conclusion remains invalid.

Whether or not dragons exist is a claim that must be evaluated separately.

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?

I can't prove the speculation wrong, nor do I need to deny the possibility, as everything you just said is completely irrelevant.

How would any of that, if true, change the fact that the conclusion is fallacious?

Fallacious does not mean false, and I never said that Bob's claim or the conclusion about that claim were false.

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.

Yes, I see exactly how silly and absurd it is. I agree that it's silly and absurd. But silly and absurd does not mean disproved.

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.

Given that the claim is that laws of physics were momentarily different at that time and place in such a way as to cause the resurrection to occur, then unless we can prove that this can't happen then you can't disprove the claim.

I'm not even saying that it is possible for it to happen, only that we can't prove it impossible.

(Note: The claim that a God was the cause of this momentary alteration of the laws of physics is itself a separate claim. Even if we did accept the resurrection as true, this wouldn't necessarily mean that we would need to accept the claim that a God exists.)

Now let me correct your example to be more in tune with the silliness of the resurrection claim.

[SNIP]

Now Brian-M comes in the 21st century using a computer to connect to an interconnected network of world-wide-web of computers that communicate messages across the world almost instantaneously to tell us that despite everything we know about REALITY.... Bob's claim # 8 needs to be evaluated independently of all the other claims of Bob

It only needs to be evaluated independently if you're trying to disprove it.

If you simply want to dismiss it as nonsensical, then the absurdity of the surrounding claims, along with the absurdity of the claim itself, are more than sufficient to do this from a wholly rational basis.

At this point I'm pretty sure that you don't understand the distinction between proving/disproving things and coming to rational conclusions about them.

The rest of your post below is the most excruciating Christian "Atheist" casuistry I have seen.

Given that my reasoning applies equally to all religious claims, not just Christianity, and given that I freely admit that the claims are absurd and that any rational person should dismiss them as false, and given that my arguments have nothing to do with ethics or morality, I don't see why you're accusing me of excruciating Christian "Atheist" casuistry.

 

[Leumas]

....
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.
....

In fact it seems that you are the one who has not read his own post at all.... because otherwise I have no possible way of explaining how you would say this

....
Your problem is that you are proceeding from a false assumption, being that I am actually claiming something to be true. . I am not.
....
Proof is required only when a claim is made. I am not making a claim.
....

Claim

• 3. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain:
• 5. A statement of something as a fact; an assertion of truth:
• 6. an assertion of something as true, real, or factual:
• 2. to assert or maintain as a fact:

I do not know what you think a claim is but let's have a look at your post which apparently you have not read

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.

 

[Brian-M]

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?

I don't know that these things didn't happen, but people who claim that the flood occurred aren't making these claims, so all this is completely irrelevant.

If people were making these claims, we couldn't disprove them either.

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?

I don't believe it to be possible. But not believing that something is possible is not the same thing as proving it impossible.

 

[smartcooky]

In fact it seems that you are the one who has not read his own post at all.... because otherwise I have no possible way of explaining how you would say this

So, lets look at it then

3. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain:

"There must surely at some time been an origin to that story"

You are taking my words out of context (you do this a lot to prop up your weak case when you have nowhere else to go).

The word "surely" is being used as an "intensive" in this context, not as a "definitive",

Accordingly, I am not making a claim here!

5. A statement of something as a fact; an assertion of truth:

"that each have practical, non-mythical or non-mystical real world explanations, but which have been misunderstood or misrepresented (either intentionally or unintentionally)"

Only if I actually state it as a fact. I have not done so, and furthermore, I have REPEATEDLY said it was speculation, and REPEATEDLY admitted that I could be wrong

Accordingly, I am not making a claim here!

6. an assertion of something as true, real, or factual:
2. to assert or maintain as a fact:

"I believe mis-declared death is a valid explanation for what Christians believe to be the resurrection."

Just because I believe something is a valid explantion does not mean that I am claiming it to be a fact, especially when I have REPEATEDLY said it was speculation, and REPEATEDLY admitted that I could be wrong!

Accordingly, I am not making a claim here!



Brian-M said "At this point I'm pretty sure that you don't understand the distinction between proving/disproving things and coming to rational conclusions about them."

IMO, it goes further than that. I'm pretty sure that you don't understand the distinction between stating that something is a fact and speculating that something is a possibility!

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 12. Rule breaches inside spoiler tags are still rule breaches

 

[tsig]

No. I'm not saying that it's an equivalent claim. I was using it to demonstrate the flaw in the chain of reasoning, not as an analogy for the resurrection.

The point is that disproving surrounding claims does not disprove the claim which they surround.



I don't "know" that dragons don't exist. This is an assumption made for the sake of the example. It makes no difference to the example whether or not dragons actually do exist. Either way, the conclusion remains invalid.

Whether or not dragons exist is a claim that must be evaluated separately.



I can't prove the speculation wrong, nor do I need to deny the possibility, as everything you just said is completely irrelevant.

How would any of that, if true, change the fact that the conclusion is fallacious?

Fallacious does not mean false, and I never said that Bob's claim or the conclusion about that claim were false.



Yes, I see exactly how silly and absurd it is. I agree that it's silly and absurd. But silly and absurd does not mean disproved.



Given that the claim is that laws of physics were momentarily different at that time and place in such a way as to cause the resurrection to occur, then unless we can prove that this can't happen then you can't disprove the claim.
I'm not even saying that it is possible for it to happen, only that we can't prove it impossible.

(Note: The claim that a God was the cause of this momentary alteration of the laws of physics is itself a separate claim. Even if we did accept the resurrection as true, this wouldn't necessarily mean that we would need to accept the claim that a God exists.)



It only needs to be evaluated independently if you're trying to disprove it.

If you simply want to dismiss it as nonsensical, then the absurdity of the surrounding claims, along with the absurdity of the claim itself, are more than sufficient to do this from a wholly rational basis.

At this point I'm pretty sure that you don't understand the distinction between proving/disproving things and coming to rational conclusions about them.



Given that my reasoning applies equally to all religious claims, not just Christianity, and given that I freely admit that the claims are absurd and that any rational person should dismiss them as false, and given that my arguments have nothing to do with ethics or morality, I don't see why you're accusing me of excruciating Christian "Atheist" casuistry.

It's up to the one who makes the claim to prove the claim so all you have to do is prove the laws of physics can have exceptions.

 

[Brian-M]

It's up to the one who makes the claim to prove the claim so all you have to do is prove the laws of physics can have exceptions.

I'm not claiming that it could have happened, only pointing out that we can't disprove claims that it could have happened.

 

[smartcooky]

It's up to the one who makes the claim to prove the claim so all you have to do is prove the laws of physics can have exceptions.

You do realise that the Laws of Physics have been broken numerous times throughout history. Whenever that has happened, scientists realised that they had the maths wrong, so they changed the math. Whenever the Laws, the Math and the Facts conflict, its not the Facts that change, its the Laws and the Math

Johannes Kepler thought that the motions of the planets defied the Laws of God (which were the Laws of Physics at the time). The Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explained the anomalies that Kepler could not. The Facts forced the Maths and the Laws of Physics to change.

Simon Newcomb, Director, U.S. Naval Observatory, 1902 thought that flight by heavier-than-air machines was impossible because it defied the Laws of Physics. Then Orville and Wilbur Wright and Richard Pearce discovered lift, and worked out the Maths of aerodynamics. The Facts forced the Maths and the Laws of Physics to change.

However, even Newton's Laws of Gravity (which were part of the Laws of Physics) could not explain certain anomalies in the orbits of the planets. Planets appeared to change speed in their orbits, and in so doing, they defied the Laws of Physics again. Then Einstein in the course working out his Theory of Relativity of discovered time dilation in a gravity well*1. The Facts forced the Maths and the Laws of Physics to change.

Then along came Mr Heisenberg; and the Facts forced the Maths and the Laws of Physics to change again!





*1 there's a great story in here about a missing intra-mercurial planet, but that is for another time unless someone wants to hear it.
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[Leumas]

I'm not claiming that it could have happened, only pointing out that we can't disprove claims that it could have happened.

You said this

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.

An extremely high degree of certainty is not 100% certainty.

So you are maintaining that there is an extremely low degree of possibility that it happened.

That means that you are maintaining that it could have happened.

But you go even further and vehemently argue with people who say it did not happen and tell them (erroneously and illogically) that they are using circular reasoning to maintain that.

But you do all this claiming without having ever proven that REALITY can suddenly be warped for the sake of a bastard son of a god who was really himself pretending to be his own son 30 years after having committed adultery with his own mother and 9 month later slithered out of her insides.

And as shown in the blue highlighted area below you are Shifting the Burden Of Proof and your whole argument is an Argument Form Ignorance.

What do you think of a convicted charlatan who claims he levitated a week ago.

I cannot prove that gravity did not suddenly stop working at his localized vicinity.

If I say to him that it did not happen would you VEHEMENTLY argue with me that

1. The fact that he is a charlatan has no bearing on the truth of his levitation claim which has to be evaluated entirely independently
2. My reasoning for denying his claim is fallacious
3. Unless I can also prove that the laws of physics can't ever be violated, then my argument doesn't stand up

....
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.
....

 

[Craig B]

You do realise that the Laws of Physics have been broken numerous times throughout history. Whenever that has happened, scientists realised that they had the maths wrong, so they changed the math. Whenever the Laws, the Math and the Facts conflict, its not the Facts that change, its the Laws and the Math ... the Facts forced the Maths and the Laws of Physics to change again!

The facts forced human understanding of the laws to change, not the laws themselves. The previous understanding was incomplete or erroneous. The laws never in fact changed.

Just for clarification: I trust you're not suggesting that this can't be refuted: the possibility that the laws of physics changed to permit Jesus' resurrection two thousand years ago; and then "changed again" so that such things can no longer happen. Or at least there is no way of ruling out such a scenario. I hope you're not saying anything of that kind.

 

[abaddon]

The facts forced human understanding of the laws to change, not the laws themselves. The previous understanding was incomplete or erroneous. The laws never in fact changed.

Just for clarification: I trust you're not suggesting that this can't be refuted: the possibility that the laws of physics changed to permit Jesus' resurrection two thousand years ago; and then "changed again" so that such things can no longer happen. Or at least there is no way of ruling out such a scenario. I hope you're not saying anything of that kind.

Of course he isn't. Don't go climbing on top of the strawman that has been constructed. Smartcooky is simply stating that he has no difficulty with the notion that one or more itinerant, apocalyptic jewish preachers (and there were plenty of them at the time) might have formed a basis for later confabulation by subsequent anonymous authors decades afterwards. It's not an unreasonable conjecture, but conjecture it is and smartcooky freely acknowledges it as such. Personally, I find it to be plausible that some crackpot bloke and/or blokes wandered the levant 2000 years ago and eventually gave rise to the nuttery that is christianity. I offer no hard evidence for this, it simply seems a plausible scenario. We do not have a monopoly on snake oil salesmen in the 21st century. Fundie snake oil peddling preacher in the first? Plausible, those are a dime a dozen to this very day. Fundie followers tacking on apocraphyl events post mortem to said preacher? Look at Lron and scientology, plausible.

 

[smartcooky]

Of course he isn't. Don't go climbing on top of the strawman that has been constructed. Smartcooky is simply stating that he has no difficulty with the notion that one or more itinerant, apocalyptic jewish preachers (and there were plenty of them at the time) might have formed a basis for later confabulation by subsequent anonymous authors decades afterwards. It's not an unreasonable conjecture, but conjecture it is and smartcooky freely acknowledges it as such.

Thanks abaddon.

It is good to know that there are other readers here who actually understand what they read.

Personally, I find it to be plausible that some crackpot bloke and/or blokes wandered the levant 2000 years ago and eventually gave rise to the nuttery that is christianity. I offer no hard evidence for this, it simply seems a plausible scenario.

We all await with baited breath for Leumas' declaration that this is special pleading and argument from from ignorance followed by bullying demands that you offer proof of your "claim", err... speculation.

 

[Craig B]

Of course he isn't. Don't go climbing on top of the strawman that has been constructed. Smartcooky is simply stating that he has no difficulty with the notion that one or more itinerant, apocalyptic jewish preachers (and there were plenty of them at the time) might have formed a basis for later confabulation by subsequent anonymous authors decades afterwards. It's not an unreasonable conjecture, but conjecture it is and smartcooky freely acknowledges it as such.

I find that quite reasonable, and indeed myself tend to accept that a real person underlies these accounts. But what does that have to do with "changes" in the "Laws of Nature"? The existence of Galilean preachers conforms to the Laws of Nature, and to current understanding of these laws, and always did.

But the resurrection of such persons from death doesn't conform to them now. The reference to "change" of these laws is therefore disquieting in such a discussion, and I sought reassurance that I properly understood Smartcooky's meaning.

 

[smartcooky]

I find that quite reasonable, and indeed myself tend to accept that a real person underlies these accounts. But what does that have to do with "changes" in the "Laws of Nature"? The existence of Galilean preachers conforms to the Laws of Nature, and to current understanding of these laws, and always did.

But the resurrection of such persons from death doesn't conform to them now. The reference to "change" of these laws is therefore disquieting in such a discussion, and I sought reassurance that I properly understood Smartcooky's meaning.

My reply was purely to tsig's statement, and confined only to that. If I had meant to imply anything wider, I would have said so.

BTW, I understand what you mean in your earlier statement "The facts forced human understanding of the laws to change, not the laws themselves." but I disagree on a technicality. That is only part of the story; don't get confused between...

Laws of Physics which are "theoretical principles deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present" all of which we understand, since we write the Laws to suit what we observe, and

Reality which refers to "aspects of the world that exist independently of whether and how human beings recognize or perceive them".

Ask any physicist and he will tell you that the more we study physics, the less we seem to understand about Reality.... every hard-won answer throws up many new questions.

Reality is what it is, and is always the same*, and we deduce and write our Laws of Physics from observations of that Reality. When we observe something about Reality that we haven't noticed before or that does not fit within our Laws of Physics, its the Laws that change.


*Actually, even that might not be true if we are including the first short period after cosmic inflation commenced, but that is another story

 

[Garrette]

Of course he isn't. Don't go climbing on top of the strawman that has been constructed. Smartcooky is simply stating that he has no difficulty with the notion that one or more itinerant, apocalyptic jewish preachers (and there were plenty of them at the time) might have formed a basis for later confabulation by subsequent anonymous authors decades afterwards. It's not an unreasonable conjecture, but conjecture it is and smartcooky freely acknowledges it as such.

Thanks abaddon.

It is good to know that there are other readers here who actually understand what they read.

Personally, I find it to be plausible that some crackpot bloke and/or blokes wandered the levant 2000 years ago and eventually gave rise to the nuttery that is christianity. I offer no hard evidence for this, it simply seems a plausible scenario.

We all await with baited breath for Leumas' declaration that this is special pleading and argument from from ignorance followed by bullying demands that you offer proof of your "claim", err... speculation.

Add me to the list of those who have followed this silly exchange and understand your point (and Brian-M's).

Sorry, Leumas, but you are erecting your own windmills, painting them in the heraldry of your ally, charging them on your warhorse, and accusing your ally of attacking you.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

In practice I have given up one this notion of disproving religion at least in some sense. Rather if someone ask me if I believe in God I answer no!

Now if you want to disprove the possibility of a resurrection you have to rule out aliens and from the point of view human technology an to us unknown technology, which could do that. Let me be clear, the laws of nature change with knowledge and our ability to use "new" aspects as to our understanding of how reality works.

So if Jesus was resurrected, it doesn't follow that God did it.
Premise 1: Jesus was resurrected.
Conclusion: God did it.
What we are missing here is a hidden assumption or premise 2: Only God can perform a resurrection. BTW that is in effect circular reasoning, because premise 2 assumes what needs to be proven.

 

[Ocelot]

Excuse me while I play promotor fidei^WP

With that in mind, are there still more proofs that the Resurrection didn't occur?[/B]

Yes I was there and saw how he did it.

Given that you've degraded your logical standards to accept the possibility of magical explanations and cannot disprove my bold assertion, where does that leave us.

 

[Brian-M]

An extremely high degree of certainty is not 100% certainty.

100% is an extremely high degree of certainty.
In fact, it's the most extremely high degree of certainty possible.

But I'm not going to say that it is 100% certain, because if I did it's fairly likely that someone would start arguing about whether or not we actually can know anything with 100% certainty.

That means that you are maintaining that it could have happened.

I'm putting the possibility somewhere in the vicinity of the possibility that we're all actually brains in vats experiencing an incredibly sophisticated virtual-reality while mysterious pulsating energy-beings get inebriated from basking in the complex electromagnetic emissions from our brains.

In other words, I'm putting the probability at a level virtually indistinguishable from zero.

But you go even further and vehemently argue with people who say it did not happen and tell them (erroneously and illogically) that they are using circular reasoning to maintain that.

I'm not arguing against the claim that it didn't happen. I'm perfectly happy with accepting that claim.

I'm simply arguing against the claim that we can prove that it didn't happen.

But you do all this claiming without having ever proven that REALITY can suddenly be warped [...]

Why would I need to prove it can happen when I'm not claiming it can happen? Do you normally demand that people prove things to be true that they're not claiming are true?

I'm just saying that we can't prove that it can't happen.

That's not the same thing as asserting that it can happen.

And as shown in the blue highlighted area below you are Shifting the Burden Of Proof

You're saying that people claiming it can be proved that the resurrection didn't happen don't have the burden of proof?



You're the one claiming that something can be proved, therefore the burden of proof is on you. Maybe you should read that page.

I'm not claiming that anything about it can be proven either way, so I have no burden of proof in this situation.

The part you highlighted in blue is simply my pointing out the difficulty in providing that proof.

and your whole argument is an Argument Form Ignorance.

Do you even bother to read the pages you link to?
I'm sure you don't, otherwise you'd realise they don't apply.

From that page: Argument from ignorance [...] is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa).

I've repeatedly pointed out that I'm not asserting that claims about the resurrection are true. In what what am I committing the argument from ignorance?

What do you think of a convicted charlatan who claims he levitated a week ago.

I cannot prove that gravity did not suddenly stop working at his localized vicinity.

That's right. Unless you have some evidence, such as telemetry logs from scientific instruments measuring local gravity at that spot at that time, or video evidence which demonstrates that trickery was involved, ect, you can't prove it.

If I say to him that it did not happen would you VEHEMENTLY argue with me that

1. The fact that he is a charlatan has no bearing on the truth of his levitation claim which has to be evaluated entirely independently
2. My reasoning for denying his claim is fallacious
3. Unless I can also prove that the laws of physics can't ever be violated, then my argument doesn't stand up

1. The fact that he is a charlatan may have an extremely relevant bearing on whether or not it's reasonable to believe his claim (although, the nature of the claim itself makes this piece of information virtually redundant). But when it comes to proving that he didn't levitate, the fact that he's been found to have purposely deceived people with false claims of miraculous abilities in the past is not proof that the claim is false.
2. You haven't given a reason for denying his claim. But assuming you'd cite his history as a known charlatan for deciding that his claim of levitation is false, I'd accept that as a perfectly valid reason and agree with you. If, on the other hand, you were to say that this proves his claim to be false, I'd have to disagree.
3. That depends on whether or not he's claiming that the levitation was produced by a "miracle" (or any other word or phrase describing a violation of the laws of physics), or if he's claiming that it was achieved by purely physical processes.

 

[Brian-M]

Yes I was there and saw how he did it.

Well, I certainly can't prove you're lying.

 

[smartcooky]

Leumas, I think you have difficultly with grey areas;

If it you can't prove it happened, then it didn't
If it you can't prove it didn't happen, then it did

If you cant prove its black, then it must be white
If you cant prove its white, then in must be black

I think this might be a False Dichotomy or a Fallacy of the Excluded Middle

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Jesus never existed, I traveled back in time and prevented the birth.

I had to destroy all evidence of the time machine.