Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

[Leumas]

Yes, everything, something, something else and/or nothing is always fun to play.

So is gravity everything?

With regards

Man o man! You really need to get yourself a few books and start reading some useful stuff.... ah... and start with a dictionary first.


With regards and may Horus guide you!

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Use a dictionary!

Regards and may Bastet look after you!

Etymology
The modern English word evil (Old English yfel) and its cognates such as the German Übel and Dutch euvel are widely considered to come from a Proto-Germanic reconstructed form of *ubilaz, comparable to the Hittite huwapp- ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European form *wap- and suffixed zero-grade form *up-elo-. Other later Germanic forms include Middle English evel, ifel, ufel, Old Frisian evel (adjective and noun), Old Saxon ubil, Old High German ubil, and Gothic ubils.

The root meaning of the word is of obscure origin though shown[5] to be akin to modern German Das Übel (although evil is normally translated as Das Böse) with the basic idea of transgressing.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

So further down you can find this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil#Usefulness_as_a_term
In part this:

One school of thought that holds that no person is evil, and that only acts may be properly considered evil.

So if you can consider the possibility that there are no evil nor good persons, you can also consider what you mean "someone doing evil or good things"?

 

[Leumas]

So further down you can find this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil#Usefulness_as_a_term
In part this:


So if you can consider the possibility that there are no evil nor good persons, you can also consider what you mean "someone doing evil or good things"?

Your two posts below are probably the best examples of poppycock other than the malarkey in your post above.

Interesting choice of words including the word "consider". As far as I can make out, no matter whether I consider gravity to be real or not, it won't change how gravity works no matter what I consider about gravity. But it seems that you accept that good and evil is not quite the same as gravity? Or maybe I have overlooked something concerning the word "consider"?

Your post below is probably the best gobbledygook in reply to the gibberish in your post above.

Have you consider that what you claim is not just simple, but to simple? You know - "Keep it simple, but not to simple."

With regards and may Eris inform you.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...

Let me try this: I might be evil or good, but before we get to that, we end here since you claim you know evil and good. You have made a general/universal positive claim, for which the general accepted "rule" for reasonable people, is that it is upon you to give evidence for "evil" and "good".

With regards

PS Regardless of what I am, you have made a positive claim. Now give evidence.

 

[Brian-M]

"Keep it simple, but not to two simple."

Fixed that for ewe.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Fixed that for ewe.

I am not familiar with your emoticon. What does it signify?

With regards

 

[Brian-M]

I am not familiar with your emoticon. What does it signify?

With regards

It's just a big-grin emoticon that happens to use a spider instead of a regular smiley face, because I felt like picking something silly to suit my intentional mis-correction of your text. (Correcting "to" to "two" instead of "too". Which is also why I used "ewe" instead of "you", because it's also a wrong word which sounds the same as the correct word.)

Emoticons don't have to have much meaning behind them. They're also for fun.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

It's just a big-grin emoticon that happens to use a spider instead of a regular smiley face, because I felt like picking something silly to suit my intentional mis-correction of your text. (Correcting "to" to "two" instead of "too". Which is also why I used "ewe" instead of "you", because it's also a wrong word which sounds the same as the correct word.)

Emoticons don't have to have much meaning behind them. They're also for fun.

Thank for your answer. Yes, sometimes it shows that English is not my primary language.
So here it is

"Keep it simple, but not too simple."

 

[Leumas]

Let me try this: I might be evil or good, but before we get to that, we end here since you claim you know evil and good. You have made a general/universal positive claim, for which the general accepted "rule" for reasonable people, is that it is upon you to give evidence for "evil" and "good".

With regards

PS Regardless of what I am, you have made a positive claim. Now give evidence.

I think this post replies well to your above post, just as it did to other similar shtick.

So basically you want a softball setup so you can repeate your tired pompous "Wise Man On the Mountain" routine and tell us how wrong we are?

Sorry, pass. Your coffee shop pseudo-intellectual shtick wasn't impressive when you hijacked threads with and it ain't impressive here.

With regards and may Morgoth anoint you!

 

[Leumas]

Yes, everything, something, something else and/or nothing is always fun to play.

So is gravity everything?

With regards

Here is another post that replies to your above sophistry as did before to your previous equal rubbish.

I'd add that when your philosophy contradicts reality, you just did an ad-absurdum disproof of said philosophy. Doubly so when actually it's just illustrating one's own ignorance.

Regards and may Typhon guide you!

 

[Leumas]

Thank for your answer. Yes, sometimes it shows that English is not my primary language.
So here it is

"Keep it simple, but not too simple."

Yup... the below post was exactly right!

It's possible I might not be aware. I find it more likely we are talking to the emperor's new tailor.

 

[Leumas]

Okay, "So, yes, evil people can use whatever excuse to justify their deeds, ..."!

It seems to follow that you are using two kinds of evil. Evil and evil in the name of religion. So let me ask you this what is evil in general and not just evil in the name of religion?

With regards

Below is a better reply than the one I already gave you!

Navel gazing philosophy is of no value whatsoever, save to grant it's practitioners brief and fleeting feelings of pretend superiority over those they wish they were at least able to intellectually equal. Aside from that it is fluff.

Regards and may Whiro show you the right path!

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Below is a better reply than the one I already gave you!




Regards and may Whiro show you the right path!

In practice based on what we know of reality there are no god(s) and no human races.
What if there are no good or evil humans? Have you checked?

With regards

 

[Leumas]

In practice based on what we know of reality there are no god(s) and no human races.
What if there are no good or evil humans? Have you checked?

With regards

That's one heck of an argument you're having with yourself. I hope you win.

It's possible I might not be aware. I find it more likely we are talking to the emperor's new tailor.

I'd add that when your philosophy contradicts reality, you just did an ad-absurdum disproof of said philosophy. Doubly so when actually it's just illustrating one's own ignorance.

Navel gazing philosophy is of no value whatsoever, save to grant it's practitioners brief and fleeting feelings of pretend superiority over those they wish they were at least able to intellectually equal. Aside from that it is fluff.

... Your coffee shop pseudo-intellectual shtick wasn't impressive when you hijacked threads with and it ain't impressive here.

Regards and may Apep calm your soul!

 

[rakovsky]

When I started the thread, I didn't want to construct the poll question so that it demanded 100% absolute certainty that Jesus didn't experience the transformed, physical resurrection that the gospels ascribe to him.

What I really meant was: Excluding the issue of whether miracles could happen in reality, could one practically disprove that it happened? And by "practically disprove" I meant "show with certainty" that it didn't happen.

If it didn't happen in reality and yet was not even practically disprovable, then it seems to me that the best explanation for this would be that in general it's hard to prove a negative and about 2000 years have passed since the event, making it impossible to do so now. This is why I gave the latter as Answer 2 in my poll.

 

[Leumas]

When I started the thread, I didn't want to construct the poll question so that it demanded 100% absolute certainty that Jesus didn't experience the transformed, physical resurrection that the gospels ascribe to him.

What I really meant was: Excluding the issue of whether miracles could happen in reality, could one practically disprove that it happened? And by "practically disprove" I meant "show with certainty" that it didn't happen.

If it didn't happen in reality and yet was not even practically disprovable, then it seems to me that the best explanation for this would be that in general it's hard to prove a negative and about 2000 years have passed since the event, making it impossible to do so now. This is why I gave the latter as Answer 2 in my poll.

A load of nonsense... by the same preposterous illogic all claims ever made no matter how ludicrous would then be equally possible.

So Muhammad's hallucination was really the angel whatshisname giving him one in a cave.

So Joseph Smith really did find golden tablets according to the guidance of angel Whatchamacallit.

Ganesh really was Vishnu and Vishnu really was God Whatsit.

By your very same illogic Sinbad, Aladdin, Robin Hood, Zoroaster, Baal, Moloch, Romulus, Ganesh, Zeus, Odin, Quatzequatel and Amun were all real too.

 

[rakovsky]

Hi 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.

Hello, Garette.

I think that this is an interesting topic. There is a school or proposition in psychology that dreams have meaning. The person who has the dream experiences his/her mind's predictions of future events based on images and symbols of the future events' elements. One image can have multiple possible images: a psychology book that I look at said that a celebratory hall could represent anyplace where multiple people are gathered for celebration, outside or inside.

There are different theories for how dream predictions work. One of the more mundane is that the mind calculates different possibilities and then represents them with images while sleeping.

The ancient Jews looked at their Biblical prophecies in a way similar to looking at dreams. For example, in the rabbinical commentaries they looked at some of the Psalms of David as making predictions of the Messiah. They even looked at events narrated in the Tanakh as having symbolic value.

Applying this principle of symbolic interpretation to Jonah's story, Jesus claimed that He would be in the "heart of the earth" for "three days and three nights. Now, when he said that, what did he mean by "heart of the earth?" Naturally, he didn't mean that in a literal, but symbolic way. The earth doesn't have a literal heart, and the closest to that would be the core and parts filled with Magma. I don't think Jesus meant that he would be dropped in a volcano.

Likewise, when he said "three days and three nights", he need not have meant that as literal 12 hour periods of earth rotations in relation to the sun. In Genesis, the sun was made days after the earth, so in the Biblical mindset, a night is not a literal earth rotation that exchanges day and night. So, considering that in the symbolic way of speaking these symbols and images can have multiple meanings, one meaning can be that darkness covered the earth with the sun blacked out for a certain period.

Thus, within the symbolic way of thinking that Jesus used in talking to his audience, his claim that He would be in the earth three days and three nights was fulfilled by being dead or in the earth's total power during the exchanges of 3 periods of light and darkness over the earth.

 

[rakovsky]

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?"

At least for the problem you posed of "God is jealous", the issue need not be illogical, rather you can just understand each statement in the context it was made to resolve apparent contradictions.

For example, when it says "Love is not jealous", it can mean that if you (or in this case God) love someone, then you (or God) are not jealous of them. That doesn't mean that you (or God) cannot be jealous toward anything at all.

Love might not be jealous of a person whom it loves, but metaphorically speaking love could be jealous toward some other force or concept that it competes with.

So I understand the claim that "God is the force/power of love", which is stated as "God is love". And "Love is not jealous" can mean that it's not jealous of (or spiteful toward) those who are the positive beloved objects of its love-force. However, just because Love is not jealous of its beloved doesn't mean that it cannot be jealous of anything. Also, God is not only the love force, but he is also a being and the source of life. The love force or source of life could be jealous or negative toward something that steals love from its beloved.

So if people worship greed, then the love force is not jealous of the people themselves, but it could be jealous of greed or some other false idol. That's because each of the premises must be understood in proper context.

 

[rakovsky]

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.

I think that this is a good post.

 

[Elind]

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.

So what? Someone made up the story and people believe it, particularly so since it is the cornerstone of their belief and nothing they believe would be valid if they reject it.

What difference does it make how long ago the myth was started?