Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

[rakovsky]

Interesting. I would have predicted an overwhelming "Yes" vote.

I was expecting a strong mix of votes- part of them saying it could be disproved for some reason and another part saying that it's extremely difficult to prove a negative. I didn't really have an opinion. I was however very surprised by many responses on the conspiracy theory threads. I understand that skeptics would be cynical of conspiracy theories, but I certainly expected a comparable tendency toward skepticism toward official narratives as well. But I don't want to digress about that in this thread.

 

[rakovsky]

Yes... Christianity was devised right from the start as a Pyramid Scheme or a Multi Level Marketing Scam.




Yes a very convenient dodge... you are not faithful enough succeeding in this MLM Scam because you just are not working hard at bamboozling enough people below you in the Pyramid Fraud.

But even the Buybull admits that it is God who is actually delibrately blinding people.

• Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
  _
  
• 2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
  _
  
• 1 Corinthians 1:19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent._
  
• 1 Corinthians 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;

Romans 9:8-23

• 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
• ...
• 9:11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; )
• ...
• 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
• 9:17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
• 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
• ...
• 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
• 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
• 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

I guess that you are right about Judaism and Christianity's method of passing knowledge to the extent that one group had some knowledge that others didn't - like Zechariah would have known the meaning behind his own poems.
However, the quotes you showed and the idea of one group having the true knowledge and the outsiders being led astray or being close minded is not really such a bad way of putting things and can be a good way of putting reality.

Take for example Galileo and Copernicus who proposed that the earth was round and that the earth went around the sun. They shared this knowledge with their students and cothinkers, along with even deeper knowledge about the stars. But people who society treated as wise didn't "get it". They were kept from understanding by their ignorance, by institutions, personal failings, etc.

It's like a moral teaching combined with some miracle- People picked on John, beat him up intensely, but then he surprised everyone by healing over night. But they wouldn't believe it or that he was right in what he was telling people because of their ignorance or other failings.

 

[rakovsky]

This is silly, only the person making the original claim has the burden of proof.

This is incorrect.

Let's say that the apostles and others didn't claim until late on Sunday that Jesus physically resurrected. But already on Sunday morning the soldiers and priests opposed to Jesus made the original claim on the question by proposing that Jesus actually stayed dead and someone else removed his body from the tomb by natural means. Would only those making that original claim have the burden of proof, while the apostles wouldn't have to prove their counterclaim if they wished to preach it?

I would reply: "No. Both those who make the original, affirmative claim that Jesus stayed dead and those who made the contrary claim that he did not stay dead have the burden of proof for their respective claims."

The person who wants to prove a claim has the burden of proof. The person rebutting the claim has the burden, not of proof, but of refuting sufficiently any arguments that are persuasive in meeting the burden of proof. The counter-arguer need only do that, at which point, the claim under debate fails. Nonetheless, simply because the claimant failed to meet his burden does not meet that the reverse or counterclaim must be true. A person who wants to prove the counterclaim has, himself, the burden of proof. Until either party does so, neither the claim nor counterclaim is proven.

 

[tsig]

Hi Garrette!


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.

If we disregard the meanings of the actual words in the bible and substitute our own then it all make sense.

 

[tsig]

Yes.
If someone tries to prove that the resurrection did or didn't occur, the person making either claim has the burden of proof.

The fact that a proponent of a claim (eg. that the weather will be nice tomorrow or that there are mice in his field) has not proved his case doesn't mean that the inverse is true (eg. that the weather will not be nice tomorrow or that there are no mice in the field).

Assertion:

The resurrection occurred.

Answer:

Prove it.

The burden is on the claimant.

 

[tsig]

But then it would not be a resurrection would it?

If one is not dead and then wakes up and recuperates from his wounds it is called a RECOVERY not a resurrection.

It cuts the heart out of Christianity because Jesus was supposed to die for your sins not just suffer a severe mugging.

"Jesus was mugged for me doesn't carry the same weight".

 

[tsig]

Cripes, it is like a thesaurus had an accident in here! LOLZ!

But seriously, on this site for skepticism the "rule" or "doctrine" of "So" is very well known to critical thinkers, so perhaps I have should have understood that you were unfamiliar with it, so for that reason I do apologize.

So skeptics have doctrines?

Anyone who starts a post with "but seriously" can't be taken seriously.

 

[tsig]

Cripes, it is like a thesaurus had an accident in here! LOLZ!
But seriously, on this site for skepticism the "rule" or "doctrine" of "So" is very well known to critical thinkers, so perhaps I have should have understood that you were unfamiliar with it, so for that reason I do apologize.

If your vocabulary isn't up to the job there are easier topics you can post on.

 

[tsig]

Yes, I understand, Tommy.
It is helpful for simplicity though that in this thread I am only asking whether one can disprove the Resurrection, not other conclusions or implications drawn from it like God being behind it.

However, Jesus' resurrection was depicted as him having a miraculous new body that could show up places before his bodily ascension. That is, this wasn't depicted as a run of the mill resuscitation.

Which version?

 

[tsig]

...for that claim, yes.
If someone else claims the opposite of the original claim, they have the burden of proof of the opposite claim.

Claim:

I talk to god regularly

Anticlaim:

You do not talk to god regularly.


How would you prove the anticlaim


Claim:

I have an invisible green elephant in my living room

Anticlaim:

No, you do not

Who has the burden of proof?

 

[The Big Dog]

So skeptics have doctrines?

Anyone who starts a post with "but seriously" can't be taken seriously.

If your vocabulary isn't up to the job there are easier topics you can post on.

Say, you know that you can "edit" your posts? So when, like today, you had a couple of real "zingers" to post in response, and then a couple of minutes later think of another "zinger," you can "edit" your post to add that next "zinger"!

Higher "zinger" count per post, that can't be bad huh?

 

[H'ethetheth]

Claim:

I talk to god regularly

Anticlaim:

You do not talk to god regularly.


How would you prove the anticlaim


Claim:

I have an invisible green elephant in my living room

Anticlaim:

No, you do not

Who has the burden of proof?

Each has the burden of proof for his own claim. What decides whom to believe is the actual evidence.

 

[Almo]

But there's no need to prove or disprove his resurrection. There's no evidence such a thing could happen, so it probably didn't.

 

[H'ethetheth]

But there's no need to prove or disprove his resurrection. There's no evidence such a thing could happen, so it probably didn't.

No quarrel there.

 

[Leumas]

Each has the burden of proof for his own claim. What decides whom to believe is the actual evidence.

Tom: I assert X (something outside rationality and reality and logic).

John: Prove it!


Tom cannot prove it and goes away to think for a while and much later comes back.


Tom: Well... let's assume X is true... can you John disprove it?

John: Well... burden of proof is on you and besides it is an irrational claim that goes against all epistemology of reality... so that should be sufficient disproof.

Tom: Ah but you have not proven that it is impossible have you.

Dick: Also there is a possibility that Tom's claim is not a violation of reality and rationality if we rationalize it by making it into an utterly different claim that is in fact rational.

John: Goodness gracious... what illogic is this?

Harry: Both are making claims and thus both have equal burden of proof and until either one has proven his case they are both equally valid.

Larry: How do you know reality was not somehow quite different for a little while at that time and place when and where Tom claimed his assertion occurred but now it has reverted back to being the same as normal reality?

Logic + Reason + Rationality: Oh goodness gracious... do you guys even know what reality and reason and logic mean?

 

[H'ethetheth]

Tom: I assert X (something outside rationality and reality and logic).

John: Prove it!

"Prove it" is not the opposite claim of X.

 

[Nihilianth]

Not reading through the thread, I am surprised that the second option only got 58%. Though I assume, after 11 pages, there is plenty of "evidence proving" that neither was there anyone with the name of "Jesus" (or "Yeshua,") and that he certainly did NOT "raise from the dead."

Then I assume all the rebuttals to those pieces of evidence are all goal-post moving; therefore, making it impossible to prove that Jesus did not, in fact, "rise from the dead."

amiright?

EA: Going back to the OP:

"I suppose that theoretically a virgin could conceive but it's next to impossible."

No. A virgin (human) cannot "theoretically" conceive. And no, it is not "'NEXT' to impossible." It is impossible. Period. Can anyone tell me if it is worth my time to read through this thread, or not?

ETA2: And, the second post, the very first response to the OP in this thread by LL, with just a handful of words in a single sentence, appears to have won this thread.

How the hell did it get to 12 pages?

 

[Aepervius]

No. A virgin (human) cannot "theoretically" conceive. And no, it is not "'NEXT' to impossible." It is impossible. Period. Can anyone tell me if it is worth my time to read through this thread, or not?

Actualy in some rare case it is possible. A virgin is not "corked" down here. And sperm if very active and swimming splashed down under near or through the vaginal opening, can indeed climb up.

Due to the over abundance of web stuff about christian it is difficult for me to find a statistic.
But it is probably exceedingly rare.

Now whether genital petting count or other activities baring penetration count as is culturally open , some culture count only penetration as losing virginity.

If you are speaking of parthenogenesis , yes you are right it is a no go for mammals AFAIK but i am no biologist.

 

[Leumas]

...
How the hell did it get to 12 pages?

12 pages of sophistry and SPECIAL PLEADING and illogical fallacies of the most desperate kind to alleviate the most chronic and acute Cognitive Dissonance.

Nothing but arrant casuistry trying to somehow still maintain some FACE SAVING from having to admit that their culture and society and history has been based upon nothing more than a FAIRY TALE fabricated by huckstering poltroons and enforced by the swords of pillaging brigands. Nothing but an ancient Pyramid Scheme or Multi-Level Marketing Scam.

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.

Much like children who are driven to tears and dismay after discovering the level of adult complicity of their society and parents in deceiving them for so long and in so many ways with the Santa fable.

 

[mstricky]

Not reading through the thread, I am surprised that the second option only got 58%. Though I assume, after 11 pages, there is plenty of "evidence proving" that neither was there anyone with the name of "Jesus" (or "Yeshua,") and that he certainly did NOT "raise from the dead."

Then I assume all the rebuttals to those pieces of evidence are all goal-post moving; therefore, making it impossible to prove that Jesus did not, in fact, "rise from the dead."

amiright?

EA: Going back to the OP:

"I suppose that theoretically a virgin could conceive but it's next to impossible."

No. A virgin (human) cannot "theoretically" conceive. And no, it is not "'NEXT' to impossible." It is impossible. Period. Can anyone tell me if it is worth my time to read through this thread, or not?

ETA2: And, the second post, the very first response to the OP in this thread by LL, with just a handful of words in a single sentence, appears to have won this thread.

How the hell did it get to 12 pages?

Regarding the virgin Mary; as I said further up the thread, in the early scriptures she was referred to as a young woman. The Greeks mistranslated that to virgin. Mary wasn't a virgin when she gave birth