Thursday, 21 July 2011
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Not the Impossible Faith
By Richard Carrier
see relatedIs Jesus' Resurrection an "Extraordinary" Claim?
Can we agree that "Jesus rose from the dead" is an extraordinary claim?
Even if we can, so what?
What is an extraordinary claim, really, and does it really need any special kind of evidence to support it?
Whether we call something extraordinary obviously must depend on what we're calling ordinary. A claim that a miracle occurred will perhaps not seem extraordinary to people who are already convinced that miracles happen every day. They therefore will, with some justification, accept evidence that will not convince us who doubt that any miracle has ever happened.
Apologist criticisms often reflect a suspicion that the maxim "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is employed less as a standard for rational evaluation than as an excuse for rejecting out of hand any evidence for any claim contrary to a secular orthodoxy.
And in fairness, some skeptics do sometimes seem to saying something like:
- An extraordinary claim is one that we're already convinced cannot be true; and
- Extraordinary evidence is any kind that we know you can't produce.
We might start by remembering that no evidence, ordinary or otherwise, can prove any claim in a mathematical sense. Facts about empirical reality can never be established to that level of certainty. We can justify what we believe, but we can never with perfect certainty rule out the possibility that we are mistaken.
We can get close, though. Broadly speaking, evidence for a claim is a set of facts that justifies belief in the claim. The facts justify the belief if they logically imply, to some significant level of probability, that they are inconsistent with the falsity of the claim. The higher that probability, the stronger the evidence is said to be; and if the probability approaches certainty, then we may say the evidence is conclusive.
But conclusive evidence can be quite ordinary. A corpse, whether or not it can be identified, is conclusive evidence that somebody has died, but there is nothing extraordinary about a corpse.
Now, the claim "Somebody died" is itself pretty ordinary in the usual sense. As far as we know, death happens to everyone. Also as far as we know, it is always permanent, at least for humans and other mammals. People who do die stay dead, without exception.
Such is the common experience of humanity. All people have witnessed death. Almost no people have witnessed any dead person returning to life. That "almost" is necessary because there are people who claim to have seen at least one dead person return to life. Those people are very few, but they exist.
And, their testimony is evidence of something. But of what?
Mistaken or dishonest testimony is also part of humanity's common experience. We are all subject to error in our perceptions and memories, and we all know that. Some people also tell lies. We all know that, too.
It is also part of common experience for people to tell stories that they know are not true but don't expect anyone to believe. We call these stories fiction. They are usually told primarily for entertainment, but they are sometimes intended also for enlightenment of some kind.
It also sometimes happens that people who hear fictional stories believe they are hearing factual history. Therefore, while testimony of a resurrection could be evidence for a resurrection, it could also be evidence for any number of other events. Other relevant facts might help us decide how best to account for the testimony's occurrence. I propose now to define an extraordinary claim as one that is inconsistent with well justified beliefs based on the common experience of humanity. Let us call the those beliefs conventional beliefs. I then suggest that the evidence required to support such a claim should be sufficient to falsify those conventional beliefs. Such evidence would be a set of incontrovertible facts that are logically inconsistent with our conventional beliefs and therefore compel the inference that those beliefs are untrue. If it can be demonstrated by a cogent argument that the facts in evidence are inexplicable except by supposing that the conventional beliefs are wrong, then we have our extraordinary evidence. But if the conventional beliefs can explain the evidence, then the evidence is not sufficiently extraordinary to support the claim.
Extraordinary evidence although it might be intrinsically ordinary, must be extraordinarily in its implications. If it is offered as proof that a natural law has been violated, then the violation of a natural law — and nothing else — must be the only way to account for it.
In other words, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is a kind of restatement of Occam's razor. If our conventional beliefs can account for the evidence, then we don't need any new beliefs.
Conventional beliefs as I have here defined them would include any consensus of the scientific community. Although science affirms things that seem to go beyond common experience, the scientific method leading to such affirmations is ultimately based on common experience. This is what the principle of replicability is all about. Any person can, in principle, do any of the experiments on which any scientific theory, no matter how counterintuitive, is based.
If this seems to stack the deck in favor of conventional thinking, then so be it. Our survival as a species historically has depended, and still does depend, on our being reluctant to change our beliefs when our beliefs have served us well. Of necessity, it ought to be difficult to convince us that lessons we have learned and confirmed by long experience should be unlearned.
But the value of being resistant to changing one's mind does not imply a greater value to being immune to it. The challenge is to figure out when we cross the line between prudent resistance and imprudent obstinance. It is a challenge not easily met, and there is no good formula universally agreed upon that anyone can use to define the line.
What we could all agree to, though, is to give each other credit for some good faith.
Every one of us, skeptic and believer, holds to certain ideas that it would be extremely difficult to convince us are wrong. For good or ill, we are not going to believe that something happened contrary to those ideas just because a few people say it happened. Rationalists are by no means the only people who insist on extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
Where we are perhaps trying to be different is in our attempt to objectivize the distinction between the credible and the incredible. When we call a claim extraordinary, we are merely noting that you are asking us to abandon a fundamental belief about how the universe works. We are no more ready than you are to do that just on somebody's say-so, no matter how reputable that somebody is.
Applying this to the resurrection, I can describe a body of very ordinary documentary evidence that, if it were discovered, would convince me that Jesus of Nazareth was seen alive by his disciples after his execution. Whether I would infer from that that he was God's only begotten son is another issue, but let's take this one step at a time. I am in no way obliged to accept his divinity until I am first convinced of his resurrection.
Many apologists say that (a) there is no great likelihood that the documentation I want would have been produced, and (b) even if it had been produced, there was little probability that it would have been preserved. In other words, they suggest, for this miraculous claim I am asking for miraculous evidence.
I don't agree that the creation and preservation of those documents would have been improbable to the point of miraculous if the resurrection had in fact occurred, but that's really beside the point. The point is that their existence would have required nothing like the sort of divine intervention that presumably effected the resurrection.
The documents I'm talking about could have been produced in the ordinary course of events. People see things and they write about them. We know it happens. It is part of the common experience of humanity. If it had happened in this case, then those writings could have been preserved the same way all other surviving documents from the past have been preserved.
But let us now stipulate the improbability of there ever having been such evidence of the resurrection or of its having survived into modern times. One of the following must then be true.
- The documents never existed because the resurrection never happened.
- The documents never existed because, although the resurrection happened, nobody who knew about it wrote anything about it at the time.
- The documents were produced but were not preserved.
- The documents were produced and still exist. They will be found someday, but nobody knows where or when.
The apologists claim that #2 is most likely and #3 a possibility. I assume they allow #4 as a theoretical possibility, but they certainly aren't holding their breath.
Anyway, evidence not known to exist must, I would suggest, be treated as nonexistent. We are obliged to base our beliefs only on evidence known to exist. We can always change our minds when the evidence is actually discovered.
That is what I hope I would be honest enough to do if those documents do get found. But they have not been found, and as far as anyone today knows they never will be.
Now some apologists raise an odd argument at this point. We have stipulated the improbability of there being such evidence even if the claim were true. According to those apologists, if evidence for a claim is prima facie unlikely to exist, then I am not justified in rejecting the claim on grounds of insufficient evidence.
But why not? The logical relevance of evidence has nothing to do with the probability of finding it. A belief cannot be supported by nonexistent evidence, no matter what the reason for its nonexistence. If a claim is extraordinary, and the known evidence has an ordinary explanation, then Occam's razor rules against the claim.
The apologist will say that in following this reasoning, I am ruling out a chance at eternal life. Actually, that does not logically follow, but even if it did, it's a risk I am obliged to take. "If you don't believe X, then something bad will happen to you, therefore X is true" is fundamentally fallacious. It cannot justify belief in any X, never mind one that looks improbable on its face.
None of this means that an extraordinary claim must be false if its proponents cannot produce the evidence skeptics ask for. A truly scientific rationalist would never argue, "You haven't convinced me, therefore you must be wrong." But still less can the believer argue, "I could be right, therefore you must be wrong."
We're talking here about justification for one's own beliefs, not about a standard under which any of us is entitled to demonize those who disagree with us. Not that there aren't plenty of skeptics as well as believers who deserve some demonizing. Like any other tool, the methods of critical thinking are susceptible to abuse by those unskilled in their use. But the appropriate remedy is not to blame the tool.
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Comments (31)
/nerdy lady boner!
It is extraordinary, not because it did not, and could not happen, but because it could only happen by a miracle of God. And that is exactly what Christian believers stake their faith on. His appearances were verified by several secular, not Believer, historians.
Nice. I, and probably most others, present "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" as an argument based on common intuition. I've thought a little about the standard and it application to the resurrection but no where as deep as the article. There are distinctions and analysis here I simply must reread and borrow for my own for future Christian-Atheist debates.
@pb49r - [His appearances were verified by several secular, not Believer, historians.]
Such as?
I don't think the resurrection can be proven or disproven through pure historical means. I do think it's unfair to discount it prior to historical investigation on the grounds that "people don't rise from the dead." The Christian claim isn't that people sometimes rise from the dead, but that people never rise from the dead except Jesus, whom God raised. Metaphysics have to follow historical investigation, not the other way around.
That said, I think the resurrection is a plausible explanation for the facts as most people accept them. The fact is that a group of people became convinced Jesus was raised from the dead. What would convince a group of people that that was the case? I think there are two necessary conditions: an empty tomb and appearances of a risen Jesus. Either of those facts is relatively easy to explain away, but the two taken together requires some complex theories.
As for documentary proof, The New Testament is not evidence, but it is data that a credible historical theory has to account for. Just because Paul claimed to see the risen Christ doesn't mean that he did; but the historian still has to explain why a letter exists in which Paul claims to be have seen the risen Christ (and, further, claims to have traveled to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James and to have been taught a creed about Jesus' bodily resurrection). Whatever we do to explain the rise of early Christianity, we need a convincing story. And while the resurrection story appears extraordinary (and that only given a preconceived metaphysic), I have yet to hear an alternative historical construction (whether from E.P. Sanders, John Crossan or from a non-scholar of the New Testament like Dawkins or Hitchens) that seems as plausible and explanatory origin story for the Christian movement in the first place.
This doesn't prove the resurrection by any means, but it does give me the intellectual freedom to affirm faith in Christ.
This is like believing in UFO's. There is no tangible proof that they exist, but some groups want to believe in them so badly, that they can't let the idea go. In the end, those that believe in an idea, go with faith and faith as they say moves mountains.
@SirNickDon - "This doesn't prove the resurrection by any means, but it does give me the intellectual freedom to affirm faith in Christ. "
I like this little additional phrasing added to the idea as expressed previously in your blog. Selling something to yourself is decidedly easier than selling it to anyone else. (I don't mean that in offense.)
@SirNickDon - Inductively, no other person has risen from the dead throughout history. Therefore there is a strong logical argument that the resurrection did not occur.
The facts justify the belief if they logically imply, to some
significant level of probability, that they are inconsistent with the
falsity of the claim. The higher that probability, the stronger the
evidence is said to be; and if the probability approaches certainty,
then we may say the evidence is conclusive.
The problem I have with this statement is it imposes a specific interpretation of probability (subjective) that has a lot of issues with it. There have been many philosophical issues raised regarding "inductive probability." For instance, depending on our interpretation of probability, we can get inconclusive results, if any result at all. A frequentist, for instance, may have nothing to say about a singular (miraculous?) event without merely begging the question regarding the distribution of the parameter. A Bayesian might say that we can impose certain priors (prior probabilities), but this puts us in no better a position regarding the question we're begging. Therefore, suggesting that probability can justify beliefs is to go a bit far. I'm not saying it can't, I'm just saying that it is rather limited. The issue of "extraordinary" claims may not be one where traditional probability models applies. I would go further and say that probability is best situated for decision making. Now, certainly decision making and belief are intimately related, but having confidence in a decision and certainty in the truth of a belief are two wholly different beasts. At least, that is what I would argue. One could stop there and say that a justified belief just is a belief about an associated decision for which we are confident to accept. (This, actually, isn't too far off from some of the frequentist interpretations, at least in hypothesis testing). The best place probability has with regards beliefs, I would say, is with comparisons. This, too, however, is very restricted. But a likelihood approach is both simple and philosophically not too demanding. If we have agreed on a probability interpretation of two hypotheses and we take their ratio, then we either favor one or the other or have no confidence either way (less than 1, greater than 1, or nearly 1). I think I mentioned to you before that Sober's "Evidence and Evolution" gives a good introduction to this topic. I still have the pdf if you want to read it (email?)
@schallerbrandon - Inductively, no other person has risen from
the dead throughout history. Therefore there is a strong logical
argument that the resurrection did not occur.
This is true of every singular event. One might go even further that every event is singular. We merely impose a condition of "similarity" between events that we analyze in a given manner because, with respect to the methodology and parameter of interest, they are similar. In other terms, we might say that the events originate from a given population. But how do we know to what population a singular event belongs? Maybe extraordinary in this case means "from an exceptional population." Maybe in the "Jesus population", resurrection is a sure thing. If you group him into the wrong population, you get the wrong result on your parameter, and that is a very common statistical mistake. Of course, the point is that we're ignorant regarding such singular events. More than that, however, all events are singular. What is required is information regarding the events that allow us to understand how far they deviate from the norm. The more they deviate, the more extraordinary (by definition) they are. If something results in an outcome that seems unlikely, you need to get straight on why that outcome resulted. If you cannot get the parameters straight beforehand, then it is begging the question to decide where they go to make your conclusions on interpreting that outcome.
@schallerbrandon - But the resurrection of Jesus wouldn't make resurrection in general more likely. The Christian belief is precisely that no other person was raised from the dead, and if others were, it would be a major argument against believing Jesus was the son of God. That is one reason why I would subordinate the metaphysical assumptions [dead people stay dead] to historical analysis.
@bryangoodrich - That sounds way more scientific than what I said.
okay then christians, lets say he DOES come back and smites me for not believing. i will say, "you allowed your HOLY WORD to be extremely contradicting and quite scary at some points, like commanding the ripping of pregnant women apart. and then you say you're loving? excuse me for being wary that you exist. but you were the one who gave us the brains to realize that your bible is packed with hypocritical things."
most people these days would not flood an entire world, just because they get upset things arent going their way. so maybe he shouldve shown himself then and turned things around like a "good god", instead of ridding the ENTIRE earth of the "polution of evil people".
children and babies can be evil? well if god says so! i guess! then just kill them all with water right?
fucked up.
Occams Razor leads us to believe there was no resurrection. When you look at all the lies in the new testement, what is then the simplest answer? I saw on history, Joseph of Arimathea begged for the body, and according to Jewish tradition, Jesus was not in the proper place where it is to awaken for the 1st resurrection, as described in Ezekiel. Across from the dome of of rock, are the Israeli tombs, and what's funny is the muluims built a fence that's supposed to keep the Jews out if they resurrect. So rumor has it, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus stole it to bury him along with Jewish tradition. Matthew states there was a rumor or alternative story that the body was stolen, chapter 28.
"There does exist accounts confirming that the stolen body hypothesis existed among Jews of the era. The Toledoth Yeshu, a compilation of early Jewish writings, alludes to stolen body hypothesis, as does the record of a 2nd century debate between a Christian and a Jew, Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho: "his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_body_hypothesis
Here is another reason why they wanted a proper Jewish burial kept private is they feared necromancy.
" A possible motive for graverobbers would be the usage of Jesus's body in necromancy; several rites of the time required "one untimely dead" or the body of a holy person. For example, a person could insert a scroll into a corpse's mouth and ask questions of the dead according to one belief of the time"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_body_hypothesis
"Necromancy is a form of magic in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirit of a deceased person, either as an apparition or ghost, or to raise them bodily, for the purpose of divination." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necromancy
Now, looking at this, does the new testament lack credibility? Looking at the following lies in the NT, Occams Razor leads us to believe there was no resurrection. They lied about his birth, why wouldn't they about his death?
Follwing from Till;
"In their desperation to give credibility to their new found religion, New Testament writers often distorted Old Testament scriptures or quoted them entirely out of context to shape them into "prophecies" that seemed to fit contemporary people and events they were writing about"
"Most other so-called prophecy fulfillments of the New Testament cannot survive contextual analysis any better than those just noted. Upon examination, they show flaws so obvious that only the very credulous can accept the tenuous claims that they are fulfillments of prophecy, yet some of them are widely considered remarkable examples of divine foresight. Possibly the best example of these is Matthew 1:23 where it was claimed that an angel's announcement to Joseph that his betrothed wife Mary would give birth to a child conceived by the Holy Spirit was done to fulfill a prophecy spoken by Isaiah: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel." In the original context, however, Isaiah made this statement as a sign to Ahaz, king of Judah, that an alliance recently formed against him by Rezin, the king of Syria, and Pekah, the king of Israel, would not succeed in defeating him. The Lord (Yahweh), as he was prone to do in those days, had sent Isaiah to reassure Ahaz that the alliance would not prevail. Isaiah begged Ahaz to ask for a sign that his prophecy was true. Finally, Isaiah said to him, "Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore Yahweh Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:13-14). Hence, the context clearly shows that this so-called prophecy was made not to foretell the birth of Jesus some 700 years later but the birth of a child to that time and that situation. How could a birth that would happen 700 years later, after Ahaz was dead and the battles had long since been fought, have been a sign to him that the Syrian-Israelite alliance would fail? The premise is too absurd even to contemplate.
THE DOUBLE-APPLICATION DODGE
To deal with contextual problems like the one in Isaiah's virgin-birth prophecy, bibliolaters have invented the double-application doctrine. "Yes, the prophecy in Isaiah did refer primarily to an immediate situation," they admit, "but it contained also, as did many other prophecies, a double-entendre that, in this case, makes it applicable to the birth of Jesus too." Contextual evidence, of course, necessitates their admission that prophecies such as this one were indeed intended for the times in which they were made, but if inerrantists are going to claim a "double-application" of Isaiah 7:14, they have a responsibility to do more than just claim. They must also prove. If Isaiah really had a double-meaning in mind, then who was the virgin of that generation who gave birth to a son? That is a legitimate question, because if Isaiah meant virgin in the strictest sense with reference to a woman who would give birth 700 years later, then he had to mean virgin in the strictest sense for the woman of his time who would bear a son. If not, why not?
The truth is that evidence to prove a double-application theory isn't so easy to come by. In this case, we have nothing--absolutely nothing--but Matthew's unsubstantiated word that the birth of Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah said nothing in the context of the original passage to imply a double intention, and none of the other gospel writers in recording the circumstances of Jesus's birth in any way related the event to Isaiah's prophecy. This latter fact seems particularly significant in the case of Luke whose gospel account included many more details about both the annunciation of the birth and the actual event itself than did any of the others. Mark and John, in fact, were completely silent about the birth. Doesn't it seem strange, then, that this remarkable "prophecy fulfillment" would have been treated with silence by three of the four "inspired" writers who recorded the life of Jesus? Only Matthew mentioned it, and that is the sum total of the proof we have that Jesus's birth fulfilled Isaiah's "prophecy."
"A careful study of the original contexts will cast serious doubts on the efforts of the New Testament writers to construe them as prophecies. In Matthew 2:18, for example, we are told that Herod's decree to kill all male children under two in and around Bethlehem fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more." If, however, one reads this statement in its original context in Jeremiah 31 and the two preceding chapters, he will see that the passage was addressing the problem of Jewish dispersion caused by the Babylonian captivity. Time and time again, Jeremiah promised that the Jews would be recalled from captivity to reclaim their land. Finally, in the verse quoted by Matthew, he said, "Thus says Yahweh: `A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more'" (31:15). That Jeremiah intended this statement to apply to the dispersion contemporary to his times is evident from the verses immediately following, where he promised a return of those who had been scattered: "Thus says Yahweh: `Refrain your voice from weeping, And your eyes from tears; For your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh, And they [Rachel's children] shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says Yahweh, that your children shall come back to their own border" (vv:16-17). If verse 15 (the weeping verse) was indeed a prophecy of Herod's massacre, why would the rest of the passage, which promised the re-turn of Rachel's children, not also be prophetic? Indeed, it would have to be, wouldn't it? Yet there is no claim in Matthew's gospel account that the children slaughtered under Herod's edict were ever brought back to their border, which would have necessitated a restoration to life. Hence, in this case, Rachel's "work" was never "rewarded," and these children of hers never "came back." Aside from this, children was obviously being used by Jeremiah in a figurative sense to mean the descendants of Rachel, adults as well as children, and not to designate literal children only, as would have to be the case if events in Matthew 2 are to be interpreted as fulfillment of a "prophecy." The conclusion, then, is inescapable: Jeremiah 31:15 was a prophecy of Herod's massacre only because Matthew distorted it into one."
"To return to an example already mentioned, let's notice again that he even saw prophecy fulfillment in the flight of Joseph and Mary into Egypt to save their child from Herod's edict. When they returned to Israel, this fulfilled, so Matthew claimed, what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called My Son" (2:15). This "call out of Egypt" refers to Hosea 11:1, where it was said, "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son." As I said, the original statement was obviously a reference to the Hebrew exodus from Egypt and therefore became a prophecy pertaining to Jesus only in Matthew's wild imagination. It is about as convincing as Matthew's claim that Joseph took his family to Nazareth to fulfill the prophecies that said Jesus would be called a Nazarene. Apparently, it didn't take much for Matthew to see prophetic connection."
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/prophecy.html
So there you have it, looking at the credibility of the NT, which is the simplest answer? Why don't Christians believe Muhammad split the moon as the Koran says so? I don't believe that about Muhammad like Christians don't, so looking at the evidence or credibly of NT distortions what does Occams razor tell us?
I just want to know since he was a Jew and had the end of his twig trimmed if this material also ascended into Heaven upon his "resurrection."
If not, how come the area that this "God" material is deposited in not HOLY GROUND. Seems to me there would be some sort of special DNA going on there since Jesus was God.......unless of course the obvious is in play. But if in fact the foreskin did make the trip did it reattach so as to that he needs it cut off again upon his return, or maybe God keep it under glass on the mantle with a placard that says, "A Chip Off The Old Block".
Obviously this is sarcasm and as much as I love a good story, the principle fails in its logic with Christianity and any other religion that screams I am right and everyone else is wrong. NO ONE can deny the self restoration and guidance that this story of Jesus has provided and provides for countless millions in becoming better people. But when this message of selfless love is warped and distorted by greed and other forms of human stupidity that the Bible is suppose to help us combat kicks in, you have death in the name of God. And when this happens there usually is a lot of it.
You speak of scientific proof and I can offer you nothing that science can reproduce every time. But when my 3 year old sees a CD while we are cruising through Wal-Mart and points to it and says, "Buddy Holly dad" and I pick up the CD package with a picture on the front and Buddy is there with that goofy smile of his, you tell me how. I know we bought that God damn CD that's for sure.
Love knows no exclusivity or varying degrees. It is total and you get into Heaven no matter what someone who thinks this or that believes. They most likely need the rigid structure of their chosen religion with in their lives to keep from being crack heads, meth heads, porn stars or what ever and that's cool. But true love doesn't care and this failure to apply this logic of unconditional love is why so many are.....dare I say, GODLESS LIBERALS and why with total justification "GODLESS LIBERALS" shove the illogical thinking that is Christianity as applied in the faces of those who say "IT IS THE PERFECT WORD OF GOD."
I don't care a rats ass if my kids acknowledge me or not, just that they are here is all that really matters to me and my unconditional love for them is unaffected by their belief's, actions or words. And I am not better than our father in Heaven. I do not think, fell, or believe that Heaven is real I know it is, but I also know it doesn't matter what you think, feel or believe, I am just glad you are here.
Good thoughts and nice post. But obviously you either don't have a family, don't have a job, or are a union guy because you have a bunch of time on your hands. Keep it up what ever it is.
justmarty
PS Ever wonder why if Jesus was all that and a bag of chips, how come I cannot buy his furniture he made on E-Bay. Unless God/Jesus is a shitty carpenter. HMMMM maybe I have too much time on my hands to have such thoughts.
Yes, but there are people who claim to have seen Jesus after his death, in several different places. But I would like to add that I don't think Paul or matthew would have given up their awesome social statuses (Sanhedrin,tax collector respectively) to make stuff up and die for it for no profit. Even Paul states in the Bible that if Jesus isn't risen from the dead, then everything he worked for, doesn't mean shit and we're all fucked. Sorry for lack of eloquence.
@SlackerSociety -
As seen in my last post, Matthew was a blllshitter, Mathhew I Believe he believed Jesus was the Messiah, but distorted the truth I order to convince the Jews Jesus fulfilled prophecies to get them to believe, plus the other pagan Gods were rumored to have been risen, so if Jesus wasn't, he wouldn't have looked as powerful as the other deities that were said to have been risen.
Paul was not a witness, he was going by what he heard and believed in, and that is what his statement reflects.
http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/paulorigin.html
@achingquotes - Think of it like myths in a kind of way or how myths try to explain things about the natural world (think Roman/Greek Gods). Even as a Christian, I don't necessarily believe in the OT as completely historically factual. Ever heard of this quote? "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."- Gandhi. Pretty much sums up about how fucked up "supposed" christians are. I've had some bad experience with them as well when I was growing up myself. It's the people themselves that ruin these things. The first part is primarily the Torah, the holy book for the Jews and the NT is for the Christians, the Gentiles. Honestly, I really go by the NT more than the OT because a lot of that is outdated not just by society terms but in of itself. It's good to have a reference to events and places, but usually the message of love that Jesus did spread was genuine at least. I think the message is important, no matter what. It's sad, that "supposed" christians do not do this. So much hate. >..>)
@Hinase - idk, personally.... i still dont believe in god. or like him for that matter. he still allowed that stuff to be written. and he says his holy word is perfect. so he probably shouldve somehow told someone to get rid of the nasty parts of the OT, unless he really meant the things he said. all of the bad stuff that happened in the OT.. the stuff god "PROCLAIMED" to happen, i cant get my mind off. and the fact that he flooded the entire earth, full of newborn innocent babies and such, is scary. the devil hasnt even done that.
@achingquotes - It's okay if you don't believe ;) Yeah, it is pretty disturbing but who knows if it really did happen. I think that's full of a lot of questions as well.
Of course, the antecedent probability of a claim is going to depend on your background information. Suppose the claim 'God exists' is in your background information. Then is the claim "God rose Jesus from the dead" one that is antecedently improbable? It doesn't appear so. And so with that background information, Jesus' ressurection is not what would be appropriately dubbed an 'extraordinary' claim.
If your background information includes the claim "God doesn't exist", then yes, Jesus' ressurection is an extraordinary claim.
@achingquotes -
You are wise beyond your years!
@bryangoodrich - Sorry for the not-at-all-timely response.
If you create a population group which is "god population" or "supernatural" or something, then you beg the question.
Inductively, I have seen no populations beyond X (what I have seen). Y is not in X, therefore the model of the original syllogism holds.
@SirNickDon - That made me laugh. Props.
However, you are also begging the question.
You are essentially claiming "I believe Jesus is the only person to have risen from the dead"
But I am denying that any person did rise from the dead.
Your faith takes us back to square one and reproduces the original problem.
Sorry for the late response