Originally Posted by OAO

I'm not really interested in this debate, because my whole point is that without counter-evidence, Christian faith is justified.

Originally Posted by OAO

.......without counter-evidence, Christian faith is justified.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Does Deism require positive evidence?

Originally Posted by OAO

http://philosophy.nd.edu/people/all/...cholarship.pdf - Original article.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philo...cholarship.pdf - Lecture notes for lazy bones.

The basic point is this: HBC presupposes methodological naturalism. Thus, it comes to naturalistic conclusions about Jesus. But this shouldn't trouble Christians, because Christians aren't naturalists; none of them are Christians because of historical evidence in the first place.

Now, it would be different if there were good evidence that some central claim of Christianity were false - say, good evidence that were was no empty tomb. But there is no such evidence, as far as I know. Gary Habermas did a bibliographical survey and found that 75% of NT scholars believe that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea (sic), that this tomb was found empty, and that various disciples of Jesus had experiences of him as risen. That doesn't prove the Christian story, but it does mean the evidence isn't against the Christian story.

But there is a way in which HBC is relevant: it helps one to interpret the meaning of the NT, which is important for theology. Thus I think the New Perspective on Paul is a real challenge for traditional Protestantism, for instance.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

But all that the women did was find the empty tomb. The texts indicate that God used the testimonies of men and personal appearances by Jesus to convince the disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead, not the testimonies of the women.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Luke 24:33-34

"And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon."

Changing burial clothes was women's work, not men's work. When a Gospel writer made up the story about the empty tomb, he had to come up some way to claim that the tomb was empty, so he made up the story about the women going to the tomb to change the burial clothes.

The stories of the women at the tomb are obvious fabrications. Consider the following Scriptures:

Item 1

Mark 16:1-3

"And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?"

Item 2

Luke 24:4-8

"And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
And they remembered his words."

Item 3

John 20:11-13

"But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my LORD, and I know not where they have laid him."

It is very unlikely that an entire group of women would all have forgotten that a tomb would not be open, maybe one, or two at the most, but not an entire group. It is much more unlikely that "the very same group of women" would have forgotten that Jesus said that he would rise from the dead, especially since he had raised Lazarus from the dead. It is an extraordinary thing for a man to raise someone from the dead, and claim that he will rise from the dead. No one forgets things like that.

It is suspicious that Luke says that the angel reminded the women that Jesus said that he would rise from the dead, but John says that Mary believed that the body had been moved.

The stories of the women at the tomb make the Bible less believable.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Does deism require positive evidence?

Originally Posted by OAO

Actually, maybe. The deist would have to account for how he has come to have faith in God while many people on the earth do not.

Originally Posted by OAO

The Christian can do this in terms of the guidance of the Spirit; the deist seems unable.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Deism (\ˈdi:iz(ə)m\[1] or \ˈdē-ˌi-zəm\)[2] is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme being created the universe, and that this (and religious truth in general) can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for either faith or organized religion. Deists tend to, but do not necessarily, reject the notion that God intervenes in human affairs, for example through miracles and revelations. These views contrast with the dependence on revelations, miracles, and faith found in many Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other theistic teachings.

Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by God intervening in the affairs of human life or by suspending the natural laws of the universe. What organized religions see as divine revelation and holy books, most deists see as interpretations made by other humans, rather than as authoritative sources.

Deism became prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in what is now the United Kingdom, France, United States and Ireland, mostly among those raised as Christians who found they could not believe in either a triune God, the divinity of Jesus, miracles, or the inerrancy of scriptures, but who did believe in one god. Initially it did not form any congregations, but in time deism strongly influenced other religious groups, such as Unitarianism and Universalism, which developed from it. It continues to this day in the forms of classical deism and modern deism.

Originally Posted by OAO

If the Church fabricated the story,
(a) they would have chosen men, as women were considered notriously unreliable in 1st century Judaism.
(b) they would not have picked a member of the Sanhedrin to bury Jesus.



I wasn't just talking about the Synoptics. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/...rticle&id=7047



I'm not sure that's actually embarrassing in context.



First, it only makes sense to interpret what Paul says in light of the other documents, such as Mark. There is a common tradition being appealed to here.

Second, I think that bit about the law is false reading of Paul. After all, he discusses the punishment due to the Gentiles for disobeying God, and they did not have the law. Moreover, he gives a positive view of the law in Romans.

Third, no, of course not. But that whole notion is developed out of a larger Jewish picture of the Messiah come to redeem the world. It's not foreign to Judaism that with the Messiah the Gentiles would honor God.

Toto:
I'm aware of that. That's why I said the evidence is compatible with, not necessarily supportive of, Christianity. Interpreting it depends on one's background beliefs.

Originally Posted by OAO

I will say this once and only once: to show that the possibility of the empty tomb was fabricated, one must show that it is more likely fabricated than not.

Note that a Christian will not interpret the evidence the same way, as he has different background beliefs. Nor an open-minded theist from an atheist.

In other words, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.