spin

This is unsupported and, if the most recent poll here is reflective, it's false. More people here are agnostic on the issue. It's just that the JMers tend to be more vocal. They and the HJers are too busy engaged in confrontationalist efforts to be more objective.


spin

Steven Carr

'...'no one ever admitted to conspiracy. after being tortured, persecuted, and ultimately put to death in many cases, there is not a single case in the historical record that some one admitted to lying or having invented the story.'

CARR
In fact there is not a single case in the historical record of anybody being charged with preaching a resurrection.

Could we have a look at the court transcripts of the trials of Peter, Paul etc where they adamantly stuck to their stories of going to Heaven and having visions of foods being declared clean?

A madman claims to have gone to Heaven.

Are the claims of insane people to be regarded as true, if they still maintain they are Napoleon, even when tortured?

neilgodfrey

I think it is more than a belief. It is knowledge. Knowledge that is, like the knowledge that the world is round and gravity always pulls us down, socially constructed and an interpretation of daily universal observations and experiences and underpinned by the methods and knowledge utilized daily in institutions subject to public scrutiny.

A future generation might discover it is false knowledge but in that case it will be knowledge and as such supported by more than a number of religious arguments.

neilgodfrey

Being accepted by most scholars -- usually from little more than the dot points summaries in their 101 courses and group reinforcement (not to mention a context of being funded by believing bodies) -- is not the same as being investigated and established by scholarly enquiry.

As for the Joseph argument, does anyone seriously claim that no one has ever made up a story where a member of a cabal broke ranks?

Even the story itself says that the women's testimony was disbelieved -- that is, the story itself says that their testimony was "of little/no worth".

Ergo this argument falls flat before it even starts.

The story concludes with the resurrected Jesus showing himself to the men as all the proof they needed. Peter in Acts said it was one of the qualifications of being an apostolic witness -- to have seen the resurrected Jesus. But women didn't count.

Women were the stereotypical mourners. Naturally they are the first to discover their (usually paid) work is in vain. Even in ancient novels there are women who are the first to apparently see their beloved dead are not dead.


How strange that on that Pentecost not one of the thousands who was within hearing range of Peter's first sermon thought to say: What? He's not in his tomb? Let's go and check this out! Hey, Peter's right! Look everyone -- no body. Peter's not lying. Jesus must be resurrected. Let's all get baptized!


"It is accepted by most scholars" (we can use the phrase again here) that Matthew and Luke depend on Mark. Many argue that John is also based on Mark.

As for the variation in "peripheral details" -- like that one about the scene of this historic earth-shaking event.

Excursis:
Police get a report of a body found in Los Angeles, then another report of one found in San Francisco, and immediately conclude that the differences are only peripheral . . . must be the same one . . . call on someone with spiritual insight to rationalize the differences.



Funny how Acts and none of the gospels (the primary sources of the story) never mention any of this. It would have been a great prop to create stories of many more conversions. People sending off emissaries to Jerusalem to consult with just some of those 500 witnesses before they all died out.

And to make time for interviews with the zombie saints who came out of their graves at the time of the crucifixion too, just for good measure. The whole of the empire being converted. Or maybe Pharisees and emperors going around bumping off the zombies to destroy the evidence.

As for Paul's conversion, strangely similar to a similar story in Maccabees, I suppose that is as certain proof as a Jew or an atheist becoming a Christian, isn't it, because of some "inner revelatory moment". What about Christians who become atheists, or Moslems? Or Protestants who become devout Catholics?

No-one would make up a story like that, would they?

But one of those "independent witnesses" offers the "peripheral detail" that the disciples actually lost interest and got bored after Jesus showed himself resurrected from the dead TWICE! It was such an exciting event they decided to go back fishing.

(Moral: Never repeat a good trick in front of the same audience.)

This particular "witness" sorta kinda makes a bit of a mockery of this argument, dontcha think?

dog-on

It's a f'kin all out war between the infidels... :devil1:

Though I do consider myself a JM'er (regarding normal guy J, due to lack of evidence), I am a hard-core denier of the comic Christ of Christianity (and his daddy as well)...

spin

You seem to be quite confused here. I can stick you in a rocket and send you off to the moon and you can see that the world is round. That the world is round is clearly falsifiable, as is the function of gravity. Knowledge is based on what can be objectively shown. You can't show anything about resurrection (whatever that really means). The best you can do is say that you haven't observed the phenomenon and that it doesn't fit into our knowledge of the way life and the world function.

Perhaps the idea of knowledge used here is a little to strict for you. Your ontological commitments must have the epistemology to back them up, ie what you claim to know must have a functional method for how you know it.


spin

spin

A lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack. You only have have an agnostic position, which you seem to be overextending into a belief.

However, if something cannot be demonstrated it can be shelved until such times as a demonstration can be mounted. The agnostic position here is more rational than the committed position.


spin

dog-on

True, but when it seems like what evidence there is has been "tweaked" over time to give a certain impression, I at least would wonder what it was, that was trying to be hidden...

spin

Why waste you time thinking about something whose reality has never been substantiated and which has no objective means of substantiating?


spin

dog-on

This whole game is a waste of time, but simultaneously, fascinating. Since I am convinced that, regardless of the historicity of some itinerant apocalyptic preacher, the belief system itself is rooted in bronze age mythos, I am more interested in the puzzle that is the origin of this funny little superstition and what can we reasonably conclude based on the evidence available.

As of now, I simply see a lot of shenanigans surrounding it's, (Christianity's), origin.