stuart shepherd

Dear Steven,
Great observation!

No matter whatever passage in the resurrection tale that you examine, it never makes any sense. The story just does not fit what we know to be legitimate human experience. Just yesterday as I was riding my donkey into town, he said to me.....""It's all crap, nobody can ride two donkeys at one time"" Of course, I knew that my donkey was refering to Matthew 21:6-7, where Jesus rides a donkey and its colt at the same time.
My donkey is very smart, he knows, he has a certificate of completion [mail order] from Moody Bible Institute.
Next year he wants me to send him to Dallas Theological Seminary. I told him that donkeys can't go to a Seminary and he said ..."Are you kidding...those Bible Schools are full of asses.""


Stuart Shepherd

Steven Carr

http://bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=441 claims it is all true...

'There were also intrinsic improbabilities about the idea that the guards slept through the noise of the tomb being opened and robbed; and being so deeply asleep, they still knew it was the disciples who did it (verse 13). This was not going to be an easy story to tell!'

stuart shepherd

There is a big problem with the Gospel Accounts.

The Gospels were written many years after the events that they are supposed to be reporting.

My Bible says Matthew was written in Syrian Antioch.
My Bible says Mark was written in Italy.
My Bible says Luke was written in Rome.
My Bible says John was written in Ephesus.
I have no idea how they know where these Gospels were written or if this information is even accurate. But the gospels were written in lands far away from Jerusalem.

The authors of the gospels did not sign their work. It really is a guess that the names associated with the gospels are the real writers. But what do we know about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Almost nothing.

The gospels were written in greek. . But the spoken language of the Jews at this time was Aramaic. The religious language was Hebrew.

Think about it. What's to refute when the story is published many years later, anonymously, in a foreign language in a foreign country?

stuart shepherd.

stuart shepherd

Accordng to Greenleaf........

The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances.

I think that if we use this standard to evaluate the New Testament, the NT comes up short.
The NT writers are not always honest.
We know very little about the NT writers, so it is difficult to judge their ability.
The testimony of the witnesses is not consistent. They contradict each other.
Their testimony doesn't conform with experience. [Miracles]
There testimony doesn't coincide with collateral circumstances. They contradict secular historical sources and the OT.

How can anyone reasonably believe the NT?

Stuart Shepherd

stuart shepherd

Christians keep making the same argument that may sound reasonable but really doesn't carry any weight.
The argument goes something like this.......
If this story wasn't true the Jews would have written reports denying that event. There is no record so it must be true.

The Muslim religion was started in the 7th century. We are now in the 21st century. So the Muslim religion has been around for about 14 centuries. They have one or two billion members.
Is there a great body of literature denying the claims of their religion? If there is, I am not aware of it. Are you?
So if there is no written record denying their claims does that make the Muslim religion true?

stuart shepherd

Toto

Read it and weep:

traveling dog and pony show now incorporates Anthony Flew

Dawkins has it right.

Toto

Read it and weep:

traveling dog and pony show now incorporates Anthony Flew

Dawkins has it right.

stuart shepherd

The Mythical Post Resurrection Appearances of Jesus

I hope that you have all had an opportunity to carefully read all of Sean McHugh’s “”Second Statement- First Rebuttal” in the debate “”Resurrection is Sufficiently Evidenced: punkforchrist vs. Sean McHugh.””
IMO, Sean, completely destroys the credibility of the Bible concerning the “fictional tale” of the resurrection of Jesus. It is worth your time to read Sean’s informative post on this debate.

Concerning the post resurrection appearances of Jesus, the oldest Gospel, the Gospel according to Mark, does not contain any post resurrection appearances of Jesus. It seems inconceivable that the writer of Mark’s Gospel would “forget” to include the post resurrection appearances of Jesus, if in fact there really were any appearances to report. We can only assume that the writers of the later Gospels fabricated post resurrection appearances since they clearly copied from the Gospel according to Mark, and elaborated and enhanced the mythical tale of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

The Apostle Paul, doesn’t have much to add, since he never met Jesus, the man, and only claims to know Jesus, the Spirit, who spoke to him on the road to Damascus. This tale is highly suspect since Paul is a felony murderer, was not baptized when Jesus supposedly spoke to him, and did not have any witnesses to this event who heard the voice of Jesus. Paul claims that 500 anonymous witnesses all saw the risen Jesus, at one time, even though Paul says that he did not know any followers of Jesus until 3 years after his Damascus road experience when he met Cephas, and James, Jesus’ brother. [Galatians 1:15-19] It was not until 14 years later, did Paul meet the followers of Jesus. [Galatians 2:1] How could the Apostle Paul possibly have known that 500 witnesses all saw the risen Jesus, at one time, when Paul himself only met Cephas and James, more than 3 years after the supposed resurrection of Jesus, and didn’t meet the rest of Jesus’ followers more than 17 years after the supposed resurrection? The possibility of 500 witnesses also does not square with the account in Acts [Acts 1:15] which states that Jesus only had 120 followers 40 days after the supposed resurrection, after the “risen” Jesus had gone to Heaven.

Stuart Shepherd

phthenry

It seems to me that Sean McHugh argues from a weaker position than he has to. In his opening statement, Sean's best argument is statement of Hume's maxim. Indeed, if Christians really want to convince that that there is evidence that a man rose from the dead and continued to preach, then the evidence must be absolutely extraordinary. If PunkforChrist (PFC) were told that a man could lift cars with just the power of his mind, he most certainly would want extraordinary proof. I doubt he would even accept video evidence, since video can be tampered with. He would want a number of independent witnesses. I doubt he would accept signed statements from 500 cult members who followed the the man who can lift cars with his mind.

I can't see any way that miracles cannot be accepted without extraordinary evidence. Can anyone think of a case, or even a thought experiment, that would prove Hume and thus Sean, wrong? I can't.

But not only do we not have extraordinary evidence to prove Jesus rose from the dead, we have hardly any evidence at all! We don't have any eye-witness accounts from people who are not Christians. Even if we did have eye-witness accounts from non-Christians, given that these witnesses would be removed from us by 2000 years, how could we possibly verify what they said?

The evidence that PFC presented does not even come close to meeting Sean's challenge. As others have pointed out, even if the tomb were empty, that doesn't point to a miracle. And in fact, PFC unknowingly concedes this point when he states that "As for the possibility that Jesus’ body was moved to a common grave, this view is again highly implausible given its limited scope and explanatory power." But if it is unlikely that the body was not moved, then how much more unlikely is it that the body rose from the dead? As a thought experiment, imagine that 4 very reliable witnesses saw me pack an apple in my lunch box. These same four people see me open my lunchbox and see no apple. Do we conclude the very unlikely event that a thief broke into my car and stole just the apple, of the nearly totally impossible event that God ate it? Logically we would have to conclude the first, however unlikely.

PFC does a poor job handling Hume's maxim. He states that it is also unlikely for an individual to win the lottery. But that analogy is absolutely false. It is *not* unlikely for someone to win the lottery. It happens all the time, and given the large number of people who play, it would be unlikely if no one won it. In order for PFC to prove that Hume is not applicable, he would have to show something equivalent to Jesus's so-called resurrection. For example, he would have to show that a man could predict that John Doe would win the lottery, and then he did; and then that this same man predicted John Smith would win the lottery, and he did.

I believe Sean's strategy consisted of saying "Not only does your evidence not support Hume's maxim, but your evidence (the empty tomb) does not even hold up to scrutiny." PFC does what any debater does: he takes the weaker part of Sean's argument and tries to refute it, while ignoring the stronger part. PFC has attacked the second part of Sean's statement, that even the weak evidence is not true, and shows how it is. So the debate gets reduced to the trivial. Were the gospels written before or after 60AD? That is one of the points being debated, but this point really can not prove the resurrection in the least. Even if PFC is right in this point (I believe most scholars would not think so), his argument still does not come close to satisfying Hume's maxim. But to a casual outside observer, it may appear that PFC is keeping up in the debate, because he can presents scholars and cite sources that support his details, even when his details don't support his conclusion.

stuart shepherd

Excellent observations PHTHENRY.

I actually know someone who won the New Jersey lottery. She was one of my co-workers and she was single. I was also single and she was always coming on to me even before she won. After she won, she became a litte more attractive but never enough. She was one of those people who was always right. Tough to get along with long term, although she was good looking.

Anyway the point is that no matter how improbable, there are people who win lotteries. But no one has ever resurrected from the dead, including Jesus.

Stuart Shepherd