Gooch's dad

I didn't ask "what Christians believe about Mormons". I asked if you believed that supernatural explanations are required in order to explain the early history of the Mormon church. Please try to keep up. If you don't bother to read what I write, then why should I even bother addressing your posts?


And you haven't even established that the apostles did see Jesus resurrected. We have no eyewitness accounts of this event at all. What we do have are accounts that appear to have been written much later, which bear extensive evidence of later interpolation and redaction, and which also appear to be, in the main, hagiography written to try to "fulfill" Old Testament prophecies.

Color me unimpressed. Writings by superstitious goat-herders do not count as extraordinary evidence in establishing such an extraordinary event as "a man rose from the dead".

Workerforthechuch, let me ask you this--In the book of Mathew, there is an account of many "holy men" rising from their graves at the moment of Jesus' supposed resurrection. This is in Matthew 27:52-53, in case you're interested.

Do you believe that this actually happened, that these "holy men" rose from their graves and went into Jerusalem, and "appeared to many"?

workerforthechuch

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was with Jesus' mother and the women such as Mary Magdalene who saw Jesus die on the cross. Jesus was so dismembered with flesh hanging from his backside down to his bone, holes in hands and feet and his chest cavity cut open so water poured out, there is no way he could have survived, nor even walk after a day and a half. Someone in the first century would have wrote about the lie but nonbody did. It would then be disingenuous 2000 years later to make up a story like Mohammed did or others do when nothing supports your imagination. So this totally obliterates the possibility of a false death. The guards would be put to death if they let Jesus live. And people can not survive hanging on a cross for very long. As soon as you break their legs they are dead within probably at most a couple minutes because they can't breathe when the pressure is put on their throat. They need to support themselves to be able to breath. This is all scientifically proven.

The minimal facts does not used Acts 12.15. This verse is a powerful verse because it shows the apostles could not believe Jesus was resurrected from his death. They were so sure of it. Yet they changed their minds.

workerforthechuch

Scholarly scientists I should say. No scholarly scientist stops short and says something happens all by itself. You may though, but again there is no evidence for your belief.

This statement is incoherent to you, but you dont find fault with it specifically,

Is it not true that many things we did thousands of years ago man would not do now because our consciences have improved? For example, child sacrifices was so prevalent in many societies, but not now except in Islam in small pockets. This is an exponential progression in conscience which is pointing towards one day no sin. Based on this progression there could not be an eternity of the past of cause and effects. If there was you would not still be sinning by now. It is a simple fact and does not require grand philosophical arguments.

Gooch's dad

Well, it appears this is a complete waste of time. As Toto has pointed out, you are basically saying that Jesus rose from the dead, because the Bible says so.

We have no reason whatsoever to think that the NT documents form anything remotely approaching a complete and accurate record of events of the early 1st century.

workerforthechuch

I understood what you said about Mormons, but I also wanted to make it clear to you how Christians view Mormons. Whether it was Satanically inspired or just one bad man trying to exalt himself with lies, the point is it is still wrong. I can prove to you Satan exists, but for our purposes here we are just sticking to the minimal facts approach of Gary's proof in the video.

Again, the minimal facts is only used. You do not need to know anything other than the apostles as eyewitnesses said they saw Jesus alive before he died and after which agreed with Paul when he met them saying he saw Him resurrected also.

Whether Matt. 27.52-53 is true or not is not relevant to the minimal facts approach in proving God. However, I believe that some people came alive from their grave to show the power of the death on the cross and resurrection, just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, just as we can find no natural explanation for Jesus seen in His resurrected body.

workerforthechuch

Lets summarize AGAIN to stay on topic, because I know how much obfuscation can occur and how people like to jump off the beaten path of the Minimal Facts Approach in the video.

1. Scholars agree 95 to 99.9% that 1 Cor. 15 and Gal 1 & 2 are really Pauls writings and he really believed what he wrote. Not because the Bible says so, but because scholars say so.

2. In these three books (as well as others), he writes he met with James, Peter and John on several occassions, and they agreed to why they saw Jesus resurrected.

3. People do not go to their deaths as they were martyred (except John) believing in what they knew to be a lie.

4. If no naturalistic theory can account for witnessing the bodily of resurrection, very probably it is true then they saw Jesus resurrected.

The only reasonable explanation then is since man does not have this power, but God would (elsewhere we have shown why God must exist), then Jesus is God.

Gooch's dad

Ah, then you've shown your standards for what you believe. Based on an account which is seen ONLY in the 27th chapter of Matthew, a book for which we have no clear idea of who the writer even is, you're willing to believe that MULTIPLE people rose from the dead and walked around Jerusalem.

You seem to not be bothered in the least that no historian of the time, or even any average citizen, bothered recording that good old Uncle Abraham was recently seen up and walking around, three years after his internment in a Jerusalem tomb. All you have is this one little reference in the book of Matthew, and you swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

Which shows that you are as gullible as they come. So don't even bother trying to present any historical arguments, you don't even have the faintest of clues as to what might constitute historical evidence for ordinary events, much less extraordinary events such as the resurrection of a dead human being.

workerforthechuch

I believe Matthew is the writer of Matthew with no reason to think otherwise. The writing is very kingship like about Jesus and the kind of writing you would except from a tax collector for his nation expressing that kingship of Christ. But even if Joe Blow wrote it it does not change the fact of the minimal facts that most scholars agree on. I believe Matt. 27.52 is because it reasonably flows from everything else and the prophecy it would happen. Today similar things have happened. There have been accounts of people raised from the dead up to over a half an hour after they died. And some far out cases are farther than that. Nobody can explain it. And it could have been they were falsely burried as well as that was a common problem you hear many cases in history about.

If Abraham was one of those resurrected in Matt. 27.52 surely it would have been mentioned, so I dont think he was one of those resurrected at that time. I would tend to go with those who more recently died. But again you are getting off the beaten track of the Minimal Facts Approach.

Since the apostlese were alive at that time, they would have said it never happened or somebody would have said it never happened when it was said to have happened.

Just as Gary said no matter how much you want to talk about these periphery issues, they in no way discount the Minimal Facts Approach, which is the power of just using the minimal facts.

workerforthechuch

I wanted to post here if anyone could challenge me on the video, but I am glad to see nobody could. Praise the Lord!

workerforthechuch

I want to thank you all for your time to give me this opportunity to see if you could raise any worthy arguments, but you could not, so I will be on my way now. If anybody could fathom a new argument that was not already presented up to this point in this thread, please feel free to email me. Thanks.