In my last post I answered objections to the resurrection of Jesus Christ because of the belief that his disciples had dreams or hallucinations about him. The idea that the disciples simply lied and made up the resurrection has been brought up many times so I will tackle this theory.
The deception theory is pretty simple. The disciples, the followers of Jesus, all made it up that he rose from the dead. First lets go back to Peter the the day of Jesus' Crucification. He is so terrified of a little Girl that he denies ever knowing Jesus and calls curses on himself if he ever knew Jesus. In the next few days the disciples are cowering when in the room together and one of them says that they should just make it up that Jesus rose from the dead. So they go out of their room, and start preaching that Jesus rose from the dead. They also have to remove the body from the tomb without the guards realizing what happens.
Whats interesting is that the followers of Jesus faced extreme persecution and yet they don't give up this lie. Then the disciples and other followers begin to die for their beliefs and they still don't give up this lie. Peter was crucified upside down. Andrew was crucified as well. James was beheaded. Philip was killed in Turkey. Nathanael was skinned alive and beheaded. Thomas was speared to death. Matthew was martyred in Persia or Ethiopia. The James who is not the brother of Jesus was murdered in Egypt. Jude and Simon were both killed together in Persia. Paul was beheaded
by the Romans. We have historical writings outside the Bible to confirm Jame's, Peter, and Paul's manner of death.
People who lie don't just die like this just to keep up their lies. All these disciples had careers that they could have gone back to as well. Something changed their lives enough that they spent their entire lives for it. They were willing to give everything to preach the Truth of Jesus Christ.
Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII
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These theories sound like complete hogwash to me. God said in one of the New Testament books, that "If any man shall come to you and say, lo, there is your lord, his body is in the desert, him shall ye not believe" or something like that. So basically people will come and theorize and try to discredit the name of Jesus, but we should pay them no attention. Do you believe in these theories? Where do you stand?
I wrote this post along with the others in its series to show why the resurrection of Jesus is true. I added a link to the other posts at the bottom of the page if you would like to take a look at them.
1- They could be wrong. An unintentional lie is the same as an intentional one.
2- Does that mean that everyone else is lying? If so, then why would it be unreasonable to think them liars?
3- What about the Inquisition? I guess all those Jews who died for their beliefs are right then?
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams
"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."
H. P. Lovecraft
You're absolutely right people just dying for their cause simply means that they believe their cause, not that their cause is right. But, in my last post I showed that the followers of Jesus simply weren't mistaken about his resurrection
http://www.progressiveu.org/074632-the-truth-of-the-resurection-part-iv-....
Also I just wanted to say that the Inquisition was a despicable sin by the Church, and I for one am glad that I follow God, and not the Church.
Far from it. You showed that a book that was throughout most of the medieval times being rewritten over and over again tells us that a lot of people saw someone rise from the dead 2000 years ago. Even within the bible there are contradictions, as Darwins Beagle pointed out.
We have no factual evidence that all these people saw Jesus rise from the dead, or an angel telling them that Jesus rose from the dead. Unless, of course, you can prove the bible to be true, contradictions and all, with no reasonable doubt.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams
"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."
H. P. Lovecraft
Having read posts I-IV, this is one of your best arguments to date; however, I have a question:
So what?
Since the previous four posts proved nothing except how to use the Bible to prove itself, this post becomes completely invalidated by them. You had a decent set of points here. Well, better than most anyway. Had this post not been associated with its predeccessors, I would have given it a bit more respect.
One short sleepe past wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
-John Donne
Why is Biblical evidence invalidate its self?
You cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible. Its circular reasoning to the nth degree. As Darwins Beagle pointed out, there are many contradictions between the gospels, as well as other parts of the Bible. To say that these stories, written by men, could be used as irrefutable proof to Jesus' godlihood is just plain ludicrous.
One short sleepe past wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
-John Donne
Well actually I'm using the Bible to prove that the Resurrection happened. Not that the Bible is true. If we had a witness come in courtroom an attorney would never say "You are using the witness to prove that the witness is true, so the witness isn't true." I read that and it doesn't even make sense to me, but that is the argument you're making.
Also the contradictions that have been brought up to me consist of that the Gospels are not exactly the same. They all do not have the same details. They all don't have the exact same message. For example John focuses on theology, especially the divinity of Jesus. While Luke focuses on god's purpose for the human condition, especially healing people of from their pains in life. These two differences mean that John and Luke tell different stories in their accounts, and include different details from the same stories.
If you have a person testify in court that something is true or false, you can counter by looking at the credibilty of the witness. The same is true here. Your witness, the Bible, cannot withstand the test of credibility. There are contradictions and a century worth of revisions for a centuries worth of different reasons. It is not historically accurate. Therefore, it cannot act as a crecible source to prove that something happened.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams
"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."
H. P. Lovecraft
Thank you, Jsaj. You took the words right out of my mouth.
One short sleepe past wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
-John Donne
You're Welcome.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams
"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."
H. P. Lovecraft
Jesus told us to judge a tree by its fruit.
Repent from falsehood to truth.
To love our enemies.
That mercy is greater than sacrifice.
The ideas he comunicated are the seeds of the kingdom he preached.
By trying to prove a 2000 year old reported miracle you bring doubters like flies. Proof is not what Jesus taught. Faith is. Miracles are not proof of godliness, they are camels to swallow on your way to the gnats of wisdom that ARE needed to have faith.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
Oscar Wilde
Well, the Apostle Paul definitely talked about proving the resurrection in 1Corinthians 15, so it is valid to talk about it. I am just preaching the truth, and contending for it. Jesus Christ was crucified and paid for our sins and three days later he rose from the dead!
Jesus brought teachings that were of a different order of magnitude in importance from those of the men that write in the books folowing the gospels.
The resurection itself may be vastly important to you, and the evidence may fully convince you.
It is none the less a supernatural event that is outside of anything a person alive today has ever experienced. Since a person who has experienced the realities of todays world is not going to accept things they cannot relate to using this to justify Christianity makes increasing or creating a nonbelievers faith more dificult.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
Oscar Wilde
Concerning your argument against deception, again it hinges on the veracity of the biblical description. NOBODY who would argue that the discipes intentionally lied would believe that the biblical description of Jesus' death is accurate. In fact, there were numerous alternative traditions as to his crucifixion. I will mention some of them later on in this response.
For now all I want to respond to is your argument that the disciples suffering horrendous deaths is evidence that the story is true.
This will probably be useless since you have sacrificed reason on the altar of your religion, but I will try to show you why this argument is bogus.
Here is the logic of your argument.
Jesus' resurrection is true because Jesus' disciples were willing to undergo a tortuous death for their faith.
Just by reading that statement you SHOULD realize how weak the argument is. But let's go further.
(1) How do you know that Jesus' disciples underwent a tortuous death? The majority of the evidence comes from traditions that have their apparent origin in the writings of early Church fathers. These writing were often a hundred years or more after the supposed events took place. They are also known to contain many errors of facts and are often polemics with the express purpose of leading one to the conclusion that they should become believers. In fact one of the early Church fathers, Eusebius (who much of the stories that we have concerning the Church fathers come from), is on record as saying that it is perfectly fine to lie in order to bring people to the faith.
Thus, all this evidence is suspect. There is no reason to believe any of it. About the only non-Christian source for any information concerns a short paragraph by Josephus about James, the brother of the "so called Christ". He says Anais had him stoned when the Roman Procurator, Festus, died and before his replacement could come. (Interestingly, the early Church fathers have James, the brother of Jesus being thrown off a city wall and killed).
Furthermore, if that paragraph in Josephus is extracted the flow of his story seems to be unhindered. This has led some people to claim that the paragraph in Josephus is nothing more than a Christian interpolation added hundreds of years after Josephus died. And if that is the case, then NOTHING concerning the death of any of these disciples is reliable.
(2) Let's pretend that all the disciples did die tortuous deaths. How do you know that they died willingly. A major premise of your argument is that if they would have only denied the resurrection story then they would have been able to avoid it. But that is very unlikely. If you have been found guilty of something that warrents death, saying "I lied" is not likely to get you out of it.
Furthermore, prior to being killed these disciples could very well have enjoyed a life of status among the faithful. We know from the writings of Paul that the faithful did give money and other support to not only him but to other disciples as well. That could have been the motive for their belief, and the tortuous death part could have been an unforeseen consequence.
(3) But, let's pretend that not only did the disciples suffer tortuous deaths, they truly believed that their cause was just. This still doesn't mean that their beliefs were correct. On 9/11 at least 4 of the 19 hijackers knew they were going to die for their cause, and did so willingly with the sincere belief that they were doing what was right. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that they were wrong in their sincere beliefs. The fact that one has a sincere belief is not evidence that it is true.
Again, the fact that there are many disagreements concerning the details of the resurrection story CLEARLY deomonstrates that it was subject to a lot of legendary enhancements. We do not know what any of the disciples saw (in fact, there is even disagreement on the names of the disciples!). Nor do we know what any of the disciples truly believed about the resurrection. We do know that some traditions have Jesus' resurrection as a spiritual, not a bodily resurrection. Other traditions have him surviving the crucifixion and never dying. Others have someone else being crucified in Jesus' place -- usually Simon of Cyrene, the person the New Testament says helped carry Jesus' cross to Golgatha.
So your argument fails on several levels. First, you have no reliable evidence that what you claim happened actually happened. Second, even if it happened it is unlikely that the conditions existed that would have made such an event supportive of your inference that the disciples preferred a tortuous death rather than give up on the resurrection story. Third, even if they DID prefer to die a tortuous death because they truly believed the resurrection story to be true, there is no reliable evidence that the story is ACTUALLY true.
When faced with unreliable evidence, I think the best thing to do is to fall back on what we really know and ask ourselves what alternatives are most likely. Is it more likely that the resurrection story is an embellishment with no historicity, or is it more likely that someone did actually rise from the dead. We know of a lot of stories that are embellishments, we don't know of anyone that has actually died as Jesus is supposed to have who did come back from the dead.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Remind me to never argue against you on something you are so passionate about as this. Great response as always.
Truly, you are your brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.
One short sleepe past wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
-John Donne
Actually, I don't mind people arguing against what I believe, and I need people to argue against what I happen to have a passionate belief about. What I don't like are arguments that do not address the main points.
For instance supercoolyellowjacket makes an argument in which all her points assume complete reliability of the biblical account(s) of the resurrection. When pointed out that different biblical accounts have strikingly different details, she denies that any contradiction exists because different authors could be reporting different aspects of the same event. That is not addressing the complaint of the argument. What she has done is jump onto an explanation that sounds nice, but she refuses to actually test that expllanation against the details that give rise to the objection. Instead she gives a hypothetical situation in which her explanation could apply. But why go to a hypothetical example? She has been given several REAL examples in which she could use to see how her explanation fits.
If she were to do that then it would not be hard to see that her explanation -- different people reporting different aspects of the same story -- is unsatisfactory expecially in reconciling John's version and Matthew's version. But she steadfastly denies that there is a problem and in doing so she insults the intelligence of anybody with the skills to read the bible for themselves.
So ... PLEASE DO argue against me if you think I am wrong. I AM wrong on occasions and when I am, I need to have that pointed out to me. But if you do argue against me please consider what I have to say and argue against that instead of summarily dismissing it by saying that if you stick you head up your butt and look cross-eyed then ... just maybe --- my argument can be dismissed without further thought.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
I won't be arguing with you on this post because I agree with everything you say.
However, if I ever find a reason to disagree with you, I shall tell you wholeheartedly. I just fear the extensive retaliation as evident in any of your comments on this page. You really do a wonderful job.
One short sleepe past wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
-John Donne
And many other people have died horrible deaths for many other religions that they wholeheartedly believed in. Yet to call yourself a Christian you would have to deny the veracity of the events that those beliefs are based on. C'mon. Not only do you have to prove that an event happened 2000 years ago, but you have to prove that every other religion based on other events are wrong, or have been misinterpreted. Of course any of the arguments you might use to belittle other religions, can easily be used to belittle your own.
It is impossible to prove that something happened even a week ago, much less 2000 years ago. It is likewise impossible to prove what motivated that event. The best we can hope for is a likely picture, and since resurrection is the most unlikely of things to have happened 2000 years ago any likely picture of events will discount it. What of other religions with resurrection stories? Are those stories true, or only your resurrection story? I think that you would have to claim those stories are false in order to lend proper weight to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In making that claim on any logical ground besides, "couldn't have happened because the Bible tells me only Lazarus and Jesus have been resurrected," you will go through all the arguments being brought against your resurrection story.
So what makes your supernatural events more believable than other's supernatural events? Nothing. So either a good deal of them happened, or none of them did. Either way Christianity is far from true. It is either massively limited in its understanding of the universe and "supernatural" events, or is based on lies and superstition.
I suggest that you take chillbill's advice and look to faith and message above veracity. You will notice that not too many believers have showed up to help defend you.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memento mori, mahalo.
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principals."
People can believe something and be mistaken, but in this case the disciples were not mistaken. You can see that here.
http://www.progressiveu.org/074632-the-truth-of-the-resurection-part-iv-...
Can we prove the Roman empire existed?
What about the holocaust?
Or the ancient Egyptians?
We can certainly prove historical events even MORE than 2000 years ago.
No, you can't. The Roman Empire is an accepted likely explanation for stories handed down as history and logical reconstructions of architectural and cultural trends as observed through artifacts. As events get more and more unlikely, more and more proof is necessary for something to be accepted as actually having happened. The Roman Empire is easily accepted because there's plenty of evidence. The lost continent of Atlantis is much less easily accepted because the story is far less likely than the story of the Roman Empire.
Likewise, though the Roman Empire certainly existed (at least without getting annoyingly skeptical on you), it is highly unlikely that it was founded by Romulus after being suckled in the wild by a mother wolf. A human baby being suckled by a wolf is infinitely more likely than a man coming back from the dead, and I don't believe either story because neither one has sufficient proof to lend weight to such an unlikely claim.
Your examples are also incredibly flawed. The Resurrection is an event that was witnessed by, at best, 500 or so people and happened in the space of a week. The holocaust, Roman Empire and Egyptian civilization lasted between decades and hundreds of years and involved millions of eye witnesses and scads of physical evidence. Essentially the only thing the resurrection has going for it is tradition.
Apples and oranges, sir. An entire empire is hardly a week long supernatural event witnessed by not even a thousand people.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memento mori, mahalo.
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principals."