> I do. And the Bible doesn't teach that faith is blind, as I showed.
That’s fair, as I was just told to believe in it. And maybe it’s just your community or yourself, but from what I’ve always seen, it’s been that way.
> it didn't happen. Besides, something like that doesn't leave behind any material evidence, so it's not studiable later
To be honest, that seems very convenient. The same with Hannibal and his elephants to be fair.
> My shoulder ached yesterday, but I can't prove it; but because there's no material evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen
But what if you went to the doctors for it, and they said you injured your shoulder without realising it? That would result in pain and you have the doctors appointment and notes on record for you to have material evidence for it.
> Miracles do reside in logic. There's nothing about a miracle that is impossible in science.
Then explain, using science, how Jesus turner water into wine. Or how he brought Lazarus from the dead. These are all miracles, and if miracles can be explained by science, please do. Because Jesus didn’t have the technology we have today, and couldn’t have brought back Lazarus 4 days after his burial in which his body would have already begun bloating and decaying. A brain also cannot survive without a constant supply of oxygen. And even today, with out technology, humans cannot turn water into wine. It’s illogical.
> And from what we know about quantum mechanics, miracles are even more possible in QM than in
Please elaborate
> There's no proof except the credibility we place in certain authors.
Yes, but what Hannibal did is possible, turning water into wine is not. Thus, it is more credible and realistic. Especially splitting a fish and some bread to feed that many people as Jesus did, it is mathematically and literally impossible (at least to the point of filling them up).
> For this you need to give proof, or at least some evidence to support your assertion
Genesis 8:13 describes the earth as being dry on the first day of the first month. But Genesis 8:14 informs us the earth was not dry until the twenty-seventh day of the second month. Genesis 8:4 reports that, as the waters of the flood receded, Noah’s ark rested on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh month. The very next verse, however, says the mountaintops could not be seen until the tenth month.
There are many contradictions in the Bible that do not stay consistent with the claims the authors make. If they cannot be consistent, then the evidence used for such things are discredited. And if you still believe in them despite the contradictions, then you have further proved my point about blind faith, as this evidence is not credible.
> Yeah, that's the point. God is the only one who could do such a thing. Humanity is incapable of it, and it is unknown in human experience and power
Then how can it be explained by science or logic? By your own logic it literally can’t be, yet you state earlier that it can.
Board index ‹ Faith and Knowledge
Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by jimwalton » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:48 pm
> To be honest, that seems very convenient. The same with Hannibal and his elephants to be fair.
It's not a matter of convenience but rather of fact. If I walk on the water, it doesn't leave footprints. If I multiple bread, there's no artifact to be dug up later by archaeologists. Just like Hannibal. Just like most of history.
> But what if you went to the doctors for it, and they said you injured your shoulder without realising it?
Doctors can't even verify pain by scientific means. They touch me and say, "Does that hurt? Does it hurt here? Does it hurt when I do this?" It's all based on testimony, not science. If I said, "Use science to find my pain. Personal testimony is unreliable!", he might as well send me home. There is no science that can isolate pain. They can look at what parts of the brain it lights up, but they can't know what hurts and where without personal testimony; science tells them little.
> the doctors appointment and notes on record for you to have material evidence for it.
Just personal testimony. We have such records in the Bible (notes on record and therefore "material evidence"), but you don't believe those.
> Then explain, using science, how Jesus turner water into wine.
Water always turns into wine. As C.S. Lewis writes, "God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine". Scientifically, this miracle is only the relativity of time.
In quantum mechanics, Plantinga explains, "the wave function for each particle is spread throughout an unbounded region of the universe, at every time (except perhaps momentary instants of time). This means that for each particle, there is at most a finite region where it couldn’t be localized by a GRW (Ghirardi-Rimini-Webster approach to quantum mechanics) hit. (For some [probably even most] particles, they could be localized anywhere.) So for changing water into wine, it’s not a big deal—you’ve got a bunch of individual particles (electrons, protons, etc.) that are composing the water, and they can all have GRW hits such that their positions are redistributed to the locations that would be appropriate of them to compose wine. Since there’s at most a finite region of the universe where these particles can’t show up, and there’s no reason to expect the finite regions for the different particles to overlap in any special way, the particles can all appear in the positions appropriate for them to compose wine."
> Or how he brought Lazarus from the dead.
This was a miracle, of course. Scientifically, in the Arctic tundra, the wooly bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia Isabella) freezes solid to the point where all life functions cease. The heart stops beating; no ingestion or excretion; no brain function; no respiration. And yet in the spring it comes back to life and continues on its merry way. Resurrection is scientifically possible, and occurs regularly in this caterpillar. You may object that Lazarus’s resurrection and the life cycle of the wooly bear caterpillar are not in the same category of phenomena, and they're not, really. But it's enough if you want to talk about science. The caterpillar is in a stage of dormancy safeguarded by a cryoprotectant. And yet death manifests many of the same qualities: cessation of all life functions, an absence of any attribute characteristic of vitality, and complete dormancy. While dormancy implies only a temporary suspension of function with expectation of renewal, Christian theology treats death in exactly the same manner. When we die, according to Christian theology, the body enters a state of dormancy (“sleep”), awaiting a future bodily resurrection. The raising of Lazarus is the same restoration to life from the dormancy of death.
> Quantum Mechanics and miracles... Please elaborate
QM is more described by multiple possible outcomes (indeterminism) than classical physics. There are a spectrum of possibilities for any given cause. Special divine action, including miracles, isn't incompatible with QM because QM doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions; instead, it merely assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes. This means that QM doesn’t forbid any special divine action in anything like the way traditional physics (science) seems to.
> Especially splitting a fish and some bread to feed that many people as Jesus did, it is mathematically and literally impossible (at least to the point of filling them up).
Jesus didn't SPLIT bread and fish, he MULTIPLIED them. That's where the math works. Multiplication, not division.
> Genesis 8:13 describes the earth as being dry on the first day of the first month. But Genesis 8:14 informs us the earth was not dry until the twenty-seventh day of the second month. Genesis 8:4 reports that, as the waters of the flood receded, Noah’s ark rested on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh month. The very next verse, however, says the mountaintops could not be seen until the tenth month.
The flood was not global. The text is hyperbolic. There are no contradictions. But we can talk about your specifics.
Gen. 8.13. The word used by the text is *hrb*, indicating freedom from moisture. The word for completely dry is *ybsh*, that we see in v. 14. So v. 13 is speaking of the drying process and being "dry enough," v. 14 speaks of complete dryness—the complete absence of water. But even that is a figure of speech, a relative comparative, not a literal fact: There's never complete absence of water on the Earth.
Gn. 8.4. There is no indication that the ark rested on the top of Ararat, or even high on it.
Gn. 8.5. The "mountains" of which the text speaks are the local promontories. In the ancient world, the high mountains were the pillars of the heavens, the abode of the gods, and they would not have been included in the deluge. After the flood, the ark came to rest somewhere on the foothills of the Ararat range. Later, the tops of the local mountains began to be visible.
This is a very ancient text, and requires more than superficial reading in English. It's also true that often people's interpretations are from what they learned in Sunday School as a kid instead of real research. We can talk about the flood more if you wish.
> There are many contradictions in the Bible that do not stay consistent with the claims the authors make.
I would claim there aren't ANY contradictions in the Bible. There are some copyist errors, and some differences of perspective, but no contradictions. But we can talk about this more if you want.
For instance, the Flood. The point is that God is judging a particular people group ("the whole world" to Noah) for their sin. Noah builds a large boat (not the symbolic sizes written in the Bible) for several reasons (to preserve local animal life, as a symbol of salvation, etc.) The flood is severe, and the local mountains are covered, to the destruction of the guilty population. God's judgment of sin, preached against by Noah, is completed. God uses a natural event (the rainbow) as a symbol of an ongoing covenant. I know this raises more questions, but we'll have to talk about whichever specifics you identify for further conversation.
> Then how can it be explained by science or logic? By your own logic it literally can’t be, yet you state earlier that it can.
I never said everything was explainable by science or logic. What I said was that miracles are not contrary to science or logic.
Let's keep talking.
It's not a matter of convenience but rather of fact. If I walk on the water, it doesn't leave footprints. If I multiple bread, there's no artifact to be dug up later by archaeologists. Just like Hannibal. Just like most of history.
> But what if you went to the doctors for it, and they said you injured your shoulder without realising it?
Doctors can't even verify pain by scientific means. They touch me and say, "Does that hurt? Does it hurt here? Does it hurt when I do this?" It's all based on testimony, not science. If I said, "Use science to find my pain. Personal testimony is unreliable!", he might as well send me home. There is no science that can isolate pain. They can look at what parts of the brain it lights up, but they can't know what hurts and where without personal testimony; science tells them little.
> the doctors appointment and notes on record for you to have material evidence for it.
Just personal testimony. We have such records in the Bible (notes on record and therefore "material evidence"), but you don't believe those.
> Then explain, using science, how Jesus turner water into wine.
Water always turns into wine. As C.S. Lewis writes, "God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine". Scientifically, this miracle is only the relativity of time.
In quantum mechanics, Plantinga explains, "the wave function for each particle is spread throughout an unbounded region of the universe, at every time (except perhaps momentary instants of time). This means that for each particle, there is at most a finite region where it couldn’t be localized by a GRW (Ghirardi-Rimini-Webster approach to quantum mechanics) hit. (For some [probably even most] particles, they could be localized anywhere.) So for changing water into wine, it’s not a big deal—you’ve got a bunch of individual particles (electrons, protons, etc.) that are composing the water, and they can all have GRW hits such that their positions are redistributed to the locations that would be appropriate of them to compose wine. Since there’s at most a finite region of the universe where these particles can’t show up, and there’s no reason to expect the finite regions for the different particles to overlap in any special way, the particles can all appear in the positions appropriate for them to compose wine."
> Or how he brought Lazarus from the dead.
This was a miracle, of course. Scientifically, in the Arctic tundra, the wooly bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia Isabella) freezes solid to the point where all life functions cease. The heart stops beating; no ingestion or excretion; no brain function; no respiration. And yet in the spring it comes back to life and continues on its merry way. Resurrection is scientifically possible, and occurs regularly in this caterpillar. You may object that Lazarus’s resurrection and the life cycle of the wooly bear caterpillar are not in the same category of phenomena, and they're not, really. But it's enough if you want to talk about science. The caterpillar is in a stage of dormancy safeguarded by a cryoprotectant. And yet death manifests many of the same qualities: cessation of all life functions, an absence of any attribute characteristic of vitality, and complete dormancy. While dormancy implies only a temporary suspension of function with expectation of renewal, Christian theology treats death in exactly the same manner. When we die, according to Christian theology, the body enters a state of dormancy (“sleep”), awaiting a future bodily resurrection. The raising of Lazarus is the same restoration to life from the dormancy of death.
> Quantum Mechanics and miracles... Please elaborate
QM is more described by multiple possible outcomes (indeterminism) than classical physics. There are a spectrum of possibilities for any given cause. Special divine action, including miracles, isn't incompatible with QM because QM doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions; instead, it merely assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes. This means that QM doesn’t forbid any special divine action in anything like the way traditional physics (science) seems to.
> Especially splitting a fish and some bread to feed that many people as Jesus did, it is mathematically and literally impossible (at least to the point of filling them up).
Jesus didn't SPLIT bread and fish, he MULTIPLIED them. That's where the math works. Multiplication, not division.
> Genesis 8:13 describes the earth as being dry on the first day of the first month. But Genesis 8:14 informs us the earth was not dry until the twenty-seventh day of the second month. Genesis 8:4 reports that, as the waters of the flood receded, Noah’s ark rested on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh month. The very next verse, however, says the mountaintops could not be seen until the tenth month.
The flood was not global. The text is hyperbolic. There are no contradictions. But we can talk about your specifics.
Gen. 8.13. The word used by the text is *hrb*, indicating freedom from moisture. The word for completely dry is *ybsh*, that we see in v. 14. So v. 13 is speaking of the drying process and being "dry enough," v. 14 speaks of complete dryness—the complete absence of water. But even that is a figure of speech, a relative comparative, not a literal fact: There's never complete absence of water on the Earth.
Gn. 8.4. There is no indication that the ark rested on the top of Ararat, or even high on it.
Gn. 8.5. The "mountains" of which the text speaks are the local promontories. In the ancient world, the high mountains were the pillars of the heavens, the abode of the gods, and they would not have been included in the deluge. After the flood, the ark came to rest somewhere on the foothills of the Ararat range. Later, the tops of the local mountains began to be visible.
This is a very ancient text, and requires more than superficial reading in English. It's also true that often people's interpretations are from what they learned in Sunday School as a kid instead of real research. We can talk about the flood more if you wish.
> There are many contradictions in the Bible that do not stay consistent with the claims the authors make.
I would claim there aren't ANY contradictions in the Bible. There are some copyist errors, and some differences of perspective, but no contradictions. But we can talk about this more if you want.
For instance, the Flood. The point is that God is judging a particular people group ("the whole world" to Noah) for their sin. Noah builds a large boat (not the symbolic sizes written in the Bible) for several reasons (to preserve local animal life, as a symbol of salvation, etc.) The flood is severe, and the local mountains are covered, to the destruction of the guilty population. God's judgment of sin, preached against by Noah, is completed. God uses a natural event (the rainbow) as a symbol of an ongoing covenant. I know this raises more questions, but we'll have to talk about whichever specifics you identify for further conversation.
> Then how can it be explained by science or logic? By your own logic it literally can’t be, yet you state earlier that it can.
I never said everything was explainable by science or logic. What I said was that miracles are not contrary to science or logic.
Let's keep talking.
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Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by Not Clever Enough » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:59 pm
You're right, I've turned thousands of knobs and sat on thousands of chairs.
I have seen zero cases of a resurrection.
That's a pretty big difference. The first two, at least I know they happen. Sure, a chair could break under me. But I know that chairs hold people up when they sit on them. I've seen it happen. I've experienced it. And so have many, many other people. Sometimes they break.
This is very different from an event that we have zero confirmed cases for. I haven't ever experienced, nor have I heard of any confirmed cases, of a pen being let go and just levitating in the air.
The resurrection seems more like the pen levitating, than the case of sitting in a chair. Its reasonable to be more skeptical of things that I've never seen nor heard of happening, ever, than things that I know happen. That's fair, right?
> The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it
The evidence for the resurrection is really, really weak. I don't think it can reasonably justify the claim. Its unreasonable to believe in the resurrection given the evidence we have for it.
I have seen zero cases of a resurrection.
That's a pretty big difference. The first two, at least I know they happen. Sure, a chair could break under me. But I know that chairs hold people up when they sit on them. I've seen it happen. I've experienced it. And so have many, many other people. Sometimes they break.
This is very different from an event that we have zero confirmed cases for. I haven't ever experienced, nor have I heard of any confirmed cases, of a pen being let go and just levitating in the air.
The resurrection seems more like the pen levitating, than the case of sitting in a chair. Its reasonable to be more skeptical of things that I've never seen nor heard of happening, ever, than things that I know happen. That's fair, right?
> The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it
The evidence for the resurrection is really, really weak. I don't think it can reasonably justify the claim. Its unreasonable to believe in the resurrection given the evidence we have for it.
- Not Clever Enough
Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by jimwalton » Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:20 pm
>I have seen zero cases of a resurrection.
But there have been occasions of resurrection. That you haven't seen one doesn't mean it never happened. I've sat on thousands of chairs also, but I've never seen a panda in the wild. That doesn't mean they don't exist. My experiences are not the foundation of truth.
> This is very different from an event that we have zero confirmed cases for.
Except that the resurrection of Lazarus was confirmed by the local population at the time. There's just no material residual evidence of it; he just died again X years later. And the resurrection of Jesus is inferable as the best explanation of the data at hand, just like the murder of Caesar. There's no material evidence of Caesar's murder, either, but we have reason to believe the sources. Back to a previous point, I've seen anyone get murdered, but my experiences are not the ground of truth.
> The evidence for the resurrection is really, really weak. I don't think it can reasonably justify the claim. Its unreasonable to believe in the resurrection given the evidence we have for it.
Let's talk about it, then. The resurrection has been examined from every angle, and the evidence for is stronger than the evidence against. So, what's your case against the resurrection? What's the credible explanation, as far as you are concerned, of what happened there?
But there have been occasions of resurrection. That you haven't seen one doesn't mean it never happened. I've sat on thousands of chairs also, but I've never seen a panda in the wild. That doesn't mean they don't exist. My experiences are not the foundation of truth.
> This is very different from an event that we have zero confirmed cases for.
Except that the resurrection of Lazarus was confirmed by the local population at the time. There's just no material residual evidence of it; he just died again X years later. And the resurrection of Jesus is inferable as the best explanation of the data at hand, just like the murder of Caesar. There's no material evidence of Caesar's murder, either, but we have reason to believe the sources. Back to a previous point, I've seen anyone get murdered, but my experiences are not the ground of truth.
> The evidence for the resurrection is really, really weak. I don't think it can reasonably justify the claim. Its unreasonable to believe in the resurrection given the evidence we have for it.
Let's talk about it, then. The resurrection has been examined from every angle, and the evidence for is stronger than the evidence against. So, what's your case against the resurrection? What's the credible explanation, as far as you are concerned, of what happened there?
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Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by Not Clever Enough » Mon Aug 26, 2019 5:08 pm
> But there have been occasions of resurrection. That you haven't seen one doesn't mean it never happened. I've sat on thousands of chairs also, but I've never seen a panda in the wild. That doesn't mean they don't exist. My experiences are not the foundation of truth.
Which ones? How many? How confident should we be in them?
> Except that the resurrection of Lazarus was confirmed by the local population at the time. There's just no material residual evidence of it; he just died again X years later. And the resurrection of Jesus is inferable as the best explanation of the data at hand, just like the murder of Caesar.
Or they didn't happen. That's another option.
> Let's talk about it, then.
cool, can you give me like a quick summary of the evidence as you see it? Here's mine:
We've got 4 accounts, written decades after the event, they seem to plagiarize each other so its not even really 4 independent accounts, they conflict, we're not even sure who wrote them so we don't know if they're eye witness accounts anyway, the smallest scrap we have is from decades and decades after they were written.
Whats your summary?
> The resurrection has been examined from every angle, and the evidence for is stronger than the evidence against.
Lets not make it sound like its some kind of well established known fact. It isn't.
> So, what's your case against the resurrection? What's the credible explanation, as far as you are concerned, of what happened there?
What? I don't have to have one. This question isn't really relevant.
Which ones? How many? How confident should we be in them?
> Except that the resurrection of Lazarus was confirmed by the local population at the time. There's just no material residual evidence of it; he just died again X years later. And the resurrection of Jesus is inferable as the best explanation of the data at hand, just like the murder of Caesar.
Or they didn't happen. That's another option.
> Let's talk about it, then.
cool, can you give me like a quick summary of the evidence as you see it? Here's mine:
We've got 4 accounts, written decades after the event, they seem to plagiarize each other so its not even really 4 independent accounts, they conflict, we're not even sure who wrote them so we don't know if they're eye witness accounts anyway, the smallest scrap we have is from decades and decades after they were written.
Whats your summary?
> The resurrection has been examined from every angle, and the evidence for is stronger than the evidence against.
Lets not make it sound like its some kind of well established known fact. It isn't.
> So, what's your case against the resurrection? What's the credible explanation, as far as you are concerned, of what happened there?
What? I don't have to have one. This question isn't really relevant.
- Not Clever Enough
Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by jimwalton » Mon Aug 26, 2019 5:10 pm
> Which ones (evidences of resurrection)? How many? How confident should we be in them?
There are many evidences of resurrection throughout history, along with many modern evidences of resurrection in our era. You'd actually have to do the research to know how many, if they're even numerable. And as to how confidence you should be in those accounts, again, (1) you'd have to do the work if you really care to find out, and (2) you'd have to determine what you consider to be credible and why, avoiding bias as much as possible.
> Or they (Lazarus's resurrection) didn't happen. That's another option.
Sure it's another option, but is the best one, or just a biased one? if you have drawn that conclusion without research, it's simple bias and nothing more, with nothing rational about your conclusion.
> Here's mine:
> We've got 4 accounts...
Excellent. A multiplicity of sources gives strength to the case. In very few ancient historical events do we have as many as 4 sources. Four is REALLY good.
> written decades after the event...
Excellent. Many of our other historical references were written far longer after the event than mere decades. The 4 biographies we have of Alexander the Great were written CENTURIES after the events. Tacitus and Suetonius wrote decades after the events they reported, but historians are confident in their records. When compared with written sources of other historical figures and events, 35-65 years is relatively short.
> they seem to plagiarize each other so its not even really 4 independent accounts...
The fact that they report the same events gives credibility to the veracity of the recorded event. Their "plagiarizing" is not as detrimental as I presume you believe. The accounts are often different by the hand of the authors. They were not just "cut-and-pastes".
> they conflict...
There are discrepancies among our sources for the burning of Rome (Suetonius, Diorites Cassius, and Tacitus), but no one doubts that Rome wasn't burned. Xenophon's reports of Socrates's teachings differentiations from those from Plato, both students of Socrates, but we still deal with that. We have 4 non-identical narratives of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Compared to our sources for Greco-Roman history, the Gospels stand head and shoulders above them, which are usually hundreds of years distant, with very few eyewitnesses, told by people who were completely biased. And yet on the basis of those accounts historians reconstruct the course of history of the ancient world. Our Gospel accounts are more reliable.
> we're not even sure who wrote them so we don't know if they're eye witness accounts anyway...
We have enough evidence about authorship to determine that the evidence points strongly to the traditional authors: Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn. But this is a much longer discussion. All the external evidence we have, without exception or contradiction, points to the traditional authors. Much of the internal evidence also does.
> the smallest scrap we have is from decades and decades after they were written.
Decades is nothing, as already mentioned. It's like us weighing documents and events from 35 years ago for us, which would be the 1980s. We have access to ALL KINDS of stuff from the Reagan era (and Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, etc.). This is no problem. We have plenty of people who were alive during those days.
Even 65 years takes us to the mid-1950s. We have plenty of documentation and eyewitnesses from those eras (Korean War, JFK, Vietnam, etc.).
My summary? (very briefly)
Other explanations all fall far short of credibility:
> What? I don't have to have one. This question isn't really relevant.
Of course it's relevant. How can you reject the resurrection if you have no case against it? That's just pure out bias. You claim that the resurrection is not a well-established fact, but you haven't researched it? Yet you have drawn a conclusion that "it isn't"? Wow.
There are many evidences of resurrection throughout history, along with many modern evidences of resurrection in our era. You'd actually have to do the research to know how many, if they're even numerable. And as to how confidence you should be in those accounts, again, (1) you'd have to do the work if you really care to find out, and (2) you'd have to determine what you consider to be credible and why, avoiding bias as much as possible.
> Or they (Lazarus's resurrection) didn't happen. That's another option.
Sure it's another option, but is the best one, or just a biased one? if you have drawn that conclusion without research, it's simple bias and nothing more, with nothing rational about your conclusion.
> Here's mine:
> We've got 4 accounts...
Excellent. A multiplicity of sources gives strength to the case. In very few ancient historical events do we have as many as 4 sources. Four is REALLY good.
> written decades after the event...
Excellent. Many of our other historical references were written far longer after the event than mere decades. The 4 biographies we have of Alexander the Great were written CENTURIES after the events. Tacitus and Suetonius wrote decades after the events they reported, but historians are confident in their records. When compared with written sources of other historical figures and events, 35-65 years is relatively short.
> they seem to plagiarize each other so its not even really 4 independent accounts...
The fact that they report the same events gives credibility to the veracity of the recorded event. Their "plagiarizing" is not as detrimental as I presume you believe. The accounts are often different by the hand of the authors. They were not just "cut-and-pastes".
> they conflict...
There are discrepancies among our sources for the burning of Rome (Suetonius, Diorites Cassius, and Tacitus), but no one doubts that Rome wasn't burned. Xenophon's reports of Socrates's teachings differentiations from those from Plato, both students of Socrates, but we still deal with that. We have 4 non-identical narratives of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Compared to our sources for Greco-Roman history, the Gospels stand head and shoulders above them, which are usually hundreds of years distant, with very few eyewitnesses, told by people who were completely biased. And yet on the basis of those accounts historians reconstruct the course of history of the ancient world. Our Gospel accounts are more reliable.
> we're not even sure who wrote them so we don't know if they're eye witness accounts anyway...
We have enough evidence about authorship to determine that the evidence points strongly to the traditional authors: Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn. But this is a much longer discussion. All the external evidence we have, without exception or contradiction, points to the traditional authors. Much of the internal evidence also does.
> the smallest scrap we have is from decades and decades after they were written.
Decades is nothing, as already mentioned. It's like us weighing documents and events from 35 years ago for us, which would be the 1980s. We have access to ALL KINDS of stuff from the Reagan era (and Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, etc.). This is no problem. We have plenty of people who were alive during those days.
Even 65 years takes us to the mid-1950s. We have plenty of documentation and eyewitnesses from those eras (Korean War, JFK, Vietnam, etc.).
My summary? (very briefly)
- The tomb was certifiably empty. It was a well-known public location, the enemies never produced a body, not a single writer ever refutes the empty tomb, and Christianity would not have flourished in Jerusalem if the tomb were not empty.
- Therefore, we know the stone was rolled away (otherwise they wouldn't know it was empty!).
- We know the empty tomb was examined. A whole population wouldn't buy into an empty tomb while NO ONE ever looked into it. That's absurd.
- Jesus was seen by credible witnesses after his death. There are 11 known instances, mostly public, in many situations, locations, and environments. The quantity of appearances lends credibility to their historicity. The sightings by the women meet the criteria of embarrassment. The sightings by Peter and James come from very early oral tradition. There is nothing in the narrative of the road to Emmaus that warrants anything but historiography. The appearance to the ten apostles in Jerusalem would be out of place and quite odd if fictional. Since there are no mass hallucinations, the appearance to 500 at one time is meant to be taken as literal history. All in all, the cumulative effect of the eleven accounts gives credence to historicity and not fiction.
- Other historical evidences (the birth of the church, the bold preaching by the disciples about the resurrection, the conversion of Paul) give credibility to the account. Along with that, there is no credible evidence that the apostles were anything other than sane, sincere, and reliable men.
Other explanations all fall far short of credibility:
- They went to the wrong tomb. And it was never discovered? Duh.
- Someone stole the body. How? Why?
- Jesus never really died. Only by those who know nothing about flogging, crucifixion, and Roman execution professionals.
- The disciples were lying. Conspiracy theories don't hold water.
- The disciples were fooled by an imposter. We know from the case of Princess Anastasia that this doesn't work.
- It was the work of tricksters. Who would have the influence and cleverness to pull this off?
- It was all made up. This doesn't wash. For what motive? To what gain?
- Miracles can't happen. Well, this is just bias. Who says they can't?
> What? I don't have to have one. This question isn't really relevant.
Of course it's relevant. How can you reject the resurrection if you have no case against it? That's just pure out bias. You claim that the resurrection is not a well-established fact, but you haven't researched it? Yet you have drawn a conclusion that "it isn't"? Wow.
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Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by Orpheus » Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:28 am
> Just personal testimony. We have such records in the Bible (notes on record and therefore "material evidence"),
But the doctors note isn’t +2,000 years old. And honestly, something that old has less credibility than something less than a day old (well let’s say the note is for the sake of argument).
> Water always turns into wine. As C.S. Lewis writes, "God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine". Scientifically, this miracle is only the relativity of time.
You know what I meant. Jesus touched water and it turned into wine. That is impossible, and if you say that touching water and it turns into wine, then idk what to say. For a human being, touching water is just that, touching water. You could argue he was the Son of God, but I personally don’t believe he was, but you do and that’s fair.
> the Arctic tundra, the wooly bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia Isabella) freezes solid to the point where all life functions cease
I didn’t feel I needed to clarify that what I meant by scientifically impossible I meant in terms of humans, not all of science in general. This counter example doesn’t really apply to my point on Hannibal because he isn’t a caterpillar.
> When we die, according to Christian theology, the body enters a state of dormancy
Something that is, according to basic biology, impossible for humans to accomplish. Not to slam on this belief, but it is once again something illogical.
> Jesus didn't SPLIT bread and fish, he MULTIPLIED them. That's where the math works. Multiplication, not division
Cool, this is still utterly impossible. Feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish by multiplying them isn’t possible. And it doesn’t matter what QM or anything can explain for this, matter cannot be created nor destroyed. This makes what he did not credible or even possible to begin with.
> I would claim there aren't ANY contradictions in the Bible.
What about the difference between the OT God and NT God? He says “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and then suddenly Jesus says to “Turn the other cheek.” It’s an exact contradiction to what God says to do in the OT.
Also, what about the difference between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2? One says animal life came before human life and the other says human life cane before animal life. That’s literally a direct contradiction. But please, explain once more.
Also, you mention things can be symbolic, and I’ve heard from many Christians every time I mention something I believe is wrong / off about the Bible, they tend to reply that it can be seen as symbolic. Doesn’t that mean that everything in the Bible is symbolic? Even it’s Commandments? I personally believe that everything is subjective besides things such as rape or anything regarding sexual violence or mass murder (genocide). For example, killing a person can be excused if it was in self defence.
“There are no facts, only interpretations” is a good quote to think of. However, there are facts and these show in the form of science.
But the doctors note isn’t +2,000 years old. And honestly, something that old has less credibility than something less than a day old (well let’s say the note is for the sake of argument).
> Water always turns into wine. As C.S. Lewis writes, "God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine". Scientifically, this miracle is only the relativity of time.
You know what I meant. Jesus touched water and it turned into wine. That is impossible, and if you say that touching water and it turns into wine, then idk what to say. For a human being, touching water is just that, touching water. You could argue he was the Son of God, but I personally don’t believe he was, but you do and that’s fair.
> the Arctic tundra, the wooly bear caterpillar (Pyrrharctia Isabella) freezes solid to the point where all life functions cease
I didn’t feel I needed to clarify that what I meant by scientifically impossible I meant in terms of humans, not all of science in general. This counter example doesn’t really apply to my point on Hannibal because he isn’t a caterpillar.
> When we die, according to Christian theology, the body enters a state of dormancy
Something that is, according to basic biology, impossible for humans to accomplish. Not to slam on this belief, but it is once again something illogical.
> Jesus didn't SPLIT bread and fish, he MULTIPLIED them. That's where the math works. Multiplication, not division
Cool, this is still utterly impossible. Feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish by multiplying them isn’t possible. And it doesn’t matter what QM or anything can explain for this, matter cannot be created nor destroyed. This makes what he did not credible or even possible to begin with.
> I would claim there aren't ANY contradictions in the Bible.
What about the difference between the OT God and NT God? He says “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and then suddenly Jesus says to “Turn the other cheek.” It’s an exact contradiction to what God says to do in the OT.
Also, what about the difference between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2? One says animal life came before human life and the other says human life cane before animal life. That’s literally a direct contradiction. But please, explain once more.
Also, you mention things can be symbolic, and I’ve heard from many Christians every time I mention something I believe is wrong / off about the Bible, they tend to reply that it can be seen as symbolic. Doesn’t that mean that everything in the Bible is symbolic? Even it’s Commandments? I personally believe that everything is subjective besides things such as rape or anything regarding sexual violence or mass murder (genocide). For example, killing a person can be excused if it was in self defence.
“There are no facts, only interpretations” is a good quote to think of. However, there are facts and these show in the form of science.
- Orpheus
Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by jimwalton » Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:30 am
> But the doctors note isn’t +2,000 years old.
It doesn't make sense that it's true now, but if it were 2000+ years old, it would then become untrue.
> And honestly, something that old has less credibility than something less than a day old
I don't understand this. If it's true, it's true; if it happened, it happened. If Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus and other senators, time doesn't change the truth of that. So what if it's "old"? What you're saying doesn't make sense to me.
> Jesus *touched* water and it turned into wine.
He actually didn't. He just did it, apparently by thinking it. "Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine."
Lewis's point is that it was not contrary to nature, just nature on a different time scale. We would call it "fast-forward." A scientists might say that the time continuum got bent or compressed. We know that time is not a constant.
> I didn’t feel I needed to clarify that what I meant by scientifically impossible I meant in terms of humans, not all of science in general. This counter example doesn’t really apply to my point on Hannibal because he isn’t a caterpillar.
This wasn't a point about Hannibal, but instead about the resurrection of Lazarus. My point is that science actually shows us an example of something that loses all life functions—shuts right down, so that every indication is that of what we call death, and yet it returns to life in the spring. My point is that Jesus's raising Lazarus from the dead might not be as contrary-to-nature as you are assuming. There are very natural ways, obviously, that these things could happen.
> Something that is, according to basic biology, impossible for humans to accomplish
Apparently you don't think that some day in the future science will be able to accomplish some form of cryosleep.
> Cool, this is still utterly impossible.
Again, bread turns into more bread all the time, and fish turn into more fish, but at a different speed and on a smaller scale. Just like the wine, these are natural processes. In this miracle story, the bread is not there made of nothing, or of stones. A little bread is made into much bread, which happens every day in Middle-Eastern kitchens. And look in every bay: fish turning into more fish. Very possibly Jesus used very natural means to accomplish what he did.
But I'm not trying to take away from the miracle aspect of it. It was distinctly a miracle, but just maybe not so far-fetched scientifically as you assume to create a basis for denial. If I can say this kindly, you must really beware of your bias that skews reasoning.
> matter cannot be created nor destroyed.
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed given a closed system, given there is no outside interference. But science is unable to prove that the universe is a closed system and that metaphysical forces interfering is impossible. The law should read, to be accurate scientifically, "As far we have observed, the amount of actual energy in the universe remains constant. That is, no one has observed any actual new energy either coming into existence or going out of existence." Even scientists cannot guarantee that the amount of energy in existence before the Big Bang is exactly equal to the amount of energy now.
And according to the second law of thermodynamics, the universe is running out of usable energy, is it not? Isn't it a scientific postulate that the universe is running down and will eventually run out of usable energy?
So maybe miracles aren't as impossible as you assume.
> What about the difference between the OT God and NT God? He says “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and then suddenly Jesus says to “Turn the other cheek.” It’s an exact contradiction to what God says to do in the OT.
They are the same God. Just a short list:
As far as "eye for eye" and "turn the other cheek," a little bit o' research will show you that people were using the "eye for eye" teaching improperly, turning it from a statement about tempered and appropriate justice into a license for revenge. Jesus was making a very OT comment that revenge is not your place (Dt. 32.35) but rather belongs to God. Jesus was saying just what the OT was saying: leave vengeance to God; you be a person of patience, tolerance, and loving toward others. It's not a contradiction in the least.
> Genesis 1 & 2
There is no contradiction here. As John Walton says, "This chapter is not synoptic (doubling back to explain what came before, which in Genesis such strategy is always concerning brothers); it’s sequel. That means chapter 2 doesn’t have to do with Day 6, but with a later time period, and that chapter 1 is not talking about Adam and Eve.
Leland Ryken says, "Genesis 2 is not a rival creation story that contradicts Genesis 1. It makes no attempt to cover the same territory; they are entirely different stories."
I subscribe to the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 laid out by Dr. John Walton in “The Lost World of Genesis 1” (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=john+walton&qid=1564575785&s=gateway&sr=8-2). Briefly reporting, in it he asserts that Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the cosmos to function, not how He manufactured it. Certainly God created the universe (as taught in other verses in the Bible), but that’s not what Genesis 1 is about. There is literally NO contradiction between Gen. 1 & 2, but this is a lengthier discussion.
> Also, you mention things can be symbolic, and I’ve heard from many Christians every time I mention something I believe is wrong / off about the Bible, they tend to reply that it can be seen as symbolic.
The Bible has a lot of symbolism in it. We have to interpret the Bible according to the intent of the author. The Bible is a rich literary collection containing music, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, parable, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, and many other literary forms, as well as genres such as prayer, prophecy, blessing, covenant language, legal language, etc. We have to take each text the way it was intended to be taken. We're not stuck with all or nothing: all literal or all non-literal. It's better to think that the Bible should be taken the way the author intended it to be taken. If he was using symbolism, we're to take it that way. So also allegorically, hyperbolically, historically, parabolic, poetic, etc. Our quest is to understand the intent of the author.
> Even it’s Commandments?
All of the so-called commandments in the Bible are legal wisdom, not laws and commands the way we in our modern world look at laws and commands. Court rooms in the ancient world were not based on laws and precedent like ours are. Instead, they would expect the king or village elders to be well-versed in the wisdom of their culture and to use their heads and reasoning to make a correct decision. No ancient judge ever conferred with legal books to discover precedent. The "laws" are casuistic (hypothetical situations to give guidance) and wisdom (how to think morally and well), and the judge was expected to use his brain, not books, to render a decision.
It's a completely different mindset and worldview than our modern world.
It doesn't make sense that it's true now, but if it were 2000+ years old, it would then become untrue.
> And honestly, something that old has less credibility than something less than a day old
I don't understand this. If it's true, it's true; if it happened, it happened. If Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus and other senators, time doesn't change the truth of that. So what if it's "old"? What you're saying doesn't make sense to me.
> Jesus *touched* water and it turned into wine.
He actually didn't. He just did it, apparently by thinking it. "Jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water'; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, 'Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.' They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine."
Lewis's point is that it was not contrary to nature, just nature on a different time scale. We would call it "fast-forward." A scientists might say that the time continuum got bent or compressed. We know that time is not a constant.
> I didn’t feel I needed to clarify that what I meant by scientifically impossible I meant in terms of humans, not all of science in general. This counter example doesn’t really apply to my point on Hannibal because he isn’t a caterpillar.
This wasn't a point about Hannibal, but instead about the resurrection of Lazarus. My point is that science actually shows us an example of something that loses all life functions—shuts right down, so that every indication is that of what we call death, and yet it returns to life in the spring. My point is that Jesus's raising Lazarus from the dead might not be as contrary-to-nature as you are assuming. There are very natural ways, obviously, that these things could happen.
> Something that is, according to basic biology, impossible for humans to accomplish
Apparently you don't think that some day in the future science will be able to accomplish some form of cryosleep.
> Cool, this is still utterly impossible.
Again, bread turns into more bread all the time, and fish turn into more fish, but at a different speed and on a smaller scale. Just like the wine, these are natural processes. In this miracle story, the bread is not there made of nothing, or of stones. A little bread is made into much bread, which happens every day in Middle-Eastern kitchens. And look in every bay: fish turning into more fish. Very possibly Jesus used very natural means to accomplish what he did.
But I'm not trying to take away from the miracle aspect of it. It was distinctly a miracle, but just maybe not so far-fetched scientifically as you assume to create a basis for denial. If I can say this kindly, you must really beware of your bias that skews reasoning.
> matter cannot be created nor destroyed.
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed given a closed system, given there is no outside interference. But science is unable to prove that the universe is a closed system and that metaphysical forces interfering is impossible. The law should read, to be accurate scientifically, "As far we have observed, the amount of actual energy in the universe remains constant. That is, no one has observed any actual new energy either coming into existence or going out of existence." Even scientists cannot guarantee that the amount of energy in existence before the Big Bang is exactly equal to the amount of energy now.
And according to the second law of thermodynamics, the universe is running out of usable energy, is it not? Isn't it a scientific postulate that the universe is running down and will eventually run out of usable energy?
So maybe miracles aren't as impossible as you assume.
> What about the difference between the OT God and NT God? He says “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” and then suddenly Jesus says to “Turn the other cheek.” It’s an exact contradiction to what God says to do in the OT.
They are the same God. Just a short list:
- Both demonstrate love as a primary attribute (Ex. 34.6; Jn. 3.16; 15.9; and many others)
- Both demonstrate justice where it is warranted (Gn. 18.25; Jn. 5.22)
- Both demonstrate initiating a covenant to form a people, a community, belonging to God
- Both are holy and righteous (Lev. 19.2; Lk. 4.34 and many others)
- Both test their followers for trust and faithfulness.
- Both are as concerned with the heart as with actions (Micah 6.8; Lk. 8.15 and many others)
As far as "eye for eye" and "turn the other cheek," a little bit o' research will show you that people were using the "eye for eye" teaching improperly, turning it from a statement about tempered and appropriate justice into a license for revenge. Jesus was making a very OT comment that revenge is not your place (Dt. 32.35) but rather belongs to God. Jesus was saying just what the OT was saying: leave vengeance to God; you be a person of patience, tolerance, and loving toward others. It's not a contradiction in the least.
> Genesis 1 & 2
There is no contradiction here. As John Walton says, "This chapter is not synoptic (doubling back to explain what came before, which in Genesis such strategy is always concerning brothers); it’s sequel. That means chapter 2 doesn’t have to do with Day 6, but with a later time period, and that chapter 1 is not talking about Adam and Eve.
Leland Ryken says, "Genesis 2 is not a rival creation story that contradicts Genesis 1. It makes no attempt to cover the same territory; they are entirely different stories."
I subscribe to the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 laid out by Dr. John Walton in “The Lost World of Genesis 1” (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=john+walton&qid=1564575785&s=gateway&sr=8-2). Briefly reporting, in it he asserts that Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the cosmos to function, not how He manufactured it. Certainly God created the universe (as taught in other verses in the Bible), but that’s not what Genesis 1 is about. There is literally NO contradiction between Gen. 1 & 2, but this is a lengthier discussion.
> Also, you mention things can be symbolic, and I’ve heard from many Christians every time I mention something I believe is wrong / off about the Bible, they tend to reply that it can be seen as symbolic.
The Bible has a lot of symbolism in it. We have to interpret the Bible according to the intent of the author. The Bible is a rich literary collection containing music, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, parable, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, and many other literary forms, as well as genres such as prayer, prophecy, blessing, covenant language, legal language, etc. We have to take each text the way it was intended to be taken. We're not stuck with all or nothing: all literal or all non-literal. It's better to think that the Bible should be taken the way the author intended it to be taken. If he was using symbolism, we're to take it that way. So also allegorically, hyperbolically, historically, parabolic, poetic, etc. Our quest is to understand the intent of the author.
> Even it’s Commandments?
All of the so-called commandments in the Bible are legal wisdom, not laws and commands the way we in our modern world look at laws and commands. Court rooms in the ancient world were not based on laws and precedent like ours are. Instead, they would expect the king or village elders to be well-versed in the wisdom of their culture and to use their heads and reasoning to make a correct decision. No ancient judge ever conferred with legal books to discover precedent. The "laws" are casuistic (hypothetical situations to give guidance) and wisdom (how to think morally and well), and the judge was expected to use his brain, not books, to render a decision.
It's a completely different mindset and worldview than our modern world.
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Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by Splash » Tue Aug 27, 2019 10:04 am
This is hogwash. The source of the claim (the Bible) is also what you're using as evidence for the claim. By definition, this is circular. No one knows who wrote the gospels, but it certainly wasn't "Matthew Mark Luke or John", those are just names given to the gospels but they probably have a number of authors. What reason would people have to make it up? Let's see. How has religion been used over time? I think controlling a population, motivating soldiers to fight and die in the Crusades, passing laws under the guise of god's will, and so on are all very good reasons to invent a story like this.
Furthermore, why is it that resurrections have completely stopped happening since modern science has advanced far enough to examine them? Give me an example of one resurrection in the modern era that hasn't been completely debunked. For an extreme supernatural claim such as this, we need better evidence than a 2000+ year old book written by a multitude of authors with a shared motive, especially when none of those authors were alive during the events.
The Bible is a series of claims. You cannot use the source of the claim as the evidence.
Furthermore, why is it that resurrections have completely stopped happening since modern science has advanced far enough to examine them? Give me an example of one resurrection in the modern era that hasn't been completely debunked. For an extreme supernatural claim such as this, we need better evidence than a 2000+ year old book written by a multitude of authors with a shared motive, especially when none of those authors were alive during the events.
The Bible is a series of claims. You cannot use the source of the claim as the evidence.
- Splash
Re: Blind faith isn’t okay.
by jimwalton » Tue Aug 27, 2019 10:05 am
> This is hogwash. The source of the claim (the Bible) is also what you're using as evidence for the claim.
It's not illegitimate to use Roman historians to tell us about ancient Rome, to listen to women tell us about sexual abuse of women, or to let victims of the Holocaust tell us about it. Why is it hogwash to let ancient Palestinian writers tell us about Jesus?
> By definition, this is circular.
There's nothing circular about it unless you are assuming something I never said or claimed. My claim is this: ancient Palestinian writers who knew Jesus composed the Gospels. Why is that circular?
> No one knows who wrote the gospels, but it certainly wasn't "Matthew Mark Luke or John", those are just names given to the gospels but they probably have a number of authors.
Well, this is obviously a much longer discussion. I've examined the evidence thoroughly and had this discussion on this forum at least a dozen times, and it turns out that the evidence for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as authors is quite a bit stronger than the evidence against. We can have this discussion if you'd like, but you are mistaken to cavalierly toss it off as a settled matter.
> What reason would people have to make it up? Let's see. How has religion been used over time? I think controlling a population, motivating soldiers to fight and die in the Crusades, passing laws under the guise of god's will, and so on are all very good reasons to invent a story like this.
So, let's talk about the apostles who were the first to tell the story. Please tell me what that has to do with controlling a population, motivating soldiers, and passing laws. Nothing. Nothing at all. You cannot reasonably (let alone with any evidence) show me that their motive was power to control and dominate. But I'm glad to talk about it. Give me what you've researched and let's dialogue.
> Furthermore, why is it that resurrections have completely stopped happening since modern science has advanced far enough to examine them?
They haven't stopped. There are resurrections happening today. Have you done any homework on the subject? I'll be glad to see your research. Let's talk.
> The Bible is a series of claims. You cannot use the source of the claim as the evidence.
Any historian uses the source of the claim (Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the life of Alexander the Great, Nero burning Rome, etc.) as the evidence. Why is this a problem? Everything we know about the life of Alexander comes from 4 biographies written centuries later. We use the source of the claim as the evidence.
It's not illegitimate to use Roman historians to tell us about ancient Rome, to listen to women tell us about sexual abuse of women, or to let victims of the Holocaust tell us about it. Why is it hogwash to let ancient Palestinian writers tell us about Jesus?
> By definition, this is circular.
There's nothing circular about it unless you are assuming something I never said or claimed. My claim is this: ancient Palestinian writers who knew Jesus composed the Gospels. Why is that circular?
> No one knows who wrote the gospels, but it certainly wasn't "Matthew Mark Luke or John", those are just names given to the gospels but they probably have a number of authors.
Well, this is obviously a much longer discussion. I've examined the evidence thoroughly and had this discussion on this forum at least a dozen times, and it turns out that the evidence for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as authors is quite a bit stronger than the evidence against. We can have this discussion if you'd like, but you are mistaken to cavalierly toss it off as a settled matter.
> What reason would people have to make it up? Let's see. How has religion been used over time? I think controlling a population, motivating soldiers to fight and die in the Crusades, passing laws under the guise of god's will, and so on are all very good reasons to invent a story like this.
So, let's talk about the apostles who were the first to tell the story. Please tell me what that has to do with controlling a population, motivating soldiers, and passing laws. Nothing. Nothing at all. You cannot reasonably (let alone with any evidence) show me that their motive was power to control and dominate. But I'm glad to talk about it. Give me what you've researched and let's dialogue.
> Furthermore, why is it that resurrections have completely stopped happening since modern science has advanced far enough to examine them?
They haven't stopped. There are resurrections happening today. Have you done any homework on the subject? I'll be glad to see your research. Let's talk.
> The Bible is a series of claims. You cannot use the source of the claim as the evidence.
Any historian uses the source of the claim (Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the life of Alexander the Great, Nero burning Rome, etc.) as the evidence. Why is this a problem? Everything we know about the life of Alexander comes from 4 biographies written centuries later. We use the source of the claim as the evidence.
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