Reasonable belief in the resurrection?

[SkyWriting]

Ask yourself how that very brief description of James' death refutes the idea that James completely fabricated the resurrection or the idea that the resurrection was invented decades after Jesus' death.

I'm sorry, was that in your original challenge?
I am not obliged to argue against new lines
of inquiry that are off topic.

 

[SkyWriting]

Would you care to share the details of Peter's death?

It is said that it was not from whooping cough.
It was related to his adherence to his beliefs.

 

[crunchihuahua]

Are all you people serious, I really thought this was a Christian forum and you don't trust the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there are over 500 documented accounts of people seeing Christ after the crucifixion, the 12 apostles were a group of cowards in hiding until Christ appeared to them and later gave them the Holy Spirit then they were bold as lions.

But too faith is a choice, and it comes from the heart, I cant tell you what to believe even if I know it to be true, so believe what you want.

Good day

 

[Davian]

The New Testament is not a collection of 'stories'. They are testimonies.

Do you have the names and addresses of those eyewitnesses? or only stories of testimonies?

What other evidence can one gather? Should I invent a time machine..

If you do invent a time machine, go back to before the flood and video the aliens that helped with the building of the pyramids. Or were the pyramids built after the flood?

 

[crunchihuahua]

Why don't you read while I write little one, in case you didn't know documentation and oral traditions were the only form of historicity from then, now if you don't want to believe that's fine, but you will get the truth from me because I am not nor will I be afraid or ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and since Gods word isn't good enough for you to believe even though every prophecy has come to pass 100%, and most every place mentioned has been found and exactly how it was listed IN the bible your blood is on your own head and not required at my hands, you may believe just exactly what you want, but if I were you Id leave me alone,,,,OH YEAH and pre-flood is my speciality, the fallen weren't exactly aliens, the great pyramid was built before the flood then sealed and is a prophecy of Christ itself, yeah you may wanna do some real research then come at me, but I promise you one thing, you may leave in a sling but you will definitely learn how everything points to the truth of Christ, and since I have nothing nice to say, Good day to you.

 

[Crowns&Laurels]

Do you have the names and addresses of those eyewitnesses? or only stories of testimonies?

Do you need those things to deduce any other history? And, half the NT was written by Paul, and much of the rest by other disciples. The book of Acts was by an anonymous eyewitness. Revelation is the only book that isn't a testimony, but rather prophesy by John of Patmos.

These books have been preserved since the time they were written.

 

[Davian]

Why don't you read while I write little one,

I love the condescending tone. Do you feel that it makes your assertions more convincing?

in case you didn't know documentation and oral traditions were the only form of historicity from then,

I do know that, but it's not my problem.

now if you don't want to believe that's fine, but you will get the truth from me because I am not nor will I be afraid or ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and since Gods word

...your interpretation of the Bible...

isn't good enough for you to believe

Not in the absence of evidence to show that it comports with observations of reality.

even though every prophecy has come to pass 100%,

...if you cherry-pick and reinterpret as needed...

and most every place mentioned has been found and exactly how it was listed IN the bible your blood is on your own head and not required at my hands, you may believe just exactly what you want,

Belief is not a conscious choice. I cannot simply believe what I want to believe. How about you?

but if I were you Id leave me alone

You should note that the CF Philosophy forum is not intended for general apologetics of Christianity, i.e., the defense of the Christian faith against arguments, objections or attacks from non-Christians. Nor is this forum intended as a means for Christian evangelism (persuasion) of unbelievers.

,,,,OH YEAH and pre-flood is my speciality,

What flood?

the fallen weren't exactly aliens,

Really? What colour were they? Green? Grey?

the great pyramid was built before the flood then sealed

That's a new one. Were the Egyptians sealed in there too?

and is a prophecy of Christ itself, yeah you may wanna do some real research then come at me,

I wouldn't know where to start on that one.

but I promise you one thing, you may leave in a sling

I feel that Christian love already.

but you will definitely learn how everything points to the truth of Christ, and since I have nothing nice to say,

If you have nothing nice to say, come sit by me.

Good day to you.

And to you.

 

[Davian]

Do you need those things to deduce any other history?

It depends; are we are discussing the existence of an ancient human philosopher, such as Socrates, or are we contemplating a mysterious brainless intelligence that remains undetectable by any objective measure to date, yet is claimed to do have created this universe, govern what I should (or shouldn't) have on my head, with whom I can have sex, the fabrics I can wear, the food I eat, and polices the thoughts in my head?

And, half the NT was written by Paul, and much of the rest by other disciples. The book of Acts was by an anonymous eyewitness. Revelation is the only book that isn't a testimony, but rather prophesy by John of Patmos.

These books have been preserved since the time they were written.

It is my understanding that the books have been lost to the dusts of time, and we only have hand-written copies. Preserved they were not.

 

[Sketcher]

As I was being raised Christian, I was led to believe that the eyewitness apostles willfully died for their testimony and refused the opportunity to recant and go free. This is very powerful testimony, much more powerful than that of the 9/11 hijackers because those hijackers never professed first-hand knowledge of Islam.

I then discovered that this is a complete lie. There is no actual documented claim - whether in the Bible, in noncanonized texts, in Christian tradition, or even in secular history - which claims that the disciples were actually given the opportunity to go free if only they recanted their faith. We have no dialogue, and barely even any details of what actually happened.

I always imagined a Roman saying, "Recant your faith or you will be tortured and executed," but the line of questioning could've just as easily been something along the lines of, "You were preaching the gospel, weren't you? Deny this, and you'll be tortured until you admit to it. You will be executed at the end regardless of what you say." In either case, it would be recorded that the disciple "died for his faith."

Concerning the Romans: We know that Polycarp was given the opportunity to curse Christ, and subsequently he would go free. That's second century. We know other Christians were given that option in later persecutions as well, so we have the pattern that the Romans generally followed. What evidence do you have that they went against the pattern in the case of the Twelve?
Concerning the Jews: They let Peter and John go on the condition that they no longer teach the Gospel. Furthermore, the martyrdom of Stephen was at a Sanhedrin meeting after he confessed to it. Reading Acts 7, it is very unlikely that the Sanhedrin would have tortured him into confessing if he had denied it instead.

 

[juvenissun]

So then either you believe in aliens and Big Foot or else by your own admission your belief in Jesus is entirely biased and unwarranted.

Whatever you said, you failed the purpose of your OP (if there was one).
I do not care if my believe is biased to you or not. You need to give me a reason to be care about it.

 

[freezerman2000]

.

 

[ananda]

So my simple question is this:

Is there a method of logical scrutiny that we can apply which will result in reasonably accepting the resurrection as plausible while simultaneously deeming Elvis sightings, alien abductions, Big Foot, etc as implausible?

Not that I can see.

Besides your original questions, we also have these, among others: How do you know who the real writers of the ancient books were? How do you know that various authorities did not decide to rewrite those books? How do you know for sure that your reading of those books are uncorrupted and proper? How do you know that the writers of the books are in fact stating the truth? How do you know that the books chosen by somebodies in the past to be included were the correct books? How do you know that the books weren't written as fictional stories for children?

 

[Soyeong]

As I was being raised Christian, I was led to believe that the eyewitness apostles willfully died for their testimony and refused the opportunity to recant and go free. This is very powerful testimony, much more powerful than that of the 9/11 hijackers because those hijackers never professed first-hand knowledge of Islam.

I then discovered that this is a complete lie. There is no actual documented claim - whether in the Bible, in noncanonized texts, in Christian tradition, or even in secular history - which claims that the disciples were actually given the opportunity to go free if only they recanted their faith. We have no dialogue, and barely even any details of what actually happened.

I always imagined a Roman saying, "Recant your faith or you will be tortured and executed," but the line of questioning could've just as easily been something along the lines of, "You were preaching the gospel, weren't you? Deny this, and you'll be tortured until you admit to it. You will be executed at the end regardless of what you say." In either case, it would be recorded that the disciple "died for his faith."

So really we do not have the "Why die for a lie?" argument. The actual claim does not even exist, aside from being a pulpit invention, so belief in it is entirely unwarranted even if one is Christian. What evidence do we have then for the resurrection? Most like to say eyewitness testimony and the empty tomb. But claiming that a man rose from the dead necessitates that his grave is empty merely as a basic element of the claim itself, and no one external to the eyewitnesses verified that the grave was actually empty, so the empty grave does not count as additional evidence.

All we have is eyewitness testimony and the transformation of the disciples' lives. Quite literally nothing else. But consider that their eyewitness testimony is given to us second-hand, and is decades old by the time it appears in print. In today's world there are eyewitnesses who claim to have seen Elvis after his death; these testimonies are first-hand and given immediately, making them categorically better than the testimony of the disciples, and yet we dismiss Elvis sightings without even a shrug.

So my simple question is this:

Is there a method of logical scrutiny that we can apply which will result in reasonably accepting the resurrection as plausible while simultaneously deeming Elvis sightings, alien abductions, Big Foot, etc as implausible?

Saying that they were all given the final choice to recant or die is overstating the case. People die for lies all the time, but they don't tend to die for something that they were in a position to know was a lie. If they knew it was a lie, then what did they have to gain by spreading it? Why risk imprisonment and/or death, especially after other apostles were starting to be imprisoned and/or killed off? The remaining apostles had the opportunity to recant long before they reached the recant or die scenario.

 

[bhsmte]

Friend, you can either hear the word of God by the gospel found in the the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John(kjb), or you will be condemned in the judgment.

Manufactured fear, doesn't work on everybody.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Obviously, they couldn't dismiss a possibility that he may have just been a prodigy of cleverness. Perhaps some were faking, or weren't all as they thought to have been. Human skepticism knows little bounds.
Dying and coming back to life three days later however is not something a mortal human can do.

So you are saying that Jesus could fake the resurrection of Lazarus but could not fake his own resurrection? The Lazarus story says that Lazarus was quite dead, in fact there was the unmistakable stench of death that overwhelmed the crowd. That's pretty dead. Yet Jesus rose that man from the dead and the disciples were still hesitant and cowardly, but then suddenly they became bold after Jesus rose himself from the dead? So it's possible to rise a rotted corpse from the dead, but it's impossible to rise oneself from the dead?

Did anyone put a gun to those people's heads and inquire? All the apostles were willing to die, and they did. The blood of the saints secure their testimony.

Joseph Smith was martyred for his claims. Does that make them true? Does his martyrdom even give us a good reason to believe in his claims? No, because although he was shot to death, he was not given the chance to recant his claims and go free. He was going to die no matter what he said or did.

The disciples were martyred, but what were the circumstances? Imagine that the line of questioning was this:

Inquirer: "You were preaching the gospel, weren't you?" *Stands aside to reveal dozens of tools of torture.* "Don't lie to me, you'll just make it worse for yourself."

Eyewitness disciple: Well I'm going to die regardless, I might as well appear proud of my beliefs while also avoiding needless torture. "Yes, I preached the gospel!"

This is a scenario where the disciple could know full well that his claim of the resurrection is a lie and yet still will be executed without ever recanting. This scenario is not excluded as a possibility because we have no specific details of the martyrs of the eyewitnesses, and in fact I find it more likely than the scenario that the disciple was given the chance to recant and go free because generally criminals are not given the chance to go free no matter what they say (Christians were wrongfully charged with sedition and also arson after the fires of AD 64, both of which were capital crimes, and no amount of recanting would negate the death penalty). I've heard the claim that the Romans were itching to stamp out Christianity, and thus would've provided incentive for the disciples to recant (such as the promise of clemency), but the obvious question I respond with is this: "If the Romans wanted to stamp out Christianity, why did they allow Paul to write all those letters from prison to direct and organize the churches?" I've never in my life gotten a single response to this, let alone a satisfactory one.

I'm sorry, was that in your original challenge?
I am not obliged to argue against new lines
of inquiry that are off topic.

You aren't obligated to argue against anything. Do what thou wilt.

But yes, it was in the original challenge. The quote of mine to which you are referring is,

Ask yourself how that very brief description of James' death refutes the idea that James completely fabricated the resurrection or the idea that the resurrection was invented decades after Jesus' death.

Observe that in my original proposal I said,

So really we do not have the "Why die for a lie?" argument.

This is presented as a conclusion to my argument. My entire case is summarized as follows:

1.) It generally makes no sense for a group of people to invent a religious lie and then be willing to die for it, so if the disciples were given the chance to recant and go free, yet declined to do so, then that is powerful evidence for their testimony of the resurrection.
2.) Aside from pulpit inventions, there is no actual claim in Christianity that the disciples were given the chance to recant and go free. Therefore premise 1.) is not satisfied.
3.) There is generally no good evidence to conclude that Jesus rose from the dead, so belief in it based entirely on faith, not reason. Furthermore, belief in the resurrection is biased if one refuses other eyewitness testimonies, such as that of alien abductions or Elvis sightings.

And I leave it to you to deduce

4.) There is generally no good reason to accept Christianity over any other religion aside from having been conditioned to believe in it from youth.

If you do not agree that this summarizes the intent of my original challenge, then that's fine with me. The point still stands as an opposition to your worldview, regardless of if I presented it in the correct legal format.

It is said that it was not from whooping cough.
It was related to his adherence to his beliefs.

And Joseph Smith did not die of a cough but rather for his adherence to his beliefs. That does not convince me to believe in anything he said.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Are all you people serious, I really thought this was a Christian forum and you don't trust the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there are over 500 documented accounts of people seeing Christ after the crucifixion, the 12 apostles were a group of cowards in hiding until Christ appeared to them and later gave them the Holy Spirit then they were bold as lions.

But too faith is a choice, and it comes from the heart, I cant tell you what to believe even if I know it to be true, so believe what you want.

Good day

500 documented accounts? No, there is one documented account where Paul says there were 500 unnamed people who saw the risen Jesus. Being unnamed, we are left to trust Paul at his word. How did he know this happened? Was he there? As I recall, he was Saul at that time and hadn't even started hating Christianity yet.

Why were the disciples cowardly after seeing all of Jesus' countless miracles including one where he brought a rotting corpse back to life, and then they become bold as lions after one last miracle?

Do you need those things to deduce any other history? And, half the NT was written by Paul, and much of the rest by other disciples. The book of Acts was by an anonymous eyewitness. Revelation is the only book that isn't a testimony, but rather prophesy by John of Patmos.

These books have been preserved since the time they were written.

Actually the disciples didn't do much writing at all. The gospels were not eyewitness accounts. Neither Matthew nor John wrote their gospels. This is generally accepted among all scholars, Christian or otherwise.

Concerning the Romans: We know that Polycarp was given the opportunity to curse Christ, and subsequently he would go free. That's second century. We know other Christians were given that option in later persecutions as well, so we have the pattern that the Romans generally followed. What evidence do you have that they went against the pattern in the case of the Twelve?
Concerning the Jews: They let Peter and John go on the condition that they no longer teach the Gospel. Furthermore, the martyrdom of Stephen was at a Sanhedrin meeting after he confessed to it. Reading Acts 7, it is very unlikely that the Sanhedrin would have tortured him into confessing if he had denied it instead.

Polycarp was given the opportunity to recant because he was so very old and even the Romans were hesitant to brutalize an old man. Polycarp was the exception, yet you portray him as a common example. You say there are others. Who were they, and can you show that they were not also special cases (like a pregnant woman, a former hero of Rome who converted to Christianity, etc) that were given (or at least offered) leniency?

So what evidence do I have that the Romans "went against this pattern with the twelve"? Firstly, you've yet to establish a pattern, but let's suppose you did. Showing that there was a pattern in the second century tells us nothing about what happened in the first century because when you get a new emperor, the world abruptly changes. Consider the last few kings of Judah when they were being attacked by Babylon in 2 Kings 25. Jehoiachin was captured and thrown into a dungeon for 37 years. But then Nebuchadnezzar dies, Evilmerodach takes over, and Jehoiachin lived decently for the rest of his life. That surely went against the pattern Jehoiachin had been observing. And lastly, there's the obvious: why allow Paul to direct and organize the churches from within your own prison if you are making such barbaric efforts to get Christians to recant?

You have no evidence that the twelve were given the chance to recant and go free, so even if you are Christian you are unwarranted in believing that.

Also, I'm not sure what you are arguing when you bring up Stephen. Stephen was not an eyewitness - he claims to have seen Jesus standing beside God, but other people were there and they saw nothing. When I say eyewtiness, I'm referring to people who claim to have seen the risen Jesus in a very real and physical sense. In the sense where photons are bouncing off him and are free for all eyes to see. Paul was not an eyewitness either, but the fact that he was allowed to write all those letters in prison shows that the Romans were not doing everything they could to crush Christianity.

Lastly, Peter and John were, as you said, released on condition they don't preach. Not on the condition that they recant. So when they went out and preached again, they'd be punished for preaching and the Romans wouldn't care if they recanted just like they didn't care the first time.

It really makes no sense to me that the Romans wanted the Christians to recant. The law of the land was that you could have as many gods as you wanted as long as you also honored the Roman gods. The Romans were angry at the Christians because the Christians were teaching that the Romans had false gods. This was sedition, punishable by death, and recanting Jesus had nothing to do with anything.

Whatever you said, you failed the purpose of your OP (if there was one).
I do not care if my believe is biased to you or not. You need to give me a reason to be care about it.

You have no reason to care whether or not Christianity is true?

Not that I can see.

Besides your original questions, we also have these, among others: How do you know who the real writers of the ancient books were? How do you know that various authorities did not decide to rewrite those books? How do you know for sure that your reading of those books are uncorrupted and proper? How do you know that the writers of the books are in fact stating the truth? How do you know that the books chosen by somebodies in the past to be included were the correct books? How do you know that the books weren't written as fictional stories for children?

I wouldn't really entertain the notion that they were intended as fictional stories for children, but you otherwise have good questions.

Saying that they were all given the final choice to recant or die is overstating the case. People die for lies all the time, but they don't tend to die for something that they were in a position to know was a lie. If they knew it was a lie, then what did they have to gain by spreading it? Why risk imprisonment and/or death, especially after other apostles were starting to be imprisoned and/or killed off? The remaining apostles had the opportunity to recant long before they reached the recant or die scenario.

Again, Joseph Smith died as a result of spreading his beliefs. There are many here who believe that Joseph Smith knew full well that he was lying about it all. So you have to ask yourself, "What does being martyred prove? What are the specific circumstances of each death?"

 

[Soyeong]

Again, Joseph Smith died as a result of spreading his beliefs. There are many here who believe that Joseph Smith knew full well that he was lying about it all. So you have to ask yourself, "What does being martyred prove? What are the specific circumstances of each death?"

I'm confused as to why you would think that is comparable.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I'm confused as to why you would think that is comparable.

Whether or not the disciples were given the opportunity to recant is the point in question. If they weren't, then we have two major points of comparison:

Both Joseph Smith and the disciples died for their beliefs.

Both parties were not given the opportunity to recant.


If you want to claim that Christians were given the opportunity to recant, then you must explain why. If your explanation is that the Romans were trying to stamp out Christianity, then you must explain why they allowed Paul to write letters to the churches for the purposes of directing and organizing their activities.

 

[ananda]

... the Romans were trying to stamp out Christianity, then you must explain why they allowed Paul to write letters to the churches for the purposes of directing and organizing their activities.

Some have suggested that many of Paul's teachings are different than Jesus'.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Some have suggested that many of Paul's teachings are different than Jesus'.

That may be true, but I am trying to find an answer that doesn't discredit the Bible.