Reasonable belief in the resurrection?

Soyeong

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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.

I'm not sure if you read my first post. In any case, all three of these don't tend to be true: they believed it was a lie, they had the opportunity to see the negative consequences if they continued with the lie, and they had the opportunity to change course, but didn't. I think the apostles were give the opportunity to change course once they started being killed, but I don't think Joseph Smith had that opportunity. Once he had the newspaper burned down and incited a riot, there wasn't much he could do to change course. Furthermore, he wasn't imprisoned for being a Mormon, but for charges in regard to burning down the newspaper.
 
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juvenissun

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

I have no reason to give you a scientific proof that Jesus resurrected.
If you do not require a scientific proof, then I do have many other proofs to talk about.
 
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bhsmte

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I have no reason to give you a scientific proof that Jesus resurrected.
If you do not require a scientific proof, then I do have many other proofs to talk about.

To show us you are not using the term; "proofs", loosely, can you demonstrate these "proofs"
 
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SkyWriting

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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.

#1) The quote "be willing to die for it" is much larger than your narrow requirement for recanting, so your disingenuous restriction is denied.

#2) The topic of denying Jesus for ones own benefit is covered in the Gospel of John 18:13-27 as it describes the account of the three denials.
Denying God and the alternate direction men take is a solid theme in scripture.

#3)
- We believe Christ's resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history.

- After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted on the minds of human beings--or it is the most remarkable fact of history. - Josh McDowell

- The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Part I (.PDF)
- THE HISTORICITY OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST (.PDF)


#4) This "deduction" has no connection to the rest of your post. And I can't relate to this new sermon point anyway.
My parents do not attend nor have been members nor are believers. I became a believer in my 30's
mostly because I was already familiar with every science fiction book in our school library.
Science fiction is science fiction no matter what class it's taught in.
 
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juvenissun

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To show us you are not using the term; "proofs", loosely, can you demonstrate these "proofs"

If you do not require a scientific level of proof, I can certainly show you many proofs, include some logic ones. In fact, other people in this thread have done some good jobs.
 
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bhsmte

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If you do not require a scientific level of proof, I can certainly show you many proofs, include some logic ones. In fact, other people in this thread have done some good jobs.

Go for it.

By the way, science doesn't do proofs, that was your word.
 
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Sketcher

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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?
Everyone during Trajan's reign. Many in the third century.
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.
Possibly, but the burden of proof is on you to show that Nero's policy didn't allow for the possibility of recanting. Roman-led persecutions against Christians followed what he did, what evidence do you have that they became more merciful as a matter of course, even though history is clear that they hated Christians enough to torture them?
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?
Break him, and you break the churches he writes to. Besides, if you let him write, you have a better idea of who and where they are.
Also, I'm not sure what you are arguing when you bring up Stephen.
As an example of the Sanhedrin's policy. Even in their corrupt state, they likely would have let him go if he hadn't confessed Christianity.
Lastly, Peter and John were, as you said, released on condition they don't preach. Not on the condition that they recant.
Not preaching was tantamount to recanting, everyone in that chamber knew it. Yet they kept preaching, after Peter's imprisonment, and John's brother James died. John knew what was going to catch up to him if he kept preaching, if Jesus didn't return first.
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.
Do you have evidence for this beyond your conjecture?
 
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Ana the Ist

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

Is there any specific information? It's not like it was illegal to be christian or jewish under Roman law. They had some direct persecutions under Nero...but that's because he needed a scapegoat and christians fit the bill...not because of their religious beliefs.

So that throws a pretty big shadow of doubt across this alleged martyrdom of Peter.
 
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Ana the Ist

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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.

I already asked this of someone else...but what exactly were they being executed for? Were they being executed by the Jews or Romans?
 
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SkyWriting

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So that throws a pretty big shadow of doubt across this alleged martyrdom of Peter.

Only if you can document that he recanted his faith.
That would be the only reason to remove a person
from consideration of death-due-to-religious-beliefs.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Only if you can document that he recanted his faith.
That would be the only reason to remove a person
from consideration of death-due-to-religious-beliefs.

I can document that Rome had an almost unparalleled level of religious acceptance for that age in the world and didn't execute people for their religious beliefs. The religious beliefs of Romans ranged from the very popular to the very obscure...all were permitted to believe/worship as they wanted.
The fact that you haven't even come up with the grounds on which Peter was being executed casts some rather serious doubt on whether or not it happened.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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I'm not sure if you read my first post. In any case, all three of these don't tend to be true: they believed it was a lie, they had the opportunity to see the negative consequences if they continued with the lie, and they had the opportunity to change course, but didn't. I think the apostles were give the opportunity to change course once they started being killed, but I don't think Joseph Smith had that opportunity. Once he had the newspaper burned down and incited a riot, there wasn't much he could do to change course. Furthermore, he wasn't imprisoned for being a Mormon, but for charges in regard to burning down the newspaper.

I read everything that everyone says to me. I think it's you who didn't read what I had to say. Again, imagine the following line of questioning:

"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."

To someone who is biased towards a certain idea, things which seem relevant but aren't can still serve as confirmation of the idea's validity. Someone biased towards the resurrection would see little difference between the above scenario and a different line of questioning wherein the inquirer says, "Recant your faith and go free or you will be brutally tortured and executed." Both scenarios would be described as the disciple "dying for this faith." But in the scenario I present, did he really die for his faith? Isn't it possible that this hypothetical disciple could've been preaching the gospel while it was safe to do so, and then ceased when he saw other disciples being executed, yet was still arrested for his reputation? I don't know if the ancient world knew or cared about the fact that laws should not be applied retroactively. This is a very conceivable scenario in which the resurrection is fully known to be a lie, and all of the disciples' behavior is easily explainable without any miracles.

Any reasonable person must admit that the resurrection is not a fact, but rather a conclusion (just like how evolution is not a fact, but rather a conclusion). In the scenario laid out above, I don't contradict any of the facts, yet I do present a case where the conclusion is that Jesus did not rise from the dead. When two scenarios are pitted against each other, and one of them argues for the occurrence of a miracle the likes of which have never been seen before or since, then by default the other scenario is better.

With regards to Joseph Smith, I appreciate that you investigated the circumstances of his death. That was my entire point. Like you, I don't think his martyr is enough to convince any reasonable person that his testimony was genuine. If you apply the same level of scrutiny to your own beliefs, you will see there are simply so few facts on this issue that belief can only stem from faith, not from reason. Faith will lead you to Christianity, and reason will lead you to atheism. It is only a matter of which of the two you value higher.



Go for it.

By the way, science doesn't do proofs, that was your word.
It does sometimes.
If science rarely make proof, the the OP would be even more meaningless.

We are getting into a game of semantics here, but bhsmte is correct: science cannot offer proof of anything. Proofs are restricted to logic and mathematics. In science we can only demonstrate something beyond reasonable doubt, such as the fact that the earth is a sphere, but there is never absolute certainty. In mathematics, if the axioms are assumed to be true then I can prove with absolute certainty that Pythagorean's theorem is true.

It does sometimes.
If science rarely make proof, the the OP would be even more meaningless.

I'm not sure why you think science has anything to do with this. This is a historical claim and requires historical evidence. To you, apparently, the second-hand, decades-old eyewitness testimony of a dozen biased individuals is sufficient to demonstrate that a man rose from the dead and then ascended into heaven. I then ask why you don't believe in aliens or Big Foot, and you don't take me seriously - despite the fact that these propositions are supported with far greater eyewitness testimony.


To show us you are not using the term; "proofs", loosely, can you demonstrate these "proofs"
If you do not require a scientific level of proof, I can certainly show you many proofs, include some logic ones. In fact, other people in this thread have done some good jobs.

You almost had me, then you said that other people here have done a good job of defending the resurrection. Perhaps I missed a really good argument; can you quote one? Also, I am intrigued that you believe you can logically show that Jesus rose from the dead. I would love to hear what you have to say.
 
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Nihilist Virus

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#1) The quote "be willing to die for it" is much larger than your narrow requirement for recanting, so your disingenuous restriction is denied.

But what if they did recant, yet still were executed? Would you still say they died for their beliefs? What if they were never given the option? What about the disciples who were not publicly executed but rather were assassinated with little or no warning? If you accuse me of being disingenuous and then suddenly say nothing else, you are offering nothing to back up that accusation. Please support your claim and explain how I am being disingenuous.

#2) The topic of denying Jesus for ones own benefit is covered in the Gospel of John 18:13-27 as it describes the account of the three denials.
Denying God and the alternate direction men take is a solid theme in scripture.

Reminding me about the time Peter recanted to save his own life is your evidence that the inquirers were torturing disciples in the hopes of making them recant? Since we have essentially no details about Peter's martyr, couldn't we conclude that it's possible that the Romans did in fact coax Peter into recanting, only to laugh at him and execute him anyway? Would that contradict any themes present in the Bible? Would that destroy the Christian faith, or would the people of that savage era already know that you could get someone to say whatever you want if you torture them enough?


I will list some facts that I presumed to be common ground. Please let me know if you dispute anything:

1. No one is known to have visited the tomb after Easter Sunday, or in other words it was not verified by another party
2. Claiming that someone rose physically from the dead necessitates that their tomb is empty, and in fact an empty tomb is a necessary element to even the most basic resurrection claim
3. The "empty tomb" is therefore not additional evidence on top of the eyewitness testimony
4. There is no documented claim anywhere - not in the Bible, or in noncanonized texts, or in Christian tradition, or even in secular history - which makes the actual claim that the disciples were given the chance to go free if only they recanted
5. The 500 witnesses mentioned by Paul are not given by name, nor is their existence proposed by anyone else
6. The eyewitness testimonies of the disciples are given to us second-hand, since neither Matthew nor John actually wrote their gospels, and furthermore these second-hand testimonies are first documented at least a decade later
7. Of the disciples that were arrested and tried publicly, nothing at all is actually known about the circumstances of their arrest or trial; combined with point 4., there is no actual reason to claim that they willfully died for their faith
8. In conclusion, the "Why die for a lie?" argument and the "Transformation of the disciples" argument do not withstand scrutiny; due to the lack of known facts, we are unable to either verify or falsify the claims
9. The only fact, therefore, that supports the resurrection claim is given in 6.


I have read More than a Carpenter. It was generally convincing to me because I was Christian at the time. I don't care to read it again, but if you provide me with some of the stronger arguments from it then I'll indulge you.

I skimmed those PDFs and saw no actual attempt at proving anything. It was first a bunch of scholars who were former skeptics, then some claims about Jesus' post-mortem appearances (these were particularly worthless because I would have to be an idiot if I rejected the resurrection despite having these appearances as evidence; the matter of fact is that these appearances are the very point in question, and yet they are listed almost in the beginning as if they are evidence - is this an attempt at deception?), followed by some of the weakest skeptical responses available. If I missed something of substance, let me know.


#4) This "deduction" has no connection to the rest of your post. And I can't relate to this new sermon point anyway.
My parents do not attend nor have been members nor are believers. I became a believer in my 30's
mostly because I was already familiar with every science fiction book in our school library.
Science fiction is science fiction no matter what class it's taught in.

It sounds as if you are saying that you accept Christianity because you reject evolution and the Big Bang. I'd be happy to explain to you on another thread or in private why these things are overwhelmingly true. Regardless, your skepticism on these matters is not appropriate grounds for accepting Christianity.

Everyone during Trajan's reign. Many in the third century.

You are missing the point. I'm asking for eyewitnesses who were given the chance to recant. No eyewitness of Jesus lived until the beginning of Trajan's reign, let alone the third century.

The very first thing I said was:

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.

Moving on...

Possibly, but the burden of proof is on you to show that Nero's policy didn't allow for the possibility of recanting. Roman-led persecutions against Christians followed what he did, what evidence do you have that they became more merciful as a matter of course, even though history is clear that they hated Christians enough to torture them?

To say that the burden of proof is on me is to say that if I fail to meet this burden, then your claim stands as true. But your claim has no evidence to back it up (and neither does mine, by the way), so essentially you're saying that you can make up a claim with no evidence whatsoever and it's true unless proven otherwise.

Break him, and you break the churches he writes to. Besides, if you let him write, you have a better idea of who and where they are.

Or you let him write and simply read the letters without delivering them.

As an example of the Sanhedrin's policy. Even in their corrupt state, they likely would have let him go if he hadn't confessed Christianity.

Again, I don't care about what happened to Stephen. He is not an eyewitness because what he saw was not visible to other people at the same event. Read my first paragraph in the OP.

Not preaching was tantamount to recanting, everyone in that chamber knew it. Yet they kept preaching, after Peter's imprisonment, and John's brother James died. John knew what was going to catch up to him if he kept preaching, if Jesus didn't return first.

Fact: we don't know the circumstances of their deaths. We don't have details on why they were arrested or executed.

Do you have evidence for this beyond your conjecture?

It's your own conjecture. Your response here is to my quote:

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.

But the above is simply my response to your original quote:

They let Peter and John go on the condition that they no longer teach the Gospel.

There is no mention of the disciples being asked to recant in the first encounter, so why do you think they would be tortured into recanting during the second encounter?


Only if you can document that he recanted his faith.
That would be the only reason to remove a person
from consideration of death-due-to-religious-beliefs.

So essentially you're saying you will believe in something until it is proven wrong. The flat earthers had a good run with that form of logic.

The fact is that there are so few details that I'm unable to verify my case and you're unable to verify yours. I even led with the fact that there are virtually no details of Peter's execution. Christians love to say, "From nothing, nothing comes." Well, you have nothing in regards to details, so you cannot extrapolate an actual case for anything.
 
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juvenissun

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We are getting into a game of semantics here, but bhsmte is correct: science cannot offer proof of anything. Proofs are restricted to logic and mathematics. In science we can only demonstrate something beyond reasonable doubt, such as the fact that the earth is a sphere, but there is never absolute certainty. In mathematics, if the axioms are assumed to be true then I can prove with absolute certainty that Pythagorean's theorem is true.

So, what kind of proof you are asking in the OP? Math proof or logic proof?
 
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juvenissun

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If you have a Phd in geology as you claim, you certainly should know science doesn't deal in proof.

Wrong attitude. Science is trying hard to prove. For example, we can try to prove there is a force called gravity force. And we are trying very hard to prove that soul does exist.
 
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So, what kind of proof you are asking in the OP? Math proof or logic proof?

It doesn't make sense to me that either would be applicable in this case at all, but you said you have a logical proof for the resurrection so I'd like to see that.

What I was asking for was a strong historical argument demonstrating that Jesus very likely rose from the dead.
 
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bhsmte

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Wrong attitude. Science is trying hard to prove. For example, we can try to prove there is a force called gravity force. And we are trying very hard to prove that soul does exist.

My point stands.

In fact, you just reinforced it.
 
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