Dealing with Atheists

[jeffinjapan]

The majority of my co-workers are atheists and when we go out for a few beers we always end up talking about religion. Last night, someone brought up the topic that many other religions claim that their leader died and rose from the dead just like Jesus did; meaning that Christianity is not unique since many other religions make the same claim.

I have heard this argument before but I don’t know much about the claims. Can someone help me out, please?

 

[Spirithound]

The majority of my co-workers are atheists and when we go out for a few beers we always end up talking about religion. Last night, someone brought up the topic that many other religions claim that their leader died and rose from the dead just like Jesus did; meaning that Christianity is not unique since many other religions make the same claim.

I have heard this argument before but I don’t know much about the claims. Can someone help me out, please?

Simple answer: they don’t. Ask your friend for examples.

 

[AntiTheist]

Simple answer: they don’t. Ask your friend for examples.

The claim that gods (or god-men) have died and been resurrected has long been a part of world myths. Many of these gods were fertility gods whose death and rebirth signified the rebirth of the seasons.

If I’m not mistaken, it was once in vogue for Christians to claim that these various dying and reborn pagan gods actually symbolically prefigured Christ – others claimed that these gods were actually demons who attempted to blasphemously parody Christ’s eventual sacrifice.

Of course, both of those arguments involve special pleading and question begging – you need to assume already that Christianity is true in order to make them.

Usually, Christians simply argue that Christ’s story is unique among the dying-reborn gods because his particular death and rebirth is not merely a symbol of the changing seasons, but the whole new covenant blood sacrifice to atone for original sin blah blah blah. This, too, is a kind of special pleading, and it’s certainly not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you, but it’s probably the best you can do.

Incidentally, there are some atheists who have foolishly bought into the bizarre idea that Christianity is some kind of conspiracy theory consciously cobbled together out of earlier myths. This idea is just dumb, and if any of your friends think this, you should let them know that other atheists scoff at that nonsense.

 

[bnbkaine]

gregboyd.org/essays/apologetics/did-jesus-rise-from-the-dead/

This very interesting article deals with some heresies, but I like this excerpt from under the paragraph entitled: Could the Resurrection be a Myth?
“This letter is written a mere twenty years after Jesus had died. That is, by customary historical standards, very close to the event. This itself rules out the possibility that the story of Jesus’ resurrection was a complete myth, for myths take long periods of time to develop, even in environments which are conducive to them. But in this case we’re dealing with an orthodox Jew (Paul) who is advocating something that is antithetical to his foundational Jewish beliefs. If Paul were to invent a myth, this would not have been it!”

I won’t even get into how a book, even if you take the Bible as just a piece of fiction, could interweave this story together so perfectly. Old and New Testaments combine on many different levels all pointing to salvation through God.

If atheists still want to argue, then I find a good way to gently avoid it is to tell them that I will pray for them. Like, AntiTheist, I will pray for you. Actually, I just did. Haha- try to stop me! Hehehe.

I don’t think it is wrong to say, “I don’t know all that I need to, but I know the truth” and leave it at that. Good luck! And I’ll be praying for you too!

PS- AntiTheist- Sent another prayer to God for you. Hope to meet you one day! (like in Heaven- not in a stalker-ish way. Man, I crack myself up. )

 

[Timothy17]

I was an “atheist.”

Truth be told, most atheists find themselves hating God and especially the Catholic Church. Therein, for them, lies the Truth they will have to wrestle with. If atheism be true, it is an amusing waste of time to argue about God, religion or the Church. Fact is, they are driven by passion, based on a misinformed representation of God or, in some cases, an overly self-pleasing notion of their own intelligence. For them, believing in God means giving up their self-determination, which is a terrible fright and difficult thing to do. Trust -even in God- is not easy for any human. We all wreslte with it.

The existence and presence of the Church will always stand as a testament to God’s reality; therefore, there is an instrinsic desire in atheists to defame and discredit her - to make her go away.

Be patient with your atheist friends and know that in their deepest being they too wrestle. A consciousness of their atheism is generally evidence of a “hang-up” on the God question.

 

[Spirithound]

If I’m not mistaken, it was once in vogue for Christians to claim that these various dying and reborn pagan gods actually symbolically prefigured Christ – others claimed that these gods were actually demons who attempted to blasphemously parody Christ’s eventual sacrifice.

When was the “prefigurement” option in vogue?
Justin Martyr opines that the possible parallels are demonic mockeries.

 

[AntiTheist]

“This letter is written a mere twenty years after Jesus had died. That is, by customary historical standards, very close to the event. This itself rules out the possibility that the story of Jesus’ resurrection was a complete myth, for myths take long periods of time to develop, even in environments which are conducive to them. But in this case we’re dealing with an orthodox Jew (Paul) who is advocating something that is antithetical to his foundational Jewish beliefs. If Paul were to invent a myth, this would not have been it!”

A guy who is not an eyewitness writing about a story that supposedly took place twenty years prior isn’t compelling evidence of supernatural events. Even if he were an eyewitness, it wouldn’t be evidence that supernatural things happened.

I’ll use an analogy (and, as always, the comparison is between standards of evidence – I’m not suggesting that your god is like a UFO): there are eyewitnesses of alien abductions that took place twenty years ago – you can go and talk to them right now. Does that make alien abductions any more likely to be true? Their eye-witness testimony is not evidence for such a wild claim.

But let’s say we don’t have their eye-witness testimony. Let’s say, instead, that I collect their stories – as far as I know them, twenty years removed from them – and write them down. In 2,000 years, would my report of these stories be evidence for alien abductions?

If atheists still want to argue, then I find a good way to gently avoid it is to tell them that I will pray for them. Like, AntiTheist, I will pray for you. Actually, I just did. Haha- try to stop me! Hehehe.

I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop you from thinking whatever bizarre things you like to think quietly to yourself.

PS- AntiTheist- Sent another prayer to God for you. Hope to meet you one day! (like in Heaven- not in a stalker-ish way. Man, I crack myself up. )

It’s been noted often enough how arrogant and insulting this attitude is, so I typically just respond: “You pray for me, and I’ll think for you, buddy.”

Timothy17:

Truth be told, most atheists find themselves hating God and especially the Catholic Church.

A textbook example of projecting your own issues onto other people. Personally, I have nothing but positive memories of my time in Catholic school and all of my religious friends. There’s just no evidence for any of this supernatural stuff. That’s all.

Spirithound:

When was the “prefigurement” option in vogue?
Justin Martyr opines that the possible parallels are demonic mockeries.

Perhaps it was never in vogue, but I could have sworn I’ve heard it before. If I’m wrong about that, so be it. My objection still stands.

 

[Contarini]

The majority of my co-workers are atheists and when we go out for a few beers we always end up talking about religion. Last night, someone brought up the topic that many other religions claim that their leader died and rose from the dead just like Jesus did; meaning that Christianity is not unique since many other religions make the same claim.

I have heard this argument before but I don’t know much about the claims. Can someone help me out, please?

Ask them to name these. Yes, there are myths of dying gods. But ask if there is any other religion which claims a historical founder who rose from the dead. Not saying there isn’t one, but certainly none of the other major religions have such a founder.

That of course doesn’t prove Christianity true. But neither would the presence of other such claims prove Christianity false. The real question is whether Jesus did rise from the dead, not whether others claimed to do so.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

If I’m not mistaken, it was once in vogue for Christians to claim that these various dying and reborn pagan gods actually symbolically prefigured Christ – others claimed that these gods were actually demons who attempted to blasphemously parody Christ’s eventual sacrifice.

Of course, both of those arguments involve special pleading and question begging – you need to assume already that Christianity is true in order to make them.

Sure. But the point is that if there are good reasons to believe Christianity true on other grounds, the existence of such myths is exactly what one would expect and do not pose serious difficulties (I don’t see that they pose any difficulties at all) for Christianity.

Of course such myths do not prove Christianity. Their existence is entirely compatible with the resurrection never having happened, or with it having happened once, although I suppose the myths would be even more compatible with the resurrection having happened many times.

Usually, Christians simply argue that Christ’s story is unique among the dying-reborn gods because his particular death and rebirth is not merely a symbol of the changing seasons, but the whole new covenant blood sacrifice to atone for original sin blah blah blah. This, too, is a kind of special pleading, and it’s certainly not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you, but it’s probably the best you can do.

No. The “prefiguring” theory is much, much stronger. It’s extremely odd that you would find the obvious special pleading of your “best” example superior to the perfectly reasonable idea that a genuine divine intervention in history would be prefigured by human myths.

I think that Jesus’ sacrifice is unique in many respects. But the fact that it has a lot of unique elements doesn’t explain away the obvious similarities with the dying-god myths. (I think we agree on this, and the point of difference would be whether the “prefiguring” explanation works or not.)

Incidentally, there are some atheists who have foolishly bought into the bizarre idea that Christianity is some kind of conspiracy theory consciously cobbled together out of earlier myths. This idea is just dumb, and if any of your friends think this, you should let them know that other atheists scoff at that nonsense.

Good point. And of course many Christians scoff at what we see as nonsensical defenses of Christianity too

However, as your post shows, reasonable people (whether Christian or not) can differ on which explanation makes more sense. Often it’s based on one’s premises. I suspect that I have a more “myth-friendly” view of the world than either you or many modern Christians (especially conservative Protestants, who are likely to go for the “unique” explanation which you see as the best we can do).

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

When was the “prefigurement” option in vogue?
Justin Martyr opines that the possible parallels are demonic mockeries.

Right–that’s generally how the early Christians saw it, because they thought the pagan gods were demons. However, in a sense this is a kind of “prefigurement” theory in the sense that the demons were seen as unwillingly bearing witness to the truth of Christ (just as they did when He was on earth). Furthermore, Justin Martyr and others had no problem seeing pagan philosophers as prefiguring Christian truth. It’s logical, once you get away from the immediate situation of Christian-pagan conflict, to apply this same idea to pagan myths. I would argue that you see a form of this in the Middle Ages and Renaissance–Christians saw pagan literature as Christian allegory in many cases, and Renaissance theorists were particularly explicit about making these connections. The most famous modern proponent of this view is C. S. Lewis–G. K. Chesterton made similar arguments. Atheists typically pooh-pooh this, but as I said I think this is because atheists (like many modern Christians) start from the assumption that myth and truth are somehow incompatible.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

A guy who is not an eyewitness writing about a story that supposedly took place twenty years prior isn’t compelling evidence of supernatural events. Even if he were an eyewitness, it wouldn’t be evidence that supernatural things happened.

Could we rephrase it this way: “If I have good reason not to accept the view of the world implicit in this story, then I am not going to change my view of reality because of this story”? I would agree that this is an entirely reasonable position.

However, the corollary of this is: “If I think there are good reasons to believe in the view of the world implicit in this story, then it is entirely reasonable for me to think that this story happened.”

I’ll use an analogy (and, as always, the comparison is between standards of evidence – I’m not suggesting that your god is like a UFO): there are eyewitnesses of alien abductions that took place twenty years ago – you can go and talk to them right now. Does that make alien abductions any more likely to be true? Their eye-witness testimony is not evidence for such a wild claim.

It depends. If I knew these people and knew them to be wise and reasonable–if their encounters with aliens had changed their lives and if the view of reality they propounded on the basis of these encounters seemed to be wise and good–then I’d be open to it. In fact, people who claim to have these encounters seem like unreliable people for the most part, and when they start religions on the basis of those encounters the substance of the religions is pretty thin.

Edwin

 

[FightingFat]

The majority of my co-workers are atheists and when we go out for a few beers we always end up talking about religion. Last night, someone brought up the topic that many other religions claim that their leader died and rose from the dead just like Jesus did; meaning that Christianity is not unique since many other religions make the same claim.

I have heard this argument before but I don’t know much about the claims. Can someone help me out, please?

As others have said, their isn’t really any comparison to Jesus, not a demi-god or a god in human form, but actually God made man. The transcendence of God is stressed in Jewish & Islamic culture. Antitheist’s thing about dying & rebirth doesn’t really apply if you understand Christian thought. We can see the cyclical nature of time represented in ancient symbols. Hebrew Revelation began a new idea of a teleological time line.

 

[Contarini]

As others have said, their isn’t really any comparison to Jesus, not a demi-god or a god in human form, but actually God made man. The transcendence of God is stressed in Jewish & Islamic culture. Antitheist’s thing about dying & rebirth doesn’t really apply if you understand Christian thought. We can see the cyclical nature of time represented in ancient symbols. Hebrew Revelation began a new idea of a teleological time line.

I think you’re confusing two things:

1. The claim that myths of dying gods are exactly the same thing as the Christian view. This is obviously false, though a few particularly naive atheists will say something like this. Your remarks are relevant here.
2. The claim that the Christian story is best explained as the transplantation of a dying-god myth into the very different soil of Judaeo-Christian apocalypticism. In other words, it’s simply more probable that Hellenistic Jewish (and God-fearing Gentile) followers of a crucified Jewish rabbi named Jesus put together elements of their Jewish heritage (apocalyptic Messiah figure bringing in God’s kingdom) with mythical ideas from their pagan cultural context (miraculous conception; dying god) than that the thing actually happened.

Your statements don’t refute this second, more sophisticated explanation at all. Whether one goes with this explanation or not is going to depend on whether one finds the Christian view of reality to be a convincing one or not, I think.

My own difficulties with the Faith are not primarily rooted in historical questions, although of course if the evidence were more conclusive I’d be less likely to doubt.

Nor are my reasons for believing in spite of these difficulties primarily rooted in the historical evidence, although of course if most reputable archeologists came to believe that Jesus’ body had been discovered I’d find it much harder to go on believing.

In other words, strictly historical questions play an auxiliary role on either side, though that doesn’t make them unimportant.

Edwin

 

[AntiTheist]

Hi Edwin,

No. The “prefiguring” theory is much, much stronger. It’s extremely odd that you would find the obvious special pleading of your “best” example superior to the perfectly reasonable idea that a genuine divine intervention in history would be prefigured by human myths.

Maybe “best” was too hasty of me, but as far as I’m concerned, all the arguments involve already accepting Christianity as true.

I suspect that I have a more “myth-friendly” view of the world than either you or many modern Christians

I don’t know about that. I enjoy Joseph Campbell’s books, and I think that there’s a lot that people can take away from myths (including the Jesus myth). I just don’t think that there’s sufficient evidence to accept any of the myths as true.

It depends. If I knew these people [who claimed to have been abducted by aliens] and knew them to be wise and reasonable–if their encounters with aliens had changed their lives and if the view of reality they propounded on the basis of these encounters seemed to be wise and good–then I’d be open to it.

Well, this is the point where you and I differ. If I knew a very with-it and trustworthy person who told me one day that he had been abducted by aliens, what I think the most likely conclusion would be, based solely on the evidence of his personal testimony, is that he was simply mistaken.

I would not accept his testimony as compelling evidence that aliens are abducting people.

And we’re not talking about eyewitness testimony when it comes to these ancient accounts, either. We’re talking about 2,000 year old texts that have been copied, translated, transcribed from documents originally written decades after the purported events by non-eye-witnesses. And this was at a time when fact-checking was practically non-existent, literacy was rare, and stories of superstition and magic were rampant.

As far as I’m concerned, that makes these accounts far, far, far more untrustworthy than my perfectly sane buddy’s claims of alien abductions – which, as I’ve already noted, are not trustworthy at all.

 

[ipwnuathalo]

Oh, this is awesome.

A guy who is not an eyewitness writing about a story that supposedly took place twenty years prior isn’t compelling evidence of supernatural events. Even if he were an eyewitness, it wouldn’t be evidence that supernatural things happened.

20 years. I remember, sonny, when you atheists said “200 years”. My how times have changed. Back when the prevailing secular case for dating the Gospels used centuries as the “most likely” timespan, 20 years would have been a stone cold lock. I agreed to play by those rules back in college - I still am.

I’ll use an analogy (and, as always, the comparison is between standards of evidence – I’m not suggesting that your god is like a UFO): there are eyewitnesses of alien abductions that took place twenty years ago – you can go and talk to them right now. Does that make alien abductions any more likely to be true? Their eye-witness testimony is not evidence for such a wild claim.

Of course it does. Ultimately, the event (abduction, in your analogy) happened or it didn’t…but since you’re invoking a legal standard of proof, then yes, every piece of corraborating eyewitness testimony does make it more likely. Did you somehow suppose that an eyewitness account made a legal standard of proof less likely or more difficult to be attained? Why?

But let’s say we don’t have their eye-witness testimony. Let’s say, instead, that I collect their stories – as far as I know them, twenty years removed from them – and write them down. In 2,000 years, would my report of these stories be evidence for alien abductions?

Yes, yes it would. What you are trying to say, I think, is that your testimony wouldn’t be conclusive. However, unless you had suffered a demonstrable mental breakdown or disease or your intervening conduct demonstrated you to be a known liar, then 20 years is well within the human limit of recollection of facts. By way of demonstration, 20 years ago this week I would have been studying for a calculus test in a class which I ultimately failed. That same semster I took CAD (how primitive it was!), American history, Mech design 2, and had my first try at dymanics (took two tries to pass that, too).

Now, if we have a group of people whose testimony agrees in large part about an event, and those people’s conduct in that intervening twenty years does nothing to discredit them, then we have to deal with that testimony.

 

[AntiTheist]

Oh, this is awesome.

Indeed it is, but probably not for the reasons you think.

20 years. I remember, sonny, when you atheists said “200 years”.

20 years for this particular letter of Paul’s that we were discussing in this thread. Paul was no eye-witness; he’s passing on hearsay. The Gospels are thought to have been written significantly later than Paul’s letters, also not by eye-witnesses.

As for the rest of your post, I forgot to mention that when I said “evidence,” I implicitly meant “good evidence,” as opposed to “bad evidence that is insufficient to establish the claim.” Eye-witness testimony of alien abductions is incredibly bad evidence that is insufficient at establishing the claim.

Of course, if you wish to go on record as thinking that alien abductions actually are happening, please by all means do so.

However, unless you had suffered a demonstrable mental breakdown or disease or your intervening conduct demonstrated you to be a known liar, then 20 years is well within the human limit of recollection of facts.

Of course it is. And if the claim is something incredibly ordinary – like, for instance, that some dumb college kid failed a test – then I’d have no problem provisionally accepting this claim.

But if your claim was that 20 years ago, aliens beamed messages into your brain that caused you to fail your test, then I don’t think that your testimony would be sufficient to establish that extraordinary claim – even if you gave your testimony the following day.

Now, if the extraordinary claim happened 2,000 years ago, and all we have to go on are texts written decades after the events, none of which are demonstrably written by eye-witnesses, on the basis of stories passed on by oral tradition, transcribed, copied, translated, and collected – all in a time when fact-checking was rarely conducted, when literacy was rare, and when superstitions and stories of magic were rampant – then I would find it impossible to think that such stories are believable.

If you think otherwise, then you are free to be credulous. You apparently have not learned much since college.

See that, “sonny”? Awesome.

 

[ipwnuathalo]

Of course, if you wish to go on record as thinking that alien abductions actually are happening, please by all means do so.

Ooo, you’re a masterdebator, aren’t you?

20 years for this particular letter of Paul’s that we were discussing in this thread. Paul was no eye-witness; he’s passing on hearsay. The Gospels are thought to have been written significantly later than Paul’s letters, also not by eye-witnesses.

Actually, let’s talk about that. Paul (and Luke) are passing on the testimony given them by people who had not all gone crazy in 20 years…unless you’re positing Christianity as a mass-mental event caused by some environmental factor.

If you’re going to try to prove that the Gospels are 2nd or third centrury works, I’m sure you know that the direction of motion in the dating of those works is not in that direction.

Eye-witness testimony of alien abductions is incredibly bad evidence that is insufficient at establishing the claim.

Yes, but I don’t think you’re really using the analogy properly. An alien abduction is (as used here) a private event. We’re not dicussing a private event. We’re discussing public events. Paul and Luke are relaying something really prosaic but very profound - the history of a life lived in a place with people who still lived there. I cannot ever apply any evidence to private events like alien abductions (or, for that matter, midnight trips to Jerusalem on winged horses and whatnot) but we can do a little thinking on public events.

So, what’s a better analogy than alien abductions? How about UFO sightings made by large groups of people? Can you see a difference in how these are perceived? In alien abductions, disbelief typically consists of thinking “He’s crazy” or “He’s lying”. In mass UFO sightings disbelief typically consists of “They misinterpreted”.

If you take a UFO sighting event (just watch the history channel for a couple hours, you’ll get one) even one from 20 or 30 years ago, you can see how our minds react to it. If many people agree on the facts, we don’t doubt that they sensed these facts on that date in that place. If we still consider the event to be a priori impossible, then we think “they saw a weather balloon” or “it must have been a lighthouse”. In other words, we do not live our lives doubting the testimony of groups of normal people.

I’m a theist, for a variety of reason cosmological and biological. So I don’t consider religious events a priori impossible, just very improbable. If someone wants to contend that the Gospel are a fiction, I’ll entertain the notion. However, I’ll just apply the same standards we apply to other ancient manuscripts. I do not doubt that Socrates really was executed and I do not doubt that his student recorded the event. Likewise, I do not doubt that Jesus was executed and his followers recorded the event. They also claim an extraordinary event happened, and they anticipate objections to this. They note that eye-witnesses not of the inner Christian circle can be and have been consulted in the local area.

I’ve not read all of your posts. I don’t know exactly which of the theories about the Gospels you subscribe to so it’s no use wading into that unless you want to tell me. You might have some well-formed idea of exactly when and where these manuscripts came to be, or it might all be vague. I see both types on here.

If you think otherwise, then you are free to be credulous. You apparently have not learned much since college.

I suppose I could disbelieve everything in history. But, I don’t see much reason to. I’m certainly tempted to apply my desires to it.

 

[Spirithound]

Now, if the extraordinary claim happened 2,000 years ago, and all we have to go on are texts written decades after the events, none of which are demonstrably written by eye-witnesses, on the basis of stories passed on by oral tradition, transcribed, copied, translated, and collected – all in a time when fact-checking was rarely conducted, when literacy was rare, and when superstitions and stories of magic were rampant – then I would find it impossible to think that such stories are believable.

First, Luke is widely considered to be an excellent historian. Fact-checking?. Second, copying is not an issue. Of all the 24,000 pieces of the Bible we have before the printing press, the discrepancy rate is less than 5%.

 

[Spirithound]

Well, this is the point where you and I differ. If I knew a very with-it and trustworthy person who told me one day that he had been abducted by aliens, what I think the most likely conclusion would be, based solely on the evidence of his personal testimony, is that he was simply mistaken.

I would not accept his testimony as compelling evidence that aliens are abducting people.
…
As far as I’m concerned, that makes these accounts far, far, far more untrustworthy than my perfectly sane buddy’s claims of alien abductions – which, as I’ve already noted, are not trustworthy at all.

Well actually, you’ve stated that you would not consider them trustworthy. Could that be because you have already made up your mind that aliens do not exist? What if your friend showed you marks on his body? You would say that he did it himself. Frankly, what you want is some alien goo, isn’t it. But what is alien goo? It’s goo that hasn’t been documented…yet.

 

[brainfoodlunch]

Hm, this thread has gotten a bit off topic from the OP, I hope folks don’t mind if I stray from the current topic a little and go back to the main point…

I’ve been reading a lot lately on this argument, concerning whether the life of Jesus may have been based on various other religious stories that had been circulating the Mediterranean area before Jesus was said to have lived. The OP’ friends are obviously a little ignorant toward the actual argument that some theologians are making. It’s not just the death and resurrection they claim to have been copied from some Pagan/Greek/Egyptian God-figure, but almost every aspect of His life as depicted in the Gospels.

That said, it’s up to the individual to decide for themselves exactly why those similarities exist and what they mean in terms of their own faith.

The website ReligiousTolerance.org has many great essays on this topic. Lots to read if you are interested, I personally consider the site to be of strong repute, they do a very good job of presenting a neutral viewpoint on this and many other religious issues.