Debate: Was Jesus actually resurrected and other arguments

[VictoriousTruther]

Divine solution? The world is as it is and long held dogma is the only solution?

 

[fisherman_carl]

You should familiarize yourself with the arguments for God’s existence. The God of classical theism is nothing ad hoc. Otherwise you risk sounding like you don’t know what you are talking about. If one were asked to believe in a meeting of Greek God’s were responsible for creation, this could easily be dismissed by classical theism. The existence of a Greek God would be a brute fact that we would just have to accept if it were true. Just like the existence of a spaghetti monster would be a brute fact if it were true. The existence of the universe coming into existence out of nothing by itself with no outside help would also be a brute fact that we would have to accept if it were true. Certainly this would go against reason.

However, the existence of a First Cause of all existence is not a brute fact like the others would be, but rather something that is reasoned to. The unmoved mover, the first cause, the argument from contingency, the argument from degrees of being, and the design argument all lead us to conclude there is a first cause of existence that must be itself eternal and uncaused.

 

[ErraticFaith]

History? Then we know for a fact a historical man called Jesus of Nazareth existed. It’s so much of a fact that it’s now considered poor scholarship to claim otherwise. So that’s a moot point. Jesus existed. If he didn’t, it’s unlikely he would have been recorded by Jews and Romans. They would have gladly written him out of history and not bothered at all, were it not for a fact that people at the time would have known it was a lie.

So what follows is his divinity. I have my belief based on reality but to skip that;

Ponder what Jesus actually did during his life time. He was called ‘sorcerer’ by some. Was that because he was a man who built boats? When he lived in an area that was historically adjacent to he birthplace of one of the most powerful naval empires of all time? People who built ships of a scale 100x larger? Hardly.

Was it because he sold and under cut the prices of carrots?

No.

You don’t think it odd that a person who seemingly had no life at all other than dying on a cross and planning for that event with a group of followers he collected is a little odd?

We have emperors who had more power than most people can imagine - less remembered than Jesus.

Yet you are under the impression he was an ordinary man, who just thought it was a good idea to be brutally executed; because he felt like lying about being a God? And changed the world afterwards as a result.

Oh dear. Some people aren’t that bright are they.

 

[VictoriousTruther]

We have an assortment of claims that are believed (Thought to be true because they wanted them to be or are convinced as such) by many. Are these claims true? That is what I’m asking.

You seemed to want to very quickly straw man me. . . I never claimed that he was ordinary or not ordinary or that he thought it was a good or bad idea to be executed or that he felt like lying about being god. You although are Claiming that he was the son of god, was here to free us from existent original sin, and then resurrect from the dead after going to an existent hell and then heaven. Then later have an angel move the stone from the tomb and appear to many of his followers in a way which defies everyday norms by apparently walking through doors and floating off into the clouds. Not to mention the countless miracle claims in the new testament gospels that are written about only in this one source without any others to support or lend strength.

Support all of these and then maybe we can actually have a good discussion. In fact, i’ll make it easier for you, how do we support any of the other claims made about Jesus even when I agree the he was resurrected (That is, was dead and then not dead. . .unless you have a more specific usage of resurrection that incorporates the unfalsifiable and unapparent spiritual side of it). How do any of the other claims or explanations of the event have any guiding support?

 

[VictoriousTruther]

The design argument presumes that we have knowledge of how this universe came to be or why anything should exists at all. Can you support the design argument with any probabilities of how universes come about with it being more likely that a conscious being designed it than something completely different? Are you saying that you know from the design argument that the universe was the only reality that could be actualized or that there were equal options of a certain set of universes with assigned probabilities where some choices were more probably than others or they were all equally as probably?

Or is there support for the principle of plentitude from the design argument whereupon every reality that could exist, does (This is not the same thing as a multiverse in theoretical physics as those kinds of multiverses have strict boundary conditions while this one does not have any boundary conditions. A Metaphysical Multiverse if you please)?

Which of these conditions (fell free to pull one not from this list) did the universe arise from? And how did you then happen to find that with these set begging conditions that only conscious beings could attain actualization of the universe?

 

[HarryStotle]

Hope in blind faith or through comforting selfish beliefs?

Hope in blind faith (Victorious) or through comforting selfish beliefs (Truther)?

Seems the symptoms of the malady are more widespread than first thought

 

[HarryStotle]

Yet you are under the impression he was an ordinary man, who just thought it was a good idea to be brutally executed; because he felt like lying about being a God? And changed the world afterwards as a result.

This sums it up quite nicely.

When I read the Gospels to get at the person of Jesus, it is clear that he was the finest human being who ever lived, bar none.

There is no possible way a committee of humans could have just dreamed him up, not with the subtle glimpses into his person and insights into humanity that come through in his actions, in the preserved parables and in his teaching. This was one morally, intellectually and spiritually gifted individual.

There is no denying that he claimed to be God in a way that no human could have ever fabricated. He wasn’t insane, he wasn’t a deceiver and his words and deeds have a provenance and historical attestation that could only have come from his disciples having been appropriately convinced that his memory just had to be recorded, remembered and never forgotten precisely because of who he claimed to be, proved by who he was, and preserved by God’s hand in history.

So the question, for me, is who do I trust? The person of Jesus, what he said and did, and how that all ties into the rich religious traditions of Judaism* (the Wisdom literature, the Prophets and the uncanny and strange historical events depicted in the OT)? Or do I trust random humans who have existed before or since, none of whom (including myself) that even come close to being as knowing, truthful, wise and spiritually awake – for lack of a better word – than Jesus?

No one in all of history has made a better case for being listened to and taken seriously than Jesus. NO ONE.

With all due respect, that includes @VictoriousTruther.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. NONE.

---

• This video connecting the Sacrifice of Isaac to Jesus demonstrates pretty clearly that the coincidences between what was asked by God of Abraham relate forward thousands of years to the sacrifice of Jesus. There is just no way this was coincidental. The “request” by God was just too bizarre to make sense on its own, and the fact that it was preserved in historical Judaism speaks to the hand of God acting in history.
  

 

[VictoriousTruther]

Hope in blind faith (Victorious) or through comforting selfish beliefs (Truther)?

Blind faith as when a person when’s a chess game? Comforting selfish beliefs like the ability to ascertain what assertions about reality are correct? You do not care about this or laugh at it?

 

[VictoriousTruther]

This sums it up quite nicely.

When I read the Gospels to get at the person of Jesus, it is clear that he was the finest human being who ever lived, bar none.

There is no possible way a committee of humans could have just dreamed him up, not with the subtle glimpses into his person and insights into humanity that come through in his actions, in the preserved parables and in his teaching. This was one morally, intellectually and spiritually gifted individual.

I’m not discussing or claiming that He wasn’t or was a fine person nor am I claiming or supporting that People just dreamed him up or that he wasn’t dreamed up as these have nothing to do with what i’m arguing with and serve to only side track the conversation. Thank you for shoving claims on me that I never planned to make or discussions I not willing to enter now. Nothing really of merit to disagree on.

There is no denying that he claimed to be God in a way that no human could have ever fabricated. He wasn’t insane, he wasn’t a deceiver and his words and deeds have a provenance and historical attestation that could only have come from his disciples having been appropriately convinced that his memory just had to be recorded, remembered and never forgotten precisely because of who he claimed to be, proved by who he was, and preserved by God’s hand in history.

Are you saying its absolutely impossible in this reality for humans to have ever claimed to be god?

I’m not claiming he was a lier or that he deceived people or even that he was insane. In fact i would actually ask of you to support the proposition this person asserted, “I am the son of god”. This would need to be independently corroborated and supported, really independently of facts that would be hard to attain such as his state of mind which is unknown to us. All we know of is what could be said about him and various claims surrounding this person.

Claims, assertions, propositions, that need to be supported beyond personal subjectivity (Or what people believe about the asserted claim after it is asserted).

CONT.

 

[VictoriousTruther]

So the question, for me, is who do I trust? The person of Jesus, what he said and did, and how that all ties into the rich religious traditions of Judaism* (the Wisdom literature, the Prophets and the uncanny and strange historical events depicted in the OT)? Or do I trust random humans who have existed before or since, none of whom (including myself) that even come close to being as knowing, truthful, wise and spiritually awake – for lack of a better word – than Jesus?

No one in all of history has made a better case for being listened to and taken seriously than Jesus. NO ONE.

With all due respect, that includes @VictoriousTruther.

I trust a reliable method that will attain knowledge about the reality we lay in and the hope that religious theists (Like you ) will actually stop being arrogant, stop trotting a supposed high horse, and come down to actually debate your religious claims.

I’ll assert it again, do the claims that this person (Jesus) or claimed about him have any validity? If you say yes, and I know you already do, then support these propositions beyond personal subjectivity. Or beyond a false dilemma either with what he said was true or look stuped by asserting someone is better or more important than JESUS. Really this is not pertinent to the discussion I started.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. NONE.

Thank you for telling me your indisputable bias.

This video connecting the Sacrifice of Isaac to Jesus demonstrates pretty clearly that the coincidences between what was asked by God of Abraham relate forward thousands of years to the sacrifice of Jesus. There is just no way this was coincidental. The “request” by God was just too bizarre to make sense on its own, and the fact that it was preserved in historical Judaism speaks to the hand of God acting in history.

So you can support that the sacrifice of Issac wasn’t merely metaphorical but was actually literal and happened in exactly the way claimed by the Bible?

 

[HarryStotle]

Blind faith as when a person when’s a chess game?

I see. So you whon a chess game. Congratulations on your victory! :hugs:

Is our takeaway that life is a game to be won, then, Victorious?

I suppose Jesus would dispute that. The “first will be last” and all that.

You still haven’t built a very convincing case that you ought to be listened to because you won – or is that whon? – a chess game.

I mean chess is a relatively simple game with simple rules. Have you figured out all the rules of life such that you are to be declared the undisputed winner in that game, VictoriousTruther? Tell the truth, now.

Comforting selfish beliefs like the ability to ascertain what assertions about reality are correct? You do not care about this or laugh at it?

So you have this uncanny ability to “ascertain what assertions about reality are correct.” Doesn’t everybody have that ability? I mean your average two year old thinks he’s right about everything, to say nothing about the assurance of adolescents in this regard. Your claim amounts to an assertion about reality that we have every reason to doubt until you prove YOUR assertions about reality are correct. So far you haven’t asserted any besides that you have this “ability” that any two year old also thinks they have.

What about assuring US for a change? What do you think about reality? Or are you ONLY about tearing down other people’s assertions?

The problem with demolishers, is that they are rarely builders and the edifices they get around to constructing are gawd-awful ugly and rarely very functional.

So what assurance do we have that when you are finished demolishing everyone else’s assertions that we won’t just be left with a pile of rubble or an unsightly ramshackle tenement where not even self-respecting rats would stoop to live?

I am pretty good at reading people and you do make quite a few spelling mistakes – figuratively speaking, I mean.

Spoiler

(Although [in a whispering voice] to be truthful your actual spelling could use a bit of cleaning up. I used to teach writing.)

 

[HarryStotle]

Are you saying its absolutely impossible in this reality for humans to have ever claimed to be god?

I’m not claiming he was a lier or that he deceived people or even that he was insane. In fact i would actually ask of you to support the proposition this person asserted, “I am the son of god”. This would need to be independently corroborated and supported, really independently of facts that would be hard to attain such as his state of mind which is unknown to us. All we know of is what could be said about him and various claims surrounding this person.

Claims, assertions, propositions, that need to be supported beyond personal subjectivity (Or what people believe about the asserted claim after it is asserted)…

Aren’t you stacking the deck just a bit on this? I mean anyone around Jesus, who knew him well enough and followed him around enough to be convinced by his claim to be God, would have been convinced by him and would have become Christians. Aren’t those precisely the claimants that you disallow a priori? Speaking of bias, shouldn’t you take all claims into serious consideration on their own merit, rather than dismissing some merely because they favour an answer you don’t approve and want to disprove? I mean most of these people had first hand access to all of the facts and were convinced by those facts to the point of being willing to die because of them, and yet here you are demanding only second-hand or hearsay evidence from uninvolved third parties because you don’t want to listen to actual witnesses who were universally convinced by that evidence. Speaking of bias.

I suppose you are unfamiliar with the idea of the Messianic Secret. Jesus kept his real identity (that he was God become man) a secret and shared it only with his closest disciples precisely because if he claimed it openly he would have been charged with blasphemy before he could do any actual teaching. This is why he spoke in parables and cryptic language – Son of Man, Son of God, etc.

Besides if you really are interested in independently corroborated claims, you might want to look into the prophet Daniel. Daniel lived around four hundred years before Jesus, predicted the fall of Rome, the coming of the Messiah (literally to the year), the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and the destruction of Jerusalem. Many of Jesus’ cryptic references to himself and to the kingdom of God come from Daniel. And Daniel wasn’t Christian, he was Jewish, so no bias there.

 

[HarryStotle]

So you can support that the sacrifice of Issac wasn’t merely metaphorical but was actually literal and happened in exactly the way claimed by the Bible?

Clearly you have a problem thinking in “big picture” or non-literal terms. The abstract makes you puzzled, does it?

The sacrifice of Isaac was a crazy story that didn’t make any sense and the real significance of it was lost to pretty much everyone. They knew THAT it was significant but never understood WHY it was. I mean God telling Abraham to kill his beloved son, the son who was the means by which Abraham would be the father of a nation? That didn’t make any sense. And besides it would have been immoral for Abraham to do so.

Why would a people dream up a metaphorical story that didn’t make any sense and seemed to do nothing but portray God as crazy? The only reason was because it really happened in the way it was told.

Fast forward several thousand years and the details of the Abraham story are realized, but this time with God in the position of Abraham sacrificing his only begotten Son, Jesus, on the very same mountain, Mt Moriah, where Abraham took Isaac. The details fit hand to glove in such a way that only God could have orchestrated them, given several thousand years of historical separation and the connections made only after the fact. Unfortunately, you won’t see this unless you take the time to go through all of the details meticulously. You aren’t interested in doing that, are you? And that would be because you are only about tearing down and not building a case for anything, isn’t that right?

 

[DetectiveNiko]

Well this is how I view it, I might be wrong but I will give it a shot.

When adressing the ressurection, or any other historical event in general its nice to have background information to know what happened. But, this information is generally not needed to support an event if there is enough evidence for it. That is why I believe you don’t even need to know of original sin and other church dogmas (things that are believed by faith ) in order to prove the ressurection happened.
Now while it is generally shown that Christianity had a big “explosion” of popularity after the supposed death of Jesus, I don’t think you can prove the validity of a claim by showing its rise of popularity or how many people believed. But I do think it helps us get to a point.
The death of Jesus is a historically beliveable, and you really can’t deny that as there are many non-biblical documents that support this. The gospel claim however that there was more to this death than originally thought needs to be adressed. While you can’t prove that the Bible is divinely inspired or that everything in it is true, there is solid proof to see it as a historical document, aspecially the old testament that talks about different kings (now if the stories themselves are true is another problem ) . If we conclude that the text talks about some history we need to look at all the pieces and check if they are true. The main piece and the center of the gospels is the ressurection. Now if they focus on it so much, wouldn’t that mean it would have most value to them. But why ?
Well lets look at some things about Jesus that need to be explained :

1. The Torah mentions Jesus as being a magician. Of course he could have just faked miracles, but that gives us great hints at who he truly is.
2. Jesus suddenly became famous out of nowhere. If we can say that the “wishful” beliefs of the early christians were at fault, wouldn’t Christianity fall easily by just having the oponnents show the body ?
   The claim that the body was stolen does not work out or any other claims just don’t make the cut, or are hardly beliveable.
3. In combination with the before mentioned, claiming that Jesus was the Messiah and that he died such a (from the Jewish perspective) shameful way should have made the Jews outraged, because even today they would consider it to some extent blasphemy. This had to go their ball rolling. Yet we see no evidence that they menaged to find the body or something like that.

And the claim that we need to have every teaching of the Church varified by proofs as if it they were physical claims or claims about the universe is kinda weird. You would think that something that is entirely spiritual is unscientificaly unverifiable and is thefore left to faith. I would say that the ressurection is not one of theese things, and I would say while doubts can exsist, its important to distinguish between reasonable doubt and unreasonable doubt.
God Bless !

 

[HarryStotle]

I trust a reliable method that will attain knowledge about the reality we lay in and the hope that religious theists (Like you ) will actually stop being arrogant, stop trotting a supposed high horse, and come down to actually debate your religious claims.

Actually, it is you who claim the supposedly infallible ability to discern the truth of assertions about reality, and you are calling me off my “high horse,” VictoriousTruther? Recall: “…the ability to ascertain what assertions about reality are correct.”

What I claimed was not some infallible ability on my part, but that if any human being ever had that kind of credibility, it wouldn’t be you or I, but it would have been Jesus. He would be the candidate I would put forward as having any kind of serious credibility with regard to the bigger picture of the meaning of life.

Oh, sure, you can invoke some kind of radical skepticism and rely on that “method” to proclaim every claim anyone makes to be uncertain, and you will rest in the assurance that no claim could ever be 100% correct, but in the end you have absolutely no claim to make with regard to anything meaningful. I’ll take my chances.

I’ll assert it again, do the claims that this person (Jesus) or claimed about him have any validity? If you say yes, and I know you already do, then support these propositions beyond personal subjectivity. Or beyond a false dilemma either with what he said was true or look stuped by asserting someone is better or more important than JESUS. Really this is not pertinent to the discussion I started.

What do you mean by “beyond personal subjectivity?” Do you mean my personal subjectivity, or that the claims of Jesus were his personal and subjective claims, or that those around him were being personal and subjective? Every claim is personal and subjective – even yours – because, at ground, each is based upon the limited experiences and the extent of the intellectual ability of the subject making it.

Which, by the way, is not well-promoted by a misspelling of stupid. You really should check your spelling and grammar if you want your points to hit home with your reading audience.

Thank you for telling me your indisputable bias.

You are very welcome. I always aim to please.

So you can support that the sacrifice of Issac wasn’t merely metaphorical but was actually literal and happened in exactly the way claimed by the Bible?

You didn’t take the time to watch the video, did you?

 

[HarryStotle]

…this would need to be independently corroborated and supported, really independently of facts that would be hard to attain such as his state of mind which is unknown to us. All we know of is what could be said about him and various claims surrounding this person.

How about Plato from the Republic?

…the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified, and so will learn his lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire. (Rep. 2.361e)

Why would Plato write such a thing hundreds of years before Jesus was crucified? Perhaps he was just making a point, but what point would that have been, exactly?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Why would Plato write such a thing hundreds of years before Jesus was crucified? Perhaps he was just making a point, but what point would that have been, exactly?

Ummmm, if you read the Republic, the point he was making is quite clear.

Honestly, Harry, I find your arguments to be badgering the witness. You seem to think that there is no reasonable argument against the Resurrection. In contrast, I feel that the only way I personally CAN believe the Resurrection is through the indwelling witness of the Holy Spirit. No earthly evidence is strong enough to make it reasonable to believe that a man rose from the dead after being dead for almost three days.

 

[HarryStotle]

Ummmm, if you read the Republic, the point he was making is quite clear.

What was Plato’s point, exactly? Relying solely on “earthly evidence,” I mean.

Honestly, Harry, I find your arguments to be badgering the witness.

And here I thought I was badgering the prosecuting attorney.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

What was Plato’s point, exactly? Relying solely on “earthly evidence,” I mean.

Plato was discussing whether it was rational to be morally good, supposing that you had a reputation for moral evil. He wanted to know if goodness was worthwhile in itself, or only because it tended toward a good reputation and thus good consequences. The character Glaucon challenged Socrates to prove that the morally upright person that is tortured and crucified for being wicked is HAPPIER than the morally despicable person that has a good reputation.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

What was Plato’s point, exactly? Relying solely on “earthly evidence,” I mean.

Plato was discussing whether it was rational to be morally good, supposing that you had a reputation for moral evil. He wanted to know if goodness was worthwhile in itself, or only because it tended toward a good reputation and thus good consequences. The character Glaucon challenged Socrates to prove that the morally upright person that is tortured and crucified for being wicked is HAPPIER than the morally despicable person that has a good reputation.

And how did Socrates prove his point that a morally upright person is happier AFTER enduring “every extremity of suffering” and being crucified?

Again, using only “earthly evidence.”

Tortured, crucified and dead men are “HAPPIER,” how?

Perhaps only if justice and uprightness (and moral men) live on beyond the grave, beyond the “earthly evidence?”