I think you are no better off in terms of historicity with the Virgin Birthm if that’s what you are thinking. If you are thinking all this is validated by arranging to ride into Jerualem on an ***, then we are going to have to stop and talk shop about rationalism, once again.
hardly, lineage, ethnicity, nature of injuries, location of minitsry, specific miracles, birhtplace, that ride into jerusalem, company at the crucifixion, too may specifics too lightly dismiss.
And yet… they didn’t recognize him. As for “reasonable”, there’s little to do but shake my head when I’m being given a “rationalist” analysis that has “getting fooled” losing to A DEAD MAN COMING BACK TO LIFE AFTER THREE DAYS DEAD. It beggars the imagination to think that’s being offered not as faith but as rationalism. It’s nothing short of Orwellian.
if you want rationalism stick to metaphysics, if you want theology to be rational, then we do need to talk about the scope of rationalism.
that said, we, or at least i , am refering to the viewpoint of the apostles, the witnesses of these things. for them, already being aware of lazarus, and the other situations of healing made the ressuerection ultimately believable, when they witnessed Christ, who, they eventually did recognize. they after all, gave lifetimes to the cause.
Well, why don’t you say so, then. Comparative theology? We might as well be talking about astrology or interesting strategies for homeopathy!
i have no clue what your trying to get at here, you after all brought up other faiths.
And you embrace the Resurrection on rationalist terms, you say?
i accept that the apostles were rational, intelligent men. i have no reason not to.
The apostles were actual physical witnesses to what?
three years of Christs activities, and then their own lifetimes of ministries, all the miracles, people, personalities, etc, the totality of the circumstances that led them to give their lives over in poverty, disdain, imprsonment, torture, and eventual martyrdom
Weren’t Joseph Smith Jr.'s Eight Witness, and the “Three Witnesses” subgroup of that were actual, physical witnesses to the Golden Plates and heard God’s voice declaring their divine charter.
your talking about the witnesses that had multiple wives, power and authority, based on their witness? doesnt pass the smell test there.
but the apostles recieved nothing good for their troubles, they could have simply walked away. insteade they suffered, never having things, wives, children, even safety.
huge difference.
If that’s all it takes, in terms of rationalism, you’re as Mormon as you are Catholic.
Unless it’s not really a rationalist heuristic being applied…
you seem very intent on dismissing any rational qulity to theism, why? i think even in comparative theology the evidence may be examined rationally to some extent.
Yes, but you aren’t a witness to any of those things, but only a remote hearer of hearsay.
actually, as a Catholic, i was a witness, no, not first hand, but as the succesors to the Seat of Peter, we were present for it all, there is an unbroken line, from that first meeting of Peter and Christ, on the shores of Galilee, to the mass being offered rightnow, somewhere in the world.
Find a local prosecutor some time and ask him about hearsay, if you think that’s anything more than desire and confirmation bias you are standing on
.
what specifically do you find to be meeting those conditions?
How far do you suppose hearsay about a dead man coming to life after three days dead would go in court? Would it stand up on its own, per rationalism?
if you had appropriate, non-biased witnesses, and multiple witnesses at that, yes it would.
suppose a dozen doctors testified that they had witnessed the ressurection of someone, would that make it more believable? what if then they still swore to it in the face of alife spent on the run, with no wife, children, or safety? would that be more believable?
what if then these same doctors swore to it even after they had suffered seperately for decades, and you then tortured them to death, needing only a recantation to stop?
would you then believe them.
i think its entirely rational to accept something so seemingly out landish when one see the extreme price paid to support it, especially as all that suffering and death could be avoided, just by getting into your boat and going fishing again.
it seems irrational to suppose that one would accept a life of deprivation and a tortured death for something one knew was absolutely true, much less something one had even the barest shades of doubt about.
why support even the truth, when the price is so great? much less something thatwas doubtful in any way?
Maybe it wouldn’t even begin to be anything but laughable as a basis for accepting it in terms of rationalism, eh? What would the prosecutor say?
the prosecutor would ask for the chain of evidence. i would hand Him Catholicism
that said, i notice that you seem to want me to defend Christain doctrine, as happy as i am to do that, we still need to discuss the problem of our existence, or as Aquinas put it, First Cause.
i wonder if you intend to debate the issue? from whence did we come?
