Resurrection Debate: Fact or Fiction?

[pocaracas]

Hey man, I just noticed your username… hehe… it’s awesome!

In that case. No. Nothing that “informs my reasoning” is taken on that kind of faith.

So, you bring forth… what?.. some variant of the unknown prime mover? The unknown thing that must have started all causality? The unknown thing that keeps space-time together and orderly?

Perhaps, the only difference is that you, like the drunk searching for keys under a lamp post, can claim, “The light is better over here!” Sure, but are the keys actually to be found there?

Hehe… I like this analogy (like all analogies, it’s faulty at some stage, but it’s fun)…
The keys may be out of the reach of the lamp’s light, but… do the keys exist at all? Why am I looking for keys at all?

I can think of a number of theists, present and past, who have written formidable works defending theism. The mere fact that you strike a posture on an Internet forum doesn’t, in itself, provide you with instant credibility.

… I figured that, since you are accustomed to attributing credibility where little is due, you’d keep that tradition alive! [j/k]

If you want, we can go through all the formidable works defending theism > you present me a summed up version and I try to poke holes in it. Deal?
I can start by pointing out that, while classical physics is pretty much deterministic and thus subject to causal effects (and this is what would be available to most, if not all, of those great thinkers), Quantum physics is more probabilistic than deterministic… the probabilities can be determined, given enough statistics, but that doesn’t change the random nature of fundamental physics.
Dialing back the clock of the Universe, we arrive at a state of extremely high density of sub-nuclear particles (quarks and gluons). We have no way to replicate those conditions here on Earth… perhaps a subset can the mimicked at CERN, but that’s it… At the start of the Universe, we have a state of things that is probabilistic in nature and non-measurable except through some very indirect means (like the cosmic microwave background)… and it’s also not established that it’s random probabilistic nature can be considered causal; our minds would like to make it so, but you always need some approximations, some assumptions for that.
So, given this barrier of unknown, what have those formidable thinkers given us?

 

[undead_rat]

The linen does not need to be verified as 2000 years old by C-14 dating, and that is because the 1978 STURP analysis proved that the image on the linen was not man-made. It is a mistake to try to tie proof that the image is miraculous to the C-14 dating. The process of the miraculous creation of the image has affected the carbon fourteen content of the linen. The image is a result of the thermal proton radiation that was a residual of the disappearance of Jesus’ corpse from inside of His tomb. This is called the Historically Consistent Hypothesis because that is what our Gospel of Matthew tells us is a historical fact. To insist on saying that the Shroud is not proven based on C-14 dating, is about the same as saying that the Gospel of Matthew account is not correct.

Along with the thermal proton radiation came a thermal neutron flux which converted some of the nitrogen in the linen to carbon fourteen. That is why no sample taken from the Shroud’s linen fabric will register a C-14 date of any older than about 700 years. Furthermore, for every inch that such a sample is taken closer to the body image, the C-14 date is predicted to become younger by about 100 years. This prediction is born out in the 1988 C-14 sample. The oldest date of 1195 was from the part of the sample furthest from the image. The youngest date of 1448 came from the part closest to the image.** This 250 year variance in the C-14 dating results was too large for the British Museum scientists. Because of the accuracy of C-14 dating, that variance was proof that something that they had not considered was going on here, So they altered the published C-14 result to read: 1260 to 1390.

Other methods of dating have been applied that do not rely on C-14. These methods show that the linen is well over 1000 years old. There is a totality of evidence here that needs to be considered, and that totality constitutes irrefutable proof that the Shroud is genuine.

**TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015

 

[thistle]

The linen does not need to be verified as 2000 years old by C-14 dating, and that is because the 1978 STURP analysis proved that the image on the linen was not man-made. It is a mistake to try to tie proof that the image is miraculous to the C-14 dating. The process of the miraculous creation of the image has affected the carbon fourteen content of the linen. The image is a result of the thermal proton radiation that was a residual of the disappearance of Jesus’ corpse from inside of His tomb. This is called the Historically Consistent Hypothesis because that is what our Gospel of Matthew tells us is a historical fact. To insist on saying that the Shroud is not proven based on C-14 dating, is about the same as saying that the Gospel of Matthew account is not correct.

Along with the thermal proton radiation came a thermal neutron flux which converted some of the nitrogen in the linen to carbon fourteen. That is why no sample taken from the Shroud’s linen fabric will register a C-14 date of any older than about 700 years. Furthermore, for every inch that such a sample is taken closer to the body image, the C-14 date is predicted to become younger by about 100 years. This prediction is born out in the 1988 C-14 sample. The oldest date of 1195 was from the part of the sample furthest from the image. The youngest date of 1448 came from the part closest to the image.** This 250 year variance in the C-14 dating results was too large for the British Museum scientists. Because of the accuracy of C-14 dating, that variance was proof that something that they had not considered was going on here, So they altered the published C-14 result to read: 1260 to 1390.

Other methods of dating have been applied that do not rely on C-14. These methods show that the linen is well over 1000 years old. There is a totality of evidence here that needs to be considered, and that totality constitutes irrefutable proof that the Shroud is genuine.

**TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015

The Shroud is NOT proven to be the burial cloth of Christ. You are obviously one of the fanatics that seems to need something like this.
The Church is not stupid. If there was IRREFUTABLE proof the Shroud was genuine the Church would say so. It has not and will never do that because it can never be 100% certain.

 

[undead_rat]

“It can never be 100% certain.” ?? That’s a good one. If C-14 dating of the charred areas near the Sacred Image is ever allowed, the results will be an impossible future date! BTW, the only “fanatics” around here are the ones who refuse to accept the already overwhelming evidence that the Shroud is miraculous. You are in good company with the likes of Joe Nickels and the late Walter McCrone.

Of course the Church is not stupid. But it does have a history of being overly cautious to say the least. The scientific findings of Copernicus being a prime example.

 

[HarryStotle]

So, given this barrier of unknown, what have those formidable thinkers given us?

Before making a move down this rabbit hole, replete with its “barrier of unknown” at the end, what is your position on the principle of sufficient reason?

Before booking a trip, I always assess whether the destination will be worth the expense. “Barrier of unknown” doesn’t offer much in the way a travel brochure, if it lives up to its name.

Do you agree that everything that exists has (and requires) a sufficient explanation for why it does? That nothing exists for no reason or “just 'cus” it does? By the way, I don’t mean for the sake of discussion. I mean do you accept it as a basic underlying principle of reality?

That way we can, at least, apply any discussion to this thread topic – the resurrection.

 

[pocaracas]

I don’t know anything by name, so I checked the wiki:
"The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause.
[…]
The principle has a variety of expressions, all of which are perhaps best summarized by the following:

For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists.
For every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs.
For every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true.

"
Is this an adequate way of putting it?

Seems connected with causality, and I already mentioned that there is a possibility that universal causality breaks near the big bang.
Maybe it doesn’t and all of this philosophizing pans out… but maybe it does and we’re left in the dark.
Which is it?
Can you tell? I can’t… maybe I’m just not qualified… but, if I’m not, I seriously doubt that those great works by past philosophers were any more qualified.

But feel free to go there.

Do you agree that everything that exists has (and requires) a sufficient explanation for why it does? That nothing exists for no reason or “just 'cus” it does? By the way, I don’t mean for the sake of discussion. I mean do you accept it as a basic underlying principle of reality?

No, sorry. For example, I can’t grant you space-time “has (and requires) a sufficient explanation for why it” exists. It might be a backwards infinite thing, as well a forwards infinite; it might have just begun with whatever caused the big bang, sure, but the space-time in our universe might also just be a subset of the whole infinite space-time.
Again, don’t know, can’t tell.

Anyone who claims it’s one way or the other is likely underestimating what they don’t know.
There are known unknowns, like this one, that many people treat as unknown unknowns and assume they’re known.
Be careful where your mind takes you.

 

[HarryStotle]

Seems connected with causality, and I already mentioned that there is a possibility that universal causality breaks near the big bang.

The PSR (Principle of Sufficient Reason) is “connected with causality,” but that does not mean it is reducible to causality, mostly because the word “cause” isn’t always explanatory. Generally, causality merely proposes the observable necessary or sufficient preconditions for an effect without necessarily explaining how those conditions actually explain the outcome or effect.

It is easy to say X causes Y and presume that X is an explanation for Y, when the actual explanatory relationship is left unexplored.

For example, gravity caused the apple to fall doesn’t fully explain why the apple fell at this moment instead of, say, ten minutes ago. Neither does it explain what gravity is or why it is the universal force that it appears to be. So, merely to appeal to gravity as the cause, is not the same as fully explaining why the effect occurred.