Real debate of the evidence for resurrection

[Zzyzx]

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From a current thread:

Testimonials are worth nothing in debate.

Which is why there is so little real debate in any of these forums...opinions abide.

Let's really debate the presence or absence of verifiable evidence that Jesus died and came back to life -- excluding testimonials and opinions.

[The Tanager]

You have avoided the issue, I assume that means you concede, as of course your conclusion is non-sequitur.

Lazarus and the child still should have had recorded lives of much distinction.
There is nothing, because they did not happen, nor did Jesus, same reasons.

QED

You argued that the coming back to life of Lazarus and another boy weren't real because of X, Y, and Z in a discussion on whether Jesus resurrected. Whether one believes they came back to life or not has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of Jesus' resurrection. Such reasoning would be like claiming that Abraham Lincoln was not assassinated because neither George Washington nor Richard Nixon were assassinated. That's not avoiding the issue at all.

The actual reasons you seemed to give for Lazarus' and the boy not coming back to life were:

1. They had no celebrity (as shown by no interviews or documentation).
2. They told no tales of what the afterlife was like.

Jesus did have celebrity with documentation, although no interviews (which weren't a thing back then, anyway). Jesus did talk a little about the afterlife, although that certainly wasn't his focus. So, if one thought these were good reasons to deny/accept a resurrection as historical, then he should believe Jesus' resurrection is historical. I don't think they are good reasons to deny or accept a resurrection.

[The Tanager]

I didn't know you were saying the theistic hypothesis was impossible. There is nothing illogical about God resurrecting a person from the dead.

I'm not claiming it is impossible. No one has demonstrated the theistic hypothesis to be impossible or possible. As far as I know, the possibility of the theistic hypothesis being true is unknown at this time. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate it is possible.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "possible"? I take that as "logically possible". Something is logically possible unless there is a logical incoherence. A married bachelor is not logically possible because of what the words mean and how they contradict each other. There is nothing logically incoherent about the statement "God resurrected Jesus from the dead" as far as I can tell. Those words don't mean things that contradict each other.

Logic and reason do not apply. We throw logic away when we accept miracles. There is no point in pretending to apply reason: the argument involves reason against faith. Reason uses what we know and faith uses what we don't.

How do we throw logic away in accepting a miracle? What is the logical contradiction? Where has my argument resorted to faith (seemingly the Enlightenment use of "faith" which I would call "blind faith")?

[Diagoras]

How do we throw logic away in accepting a miracle? What is the logical contradiction?

Forgive me for entering the debate at a rather late stage - I havent got anything particularly useful to add, except to address this one point above.

If a miracle is generally accepted to mean an extraordinary event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, but is attributed to a divine cause - then isnt that analogous to an argument from ignorance?

Not a strict contradiction, perhaps, but still committing a logical fallacy. Therefore throwing logic away, or perhaps not using logic effectively.

[pleinmont]

Once a person is truly dead they don't come back to life again. There is no evidence that Jesus was any different to any other human in this respect. If he did resurrect why not stay here on Earth instead of disappearing up to heaven?

[Goose]

If a miracle is generally accepted to mean an extraordinary event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, but is attributed to a divine cause - then isnt that analogous to an argument from ignorance?

Even given that definition of a miracle I don't see how this is an analogous to an argument from ignorance let alone an explicit example of one. There's nothing there in that definition that says X is true because you can't prove X false.

[SallyF]

Once a person is truly dead they don't come back to life again. There is no evidence that Jesus was any different to any other human in this respect. If he did resurrect why not stay here on Earth instead of disappearing up to heaven?

Which - to me- is an indication that we are dealing with the fantastical fabrications of very human sectarian propaganda

And that we should be looking VERY carefully for independent, verifiable evidence

And not swallow hook, line and substitutionary atonement the notion that we should accept by "faith alone" the magical attributes of the Divine Leader.

[The Tanager]

Forgive me for entering the debate at a rather late stage - I havent got anything particularly useful to add, except to address this one point above.

No worries. Thanks for sharing your point.

If a miracle is generally accepted to mean an extraordinary event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, but is attributed to a divine cause - then isnt that analogous to an argument from ignorance?

Not a strict contradiction, perhaps, but still committing a logical fallacy. Therefore throwing logic away, or perhaps not using logic effectively.

I agree with Goose here. In that definition one is not saying that we haven't found a natural explanation, so let's call it a miracle. If a solely-natural explanation were found, then one could say Jesus' resurrection isn't a miracle (given the above definition), but the term 'miracle' would remain unchanged.

Once a person is truly dead they don't come back to life again. There is no evidence that Jesus was any different to any other human in this respect.

In this discussion we've discussed one of the three data points I offered and have not explored why one might think these are evidence for Jesus being different than other humans in this respect. You can disagree with me, but for a real discussion on the evidence you need to share objections to the argument I give.

If he did resurrect why not stay here on Earth instead of disappearing up to heaven?

Unless you could prove that there is no reason for disappearing up to heaven rather than staying here on Earth, then this question is irrelevant to the issue we are talking about. What's your argument that this shows that Jesus' supposed resurrection and subsequent ascension is illogical? If you don't think it is illogical, then why Jesus ascended instead of staying is a later question that already assumes the answer to the question we are addressing is that Jesus resurrected.

[The Nice Centurion]

The best evidence against a resurrection is it is simply impossible.

Not all the power in the universe can resurrect a body three days dead.
There is no mechanism, no power, no concept that allows it to be possible, with the exception of the puerile "but God can do anything."

A dead body can be reactivated by putting on a technically animated exoskeleton.

There are many things God can not do, write a reasonable creation story, for one.
Resurrection is just a demonstrable scientific based one.

Who says/where dies it say that "God" is/has to be reasonable?

It is probably just a metaphor, like the snake and apple, turning to salt, and so on.

Why are that metaphors? Genesis, flood, revelation also Sound impossible. Metaphors too? What else in the Bible? Do not say the earth is not even flat!

[TRANSPONDER]

It seems that the 'miracles don't happen' apologetic is pending here. It has a point. While i don't use it myself because Jesus was supposedly unique and therefore anything he did cannot be judged by normal standards, the rational argument that 'I have a pet dog' is not something that would be questioned. It may be true or not but it is not something to rationally doubt.

"I saw Shirl in the mall today"

"I cannot accept that statement without further evidence." (Qualiasoup = open mindedness) (video).

It is valid to require really good evidence for this extraordinary claim of a resurrection. So the real debate is not about whether a miracle can or cannot happen but whether there is compelling reason to accept that, in this case, it did.

The Gospel witnesses are to be credited.
Paul verifies it in I Corinthians.
The disciples would not die for a lie.

Oh, and the undeniable conclusion of the empty tomb, which really is an add -on to doubts about the veracity of the Resurrection accounts.

I've done them at length elsewhere, so I won't expound here. Unless it becomes compellingly necessary.

[Clownboat]

A dead body can be reactivated by putting on a technically animated exoskeleton.

It is still dead. We could tie strings to a dead body and animate it, but it is still dead. Therefore, I fail to see what point you are trying to make.

Who says/where dies it say that "God" is/has to be reasonable?

Which god concept are we talking about and did anyone argue that it must be reasonable? I'm not sure where you are going here.

Why are that metaphors? Genesis, flood, revelation also Sound impossible. Metaphors too? What else in the Bible? Do not say the earth is not even flat!

I am not aware of a mechanism to determine what is metaphor and what is not metaphor in the Bible. Can you supply one?