The Plausibility That Jesus Returned to Life and Flew Away

[Tired of the Nonsense]

I find myself in voluntary pandemic related confinement to my house with nothing much to do. So I thought I would start an argument.

These quotes are taken from the "What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?" topic.

"Acts very specifically indicates that Paul went three days without drinking. Three days without drinking, especially in an arid climate, is considered being at deaths door. So Paul was severely dehydrated. What are the symptoms of severe dehydration?" Hallucinations. Paul believed that during his period of incapacitation he met Jesus, who had been executed some years earlier. -- Tired of the Nonsense.

"We today have every reason to DOUBT, however, that during his incapacitation Paul actually met with and spoke with AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAD BEEN DEAD FOR SEVERAL YEARS. Such a claim is NOT historical, since it contradicts all common experience, and common sense." -- Tired of the Nonsense

Christianity is founded on the premise that Jesus died but arose again on the third day. Would anyone like to discuss (disparage or defend) the plausibility of the claim that a corpse ACTUALLY returned to life and subsequently flew away?

[SallyF]

Such things are at the very extreme end of plausibility.


Tales of Jesus doing this ONLY appear in his propaganda.


But if we brainwash the Christian kiddies in Sunday school with crosswords and colouring-in, and teach it as though it is reality on a very special supernatural level


The kiddies might grow up to engage in semantic avoidances on sites like this.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Such things are at the very extreme end of plausibility.


Tales of Jesus doing this ONLY appear in his propaganda.


But if we brainwash the Christian kiddies in Sunday school with crosswords and colouring-in, and teach it as though it is reality on a very special supernatural level


The kiddies might grow up to engage in semantic avoidances on sites like this.

The very extreme end of plausibility, yes. Along with flying reindeer and the like. But if not for being bathed in propaganda as children, I usually refer to it as superstitious indoctrination, we wouldn't need need online discussions to debate the plausibility of a flying reanimated corpse.

Indoctrination is an extremely powerful tool when directed at young pliable minds.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by Tired of the Nonsense]

If there is a omnipotent God and that was his will then I would say the probablility of it happening would be 100%..


Logic,


JW

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 1 by Tired of the Nonsense]

If there is a omnipotent God and that was his will then I would say the probablility of it happening would be 100%..


Logic,


JW

IF there is an omnipotent God, and IF that was his will, then the probability of flying reindeer would be 100% as well. We seem to be darned short on any ACTUAL examples of flying reindeer, however.

But you have brought up another good point. Is God omnipotent, or is God fallible?

Others are watching, so I know I can count on you not to dodge this question.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by Tired of the Nonsense]

If there is a omnipotent God and that was his will then I would say the probablility of it happening would be 100%..


Logic,


JW

I semi-agree with JW, that if there is an omnipotent God who can do anything then the "possibility" that it could happen would be 100%. But certainly NOT the "probability" of it happening.

In fact, I don't reject these obviously ancient rumors and fables based on the idea that they would be scientifically impossible, or even improbably.

I reject these clearly false ancient rumors because as far as I'm concerned no sane intelligent omnipotent God would even do such an insane thing even if it was possible for him to do it.

If such a God actually existed, he most certainly wouldn't be benevolent, trustworthy or even sane. To the contrary, as far as I'm concerned, any omnipotent God who would arrange for such sick theatrics couldn't be benevolent, trustworthy, sane, or even omnipotent.

To begin with, the mere fact that he would even need to stoop to such a desperate act would require that he cannot be omnipotent, for if he truly was omnipotent he most certainly could have found a better way to design a world and offer humans redemption.

In fact, there's already a problem with a supposedly designer God who is so inept that he had created humans who, are not only in dire need of redemption, but in this religious fable they aren't even capable of earning it on their own merit.

Only an extremely inept creator could have created such an inept world in the first place.

So for me, the religion is clearly false, even if we allow for a magical omnipotent God. Assuming that the resurrection of Jesus could be "possible", doesn't excuse its the extreme ignorance and ineptitude of a God who would need to resort to such sick and desperate measures to try to save humanity from his own jealous wrath.

Moreover, just look at the fables. These fables have Jesus himself decreeing that only FEW human souls will make it into the kingdom of heaven anyway. That supposedly comes straight from the horses mouth so-to-speak. An open admission that this creator God is a loser of souls. He loses the vast majority of souls he creates. That's a creator who would be extremely inept at creating human souls.

Moreover, in this religion the human souls who are "saved" from damnation have not even earned their own salvation. That is a huge no-no in this theology. They are only saved by the grace of God even though they are unworthy of salvation.

So what do we end up with? We end up with a God who loses the overwhelming vast majority of souls that he creates, and also ends up taking unworthy humans up into heaven on FREE UNDESERVED AMNESTY that they clearly did not, and cannot earn on their own merit.

Why even bother taking about whether or not an omnipotent God could raise a dead person from the grave when the religion doesn't even make any sense even if that was possible.

Am omnipotent God who could do that doesn't help this theology. Such a God would need to be inept in so many other ways that he couldn't be omnipotent anyway. Nor could he be intelligent, and certainly not trustworthy.

And finally, for those who like to believe that this God is in some sort of war with an evil fallen angel named Satan, or Lucifer or whatever. That too makes absolutely no sense. This God would have had to have designed and created the fallen angel as well. Yet another exhibition of this God's ineptitude as a creator.

And since this theology has Jesus proclaiming that only few people will make it to heaven, this actually means that this Satan fellow will have actually won the war for souls. Even if the evil devil is killed in the end he would have still won the battle for souls.

So this entire religion simply has no merit at all. The supposedly 'omnipotent' God would necessarily need to be an extremely 'impotent' and inept creator to make the fables even remotely work anyway.

So to even argue that an omnipotent God could perform this absurdly insane theasco doesn't help this religion at all. It still requires that the God is inept, and incapable of doing any better, in both creating humans in the first place, and in being able to arrange for them to merit their own salvation even if such a thing was required.

Offering unworthy humans free amnesty by the grace of Christ would be nothing more than this God giving up entirely. He may as well have offered free amnesty to Adam and Eve and been done with his ignorant games right then and there.

This religion is clearly a product of mankind's sick imagination. No omnipotent God could be this inept and ignorant.

Never mind whether Jesus could have risen from the dead. That wouldn't even matter anyway. If our creator had to stoop to that level of desperation to offer unworthy humans free amnesty that would indeed be a very pathetic Creator God to be sure.

If there's a God, Christianity, nor any form of the Abrahamic religion could be a meaningful description of it. The Abrahamic religions are actually an extreme insult to any God that might actually exist.

Sheesh, even Buddhism has a far more respectable God theology. The Abrahamic theologies should be ashamed of themselves for even suggesting that any real God would be as inept and sick as their theology demands.

Any theist who wants to seriously believe in a God really needs to move over to a better theology. At least pick a theology that has a potentially intelligent God. The Biblical God simply doesn't fit that bill.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]

I semi-agree with JW, that if there is an omnipotent God who can do anything then the "possibility" that it could happen would be 100%. But certainly NOT the "probability" of it happening.

The point that JW was making, was that if there is an omnipotent God, and this omnipotent God wished it to be so, then the probability of a flying reanimated corpse is 100%. And I agree. It is also true that if there is an omnipotent God, and if this omnipotent God wished it to be so, then the probability of there being flying reindeer is 100%. The same is true for flying pigs, the flying spaghetti monster, or virtually ANYTHING one can imagine. But, as you have indicated, there is no actual "probability" of there being a flying reanimated corpse. Because such a thing is contrary to all common experience. And by extension, no "probability" of there being flying pigs or the flying spaghetti monster either.

This is what I routinely refer to as make believe. In terms of logic, it's simply an exercise in tail chasing.

[Mithrae]

Because such a thing is contrary to all common experience.

Kudos for recognizing that 'common' experience is an important qualifier here. But it's a rather vague/arbitrary qualifier, isn't it? There have been numerous reported observations of "reanimated corpses," and such reports are not an idiosyncrasy of one particular demographic; they can be found in many different cultures and every historical era down to the present.

We should be wary of trying to stack up 100% of evidence against a particular conclusion simply by defining our terms in such a way that we get the result we want. Quite the opposite in fact, I would argue that if trying to honestly assess the probability of a particular rare or paranormal event we should first try to presume that one or two events of that kind have occurred elsewhere. The reason is that in the case of rare events, there may not be a statistically significant difference between the presence or absence of a few occurrences within a narrow scope: Zero occurrences may not be significantly different from two (or even a dozen) occurrences. It's a bit like buying a lottery ticket a few thousand times and using the absence of any jackpot wins as a basis for arguing that any other claims of a win are probably false.

Asserting that zero confirmed reports in "all common experience" is a significant point of data in this discussion is a form of circular argument: It is an assertion that if resurrections can/do occur, their occurrence should have been noted within the scope of whatever it is we mean by 'common experience,' which obviously involves assumptions about the expected probability/frequency of resurrections to begin with.

2017 thread on the topic: Probability and rare or paranormal events; the problem with a frequentist approach

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by Tired of the Nonsense]

If there is a omnipotent God and that was his will then I would say the probablility of it happening would be 100%..


Logic,


JW

IF there is an omnipotent God, ...

Is your point based on your own confirmation bias and faith ( I say faith: because you cannot prove one way or the other if there is or is not a God, so you are expressing an opinon without proof which some define asnthe very definition of faith ) ? I dont happen to share your "faith" but you are welcome to argue assuming what you believe is true, it is however helpful to admit that is what younare doing. For example you might say : "If what I believe about the origin of the univers is true... how likely is it.." ect. Or you could simply state in your OP "Presupposing the (unproven) truth of naturalism.. how likely is it ..."

Of course you can do as you please but there are some seasoned debators here (and at lease one person good at posting memes), so we all know an unproven premise when we see one.

Enjoy the rest of your thread,

JW

[marco]

Asserting that zero confirmed reports in "all common experience" is a significant point of data in this discussion is a form of circular argument: It is an assertion that if resurrections can/do occur, their occurrence should have been noted within the scope of whatever it is we mean by 'common experience,' which obviously involves assumptions about the expected probability/frequency of resurrections to begin with.

It is wise to be cautious about pronouncements. The no chance lobby might have put Einstein off had he not been confident about his findings. Two close relatives, both astrophysicists, experienced what is commonly thought to be a ghost incident when they were staying in a hotel in California. They have no explanation but there surely is one, not necessarily associated with the ghost.

With the resurrection we have a different scenario. An empty tomb and an explanation supplied by people whose world had rulers that accepted humans becoming deities. And we have reports from people who weren't there, but were building on rumours. Yes it is I suppose possible for a dead man to be brought to life centuries later - science will possibly be able to do this but I don't believe Christ possessed the necessary know-how. The resurrection is an example of wish becoming fulfilment. It's lovely to think that in our disease-ridden world some wonderful character performed a resurrection. A pity that this solitary event adds nothing to our human progress.