Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[Star]

[Replying to post 1117 by Star]

1 Corinthians 1

18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

What is this nonsense and why is it directed at me? I hope this isn't preaching.

[Whatistruth75]

[quote="no evidence no belief"]
I feel like we've been beating around the bush for...

[Whatistruth75]

[Replying to post 1120 by Star]

It is debating Christianity.

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

[Danmark]

Your opening premise is the universal statement "people don't rise from the dead." All I need is one counter example to falsify this premise. Not withstanding the resurrection of Jesus I have several counter examples in the Lazarus Syndrome. These are medically documented cases of people declared dead by medical professionals who then spontaneously (without medical intervention such as CPR) returned to life.

I had a good chuckle at this. It's true that you only need one example to falsify his premise, however, you don't have one. Jesus rising from the dead is a fairy tale. Lazarus Syndrome, if you read your article, has many possible medical explanations for it. Even still, that's NOT rising from the dead. These patients were already in the process of being resuscitated.

From your article:

Various mechanisms have been suggested as explanation for the phenomenon. Bradbury (6) suggested delayed delivery to the heart of previously administered adrenaline as the basis for SROC in a patient after acute myocardial infarction and left ventricular failure. Voelckel and Kroesen (7) reported a case of suspected hyperkalemic cardiac arrest, and hypothesized that SROC seven minutes after discontinuing the resuscitation was attributable to a gradual intracellular shift of potassium after previously administered bicarbonate. Quick and Bastani (8) attributed SROC eight minutes after declaration of death to a similar mechanism. One case report described SROC five minutes after discontinuation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) intraoperatively during thoracoabdominal aortic endovascular stent-graft placement (9). The postulated mechanism in that case was a spontaneous dislodging of embolized endovascular plaque from the coronary artery, which then allowed cardiac reperfusion.

A few authors have discussed “auto-PEEP� as a possible mechanism to explain SROC (10–12). During CPR, dynamic hyperinflation may develop in a patient with obstructive airway disease because of hyperventilation and inadequate exhalation time. Cessation of ventilation relieves the hyperinflation and the excessive intrathoracic pressure, thus allowing cardiac filling and permitting the spontaneous return of cardiac function. Lapinsky and Leung (13) reviewed 89 cases of CPR of which 34 had documentation of electromechanical dissociation. In 16 of these 34 patients, there were autopsy or clinical findings that provided an explanation of the electromechanical dissociation. Thirteen of the remaining 18 patients (72%) had a history of obstructive airway disease in contrast to an incidence of 11% in the other patients who had been resuscitated.

Of these various mechanisms, that which seems most relevant in this case is that of positive pressure ventilation increasing intrathoracic pressure, which then impeded venous return. Hypovolemia would also have exaggerated the deleterious effect of intrathoracic pressure on venous return. With the cessation of positive pressure ventilation, perhaps enhanced passive filling of the quiescent heart stimulated spontaneous electrical activity. And perhaps this spontaneous rhythm went unnoticed for some minutes. Having been ventilated with 100% oxygen, there would have been an oxygen reserve in the residual capacity of the lungs that could have provided for oxygenation during this period of unrecognized SROC. Reduced oxygen consumption secondary to the hypothermia (which certainly also afforded significant neurologic protection), and the fact that arterial perfusion was limited to the level above the aortic clamp, might have also played a role. In addition, residual epinephrine from earlier injections may have been a sufficient vasopressor to sustain the blood pressure during this time. The large dose of epinephrine used could also explain the dilated pupils that may not, therefore, have reflected his neurologic status. It is also interesting to speculate on the possible role of the aortic cross clamping and the associated changes in preload, afterload, and humoral factors in causing the initial arrest, as well as how these factors might have changed both during and after the resuscitation to have allowed SROC.

Exactly. This is the so called 'swoon' theory and it's been around for a 1000 years or so. According to the swoon theory, Jesus didn't die, he just 'swooned' and later woke up. Christians have argued against the swoon theory by pointing to Dr. Luke's account of the spear thrust into the side of Jesus which released a stream of 'blood' and 'water.' In other words, both blood and plasma which indicates Jesus had died and been dead long enough that the blood had separated into red and clear fluids which only happens when the heart stops pumping.

I wonder how many of these 'dead' people had their sides pierced resulting in a stream of plasma and red fluid running out, and then recovered from 'death.'

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 1120 by Star]

It is debating Christianity.

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

Are you kidding?

I mean that is the whole point of ALL the debates in C & A, that there is no God. Yes, if there were a God, it would not be surprising that he raised the dead.
What is not surprising is that the dead do not get raised and that there is no god.

[Whatistruth75]

[Replying to post 1123 by Danmark]

Please supply evidence to prove your belief that there is no God and no miracles were done 1000s of years ago. You will find you are in exactly the same possition as me. You can't.

[JohnA]

The atheist position is NOT "there is no evidence for the supernatural". It is "No convincing evidence of the supernatural has been presented to me yet, therefore I don't believe in the supernatural yet".

I think this is a fair correction. Yes, to suggest that there exists no evidence for the supernatural is technically the same as suggesting that there is no supernatural. Therefore the rightful wording of the claim is that the theist side has not yet met their burden of proof.

Well done, you are right. The rest of the guys post was absolute garbage though. My main point still stands. After the above claim is made, different epistemological approaches lead to different conclusions.

Doctor instantc,

Can you please elaborate: why, and what specifically is garbage? Which point of yours still stands (remember no evidence no belief already showed you wrong and you accepted it)?
You now made a claim, so please back this up. Do not use mere assertions, we want logic, arguments, evidence (information, facts, data) for your claim. Or else, please retract your claim.
We want to learn from you, your wealth of knowledge is in demand.

Thank you.

[Goose]

On the contrary, it's a crucial observation.

No, it isn’t. You only think it is. I’ve demonstrated it isn’t crucial by introducing the assassination of Caesar as a control. No one claims to have witnessed Caesar actually dying from his stab wounds either. It is inferred as the resurrection is.

If there were direct eye-witness account of the resurrection itself, the only thing left to discuss would be the reliability of the data, which I'm not interested in.

Since the conclusion has to be inferred from the surrounding circumstances, in addition to the reliability of the data, I can also contest whether or not resurrection is the best conclusion drawn from those circumstances.

But I could make the very same objections regarding Caesar’s assassination and you no doubt accept that event as historical. So your objection carries no weight unless you also question the inference that Caesar died by assassination.

So far you haven't given me a reason to believe in Jesus's resurrection, you have merely made dubious references to approaches used by others arguing for the same conclusion. Do you want me to comment on their case or yours?

You are confusing me someone trying desperately to convince you. The context of this thread is for Christians to provide evidence for their beliefs, not convince you.

[Goose]

Goose, thumb through your little Lazarus book for me again. Were any of these medically documented occurrences recorded of men or women who'd been dead for 3 days, and further leveraged your soul in the afterlife based on whether or not you believed it?

Inigo Montoya et al. thumb through the thread for me again and you’ll notice the Lazarus Syndrome was introduced by me as a counter example to falsify the premise in Nickman’s argument against the resurrection which began with “people don't rise from the dead.� It was not introduced as evidence for Jesus' resurrection.

Now if you wish to pigeon hole me into a defending a literal three day time period I’m okay with that as long as you acknowledge that in doing so you are tacitly conceding the reliability of the text in its presentation of secondary details. You don’t get argue the text is accurate in its details only when it suites you.

[JohnA]

to suggest that there exists no evidence for the supernatural is technically the same as suggesting that there is no supernatural. .

So is suggesting that there exists as yet no evidence to support string theory technically the same as suggesting that string theory is wrong?

No, to suggest that we don't have evidence at this point is also correct. These guys were just picking on a technicality. Minor issue.

Dear Doctor instantc,

But what technicality are you referring too? Why is this a minor issue, since you have been shown wrong by various posters.
You say that: "The atheist claim is, there is no evidence for the supernatural, nothing else." That is simply wrong. That is not a minor technical issue. E.g. I have seen an atheist trying to defend this in another forum and he came out short, as he had to present ALL of the so called evidence that has been reviewed to stand by his point. He lost that debate as he could not show all this so called evidence. How can you show this if you do not even know what the supernatural is? (to say the supernatural is not the natural is not the answer, as we may just have the definition of the natural wrong). I guess that is also why you are coming off second with user Goose (note that I do not agree with any of Goose's faith based irrational & illogical dogma).

Please elaborate Doctor instantc. You need to now convince us that your assertions hold any water (and in no way do I wish to allege that you are anything short of a genius).

Thank you.