Is forgiveness without a price a virtue?

[Justin108]

Is it a good thing to be able to forgive without any price?

If so, is God imperfect for being unable to forgive sin without Jesus' sacrifice?

[Justin108]

Actually, L. Ron Hubbard supposedly did many things that others point out simply did not happen. He claims to have been awarded several war medals, despite there not being any official record thereof. Many of his medals have been analysed and shown to be fake. He claims to have used Scientology to recover from several war wounds. The Navy denies that he ever sustained these wounds. And of course there is the matter of his death. Followers of his church believe he "voluntarily discarded his body in order to research higher OT levels" when in fact he simply died from a stroke.

So even during his lifetime, people believed things about L. Ron Hubbard that simply never happened. I see no reason why this couldn't be true of Jesus.

My point was that these claims aren't central to the core doctrine of scientology.

If your religious leader is a known liar, why would you believe anything he says? If he lied about medals, why on earth would you believe his claims about alien overlords and body thetans? Especially from a guy that was a science fiction writer? L. Ron Hubbard infamously said "if you want to get rich, you start a religion". Why on earth would anyone believe this guy? Because people are not always rational. So why should we expect the original followers of Jesus to be rational?

Jesus' resurrection is the core doctrine of early Christianity. People can accept/reject scientology without hearing about the medals and claims about what happened at Hubbard's death. That's not the same with Christianity. Attack a scientologist on those claims, show them improbable, and they can keep the teachings; attack a Christian on the historicity of the resurrection, showing it irrational, and the message is gone.

The message is not gone. Elijah John, a member of this site, is a self-identified Christian who does not believe in the resurrection. He believes the message yet doubts the resurrection.

You can ask a thousand questions for every one of these possibilities. All I want to know is whether they are more probable than someone coming back from the dead, and they are.

Why? In light of the various facts (surrounding the empty tomb, claims of seeing a resurrected Jesus, and the early Christians and their message), why? I specifically (although briefly) shared why I didn't think the various theories were more probable than that the resurrection actually happened. If it's a general point like "resurrections don't normally happen" or something like that, fine, share it. If you want to get more specific on each one, fine, share it.

Fine. A resurrection has never happened before or since. However, people have lied countless times throughout history, people have hallucinated many times throughout history, but a resurrection has never happened. And I am not about to go into detail about why they would lie, etc. because as I said, I do not need to come up with a substitute explanation in order to doubt your given explanation.

You're using the same tactic liamconnor uses. "If Jesus didn't come back from the dead then what did happen?" I don't know and I don't need to know in order to be skeptical about your claim. You claim that Jesus came back from the dead. I ask for proof of that claim and your only proof is essentially asking me to disprove it by coming up with an alternate explanation. This is basically shifting the burden of proof.

I am absolutely not shifting the burden of proof. I list every theory I am aware of from the greatest minds who have ever thought about this supposed historical event (and countless people put their mind to this task) and analyze why I think they fail when we look at things historically.

By "fail" you of course mean they are unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. How is that any different from the resurrection? Some might even go as far as to say the resurrection was impossible. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it was possible but highly unlikely. So now we have a collection of unlikely explanations. Why should I choose resurrection? In what way is the resurrection less unlikely than the other explanations?

Suppose there was a man who lived in the most secure house in existence. The security is absolutely impenetrable. The house has bulletproof windows and a five-inch steel vault door. There is absolutely no way anyone could get in. The man was extremely paranoid and obsessively compulsive. Every day he would check at least five times that his door was locked. After several months of this man not coming out of his house, people started to suspect something. Authorities try to open his house but couldn't. Eventually they resorted to drilling a hole in his roof in order to get in. They find his body and see signs of strangulation. How did the man die?
a) He forgot the door open one night
b) A ghost killed him

Considering his obsessive compulsive paranoia, a) is very unlikely. But then so is b). Which unlikely explanation should I ascribe to?

Similarly in the case of Christianity, we are given several unlikely explanations. Why should I ascribe to the resurrection account?

Your response here SEEMS to basically be something like "I don't know, but it has to be something else." Fine, if you can share why it is rational to make that claim.

Suppose there was a serial killer. No one knows who it is. One day, someone suggests the serial killer is Michael Jackson who came back from the dead. To which I would respond (as I expect most will) "I don't know who the serial killer is, but it has to be someone else." Is my claim rational? Or would I need to explain who the serial killer is before rejecting the notion that a risen Michael Jackson did it?

One does not need to come up with an alternate explanation before rejecting a given one.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 320 by The Tanager]

Fine, if you can share why it is rational to make that claim. Why is this (if it is your actual feeling) a rational position to take? What do you base that on?

Let's say that I, rikuo, say "Jesus resurrected from death". Where does that lead? Well apparently, this would mean he was speaking the truth about his father god. Okay, so who and what is this father god...oh crap. We immediately run into all sorts of contradictions.
We've got a supposedly all powerful god requiring a sacrifice of a human in order to something (whenever I ask a Christian what the goal is, it's either forgive sin, forgive humans, defeat sin, defeat death, redeem humanity, etc etc). So I've got a being far more powerful than I am who is incapable of taking certain actions that I myself am able to do without restriction (being forgiving of others) and other actions he shouldn't have a problem with anyway.
We've got a supposedly benevolent, loving, compassionate god...who requires a blood sacrifice of a human before he'll do something. Did God only forgive humanity the moment Jesus took his last breath?
We've got Jesus referring to Passovers and Hebrew heroes like Moses, except all available evidence indicates that the Exodus never happened.
We've got a God who apparently wants humans to believe a certain thing happened (Jesus died for our sins) but for which there is insufficient evidence for the vast majority of people.

Basically, if I take the "Jesus resurrected" card, instead of answering any and all questions, it leads to a whole new set of problems.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 321 by Justin108]

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it was possible but highly unlikely.

I wouldn't do that Justin. I wouldn't go that far. I would say it is impossible. They might say that under naturalism, it is impossible, but under supernatural, it isn't, to which my response is...now you've just worsened the problem. Now you've got to prove the supernatural, for which there is no methodology that does so. Supernaturalism rejects empiricism, so what is left?

Is my claim rational? Or would I need to explain who the serial killer is before rejecting the notion that a risen Michael Jackson did it?

One does not need to come up with an alternate explanation before rejecting a given one.

I suspect that what's happening here is they (maybe not Tanager, but others) are taking their cues from Sherlock Holmes. Ya know the line "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" (Let's ignore for now that that line actually aids us, since if we eliminate the impossible i.e. an actual resurrection, then what remains are various naturalistic theories) and thinking that if they show doubt on various naturalistic theories, then what remains is an actual resurrection. I have seen variations of that line being used before by Christians.
Of course, the weakness of such a line is obvious. Holmes is not an example of a real world genius. He is a fictional character, who happened to get extremely lucky with his guesses. Even in the recent BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, he can be defeated by simple manipulation of data (Moriarty acts 'gay', so Holmes' guess about the nature of his sexuality and personality the first time he sees Moriarty are way off).

If Holmes saw coal dust on my hands, he would say that I am therefore a coal miner, or someone who handles coal. He would land on that explanation being the 'correct' one. Of course, I could throw him for a loop by saying that I am actually an actor, and coal dust on my hands is part of my costume.

[The Tanager]

If your religious leader is a known liar, why would you believe anything he says? If he lied about medals, why on earth would you believe his claims about alien overlords and body thetans? Especially from a guy that was a science fiction writer? L. Ron Hubbard infamously said "if you want to get rich, you start a religion". Why on earth would anyone believe this guy? Because people are not always rational. So why should we expect the original followers of Jesus to be rational?

Are you saying we should expect them to be irrational? If so, why? Because followers of L. Ron Hubbard are irrational all followers of people are irrational?

The message is not gone. Elijah John, a member of this site, is a self-identified Christian who does not believe in the resurrection. He believes the message yet doubts the resurrection.

The message of the group of Christians I was talking about would be gone. I never said there aren't alternative understandings of Jesus. I did say they are later in development.

Fine. A resurrection has never happened before or since. However, people have lied countless times throughout history, people have hallucinated many times throughout history, but a resurrection has never happened.

The fact that a resurrection has never happened before is agreed upon by both of us, so it shouldn't tilt the argument one way or the other. I agree this was the first of its kind.

By "fail" you of course mean they are unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. How is that any different from the resurrection? Some might even go as far as to say the resurrection was impossible. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it was possible but highly unlikely. So now we have a collection of unlikely explanations. Why should I choose resurrection? In what way is the resurrection less unlikely than the other explanations?

Which one has more explanatory power of the facts agreed upon? I made my cases for why the other theories do not fit the facts. The resurrection actually happening fits the facts; the others don't. That is why the resurrection is 'less unlikely'. To change that balance you would need to introduce facts that speak against the resurrection theory, but speak for the other theories.

You seem to keep turning back to prior probability, but I don't see how that is warranted when trying to look at a specific case. When investigating whether someone won the lottery you don't look at the prior probability of that person winning the lottery, you look at the facts in the specific case.

Yes, we know that you can win the lottery because we've seen previous people win it. But a closer analogy, to press it further, would be to think about the first lottery ever. You don't discount the first lottery winner simply because before then there were no lottery winners. You look at the specific facts and the theories being presented that try to make sense of that fact. And, no, I'm not using this analogy as proof for the resurrection theory.

The resurrection theory agrees that no other resurrections happened before. It accounts for that fact just like the other theories do and then it accounts for more facts. So what facts count against the resurrection theory and for these other ones to shift the balance back towards your belief?

Suppose there was a serial killer. No one knows who it is. One day, someone suggests the serial killer is Michael Jackson who came back from the dead. To which I would respond (as I expect most will) "I don't know who the serial killer is, but it has to be someone else." Is my claim rational? Or would I need to explain who the serial killer is before rejecting the notion that a risen Michael Jackson did it?

If all you have to go on is prior probability, then it is reasonable. And you turn to it being a regular human. But then if facts come up that discredit that theory you are no longer rational to believe it was a regular human in spite of your history with past serial killers (i.e., prior probability). The other theories surrounding Jesus' supposed resurrection seem to me to be discredited. You haven't spilled much ink disagreeing with that analysis here. And if the facts only fit a revived Michael Jackson, then that is the rational position to take.

One does not need to come up with an alternate explanation before rejecting a given one.

No, they don't. But you do need to come up with a rational reason for rejecting the given one. That is why I said your response was fine if you can share the rational foundation for saying "It has to be something else." But you haven't given me a rational reason to reject the resurrection in light of the facts agreed upon. Prior probability doesn't seem to me to do it.

[The Tanager]

Let's say that I, rikuo, say "Jesus resurrected from death". Where does that lead? Well apparently, this would mean he was speaking the truth about his father god. Okay, so who and what is this father god...oh crap. We immediately run into all sorts of contradictions.
We've got a supposedly all powerful god requiring a sacrifice of a human in order to something (whenever I ask a Christian what the goal is, it's either forgive sin, forgive humans, defeat sin, defeat death, redeem humanity, etc etc). So I've got a being far more powerful than I am who is incapable of taking certain actions that I myself am able to do without restriction (being forgiving of others) and other actions he shouldn't have a problem with anyway.

If you have read this whole thread, then you will know my response to this. I'm fine if you have or haven't read it. If you have and are unconvinced for the same reasons Justin108 has shared, then I'll let my responses stand as is. If you have and are unconvinced for other reasons than Justin108 has shared, I'd willingly listen to them and respond.

If you have not read this whole thread the basics of my response are that it is logically impossible for God to fix humanity without God taking on human nature (the Incarnation, Jesus) unless God was willing to wipe out or replace humanity, which Christianity believes God was not willing to do.

We've got Jesus referring to Passovers and Hebrew heroes like Moses, except all available evidence indicates that the Exodus never happened.

Irrelevant to the discussion. Let's say Jesus believed these were non-historical but useful to use to get some teachings across. Then you still have to deal with the topic at hand. Or let's assume the sources are inaccurate about Jesus here. That doesn't mean we throw everything they say out. The facts I've talked about do not rely on the sources being completely accurate. Scholars who think they aren't accurate still largely agree on the facts I talked about. Then you still have to deal with the topic at hand. Or let's say the evidence isn't what you say it is...or let's say the evidence is that way, but the Exodus still happened? Then you still have to deal with the topic at hand.

We've got a God who apparently wants humans to believe a certain thing happened (Jesus died for our sins) but for which there is insufficient evidence for the vast majority of people.

I don't think it is insufficient.

Basically, if I take the "Jesus resurrected" card, instead of answering any and all questions, it leads to a whole new set of problems.

That's the same thing with any important belief in one's worldview. Reality is complex and one belief leads to other areas of belief and we work about seeing if it all fits together. Belief in Jesus resurrecting is no different.

I wouldn't do that Justin. I wouldn't go that far. I would say it is impossible. They might say that under naturalism, it is impossible, but under supernatural, it isn't

Prove it is impossible. It's not a matter of saying given [insert worldview] it is or isn't possible. Provide reasons for (dis)believing the specific event or (dis)believing the worldview itself.

to which my response is...now you've just worsened the problem. Now you've got to prove the supernatural, for which there is no methodology that does so. Supernaturalism rejects empiricism, so what is left?

And do so without assuming one worldview over the other. Saying something like empiricism is the only way to support something is question-begging and self-defeating.

I suspect that what's happening here is they (maybe not Tanager, but others) are taking their cues from Sherlock Holmes. Ya know the line "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" (Let's ignore for now that that line actually aids us, since if we eliminate the impossible i.e. an actual resurrection, then what remains are various naturalistic theories) and thinking that if they show doubt on various naturalistic theories, then what remains is an actual resurrection. I have seen variations of that line being used before by Christians.

Of course, the weakness of such a line is obvious. Holmes is not an example of a real world genius. He is a fictional character, who happened to get extremely lucky with his guesses. Even in the recent BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, he can be defeated by simple manipulation of data (Moriarty acts 'gay', so Holmes' guess about the nature of his sexuality and personality the first time he sees Moriarty are way off).

If Holmes saw coal dust on my hands, he would say that I am therefore a coal miner, or someone who handles coal. He would land on that explanation being the 'correct' one. Of course, I could throw him for a loop by saying that I am actually an actor, and coal dust on my hands is part of my costume.

I agree with you that some Christians probably do take this kind of approach with the resurrection and with other matters they want to be true. I believe that we need to look at the warrant for each theory on its own and then compare them together. And that includes the theory "I don't know what happened, but it has to be something other than the resurrection."

[Travellingwagon]

This would be an example of God's grace vs. God's government... A rape victim might find the ability to forgive the rapist, but does that mean the rapist should be released from prison? In the light of Christianity, anyone can be forgiven through repentance and accepting the blood of Jesus for atonement, but regardless, those who transgress the law, even in society, will face judgment apart from mercy, regardless who forgives them. Of couse, according to the Bible, only the 100% perfect soul is allowed access into a 100% perfect heaven...

[liamconnor]

A thread that is 33 pages in has probably gone off topic...like, forty times over.


The OP is whether forgiveness without a price is a virtue.

It was asked whether God, requiring the sacrifice of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, is less virtuous than God simply dispensing forgiveness willy nilly.

It should be noted that such a notion of salvation (i.e., a form of payment) comes not from a comprehensive reading of the Bible, but from loosely reading later theologians, primarily from the scholastic era.


Pauline theology does not conceive of the cross as a substitution, but as a participation. Salvation consists not in Christ dying in our stead, but of Christ's Will entering into our own by faith.

[Justin108]

If your religious leader is a known liar, why would you believe anything he says? If he lied about medals, why on earth would you believe his claims about alien overlords and body thetans? Especially from a guy that was a science fiction writer? L. Ron Hubbard infamously said "if you want to get rich, you start a religion". Why on earth would anyone believe this guy? Because people are not always rational. So why should we expect the original followers of Jesus to be rational?

Are you saying we should expect them to be irrational? If so, why? Because followers of L. Ron Hubbard are irrational all followers of people are irrational?

I am saying that we should consider the possibility that they are irrational. It is more likely that someone is irrational than that someone came back from the dead. We have experienced irrational people countless times. We have never experienced someone coming back from the dead.

Fine. A resurrection has never happened before or since. However, people have lied countless times throughout history, people have hallucinated many times throughout history, but a resurrection has never happened.

The fact that a resurrection has never happened before is agreed upon by both of us, so it shouldn't tilt the argument one way or the other. I agree this was the first of its kind.

My point is it is more likely for someone to lie than for someone to come back from the dead.

By "fail" you of course mean they are unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. How is that any different from the resurrection? Some might even go as far as to say the resurrection was impossible. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it was possible but highly unlikely. So now we have a collection of unlikely explanations. Why should I choose resurrection? In what way is the resurrection less unlikely than the other explanations?

Which one has more explanatory power of the facts agreed upon? I made my cases for why the other theories do not fit the facts. The resurrection actually happening fits the facts; the others don't.

Paul lying also fits the facts.

You seem to keep turning back to prior probability, but I don't see how that is warranted when trying to look at a specific case.

People always look at priori probability when determining what most likely happened. If I said I had breakfast with Abraham Lincoln this morning, you would also use priori probability to determine whether or not I'm likely to be telling the truth.

When investigating whether someone won the lottery you don't look at the prior probability of that person winning the lottery, you look at the facts in the specific case.

The facts of that specific case would be someone showing me their money, their new house, etc. If my friend told me he won the lottery, but a month later, he still worked a mediocre job, driving a mediocre car and living in a mediocre apartment, I would not believe his claim that he won the lottery. If, however, he showed up at my house in a Lamborghini, I would be far more likely to believe him. Can you offer something similar to the Lamborghini as supporting evidence for the resurrection?

Yes, we know that you can win the lottery because we've seen previous people win it. But a closer analogy, to press it further, would be to think about the first lottery ever. You don't discount the first lottery winner simply because before then there were no lottery winners.

Common sense is enough to conclude that someone among the millions of people playing the lottery would guess the correct numbers. There is no common sense deduction, however, that would conclude a resurrection.

So what facts count against the resurrection theory and for these other ones to shift the balance back towards your belief?

The burden of proof is not on me to find facts to count against the resurrection. I don't need to disprove your theory. You're the one who needs to prove it.

Suppose there was a serial killer. No one knows who it is. One day, someone suggests the serial killer is Michael Jackson who came back from the dead. To which I would respond (as I expect most will) "I don't know who the serial killer is, but it has to be someone else." Is my claim rational? Or would I need to explain who the serial killer is before rejecting the notion that a risen Michael Jackson did it?

If all you have to go on is prior probability, then it is reasonable. And you turn to it being a regular human. But then if facts come up that discredit that theory you are no longer rational to believe it was a regular human in spite of your history with past serial killers (i.e., prior probability).

What facts are there to prove Jesus was not a regular human?

One does not need to come up with an alternate explanation before rejecting a given one.

No, they don't. But you do need to come up with a rational reason for rejecting the given one.

I did. People do not typically come back from the dead. So why should I believe someone did in this instance?

[KingandPriest]

[Replying to post 328 by Justin108]

I did. People do not typically come back from the dead. So why should I believe someone did in this instance?

Have you actually checked the medical records of various hospitals around the world. There are many records of a person coming back from the dead.

Here are a few (note: the medical community prefers to call some of these near death experiences, even though these same professionals declared the various patients dead):

http://iands.org/research/publications/ ... jnds1.html
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67 ... adc799033/
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67 ... adc798967/
http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799254/
http://www.near-death.com/religion/athe ... eists.html
http://whitecrowbooks.com/features/page ... im_changed


Now there are a lot more, but I did not want to overwhelm you. This was just a quick search online through a couple scholarly websites, and a quick google search.

I am sure, I can provide you with more if you still do not think it possible for a person to come back from death.

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 328 by Justin108]

I did. People do not typically come back from the dead. So why should I believe someone did in this instance?

Have you actually checked the medical records of various hospitals around the world. There are many records of a person coming back from the dead.

Here are a few (note: the medical community prefers to call some of these near death experiences...

Well there you go. A near death experience is not the same as dying and coming back from the dead. If you're suggesting that Jesus had a near death experience, then I could believe that. But then why would I believe Jesus is the son of God if near death experiences happen all the time? What's so special about Jesus?