Christians, what would it take?

[Inigo Montoya]

What would have to happen for you Christians to abandon your beliefs in God, miracles, the accuracy of the Bible's stories, etc.?

We have a couple panentheists, at least one Muslim, and heaven knows what else frequenting this subforum; you folk feel free to chime in on your respective versions of "God/god" and apply the OP to it as you see fit.

On a personal note, I'm especially anxious to hear from Ted and FtK, Goose and BThread.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 20 by Willum]

So there is one conspiracy that historians take seriously, the one of where, ever since ~300 BCE, wherever Rome conquered, it used religion to rule.

I know of no scholar who takes your theory seriously; again, please provide something other than your word--a link at least.

It drew analogies between the local gods and the Greco-Roman ones. For example Sulis-Minterva. As they conquered they said, "See your gods are our gods with different names. They said they give us the right to rule, therefore you should obey us."

It drew an analogy between existing religions, yes. However, all the documentation demonstrates that the Jews were often exempted from attempts to assimilate.

Very like Romans 13:1-7.

The passage supports no conspiracy theory of any kind; admonishing Christians to avoid instigating Rome is simply good advice.

So the question I always ask is:
Why having had this successful policy for over 300 years, do Jews and Christians believe it ceased when Rome conquered Jerusalem?

Rome was about maintaining peace; permitting the Jews in Judea and the diaspora to maintain their tradition contributed to peace. Hence we see very little attempts to assimilate them. Christians however were at several points in their history encouraged to abandon Christianity, which puts an enormous damper on your theory; it would involve Rome persecuting a religion which they themselves invented.

I propose that in the years of development that religion simply got to be good enough to "fool most of the people most of the time," and the Dark Ages did the rest.

You can propose anything; it is the support that people here demand. It is a simple fact that there is no support for your theory. All you have are arm-chair speculations. Every actual document from the time period refutes you.

Or why Jove is the Hebrew word for God?

It isn't. Jove is an English word. This has been explained to you before.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 21 by liamconnor]

Dude, you are the historian, I don't provide you historical evidence, you can dispute mine!
The fact that I can casually "Google" many a scholar who holds that position, makes me suspect you don't actually know any scholars:
http://www.academia.edu/695750/History_ ... ustan_Rome
http://www.academia.edu/11756510/A_stud ... cs_and_war

Ah, well.

It drew an analogy between existing religions, yes. However, all the documentation demonstrates that the Jews were often exempted from attempts to assimilate.

Huh? They were completely manipulated by the Roman Empire. The Seleucid were overthrown by Pompey in favor of the also pagan Sadducee, who placed their subjects in religious ignorance to rule over them, which the Romans used when it came time to replace them with the Pharisee.
Where do you get your history from, the Bible?
Check your sources, man, check your sources.

Every actual document from the time period refutes you.

I'd love to see one.

It isn't. Jove is an English word. This has been explained to you before.

No, J is an English letter, if you must bring this down to this level of deception, then here, I'll be the Electric Company's Letterman:

God

[jgh7]

How about this:

What if the God of another religion came to Earth and started performing miracles and making himself known?

How about that elephant God from hinduism?

My guess is you would think it was some sort of trick of the devil to sway you from Christianity?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 23 by jgh7]

An interesting guess. Unfortunately, guesses about what others on this forum would or would not do has little weight as far as arguments go.

If something similar to Christianity occurred in another religion, this alone would not negate the historical value of the resurrection.

[veeman]

I would stop believing in Christ if He Himself were dead. That is, if He ceased to fill me. Also if I stopped being able to work miracles in His name.

[Tcg]

That is, if He ceased to fill me.

In what way do you think that Christ himself fills you.

Also if I stopped being able to work miracles in His name.

What kind of miracles are you able to work in his name?

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 18 by Inigo Montoya]

It is abundantly clear to you, you mean. What are all the natural explanations again? You have them all? Where did you get them? I'm interested in reading them, indeed. Not enough to search your history but if you link them, I'll click them.

A legitimate question.

All natural explanations of the origins of Christianity will fall into a category of either Conspiracy or Psycopathy; that is, either someone/s was lying, or someone/s was mistaken.

The conspiracy explanation fails. No historian today takes it seriously.

This seems to be an obvious falsehood; there are many historical examples in which groups of religiously-motivated individuals have (by all appearances) concocted or perpetuated deception or wilful self-delusion, sometimes even towards illogical or self-destructive ends. The Heaven's Gate and early Mormon groups spring to mind as examples; the former ultimately self-destructive and the latter arguing, like traditional resurrection apologists, that their founders' claims must have been true if they were derided and oppressed because of them. Particularly given the number of examples and extent of research into such cultic behaviour in the past century, I would be surprised if any credible historian today dismisses that possibility out of hand in the case of the earliest Christians. Ill-considered cults and Messianic movements were hardly unheard of in 1st century Judea.

But on a more fundamental level your black and white, pass/fail approach to historical enquiry seems to be entirely misguided, as I have pointed out to you previously. History is not a field of absolutes or certainties, but of theories and probability; and that means that even if the resurrection were the best theory among the several available - which is dubious enough to begin with - that still wouldn't necessarily make it a probable scenario. When I have pointed this out to you in the past, you disappeared from the discussion due perhaps to time constraints in real life:

And so if one can provide a hypothesis for an historical claim which has explanatory scope and power, as well as a minimal number of ad hoc assumptions, while another cannot, the other's 'doubt' is quite impotent.

Most of the main hypotheses have explanatory scope and power, so the only real point you're making is with regard to the quantity of ad hoc assumptions. It's worth noting that not all ad hoc assumptions are equally ad hoccy, so merely talking about the number of such assumptions is a little misleading.

More importantly, if one hypothesis has good explanatory scope and power with a minimal quantity of ad hoc assumptions, while another requires only slightly more assumption to achieve equal explanatory scope, it is obviously entirely fallacious to suggest that the latter is "impotent."

Furthermore, note that the sum of all mutually-exclusive possibilities by definition must add up to a 100% certainty that one of them is correct: If there were a 90% probability of mutually-exclusive hypothesis A being correct, all other possibilities can have only a 10% probability between them, otherwise A's probability would be lower.

Therefore even if resurrection were the best hypothesis (which is debatable) and other main hypotheses (eg. fraud, swoon, mistaken identity) were only two-thirds as plausible, we'd still be left with only a 30% probability/plausibility for the resurrection hypothesis (leaving a final 10% free for Christ myth and other miscellanea).

Most theories do not have explanatory scope or power; for one they require a new theory to explain Paul's and James' conversions. When you jump from 'the disciples fell into cognitive dissonance' to Paul 'felt guilty' you have two theories for the psychological state of both parties were completely different. Likewise, what needs to be explained is not merely the earliest belief in the resurrection, but the aftermath: the earliest epistles and the gospels. For instance, one needs a theory which neatly shows how gospel stories in which women discover an empty tomb arise a mere 30 to 40 years after the initial historical event. When one theory can explain all the data, a conglomerate of theories should be deemed inferior. Obviously a theory in which women actually found their master's tomb empty explains how gospels later reported how women actually reported their master's tomb empty.

It is true that 'ad hoc' overlaps with the other criteria, for when a theory lacks explanatory scope and power, the theory needs to make up for the inefficiency by throwing in a bunch of 'maybes'. I leave the maybes for non-historically minded people.

By contrast, the traditional Christian 'theory' that the New Testament provides impeccable historical accounts is easily and demonstrably false on numerous important points. So you must explain
> why none of the witnesses to these supposedly world-shaping events recorded a written account of them, except perhaps Matthew (unaccountably lost, unless the hypothetical Q document was a Greek translation of it) and perhaps John (a primarily theological account treating historical detail as an occasional convenience),
> why all early authors, most easily demonstrable in the case of Paul, John, Luke and 'Matthew,' viewed the events of Jesus' life, death and resurrection so trivially as to select, omit, invent and even alter stories at will, resulting in various contradictions in details of even the most important events,
> why so few of the people in that time and place - according to Luke about 120, out of some 50,000-80,000 inhabitants of Jerusalem - were persuaded by seeing this supposedly world-shaping event, and why the movement waited over a month and the disappearance of the corpse (by either decay or levitation) before 'going public,'
> why the earliest full account of the story (Mark) retained no appearances of a risen Jesus at all and the other earliest source (Paul) says that Jesus "became a life-giving spirit" and teaches by analogy that the resurrected 'spiritual body' is "not the seed that was sown,"
> why there were evidently substantial doctrinal differences even within that early community and particularly between those two you name, Paul and James, who came late to the party and evidently with different agendas in mind, different followers to please so they'd keep that apostolic upkeep coming...

...and so on. If you've got no "maybes" to explain these major incongruities then your theory fails entirely. As I said, it is extremely debatable whether the traditional view of the resurrection is even the best theory to begin with, particularly given the magnitude of the ad hoc assumptions necessary to justify the relative paucity and atrocious contradictions in the available evidence for this supposedly most significant of all events to ever have occurred!

However I was not particularly interested in throwing stones back and forth over which theory's gaping holes are the more numerous and significant. On the contrary, I generally find it more challenging and hence educational and enjoyable to root for the underdogs But that argument which you used (and which you always use to demean all opinions which don't conform to your own on this point) seems clearly and obviously illogical, so could you please confirm:

Do you acknowledge that even if it happened to be the case that resurrection were the best of several theories, that still wouldn't necessarily make it probable?

[Willum]

I would stop believing in Christ if He Himself were dead. That is, if He ceased to fill me. Also if I stopped being able to work miracles in His name.

You will be interested in knowing then, that Satan and Death unprecedentedly slew the God in 1460 or so. That is why no one has heard from Him since.

God's was a noble effort however, but even a creature of omnipotence as it turns out, must be careful challenging the subtitles of Evil and power of Death. When they combined forces and were allowed to live as long as they did, they found a way to kill God himself.
I am sure he will be missed.

For their own purposes they allow an illusion of well-being to remain.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 27 by Mithrae]

This seems to be an obvious falsehood; there are many historical examples in which groups of religiously-motivated individuals have (by all appearances) concocted or perpetuated deception or wilful self-delusion, sometimes even towards illogical or self-destructive ends. The Heaven's Gate and early Mormon groups spring to mind as examples; the former ultimately self-destructive and the latter arguing, like traditional resurrection apologists, that their founders' claims must have been true if they were derided and oppressed because of them. Particularly given the number of examples and extent of research into such cultic behaviour in the past century, I would be surprised if any credible historian today dismisses that possibility out of hand in the case of the earliest Christians. Ill-considered cults and Messianic movements were hardly unheard of in 1st century Judea.

This seems to be an obvious case of illegtimate transfer. One cannot point to other cases which one doubts and then a priori conclude that it covers all cases. Each case must be judged by itself. In the case of Christianity, all forms of conspiracy are intuitively (once one of course has familiarized oneself with the culture of the time) implausible.

The Messianic movements of the 1st c. hardly provide parallels to a message of a crucified and resurrected Messiah whose death and Resurrection provide atonement.

But on a more fundamental level your black and white, pass/fail approach to historical enquiry seems to be entirely misguided, as I have pointed out to you previously. History is not a field of absolutes or certainties, but of theories and probability; and that means that even if the resurrection were the best theory among the several available - which is dubious enough to begin with - that still wouldn't necessarily make it a probable scenario. When I have pointed this out to you in the past, you disappeared from the discussion due perhaps to time constraints in real life:

Correct, I do not recall reading the following:

Mithrae wrote:

liamconnor wrote:
And so if one can provide a hypothesis for an historical claim which has explanatory scope and power, as well as a minimal number of ad hoc assumptions, while another cannot, the other's 'doubt' is quite impotent.

Most of the main hypotheses have explanatory scope and power, so the only real point you're making is with regard to the quantity of ad hoc assumptions. It's worth noting that not all ad hoc assumptions are equally ad hoccy, so merely talking about the number of such assumptions is a little misleading.

The multiplication of ad hoc assumptions is certainly a major problem with naturalistic theories. But that is by far their only sin. They are all guilty of implausibility, and most lack explanatory scope, especially when they are extended to cover Paul's and James' conversion. But I would like to avoid turning this thread into an analysis of specific theories. That has been done elsewhere ad nauseum.

More importantly, if one hypothesis has good explanatory scope and power with a minimal quantity of ad hoc assumptions, while another requires only slightly more assumption to achieve equal explanatory scope, it is obviously entirely fallacious to suggest that the latter is "impotent."

I hear you; it is hard to assess this when a specific historical explanation is not in view.

Furthermore, note that the sum of all mutually-exclusive possibilities by definition must add up to a 100% certainty that one of them is correct: If there were a 90% probability of mutually-exclusive hypothesis A being correct, all other possibilities can have only a 10% probability between them, otherwise A's probability would be lower.

I know of no serious historian who thinks of history in terms of mathematical probability (or Bayes' Theory). What, afterall, is the probability that Caesar did not cross the Rubicon with an army? Since history, as you pointed out, does not provide absolutes, do we honestly afford it a 1% chance? A 1.378% ? A .004% chance. How can we possibly assign a precise number to any historical event? It seems clear to me that the attempt to foist mathematics onto history should be abandoned. HIstorical probabilities are intuitively perceived, not mathematically calculated. When numbers are assigned, they should be regarded almost as analogies. And I argue that both statisticians and historians will mostly agree with me.

"...the use of Bayes theorem is therefore entirely subjective..."--David Bartholomew.

"virtually no historian has used it [Bayes theorem] and even if any wished to do so, he would probably find it difficult as it requires information which is often hard to obtain" --Behan McCullagh.

By contrast, the traditional Christian 'theory' that the New Testament provides impeccable historical accounts is easily and demonstrably false on numerous important points. So you must explain

I would never base any historical argument on the faith assumption that the N.T. provides impeccable historical accounts.

I am nervous to address the following because a major pet P. of mine is hijacking other's threads. But...

> why none of the witnesses to these supposedly world-shaping events recorded a written account of them, except perhaps Matthew (unaccountably lost, unless the hypothetical Q document was a Greek translation of it) and perhaps John (a primarily theological account treating historical detail as an occasional convenience),

I must flip through my research for the sources, but, for now, I assert that 1) written statements were of less value then than today. Oral reports were of greater value and so it is no surprise that while the original witnesses lived, oral testimony was quite adequate, even preferred, 2) writing materials and literacy was hardly as available and widespread as they are today, 3) the impulse to write down traumatic experiences arises even among modernors rather late in life. The immediate impulse is to tell people face to face. I myself believe I may have witnessed a supernatural occurrence. I have told many people; I have yet felt the impulse to write it down.

> why all early authors, most easily demonstrable in the case of Paul, John, Luke and 'Matthew,' viewed the events of Jesus' life, death and resurrection so trivially as to select, omit, invent and even alter stories at will, resulting in various contradictions in details of even the most important events,

The discrepancies among the gospels are by no means unique to them as far as historical works go in antiquity. Plutarch's biographies show discrepancies even between narratives of the same event. AS far as the "triviality" of the reports, I am not sure what is meant. Do you merely mean that they should have written novels on an epic scale like Lord of the Rings? That would obviously be a subjective criterion. At any rate, oral preaching would still have been preferred over written communication.

> why so few of the people in that time and place - according to Luke about 120, out of some 50,000-80,000 inhabitants of Jerusalem - were persuaded by seeing this supposedly world-shaping event, and why the movement waited over a month and the disappearance of the corpse (by either decay or levitation) before 'going public,'

A side note: I find it interesting that when an historical claim favors your position, you do not doubt its historicity. But let's leave that aside. Why so few? Because Jesus showed himself to so few. Why the delay? Supposing the real resurrection, I find it psychologically naive to suppose that the disciples should have digested the event instantly, integrating it into their current convictions, then organized a systematic missionary attack which converted thousands, all within a week of the event. I do not think it has been truly appreciated how traumatic a resurrection of a crucified messiah would have been to a 1st c. Jew; how much it overturned and transformed their entire tradition and therefore identity as Jews. It is obvious from the N.T. that the need to reconcile a crucified and resurrected Messiah with Scriptures that say nothing about this was enormous; not only to convince fellow Jews, the initial recipients of the message, but also for themselves.

> why the earliest full account of the story (Mark) retained no appearances of a risen Jesus at all

I have never understood why this looms so large for skeptics. The original manuscript leaves no doubt that Jesus was raised. It has long been noticed by scholars that the gospels are not mere biographies, that they employed the traditions in distinct ways; and there are numerous literary explanations for Mark's enigmatic ending, some very attractive. But I do not think the burden of this question is very heavy.

and the other earliest source (Paul) says that Jesus "became a life-giving spirit" and teaches by analogy that the resurrected 'spiritual body' is "not the seed that was sown,"

Proof-texting and word-hunting is frowned upon in Christian scholarship; it should be held in the same disfavor among skeptics. Where you emphasize "spiritual" I could easily emphasize "body", as both terms are used. A word study of Paul's use of "spiritual" will show that physical make-up is far from the main point, if the point at all. For Paul, a fleshly body is a body corrupted by sin; a spiritual body is one freed from sinful desires.

> why there were evidently substantial doctrinal differences even within that early community and particularly between those two you name, Paul and James, who came late to the party and evidently with different agendas in mind, different followers to please so they'd keep that apostolic upkeep coming...

I do not see how this effects the historicity of the resurrection. Nor do I recognize the 'agendas' of Paul and James. We have one passage in Gal. which yields many interpretations. The James/Paul faction is a myth of modern scholars.

But that argument which you used (and which you always use to demean all opinions which don't conform to your own on this point) seems clearly and obviously illogical, so could you please confirm:

I take umbrage with the assumption that I cannot have historical convictions. And if I have a conviction, of course I am going to disagree with convictions of others. Perhaps I am guilty of flamboyant rhetoric; no doubt something I should work on.

Do you acknowledge that even if it happened to be the case that resurrection were the best of several theories, that still wouldn't necessarily make it probable?

No. As noted above "probability" in history is not mathematically discerned. And if it cannot be mathematically discerned in merely natural events, how much less if one of the players were God? What skeptics ignore on our side of the net is that there is a psychological element in the question of the resurrection. We are not talking of flipping coins or boiling water, nor of whether bodies naturally revive after death, but of whether a a particular person (i.e. Person) will act in a particular way at a particular time and place. And surely antecedent probability does not apply here: For instance, I am a bachelor and have never been married. Does it follow that there is a zero percent chance I will marry? Ah, but men do in fact marry! Very well, can we calculate the probability of my marrying by reckoning up all the men of history, with bachelors on one side and married on the other, and dividing the two? Clearly not, for it leaves out too many factors, not least of which is my desire to marry or not.

[Mithrae]

But that argument which you used (and which you always use to demean all opinions which don't conform to your own on this point) seems clearly and obviously illogical, so could you please confirm:

I take umbrage with the assumption that I cannot have historical convictions. And if I have a conviction, of course I am going to disagree with convictions of others. Perhaps I am guilty of flamboyant rhetoric; no doubt something I should work on.

Nowhere did I say you cannot have historical convictions. However in that earlier thread you had dismissed others' views as "impotent" and in this thread incorrectly asserted that they "fail, No historian today takes it seriously." As I've noted this seems to be a black and white, pass/fail attitude which is completely at odds with the very real and substantial uncertainties of ancient history.

Do you acknowledge that even if it happened to be the case that resurrection were the best of several theories, that still wouldn't necessarily make it probable?

No. As noted above "probability" in history is not mathematically discerned.

So by implication, you are asserting that if a given theory is the 'best' available, it therefore is necessarily a probable scenario?

It seems that the person here who is promoting a sense of certitude - which implies a mathematical conclusion - is you, not I. The uncertainties surrounding Christian origins are substantial, to the extent that some highly qualified historians suggest that Jesus may not have even existed! That is a weak theory, a fringe theory, but it is far from impossible. Some details of Jesus' life such as his hometown of Nazareth, baptism by John and existence of his brother James can be very strongly inferred; but on the other hand it is virtually indisputable that stories such as the contradictory accounts of his genealogy, birth in Bethlehem and the historically-feeble census and slaughter of infants stories surrounding them were simply inventions by people who seemingly didn't view these as matters of important historical truth.

You have answered some of the biggest and most obvious problems with viewing the stories at the other ends of the gospels as sincere (if not accurate) historical accounts about as well as anyone I've seen. But these are still - to use your term - ad hoc efforts to salvage the theory against discrepancies which wouldn't otherwise be expected if the theory were correct. It may still be the 'best' theory available in spite of those discrepancies; like you, I'm not particularly interested in thrashing out the finer details on that point here, so will happily take it as a given.

However there's a huge gap between merely thinking it the 'best' theory, and considering it so overwhelmingly superior that alternative views can be dismissed as irrelevant nothings in comparison - which is what you try to present. If the resurrection theory were even twice as compelling as three other possibilities (eg. swoon, fraud, mistaken identity) it would still be more probable than not that Jesus didn't rise from the dead.



Edited to add:
You seem to be contradicting Paul in your comments below, which is strange considering the 'creed' of 1 Cor. 15 is probably your most frequently-cited source on this topic - how can you so easily forget what it says? With their Messiah crucified, Psalm 22, Daniel 9, the servant songs of Isaiah and especially chapter 53 provide ample grounds for supporting the theology which Christians did in fact develop.

Luke 24:25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?� 27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

It is hardly implausible to suppose that instead of receiving that theology from a resurrected Christ, it may have been developed by fervent believers searching for meaning during those fifty days* following their leaders' death; a revelation and relief which of course they would then attribute to Jesus himself.

It is obvious from the N.T. that the need to reconcile a crucified and resurrected Messiah with Scriptures that say nothing about this was enormous; not only to convince fellow Jews, the initial recipients of the message, but also for themselves.

* As to your comment that I "do not doubt its historicity" if it "favours my position," assuming the reliability of Acts on that point is a huge concession towards the traditional view; it may well have been years before any organized proto-Christian evangelism got underway.