Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

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Sherlock Holmes

Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #1

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

I think most would agree that the universe is a rationally intelligible system. We can discover structures, patterns, laws and symmetries within the system. Things that happen within the system seem to be related to those laws too. So given all this is it not at least reasonable to form the view that it is the work of an intelligent source? Isn't it at least as reasonable or arguably more reasonable to assume that as it is to assume it just so happens to exist with all these laws, patterns just there, with all that takes place in the universe just being fluke?

If we take some of the laws of physics too, we can write these down very succinctly using mathematics, indeed mathematics seems to be a language that is superb for describing things in the universe, a fine example being Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field. Theoretical physicists often say they feel that they are discovering these laws too:

Image

So if the universe can be described in a language like mathematics doesn't that too strongly suggest an intelligent source? much as we'd infer if we stumbled upon clay tablets with writing on them or symbols carved into stone? Doesn't discovery of something written in a language, more or less prove an intelligent source?

Image

So isn't this all reasonable? is there anything unreasonable about this position?

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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #321

Post by Difflugia »

brunumb wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:51 pmWhy not have the resurrection event occur in the presence of multitudes leaving little doubt possible?
"Every time I look at you, I don't understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed it better if you'd had it planned, so why'd you choose such a backward town in such a strange land? If you'd come today, you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication."—Jesus Christ Superstar
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #322

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #0]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #319]
When A. A. Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh, would you say that was he lying?
Did he say it was true or allow people to believe it was true?
Did he say there were any eyewitnesses that saw Winnie the Pooh?

Again the central message of Christianity is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. That is the message The New Testament.
Steinbeck's turtle in The Grapes of Wrath is an allegory, yet it's never explained as such in the book.
Did he say it actually happen or let people believe that it actually happen? The allegories in Grapes of Wrath are described in other books. Luke only wrote Luke and Acts. There are 25 other books with other writers that could have explained the allegory if that is what it was. Is there any place where the allegory is explained? Many people think that the Hobbit is an allegory but it was not written as an allegory.

You have yet to explain the allegory yourself. What is the allegory here? Since it is not explained in any of the writings of the time.
The problem with saying that Plato wrote allegory is the cave.
Did someone believe the cave actually existed? Did Plato let people believe the cave actually existed? Did Plate explain the cave? He did in The Republic Book.
And NOWHERE in Orwell's Animal Farm have pigs been treated as allegory.
Where other books written about Orwells Animal Farm did explain the allegory?
There was a real historical Saint Nicholas that is without question. That would make Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer an allegory about a person that actually existed.
What's the hidden meaning behind Rudolph? Accept yourself as you are. Santa really has nothing to do with Rudolph's self-actualization. Have you not watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? I have children so I watch it every year. We even get on Norad to see where Santa is. So be careful how you talk about Santa.
Luke wrote allegory about a (perhaps) real person. How later Christians came to understand what he wrote was sort of out of his hands.
Are you saying that Jesus was not a historical figure? That would be a serious problem for you if that is what you are saying.

So when are saying Luke wrote his gospel? Because the message of the resurrection of Christ was very early, according to Corinthians 15. The belief that Jesus died and rose again has always been the message of Christianity.
I suspect that that's not the important difference. Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by angels in a Christmas Carol. Do you think that's fiction or nonfiction? Why? I'll guess up front that your answers would be much the same as mine despite the differences in our beliefs about the supernatural. I suspect that what's different is our attitudes about the Bible specifically, not about stories of gods and angels in general.
Does anybody worship Ebenezer Scrooge? Did anyone say that Ebenezer Scrooge was God? Did anyone else see these "angels" that Dickins describes? Are there any other writings that profess to the truthfulness of these "angels"?

This is the problem with all of your examples. Luke did not write by himself. There are other writers that affirm the same truth that Luke describes. Unless you are arguing that Luke wrote the entire New Testament.

Paul's writings affirm the same truth that Luke wrote about.
John's writings affirm the same truth that Luke wrote about also.
The writer of Hebrews explains how Jesus was God.

John in his writings said it like this.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our[a] joy complete.
Did anyone affirm the truth of the Christmas Carol?
And He is so ineffable that at least three of those thought that the best way to explain His ways was through theological fiction. Unfortunately, we don't actually have any of Peter's writing, so we can't know how he felt about the Gospels.
Is anyone lying yet? I mean you have basically said the entire New Testament is fiction. And yet the central message of Christianity has always been. At least that is what most scholars believe.

12 facts
  • The resurrection was the central message.
  • They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
  • The Church was born and grew.
Peter did say he wrote 1 Peter.
No, they wrote different fictional stories about many of the same characters. Mark's Jesus was adopted by God at the baptism rather than being born divine. John's Jesus was neither a descendant of David nor born in Bethlehem. They're different stories.
Both declared Jesus as God. Both describe how Jesus died. And both describe how Jesus rose again. The central message of Christianity.
The Kingdom of God is open to all, to the Jewish and non-Jewish alike. The way to achieve salvation in the afterlife is through obedience and prayer in this life. Though the Church was divided in the past into a Palestinian faction and a Greek/Hellenist faction, represented by the characters Peter and Paul, respectively. The separate factions have managed to unite through compromise just as the two characters did in Acts.
That is not the central message of Christianity which has been preached for over 2 thousand years. So you are saying that the Church had it wrong for all that time. There was no Church before the New Testament. There was no Greek Church or Palestinian Church so there was nothing to unite. Before Jesus and the New Testament, there was only the Jewish Nation. There was a faction between the Jews and the Samaritans but not the Greek and the Palestinian Church because again there was not a Church before Jesus.

The Jewish nation came from Assyria, not Greece.


The message of Jesus in Luke is the exact opposite of that. Unity was not the message of Jesus.
Chapter 12
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Chapter 13

23“Lord,” someone asked Him, “will only a few people be saved?” Jesus answered, 24“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25After the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’…
Chapter 14

25Large crowds were now traveling with Jesus, and He turned and said to them, 26“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters— yes, even his own life— he cannot be My disciple. 27And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.

Belief in Jesus Christ was the message of Luke and Acts.

Peters Message
36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
That has been the message of Christianity.

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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #323

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pm
When A. A. Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh, would you say that was he lying?
You apparently didn't bother to check it yourself. Fortunately, as of January 1, 2022, Winnie the Pooh is in the public domain, so I've reproduced the entire introduction in this thread.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmDid he say it was true or allow people to believe it was true?
The introduction was written in the first person about a real (Christopher Robin) and presumably fictional (Winnie the Pooh and Piglet) characters as though both the author and Christopher Robin were there. Aside from the absurdity of the events themselves, there's no nod or wink to the reader that the story is fiction, so I suppose whether or not Milne "allowed" people to believe that it was true depends on how credulous he thought his readers were. Would you say that believing that a child was allowed to hug a talking polar bear requires more or less credulity than one believing that angels literally appeared and a man born of a virgin came back from the dead?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmDid he say there were any eyewitnesses that saw Winnie the Pooh?
Both Milne and his son Christopher were written as witnesses to the events described. If you're tempted to split hairs more finely than you already have, try both of your questions on the foreword to A Princess of Mars and the introduction to Slaughterhouse-Five. Both are fiction. Neither is considered a lie.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pm
Steinbeck's turtle in The Grapes of Wrath is an allegory, yet it's never explained as such in the book.
Did he say it actually happen or let people believe that it actually happen?
That was your argument that Luke was lying. Your argument that it wasn't allegory was that allegory must be explained. I'm starting to think that you're not even taking your own arguments seriously.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmThe allegories in Grapes of Wrath are described in other books.
Books by Steinbeck? Find one for me.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmLuke only wrote Luke and Acts. There are 25 other books with other writers that could have explained the allegory if that is what it was. Is there any place where the allegory is explained?
What argument are you actually making? You're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmMany people think that the Hobbit is an allegory but it was not written as an allegory.
What does that have to do with Luke?

Whether or not The Hobbit has a single, overarching allegorical message, the story itself is rife with allegory. Most compelling fiction is because it's most relatable when we can see a bit of ourselves or others in the story. Bilbo is experiencing a midlife stagnation and resists the risk of adventure. He struggles with the addictive power of the Ring, both resisting and succumbing at various times using the same kinds of rationalizations that the rest of us do in our own struggles. Gollum is one that has completely given himself over to that addiction to his own destruction. Tolkein claimed that he didn't like allegory, but the relatablility of his stories makes it clear that that can't be true in an absolute sense. Broad, sweeping, perhaps ham-handed allegory? You won't find that in The Hobbit. Thorin's obsession with the Arkenstone to the point of destroying the friends and friendships that were truly valuable, complete with a deathbed epiphany? If that's not allegory, then the word has no meaning.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmYou have yet to explain the allegory yourself. What is the allegory here? Since it is not explained in any of the writings of the time.
Start a new topic.

I'm done explaining allegory to you. If you think that means you've won the argument, then congratulations.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pm
Luke wrote allegory about a (perhaps) real person. How later Christians came to understand what he wrote was sort of out of his hands.
Are you saying that Jesus was not a historical figure? That would be a serious problem for you if that is what you are saying.
Yeah. Christian apologists would pick that moment to suddenly find a single academic conclusion with which they agree and unironically present it as an argument from authority. However would I deal with such a serious problem?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:38 pmThere was no Church before the New Testament.
To whom did Paul write Galatians?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #324

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #323]
The introduction was written in the first person about a real (Christopher Robin) and presumably fictional (Winnie the Pooh and Piglet) characters as though both the author and Christopher Robin were there. Aside from the absurdity of the events themselves, there's no nod or wink to the reader that the story is fiction, so I suppose whether or not Milne "allowed" people to believe that it was true depends on how credulous he thought his readers were. Would you say that believing that a child was allowed to hug a talking polar bear requires more or less credulity than one believing that angels literally appeared and a man born of a virgin came back from the dead?
And here is the problem with your whole allegorical argument. You say that Luke has to be writing fiction because of the miraculous events that he describes. You just declare that they could not have happened without addressing the evidence of the resurrection. Like the following"

1. Which I have said many times the resurrection has always been the central message of Christianity.
2. There were groups of people that say they saw the risen Jesus.
3. The moving of the day of worship to the first day of the week.
4. In all 4 Gospels the Resurrection is central.
5. Christianity Originating in the same City where Jesus died
6. The tomb was empty.
  • It was reported empty by women.
  • The empty tomb account in the gospel of Mark is based upon a source that originated within seven years of the event it narrates.
  • the resurrection was preached in the same city where Jesus had been buried shortly before.
7. Paul's Creed in 1 Corinthians 15 which I have already mentioned is dated by all scholars within 3 years of the Crucifixion of Jesus.

It has already been established that Luke never indicated that he was an allegory.
It has already been established that the resurrection was the central message of Christianity.

It is easy to say something you don't like is fiction if you just ignore the facts.



Like your comment about Paul and Galatians.
To whom did Paul write Galatians?
Remember the Central message of Christianity is the Resurrection, which is what Luke and Mark described in their Gospels. Paul was preaching the same message.
20I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.
The Resurrection of Jesus has been the documented central message of Christianity for at the latest 3 years of the Death of Christ. You have not dealt with any of the facts of the resurrection. You want to conveniently just declare that it did not happen but the facts tell a different story.

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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #325

Post by Clownboat »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am Remember the Central message of Christianity is the Resurrection, which is what Luke and Mark described in their Gospels. Paul was preaching the same message.
20I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing.
The Resurrection of Jesus has been the documented central message of Christianity for at the latest 3 years of the Death of Christ. You have not dealt with any of the facts of the resurrection. You want to conveniently just declare that it did not happen but the facts tell a different story.
To the bold. I would like to point out that IMO, what you present as the central message is just that of Paul's version of Christianity that he made available to the Gentiles.

Paul is all about the blood and the sacrifice. Jesus, not so much.

Rom 3:24 + 28 Paul says: they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,… [28] For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.
Rom 5:9 Paul says: Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
Matt 12:37 Jesus says: for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

Who should we believe?

1 Cor 5:7 Paul says: For Christ, our pachal lamb, has been sacrificed.
Eph 5:2 Paul says: And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Matt9:13 Jesus says: Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice'.

How about gettting eternal life? Who should we believe?
Rom 6:23 Paul says: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal live in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Matt 19:29 Jesus says: And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.

I can just see Jesus rolling in his grave if he were to hear what Paul did to his message (I'm making assumptions here of course as we don't have any writings by Jesus, which is really odd).
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.

I blame man for codifying those rules into a book which allowed superstitious people to perpetuate a barbaric practice. Rules that must be followed or face an invisible beings wrath. - KenRU

It is sad that in an age of freedom some people are enslaved by the nomads of old. - Marco

If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments? - brunumb

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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #326

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 amAnd here is the problem with your whole allegorical argument. You say that Luke has to be writing fiction because of the miraculous events that he describes. You just declare that they could not have happened without addressing the evidence of the resurrection. Like the following:
Then let's address your "evidence of the resurrection." Remember, your evidence must somehow be strong enough to overcome the improbability of supernatural elements that in any other piece of literature would be considered positive proof of fiction.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am1. Which I have said many times the resurrection has always been the central message of Christianity.
You've said lots of things many times. You've neither supported them nor explained how they help your arguments.

The earliest resurrection details that we have come from Mark's Gospel and Paul's epistles. Mark offers no information about a resurrection other than an empty-tomb story. Was that a resurrection in the same body? A resurrection into a spiritual form accessible only in visions? A translation into heaven? It doesn't say. Paul's is just as ambiguous. Paul didn't seem to know what kind of body that Christ returned in and was snotty to those asking about it, claiming that it didn't matter (1 Cor. 15:35-40). That says to me that any traditions that reached Paul and the people he knew weren't specific about what form the resurrection took. I'd think that's something that Peter, John, and James could have cleared up for him if the Gospels are accurate about their relationships with Jesus. At least some of the Corinthians didn't think Jesus was resurrected (1 Cor. 15:12) and Galatians 3:1 makes it seem like some Christians weren't even preaching "Christ crucified." Why would any in the Church doubt that he was crucified or raised if the tradition was as strong and universal as you claim? We have nothing that predates Paul. The best you can say is that after Paul (A.D. 50?) a resurrection of some sort was the central message of some forms of Christianity, though perhaps not others, and that by the second century, that resurrection had come to be understood by at least some Christians as being a resurrection of the same body.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am2. There were groups of people that say they saw the risen Jesus.
Maybe, but the only evidence of that is that Paul said that they did.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am3. The moving of the day of worship to the first day of the week.
So?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am4. In all 4 Gospels the Resurrection is central.
First, the four Gospels are the part that you're claiming aren't fiction, so that's a circular argument. Second, the four Gospels aren't independent. Martians are real in all ten Barsoom novels, too. Twelve, if you count the novellas.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am5. Christianity Originating in the same City where Jesus died
Or the Jesus story was set in the same city where at least one form of Christianity originated. You might be putting the cart before the horse.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am6. The tomb was empty.
In the story that Mark wrote, yes.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am
  • It was reported empty by women.
Not in Mark. Nobody reported the empty tomb in Mark. "How did Mark know about it, then?" That's a very interesting question, isn't it? Matthew and Luke changed the story so that they did report the tomb, but that hardly tells us what the original tradition was, does it?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am
  • The empty tomb account in the gospel of Mark is based upon a source that originated within seven years of the event it narrates.
Can you provide a link to that source and evidence for its dating?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am
  • the resurrection was preached in the same city where Jesus had been buried shortly before.
According to the story, anyway. Is there any independent corroboration of any of those details? We know from Paul that Peter, James, and John were in Jerusalem, but we don't know anything about what they preached or how it related to Jesus. It might even be inferred from Galatians that the "men from James" weren't preaching Christ crucified.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 am7. Paul's Creed in 1 Corinthians 15 which I have already mentioned is dated by all scholars within 3 years of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
All scholars, huh? That's a bold statement. Do you haven any support for that?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 amIt has already been established that Luke never indicated that he was an allegory.
It's also been established that Luke never indicated that he was writing historiography. Your argument from silence cuts both ways.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 amIt has already been established that the resurrection was the central message of Christianity.
It's been established that you keep saying that, anyway.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 amIt is easy to say something you don't like is fiction if you just ignore the facts.
It's also easy to claim that fiction is fact if you ignore the parts that are obviously fictional.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:48 amLike your comment about Paul and Galatians.
To whom did Paul write Galatians?
Remember the Central message of Christianity is the Resurrection, which is what Luke and Mark described in their Gospels. Paul was preaching the same message.
Your claim was that there was "no Church before the New Testament." If there was no Church, to whom was Paul writing?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #327

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #326]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #326]
Then let's address your "evidence of the resurrection." Remember, your evidence must somehow be strong enough to overcome the improbability of supernatural elements that in any other piece of literature would be considered positive proof of fiction.
This is another problem with your allegorical reasoning. It is predicated on a predetermined philosophical argument, not on historical evidence.

The normal way to assess differing historical hypotheses is by using the "inference to the best explanation" method. This method uses criteria like explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, degree of ad hoc-ness, and concordance with accepted beliefs.

Your allegorical hypothesis lacks explanatory power and explanatory scope. Your allegorical theory also has a large degree of ad hoc theories needed to make the allegory possible. Along with the inability to explain facts that nearly all scholars agree on. This final issue is a big deal any theory has to be able to account for the facts that most scholars agree on. Your allegorical hypothesis fails miserably at trying to explain the facts, so much so that you have not even attempted to make your theory match the facts. You simply say they are not true.

Plausibility would be a draw because in this case, it would simply be a statement of faith. You believe that the resurrection cannot happen because there is not God to perform the resurrection. I believe that the resurrection can happen because there is a God in heaven to perform the resurrection.

Based on the normal historical method the resurrection account makes much more sense than your allegorical account.
EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
1. Which I have said many times the resurrection has always been the central message of Christianity.
You've said lots of things many times. You've neither supported them nor explained how they help your arguments.
Yes and this is one of those facts that your theory cannot explain. Without denying other facts that most scholars agree on like how early the gospel message came into existence.
John Drane

"The Earliest evidence we have for the resurrection almost certainly goes back to the time immediately after the resurrection event is alleged to have taken place. This is the evidence contained in the early sermons in Acts of the Apostles... there can be no doubt that in the first few chapters of Acts its author has preserved material from very early sources." (Case for Christ )
A.N. Sherwin-White, the respected Greco-Roman classical historian from Oxford University, said it would have been without precedent anywhere in history for legend to have grown up that fast and significantly distorted the gospels". (Case for Christ pp. 220)
Your allegorical theory needs way to many ad hoc theories to account for the facts.

The earliest resurrection details that we have come from Mark's Gospel and Paul's epistles. Mark offers no information about a resurrection other than an empty-tomb story. Was that a resurrection in the same body? A resurrection into a spiritual form accessible only in visions? A translation into heaven? It doesn't say. Paul's is just as ambiguous. Paul didn't seem to know what kind of body Christ returned in and was snotty to those asking about it, claiming that it didn't matter (1 Cor. 15:35-40). That says to me that any traditions that reached Paul and the people he knew weren't specific about what form the resurrection took. I'd think that's something that Peter, John, and James could have cleared up for him if the Gospels are accurate about their relationships with Jesus. At least some of the Corinthians didn't think Jesus was resurrected (1 Cor. 15:12) and Galatians 3:1 makes it seem like some Christians weren't even preaching "Christ crucified." Why would any in the Church doubt that he was crucified or raised if the tradition was as strong and universal as you claim? We have nothing that predates Paul. The best you can say is that after Paul (A.D. 50?) a resurrection of some sort was the central message of some forms of Christianity, though perhaps not others, and that by the second century, that resurrection had come to be understood by at least some Christians as being a resurrection of the same body.
Again more ad hoc theories and outright denial of Jewish Tradition to try to explain established facts.

This is what being raised from the dead meant to a Jewish person in the 1st century.
37 Sometime later, I felt the Lord's power take control of me, and his Spirit carried me to a valley full of bones. 2 The Lord showed me all around, and everywhere I looked I saw bones that were dried out. 3 He said, “Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones come back to life?”
I replied, “Lord God, only you can answer that.”
4 He then told me to say: Dry bones, listen to what the Lord is saying to you, 5 “I, the Lord God, will put breath in you, and once again you will live. 6 I will wrap you with muscles and skin and breathe life into you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
7 I did what the Lord said, but before I finished speaking, I heard a rattling noise. The bones were coming together! 8 I saw muscles and skin cover the bones, but they had no life in them.
9 The Lord said: Ezekiel, now say to the wind,[a] “The Lord God commands you to blow from every direction and to breathe life into these dead bodies, so they can live again.”
10 As soon as I said this, the wind blew among the bodies, and they came back to life! They all stood up, and there were enough to make a large army.
So when Paul wrote, "that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" every Jewish person would know that Paul was saying that the bones muscle and skin all came back together and Jesus became alive again. This is where Ehrman is more than just a little disingenuous. He makes a big deal out of the fact that it takes years for a scholar to acquire all of the languages and knowledge of traditions but then he ignores both language evidence and traditions when they do not fit his theory.

Your reference to 1 Cor. 15 is actually another problem for your allegory theory because this is Paul doubling and tripling down on his resurrection account. In 1 Cor. Paul as addressing problems in the Corinthian church and one of the problems was the teaching that the dead would not be resurrected not that Jesus did not raise from the dead but that believers would also be raised from the dead because Jesus was raised from the dead. Paul's teaching here reiterates his belief in the resurrection and the resurrection of the dead.

This whole idea that the resurrection was not the central message of Christianity and that there was not very early evidence from the 30s is a dead argument unless you can explain not only the testimony in Scripture but also why most other scholars including critical scholars would believe the same thing.
C.H. Dodd from Cambridge University has carefully analyzed the appearances of Jesus and concluded that several of them are based on especially early material. Case for Christ pp 234.
EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022, 9:48 am
2. There were groups of people that say they saw the risen Jesus.
Maybe, but the only evidence of that is that Paul said that they did.
There is more than just this but Wolfhart Pannenberg perhaps the greatest living systematic theologian in the world, "has rocked the modern, skeptical German theology by building his entire theology precisely on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus as supplied in Paul's list of appearances. Case for Christ pg 233.


How can your allegorical theory explain this? A world-class scholar building his entire theology on the historical evidence for the resurrection that you say is vague.

Again, your allegorical theory does not have explanatory power and explanatory scope.

There are many accounts of people seeing Jesus alive. 3 in John 20, 2 in Matthew 28, 3 in Luke 24, John 21, Acts 1-5, 10, and 13. Some include creeds like 1 Cor. 15.

Why would scholars, men that have spent their lives studying the Bible, believe that there were early creeds and sightings of Jesus? Your hypothesis cannot explain this. Your theory does not have explanatory power and explanatory scope to explain why scholars would believe that one could glean historical evidence from scriptural accounts; therefore, your theory should be rejected.


EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
3. The moving of the day of worship to the first day of the week.
So?
Really is this another denial of Jewish tradition and in this case law?

4rd commandment; Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." The 4th commandment was huge to the Jews of the 1st century. It would be a very big deal for a Jew to change the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. Can your allegorical theory explain why Jewish Christians would change their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday?

This also dispels Erdman’s theory about artificially making Jesus the Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to restore Israel to the glory it had before like under David and Solomon. The Jewish people were to rule the world and Judaism would be the supreme religion.

Now how would your allegorical theory explain this again?

Your theory does not have the power to explain why Christians would change Jewish traditions and the change of Jewish traditions that occurred because of the resurrection. Therefore again your allegorical theory must be rejected.
EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
4. In all 4 Gospels the Resurrection is central.
First, the four Gospels are the part that you're claiming aren't fiction, so that's a circular argument. Second, the four Gospels aren't independent. Martians are real in all ten Barsoom novels, too. Twelve, if you count the novellas.
What are you saying about Barsoom Novels since you are comparing them to the Bible? You must be saying that scholars studying Barsoom novels have found historical evidence in them. You must be saying that you are one of those that believe that there is intelligent life on Mars. You also must be saying, that John Carter was a real person if you are comparing these novels to the Bible. I mean people are welcome to believe what they want. I am sorry to have to break this to you but we have sent probes to Mars and John Carter was not there. Neither were any of the other characters from the Novels. Although there was something that looked like a face on Mars, but it ended up just being shadows. Sorry.

Concerning the Resurrection being the central message of Christianity, I am on the side of the majority you are on the side of a very small minority. This again shows your theory's lack of explanatory power and explanatory scope to explain the facts that most scholars agree to. You give no evidence on why you think the majority of scholars are wrong and your small minority is correct.




EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
5. Christianity Originating in the same City where Jesus died
Or the Jesus story was set in the same city where at least one form of Christianity originated. You might be putting the cart before the horse.
Can you please back up your claim with little things called facts? Without supporting FACTS this is nothing more than a belief statement of yours.
You might want to get on a horse and look for some facts to support your belief statement.
EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
6. The tomb was empty.
In the story that Mark wrote, yes.
It was also empty in Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul’s creed that he shared in 1 Corinthians 15. Again any time a Jew from the 1st century mentioned resurrection they would immediately relate that to Ezekiel 37.









EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
It was reported empty by women.
Not in Mark. Nobody reported the empty tomb in Mark. "How did Mark know about it, then?" That's a very interesting question, isn't it? Matthew and Luke changed the story so that they did report the tomb, but that hardly tells us what the original tradition was, does it?
That is not how historians look at narratives. A philosopher might look at these accounts and see inconsistencies and then apply the law of contradictions and say it is not true. But that is not how a historian looks at narrative accounts. A historian looks at these accounts and says, “I see some inconsistencies but I notice something about them: they are all in the secondary details.”

“The core of the story is the same: Joseph of Arimathea takes the body of Jesus, puts it in a tomb, the tomb is visited by a small group of women followers of Jesus early on Sunday morning following his crucifixion, and they find that the tomb is empty. They see a vision of angels saying that Jesus has risen.”

So we can have great confidence in the core that’s common to the narratives and that would be agreed upon by the majority of New Testament scholars today, even if there are some differences concerning the names of the women, the exact time of the morning, the number of angels and so forth. Those kinds of secondary discrepancies would not bother a historian. Case for Christ pg 215




EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
The empty tomb account in the gospel of Mark is based upon a source that originated within seven years of the event it narrates.
Can you provide a link to that source and evidence for its dating?
If you ever read Mark’s gospel it is a series of short narrative accounts. Mark is more like a string of short stories than a smooth continuous narrative.
However, when you get to the last week of Jesus’s life then you do have a continuous narrative of events in sequence. Mark apparently took this passion story from an even earlier source and this source included the story of Jesus being buried in the tomb. Case for Christ pp 209
We can tell from the language, grammar, and style that Mark got his empty tomb story actually his whole passion narrative from an earlier source. In fact, there is evidence it was written before A.D. 37, which is much too early for legend to have seriously corrupted it.

“A.N. Sherwin-White, the respected Greco-Roman classical historian from Oxford University, said it would have been without precedent anywhere in history for legend to have grown up that fast and significantly distorted the gospels. Case for Christ 220
Mark is based upon a source that originated within seven years of the event it narrates. This places the evidence for the empty tomb too early to be legendary, and makes it much more likely that it is accurate. What is the evidence for this? I will list two pieces. A German commentator on Mark, Rudolf Pesch, points out that this pre-Markan source never mentions the high priest by name. "This implies that Caiaphas, who we know was high priest at that time, was still high priest when the story began circulating." For "if it had been written after Caiaphas' term of office, his name would have had to have been used to distinguish him from the next high priest. But since Caiaphas was high priest from A.D. 18 to 37, this story began circulating no later than A.D. 37, within the first seven years after the events," as Michael Horton has summarized it. Furthermore, Pesch argues "that since Paul's traditions concerning the Last Supper [written in 56] (1 Cor 11) presuppose the Markan account, that implies that the Markan source goes right back to the early years" of Christianity (Craig). So the early source Mark used puts the testimony of the empty tomb too early to be legendary. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/hi ... surrection






EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
the resurrection was preached in the same city where Jesus had been buried shortly before.
According to the story, anyway. Is there any independent corroboration of any of those details? We know from Paul that Peter, James, and John were in Jerusalem, but we don't know anything about what they preached or how it related to Jesus. It might even be inferred from Galatians that the "men from James" weren't preaching Christ crucified.

Drane explains it this way:
The Earliest evidence we have for the resurrection almost certainly goes back to the time immediately after the resurrection event is alleged to have taken place. This is the evidence contained in the early sermons in the Acts of the Apostles… But there can be no doubt that in the first few chapters of Acts its author has preserved material from very early sources.

Scholars have discovered that the language used in speaking about Jesus in these early speeches in Acts is quite different from that used at the time when the book was compiled in its final form. The Historical Jesus pp 149
Oscar Cullmann: “In the early church there were multiple creedal formulas which corresponded to various circumstances in the Christian faith. The most common of these confessions were purely Christological in nature. The two most common elements in these creeds concerned the death and resurrection of Jesus and his resulting deity. Historical Jesus pp 144[/quort]




EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022, 9:48 am
7. Paul's Creed in 1 Corinthians 15 which I have already mentioned is dated by all scholars within 3 years of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
All scholars, huh? That's a bold statement. Do you have any support for that?
The strong majority of historians acknowledge that the creed dates back to AD 30-35.1 A very small minority go to AD 41.

The Oxford Companion to the Bible: “The earliest record of these appearances is to be found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, a tradition that Paul ‘received’ after his apostolic call, certainly not later than his visit to Jerusalem in 35 CE, when he saw Cephas (Peter) and James (Gal. 1:18-19), who, like him, were recipients of appearances.” [Eds. Metzer & Coogan (Oxford, 1993), 647.]

Gerd Lüdemann (Atheist NT professor at Göttingen): “…the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years… the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE.” [The Resurrection of Jesus, trans. by Bowden (Fortress, 1994), 171-72.]

Robert Funk (Non-Christian scholar, founder of the Jesus Seminar): “…The conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead had already taken root by the time Paul was converted about 33 C.E. On the assumption that Jesus died about 30 C.E., the time for development was thus two or three years at most.” [Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus, 466.]

James Dunn (Professor at Durham): “Despite uncertainties about the extent of tradition which Paul received (126), there is no reason to doubt that this information was communicated to Paul as part of his introductory catechesis (16.3) (127). He would have needed to be informed of precedents in order to make sense of what had happened to him. When he says, ‘I handed on (paredoka) to you as of first importance (en protois) what I also received (parelabon)’ (15.3), he assuredly does not imply that the tradition became important to him only at some subsequent date. More likely he indicates the importance of the tradition to himself from the start; that was why he made sure to pass it on to the Corinthians when they first believed (15.1-2) (128). This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus' death. [Jesus Remembered (Eerdmans, 2003) 854-55.]

Michael Goulder (Atheist NT professor at Birmingham): “[It] goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion. [“The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in Gavin D’Costa, editor, Resurrection Reconsidered (Oneworld, 1996), 48.]

A. J. M. Wedderburn (Non-Christian NT professor at Munich): “One is right to speak of ‘earliest times’ here, … most probably in the first half of the 30s.” [Beyond Resurrection (Hendrickson, 1999), 113-114.]

N.T. Wright (NT scholar [Oxford, 5+ honorary Ph.ds]): “This is the kind of foundation-story with which a community is not at liberty to tamper. It was probably formulated within the first two or three years after Easter itself, since it was already in formulaic form when Paul ‘received’ it. (So Hays 1997, 255.)” [The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003), 319.]



EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
It has already been established that Luke never indicated that he was an allegory.
It's also been established that Luke never indicated that he was writing historiography. Your argument from silence cuts both ways.
Again, your view is the extreme minority view. Your allegorical theory is nothing more than a belief statement you are making with no evidence to support your belief. Your allegorical theory cannot explain any of the historical facts that virtually all scholars believe to be true.

Your theory is also based on the belief that Miracles are impossible. David Hume wrote an essay on Miracles which was rejected.
Miracle is an occurrence that is above nature and above man; not capable of being discerned by the senses, designed to authenticate the intervention of a power that is not limited by the laws either of matter or of mind. As an act which reveals God to humanity and depicts His intervention in human affairs, miracle has been a subject of philosophical debate. Some exponents of miracle opine that the biggest problem raised by miracles is the belief in God. They are of the view that if God exists, His morality is questionable while others maintain that God would not do miracles, to do so would be irrational and immoral. David Hume dismissed miracle as pious fiction and rationally unjustifiable to believe. The paper assesses the Achilles' heel of David Hume"s arguments against the possibility of miracle. It adopts a critical evaluation approach to critique Hume"s argument against miracle especially his argument from the laws of nature. The paper concludes that Hume"s arguments are unjustifiable to refute the possibility of miracle, being that miracle as a paranormal phenomenon could not be subjected to empirical investigation. https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... r=7b6ecff0
The objection to Hume’s argument which I develop in this article (culminating in section 3) strikes a decisive blow against Hume if we go with Fogelin’s reading of Hume. There I argue that Hume’s case against religious miracles is superfluous. It is superfluous because it is impossible to prove a religious miracle on epistemic evidence, alone. To show that no miracle can be established so as to be the foundation for a system of religion, it is not necessary to show that testimony in behalf of religious miracles is unreliable, for religious miracles have an ineliminable subjective component that makes them logically impossible to prove on epistemic grounds. Epistemic considerations can establish an event and its cause, but not how one ought to react toward either of these. https://jcrt.org/religioustheory/2020/0 ... perfluous/
So your entire premise for your allegorical theory is a flawed argument. Combined with the fact that it has no explanatory power or scope means that your allegorical theory must be rejected.

EarthScienceguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:48 am
It is easy to say something you don't like is fiction if you just ignore the facts.
It's also easy to claim that fiction is fact if you ignore the parts that are obviously fictional.
What parts are you referring to? The parts that you are classifying as miracles? According to the critiques above it is not possible for you to rule out miracles.
“The paper concludes that Hume"s arguments are unjustifiable to refute the possibility of a miracle, being that miracle as a paranormal phenomenon could not be subjected to empirical investigation.”

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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #328

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #327]
Your theory is also based on the belief that Miracles are impossible.


Do you have any confirmation that miracles are possible? To my knowledge no miracles have ever been demonstrated to have actually occurred, but prove me wrong with a verified example. Without that trump card to play the resurrection would be impossible, regardless of what any bible authors or scholars may say. The whole story relies on a miracle having taken place.
David Hume wrote an essay on Miracles which was rejected.
What does that have to do with anything? I imagine it would be rejected by anyone who believes that miracles can happen. and accepted by those who do not. Why are those who rejected his argument the ultimate arbiters on miracles? I'd love to see one performed, but it appears they are only fictional stories.
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #329

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #328]
Do you have any confirmation that miracles are possible? To my knowledge no miracles have ever been demonstrated to have actually occurred, but prove me wrong with a verified example. Without that trump card to play the resurrection would be impossible, regardless of what any bible authors or scholars may say. The whole story relies on a miracle having taken place.
I know I will get a lot of criticism about my stance on miracles on this site, so just to let everyone know I will probably not engage in that discussion.

I believe the Bible teaches that miracles occurred in the 1st century as verification of the message that was being preached. If you look at the Book of Acts there are lots of miracles in the first part of the book there are very few at the end of the Book. Miracles like the ones we read about in Scripture were only at that time in history for the expressed purpose of verifying the words of the apostles. The miracles that Jesus and the apostles performed are the reason why Christianity grew so rapidly.

I believe the Bible teaches that miracles today are the changed lives of the people who come to believe in the name of Jesus. Those are the miracles that you are going to see today.

So no I do not believe in the faith healers that you may see that pound on someone's head and say they are healed if they pay enough money. Those types of shows are an affront to the gospel and to Christianity.

I believe that we can pray and God will work through men or he may do something miraculous but most of the time we will not know that He does. After the 1st century, God's verification of His will is His word.

David Hume wrote an essay on Miracles which was rejected.
What does that have to do with anything? I imagine it would be rejected by anyone who believes that miracles can happen. and accepted by those who do not. Why are those who rejected his argument the ultimate arbiters on miracles? I'd love to see one performed, but it appears they are only fictional stories.
Hume"s arguments are unjustifiable to refute the possibility of a miracle, being that miracle as a paranormal phenomenon could not be subjected to empirical investigation.
If miracles by their very nature can not be subjected to empirical investigation and by their very nature are outside that of normal scientific investigation. It makes it impossible for you to say that miracles do not exist. You can have the belief that there is no God but that could not trump my belief that there is a God.

So in essence you saying that miracles cannot happen is simply you restating your atheistic belief statement that you do not believe that there is a God. To that, I say so what, I believe there is a God in heaven that does do miracles. Now in the case of the ressurection since the plausibitly of miracles is a draw, then it comes down to which theory explains the facts better.

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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?

Post #330

Post by Difflugia »

Your response is a mess of apologetic quote mining and unsupported claims, most of which themselves don't support the overall argument that you're trying to make. If you legitimately want to discuss some of this, I will, but you need to focus on one argument at a time. When I've rebutted any one of your arguments, you've responded by spamming a bunch of different arguments to the point that it's become an incoherent Gish gallop.

Broadly, here are the main things wrong with your argument:
  • No matter how early it was, the belief in a spiritual resurrection isn't evidence for a physical resurrection.
  • Since you're trying to establish the historicity of later traditions, interpreting earlier traditions by reading the later traditions back into them is a circular argument.
  • You seem to think that the idea that Luke was writing allegorical fiction must explain something other than the form of the Gospel of Luke and Acts. It doesn't have to. You're confusing your argument that Luke/Acts is historiography with the argument that the resurrection actually happened. The reality of a physical resurrection isn't an argument against Luke/Acts being fiction. Granted, the resurrection is the least plausible thing in the overall narrative, but that's still just one detail in the overall story. If you want to switch to arguing the historicity of the resurrection, we can, but that's not what this debate is about.
Now, if you want me to keep discussing this with you, I'll expect a few things:
  • If you quote someone, quote a primary source written by the person you're quoting. I'll treat copypasta from The Case for Christ or similar as spam.
  • If you're presenting your case as a logical argument, try to present it in a logical order.
  • Learn what ad hoc means.
Now, I take it we're done with the prologue as such. Are you now arguing that there are more literary reasons to treat Luke as historiography or are you arguing that the things Luke wrote about are true for nonliterary reasons? You can believe both and intend to eventually argue both, but let's try to keep the argument from galloping away again.

Since I went to the trouble of addressing some of your claims before I lost track of how they're supposed to apply to your argument, I'll include what I got to.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmThis is another problem with your allegorical reasoning. It is predicated on a predetermined philosophical argument, not on historical evidence.

The normal way to assess differing historical hypotheses is by using the "inference to the best explanation" method. This method uses criteria like explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, degree of ad hoc-ness, and concordance with accepted beliefs.
That's absolutely correct. "Fictional story about magic" is a far better fit for each of those criteria than "magic."
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmYour allegorical hypothesis lacks explanatory power and explanatory scope.
What exactly do you think "Luke wrote religious fiction" fails to explain and why?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmYour allegorical theory also has a large degree of ad hoc theories needed to make the allegory possible.
What parts of my theory requires any sort of ad hoc explanation? Considering that your own explanation involves the reality of angels and a supernatural resurrection, I'm a bit skeptical that you understand what ad hoc means in this context.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmAlong with the inability to explain facts that nearly all scholars agree on. This final issue is a big deal any theory has to be able to account for the facts that most scholars agree on. Your allegorical hypothesis fails miserably at trying to explain the facts, so much so that you have not even attempted to make your theory match the facts. You simply say they are not true.
First, the only support that you've offered that "most scholars" agree to your "facts" is that Gary Habermas says so. Second, none of the "facts" are explained more by a physical resurrection than by some sort of mystical resurrection. Third, you've got a bit of your logic backwards. Luke's writing doesn't need to "explain" why Christians believed in some sort of resurrection, but that belief does explain why Luke included a resurrection in his religious story.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmPlausibility would be a draw because in this case, it would simply be a statement of faith.
That's not what "plausible" means. Your belief that there's a god to perform supernatural events doesn't somehow make the odds 50/50.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmYou believe that the resurrection cannot happen because there is not God to perform the resurrection. I believe that the resurrection can happen because there is a God in heaven to perform the resurrection.
Whether gods exist or not, resurrections don't happen. There are way more stories about resurrections than actual resurrections. If I were to write a story about Joseph Biden running around nude on the Whitehouse lawn shouting about the brisk weather, it would probably be fictional because that's not something he has a history of doing. Joseph Biden and the Whitehouse lawn both exist, so it's more plausible than gods resurrecting someone, but it's still pretty implausible.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmBased on the normal historical method the resurrection account makes much more sense than your allegorical account.
If you can find me a single historian that used the "normal historical method" to infer the historicity of any nonbiblical supernatural event, I'll consider your claim.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmYes and this is one of those facts that your theory cannot explain. Without denying other facts that most scholars agree on like how early the gospel message came into existence.
John Drane

"The Earliest evidence we have for the resurrection almost certainly goes back to the time immediately after the resurrection event is alleged to have taken place. This is the evidence contained in the early sermons in Acts of the Apostles... there can be no doubt that in the first few chapters of Acts its author has preserved material from very early sources." (Case for Christ )
First, quoting a Christian theologian as an argument from authority shouldn't be expected to carry much weight in a debate about the historicity of the Christian message. If you think Drane makes a compelling case with which you agree, find it and present it.

Second, The Case for Christ is notorious for selectively and misleadingly quoting even other Christian apologists. If you want to quote an authority from The Case for Christ, look up the original and quote that.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pm
A.N. Sherwin-White, the respected Greco-Roman classical historian from Oxford University, said it would have been without precedent anywhere in history for legend to have grown up that fast and significantly distorted the gospels". (Case for Christ pp. 220)
This is The Case for Christ quoting William Lane Craig, who is in turn paraphrasing an unsourced quotation. Even as an argument from authority, this is about as tenuous as it gets.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmThis is what being raised from the dead meant to a Jewish person in the 1st century.
Ezekiel was written in the sixth century B.C.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmYour reference to 1 Cor. 15 is actually another problem for your allegory theory because this is Paul doubling and tripling down on his resurrection account.
Whether or not Paul believed in a resurrection, your argument requires that the resurrection can't be spiritual or mystical. Paul's "glory" language suggests both of those.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pmHow can your allegorical theory explain this? A world-class scholar building his entire theology on the historical evidence for the resurrection that you say is vague.
That's one of the weirdest arguments from authority that I think I've encountered.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 03, 2022 12:56 pm“The paper concludes that Hume"s arguments are unjustifiable to refute the possibility of a miracle, being that miracle as a paranormal phenomenon could not be subjected to empirical investigation.”
I don't have to treat miracles as impossible to argue that they're hallmarks of fiction, only that they're grossly improbable. Whether or not gods exist, claims about them can be subject to empirical investigation, particularly statistical analysis. Events that are common are more probable, events that are rare are improbable. The President of the United States holding a meeting in the Oval Office is probable because it has happened frequently. The President streaking nude across the Whitehouse lawn while telling onlookers, "Hail to this, Chief!" is improbable because neither that nor anything similar has happened in the past. Nothing is impossible about either one, but we can weigh their relative probabilities. The inclusion of the former in a story wouldn't itself be evidence of fiction, but the inclusion of the latter would be.

Whether or not gods exist, there are clearly far more fictional stories about resurrections than there are actual resurrections. Based on that alone, it is far more likely that the resurrection story is fictional. It's not a logical proof, just like a nude, screaming president isn't proof of fiction, but it's still very strong evidence of fiction.

To make one further point, the claim that supernatural events cannot be empirically investigated is an actual ad hoc argument.
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