The Best Naturalistic Explanation for Christianity

[liamconnor]

I believe I posted something like this before and it got derailed; or rather, the issue was dodged.

A quick scenario: Let us suppose a man who is undecided on the issue of Jesus' resurrection (and for that matter, the existence of God). He wants to know in what direction the historical data points. If he is an honest thinker, does his homework, I believe the "best" naturalistic interpretation of the evidence he will find will include the following:

1) Jesus was crucified and buried in a tomb
2) The body of Jesus was stolen by a non-disciple sometime between Friday evening and Sunday morning; that is, during the Sabbath.
3) Sunday morn the tomb was discovered vacant by women disciples
4) Several days later, a large number of his disciples, individually and collectively suffered hallucinations which were consistent with each other: a) they were bodily and involved the delusion of "touch" b) they left the impression of a commission to preach a specific message which was consistent among them all
5) These disciples believed and preached that their master was raised by God, and that this event was the culmination of God's acts in history.
6) Paul persecuted the Jesus movement. He too suffered from an hallucination from which he believed he had encountered Jesus and received from him a similar vocation.

Are there better naturalistic explanations which have responsibly dealt with the data?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 44 by Tired of the Nonsense]

I will respond to your theory if you first publicly mention the numerous obvious historical problems that arise from it, and attempt to answer them. Otherwise I will feel like I am teaching someone how to think...for free.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 44 by Tired of the Nonsense]

I will respond to your theory if you first publicly mention the numerous obvious historical problems that arise from it, and attempt to answer them. Otherwise I will feel like I am teaching someone how to think...for free.

If you publicly mention the various "historical" problems that arise from what I wrote, I will certainly be more than happy to address them in detail.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 53 by Tired of the Nonsense]

It is disheartening to me that you cannot even critically analyze your own theory--it is an essential process to all mature thinking Totn.

Fine. let's do this step by step.

The first point of your theory is that the disciples took the body to Galilee during the Sabbath, breaking Sabbath laws.

Why didn't they wait until Sunday to do so. A single day would not have mattered.

[Zzyzx]

.

Are there better naturalistic explanations which have responsibly dealt with the data?

Some natural (naturalistic) factors to be considered:

Long-dead bodies are not known to reanimate
Empty tombs are common and are not regarded as evidence the deceased came back to life and left
Religious zealots and fanatics are not always truthful and reliable
Not all who claim to be prophets or messiahs have been shown to be so
Folklore and legends are not generally regarded as reliable sources of truth and accuracy
Humans are capable of being wrong, deluded, psychotic, deceptive (including the "holy")
Human observation and memory are not infallible

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

1) Jesus was crucified and placed in a tomb: no plausible reason has been given as to why we should doubt this.

Actually, many such reasons have been given,
but you ignore them.

An example would be :
Jesus and the disciples are characters in a supernatural story which has impossible religious events - a story preached by believers, a story not supported by any evidence.

Here is another reason :
outside the Gospels, which were unknown to the wider Christian community until mid 2nd century, NO Christian writer mentions the empty tomb story until Justin c.150 :



Note the orange box shows terms like 'resurrection' ('r') are found from the earliest times.
But the red box shows the 'Empty Tomb' ('T') was NOT mentioned until 150 or so (outside the Gospels).

How do you explain that so many early Christians writers FAIL to mention the Empty Tomb story ?


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday all,

Here is what I think is the best naturalistic explanation for Christianity :

1. Jesus Christ was initially a purely heavenly or spiritual being - with a few details known to an early mystery-like cult of proto-Christians which included a Peter, and a James entitled 'brother of the Lord';

2. Jesus Christ' story was expanded by Paul's visionary journey to Paradise in the Third Heaven - he saw a son-of-God who really was crucified, died, buried, and finally resurrected - all in Paradise in the Third Heaven;

3. The story was further expanded into a grand religious myth by the seminal Gospel of Mark - woven from the Jewish scriptures and the Greek mysteries - so good it was copied and expanded by others.

The Gospels and their stories spread slowly among the earlier Jesus Christ communities, and were increasingly thought to be historical. There was no conspiracy, no hoax, no fraud or lies - just a series of beliefs and mis-understandings and gullibility turning a heavenly or mythical being into a supposedly historical person.


I think that is much more naturalistic than a bizarre conspiracy theory about mass hallucinations, frankly.
http://kapyong.5gbfree.com/ParadiseTheory.html


Kapyong

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 53 by Tired of the Nonsense]

It is disheartening to me that you cannot even critically analyze your own theory--it is an essential process to all mature thinking Totn.

Fine. let's do this step by step.

The first point of your theory is that the disciples took the body to Galilee during the Sabbath, breaking Sabbath laws.

Why didn't they wait until Sunday to do so. A single day would not have mattered.

The important point is that the tomb was empty on Sunday morning because the followers of Jesus, who were already in full legal possession of the body of Jesus, moved it elsewhere. I am not alone in making this deduction. The chief Jewish priests reached the same conclusion. Also, that Joseph's personal tomb was only used as a convenient place to wash and prepare the body, and was never intended to be the final resting place of Jesus. Obviously I can not declare with certainty that the disciples of Jesus took the body to Galilee for burial, because that information is not directly provided in the four canonical Gospels. What the Gospels DO provide us with however, is a very clear indication that returning the body to Jesus' family in Galilee is the most likely option. The body was unusually well prepped, heavily coated as it was with 100 pounds of myrrh/aloe gum resin as if readying it for a journey of several days; the disciples had physical possession of the corpse and every legal right to bury the body where ever they chose; and they did in fact make the journey to Galilee after the execution of Jesus. If the disciples did not take the body of their friend along with them on their journey to Galilee to receive a proper burial by his family with other departed family members, one must ask the question WHY NOT? Why miss out on such an obvious way to to pay final homage to their friend, since they were GOING THERE ANYWAY?

Why didn't they wait until Sunday to do so. A single day would not have mattered.

They had a perishable cargo, so speed was essential. Waiting until Sunday would have put them on the road with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims returning home from the Passover celebration. Traffic jams equal long delays which they could not afford. Especially when an early start would place them on a wide open road miles ahead of the coming congestion. They would necessarily have taken the obvious course open to them, as most of us would have done.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 50 by liamconnor]

The Christians believed Jesus was the Son of God, co-eternal with him and currently reigning with him (this can be traced back, chronologically, from Revelation through all four gospels to Paul).

False. Christians have never, not ever, had a single unified theology regarding Jesus. Even in the earliest days of Christianity, there were various groups with diverse beliefs. There were groups who believed Jesus was just a man, others who believed he was pure spirit, and so on and so forth.

In three years’ time a tale about a one foot fish can evolve into a three foot fish; it is not enough time for Jewish beliefs, as described above, to evolve into Christian beliefs.

You clearly ignore the existence of memes. You also have ignored what I wrote in earlier posts about Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the famous Jewish rabbi who died in 1994 and whose followers, almost immediately, started believing he still sat, in invisible spirit form, on his favourite chair

Liam, you also portray the Corinthians as being perfectly rational, when we have no reason to believe that. Going back to Schneerson, even though in public and for all to hear, he denied being the Messiah...there are still people alive today who believe him to be such.
One of the most important lessons about life is this: People are stupid. You, me, everyone. There are things that all of us believe that we believe for stupid reasons. I am no exception.

[Bust Nak]

These are not subtleties; if they were, we would not have so much bickering throughout all of history between Jew and Christian. These are radical differences. Only a radical cause can lie behind the shift. Vague explanations like “the evolution of tales� will not suffice.

There was a radical cause - Constantine the great. Nothing supernatural about a state religion.

Explanations of Christianity’s origins must account for the above. I maintain that the best NATURAL explanation involves widespread, consistent, uniform hallucination (basically everything Christians believe, except Jesus' body was robbed by a non-disciple; and the encounters were pathological).

And I maintain I have a better natural explanation than yours.

[JLB32168]

A quick scenario: Let us suppose a man who is undecided on the issue of Jesus' resurrection (and for that matter, the existence of God). He wants to know in what direction the historical data points. [. . .]. Are there better naturalistic explanations which have responsibly dealt with the data?

I don’t see how there’s a better naturalistic explanation. That one seems to be the most logical.

Of course, I don’t think that the resurrection was a hoax but a genuine supernatural event and the only critique I’ve heard against it is “the supernatural doesn’t exist� or “we’ve no evidence that the supernatural exists.� The first is covered w/in the second and we do indeed have evidence that it exists. There are mystics alive today who say it does since they claim they’ve experienced direct revelation from God. Why should the believer conclude that every one of them is lying or experiencing a psychotic break? The answer is, “They shouldn’t conclude that.�