Belief in The Resurrection - Faith, or Fact Based

[William]

Q: Is belief in The Resurrection based on fact or based on faith?

From a discussion in another thread;
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[Replying to Realworldjack in post #222]

Let us recall that it was you who stated,

that the stories of the empty tomb where anything other than given as hearsay and expected to be received in faith.

This is what I stated;

"What has been reported from the different sources do not altogether align - and one thing which does come across is that folk did not seem to recognize that the person claiming to have resurrected was the same person they had followed for all those months. I am happy to examine what you table as explanation for this phenomena."

I also stated;
I am not arguing that the stories themselves were or were not penned as true accounts of actual events by the very one(s) who experienced these things they claim to have experienced.
My argument is that we can only take their stories as hearsay, because we did not witness those events. What we each DO with the hearsay depends upon our faith in the stories being true, our faith that the stories being false, or in our lack of faith due to the nature of the evidence.

Are you saying, NONE of it aligns?

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

Because you see, we have those who complain that much of the information is so closely the "aligned", they want to insist that there must, and had to be copying going on between the authors.

Apparently there are biblical scholars who accept that in those cases, copying may have occurred.

So then, exactly what would we expect? If they all report the same exact events, in the same exact way, I think we would have complaints that something would not be right here.

Yes - that it was unnecessary to have four exact copies of the same data.

If they report completely different, and contradictory information, then we would complain that something is not quite right.

Yes.

However, it seems to me we have exactly what we would expect.

Which still wouldn't do away with the idea that the stories were concocted by the priesthood...such would be intelligent enough to realize that to sell the story there needs to be more than one version, especially since there are no coinciding stories circulating outside of the religion.
For example - some believe that [historical] Jesus had scribes, but there is no evidence that anyone was recording his words and nothing of the sort has been found so far.

In other words, we have some events describe in almost the same way, while we have others who record events the others may leave out, and we have some who report the same events with differences in the story. So??????? What exactly would are you looking for?

I am looking for evidence to the claim that Jesus died. [and was thus resurrected.]

Would you want them to record the same exact stories, in the same exact way? Would you want them to tell completely different stories which would contradict each other? I mean, exactly what would you accept?

Based upon the stories regarding Jesus, I would expect that Jesus didn't really die.

First, your wording is sort of strange here? You seem to be saying, they did not recognize him as the same person as they had followed, as if they recognized him as someone else? However, this is not the way it is recorded. In Luke 24 we read,

"While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him".

So here we see, it is not as though they recognize him as someone else, but rather, they simply were, "kept from recognizing him". However, as we move on a few verses later we read,

"And then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him".

Firstly they must have seen him as 'someone else' for them to recognize that 'someone else' had entered into their company.
But what we do not know [and thus cannot assume] is what the writer meant in the use of the words.
Does it mean that their minds were being played with in some unknown manner or does it mean that it was something else about the stranger suddenly in their company which lead them to conclude they were in the presence of someone who was so just like the Jesus they knew, that it must have been him, or was Jesus' body was capable of 'shape-shifting' [changing it's appearance.]

However, in relation to the story of the stranger in the company, we see that the story unfolds over the course of a whole day, with the stranger telling them all sorts of things so that the dots connected [starting out by calling them 'fools' for not being able to do this for themselves] and by the end of the day, we are informed that they had no choice but to accept the evidence that the stranger [who they did not recognize as Jesus because it was a different body] was the same person that they had followed all those previous months.

As soon as they came to that conclusion, the stranger then vanished. [became invisible to them/appeared to no longer be in their company.]

Okay, as we turn our attention to the incident with Mary Magdalene, what we see as recorded in John 20, is (Mary) "Thinking that He was the gardener". Notice, it does not say, "recognizing him as the gardener".

Why would Mary know what the gardener looked like? Clearly she assumes a stranger there with the two other strangers is the caretaker and clearly she is confused and distressed.
But most importantly, she does not recognize the stranger until he calls her by her name...so it must have been how the stranger had done this which convinced Mary that it was Jesus.

Well, the only other incident I know of would be at daybreak, with the disciples in a boat off shore, and see Jesus on shore, as they have been fishing through the night with no catch. Jesus instructs them where to cast the net, and of course they have a net so full, it is difficult to pull the net in, and it is at this point, one of the disciples, does not "recognize" (as if he can actually see him) this as Jesus, but simply says, "It is the Lord"! Once they were all on shore, as it is recorded, they all seem to recognize this person as Jesus.

These are the only events such as this I am aware of. The above would not be my "explanation for this phenomena" because I have no explanation. Rather, this is the way it is recorded.

So we have hearsay [the stories] and within that, we have incidences which align and form an image of someone who has a distinctly different body than the normal Human form as it appears to be able to do things which normal human forms are not seen to be capable of doing.

But overall, there is nothing about the story of the resurrection [The Subject] which can be pointed to as factual [rather than hearsay] and thus, to believe in said story - one has to do so on faith.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #593]

Ressurrection is both faith (Hope) and fact because there's reason behind the faith.

I would say the 'reason' is want and need, not fact.
You go on to say "Resurrection is not something that can be seen because it's a spiritual event rather than a bodily event (I believe), but it's factual that life is different from materialism; so even material ceases, life continues.".
How can it be factual if it can't be seen? How would anyone know life is different now, than it would have been if it hadn't have happened (if that's what you mean)?
And how can life being different from materialism be seen as fact, explaining what you mean by "life is different from materialism", as that, itself, seems rather vague?

I get the idea. in fact it's the same with a lot of Christian apologetics. The Bible presents a book of suposedly recorded facts. And whether one was taught to believe them or not they demand some serious consideration. For a long time I considered the Exodus was probably (nobody knows 100% for sure ) an actual event, though it needed some demythologizing. In my young day, back when they still burned witches, a lot of Bible apologetics were intent on Explaining how the Red Sea parted through natural processes. More recently I was presented with the Black Sea apologetic where the scientific evidence for the Black Sea flood was employed to validate the Bible. They didn't seem to realize that doing so deleted the miracle and made it a bit of evidence for God that they had deleted. It didn't seem to bother them, so long as the events in the Bible could be made to look true.

However, not to digress, a big selling - point of Christianity is that the Bible looks looks factual where other religions (especially the Graeco -Roman religion, or Mithraism) looked no more than myth. This is a serious challenge to the doubter, and, while one may dismiss the miracles as tall stories, the story looks like it could be broadly true. In fact even the skeptical books I read some time ago worked by interpreting the Gospel story taken as a reliable record.

However, after a long debate on my former forum, I became convinced that the Exodus was not true. I now lump it in with Genesis, the two books being written after the books of Law (and I think in Babylon during the Exile, because they use Mesopotamian stories here and there (1) The Sumerian and Babylonian versions of the Flood and Ark being well - known in apologetics, and I even suspect that they used (and garbled) some record of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, and Moses leading the Hebrews free from Egypt was based on Ahmose kicking the Canaanite dynasty out of Egypt. But I can't be sure.

Anyway, The point is that more and more of the Bible is being considered dubious, even where it is based on fact - like the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem. And, at the risk of labouring the point, I think the whole of the Gospel account of Jesus (whether a real person or not) and Acts, into the bargain, is largely invented or at least massively rewritten, and my aim is to validate that idea.

(1) Moses in the bulrushes bears an uncanny resemblance to the story of Sargon of Akkad.

As long as 'physical reality' is a construct of the mind( human mind), anything is possible. The human mind mind can be twiked to anything but this is creation.

You are arguing very well. My argument (and it may be somewhat hypothetical) is that reality is real apart from human perception which is what (for me) 'construct of the human mind' signifies. Everything is made of atoms (matter/energy - particles) which are as near nothing as makes no difference. They form compound shapes with an effect that we call reality. This is reliable, apart from what humans think about it , and that - not how we perceive it or think about it - is 'reality'.

Humans perceive this assemblage of particular matter - groups and physical effects we call our world through sensory organs that create symbolic, shall we say, images and representations of the effects and assemblages in our brains. Blue does not exist in reality as as the symbolic effect in our mind imaging the signal from our optical retina. That is only the mental representation of the wavelength of 'blue' light in our head. Yet that wavelength is real, reliable and a fact, no matter what we think, or wonder (q.v qualia) about it.

What this means is that I argue that 'the universe...is stranger than we can imagine' but it is not an imaginary construct of ours (1), but a reality that exists apart from what we think.

Science (logical examination of data) tells us how this stuff works and so far no God has been found. The Burden of proof is on the Theist to give a good reason why we should credit any god, let alone any particular one, as being behind any of it.

(1) I do not credit the solipsistic universe argument, as reality throws enough curve balls to show that it does what it does whether we like it or not.

[JoeyKnothead]

You are arguing very well. My argument (and it may be somewhat hypothetical) is that reality is real apart from human perception which is what (for me) 'construct of the human mind' signifies. Everything is made of atoms (matter/energy - particles) which are as near nothing as makes no difference. They form compound shapes with an effect that we call reality. This is reliable, apart from what humans think about it , and that - not how we perceive it or think about it - is 'reality'.

Humans perceive this assemblage of particular matter - groups and physical effects we call our world through sensory organs that create symbolic, shall we say, images and representations of the effects and assemblages in our brains. Blue does not exist in reality as as the symbolic effect in our mind imaging the signal from our optical retina. That is only the mental representation of the wavelength of 'blue' light in our head. Yet that wavelength is real, reliable and a fact, no matter what we think, or wonder (q.v qualia) about it.

What this means is that I argue that 'the universe...is stranger than we can imagine' but it is not an imaginary construct of ours (1), but a reality that exists apart from what we think.

Science (logical examination of data) tells us how this stuff works and so far no God has been found. The Burden of proof is on the Theist to give a good reason why we should credit any god, let alone any particular one, as being behind any of it.

(1) I do not credit the solipsistic universe argument, as reality throws enough curve balls to show that it does what it does whether we like it or not.

I just wanna brag on how it is, I know me one of the smartest ones here among us. Transponder has this ability to kinda accept an argument for it being one, but then so destruct it, there ain't a whole bunch left but a soggy bowl of Alphabits. Hits ya from so many angles, you're two defenses behind, after starting two goofies down.

And to say I'd told him to tell all this, but watch, Transponder's gonna deny I did.

[TRANSPONDER]

I deny that you told me to tell all this.

(p.s I prefer paypal, but will accept a cheque.)

[Noose001]

Blue does not exist in reality as as the symbolic effect in our mind imaging the signal from our optical retina. That is only the mental representation of the wavelength of 'blue' light in our head. Yet that wavelength is real, reliable and a fact, no matter what we think, or wonder (q.v qualia) about it.

What this means is that I argue that 'the universe...is stranger than we can imagine' but it is not an imaginary construct of ours (1), but a reality that exists apart from what we think.

But is the wavelength independent from Time?
What is Time? Is it real? If time is not real, why should the wavelength be?

[Difflugia]

But is the wavelength independent from Time?
What is Time? Is it real? If time is not real, why should the wavelength be?

And this lays bare the type of equivocation that's been behind most of your arguments, whether you're aware of it or not. The subjectivity of perception may render "time" as not "real" in some sense, but since wavelengths and frequencies can be measured in an absolutely consistent way in comparison to each other, then "time" is "real" in another sense. You are now just saying the same thing that TRANSPONDER was saying, that perception is subjective, but equivocating on words that we use slightly differently in both subjective and objective contexts to draw invalid conclusions in one context based on otherwise unrelated concepts from another.

[William]

Blue does not exist in reality as as the symbolic effect in our mind imaging the signal from our optical retina. That is only the mental representation of the wavelength of 'blue' light in our head. Yet that wavelength is real, reliable and a fact, no matter what we think, or wonder (q.v qualia) about it.

What this means is that I argue that 'the universe...is stranger than we can imagine' but it is not an imaginary construct of ours (1), but a reality that exists apart from what we think.

But is the wavelength independent from Time?
What is Time? Is it real? If time is not real, why should the wavelength be?

This is way off topic but something I focus attention on every day, so even that it is off-topic I have this to add;

Time is a construct created through necessity, and thus best represents the mother aspect even though she is Father Time.

The Wavelength is what moves around in Time and also creates the Time by that motion.

The Wavelength is the real deal in that regard.

The Wavelength brings the quantum strings to life through vibration, but this movement is mistaken for being 'alive' by the very act of its movement.

That is the Illusion.

The Reality is the source of the movement, and thus the real life.

When the Real Life enters into the creation The Wavelength creates, it becomes part of what The Wavelength made move, and inside the creation, experiences the movement of The Wavelength first hand in a second hand manner.

It participates in its own-made movement.

This far in, we experience our reality thinking the images are where The Life is - when in reality, WE are The Life therein...experiencing the movement of Time through the movement of Matter, and we are neither Time nor Matter.

We are that which made The Wavelength.

[TRANSPONDER]

But is the wavelength independent from Time?
What is Time? Is it real? If time is not real, why should the wavelength be?

And this lays bare the type of equivocation that's been behind most of your arguments, whether you're aware of it or not. The subjectivity of perception may render "time" as not "real" in some sense, but since wavelengths and frequencies can be measured in an absolutely consistent way in comparison to each other, then "time" is "real" in another sense. You are now just saying the same thing that TRANSPONDER was saying, that perception is subjective, but equivocating on words that we use slightly differently in both subjective and objective contexts to draw invalid conclusions in one context based on otherwise unrelated concepts from another.

That's a neat post because I'm a bit foggy about Time. We all know about divvying up the day by the movement o the sun. I sorta get the idea of cosmic events doing the same thing - 'time' passes as these events happen. But where it gets to Time that is a physical property like light that can be bent into a pretzel by relativity, I'm out of my depth. Over to you

[otseng]

Apparently you are brainwashed just like any other atheists. Maybe to your surprise, humans in majority don't rely on evidence to get to a truth. You are thus arguing from a wrong premise but without your own awareness (how surprising).

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[brunumb]

Resurrection is not something that can be seen because it's a spiritual event rather than a bodily event (I believe), .......

That pretty much fits with the imaginary as well. It can't be seen but can be regarded as something spiritual and its actual existence in reality relies on belief, aka faith.

[brunumb]

Time is everything; if time stops everything disappears, this means that physical reality (materials) is an illusion and that there's an underlying reality that creates the illusion called physical reality because time itself is not physical or material.

Please demonstrate that time can be stopped or that if time could be stopped then everything would disappear. Failing that all we have is unsupported speculation bordering on woo.