Challenge

[vanillamoon]

Okay, for the sake of argument, let's assume that there was a guy about 2000 years ago who was the son of God and did die for all of our sins, and did rise from the dead. In any case, if there was a guy who died and rose again, how would it be possible? How would Jesus' body function with a hole in his chest, after a couple of days of being dead? How can something go from being totally dead to alive and walking around?

Lazarus too, was also raised from the dead, after decaying somewhat too. And there was another instance I heard of in te old Testament somewhere where more people were raised from the ground.

But then, how would it be possible to do so?

Preferrably a better answer than "through God, all things are possible", or "It isn't possible it just didn't happen it's all a sham", please.

[micatala]

Wow. I have to say the idea that Jesus survived the crucifixion, and that the resurrection was only apparent and not real is a new one on me. I have never heard this contention before.

I suppose strictly scientifically speaking it is in some sense the most plausible explanation. I think we have all heard of example of people being apparently dead, only to be found not so dead after all.

[McCulloch]

Hey, if you believe in a God that can create humans out of muck then you can believe anything. Once you allow for miracles, anything is possible.

Atheists also believe in miracles too since their idea of creation is literally coming from "muck" as well.

This is a strawman. Atheists believe that however we came to be, it was through natural processes not miracles. We honestly admit that some of the processes are not yet understood, but we refuse to attribute them to a supernatural cause simply because they are not understood. That path leads to ignorance and superstition.

The resurrection and indeed the re-animation of Lazarus were framed as to not be capable of swoon theories. They are not presented as myth, anaolgy or allegory. In fact most doctors will tell you how in depth Luke went to describe a very accurate condition of dying from crucifixion.
Jesus died.

You will get no argument from me up to this point.

He resurrected Himself.

On this point the evidence is particularly weak.

[Cathar1950]

The only report we have as to what happened is Paul and I don't belive everything he says and he wasn't there. But he said Peter had a vision of Jesus as Paul did and every one else. Paul never met him. The NT all came after Paul and by then it was a body resurrected. Mostly they seem to see him as a glorified being and even God and a spirit. The NT isn't really much help. One thing we do know Jesus' followers had a different vision of the Christ. If we can believe Paul the Roman he thought all Christians thru belief and sacraments became the body of Jesus and shared in his death and resurrection. This most likely had nothing to do with the mission of Jesus but thats history.

[mishmash]

I have had the experience of what would be considered as a miraculous healing on my own body - the rapid healing of injured flesh - as a result of fasting and meditation. I can remember feeling and knowing at the time, that there was the power within me to recreate, or heal, the physical form in any way at all, and therefore the idea of resurrection is completely feasible to me.

Interesting. I guess the question is, what the nature of the processes you had activated actually were. The living human body has some very powerful healing functions, but would these be available to a person already dead? Or did Jesus retain some small amount of (highly powerful) life, thus being able to resist decay and heal the critical wounds?

But this wouldn't work for Lazurus, who was dead and buried, and (presumably) "surely he stinketh" by the time Jesus called to him. Aside from such high-tech ideas as nanotech and time travel, the remaining possibility would be that the human soul survives death, and retains potential for reanimation, perhaps some more than others. This is of course what mainstream christians, not to mention most other religions, teach. It is also perhaps the greatest departure of atheism from religion.

Being very difficult to experiment with, the soul hypothesis is largely ascientific. Scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable, using repeatable tests. Nonetheless, it is not irrational to believe in such a thing as the soul. Evidences include our apparent predisposition to believe in such (indicating a survival advantage to belief therein), and a huge number of anecdotes such as Being1's. If there is a surviving soul, the likelihood of the resurrection of Jesus would be much higher, as it would be capable of both retaining his memories and initiating the regeneration process of his body, despite it's being completely dead.