How would your account be different?

[Inigo Montoya]

I've been tossing around the question as to why it is we believe written accounts of officers or soldiers in past wars, or why we believe the stories of famous men and women throughout history prior to the advent of cameras and film.


For the sake of argument, I'd ask you -- IF you were witness to the life and death of Jesus in the first century, and we assume the miracles and resurrection are true, how do YOU record your accounting of it in such a way it is believed in future generations?

Is this possible? Do we believe the events of the War of 1812 took place the way they did because there's no mention of supernatural occurrences?

If we assume for discussion the events in the gospels actually occurred, how would you have captured them in such a way as to stand up to future scrutiny?

[PhiloKGB]

Heh. No. Just fleshing out my point that not everyone is capable of using the same information to reach the same conclusions.

Fair enough point. I still don't see how that would make God to blame. If some can't reach the same conclusions as others that means there are some who can. Can't the ones who are unable to reach that conclusion consult with the ones who can to see how they got it?

The point is that educators have long recognized that there are different learning styles. The same information can be presented in different ways or at different rates; information can even be added or removed as needed. God, for whatever reason, chooses not to inspire a graphic novel or a miniseries -- or some revealing archaeological digs -- even though he would reach more people that way.

You don't seem to appreciate what it means to be a perfect communicator. Unless there are people for whom it is somehow *literally* impossible to get God's message, none of this can possibly be a problem for him.

Actually it's not a problem for Him. It's a problem we have accepting His message, in my opinion.

I'm running out of different ways to say this: If it is possible for me to freely accept God's message then God, by definition, knows how to make it happen. If I have a problem accepting God's message, then God has decided not to present the message in an acceptable way for me. Unless it is literally impossible for me to accept God's message then God is simply choosing to exclude me for some reason.

[McCulloch]

Unless it is literally impossible for me to accept God's message then God is simply choosing to exclude me for some reason.

The apostle Paul addresses this very issue in Romans.

[font=Georgia]
And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.� Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.�

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.� So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.� So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?� On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,� will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.[/font]

Essentially it is this: if God decided to exclude you from grace, if God chose to make you an example to accept his wrath, then you have no right to complain.

[The Nice Centurion]

If we assume for discussion the events in the gospels actually occurred, how would you have captured them in such a way as to stand up to future scrutiny?

For one thing, I would have assumed future skepticism. To that end, I would have named as many witnesses as I could. I would have encouraged as much writing, by those not in the society of believers to record the miracles, the huge following, and the wonders.

You are right.
For example; Religion founder Joseph Smith was aware of that.

Welcome to the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses of the Golden Plates who all signed affidavits.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Witnesses

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Witnesses

For critical recorders look, for example, at the John Murphy interview with Witness David Whitmer.
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/ans ... hing%22%3F

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/ans ... _June_1880

I think that was Jim Caviezel or whatever, but I think it IS a good question.

Assuming the gospel accounts are true, I can think of no way they could have been attested to 2000 years ago that would remain persuasive to the skeptics of today without being recorded either in film or photograph.

Short of that, what would remain credible all these centuries later?

The question is rather; Why is "the evidence" so extrem laughable, even self-contradicting.

Why was an omnipotent christian god unable to invite WITNESSES FOR THE ACTUAL RESURRECTION ?

Why would no one be interested about writing down DETAILS OF THE RESURRECTION ?

The holy apostles would not ask Jesus about the mechanics of The Resurrection WHEN THEY HAD HIM THERE IN PERSON !

And even until today no one wants to talk about it.

CERTAINLY NOT the members of this forum !

[TRANSPONDER]

Unless it is literally impossible for me to accept God's message then God is simply choosing to exclude me for some reason.

The apostle Paul addresses this very issue in Romans.

[font=Georgia]
And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.� Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.�

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.� So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.� So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?� On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,� will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.[/font]

Essentially it is this: if God decided to exclude you from grace, if God chose to make you an example to accept his wrath, then you have no right to complain.

Yes, Paul firms up this point, but he is wrong, as he is about many other things (if one credits logic and reason) and just because Paul says it doesn't make it valid.

The probability is that Paul never did pottery, but I did and I know 'clay remembers'. This means that if a potter messes up a pot it cannot be made correct afterwards and the potter, is to blame, even if he smashes the pot. Thus God by His own morals is to blame, not man, and we knew that, and Paul's argument is rubbish and always was.

God, not man, is to blame for the faults in His creation.

Of course - as Christians never get this - it is not atheists saying that God exists but is evil, but "It makes no coherent system and must be considered untenable; it isn't true".

Just as in the Hellthreat problem. That it is unjust doesn't mean God hath created an unjust system, so what, but it makes no sense and cannot be true. Let those with brains to think, think.

"No, Ni, rely not upon thy own understanding."

"Wouldn't you like that; dudes and dudesses, use the brains you were given to see ...This Bible makes no sense". Learn and think.

[Purple Knight]

Is this possible? Do we believe the events of the War of 1812 took place the way they did because there's no mention of supernatural occurrences?

Yes and this is why I've said I take it all with a grain of salt. All of it.

If we assume for discussion the events in the gospels actually occurred, how would you have captured them in such a way as to stand up to future scrutiny?

I would have tried to do so scientifically. I admit this is a tough problem since you've sent me back in time without a camera or any other recording devices. The only thing I can do is make a time capsule and include real evidence. I would rip out a lock of his hair, try to get it by the root, and seal it in a vault or something. I don't know what kind of a lens I can get in 0AD but I'll look at the base of the hair through it, and make an illustration as well, sealing it along with the hair.

I think if you were really dead for three days, the hair growth might show that. If he was dead so were his follicles. They then had to start up again. This might put a little notch on every last hair exactly N days of growth away from the scalp, where N is the number of days between him being rezzed and me pulling out a lock of his hair. Since nobody who saw him resurrected mentioned that he was suddenly bald, this is at least a start.

But the truth is I might not have thought to do any of this. If the Bible is full of other miracles, like people turning staves into snakes, I am not going to assume I have to document any of this so well, because living in an environment where not only is magic assumed to exist, but I've seen it with my own eyes, I'm not going to think that in two thousand years it will all evaporate and everybody will look at these stories as crazy. The resurrection however, I might look at as that big of an outlier of possibility, simply because someone may have magic powers, but the idea that he can use them to resurrect himself still seems odd.

What Christians have to understand as well though, is that Jesus was not terribly special, at least not as much so as he seems today. He was far from the only being recorded to be magical. So even if all the miracles were 100% true, some few people back then had some kind of supernatural powers so he may have had them and just seen it through the eyes of someone born into a hyper-religious culture. The way I imagine it is perhaps 1/100,000, or even 1/1,000,000. And you don't know that many people, so if you have powers, you're the only one you know who does. Wherever you find yourself, you probably end up as some kind of priest. Your god obviously favours you, so you're also imparted with special wisdom. If this wasn't at least sort of a usual occurrence in the past, why are we supposed to believe he was special just because he had powers? Add an entrenched and kind of corrupt Rabbinic culture and you have pretty much an exact recipe for what happened.

[SiNcE_1985]

.

When you realize that there is nothing you can say that will convince those hell-bent (pun intended) on unbelief....you will realize how meaningless this question is.

The Bible say that the message of the cross seems foolishness to those who are perishing 1Corin 1:18-25.

[The Nice Centurion]

Is this possible? Do we believe the events of the War of 1812 took place the way they did because there's no mention of supernatural occurrences?

Yes and this is why I've said I take it all with a grain of salt. All of it.

If we assume for discussion the events in the gospels actually occurred, how would you have captured them in such a way as to stand up to future scrutiny?

I would have tried to do so scientifically. I admit this is a tough problem since you've sent me back in time without a camera or any other recording devices. The only thing I can do is make a time capsule and include real evidence. I would rip out a lock of his hair, try to get it by the root, and seal it in a vault or something. I don't know what kind of a lens I can get in 0AD but I'll look at the base of the hair through it, and make an illustration as well, sealing it along with the hair.

I think if you were really dead for three days, the hair growth might show that. If he was dead so were his follicles. They then had to start up again. This might put a little notch on every last hair exactly N days of growth away from the scalp, where N is the number of days between him being rezzed and me pulling out a lock of his hair. Since nobody who saw him resurrected mentioned that he was suddenly bald, this is at least a start.

You might unintetiously have come up here with something.

Gospels tell that people had hard time of recognicing the Resurrected one. No explanation given, but sudden baldness sounds like a logical reason.

If someone you have known, suddenly shaves bald and also you know he's deceased, you might not see instantly that its him. Especially with bad light or early morning.

EDIT: Oh and in this case do not wonder that still not a one gospel mentions that Christ was a baldy afterward The Resurrection.
Mention of this in scripture would have been disrespectful and contra productive. The Gospels are propaganda scripts, remember ?

To mention baldness of holy men in biblical times was also deadly dangerous. Jesus could have sent two bears to rip apart an evangelist who would dare to write about it

[TRANSPONDER]

That's weird. I have never heard accounts of death leading to baldness, but only of hair growing after death. The problem remains - why wasn't Jesus recognised? When he appeared to the women in Matthew, they knew him immediately. In fact he is only NOT recognised in Luke and John because the story seems to require it.

As to the account it would do everything the gospels do not.

It would not use the same wording as other accounts (as in the synoptics) but it would fit with the other accounts and not alter it (as in the angelic message). It would not have Mary Magdalene (and the others) reporting back that they had met Jesus while the other stories said they had not, and I wouldn't just have the women running away and saying nothing when I knew there was a whole resurrection appearances, Jesus talking to the disciples and an ascension still to go.

In other words, it would not be like it is in the gospels, unless I was making up my own imaginary tale to fill in the glaring omission left in Mark's version after the women ran away and said nothing to anyone.

I know, we have heard all the excises, as well as denial of what the Bible actually says, but the case for the Resurrection stories after the empty tomb all being totally contradictory, apart from being invented to put clay on the bare wire of the 'He is risen' claim (and claims are not evidence of the claim), being independently concocted stories, and that is why they are totally contradictory, must be leftfor the browser to decide, because, to borrow a recent comment, nothing you can say will ever convince the believer. Except the ones still able to doubt and question.

From such are the hellbent atheists derived.