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*giggles* That’s beautiful.
Sonny is NOT dead – he is alive and well living on Jupiter with Elvis.
Floating on Jupiter you mean?
The first schism in the Church of SonnyElvis….
Custador approves of this cartoon.
Talking of parrots…
I used to go to a hotel in the Netherlands from time to time (super walking with the dogs, through the woods), and there was a parrot at the hotel, on a perch on the way to the restaurant (I kid you not). The parrot used to meow like a cat whenever a dog walked by – which was often, because of the great walkies there. Lots of fun to watch – an afternoon’s entertainment all on its own.
At the bookstore where I work, the religion section is immediately outside of the movie/music section, my permanent station. This means that I get to deal with both personalities exemplified in this cartoon. I had one lady who insisted that Bill Gates and Obama were in a socialist conspiracy with the hospitals and the black churches in my area to blind and kill her. It turned out that she had called up to order the King James Bible on dvd. How apropos.
You could have bent over to her, and said quietly, with meaningful glances over your shoulder, “Lady, are you aware what they put into those DVD rays? I’m not supposed to be telling you this, so just think about the words “lucifer”, “mind control” and “spiritual database”.
Yes, I know it’s usually mean to play into someone’s mental illness. But I also think that countering the intentional and systematic exploitation and indeed stimulation of schizophrenic paranoia by religion can only help. Therapists try to get the patient to realize irreconcilable contradictions internal to his delusion. Breaking it up into fragments that don’t fit each other is a first step.
That said, i’m not a professional, and I’m not advising regarding bookstore cross-counter discourse as a proper therapeutic measure.
Bingo!
As we see with the recent arrests of those loopy militia people, they also include the
parrotPresident as the Antichrist. I’m not sure, is the earmark of the loon switching back and forth between Obama and the Pope, or does the moral pillar person just keep quiet about names?I thought U2′s Bono was the new Christ.
i disprove of the blatant discrimination against people of bearded mug as depicted here.
It’s a funny cartoon!
Except the point doesn’t work, except for an uneducated person. There is a significant amount of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
If you were in possession of such evidence, it would be the greatest archaeological find in the history of mankind. So…don’t keep it all to yourself! What is it?
It’s going to be the same “evidence” as always presented isn’t it?
Ethan, are you referring to something I can’t just find in five minutes on Google? Because believe me, I’ve seen that.
Nope, he’s referring to something that is so momentous that he can’t even bring himself to post the details. That’s how important it is!
Ethan, like many Christians, believes that the evidence exists because a fellow Christian has told him it does – and in the brotherhood that is Christianity, the idea that somebody might be lying is just unthinkable. It’s a little like Chinese Whispers. It probably went:
“I think Jesus was resurrected”
“I’m pretty sure Jesus was resurrected”
“I’m certain Jesus was resurrected”
“I know that Jesus was resurrected”
“Jesus was resurrected, that’s a historical fact”
Of course, you could write the actual chain of events that lead to the resurrection myth being invented across the sky in twelve foot high letters of fire and the buggers wouldn’t believe it…
The part that amuses me is that standard of “evidence” that they require to believe in their own myths evaporates when myths from other religions are looked at.
Well that’s quite a slander Custador, lol. Unfortunately, what you’re accusing me of doing IS true of the way that many Christians believe in the resurrection. However, you make the assumption that if someone does look into the history of the story they would find it to be false. But that is not the case, now is it? Because I have looked into it and I find it very plausible, in fact, I think the honest researcher would have a hard time denying that there is a strong case for a resurrection. I won’t belabor the point, but when you look at all that “evidence” honestly, I think it’s pretty strong. Not completely watertight, but certainly plausible and certainly more plausible than the alternatives.
@Ethan
So are you going to present this “evidence” or not?
He keeps using this word, “evidence.” I do not think it means what he thinks it means.
More plausible than the alternatives? You’re going to have to come up with some very extraordinary evidence to show that a man resurrecting himself from the dead is more plausible than, say, a man not resurrecting himself from the dead.
I disagree that there has been any slander. You have provided no evidence other then the two of you disagree. From what I have read you are the one standing on a sinking ship but claiming that it is completely sea worthy. If you really want to debate with the people here you need to do better then to make claims and then say someone is using slander as a tool. I am probably one of the least educated of the people that comments here regularly but even I see you are making hollow arguments. I have been asking the same question most here have. Where is all this evidence you claim exist? If all all you are using is faith as your evidence, you need to really look at how seldom faith in others really works. I have noticed that faith usually only works with people you are close to unless you lie to yourself.
Ok then let’s do this. More to follow, but here’s one point of evidence we can start with:
The followers of Jesus claimed that He did rise from the dead, and gave their lives in horrible ways for that claim. It’s highly improbable that they would go to the lions for a claim that they knew was a lie.
Keep in mind that what we’re talking about is very difficult or impossible to PROVE, in other words, what kind of archeological evidence could prove that someone rose from the dead? So if we want the real truth, we have to look for evidence somewhere other than archeology. But there are numerous other clues and evidences that make the case.
There’s one piece of evidence for starters.
Happy Easter!
As already stated by Roger “He keeps using this word, “evidence.” I do not think it means what he thinks it means.” Thanks for proving his point.
“Keep in mind that what we’re talking about is very difficult or impossible to PROVE,”
… yet you’ve already stated that:
“in fact, I think the honest researcher would have a hard time denying that there is a strong case for a resurrection.”
So which one is it, or are you backtracking on you earlier statement?
Fair enough. You’ve pointed out my poor choice of words. My point was that it’s difficult to prove archeologically. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not true. it’s just that you have to look for evidence in places other than archeology.
“But that doesn’t mean that it’s not true.”
Oh please … what sort of argument is that?
“it’s just that you have to look for evidence in places other than archeology.”
… and which other evidence is that as so far all you’ve said is people wouldn’t die for something that they didn’t believe was true. That in no way makes it’s true so you’re going to have to do better than that. As you’ve already stated that you’ve “looked into it” you must have more evidence than that which you’ve presented so far.
They were easily fooled. Resurrection is more plausible than the fact that people have been and continue to be easily fooled? There’s also this thing called “honor”…. people have been and continue to be willing to die or be put in situations where they can die or at least suffer rather than admit they are a liar or a fool. Resurrection is more plausible than that also? Resurrection never happens. People do stupid things all the time for stupid reasons.
Unfortunately I’ve pretty much given up with anyone who claims to have evidence for their faith as it always turns out like this i.e. what is presented is not evidence at all. The most depressing thing is it’s the same reasons trotted out time and time again.
I’m mostly struck by how plausible he thinks resurrection is to even a reasonable person on examining this “evidence.” Even he puts “evidence” in quotation marks. “Evidence” in quotation marks already doesn’t sound like a “strong case” for resurrection vs. a reasonable person’s deductions. He is logic-impaired:
I assert myself as a reasonable person
I was easily convinced
Therefore, it would be difficult for a reasonable person to deny.
As far as Christians and lions, it’s an adequate analogy. Rather than admit (or recognize) that it’s foolish, he will expose himself to arguments and go down fighting for the lord. He would not be willing to do so if he believed it a lie, therefore, it has to be true. If he can do it, so can the ones who went to the lions, ya think?
There’s was a good set of blog posts reviewing the Alpha Course (alphacoursereview.wordpress.com) and one of the things that struck me was people’s willingness to believe evidence that supported their own beliefs. It’s a trait we all have but those of faith seem to take this to a new level.
They were easily fooled. Resurrection is more plausible than the fact that people have been and continue to be easily fooled?
Kodie, THANK YOU! for being the one person who actually offered a rebuttal to the evidence. This is worth following up but it needs more support- rather than just saying “they must have been fooled because a lot of people get fooled easily” could you explain your idea more? Who did the fooling? How were they fooled? It’s not enough to just say that they might have been fooled without offering some more reasoning.
Really bothered by your statement “Resurrection never happens” Kodie. It sounds like you’ve made up your mind already – but if you’ve already decided what your answer is then you’re taking a bit of a closed-minded look at the issue, wouldn’t you say? I suggest you be more open-minded.
“I suggest you be more open-minded.”
I would suggest you understand what open minded is as your evidence strong points in the direction that you’re closed minded as you seem to have decided that the resurrection happened and then are finding evidence to support that instead of having an open mind to all the possibilities.
If you could give me compelling reasoning instead of personal attacks, I might change my mind – I’m pretty open minded.
LOL … you’re not opened minded at all. I don’t have to give you compelling reasons why you shouldn’t believe what you do. You have have to give me compelling reasons why you believe what you do.
That fact is that you decided what the “truth” is and then use confirmation bias to back it up. If you want to present more evidence then please feel free to do so.
I’m sorry if it’s not compelling enough to hypothesize that how it probably went down is the way things like this usually go down. It’s easy enough to list examples of people who tell stories and believe what they’ve been told, sold what someone wants to sell. It’s very difficult to list all the people who have resurrected. It’s only easy to list people who heard from someone that it happened, or who told someone that they saw it, or people who believed that it was true. All of that points directly back to the common behavior of people who buy what someone else is selling, like exercise videos that promise you’ll have the abs of a surfer in 6 weeks, or some processed crap pastry that is more popular among children than a pop-tart.
Your problem is that you are not convinced by the obvious, you’re not convinced it is even plausible because that would wreck your beliefs, and without your beliefs in a supernatural event, you would have to consider being an atheist! OH NOES. Your faith in the resurrection is clouding your ability to reason, it’s all you want to believe, so it’s going to be difficult for you to admit you just may be gullible, it’s going to be difficult for you to convince anyone here that you’re reasonable.
@Jabster @Kodie
I can see your point. It’s not something that you or I have seen with our own eyes, someone coming back from the dead. Still, I think the logic behind the situation of the resurrection demands some sort of answer.
It’s unlikely for the Jesus-followers to give their lives and suffer terrible persecution for something if it was a pure lie. Once you start cutting off fingers many people are pretty quick to capitulate if they are being persecuted for something that they know is simply a lie. That changes dramatically if the person actually believes that what their dying for is the truth. That’s when you see the kind of dedication that gets a person killed. So it is possible then that someone tricked the Jesus-followers into believing that He rose from the dead, and they went with that beliefs to their deaths.
But there is absolutely no plausible party who would do such a thing. The Romans would look like fools if Jesus rose, someone they crucified, and besides, why would they stir up a Jewish-leaders/Jesus-followers controversy? There’s not a shred of a motive for them to do that.
Same for the Jews- they wanted Jesus to die for blasphemy. They have no motive for a story of His resurrection to surface – in fact the opposite is true.
So, who then? We’re left with either the Jesus-followers dying for a lie, which is unlikely, or the story being true.
If you can accept that idea at all, I submit: that possibly there is a God and He brought Jesus back to life.
If you can sufficiently explain why the disciples would give their lives for a foolish lie, that keeps with what we know about human behavior, that would be a good rebuttal. But I haven’t seen it yet.
Open your minds.
“If you can sufficiently explain why the disciples would give their lives for a foolish lie, that keeps with what we know about human behavior, that would be a good rebuttal.”
Simple – the person lying to the disciples didn’t get caught. Jesus had, according to the bible, many more followers than just the Apostles, and any of this faction could have stolen the body to score points over rivals who had different ideas about the resurrection, or to incite rebellion against the Romans. The Pharisees didn’t like Jesus, but that doesn’t mean the Jews as a whole disliked him. Most of his followers were likely Jewish, and Jews were in many different groups at the time.
See here for some ideas on the body being stolen: http://blog.evangelicalrealism.com/2010/04/04/easter-special-how-to-fake-a-resurrection-without-really-trying/
Or the book itself could be pure fiction, given as a morality lesson to people who over time got the wrong end of the stick as knowledge was lost and ended up treating it as real history. There is no actual evidence anything in it happened, and evidence that some things in it were not only physically impossible, but logically so as well (like Jesus being born before and after the reign of Herod, or crucified before and after the Passover meal).
It is comparatively unlikely that at the beginning there was an intentional deception and far, far more likely that everyone was just mistaken. Modern psychological studies have shown just how suggestible human minds are even to simple wish-fulfillment; how beliefs and expectations color memory and perception to almost absurd lengths with relatively little force. The human mind is willing to tolerate huge amounts of evidence contrary to held beliefs, with most often the beliefs simply remaining unchanged or growing stronger in the face of such evidence.
Stress and other extreme emotional states make this far more likely…and there is almost nothing as stressful as watching the guy you thought was gonna throw the oppressive Romans out and cast the corrupt temple authorities down get ignominiously tortured and killed.
“If you can sufficiently explain why the disciples would give their lives for a foolish lie”
Ethan, I may not be able to answer that personally but I’m sure we can ask the disciples of David Koresh or Jim Jones or any other religious nut job that has existed over time. Well we could ask them but they are all dead.
Seems like people have always been and will always be willing to die for any cause they deem worthy even if that cause is a lie.
They believed it the same way you believe it. You want it to be true. I cannot say who had motive or why it couldn’t have been them, but I bet if Scooby and the gang were there, they could.
So, who then? We’re left with either the Jesus-followers dying for a lie, which is unlikely, or the story being true.
A few problems: we don’t know how or why the earliest Jesus followers died. The earliest source, 1st Clement, mentions Peter and Paul but is very vague about how they died. It’s possible that the author simply didn’t know.
The second century apocryphal gospels tell us explicitly how Peter and Paul died, but it has little to do with the resurrection of Jesus. Peter is executed for convincing women to remain celibate. Paul mouths off to Nero and is quickly beheaded (and then puts his head back on and mouths off again). Neither is offered the chance to renounce Christ and survive, and neither has a finger cut off.
The early persecutions didn’t hinge on belief. The Neronian persecution was just a way to establish a scapegoat. It’s unlikely that Nero ever allowed anyone to recant and go free – certainly, Tacitus never suggests that he did.
You’re also being simplistic with the whole “dieing for a lie” routine. You assume that people would know that it was a lie. That ignore the complex supernatural world that the greco-romans and hellenized Jews lived in. God(s) were believed to have numerous ways of speaking to the people. There were many different forms of oracle and divination. Dreams and visions were seen as messages from the divine.
So take Thomas Sheehan’s theory of early Christian: Peter had a vision or a dream in which he saw Jesus beside the Throne of God. Clearly, he likely would have thought, this is a sign from Heaven that Christ has risen! He runs and tells the others … and so Christianity begins. Was the vision true? Impossible to say from our perspective.
@Ethan – you asserted that resurrection was more plausible – “certainly more plausible”, than any of the alternatives.
My “evidence” points not to having a closed mind but of living in the real world with facts. You don’t seem to notice the difference between assertion and evidence. However, I do not have to name the fool to assert that that is certainly more plausible than resurrection. Have you ever seen anyone resurrect? Have you ever been fooled or fooled someone or seen someone easily fooled into believing a lie or a rumor? Have you ever heard of a tall tale? Can you say resurrection is certainly more plausible than one of the several more obviously probable events? I dismiss resurrection because it is the least probable event. It is fantastical. Jesus, an actual man, might not have even existed, and stories that spread by word of mouth to a gullible population tend to get embellished fairly quickly in the retelling. That is non-fantastical.
What I can’t wrap my head around is grown adults still tell this story as though it were believable. You read it, and like a child would, swallow it without questioning it or measuring it against what you would normally expect to happen. Any other story, you would safely dismiss as fiction, but you come up with contorted excuses why this story really happened, a long time ago, and has some authority over your life, that’s your life. You are easily led, so one fool’s name would be Ethan Anderson.
Kodie, all I’m saying is that you stated that “resurrection never happens.” So if you’re not allowing for even the possibility that it could happen, this debate is pointless for you. You’ve already decided. That’s not very productive, and it’s not very open-minded.
I have presented a theory that supports the resurrection. All I have gotten in response is “they were probably fooled because people get fooled easily.” That’s pretty weak. Unless you have some idea as to how and why the disciples themselves were fooled, it’s just a grand generalization, and a big assumption.
It’s more plausible than resurrection. You have to come up with something that supports your assertion that resurrection was certainly more plausible than any of the alternatives. Your definition of plausible might mean something other than what plausible means, so include that if it applies.
You are waving away THE MOST PLAUSIBLE course of events in favor of one you like better that’s not even a little bit plausible. I will entertain the plausibility of resurrection once you come up with something that supports your assertion that resurrection is more plausible than a rumor. I have plenty of an open mind, just not so that my brains fall out. Mysterious supernatural events never occur, while people say things all the time that aren’t true just to sell a product. Jesus is a mascot. At least I can picture something like that happening because it’s how humans behave. It’s observable and common. You want to believe in a silly god, you will add powers to the world that are impossible, that stretches credibility, but it’s not more plausible than anything. I mean, if you think it is, show me. You keep avoiding it because now I have made an assertion you can’t believe. Who is making an assertion for something that is impossible and improbable? You are. If you can’t, or you decide it’s more fun to badger me about how closed my mind is to a fantastical event, then you know what conclusion I shall draw. You haven’t made your case, so that’s what you have to do next.
By that logic the terrorists of the 9/11 attacks were right: they wouldn’t sacrifice themselves for a lie, therefore Allah exists and he wants to destroy America. That’s your “evidence”.
Nobody is saying they knew it was a lie; what we’re saying is, while they might believe it’s true, doesn’t mean it actually is.
Terrorists blow up themselves for Islam. Samurais used to suicide for honor. People willingly laid down their lives in sacrifice to appease their gods and have done so for millenia. That doesn’t mean they’re actually right (except samurais, I suppose, as honor *does* exist, in a sense).
Bender and Siberia, thanks for replying.
I’m not proposing that just because someone believes something and dies for it, it must be true. Of course not.
What I’m saying is, they clearly believed it because they died for it. Now w
The followers of Jesus dying for the resurrection claim has three
Let me explain myself further.
The resurrection claim has basically three possible outcomes:
1) The Jesus-followers deceived everyone and spread a lie about the resurrection.
2) Someone else deceived the Jesus-followers that Jesus was resurrected.
3) The story is true and Jesus was resurrected.
You say: “Nobody is saying they knew it was a lie.”
So it sounds like we’re in agreement that number 1 isn’t true. That’s my original point.
Point number 2 is your best chance. But just saying that it might have happened that way, that someone might have deceived the Jesus-followers… that isn’t much of a rebuttal, is it?What’s your evidence for that being a possibility? Who did the deceiving? Why did they do it? How did it happen?
In logic, if you are making an existence proposition, the burden of proof is typically on the pro side of the argument. Such propositions, which for our purposes is existence of god(s), usually want to add something new to the system, and Occam’s razor usually does a fine job of getting rid of it (id est, if we can explain things with what we have, creating something new to explain one or two things is superfluous, cumbersome, and probably false).
“Who did the deceiving? Why did they do it? How did it happen?”
Not sure who, records are rather bad. Personally, I like the idea of a con-man, which brings us to the “why:” money and power. For over a thousand years, the churches had a pretty nice gig going in Europe, and that enterprise was expanding. As for the how, why don’t we look at how scientology and mormonism got the ball going.
We’re not arguing the existence of God we’re arguing a historical event.
What I’m saying is for the theory of the disciples being tricked into believing that Jesus was resurrected, you’d have to provide some plausible party who would do the deception and some motivation for that person.
It’s unlikely that it was a con man wanting power, because the early church was completely hounded by persecution, so money and power didn’t come into the picture until much later.
“What I’m saying is for the theory of the disciples being tricked into believing that Jesus was resurrected, you’d have to provide some plausible party who would do the deception and some motivation for that person.”
Yes of course, because that’s never happened has it, yet people rising from the dead is two a penny.
Ethan, you know very well that noone can point to specific persons or a specific chain of events that would have led to a resurrection story that didn’t actually happen.
However, we can point to the general motivations that occur repeatedly in all religions, such as:
a) the desire for power and leadership
b) the desire to convince others and one self, even if it means twisting the truth
c) errors and distortions that occur through retelling
I’ll take a wild stab and guess that you don’t hold the supernatural claims of, say, Islam or Hinduism to be true; that you think their claims are in fact exaggerated and for the most part outright false. And you probably think they came to be so because of the reasons just mentioned.
So why should Christianity be any different in this regard? Why would the same general mechanisms not apply?
To use the reasons I mentioned:
a) The leadership of the early Christian church/cults would enjoy various privileges of power, which is a very powerful motivator in itself. Oppression by the Romans would likely even increase the power these leaders held over their congregations.
b) Their followers would find affirmation in their faith (because of, as well as in spite of, any persecution), and I see no reason, when they wanted to persuade others, why we should think them any less able to come up with fantastic tales than the next guy belonging to some other faith. After all, who would bother to believe in a deity that didn’t perform fantastic, magical deeds? Absolutely nobody, that’s who. Better for them to come up with something or to simply “borrow” it from competing mythologies. Themes such as virgin birth (divine father, mortal mother) and resurrection have actually been ascribed to various gods and demigods on a rather common basis. Jesus was hardly unique in this regard. What seems most likely – that Jesus actually was the first person ever to fulfill these events, or that the same stories were used once again?
c) This one is pretty obvious. Various anecdotes would have been orally retold many times before they were penned down. Often they would probably be hard to recognize from the original, especially when we take point b into account.
History and human nature show that these things are what always happen. I see no reason to believe Christianity should be the exception to the rule.
“We’re not arguing the existence of God”
Ethan, you might want to think twice before you make a statement like that here. You mind find quite a bit of arguing about the existence of god.
Ethan, you use the word “deceive” as if someone purposely set out to spread lies. Back then, messiahs and prophets of all kinds were a dime a dozen, and tales of magic and miracles were common. As well, the different faiths routinely coopted stories and teachings from each other and from mythology.
Are you really suggesting that it was unlikely that inflated rumours and stories would emerge in the case of Jesus? I’d say I find that hard to believe.
Exactly which followers are you referring to, Ethan? Of the early resurrection accounts, the only ones we have that might have been written by people who experienced it were the first three gospels, all of which are anonymous, and only the first of which (Mark) has any realistic chance of being written by a disciple of Jesus while he lived.
Now, the original gospel of Mark ended after verse 16:8, where the two Marys and Salome, having just seen a man in white (presumably an angel) tell them of the risen Christ, flee and tell nobody. Nobody. That is the end of the most ancient version of Mark.
Now tell me that doesn’t sound like a fabrication, a story. Later versions tack on a verse in which they change their minds and tell everybody (which, let’s face it, must have happened at some point), and even later ones go into a story of how Jesus appeared to the apostles.
O.K., so at some point, the story morphed from some apocryphal account of Jesus’ resurrection with no legitimate sources, to one in which a dozen people saw Christ. In Matthew and Luke (which were based primarily on Mark), there are two more stories of Christ appearing to followers, and the three accounts are totally contradictory. John is even more different, and much later.
These accounts are your “evidence” that Jesus in fact rose from the dead? Give me a break. You don’t think there would be any motivation for these evangelists to convince people Jesus came back, after he said he would?
Or how about you compare it to the claim that Jesus would return at the end of the world, within the generation. That didn’t happen, did it? And after it didn’t, so as not to lose all the followers, John claimed that the stories were false, that in fact Jesus would not necessarily return within the generation, but whenever he felt like it. Well that’s just great, but the original accounts are still there, so somebody messed up.
Face it: Biblical testimony cannot be used as evidence of the resurrection of a dead man.
This is kind of in support of Micheal. I myself doubt there was ever a historical Jesus but know many disagree and neither side can prove the other wrong completely. Try these views from another blog on the view of Jesus. http://gods4suckers.net/archives/2010/04/04/the-greatest-story-that-never-happened-a-dropkick-in-3-acts/
I wouldn’t go this far. I think it is much more likely that a religion would spring up deifying a real rabbi than deifying a purely fictional one. Besides that, Jesus is referenced in several historical writings (the gospels, Josephus, and I think Tacitus?). And even if Jesus didn’t exist, there were plenty of other Jews at the time prophesying the end of the world and declaring themselves messiahs–it was a common practice, really. What do you think John the Baptist was doing?