What proof is there that the resurrection didn't happen?

Unreasonable Faith Forum » General » General Discussion

What proof is there that the resurrection didn't happen?

(19 posts) (8 voices)

Started 3 years ago by Alejjia
Latest reply from JonJon

Tags:

Alejjia
Member

One of the books that I read when searching for the truth about christianity was "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, which I'm sure most of you have at least heard of. It was a good read, and it held together a pretty good case for the reliability of the gospels and the validity of the resurrection. There are some loose ends in it, but for the most part the case is pretty obnoxiously sound.

"The Case Against the Case for Christ" also exists (http://www.bidstrup.com/apologetics.htm is the full version), and it is an essay by Scott Bidstrup that picks apart the validity of the book pretty well.

But where is there a sound, logical case that the resurrection didn't occur? Or, to make that unnecessary, a case that Jesus was a fraud, or nonexistent, or that the writers of the gospels just made things up to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies? If you know of any good books or sites, that would be wonderful.

P.S. do I really keep posting these in the wrong section? Sorry about that... You guys might want to consider having a "Switch Section" option...

Posted 3 years ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

Well, there is never a sound deductive or inductive argument that some event in the past didn't occur; the best either side can do is probabilities. On the Atheist side you have the advantage of knowing that the universe has never been shown in anyone's living experience as operating in a manner remotely similar to how it would have to operate if the resurrection story were historical. That's as close to certain as a person can be, I suppose.
---------------

About which section, it's not a problem; they're easy for the mods to move. :)

Posted 3 years ago #
Alejjia
Member

What bothers me a lot about christian's arguments on this subject is that they claim, and as far as they're concerned, to "know" that what they're saying is a fact: It happened. Its true. The resurrection is the proof. Why can't you just accept that? ...when all we can say in honesty is that, well, we have no idea, and we can admit that. But which sounds more convincing, "We all don't know anything and this is all we've got", or "I know something ridiculous, but it can give you eternal life!"
Its disturbing how such an inviting scenario can convince people to throw away their logic and defend myths... Is death really that scary?

Posted 3 years ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

Its disturbing how such an inviting scenario can convince people to throw away their logic and defend myths... Is death really that scary?

This implies that people had logic to begin with. Most people, for better or worse, trust their immediate perceptions and emotions more than any logical or intellectual sense. Even normally rational people make exceptions for their rationality when it comes to topics or situations that are highly emotionally charged or have a great existential weight. This all is compounded by the fact that people are in most--perhaps all--cultures very poorly trained at thinking, and so tentative applications of poorly-trained logic do not stand up to the seemingly apodictic internal knowledge that an emotional epiphany can provide.

And yes, death really is that scary. Ty was half-joking about this last week, and I'm with him: I fully intend to live forever and I'll see you at the Heat Death of the Universe. Unfortunately, due to local conditions, there will be no fireworks. Entropy sucks.

Posted 3 years ago #
DDM
Member

I don't think death is scary. Hell, I could get a job as a mortician and I wouldn't at all be mortified. On the contrary, death is fascinating.

Tell you what's really scary, though: Someone not dying(Otherwise known as immortal) or coming back from being dead. That just ain't right. You know what I mean? It's not the natural course of things.

Posted 3 years ago #
Alejjia
Member

Eh, I don't know. I've never felt afraid of death. Likely from having a biologist for a mother - its engrained into me that life and death and everything inbetween is just natural.
I feel like when I die it's mostly going feel like relief... and then a lot of nothingness. And honestly, even if there were a god and I was sent to hell - nowhere in the bible does it state that its fiery and evil and painful. The only time fire is ever mentioned is metaphorically, and not even directly about hell:
Deuteronomy 32:22
"For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains."
The anger is burning, not hell. Yet people took the "burn unto lowest hell" part, made it out to be literal, and ran with it.
Hell is described more like limbo - an empty place absent from god for all of eternity. Oooo, absence from god, so scary when I'm already an atheist!

Posted 3 years ago #
elizabethdamaro
Member

The biggest problem with the Case For Christ (outside of the logic) is that Strobel tossed his own journalist standards in his investigation.

The credibility of the author is shot long before the words on his pages are read.

Posted 3 years ago #
Paul
Member

Actually, the modern concept of Hell is mostly taken from Dante's "A Divine Comedy." Sometime in about the middle ages (I think), the church was losing attendance, and realized that if they start talking about torment after death, the kind of stuff the average middle ager wouldn't conceive on their own, that church attendance would increase. It worked much like why people will go see a movie that they know is going to scare them, and even if they don't like being scared, they will still go for the rush.

I would have to say that most people don't have the luxury of having biologist as a parent. You were taught that death, a long with life is natural, and they key word there is "taught." Teaching increases the chance that you will think rationally about an issue. For those who don't make it to logos, they stay stuck on pathos, and the idea that you will not exist tends to be an idea that is highly emotionally charged. Which is where the afterlife comes it, it gives people an idea that there is something more, and you wont simply stop being, and this idea calms the emotions. Now we have an escape for people to use, and an emotional escape is always nicer to implement than the hard and not so comforting work of rational thought.

Posted 3 years ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

For those who don't make it to logos, they stay stuck on pathos, and the idea that you will not exist tends to be an idea that is highly emotionally charged.

Isn't it supposed to be? Andrew Sullivan had a series of blog posts over the past week about Atheism, philosophy and the acceptance of death. I think personally as an Atheist philosopher that the near-unanimity in thanatological ethics that death should be viewed with acquiescence is painfully wrong-headed. As Private Joker said, the dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.

But of course, seeing as how death is a somewhat personal thing, I can certainly understand that there are other valid approaches to the issue. I just can't get in the head-space to really entertain that one personally.

Posted 3 years ago #
Nox
Member

"where is there a sound, logical case that the resurrection didn't occur?"

Strobel intentionally phrased the question in this way to suggest that if you can't demonstrate that an impossible event didn't occur then the alternative is that it must have occurred. The best proof that the resurrection did not occur is that the only sources we have which claim the resurrection did occur are 4 obviously fictional stories (which give very different details about this resurrection). An airtight case could be made that the gospels are lying when they say Jesus rose from the dead. That is the closest you can get to proving a negative.

Posted 3 years ago #
Alejjia
Member

"Strobel tossed his own journalist standards in his investigation"

The best part of that is, he starts the book, and subsequently every single chapter, with an example of the way in which he analyzes or interprets the topic of that chapter, supposedly in a very journalistic and court-of-law sort of way. If you don't step back and wonder what it is he's trying to say - or sell - it can be a very legitimate seeming approach.

"Seeing as how death is a somewhat personal thing, I can certainly understand that there are other valid approaches to the issue."

This is exceedingly true. Everyone dies alone - so each person's "mental preparation" for death, I guess you could call it, varies greatly and has next to nothing to do with how other people think or feel. It's probably one of the main factors that keeps theists from fathoming the nonexistence of a god - they simply don't want to. I've had Christian friends tell me point-blank that, even if there weren't a god, they would still want to believe in one. Its a comfort thing. Instead of accepting death, as they would otherwise have to do, it give them the option of not having to accept anything, because the end isn't really the end; its actually the beginning of paradise.

I just can't see my brain going dead and my body decaying as an intro to spiritual paradise. Oh, well.

Posted 3 years ago #
Elemenope
Moderator

I just can't see my brain going dead and my body decaying as an intro to spiritual paradise.

That is an excellent, poignant point. Of course, Christianity is deeply rooted in mind/body (or, rather, spirit/body) duality than it is not an impediment to their imagination of salvation that their bodies will rot in wormy earth. What I find ironic is that the NT text heavily implies a physical resurrection and a heavenly kingdom on Earth, and all the survival-as-spirit junk was just tap-dancing interpolation meant to assimilate Greek philosophical concepts.

For me, it is not fear of death as the state of non-existence that drives my desire to live forever, but simply the observation that for any given entity, future opportunities to valuate and improve and experience are all foreclosed permanently by being dead, and I can't see any value for the individual experiencing that state. Perhaps there is a systemic/global benefit insofar as the circle of life, biological necessity you eluded to earlier, but I don't see individuals owing fealty or obedience to laws of nature if it is within their power to bend/break them.

Posted 3 years ago #
elizabethdamaro
Member

I'd go as far as to say the reason most are motivated in the concept of "eternal" has more to do with the brain's natural wire and desire to survive.

We are pretty much slaves to the brain. It will fight "us" if it needs to just to keep going. Shutting down every other necessary organ before it risks death to itself.

Posted 3 years ago #
JonJon
Member

I'm with LMNOP on this one. If I have my way, I'll be alive until the heat death of the universe. I have never understood the acceptance of death as "just a natural part of life," except as a cop out. It suggests itself to me as nothing more than a coping mechanism: since we don't know what death is like, we'll treat it as if it is a "good" or "natural" thing--eventually we'll even believe it. This might be an effective coping mechanism, but good grief.

Death may be a natural part of life, but human history is the story of people attempting to stay alive, usually at any cost. We'll kill other people, spend millions of dollars, we'll do anything to stay alive. This is what humans *do.* Merely accepting death is contrary to human nature, and to me it looks like as much of a coping mechanism as the idea of an afterlife is often asserted to be. I think it is more courageous to acknowledge that death is a pretty scary unknown than it is to convince oneself that death is completely "okay."

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Posted 3 years ago #
elizabethdamaro
Member

"I think it is more courageous to acknowledge that death is a pretty scary unknown than it is to convince oneself that death is completely "okay.""

I think that is greatly going to depend on the season of a person's life as well. And their health. I don't know that it's a cop out to state it is a natural cycle. No more than stating eventually my hair will go gray and my bones will fray and my body will not be as resilient as it was when I was twenty (although, I'm pretty pumped those things haven't all happened to me even this close to forty)... alas... accepting the inevitable doesn't necessarily mean copping out. It's simply a realistic approach to an event.

Besides, acknowledging death could happen at any moment, and then there isn't "me", facilitates an appreciation for doing and seeing and being much more honestly and urgently.

Posted 3 years ago #
Huxley
Member

How do you prove an event that didn't happen? There is no proof of a non event. One might also bear in mind that we should question the core belief that resurrection can happen.

After all, there wasn't one person in all the gospels, witnessed it. All we have is anecdote and supposition about what happened after the supposed event, but occams sharp razory thingie offers multiple explanations before supposing anything so stupid as reanimation of dead tissue.

Posted 3 years ago #
JonJon
Member

I don't know Huxley, I think it's a fair question. We're looking for an argument, with either physical evidence or other supports, that either Christ wasn't a person, or wasn't who he claimed to be.

Alejjia, to be honest, I'd look at Hume's argument against miracles. See if that floats your boat. I don't like it, and I've spent a fair amount of time picking it apart, but it is despite my best efforts a pretty cool argument.

Posted 3 years ago #
Huxley
Member

Put it to another question (that has the same credibility) like, Do Pink unicorns exist?

Surely we have a duty to examine our collective knowledge and experience, observation of known laws and natural processes and then dismiss it as a reasonable question (in this case because we know Unicorns are a figment of human imagination anyway).

So why do we need to consider a bodily resurrection of anything let alone a 1st century trivial religious teacher? We instinctively dismiss resurrections of Horus and other countless Gods who's biographies claimed the same impressive trick. So why should we listen to special pleading that has no more credible evidence or likelihood than the other stories we dismiss as fairy tale?

There are other factors that make the incident highly improbable and stand as good contra -evidence. it doesnt matter what people say so much as what they do. So, if Jesus, killed as an important religious criminal was up and walking around, how come Pilate made not one order to have Jesus detained again? He was crucified to prevent disorder so why werent there any Romans - ANY Romans, out looking for him?

Why didnt Christians flock to see the tomb? Why didnt anyone? because they didnt know where it is and still dont. The simple answer is they weren't looking because Jesus was never entombed; crucifixion usually meant hanging there to become carrion.The tomb should have become an instant shrine - but no one went or attempted to see it. No Romans had to guard an area that would have become a focal point for insurrection. Nothing, zip, nada. Romans, including Pilate especially, did not fuck around and any person who had ostensibly escaped Roman justice would have been trampled.

Its no ones duty to 'prove' the non existant but in this case there is ample observation and contrary evidence to dismiss Jesus further career confidently.

Posted 3 years ago #
JonJon
Member

What you've provided are evidence and other supports. These are all admissible, and are probably what Alejjia was looking for in the OP.

"Surely we have a duty to examine our collective knowledge and experience."

Yup, and that's all I mean. I don't intend to commit any fallacies today. XD

Posted 3 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.

A Reasonable Forum on Religion, Science, Skepticism, and Atheism

What proof is there that the resurrection didn't happen?

Reply