Here's a summary of the evidence I'm talking about. Tell me what you think: http://www.josh.org/wp-content/uploads/Evidence-For-The-Resu...
And that is our disagreement, my bar for evidence is a lot higher. Literally the doc itself says: "the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked [..] hoaxes [..] or it is the most remarkable fact of history." If we had proof, it could be only one thing, not two things.
And we can rule out one of the two, because we have no evidence of anything supernatural and no indication that people can come back from the dead. (If you can proof either, you can collect a million dollars at the JREF.)
So we would need to go with option number one. And how unlikely is that option? I mean people have died for Marxism. Clearly Jesus his teachings were a good message that people thought was important, even at high personal cost. And willing to bend the truth for and exaggerate quite a bit. All very normal human behaviour.
Back to Stephen. He did not even try to convince the Sanhedrin. He could have made is story legitimate with proof: remember when Jesus died and the temple veil was torn in half? Remember the sudden darkness? Remember the dead walking in the city? Remember that despite the Roman guards, the grave was empty? See how we can heal the sick and so could Jesus. But he doesn't, because it wouldn't convince the Sanhedrin, because it did not happen.
When it comes to the supernatural, we have no grounding, we cannot evaluate the difference between people writing down myths, vs a god spreading misleading propaganda, vs a loving god that you wish to belief in.
If belief gives you comfort and perspective in life, good, go for it. But in Saudi Arabia, people kill each other for not wearing headscarfs. And their proof for their beliefs is as good as yours. Namely ungrounded and still at 3: all explained by iron age people writing down their myths and beliefs.
And even if there is a supernatural, the biblical descriptions of it are as accurate as when it describes the earth resting on pillars.
Thanks you for the discussion. If you have any questions or think I was inaccurate, please let me know. If you have proof, please show me by winning the JREF price. Barring proof, I would suggest you read the bible but cut out anything supernatural. It is still a nice message.
Plus just ceasing to exist when you die after having tried to live well is not so bad. Probably preferable to an eternity with a god who, by his own admission, has committed genocide and has no respect for human rights or humane treatment of prisoners.
At this point, you seem to be saying "coming back from the dead is impossible, therefore it didn't happen". I think that's the wrong mindset. I think it's more correct to say, "coming back from the dead is impossible, but did it happen?"
See, if God exists, if He's really there, how would we know? Well, a historical instance of the impossible happening might be pretty good evidence that He's actually there. And the resurrection of Jesus is the big, flashing neon sign that says "Look over here. God actually did something."
So the question is, how good is the evidence for the resurrection? Well, there's an account of him appearing in a roomful of his followers (who at that time didn't believe in his resurrection), telling one of them "Look, here's the holes from the nails from when they crucified me. You can stick your finger in them. It's really me." This was written down for us by a guy who was in the room when it happened. That's... pretty good evidence.
To not believe it, you have to believe that it wasn't written by who it says it was, or that he lied about what happened, or that he was mistaken.
If you think the evidence indicates that one of those options is true, fine. But I suspect it's more likely that your position is really going to boil down to "God doesn't exist, therefore the resurrection didn't happen, therefore the story has to be mistaken." That is, your presupposition is determining how you view the evidence. I think it's more rational to give the evidence an honest look, even if the conclusions destroy your presupposition.
"This was written down for us by a guy who was in the room when it happened." It is extremely unlikely the author was in the room that day.
Again, why did Stephen not even attempt to convince the Sanhedrin? "flashing neon sign" ... apparently it was not back in those days, let alone today. Imagine if early christians had such good evidence, how much faster and more broadly would it have spread if the Sanhedrin would adopt Jesus his views. Muhammad would have been devout christian.
"[..] That is, your presupposition is determining how you view the evidence."
That is true. But it is called the null hypothesis. Innocent until proven guilty. It is the number one "invention" that launched humanity into modernity. But that should not be misunderstood as not giving alternative hypothesis an honest look.
But the claim of something supernatural is quite a strong one, it should come with an equally strong signal before it becomes credible. As things stand today, the conclusion is, god is unlikely and unprovable. Moreover, belief in invisible unknowable things does not do the world any favors.
For the bible or christianity to exist, we do not need a supernatural explanation, it falls well within normal human behaviour.
But people choose different lines of argument for different reasons. Stephen clearly touched a nerve with the Sanhedrin; it's hard to say that his approach was ineffective (unless you define "effective" as "they agreed" instead of "it hit them where they lived").
"It is extremely unlikely the author was in the room that day."
A bare negation is a pretty weak argument. Do you have evidence, or just a presumption?
Even if the bible is the most coherent book ever, makes sense at ever line and grand plot. And says to be an eye witness account of supernatural things. Still that would not count as proof of the supernatural. If it made testable predictions, or has information truly unknowable to those who wrote it, that would warrant further investigation.
So no, I do not talk about proof. However if "roman soldiers at the grave got scared" is the "evidence", then this is a nice contrast. If you cherry pick, put everything in the best possible light, and ignore other important things and contexts, then maybe it can come out looking this way.
Biased people writing a biased account of things long ago is a very likely explanation. As an exercise, write down why there were roman soldiers guarding the grave in the first place? Write it down twice, once in the best possible light from the christian perspective, and once in the best possible light from the other perspective.
The bible does make testable predictions, I wrote a few at the start of this thread, but may I suggest we put Mark 16:17-18 to the test. Are you volunteering? ("And these signs will accompany those who believe:[..] and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all [..]")
Ozy, if you're interested I'd be willing to keep corresponding with you. Drop me an email at immortal@coderpath.com
I'll leave you with an old apocryphal story that I hope drives the point home that matter how much we achieve as human beings, it will never be enough:
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A scientist approaches God, and says to Him, "Look, God, we don't need you anymore. Nowadays, we can do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous. We can transplant organs, giving new life to a dying man, we can cure almost any disease, and we can even clone animals. It won't be long, and we'll be able to clone humans, too. So, I'm sorry, but you are just outdated".
God listens patiently to the scientist and says, "I can see that you believe you don't need me, and I understand. However, I love you, and I don't want to see you make a big mistake, so why don't we make sure? I say we should have a man-making contest, just to be sure."
The scientist replies, "I'll take that challenge".
So, God says, "Ok, let's do it the way I did it in the old days, with Adam and Eve". The scientists says, "No problem", and reaches down to scoop up a handful of dirt.
"Whoa, hold on there a minute", God says. "You get your OWN dirt".
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:)
I have shown you why I think there is basically no reason to move the needle from 3: people writing down myths. You seem to disagree, but have not commented on Stephens defense. Or for instance what makes you think god is loving and good, seeing how he admits to genocide and cruel and unusual (eternal) punishment. I am really interested in your thoughts here. Why do you think the needle moves up?
In the other comment you said "you probably don't believe me, but it's because He lives I can face tomorrow". And I know many people fall back to nihilism if they contemplate the thought god does not exist. I think though in day to day it does not work that way, people cope just fine. But for me, when I think about the christian god, I just replace it with the best of humanity, and the best society has to offer, that we can all try to strife for.
You've made some points that I need to chew on for a bit, which means I don't have a response for you just yet. I'm not fully understanding your points about Stephen, so I need to flesh it out a bit more until I at least get the gist of what you're saying. I prefer an inductive form of learning and reasoning, which takes time and effort. Hacker News is a great way to start conversations, but it's terrible for continuing them (this thread will eventually lock and not permit further comments).
Hope to hear from you (and anyone else who is reading this and would like to chat about the top of Maslow's hierarchy (which, by the way, he later criticized his own views and added a 6th's peak. Of course, we being sensible beings, we added a seventh at the very bottom: Wifi :D )) email me immortal@coderpath.com