I’ll join up these two discussions, as they are about the same thing. Comments on each post explores the issue of evidence for the resurrection.
Jimlad seems to have a brain in his head, and uses it to aplomb on this subject as can be read in the original post. He does however come across as someone with a reasonably open, investigative and searching mind, which I respect a lot. I always think one finds it easier to open an ‘opponent’ to you point of view, if it’s obvious that you are putting everything on the table, as it were. And I think he does this. I’m yet to be convinced about others… specialy those whos livelyhood depends on it 
My suggestion is that his post, whilst well written and complete, only serves to prove that nothing is impossible, and that we must keep an open mind on everything and be on the look out for paradigm shifts. While this is an important point – it doesn’t follow that every physics-defying (shall we say) claim is equally valid. That we should allow our mind to entertain the idea that everything is theoretically possible, it’s irrelevant to the discussion in hand (I humbly submit).
When I probe what he believes, in a more practical, physically and historical way, in the manor of … so what’s the evidence for the resurrection then, what has convinced you, that will convince me?
The answer boils down to this, and I paraphrase… “The apostles were eye witnesses, and they died because of what they’d seen… people don’t do that”.
It’s impolite for me to suggest that all the theoretical science stuff is a smokescreen… once you have accepted the resurrection it then IS important… but that’s only after you’ve made THE big assumption. So the mater at hand is more down to earth, and actually not all that hard to grasp.
First I ask – Is the apostles claim that they saw Jesus alive then dying for it, proof? Of course not, plain and simple. Is it evidence? Well, it could be regarded as mild circumstantial evidence… a lot of people die for many beliefs and reasons. Is the strength of someone else’s belief relevant to fact?
Second I say… there is no one in this discussion who believes that the bible tells the whole story or indeed can be relied on as literal reportage. No one will say to me that they know for certain that the disciples didn’t chat amongst themselves about how the resurrection was ‘metaphorical’ . no one will be able to say with any certainty that they didn’t have an unreported discussion on June 26 AD40 that it was gods will that when they write about it, they should say it was physical, so as not to confuse.
Also, the gospels were written decades later, they in no way can be relied on in a word-for-word way – never mind the whole translation process and the cannon selection process.
I know that if you believe that god is involved in the process, then it all becomes easier to accept – but that is circular reasoning. You believe the bible because you believe the resurrection; you believe the resurrection because you believe the bible.
Jimlad and others say that the resurrection is a ‘wedge’ issue, and I respect that. But I think they must respect that on a mater like this, the burden of proof is well and truly on them. If I tell you, I got up this morning, had cornflakes, drove a car to work, got out of my car, then literally flew up the side of my building to my office… the only part of that which you won’t accept as reportage is the last bit… Jimlads post will help us understand that we mustn’t rule it out… but he will surely accept that the burden of proof lies with me.
Point being, the significance of the event is proportional to the amount of evidence required to convince Man-On-Street (as it should be). If you have accepted something significant on less than reliable evidence, then you open yourself up to marching down the road of delusion – not mater how much intellect to apply to the road, its wasted if its built on a shaky premise (see creationists/fundies/people who think jesus guides them or answers prayers).
hmmm..
perhaps you have misjudged my open-mindedness.
I will think about the evidence being circumstantial. I began to see your point but then typed define: circumstantial evidence into google and the first entry on the list was “All evidence except eyewitness testimony”. This confuses me but it may be a pedantic point. I don’t think it is mild evidence anyway and I have enough thoughts to hand on that to merit a post, though perhaps the problem is that mild is a relative term.
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I must consider what is the difference between proof and evidence no matter how strong, and what constitutes proof. This may be your most crucial point for me but it’s going to have to go into my subconsciousness for now as my conscious mind generally thinks about stuff I agree with, not having enough capacity for balanced thought. It’ll pop back out with my perspective in time.
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PS as for Muslims and Mormons, correct me if I’m wrong but I think they rely on the witness of just one person, the person who wanted to start the religion. There were over 500 Christian eye-witnesses included people who were not previously followers of Jesus, so no reason to suddenly turn around and die for him. I’m just comparing Christianity to other religions as you asked here, not ignoring the points you want me take on board.
Point conceded – ‘circumstantial evidence’ was the incorrect phrase. I suppose what I meant was unsatisfactory evidence. Loads and loads and loads of people claim to have seen visions of Mary and the like… I assume they are wrong till I get decent evidence – don’t you?
Proof is something to be judged I guess, in the eye of the beholder. Doesn’t sound very fair to me if, lets say, Jesus did actually resurrect…he didn’t appear to people who could have given following generations confident evidence. Even the most adent of you wouldnt claim that it was a slam dunk surely? in fact… only a negligable minority of those jews who cheered him on palm sunday actualy belived the resurection – presumably becuase of the lack of evidence even at the time (never mind through 2000 years of history)
I think you have me confused with someone else.
Tg
Before I go writing a post about reasons why it makes sense to believe in the resurrection, I want to make sure that there is some point to doing so in case it misses the point.
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When you say that alot of people die for many beliefs, are you thinking of people who die for beliefs, or people who die because of something they have actually seen? If I died for my faith I would call this weak evidence. I would call it strong evidence if I died for something I must genuinely know about, so that I know whether it is a good or bad reason, a true or false belief. Even at that, if one person died for something they must surely know about I might think that they were simply mad or had deceived themselves. If many people did so, including people who before knowledge was available had *believed* the opposite, I would believe that what they died for was true.
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Our problem is of course that our particular witnesses died because they claimed that some contentious person had risen from the dead, which is something we don’t believe to be true. So I want to reconcile something I don’t believe with something I do believe.
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This brings me on to what you say about “nothing is impossible”. Do you refer to the way in which we cannot explain how a good magician performs some impossible feat, and yet we believe that something we don’t know explains it rather than assuming that it is real magic?
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If so I think I have a handle on what you are saying.