Is Jesus' Resurrection Plausible?

[Stargazer]

let's just cut to the chase, shall we?

 

Is Jesus' Resurrection Plausible?

 

;)

Since there's no evidence other than the Bible that was written long after he supposedly lived, I'd say there's little evidence he existed at all, and if we're talking about someone who is god and/or the son of that same god I would say I would need very strong evidence to back something like that up. Add to that the resurrection. No, it's not very plausible.

[motherengine]

Since there's no evidence other than the Bible that was written long after he supposedly lived, I'd say there's little evidence he existed at all, and if we're talking about someone who is god and/or the son of that same god I would say I would need very strong evidence to back something like that up. Add to that the resurrection. No, it's not very plausible.

 

you may be forgetting an account by the historian josephus of jesus' crucifixtion.

[Biochemist]

you may be forgetting an account by the historian josephus of jesus' crucifixtion.

ME- I posted a link in post #17 of this thread that reviews two authors supporting and two authors refuting the historical evidence for the resurrection. The document includes a review of the veracity of early non-Christian authors, including Josephus. I picked it becasue the reviewer is (apparently) atheist, and his conclusion was that the evidence suggests a "rational person" could choose to believe or not. You might like the review.

[stevencarrwork]

let's just cut to the chase, shall we?

 

Is Jesus' Resurrection Plausible?

 

 

No.

 

The earliest written account dealing with the resurrection is by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

 

And it is impossible to reconcile with the idea that the body of Jesus went into a tomb, and 3 days later, that same flesh and blood body came out of the tomb,complete with wounds , ate fish , and denied that he was a spirit.

 

Paul says 'God will destroy both stomach and food' (1 Cor.8)

 

The Gospels say Jesus ate fish.

 

Paul says 'The first Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit'.

 

The Gospels say that Jesus denied he was a spirit.

 

Paul says 'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God'.

 

The Gospels say the resurrected Jesus had a body of flesh and blood.

 

The Corinthians that Paul was writing to believed that Jesus had been resurrected, but doubted the resurrection of the dead, and wondered with what sort of body people could return from the dead.

 

This means that there must have been something about what they believed about the resurrection of Jesus which made it prima facie doubtful that people could rise from the dead.

 

There is nothing in the Gospels to raise the doubts that the Corinthians had.

 

The only explanation is that the dead body of Jesus was still there.

 

Jesus was resurrected, because he was a god. He was a spirit before he became human, and became a spirit after he died (as Paul explicitly claims), leaving his biological body behind.

 

As the Corinthians were not gods, the idea that a god could rise from the dead ,leaving his body behind, would let them believe Jesus was resurrected, and still doubt that a corpse could be resurrected.

 

The position of the Corinthians (Jesus was resurrected, but corpses cannot rise from the dead) , such a position makes no sense if the Gospel stories of a dead body rising from the tomb were what they had been taught.

 

But if Paul taught that we leave our corpse behind and enter a heavenly body, his words and their doubts make perfect sense.

 

2 Corinthians 5

 

1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

 

How clear does Paul have to be that he believed that when we die, we shed this earthly body and are clothed with a new body?

 

And this totally contradicts the Gospel stories.

[sleepsleep]

hi,

does God has the power to resurrect jesus?

if yes, then " Is Jesus' Resurrection Plausible?" is yes

 

if no, then perhaps we need to redefine what is God.

do you pray to "God" who can't resurrect Jesus? or having problem (or no power) to resurrect Jesus?

if yes, then i have nothing to say.

[my brain hurts]

Is it plausible?

 

Short answer- no.

 

Long answer- no.

[Rincewind]

Is it plausible?

 

Short answer- no.

 

Long answer- no.

Quite agreed -- but...

 

Does that mean it didn't happen?

 

No. :xparty:

[atthisaddress]

I separate the Christian faith into two branches, the Irrational, which insists in the absolute truth of the literal word of the Bible and maintains there is no separation between the natural world and the supernatural, and the Rational branch, which teaches there is no conflict between faith and the scientific method, or evolution and that there is a separation of the natural and the supernatural realms. !0,000 Christian Clergy recently signed the following statement:

 

An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science

 

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

 

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

 

When I referred to these Clergy as Rational Christians, I was challenged by a contention that they were just as Irrational as their bizarre brethren, the only difference was in degree.

 

The test? the topic of this thread, can a rational person accept the Resurrection of Jesus as a real event?

 

Here is my answer...

 

The Rational branch of Christianity supports the notion that there is no conflict between science and faith, that they recognize that the natural and supernatural are different realms. This philosophy was purchased with a currency of horror and abhorrent brutality, the ultimate cost of millions upon millions of lives has yet to play out to a grand total in our own times - and has beyond doubt, surpassed the power of reckoning.

 

Such is human history. Religion wasn't alone in what has been a long rear-guard action against knowledge and rationality, every aspect of what we call 'modern' civilization has had to try to claw its way past an ultimate truth of human existence - we are human animals, and as such we are fully capable of exhibiting feral, brutal, tribal behavior.

 

That struggle, widely misidentified as an emergence from nature, is in fact a struggle to accomodate nature. It reveals that the early religious teaching that man was created in the image of God was right on the mark in at least one respect - in its own words, the deity of the Old Testament was at times as irrational and bloodthirsty a specimen as any feral tribe of humans that has ever existed.

 

Eventually, to keep their faith in the face of a world of increasing secular knowledge and moral awareness, Rational Christianity had to break free from the belief that God sanctified and ordained what was the worst of human behavior - mass murder, slavery, every abomination under the Sun - and that these were proper, even noble pursuits for a Christian to undertake. Science too, presented arguments that were so glaringly self evident in the power of demonstration as to cause incredulity in Biblical claims to the contrary in any dispassionate observer. Theology had to cope, or lose all credibilty.

 

They had to mend their fences with the rest of humankind, too. Rational Christianity no longer taught that those that are not Christian, even Atheists, are excluded from salvation. To be sure, they teach that a person has a better chance for salvation if they accept and follow the faith. However, they teach that the power of God's wisdom permeates through all existence, and this can be confirmed by the number of shared moral precepts to be found in almost all religious movements as well as noble lives lived by those with no belief in the supernatural.

 

For example, Rational Christianity has allowed theology to be developed and taught within its ranks that place the resurrection entirely outside of a historical element. Non-material resurrection is the belief that Jesus' corpse need not have come back to life in order for the resurrection to be significant.

 

Nowhere in Rational Christian teaching or theology is it taught that Jesus suffered a cellular death. In fact, a basic tenet in the language of the day is that Christ's body was to know no corruption, but rose again soon after death. The very term "corruption" would, I submit, translate to "cellular death" in today's language.

 

The theologists behind these teachings aren't Atheists, they acknowledge, insist, that according to New Testament faith the raising is an act of God within God's dimensions, therefore it can not be a historical event in the strict sense: it is not an event which can be verified by historical science with the aid of historical methods. For the raising of Jesus is not a miracle violating the laws of nature, verifiable within the present world, not a supernatural intervention which can be located and dated in space and time. There was nothing to photograph or record, neither the raising itself nor the person raised can be apprehended, objectified or measured by historical methods. As the The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner once wrote, "it is obvious that the resurrection of Jesus neither can be nor intends to be a `historical' event".

 

At first glance, such teachings seems to be at cross purposes with the popular, plain meaning of scripture, but what makes this theology such a strong challenge within Rational Christianity is the claim that its view is actually the position of the earliest Christian believers. These advocates argue that it is those who maintain a literal bodily resurrection of Jesus who have misunderstood scripture. They deny that the earliest Christians believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus at all. These theologians are a minority in Rational Christianity, but their teachings have not been repudiated. None of these theologians have been cast out of their denominations, none of them have been excommunicated, silenced or damned.

 

In addition, it can be demonstrated that is it physically possible that the resurrection could have a historical basis if Jesus did not die on the cross, and therefore that story, as handed down by the people of the time, could be a reasonable conclusion given the knowledge and culture it came from.

 

Which brings us to the Rational Christians of today. What then are we to make of a professed belief in the supernatural, shall we label all of Rational Christianity as irrational, that the terminology of Rational Christianity has no meaning, no context, no applicablity, that it is merely Irrational Christianity expressed to a lesser degree?

 

I say no. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I maintain that the beliefs allowed within Rational Christianity can be construed to view the supernatural as a matter of aesthetics.

 

My own view of existence is that I, and everything in existence, is part and parcel of the universe in and of itself. Consciousness, as expressed by my consciousness, the consciousness of people, animals, plants - any animated matter - is in fact a form of self-awareness on the part of the universe, with all the limitations and opportunties imposed by the life form one finds oneself occupying.

 

I like this philosophy. It is heavily influenced by, but not a direct conclusion of the scientific method. It is an aesthetic judgement.

 

Unless I myself am willing to label all aesthetic judgements as irrational out of hand, I cannot label all of Rational Christianity as irrational. Belief in the supernatural, as an aesthetic expression, with no denial of reality, no opposition to the real world sciences or scientific method, has placed itself outside of the rational sphere - without an impact, whence are we to point fingers at the entirety of Rational Christianity?

 

I do not deny that there are those within Rational Christianity that are irrational. I do not deny that many official teaching within Rational Christian denominations are irrational. However, given the range of theological freedom within Rational Christianity, its demonstrated ability to adapt and change its teachings, and its opposition to interference in the purely rational field of science and the scientific method, I say it is unfair to say that Rational Christianity is irrational A priori.

 

I would not judge those with different aesthetics to be irrational because they differ with mine. Even one that does not share a belief in the supernatural, a professed Atheist can enjoy the aesthetic cultural pleasures to be found in those beliefs:

±

Quote: Originally posted by muddybanks

I was married in front of a Catholic priest and felt no insincerity in doing so since most of the people in my culture use the Catholic Church as a similar means. This could have been done in front of a judge simply to satisfy the legal requirement but we happen to like the ceremony and formal atmosphere that the Church provides.

±

 

It is physically possible that Jesus did not die on the cross, the resurrection could have a historical basis.

 

But what about the acceptance of this belief in modern times? As it has been pointed out, a literal belief in a resurrection can't be supported, those that contend it happened carry the burden of proof. If you accept that it could have been a case of mistaken death, that does not satisfy a belief in a supernatural event. There are few in today's world that are willing to hold with a belief because of it's pure implausibility, few indeed like Tertullian, who said of his Christianity "I believe because it is absurd," a comment that meant that no one would try to pass off such an impossible story unless it was true.

 

We can say that this belief is like the bread and wine example from communion, with two contradictory perceptions at the same time. The problem there is this is not a question of a different perception of matter, but a state of existence. You're alive or you aren't.

 

Most Christians aren't aware of non-material resurrection theology, although nearly any Roman Catholic or Episcopalian with a higher education should have been exposed to it.

 

As a cultural, ethical system of existence and a means of delegating control over the population, religion and its hard and fast rules came to the rescue to provide the ethical view of human life, and flourished in the old religious culture. The answer was simple, Jesus came back from the dead, there was no body of knowledge to challenge it.

 

The rescue of that authority today is a work of the imagination, in which the aesthetic attitude took over religious worship as the source of intrinsic values about 'deep questions regarding existence'. People today can say they believe in the resurrection bcause there is no conflict with knowledge - it is now a matter of aesthetics, truly outside of the real world, but now not to be found in a belief in an actual supernatural world either.

 

Modern life has boxed in religious beliefs, demonstrated facts and increased knowledge have shrunk the areas where religion once held sole sway and authority. The growth of psychological science was linked to its ability to wrestle the intellectual interpretation of trances, fits and visions away from its theological rivals - so effectively, that many denominations used the same arguments to 'debunk' the the so-called 'ecstatic' religious experiences of its rivals, while continuing to maintain their denomination provided the 'real occurrence'. Theologians soon dropped their claim in this domain, the movie "The Exorcist" notwithstanding.

 

We know that we are animals, parts of the natural order, bound by laws which tie us to the material forces which govern everything. We strongly suspect that the gods are our invention, the supernatural, once accepted without question is conspicuous by its absence, and that means death is exactly what it seems. Our world has been disenchanted and our illusions destroyed. At the same time we most people do not want to live as though that were the whole truth of our condition.

 

With the repudiation of the literal word of the Bible, came knowledge of the great evil and harm done in the name of religion, a further dilution of moral authority, not from a replacement of fiction with facts, but by the knowledge that what was intended as a force for good in society and the individual had been exactly the opposite - and this had gone undetected by men of goodwill.

 

It also had another implication - we could no longer entirely trust beliefs as ordained by God, but had to use reason to determine what was consistant with the message of Jesus and actual good works. In the last hundred years, theology has been allowed to range further and further from traditional beliefs in an effort to find 'truth' from a perspective that was ultimately humane, moral and beneficial, and had a basis of some kind in the teachings of Jesus. Nothing was out of bounds, save for a dismissal of Jesus as a teacher, even his divinity and the nature of divinity was and is debated. Scholars even went back and carefully studied and debated the writings of the most noted Biblical scholar of the last 500 years, Sir Issac Newton, whose research led him to a belief that Jesus, while a savoir and messiah, was an ordinary man, and he should not be worshipped.

 

I contend that a belief structure at its core satisfies a human need, not for a belief system itself, rather it is natural for most humans to want to belong, to be within a group with shared values and beliefs that reinforce their own - both within and beyond a family - and this has a biological basis. The desire for tribal identity has a long history - it is a part of the human condition, part of just not Homo sapiens, but extending back to our earliest beginnings as a member of the genus Homo. Belonging to a group enhanced the chances of survival. As such we have a drive to find expression of that role in our lives.

 

Aspects of modern man, such as significance, love, relationship, and the fear of nonbeing can be addressed by another human trait - the existence of meaningful aesthetic experience. In the sentiment of appreciation for the pleasure it brings, for in the sentiment of the sublime we seem to be able to see beyond the world, to something otherwise inexpressible in which it is somehow grounded.

 

I think for Rational Christianity, the 'beliefs' for many, if not most a form of devotion akin in generality if greater in degree to being a sports 'fan' for a local team, and every bit as unconscious - and like sports, delivering the 'goods', providing the feelings, fellowship and tribal idenity they need. It comforts in the modern age, aesthetic value is a subjective reality that cannot be reduced to 'nothing but atoms in the void'.

 

So, we have a combination of a belief system that by its own profession is forced to seek tenets closer and closer to an ideal of morality and compassion, moving further and further from from arbitrary rules and regulations to actual ethics of love and conduct based on what is called the 'golden rule'. Culture keeps the specifics of increasingly less important concepts like the supernatural within the faith - but for most believers, the supernatural aspects are something they accept without critical examination, it's just part of the shared tribal beliefs, with no impact in their everyday lives.

 

Prayer is an outlet for meditation and other important needs, like the easement of fear, and the acceptance, the reconciliation of our lifes events, good and bad. It too delivers the 'goods' for many that practice it.

 

For many if not most, Rational Chriatianity is an aesthetic experience, it is an activity that believers have an introduced cultural appreciation for, as real as a favorite pizza, a favorite team, or the way their family prepared a favorite recipe, but much more broadly humanizing and sustaining. by enhancing their perception of existence. It provides resolution to a real human need.

 

So why does that modern person accept the story of the resurrection? It makes them feel good. They keep that belief in a place where it doesn't conflict with the real world, one of the few still available as a haven to faith in the modern world, as an unconscious aesthetic experience.

[Biochemist]

Here is my answer...

I say no. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I maintain that the beliefs allowed within Rational Christianity can be construed to view the supernatural as a matter of aesthetics....

So why does that modern person accept the story of the resurrection? It makes them feel good....

Hmmm.

 

1) Speaking as a moderator, it is much more useful if you would post shorter discussion points, not long soliloquies.

 

2) The point of the thread was not to evaluate whether Christianity is philosophically reasonable. The point is that there is some real evidence for the resurrection, and the question is whether acceptance of the evidence at face value is reasonable. Most of the content is in post #10 and post #17. Using your terminology, the question is whether someone could look at that evidence, accept the resurrection and consider oneself rational. I contend the answer is "yes".

 

3) I think it is great when theologians redefine words. It is amusing to see someone redefine "resurrection" to exclude the possibility of resurrection.

[infamous]

Hmmm.

 

1) Speaking as a moderator, it is much more useful if you would post shorter discussion points, not long soliloquies.

 

I agree completely Bio; I would suggest limiting the scope of your address to one or two well defined points. This way, people will not loose track and will be able to voice their opinions more pointedly without themselves, composing extremely long posts.................Infy

[stevencarrwork]

 

3) I think it is great when theologians redefine words. It is amusing to see someone redefine "resurrection" to exclude the possibility of resurrection.

 

Well, many theologians deny that rising from the dead is a resurrection, but perhaps we should not dig that one up.

 

What did Paul mean by resurrection? He writes very clearly on 1 Corinthians 14 and very strangely in 1 Corinthians 15. About the only really clear things in it are Paul declaring that Jesus became a life-giving spirit and that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Why write so strangely and obscurely when the Gospel stories are so clear?

 

My previous post in this thread explains why.

[stevencarrwork]

Paul's writing in 1 Corinthians 15 is not really as strange as it seems at first glance.

 

It all makes sense, if you realise that Paul thought we would get new bodies to replace the bodies which died and rotted in the ground.

 

He says so clearly in 2 Corinthians 5 :-

1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

 

 

 

Christians today believe that the body of Jesus which was resurrected was the body which went into the ground, but 'transformed' in some way.

 

It still had wounds, so I think the garage did a pretty poor repair job on the bodywork, but that is a different matter.

 

What did the earliest Christians believe?

 

The earliest Christians believed that Jesus was resurrected , but doubted that a resurrection from the dead was possible, and were asking with what sort of body the dead were raised.

 

Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 calls them fools for asking this question.

 

But it is not at all a foolish question. Quite intelligent people have seriously considered whether old, infirm people will be resurrected as youngsters, and whether aborted babies will be resurrected as people, and what will happen to people born with missing limbs etc.

 

So it is not at all a foolish question to wonder how God will actually restore a rotting corpse , perhaps with legs and arms missing. Will it still have wounds or will it be a perfect specimen of humanity?

 

One question is how the Corinthians could have such doubts about how the dead were resurrected and still believe that Jesus had been resurrected.

 

Had they not heard many stories about exactly what sort of body a resurrected person was seen to have?

 

Perhaps not.

 

The other question is why Paul would write the way he did in 1 Corinthians 15 to people wondering how corpses would be transformed into living people.

 

Why not just tell them that arms will be restored, teeth made perfect etc etc?

 

Let me try a modern analogy, which might provoke someone to write the same sort of way that Paul did when he was writing to idiots. It shows just how natural Paul's thought is, if you realise that he thinks dead bodies stay dead, and that Jesus was given a new, spiritual body.

 

 

Pretend I am one of the Corinthians wondering how dead bodies can be resurrected, and update it in the following analogy

 

I know somebody who flew to Barcelona last month.

 

I have a Nissan Micra, so I suggested to my friend that we fly to Cologne in June to watch the World Cup.

 

But we have a big dispute about how we can fit a jet engine on to my Micra and how the air-conditioning on my car will stand up at 33,000

feet.

 

Personally, these sorts of questions about the mechanics of flying make me doubt that anybody can fly. (The Barcelona visit was by a very special

person indeed, who could have walked over the Channel if he wanted, so that was not relevant to we lesser souls.)

 

Another friend has written to me saying the following , supposedly designed to put my mind at rest about how I can transform my Micra into a

twin-engined jet, so that I can plan with confidence my flight to Cologne:-

 

He writes as follows :-

 

You ask with what sort of engine can a Micra fly?

 

You idiot! What you drive cannot fly unless it is scrapped.

 

There are different sorts of travel. Men walk, kangaroos hop, and birds fly.

 

God has created different machines with different qualities.

 

If there are ground based machines, there are also air-based machines.

 

The first machine was a ground based machine, the last machine belongs to the heavens.

 

Having a driving licence does not enable you to fly. Motorists cannot inherit the Kingdom of the Skies. But I tell you a mystery. Motorists will be transformed . Motorists will put on flight.

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

I don't know what you think of his letter. He is not very specific about how we are going to fly, is he? Why doesn't he just tell us how we are going to fly? Has he ever seen somebody fly?

 

He has certainly convinced me that we motorists are going to fly, but why am I an idiot for wondering how I can get my Micra up to take off speed? It seems a very sensible question.

 

My letter-writing friend doesn't seem to have addressed that point at all, has he? Why not?

 

He's just ignored the difficulty of putting aviation fuel in a petrol engine.

 

Baffling......

 

Perhaps he thinks that I am not going to fly in the machine I drive around in now, but am going to fly in a brand new machine, leaving my Micra behind.

[atthisaddress]

Hmmm.

 

1) Speaking as a moderator, it is much more useful if you would post shorter discussion points, not long soliloquies.

Ordinarily, my posts would be much, much shorter. I thought the posters here might enjoy the spectacle of a confirmed Atheist supporting a Christian belief as rational that I flatly reject, and how I came to that decision.

 

The point of the thread was not to evaluate whether Christianity is philosophically reasonable. The point is that there is some real evidence for the resurrection, and the question is whether acceptance of the evidence at face value is reasonable. I contend the answer is "yes".

I read those posts, and while they make a case for those in the time of Jesus to have a rational belief in his resurrection, I don't agree that just on the flat, cold 'facts' that a plain ol' rational person could buy in. Of course, I have a different opinion for Rational Christians.

 

I think it is great when theologians redefine words. It is amusing to see someone redefine "resurrection" to exclude the possibility of resurrection.

I spared you the five pages of theology that lays out their case - don't ever assume you can outwit or out-argue a Jesuit Theologian. Although I am an Atheist now, I enjoy discussing faith, I do have an education in religious studies...

[atthisaddress]

Well, many theologians deny that rising from the dead is a resurrection, but perhaps we should not dig that one up.

 

What did Paul mean by resurrection? He writes very clearly on 1 Corinthians 14 and very strangely in 1 Corinthians 15. About the only really clear things in it are Paul declaring that Jesus became a life-giving spirit and that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Why write so strangely and obscurely when the Gospel stories are so clear?

 

My previous post in this thread explains why.

One of the things one reads about Rational Christianity is that it is in crisis, stuck in a no-mans zone between faith no longer supported by a literal belief in the Bible and reality. I was looking for some feedback on my contention that it has changed to an aesthetic awareness/judgement.

[my brain hurts]

Atthisaddress- they must pay you by the word, lol.

 

If you are an atheist via Christianity, I am an atheist via Judaism. We have a significant head start in viewing our rituals as nothing more than mumbo jumbo. As the great comedian Lewis Black quips, by the third day of Hanukkah we're bored.

It is no wonder that Christians argue so vehemently, and against all logic, for the reality of the resurrection- it's the linchpin of their religion. Without it, Christianity is Judaism, and Jesus is just another poor slob nailed to a piece of wood, albeit one who seems to have been a pretty decent guy, if he existed at all.

 

The entire situation would be laughable were it not for the centuries of torment the religious establishment has visited upon the world.

 

My god can beat up your god. He's a better dancer, and can tell a better joke. He's a snappier dresser, too.

[atthisaddress]

Atthisaddress- they must pay you by the word, lol.

 

If you are an atheist via Christianity, I am an atheist via Judaism. We have a significant head start in viewing our rituals as nothing more than mumbo jumbo. As the great comedian Lewis Black quips, by the third day of Hanukkah we're bored.

It is no wonder that Christians argue so vehemently, and against all logic, for the reality of the resurrection- it's the linchpin of their religion. Without it, Christianity is Judaism, and Jesus is just another poor slob nailed to a piece of wood, albeit one who seems to have been a pretty decent guy, if he existed at all.

 

The entire situation would be laughable were it not for the centuries of torment the religious establishment has visited upon the world.

 

My god can beat up your god. He's a better dancer, and can tell a better joke. He's a snappier dresser, too.

I think that Rational Christianity is very different from the Irrational form. The smart ones are much like their theologians, not really positive of anything but Jesus as being the focus.

 

Ah, you simple goat herders! Don't you know us city deities travel as a gang?

[atthisaddress]

Atthisaddress- they must pay you by the word, lol.

 

 

The entire situation would be laughable were it not for the centuries of torment the religious establishment has visited upon the world.

My post was the result of a lot of thought that just spilled out accross my screen. I'm thinking that inlight of what you say above, you might have enjoyed this paragraph below, I wrote it to be spoken, it has, I hope, a cadence that augments the argument.

 

The Rational branch of Christianity supports the notion that there is no conflict between science and faith, that they recognize that the natural and supernatural are different realms. This philosophy was purchased with a currency of horror and abhorrent brutality, the ultimate cost of millions upon millions of lives has yet to play out to a grand total in our own times - and has beyond doubt, surpassed the power of reckoning.