Easter Is Coming in 8 Weeks

Quote: Dalex64

Occam's razor does not say the simplest explination IS the correct one, but that it is most likely correct. It does not preclude a more improbable explaination from being correct.

In this case it kinda does. We know for
an absolute fact that people are pronounced
dead and days later they come back to
life. It's documented, it's been observed
and recorded. Yet not one person has said
or implied any of these resurrections were
divine in nature. We all assume, and rightly
so, the person was not really dead.

Yet the same thing happens 2000 years ago and
we automatically assume this was different.
Occam's Razor very much applies here. The
right answer, given the fact that so many
'come back' from the dead, is that Jesus wasn't
dead, just close enough to it that they thought
he was.

Quote: FrGamble

I'm curious which of the following three miraculous events would you all find hardest to believe:

1) The universe was created out of nothing.

2) The universe is eternal and exists without ever having a cause.

3) Jesus Christ was Resurrected in a glorified body.

I have been thinking about this for a while and am having a hard time ranking them. Proposition 1 and 2 I think are unknowable, as I have stated before.

Was the big bang the beginning? Did it even happen? If so, did it happen before? Was this one so big that it will never happen again?

I couldn't begin to answer if there is some source from nothingness that is generating all of the mass and energy in the universe, and could answer even less as to whether or not there was some omnipitant being who is feeding it, or fed it all at once.

I also have a hard time describing the eternal nature of a universe that always had "stuff" in it.

So, I have no basis to determine which one of those two is more unbelievable than the other.

As to proposition 3, I am unaware of any other documented, believable account of resurrection in the short history of recorded human history. This lack of similar occurances, and lack of widespread correlating documentation, makes this account difficult to believe.

I can not rank the one I find most unbelievable.

Quote: Dalex64

There is another philosophy that goes along the lines of examining the possibilities, eliminating them, and then settling on the remaining one no matter how improbable it is. Now while the character who said that is fictional, the author is not. Just like Occam.

Commander Data? ;)

The problem here is the same one that plagues much of history: there's no real way to tell various details. Then you wind up throwing a bunch of "maybes" around, and you can't say which are impossible or not. But then the whole point in religion is to claim impossibilities. resurrection, manna from heaven, parted seas, invulnerable heroes, gods fighting on your side, and so on. If a miracle were even a remote possibility, it wouldn't be a miracle.

Quote:

(Woo-hoo, post 100. Nothing compared to you titans, though. If you believe in that sort of thing)

Do you figure one lifetime will be enough to catch up? If not, would you care to hear about Osiris and the Next World? ;)

Quote: Evenbob

In this case it kinda does. We know for
an absolute fact that people are pronounced
dead and days later they come back to
life. It's documented, it's been observed
and recorded. Yet not one person has said
or implied any of these resurrections were
divine in nature. We all assume, and rightly
so, the person was not really dead.

Yet the same thing happens 2000 years ago and
we automatically assume this was different.
Occam's Razor very much applies here. The
right answer, given the fact that so many
'come back' from the dead, is that Jesus wasn't
dead, just close enough to it that they thought
he was.

All I am saying is that Occam's razor does not prove the most likely explaination is the correct one.

Occam's razor doesn't apply anything. It only observes that the most obvious explaination is usually the correct one.

I'm not sure of different ways to put it. You can't look at a bunch of different events and observe that the obvious explaination was the correct one and apply that to a different event to state that this proves that in that case as well that the most obvious answer is the correct one.


That is simply not what Occam's razor states, and that is my simplest explaination. (Does that make it true?)

Quote: Nareed

Do you figure one lifetime will be enough to catch up?

No. I am simply not that verbose. Most of the time.

Quote: Dalex64

All I am saying is that Occam's razor does not prove the most likely explaination

That's not the job of the razor, it can't
prove anything. It points to what the
most logical answer might be.

Quote: Nareed

If a miracle were even a remote possibility, it wouldn't be a miracle.

Then the resurrection is not a miracle,
too many people thought to be dead
have woken up days later. Or if it is
a miracle, all the people it happened
to are miracles too. And they obviously
are not.

Quote: Nareed

BTW; what a Jewish community in Rome, or elsewhere, said about Jesus or the resurrection is of small import in this case. My point is that there ought to be third-party accounts of such a momentous event. If some enthusiastic disciples made it to Rome and stirred up the locals, that doesn't qualify at all.

So you are looking for documents from the Jewish authorities or Romans declaring that Jesus truly Resurrected? Think about that for a second. What you do have is a belief in Jesus' Resurrection spreading like wildfire all over the known world at the time. So much so that the Emperor has to make a radical decision to expel the Jews because of Jesus Christ. If this faith spread throughout all the land and ended up in the capital of the most powerful empire in the world at that time demanding the attention of the Emperor all within 15 years in the ancient world, something was up. This is just undeniable.

You can't explain this by a half dead Jesus waking up from a Roman crucifixion (those guys were pretty good at killing people and knowing when they were dead) sealed in a tomb that He somehow moved, snuck past the guards, somehow found His followers not knowing where they were and then they decide as a bunch of poor fishermen and women that they will use this dying mortally wounded Jesus to pull the wool over the Romans and the Jewish people's eyes and claim that He has resurrected in glory. Then they stand by that story in the face of great persecution, ostracization, and death. They also spread this story with a fervor that is unquenchable and unrelenting all the time knowing that it wasn't true. Seriously to believe something like this happened would be almost as ridiculous as believing there is no God.

Quote: Evenbob

Then the resurrection is not a miracle,
too many people thought to be dead
have woken up days later. Or if it is
a miracle, all the people it happened
to are miracles too. And they obviously
are not.

Do you know of anyone else who woke up days later after being crucified by the Romans?

Quote: Dalex64

I have been thinking about this for a while and am having a hard time ranking them. Proposition 1 and 2 I think are unknowable, as I have stated before.

Was the big bang the beginning? Did it even happen? If so, did it happen before? Was this one so big that it will never happen again?

I couldn't begin to answer if there is some source from nothingness that is generating all of the mass and energy in the universe, and could answer even less as to whether or not there was some omnipitant being who is feeding it, or fed it all at once.

I also have a hard time describing the eternal nature of a universe that always had "stuff" in it.

So, I have no basis to determine which one of those two is more unbelievable than the other.

As to proposition 3, I am unaware of any other documented, believable account of resurrection in the short history of recorded human history. This lack of similar occurances, and lack of widespread correlating documentation, makes this account difficult to believe.

I can not rank the one I find most unbelievable.

Very good post.

The key for me is to take what we know and reason from that. We know that everything that begins to exist has a cause. Modern science points us to the theory that the universe has a beginning. Therefore it seems to follow that the universe has a cause. That cause would be eternal and not have a beginning so to save us from the impossibility of an infinite regress. Again these things come from what we know and experience.

As for number 2, I agree, we really have no concept of an eternal universe and the idea of eternal stuff seems to break all the rules of science, logic, and reason.

As for number 3, we are dealing with a singularity again, like the Big Bang. We have to look at the results. Is the universe expanding? Did Christianity expand rapidly and with unexplainable force after the claim of the Resurrection? Yes it did and it is still expanding today. The evidence would point to the fact that something happened to Jesus Christ and His believers that was phenomenal or miraculous at least. They claim it was the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ in glory. I see no reason to doubt them any more than I doubt the Big Bang theory of scientists who use that to explain how the universe expanded and formed.