The Resurrection- How do you refute it?

[Giotto]

Since it seems there are quite a few rabid atheists on these boards, I'm curious about how you refute the resurrection. More specifically, do you base your decision to refute the resurrection more on philosophical speculation (miracles are impossible, etc.), or historical inquiry?

Also, I see a lot of people ask for scientific evidence of the resurrection. Does not the very nature of the idea of the resurrection make it unable to scientifically prove? Wouldn't it be more viable to look at it like a trial, by which I mean attempt to prove not scientifically, but beyond reasonably doubt historically?

I'm not looking for your specific reasons on why you don't believe the resurrection, why theists are stupid, why the laws of the universe forbid it or whatever... I'm curious as to how you go about refuting the idea of a resurrection.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Er... "refute" the Resurrection?

Do you expect me to "refute" the existence of furry soda vendors on Pluto as well?

Maybe a little too sarcastic, as an example. But the point is that the burden of proof "usually" rests on the person making the extraordinary claim.

I'm not going to "refute" the myth of Noah's Ark, for instance. The logic of the story obviously doesn't add up, and there are many impossible things that would need to happen - but why bother mentioning them? Unless the people who believe in that myth can prove it, the logical assumption is that it never happened. De facto.

 

[Akka]

I'm curious about how you prove the resurrection.

Good luck.

 

[CurtSibling]

PP sums it up well.

The burden of proof is not on non-believers.

We know it is hogwash - it is up to the religionists to prove their myths.

PS
If you must know - the bodies of crucified victims may have been hidden by the Romans or fed to wild animals.

PPS
I deny jesus existed anyway.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

PPS
I deny jesus existed anyway.

That's a religious belief there is historical evidence of his existence.

 

[MrPresident]

I resurrected my cat yesterday. Refute that.

 

[CurtSibling]

Your term 'resurrected' could cover a wide array of activities...

 

[MrPresident]

All of them entirely legal and above board.

 

[CurtSibling]

Sure...

 

[andrewgprv]

Is there ANY evidence or logical argument for me to refute?

But if all your presenteing is "The resurrection did happen"

then I will refute with "No it didn't"

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

There are atheists, and then there are anti-religion atheists. I'm the former, and don't hold much regard for the latter.

My view is that trying to scientifically prove the supernatural elements of religion such as the existence of God and the resurrection is pointless. I believe what I believe not because I can disprove God's existence, but because I have absolute faith in humanities responsibility for its own actions. This is the same faith that a theist puts in God. You can't prove Gods existence, if you could faith would be meaningless.

If we could all just agree that none of us have proof of our beliefs, that we are all just making leaps of faith, there would be much less antagonism between atheists and theists.

 

[Civvin]

You might be better served sticking to things that are more easily disproved if you are looking to 'prove' things.

Atheists and similar types often make me chuckle.

Since you do not believe in God, you must believe in evolution as the driving force in nature, and as such it follows that in the entire universe evolution must have produced other life forms and other planets where lifeforms have reached an advanced stage, in all probability far exceeding our current level of advancement. Some of the things these extraterrestrials may be able to do with their advanced science would even to us in the 21st century seem 'miraculous'.

You readily accept this as part of your 'religion', yet you smirk at the Bible and its description of God (an extraterrestrial), and God's manipulation of matter/time/space to perform 'miracles'.

The brain is a computer, an organic one to be sure, and highly complex however it operates on basic principles. Who can say that someone with advanced science could not recreate the human body (just look at some of the primitive work scientists are currently doing in genetics) and imprint upon the brain the 'stored' pattern of memory and personality that a person possessed before they died, i.e. a ressurection.

Further scientific hubris and hypocrisy is seen everytime someone unearths a fragment of bone. Give a scientist the smallest piece of bone and the strata in which it was found, and the next month scientific journals are filled with drawings of a new and fabulous creature, complete in body, with unknown details fully drawn in. Often times we also recieve a full description of this animals behaviour and diet.

Atheism and its handmaiden evolution are nothing more than a 'religion' of a different stripe, requiring as much faith, hope, and belief as that of any 'fool' who prays to invisible superheroes.

I'm not knocking evolution or atheism, just pointing out its easy to go down the same path you criticize religious people for and which you oftentimes do.

Personally I don't need to deny God's existance to reject him.

 

[Giotto]

Perhaps I should rephrase- Pilate was correct that the burden of proof is on the believer, but I wasn't trying to ask that... I just suck at wording my questions! Anyways, why do you have to have conclusive PROOF of the resurrection? I don't think using the scientific reasoning can work here, because it is a unique event. I mean, you believe that many historical figured existed without exact proof beyond texts and other historical documents. Despite the illogical nature of a miracle, a whole lot of historians and other scholars say "there is more historical evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history."

Do you guys think the resurrection didn't happen because predetermined philisophical speculation, or historical inquiry?

I don't think saying "I don't think the resurrection happened because nobody has proved to me it happened" is a good argument. You can't conclusivly prove something that happened so long ago, so don't you think it would be better to look at it historically, and if you did look at it historically, what brings you to the conclusion that the resurrection never happened?

 

[betazed]

@Giotto: You are not making sense. Just a few things I would like to point out.

I don't think using the scientific reasoning can work here,

If you are not going to use scientific reasoning, then why ask for "proof"? Proof by its very nature is based on logic and scientific reasoning.

I mean, you believe that many historical figured existed without exact proof beyond texts and other historical documents.

No. I do not believe in any historical figure just because someone said so and because of some historical documents. There exists material evidence that you can look at, feel, see and touch.

You can't conclusivly prove something that happened so long ago, so don't you think it would be better to look at it historically,

Why do you say that? We can prove things that has happened billions of years ago. So if you are looking for "proof" then just two thousand years should pose no problem.

what brings you to the conclusion that the resurrection never happened?

Two words. Occam's Razor.

 

[aaminion00]

I really don't understand what's so hard to prove. If Christians would enter an arguement such as this with a secular mind looking at this reasonably they would see that it is infinetly more likely that the ressurection didn't happen. However, since saying the ressurection didn't happen would mean forsaking their beliefs, christians will continue to reason it with whatever skewed logic they can.

Let's put it this way. If you believe that every animal on earth could fit onto a single boat and that people can be turned into pillars of salt, then yes, there is every reason to believe the ressurection did happen.

If you somehow find it hard to believe that a hated political figure's tomb isn't broken into by rivals and opponents and thrown into a river but risen up and comes back to life, then no, the ressurection didn't happen.

Jesus is a fictional character. Though there probably was a man named Jesus living in Judea sometime in the 1st century a.d., the Jesus that today's christians are familiar about from the bible is about as real as Odyssieus or Achilles. Too many of the facts of his life and tennants of his religion can be traced back to pagan roots and tampering by man for me to even consider something so stupid and ridicolous as the man rising from the dead (as claimed by 2 of his best friends a few days after he was brutally mudrered infront of them).

 

[MrPresident]

Originally posted by Giotto
what brings you to the conclusion that the resurrection never happened?

If someone said they were brought back from stone-cold death by the hand of God, would you believe them? Why does that change if it happened two thousand years ago?

 

[Giotto]

Originally posted by betazed
[BNo. I do not believe in any historical figure just because someone said so and because of some historical documents. There exists material evidence that you can look at, feel, see and touch.
[/B]

Then you must believe that much of history never happened! Just to pick a random person in history... Montezuma... what proof is there of his existance not counting anything anyone has said or anything written down, since those are automatically discounted. Do you have his body? How do you know it is his body and not some other persons? The fact that it is Montezuma doesn't really matter to what I'm saying, I'm just trying to illustrate that if you think that nothing exists without conclusive exact evidence, a TON of stuff in history never happened.

 

[Halcyon]

If I were to tell you that I recently shot down an Elvis-piloted UFO with a magic peashooter, would you believe me?

Probably not, because I have no proof, and it's rather unlikely.

Now, you're saying that some guy is/was capable of such feats as transmutation, water-walking, autoresurrection and appearing in puddles of sick in Des Moines diners, am I likely to believe you? It's rather unlikely..

 

[Giotto]

Originally posted by MrPresident
If someone said they were brought back from stone-cold death by the hand of God, would you believe them? Why does that change if it happened two thousand years ago?

I think that this type of logic you would have to say that nothing ever happened, since nothing ever in history has ever happened exactly as it has before. That's like saying that since no president has ever been reportidly assasinated in Dallas in a car except JFK, the assasination of JFK really didn't happen.

 

[aaminion00]

Originally posted by Giotto
Then you must believe that much of history never happened! Just to pick a random person in history... Montezuma... what proof is there of his existance not counting anything anyone has said or anything written down, since those are automatically discounted. Do you have his body? How do you know it is his body and not some other persons? The fact that it is Montezuma doesn't really matter to what I'm saying, I'm just trying to illustrate that if you think that nothing exists without conclusive exact evidence, a TON of stuff in history never happened.

Evidence from Montezuma includes hundreds of Aztec mentions of his name, and a fairly realistic, if biased in favor of themselves, Spanish account of their invasion of his country. It should also be mentioned that this Spanish account does not include walking on water, coming back from the dead, or giving back sight to blind people.