Carnival of Questions for Resurrection Apologists

[Dardedar]

Carnival of Questions for Resurrection Apologists

by E.T. Babinski

Why does Christianity need apologists if the evidence for the resurrection is as undeniable and unquestionable as apologists claim it is? They say "it's a fact!" (Really? An infinite Being couldn't provide any more evidence than cult-written second-person sources? And also expect everyone to believe in heaven and hell, sight unseen? And believe in all the related doctrines and practices of Christianity with few questions asked?) Instead, when I think of Christian apologetics I think of this quotation from a personal letter by C. S. Lewis:

I envy you not having to think any more about Christian apologetics. My correspondents force the subject on me again and again. It is very wearing, and not v. good for one's own faith. A Christian doctrine never seems less real to me than when I have just (even if successfully) been defending it. It is particularly tormenting when those who were converted by my books begin to relapse and raise new difficulties.
C. S. Lewis to Mary Van Deusen, June 18, 1956

WHAT EXACTLY DO APOLOGISTS MEAN WHEN THEY CLAIM TO HAVE
PROVIDED EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION? ESPECIALLY IN LIGHT OF...

1) The DISHARMONY of the death and resurrection tales.

2) The TRAJECTORY from early to late NT sources that suggests the death and resurrection tales grew in the telling, not just in growing in length, but also via enhancements that believers added over time to make the tales appear more convincing. (Jesus also being portrayed as more in control, more philosophical, regal or divine in the last two written Gospels and their versions of his capture, death and burial.)

3) The LACK OF FIRST PERSON TESTIMONY. The documents we possess are all second hand information produced by members of the Jesus cult. Paul's extremely brief statement, "he appeared to me," is first hand but that's the only "first hand" statement we possess. I guess an infinite Being with infinite resources wanted things that way. (1 Peter is disputed.) All apologetic works that claim the "evidence" is enough for a successful "court case" flounder on the fact that courts require first hand testimony.

4) The LACK OF OPEN PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION, JUST SECRET SIGHTINGS CLAIMED BY CULT MEMBERS. The book of Acts only mentions sightings of Jesus granted to a limited number of apostles without any mention of an appearance to "over 500 brethren." Neither was that appearance open to the public at large, just to "brethren." In fact when Paul stated that Jesus "appeared" to "over 500 brethren at once" (1 Cor. 15:6), that would have been to a far greater number than the "120 brethren" mentioned in Acts after Jesus had allegedly ascended bodily into heaven, i.e., "In those days Peter stood up among the believers, a group numbering about a hundred and twenty." That is the total number that Acts gives after "Jesus was taken up from us." (Acts 1:9,14-15,22)

Acts goes on to say:
He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen--by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. Acts 10:41
After giving instructions... to the apostles he had chosen... he presented himself to them [the apostles only]... He appeared to them over a period of forty days... On one occasion, while he was eating with them... they gathered around him... [and] he was taken up before their very eyes [those of the apostles alone], and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going. Acts 1:1-11

By the time the resurrection tale was told in Luke the message at the tomb had undergone a distinct change (The raised Jesus was no longer "going before them to Galilee to be seen there," as in Mark and Matthew, but instead only the word, "Galilee," remained in the Lukan version with no mention of where Jesus was going or where he would be seen.) The author of the third Gospel has the resurrected Jesus appear to all the apostles not in Galilee but in Jerusalem, and eat fish, say he is "not a spirit" but has "flesh and bone," afterwards Jesus "led them to Bethany," from the city of Jerusalem to a nearby town. But in this moment of triumph, beating death, sin, hell (which surely trumps Jesus' entry into Jerusalem) we find no crowds, no shouts of Hosanna. If such a tale were true then surely the silence concerning this moment of triumph is deafening, especially since moments before Jesus had been intent to prove he was not a spirit, but had bones and ate fish, and then decided to "lead them" on a trip through Jerusalem. "Nothing to see here, move along."

5) DAMNED FOR NOT BELIEVING? Even if all the appearance and resurrection tales by Jesus cultists were harmonizable and true (they appear to be more a mixed bag, "I didn't recognize him!" "He was suddenly just there." "He ate fish and talked and dined with us for weeks on end and walked out of Jerusalem with us" which are what one might expect from second hand accumulations of tales by people trying to convince others that their cult or master they followed was the best), I still would not expect any truly ethical God who knows the limitations of human knowledge to demand that literally everyone must believe such stories or be damned eternally. And when one notes Matthew's embellishment of Mark, his insertion of the brief "many raised saints" passage, and his "angel coming down out of the sky to sit atop the rock outside the tomb," it makes me wonder what Jesus cultists were NOT capable of adding to the story to try and make it sound more grandiose, or what people back then were NOT willing to believe.

Some of the questions above are fleshed out further in posts below.

LINK

(Some good resources at that link)

[Cherryj]

Excellent points Dar. In my opinion, the Jesus cult grew early on in large part due to the rewards and security it promised to offer. Other earlier mystery cults and mainstream pagan mythologies promised only good crops or protection from misfortune; the new mystery cults that grew the quickest during the centuries straddling the presumed time of the ministry of Jesus each promised eternal life. Richard Carrier has offered interesting points on this subject; to summarize briefly, cults such as the Mithraic and Osiris mysteries each offered their followers the promise of eternal life gained exclusively for the followers of the cult through the passion of their savior-figure. The difference between the Jesus cult and these other mystery cults was two key factors - a claim by Christianity of exclusiveness and a threat of damnation for not believing. Or, to sound flippant, the mystery cults where OK with just dating or being friends with benefits, but Christianity demanded a monogamous marriage - and threatened its audience with the ultimate litigation should its fair & loving offer be rejected.

Other mystery cults, like insurance policies, could be doubled up on. Emperor Julian (the apostate), for example, is known to have been a member of at least three different mystery religions. Christianity, conversely, demanded an exclusive relationship, which they made more persuasive through the threat of hell. By circa 300 CE, it's not too surprising that the many great varieties of mystery cult that had been growing vigorously for centuries were now in steep decline following the advent and dissemination of the Christ cult. There were other factors as well – such as the Mithraic mysteries which barred women from membership, while women enjoyed relatively high-status in the pre-Constantine church. But the bottom line is the Christ cult had a far more effective marketing plan than did any other competing dogma.

Pascal's Wager, as absurd as it is, is a superbly effective sales tool, and the basic concept is nothing that Pascal innovated himself, but rather it has been a major feature of the Christ cult from the beginning: either believe or burn for all eternity. It is no accident that holy rollers today spend more time threatening their audience with the fires of hell than they do in trying to persuade anyone that what they say is actually true; the evidence in support of their dogma is incredibly weak, but the consequences of possibly being wrong are simply too great for many to ignore (a similar logic compels many to buy lottery tickets). Mega churches grow by nearly always featuring emotionally-manipulative altar calls and shouted prophecies of impending doom. Conversely, churches that don't emphasis hell-fire and being left behind have been steadily shrinking for decades. Rational churches don't grow because they want your time and your money but they don't sell would-be members on any great sense of urgency. A plethora of other cults have each learned this fantastically effective market share building technique from the more successful churches of tje Jesus cult and have each created similar believe-or-burn dogmas, most notably Islam. Fortunately for the members of each cult, cultural and language barriers seem to protect them from the cognitive dissonance that would otherwise arise on a daily basis from being confronted by the various conflicting, high-stakes dogmatic claims (that each offer very low evidential support).

Regarding the C.S. Lewis quote, I couldn't agree more. Prior to deconversion, I used to teach church history (I'm a former church history major in college - the more one knows, the less one believes) for both a moderate Methodist church and a holy-roller lite church (the ex's choice - no wonder we're divorced). And every time I taught my class, I felt I was discussing something that isn't real.

[Dardedar]

...I used to teach church history (I'm a former church history major in college - the more one knows, the less one believes)...

Well said Cherry. We need to get you doing some presentations at meetings. We need to be tapping into our talent pool...

[Cherryj]

...I used to teach church history (I'm a former church history major in college - the more one knows, the less one believes)...

Well said Cherry. We need to get you doing some presentations at meetings. We need to be tapping into our talent pool...

Sounds good Darrel. I'd love to. History is my strongest suit; if there's a particular area you'd like me to present it, or a book, just let me know.

[graybear13]

- the more one knows, the less one believes)

There can be no faith without doubt.
If you know it all you have no need for faith.
The sad truth is you don't know as much truth as you think you do.
The more TRUTH one knows, the MORE one believes.

regards gray

[Cherryj]

- the more one knows, the less one believes)

There can be no faith without doubt.
If you know it all you have no need for faith.
The sad truth is you don't know as much truth as you think you do.
The more TRUTH one knows, the MORE one believes.

regards gray

That's an interesting nest of assertions there, Gray. So let me assert something too - faith is, as Peter Boghossian says, pretending to know things you do not know. The difference between your worldview and mine is I am willing to admit that while there are things that I do not know, I at least know that I do not know them. And I also know that mouthing "goddidit" or "aliensdidit" all in order to fill in the blanks just are not any kind of answer at all. The fundamental issue is that transcendence and nonexistence look very much alike; I'm sure we can both agree on this point. Further, untestable / unfalsifiable hypotheses of the sort that all theists assert with regularity can be logically dismissed for the very same reason that you dismiss the vast majority of religious claims that others make that just happen to not match your own. Whereas I am willing to accept the simple answer that what appears to not exist, does in fact not exist, you, given the very same overwhelming lack of evidence, are willing to pretend to know that such a transcendental force does exist. And further, that this particular transcendental force just happens to be the very same one that you, yourself believe in - and not, say, Allah, En Lil, Brahma, or any other of a whole varied multitude of imaginary friends that human beings have created to either comfort themselves when they were afraid of the dark, or else created to scare others as a means of reassuring themselves of their own righteousness. Oh how very convenient. Have you ever noticed how every theist assets with certainty that their particular, preferred flavor of theism - just one out of the many thousands that have been postulated - just happens to be the right one? And that most of these varied theistic claims are quite incompatible with one another? This is the sort of cognitive dissonance that arises when we pretend to know things we do not know, and when we expect and demand neither evidence nor logic. I'm going to go outside now and feed my invisible pink unicorn.

A partial list of the various transcendental claims we both (presumably) dismiss:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/gods ... desses.htm

[graybear13]

- the more one knows, the less one believes)

There can be no faith without doubt.
If you know it all you have no need for faith.
The sad truth is you don't know as much truth as you think you do.
The more TRUTH one knows, the MORE one believes.

regards gray

The fundamental issue is that transcendence and nonexistence look very much alike; I'm sure we can both agree on this point.

I suppose but that is not the point I was trying to make. You said "the more one knows, the less one believes...I agree, the more one knows about religious doctrine and dogma the less one believes in anything they say. I have no faith in churches to show me truth. Without a doubt they are completely confused.

The point is, spirituality not religion is the essence of truth and my faith in spirituality is rooted in my doubt that I know very much at this point, but I have an open mind.

regards gray