Many modern minds believe that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is impossible. They say it's just a metaphor. We live in a scientific age and many people doubt miracles, or simply don't believe in them at all. So, for many people the Resurrection is just not allowed by their worldview.
If that's you, let's do a thought experiment. What would it take to smash your worldview, your opinions and beliefs, and convince you that Jesus was raised bodily from the dead? You might say, "it would have to be overwhelming evidence. It would have to be absolutely convincing proof for me to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead!"
I want you to realize that whatever it would take to convince you, whatever kind of proof it would take to hit you and make you believe Jesus was raised from the dead - It must have hit his disciples! Although they probably had different reasons, the idea of a resurrection was just as inconceivable for them to believe as it is for modern people to believe. Greeks believed salvation was the soul being released from the body at death. They had no reason to hope for a resurrection. Some Jews believed in a resurrection at the end of time when all things would be restored. But someone rising in the middle of history just didn't fit their theology.
Jesus kept telling his followers, "I'm going to be killed and then rise again on the third day." But on the third day no one showed up at the tomb to see. Only a few women went - and that was to pay their last respects. Even when they found the stone moved, and the tomb empty their first response was, "Someone took his body!" Rising from the dead conflicted with their worldview so sharply that they didn't even show up out of curiosity to see what would happen.
So something must have been overwhelmingly convincing to them, because they did change their minds. They did believe! The Gospel writers tell us what affected them so strongly: Jesus appeared to them alive. There are several occurrences recorded where Jesus appeared to his followers after the crucifixion.
* Hundreds of people believed because they actually saw and heard and touched a living Jesus!
* Thousands more believed because they heard and believed the eyewitness testimony of those who actually saw the risen Jesus!
By the way, you have the eyewitness testimony too! The Bible, the Gospel writers are the eyewitnesses to these things that the early church had. Read them and decide.
Do you believe?!
Jim Jones convinced a thousand followers to commit suicide.
ReplyDeleteMarshall Applewhite convinced his followers to commit suicide.
Charles Manson convinced his followers to commit murder.
Believing anything without strong supporting evidence is dangerous. Professing it in practice is downright irresponsible.
The fact that jesus had devoted followers does not mean that he was anything more than a man with devoted followers. "eye witness accounts" of a few women are nothing more than stories, tall tales, until they can be supported by some form of physical or circumstantial evidence.
Dear "Anonymous,"
ReplyDeleteThat's the beauty of the narrative. Jesus had lost all of his devoted followers. Neither Simon Peter (who wasn't willing to torture and murder in Manson fashion, but was willing to defend Jesus), John, nor any of his closest disciples had any hope or reason to continue to be his devoted followers - That is until he appeared to them after his death with physical evidence of his resurrection.
I agree with your belief about belief. I also believe the Gospel writers, four eyewitnesses to the events, offer plenty of evidence for what I believe. Mary told her "tall tale," and Jesus walked in the room to validate it.
If you were fabricating a story and you were going to try and get people to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, in the deeply Patriarchal societies of ancient times, never in a million years would you make a woman the first eyewitness to resurrection of Jesus Christ. That would have shot down the credibility of the account in people's eyes.
The only reason Mary would be in the account as the first eyewitness in a document from around 2,000 years ago, would be if she actually was the first eyewitness. The Gospel writers had no other possible motivation or explanation for why this woman would be in this story unless she actually was there.
As far as the dangerousness of belief part: Comparing Orthodox Christianity to Manson and Jones is downright irresponsible.
Consider this: Wouldn't it be cool if there was a belief or a faith that changed people's lives in a good way. Instead of drinking the Cool Aid, or murdering movie stars it would motivate them to give of themselves for others, such as Mother Theresa did during her lifetime of service. Oh, wait... there is such a faith. Christianity!
"I agree with your belief about belief. I also believe the Gospel writers, four eyewitnesses to the events, offer plenty of evidence for what I believe. Mary told her "tall tale," and Jesus walked in the room to validate it."
ReplyDeleteyou seem to ignore the fact that not one of the four of these stories match up.
http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/Resurrection.htm.
"If you were fabricating a story and you were going to try and get people to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, in the deeply Patriarchal societies of ancient times, never in a million years would you make a woman the first eyewitness to resurrection of Jesus Christ. That would have shot down the credibility of the account in people's eyes."
you'd be surprised what gullibility and wishful thinking will leave you susceptible to.
"The only reason Mary would be in the account as the first eyewitness in a document from around 2,000 years ago, would be if she actually was the first eyewitness. The Gospel writers had no other possible motivation or explanation for why this woman would be in this story unless she actually was there."
if you have some credible source of evidence for this, I'm all ears.
"As far as the dangerousness of belief part: Comparing Orthodox Christianity to Manson and Jones is downright irresponsible.
Consider this: Wouldn't it be cool if there was a belief or a faith that changed people's lives in a good way. Instead of drinking the Cool Aid, or murdering movie stars it would motivate them to give of themselves for others, such as Mother Theresa did during her lifetime of service. Oh, wait... there is such a faith. Christianity!"
here are a few links to get you started.
http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/victims.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
And this one which holds quite an extensive catalog of atrocities committed in the name of jesus christ.
http://notachristian.org/christianatrocities.html
You said that the Gospels don't match up, giving you grounds to dismiss them. If the Gospel accounts did seem to match perfectly, you could claim that the boys collaborated on the four accounts together as they fabricated their tale. This is a no-win. What's a blogger to do? :-)
ReplyDeleteThe Gospels are eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection. As accounts conveyed by witnesses, they do line up with each other. They tell the same story. However, they don't tell the same story from the same vantage point. Putting them together gives a more complete picture.
For example, how many angels did the witnesses see at the tomb? Maybe one saw one, and another saw two - those are not contradictions, those are observations from different perspectives. How many women went to the tomb? There were at least three, while John only mentions the one relevant to his narrative. So what's the problem?
If I were telling you about how my wife and I ran into your cousin at the grocery store and discussed our political views, I might leave out the fact that all my children were also at the same grocery store with us. Maybe the children have no political party affiliation, and are therefore not relevant to the story. Your cousin might mention that he saw all of us, kids included. Is one of us contradicting the other, or simply omitting all the details?
I've read some interesting arguments for agnosticism, but that dude from about.com has some pretty week arguments. Many of his presuppositions about the New Testament documents, for example, are outdated by more recent scholarship on the topic.
Are you asking for a credible source of evidence that purposefully writing women into the narrative as the first witnesses would have been counterproductive? This has been discussed for millenia. Celsus was a Second Century Greek philosopher who argued against the reliability of the resurrection account because women were the first to witness it, and we all know that women are hysterical - at least that was the view in the Western world of the Second Century. Why write something so contrary to the common beliefs, if you're trying to convince people that it's true?
As far as Christian Scientists, or any other group that denies common sense, I totally agree with you! I guess it's not so common after all. However, all of the Christians I know would rush a child to receive medical care, long before such tragedies occurred. I believe that the concept that life is sacred and worth saving comes straight from the Gospel.
Continued...
ReplyDeleteThe violence committed in the name of God is horrible. The examples you listed included several thousand innocent people's deaths. Atrocities have been committed by those belonging to (or claiming to belong to) nearly every religious and cultural group on earth. Such atrocities have also been committed by the non-religious. Some have argued that most of the 20th century genocide was committed by atheist regimes. Although the dude from about.com argues that "Atheism itself isn't a principle, cause, philosophy, or belief system which people fight, die, or kill for." I disagree. I've read the writings of atheist philosophers who use their lack of God as justification for Consequentialism. Consequentialism in many cases leads to "justified killing." That's another discussion
This proves to me that people tend to be violent.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, anymore than going to McDonald's makes you a happy meal. If you don't mind, I'd like to refer to a Biblical story. In the book of Acts a young girl followed Paul around shouting "this guy is bringing you the Word of God..." something along those lines. The problem was that the girl was crazy. The Bible says, "she had a demon by which she predicted the future." Paul had to make a clear statement of not being affiliated with this girl, or her hearty endorsement in his ministry.
In the way of references, you can find some pro and con about Christianity on wikipedia. I also recommend the book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham.
I hope this helps.
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