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Is it "hard to believe" someone could have been raised from the dead? Absolutely. But yes, people do really believe this, even after doing extreme due diligence on the issue. Are you free to not believe it? Absolutely.
No ... absolutely not.
I watched a documentary recently about this eye surgeon who traveled into North Korea to perform 1,000 cataract surgeries in only 10 days. Some of the patients were interviewed before their surgery. One old woman was asked, "What is the most difficult thing about your blindness?"
She came out with the most incredible and downright sad thing I've heard in awhile: "The most difficult thing is that I can't see my Dear Leader!"
This surgeon did manage to perform all 1,000 surgeries. Do you know what each and every patient did when they could see again? They ran up to the front of the room where a picture of Kim Il-Jung was hanging and literally fell to the floor and praised the Dear Leader, thanking *him* for being able to see again. They bowed and scraped with their noses to the floor as if that crazy loon (Kim Il-Jung) was a god.
I actually became a bit misty-eyed at watching these poor, deluded people who are so heavily brainwashed by those ridiculous Kims that they couldn't even thank the doctor because that would be taking credit away from the Dear Leader.
Sure, I understand that North Korea is an extreme example -- but were those people truly free not to worship and revere the Dear Leader? I don't mean "free" as in are they legally allowed to do so. I mean "free" as in having the freedom to make the decision on their own.
Of course they weren't free to not believe in the magical powers of Kim Il-Jung. They were indoctrinated practically from birth to worship those whackjobs and had no opportunity to believe in anything else.
Religion operates in the same way. Here in America, our culture is loaded with religion. Just driving around town one will see churches everywhere. There will be billboards promoting religion. There will be random signs that say "Jesus saves." Tons of people wear crosses around their necks. You'll see custom license plates that simply say "Jesus" not to mention the religious bumper stickers. When watching television, almost every character on every show (minus sit-coms) eventually profess a belief in God. In addition, those who do not believe often find themselves disenfranchised from society without church fellowship.
Given all the religion one sees on a daily basis whether one is just driving around town, watching television, or talking with friends, it's pretty much the same bombardment that North Koreans see as they go about their lives -- seeing Kim Il-Jung (now Kim Il-un) everywhere in paintings, statues, photos, and words on signs praising his name.
We are not truly free to believe or not to believe -- and "facts" rarely enter into the equation. I've said before that teaching creationism in our public schools is somewhat redundant. The reason is because the vast majority of children have been bombarded with the Adam and Eve story for at least a decade before they're even old enough to understand evolution -- and even longer before a public school introduces evolution as part of a science class. Schools can't compete with church indoctrination -- schools aren't bombarding children with evolution, the Big Bang, and other secular ideas from Kindergarten onwards.
Freedom to choose one's belief is one of the biggest illusions we often fall for in this mortal existence. Yet I can't choose to believe in God any more than a devout Christian could choose not to believe. That is why we atheists can write hundreds of posts filled with logic, facts, and empirical evidence and not change the mind of even one single Christian.
Not only does enculturation and outright brainwashing rob most people of their freedom to choose their beliefs, religion also uses the "fist inside of a velvet glove" tactic to coerse obedience as well as belief. Because hanging over the heads of potential doubters like a Sword of Damocles is the Hell threat. While Kim Il-jung and Kim Il-un punish those who disobey and refuse to conform in *this* life, religion threatens to punish us in the *next* life -- which is very convenient in a free democracy where churches can't actually punish people for apostacy and heresy. If we can't nail 'em in this world, we'll threaten them with a horrifying punishment in the next world. Pure genius.
I'm also of the opinion that biology plays a strong role in what we believe. The reason, I think, why atheists always represent a small fraction of any given population is because it takes a certain "wiring" of the mind to not believe -- to be able to go against the herd and not buy into something just because everyone else does.
No, I'm not saying the atheist mind is superior. I'm only saying that our minds -- our literal biological brains -- work differently than those of believers. I've put it this way in the past: As an atheist, I'm no more able to choose to believe in God than a quadriplegic is able to choose to get up and run the Boston Marathon.
That's because our brains are "wired" differently. Faith is an alien concept.
And before anyone says it, let me nip this in the bud immediately. NO. I'm not even remotely suggesting that our brains are somehow defective because we can't believe in these invisible, all-powerful, magical beings.
I will say this much, though, and this concerns the gullibility argument: For whatever biological reason, I do believe that our brains are naturally resistant to propaganda and brainwashing. It simply doesn't work on us. That goes for religion, politics, or even dealing with scammers and frauds. Even in North Korea, there are a small number of dissenters who can see through the garbage the Kims spew and know all too well they live in a tyrannical cesspool. Somehow they managed this despite the massive amount of propaganda, lies, and the fact that *everyone* else around them love the Dear Leader with every fiber of their being.
How is this done? Why can some people easily see through these deceptions while the vast majority tend to conform, obey, and do what they're told and think what they're told to think? Is it purely gullibility? Nah, I don't believe that the 90% or so of the world's population who believe in a god are all gullible. I think, as said before, that it has to do with biology.
As such, we're no more free to choose what we believe than we are free to change our ethnicity.
Very good. and does fit the story. Of course CARM will point to Matthew saying it was faked up lie arranged with the High Priest to cover up a resurrection that they knew had been predicted and had now been fulfilled. No suggestion of "Damn' it was true - we'd better repent and hope he comes to forgive us!" No, them Jews are too wicked for that.
But surely Matthew is eyewitness? Not to the Angel descending and scaring away the tomb guard because the women arrive after that to find the stone door open. So just how did one of Jesus' scattered disciples know all this?
Of course Apologists can invent explanations .."Well maybe one of those soldiers repented and converted to Christianity, and he talked to the disciples and told them the true tale.."
And maybe not, because, aside from Matthew being demonstrably a Greek Christian who couldn't read Hebrew and didn't understand the scriptures, none of this story filtered down to anyone else. No tomb guard, no descending angel. Given that the Synoptics at least all have the angel inside the tomb giving the resurrection message (give or take some editing and amendment) and John doesn't, -this being evidence of a common text the three used - that this staggering event is only in Matthew is strong evidence that he made it up. Just as Luke made up the Nazareth assassination attempt.
So by far the best conclusion that fits the facts is that there was no tomb guard. The tomb was opened as soon as Arimathea thought it was safe. This story eventually got out and indeed was circulating in Matthew's day. So in order to counter it he invented this daft Tomb guard story that nobody else has heard of.
That's the conclusion that really fits the evidence, but CARM doesn't think it though. Just takes the Gospel story as true and put all doubt aside. That is why apologists get made to look foolish all the time.
The account I presented assumes that the story of the guard at the tomb has some relationship to actual events. It does not explain however why all three of the other Gospels failed to mention so vital a bit of information as the tomb being guarded. But of course without a guard at the tomb the probability that the disciples of Jesus relocated the body elsewhere becomes overwhelmingly apparent.
The author of Gospel Matthew seems to have possessed knowledge that no one else had. A skeptical person might almost claim that he was making it up as he felt necessary.
A skeptical person could point to a few clues that show that he was indeed making it up. The two donkeys for example show that he made up the second donkey because of a misunderstanding of scripture. He said there were two because he thought the prophecy required there should be. He has a flight to Egypt that canot have happened without making Luke wrong.
With a couple of killers (plus that passage in the temple wrangles that can only have come fromn reading the Septuagint, not the scriptures as Hebrews read them), tells us that he was a Greek Christian and not an eyewitness. Thus all the other discrepancies become inventions, nit memories that he had that the others has forgotten, or didn't think important. His parables become hi own invention, not saying of Jesus. Thus his graves opening, death of Judas, Sinking Simon, Shekel -eating fish, mobile star, the women running into Jesus at the tomb - all becomes invented nonsense.
. Simply establish that believing that Jesus was resurrected from the dead is a reasonable thing to believe. That's all I am asking for.
Jesus was not resurrected from the dead because he did not die and he was not crucified
but it was appeared to them that he was crucified and more than 1,799,000,000 Muslims confirm that
And because of their saying (in boast),
"We killed Messiah 'ÃŽsa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary),
the Messenger of Allah,"
but they killed him not, nor crucified him,
but it appeared so to them [the resemblance of 'ÃŽsa (Jesus) was put over another man (and they killed that man)],
and those who differ therein are full of doubts.
They have no (certain) knowledge,
they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely; they killed him not. The Final Holy Book
Quote:
but that he subsequently flew off up into the sky, please provide your best evidence and rationale for believing that to be true. .
more than 1,799,000,000 Muslims confirm that
But Allah raised him ['ÃŽsa (Jesus)] up (with his body and soul) unto Himself
(and he عليه السلام is in the heavens).
And Allah is Ever All-Powerful, All-Wise. The Final Holy Book
truth-teller, I put it to you that not one single Muslim witness this alleged event. In fact, I will go so far as to say that not one Jew witnessed this alleged event either. In the first instance there simply were no Muslims at the time of the alleged event (Islam only came about some 500 years later). In the second instance the alleged event never took place.
correct
Islam came and started on 610 A.D. through a man called Mahammad and he completed his mission on
632 A.D . within this 23 years too many major events happened and the word of Allah was completed and stored in a book called The Quran and in it is true events for Jesus.
Mahammad and the Quran can be true or fake
and there are many evidences if they were analyzed neutral the result would by yes
Noah Ibrahim, Moses, Jesus and Mahammad are all messengers from Allah
and the Quran is the final Holy book and any thing in it is true without any addition or deletions or modifications
but alterations are existing in previous holy book and that way many people refuse to accept them as the word of the Allah the only god.
every thing has a name.
Who is the one who gave each thing its name ?
Who is the one who decided that the Apple is called Apple and the Tree is called Tree and the water its name is water .. etc
not necessary in English but in the first Language.
Allah is the one who named them and he taught them to our father Adam and we inherited from Adam peace be upon him.
And He taught Adam all the names, then showed them to the angels, saying: Inform Me of the names of these, if ye are truthful.The Holy Quran 2:31
Jesus was not resurrected from the dead because he did not die and he was not crucified
but it was appeared to them that he was crucified and more than 1,799,000,000 Muslims confirm that
And because of their saying (in boast),
"We killed Messiah 'ÃŽsa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary),
the Messenger of Allah,"
but they killed him not, nor crucified him,
but it appeared so to them [the resemblance of 'ÃŽsa (Jesus) was put over another man (and they killed that man)],
and those who differ therein are full of doubts.
They have no (certain) knowledge,
they follow nothing but conjecture. For surely; they killed him not. The Final Holy Book
more than 1,799,000,000 Muslims confirm that
But Allah raised him ['ÃŽsa (Jesus)] up (with his body and soul) unto Himself
(and he عليه السلام is in the heavens).
And Allah is Ever All-Powerful, All-Wise. The Final Holy Book
So already we have gone from 1,799,000,000 Muslims confirming that to zero Muslims confirming that simply because there were no Muslims around at the time. Right?
In fact, by your own admission, the Quran was not written for more than another 500 years. At least the Gospels, as inaccurate and unreliable as they are, were written some 40 years after the alleged events (and doctored and embellished from time to time thereafter). At least the writers of the gospels could claim they knew someone who knew Jesus or someone who did know him.
Where did Muhammad get his information from that he wrote into the Quran? Was it not from the gospels and the legends that were circulating at the time?
Last edited by 303Guy; 08-01-2017 at 02:44 AM..
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