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You didn't ask me, but as a Christian I don't accept any of them as literally true.
I accept that a corpse - that of Jesus - was resurrected by God in a unique, real-world historical event. Having reached a conviction that Christianity is true, I have no difficulty with the notion that the Creator of the universe could and did resurrect his son. Having reached a conviction that Christianity is true, I accept the historical evidence for the Resurrection.
Nonbelievers typically argue that the analysis should be: "What is the likelihood a human corpse revived and flew away? Zilch. Ergo, Christianity is nonsense."
This has things ass-backwards. It is the way David Hume analyzed miracles, and even secular philosophers now accept that his analysis was deeply flawed.
One becomes a Christian because one reaches a conviction, for a variety of reasons, that it has the greatest explanatory power. It best explains reality as the individual experiences and observes it. I know of no one who became a Christian because the likelihood of the Resurrection was so compelling.
Part and part and parcel of Christianity is a Creator God who can do anything, including resurrect his son. The Resurrection is the foundational truth of Christianity; without the Resurrection, the religion goes poof. Because one holds a conviction Christianity is true, one accepts the historical reliability of the Gospels that it occurred. A Humean analysis is irrelevant because we aren't talking about the evidentiary weight of the billions of human corpses who didn't revive; we are talking about the Creator of the universe resurrecting his son in a unique historical event.
Atheists love to pretend that all Christians are hardcore fundamentalist innerentists and literalists. This makes for an easy target. "If you believe Jesus was resurrected, you MUST believe all the OT accounts are literally true. Gotcha!" This is nonsense. I don't believe the Jews who wrote the OT accounts even intended for them to be understood as literal science or history. The Resurrection is the foundational event of Christianity, however, and the NT authors and early Christian community clearly understood it literally and intended for it to be understood literally.
Kudos for answering, at least. So many of your brethren suddenly get cold feet when challenged to defend that which their reveled truth so rigorously promotes as undeniable fact.
So are you openly denying that the "Ascention" of Jesus is literally true?
Kudos for answering, at least. So many of your brethren suddenly get cold feet when challenged to defend that which their reveled truth so rigorously promotes as undeniable fact.
So are you openly denying that the "Ascention" of Jesus is literally true?
I read him to be accepting that one as true. But it needn't be a physical ascension. As a spiritual ascension, I have found sufficient scientific plausibility for its existence.
Which, if any, of the five examples I provided do you deny is true? Which, if any, of the five do you personally accept is realistically probable, true and valid? Don't be timid. Stand up for what you believe by answering the question.
If I were to take the Book you got them from literally...then I must say that all 5 of those (and absolutely anything and everything else you could think of) are true.
Again, you forgot...the same Book that provides those accounts...also provides for a Omnimax Powered God that knows everything and can do anything (including what you would call "miracles" that defy physics and reason) whatsoever.
Of course...I understand them as the metaphorical and allegorical texts they are...so, I don't have those issues to contend with.
I also do not engage in literal interpretation "whatabout?" and "gotcha" type arguments...because I realize that as soon as I assess it literally...I am confronted with the categorical explanation of "The Omnimax Powered God Dunnit". Any literal interpretation argument or explanation must take the existence of the Omnimax Powered God Being focal character as a given.
"Goddunnit" covers any literal interpretation issue...you need to get hip to that.
You didn't ask me, but as a Christian I don't accept any of them as literally true.
I accept that a corpse - that of Jesus - was resurrected by God in a unique, real-world historical event. Having reached a conviction that Christianity is true, I have no difficulty with the notion that the Creator of the universe could and did resurrect his son. Having reached a conviction that Christianity is true, I accept the historical evidence for the Resurrection.
Nonbelievers typically argue that the analysis should be: "What is the likelihood a human corpse revived and flew away? Zilch. Ergo, Christianity is nonsense."
This has things ass-backwards. It is the way David Hume analyzed miracles, and even secular philosophers now accept that his analysis was deeply flawed.
One becomes a Christian because one reaches a conviction, for a variety of reasons, that it has the greatest explanatory power. It best explains reality as the individual experiences and observes it. I know of no one who became a Christian because the likelihood of the Resurrection was so compelling.
Part and part and parcel of Christianity is a Creator God who can do anything, including resurrect his son. The Resurrection is the foundational truth of Christianity; without the Resurrection, the religion goes poof. Because one holds a conviction Christianity is true, one accepts the historical reliability of the Gospels that it occurred. A Humean analysis is irrelevant because we aren't talking about the evidentiary weight of the billions of human corpses who didn't revive; we are talking about the Creator of the universe resurrecting his son in a unique historical event.
Atheists love to pretend that all Christians are hardcore fundamentalist innerentists and literalists. This makes for an easy target. "If you believe Jesus was resurrected, you MUST believe all the OT accounts are literally true. Gotcha!" This is nonsense. I don't believe the Jews who wrote the OT accounts even intended for them to be understood as literal science or history. The Resurrection is the foundational event of Christianity, however, and the NT authors and early Christian community clearly understood it literally and intended for it to be understood literally.
Yuppers.
There is some thing more. That doesn't mean it is a deity. But to hid from saying that is not all that reliable either. To me.
I read him to be accepting that one as true. But it needn't be a physical ascension. As a spiritual ascension, I have found sufficient scientific plausibility for its existence.
This is what I read:
"I don't accept any of them as literally true." - Irkle Berserkle
If they are not literally true that leaves figuratively true.
If I were to take the Book you got them from literally...then I must say that all 5 of those (and absolutely anything and everything else you could think of) are true.
Again, you forgot...the same Book that provides those accounts...also provides for a Omnimax Powered God that knows everything and can do anything (including what you would call "miracles" that defy physics and reason) whatsoever.
Of course...I understand them as the metaphorical and allegorical texts they are...so, I don't have those issues to contend with.
I also do not engage in literal interpretation "whatabout?" and "gotcha" type arguments...because I realize that as soon as I assess it literally...I am confronted with the categorical explanation of "The Omnimax Powered God Dunnit". Any literal interpretation argument or explanation must take the existence of the Omnimax Powered God Being focal character as a given.
"Goddunnit" covers any literal interpretation issue...you need to get hip to that.
So again I ask the question:
"Does the Omnimax Powered God whom you refer to sometimes make mistakes and fail to achieve His intended results?"
So Christian claims need not be taken as the literal truth, but as symbolic?
there ya go. The lesson of the cross is that there are things that knawl at a men's (real men (not gender related here)) gizzards worse than death.
We just have to determine "Whos" reality is more reliable. And basing it on believing and not believing is not best we can do. Not by a long shot, to me.
So Christian claims need not be taken as the literal truth, but as symbolic?
This is what I was referring to from his response:
The Resurrection is the foundational event of Christianity, however, and the NT authors and early Christian community clearly understood it literally and intended for it to be understood literally.
How about it does the best it can (far better than we could anyway) under the circumstances that surrounds it?
Just like every other natural thing.
Stating it makes mistakes means we know more than we do.
That is a frequent presumption we humans tend to make!
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