h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ta.

Gif

>> Er, sorry. Too much Norse mythology at the moment... <<

No need to apolgise! It's actually a much healthier religious agency for minds and bodies bred in the Northern climes. There's none of that wandering about thirsty in the desert for weeks at a time and no lion's dens to deal with; just trees and wolves and frost and fairy folk.

~jwf~

Personally I believe Jesus existed, he physically and actually rose from the dead...

Else - "If Jesus *didn't* resurrect, his apostles are all liars and he was just a nice but deluded bloke with some good conjuring tricks and popular stories"... and that's that!

Vicky

<>


That, I believe is because any part of a day stood for the whole in that culture, or so I have read...

Vicky

Hi Vicky, and welcome.

A large chunk of the discussion you've missed has centred on the ideas that

a) we don't actually know what the disciples believed, and

b) they could have been mistaken rather than lying.

There is, as you point out, also option c - they were lying. Since you've never actually met any of these people, how can you be so sure they were not lying?

Given how unlikely the idea of a physical resurrection is, I would have thought that any of the previous three options is more likely.

Gif

Surely this three day thing is a bit of a red herring. Doesn't the text say 'on the third day'? If today (Friday) is the first day then tomorrow is the second day and Monday is the third day.



The problem with magic and the supernatural is that, while it would be nice to be able to tidy your room like Mary Poppins, the process falls down in the detail. If I snapped my fingers and my room tidied itself where would the 'magic' put everything? Would I be able to find my socks afterwards? Would it have the same drawbacks as asking - or paying - someone else to do the job?

A resurrection after (let's say) 48 hours is a significant task. Reanimating billions of dead cells (including neurons) individually, cleaning and reoxygenating the now toxic blood, lymph and other fluids and reversing the effects of two days decomposition would all be a challenge. This is not like simply blowing air into the lungs and restarting the heart. This is a huge task which would have to be carried out at the molecular level. Any sensible god would see this coming and save himself the work by not letting the man die in the first place. A couple of days deep coma and reduced metabolism brought on by trauma and dehydration should do it; and anyone seeing this guy would think he was dead. An unusual but not entirely impossible recovery to follow and everybody's happy. But then that's not a miracle, is it?

F

Hi Giford... Yes, I admit I read just the first page and the last...

Yes, physical resurrection is beyond unlikely, which is why it's a one-off event.

I think there's no good reason to disbelieve the Bible in what it says about what the disciples experienced. If we accept Suetonius (and by an large we do, despite that a good percentage of what he said was purely gossip) then age alone can't disqualify the writings we have.

I don't see that their being mistaken is an allowable theory. They were lying, or they were telling the truth, either one, but it isn't something anyone could possibly make a mistake about!

In the end there has to be a certain amount of trust. I never met Alan Bullock, but I accept what he said in our school history text about the events of World War two, in fact I have to, as I wasn't born then.

I have never met Gwynne Dyer, but I accept what he says about international relations, and I never met Alistair Cooke, but I accept his word about the celebrities he wrote about, in the book on my bedside table. Above all, I can't see what they could possibly have gained from lying! I've seen assertions on previous pages that Christians were never persecuted, but I beg to differ. Christianity was underground for its first two centuries, and for those who upset the authorities of the time, life was pretty much nasty, brutish and short. I know there are people here who think that what they call "religionists" are cracked enough to positively relish suffering, but realy, that's just prejudice. No, I can't see the motive for lying.

So, in my opinion, (b) and (c) are out of court. As for (a) I don't understand why we don't know what the disciples believed!
Vicky

Hi Vicky,

The trouble is that the only documents we have are the early Christian writings, which were written decades after the events by anonymous authors pushing religious agendas, and which we know were changed later by scribes also pushing religious agendas.

Worse, the places where the gospels have been changed most are precisely in the passages dealing with the resurrection.

Let's look at the gospels, for example. Matthew and Luke were clearly copying from Mark, so they obviously weren't eye-witnesses (Luke states outright he wasn't an eye-witness). The earliest versions of Mark's gospel have no resurrection in them - they end half a chapter earlier than the versions you'll find in most Bibles. In other words, all that stuff about Jesus appearing to the disciples was simply invented by later Christians to make the story sound more convincing.

Let me throw your examples back at you: if we accept the reality of the resurrection, why shouldn't we accept the reality of King Arthur, Hercules or Aphrodite?

Gif

DA/Vicky: "Physical resurrection is beyond unlikely, which is why it's a one-off event."

And there was me thinking there were eight others in the Bible.

TRiG.

DA/Vicky: "Physical resurrection is beyond unlikely, which is why it's a one-off event."

It's precisely because it's beyond unlikely that the default position has to be that the writers of the new testament were either lying, deceived, or mistaken. Any or all of these are simply so much more likely.

Still waiting with baited breath to discover whether supernatural events follow a *different* set of rules to the normal ones, or no rules at all.

Noggin

"Hi Giford... Yes, I admit I read just the first page and the last...

Della are you talking about the bible or the this thread?



"Yes, physical resurrection is beyond unlikely,
which is why it's a one-off event.

Wrong way round a truly unique event is beyond unlikely. However the bible does not say resurrection is unique ever heard of Lazarus? Maybe you should have read more than just the first and last pages of the bible Della.

"I think there's no good reason to disbelieve the Bible
in what it says about what the disciples experienced.
If we accept Suetonius (and by an large we do,

Um...No *WE* do *NOT*. The major reason I do *NOT* accept what he said is that Im not aware of him or what he said. For me not knowing about a person and not knowing what they have said tends to leave me in a lot of doubt about accepting what they have said. Another new and major reason for not putting much faith in his words is the fact that you,

one of his supporters tells us he mostly dealt in gossip


"I don't see that their being mistaken is an allowable
theory. They were lying, or they were telling the truth,
either one, but it isn't something anyone could possibly
make a mistake about!

Have you never seen a magician? They can convince people the impossible is happening before their eyes and although every reasonably inteligent grown up in our sceptical media age will be wise to their *illusions* lots of people in the past and gullible people today still make the honest mistake of simply believeing their eyes.

Ever seen a heat haze? It looks like a pool of water in the distance. We know its just caused by realtive differences in air temperature causing light to refract through different densities of gases but in the desert it can really fool people.

Then there are people who claim to have been abduced by aliens. mariners who saw mermaids, phoenixs rising from the flames and unicorns all can be explained by ordniary physical phenomena being misinterpreted.


"In the end there has to be a certain amount of trust.

Yes, but how much and who do you trust? Some people tll me Mohammed is the one true God and others tell me that Jesus and "the later day saints" are the guys to follow. How much trust should I give and should I give equal trust to every idea people spout at me?

"I never met Alan Bullock, but I accept what he said in our
school history text about the events of World War two,
in fact I have to, as I wasn't born then.

If you accepted one persons word alone then your an idiot and if you think you *have* to then you're an even bigger idiot. I can state quite categorically that no one accepts Alan Bullock's testimony alone they tend to belive what he had to say because it is a commonly held idea in the west that WWII was a real event and they probably knew someone or know someone who knew someone who was directly involved if not one person then they know personally several hundred people who were involved. The facts of world war two were part of daily life for people I was brought up with and it was a cultural reality brought home in a myriad of books, films and photographs produced at the time.

However as with the ressurection some people deny some parts of it took place. If it werent for the great weight of evidence from the time and people, thousands of people, saying I was there; "I was a guard", "I was a prisoner" Id be incredulaous to the fact that people could be so evil as to round up and systematically kill 6 million people. WWII and the many events it includes was an extraordinary period of history but unlike the extraordinary ressurection of Jesus there is literally tons of contemporary evidence that proves to me it was a reality.

In terms of beliveing in the ressurection because of other peoples' testimony the two do not comapre at all.


"I never met Alistair Cooke, but I accept his word about
the celebrities he wrote about,

Once again a bad example. If Alistair Cooke writting about people in their lifetime or the lifetime of their friends and close relatives had got something wildly wrong people would have flagged it up but you cant compare modern publishing to the way the bible was put together.

"Above all, I can't see what they could possibly have gained from lying!

You cant? Cast your mind back why did you pretend that you had a sister which was in reality you operating from another account. Why did your son attempt to clone my Uspace and pass himself off as me?

Simple answer to gain credibility for your arguments. Which is why the people writting the bible may have lied. Its basic spin. Cant get people to believe its a good idea to invade Iraq? Then just lie about WMD. Cant get people to abadon their Judaism for your new religion then say your religion offeres everlasting life and that your religion is based on the teachings of *the* messiah son of the bigG who was brought back to life and has ascended to heaven.

"Never mind the quality, feel the width."

"I've seen assertions on previous pages that
Christians were never persecuted, but I beg to differ.

I beg leave to point out another of your lies. Earlier you said you'd only read the first and last pages of this thread now you claim to have read others too which is it?

"I know there are people here who think that what they
call "religionists" are cracked enough to positively
relish suffering, but realy, that's just prejudice.

Um no its an observation based on facts, many facts, there are many religions where suffering is seen as a virtuos act and christianity is one of the religions where it has been seen as a good thing to not only merely deny yourself pleasures but to amongst other things flagellate (or as we call it today) self harm.


"No, I can't see the motive for lying."

From someone who has lied over and over again this is either another lie or just you being totally unable to look within yourself for an answer maybe its because you know that you are so dishonest at heart that you put so much faith in other people like Mr Bullock and your wierd old book.

one love

Blicky, I really would love to know who told you that Mohammad is the true God. Really.

And please stop picking apart every tiny inconsistency in what Della says. There are inconsistencies in what everyone says. This is not a court of law. If she's read the first and last pages, and glanced at a couple of posts here and there in the middle of the conversation, what she says is perfectly reasonable.

And I don't know who Suetonius was either. Unlike you, I am not proud of my ignorance.

TRiG.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/suetonius.html

Im well aware this is not a court of law, despite my bovious mistake of getting a prophet mixed up with a god I am capable of working that out.

I feel I have to pick apart Dellas posts because she uses so many loaded statements that are based on made up or at the very least highly questionable presumptions. Id imagine that other people can see this immediately but unlike Della i dont like to base too much on my own presumtions and so...

Part of the reason I do it is because knowing Della for as long as I have when in a debate where she is present it is important to get the basic ground work understood because it can lead to much confusion later.

So if for instance when discussing European history I said "you cant trust anything French people write so we must take all other sources as being more reliable therefore this is true" you or others Id hope would want to dig a little deeper into my prejudice against French historians.

Besides I have done and will do unitl someone prsents me with a satisfying reason why I shouldnt...the ball is in your court.


Speaking of presumption what about my post gives you the idea that IM proud of my ignorance of anything? Im not ashamed that I dont know about every historical figure but I wasnt aware that Id expressed pride about that either.

one love

Re the initial question:

Nah.

<>

Last question first - it's quite likely that King Arthur was real, but archaeologists are unable to identify him... (Obviously all the fantasy elements introduced later are simply embroidery. ) As for Hercules and Aphrodite, I don't think even the ancients thought that they were real!


Coincidentally, I was reading something about the reliability of the Gospels just last night, and I quote - "...there are more than 5,600 hand-transcribed copies of the original New Testament, or fragments thereof dating back to around 70 years after the death of Christ. These ancient documents collected from all around the Mediterranean, were considered so important by the first Christians that they were painstaking copied word for word..."
"They can and have been carbon-dated, they are accurate within 99.5% of each other across the the entire 5,686 copies and they are identical on all key aspects of Christian doctrine."

Source: p 69 of Ian Wishart's book, 'Eve's Bite'. (I hasten to add that I don't agree with most of the book, but no one except perhaps Richard Dawkins is ever 100% wrong...

Vicky

Clearly, in my opinion the answer is <>

Otherwise, they wouldn't be supernatural events! TRiG, can you please elaborate? I can think of one other, that is to say Lazarus, which was a different thing altogether, as went on to (as far as we know) lead a normal lifespan, and die again, this time permanently.

Hi Della. It's been a while since we've crossed paths. Thanks for providing an answer to my query, which WG seemed oddly reluctant to do.

I'm still puzzled though. If a supernatural event has *no* rules, then presumably the state of the system afterwards would bear no relationship to the state of the system beforehand. So how would this differ from a purely random event?

Noggin

Elijah resurrects the son of the widow of Zarephath: 1 Kings 17:17-24. (cf. Luke 4:25, 26.)
Elisha resurrects the son of the Shunamite woman: 2 Kings 4:32-37.
A dead man is dropped on Elisha's bones and comes to life: 2 Kings 13:20, 21.
Jesus resurrects the son of the widow of Nain: Luke 7:11-15.
Jesus resurrects Jairus' daughter: Mark 5:35-43; Luke 8:49-56.
Jesus resurrects Lazarus: John 11:38-44.
Paul resurrects Eutychus: Acts 20:7-12.
Peter resurrects Tabitha (Dorcas): Acts 9:36-42.

Since people apparently "much wiser than myself" have repeatedly told me here that if I don't believe in the literal resurrection of Christ then I cannot call myself a true Christian I suppose I'll have to come up with another name for what I believe in.

I don't personally have a problem with that as I don't belong to any specific organised Christian religion.

But I guess I do have a small problem with some of the narrow-minded attitudes towards religious/spiritual beliefs I've seen posted here.

mia