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

"this would increase, not decrease the cognitive dissonance they were experiencing"



It would not.

The competing cognitions are:

1. He's the Son of Bod.
2. He's dead.

The delusion of resurrection acts to minimise cognition (2) and hence minimise dissonance.

I should not be surprised you are unable to understand the mechanism, since within the last hour or so you've proven ignorant even of the basic *definition*.

Do please make the effort to understand what's being suggested before you attempt to rebut.

One clear reason is demonstrated, however, for people selecting fairy stories over facts. Facts are *difficult*. They require intelligence, thought, comprehension, imagination. Fairy stories require only childlike obedience. Why am I even asking the question?

SoRB

<
Which is based on...the piece of paper.
< All Christian traditions practise it, and it's origin stems from that night before the crucifixion, and it is tied in with the resurrection.>
Which is written on the one piece of paper>>

No, Christianity and the practice of breaking bread in the last supper spread far and wide before the NT was written, so it's got nothing to do with anything written on paper.



You keep saying the last supper is based on the NT.

It isn't.

It's independent of the NT because Christians were doing it long before any of the NT was written.

For Bod's sake...

Hands up anyone who thinks the last supper has ANY RELEVANCE AT ALL? WHY??



Note the contrast between my characterisation of competing cognitions, and WG's:

WG:
1. Son of Bod.
2. Was killed.

Me:
1. Son of Bod.
2. Is dead.

Now, children, can anyone spot the vital difference there?
(Clue: it's the difference between an EVENT and an ongoing STATE).

SoRB

Hi WG,

I see the point you're trying to make - that the ritual of breaking bread is tied in with Jesus' foreknowledge of his impending death.

However, we only know that Christians were doing this long after Jesus was dead. Yes, it's described in the gospels, but we don't really know when they were written either.

So we have a ritual that we don't know when it started, used to back up some documents, that we don't know when they were written. How is this helping you?

Gif

No, but Tim Henman did.

Oh please, there's absolutely no evidence that the individual known as 'Tim Henman' ever existed.

Are you aware that his followers claim that he will win Wimbledon 'next year' and that they have now been claiming this for the last 2000 years?

Gif

OK, but some believe that he goes a step beyond JC by being crucified on the same hill every year. Ascension has never been his strong suit though.

Jesus had a better forehand lob. There is evidence in the NT to suggest his serve-and-volley game was lacking though.

Gif

Incidentally, this thread is now showing in my Personal Space as "-1 new posts".

Should I worry?

Gif

There's a lot of tennis in the bible.

For a start, Joseph served in Pharoah's court.

<>

Yes, it is tied in with Jesus' foreknowledge of his impending death.

By 64 AD Nero was ordering the persecution of Christians and the practice of the last supper was used as a main means of stirring people up against Christians. This shows it dates back to at least the start of the Nero persecutions, and necessarily before that too.

It was seen by the Romans as an integral part of the Christian religion.

For the record, Muhammad's tomb is located in Medina, Saudi Arabia, housing Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

It is housed in the mosque of Al-Masjid al-Nabawi. Outside of the Mosque a plaque reads "Inside here is bones and nothing more".

About Jesus' body, supposing the disciples stole the corpse, how do you imagine thet'd have disposed of the remains of their beloved leader? Chucked it down a well? Then, their cognitive dissonance really reduced by this act ( according to Sorb) they'd have gone out proclaiming him to be risen!

"About Jesus' body, supposing the disciples stole the corpse, how do you imagine thet'd have disposed of the remains of their beloved leader? Chucked it down a well?"

Sarcasm is unnecessary. They (or he - it could be just one) could quite easily bury him, reverentially, then pray over the grave, fasting maybe, rejecting food and drink in grief, perhaps for three days or so. Long enough to start hallucinating something they desperately wanted to see.

Then lo! He is risen. Makes perfect sense. And when they experience this vision, they tell people - people also desperate to believe.

To wilfully, even sarcastically, refuse to see the plausibility, even predictability of this scenario you really do have stick your fingers right in your eyes and your thumbs in your ears and sing really loudly.

SoRB

<< They (or he - it could be just one) could quite easily bury him, reverentially, then pray over the grave>>

Yes, and this would then become a cognition, the fact that they had buried him and prayed over the grave. It would be a cognition dissonant with the belief that Jesus had risen.
And it's not the sort of information they could have denied to themselves ("We haven't really just buried our master, no.")

This was why the specific definition of resurrection was required.

You yourself made the point that resurrection only is what it is if you're sure he's dead first. So burial and prayer over a grave is NOT dissonant - it's REQUIRED.

Also, while you personally may choose to believe it to have been literal reanimation of the actual corpse, this is not the only possible interpretation.

It is a perfectly consistent cognition that you could take the son of a deity, kill him, bury him, then see him again, in the flesh, despite having buried him. He's supposed to be GOD, right? The beauty of this as a delusion is that there's almost nothing dissonant with it - only permanent bodily death.

They had no need to pretend to themselves that they hadn't buried him. It's all consistent.

Persist in trying to pretend it's not - the only one you're fooling is yourself.

SoRB

I remeber John Romer mentioning in one of his programmes that one of his archaeological colleagues found a grave in a dig in a Jerusalem cemetery belonging to Jesus. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

<>

Yes, being dead is required before you can have resurrection. But stealing the body and burying it in another place would not help you convince yourself he was risen. It would further confirm he was still dead.

Runs at brick wall to bang head against it.

Are we sure 'Steve The Programmer' isn't back with a slight upgrade?

"Yes, being dead is required before you can have resurrection. But stealing the body and burying it in another place would not help you convince yourself he was risen. It would further confirm he was still dead."

And this is a problem because...?

Are you, as I suspect, being deliberately obtuse?

Confirmation of death prior to resurrection is, as YOU pointed out, *required*. Further confirmation HELPS.

Then, later, in a delusional or perhaps even hallucinatory state, they "see" him alive again. The certain knowledge he was dead *confirms and strengthens* the delusion that he is a god. It is all perfectly consistent.

Are you still saying you don't understand this?

SoRB

<>

RDD thinks he's funny. And shows he can't grasp the point I'm making.

If you want to explain the resurrection claims of the early Christians using cognitive dissonance, you can do so, but not by saying the disciples themselves hid the body. Someone else would have had to have taken it.