A comment often brought up. There are a few problems that I have with this. First we have massive numbers of reports of UFOs, including a mass reporting in Arizona a few years ago, but lets just look at the bible.


LUKE

24:15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
24:16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

So originially a few of the disciples didn't recognize him.

MATTHEW

28:16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
28:17 And when they saw him,they worshipped him: but some doubted.


ACTS

10:41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as(B) witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.


So we have here, that Jesus can not be seen/recognized by all people?


So do we have a mass sighting of a resurrected Jesus? I don't think so.

We also have the story of Doubting Thomas, I don't know the verse, but I am sure the christians are aware of the story, if not the verse.

A lot of people reported it? I was under the impression the only reports of his resurrection came from the Gospels.

even if a thousand people saw him, and a vast majority of them wrote it down...this still wouldnt be very compelling evidence. thats the sick thing.

the bar of evidence is so ridiculously low, that even if raised...would still be woefully inadequate.

your UFO comparison is perfectly apt. thousands upon thousands of people around the world report seeing UFOs. thousands of people think they have seen the Loch Ness Monster. eye witness testimony sucks balls people.

What about the thousands who saw Muhammad fly to heaven on a winged horse?

http://books.google.com/books?id=PCG...tes%3A&f=false

I think the bigger question to focus on with the writings and documents available to us about the whole story, is why did everybody insist on dying for it vs just reporting it? I'm interested in hearing all views on this. If this is just too lol don't flame too hard plz

Plagarism is essentially theft. You just stated Pg 292 and 293 of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist without giving credit where credit is due.

http://books.google.com/books?id=PCG...rites:&f=false

so discuss. I doubt either authors care. Good catch btw

Do you have evidence that he was given a chance to deny christ before execution?

and also, that's just a flat out horrible line of reasoning. people can convince themselves all sorts of things are true and believe them til the day they die.

and 39 members of the Heavens Gate cult died for their beliefs. people die for falsities all the time.

::

cracked? this assumes they were lying. i dont think they were lying, only mistaken. that they would die for their cause shows how much they believed it was true, not that that belief is actually true.

"Unidentified Flying Object." You think they were all identified? I don't get what this is supposed to mean. They didn't see anything? They all lied? What?

And you think this proves.....?
And this means what to you? You never saw American Beauty?

Was not. But then, Jesus while in His human body was not seen by everyone, was He?

You just by-passing His encounter with Magdalene at the tomb or did your atheist website not list that passage?

But you aren't. Or you'd know that Thomas came to total belief. You'd also know that Thomas doubted while being able to see Jesus quite clearly right in front of him.




never underestimate the power of denial

First of all they didn't recognize him NOT because they did not know what he looked like, but because he did not reveal his true self to them until a short while later. His spiritual body has the ability to let him appear as a person and to disguise himself if needed.

Yes, we do have a mass sighting of over 500 brethren according to the word.

Just because someone does not believe, does not mean it is not truth.

Many people saw him and the miracles he did and did not beleieve.

Much like all of you on this forum can see the universe and all of nature and its beauty and intricacies but yet still think it happended randomly and by chance.

So its possile to see and not believe.

Thats why God says that some will and some wont believe. I think He knows what He is talking about. You are a prime example and are living proof that Gods word is the truth.

You and many on here are fulfilling exactly what God said would happen and will happen all the time.

This is nothing more than the famous 'would you die for a lie' argument, which is a pretty bad one as far as apologetics go. For one, this argument is not evidence that Jesus was who he said he was. This is evidence that these people believed that Jesus was who he said he was. So even if we accept that all of this happened it still leaves us no closer to discovering anything about the truth of the actual claim of whether or not what they believed was real itself. That said, there are a number of reasons that this argument fails. The apostles may have been convinced that Jesus was who he said he was but were mistaken. In addition, they may even not have believed these stories but were convinced by other means. In fact, for all we know, the claim that the apostles never tried to recant their stories may also be false. Perhaps they did die for what the believed but their stories were later exaggerated, or they may have been killed and their stories later changed to have them appear as martyrs - perhaps the miracles they supposedly saw did not actually happen and were not what they died for, but were later added. And, of course, it is entirely possible that either the apostles were never actually killed or never actually existed. Regardless, the claim that 'the apostles died for what they believed serves as evidence that Jesus was who he said he was' is false; it is evidence that they believed he was who he said he was.

Some go to great lengths to believe what they want to be true, others go to great lengths to make sure what they believe is true.

It's often not possible to do both.

You're leaving out a few things that are different from UFO's, etc. Christianity grew based in large part on the claim that Jesus was resurrected. This occurred at a time when that claim could be easily refuted. Even stronger is the fact that there were two very powerful parties in interest who could have refuted the claim - the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities. Instead of producing the body of Jesus, they claimed the disciples stole the body - which is an admission that the tomb was empty.

I just finished watching the talk by Craig on Ehrman. In that talk Craig quotes from Ehrman's scholarly work in which Ehrman admits that 1. Jesus existed. 2. He was executed. 3. He was buried in a tomb provided by Joseph 4. Three days later the tomb was empty. Ehrman is a former Christian who is now an apostate atheist - yet he still admits these central truths.

Also probably admits that even if all of these things are absolutely true that a resurrection is way down on the list of most likely explanations.

Let me count the ways -
1. .... uhm, ok, that didn't work..
2. ---, nope,
3. ___ , erhmm, ok, I see the snag there...
4. Have they found Jimmy Hoffa?

What are the sources for the idea that "so many" reported it? Is it just the gospels, or are there other independent sources?

Its the Gospels. This is what is spouted by the apologists alot though. They like to believe in silly things.

What I understand of the Gospels is this:
All the Gospels come from later times. I believe current thinking is that the genuine letters of Paul are the earliest and those were written twenty to thirty years after Jesus's death. Paul was not a follower of Jesus during his lifetime nor does he claim to have seen Jesus during his ministry.

There are no writings from the days of Jesus either by him or any contemporary.

It's unlikely that the Gospels were written as "history" in the way we understand it. They were more like "lives," embellished from the truth, some of the embellishments fanciful in order to fit the fame of the character in later times. They are the products of later reflection on his life in light of the importance that later believers placed on him.

Is this an accurate summary?

yes

This is fairly accurate. It is also important to note that while many would like to claim the gospels were written by the disciples of their given names, we do not know who wrote the gospels. The gospels are written almost entirely in third person and the authors never identify themselves. The names of the gospels were applied to them 100+ years after they were written. The various writing styles in John also indicate that it was quite possibly written by multiple people.

So if my summary captures the essence of the Gospels, and the Gospels are the only source for the information that "so many reported" the resurrection, it is entirely possible that "so many" didn't see any evidence of, or report, on the resurrection, but that the "so many" was part of the hagiographic nature of the Gospels.

Yes, though note that Paul also mentions the resurrection.