which atheists refuse to admit this? your point seems so mundane as to go without mentioning.

clearly if you find them reliable, then you have a strong case that something weird happened. though im not even sure a resurrection in any way justifies a belief that the person is the son of the creator of the universe.

Yuri Geller

This seems to be a common problem for David these days.

There is an advantage to stating the obvious.

Such as:

The Bible is man-made™

Like this. The Sayings of Chairman Mao


If a Chinese citizen was caught without the book, he was usually beaten by the Red Guardists.

Your basically saying if the bible is true it is true.

"why would it be unreasonable for me to trust the Apostles (given the verification of historical reliability of the writings) when they make the claim that they saw Jesus die on the cross and rose from the dead on that third day?"

Because all other claims of miracles that have been subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation have proven to be false. And because the types of gods people have had reflected their environment and their worldview, making it very likely that the gods were devised by the people rather than the other way around.

Did the Apostles have any ulterior motives for wanting others to believe in the resurrection?

First of all, I think 5 year olds understand this.

Secondly, what you mean is that the probability of the miracles in Jesus' story having happened is highly related to the whether someone like Uri Geller's claims are ever true, not probability of the Jesus' story being true.

This is because the Jesus story has implications regarding other miracles and false prophets.

at the risk of stepping on some toes, a lot of people on both sides of the rgt divide are completely missing the point.

Historical accuracy of gospel texts have NO bearing on the resurrection. none. you will never know for sure how accurate the texts are; never: and you will never know for sure whether christ was resurrected; never.

Theories regarding jesus being taken off the cross before he had fully died and the like are complete air.

The resurrection of christ is a mystery with deep spiritual implications which you either accept or reject. there is nothing else to it. If you choose to accept it without attempting to appreciate just what it is you are accepting then are you truly accepting it? Likewise if you choose to reject it.

the resurrection is a mystery behind which lays the key to understanding one of the most significant spiritual laws, and is by no means unique to christianity. if you have no conception of this, you have no valid input into this conversation.

sorry for being an a**hole, but that's the truth.

historical accuracy of gospel texts and random theories on how jesus may actually have been still alive are completely missing the point, and if these are your angles, just chalk yourself up as a non-believer and leave it at that.

all believers with an IQ in triple digits have a responsibility to try and understand. non-believers do not share that burden.

also, wtf with uri geller? clearly a conjuror, clearly full of bull. people seem to conveniently forget that quite aside from the debate as to whether he was divine or not, or whether he even existed, the recorded wisdom of jesus christ is some of the most heavyweight truth relating to the human condition across all spiritual doctrines. a lot of ppl value his teachings for this reason and this reason alone, and do not actually hold any supernatural beliefs.

buddha was so wise to reject his divinity, by so doing he removed that debate forever from his teachings so that people could just focus on the important stuff and not get distracted with pointless circular philosophising.

it all comes down to faith, christ himself even said as much. you either accept that or you reject it. nothing else to it. people trying to justify their stance with any other angle are wasting their time and betraying their lack of wisdom.

i believe christ was resurrected because I believe christ was resurrected.

100% agree. more theists need to man up and admit they dont have good reason to believe what they believe. they just believe it.

amen. now follow suit jib.

dying actors just agreed with a "theist" post, does that net me some sort of rgt award? seriously?

fwiw though i never said i didn't have any good reasons for believing, only that most people look in the wrong places for those reasons.

Does not "faith" lead to charlatinism? Faith is belief not based on proof. It is the stock-in-trade of the snake-oil salesman and the faith healer. The power of Christianity does not stem from Jesus's wisdom, but rather from the idea that he was the son of God sent by his father to suffer for our sins and that he died and was resurrected.

Uri Geller is important to the discussion. He is an exemplar of claims of miraculous powers that have proven to be, as you say, bull. All other claims of supernatural powers have also proven to be bull. That makes the odds that the resurrection is also bull exceedingly high.

If I wanted to sell you a fanciful story, I'd say that you have to take it on faith, it can't be proven or disproven.

im actually one of the most agreeable RGT atheists.

I'm with Baron D'Holbach on this one. Basically, I don't understand who created Yahweh or why Yahweh created this "Yahweh's themepark" called Earth.

But you see, this man named Jesus did miracles!

... I don't understand how he did it.

answering confusion with more confusion = not an answer imo. If I see something which is inexplicable a miracle is the last explanation on the list. No, its not even on the list because that's not an explanation -- its a cop out.

my post was only half the story. the half relating to this thread. the other half, which would better address your post, would probably fill an entire book.

to answer as succinctly as possible: a person who develops spiritually relies on an internal process akin to intuition to untangle truth from the world around them, books, people talking, experiences etc. charlatans selling snake-oils or bending spoons set off the bull-o-meter and get treated as such. true spirituality is not concerned with such things. in fact, i would go so far as to say that a genuinely spiritual person is more impervious to bull than the norm.

a deep understanding of your own human condition and your place in the world must be reached through introspection, meditation, analysis, reflection etc. before a person can even begin to tackle matters of the spirit which runs even deeper than all. wisdom relating to the deep motivating energies of the human psyche is the single most important asset a spiritual person has, being able to see things the way they truly are, not just the surface levels of meaning a lot of people only ever deal with; fanciful beliefs and the like can only come afterwards, and then only for a reason.

i don't see things the way you do, so you will always file me away under the airy-fairy section. true spirituality however couldn't be further from the damning perception a lot of atheists have of it.

There are plenty of atheists here who will not admit that if Uri Geller is legit it substantially increases the chances that Christ was resurrected.

I just visited a website where they are selling trips to stay in one of the Medjugorje visionaries' home for $2,599 a person. The tour operator claims to have sent 250,000 people to Medjugorje.

I've met many wonderfully spiritual people in my life who were introspective, meditative, analytical, reflective and wise. None of them ever considered charging me $2,599 to stay in their home.

then andyfox, the tree shall be judged by the fruit it produces.

david sklansky, uri geller being genuine is not an issue or a possibility, therefore neither is anything stemming from that line. he is certified conjuror, this is taken for granted in conjuring circles. i take it you know that already right?

if uri geller is legit, i would have to admit that i understand so little about the universe and reality that i have no useful opinions on anything.

why dont theists understand the word "if" ? this comes up so often on RGT its dumbfounding. he said...

doesnt matter at all that we know he's a charlatan. its called a hypothetical.

And what if he's not?

get off your soapbox. my point was this: there is no "if". therefore that line ceases being hypothetical and drifts into the realm of pure pointless bullsh*t.

if you're happy with that then carry on as you were. i prefer my conversations to be founded on something with at least a remote chance of being worth discussing.

Uri Geller the person is irrelevant, what matters is, that if it can be demonstrated that a supernatural realm exists, this will obviously make supernatural claims far more believable.
As things stand right now, not only has no supernatural claim ever been established as true, it is far from obvious that the supernatural is even a meaningful possibility.

Is this a joke? Qur'an is vastly more "historical" than the New Testament. There is really no comparison. Anyone claiming otherwise is either religiously delusional or historically ignorant.
Cheers

It was a challenge to Jibninjas, whose reply insinuated that there should be greater reason to believe in the historical reliability of the NT than the Quran. Those who disagreed knew nothing of history was the wording I think.