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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: ... talk to God ... (Really apologetics)
Message-ID: <425@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Mar-85 13:14:05 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.425
Posted: Sun Mar 24 13:14:05 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Mar-85 10:37:13 EST
References: <123@gymble.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Distribution: na
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 108
Summary: 

In article <123@gymble.UUCP> bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet) writes:
> By way of reminder, we were discussing the validity of 5 arguments for
> Christianity which came from Scott Deerwester (scott@gargoyle) as follows:
> 
>  	- the resurrection (see "Who Moved The Stone?")
>  	- fulfilled prophesies in the life of Jesus
>  	- the testimony and lives of people who were with Him
>  	- His words and wisdom (C.S. Lewis' "Lord, lunatic or liar" argument)
>  	- the Earth (the creation implies creator argument)
> 
> These first 4 arguments do not require the truth of any biblical accounts
> of miraculous events:
> 
>   The argument based on the resurrection is basically this:

The resurrection claim is either a miracle or a lie.  Unless you want to
choose another possibility.  Support one.

>     1. The rapid rise of Christianity was assisted by the early christians'
>        claims of Christ's resurrection.  (Book of Acts; claiming things is
>        not miraculous.)

The rapid rise of Hitler was boosted by early Nazis' claims of racial
superiority.  That's not miraculous, but why do you think that sort of
argument proves something?

>     2. There were people who would have preferred that Christianity not rise
>        so fast, the Jewish establishment for one.

The same could be said of Nazis.  So?

>     3. It would have been useful for such people to produce Jesus' body in 
>        order to throw some cold water on St. Peter & Co.

Evidently you're rather ignorant of conditions around 30 AD.  Forensics,
which would allow reliable identification, were undeveloped.  After a few
days, one corpse looks very much like another.  And since it is simple to
doctor a corpse to produce the wounds and other criteria for identification,
who would believe that a presented body was JC?  And in an era without
mass communications, you'd have to set up a travelling road show with the
corpse to go to all the places where the rumors were.  Assuming of course
that the body wasn't simply stolen, or the burial story wasn't just made
up (and the body thrown away in whatever manner the Romans disposed of
corpses of political opponents.)

>     4. This apparently did not happen.  (Josephus does not record it, though
>        he does record the resurrection as fact.  Josephus was not a Christian.
>        I'm not sure how strong our general knowlege of Christ's time is, but
>        both the Romans and the Jews generally were good keepers of records.)
>        So what became of it?

It did not happen because the Romans were not as ignorant of their time 
period as you are.

>     5. No one would have likely stolen the body since it was guarded by
>        Roman soldiers, who were not people to be messed with.

Hey, if I'm going to construct a story about a resurrection, I'm going to
make it as dramatic and satisfying as possible.  Sure, let's add some Roman
guards to the story.  People who will believe in angels rolling rocks and
JC coming back to life are surely not going to scoff at nasty Roman guards
wetting their pants in fright.  They'll eat it up....

>     6. The Romans themselves would have had no reason to hide to body.  If
>        they cared enough to take any action at all, it would have been in
>        opposition to the Christians.

They did oppose the Christians.  As I recall, they did nasty things to a fair
number of them.  That's much more practical than trying to produce a corpse
and claiming "see, this is JC and he's dead" to crowds of people who don't
believe your claims of your emporer's godhood in the first place.

>     7. It is unlikely that the early Christian fathers were deliberate liars
>        since they had a funny habit of being martyred for what they said.
>        That's a little far to take a joke...

Every religion has martyrs.  That doesn't make them all correct.  Gee, look
at all the Nazis who died for their beliefs.  They couldn't have been liars,
now could they?   :-(

>     8. So where's the body?

Rotted with the bodies of other billions, I suppose.

>   The fufilments of prophcy often refer to non-miraculous events in Christ's
>   life that were predicted in prophetic writing in the OT.  One example is
>   that Christ would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.  Selling someone
>   out for money is not a miracle.

Every religious leader in the world claims to be fulfilling prophecies.
If I'm telling stories about JC fulfilling prophecies, I might as well
embroider them to make him fulfill as many and as accurately as possible.
After all, how is anyone going to unconvince the thousands I'm telling
the stories to?  All I have to do is call them a liar.

>   Testimony of witnesses is pretty much what history is about.

That does not mean we should believe everything witnesses say.  Hey, other
religions have witnesses too.  Why do you believe only Christian witnesses?

>   The trilemma argument requires only information about Christs words.
>   Speaking is not miraculous.

The trilemma argument applies equally well to the words of Buddha,
Zoroaster, and a host of others.  Why dop you believe only in JC's?
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh