Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utastro.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!genrad!grkermi!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!padraig From: padraig@utastro.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Re: Re: Evidences for Religion Message-ID: <217@utastro.UUCP> Date: Sat, 8-Jun-85 22:10:42 EDT Article-I.D.: utastro.217 Posted: Sat Jun 8 22:10:42 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 11-Jun-85 03:37:25 EDT Distribution: net Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX Lines: 73 >> Me > Lowell Savage Regarding the soldiers at the tomb: >> I suppose bribery was consistent with their "very strictest" discipline >> and training. Gimme a break. >GimME a break. It's one thing to train a soldier to do what you tell him >to without question (stand guard without falling asleep), and it's another >thing to make him be "moral" (not accept bribes).... This is just begging the question. If the soldiers could be bribed after the death, as is claimed, then they could have been bribed at an earlier time, and told what to say. I was not implying that their morality was as strict as their discipline, whereas Dan was. On the subject of whether Jesus was dead when removed from the cross the following "evidence" is referred to: >1) Somebody rammed a spear into his side. ... > >2) The Romans weren't stupid. They knew when someone was dead. It is still >POSSIBLE that Jesus was alive when he was taken down, but extremely unlikely. >Even then,(I know that this is just an extension of the quoted argument, but it >is an extension that you didn't answer) given the fact that Jesus looked bad >enough to the guards to allow his followers to take him away, it is extremely >unlikely that he could have recovered. > >3) His body was embalmed. ... I don't know why you make the second point. I think that it is plausible that he never died. The dying later bit is conjecture. Basically we are faced with either accepting a miraculous event, or the possibility that the story got exaggerated. How great an exaggeration is the above compared with the claims (widely accepted at the time) that the russian army passed through Britain one night, during the last world war, while on the way to the front? How unreasonable is it to postulate that ardent admirers added a few extra details to help convince people of Jesus' divine nature? The motivation certainly existed to introduce some god-like attributes. You attempt to rationalize us into accepting the irrational, while rejecting a rational explanation that undermines a cherished belief. [about Paul being converted:] >> Maybe he guilt tripped? It has been known to happen. >> >Guilt tripped about something that he believed was right? How many religious >fanatics (which is what Paul was) "guilt trip"???? Who said that he guilt tripped "about something he believed was right"? To feel guilty is to feel that one is to blame for something. If we are not guilty, or to blame for something, then why do we hear so much about the need for us to be forgiven, and be "saved"? One can't be forgiven if there is nothing to forgive. On this basis, it follows that guilt, and Christianity go hand in hand. I think that it was St. Agustine who wrote about how he repented for years on having stole some fruit from a tree when he was a child. It was his works that influenced Catholic teaching, and still do, to this date. >>So what? What has any of this got to do with the validity of the resurrection? >> The drug culture here thrives in spite of persecution. >> >With a very physically and psychologically addictive substance at the heart >of the issue. Christianity might be "addictive", but then, perhaps that is >just more evidence that there is some substance to it. > > Lowell Savage Agreed, at least to the extent that the Moonies and the Hare Krishna cults have substance because they are addictive. Padraig Houlahan.