Because it’s possible to cross the Read Sea on foot (or on a horse), resurrections are possible.
Did I get it right?
Oh, yes Jesus’s resurrection is important. Without it, we are the most hopeless of the hopeless.
Resurrections are possible because God the Father willed it. The crossing of the Red Sea has nothing to do with it. It was a miracle for Moses and the Hebrew people; however, the resurrection of our Lord gives us a chance to have everlasting life. God can raise the dead to live in the New Earth and the New Jerusalem (Isaiah 26:19). I hope you will read Daniel 12:2. God bless you and give you peace of spirit. May he show you the way and remove all doubts you have.
Worth noting, though it may be irrelevant for you: Not all YECs accept this definition. AiG thinks micro-evolution can result in species that cannot interbreed: Dodging Darwin: How Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter is Slowly Embracing Evolution – Naturalis Historia.
Dear brother,
You are mistaken. (I say this in a kindly manner, not intending to be abrasive.) Speculation of large periods of time is not even one of the many rationales for “macro-evolution.”
There are at least three different types of evidence I can think of that can lead you to macroevolution.
(Note: I’m not a biologist, but our usual science hawks aren’t chiming in here, so I’ll take a stab at this. Others can fix my bumbling.)
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Genetics. This is the most recent line of inquiry to come to light that leads us to accept macroevolution, and it reinforces the others brilliantly. When you compare genomes, you see that species that are more closely related in the evolutionary tree of life have DNA sequences that are more similar, and species that are less closely related have less similar DNA sequences. Crucially, this is true not only of functional DNA but also of non-functional DNA. Now, this is where my techical grasp is weakest, but I understand this includes pseudogenes (imperfect, nonfunctional copies of functional genes), DNA inserted by viruses into the host genome and carried down through the generations, and many other categories.
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Morphology; intermediate forms whose age is independently verified by radiometric dating and stratigraphic data. Oddly, YEC folks are fond of saying there are no transitional forms, but there are so many that it’s hard even to know where to begin talking about them. You could start here: http://www.transitionalfossils.com/. What’s amazing is that each of these has been independently dated by either or both of radiometric and stratigraphic methods, and they fall into a neat pattern, such that you never find rabbits in the Cambrian, or birds showing up before dinosaurs. And for every bit of “fake” data cited by YEC folks, there are orders of magnitude more that are not fake, and that fit the pattern.
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Biogeography. Not only do fossils fall out in a neat distribution in terms of time, but they also fit a remarkable pattern in terms of where on earth they’re found, and this correlates to what we know from tectonic plate theory. The most striking example here is marsupials in Australia. So, apart from opossums and their close relatives, all marsupials live in Australia and surrounding islands (an area called Wallacea, named after the guy who co-discovered evolution). This is because — as further supported by genetic, morphological, radiometric and stratigraphic evidence! — early opossum-like marsupials made their way along the edge of South America to Antarctica and then on to Australia back when these continents were connected. Then Australia broke off into the Indian Ocean by itself, and no placental mammals (other than bats and some mice) came in to outcompete the marsupials for many millions of years. This is what allowed marsupials meanwhile to change radically in body shape to fill every imaginable ecological niche. Think about how different kangaroos (browsers), tasmanian tigers (carnivores), marsupial moles (burrowers), numbats (insectivores), koalas (arboreal herbivores), wombats, and tasmanian devils are. All of these have premature young and no placentas, and all live in Australia. Why is that?
(graphic courtesy of Wikipedia)
Such hoaxes are remarkably rare, and they do not detract from tens of thousands of non-hoaxes. Take away those very few hoaxes (I won’t try to argue with you whether they exist or not, though I have my doubts… it’s irrelevant in the end, after all): What do you do with the fact that all the other data supports the standard evolutionary timeline?
The standard timeline hasn’t changed in 150 years. There are adjustments here and there, but nothing that has upended the main consensus timeline of the tree of life’s development. Every such adjustment only makes the general picture stronger, sort of like if you had a blurry, low-resolution photo and you added pixels until you got a high-resolution image. In such a clarifying process, there might be surprising moments when you see things you couldn’t make out before and couldn’t expect, but it’s not going to turn a photo of the arctic tundra into a snapshot of urban New York graffiti.
Does it make a bit more sense now why some of your brothers in Christ believe in larger-scale evolution?
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If that is what you are implying, you are ignoring everything I’ve posted so far in terms of historical evidence, and you are being deliberately obtuse and ingenuous, and I am of a half a mind to report you to the moderators.
Grow up!
I have read that wiki page and this is what the requirements were:
Festinger stated that five conditions must be present if someone is to become a more fervent believer after a failure or disconfirmation:
A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he or she behaves.
The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual’s commitment to the belief.
The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.
Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.
The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence that has been specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, the belief may be maintained and the believers may attempt to proselytize or persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.
Lets talk about the disciples. They were believers in Christ. But when he died they just started packing. So claim 1 of the requiremens is ok.
for nr2 yes they did put alot of things at stake for Jesus. They were all difficult to undo, And yet they were still leaving.
Nr3 says that the claim, in this case the resurrection has to be in the real world. So that evidence can refute it.
Now nr4 is where the problem is: The evidence that disproves the claim, in this case the miracle of the resurrection must be known to the believers. The disciples came back when Jesus rose. If this didn’t happen they would have given up. Even now the resurrection is not refuted. So that book doesn’t really help you in this case.
Nr5 The disciples didn’t really have much social support because they all started packing up. Untill Jesus rose again.
I don’t really get what your point is here. That it is impossible? We know that, Hence it being a miracle of God.
The Red Sea and the resurrection of the dead are miracles; however, they are not related issues. Moses crossing the Red Sea did not give the Hebrews salvation and everlasting life. The resurrection will do this. Jesus is our path to life on the New Earth.
Moon landing is a hoax (not to me, but to some people it is, even now) and the earth is flat (according to some people), even now! Even now people believe in all sorts of crazy theories. You can’t refute these obviously false ideas, because the people are sufficiently invested in the idea, for whatever reason.
Christians seem to think that NOBODY believed in the Resurrections before Jesus rose from the dead. And yet, those resurrections could not have happened, otherwise, Jesus stops being the unique son of God. So you are forced to play a game, where you agree with atheists when it comes to the Resurrection claims of others, but make a special exception for Jesus, because your faith demands it.
I prefer not to play games and to stay consistent. If Jesus rose from the dead, then everyone else who claimed to have risen, has been raised also. If others did not rise, then Jesus didn’t either.
Patently untrue.
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This is not the same as the resurrection. But they can be refuted. And they have been.
Can you tell me what other resurrections they are? And if they have the same amounts of historical evidence?
1 Kings 17:17-24
2 Kings 4:18-37
2 Kings 13:20-21
Oh. I thought you guys were talking about non-Christian resurrections.
I don’t really have a problem with these because the reason Jesus’ resurrection is a great/important event is because Jesus died to pay for our sins. If this didn’t happen we are still in our sins. And our faith is futile.
John the Baptist was believed to be raised from the dead. Christians recorded this, but with a correction. People of that time mistakenly thought Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead.
Luke 9:18 And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” 19 They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.”
Here are some other Resurrections for you
I don’t see a problem.
So you have the near east religions wich include osiris and the ilk.
You have the ancient greeks wich include zeus and the ilk.
You have Christianity wich posits Jesus a true historical person and presents God who hasn’t been proven or disproven.
You have Islam who believe in a resurrection of the dead. But never have claimed a person to be resurrected.
You have the ones @fmiddel Quoted above.
You have Buddhism where resurrection was demonstrated. I know absolutely nothing about this.
And you have hinduism of wich they speak of rama a hindu god, You have shiva and the ilk.
Then after that comes zombies and whatever.
None of them really compare to the Christian claim. I find you argument really weak.
What is the purpose your writings? Are you looking for faith, or are you trying to create more atheists? It seems you are not trying to find out why others believe; on the contrary, it seems you would like to create others of your kind. I am not trying to belittle you. I simply would like to know what you are attempting to do. I pray that the Holy Spirit will come upon you and let you see the truth.
I do also wish to know what the goal is here. I’ve only seen 1 point being made: That the resurrection is impossible according to natural laws. Wich is not news to us.
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I am interested in knowing. He may be here to find some kind of truth, or he simply wants to lead people to a circular non-ending argument. If the latter is the case, then you and others are wasting your time. Think about it. There are those who would like to create a circular argument, a debate that never ends.
The point is, resurrection is still a belief. There is nothing historical about a claim of a dead person coming to life. You may wish it to be a guaranteed or at least rock solid event, but it wasn’t. Even the OP, who, unlike me, wishes to remain a believer, cannot believe it happened.
THEIR ilk? You do realize that ALL of the Christian literature is written in Greek, right?