Pax Christi, everyone!
I just saw this interesting video where Atheist YouTuber Paulogia takes on 3 Christians (IP included; I was kinda shocked he didn’t respond to him earlier) about the empty tomb. It’s feature length, but I think it will be worth our time; Paul’s very professional and funny, and he makes some interesting points.
What do you guys think?
Who are the 3 stooges?
Is there a transcript? What claims do they make? Especially about the Empty Tomb? That it couldn’t be a myth and/or conspiracy in goodwill? Why not?
I’m not too familiar with the Red Pen guy, but I do know Mike Winger (he’s more, let’s say, conservative) and Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy (Evolutionary Creation advocate known for his scrutiny). I don’t think anyone featured in the video, Paul included, is an expert in the field of New Testament study, but they do cite professionals.
I’d rather waste another hour on Age of Empires.
Hey that sounds like a good night.
My spin on Paulogia:
hi Klax, let me ask you, do you believe in the Resurrection?
I want to Alexey, as the culmination and ultimate proof of incarnation and therefore God. You?
Yes, I believe. thanks for the answer
You’re welcome Alexey. According to faith and all that.
I really appreciate the questions that Paul Ens asks, and for most of his videos, brings on great science communicators who can speak to the topics that he addresses. He asks the questions out loud that people are actually questioning, and with his apologetics videos, he he addresses the questions out loud that apologists and other teachers are (knowingly or unknowingly) trying to speak over.
He is quite gracious to believers who accept science, although he seems to make clear that he’d rather people let go of religion.
Is there a particular question you have about the video? I haven’t listened watched this particular one yet, so I apologize if that was the whole point 
I have a question.
Is there a question that no atheist has ever asked before?
If so, what is it?
If not, has anyone compiled a complete list of questions that atheists have asked?
You might want to be more specific about your questions. Atheists ask a lot of questions, including, “Do you have any ketchup for my fries?”
Maybe something along the lines of:
What are the major questions posed by atheists that might be a challenge to Christianity?
That works for me, but …
How’s this: “What questions should I, if I were a atheist, ask theists in order to show that only an idiot or a woefully uninformed person would be a theist?”
As a general rule, IMO, atheists ask the same questions … again, and again, and again.
Maybe it depends on what faith is built upon. When apologetics are used as proof, then any question could potentially challenge faith. Though maybe not of the “may I have the ketchup” sort. However, when people make declarations of God’s goodness because of one thing He’s done for them (and I’m not saying He hasn’t), I sometimes think, “What about those who have no food to even put ketchup on because of war and famine?” (Sorry if the ketchup thing is going too far.) What is proof to us may not be proof for anyone else.
In the recent podcast featuring Sy Garte, he addresses this very well. (Paulogia has also had Sy Garte on his YouTube channel) I agree with what Mr. Garte says: faith is the work of the Holy Spirit. As Paul Ens says at the 11 minute range of this video, he clearly states that the claim made is “plausible.” When we want proof, apologetics can allow us to fill in the lacks of evidence with what we want the evidence to say. Or we can be challenged by the questions. However, this brings us back to what is actually in Scripture, and where I think Mr. Garte hits the nail on the head, is that faith is Grace from God, an act of the Holy Spirit. What he and Paul Ens both point out is what evidence actually can reveal, and what is reasonable to believe. The power of apologetics is that there are reasons to believe, and what Scripture shows is that faith is preeminently the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.
Pax Christi, Paige!
Here’s the gist of what Paul argues for and against:
Paul holds that, while The Burial was plausible, he is convinced that it wasn’t likely.
Paul mentions that we don’t know where the tomb of Christ is, leading him to believe that he, like most other victims of crucifixion, was either left to rot or cast into an unmarked grave.
He also states that Joseph of Arimathea was a literary invention crafted to substantiate The Bodily Resurrection that developed 30 years later.
Paul is unconvinced that it was The Sanhedrin’s job to take down the bodies after executions, because Joseph had to argue with his higher-ups in order to remove Jesus.
Related to the point above, Paul finds it highly unlikely that the Romans would care about Jewish sensibilities and would neither be strong-armed nor indulgent. For example, Dr. Ehrman recalls when Pilate disguised soldiers as common folk in order to infiltrate an indignant crowd and beat the congregation into submission.
Paul mentions that Josephus never specified that the Jews he got taken down from their crucifixes were hung there by Romans, implying that fellow Jews could make exceptions for such high-ranking kin, and in this instance, he was writing about an event some 30-40 years after The Crucifixion.
That’s what stood out to me, but I would go and watch the video if you get the chance, because knowing me, I must have missed something!
A good book that refutes the conspiracy theory is Born Again by Charles Colson of Watergate infamy and a key player in the scandal. He says that if our Lord’s resurrection was a conspiracy to fool the masses, Christianity wouldn’t have happened. The few Watergate conspirators who were among the most powerful men in Washington couldn’t even hold that tiny conspiracy together, let alone if a large number had been involved in trying to perpetuate the plot.
I really need to read that book. What you’ve just stated here is both (a) an important argument for the Resurrection and (b) an important argument against anti-vaxxers, covid deniers, and other conspiracy theorists.
I’m afraid for a committed conspiracist it would not matter, sadly. For someone more on the fence and willing to listen, it could be persuasive. Someone who used to be a dear friend totally went off the rails as a 9/11 truther, hoaxist, you name it. There is no talking to her with reasonable arguments and epistemology.
I know exactly what you mean. I have good friends myself who have gone down that route.
Having said that it is worth calling attention to these things, especially in public or semi-public forums such as Facebook, because you will be addressing people who are willing to listen. I’ve found that for every friend who complains that I keep going on and on about the same thing, there are several others who tell me that I need to keep doing so because they find it valuable.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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