P.S. Read the Bible closely and tell me when you think someone '“raised from the dead”, was not having an NDE.
1 Like
But not since the Bible was finalised . It has not changed for near enough two millenia. which is the whole point. Most of the major scientific contentions come from the last few hundred years.
Richard
Modern science has only been around for a few hundred years, so that’s not surprising.
What does continually surprise me is how well scientists got it right in the past. For example, they had the basics of quantum mechanics figured out by the 1940’s. Einstein and relativity in the early 1900’s. It’s impressive that they figured out so much with so little technology on their side.
3 Likes
Much as Darwin got so much right without knowledge of genetics or even heredity, as Mendel’s work was not appreciated at that time, even though their lives overlapped.
3 Likes
The rediscovery of Mendel’s work led to the Modern Synthesis which is the quantitative basis for population genetics and evolution in general. The Modern Synthesis happened before anyone understood the properties of DNA, genes, and the rest, and yet they still got a lot of it right. Heck, Sturtevant was mapping the relative position of genes in the fruit fly genome in 1913, 40 years before Watson and Crick solved the structure of DNA.
Perhaps it’s the bias of the present. I can’t get by without the scientific tools we have now, so I assume the same of previous generations.
1 Like
I can’t explain the fundamental existing substance of the cosmos. And I don’t have to. That isn’t relevant to the question I asked you Sir. Science changes with new data. If scientists defend the Big Bang theory, they will also be quick to list the many uncertainties. Thus a theory, subject to change with new information.
But your religion can’t do that. It is lithic. Man dies, and after three days in a hot cave he becomes undead. This is the fundamental core of Christianity. No new information will change the resurrections story. Christians like to convert others. Shouldn’t you be able to provide evidence of the resurrection claim to me? Something other than words in a book rearranged many times over 2000 years.
T_aquaticus. I appreciate your fair mindedness. Philosophically and technically, I suppose the fact that we’ve never experienced a supernatural event does not cancel the possibility of one. Practically though, in the world of lawnmowers and geometry, it is folly to hope for or believe in or rely on magical, supernatural forces.
- Of course you can’t.
- Your confession that you can’t confirms that you couldn’t even if anything compelled you to try.
- Sez you. You asked me three questions;
- Has anyone been resurrected three days after death except your Christ?
- I answered: “Not that I know of.”
- Have any of the 20 billion humans that have been on earth returned to life after death?
- I answered: “They all have, but not in any manner that you, personally, can wrap your head around.”
- Can you explain Jesus’s resurrection technically and objectively without using unprovable, impossible religious claims?
- Instead of answering your silly question, I asked you to do something equally impossible using provable non-religious claims. And you admitted that you couldn’t. So you want me to do something that I admit I can’t … to your satisfaction, while you get to skip off into the fog you came out of without doing something I asked you to do? What fantasy world do you live in?
- My question is just as relevant as yours.
- At what point are you going to admit that you’re not here to shed any light on any Christian claim, but only to pee on mine with impunity? Go splash cold water on your face; I don’t care what you believe. You apparently object to what I believe, and I’m telling you, Kid, in the words of Bob Dylan:
- Go away from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I’m not the one you want, babe
I’m not the one you need.
- Go away from my window
- Has anyone been resurrected three days after death except your Christ?
- Oh gee, I think I’m gonna cry. Boo hoo hoo. I’m 75 years old, and not hoping to linger in this world a whole lot longer. Surprise! I can leave this world without changing your mind about anything, even your opinion of yourself, and not lose any sleep over nonsense.
- I don’t need it to change; it’s sufficient as it stands. I can wait; you’ll find out in the next world.
- Surprise, Evan. No, I shouldn’t. That’s your game; not mine. I’ve got nephews, nieces, and friends just as atheist as you are. I don’t try to change them and they know better than to try to change me. I delight in their company and they at least pretend to be pleased with me.
1 Like
How about Lazarus?
Irenaeus also mentions in his writings (Adversus Haeresis) that sick are healed and dead are returned to life in his church. He just shortly mentions it as a natural part of the life of church - God acting as He does among believers. It is a matter of trust and faith how we take the testimonies of the church fathers or other eyewitnesses during the 2000 year long history of the church.
Modern medical care has revived persons that have been clinically dead but as you wrote, it seems that a long period with no bloodflow will result in brain damage. In a recent case, a woman was revived after being dead for 10+ minutes and she recovered completely. That fits to what you wrote, maximum 10-20 minutes without brain damage.
One problem with people being healed miraculously or returned to life through prayer is that most cases happen in places with no medical care available. That means also there are no examinations of status before and after the miraculous event. That leaves the cases a matter of faith.
Once a person from a distant place told about the miraculous healings that had happened in his church. Someone dead also returned to life. When someone wondered why there seemed to be much more cases than in our country, the person lifted up a crucial difference. They had no medical care, no possibilities to get to a nurse, doctor or hospital. If someone was seriously sick or dying, there were only two options: death or a miracle of God.
I asked about the criteria because there seems to be subjective differences in what is considered death. For some, even a short moment dead seems to be enough for a ‘died and returned to life’. For others, the criteria are unrealistically tight: anyone returned to life could not have been dead because dead people do not return to life.
1 Like
omniscience is a difficult concept. if you are foretold that you will be pregnant before you get married whilst living under roman occupation, would your first thought be an act of magic - or a romantic liaison? If God knew before hand, why did he not intervene and prevent it? If he know that his son would die a horrible death on the cross, why did he not prevent it?
you may have noticed that this is indeed a problem with those that cant think straight.
Personally I prefer to cope with reality than indulging in romantic wishful thinking, or to accuse the holy spirit of “orchestrating” violence.
Why does God allow rape to happen - or any evil? We are talking about God after all, a person we think would mollycoddle us like Santa
some of us prefer to use textual interpretation to support their wishful thinking and are happy if they cant see the contradictions, others try to look at the information presented with the demand of logical coherence. Because of our dimensional constraints Jesus can never be all of God but only a subset of God as we can only ever see projections of him in our biological life. If you watch Carl Sagan’s demonstration of the 4th dimension you might get the idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0
What would make him more God if he turned flesh by an unnatural process that by a natural one? Is the decision to not kill yourself and / or the baby in such a situation natural or unnatural? Is the common response to kill the unborn received in rape natural or unnatural? Is it down to the chemical states of our brains generated by social media? What would prevent the word from becoming flesh by any particular manipulation of reality?
You are missing the point. If Jesus was just a man born from a human union (Rape or not) then our salvation comes from a man and not from God.
Technically Mary consented if the visitation account is correct.
It is no more (morally) uncomfortable than murder on the Cross.
For our salvation to be true God has to have sacrificed His own son, not some gullable Patsy.
or even a loyal servant.
Richard
1 Like
What about him? Read the text:
- John 11:4 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was. 7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again."
- Kind of cavalier, don’t you think?
- 11 This He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” 12 The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. 14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.”
===== - So you tell me: was Lazarus really, really dead, or was he having an NDE? If he was really, really dead and God revived him at Jesus’ request. seems to me Jesus was not, in fact the “first fruit of Resurrection” as Paul claimed.in 1 Cor. 15:20.
- I don’t, for a second, doubt that the unnamed people whom Iranaeus said were dead seemed dead. But can you confidently claim that they weren’t having an NDE just because stories of what they saw while having the NDEs weren’t recorded and included in Iraeneus’ writings.
- Consider: You believe that our God can restore life to a completely dead body, even after it has begun to rot. I believe that out God can preserve a body while its “owner” takes a temporary trip outside of his or her body, returning to the same body. The accumulating information collected by the UVA Department of Medicine encourages me to believe I’m closer to accuracy, than you are. But if you’re not convinced, you’re not convinced, and I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on this matter.
- My friend, @marta and I have gone through all of the “resurrections” in the Bible, and I think she will agree with me publicly, that Jesus’ resurrection differs from all of the others in the Bible, and leaves room for all except Jesus’ being NDEs. [The only exception that comes to mind is the claim that “dead people” came out of their tombs when Jesus died on the cross, and went into the city. IMO, either that is a big stretch of the imagination–one that I can’t accomplish–OR they were all NDEs who happened to recover and get out of their tombs. In any event, I don’t think zombies roamed the streets of Jerusalem on Good Friday.]
- And, here, I’m going to raise the banner once again: IMO, you see the difference in Jesus’ resurrection from all the others in the Bible, when you begin to accept the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud tells us that the post-crucifixion Jesus was not flesh-and-blood, as Paul said, in 1 Cor. 15, He was a living spiritual being. The flesh and blood pre-crucifixion really, really died on the cross, “to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 15:20). The post-crucifixion Jesus could and can walk through walls. A recovered NDE person can’t.
- Note: I have intentionally omitted any discussion of “miraculous healings” in this and my previous posts in this thread. IMO, healings are healings and NDEs and resurrection(s) are different, although I believe there are reports of healings occurring during or after an NDE. [Correct me if I’m wrong/]
- My point? That life after death is to be expected and to be hoped for; but not life back in the same “sarx” … flesh and blood body. God can correct me when I get to heaven. Till then, I’m not buying any tales of raising from the dead with a brand new flesh and blood body in this world.
1 Like
Did you really just say “romantic liaison” whilst we’re discussing the possibility of Mary being sexually violated???
Oh, and being visited by an Angel isn’t “magic” then? Or perhaps that was just hallucination by Mary and didn’t happen?
You are forgetting people back then had very different attitudes towards natural/supernatural (or “magic”, as you prefer to call it)
Let’s analyse the situation here:
- God wants a Son to be born as a human baby
- he chooses Mary to be His mother, rather than any random pregnant woman
- now that she’s been chosen, she needs to get pregnant
- by a “lucky coincidence” someone raped her
Your question “why did he not intervene” misses the point here. The point is He wanted Mary pregnant, yet you’re still insinuating that He didn’t will it to happen, He just knew it would happen. Yeah, funny how something that God wants to happen, just happens by accident (!!!)
The difference is that Jesus was a fully grown man who consented to this happening.
Note: for clarity, you cannot consent to being raped.
Reality? That’s just your version of events.
I’m not the one accusing Holy Spirit of anything, as I don’t believe anything like that happened.
You on the other hand can’t deal with logical consequences of your theory, wanting to believe that something that God wanted to achieve simply happened as a coincidence that neither God nor Holy Spirit had anything to do with. How about we ask around if anybody thinks that is reasonable?
We are not discussing evil in general here, we’re discussing very specific case.
Speak for yourself, I don’t think that at all, neither in this world or the next
2 Likes
- Egads! Not another person who objects to consequences!??
1 Like
Sorry, but you highlighted the wrong bits.
The raising of lazarus was a prequel to Christ’s own resurrection… The same rules apply. If it was a lie then Christ was a liar.
Sleep was often used as a metaphore for death, but they are not the same.
Richard
1 Like
Philosophically and technically, how could we know if we have or have not experienced a supernatural event?
Practically, I lean more towards your views. I don’t expect to experience a supernatural event, and I don’t plan my life around one either. However, I also recognize that religious belief is a very important part of the lives of most humans out there. I tend to like other humans, for some odd reason. While I may not share those beliefs, I do cheer them on in their pursuit of happiness.
Richard who?
Terry_Sampson. Never mind. I dislike your rudeness and arrogance. I wonder if the moderator thinks you’ve violated the commenting guidelines.
1 Like