Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

[Colt]

Another ad hominem which is only "required" because actual evidence and proper arguments are lacking.

Its true that's why you don't like being called out!

 

[Brian2]

Evidence points to the fact that the OT is Mesopotamian and some other reworked stories and myths and the NT is 100% a Jewish version of Hellenism and Persian religion. Vast evidence, in scripture and outside in comparative studies.

So your evidence does not support your belief, it is so convincing that your beliefs are facts in your opinion.
But your beliefs/facts start off with the presumption that Jesus did not exist and that is the presumption and belief that means that the New Testament has to be 100% made up. Without that presumption we can see that the New Testament has it's roots in what the Hebrew OT says.

What evidence? The Gospels are really just rewrites of Mark which is a 100% myth. Literary fictive devices, parables being taught and the story is often a bigger parable. Reworking Elija, and other OT narratives, Homer, Romulus, Psalms, it's all created.

Faith is not needed if you have evidence. You do not. You have only faith. But faith can be used for any position and is not a reliable path to truth. Your beliefs have nothing to do with what is true and what evidence shows.

If you had evidence that Jesus did not exist then you would not have to make up things about the gospels.

 

[Brian2]

Sorry, no. That is rather nonsensical. Now you are trying to put time into "no time". As long as time has existed so has the universe. I know, it is a rather difficult idea because humans cannot conceive of "No time" very easily.

So when you say the universe has existed as long as time has existed I presume you mean that the materials for the universe have existed as long as time has existed.
Are you saying that the material did not exist when your time line (below) began, at zero?

You are once again not reasoning properly. Both have the universe existing for ever. This may help, it is an analogy so it may not be perfect.

Do you remember number lines from high school or middle school math? One can represent the number line for all real numbers. It would stretch infinitely to the left and to the right. And then there is the number line for all positive non-zero real numbers. It would start infinitely close to zero and go to the right from there. It was nevver even at zero. That may be how our universe is. It could have had a beginning but there was no "before the Big Bang".

How does the BB idea have the universe existing for ever?

 

[Brian2]

I doubt that anyone 'knows' God since there are far too many contradictory claims of those who claim to 'know' God or maybe Gods.

There is a comma between "knows" and "God".

Yes some scientists and non-scientists do just that. So what!?!?!?!?

Oh, nothing.

 

[Brian2]

I'm guessing "something that doesn't exist in space and time".

Let's call that something X.
X does not exist in time.
X does not take up any amount of space.
Note also that this means that X has no detectable manifestation whatsoever.

How is X different from something that doesn't exist?

What is the difference between a non-existent dragon and a dragon that does not exist in time, takes up no space and has no detectable manifestation at all?

So you are talking about physical things and this universe but have no idea about spirits and what they can or cannot do.
And what if this spirit, God, can still exist when there is no time? and can be everywhere when there is space?
If you don't know about God and spirits and only know about the physical things of this universe then you are speaking from ignorance.

Yes. These statements are not in contradiction with eachother.

Obviously.
So we are in the universe. It's 13.7 billion years old. The start of the universe = the start of time.
Always = a period of time. 'All of time' to be exact.

Go back into the past. Chose any point in time. Any point at all.
Did the universe exist at that point? The answer is yes.

Hence, the universe has always exist.
Or otherwise put: the universe has existed for all of time.
Whenever time was flowing, there was a universe.
Choose any point in time and there is a universe.

Hence, the univese has always existed.

And when there was no time (at the beginning of the BB) there was no universe or material that the universe was made from. Yes?
And at ground zero the universe sprang into existence from nothing and began to change.

There was a beginning. At T = 0. The beginning of time.
And "always" = "for all of TIME"

And of course it is not known about what might have happened somewhere else. We are talking about only this universe.
Time may have come into existence and then gone out of existence many times I imagine.

Sure.
But the issue here is the implications of BB and "time" itself being an inherent part of the universe itself.

Well the universe and material of the universe needs time to exist in and change in and do things in. Things that change need time to change in, but a changeless God does not need time.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Its true that's why you don't like being called out!

I love how you just double down on your personal insult fallacy instead of actually trying to give a proper reasoned argument.


Oh well.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If you had evidence that Jesus did not exist then you would not have to make up things about the gospels.

He doesn't need evidence for things he is not claiming.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So when you say the universe has existed as long as time has existed I presume you mean that the materials for the universe have existed as long as time has existed.

The universe is the space-time continuum.
Can you point me to a point in time when the universe did not exist? No?
Then how is it wrong to say that the universe has always existed, where "always" means "for all of time"?

Are you saying that the material did not exist when your time line (below) began, at zero?

What do you mean by "material"? Given your previous sentence, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Having said that, we don't know how the universe began. The origins of the universe are currently unknown.

How does the BB idea have the universe existing for ever?

I don't know how many more times it needs to be explained to you.

The universe existed at T = 0 and continues to exist till this day at T = 13.7 billion years.
From 0 to 13.7 billion years, is all of time.

During that entire period (ie: ALWAYS), the universe existed.

What part don't you comprehend?

 

[Brian2]

Right. So just a religious faith based assertion.
What is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

You do that, I know, even when there is evidence.

These are not my ideas. It's what the bible says. Did you read it?

I interpret the Bible differently than you do.

Indeed.
Can you point me to a moment in time when the universe did not exist?
No?
Then how is it wrong to say that the universe has always existed?

It is ambiguous and implies that the universe had no beginning.
But I understand what you are saying even if I have heard people say that the materials of the universe have always existed and I am pretty sure they were not speaking as literalists and that they did mean that the materials did not have a beginning.

That's where you are wrong.
Time began when the universe began.
The universe has existed for 13.7 billion years.
It began at T = 0.
It has existed for all of time. ie: always.

Well it's so good to clear up that misunderstanding.

I don't know about "popped". The origins are unknown.
But indeed, the space-time continuum began at T = 0, 13.7 billion years ago.

I am using "popped" to mean that all of a sudden at T=0, time began and space started to expand.
This of course means that it started without any cause in time. The cause and the effect had to have happened at the same instant.

What you described there was not at all a proper summary of B theory of time, which rather ties into special relativity and its implications.

I was not really trying to summarize it.
How would you summarize the B theory of time?

 

[Brian2]

So what you do there, seems to me to be no more or less then trying to paint science in a bad light by simply misrepresenting it.
Science doesn't deal with "spirits" or other supernatural shenannigans because science only concerns itself with things that are actually demonstrably real, which have detectable manifestation.

So what you are doing here is trying to paint me in a bad light by misrepresenting what I said. I was talking about some scientists and not all of science.

 

[Brian2]

The problem with the 'supernatural' claims of ALL ancient religions is that they are not considered true or false by academic historians. The Bible as well as the writings of other ancient religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam are considered narratives of religious beliefs set in history and not historically factual. They may refer to historical events and persons, bit not considered history texts in and of themselves. When historians refer and consider religious beliefs and writings it is not whether they are true nor false.

However the common practice seems to be to presume that the supernatural aspects of a text are not true and this presumption is then used to work out things about the text, such as the prophecy of the Temple destruction being used to say that the synoptic gospels must have been written after 70AD.

 

[Subduction Zone]

So when you say the universe has existed as long as time has existed I presume you mean that the materials for the universe have existed as long as time has existed.
Are you saying that the material did not exist when your time line (below) began, at zero?

There may have been no zero either. The "materia" likely did not exist. That came later. At the moment of the Big Bang there was only energy.

How does the BB idea have the universe existing for ever?

If time began with the Big Bang then the universe has existed forever.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So you are talking about physical things and this universe but have no idea about spirits and what they can or cannot do
And what if this spirit, God, can still exist when there is no time? and can be everywhere when there is space?
If you don't know about God and spirits and only know about the physical things of this universe then you are speaking from ignorance.

I don't care for your "what if" questions that are indistinguishable from fantasy.
I asked you a question but you did not answer.

What is the difference between a dragon that does not exist and an existing dragon that has no detectable manifestation?
What does it even mean "to exist" without detectable manifestation?
How do you distinguish such a dragon from a dragon that doesn't exist?

And when there was no time (at the beginning of the BB)

There was time at the "beginning of the BB".
The "beginning of the BB" is the start of expansion. It's planck time. At T = 0 + 5.39×10−44 seconds

Time, and the universe, started at T = 0.
Again I asked you a question which you did not answer:

Can you point me to a moment IN TIME when there was no universe?
If your answer is "no", then how is it wrong to say that the universe has always existed?
Given that "always" = "for all of time".

there was no universe or material that the universe was made from. Yes?

The universe isn't "made from" material. The universe contains material.
But anyway: no.

The BB is the expansion of the universe (NOT THE ORIGINS THEREOF). Obviously, the universe existed when it started to expand.

And at ground zero the universe sprang into existence from nothing and began to change.

We don't know that. The origins of the universe are unknown.

And of course it is not known about what might have happened somewhere else.

"somewhere else"? What are you talking about?
You are referring to a place in space. Space is part of the universe again.
The universe doesn't expand "into" something. Space itself is part of the universe.

Why is it, do you think, that the universe is called the space-time continuum?

You keep making these same classical errors.

We are talking about only this universe.

Obviously.

Time may have come into existence and then gone out of existence many times I imagine.

You imagine a lot of things.
I'ld rather stick to things that can be somewhat validated through observation / evidence.
There might be something like the multi-verse producing an infinite amount of space-time bubbles.
But it is wrong to think off these as existing "before" the universe or in "some other place".

Well the universe and material of the universe needs time to exist in and change in and do things in. Things that change need time to change in,

And time is available from T = 0 onwards.

but a changeless God does not need time.

And doesn't do anything either.

 

[Brian2]

Is your god conscious? If so, it exists and changes in time as its mental states evolve. Does it create? If so, it exists and acts in time.

God is everwhere, in and out of time. God knows what will happen and what He will do about it, if anything. Knowing is different to thinking. But God can think and reason in time and still be the same God with the same traits etc before, during and after thinking or doing anything. I think you have the wrong idea of what "God does not change" means.

I think it's the people making unfalsifiable claims about these things that don't know what they're talking about. Why? Because scientists DO know what they're talking about. They've seen and tested what they're talking about, and the proof is in the pudding - the spectacular success science has had predicting nature and transforming the human condition.

When it comes to talking about God and spirits scientists know no more than anyone else.

What the faithful are talking about with spirits has none of that - no observation, no testing ideas, and no useful ideas - just unfalsifiable claims that can't be used to do anything - literally knowing nothing about what they are talking about because nothing can be known.

It is called a faith for a reason. I might even say that I know something about God, but it is through faith that I gain that knowledge and not through scientific testing.

I asked you to delineate the differences between things that do exist like wolves and those that don't like werewolves, but you made no comment. If you want to learn, you need to pay attention to what is written to you and address all salient points and answer all non-rhetorical questions. You see the result of doing less.

So you also speak of descriptions of things that do not exist, but you are speaking of things in this universe, physical things that you might have some familiarity with. But when it comes to God and spirits, they are not of this universe and you don't know what they are capable of.
So basically your question is nonsense when it comes to comparing existing things in and of the universe to God.

The description of the Christian deity reveals a god that has evolved between the Testaments. That's a fact, but inapparent to one wearing a faith-based confirmation bias set to "It is decided a priori that God has not changed therefore no evidence of change shall pass this filter." Once you choose to go down that path of evaluating evidence after forming belief without it, the natural function of your mind has been co-opted to stop looking at the world to decide what is true about it and act rationally to evidence to specious rationalization.

So what God did in the OT is not the way He chooses to do things in the NT. A problem with skeptics is that they cannot see the different scenarios of the OT compared to the NT and the different things God was doing and His different roles in both scenarios.
To a skeptic it boils down to a different God, but in reality it is a blindness to what the story is at different parts of the Bible.

 

[shunyadragon]

However, the common practice seems to be to presume that the supernatural aspects of a text are not true and this presumption is then used to work out things about the text, such as the prophecy of the Temple destruction being used to say that the synoptic gospels must have been written after 70AD.

However? As with all religions supernatural aspects are simply not historically verifiable in the past or today. The gospels may have been in a simpler earlier form called Q, but it has been documented by text analysis that the gospels have been edited and redacted up until ~200-300 AD, and some of Paul's letters were not written by Paul.

 

[Brian2]

He doesn't need evidence for things he is not claiming.

True.

 

[shunyadragon]

There is a comma between "knows" and "God".

What are you claiming to objectively know?

 

[Brian2]

The universe is the space-time continuum.
Can you point me to a point in time when the universe did not exist? No?
Then how is it wrong to say that the universe has always existed, where "always" means "for all of time"?

Really are we still talking about this?
It is not wrong is everyone knows what is meant by always and it is not ambiguous.

What do you mean by "material"? Given your previous sentence, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Having said that, we don't know how the universe began. The origins of the universe are currently unknown.

Material means anything beyond "nothing",,,,,,,,,,,,, meaning "absolute nothing".

I don't know how many more times it needs to be explained to you.

The universe existed at T = 0 and continues to exist till this day at T = 13.7 billion years.
From 0 to 13.7 billion years, is all of time.

During that entire period (ie: ALWAYS), the universe existed.

What part don't you comprehend?

The wording "for ever" had me thrown.
So why do you say that at T=0 the universe existed instead of saying that at T>0 the universe existed or is it just the convention you chose and it does not really matter?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Really are we still talking about this?
It is not wrong is everyone knows what is meant by always and it is not ambiguous.

That does not appear to be the case. What is your definition of always?

Material means anything beyond "nothing",,,,,,,,,,,,, meaning "absolute nothing".

That is a rather odd definition. " absolute nothing" does not appear to exist.

 

[Brian2]

There may have been no zero either. The "materia" likely did not exist. That came later. At the moment of the Big Bang there was only energy.

I don't understand there being no zero unless maybe there was a bounce and a previous universe bounced back out just before reaching zero.
I do have a problem with time having existed forever without some beginning of it however.

If time began with the Big Bang then the universe has existed forever.

Fair enough.