There was this atheist I posted to for over six years on other forums and he wrote something so good to the Christians that I wish I had saved his post. The gist is it was that a story is no proof that anything in the story ever happened,
so the fact that there were 'eyewitnesses' in the resurrection stories means nothing at all. Unless there were independent eyewitnesses OUTSIDE the story, people who were living at the time who could verify that those events took place they are just fictional stories men wrote. I mean I could write a novel that says that there are all these eyewitnesses, but what would that prove? It would prove I can write a novel.
Sadly, my atheist friend never got his point through to any Christians, and they did not even understand what he was saying, because they..... believe. I would not mind it so much if they would admit the bodily resurrection is a faith-based belief and not state it as a fact. And I admit I am angry that so many people believe in the bodily resurrection
because it has basically ruined what Christianity should have been about, the teachings of Jesus, by focusing on a body rising from a grave. To me it is just dumb that anyone would care so much about a physical body, because we all die someday... It is mainly because of the belief in the bodily resurrection that Christianity went off the rails, and this one belief led to other false beliefs, like that they too would rise from their graves... It is so very sad.
Moreover, focusing so much on the physical body of Jesus is diametrically opposed to what Jesus taught
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the fact that I cannot get through to even one Christian regarding what it says in their own Bible just drives me up a wall.
They just cannot make the connection. Body = flesh = profits nothing = resurrection of a body from a grave profits nothing.