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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3kk610 wrote

I'm sorry, I think this is confused for a number of reasons:

1.) This post isn't discussing the veracity of abrahamic theism or the veracity of theism at all. This post is about considering Naturalism on its own terms and prompting people to abandon it.

2.) If you believed in this naturalist-rewarding God, you would cease to be a naturalist. If you didn't believe in this God, then we're back to square one on the post's main consideration: why settle on naturalism?

3.) I doubt most theists would accept your characterization of faith as reasonless. Most theists, including myself, have reasons they can articulate why they believe. The strength of those reasons is another matter, though there are a large number of theists who do use their rational faculties to make the best judgement they can and at least try to defend their beliefs with good reasons.

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OMKensey t1_j3klgur wrote

Naturalism seems correct based on using my mind to the best of my ability. I don't believe in naturalist-rewarding God.

But if I'm wrong, a good and just God will deal with my honest mistake in accordance with justice and kindness. Thus, a belief in naturalism potentially provides infinite reward (in the event that naturalism is not true).

You posit reward for theism belief if naturalism is not true. I posit reward for naturalism belief (or really for any belief that results from someone doing the best they can) if naturalism is not true.

I agree with your final point. Many theists will also have nothing to fear if there is a good and just God because they did their best. (Really eventual universalism is the only ultimately good or just outcome given how long infinity is compared to our finite lives.)

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3kol7o wrote

I think people will believe what makes sense to them- I certainly don't think you should stop believing naturalism for no reason. The core thought I would like to propose is this: the naturalist should hope naturalism is wrong (motivation) and keep seeking to prove it wrong (action). Why? Because naturalism, if true, is existentially horrifying. Specifically: it entails a lack of objective purpose and meaning to life, a loss of everything labored for in this life, and an eventual loss of the universe itself to heat death.

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OMKensey t1_j3kpkc6 wrote

I'm not horrified at all. The way I see it, I'm astronomically lucky to have the life I have so I should make the most of it. When I die that's fine. It will or will probably be like the time before I was born, and that certainly doesn't stress me out. The universe has given me much and owes me nothing.

Also, there might be an afterlife. I don't know there isn't.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3kr67f wrote

It seems like you value life highly. A couple questions in light of this:

Do you see loss of life as a bad thing?

Do you hope there is an afterlife?

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OMKensey t1_j3l3va5 wrote

  1. Generally yes.

  2. If it was good, sure.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3m09gx wrote

Regarding the boat analogy: if the boat is sinking and it seems we're going to lose our life, wouldn't your preference for continued life motivate you to seek out a life jacket or something similar? Even if you were convinced you were likely going to die?

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OMKensey t1_j3m3xi3 wrote

Sure. What I'm saying is, I'm not convinced naturalism is a worse life jacket than anything else on offer.

Also, believing true things has its own benefits.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3m62nw wrote

In this analogy, naturalism does not equate to a life jacket, since naturalism says there isn't any surviving death. On naturalism, the boat is going down and that's it. If you think death is a bad thing, and you also desire continued life, why not seek out a life jacket? Maybe you never find it, but (importantly) maybe you do.

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OMKensey t1_j3md875 wrote

You're conflating whether naturalism is the ontological reality with a belief in naturalism.

If there is no afterlife (I frame it that way because I can't be certain this is the case even on naturalism), then there is no life jacket regardless of your belief. You can be theist and it doesn't matter there is no life jacket.

On the other hand, if there is an afterlife, I think my present beliefs provide just as much chance of a good outcome (a life jacket) as anything else on offer.

If your only point is that you think people should investigate the possibility of an afterlife and whether or not they can improve their afterlife outcome, I'm not sure. I am doing that because I enjoy the process. But if someone doesn't enjoy that search, I don't see why they should spend the finite boat ride that they know exists searching for a mythical life jacket in case of a shipwreck that may or may not happen when they could be enjoying the scenery instead.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3mnqy8 wrote

I am not basing the argument on what is ontologically the case. I am saying, "Why settle on a worldview where you believe there is no life jacket?" Naturalism entails this belief. Like you say, I am trying to get people to investigate the possibility of an afterlife and to be unhappy with naturalism- I'm glad you are enjoying the search!

"But if someone doesn't enjoy that search, I don't see why they should spend the finite boat ride that they know exists searching for a mythical life jacket in case of a shipwreck that may or may not happen when they could be enjoying the scenery instead."

Because to be a naturalist is to commit oneself to the idea they will die and lose everything that can be lost. I think there are very good reasons to be unhappy with this outlook and therefore to spur someone to search for the lifejacket the rest of their life. Surely, if I was on the sinking boat, I would think an attempt at survival was worth it. Definitely better than sitting down waiting for death. What can be gained in this life that won't be lost?

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OMKensey t1_j3mr4hx wrote

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3mu9h9 wrote

I appreciate his perception that life does have meaning and that the beauty of creation calls out to us on a deep level- this is something we can all enjoy. However, there's no reason to think that's true on naturalism. Sitting on the beach enjoying your family would be at best an illusion of meaning, something not really there.

But it's precisely the gap between what naturalism commits us to (lack of objective meaning, lack of objective purpose, lack of objective moral duties or values, lack of a conscious immaterial mind, etc.) and the apparent reality of those things that seems so absurd! People often seem to think there are things beyond themselves like real meaning, purpose, duties, values, their own consciousness, etc.

Just speaking non-philosophically, my own senses tell me the conclusions of naturalism are unbelievable to me. Life just does not seem to match what naturalism says it should. So it's no wonder that I agree with angry-beach-man. I agree, life is in some way actually meaningful. I know firsthand what he means. But his worldview just doesn't allow for that in any objective sense.

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OMKensey t1_j3mvfy3 wrote

Yeah we will have to agree to disagree. I can't fathom how you think life doesn't seem to match naturalism because naturalism, by definition, isn't adding anything beyond what you are observing.

I disagree that naturalism has all of the gaps ("lack of") that you suggest. And I am not aware of any alternative to naturalism that would fill those gaps. Theism tends to submit itself to a subjective God belief and the subjective whims of the believed God.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3n11px wrote

I disagree with your assessment of theism, since it is very much not the case for myself and other theists who are philosophically-minded. But this post is not about the veracity or sufficiency of theism, it is about naturalism.

I can see no reason why a naturalist would think our self-made purposes, meaning, and morals are anything more than a self-imposed illusion. On such a view, my life is ultimately inconsequential. How I live will eventually matter to no one and, on this view, when the universe is empty and silent, there will be no one to care whether I existed or not.

Sure, your life might have a relative significance in that you influenced others or affected the course of history. But ultimately mankind is doomed to perish in the heat death of the universe.

The contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the research of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race—ultimately all these come to nothing.

If naturalism is true, then there is ultimately no hope for deliverance from the shortcomings of our finite existence. For example, there is no hope for deliverance from evil. By far, most of the suffering in the world is due to man's own inhumanity to man. The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed the 19th century's naive optimism about human progress.

If naturalism is true, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope for justice or deliverance from evil.

Or again, if naturalism is true, there is no hope of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. The sober fact is that unless you die young, someday you yourself will be an old man or an old woman, fighting a losing battle with aging, struggling against the inevitable advance of deterioration, disease, perhaps senility. And finally and inevitably you will die. There is no afterlife beyond the grave. Naturalism is thus a philosophy without hope.

Consider, if each of us are just a collection of atoms, why think that we are any different than the animals or insects around us? Is anything lost when a spider captures and consumes a fly? No, it is simply destroyed, and no one cares. But why think we are any different than the fly, on naturalism? It’s not obvious that our life is any more inherently valuable than the fly’s— to say otherwise would just be a form of bias in favor of the human species.

Or consider the morality of a spider capturing and consuming a fly; does the spider murder the fly? No, it simply kills it, and no one cares. Why think of our actions on Earth to be any different? If one accepts naturalism, then all ability to condemn or praise others would be reduced to neutral words and matters of opinion.

Does a fly have any objective purpose for its existence? On naturalism, it’s hard to imagine. The fly just exists, buzzing around until it dies. But why think we’re any different just because we have more intricate brain matter? What reason is there to believe in a purpose that isn’t just self-created?

Some may be satisfied with the idea of self-created purpose, but any sort of purpose like this is just subjective by definition. If your purpose is subjective, then you may as well just say you have an opinion about yourself. If that’s true, then there really is no objective purpose on naturalism and no reason why any of us exist at all.

When taken together, the lack of real purpose, morality, and human value— combined with the eventual heat death of the universe— provides a grim outlook for our lives if naturalism is true. It is in the naturalist's interest, then, to seek to falsify naturalism. If there’s any hope at all that it's false, even if there were only a 1% chance, it should still behoove them to seek rational reasons to falsify it.

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OMKensey t1_j3nepwn wrote

You're avoiding talking about theism, but your objections to naturalism are irrelevant if you can't establish a better alternative.

And I vehemently disagree that I lack "real purpose, morality, and human value." It's just rediculous and kind of insulting from my perspective.

Your perspective seems to be that only eternal things have value. I think that's just entirely wrong. If I take you to a nice restaurant, you should enjoy the meal rather than fretting that you will be hungry again tomorrow or crying about the eventual heat death of the universe.

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OMKensey t1_j3nh5f2 wrote

My primary objection to theism is that it doesn't provide explanatory value over naturalism. You can pose a thousand questions that naturalism cannot answer, and it does nothing to move the needle if you can't establish a better alternative.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3nj0uy wrote

To your point: "You're avoiding talking about theism, but your objections to naturalism are irrelevant if you can't establish a better alternative."

I am pointing out what naturalism entails- these are not arguments against the veracity of naturalism. I don't need to provide an alternative to naturalism to talk about why we should be dissatisfied with it. Theism isn't the only possible alternative to naturalism (though I personally find it the best alternative myself). The point stands that if someone sees naturalism for what it is (horrible) then they should be motivated to seek to disprove it.

"And I vehemently disagree that I lack "real purpose, morality, and human value." It's just rediculous and kind of insulting from my perspective."

Why do you find it insulting? I certainly don't intend it that way, and I have no desire to attack you- I'm here to discuss ideas with you. In either case, it really does seem to me to be what naturalism entails, hence why I think it's a terrible worldview to sit satisfied with!

About what I wrote above- where do you base such things like purpose/meaning/human value if not in humans? Like I said, to make humankind the foundation for these things amounts to expressing opinions about ourselves, and is not any different than a self-imposed illusion. So what other option is there?

"If I take you to a nice restaurant, you should enjoy the meal rather than fretting that you will be hungry again tomorrow or crying about the eventual heat death of the universe."

I don't think this is analogous, since at least the memory of the meal has lasting value. Do you think there's any value to be had writing a lengthy autobiography if the manuscript were to be immediately thrown away upon finishing it and your memory were to be wipes of its contents?

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OMKensey t1_j3nkbu7 wrote

It is analogous because after you die your memories are gone.

On your last question, of course there is still value if you enjoy writing.

Your position seems to be that, for example, my personal experience of holding my child or my wife has no value but only the illusion of value. My position is that is absurd. I know it has value. You can throw up as many arguments as you want, and it does zero to diminish the value those things have to me. The heat death of the universe doesn't effect the value one iota.

You can say this is just subjective. I'm not sure because there are objective biological underpinnings to pain and pleasure etc. But even if there is not, who cares? I care about holding and loving my wife way, way more than I care about trying to justify my values as being objective.

Besides, you are offering no alternative at all. So even if naturalism is lacking, there is no other option on the table in this discussion. If you want to put something on the table, I can readily explain to you why you also have no basis to claim an ultimate objective purpose.

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OMKensey t1_j3nlct2 wrote

Thesis: People can be fine with naturalism because it is the best available option.

The thesis above is what you must disprove to move the needle at all. Saying that you think naturalism is terrible is irrelevant if the other options are worse.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3nq4pg wrote

"It is analogous because after you die your memories are gone."

I'm confused- I agree that your memories are gone after you die. That is why it is not analogous to the meal, since you can at least look back and remember had a delicious meal.

"On your last question, of course there is still value if you enjoy writing."

How so? You wouldn't remember it nor would you have anything left of it. So where's the value after it's gone? If the value is only temporary, then its true that only eternal things retain value.

"Your position seems to be that, for example, my personal experience of holding my child or my wife has no value but only the illusion of value."

On naturalism, yes...

"My position is that is absurd. I know it has value."

I agree with you! Of course it has meaning and value- as a theist, I affirm that deeply. I'm saying that such a claim would be incompatible with naturalism. This is what I mean when I say naturalism just doesn't seem to match what is obviously true: things like loving my family and holding my newborn has intrinsic moral worth.

"But even if there is not, who cares? I care about holding and loving my wife way, way more than I care about trying to justify my values as being objective."

The reasons to care are what I've tried to explain above: if these things appear to be of worth to you, as they are to me, and life is worth living, then that gives one motivation to do everything one can to disprove a worldview that tries to say that it's not true and we will lose everything we love. On a purely personal note, I believe I have done this for myself, and its had a more profound effect on my life than anything else. I can't help but want others to at least look that direction, even if you disagree with my own views.

"If you want to put something on the table, I can readily explain to you why you also have no basis to claim an ultimate objective purpose."

Again, I don't need to provide an alternative to conclude things about the things naturalism entails. It could be true or it could be false- either way, we should be unhappy about what it entails.

Serious question: why are you quick to defend yourself from alternatives? Why not welcome alternatives and seek them out with open arms? Unless you are omniscient and know for certain that there is no possible alternative to naturalism, then there's room to be open to alternatives.

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OMKensey t1_j3nrkjb wrote

What's the alternative? I'm happy to consider it. I'm exploring. Also, I'm kind of a spooky naturalist so you might be surprised what I would go along with.

Sorry to be dismissive but I've examined a lot of claims so will be pretty surprised if you have something new.

Also, one thing I value is present experience. It has nothing to do with necessarily lasting into the future. Do you?

Feel free to continue in private message if you prefer. I'm enjoying the conversation. I think the conversation has value even if our memories are erased and Reddit disappears.

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OMKensey t1_j3o5kek wrote

I'm also curious if you are fluent in classical Arabic. Because I have heard Muslims argue that if you study the entire Quran in its original language that its insurmountable beauty and truth will overwhelm you and you will have no doubt of the truth of Islam.

I'm not going to bother exploring that path. Life is short, and I don't care to spend years on what may be (I suspect is almost certainly) a dead end. How about you? Are you going to shut down that potential ultimate truth without full explorarion? You might be forfeiting infinite reward. What is a decade of your life in comparison?

Now, what if the time commitment instead of years is one year? Or one month. Or one week. Or one day. Or one hour. Or one minute. I don't have a problem letting people decide for themselves how much of their limited time they want to spend on such matters.

(I kind of love this argument for Islam because of its sheer audacity. Imagine spending a decade getting to the point where you can personally examine the claim and being like, yeah, still not convinced.)

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3ooev2 wrote

"What's the alternative? I'm happy to consider it. I'm exploring. Also, I'm kind of a spooky naturalist so you might be surprised what I would go along with."

Haha I like the term "spooky naturalist." For myself, I have found (separately) the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus convincing. These were intellectually enough for me for awhile, but eventually after becoming a believer, I have had two dreams over a 10 year period that each were unlike anything else I have experienced, and changed the course of my life. In both cases, God spoke directly to me, wordlessly, and caused me to melt away the parts of me that I was holding back, the parts that were cold and dying and kills a man from the inside out. I can never look back after that. Look- I'm a skeptical bastard, but after some time, I couldn't deny what was clearly presented to me anymore.

I know you've probably examined Christianity, but that is my personal recommendation. Particularly, this information about the resurrection (I will add it in a few comments following). I am not looking to debate this, just sharing what I found useful to me. Some initial links:

From Dr. of Philosophy, William Lane Craig's website:

Historicity of the Resurrection: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/jesus-of-nazareth/the-resurrection-of-jesus

"Also, one thing I value is present experience. It has nothing to do with necessarily lasting into the future. Do you?"

I value it much. At times, it is divine and surreal (e.g. on mountain tops, which is a common place for the God of Abraham to associate himself). But I would not feel so positive about it all if I knew it was going to leave me. I can't believe I'm quoting the Lord of the Rings but here's Gimli's thoughts, which I sympathize with:

"Gimli wept openly. 'I have looked the last on that which was fairest,' he said to Legolas his companion. 'Henceforth I will call nothing fair unless it be her gift.' He put his hand to his breast. Tell me Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy."

"I'm enjoying the conversation."

Me too (: Philosophy is my passion, and existential stuff is bread and butter (my wife says I never stop talking about it). I'm also a diehard disciple of the living God and can't help but to share my faith with you!

"Because I have heard Muslims argue that if you study the entire Quran in its original language that its insurmountable beauty and truth will overwhelm you and you will have no doubt of the truth of Islam."

I, too, find this unconvincing. I have read the Quran and found the main issues to be with (1) it's conception of God who is only conditionally loving and (2) it's sharp disregard for the historical evidence on the resurrection of Jesus. It just doesn't match what the field indicates happened by a long shot. The fact that the Quran begins by attacking Christianity and Judaism is an earmark of suspicion for me. That said, I think Muhammad really did meet an angel (the enemy) in a cave, who gave him such a distorted image of God as tyrant and unloving. I love muslims and their passion, but I detest Islam.

"Are you going to shut down that potential ultimate truth without full explorarion?"

I did investigate it and came away with articulations for why I think it's false. While my search would otherwise go on if I had no faith, I am now comfortably passionate and happy with my Christian faith. If it were otherwise, I'd be delving off into study again as I did many years ago (and still do now, though to learn more deeply about God and creation and the intellectual tradition of the faith!)

"I kind of love this argument for Islam because of its sheer audacity. Imagine spending a decade getting to the point where you can personally examine the claim and being like, yeah, still not convinced."

It is oddly middle eastern-centric. One thing I love about Christianity is its universality: people from every corner of the world (one third!) resonate with its understanding of the human condition, and Christianity wins more by conversion than Islam where it's mostly growing by births.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3ookyl wrote

(part 2)

Historical facts surrounding the Resurrection

Fact 1: Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin.

• ⁠Jesus’ burial was an old tradition: In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, we find Paul quoting a short and stylized teaching using rabbinical terms such as “receive” and “deliver” that indicate he was given this teaching from prior. This tradition probably goes back at least to Paul’s fact-finding visit to Jerusalem around AD 36, when he spent two weeks with Cephas and James (Gal. 1.18). It thus dates to within five years after Jesus’ death. So short a time span and such personal contact make it idle to talk of legend in this case. • ⁠All four gospels (including the oldest, Mark) are united on the burial story, which indicates it was not around long enough to be influenced by legend. • ⁠Given that the Sanhedrin were enemies to the Christian followers (since they handed Jesus over to the Romans), it is unlikely that this detail is fabricated. • ⁠No competing stories of Jesus’ burial exist.

Fact 2: Jesus’ tomb was found empty by some of his female followers.

• ⁠Like the burial tradition, the empty tomb tradition was also part of the early Gospel summary told in Mark. The story is simple and lacks embellishment of other comparable legends during that time (see the apocryphal Gospel of Peter for an example of comparative legend). • ⁠If the tomb were not empty, it would have been well-known and easily discoverable by anyone living in the nearby area. • ⁠The Jews accused Christ’s followers of hiding/stealing his body. As a point of embarrassment for the Jews, this would have been unfavorable to admit and would have likely been told a different way if the empty tomb was less certain. For instance, they could have just laughed it off and ridiculed them if the tomb wasn’t really empty. • ⁠It is unlikely this detail would have been fabricated, because the testimony of women was seen as unreliable and lesser in value during that day. If it were fabricated, then we should expect to see male followers finding the empty tomb instead of his female followers.

Fact 3: There exists early independent attestations of Jesus’ post-mortem appearances between the four gospels: to the crowd of 500, to Peter, to his 12 disciples, to his brother James, and to Saul of Tarsus.

• ⁠The list of witnesses of the appearances of Jesus are given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7, meaning the appearances are early and well attested in the pre-Markan tradition. • ⁠We have biblical data that neither James nor the rest of Jesus’ brothers believed in his divinity during his lifetime. There’s no reason to think the early Church would have generated fictitious stories about his brothers’ unbelief had they been genuine followers all along. • ⁠In addition, the 1st century historian Josephus records and confirms that James went on to be a leader in the early Church, eventually being martyred for his beliefs a few decades later.

Fact 4: The original disciples came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, despite every predisposition not to.

• ⁠The Jews had no cultural predisposition to believe in or understand a dying and rising Messiah. They largely believed that the Messiah would overthrow Rome and re-establish the new Jerusalem, as other fake messiahs of Jesus’ time tried to do. • ⁠Jesus was condemned as a heretic by the Jewish Sanhedrin, which is the exact opposite of what was expected of the Messiah. • ⁠The Jews did not believe that there would be any sort of resurrection prior to THE resurrection of all the dead at Judgment Day. Jesus’ resurrection to a glorified body was totally unheard of.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3ooo0x wrote

(part 3)

State of the field concerning these four facts

According to Mark Allen Powell, the chair of the Historical Jesus section of the Society of Biblical Literature, ‘The dominant view is that the passion narratives are early and based on eyewitness testimony’ (Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68 [2000]: 171). Specifically, with respect to the burial, Kendall and O'Collins note Bultmann, Fitzmeyer, Porter, Gnilka, Hooker, ‘and many other biblical scholars’ who recognize a historically reliable core in the account of Jesus' burial by Joseph of Arimathea. They observe that ‘every now and then’ the burial story is dismissed as unhistorical, for instance by John Dominic Crossan; but notwithstanding, ‘The standard recent commentators on Mark (Ernst, Gnilka, Haenchen, Harrington, Hooker, Pesch, Schweizer, etc.)...do not invest him with the kind of creativity needed to invent the burial story...’ (Daniel Kendall and Gerald O'Collins, ‘Did Joseph of Arimathea Exist?’ Biblica 75 [1994]: 240). O'Collins and the renowned New Testament scholar Raymond Brown both confirmed that only a small minority of scholars who have published on the subject would deny the historicity of Jesus' interment by Joseph of Arimathea. Similarly with respect to the empty tomb, already by the late 1970s Jacob Kremer, an Austrian specialist in the resurrection, was able to report, ‘By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb’ (Die Osterevangelien--Geschichten um Geschichte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977), 49-50).

The role of women in discovering that the tomb was empty has been especially persuasive to scholars. According to Raymund Schwager, ‘it has recently become usual to assess positively the women's role at the death of Jesus and on Easter morning,’ in contrast to the legend hypothesis (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche [1993]: 436). As for the post-mortem appearances and the disciples' coming to believe that Jesus was risen, well, no one doubts those facts. For as Paula Frederickson (no conservative!) says, ‘The disciples' conviction that they had seen the Risen Christ... [is] historical bedrock, facts known past doubting’ (Jesus of Nazareth [New York: Vintage, 1999], 264).

It's also not hard to find what you call ‘neutral’ or ‘opposition’ scholars who accept these four facts. Some of those already mentioned above fit that description. As examples of neutral scholars, take Pinchas Lapide and Geza Vermes, who are Jewish scholars who defend the historicity of these four facts. Vermes writes, ‘When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that...the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb’ (Jesus the Jew, p. 41).

As an example of an opposition scholar, take Bart Ehrman, who writes, ‘The resurrection of Jesus lies at the heart of Christian faith. Unfortunately, it also is a tradition about Jesus that historians have difficulty dealing with. As I said, there are a couple of things that we can say for certain about Jesus after his death. We can say with relative certainty, for example, that he was buried. I say with relative certainty because historians do have some questions about the traditions of Jesus' burial... Some scholars have argued that it's more plausible that in fact Jesus was placed in a common burial plot, which sometimes happened, or was, as many other crucified people, simply left to be eaten by scavenging animals (which also happened commonly for crucified persons in the Roman Empire). [Ehrman is referring here to radical critics like John Dominic Crossan, whose skepticism about the historicity of the burial has been widely rejected, as mentioned above. Ehrman will now reject it, too.] But the accounts are fairly unanimous in saying (the earliest accounts we have are unanimous in saying) that Jesus was in fact buried by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and so it's relatively reliable that that's what happened. We also have solid traditions to indicate that women found this tomb empty three days later. This is attested in all of our gospel sources, early and late, and so it appears to be a historical datum. As so I think we can say that after Jesus' death, with some (probably with some) certainty, that he was buried, possibly by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and that three days later he appeared not to have been in his tomb’ (Bart Ehrman, From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity, Lecture 4: "Oral and Written Traditions about Jesus" [The Teaching Company, 2003].)

Perhaps the most objective evidence for the current lay of the land in New Testament scholarship concerning these four facts would be a bibliographical survey of the relevant literature. Such a survey has, in fact, been conducted by Gary Habermas (‘Experience of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection,’ Dialog 45 (2006): 288–97). In a survey of over 2,200 publications on the resurrection in English, French, and German since 1975, Habermas found that 75% of the scholars surveyed accepted the historicity of the discovery of Jesus' empty tomb. Belief in the disciples' experiencing post-mortem appearances of Jesus is virtually universal."

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OMKensey t1_j3oyh2t wrote

Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your personal experience with God via dream. Many on this board will dismiss this out of hand, but I don't. But, it doesn't convince me because I haven't had such an experience and people of all faiths (many of which conflict) have had such experiences. Thus, from my outside perspective, the experiences either represent a common psychological phenomenon or, if something spooky is going on, point to perrenialism.

I grew up Christian and am very familiar with William Lane Craig, the historical debates over the resurrection, and so forth. I find WLC very unconvincing. Graham Oppy's response to contingency arguments persuades me instead.

I'm not convinced of Jesus's resurrection because the evidence is (1) Paul's letters reporting a vision of Jesus decades after the death and (2) the synoptic Gospels (first Mark) recording Christian oral tradition even later than that. Really, not that much from my perspective.

Indeed, I think the best evidence for the resurrection is the eleven sworn written statements of witnesses - to the golden tablets of Joseph Smith. But I don't find those eleven witnesses convincing probably for about the same reasons you probably don't.

Anyway, if you are happy with your beliefs I have no desire to convince you to the contrary so long as you aren't harming others. I also don't care to debate in this thread, but did want you to know where I am coming from.

More interesting to me, what if I grant to you for the sake of argument that the Bible is literally God's message to us? I still think you cannot establish an ultimate objective purpose to life based on this. At best, you have God's subjective perspective. Now, I might do what God says so he wouldn't smite me if I thought it was true, but that's just compliance based on threats. It doesn't establish an objective purpose any more than a man pointing a gun at you can establish your objective purpose in life.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j3pga5w wrote

Thanks for hearing out my experience, I appreciate it. I don't see a need to continue a debate in this thread either, since we've strayed from the post anyway. I believe that our purpose is to know God as Father and enjoy him forever with a family that will never die on an Earth that will never pass away. This is why we are born first as children- to know first what it is like to be a child in this world. We learn first what it is like to love, obey, and lean on our parents, who have the responsibility of being the first image of God, the first reflection of him we see in the world. Those who have children learn even more deeply how God sees us, what it is like to hold them close as the most precious thing you have, what it is like to despair when they disobey and turn away from you, and the joy when they lean on you and love you. Family, love, belonging, stewarding a new creation- this is what I believe we were created for, and since God gives us existence, the objective reason for our existence is properly grounded in him.

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OMKensey t1_j3ph811 wrote

None of that strikes me as an objective ultimate purpose. You're just following the subjective will of God instead of your own subjective will.

Obviously, follow it if you think it's true. But I fail to see an advantage over naturalism in terms of providing an ultimate objective purpose.

Anyway, great discussion. I really enjoyed it! All the best.

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