This is why I was prompted earlier to make my comment about <Colonel Mortimer> "thinking this debate would be like being on <playground player>'s forum where he could kick around fundamentalist Christians over things like the Garden of Eden and Noah's Flood etc, but to his dismay, he was confronted with intelligent, rational, irrefutable arguments for God in general and Christianity in particular."

Both <playground player> & <OhioChessFan> chided me for that, yet this is exactly what I was talking about!

Now <Big Pawn> has had to divert from pummelling <Colonel Mortimer> in order to deal with <OhioChessFan>'s "intervention".

Why does Jesus expect people to believe in the resurrection? Please provide Scriptural reference for your answer.

< I'm looking at the resurrection through a historical perspective just as any historian would about any other historical figure.>

Besides what we call the Bible, what exactly do you have to work with?

< I'm not treating the bible in this argument as any sort of holy book at all. I'm merely looking at it as a historian would, as a group of texts handed down to us from the first century.>

There's nothing to "chase". Any suggestion that I've given or would give in the future can be access in about 4 seconds. If your desire for understanding was honest, you'll welcome the input of other thinkers with different or more extensive background than ourselves. In your case: Plantinga, Craig, Lennox, Swinburne, Rohr, etc., but perhaps you are too arrogant to think they could help at all.

<.. all the evidence lies on one side of the debate and that is with the theist>.

There's good evidence and bad evidence. The philosophers and scientists are experts at distinguishing the difference, and the uneducated on the other hand don't have the tools to make that distinction. And we know too well the correlation between believing in some kind of God by the uneducated and the percentage of believers among philosophers and scientists (and in what direction is changing as we learn more about history, the mind and the cosmos). Furthermore, many theists have argued that it's not so much the evidence but faith that supports their beliefs (and we know exactly why they say it).

<..now you are "happy to show">

My job has afforded me with a little extra time these days and I noticed that certain comments by <OhioCF>, <SugarD>, <Colonel>, <playgroundp>, <JBartle>, didn't seem full of self-love and pretentiousness so I decided to add to the mix and I am "happy to do it" for the time being.

< ...if you go around saying that it is a waste of time to debate here >

That's why I'm not here to debate. Little or nothing can be accomplished by debating trivially like this without a tight structure, and this is definitively one of the worst forums around because of the superiority complex and lousy attitude of the usual suspects. I'm only here "happy to show" certain ideas, arguments or publications that the theist might have missed and in turn help the agnostic and the undecided.

And for God raising Jesus from the dead, I mean how hard is that for a God, the author of life? This is all common sense.

<mort>, you rest what case? We weren't debating young earth creationism. We were debating the fact that you said the resurrection was irrational.

But you had no reasons to say so, and to your credit for the first time ever, you plainly admitted that, so I rested my case.

Now, if you would like to start a new debate that's okay by me.

<Big Pawn: <mort>, you rest what case? We weren't debating young earth creationism. We were debating the fact that you said the resurrection was irrational.> Exactly!

But this is what happens when the YEC's get involved!

Why does Jesus expect people to believe in the resurrection? Please provide Scriptural reference for your answer.>

You misunderstand. I am not objecting to your point of view at all. I'm not saying that the bible isn't the revealed Word of God.

There are two types of theology; revealed theology and natural theology. Revealed theology is what God has revealed in his Word or perhaps in our personal experience of God. This is the way most people come to know God; by way of personal experience. They sense God and experience Him in their lives. This is of course the most valid way to know that God exists and I fully support this traditional view. This has nothing to do with arguments, evidence or philosophy.

The other branch, natural theology, simply asks if there is any evidence for God's existence outside of revealed theology, that is, in nature. Also, natural theology seeks to show that God exists by way of metaphysical arguments, logic and reasoning. To embrace this way of arguing for God's existence is not to say that revealed theology is not good enough. It's just an exploration to see if there could be good arguments for theism sans revealed theology.

Given this context, the person working with natural theology must necessarily exclude any references to revealed theology lest the leave the realm of natural theology.

It's under this condition that I look at the gospels not as inerrant holy text, but rather as historical texts being handed down out of the first century.

What we arrive at, if we look at the gospels this way, are four independent attestations of the life, death and postmortem experiences of Jesus of Nazareth. Historians agree on four or so basic facts regarding Jesus:

1. Jesus was crucified and died on a cross.
2. Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. 3. Jesus' tomb was discovered empty by a group of women 4. Many people had experiences of Jesus alive after his death.

These four facts are not controversial and are widely held to be historical truths.

The controversy creeps in (in historical academia) when we ask what is the *best explanation* of these four facts!

If you think it's even just possible that God exists, then concluding that God raised Jesus from the dead is not irrational or unintelligent.

If you think that God does not exist, then you can't say that God raised Jesus - but you would have to have good arguments for atheism in that case, which atheists don't have.

The gospel texts were just documents that were floating around in the first century, like other documents detailing the lives of other famous people of old. Later on, the church studied all the texts and figured out which ones were genuine and which ones were fakes. The genuine ones were assembled into what we now call the NT. The fakes are the apocryphal books.

<ohio>, when we discuss the bible with people that don't believe in God, they don't accept that the scriptures are holy. It becomes circular to discuss it with them because we don't share the same assumptions. You and I and <optimal> can talk about the bible and all understand that we agree that the texts are scripture, but that's among us.

When we reach outside to atheists, we can't expect them to accept that. This is when the approach from natural theology becomes useful, because we can show that even if you just look at the gospels from the modest standpoint of pure historicity (not holy text), even then there is a good argument for the resurrection.

Historians often compare lines in documents with other lines in similar documents to decide which statements are historical. If there is more than one source for a given statement, then most historians think they have found gold. With the gospels we have four independent sources - yet not all of the gospels are identical. So we look at certain lines and passages and compare them with the others and only then we can say, "yes, this passage is historical because these other three people recorded the same thing".

Well there was. You said,

<Believing a dead man suddenly becomes alive again and goes to heaven and one day will come back to earth is not an intelligent or rational concept.>

And I refuted that by explaining,

<Let's see. You claim that there is no evidence against God's existence, so you are not an atheist, you are flexible and open minded.

This means you are open to the idea that God exists.

If you are open to the idea that God exists then you think it's possible that God exists.

If you think it's possible that God exists, then it's possible that God could raise Jesus from the dead.

If you say that it's not rational to think so, then you need to give your arguments and reasons, lest you leave yourself with an empty assertion.

So let's hear it.>

To which you eventually replied,

<<Colonel Mortimer: <Big Pawn> <Because God is a maximally great being who is omnipotent. God created the universe, the laws of nature, time, space, life and death. Given these qualities, what reason do you have that God could not raise Jesus from the dead?>

No reason at all.>>

So there was a debate, and you ended up having to admit you had <no reason at all> to justify your assertion that the resurrection is not rational or intelligent.

Your position was thoroughly refuted <no reason at all> and now my work is done.

<OhioChessFan> puts his two cents worth in and that's all it takes for <Colonel Mortimer> to latch onto a six day creation and try to muddy the waters by disingenuously "linking" that with the Resurrection!>

I can only speak for myself. All I can say is that I did not make biblical inerrancy a part of my argument. It's not necessary (even if it's true) because the historical perspective gives a pretty good argument.

I did not make Adam and Eve a part of my argument, so that is irrelevant to my position. I can't talk about it because it's simply irrelevant.

The approach I took makes those things irrelevant, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe that the bible is true or not, or it is inerrant or not. It's just that none of that is included in my argument.

I take a philosophical and historical approach to this argument and thus it is extremely narrow, so I stay in my lane.

<CM> <No reason at all. No reason to think Adam & Eve were not real and that that Noahs flood was not either - except that you and <optimal play> don't believe in the last 2 and you invoke science for your unbelief, which you suspend when it comes to raising people from the dead.>

Again, you keep running away from this point. Your belief system is based on rejecting some parts of the Bible because you've decided science refutes those parts, but then you accept other parts of the Bible which require the suspension of natural laws.

I quoted your full sentence. The rest of your response was about another topic.

I don't need to quote everything you've ever said and I won't be following red herrings about Genesis since it's not part of my argument.

I asked <what reason> and you said <no reason at all>.

That is not an out of context quote. It's just over <mort> because you <have not reason at all>.

Same topic - invoking an all powerful God to explain an event that cannot be explained by the laws of nature.

You clearly think God can bring a dead person back to life but you don't think he can create Adam & Eve or create a worldwide flood and lead Noah and the animals onto the ark.

Genesis and the Gospels were written by various authors hundreds of years apart, in different languages, for different reasons, under different circumstances, to different audiences, and yet you blithely carry on about how if Noah's Ark isn't literally true then Jesus' Resurrection can't be literally true!?

I never said that, so you're being dishonest when you say I did.

The point is clear, you are being selective about what you choose to believe in the Bible.

On the one hand you are saying certain parts are too implausible according to science, on the other hand you invoke the powers of God to believe something which is equally implausible scientifically.

It's clear to everyone here apart from you and your sidekick that you are being inconsistent in your belief.

You're inconsistent in your belief. >

Two points:

1. Show me where I said I don't think God can create Adam and Eve or create a worldwide flood and lead Noah and the animals onto the ark.

If you don't show where I said this, then this becomes a new dead end for you.

2. <inconsistent in my belief> - let's suppose that I said what you say above (which I didn't - so you still have to show me where I said that) - but let's just suppose for the sake of argument.

This is:

a. Not inconsistent with my belief that God raised Jesus from the dead and

b. If it was inconsistent, that would only shed light on my personal psychological state and would say *nothing* about the veracity of the resurrection story.

Therefore on all counts you are at dead ends.

Now I will be waiting on you to show me #1 above (which is worthless anyways given no. 2, a and b.)

Same topic - invoking an all powerful God to explain an event that cannot be explained by the laws of nature.>

No, the topic was that you said the resurrection was not a rational or intelligent idea. I took issue with that. That was the topic.

You said this to <optimal>. The topic is the resurrection and how you said it was not a rational idea. The topic is not what you are trying to shift it to now - <optimal's> consistent or inconsistent belief (or mine).

This is called shifting, and it is usually taken as a sign of defeat in an argument.