posted May 6, 2011, 10:53 AM by Viva Paco
[
updated May 29, 2011, 4:47 PM by Garrett Fogerlie
]
By Garrett Fogerlie
Keep in mind that the New Testament is a highly questionable source, and
should be looked at with skepticism! The majority of its books, if not
all, were not written by their namesake but by descendants many, many
years later. (One reason for this is that most people though that the
apocalypse was going to come in their lifetime, as Jesus said, so why
bother to write it down)
Nevertheless, let’s assume for a moment that it is true. The books say
Jesus died for our sins, and three days later came back to life. This is
thought by many to be the pinnacle argument for why to believe that he
is the son of god. According to the New Testament, resurrection is
almost commonplace. Both Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus were
resurrected. Albeit it was supposedly Jesus that resurrected them, who’s
to say someone didn’t resurrect Jesus after his death. Resuection was
such a commonplace at that time, that apparently nobody seems to have
thought it worthwhile to follow up with either Lazarus or Jairus’
daughter after they came back from death. You would think that they
would have been hounded with questions and that these questions would
defiantly have been worthwhile to include in the bible. It must have
been so common that nobody cared about their extraordinary experiences.
Nor does anyone seem to have kept a record of whether or not, or how,
these two individuals re-died. Or if they stayed immortal? Perhaps they
are still wandering around to this very day? Who knows perhaps that’s
where the vampire myth comes from? They may be in complete misery,
condemned to eternal life on earth. How can they get into heaven?
This
misery being inflicted upon a mere bystander in order to fulfill the
otherwise unfulfilled prophecy that Jesus would come again in the
lifetime of at least one person who had seen him the first time around.
For the Son of man shall come in the
glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man
according to his works.
Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Matthew 16:27-28
When Jesus was put to death, according to the Gospel of
Matthew 27:52-53,
"the graves were opened; and many bodies
of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his
resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."
This seems incoherent, since the dead corpses apparently rose both at
the time of the death on the cross and of the Resurrection. Oddly enough
history has no record of corpses rising form graves. It must have
scared the hell out of everyone around the world, but yet no one seems
to written it down. Not even the many historians whose records, while
meticulous, apparently deemed that corpses’ crawling up everywhere was
not as important or interesting as the suns rise and set time, or the
yield of a particular crop and such.
The bible records the taunts and comments of the Roman soldiers, at the
time of Jesus’ death, and not a single one said, “Holly shit, corpses
are coming out of the fucking ground! Run!!!”
Resurrection is apparently so frequent, that no one pays any attention
to the dead rising from their graves. This undermines the uniqueness of
the resurrection by which all of mankind’s sins were forgiven.
There is no cult or religion before or since, from Osiris to vampirism
to voodoo, that does not rely on some innate belief in the "undead." To
this day, Christians disagree as to whether the day of judgment will
give you back the old shitty, abused, wreck of a body that has already
died on you, or will you be given some new form. If it’s the latter,
people will have to come up with a new way in which they can recognize
one another.
For now though, we can say that resurrection would not prove the truth
of Jesus’ doctrine, nor his paternity, nor the probability of still
another return in fleshly or recognisable form. The action of a man who
volunteers to die for his fellow creatures is universally regarded as
noble. The extra claim not to have "really" died, because he was back in
three days, makes the whole sacrifice tricky and meretricious.
Thus, those who say "Christ died for my sins," when he did not really
"die" at all, are making a statement that is false in its own terms.
Having no reliable or consistent witnesses, in anything like the time
period needed to certify such an extraordinary claim, we are finally
entitled to say that we have a right, if not an obligation, to respect
ourselves enough to disbelieve the whole thing, unless or until superior
evidence is presented, which it has not been. Exceptional claims demand
exceptional evidence!
Comments...
You can post and read all the comments here, in our forum.
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Crispy Sea
said...
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I enjoyed that, a nice bit of thinking, Garrett. I like the point about
no historians recording a plague of zombies - it does seem unlikely that
they'd 'overlook' it :) If you're interested I had a ponder on an
aspect of the resurrection you raised ("If it’s the latter, people will
have to come up with a new way in which they can recognise one
another.") in my post The True Shape of Your Soul Peace, Crispy
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April 9, 2011 5:22 AM
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Anonymous
said...
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poor arguments based on primarily ignorance and serious naivity. praying for you :)
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April 11, 2011 4:08 PM
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Pastor Todd
said...
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Lazarus' death and resurrection was one of the causes people started
following Jesus and rhe conspuracy started with Lazarus' resurrection
for the powers that be wanting Jesus dead. It was a big deal, read John
12. They were not zombies they were raised alive, and though not
mentioned they did die again. They will rise physically again, but not
as zombies, they will be like Jesus who is alive forever, Rev 1.
Have a good day, hope all is well with you
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April 16, 2011 11:27 AM
CNR
said...
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This is one (of several) points that led to me leaving Christianity. I
like you, was raised in a born again Christian household.
There's
this giant uproar that God/Jesus sacrificed so much for us. BS. He
took a weekend nap and was good to go. There are humans who endure far
worse on a DAILY basis yet barely get a mention in a newspaper. God
takes a bit of a flesh wound and is somehow world hero #1. Really? We
are on the crap end of that whole deal (just playing along that its
real).
As a human, I am somehow railroaded into this whole
"sinful by lineage to Adam" deal and thus require me to use my free will
to choose God. What if I don't want to play that game? Where is the
opt out?
Second, God/Jesus didn't sacrifice didly. He's
supposedly in control so the whole transaction was a pretty minor one on
his part. We are the ones with everything on the line/ Eternal
damnation and all that rot. Thanks God for setting up such a crappy
situation.
Wouldn't God have been better off just skipping the
whole creation thing than setting up a situation where billions of his
created souls are sentenced to eternal torment? What's that all about?
Seems like kind of a jerk move if you ask me.
But, alas,
fortunately for us, clearly the whole thing is a stone age farce. I
feel bad for those who are not able to see that.
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April 17, 2011 8:02 AM
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Garrett Fogerlie
said...
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Pastor Todd, The government in the time of Jesus wanted him dead for
several reasons; attacking the money changers at the temple, mocking the
Pharisees by riding into town on a donkey, and questioning the
authority of the prophets and priests. He was brought to Pilate and
charged with treason. So there were far more relevant reasons why ‘the
powers that be’ wanted him dead. We may not agree with them but even
nowadays other countries don’t agree with America’s death penalties. As
for the second part, that you have no knowledge that the people Jesus
resurrected died again! You believe that based on NO evidence! Thank you
for your input.
CNR, Yes there are humans who endure far
worse and even ones who help so many more people. Like Norman Borlaug,
who improved agricultural productivity and crop quality, in 1970 when he
won the Nobel Prize, they said he had saved a billion people! He is far
better than Jesus in my mind. Also who was Jesus to forgive people
for things that didn’t involve him? Like if my son was murdered,
forgiveness would be mine to give or not, not someone else’s! Your
idea of God creating us just to sentence us to eternal punishment,
reminds me of The Simpsons’ Itchy and Scratchy Show where he makes a
cloning machine that sends the clones straight to an execution machine.
Thanks
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April 17, 2011 7:35 PM
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- Anonymous
said...
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Of course the pharisees wanted him dead for all those reasons but their
official reason was blasphemy, Matthew 27 I believe. They had no power
to charge him with treason. The entry into Jerusalem on a donkey was
mocking the Roman way not the Pharisees.
As far as the NT not
being historically dependable, if it is not then no bit of history is. I
don't really feel like discussing all that now, but I would recommend
Lee Strobles books Case For Faith Case For Faith.
You are right
no proof that all those died again, i think they did. But I do have
proof who had the power to raise thwm originally, Jesus. So I will
worship the one who raised Lazarus and the others, including himself
from the dead. That is the ulitmate promise for believers, resurrection
from the dead. It was a big deal then; today, and for the future
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April 22, 2011 8:13 PM
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Garrett Fogerlie
said...
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Anonymous, I meant mocking the rulers by riding a donkey; not Pharisees, thanks for the correction.
Did
you know that there are still laws against blasphemy in many countries?
And is punishable by DEATH? Saudi Arabia executed someone for it a
little while back. That's outrageous!
The New Testament, and
Bible as a whole, is not historically dependable though, unlike many of
the records kept by Romans, Egyptians, Chinese and others at that time.
The historic events that it talks about, like earthquakes, whole cities
being destroyed, and migrations, are not found in the dependable records
of the time.
And of course thinking that you can obtain eternal
life will drive the majority of people to do many things they wouldn't
do otherwise! Like genocide...
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April 22, 2011 10:37 PM
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Desert Sisig
said...
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Great post man! Death is a natural thing, and it should be. This eternal
life crap makes all Christians silly , pathetic and damn right
hypocritical.They do the good things that Jesus wanted them to do
because of this reward. Where's sincerity then?
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April 23, 2011 11:03 PM
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doctorthorne
said...
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Hi! Here's my opinion on your article. I like your website and your
Twitter but I don't think this piece is too great. If your interested, I
can send you something I wrote as well. Peace!
Your argument is
distracting from the main points and it actually makes our extremely
conclusive argument seem a lot weaker than it is. I think the body of
your article should rather be reduced to an interesting side note for
literalists. You should focus in on the fact that the resurrection is
absolutely the corner stone, the most fundamental bit, of so-called
"evidence". And yet, there is no real evidence at all, but, rather, the
event seems stupendously unlikely for many reasons. Let's talk about the
negative example of morality that we can draw from this human sacrifice
and the twisted and illogical motivation, which prompted the formation
of this plan, of all possible alternatives, in the mind of an
all-powerful God. Why did God finally choose to forgive our sins and to
redeem the world, after his previous tyranny? Too late! Why did he
decide that the best plan was to send his own son to a remote corner of
the Roman Empire, where he would have a very limited audience? Why
select some lucky people and test us in this cruel way with faith, when
he could have spoken to the whole world? Why was it necessary to
sacrifice his son in the most horrific way to prove to us… that he loves
us and to redeem our sins (which he allowed to happen in the first
place and then proceeded to damn us for)? For me, the clincher is that
the motivation makes no fucking sense.
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May 6, 2011 10:31 PM
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Garrett Fogerlie
said...
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Doctorthorne, I agree, there is so much that can be said on the subject,
but for this article I mostly wanted to focus on the Resurrection
(although I digress a lot.) I wrote it after a conversation with my
father who said that the "resurrection of Jesus" is what made the entire
life of Jesus "undeniably real and proved he was the son of God."
Another
good point to make is that this same born to a virgin, son of God, died
and rose again story was so popular in that area many, many lifetimes
before it was bestowed to Jesus. It's shocking that it caught on!
Thanks, and I would be interested in reading what you wrote, you can post a link here or email me at garrett@eviltheists.com
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May 7, 2011 9:10 AM
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