/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>563332

Some people will start having faith due to proof of Jesus Christ's resurrection, but in the end Its the work of the Holy Spirit, not you

>>563332

You can't. It's the last thing, and it has to be accepted by faith. But the pat answer to historicity is Pliny, Tacitus, and Josephus.

>>563332

Never, ever argue with atheists. They're like children. You don't debate with children, you educate them.

>>563335

>>563334

Yeah but, unlike other miracles, the resurrection is so well supported historically. There is no good argument against it.

his own apostles couldn't believe it at first, why would some fedora 2000 years later believe it? specially since they've reject the supernatural by default and think his apostles are not reliable witnesses….

anyway flesh has not revealed this but the father who is in heaven…etc

you can't 'prove' theological articles of faith like this.

>>563332

>2. "These 'scholars' are probably just Christian apologist."

He has a point, you know. There's no way anyone could acknowledge the Resurrection and *not* be Christian (save for New Agers, pantheists, and followers of other types of oogie-boogie beliefs). It's going to take faith to believe that miracles, including the Resurrection, can happen without actually seeing one, which inherently skips over at least some reason. You need to convince him that faith is worthwhile first.

>>563340

>E.P. Sanders

>Geza Vermes

>David Allison

>John Dominic Crossan

>Bart D. Ehrman

Though none of them believe in the resurrection, even they acknowledge the great amount of historicity for it.

http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005.htm

>>563342

> *Dale Allison

>>563332

>>563342

But do you think your friend can reasonably bridge the gap between historicity and actual belief in the Resurrection without faith?

>>563332

You don't.

You can't prove it did happen any more than they can prove it didn't.

If there was evidence, you wouldn't need faith.

Leave them alone.

>>563345

I understand that there is a deal of faith needed, but it's not like a blind faith. There is good reason to have faith in the resurrection based off of the vast amount of historical support for it unlike any other "miracle."

>>563347

Is he one of those edgy atheists, though? The kind that refuses to give value to any sort of faith?

>>563348

I'd say maybe to a degree at times. He just dismisses anything supernatural as either a hoax or a delusion.

>>563351

>Anglican

>Protestant

Press X to doubt

>>563351

Maybe sometimes, but it seems that often the unbelievers (for example, the Pharisees guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for claiming Jesus worked by the power of the devil despite almost certainly knowing otherwise) simply refused out of their own stubbornness–these were the same people who killed all the prophets despite knowing they were from God.

>>563332

fedorafag here. suggest just not bringing it up with people unless you're both leaning towards that conversation. you don't like when spergs go on about miracles being lies and I don't like when christians go on about miracles (out of the blue) under any context besides how you need faith to believe them (which is kind of the point).

if you actually feel like trying to outright prove 'em though, here's my criteria:

>we can observe matter and its relative time

>the supernatural is presumed to act outside of this scope while in some miraculous cases interfacing with it

just as our material world acts within the scope of observed time, so would a hypothetical non-material world act within its own arbitrary and not traditionally limited sense of time.

>the system of supernatural occurrences thus is not bound to our observable notions of time and matter

we pretty much need to consider this a given

>said supernatural realm has a means to interface with our observed world

not necessarily in a strict sense, but in a similar fashion to time being a property of a "matter in arbitrary coordinate grid (where distances are based upon relations)" system as I would presume we operate under. this "link" property would also need to be a given.

>miracles are the direct interfacing of this hypothetical system with our observable one

THIS is the leap of faith. anything beyond this is hypothetical and I can't prove it either way. but when you reach this point it's what I would consider "questionably observable." it's all fine and dandy to presume a system that can operate outside of our observed restrictions so long as you don't also say that same phenomenon somehow extends to our own system of time and matter. if you want to explicitly say that, either outline the framework by which that exchange occurs, or just say it requires faith, which works fine for christians, but is explicitly the one road that anyone secular isn't on.

between you and me, trying to prove something like this undermines the meaning of faith to begin with.

>>563372

There's a difference between the resurrection and other miracles. Now get off of /christian/.

>>563385

are you going to specify the difference?

>>563393

Look above.

>>563393

http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005/J_Study_Historical_Jesus_3-2_2005.htm

https://books.google.ca/books?id=RoD5_bN-WxUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=resurrection+of+the+son+of+god&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi72_bK5d3XAhWGYd8KHaoEBvIQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=resurrection%20of%20the%20son%20of%20god&f=false

There would be no Christianity as we know it if the earliest followers of Jesus didn't believe he rose.

>>563396

thanks. read the first one and might read the book later.

>>563395

well it seems to me that there is already a divide on what the resurrection is interpreted as. you probably will want to tell the person whether you support the bodily resurrection, or just the spiritual one. then it's a case of applying the process laid out in my first post: for the first (bodily) you should clarify what that actually means (did he reanimate and then ascend?) and then lay out specifically what and how those changes occurred. fair warning: you will likely get people who not only aren't willing to assume that a resurrection can happen, but actually don't think jesus was a guy to begin with. in my case I'll just give you those right out of the gate since I expect the answer will come later anyway; my problem is actually the reliability and subsequent interpretation of testimony from paul and other believers.

the second approach (spiritual) can be more focused around what you think the spirit is, and you can play more into the implication that jesus' sacrifice was actually recognized by god as evidenced by the resurrection.

in the end what you're trying to prove really heavily depends on what you yourself believe. I can't give you better advice without knowing that.

>>563407

I understand your point of view, but most atheist I debate with get into a hissy fit when I try to lay down facts. I am trying my best to be intellectually honest here, but everyone (including me) has their biases and world view creep through. I can only do my best to simply lay out the facts, it's up to you to decide to accept them or not, and what your interpretation of them is. You can interpret them however you'd like.

Apparently after Wright wrote his book an atheist professor told him, "Great book. You really make the argument. I just simply choose to believe there must be some other explanation even though nobody understands what that was." To which, as Wright responded, "That's fine, that's as far as I can take you. I am not pushing any sort of belief here, because to do that would promote another worldview." Wright, like many other scholars/historians, can only lay down the facts, it's your decision on what to do with them and how they ought to be interpreted.

>>563420

ain't usually worth the effort of laying out everything for everyone. I wouldn't bother explaining myself to, for example, william lane craig. any regular priest is fine though, from what I've seen they're humble enough to actually deserve some respect.

>>563423

having been raised in a religious family and as recently as this morning shown up at church to make the coffee and film the sermon, I know my name is on at least one prayer list. there's no spite involved in my lack of faith.

>>563437

All I did was provide sources for why I believe in the resurrection. Now please go back to reddit where you belong.

>>563465

>says i have no argument

>hasn't presented any argument themselves

>begins to act like typical fedora

>ignores all the evidence i provided above anyway

>>563352

>We was the original church n shieet?

There's plenty of evidence for it. If someone casts this aside then argue no more. They're mindset is pretty set on being 100% right

>>563332

>"The New Testament/Bible isn't a reliable source!"

This one really rustles me. Especially when it came from my history/psychology teacher

>>563530

I'm not trying to provoke but how can you be sure that the New Testament is reliable?

Just curious to hear your reasons.

Dont argue with them.

>>572430

You are trying to start at the end. The faith of accepting the resurrection is the final step of accepting Christ into your life. You want to win people to salvation and that is an honorable task. But understand that unless they have had years of honest soul seeking and this is your last push of getting them saved this will not work as they are still in the muck of the emptiness that is modern culture.

If you are talking to a true atheist, you first have to have them judge themselves. They only have platitudes as a defense against religion, even deeply engrained they are shallow with any justification for them. They will likely try to hide their lack of thought behind one of the following thin shields: Religion is bad, I believe in Science, Christianity is oppressive, I do not need an imaginary friend to be happy.

1) Religion is bad: this is a religious statement itself. Ask them what they mean by religion? I give the definition of religion as a system of faith based beliefs. But that now means I must define what is a faith based belief. I define a faith based belief as an emotional validated concept. So, a person’s religion is their system of emotional validated concepts. So, if you say religion is bad, they are just stating they hate that people have personal will, whether their religion calls itself Marxism, Christianly, humanism, or any other category of human system of judgment on value, everyone has a religion. The only argument here could be a comatose, vegetable, or otherwise unconscious person. Calling it your philosophy, political, moral, or value system does not change the fact that this is their religion.

If the person is open to any new thought you can continue, otherwise they are too insecure with their religious believes and until they are ready to seek truth you will not be able to help them. But if they are willing to talk more you can now start talking about theism as a comparative religion to their own.

>>573496

2) Well I belief in science: Well you enjoy what Christian societies have brought to the world. The scientific / material observance / rational induction or any form of worldly based knowledge development came solely from christen societies. Muhm…. Dark ages! Well if you believe that thousand years of supposed regression was Christianity, why with a thousand years head start for all the non-Christian cultural around the world did not develop and materialize the study of the world. Why is it only in the Christian culture and almost every single great ground-breaking scientist in the hard sciences were self-proclaiming Christians, many stating they just wanted to marvel in finding gods finger prints. Currently science in the meta of cosmology state that there was a beginning of time, space, and matter. Atheist fought this tooth and nail until a couple decades ago, theologians been there for millianna. In micro, DNA exist, that is something that is almost ignored in these debates. DNA is a pattern that communicate, thereby a language, every language needs the writer and something with the ability to read. Even if you can belief that the amino acids can magically be combined in nature, to state that randomly a language is created with an entity that has the ability to read the just created language stating the design and goal of going replicate yourself were all created at the same time takes way more faith than, a zombie Jew in space did it. The more you know about science the better, the more finger prints of design can be brought up. To end this section, not only completely eliminate the false “faith or science” ideal and to show that science is on the theist side and currently atheists are claiming the name of science to literally suppress and avoid science findings and reasoning.

Once again it would be normal for a person to not be able to take this worldview in at once, but since its all factual, give them time to search for themselves. But they may for lack of another defense just through out what they have been told since birth, Christianity has been oppressive. So now if they are still willing to talk, we can move from theism to Christianity.

>>573497

3) Christianity is oppressive: Compared to What? In the social science it is important that you know what you are comparing it to, far all comparisons must be compared to something else observable. So, a reasonable request is to know what are you comparing Christianity to in the real world. If their answer is anything theoretical, then let them know that real things can not be compared to their magical religious views they hold in their atheist imagination. So, you can only compare that Christianity to other cultures. Christianity is the base of the cultures and societies that developed: human rights, world charity, ended slavery, extranational-extracultural-extraracial giving and care, universities, science, limited working days in a week…… it goes on. They can bring up war, cruelty, exploits, and others thing that Christian base societies have done. But it is to compare, the generation of goods and ills, of all other cultures and do you research, and Christian based nations will be unquestionable on lighter side of the scales of ill and so obviously heavy of the scale of good it has to be ignored in college. They may try to state a tribe so isolated from all other people and threats that they have never been able to conduct war, rape, and theft from other tribes, but likewise their culture could not bring people together. Their example is if we select 20 people and put them into survive or die situation and eliminate all others in the world then world piece is possible, this is not a rational or practical example to use in the world. Then no matter what ills they would like to talk about Christian cultures, rational based societies have been worst of all in world history. Whatever their flavor of socialist religion (Nazi right or Marxist left) no religion other than possibly the Mongol have been able to justify killing more people and been so efficient at it. The Mongols at least stated openly that they enjoy killing, socialists since the French revolution have in mass killed in the name of the “good.” What defense they put up to these realities is to state that culture is the physical, and visible practice of groups of people’s shared religion. Despite whatever a religion may theoretically state, or belief, or justify comparing the cultures or the real-world effects, Christianity will be easily seen as objectively better.

This only leaves them with addressing themselves and having to deal with why they do not want there to be a god. This is generally the heart of the issue. This is easy to understand. Having to account for your actions not only in light, but also what you do in the dark of society is a hard thing. We all have faults and secrets we would rather not be known, but this is the time to switch from general Christianity as a structure of society to the personal relationship with Jesus and his salvation.

>>573498

4) I do not need an imaginary friend to be happy: Then why are you curious about it at all. You have your own personal religion. But from are talks (above) the world is filled with general revelations of the presence of a creator/ designer/ first-mover. The science that you try to escape too is a gift handed to mostly by self-proclaiming Christians that had no trouble in their faith while discovering gods mysteries of this world. Christian society is the bases of likely all positive cultural aspects and practices you can point out. But outside of being all powerful creator, he cares for you…. Tell the gospel, Roman road, the resurrection.

This is a long process, but this is how I would talk about the resurrection with self-proclaiming atheist.

They only want to stick bananas in their ass. First comes emotion then comes the logic, there is never a case where someone uses logic to come to faith.

It's simply impossible. You can cast the shadow of the doubt when talking about the existence of God in him. But not about the Christian God and, the most difficult thing of all: a resurrection, (something absurd). You must go from the easiest to the more difficult.

That is something that only the grace of God can concede.