Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

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No. "My Kingdom is not of This World". There will never be a video-tape of God either. That does not reduce his Reality.

PairTheBoard

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Wow. So, if the disciples had camcorders His place at the table would show a blank?

luckyme

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They experienced the Reality of his Presence. People often claim to experience the presence of God in prayer. Noone thinks it strange that he can't be photographed in that situation. That does not reduce the reality of his presence. In fact, if the reality of God's presence ever were photographed You would immediately claim it as evidence that it can't be God.

PairTheBoard

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

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In my view a Spiritual Resurrection Is a literal Resurrection. It is literally Spiritual. What matters is its Reality. This story conveys the fact that the desciples finally and fully experienced the Absolute and Ultimate Reality of the Resurrection Faith.

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No offense PTB but I think you made a left turn at Liberal Christianity and took a detour to Making It Up As I Go Along.

Seriously, a "literally spiritual resurrection"? Are you arguing that Jesus is god no matter whether he rose from the dead or not, as long as his disciples believed it in their hearts? Or something? Because lots of cult followers have truly believed some crazy stuff and that doesn't make any of it "literally spiritually true."

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Seriously, he did rise from the dead. The disciples did not invent the resurrection. They experienced the Risen Christ. It was a Spiritual Experience and as Real as God is. I think you took a right turn when you failed to take the Faith, "My Kingdom is not of this world" seriously and insisted on physical things of this world for your view of spiritual reality.

PairTheBoard

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

I have to agree with PTB on this one. What's wrong with you guys? It's a perfectly consistent position to believe in Jesus's message but not believe in physical miracles.

If you need to believe in miracles to convince yourself of Jesus's divinity, that's on you. But it's not really necessary to believe in the supernatural to call yourself a Christian.

I'm shocked at my fellow atheists/agnostics. You guys want to do away with religious beliefs that don't conform to observable reality but then you bash someone like PTB who has done just that.

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

I'm not bashing PTB, I've told him many times before I respect his beliefs and I prefer his brand of religious belief to what's commonly practiced.

But... I think the resurrection of Jesus (actual, not spiritual) is the CENTRAL belief of the Christian faith. It is not open to personal interpretation. If you don't believe Jesus physically died and rose from the dead, you may be spiritual or religious - but you aren't Christian IMO.

Just my opinion, nothing personal intended towards PTB.

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

"I'm a little puzzled why Sklansky even presented the Topic. Evidently it was a Rhetorical Question."

PairTheBoard

To hear answers from others. Those who don't even consider you a Christian. Although they may now change their mind base on your clarification in an earlier post. A post which now forces me to ask you how you would compare a pious charitable Jew to a more selfish, barely satisfies the pre requisites, Christian.

PS As far as ridiculing you, I was only ridiculing your words. Which to me are too imprecise to mean anything specific.

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

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I'm not bashing PTB, I've told him many times before I respect his beliefs and I prefer his brand of religious belief to what's commonly practiced.

But... I think the resurrection of Jesus (actual, not spiritual) is the CENTRAL belief of the Christian faith. It is not open to personal interpretation. If you don't believe Jesus physically died and rose from the dead, you may be spiritual or religious - but you aren't Christian IMO.

Just my opinion, nothing personal intended towards PTB.

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I don't think he was talking about you revots. It's understandable why you object to this view. What's puzzling is why some of the Atheists here have gotten so upset with it.

PairTheBoard

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

"They experienced the Reality of his Presence. People often claim to experience the presence of God in prayer. Noone thinks it strange that he can't be photographed in that situation. That does not reduce the reality of his presence. In fact, if the reality of God's presence ever were photographed You would immediately claim it as evidence that it can't be God."

PairTheBoard

I would think a resurrection is in a different category. Perhaps not. Meanwhile I can't help but wonder how guys like BluffThis, Not Ready and Txaq react when they read your quote above. Do they defend it, attack it, or just throw their hands up in the air? So far there choice seems to be to avoid them with a ten foot pole. I wonder why.

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

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A post which now forces me to ask you how you would compare a pious charitable Jew to a more selfish, barely satisfies the pre requisites, Christian.


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I've explained this in other threads. In my view, God is Love. Jesus gave the commandment to Love God. Therefore, the pious charitable Jew who loves Love, is in accord with Jesus. Jesus considers him his friend. Jesus said many things along the lines of, "as you do for the least of these you do for me". In his charity, the pious Jew is providing gifts to Jesus. The fact that the pious Jew doesn't know Jesus, or believe in Jesus, or conceptualize Jesus in a certain way doesn't matter. He's in tight with Jesus anyway. The Jew, in his devotion to Love, is experiencing Heaven right here and now. When we die God will meet us all in a Loving embrace. In his life of Love, the pious Jew is enjoying God's Loving embrace right now.

PairTheBoard

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

"So you are almost certain that events have not occured with the exception of the Big Bang and human consciousness. Maybe you meant something else, but you used the phrase "almost certain", and then go on to say something like "because of this certainty"....I don't think thats reasonable. Also, your two exceptions are kind of big ones, don't you think?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're framing your argument around the presupposition that miracles (or events outside of scientific explanation) don't happen, even though you acknowledge that the Big Bang and human consciousness lie outside the realm of scientific explaination."

NO NO NO. You, PTB, Iron Unkind, and many others have misunderstood me on this point. I don't go under the assumption that everything obeys the laws of physics. I came to that conclusion based on statistical evidence. The fact that when paranormal or miraculous claims are investigated they are virtually always explained. The Amazing Randi has a lot more to do with my thoughts on this matter than Galileo. Take these stupid miracle claims away from your religion, and I'll sit down and listen.

Re: Can Christians Accept A Ressurection Within The Laws of Physics?
 

Interesting that no-one has interacted seriously with my posts. Maybe I've stumbled on some forum war between Sklansky and PTB.

Anyway, I think I've made it pretty clear that Jesus himself believed in a) miracles b) his own resurrection c) the importance of believing in these. (if you want to debate issues of observer/textual reliability be my guest.)

These debates aren't new. Even in the first century people were claiming to be Christians but denying the resurrection. Here's what another re-formed Jew, the apostle Paul, had to say about the issue:

'Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. or if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.' (1 Corinthians 13 )

Paul's earlier comments in the passage make it clear he is talking about physical, actual, real, resurrection.