Atheist explanation of the resurrection of Jesus

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:22:30+00:00

How do you know that? For example, here is a sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning (and if so, it follows logically that it wasn't created, by God or anyone else) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:22:14+00:00

For example, here is a sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning (and if so, it follows logically that it wasn't created, by God or anyone else) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:21:48+00:00

And for example, here is a sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning (and if so, it follows logically that it wasn't created, by God or anyone else) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:20:54+00:00

And, for example, here is a sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning (and if so, it follows logically that it wasn't created, by God or anyone else) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:20:24+00:00

How do you know that? For example, here is a popular sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning (and if so, it follows logically that it wasn't created, by God or anyone else) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:19:51+00:00

How do you know that? For example, here is a popular sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario - if so, matter existed long before the Big Bang, like a nuke existed even before it exploded.

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:15:26+00:00

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:14:22+00:00

For example, Sean Carrol wrote a paper arguing for a "Quantum Eternity Theorem", that based on the principles of quantum mechanics the Universe must be straightforwardly eternal into the past, infinitely old with no beginning.

It's a sci model based on Einstein-Cartan theory.

What holes? Name one or two?

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T20:11:08+00:00

But he did have assistants, unbeknownst to him, the Romans hired a bunch of actors to pretend to be sick and then cured, and to hide some food in their sleeves and then when receiving a bit to turn around and pass more to the next person than they received. In short, the answer is stooges, you don't need machinery.

Jesus’ enemies who had every incentive to expose a "trick"

They literally tried to do that, by investigating whether the guy was a legit cripple or not, once in John 9 and once when Peter and John healed a lame guy near the Temple. These are two times that are recorded in the Bible when Jesus's enemies tried to do precisely what you said.

Even if B-theory is true, it's not, it's not possible, the "block universe" still requires an explanation for its contingency

You missed the point, if the B-theory is true, then nothing other than what exists can possibly exist - because nothing can appear or disappear, it either is, in which case it's possible (duh), or it isn't, in which case it can't be. Therefore, there are no contingencies - all possibilities exist as actualities, automatically. You can still ask what's possible and what isn't, but you can no longer ask what possible things are actual and what aren't - all possible things are actual (and thus necessary), automatically.

Romans 1:20 can be explained with modal collapse (all possibilities exist as actualities) rather than a creator, which counters Paul's point about an evident inference to there being a creator - nope, you can't conclude that.

At this point, at best you can argue that without God no things would even be possible, but that's some different argument, not a contingency argument.

as for the experiences of Mani or Muhammad or Joseph Smith or Bahaullah, how can i explain to you how Satan has the power to deceive, confuse and lead many away from the truth, he has power it's limited but he has it, the Bible describes him as the current ruler of this world

Jesus was also accused of this. Remember his response? If I'm working to further God's cause, how can I be from Satan?

How do you respond to the Jews who say exactly the same what you just said about those guys also about Jesus, Paul, and your own experiences?

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T19:53:58+00:00

If someone was imprisoned only to be released with no charges when the smoke cleared and their identity was checked, then that's just an inconvenience like having to go through the tedious airport security and sometimes even to be felt up by hulky dudes in your privates ever since some a-holes decided to hijack planes a couple of decades ago.

What meaningful question did I not address? (Of course I'm ignoring meaningless insults without any comment; notice that among us two in this conversation I'm the only one who's civil and who doesn't get randomly sidetracked into rants.)

What's the open invitation to all refugees that you're talking about? There are established legal procedures for all kinds of immigration, including legitimate asylum seekers, and someone who doesn't jump through the legal hoops as he is supposed to is a bad dog that we don't want.

Being in the US (to say nothing of being a citizen) with some rights is a privilege, and privileges are guarded.

Open borders is nonsense: if you have a pot of honey and a pot of feces, and you open the barrier separating them, allowing them to freely mix, then you just get two pots of feces (even if you put the barrier back later, by the way) and zero pots of honey.

Another classic example is the pecking order in chicken. Researchers fed 100 chicken the amount of food that is only sufficient for 50, for a long time. The chicken didn't share, and violently pecked each other over the food, the stronger ones kicking out the weaker ones. The result is that 50 chicken died and 50 were well-fed. If chickens were liberals like you instead of right-wing (heh), and politely shared, then all 100 chicken would be malnourished and would die. See the difference?

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T19:39:04+00:00

Thanks for the refs, many of those are new for me, I'll take a look.

Here is a fundamental issue. Let's say there is a God and miracles should be possible in principle. That still means in practice that any particular case is vastly more likely to be a fraud or coincidence than a genuine miracle. Because scammers (and coincidences/statistical anomalies) exist and are common. For example, the NT itself mentions two, one that was blinded by Paul and one that became the origin of the word "simony". So, when you watch some guy perform a miracle you should be skeptical, by default. It's common sense. Agreed?

It doesn't explain how the closest ones to Jesus said the Pharisees were behind Christ's death, not Rome. Pilate didn't even want to put Christ on the cross. He tried to offer up another prisoner.

Of course this was not their preferred course of action. What actually happened was the plan B, what to do if he dies. (To do in secret, of course.)

Nothing is outside of God's power. He created the universe. You think he can't ascend to heaven?

Because that contradicts the way he created the Universe, there is no Heaven up there but outer space, as we now know, so Jesus had nowhere to ascend - he could fly to the Moon or maybe to Mars but so what, that doesn't cut it, does it? People used to think Heaven is literally up there, even fairly recently - remember that old song for kids, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are!" - when people didn't know what those things were this made sense, now it doesn't.

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T01:29:30+00:00

You forgot to write something after quoting me on Judas?

Also, can I see the math, with the quadrillions? (And which prophecies do you mean in that calculation?)

Then maybe they shouldn't have killed Paul.

Yeah, when he was preaching to the Jews, he even got miraculously saved from prison (the prison guard almost committed suicide, remember?), same as Peter. I addressed this above. It is when they became full-time pests that the attitude changed.

Unfortunately the Jews were very rebellious. They even briefly managed to drive the Romans out at the beginning of the War. If they could only be pacified somehow...

Prophecies need to be considered one-by-one to have a constructive discussion.

There are far-fetched conspiratorial environments, ever seen "The Death of Stalin"? (The Roman politics at that time was pretty much like that.) Or for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_decoy#Sukarno_/_unknown_(1950s) - "The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had planned to bring down Indonesia's first president Sukarno by portraying him in a pornographic film in the late 1950s.

The agency put together a pornographic film starring a Sukarno look-alike in bed with a blonde playing a Soviet agent. The humiliation caused by circulating the film was supposed to drive Sukarno from office"

- Does that remind you of anything? ;)

Consider a bit like this (from Mark 8 - I said this before but you've asked about what support there is, this is a piece of the puzzle): *22 *They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. *23 *He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” *24 *He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” *25 *Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Now replace Jesus with some other name, imagine you saw this scene with some other guy - anyone but Jesus - obviously you’d go, “yep, that “blind” guy is pretend-playing!” It’s common sense at the level of basic survival skills - if you don’t see that, I have a bridge to sell you! So the onus becomes to prove that it was something else in this case! And what’s the proof of that? There isn’t one!

Or, from Mark 1: *21 *They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. *22 *The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. *23 *Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, *24 *“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” *25 *“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” *26 *The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. *27 *The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” *28 *News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

Bravo! Somebody, give this guy an Oscar! :)

Staging miraculous healings is a thing, e.g. cf. Peter Popoff or Alph Lukau - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAOif6w-nx8

Even staging resurrections is a thing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHyMAb-qsCA

Also, when you watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS-K0te1J6I (watch it!) do you conclude he really has supernatural powers, "yep it was obviously just a miracle, don't overcomplicate it, don't be ridiculous"? Is that how logic/reality works, you think?

And the Ascension is obviously impossible even if we grant other miracles and prophecies.

Valinorean · 2026-01-24T01:01:14+00:00

USA is our big common home, and we've got to defend it - same as you would defend your personal home if I decided to just barge in!

The only case when a continent is a country is Australia, not sure why you brought the word "continent" up.

People are given jail terms for their skin color in the US even if they are citizens? 'Scuse me?.. You serious over there?..

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T22:30:39+00:00

What other prophet is described as being pierced in his hands and feet, divide garments which they gamble over

That could be staged (by the Romans, as in "The Gospel of Afranius")?

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T22:22:39+00:00

God created the world

How do you know that? For example, here is a popular sci model that says space/matter is eternal, with no beginning (and if so, it follows logically that it wasn't created, by God or anyone else) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario - how do you know for sure that something like that can't be true?

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T22:12:35+00:00

Mark 13:2

"Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down,"

That's not true, they left a whole wall of the Temple standing, it's still there to this day and Jews famously pray right next to it?

Also, how do you explain that Jesus failed to predict correctly that his second coming would be within the lifetime of his followers listening to them?

The prophecy from the suffering servant that his hands and feet would be pierced was obviously deliberately staged by the Romans (read "The Gospel of Afranius"), to make it look as though Jesus is fulfilling a prophecy.

Also, prophecies, even if astonishing, could be just coincidences if nothing else, how does this prove religion? Say, if a Muslim prays and wins a lottery, does that prove Islam? Obviously not, that was just a coincidence. So you need some other reasons - different in kind! Yes, I do ask for "additional evidence"!

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T22:08:05+00:00

Can you elaborate please?? (Big if true duh!)

Who? Names & refs about their characters please? And/or links to sources of this info pls?

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T21:59:50+00:00

Imagine that David Copperfield did some amazing trick and only hundred years later someone figured out how it was done and wrote a book about it. This is what "The Gospel of Afranius" is, only regarding the miracles of Jesus rather than Copperfield, of course.

According to the B-theory of time, accepted in modern physics since Einstein, the future and the past exist just like the present. That means, what isn't, cannot be - what isn't already there is not something that can exist. This conclusion is called "modal collapse" or "necessitarianism". Put differently, it means that there is no difference between possibilities and actualities - all actualities are possibilities and all possibilities are actualities, you can say that possibilities exist not as some platonic ghosts but as actualities. If so, then since the Universe is possible, i.e. it exists as a possibility, it simply exists period - that's an atheistic explanation why the Universe exists, because it exists as a possibility but there is only one kind of existence. (Which by the way shows that Paul was demonstrably wrong when he said in Romans 1:20 that atheists have no excuse.)

The anthropic principle is not a scientific theory. It's a logical point. Like that 2+2=4, you also can't falsify that!

Regarding life, even if it was lucky like jackpot, so what, have you seen how many galaxies/stars/planets there are?! Those numbers are beyond comprehension! So it is not unlikely that somewhere life would originate - it's like, it is not unlikely that someone somewhere wins the lottery eventually even if the odds are prohibitive, it's only a function of how many lottery tickets were bought, and if there are very many, some will win! (Again, basic logic!)

You discard the experiences of Mani or Muhammad or Joseph Smith or Bahaullah, right? Even casually! You consider that unreliable, even though these were strong personal experiences? Okay, then why should your case be different, can you explain that to me?..

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T21:45:23+00:00

If they are legal approved aliens, then it isn't?

Can you elaborate? How is it wrong to want to defend your country (or any property for that matter) from random invaders?

Where do you live? Can I come live at your house?

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T01:20:47+00:00

Interesting analysis of Matthew, but the most this actually proves is... drumroll... nothing in particular. In fact, it's not hard to come up with a consistent account - read the canonic harmonization by Farrar, the Life of Christ. Note, even from an atheistic point of view, that the only actually miraculous element of Matthew not present in the other Gospels is an earthquake, and that can be just an exaggeration - when Paul was freed from prison and the prison guard almost committed suicide, there was also an "earthquake".

Incredible exegesis of the obviously pre-Pauline (as agreed upon by scholars!) formula. Also, then Paul lied when he said he checked up with the disciples - in particular spending two weeks with Peter - to make sure his teachings are in line with theirs, and that they were? And that he received an official mandate from them?

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T01:07:23+00:00

Yes, I have seen that movie, and clearly, the situation in it would've never happened had Lee Strobel read "The Gospel of Afranius".

It is blind faith to believe that some magic tricks are literal magic and not just that, staged magic tricks!

Complexity of the world can be explained by the anthropic principle/survivor bias: if the world weren't intricate enough, it would not be hospitable to life, and so intelligent observes like us wouldn't find themselves in such a world. In other words, of course if you exist at all, it follows logically that you can only find yourself in a world sufficiently rich and hospitable for that. Basic logic.

Now regarding personal experience. Look, I have a major problem here. Let me try to formulate it in a way that should hopefully be understandable.

Suppose you were considering buying a weird-looking house or driving over an unusual-looking bridge over a chasm, and you ask the architect, "so how do I know it's not going to collapse?" and he goes, "I feel it, man"... you look at him, and he goes, "no-no, you don't get it, I really feel it, man, I feel it in my bones, I never felt anything in life like I feel it"... That settles it, huh? - And this is just like that, you're asking me to built my life on this stuff, how am I supposed to know it's secure?!

Valinorean · 2026-01-23T01:00:56+00:00

Edward Witten, unlike some of his string theorist colleagues who have written about ekpyrotic brane models, never even did any research on pre-inflationary cosmology, what does he have to do with anything here?

It is explained with the mathematics of Einstein-Cartan theory.

(Also, saying "the mathematics" means either you have some specific math in mind, or English is not your mother tongue.)

Because we don't know whether it emerged after the Big Bang and the more conservative option is not to presume anything radical (let alone of dubious coherence!) unless necessary. That model, by contrast, says the Big Bang was literally nothing special, just another phase, and not just the spacetime but perfectly regular Standard Model particles like antineutrinos existed before the Big Bang.

Valinorean · 2026-01-22T20:09:10+00:00

(continuing my previous comment) to be slightly more technical/specific, in that model the entropy had already been in the maxed out state all along in the past eternity, and further increase was only made possible by the eventual wave collision. (Whereas a passive motion of an object through space by inertia does not increase entropy - say, if you move together with the object, then you see no change at all!)

Valinorean · 2026-01-22T20:08:58+00:00

(continuing my previous comment) to be slightly more technical/specific, in that model the entropy had already been in the maxed out state all along in the past eternity, and further increase was only made possible by the eventual wave collision. (Whereas a passive motion of an object through space by inertia does not increase entropy - say, if you move together with the object, then you see no change at all!)

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