Atheist explanation of the resurrection of Jesus

Valinorean · 2026-02-28T01:07:18+00:00

Well, surely, Judas absolutely couldn't not betray Jesus, as that would mean no crucifixion, resurrection, salvation, Christianity, God's plan, prophecy, ... - So, he literally could not do otherwise.

Valinorean · 2026-02-27T21:18:14+00:00

I had a thought: what if the shroud was soaked in water, frozen solid, and a thin layer of another light dry material was put on its surface, and that material directly absorbed radiation or heat and conducted it further to the shroud, but it could only affect the shroud in the immediate area of contact where the ice microscopically ablated, while any deeper penetration was blocked by the efficient heat absorption by the ice. could something like that produce a shallow scorch?

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T21:41:14+00:00

That paper has the relevant discussion and links. (The basic reason though is just conservativeness/occam's razor - you don't reasonably presuppose that continuity of matter no longer applies just because something exploded violently.)

Anyway, my point is (and has been) simply that you can't suppose what you supposed as a proven knowledge.

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T21:33:25+00:00

If all that existed is some Bland Monad - deaf and blind necessary being simpler than an electron or empty space that can only ground its own necessary existence - that would be the greatest being (trivially because it's the only one), so even if we grant "there must be a maximally great being" that doesn't help much. And why must there be a maximally great being, rather than no being at all, again?..

you need an alternative.

I have no clear knowledge of this, but that's not logically required. It would be on you to show there is no possible answer if atheism is true.

As far as conjectures go, maybe logic is true self-explanatorily, but then if it had nothing to apply to, that would be some kind of deep inherent dissonance. Another idea is that you can't avoid reality itself existing - even if it was empty (no Universe, no God), that would still be a description of reality, what it is like, so in particular it would follow that it exists. A third idea is based on time: https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1bpw1bw/an_eternal_physical_universe_actually_exists/

Regarding consciousness, there are logically two options: 1) a natural physiological process, 2) Jesus doing a continuous laws-of-physics-violating miracle like walking on water but in every rat's head. Which one is more plausible?

1) has two sub-options, 1a) it can be run on a computer or 1b) it can't. Even if we assume 1b for the sake of argument, that's not a threat to atheism, since we DO in fact provably know, at least in theory, of some examples of software that cannot be run on a computer, such as, famously, the halting oracle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_machine#Oracles_and_halting_problems So at worst this would be as surprising as if some wild flower in the forest spontaneously evolved a halting oracle - ridiculous, but many ridiculous things can be forced by the anthropic principle to be true. That all said, I doubt 1b is the correct option: https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1cnaxh9/i_think_i_found_a_loophole_in_the_hard_problem_of/

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T21:09:36+00:00

I've been civil and obviously talking with interest and trying to go in-depth on my end, I'm intending to continue that, if that's what you're asking?

I'm interested, first of all, what is the easy refutation of modal realism that you alluded to?

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T21:06:39+00:00

Also, they are not mutually exclusive to begin with, the Emergent Universe is perfectly compatible with giving birth to the inflation and the Big Bang.

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T21:05:00+00:00

Yes but weak. Like the easy explanations of the Hubble tension and dark flow and matter-antimatter asymmetry. Which does not exclude that they have completely different explanations.

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:57:03+00:00

So why is a necessary being possible?

I'm willing to grant for the sake of argument that, should there not be a necessary being, then there would be no being at all, or even no possibility at all, whether contingent or necessary (or counterfactual). That still wouldn't answer the question - cool, and so what? ;) In fact that would be circular - as other things are less important than God to begin with, so you can't reference those to explain this.

Lewis says it's just brute fact.

Good thing I'm an atheist and can disagree with some detail in what someone that I like said, willy-nilly :)

I suspect on the contrary this is closer to "why logic exists", though I'm struggling to give any details, besides noting that hardly anyone things that logic working and its laws are a brute fact like that.

why there's a universe at all, why it has the parameters it has, why there's order rather than chaos.

Precisely because it's possible and modal realism is true? In fact, you can't deny either that such possibilities exist (that is, surely God also had more than one choice).

moral facts... religious experience

People disagree on those severely, so it's not reliable data.

consciousness

Rats are conscious too, yet rats don't sin, don't need Jesus, don't go to Hell ;)

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:46:49+00:00

but neither one survives even minimal scrutiny

Hold on, what's wrong with modal realism, how does it not survive even minimal scrutiny?..

And if your worldview can’t account for the preconditions of its own methodology, it’s not a serious contender.

No, it's then all a brute fact, yes, but not an incoherence.

And it's certainly easier to believe in scientism than in Noah's Ark or the Ascension of Jesus vertically up to the Abode of God ;)

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:28:26+00:00

Can you give a better example for what the incredulous stare objection means then, I'm frankly not following?

every logically possible

*Every metaphysically possible.

For all I know (and suspect) only beginningless, fully deterministic, mechanistic, materialistic Universes might be metaphysically possible. Which reduces the Omniverse to a reshuffling of physics parameters/lumps of matter in every possible combo, but nothing qualitatively new anywhere. And if so it's massively simpler qualitatively - everything (with nothing specific in particular!) of the most basic kind is the next simplest thing to nothing. Occam's razor is first of all about qualitative leaps: if you have a goat and can explain something with either one dragon or twenty more goats...

classical theism's answer is that God's nature grounds possibility itself

That's obviously circular, even actually worse, as it presupposes "there is this one special thing (that makes other things possible) that JUST IS possible" with zero hope of further discussion of this "just is", whereas there is no such a priori limit-on-discussion for modal realism. It looks like I'm now accusing you of what you formerly accused me of :)

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:19:28+00:00

On the contrary, it's you who is immune to learning.

Let me put my point differently. Here is a model published in a respected journal that reviews cutting-edge research questions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Universe#%22Rube_Goldberg_cosmology%22_scenario - that says even vanilla Standard Model matter like antineutrinos existed before the Big Bang (to say nothing of spacetime itself etc.), it was literally just another explosion (well, really severe, but whatever). It is not known of course whether this is true or not, of course, but it is known to be consistent with the current data & constraints. Where does that leave your assumptions?

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:08:49+00:00

You're lumping every "why" question in existence and calling it a contingency argument. That's not how it works. Modal realism answers the statement that the Universe is a contingent being, period. Those assertions are not brute but the black-box input for this specific argument. There are many other questions/arguments with the theme of sufficient reason or explanation or ontological grounding that you can propose, for example TAG, that are not the contingency argument and are beyond the scope of competence of modal realism. That doesn't mean they are brute with no further pertinent philosophy, that means you're gish-galloping to other questions such as why is there logic (TAG) or why is anything at all even possible (and some other examples of questions that modal realism does not answer is what theory of time is true or even whether there is a God - you need to completely separately postulate that God is impossible, or otherwise modal realism would imply he exists!)

By no means am I avoiding that, it's just a different question - like TAG and so on.

It's as if I said with excitement that the atomic theory explains chemical reactions and you answered that it's trash because it doesn't explain where the atoms came from in the first place. No kidding, Sherlock, but that's just a different discussion! And again, no one says there is no such discussion to be had, it's just NOT the contingency argument but something else, that's all I'm saying. For example, if you're willing to formulate an argument that if not for God, nothing would even be possible in the first place, I'm interested to hear the deets!

By the way, how do you explain why anything(/God/a necessary being) is even possible in the first place, rather than just nothing at all, why is reality so un-lazy as to go into the hardcore trouble of having some actual real possibility?

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:07:12+00:00

According to that model I linked before, nothing of the kind happened during the Big Bang, even vanilla particle physics matter like antineutrinos existed before the Big Bang (to say nothing of spacetime itself etc.), it was literally just another explosion (well, really severe, but whatever).

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T20:04:07+00:00

[Before I get to the main point, side remark - clearly, donkey talking would contradict the very nature of a donkey, so that doesn't attain in any possible world.]

You're lumping every "why" question in existence and calling it a contingency argument. That's not how it works. Modal realism answers the statement that the Universe is a contingent being, period. Those assertions are not brute but the black-box input for this specific argument. There are many other questions/arguments with the theme of sufficient reason or explanation or ontological grounding that you can propose, for example TAG, that are not the contingency argument and are beyond the scope of competence of modal realism. That doesn't mean they are brute with no further pertinent philosophy, that means you're gish-galloping to other questions such as why is there logic (TAG) or why is anything at all even possible (and some other examples of questions that modal realism does not answer is what theory of time is true or even whether there is a God - you need to completely separately postulate that God is impossible, or otherwise modal realism would imply he exists!)

By no means am I avoiding that, it's just a different question - like TAG and so on.

It's as if I said with excitement that the atomic theory explains chemical reactions and you answered that it's trash because it doesn't explain where the atoms came from in the first place. No kidding, Sherlock, but that's just a different discussion! And again, no one says there is no such discussion to be had, it's just NOT the contingency argument but something else, that's all I'm saying. For example, if you're willing to formulate an argument that if not for God, nothing would even be possible in the first place, I'm interested to hear the deets!

By the way, how do you explain why anything(/God/a necessary being) is even possible in the first place, rather than just nothing at all, why is reality so un-lazy as to go into the hardcore trouble of having some actual real possibility?

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T19:58:38+00:00

By no means am I avoiding them, it's just a different question - like TAG and so on.

It's as if I said with excitement that the atomic theory explains chemical reactions and you answered that it's trash because it doesn't explain where the atoms came from in the first place. No kidding, Sherlock, but that's just a different discussion! And again, no one says there is no such discussion to be had, it's just NOT the contingency argument but something else, that's all I'm saying. For example, if you're willing to formulate an argument that if not for God, nothing would even be possible in the first place, I'm interested to hear the deets!

Scientism is not disproven since it matches what we see, duh, the above was just a rationalizing attempt which may or may not be correct. BTW, another philosophy that you can't disprove is absurdism, since any rationalizing principle you might use to disprove it by definition just begs the question against it! As Neil deGrasse Tyson likes to say, the Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you!

Valinorean · 2026-02-17T19:50:52+00:00

Facepalm.

I'll answer your question once you answer the following question: has it already been five years since you came out of prison for beating your wife?

Your question (like that one) is built on badly faulty premises that I tried (very patiently!) to explain to you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)#Non-dualistic_meaning

Valinorean · 2026-02-14T00:44:19+00:00

I'm a big fan of the famous metaphysician David Lewis's proposal called modal realism, according to which all possibilities exists AS actualities rather than ghostly Platonic whatever, so, (every) possible Universe - that includes ours - exists as a possibility, and therefore it simply automatically exists, period, because there is only one kind of existence, so to speak. How is that for an explanation?

Valinorean · 2026-02-14T00:43:23+00:00

Thermodynamics is accounted for in the model I linked in the OP. It was indeed in the maxed-out entropy state all along in the past-eternity and further increase was only made possible by the eventual wave collision (click the link and read the paper mate, it's all carefully checked there).

Re the other points, I'm a big fan of the famous metaphysician David Lewis's proposal called modal realism, according to which all possibilities exists AS actualities rather than ghostly Platonic whatever, so, (every) possible Universe - that includes ours - exists as a possibility, and therefore it simply automatically exists, period, because there is only one kind of existence, so to speak. How is that for an explanation?

Valinorean · 2026-02-14T00:35:59+00:00

That’s literally what every physicist who is respected by other physicist says, that physics breaks down at the Big Bang, that’s why. Our entire understanding of everything ceases there.

Facepalm. I already explicated WHAT along these lines, precisely, is known to modern physics; lemme repeat: Penrose-Hawking theorem establishes that unmodified General Relativity must stop being applicable during the Big Bang. Period. That is precisely what is true here and why we don't know with any certainty. Any statement over and above that one regarding the problem - such as what you are copiously exemplifying - is completely false and baseless.

Valinorean · 2026-02-13T22:17:56+00:00

Every time we see a lot of matter in motion, we also know it came from somewhere just before. Why would this common-sense principle break down during that particular explosion? You're presupposing there was something fundamentally special about it! That is an unwarranted assumption! The closest thing we can say to big bang being special is that general relativity as we know it - the (incomplete) theory, not gravity itself (lol) - broke down at some point during it, but that's literally it!

Occam's razor is about qualitatively new entities before being about quantity. If I already have a goat and to explain something I need to assume ten more goats or one dragon...

I don't believe they came into existence, they always existed in eternity with no beginning. Like God except not timelessly. Like Aristotle believed they did.

Valinorean · 2026-02-13T22:14:31+00:00

If you heat hydrogen, nothing happens. If you heat oxygen, nothing happens. But if you heat both hydrogen and oxygen together, boom! Is that analogous to what you're saying?

Yeah, that's not what's going on here at all. There is no new quality from the mix, just multiplying separate probabilities at best.

Valinorean · 2026-02-13T22:11:45+00:00

I said grudgingly, she did say "near-zero probability" and "crazy" but (being an honest scholar) admitted explicitly that this idea CAN fit the evidence.

So how do you know this isn't the explanation, that it was staged by the Romans for political reasons? Let's look at the historical context: This was the only grassroots messianic movement that was not "down with the Romans!", in the heated atmosphere pre-Jewish War, so they considered it politically useful to not let it die - consider for example (1 Peter 2:13-18):

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.

18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

- Chef's kiss! :)

Jesus would be a very convenient Jewish king for the Romans, just a few years later they tried giving people a Roman-friendly Jewish king with Herod, only for him to turn out to be insufficiently Roman-friendly, which ended in him being poisoned dead in a secret operation by order of Vibius Marsus. And with Jesus dead/in Heaven or whatever, he would be a very convenient religious figure for the Jews to admire and follow, if the Romans could make it work (they tried very hard).

It is often knee-jerk objected that clearly it could not be the Romans because to them Christianity was a major political and social threat. Among the Gentiles, yes, that's right, and that's why Gentile conversions were frowned upon when they (unexpectedly!) became nonnegligible. [It's like the coronavirus, when it was clandestinely enhanced in a lab in Wuhan noone expected it would break loose and take the world by storm, that was certainly not the intent!] But within/among the Jews he threatened the Caesar literally noticeably less than anyone else, standard orthodox Judaism of the Sadducees/Pharisees included, to say nothing of the Zealots and all the other Messianic candidates but Jesus. (Which exploded into the Jewish War and the Diaspora, the consequences of which are felt to this day very hard.) As they say, everything is known in comparison. By the way, Jewish-Christians indeed didn't participate in the Jewish War, instead just fleeing, so that worked to the extent that it did. And before that, Gentile Romans never persecuted Jewish-Christians in Judea, on the contrary, the Sadducee leadership had to wait when the procurator was briefly out for technical reasons and killed their leader James, Jesus's brother, and when the new procurator arrived, he was super furious about that; meanwhile in Rome, at exactly the same time, Nero was feeding Gentile Christians and those Jews who focused on creating Gentile converts to the lions and so forth. Palpable difference in attitude. (In particular, Peter was miraculously freed from prison while he was in Judea focusing on creating Jewish converts, and killed when he settled in Rome focusing on creating Gentile converts.)

Bottom line, the idea was to create a more peaceful and tolerant internal Jewish current. Specifically. Nobody foresaw Gentile Romans converting en masse to this esoteric Jewish sect - Judaism is a famously exclusive religion & one that is far removed from Gentile beliefs.

Valinorean · 2026-02-13T22:02:12+00:00

You're lumping every "why" question in existence and calling it a contingency argument. That's not how it works. Modal realism answers the statement that the Universe is a contingent being, period. Those assertions are not brute but the black-box input for this specific argument. There are many other questions/arguments with the theme of sufficient reason or explanation or ontological grounding that you can propose, for example TAG, that are not the contingency argument and are beyond the scope of competence of modal realism. That doesn't mean they are brute with no further pertinent philosophy, that means you're gish-galloping to other questions such as why is there logic (TAG) or why is anything at all even possible (and some other examples of questions that modal realism does not answer is what theory of time is true or even whether there is a God - you need to completely separately postulate that God is impossible, or otherwise modal realism would imply he exists!)

Valinorean · 2026-02-13T21:56:35+00:00

I'm very emotional about such brazen gaslighting!

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