Sigh. Who ever really is?
If it’s the latter, why wouldn’t the Divine bestow all of us with this wiring?
(I shouldn’t ask this question too loudly. Don’t want hurricanes and tornados swooping down on me.)
Maybe you chose the Deluxe Package for this incarnation, freeing you from worrying about such matters. 
I don’t know. I’d love to find out, though. Why are you wired to create art, and I’m wired to heal people? Whether random or Divine, it seems we don’t all get the same gifts/burdens, and religiosity is just one more of those.
Huh, interesting stuff. Like everyone, I’ve met Christians of all varieties, from Bible literalists to viewing the Bible’s stories as parables, to everything east, west and in the middle of that, but they’ve all accepted as a matter of faith that Jesus was physically resuscitated from death. I’ve not encountered any skepticism of that or interpretations that the resurrection itself may have been symbolic. I learned something today. (This board can be informative when we’re not squabbling about politics.)
Christians generally believe in the resurrection of Jesus, as described in the Nicene Creed:
That’s the Catholic version that I know, but most Christian denominations, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant, subscribe to this.
That said, there is certainly some variation of interpretation. When I was in Catholic high school, a priest told us that we couldn’t really know what “rose again” meant, and that whatever it was, it might not necessarily have been something that would have been recorded had there been a movie camera (hey, this was in the pre-video days) set up in the corner of the tomb filming everything. This was, however, at a Jesuit school, and (as bienville notes above, the Jesuits can be a bit looser in their interpretations than other Catholic orders.
There are Christians (and I do believe that they are Christians) who don’t necessarily believe that the resurrection was a physical event, but that there was a real resurrection of Christ in the hearts and minds of His followers.
Spong is a bit of an outlier, but the linked article does present an understanding of the Resurrection held, probably, by a significant minority of Christians.
There are those who would say that lack of belief in a physical resurrection disqualifies one from being a Christian. I’m not one of them.
I’m sure Christians generally subscribe to literal resurrection, but I didn’t even know there was a competing school of thought. I thought for all varieties of Christianity and Christians, that was the one thing they all agreed on.
Well, no. IIRC there was recently in England a Bishop of Durham who expressly did not believe in the Resurrection, and I guess he called himself a Christian nonetheless.
Catholic here.
Yes, physical resurrection is essential to being a Christian.
Not in my experience. I have never known a Committee for Clearness to probe a prospective member’s beliefs re: Jesus, and that’s among several yearly meetings. Given how non-creedal Quakers are, it’s not like we can just check the instruction manual, but the closest I see in PYM’s Faith and Practice are:
and
There’s an acknowledgement of the historical relevance of Christian tradition. As for the resurrection, Jesus’ divinity or lack thereof, blood sacrifice cleansing us of sins we never committed, Mary’s status, etc., it’s my experience that most folks in these meetings don’t give a fuck. I don’t. My religion, to me, as about my relationship with God. The rest is window dressing for schlubs who need that flavor of woo (I need a different flavor). If they need it, fine, but it really doesn’t concern me. I don’t reject it. It just doesn’t matter.
The Nicene Creed has never been mentioned in any meeting I’ve participated in.
Here’s a Ph.D thesis from a few years back exploring British Quaker beliefs: PDF. It’s not the most amazing work, but it’s a quick read. >70% of respondents consider themselves Christian, and >70% would describe Quakerism as a Christian faith. Note that 66% answered “No” to “Do you believe Jesus died for Atonement (in other words to save your soul)?” The study did not address the resurrection, but I’m guessing most would find it irrelevant.
Except for those who don’t and yet are. I think it’s a mystery.
For anyone who’s really interested in investigating the issue further, I happened upon this discussion: The Importance and Nature of the Resurrection
This article quotes Marcus Borg, a leading liberal Christian scholar whom I find interesting and helpful but don’t always agree with. More on Borg’s perspective on the resurrection (as an example of the liberal approach) can be found here, and a discussion/critique of his views can be found here.
I think this is pretty true for a lot of us, I call myself a cultural Christian and am pretty closely aligned with Bishop Spong has to say in regards to this.
Yes, and some people beat their wives and claim to love them. It’s a mistery.
Even the most militant atheists take some stuff in the Bible literally, for instance its account of Palestine as full of Jews but ruled by Romans in the decades around 1CE.
Taking it literally is not an all or nothing matter for anybody. It is a matter of how much, and what in particular.
Another liberal (not literal) Christian who believes in the resurrection of Christ.
As a dictionary definition of literal that is true, but in the actual context of biblical exegesis saying “literal” has the specific meaning of “all the Bible, always”.
So Paul at one point literally transformed himself into a tinkling cymbal? Now there’s an image…
You can tell the people who take the Bible literally, because so many of them are missing their right hand.
I guess the question has been pretty well answered, but I think it’s worth mentioning that Jesus himself may not have taken a lot of the Old Testament literally - at least, plenty of Jews at that time did not.