Forgive me, this is not a rallying flag for atheists or a call to fervent Christians: its simply something which bothers me and I wonder if there is any rational answer.
In essence I do not believe the resurrection happened. I look at the universe and the rules of science which God imposed and reversal of death is not possible. Cells break down and bacteria immediately start to consume any dead organic creature. Jesus could not be a special case in this universe. Science does not allow it.
FYI I’m a Presbyterian, support my church but seldom go, like the biblical stories, and embrace the ethics of Christianity - and humanism.
Well, I guess it’s possible to be a good person, following the various philosophical and ethical guidelines of Christianity (at least the ones that still apply to the modern world) while being indifferent to or dismissive of all its mystical aspects.
You ask for an answer, but I’m not sure I see a question.
Are you asking if there’s a non-magical, non-religious explanation for Jesus’ disappearance from the cave, assuming the rest of the story is true?
I think the easiest theory is that one or more of his followers moved his body. Possibly to create the “miracle” to lend credibility to their cult, possibly 'cause they just wanted him buried somewhere else, in a way keeping with Jewish law. Jewish law says that a body must be buried within 24 hours of death, unless that falls on the Sabbath. If it does, then the body may be placed in a temporary tomb (like a convenient cave), but it needs to be moved and put into the ground when the Sabbath is over.
If the question is, “how do I reconcile my belief in Christianity with my unbelief in the Resurrection,” then I’m not sure how to answer that. If you’re already believing 6 impossible things before breakfast, what’s stopping you at 7?
Why on Earth would you assume that God is limited by the rules of science? I work with computer programs that are programmed to follow certain rules, the same rules I constantly break to make things not possible within the rules. And I think perhaps that an omnipotent god that is above my paygrade, would be able to do things I am not.
“Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.”
Isn’t it a matter of faith? Or draw your own fine line…
My question: is there any scientific hypothesis for a man dying and then returning to life 3 days later?
Perhaps he wasn’t dead but crucifixion usually did the job. One of the reasons is that breathing becomes impossible because of the pressure from hanging by the arms.
Rune suggests anything is possible but God created a universe with specific rules right down to the handedness of subatomic particles. There isn’t wriggle room to reverse normal chemical and biological processes. For what its worth even Stephen Hawking says this.
Mmm…faith for me is a spiritual concept, that humans are not the high point of the universe, that indefinable abstracts such as love, goodness and mercy have a real meaning. And a real value.
I can’t tell myself to believe in a material (as opposed to spiritual) event when it is an impossibility. I don’t see the resurrection as being a matter of faith. Either it happened and has a rational explanation - or it didn’t.
Steven Hawkins is a tottering old fool. But the argument that this or that in the Bible is impossible because it breaks some or other rule is much older than him, which hasn’t detracted from its general silliness. There are many good reasons not to believe in God, but this isn’t one of them. Besides God doesn’t need wriggle room when he can change the rules.
So you don’t believe everything Bible tells you. Then what is the problem with cherry picking around the “Resurrection” story?
Also if I create little beings and their little reality, I wouldn’t expose/give them everything right away. I might give them little more as they earn the right, by not doubting me, to go to their next little reality.
Why would you assume he isn’t? Just as we’ve no evidence for gods, we’ve no evidence that a god or anything else can ignore physical laws.
I’ve heard that argument before. He wasn’t really dead, just near death; even that there was a plot to get him out alive given that the Romans didn’t break his legs as is normal.
Of course, in reality the fact is that it’s just a legend written down by people with an agenda who weren’t even there at the time. So the simplest assumption is that what really happened has little if any resemblance to the legend.
Eventually, yeah. But when he slumped over – right after drinking the special concoction someone gave him – the other two guys being crucified right next to him were still alive, right? And according to Matthew, that’s when folks took Jesus down off the cross; according to Mark, that’s when folks took Jesus down off the cross; according to Luke, that’s when folks took Jesus down off the cross; according to the [del]obvious patch[/del] later story in John, that’s when folks took Jesus down off the cross upon poking him first, at which point blood and water came out as if he were still alive, or something.
Regardless, at the guy’s wake, some of his suggestible followers enjoyed hallucinogenic mushrooms – some powdered and mixed into water for a euphoric wine-like effect in small doses, some as big fine broad flat caps that look like pita bread – at which point they all saw what they most desperately wanted to see.
Throw in WhyNot’s hint at the Bible’s own proffered explanation – some guys made off with the body, maybe by bribing a guard, and cue various differing stories about who found what in the tomb later – and, hey, dueling explanations, each just as easy to believe as “back from the dead” magic.
This is an often made argument for the capacity of god to work miracles, but it’s not really apt – a computer program, say a simulation, whose rules a programmer may break according to his whim, is not causally closed, which in a sense means it’s not a complete universe. Thus, the ‘laws’ of the simulation are not laws of physics, but rather, local by-laws, supervening on the underlying rules that the computer itself follows (rules which the programmer can’t change). So the apparent ‘miracles’ are just a consequence of incomplete knowledge.
Of course, our universe may be just that way – a part of it may be inaccessible to us, and thus, what is accessible not be causally closed. But then, if miracles occur, this would provide us with a means to infer that there is such a missing part – meaning that it is not inaccessible to us after all. In particular, we could study these occurrences, and postulate minimal extensions of the physical laws we know in order to account for them. Thus, we will gradually come to know the laws of the complete universe – the causal closure of our world --, including the parts ‘inaccessible’ to us. Indeed, that’s how science usually works – most of the things studied by modern physics, for instance, are rather removed from what one would generally consider accessible.
Take, as an example, a case in which the sun is through some means removed from our access. We would be mystified by the question what it was that makes the planets go round, or where the light comes from, etc. But since we observe the planets to go around, and observe the light, we can postulate the existence of a massive, bright body in one of the focal points of the elliptic planetary orbits. So what is removed from us, but causally influences us, can be detected and characterized by its causal influences – and this is actually the usual story, as we have direct knowledge of nothing* (except for our own minds). There could be additional parts that do not causally influence us, which we thus never can detect – but then again, the question of their existence is wholly immaterial. For instance, the sun could ‘really’ be the fiery eye of a great red dragon, the rest of which does not exert any causal influence on the observable universe – an epiphenomenal dragon – but its existence or non-existence simply does not matter for the description of the universe.
*Most such inferences are however to immediate to even be noticed; for instance, we know that the sun is there because we see it. But this just means observing the light the sun emits, and inferring its existence as a consequence.
Why don’t you tell us what you do believe about God. Do you believe in any of the non-scientific aspects of God? If you do, why are those believable, but not others? If you don’t, then why bother with that religion at all? A God that isn’t above the laws of science is just a really smart alien.
I appreciate the OP’s quest for scientific explanations of things that could never happen in the real world, but he’s asking about rising from the dead, from a book that also includes talking snakes, two people who populated the entire planet, talking burning bushes, seas parting, water turning into wine, two of every animal on earth fitting on one boat, angels floating down from the skies, people turning into pillars of salt, etc.
Jesus is not the only one to be raised from the dead in scriptures. Here is a list:
Widow of Zarephath’s son (I Ki 17:17-24) raised by Elijah
Shunamite’s son(II Ki 4:20-37) raised by Elisha
Man tossed into Elisha’s tomb(II Ki 13:21) raised by God’s Spirit
Widow of Nain’s son(Lk 7:11-16) raised by Jesus
Synagogue ruler Jairus’ 12-year-old daughter (Mk 5:35-43) raised by Jesus
Lazarus(Jn 11:1-44) raised by Jesus
Tabitha also known as Dorcas (Acts 9:36-41) raised by Peter
Men raised upon Jesus’ death (Mt 27:51-53) raised by God
We are gods and we are children of God. The laws of science are really just safety gates and child proof outlet covers designed to protect us when we are too young to understand. God our parent is not constrained by them and can remove them as He pleases.
We are ultimately the ones to control our natural world when we are ready. It is our inheritance, but God does not want to let us ruin it because we get the power too soon, before our heart is right (in other words we must learn to Love as Jesus loved). Part of that safety gate is such hard belief the OP expressed, it is scientifically impossible so God could not have done it. Actually I would challenge that it is scientifically impossible, but that’s another aspect.
We had a hamster that died. We put him a ziploc bag and put him in the freezer while we arranged for his burial. When we open the freezer and took out the bag, he was still alive! Was that a miracle? Or was Jesus a hamster?