You are right. It takes a different kind of experience for a person to “get won over.” It has to be more personal, and maybe more private.
George D. W. Bush was won over by Billy Graham, privately. Billy was a friend of the family and was visiting them years ago. As the eye-witness story goes, George asked Billy questions, questions, and more questions about God, just one-on-one. Billy answered them all calmly and Bush made his decision. He stopped drinking and changed his life.
Have you read the gospel of Luke? According to it, after the resurrection, he went on to do many things, and makes no mention of the ascension.
I would only take a small issue with what you are saying about the 500, and it is this. For a long period of time, during which many of the “claimed” 500 were living, the early believers would say this creed among themselves about all of the witnesses to the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, and the 500 were included. The creed was based on what the early believers knew to be factual, otherwise, Jesus would not be honored and the Church would have failed due to it being based on lies.
OK, but Paul personally witnessed Jesus himself. Is one credible witness, who wrote about it, enough evidence that the resurrection occurred? There were others. How many would be enough?
First, do you have a cite for this? Second, “what the believers knew to be factual” requires mind-reading (and mind-reading of dead people, at that). At best, you might have a written record that some early believers knew this to be factual. That’s all, and having a written record that X people believed something to be true is very different from actually knowing that X people believed something to be true.
So a written account says. Paul could be lying, or he could have been deceived, or he could be otherwise mistaken. The same can be said for any other written text of a contemporary witness account. Witnesses lying, being deceived, or otherwise mistaken is far more common (perhaps infinitely so), and far more likely, than deities resurrecting people.
Are you referring to the story where he flopped around like he was having a seizure or something, and the folks who were right there next to him didn’t see Jesus?
It is interesting how sometimes one gospel will repeat something found in another gospel and sometimes only one of the gospels will have anything to say on a particular matter. There are various explanations for this, but I do not have a problem with the differences. I believe that the whole of scripture is what matters.
Paul said he witnessed a bright light, and a voice. Paul never encountered Jesus pre-ascension or pre-crucifixion.
As a believing Christian, I will still note that most of the “predictions” from the Hebrew Scriptures appear to be back-fitted claims by the author of the Gospel of Matthew rather than actual predictions. It would be more persuasive if the Mark author, writing before the Matthew author, had made the same claims about the fulfilled predictions, but that is not what we find. The Jewish people, who have been reading those scriptures for a lot longer, were not persuaded at the time and even Christian scholars note that the way the Matthew author, (apparently trying to proselytize Jews), portrays them do not appear to be eyewitness accounts.
A Odom, do you also worship Zeus? Do you find the stories about Zeus compelling? Or is it just mythology? If it is just a bunch of mythology, what in the stories convinces you of this? Why not accept the stories as true?
Also, what is your heritage? Were you raised by Christians? If so, how much time have you spent trying to convince yourself of Hinduism, or Buddhism, or something else?
In other words, do you apply the same level of open-mindedness to other belief systems?
You have a lot of questions. I have this book you ought to read, called The Case for Easter, by Lee Strobel. Maybe you have heard of it? Pardon me, I am getting a bit giddy.
A cite in historical records other than the Bible, does not exist, as far as I know. so if you reject the Bible as a historical document, there is no cite at all. It must be said that the Bible is often used as a proof-checker against other historical documents and vice versa. Historians have analyzed Bible passages and have counted many of them as historical accounts.
Anyway, it says in The Case for Easter, (pages 65-67 if you want to refer to it), Gary Habermas, PH.D., D.D (author of seven books on the resurrection) states, in admittedly, technical terms, that the structure of the passage in 1 Corinthians 15 is a creed due to several solid reasons, including (1)use of rabbinic terms indicating passing on holy tradition (2) the text’s parallelism and stylized content (3) The use of Cephus for “Peter” indicating a very early origin of use (4) the use of several primitive phrases that Paul would not commonly use and (5) the use of certain words is similar to older Aramaic and Hebrew narration. The creed assessment is shared by scholars from a broad theological spectrum. Joachim Jeremias refers to it as "the earliest (creed) tradition of all."Ulrick Wilchens says it “indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.” The leading view of theologians is that Paul got it directly from Peter and James themselves and he took great pains to confirm its accuracy. Scholars believe that Paul got this material 3 yrs after his conversion. Further (a repeat) one of the very few Jewish new testament scholars, Pinchas Lapide says the evidence is so strong that it “may be considered a statement of eyewitnesses.” Later in Chap 15 - v11, Paul describes how the other apostles are preaching the same gospel, the message about the resurrection.
No, they would likely be familiar with the seven books written by Gary Habermas, PH.D., D.D., on the Resurrection, though. He was interviewed in the book and I have summarized some of his comments elsewhere. As I have said before, the Case for the Resurrection is a start.
Pardon me, The Case for Easter
If you get raptured before you’ve finished converting us, do we get a repechage round or something, or are we SOL?
Wait. We can tell a religion is true because, if it were based on lies, it would have failed? So, you believe all the major religions of the world are equally true?
Tell you what, I can put you in my will, that if I get raptured, along with all of my wife, 4 children and 8 grandchildren, then I will leave you my book, The Case for Easter. to carry on the conversation.
Religions fail for many reasons. If they are based on lies, the informed will reject them.
Some historians. The degree to which the accounts in the Bible are considered historically accurate varies quite a lot. And, well, the sources are somewhat biased, so one can expect that their testimony of events (some of which, such as the birth, they could not possibly have witnessed first-hand) may be distorted to portray what the authors wanted to portray, which might be, shall we say, embellished.
Those that follow other religions are uninformed, but those that follow your religion are informed?
What specific sect do you follow?
Huzzah, we’re so close to the Spider-man Fallacy!
CMC fnord!
“the informed” ???
The Informed Muslim will tell you christianity is a lie
The Informed Hindu will tell you the others are a lie…
Or do you only consider “the informed” to be those that agree with you?