Originally posted by daniel_m
There is strong circumstantial and psychological evidence regarding how hard it would be, if not impossible, to pull off a fake resurrection where a dozen coconspirators willingly faced martyr deaths as a result.
Perhaps an history of the early Christian church - a factual history - would help you to understand how your religion was able to spread without it being based on fact. (The short answer - political power.) BTW, what exactly IS, I wonder, this strong evidence dark has? I think there is none. (dark, you bullshitting again? naughty boy!)
There is strong evidence in regards to behavior, specifically the way the apostles were bumbling and tripping over their own feet most of the time Christ was with them but then became bold as lions after he rose. You don't get a surge of power and confidence when your leader failed and is in the ground. You get that when you realize He was the real deal and that the grand plan was even bigger than you could have imagined.
Circular reasoning if I've ever seen it. I'd expect better from someone like you dark, i really would. Then again, just like all other christians, you are forced to clutch at ever thinner straws in providing a rational defence for your faith.
Then of course there was the total destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which Christ prophesied about, which the book of revelation prophesied about, and which was directly prophesied about by OT prophets centuries before that- a linear progression hundreds of years if not a thousand years long that was filled precisely. All that was spoken of came to pass and was, again, documented by outside sources. Carbon date the documents if you want.
Go ahead carbon date them. Are you aware that bible scholars - you know, people who actually KNOW something about it - date the gospels as having been written about 50-150 years AFTER the alleged jesus's death? (Are you aware that NONE of the New Testament characters were actually eye-witnesses of jesus?)
rs7
