On this issue of them 'dying' for Christianity. The gospels only claim that one did so, James. Judas killed himself, which is why the resurrection story is suspect because Paul claims Jesus appeared "to the Twelve".

"A. KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that Jesus rose from the dead, or they B. KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that Jesus did not rise from the dead. " Really? These are the only two options? Recently I went to a hypnotist performance in Las Vegas... he appeared to get several people hypnotized and have them do crazy things that they later claimed to have no memory of. Impressive? Perhaps. Am I presented with a dichotomy of either "KNOWING WITHOUT A DOUBT" that these people were in fact hypnotized and under the control of the performer or "KNOWING WITHOUT A DOUBT" that they weren't? Are those my only two choices? I don't think so. They could have been playing along, they could have been plants in the audience, some could have really been hypnotized while others, bowing to peer pressure and permission to act uninhibited played along, etc. I was witness to a bizarre happening with no obvious clear answer. Why would it be any different for any other witness to any other supposed miracle or magic trick? Any doubts that were had clearly and not surprisingly didn't survive the Church's "careful" editing and un-truth suppression campaign. ...this is, of course, assuming there was such an event in the first place.

@CM - You aren't helping things. As abgemacht points out, Christ's body would have long ago turned to dust just as Paul and Peter and Luke and Matthew and John the Baptists and John the Apostle and James and... Quite simply, lack of evidence is proof of nothing.

You need to accept that what you and I believe is taken on faith and the only evidence we have is what we feel in ourselves and others will view us as delusional.

@Draug: "You need to accept that what you and I believe is taken on faith and the only evidence we have is what we feel in ourselves and others will view us as delusional." I have accepted that, but I still feel there is some evidence. Proof? no. Evidence? yes.

@Dexter: Give a situation where the apostles would be unsure of whether Jesus was resurrected or not.

I think CM's had enough. I'd like to give him a rest and actually advance a position myself.

All rationalizations about what is "logically possible" and "physically impossible" aside, and disregarding all implications thereof for the existence or non-existence of God (as a matter of fact, for the purposes of this argument, I'm going to assume that God DOES exist), I'd like to know why I should worship him.

Because he's clearly not omniscient. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that God DID have a change of heart sometime around 6 BC and decided to start being nice to humanity and offer them forgiveness for a change. Let's even say that he offered Jesus up as a sacrifice to humanity to show that he was serious.

If God is omniscient, why would he ever have to change anything he did? Why would a new covenant with humanity be necessary?

Furthermore, God is not omnipotent. Like you said, he can't do "logically impossible" things. And he either can't violate free will or swore it off at some point. Perhaps he is the deist's clockmaker god.

Is God "good?" Maybe. It's possible that God gets "better" as humanity gets "better." And as humanity gets better and better at figuring things out, evidence of whatever power God DOES have keeps slipping further and further outward, away from the rapidly-expanding boundaries of human understanding, conveniently beyond available evidence.

Why worship that?

Why kneel, submit, obey, adore, love, and cherish a being who is only able to exist in the same place as only the most outrageously paranoid delusions of terror and grandeur that the human pattern-recognition software can randomly conjure? Would God actually win in a fight against Cthulhu?

Why worship some abstract "God" with an unpalatable mishmash of qualities that bring out the most psychotically self-righteous in people to the point of murder-suicide? If you feel the need to worship, why not worship the thing you actually like, like love or peace or whatever aspect of God it is that makes him worthy of adoration and not spit and molotov cocktails?

I find worship altogether distasteful, myself, unless I'm worshiping something that is actually powerful enough to be worthy of my respect. Or at least something I know exists, like the sun. Cult of Ra? I get that.

@CM - The evidence is circumstantial at best and mostly qualifies as hear say. While there are some cooberating testimonies from non-Christian and non-religious texts as to certain events, there are none that cooberate the miracles from any secular texts.

But in the end, we should sow on the wayside, the rocky ground, amongst the thorns, and in the fertile soil, for we know the quality of the soil can change as the true sower of the seed can alter it and that seed which would otherwise not bear fruit from our own sowing, may well bear fruit a hundred fold when He is involved in the sowing.

"I don't know why you are getting angry at me. Jehovah is Jehovah. He is the great I Am. And the concept that the Massiah is an aspect of God is not anti-Jewish nor is God being one God mean he can't be made of many parts. Echad refers to the unity of oneness. This is the same word used in Genesis 2:24 when it speaks of a man and woman becoming one flesh. Exodus 24:3 uses it when the people answer with one voice. Echad means the many as one. Quite literally E Pluribus Unum is the latin equivalent. Therefore, when god says he is one [echad] God, he is referring to the multiple aspects of himself. Seriously, dude, if your going to spout Judaistic views, you should consult a learned scholar first. I knew this and I'm not even a Jew."

sure, god can have more than one aspect, he has hundreds of names. that said Jesus did not fulfill the prophesies that were linked to the Messiah, despite how hard Christians have tried to say otherwise, Christians changed the laws of Judaism despite the fact that is expressly forbidden in your old testament. And finally limited gods infinite properties to a trinity in order to make some kind of sense for a monotheistic religion worshiping a man.

Now, let me remind you that the word of the apostles has not been passed down perfectly. The bible has been revised multiple times, by the church. Now, you must agree, that the church would want to make Jesus seem great, superhuman.

I'll give you an example: George Washington never cut that cherry tree down, and never reported to his father that he had done it. It never happened, but everyone believes it did. It's simply what worshippers do, they make things up to make him seem greater.

CM: I reject that those are the only two options. And your insistence that those ARE the only two options is one of the reasons that your argument is wholly ineffective.

You say either it happened, or they lied. I raise a third option. They thought it happened, but were mistaken. You ignore this, and claim I'm misrepresenting you. Not the case... I'm demolishing you, because you refuse to even consider anything but your own pre-conceived notions.

Let me be clear, yet again. You make a claim. This claim is supernatural and rather fantastic (the God Hypothesis). You provide basically no proof whatsoever, and then get angry when I don't buy off on your non-reasoning.

@Santa - "Jesus did not fulfill the prophesies that were linked to the Messiah, despite how hard Christians have tried to say otherwise, Christians changed the laws of Judaism despite the fact that is expressly forbidden in your old testament. And finally limited gods infinite properties to a trinity in order to make some kind of sense for a monotheistic religion worshiping a man."

Then why didn't you make *that* your argument to begin with. Instead you argued that there was only one God as if those aspects couldn't exist. I don't give a fuck if it's 3 in 1 or 3 billion in 1. You said it was just 1. I pointed out your interpretation was incorrect. Easy peasy.

The difference is god in judaism is 1 with many different names, in Christianity, due to a majority vote at the council of Nicea, god takes 3 forms. its completely different. Why didnt I go into it? I didnt think it is relevant, there's a huge difference between calling god the shepherd and calling god the judge all concepts of god and done to cater to human understanding, and saying that we will bow to a statue of a crucified man and say he's god (guess that whole idol thing doesn't apply to you all either right)

@Jack: I can't think of any hypothetical situation that would lead them to thinking the resurrection happened when it didn't. If you can think of one, I'd like to hear it.

Who worships a statue? Oh, wait. You think all Christians are Catholics. Hate to disappoint ya' there. I don't worship a statue, or even a cross, any more than you worship the Star of David.

@CM

Your fail is so hard right now it's actually hurting me to read what you're saying.

Here are some things that could have happened:

Hallucination
Insanity
Grave Robber
Lying

no, much better to worship a man as god

Its alright though since you don't really follow the god of Abraham, you don't need to keep his covenant, just make sure not to kill, pray to idols, or eat a live creature and your golden ;)

@Santa - And they call certain groups of Christianity anti-semitic. What the fuck do they call the anti-Christian Jews like you?

I don't think that Catholics bow to a statue, the bow or genuflect to the host, that is Christ's body which is kept inside the tabernacle. It just so happens that inside Catholic churches the tabernacle and the cross are often aligned.

@Santa - And they call certain groups of Christianity anti-semitic. What the fuck do they call the anti-Christian Jews like you?

"@Santa - And they call certain groups of Christianity anti-semitic. What the fuck do they call the anti-Christian Jews like you? "

I'm sorry, the fact that I think Christianity is a farce makes me an equivalent to an Anti-Semite? I assume all these Athiests are anti-Semitic too, and you, of course, are an Anti-Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist bigot as well.

No, the fact that you attack my faith with such venom while I respect yours and others (of course, I'm not a hard core Christian, as if you couldn't tell from my langiage) makes you atni-Christian and a fuckinjg intolerant bigot.

CM: What abgemacht said.

I'll repeat my question: Do you think that Muhammad ascended to heaven in a golden chariot despite there supposedly being witnesses to the same according to the Muslims? Or do you take a rational point of view and view that claim with some skepticism? You seem to be unwilling to engage your own superstitions with any intellectual rigor (yeah, big shock, right?).

Jesus could have been thought to be dead, been cut down, recovered slightly, talked to his disciples, and then died of his injuries. Thus, he "came back from the dead". And his disciples would have probably thought that he was resurrected by God, when in fact that he simply dropped into a coma for a few days after being brutally crucified.

The fact that you have no imagination to consider alternatives to your superstition is not unexpected.

"No, the fact that you attack my faith with such venom while I respect yours and others (of course, I'm not a hard core Christian, as if you couldn't tell from my langiage) makes you atni-Christian and a fuckinjg intolerant bigot."

The way I see it (correct me if I'm wrong) You have to respect my traditional faith because it is the foundation of yours. Meanwhile your faith takes mine, emptied it of any of its rules and restrictions (besides the homosexual one that ones important!) dragged it through the gutter, letting it pick up little pieces of various pagan beliefs, takes it out, slaps on a new name, and sends missionaries to my house, my place of work, my aily commute etc. where Im told that "We believe in the same god! Now read this mistranslated passage!"

@Jack: "Jesus could have been thought to be dead, been cut down, recovered slightly, talked to his disciples, and then died of his injuries. Thus, he "came back from the dead". " He was buried in tomb guarded tomb, wrapped up in cloth that would have suffocated him, and the guarded tomb had a huge stone in front of the door that was impossible for one person to move especially from the inside. That idea is just absurd.

I dont see how exactly the way I act is different from your protestant bretheren that remind me Im going to burn in eternal hellfire by billboards, missionaries, etc. because I didn't accept your loving man-god. According to my religion you can still get into the afterlife (if it indeed exists) quite easily

So your writings SAY. One cannot assume absolute accuracy in ancient writings. Even Cicero needs to be read with an understanding of the axe he has to grind.

See, you don't even understand the fundamental issue of treating a religious text as a factual account... the religious text has an objective: To make you believe in whatever the shit its putting out there. So of course, according to the Bible it is impossible... but why should we believe the Bible? Because the Bible says so? Really?

As a historical document, the Bible is extremely limited it its uses to actual scholars. I know you don't yet understand the limitations of primary or secondary sources, but I can hope that one day you do.

i was expecting a debate about god, but this seems to be about jesus and respect for other people's religions...

i guess there's not much to say in a debate about god cause neither side has any evidence to bring forward... i wish i was agnostic so i could claim that my 'undecided' side won this deabte... :'(

In observance of the teachings of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, I pray for Jesus Christ to remove the hardness from your heart, Clausowitz, so that you may be converted to Christianity.

Biblical contradictions in the resurrection story:
http://www.answering-christianity.com/contra_res.htm

Of particular note, the last one in the list:
"In 1 Corinthians 15:5-8, it is claimed that Jesus appeared to more than five hundred witnesses before his ascent to heaven - a claim directly contradicted at least by Mark, who says the ascension occurred immediately after an appearance before the eleven disciples (Mark 16: 14, 19)."

@Jack: Well I would think that accounts of Jesus' burial would appear in other documents as well. If it isn't documented anywhere else, then my youth pastor (who gave me the apostle-martyr evidence) wasn't being very smart. Perhaps I should look up some non-biblical historical evidence of Jesus' life. And I will do that soon, but I honestly want to take a little break from this debate now.