How to Mathematically Prove Jesus's Resurrection

Many atheists and other non-believers dismiss the Christian claims that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. However, one strong piece of evidence can be the combined probability of very improbable events that use as natural explanations happening at once, indicating a very low chance of this being faked. In other words, by applying baysian statistics, one can give another piece of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

[Christisking]

Blessed are those who have not seen, yet still believe.

[veemo]

As a former atheist, I can say with absolute certainty, this argument is the second most idiotic argument that could be made against the resurrection. The best possible argument against the resurrection is that the Romans crucified a lookalike, and even this argument is highly unlikely and flawed.

[teoengchin]

Probably not a good idea to learn math from someone who doesn't know the difference between statistics and probability

[astrobob]

“Let’s prove the resurrection with statistics”

Proceeds to pull numbers out of nowhere

[PabloEscobar-impt]

Love the videos! Viva Cristo Rey! 🇻🇦❤️

[SnowyGingerAle]

Do I need to tell you that this isn't how statistics work?

[Vapememes]

I'm surprised more people don't take the mathematical approach, as I feel it's a very easy way of clearly showing how unlikely it is that the disciples simply hallucinated. I've done it myself in one video and I plan on doing it again in a future video. But usually when I calculate how unlikely this is I use a 14-18% value, since roughly 14-18% of people may experience grief induced hallucinations. So if we do that and also remember that James the brother of Jesus also claimed he saw Jesus, that's closer to a 0.0054-0.0189% chance they hallucinated everything.

[josh]

Hey I’m Protestant, non denominational to be specific, I’ve been saved for a year now and am pretty new to the faith. I’m skeptical of everything and especially the Catholic Church because I don’t understand all of it. I know the Catholic Church or Orthodox Church has to be the right path, but why should I choose Catholicism? Why shouldn’t I go based on the word of God alone? I’m not here to debate, just trying to learn more.

[jonv]

This analysis has 3 critical methodological errors: (1) it confuses prior probability with posterior probability, (2) confuses dependent and independent probabilities, and (3) ignores the probability of competing hypothesis. More details:

1. If you want to analyze a case probabilistically, it's not enough to consider probabilities of an event happening just by chance. Instead, you need *Bayes Theorem* to take into account the *evidence* for competing hypothesis, with regards to a set of data you want to explain. If we want to explain the supernatural resurrection claims surrounding Jesus, comparing two hypothesis (H1, it indeed was a resurrection, and H2, it wasn't anything supernatural but a series of psychological phenomena), we need to set the prior probabilities with respect to what we are analyzing. Given any other supernatural claim, all of human experience and science show the priors weigh heavily in favor of hallucinations, trance visions, dreams confused with reality, or even lies and myth making, rather than something actually supernatural, which has never been confirmed with the level of certainty of the natural alternatives. So, even if the probability of an hallucination is low on itself, if someone already made a supernatural claim, then it's more likely it was caused by an hallucination than by a real supernatural event.

2. Probabilities must be multiplied only when they are independent (eg. calculating the numbers in throws of a fair dice). But if one of the events can alter the outcome of the others, then they are no longer independent. In this case, if Peter, the leader, had an hallucination, then he could have influenced the rest to have a similar experience on their own, and once the movement started, writing apologetic legends to defend and propagate the faith is almost certainly expected.

3. To reiterate, in a probabilistic analysis you need to consider also the odds of the competing hypothesis. Maybe hallucinations are rare, we don't see them every day, but they're very well documented and studied, and we understand several mechanism that can produce them. But contrary to that, no supernatural event has been confirmed with such level of certainty, much less one produced by God, and even less God raising someone from the dead. Its odds would be bellow 1 in a hundred billion (which is roughly the amount of people that have lived with no resurrection). And the only way to overcome that would be, again in a bayesian framework, to have evidence that's only explainable under that hypothesis, but as the same video admits, we can indeed explain it all with known and understood psychological phenomena, so there's not a real case to rationally believe the resurrection based on this.

[Adam-wlhp]

I think this guy needs to take a few more stats courses.

[Cuddyre]

Look around see everything god created you were created in his image yet you have a free will to believe or live separate from god your decision I pray you come closer to our Heavenly Father and see how far he’s brought you brother ✝️

[somm]

When do you statistically prove the resurrection tho

[A-Flano]

Also if you take into account that an additional 500 people as well as the 12 apostles saw Jesus after he was resurrected

[rarsr]

Thx! This video drove me more away from christianity

[DARKDAW]

I love jesus he just straight up ignored the haters and said "BRING ME TO LIFE" i can relate

[Toda_Ciencia]

As Christian, I think 0, 39% is not that small.

[Cuddyre]

What makes you think that 😢 my brother can’t you see what our Heavenly Father went through yet you have so little faith don’t let people think your crazy for believing have faith the 12 apostle did not die for a lie they died for seeing our lord Jesus Christ resurrection and they were all standing firm even when they were being torture they stood on what they believe and saw Jesus Christ is god in human form our Heavenly Father love us all trust in him what can men do to me when I have my lord by my side amen ✝️

[contytub]

Statistics in this case is irelevant ... we may never know what actually happened and people still believe what they want

[rdeal]

The only disciples/members of the early Jesus movement we have reason to believe had visions of a resurrected state are Paul and Peter. Everyone else is either indecently quoted as seeing the rise Jesus/disappears from reliable history outside of the NT.

[chriscosby]

This doesn't even reach the level of being flawed.