Was the Resurrection a Historical Event? (Debate Response)

Matt Dillahunty and Than Christopoulos went head-to-head in a debate on the resurrection of Jesus, but I couldn't help but having a few things to say about Than's opening statement, and flagrant use of facts not in evidence.

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[dohpamne]

It's truly impressive how precisely Christianity predicts all of the data that we already have and none of the data that we'll acquire in the future.

[Locust]

"if God exists, he is perfect"
Have these Christians never cracked open the bible? In the Bible God is described as regretting his own actions, changing his mind after debate, losing his temper, and even fearing humans working together or becoming like him.

[inwyrdn]

Apologists: "The New Testament is historically reliable!"

Me: "Yay, we finally get to talk about the Zombie Passover-pocalypse!"

Ever hopeful, ever disappointed.

[Locust]

These apologists have to believe that, while they are making their case that an event happened 2000 years ago, Jesus is invisibly and silently standing right behind them, contributing nothing to the conversation, what a strange worldview.

[camwyn]

There was a man called the son of God who was born of a virgin. He was nearly killed as a baby, but was saved and raised by a poor family. He became a shepherd and was celebrated by the people.

They hailed him as king, but he was eventually killed by the elite. He then resurrected and appeared to a disciple. He instructed him to spread his gospel message then ascended to heaven.

That man was Romulus, mythical founder of Rome.

[Locust]

"why would they lie about something that gave them no earthly reward?"
Dude, Paul became the leader of the most powerful religion on the planet, his first order was demanding believers to come to his commune and bring all of their money, even threatening them by telling them that people who didn't bring all of their money were now dead.

[pRODIGAL_sKEPTIC]

I was there!! I remember thinking his entire opening statement boiled down to "if we accept the Bible, then we can have it tell us so on anything!"

[TheRealGzig]

There's no way Aslan was lion about the claim regarding the existence of Narnia.

[MythVisionPodcast]

Great video, Paul. I have so much to say about this, but I will never make it to the gym this morning.

[bengreen]

How can Than possibly assert that the Roman or Jewish authorities didn't dig up Jesus' corpse and show it to the one or two disciples that asked 'if he isn't risen, show us his body'?
I mean - who would have ever bothered to record that? If no-one was bothered enough to record the names of the 500 - then why would anyone make a note, 'Tuesday - showed corpse to weird cultists, bought steak, lovely evening meal with the wife's parents'.
And how likely is it that any note written would survive for very long in a Christian society known for ensuring rival texts were 'disappeared'?

[davidofoakland]

Do these apologist ever apply this type of reasoning to, say, the claims of Islam? or Buddhism? or the miracle claims of Sathya Sai Baba?

[bengreen]

I honestly don't understand how apologists can be so confident about all the misinformation and unjustified 'facts' they parrot. And how do they not see that the harder they have to work to make their paradigm fit reality, the less likely it is to be the truth?

[tripvic]

What's with all the logic and stuff, it's soo boring. Can't we just sing songs about god and do sacrifices, sounds more fun 😅

[amy_pieterse]

8:44 - 9:32 If our souls are on the line you'd think that god would be damn clear about his existance. No ambiguity.
Just because someone exists doesnt mean that I would worship them.

[nagranoth_]

I just can't grasp that anyone would take resurrection stories serious, let alone think there's a god behind it if there is even a real event that the story was based on (which of course would've just been thinking someone was dead, but they weren't)

[timeshark]

"The New Testament is historically reliable and confirmed by itself and history"

Oh really? What were Jesus' last words, who visited his tomb and what did they find? (There are 4 Gospels, none of them agree on any of the things in these questions) When you get deeper than "there was a tomb, it was empty at some point" the illusion of reliability and confirmation evaporates.

[Buzzcook]

The Bayesian stuff was just sophistry disguised as math. Pick an event assign is arbitrary numbers and Bob's your uncle.

[rationalhuman]

If I can improve the story, that means that gos and his plan is not perfect. Here goes…

It would have been much better, much more perfect and convincing if risen Jesus continued to live and walk the earth and teach forever. Asking (requiring) us to believe a story of appearances to a few people in a small corner of the ancient world, which ends by him levitating and flying into the clouds is not perfect evidence or the work of a perfect plan or perfect god.

[seraphonica]

whenever people bring Bayesian analysis into this... it always makes me think "are they considering the chance that Jesus of Nazareth had a twin or convincing lookalike living nearby?"

[JefersonBLC]

It is funny that apologists use probability to defend miracles. A miracle is not one-in-a-million, nor billion, nor trillion. Miracles, by definition, are the impossible. So anything possible, even a one-in-quintillion chance, is more likely than an impossible event.