The Resurrection of Jesus

In the last round Con has attacked a straw man (1). As you can see above I was not saying that the claim of the Resurrection is true because the disciples were persecuted and willing to die. I was saying that the persecution strongly indicates that they did not just claim that Jesus was resurrected but that they really believed it. This would therefore make the Hypotheses very unlikely that the disciples, aware of the fact that Jesus was not resurrected, made up the story. I actually believe that a Hindu setting himself on fire in protest or a Islamist who commits suicide bombing because of his belief, really believe that their conviction is true. I want to highlight that the disciples did not just die because they thought that the moral doctrine of their leader is true but because they believed Jesus was resurrected. Paul writes: „And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith“ (1. Cor 15:14) So again; this argument does not necessarily show that the Resurrection is true. I used it to support the premise that the disciples of Jesus had an experience that made them believe that Jesus body was resurrected. In my inductive Argument I supported the claims that: Jesus died by crucifixion and that the disciples of Jesus had an experience that made them believe that Jesus body was resurrected. Therefore the reason why I think the Resurrection is more probable true than not is because I think the Resurrection Hypothesis can account better for the 2 premises above than any naturalistic Hypothesis. So what counter Hypothesis did Con offer in the last round? He actually offered three Hypotheses: They knowingly lied, they were deceived or they were duped by self deception. Conspiracy Theory: (the disciples knowingly lied) This Hypothesis was popular during the 18th and 19th Century. Today this explanation has been completely given up by scholars. What are the reasons for this? As I mentioned above this Hypothesis does not account for Premise 2: The Disciples had an experience that made them believe that Jesus body was resurrected. Furthermore they had absolutely nothing to gain in preaching this doctrine, while being aware of the fact that Jesus was not resurrected. The disciples were duped by self deception: This Hypothesis accounts for Premise 1 and 2. But it fails to explain the force of the belief of the disciples. The jewish(2) historian Pinchas Lapide writes: „If the defeated and depressed group of disciples overnight could change into a victorious movement of faith, based only on autosuggestion or self-deception—without a fundamental faith experience—then this would be a much greater miracle than the resurrection itself.”(3) I feel like this Hypothesis could only be reasonable when combined with the Hallucination Hypothesis. Hallucination Theory: (the disciples were deceived) This Hypothesis is currently the most popular one out of the naturalistic explanations. It accounts for Premise 1 and 2. Generally about 15 percent of the population will experience one or several hallucination during their lifetime. About half of those are visual in nature. Just a minority of them is multimode (f.i. Visual and auditory).(4)(5) Furthermore if several people by coincidence had a hallucination at the same time its highly unlikely that they have the same. Even if it could be shown that this kind of occurrence probably happened, not much would be gained. It still would not explain why the disciples believed that Jesus was resurrected. From ancient Jewish and Pagan texts we get to know that people often thought that the dead had appeared to them in visions. The berieved however did therefore not conclude that the Person has returned physically to life but rather that it is in the afterlife. Wright writes that for someone in the ancient world visions of the deceased were not evidence that the person is alive but that he is dead. (6)(7) In total I think the hallucination hypothesis is an option that remains open. I still think that it is quite improbable and that it lacks explanatory scope. Sathya Sai Baba: What about Cons objection that there are hundreds of people who were eyewittness of the 'miracles' of Sathya Sai Baba, wrongly claiming that he performed miracles? It is not possible to argue against the reliability of eyewitnesses in one case, and therefore conclude that the reliability of eyewitnesses in another unrelated case is the same. You have to examine each case by its own, you have to show in the specific case why the eyewitness account in the Gospels is unreliable. In the case of Sathya Sai Baba you could ask again if the naturalistic explanation is more probable true than not. So what about the case of Sathya Sai Baba? Although I'm not very familiar with this topic there are many objections that can be found easily. Many of the supposedly unique 'materialized' Objects are found all over the world in several stores to purchase. (f.i. watches, a tiny bible or a wooden cross)(8) Various Prophecies of Sai Baba were shown to have discrepancies. (f.i that he will live until hes 96)(9) By video analysis several 'miracles' can be explained with sleight of hand. (10) And there are even dozens of videos on youtube explaining his 'miracles' (11). Therefore we have good reasons to think that the miracle claims of Sai Baba are more probably wrong than not. What would be gained if Con could show me a case were the miracle claims of a guru are seemingly more probable true than not? Not much for him at least. I'm not in the naturalistic position denying miracles. It would fit well with the description in the Bible, were also non Christians were described as performing miracles(12) and therefore he would just attack his own naturalistic worldview. Summary and Conclusion: I have tried not just to argue that its reasonable to believe the resurrection is true, but that it is more probable true than not. I therefore have presented an inductive Argument with the premise 1: Jesus died by crucifixion and 2: the disciples had an experience that made them believe that Jesus bodily appeared to them. Con tried to attack Premise 2 and argued that the disciples might have lied. I refused this position because of the reasons above. Con has also tried to argue for some deception of the disciples. Also I have to admit that this is the most likely position out of the naturalistic explanations I still think its very improbable and has a small explanatory scope, because it does not show how the disciples would come to believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected even if the Hallucination Theorie was true. Con is free to address this point in the last round. Unfortunately it was not possible to bring up all objections(13) in just 2 Rounds. Still thanks to illegalcombatant for participating. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org... (2) Religion and Ethnicity (3) Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, p.126. (4) Aleman and Laroi. Hallucinations: The Science of Idiosyncratic Perception. 25-46, 61-88 (5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... ; Table 1 (6) Wiliam Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith third edition. 384-85 (7) For references to ancient pagan and jewish texts see Craig Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2:1169 (8) http://haraldssononmiraclesvisitingcards.blogspot.no... (9) http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk... (10) https://en.wikipedia.org... (11) Sai Baba having a bad day 'materializing' a necklace (12) 2 Thess 2:7–9, Acts 13:6–8, Acts 8:9–10 (13) For some other objections that were not adressed see f.i section about Hume; similar to 'extraodinary events require extraodinary evidence' if extrodinary event is defined as improbable. http://www.reasonablefaith.org...