The Minimal Facts for the Resurrection of Christ.

[meowzician]

It's not that we know that what they saw it WAS the resurrected Jesus, but the scholars DO admit that crowds saw SOMETHING they thought was Jesus after he was dead.

I asked you to provide your resources. You haven't. You've just double and triple downed without a shred of evidence.

I don't have to. I am not the one making a supernatural claim.

@Misty, trying to convince a Jew from being a Jew to believing Jesus is God in the flesh in one fell swoop is a hard sell...

Try to remember, I started out as a Christian. I became a Jew. There were MANY reasons why, but on of them was certainly that I listened to the arguments of the Jews and, even though I didn't like it, THEIR ARGUMENTS WERE BETTER.

The very fact that I AM a convert proves that I am not intractable.

 

[QuickTwist]

View attachment 102115

I'll just take this as conceding the point.

I don't have to. I am not the one making a supernatural claim.

What would convince you of supernatural claims? Would a person growing back a limb? Would a documented case of someone coming back to life after being dead? Cuz it seems like you have the same claim that atheists have: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That is just code for, "Nothing would convince me." Extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence, as any claim requires.

Try to remember, I started out as a Christian. I became a Jew. There were MANY reasons why, but on of them was certainly that I listened to the arguments of the Jews and, even though I didn't like it, THEIR ARGUMENTS WERE BETTER.

No, you made your decision to be a Jew when you saw different Jews do things differently and you assumed that Judaism without Jesus is more accurate.

The very fact that I AM a convert proves that I am not intractable.

It's not my job to make a better argument. It's my job to speak the truth.

 

[meowzician]

I'll just take this as conceding the point.

That would be a major social blunder. Do you have problems interpreting social cues in general? That wouldn't be your fault. Many very good people struggle with that. Or is it just when someone doesn't share your religion?

What would convince you of supernatural claims?

I'm actually quite open to the idea that supernatural events happen. I just have a very high bar for the evidence. And my response is on a spectrum, not a yes/no. There are claims of the supernatural that I think have no reasonable evidence and I would be stupid to believe them. There are events that give me pause and I simply remain agnostic about. And there are events that are so amazing, events so well documented that I can't deny they happened, events that I really have a hard time believing God was not involved, but even then, I always have a sign up in the back of my minds that cautions me, "You may be wrong."

\No, you made your decision to be a Jew when you saw Jews do things differently and you assumed that Judaism without Jesus is more accurate.

Don't presume to tell me why I became a Jew. It's abusive. Telling someone, "You don't REALLY think/feel/believe/experience what you are saying you do. You REALLY think/feel/believe/experience what *I* say you do" is a form of gaslighting. There is another term for it as well, but if I use it, I'd likely get kicked off the forum.

You need to LISTEN to what others say about themselves. Unless you have very solid evidence that they are psychotic or are outright lying, you have no right to contradict them.

It's not my job to make a better argument. It's my job to speak the truth.

Better argument? You don't get it. The rules of debate say I don't have to make ANY argument at all. That onus is 100% on you.

 

[QuickTwist]

I'm actually quite open to the idea that supernatural events happen. I just have a very high bar for the evidence. And my response is on a spectrum, not a yes/no. There are claims of the supernatural that I think have no reasonable evidence and I would be stupid to believe them. There are events that give me pause and I simply remain agnostic about. And there are events that are so amazing that I really have a hard time believing God was not involved, but even then, I always have a sign up in the back of my minds that cautions me, "You may be wrong."

I'm going to share this with you and you don't even have to tell me if you think it is supernatural at all. It is my words. All of it. It is what confirmed my faith and gave me the conviction that the Bible is the Word of God. You don't even have to comment on it. You can comment on it if you want, but you don't have to for some frail idea that you would undermine my experience or something.

Thread 'THE Event that changed my life forever.'

Aug 1, 2025

When the event first happened, it was almost impossible to talk about. But at the same time, I knew I had to tell people. As time went on, it became easier to tell people about it. Now, I will openly talk about it with no emotional whiplash, and I can give very long or very short versions of the same story. Soon after it happened, I actually thought it could have been an encounter with the greater personality, if you are familiar with that at all. Now, I really have no way to categorize it. I just know what I experienced and it changed my life... forever. You will not find many conversion...

• QuickTwist
• Replies: 41
• Forum: Spirituality and Mysticism

• 

Don't presume to tell me why I became a Jew. It's abusive. Telling someone, "You don't REALLY think/feel/believe/experience what you are saying you do. you REALLY think/feel/believe/experience what *I* say you do" is a form of gaslighting. There is another term for it as well, but if I use it, I'd likely get kicked off the forum.

You need to LISTEN to what others say about themselves. Unless you have very solid evidence that they are psychotic or are outright lying, you have no right to contradict them.

I'm getting it from you. Not some idea I have in my head. You already said what the inception of what caused you to be a Jew was.

The way bias works is first we entertain the idea. Then we investigate the idea. Then we confirm the idea. The idea doesn't matter. It's just the way people come to reason about what their worldview is.

Better argument? You don't get it. The rules of debate say I don't have to make ANY argument at all. That onus is 100% on you.

The burden of proof is on everyone. Not one party. It's dishonest to say the only person who needs "proof" is the person who makes the initial comment. It's not a fair way of doing things based on reciprocity. It's selfish. It's the sort of thing people do with their rights all the time. They demand their rights and never think twice about where those rights come from.

 

[meowzician]

The burden of proof

It absolutely is not. A person making a CLAIM is obligated to provide evidence. Let me show you the difference.

• A person who makes the pronouncement "There is no God," is required to back up their claim.
• A person who only says they lack a believe in God has made no claim, and has no such obligation.

The only thing I'm saying in this debate is that you lack the evidence to support your claims. Until sufficient evidence exists, I'm going to go with what is ordinary.But if I can provide a natural explanation for something, then you can't possibly provide evidence that it is divine intervention since another explanation exists.

I might even be wrong. But it would be unreasonable for me to accept an extraordinary claim without adequate evidence. A natural explanation is the default position if one exists. It is not a claim. It is perfectly ordinary for people dead three days to decay and not rise from the grave. So it's not so much that I believe people don't come back from the dead because I have a double blind scientific study to prove it. It's that I simply lack a belief in the resurrection of Jesus because you cannot prove it.

 

[QuickTwist]

The only thing I'm saying in this debate is that you lack the evidence to support your claims. Until sufficient evidence exists, I'm going to go with what is ordinary.

What is "ordinary" to you, is extreme skepticism to another.

But if I can provide a natural explanation for something, then you can't possibly provide evidence that it is divine intervention since another explanation exists.

I already know your theory. You probably read a Jack Kent book and think you know everything about the resurrection now...

A natural explanation is the default position if one exists.

Why?

It's that I simply lack a belief in the resurrection of Jesus because you cannot prove it.

You keep going on about "proof." You sound so much like an atheist rather than a Jew who believes the Bible.

 

[meowzician]

What is "ordinary" to you, is extreme skepticism to another.

I already know your theory. You probably read a Jack Kent book and think you know everything about the resurrection now...

Why?

Perhaps an illustration would work better. You know, "Show, don't tell."

You wake up in the morning, and on the floor next to the cat litter box are some granules of cat litter.
Possibility #1: An angel visited your home during the night and levitated the litter granules out of the box and onto the floor.
Possibility #2: The cat used the litter box during the night, and tracked out a bit of litter.

Which do you think is ordinary, and which do you find extraordinary?
Which do you recommend as an explanation and why?

You keep going on about "proof." You sound so much like an atheist rather than a Jew who believes the Bible.

I believe in the Torah in a very different way than you do. I believe in its power.

Consider: You know that the story of the Good Samaritan is fiction, but you BELIEVE in its message to reach out to help others regardless of their ethnicity.

 

[QuickTwist]

Which do you think is ordinary, and which do you find extraordinary?
Which do you recommend as an explanation and why?

The two are not equatable...

Your argument is essentially that belief in God is believing in Santa for adults... That's what your argument boils down to...

Consider: You know that the story of the Good Samaritan is fiction, but you BELIEVE in its message to reach out to help others regardless of their ethnicity.

Not everything is a parable, sir.

King David was a real person. It's not fiction.

 

[Akar]

Akar, absolutely nothing you just offered is evidence. The bar for ACTUAL evidence is much, much higher.

1. On the Rebbe vs. The Resurrection
You are confusing the devotion to a dead master with the radical testimony of a resurrected one. The disciples of the Rebbe (or Al Hallaj) did not conquer the Roman Empire by claiming to have eaten and drank with him after a state execution; they merely mourned his death. A grieving disciple writes poetry; a witness to the Resurrection walks willingly into the Colosseum. The historical outcomes are ontologically different.

2. The MLK Fallacy and Historical Causality
Comparing the geopolitical catastrophe of 70 A.D. to a hypothetical, invented letter about MLK being the "King of England" is a basic logical fallacy. Mara Bar Serapion is a contemporaneous 1st-century document reflecting on historical causality. It links a real state execution to the immediate abolition of the Jewish kingdom. It is historiography, not a modern thought experiment.

3. The Taiping Rebellion vs. Roman Martyrdom
The Taiping Rebellion was a massive, armed civil war driven by military fanaticism and a quest for political territory. Millions died in battle. You are equating armed insurgents killing for power with early Christians who were torn apart by wild beasts without offering any armed resistance. The Taiping died killing; the early Christians died bearing witness (martyria). To conflate a military conflict with pacifist martyrdom shows a deep misunderstanding of historical and psychological contexts.

4. The Standard of Evidence
You do not get to arbitrarily dictate the "bar for actual evidence" just because the data contradicts your presuppositions. The chronological cross-referencing of hostile sources (Tacitus), administrative records (Pliny), and external observers (Josephus, Mara Bar Serapion) is the very definition of crystalline historiographical data. Dismissing primary sources does not raise the bar of evidence; it simply proves an inability to clear it


wish you the best

edit: science and history cannot "prove" a dogma because a dogma is a matter of metaphysical truth.a dogma,by its very natures, its outside the realm of what can be "proven" like a laboratory experiment.

Easy.

-Giammarco

 

[Misty]

The legends about Jesus had already formed by 116 CE. However, all you are quoting is the part of Jesus being executed by Pilate. I really have no problem with that. It does seem fairly likely.

The legends about Jesus had already formed by 112 CE. Still, all you are really quotiing is Pliny the Younger affirming there was a cult that believed stuff about Jesus like that he was God. I concur with that.

What point do you think you are making? I have no problem saying that Jesus existed and was crucified.

This is you adding your opinion to Josephus.

No it's not. How does his disciples being faithful to him after his death prove the resurrection? Does the faithfulness of the Rebbe's disciples prove that the Rebbe was the Messiah? Did the faithfulness of the disciples of Al Hallaj prove that he rose from the dead?

You are taking literally what is clearly figurative.

So if I write a letter referring to, oh I dunno, that MLK Jr was the King of England, and future generations find it, they can use it to prove that KLK Jr was indeed the King of England?

Think man! Someone having an opinion doesn't make it so.

And? So?

View attachment 102114

Yes, they do. They will even do such things for someone ELSE's grief-driven hallucination.

Hong Xiuquan, a disappointed civil service candidate, suffered a nervous breakdown in 1837. He claimed to ascend to heaven, where a celestial father gave him a sword to slay demons. He later interpreted this to mean he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ.
The Martyrdom: Over 20 million people died between 1850 and 1864 in the resulting civil war. Driven by Hong's apocalyptic promises of a "Heavenly Kingdom," millions of his fanatical "God Worshippers" fought regular imperial armies. They repeatedly chose mass starvation, battlefield slaughter, or collective suicide during sieges rather than surrender their divinely mandated cause.

Akar, absolutely nothing you just offered is evidence. The bar for ACTUAL evidence is much, much higher.