The terrifying thought of no afterlife

[Achronos]

I'd like to ask tetsuo and Croaker a question. I won't address Croaker's obvious grotesgue vision of a "Christian Heaven", I must ask what is wrong with believing there is such a thing as an afterlife?

[Stevil]

But what if I am more than a robot programmed by my past or my society or my economic status and actually can take a certain amount of creditâ€"or blameâ€"for my actions and inactions?

I have a very strong feeling that we are from two very different places. We both seem to be speaking English and yet I feel we are not even close to being able to understand what each other is saying.
I can see the unavoidable issues people have with regards to the barriers to our ability to think objectively. For me the "illusion of free will" phrase needed no explanation what so ever. As soon as I heard the term I could take it on board and interpret a meaning that is so acceptable and obvious that I can see its impact everywhere I go and within everyone whom I interact with. Free will is completely a myth. Maybe one day a scholar will do an in depth study and write an article on it, maybe this has already happened, probably has. I've never looked it up as it is just so obvious to me. It's one of the reasons I am opposed to, and try very hard myself to try never to say "should" or "should not". Everyone's thought patterns are different, based on their environments, their experiences, their health and their chemical makeup. What is right for me is not necessarily right for someone else.

The world is extremely complex and in my mind cannot be taken with a black and white attitude. You could say that murder is a bad thing, but it depends on your definition of the term murder and each individual case. Are we talking about terminating a pregnancy where the mother has a slim chance of survival if carrying to term? Are we talking about ending the life of a serial child rapist who has been convicted and released and committed the same crime again and again. Are we talking about ending the life of a terminally ill patient that lives everyday in excruciating pain?

I know my viewpoint is much more liberal than that of the Christian viewpoint. I have no concept of Good or Evil. I loathe movies that stereo type people this way e.g. the Good hero and the evil villain. The Good vs Evil stance only creates a divide rather than a willingness to understand. Generally there are two sides to a story and generally people believe they are righteous with regards to their own actions. If people are able to sit down and talk and open themselves up to understanding each other then compromises can be made and cohabitation can be possible. I have major problems with stances that are non tolerant and non accepting of other beliefs and thought patterns. For example the intolerance of Orthodoxy to allow its followers to marry non Christians, the stipulated condition that children of mixed faith marriage be brought up Orthodoxy. The statement that women must obey the man. The stance that same sex lovers are living in sin. Regardless how you try to justify these stances, these outcomes reek of non tolerance to me, non equity and do not seem fair. Civilisations do require rules to be functional but I am a firm believer in keeping these rules to a minimum. Creating laws against same sex marriages (for example) is simply not acceptable in my book.

I understand that you come from a Christian background and you likely wholeheartedly agree with your own faith. Due to the taints on your own freewill you struggle to accept that a person can have happiness in having sex with someone other than their spouse. Although you haven't stated this I am sure you have major issues with sexual intercourse between same sex partners. I understand that you will not accept this to be a taint and that you would likely think that your freewill is telling you that these things are wrong. You would probably even show me some quotes or references where in the Bible it states these things to be wrong. I would suggest that the vast majority of Orthodoxy and probably Christians as a whole would agree with your viewpoint on these situations. If you were to look outside Christianity you would likely see a different, more tolerant viewpoint especially from those not aligned with any faith. This would indicate a taint on freewill by Christianity as those not aligned with any faith have not been delivered a common religious based message to shape their thoughts and opinions on these matters. Its not just religion, its culture and the multitude of other things I have mentioned previously as well as a multitude of things I have not mentioned. I am no expert, just highlighting what to me is obvious. But I doubt you will agree.

The 'peace' I talk about is true 'love'. You can not hate, neglect, reject, subjugate, or the like, if you are filled with 'love'. That's the ultimate Christian message, and who God is.

If only it were this simple. If this truly were the stance of Christianity then I would applaud the Christian faith, although it would not entice me to join. Most people are likely to hold this message of peace, it is not unique to Christianity.

[Croaker]

I'd like to ask tetsuo and Croaker a question. I won't address Croaker's obvious grotesgue vision of a "Christian Heaven", I must ask what is wrong with believing there is such a thing as an afterlife?

In a simple answer, it reduces the value of your life as a human to nothing.

Afterparties, trips to IHOP after bar hopping, post-concert burrito eating, these are all true 'afterlives' of larger events. They provide a nice ender, a counterpoint to the activity that came before (except for afterparties, you just keep going   ). They are not greater than the event that came before - a short way to wind down, get a bite to eat, discuss what happened, etc.

"Christian Heaven" is not, I believe, an afterlife. It is your life, as it consumes the majority of your existence (being infinite - all of your existence, really). It reduces your life on earth to 'before-life' and nothing more. Anything you accomplish here as a human is inevitably pointless, since once you get to heaven, you will not need anything, for God is perfection. Heaven removes any need for humans to create, be it more children, art, new technology, love - God, in his perfection, is greater than all of that.

I had an older brother who only lived a week and a half. I had a cousin who didn't live to be born. Christians believe that unborn children automatically go to heaven - they have to, I mean, sending unborn babies to hell is pretty harsh, right? Even though the Bible actually says otherwise, let's just assume that they do all go to heaven, regardless of their parent's beliefs.

What happens next? They can't mature, since there is no environment in heaven which would promote growth. Even if they could 'grow up,' what age would it be to? It is our lives that define us, that give us our characteristics, our sense of humor, our wants and needs. These children will never have a way to define themselves, they will be 'perfect angels' or something similar. Another blank face in the crowd of billions.

I guess my question would be - what do you do in heaven? How do you define your 'real' life, the one that is to come?

For me, my life is here. It will end someday, and people will be sad, and that will mean it had meaning. Christians shouldn't be sad at funerals - it's like they're crying because the beginning credits of a movie are over.

[Achronos]

I'd like to ask tetsuo and Croaker a question. I won't address Croaker's obvious grotesgue vision of a "Christian Heaven", I must ask what is wrong with believing there is such a thing as an afterlife?

In a simple answer, it reduces the value of your life as a human to nothing.

Afterparties, trips to IHOP after bar hopping, post-concert burrito eating, these are all true 'afterlives' of larger events. They provide a nice ender, a counterpoint to the activity that came before (except for afterparties, you just keep going   ). They are not greater than the event that came before - a short way to wind down, get a bite to eat, discuss what happened, etc.

"Christian Heaven" is not, I believe, an afterlife. It is your life, as it consumes the majority of your existence (being infinite - all of your existence, really). It reduces your life on earth to 'before-life' and nothing more. Anything you accomplish here as a human is inevitably pointless, since once you get to heaven, you will not need anything, for God is perfection. Heaven removes any need for humans to create, be it more children, art, new technology, love - God, in his perfection, is greater than all of that.

I had an older brother who only lived a week and a half. I had a cousin who didn't live to be born. Christians believe that unborn children automatically go to heaven - they have to, I mean, sending unborn babies to hell is pretty harsh, right? Even though the Bible actually says otherwise, let's just assume that they do all go to heaven, regardless of their parent's beliefs.

What happens next? They can't mature, since there is no environment in heaven which would promote growth. Even if they could 'grow up,' what age would it be to? It is our lives that define us, that give us our characteristics, our sense of humor, our wants and needs. These children will never have a way to define themselves, they will be 'perfect angels' or something similar. Another blank face in the crowd of billions.

I guess my question would be - what do you do in heaven? How do you define your 'real' life, the one that is to come?

For me, my life is here. It will end someday, and people will be sad, and that will mean it had meaning. Christians shouldn't be sad at funerals - it's like they're crying because the beginning credits of a movie are over.

No growth in Heaven? Not in the Orthodox understanding, where Heaven is a unending, dynamic growth towards God, constantly becoming better and better, more and more.

Orthodox also don't understand Heaven as being utterly distinct from life on earth.  The Church is Heaven on Earth, although a foretaste, in the sense that the fullness of Heaven can only be experienced after the Final Judgment and Resurrection.  So what we do now has everything to do with what we experience in the afterlife.  What we do now contributes to the quality of our afterlife.  It really is one life, not two utterly different ways of existence separated by a thing called death.  That's why we believe in the communion of the saints as well; they are with us in the Church right now, and Orthodox have countless examples of saints appearing to those still on this earth to show their concern, etc.

As far as creativity is concerned, God created us to be creative, and that is what separates us from animals. Creating is essential to our life.  We do it in a Godly way, but it certainly has an impact on who we are and our eternal destiny, and the quality of that eternal destiny.  1 Cor 3:15 talks about the man  being saved even though his work is burned up; if he had done better work, it would not have been burned up.

As I progress in the Orthodox faith, I have less desire to do pointless, worldly things. I also seem to have a greater and greater appreciation for high culture, art, music, etc.  I believe that God's grace refines humanity, and does not blot it out.  After all, we are still in his image, even if corrupted by sin. And that means we are creative.

[Persimmon Hamster]

Actually, it is known to be a hymn/creed precisely because it is not Pauline in its source.
Did you even read what I wrote?

I spent a considerable part of yesterday reading every last word of what you wrote, and more than just that, I performed occasional background research along the way to help verify/understand your words before replying.

As far as whether your creed should be considered a source, it really seems irrelevant to the current discussion we are having (which you've already redefined, and I'll get to that momentarily).  That is why I discussed it in a paragraph labeled "a side note", so at this point let's avoid a debate on the acceptance of oral tradition as a source via the historical method.  You'll note I did say:

If I did count Mark and the creed, I would arrive at 8. What was the 9th?

I see no answer to this question.  You seem very disinterested in clarifying your response to me.

Actually, I did not at any point say I wouldn't appeal to the New Testament...

Actually, at one point, which I quoted already, you did:

Did you miss the part where I said there is verifiable historical data that does not appeal to the Church or the New Testament?

It was at this point that I said:

Are you saying that the Bible is entirely absent from the argument? If this is true then let's hear your "verifiable historical data".

You ignored this question, while I continued to make it clear in my posts that I was personally interested in hearing the data you have found in all of your studies that does not appeal to either:

Here in this very thread he has just recently claimed that he found concrete, verifiable evidence that stands on its own outside of the Bible and of Church authority, but refuses to even give us a single such example.
...
You are the very one who himself just said in this very thread that there is verifiable, extra-Biblical evidence in support of the resurrection. I have said a couple of times now that if you presented any examples that held water you might gain some traction.

The reason I want to hear this kind of evidence is because it would stand apart from the usual arguments that ultimately rely on the New Testament as a non-fiction, fully verified source.  Remember what I originally said in the first place?

The Resurrection is a circular argument? How so?

For starters, you will ultimately rely on a non-verifiable interpretation of scripture to justify your interpretation of scripture.

...but that I would be treating the New Testament as any other historical work from antiquity, granting only those passages that the vast majority of scholars would classify as "historically reliable." I'm not appealing to the authority of the Church nor to the New Testament as an inspired or somehow "special" document.

I think I'm the one who's missing something...

First, if any of your evidence relies in ANY way, uninspired, non-special, or otherwise, on the New Testament then (per all the above) you are not addressing my actual request.

Apparently you either didn't understand my real request, or you thought I wouldn't notice if you went ahead and redefined the discussion (moved the goal posts).

Nevertheless, moving on...  Whenever you cite the New Testament as evidence for anything, you are necessarily regarding the cited portions as fact.  So you do ascribe "specialness" to it -- the quality of being non-fiction.  So when you tell me that these claims only require that I regard the Bible as a work of ancient literature, you are being disingenuous.  These claims require that I regard the portions highlighted as being wholly factual.

If you would call these 6/9 sources “independent", your definition of independence is a far cry from what most reasonable people would accept. You are talking about a small group of contemporaries in direct contact with one another, who derived a common belief system from one another and shared common motivationsâ€"or subsequent students of these whose own writings are merely derivative.

If you'd care to back this assertion up, that would be nice.

Back what up, everything you already laid out for me yourself?  Sure, why not?  To whom do you turn in asking me to accept the relevant parts of scripture as fact?

1) Paul - An author of that very scripture!  An eyewitness of his own visionary claim (which he curiously never bothered to describe in any detail himself), but only an indirect witness of the visions of the rest.  "I saw a UFO, these other pals of mine say they did too!"
2) An oral creed - Taken from that very scripture (or do you have other record of it?)!  Recorded by Paul!  And what would it's ultimate source have been...the very pals Paul refers to!
3-6) Authors of Gospels - More authors of that very scripture!  Who the majority of scholars today agree were not themselves the original eyewitnesses!  More indirect reports of what Paul's pals believed!
7) Clement - More indirect reports of what the original eyewitnesses believed!  From a guy who was allegedly ordained by one of them to propagate their beliefs!
Polycarp - Again with the indirect reports of what the original eyewitnesses believed!  From another guy who, according to Irenaeus, was ordained by one of them to propagate their beliefs!

So you have one eyewitness, Paul, with his own agenda, who never even recorded the details of his experience firsthand.  The only other ultimate source hiding behind the rest is the same group of original eyewitnesses whose own records of their accounts remain suspiciously absent from the New Testament.  The rest are just people saying "uh huh, yep, I talked to them, they sure believed they saw somethin'!"

And yet you insist these are all "independent sources".  Sources of what, repetition of hearsay?  In that case, who cares?

And so, by these sources you ask me to accept that "they sure believed they saw somethin'!"  Great, I can imagine that, now what?  What they believed they saw, an actual description of it in their words, and when and in what order they saw it, is pretty important in my opinion, but you sweep all that under the rug and say it's not.

All you think is important is that they thought they saw something and later endured strife because of it, which you claim means that their interpretation of what they saw must be so entirely true (yet we have none of them, save Paul, even giving us their interpretation directly) that we must call it "knowledge" and not "belief".

I'm not familiar with it, no. Do I need to make anything of it? I try to take things on a case by case basis, so I'm not sure what relevance this would have to the Resurrection...

The reason I wonder what you make of the Hopkinsville Goblins Case is that it is a more contemporary example of a situation which I immediately recalled as being similar to your Fact Two situation:

Similarities to the Resurrection story:
- Multiple eyewitnesses to an event they could only describe as otherworldly.
- Secondary sources (indirect witnesses) attesting to the fact that the eyewitnesses truly believed what they saw.

Differences from the Resurrection story:
- The original eyewitnesses have actually provided, in their own words, descriptions of what they saw.

From what I have read, there seems to be as much (actually, more) reason to believe they saw what they claimed than to believe what the disciples and Paul saw what they claimed.  There seems to be far better definition of what it was they claimed to have seen.  They certainly seem to have endured strife (but admittedly not death) for claiming it, yet continued to claim it.  They seem to have "known it to be true".

I suppose I wonder, would you consider this "fact" equally as meaningful as your "Fact Two", or do you require death over belief for said belief to achieve apparent/relevant truthfulness?  And, I wonder, if you did know about it, what you might offer as counterpoint against its truthfulness because then I might be able to better understand why you would place the disciple/Paul claims at a higher level of truthfulness.  If you have no interest in reading about it I suppose these wonders will remain wonders.

At any rate, my logic was missed by you somehow, because again, you're asserting I claimed something that I didn't claim. I'm not saying we should believe the Resurrection because these people said they had experiences.

Again, you're missing my logic. I'm not demonstrating their belief for the reasons you think I am. Please, go back and read it again.

I did read it.  And I read it again just now.  Allow me to expand my previous quotation of your post:

Extreme acts do not validate the truth of their beliefs, but willingness to die indicates that they regard their beliefs as true. But there is an important difference between people like this and the Apostles. Modern martyrs act solely out of their trust in beliefs that others have taught them. The Apostles on the other hand, died for holding to their own testimony that they had personally seen the risen Jesus. Contemporary martyrs die for what they believe to be true. The Apostles died for what they knew to be true, from their own experience (whether true or false).

This seems to be what you spend the majority of Fact Two building up to!  A distinction between strife resulting from belief in first-hand experience, and strife resulting from belief in in what others have said.  You quite clearly imply this assigns additional truth to their beliefs (and yet you curiously continue to grant that what it was they experienced first-hand is vaguely defined and up for questioning).

If this is not the reason you think that granting their belief is an important, relevant fact, then what is the reason?  I need clarification because I can't find it.

I've never researched the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. I'm not interested in it, so I don't think I ever will. It's pretty much irrelevant to the Resurrection. At any rate, I'm guessing the same logic would apply though. There is a difference between dying for something you believe and dying for something you know, even if it's true or not. I can die for my belief that the world will end tomorrow. That is not the same as dying because I saw the risen Christ.

It is not irrelevant to your argument for the resurrection by any means.  Are you at least aware that Joseph Smith claimed to have had first-hand, visionary, God-driven experiences on which his beliefs were founded?  And that he endured much strife and was allegedly killed for adhering unflinchingly to those beliefs, according to the LDS church?  If I replaced "Joseph Smith" with "Paul", and "LDS church" with "Orthodox church" in the above, there would be no difference.  But yet I imagine you would tell me there is a difference because clearly you do not believe Smith's claims to be true while you do believe Paul's to be true.  I'd like to know, for the record, what that difference is as you see it -- to help me understand the distinction you are trying to make between different types of martyrs.

I'm not speaking of the time that has lapsed from then until now.

Neither am I.

I'm speaking of the time that had lapsed from Jesus death/Resurrection to the time the Apostles made the claims.

I'm speaking of the time that lapsed from Jesus's death/resurrection to the time any pieces of it were recorded and accepted into the New Testament.

If you're implying that it's the claims of the Apostles themselves that have evolved over time, then I'd just have to hope you're comfortable going against the vast majority of scholarship on the subject. Again, I'm only allowing those pieces of data that have very wide support as historically authentic.

From what I have read, there is no wide scholarly support today, if you are truly including all biblical scholars, for the idea that the twelve apostles, or any of the others to experience visions before Paul, actually recorded their visions themselves (moreover, Paul never personally detailed the nature of his vision).  Did Habermas claim as much?  So I am implying that by the time anybody got around to writing it down (20...50...70...however many years later) there had been ample time for evolution of the supporting story--any amount of modification to the who/what/when/where of these visions could have occurred.  You've shown no data nor logical thought process which opposes that proposition, that I can find.  If you contend that you have you are going to have to clarify it for me.

How in the world is quoting the New Testament or a Church Father an "appeal to Church authority"? I'm not asking you to consider them because of their source. I'm asking you to consider them because a great deal of historical inquiry and research has been put into these sources and I'm only using that which finds a vast amount of support amongst historians.

When you cite the New Testament, you unavoidably ask me to accept some interpretation of the citation to be correct.  The interpretation, and especially in these cases where you are counting up "independent sources", requires consideration of authorship.  From what I can tell, your Church still holds the authorship conclusions of the Church fathers with respect to the gospels to have been correct, am I right?  This, in the face of the majority of contemporary scholars who have concluded otherwise.  If you tell me we can count authors of the evangelist gospels as eyewitnesses in the argument for Fact Two, you are thus appealing to Church authority, are you not?  So, are you telling me that?

Still, maybe I have been loose with the term "authority" because of its special meaning in the phrase "argument from authority".  But you have been loose with it as well--in the second assertion you made that contributed to my request (which I already quoted but will quote again here) you dropped the word altogether:

Did you miss the part where I said there is verifiable historical data that does not appeal to the Church or the New Testament?

As the Church fathers you mentioned were of course members of the Church and crucial in establishing its sense of authority, and since you seemed to equate "appeals to the Church" with "appeals to Church authority" yourself, perhaps you can forgive me for also equating them in my evaluation of your response.

Yet if we replace "authority" with "fathers" in my post it does not make any of your facts any more relevant to my original request for extra-Biblical, non-circular evidence because no fathers are anything other than indirect witnesses with their own agenda of establishing the church.  The words you cited of theirs offer no new testimonies of the nature, sequence, or distribution of visionary experiences outside of the Bible -- just mere secondary parotting that experiences were had and beliefs were thus held.

In other words, what you're trying to do here is say, "Hey! You can't use that because I don't believe in the New Testament and the Church's authority means nothing to me!" And what I'm saying here is that you could go talk about these sources to the scholars who specialize in them and you'd basically get laughed at because their own research has overwhelmingly concluded that the information is historically authentic and reliable. If that means nothing to you then of course my line of reasoning isn't going to work. But you'd have bigger problems than that...

You have presented no evidence for Jesus’ resurrection except that which appeals to Church authority and the New Testament. Feel free to try again, or, if you like, revoke the original claim in question.

I'd actually like to ask you to try again because you so obviously did not follow my line of reasoning. How in the world you could finish reading that and think that I appealed to Church authority in any way, completely baffles me. But I also can't say I'm surprised.

What I've ultimately said, perhaps more clearly now, is that I don't see the relevance of these sources, or of your 5 facts supported by them, to proving the resurrection actually occured as described or interpreted by you.  I stand by the conclusion that you have yet to offer any compelling extra-Biblical evidence for your interpretation.

-----------------------------------------------------------

As for your "miscellaneous" thoughts, if you were in any way actually interested in this topic, I'd refer you to the painstakingly researched "The Resurrection of the Son of God" by N.T. Wright. If you had any doubts that a literal, bodily resurrection was indeed the exact and only thing claimed by these people, they would be completely obliterated.

I'll investigate Wright's book and consider adding it to my reading queue (which I'll admit is pretty long, and which I seldom have time to progress through).  Meanwhile here is a relevant portion of a review I just found (2nd search result in my search for the book) by Robert M. Price, whom I've come to admire a bit.  Maybe you can read the quote and provide some counterpoint to help convince me to read your book.

Hopefully you don't find Price to be a "militant atheist" or I'm afraid you are going to have to belittle me again.  By the way, I see you made no attempt to back up the accusations you made about me before, as I requested.  I suppose now you will just use this post-accusation pasting exercise I am about to engage in as your sole example in support of those claims, but oh well.

Here is the relevant portion of Price's review:

Part of Wright’s agenda of harmonizing and de-fusing the evidence is to smother individual New Testament texts beneath a mass of theological synthesis derived from the Old Testament and from the outlines of Pauline theology in general. He is a victim of what James Barr long ago called the “Kittel mentality,” referring to the approach of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, in which articles on individual New Testament terms and words synthesized from all uses of the term an artificial and systematic semantic structure, leading the reader to suppose that every individual usage of the word was an iceberg tip carrying with it implied reference to all other references. In other words, each article in the TDNT composed a “New Testament theology,” topic by topic. In just this manner, Wright first composes a streamlined Old Testament theology of historical and eschatological redemption (akin to that of Von Rad, without the latter’s understanding that much of it was based on fictive saga rather than history); then Wright synthesizes a Pauline Theology, then a New Testament theology, then an early Christian theology; and finally he insists that the synthetic resurrection concept he has distilled must control our reading of all individual gospel and Pauline texts dealing with the resurrection. In short, it is an elaborate exercise in harmonizing disparate data. The implications of 1 Corinthians 15, for example, with its talk of spiritual resurrection, are silenced as the text is muzzled, forbidden to say anything outside the party line Wright has constructed as “the biblical” teaching on the subject.
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/rev_ntwrong.htm

[Persimmon Hamster]

As I progress in the Orthodox faith, I have less desire to do pointless, worldly things. I also seem to have a greater and greater appreciation for high culture, art, music, etc.

Interesting.  I would say the same has been true of me as I progress in atheism.

[LegendarySandwich]

Well, that's the second cruelty - if you were Mayan, or Incan, or Mongolian or Native American or any of the countless other populations of people who never had the chance to even hear about Christianity - well, you get to spend your life - your real, infinite life, not this mortal loading screen - in hell.

An even if you did hear about Christianity but rejected it, you get to spend literal eternity in infinite torment, just for not believing in one of the thousands of gods.

Yes, Yahweh is certainly a god of love, isn't he?

[Achronos]

PH, I want to thank you for your replies and the time it took to do so. I also want to apologize that I won't be able to continue this back and forth with you in such great detail. I started a new job recently and I don't have as much time as a topic of this magnitude deserves. I was able to post my original lengthy post because I had it saved on my computer from some of the research I did when I was investigating the Resurrection a few years ago.

That doesn't mean I'm giving up on the conversation, but it's just so you know why I can't address every single question or point you bring up. I wish I could because it's a worthy conversation!

To address some of the overall points, here's what I'm saying and what I think you're missing. These 5 minimal facts are not in themselves proof of anything. I said that outright and you'll note that the first point I made was that "it's not about proof." I still maintain that. I'm not out to prove the Resurrection to you. What I'm out to do is to answer this question:  Given the sources that we have, the methods that we have, and the scholarly work of credentialed historians on the subject, what facts can we gather that enjoy a wide acceptance as being historically reliable and authentic, by both believer and skeptic alike?

These 5 facts are what we have. These are 5 facts that virtually no honest historian worth their salt would dispute. That's the point. That's why they're used and why, even though you accuse me of it, I'm not appealing to the "inspiration" of the New Testament or Church authority as many others might be tempted to do. I'm saying if you gathered every professional scholar who deals with the subject, who have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals over the last 25 years, and were to ask them, "What can we really know, based on good research and solid history?" more than 90% of them would tell you, "We know that Jesus died by crucifixion, that his disciples genuinely believed they had real experiences of Jesus risen from the dead, that there was a man named Saul of Tarsus who converted because of a similar experience, that there was a man named James who converted because of a similar experience and that there was a known tomb, where Jesus was known to be buried and that it was found empty. And we know these things because we have data that meets the most rigorous of historical standards. We have eyewitness accounts from very early sources, which are multiple and independent, from friend and foe alike, containing all the hallmarks of authenticity."

Now, here's the important part of this: You have 5 variables that you must account for, with a hypothesis that must make sense out of all of them; not just some. You have to have a good answer for why Saul converted, why James converted, why the tomb was found empty and why these people genuinely believed they saw Jesus risen from the dead. And I want to make this point very clear because it appears you're not following me here: I'm not saying you should believe the Resurrection because these people said it happened. And there is also a huge difference between believing something happened, and claiming that it happened. These people didn't just make claims and hope people believed them. That's why I spent time giving good reasons for their martyrdoms. They died specifically for this belief that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead.They really believed it, and that's something that we have to account for.  Do you see this important nuance? I'm not offering it as a proof of the Resurrection, I'm offering it as an historical phenomenon that demands an explanation. This is a big difference and the questions you ask imply that it's being missed by you. Let me know if it still doesn't make sense.

Do you see how this works? I'm not saying, "Believe the Resurrection because people a long time ago say it happened." I'm not saying, "Believe the Resurrection because the Bible says so, and the Bible is true." I'm not saying, "Believe the Resurrection because the Church says it's true."

I'm saying, believe the Resurrection because it is the only thing that makes sense out of what we can know.

[Achronos]

Well, that's the second cruelty - if you were Mayan, or Incan, or Mongolian or Native American or any of the countless other populations of people who never had the chance to even hear about Christianity - well, you get to spend your life - your real, infinite life, not this mortal loading screen - in hell.

An even if you did hear about Christianity but rejected it, you get to spend literal eternity in infinite torment, just for not believing in one of the thousands of gods.

Yes, Yahweh is certainly a god of love, isn't he?

Or you can die, decompose, and the molecules in your body will be used to make a tree grow, and then some guys will knock the tree down, process it to make paper, and make a Bible out of it. (courtesy of Dane Cook)

Choose your mode of infinite torture

[Achronos]

As I progress in the Orthodox faith, I have less desire to do pointless, worldly things. I also seem to have a greater and greater appreciation for high culture, art, music, etc.

Interesting.  I would say the same has been true of me as I progress in atheism.

When Christians cry, their cry is no different than the cry of a loved one who will travel elsewhere for a very long time. Can you help it that a friend cries when another friend will leave for a long time even though we try to tell her that you'll see her again some day?

Croaker wrote earlier when you do, people will cry because your life had meaning. This is the problem. Your life HAD meaning. Now, you're just a memory. You don't really exist anymore, you're just merely remembered. The life that you don't take for granted during the time you lived just ended. That too me is a sad tragedy. How can something end that had meaning when in the end, there is really no meaning. There's no difference between you or the one who committed suicide. And when the world or the universe one day ends, and all life is vanished, what then of the lives that were taken for granted? Because when atheists believe they die, they die forever. You will be missed forever. There is no, "till we meet again" in the death of non-believers. This is not only sad, it's depressing.

This is why no afterlife is no life at all.

[Sophus]

As I progress in the Orthodox faith, I have less desire to do pointless, worldly things. I also seem to have a greater and greater appreciation for high culture, art, music, etc.

For clarification purposes, how would you define worldly things?

I would have to agree with Persimmon Hamster that it was after I had lost faith the arts really spoke to me. The arts provoke many questions and give many different answers to life's questions. With religion there was always one answer: Jesus. I grew rather bored of it. I also didn't have much of a work ethic when I was a young Christian because anything that wasn't pertaining to what I was told my life's purpose was to worship, was not worth my enthusiasm. The world also wasn't worth exploring because it was nothing more than a temporary host and surely there would be time to learn about it in heaven. Anything 'worldly', like working (even now at what I love most to do) was a chore; a distraction from what really mattered. Glorifying God.

I don't mean to say your faith doesn't allow you to appreciate the beautiful things in life such as it did to me. Different paths work better for different people. You're mindset as a Christian may be different than mine was.

[Croaker]

Well, that's the second cruelty - if you were Mayan, or Incan, or Mongolian or Native American or any of the countless other populations of people who never had the chance to even hear about Christianity - well, you get to spend your life - your real, infinite life, not this mortal loading screen - in hell.

An even if you did hear about Christianity but rejected it, you get to spend literal eternity in infinite torment, just for not believing in one of the thousands of gods.

Yes, Yahweh is certainly a god of love, isn't he?

Or you can die, decompose, and the molecules in your body will be used to make a tree grow, and then some guys will knock the tree down, process it to make paper, and make a Bible out of it. (courtesy of Dane Cook)

Choose your mode of infinite torture

At least when I die my consciousness disappears with me. The atoms that make me were used in who-knows-what for millions of years before I was born, and they'll continue to be used after I die. It doesn't affect my current life in any way.

As to what Sandwich said, I always found it odd how Christians say that 'God is love.'

If I knew my wife would be in a car accident that would leave her paralyzed for the rest of her life, but could actually stop it from happening by calling her on a cellphone, I would do so, because I love her. God doesn't do this. God wouldn't call her on her cellphone. No, he'd call one spot in town that she might be at, say... Wal-Mart, ask if she was there, and if not say 'Oh well!' and let her get involved in the car crash.

I hope I don't have to spell out the allegory for you, but that's not love.

I can almost understand the appeal of heaven, I used to look forward to it myself. But once you step back and question what it actually would be, what it makes the rest of your life into, and the ridiculous number of people who are unfairly denied its gates - well, it's shown as nothing more than wishful thinking.

It's not that heaven is unappealing. It's that the necessary baggage - hell, and the people unfairly sent there - is such a horrid, vile belief.

[Achronos]

At least when I die my consciousness disappears with me. The atoms that make me were used in who-knows-what for millions of years before I was born, and they'll continue to be used after I die. It doesn't affect my current life in any way.

As to what Sandwich said, I always found it odd how Christians say that 'God is love.'

If I knew my wife would be in a car accident that would leave her paralyzed for the rest of her life, but could actually stop it from happening by calling her on a cellphone, I would do so, because I love her. God doesn't do this. God wouldn't call her on her cellphone. No, he'd call one spot in town that she might be at, say... Wal-Mart, ask if she was there, and if not say 'Oh well!' and let her get involved in the car crash.

I hope I don't have to spell out the allegory for you, but that's not love.

I can almost understand the appeal of heaven, I used to look forward to it myself. But once you step back and question what it actually would be, what it makes the rest of your life into, and the ridiculous number of people who are unfairly denied its gates - well, it's shown as nothing more than wishful thinking.

It's not that heaven is unappealing. It's that the necessary baggage - hell, and the people unfairly sent there - is such a horrid, vile belief.

First off, God searches the hearts. No one is condemning you to hell. I was joking with you that last post.

Things happen here in this world that is out of your control. Your job is to take whatever experience you get and try to conquer it, make the best out of it. I know it's hard, but it's not impossible.

The thing is you are thinking too much about the afterlife as God's character. The afterlife was written with allegory, but there's still not much to understand about it. Those who profess more than needed about it are really not doing God a favor. Even this River of Fire article will not help you and will only just make you turned off even more as you think about it more (at least it did with me [here it is http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm]).

You have to look at a certain perspective here. It would be understandable that your attack on God's love doesn't make sense for a place of possible eternal punishment. I must also say from my perspective, your love of your present existence also doesn't make sense for an end of sure non-existence. So, it was a matter of choice. For you, because you're so turned off by God, probably angry at God, you made sense out of your present existence without taking the logical leap, it's probably better I wouldn't have been born. For me, because I'm so turned off by any lack of God, and I can't imagine life without having a relationship with this God, a relationship where I can grow, then for me, it didn't matter what afterlife there was. I knew if I at least try and pray, I know I'm heading in the right direction.

I think personally, if you're thinking way too much on the afterlife, I'm trying to ask you have you really seriously thought about your death with your present worldview?

It should be noted that Heaven is earth restored.  It will be life as it was meant to be.  We won't be floating around on clouds somewhere "up there" in "heaven."  

That's why the key is resurrection.  It's not a disembodied existence.  It's the body you have now, raised back to life to a restored creation.  Sounds pretty damn good to me...

[McQ]

Or you can die, decompose, and the molecules in your body will be used to make a tree grow, and then some guys will knock the tree down, process it to make paper, and make a Bible out of it. (courtesy of Dane Cook)

Choose your mode of infinite torture

First, Achronos, sincere congratulations on the new job! I hope it is something that you look forward to doing every day. And second, thanks for this bit above. It's really fun. Sure, I know it's a Dane Cook thing, but it hit my funny bone just right, and was a nice insert into the topic.

I hope your job doesn't take you too far from the forum, as I've enjoyed your posts and discussions. Don't be a stranger.

[Achronos]

I just realized I didn't actually address PH's statement here, but brought up someone else's response my bad.

I appreciate the warm regards McQ, I'll see how my schedule permits with responses but I may or may not be able to go at great lengths addressing points made. That said let me get to what I wanted to say towards PH.

As I progress in the Orthodox faith, I have less desire to do pointless, worldly things. I also seem to have a greater and greater appreciation for high culture, art, music, etc.

Interesting.  I would say the same has been true of me as I progress in atheism.

How on earth does one "progress" in the belief that there is no God?

There is no progression in atheism, as it leads to nowhere but nihilism.
[youtube:1vtzwi5c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr3sYBqpW9o[/youtube:1vtzwi5c]