Explain the belief in the resurrection!!

Then, and here’s the key part – they were offered a way to understand this absolute failure as though it were the exact opposite, an absolute (and unexpected) success! — Bum

Isn’t this a fair summery of what you getting at? Afraid if I put it in my words you’d argue some miniscule detail I left out.

 This is the point right? How you believe the two stories correlate. [haredawg]

 
No, a fair summary would be as follows:

 
My example gives one way that the events could have happened; and given the case that in modern America, with literacy rates in the 90% – there exists an example of a group that followed a leader, up until the leader was unequivocally shown to be wrong; and, contrary to what people *expect* to happen, their faith in the leader is increased.  And their proselytizing to others increased.

 
A common argument that I come across is that the disciples are either lying or telling the truth – and they died for what they believed in – and who would die for a lie?

 
People say, “so messiah groups came along all the time, and the leader was killed, why didn’t they have their followers standing on the street corner continuing on?”

 
One answer is the one I gave: “they were offered a way to understand this absolute failure as though it were the exact opposite, an absolute (an unexpected) success!”

 
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So what you are saying is.. because this is the same.. except where it’s different.. it rules out another story? It is easy to find examples why such an argument is not very good.

 
But I stand more by what I said in my last note. Did any of these people die for the lie? You, Bum.. would never die for God; because you don’t believe he is real. Why would people who know he isn’t do so?

 
Many of the followers of Christ.. the ones you say were perpetuating a lie.. died.. horribly.. for this. What you ask for now.. is not a physical miracle.. but a psychological one. People under the pain of torture admit to things that aren’t true. See the witch trials… yet you ask for these people, under the pain of torture, to stand by what they "know is a lie." That’s even harder to believe. [ghostwriter]

 Did I say they were lying? That they “knew the resurrection was a lie”?  No. In my entry, I’m taking it for granted that these people very much believed that they had true beliefs.

 Did any of these people die for the lie?

 Are you telling me we have a record of a disciple that died because he did not renounce the belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus? Please cite it, I’m very curious. You’re allowed to use the Bible as a source.

 
“So what you are saying is.. because this is the same.. except where it’s different.. it rules out another story?”

 No.  I’m saying, look, here’s something where people acted strangely after enormous, life-altering events occurred in catastrophic ways for a belief system that they had sacrificed a lot to believe in (quitting jobs, leaving spouses, etc).  And although you could use the common sense argument, “well, once they were shown that their belief was wrong, why would they continue with it?” That’s not how people work. 

 The Keech example shows that the people find a way of looking at the situation so that they validate all the sacrifices that they made, especially when a new way of explaining the data becomes available.  The faith of the group made the earth goddess decide to not flood the earth, or the death of the messiah was exactly what we were looking for all along, we just didn’t realize it (hey, that’s a common theme throughout the NT isn’t it? How the disciples do not realize that the messiah has to die until after…)

 Let’s say that the Keech followers were willing to die for their belief.  Let’s also say that the disciples were willing to die for their belief.  What does this tell us? I would say that it’s VERY STRONG EVIDENCE that these people honestly believed what they say they believe.  Now, how does strength of belief correlate with reality? I mean, what if Newton were not willing to die for his belief in his theory of gravitation? What if he was? It doesn’t matter.  Having evidence that the disciples believed something, means that the only “miracle” that is needed to be explained is “how they came to believe that.”

 
I think that there are probably a number of ways that this belief could have come about, and one of the more plausible ways would be in an analogous way to the Keech example.

 
If none of us had ANY IDEA how they could have believed something like that, what would that tell us?  I suspect that a number of people reading this entry would say that we could conclude something like, “well, then it’s likely that they believed it because they had good evidence, or it was the truth…”  Why?  Why would that be the case?  When do the limits of our ability to imagine how something occurred tell us anything about reality?

 
In other words, saying, “I can’t even think of a way that these people could have believed X unless X happened” – is a statement about the limits of YOUR IMAGINATION, not the limits of reality.

Reality is not constrained by your lack of creativity.