From: "Peter B. West" <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Resurrection proof... another way of putting it
Date: Sat, 02 May 1998 19:22:17 +1000

Danny Yee wrote:
> 
> Rowland C. Croucher <> wrote:
> >Their being willing to die then gives much
> >credibility to their claim to possess eyewitness evidence for the
> >resurrection.
> 
> Willingness to die gives ones beliefs *no additional force whatsoever*.

That's not the claim.  Willingness to die demonstrates only the terrible
force of conviction.  The claim about the resurrection relates to the
particular circumstances of this particular belief, held with the force
of martyrdom.

> Bruno died for his beliefs, for which he had the evidence of his own eyes.
> But that doesn't constitute evidence for the truth of those beliefs.

This is not at all a parallel.

> During assorted witch trials, people were killed because they claimed they
> had had congress with the devil, or had engaged in other acts of magic.
> This is not evidence that they had, in fact, carried out acts of magic.

I'm not sure what you are saying here.  Are you contending that these
people gladly went to their deaths as witnesses to the joy of sex with
the devil, or stepped up to the gallows to testify to the extraordinary
satisfactions of performing acts of magic?  I am trying to relate this
to the event that we are talking about; the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ, and His subsequent appearance to His friends.  It is difficult
to draw parallels in the absence of any particular circumstances.

> >The death of a sane person for a belief proves one thing only:  That the
> >person firmly and sincerely holds that belief.  Fine:  The deaths of the
> >Jews, atheists, Muslims and pagans prove that they firmly and sincerely
> >held their beliefs.  But that proves nothing.  Now, the deaths of the
> >Apostles in the first instance also only prove that the Apostles firmly
> >and sincerely held their beliefs.
> 
> Well spotted.
> 
> >However, the fact that they firmly
> >and sincerely held their beliefs in _this_ case proves the _truth_ of
> >Christianity, since among these beliefs was the belief not just that
> >Jesus
> >rose from the dead, but that with their very own eyes they _saw_ Him
> >risen
> >from the dead.  Now this particular belief (barring insanity or mass
> >delusion) is one which they could not have firmly and sincerely held
> >without it being true.
> 
> This argument is so bogus it defies belief that someone as smart as you
> can believe it.

Flatterer!  Rowland, cover your eyes.

> Tens of thousands of supporters of the Mahdi died at Khartoum,
> believing that they had had immunity to bullets, *having seen that
> immunity demonstrated*.  Can I suggest that it's hard to be deluded
> about whether a bullet hits someone or not? ...  But of course they were
> ignorant African savages, easily deluded into seeing things that weren't
> actually happening (cf stage magicians, etc.), and not at all comprable
> to 1st century peasant farmers from Palestine, who were sophisticated
> skeptics and could never have been deluded...

Who is being patronising to the Sudanese here?  I think it's you Danny. 
And you're normally so ethnically correct.

So the supporters of the Mahdi willing gave their lives to demonstrate
their immunity to bullets?  Now I'm confused.  How could they be martyrs
if they did not believe that they could be killed?  Still, I suppose
that they might have swarmed to the fight believing that they were
impervious to bullets, and then, when the first few died from bullet
wounds before their eyes, decided that they were really martyrs after
all.  But then, to what are they testifying?

It may have escaped your notice that in battle men go regularly to their
deaths in large numbers without making any miraculous claims at all. 
Battle seems to have its own dynamic.  Please God neither you nor I
shall ever have to experience it.  On the 25th, we had the chance to
listen to many who had just such experiences, particularly in Gallipoli
and France.

But back to the question.  We have a particular sequence of events.  The
arrest, the Crucifixion, the burial, the shattering of all hopes and
their sudden and inexplicable revival in a group who turn from denial,
flight, and cowering in locked rooms, to the open proclamation before
the very authoritites who crucified Jesus, that they had seen and spoken
to Him following His rising from the dead.

The original poster says
> >  Now this particular belief (barring insanity or mass
> >delusion) is one which they could not have firmly and sincerely held
> >without it being true.

If you are not going to plead insanity (indeed mass insanity) or mass
delusion, please explain how this *particular* belief in these
*particular* circumstances could have been held unto death, without
being true.

> Sigh.

Don't sigh for me Danny Yee, nah.

> Danny.

Yours faithfully,
-- 
 __ /__   Peter B. West         Looking for work...
   /     http://www.uq.net.au/~zzpwest       See C.V. on my home page.
  /     "Lord, to whom shall we go?"