If Jesus wasn't real, then what happened to his body?

The Romans had their way with it.

Can someone seriously explain this to me? Without using the word "faith" in your answer, please.

>the western world in misery and poverty for a thousand years

Now that I think about it, the Mormon story is much more believable. I mean, God just gave his fully-grown prophet tablets and the gift to translate them (why didn't he just give him the text in English? well, whatever) and this was after the printing press was invented and Mormonism started to spread right before the global population boomed, etc.

>that image in his

Dude...

It's highly unlikely the Romans would've shown special sympathy to the Jews, and they wouldn't have risked appeasing rebels during this tense holiday. They would've done everything "by the book" as quickly as possible. That being said, we'll never know what happened to the body, but knowing the Romans we can take guesses as to what happened…

It's far more likely they would've left his corpse on the cross to be destroyed by the elements and birds (something that was standard) than it was they buried him in a mass grave.

It's far more likely they buried him in a mass grave (something that was rare), than it was they granted a special dispensation to appease the followers of Jesus.

It's far more likely they gave the body to appease the disciples (something they never did) than the disciples stole it.

It's far more likely they stole it (something they wouldn't have gotten away with) than the body ressurected (something that had never happened anywhere)

And it's far more likely the conflicting stories of his ressurection and who witnessed it were spread by the credulous and fearful, than they were legitimate reports

And yet Christianity did indeed conquer the world, in spite of this silly image's protestations.

Found the G*rman.

What are you talking about, user
His body is still alive and well today

I attended Catholic school from kindergarten to 12th grade, and something that was in the religion books to disprove that the disciples simply lied, is that all of them were martyred. I understand that people with immense "faith" takes risks for their religions now, just like how Muslims blow themselves up and what not, but why would the disciples put themselves in such risky situations to spread their apparent lies? What could they gain from that?

>I understand that people with immense "faith" takes risks for their religions now, just like how Muslims blow themselves up and what not
You answered your own question

The apostles strongly believed the stories to be true, but were mistaken:
The ones who were killed never actually witnessed the events take place themselves, but were told by other apostles, whom they trusted.
They convinced themselves the stories were true, to the point of actually believing they were, even though what they witnessed directly contradicted them.
They remembered the details of the events differently than they witnessed, because the false details were constantly reinforced by everyone they kept company with.
They were fooled. They really did see the events, but what they saw was a trick.
The apostles did not believe all of the stories, but died for another reason:
They believed the literal truth of John 3:16 , and thought they would not die.
They considered the cause to be just, even though they knew some of the stories were embellished or exaggerated.
They were protecting the lives of other people.
They would have chosen death rather than be exposed as shameless liars.
They were killed because they were public figureheads for the cause, not due to the specific stories they maintained or denied.
They were killed without being given opportunity to retract their stories.
They stuck to their story to maintain some dignity in their death, as they were going to be killed either way.
They intended to become martyrs.
The apostles admitted the stories were not true, but the admission was never made public.
They did die protecting the truth, but the stories of those events were later embellished. The "miracles" we now read about are not what they actually saw and died for.
The stories of the apostles' deaths were themselves later embellished to present them as martyrs.
The apostles as well as Jesus died for something else, perhaps they hoped they would help free Israel from the Romans.
The apostles were never killed.
The existence of the apostles was also an invention.

They don't need to have "lied". You know pagans were known to fast because it made them more likely to have visions of their gods. Early Christians also fasted to make themselves more likely to have visions, although they gave the reason that it was an act of humbling themselves before God

If you're going to post it, post the full timeline.

Ugh

So do you believe all the cults who committed mass suicide were right or...?

No, the difference between Muslims blowing themselves up now and the original 12 disciples being killed for talki about Jesus, is that the Muslims of now don't actually know what happened with Muhammad and what not, but the disciples DID know what happened about Jesus. If Muhammad just made up his religion for whatever reason, then really only he would know that, and present day Muslims believe that he was telling the truth so they blow themselves up. But all 12 disciples knew if the resurrection of Jesus was bs or not. So if it was bs and they made it up, why would they die for that lie?

Or most likely they believed Jesus when he said the end was nigh and didn't want to stick around for it.

>What could they gain from that?
A purpose in what beforehand had been the meaningless life of a Galilean peasant, a province that served as a national embarrassment for the rest of the Jewish people. People who make this argument vastly underestimate the ability the human mind has for sincerely believing in things it wants to be true. Things that are unverified, or even knowingly invented, will eventually yield to a brain that wants them to be true, and so will the knowledge that they never verified it or even made it up.

It's easy to pick on religious fanatics for doing this, but it happens to far more people than anyone would be comfortable admitting. Hell, the recent Chilcot report can confirm members of the Bush cabinet (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney) were so throughly convinced Saddam had WMD (because they wanted to believe a tyrant with a long history of lying would also lie about this) even as UN inspections and British intelligence were telling them otherwise.

What people want to be true will always overcome what people know to be true, if left unchecked.

That tomb was broken into and caused several people to have visions of Jesus walking around and talking to them doesn't sound too outlandish to me

There's really nothing in this thread that's a convincing argument beyond the simple axiom that someone dead coming back to life is impossible.

It might also explain the conflicting account, the "earthquake", the angels...
errancy.org/tomb.html

This.

for you

Thanks for the input, guys. In a way, I wanted you to prove me wrong, and in a way, I didn't. Well anyway, time to be a deist now I guess.

If I removed you from the cross would you live?

>You know pagans were known to fast because it made them more likely to have visions of their gods

What makes you think it doesn't work?

That one piece you're willing to grant is still far more convincing than…
>I believe it precisely because it's absurd/unlikely
>I believe it because so many other people have
>I believe it because I'd never die for something I knowingly lied about/never confirmed, so I can't imagine anyone else doing so either

Take that leap of faith and bet on Christ's resurrection, user. You lose nothing and gain everything.

"There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition."

>>I believe it because I'd never die for something I knowingly lied about/never confirmed, so I can't imagine anyone else doing so either
>not believing this

Do you have such a dim view of human nature?

I'm I don't understand your question. What don't i think works?

Fasting. To see gods and such.

THEY certainly thought it worked.

Pascal's wager is bunk. It's equally possible that there is a god who rewards people for being atheists

Equally possible that there's an evil demon who doesn't reveal his presence, doesn't establish the world's largest religion, and reward people for not believing him? That's basically Sheogorath, and we all know he doesn't exist.

Well yeah, there's that, but based on all I've learned in my Catholic education and involvement in my church, if that God really is up there, he'll save me either way. Plus, you said the word "faith".

I don't doubt that it works. I just don't think it was really a god, especially when the method works for pagans and Christians when the Christian faith and the pagan's can't both be real

And why does it matter if this version is an evil demon? That doesn't lower it's likelihood. Besides the christian God isn't much more morally superior

Don't just be a deist because of one internet argument, the speculations of anonymous anons shouldn't be the guiding principle for you're beliefs

Yes, I sincerely believe Jesus never rose from the dead and his disciples wanted to believe he did so badly they were willing to die for something they never fully confirmed (or possibly even invented). But I didn't just take this opinion because someone told me, I looked into it deeply and made an educated guess from the sources of information available. And I'm still willing to change my mind if new information comes up that totally refutes my hypothesis.

Id rather you believe Jesus really rose from the dead if that's what your research has lead you to, than for you not to believe that merely because I told you so.

He offers us life after death, that makes him pretty tops in my book.

Agreed, like how you can take 8 tabs of acid and run off into a field to be found by your friends later with your testicles in your hand because God told you to cut them off

>that happened to a friend of a friend

Maybe all the pagan gods are demons in disguise. That's actually what the Church taught at the time, you know.

I wasn't replying to though. I can explain that post to you easily.

>He appears in the form of a man in Israel, the home of the Jews (his chosen people) during the Roman Empire. He starts proselytising them
>Gets publicly killed by the Romans but rises again, appearing in front some crowds of Jews and his followers (he also eats fish with them, so not an apparition)
>His followers and Paul spread Christianity through the Roman Empire
>The Empire converts
>Fast forward, Europeans develop empires and spread Christianity through them
>Christianity reaches America (future Christian superpower) China, the Philippines and Japan
>Everyone's joining the Christian train
>Today Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in China too

Just as a side note, God's chosen people (the Jews) are 0.2% of the world's population but they get 20% of the noble prizes, so they're 100 times over-represented. Also the Bible explicitly prophesises that they'll be scattered from Israel and return later.

Check out Ezekiel 20:34 and then Isaiah 43:5 for some verses about that.

So does my hypothetical God, and the millions more that can be dreamt up. I can't accept that a moral God can send people to an infinite amount of indescribable suffering. One that really doesn't care or see humans as anything more than playthings, sure. But not a loving father

If you believe no one has ever done it, then you'd have to believe Hong Xiuquan wouldn't have started one of the deadliest wars in human history without confirming that he actually met his elder brother, Jesus Christ.

He sincerely believed it, and so did the millions he lead to death.

And maybe the Christian God was lying about the other gods being demons and is just jealous of them

Come on, I'm not that dumb. I've had my own "spiritual journey" I guess of ups and downs and doubts and beliefs and what not. I just don't need to talk about that here, cause special snowflakes are annoying.

It's doubtful they even considered him a rebel, or if they did it was the cherry on top of his outrageous behavior:

"Apologists argue that because Jesus was willing to die for what he believed proves that he believed in what he had said. However, assuming the gospels are true, Jesus was executed as a criminal. The crimes described in the gospels consist of vandalism (Mark 11:15 ), theft (Mark 11:15 , Matthew 21:12 , John 2:15 ), battery with a weapon (John 2:15 ), impeding traffic (Mark 11:16 ) and making terrorist threats (John 2:19 ), as well as assault, disturbing the peace and impeding commerce. Some of these were capital crimes, and he was accordingly arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to death. It is often believed that Jesus knew his actions would result in his death, so that despite his execution being legally justified it has no bearing on whether it was martyrdom. However, if he died for his beliefs, then those beliefs for which he died consist of not changing money or selling animals inside of the Temple. In addition, he was not killed for his beliefs, or as a threat to Jewish authority, but for his direct actions (Mark 11:18 )."

tl;dr Jesus violently protested against the corruption of the religious authorities and preached against contemporary Jewish practices, refused to apologize for the violence or tolerate the corruption, and got killed because he was a stubborn guy harassing priests and ruining business.
His disciples were strongly convinced his cause to purify Judaism was just and got martyred for it as well. This is more or less what political prisoners or religious reformers everywhere have done (the Reformation was a rather bloody affair too.)
Afterwards the whole story was blown out of proportion and the Jesus movement transformed into a full-fledged religion.

I like you

"You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God"

This is admittedly a distinct possibility.

My larger point is that it's entirely possible to approach the visions seen in fasting from the other direction. Why AREN'T they spiritual in nature? They're fairly well attested in religions and cults all over the world.

The Canaanites were sacrificing children to Baal and co, guys. Regardless of what you think about Christianity, this is heinous. The Carthaginians had that separate evolution of the same pantheon and Roman historians reported this kinda stuff:

"Cleitarchus' paraphrase of a scholium to Plato's Republic has a description of the practice which predates the fall of Carthage in 146 BC:

There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the 'grin' is known as 'sardonic laughter,' since they die laughing."

And Plutarch:
"Plutarch wrote in De Superstitione 171:

... but with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums took the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people."

That's what the Jews were looking at when they examined their neighbours.

>That's what the Jews were looking at when they examined their neighbours.
... and they thought "Awesome, let's do that too!"

More seriously, I don't think they would have been too shocked given the sort of sick shit THEIR god asked of them.
Not to mention He sacrificed his Son to be tortured to death too. At least the Carthaginians had the decency to slit their throats first.

First off human sacrifice isn't connected to Baal's cult, it's connect to Moloch, and possibly El if you take take the account you gave seriously, since El is roughly equivelent to Kronos, which is quite interesting considering that El was merged with Yahweh in emerging judaism. Also Yahweh wasn't much better with stories like Abraham and Isaac and Jephthah, neither of which are a condemnation of human sacrifice

Child sacrifice was explicitly forbidden in ancient Israel though.

Leviticus 18:21:
"You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord."

Deuteronomy 12:31
"You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods."

Ezekiel 16:20-21
"And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?"

Jeremiah 7:30-31 (this is the most explicit)
"...the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. "

Also, the Christian belief is that God himself was incarnated in Jesus, so he was having himself tortured to death.

It just seems more likely that the fasting weakened them mentally and made them more susceptible to hallucinating, especially when you add in that they were priming themselves mentally for having visions

We're going by the Jewish account here, which is the grounds on which people condemn them for their strict laws.

As for sacrifice to Baal, it says in Jeremiah 19:5,
"They [the wayward Jews] have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal--something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind."

>which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind
Doesn't that imply that some people were saying that Yahweh did ask for human sacrifice and therefore it was part of his cult at the time?

How is Abraham and Isaac, among other things, not a condemnation of human sacrifice?

>Child sacrifice was explicitly forbidden in ancient Israel though.
Except all those times when they worshiped Moloch or otherwise sacrificed children. I guess the joke was lost on you.

I honestly dunno man, the Jews were doing all sorts of heretical things at that point. Like half (probably more) of the Old Testament is about God's wrath against those kinds of practices.

The Jews were a really hard tribe to discipline apparently, whether it was God or the Priests who were trying to do it.

Because it was a test of Abraham's faith. The very point of the story is that it was admirable of Abraham to offer up his son. Also some scholars think that the original story had Isaac die because of certain details in the story

They did worship Moloch, but it was still forbidden. I was just making it explicit that Judaism condemned that behaviour.

They weren't heretical per se. The Torah (as it currently is) didn't even exist at that point. Judaism didn't start becoming monotheistic until King Josiah "found" the book of Deuteronomy which had supposedly been lost for centuries

And then, because Abraham's faith was so steadfast, God granted him mercy and gave him back the very thing he was prepared to lose. This is also the case in the Book of Job. God does demand absolute faith, but the nature of that faith is such that often you wind up sacrificing very little, relatively speaking.

I'm not religious but I have a strong love for catholism and its off shoots but I really can't find answers to half of these

The apostles ate him.

Bones and all.

>They did worship Moloch, but it was still forbidden.
No it wasn't. Maybe in the scriptures or something, but not in Israel, because even the rulers were doing it sometimes.
The point that you insist on missing is that they watched their neighbors throw their babies in the fire and decided to copy them.

The simple answer is that he simply managed it, and made Christianity the world's dominant religion. It just makes it all the more impressive. Doing it as a man set an example for the people.
Yeah I do get your point, but child sacrifice isn't funny at all.

Jephthah sure as hell lost his daughter despite doing practically the same thing as Abraham

And then, as the Bible points out, God got mad at them and blew them the fuck out, allowing them to be conquered and trampled. When Israel strays from God, they get their shit wrecked. This is a consistent pattern.

She really seems to underreact to the situation though. Since the thing she mourns is not getting married, instead of losing her life I think she was probably being 'sacrificed' to the equivalent of nunhood.

That's simply bullshit. She was mourning the fact that she would die a virgin. It explicitly says whoever greeted him was to be offered up as a burnt offering

If he really did that, then regardless of his daughter's complicity, Jephthah simply went against God's commandments.

Well as far as Yahweh was concerned they were supposed to redeem their firstborn sons with an animal sacrifice, but in theory every firstborn and first crop was supposed to be offered to him.
Maybe those who had no animals to spare just offered their children. It's a logical conclusion to make.
Besides that, there are mentions of human sacrifices for success in war, which is also something neighboring Canaanites did.

Okay?

Why didn't Yahweh simply stop him like he did with Abraham? Jephthah did it because he felt bound to fullfil an oath, which were taken very seriously at the time

if he was real it was stolen

>simply went against God's commandments

11:29 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah[...]
11:30 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
11:31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
11:32 So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands.

11:34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
11:35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.

Too bad there was no stray ram for Jephthah to find.

God doesn't intervene to stop every instance of wrongdoing in the Bible, even though he could. One of the responses to the Problem of Evil is that allowing smaller evils may result in greater goods. In this case, Jephthah making a foolish vow and losing his only daughter showed the Jewish people the evils of making a foolish vow. As for his daughter herself, she was apparently willing to die to uphold the vow, which impressed the Jews. It was a kind of heroic martyrdom on her part, I suppose.

I agree. But in the story it is understood that the vow cannot be walked back. Since Jephthah's daughter came out to greet him Yahweh damn well expected that girl to be upon an altar

Well, omniscience means knowing everything, so God knew the eventual negative consequences of everything he's ever done. He expected Jephthah's daughter to be killed in the same way that he expected Peter to deny him three times.

You know when they say "the Spirit off the Lord came upon X" it's usually when God is directly manipulating people, right? So not only he allowed it to happen but he most likely caused him to make that stupid vow in the first place?

That characteristic hadn't been added to Yahweh yet. Even so that makes it more horrifying

I really doubt that the 'spirit of the Lord coming upon him' (which after all occurs several verses earlier, after the war between Ammon and Israel begins) means that God is manipulating his actions, particularly since God manipulating a man into committing a sin and breaking his law would be outside of his nature. Since he starts his military campaign just after that line, it probably means God is helping him with the war: "Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands." (Judges 11:32)

>That characteristic hadn't been ["added to"] Yahweh yet.
What evidence do you have for that?

>particularly since God manipulating a man into committing a sin and breaking his law would be outside of his nature
The thing is that we are arguing that this is a survival of a time when this wasn't considered to be condemned by Yahweh. Anti-human sacrifice messages in the Bible, such as Deuteronomy, Kings, Jeremiah, are all in documents written right before or after the seige of Jerusalem

Abraham and Isaac is a good example of human sacrifice being applauded as faithful worship, especially since scholars think that the original story had Isaac actually die. If you notice in the anti-human sacrifice line quoted from Jeremiah previously in the thread, Yahweh says that he did not ask for human sacrifices, implying that some people believed that Yahweh did want human sacrifices

Abraham and Isaac in Genesis are clearly anti-human sacrifice messages, though. When God commanded the sacrifice of Isaac (which Isaac actually agreed to as well) he revoked his command when it was actually going to be fulfilled by Abraham. An obvious test of faith.

In the case of Jephthah, God has not asked Jephthah to do anything, but Jephthah has made a foolish vow himself. And what sort of argument is it that scholars claim the story originally had him being sacrificed? They can't present evidence for this.

Not just that, but using Jeremiah 19:5 to claim that God supported human sacrifice is equally bizarre. In both cases, you're arguing based on verses /condemning/ human sacrifice that God supports it.

So this is a backwards argument if ever there was one.

Oops, forgot this was about omniscience. There are several parts of the Bible where Yahweh doesn't have foreknowledge, such as in the garden of Eden where he can't see adam and Eve hiding. It's generally accepted that omnipotence and omniscience became characteristics of Yahweh from the influence of platonic philosophy

>Not just that, but using Jeremiah 19:5 to claim that God supported human sacrifice is equally bizarre
You miss the point here. The language is implying that Jeremiah is arguing against Yahweh worshippers who participated in human sacrifices for him. Of course these are the people you would consider heretics under the influence of Moloch worship

I'd have to find the link to the article on Abraham and Isaac, but it is based on the Documentary Hypothesis which is well accepted among biblical scholars, even those that are religious