Resurrection

D C Toedt, who is much smarter than I am, put up an interesting post over on his blog. He discuss false syllogisms and dichotomies raised by reasserters.

I'm going to focus on one: "Here’s another example: If Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t raised from the dead, then our faith is worthless. In other words, if we were to discover compelling evidence that Jesus stayed dead, then (supposedly) nothing he said or did during his lifetime would be of any value to us."

Actually, yes. No resurrection, no reason to be a Christian. Given that He claimed to be the Son of God and given that there are alleged accounts of him being physically alive after His crucifixion, the disproving of the Resurrection would end Christian faith.

Remove that element and all that is left are His moral teachings, which are nice and all, but their authority is dependent upon His divinity. No resurrection, no divinity, no moral authority.

Lots of people die. Lots of people have died. One more death, 2,000 years ago, is relatively meaningless. And that He said some silly things about being God as well as saying some happy moral teaching is all very well, but loads of people have done that sort of thing before. Loads of people do it today. The world doesn't really need another guru.

If Jesus didn't rise again, then He wasn't God, and if He wasn't God, then I am free to decide on my own morality. How's that for Enlightenment thinking? No resurrection, and I'm what I am naturally inclined to be, which is an atheist. And having gone that far, my opinion of anyone who thinks the resurrection didn't happen, admits it and all, and still claims to be a Christian would be that they are delusional at best and a cheat at worst. I mean, what's left? That was Nietzsche's point and a hundred years after his death, he's still spot on.

Of what use is a dead god? How can one have a relationship with such a creator? For that matter, how can a dead god create anything?

I'd really rather not be religious. I find church tiresome. The music is generally dull, the sermons are ignorant and absurd and I don't like my fellow church goers very much. I like to sleep in on Sundays. There are a million reasons to not go to church. I know, I know, C S Lewis said it earlier and better.

For me there is only one reason to go. That is to worship the risen Lord in the company of believers.

Otherwise, if ever I stop believing in the Resurrection, then I'll sleep in and probably wind up a Stoic. I've always liked Stoicism. It doesn't require that I join anything.


FWIW, the comments to Mr Toedt's post are excellent.