Ok, I'll put the amoral monster response as a direct reply and keep this branch about the tomb.
The location of the tomb was well known to three different groups.
One -- Jesus' followers: It was Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Joseph and Nicodemus prepared his body for burial. In addition to moving the body, they had forty pounds of spices. (The amount of physical effort involved probably made their destination more memorable) And some women saw him placed in the tomb (Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee). That women are listed as witnesses is notable because in that culture, the testimony of women was not acceptable. This was messy reality, not a clean fiction.
Two -- The Jewish religious leaders did not want Jesus' followers to stage his resurrection. So they asked the Romans to guard the tomb. "The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, [63] and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ [64] Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” [65] Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” [66] And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone."
Three -- The Romans knew where the tomb was because they guarded it. Roman guards knew any security failure could be penalized by death ordered by their superior officer. The Romans were also the ones approached by Joseph of Arimathea so there's a second reason they'd know where Jesus' body was. They set a seal on the stone as well, and the penalty for violating the seal was death.
The Jews and the Romans were motivated to keep the status quo. But Christianity and copies of his followers' writings sprang up like wildfire within the lifetime of eyewitness. The Romans could not squash the new movement. One thing would have helped: if they could just produce the rotting corpse from the correct tomb. But they couldn't. Neither could the Jews ask the Romans to do so (it being forbidden in Jewish custom to touch a corpse). Because the tomb's location and emptiness was well-known.
Besides, his eleven remaining disciples and other close followers said they interacted with the risen Jesus for a period of 40 days (including being served fish by his hands, touching him, his appearing to over 500 people, and many other convincing proofs). And these eyewitness refused to recant on pain of torture and horrible death (or exile in the case of John).
This is very unlike their former manner, which was cowardly. (Another hallmark of a reliable record -- it didn't protect the disciples from appearing as stupid as they were, fighting over who'd be the greatest or misunderstanding Jesus at times)
Such a change in courage is consistent with seeing that their leader really was God the Son come back to life, in the flesh.
It's not consistent with the idea they mis-remembered or lied deliberately at the cost of their own lives.
> It's not consistent with the idea they mis-remembered or lied deliberately at the cost of their own lives.
It's perfectly consistent with misremembering or lying or making stuff up for dramatic purpose or creating hoaxes. And we even have many modern examples of this. Thousands of people "independently" provide at least as accurate and at least as consistent descriptions of UFO encounters. You can only imagine how bad it was in a world where stuff got written down only after decades or centuries after it supposedly happened. And written down by very limited number of people because almost no one could read or write. You could have made up pretty much anything in that environments if you had an advantage of being able to write. And people did.
There are two kinds of conversations we could be having.
(A) Where one person tries to change the other person's mind
(B) Where one person explains how a rational person can hold a position ... This is different from showing how the position is the only one a rational person can hold
Let's agree not to attempt (A)
Are you willing to try (B)?
The root of this thread was someone else saying "I honestly don’t understand how anyone who has been proximate to childbirth can believe in intelligent design"
I explained how: It's one Consequence imposed by the Governor. He would have been completely justified if he imposed the Punishment immediately instead. The root question didn't ask about goodness or mercy, only intelligent design.
The question (yours) now is: can a rational person reconcile the claim that God is good with the reality that a baby could die of cancer.
And on this particular branch of the discussion we're comparing explanations for Jesus' empty tomb.
It's entirely rational to consult Simon Greenleaf who was one of the foremost experts in judicial evaluation of evidence (he wrote a classic textbook on it used in many law schools).
There are rules about judging documents as evidence in the court of law: where were the documents found, in what manner, in what condition, how do they compare with other known examples.
There are guidelines for comparing copies, tracing and evaluating differences, and dating documents.
And there is Jewish and Roman history.
It is rational to accept the evidence as indicating that things were as I described in GP. Which is that Jesus' disciples maintained they interacted with the risen Christ _to their deaths_ and this happened _during_ the eyewitness generation. And the written documents are very numerous (thousands) and many are legitimately dated within the same generation.
It is rational to think this explanation is more credible than a hoax or deliberate deception. We're free to weigh things differently, but I'm just showing it is quite a rational option. The hoax approach is opposed by the evidence.
I'm sure some will object that it's irrational to believe in miracles. But:
One-- that is not in the spirit of the supposition "Assume omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God." (I chatted with a co-worker once who simply could not suppose for the sake of conversation even though he was a software engineer and should have easily been able to pretend Jesus had what we computer folks call write permissions or root privileges. Actually I don't think his difficulty was intellectual so much as emotional.)
Two-- I have personal experience: a complete stranger performed a miracle on my leg. Before he did, I was shown a bone defect on an X-ray by someone else. Then, without knowing this, the stranger told me about the defect, and then he fixed me. I was sitting on the floor straight legged and actually felt my leg moving against the floor as the fix took place. Then I got another X-ray from Kaiser Permanente and it showed the defect was gone, even though I specifically told them what to look for (meaning they took exactly the correct X-ray to show it).
I'm doing (B) from the start because it takes me about a second to recognize a believer and I know that there's zero chance of convincing a believer of something that contradicts their belief.
> The question (yours) now is: can a rational person reconcile the claim that God is good with the reality that a baby could die of cancer.
Not 'could', they do die of cancer and no human intervention can prevent it at our current tech level.
That's the only reason I'm still in this thread. Because I have a slim hope of seeing attempt at an answer. So far all I got is attempts at misdirection, which is super common.
> Before he did, I was shown a bone defect on an X-ray by someone else.
And you are sure this was real because X-rays never contain any artifacts that could be mistaken for a defect and radiologists are always 100% accurate.
> I was sitting on the floor straight legged and actually felt my leg moving against the floor as the fix took place.
Are you familiar with dowsing rods? Brain is perfectly capable of creating sensations of motions that are not real. Especially when it's put in impressionable state by yourself or a skillfull fraud or both.
> Then I got another X-ray from Kaiser Permanente and it showed the defect was gone, even though I specifically told them what to look for (meaning they took exactly the correct X-ray to show it).
If you weren't "fixed" the result of the second test would be exactly the same as it was. It was just a simple case of more precise and targetted measurement revealing the error in the initial one. Yet you chose to remember it as firsthand evidence of existence of miracles.
There's really no reason for me to to reiterate what atheists said online for last two decades. Just go online and look what they have to say about miracles, faith healers and such.
- I refer to the evidence of something in the past (Jesus' empty tomb, the change in my leg)
- Instead of stepping closer to learn more about the evidence, you keep as far away from it as you already are and imagine things about the evidence
- From that distance, you think your evaluation is reasonable and mine isn't.
But that second step isn't reasonable. You're free to take it of course. But doing so precludes this from being a type (B) conversation. It's yet another kind of conversation (C) demonstrating the ease of maintaining objections by maintaining distance from the actual evidence and objecting to an imagined version of the evidence.
What you say about my X-rays arises not from any familiarity with them whatsoever, but starting from your conclusion and stepping backwards to what must be the cause.
If instead you learned more about my X-rays, you'd hear from me how the chiropractor showed the sideways bending of my spine (how many degrees to the left here, and back to the right there) by adding lines between corresponding vertebrae points and showing the angle deviation from vertical.
And then he showed me the cause which was the top of one femur was higher than the other, because one leg was longer than the other, the X-ray being captured in the standing position, barefoot with heels firmly planted etc. On the X-ray, he drew a line across the top of the femurs and showed the angle that deviated from horizontal.
And then he said it's like I've been stepping in a pothole my entire life and my spine has compensated by bending sideways. The difference is big enough to affect my spine but small enough that other people never noticed. And since it happened gradually as I grew, I never noticed either. But you'd also hear from me he wasn't hedging like there was any doubt about the X-ray's interpretation.
(The chiropractor lost my business because I could just put a little shim in one shoe and my spine wouldn't have to compensate anymore, and in fact this was his suggestion. No, he didn't try to sell me a shim. Yes, if a different interpretation of the X-ray were possible that'd allow him to keep my business, he would have said so.)
But the stranger noticed entirely independently and weeks later. I wonder if you suppose this was at some big tent revival where someone advertised a healer was in town.
No, if you had asked, if you had stepped closer to the evidence instead of keeping your distance and reasoning backwards from your chosen conclusion after imagining whatever you did, you would learn this was an ordinary boring Sunday at a boring church where I never saw or expected anything like this to happen, and he (truly a random dude that no one announced) singled me out, did his unexpected deed, and left. No one knew him, no one paid him, he didn't gain anything from it. He approached me unbidden, I didn't seek him out for a healing nor did I expect to ever see one much less experience one.
What is the reasonable explanation how this happened in separate places instead of the chiropractor and this stranger knowing each other and trying to gain from this?
You mentioned susceptibility. I wonder if you suppose I might be the gullible type who goes to big tent revivals. But if you stepped closer and asked, you'd learn I have two degrees from MIT and have spent more than two decades dealing with computers where the only thing that counts are facts. My friends from MIT who are believers are not susceptible either. Given a choice between one church that is known for good Bible studies vs another that has people speaking in tongues etc we would all prefer to go to the former.
I opened my eyes during the experience so I not only felt it, I saw it.
The follow-up X-ray was the exact same setup body position. It's what the doctor ordered after I described the chiropractor's conclusion about my legs.
Perhaps you are reasoning from an anti supernatural presupposition -- that anything supernatural is immediately dismissed. But as I said before, it's easy and reasonable to accept that IF God exists, then he can resurrect just as easily as you dragging a file back out of your trash.
The same goes for Jesus' tomb. If you would step closer and look at the evidence, you would see that the hoax theory is weak. My goal is not to convince you to change your mind because that's a type (A) conversation. My goal is to show you that resurrection is a reasonable explanation. Or rather, my challenge to you was to come up with a reasonable explanation of the empty tomb given the evidence. But now I realize it'd only feel like a difficult challenge if you're familiar with the evidence, which you are not. You could be, if you came closer to it and looked.
One fellow who looked at the evidence was a member of President Nixon's Watergate scandal. He experienced from the inside how hard it was to keep a conspiracy going. He saw what it's like to crack under the pressure. There's no way he could believe Jesus' disciples could carry to their painful deaths the supposed secret of a staged resurrection. This person was Chuck Colson.
Another is Lee Strobel who wanted to disprove Christianity. But the key is he came closer to the evidence with his skills as a professional investigative journalist to really attempt a direct undeniable smack down on it. He wanted to know it in exacting detail to totally refute it in a hit piece. But the evidence is so strong that he became a believer.
If you or anyone else is interested, here are some resources
Evidence That Demands a Verdict vols 1&2, Josh McDowell
Included in volume 1:
- think the Bible is no different from any other book? See chapters 1 and 4
- how can you trust the Bible when it wasn't officially accepted by the church until 350 years after the crucifixion? See chapter 3
- how do we know what we have today from the Bible authors was not changed from the originals? See chapter 4
- how can you believe in Jesus when all we know about him comes from biased Christian writers? See chapter 5
- *how can Christians say Jesus rose bodily from the grave? There are lots of possible explanations ... see chapter 10*
Included in volume 2:
- are the gospels a reliable record? See chapters 16 through 27
The Testimony of the Evangelists, Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice -- Simon Greenleaf
Case for Christ, Lee Strobel
If you are willing to step closer to the evidence and take an honest look, these are available.
If you remain unwilling, then this branch of the conversation dies here. The record will show you maintaining the hoax/misremembering explanation as reasonable _only_ from a position of unawareness of the evidence. And I would then move to the other branch that you're waiting for. This wasn't a delay tactic. Perhaps I don't have as much free time as you, or my posts take longer to compose than yours -- they contain more as you can all see.
> From that distance, you think your evaluation is reasonable and mine isn't.
If somebody describes a convoluted closed physical system and concludes that energy is not conserved I don't really need to delve into details to know they made some mistake somewhere.
> What you say about my X-rays arises not from any familiarity with them whatsoever, but starting from your conclusion and stepping backwards to what must be the cause.
What I say arises from my familiarity what X-Ray (and even a medical test in general) is. It's perfectly sufficient to explain your particular experience.
Again, no need to delve into details especially since bottom line is "faith healing exists".
> The difference is big enough to affect my spine but small enough that other people never noticed
This is quite common. Not many people are perfectly symmetrical.
> But you'd also hear from me he wasn't hedging like there was any doubt about the X-ray's interpretation.
People can say what they think very confidentiality regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Being wrong feels exactly the same as being right. At least until you find out you were wrong.
> But the stranger noticed entirely independently and weeks later
Having one slightly shorter leg is unnoticeable for people who don't look for it. But if somebody looks it's not invisible. You can see one shoulder a little bit lower, or pelvis tilted or maybe you can see it in the way person moves. I imagine it's easily spotted by a manipulator that already looks at you like a piece of exploitable meat rather than a person and has extensive experience with people complainig abou health issues.
> he (truly a random dude that no one announced) singled me out, did his unexpected deed, and left. No one knew him, no one paid him, he didn't gain anything from it.
I know this kind of people. Met some. They imagine they can be helpful and they try to help according to their beliefs without intent to exploit. What they earn this way is feeling of utility and being special. Usually they do very little harm. Never any good.
> You mentioned susceptibility. I wonder if you suppose I might be the gullible type who goes to big tent revivals.
You voluntarily went to a church for the purpose other than sightseeing. Not all tents are made of cloth.
> But if you stepped closer and asked, you'd learn I have two degrees from MIT and have spent more than two decades dealing with computers where the only thing that counts are facts.
I absolutely believe you. I have no doubt you have a special brain. Away from the median. This is a hint. Special brains are usually special in many ways at the same time. For example mine is firmly in top 1 pecentile of IQ but also schizoid, ADHD and HSP and possibly away from the median in some other subtle way that may not even have names yet. Your's are high iq and highly able to sustain focus, but also gullible towards mystique. I've already met an intelligent person similar to you. She was capable of doing fairly advanced computer stuff but couldn't reject obviously fake ideas like some woman being true reincarnation of Anne Frank. It's as if she had high intelligence but totally broken bullshit filter that even in average people enables them to reject irrational things quickly. High intelligence might make this process harder because you tend to overthink and decide you can't reject something until you find a specific, well motivated reason for rejection. To sum up, great sequential thinkinig while nearly completely lacking heuristics that can save you from wasting your effort on thinking about useless and fake stuff. If you want to delve into something I'd highly recommend topics of neurodivergence to better understand yourself, better employ your strengths and better mitigate your weaknesses.
> My friends from MIT who are believers are not susceptible either.
Birds of feather flock together. But somehow I feel like you are the strongest believer among them and some of them don't really agree with you about the reality of some things you sincerely believe in.
> Given a choice between one church that is known for good Bible studies vs another that has people speaking in tongues etc we would all prefer to go to the former.
That's commendable.
> I opened my eyes during the experience so I not only felt it, I saw it.
You do have muscles. Muscles do sometimes twitch. And even if they didn't, vision isn't 100% accurate, sometimes you think you've seen motion, esp in your periferial view, but there wasn't any. Noticing motion is primal survival skill. Those systems are evolutionary tuned to be a bit overactive rather than miss important signal.
> It's what the doctor ordered after I described the chiropractor's conclusion about my legs.
And the doctors conclusion was that chiropractor was full of it. Which is often the case because chiropractors are not doctors. They have bo actual medical knowledge. US is very particular place that awards them any credibility. In most other first world countries chiropractors are on the level of something like acupuncture and homeopathy, slightly higher than energy healing, because they actually do some action on your body.
> But now I realize it'd only feel like a difficult challenge if you're familiar with the evidence, which you are not. You could be, if you came closer to it and looked.
I think you can abandon the thread of the tomb because evidence for and against it lies far outside of anything I might concievably be interested in the short decades I have left on this rock. The only thing that's even remotely interesting to me is your intense interest in it. The psychological effect it has on you. And why you'd rather seek evidence to confirm it rather than disprove it. After all that's the rational way, when you have an amazing idea you should seek why it might be false, not why it might be true. Instead you try to offload this job to other people who sought to disprove it but failed. Why don't you seek people who sought to disprove it and believe they succeeded? Read what ateists have to say about the tomb. Many of them, especially from US, had religious upbringing, sometimes even had some religious functions and were intensly interested in their religion but that interest and effort lead them ultimately to accidentally disproving it beyond their reasonable doubt despite the pain and struggle they felt as believers in this process. They talked about it openly on the internet.
> And I would then move to the other branch that you're waiting for.
Thank you.
> This wasn't a delay tactic.
I believe you didn't apply any conscious tactics. Your mind just gravitates toward this subject.
> Perhaps I don't have as much free time as you, or my posts take longer to compose than yours -- they contain more as you can all see.
That's very likely. Don't worry. I won't miss your answer whenever it comes. Thank you for this conversation.
This weekend I spoke with someone who (together with two others) prayed for a woman whose right arm was visibly shorter than her left (around 5 inches) -- so much so that she always had to roll up her right sleeve because otherwise it'd be too long.
The right arm was shorter because she broke it as a child and it healed in a way that interfered with proper growth.
After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals.
They knew the "patient" beforehand, and they continued to interact over the next several weeks. She was from Taiwan. Her chosen English nickname was Diane. And this occurred in London.
The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts. You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely.
> You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely.
I'm sorry, but reality doesn't owe you a win in a game you made up.
> The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts.
I'm sorry, but I'm not in this business. But if you can find a person that can demonstrate a miracle you can take them to James Randi foundation, demonstrate a miracle, recieve 1 mln dollars and split it between yourselves. Maybe it's not a lot of money but providing humanity with the first actual evidence of supernatural in history is reward in itself. You can try score your goals there.
> After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals.
I am sorry, but you haven't spoken to 4 people, you spoke to 1 who could (and probably did) make up the other 3 as well as the event itself.
Sometimes you meet honest person that participated in the event staged by dishonest, but I don't suspect it's the case this time since the person you spoken to claims he knew the woman beforehand, unless it was just for a short period that was part of the setup.
You have to pay more attention to your input channels.
You have the same symptoms as the person I knew. Tendency to seriously underestimate propensity of people to lie, cheat and believe in lies. It's as if you can't imagine why a person would lie or cheat you assume that what they say is accurate description of their accurate perceptions.
If you are really about truth seeking there's a ton of materials about how the faith healers do what they do. Maybe you'll see some examples of what you experienced or heard about, for example here:
I watched the video. My experience didn't match any of the 4 methods shown. Not sure why he didn't include the 5th "and possibly 6th" ways that he thought of in the video.
Again, I felt my leg moving against my pants while seated _fully_ on the ground and the guy only had his hands lightly touching my shins. I felt the legs moving against the pants against the floor where he couldn't have affected it.
The video's 4 methods show you have to hold both feet/ankles in order to pull off the trick.
Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter?
I haven't even watched the video, that's how little I'm interested in faith healing. None of the methods shown fitted your experience perfectly, but you can see it's a very common trick, performed under various conditions with willing or unwilling participants for myriad of reasons, some of which might be as plain as just showing off. You can recognize some elements of the trick like sitting on the floor and touching legs. You were extremely receptive to the process and your brain filled a lot of gaps in what was happening with perceptions favorable to the performer. So you have two options how to explain your expeirience. Either you experienced common trick, done in a bit unusual way (there are at least 6 flavors, why not 7?) or an actual real world miracle was performed, on you, by a random human, out of 8 billion who all are as plain as dirt. What's more likely?
Do you watch a lot of magic shows? It can give you perspective of how easy brain is to fool.
> Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter?
I'm as atheistic as they come. I don't believe anything that scientific consensus built on settled peer reviewed research doesn't force me to believe. Personal anecdotes, even my own, have almost no influence on my working model of the world because I know, both from research and repeated experience how terrible human memeory and perception is, how easy it is to make a mistake, to misinterpret something, to fool yourself, to be wrong, to be fooled. I also hate philosophers, including religious ones of course, because I believe they asking useless, hopeless questions and then think up some fragile reasoning about it which is usually a mixture of obvious and wrong. Nature of existence is one of such useless questions.
_Every_ trick in the video relied on the mark sitting in a chair with the illusionist holding their legs _off_ the ground for manipulation.
I was seated completely on the ground, wearing jeans. The only person touching me was the guy and only on my right shin and only with fingers held straight.
Imagine this happened to you, and please explain how he would be able to trick you into feeling your leg move against the jeans which are held in place against the ground, for several seconds, while you are examining the sensation carefully and watching your leg grow longer.
I don't think you can come up with a trick recipe for that.
Anyways my faith existed before this and would exist if it never happened.
> Nature of existence is one of such useless questions.
Is that because science cannot answer such questions?
Or because it doesn't matter to you what existence really is?
I want to know whether you think matter and energy cover all of existence. Or is there anything outside that Venn diagram.
Ok, so you acknowledge that thousands of people perform this trick on thousands of people all the time and it's all trick, but yours was somehow uniquely real because it was the similar thing just done on the floor?
It's as if somebody knew no Nigerian princes are sending emails to shower you with money, but your experience is real because the message arrived on WhatsApp and was uncannily personal and honest.
> Imagine this happened to you, and please explain how he would be able to trick you into feeling your leg move against the jeans which are held in place against the ground, for several seconds, while you are examining the sensation carefully and watching your leg grow longer.
My brain is perfectly capable of tricking me into feeling that an insect crawls on my skin, especially in the area that is abundant with insects, like on a forest walk. But when I reach to check there's no insect there. How's that not a miracle of vanishing insects?
You were in context where your brain expected faith healing, miracles and elation. So that's what your brain delivered. The lead role in every scam is played by the victim.
How can you trust your own perceptions so much? Doesn't even your own religion warn you about this? Why instead of trusting your God and only your God you trust some random dude? Just because he self-appointedly associates himself with your God?
> I don't think you can come up with a trick recipe for that.
I can't because I never was a proper "magic" nerd. Maybe visit some tents. You'll see that creativity of people when it comes to tricks is not far from endless.
Alternatively contact people who debunk that kind of stuff. They might offer some ideas.
> Anyways my faith existed before this and would exist if it never happened.
I absolutely believe that because I think deepness of your faith comes from peculiarities of your brain's anatomy and biology. Regardless of when and where you'd been born your brain would adopt local supernatural narrative because it wouldn't be able to reject it. What's more I think it's physically impossible for you to become atheist. There's simply too little time of your life left (unless somehow medicine makes a great progress when it comes to senescence) to try to develop that part of your brain if that's even possible. Similarly I probably wouldn't be able to train myself out of ADHD or schizoid personality, or lower my intelligence, or lower my atheism (without damaging my brain wholesale of course).
> > Nature of existence is one of such useless questions.
> Is that because science cannot answer such questions?
Can't answer then yet. Mostly because of that. Also because any imaginable answer has no utility because our tech level is that low. It's as if caveman trying to rub two sticks together somehow got answer to Fermat's last theorem.
There were many questions in the past that science couldn't answer that the religion or philosophy provided "answers" for. Then our tech level rose and science firmly settled them. Every question that we ever managed to properly answer turned out to be technical.
Science is hinting at the nature of existence. So far it duly notes that there's no indication that our existence is anything else than just being, with no particular reason, intent or purpose. It's not an answer, just a hint for now, but based on the only mechanism for acquiring actual knowledge that human race found out so far.
> I want to know whether you think matter and energy cover all of existence.
Obviously. Especially if we narrow down our interests to the part of existence that's conceivably accessible to us in any way in, let's say, next billion years.
> Or is there anything outside that Venn diagram.
Fun fact, the part outside is also the part of Venn diagram. It just contains no objects of interest.
The charge is Stranger tricked me. The Prosecutor (you) repeatedly rely on an unproven universal negative claim that miracles never happen, a claim that would require watching all of history and show every event has a natural physical explanation.
Defense submitted evidence which the prosecution refuses to consider closely because of the universal negative (unproven) claim.
Prosecution submitted evidence (youtube video) which the defense examined (demonstrating better involvement in the case than the prosecution) and found to be irrelevant: _all_ tricks required holding the mark's ankles/feet off the ground and required dexterity. Stranger's fingers were straight and I was on the ground.
It's as if Stranger was charged with murder using a blade and Prosecution submitted examples involving only firearms! What!
Prosecution refers to the prevalence of many other tricksters. But the defense points out simply the guilt of others implies nothing about the guilt or innocence of the Stranger.
Prosecution argues the mind can trick itself into feeling sensations that are easily checked and verified as imagined. But I ___did___ check by sight and touch over several seconds (not to mention X-ray).
So prosecution's argument contradicts itself --giving himself the benefit of the doubt when dispelling the sensation of an imaginary bug on his skin, but ___denying___ the same benefit to the defense without reason. This argument is tossed out of court with prejudice.
Prosecution refuses to put in the work of building a theory of the case: ___what___ is the recipe for tricking someone who is wearing jeans, seated fully on the ground, using only your fingers fully extended (no pinching of fabric, moving the mark's body in any way disallowed) ... Followed by an X-ray that shows the result (and proceeded by an X-ray that shows the contrary)?
Prosecution has high IQ but wants the defense to do his job. What? Try to figure out a recipe. Or __you__ go do the prosecution's research and see if they can explain it. You said watching the video would be hard but I did it. Now it's your turn.
By the way, if nothing exists outside matter and energy then you are deeply at odds with reality: your reactions to any violation of human dignity are all just chemicals bouncing around. There's no such real thing as human dignity either. Squashing a tomato or a human -- it's just a rearrangement of matter and energy.
Also found out a friend tore a ligament in her knee while skiing, got an MRI showing the tear, prayed, got another MRI showing the tear gone. Doc can't explain, and this has nothing to do with her susceptibility.
The location of the tomb was well known to three different groups.
One -- Jesus' followers: It was Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Joseph and Nicodemus prepared his body for burial. In addition to moving the body, they had forty pounds of spices. (The amount of physical effort involved probably made their destination more memorable) And some women saw him placed in the tomb (Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee). That women are listed as witnesses is notable because in that culture, the testimony of women was not acceptable. This was messy reality, not a clean fiction.
Two -- The Jewish religious leaders did not want Jesus' followers to stage his resurrection. So they asked the Romans to guard the tomb. "The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, [63] and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ [64] Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” [65] Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” [66] And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone."
Three -- The Romans knew where the tomb was because they guarded it. Roman guards knew any security failure could be penalized by death ordered by their superior officer. The Romans were also the ones approached by Joseph of Arimathea so there's a second reason they'd know where Jesus' body was. They set a seal on the stone as well, and the penalty for violating the seal was death.
The Jews and the Romans were motivated to keep the status quo. But Christianity and copies of his followers' writings sprang up like wildfire within the lifetime of eyewitness. The Romans could not squash the new movement. One thing would have helped: if they could just produce the rotting corpse from the correct tomb. But they couldn't. Neither could the Jews ask the Romans to do so (it being forbidden in Jewish custom to touch a corpse). Because the tomb's location and emptiness was well-known.
Besides, his eleven remaining disciples and other close followers said they interacted with the risen Jesus for a period of 40 days (including being served fish by his hands, touching him, his appearing to over 500 people, and many other convincing proofs). And these eyewitness refused to recant on pain of torture and horrible death (or exile in the case of John).
This is very unlike their former manner, which was cowardly. (Another hallmark of a reliable record -- it didn't protect the disciples from appearing as stupid as they were, fighting over who'd be the greatest or misunderstanding Jesus at times)
Such a change in courage is consistent with seeing that their leader really was God the Son come back to life, in the flesh.
It's not consistent with the idea they mis-remembered or lied deliberately at the cost of their own lives.