Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth > The End > sailboat in the basement comments

Sailboat on the reef: you can't assume naturalism

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Here we go again. Pikachu is one of those closed-minded bigots who says, Rationally and scientifically, a miracle is never more likely than something that is actually physically possible. I'm still waiting for the shoe to drop explaining why.

"Miracles" are not violations of natural law. They are just a deity doing what people can do, but maybe faster and better, and beyond possible technology. There's nothing "irrational" or "unscientific" about them.

Despite Pikachu, the bulk of scholarship remains on the side that Jesus existed, that orthodoxy was the first on the block, and that he died, was buried, and his tomb was empty. How that happened, how you decide that happpened, will depend more than anything else on where your worldview is.

It's not new. Just declare that "magic and miracle" are never reasonable, then with that question begged, send any scholarship that disagrees packing arbitrarily. It's the easy way out. Never mind defending your naturalism. Well, perhaps with an irrelevant "example" as Pikachu does.

The elephant on Pikachu's back

So-called "critical scholarship" isn't critical; all it has done is assume naturalism, then baptized itself with the term "critical" based on their own presuppositions. Sober history by unbiased historians answers the question, "Is Christianity true?" by either admitting they don't know, or realizing that the truth of Christianity is the only explanation that fits the evidence. Calling their view "rational" and "critical" is a ideological, begged-question smokescreen.

Pikachu's "example" centers on this quote from Arthur Darby Nock: >>

"In Christianity everything is made to turn on a dated experience of a historical Person; it can be seen from I Cora. XV. 3 that the statement of the story early assumed the form of a statement in a Creed. There is nothing in the parallel cases which points to any attempt to give such a basis of historical evidence to belief" [Arthur Darby Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background, 1964, pg. 107].

Dr. Nock's paragraph is actually quite clear to anyone familiar with the scholarship, but Pikachu sees the need (which we will correct if needed) to offer this "translation": >>

Not payin' attention?

Despite Pikachu, scholars, believing and otherwise, have made up their minds about the Pagan dying and rising god myth. Pikachu is confused because different answers apply to different claimants.

For example, the "not before Jesus" response applies immediately to Mithras and Attis in their concerned incarnations. It won't apply to Osiris, who was earlier, but was so vastly different that we can say of him, "it doesn't matter". Duh..

There is no "flipping and flopping" by scholars. The only "flip-flop" here is Pikachu's inability to keep track of the scholarship!.

"Nock acutely [!!] observed that pagan myths like the dying and rising god developed over hundreds of years, but that the Message of the death and resurrection of Christ (as in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5) was being proclaimed within a year of the historical Jesus. In other words, that two-pronged Message is so close to the events it reports that it must be historically based, that it was not myth." [Geoff Robson interviewed by Paul Barrette, Anglican Media Sydney / PO Box Q190, QVB Post Office / NSW Australia 1230]

Let's respond to Pikachu's summation of these slightly different points:
	PREMISE	There are two possibilities: Jesus' resurrection was real, or; Jesus resurrection was myth. Or a lie, or a misunderstanding, or whatever. That's just practical common sense.
	FACT	Stories of Jesus resurrection were recorded soon after his death. True, but not all Nock says, though it is all Robson offers. Nock is also making the point that these are claims rooted in a historical event on earth -- something accessible. Not something in heaven, like Mithra, Osiris, and Dionysus.
	CONCLUSION	It's more likely that Jesus resurrection was real than* that Jesus resurrection was mythical.* Or better, the burden is on those who claim otherwise.

And Pikachu's response to this? He has none. He just calls it "silly". He calls it "irrational" and unscientific. All he does is say, "Naturalism is true, nyahh nyahh." End of "argument". No philsophical argument against theism or miracles. No citing even of Hume, or of anyone who has dedictaed their lives to this issue. No scholarship. No analysis. Just "whup, there it is" repeated to the point of nausea. Wish I could argue that way and get away with it.

Fool's analysis
It begs the question to exclude God and the so-called "supernatural: from the realm of what can be critically analyzed. Theology and history are not mutually exclusive pursuits and no amount of begged questioning will change that.

Rationalism may be about empiric fact, but for it to deny the possibility of the "supernatural" begs the question of whether it is capable of being empirical. In fact, the "supernatural" is just as accessible as any "natural" historical event would be, whether it be a personal conversation recorded by Josephus or Tacitus saying Nero picked his nose. Biases, not rationalism, is what governs Pikachu's method.

The recurring modern question about Christianity is, "Is it true?" Was Jesus God's son? Did He do miracles? Did He rise on the third day for the salvation of mankind?" And the answer to these questions is wrapped up in the Resurrection -- an event that best explains Christian origins within available evidence. No conspiracies, no documents that do not exist. Just what we have.

If so-called "critical, rational" scholarship "can't do supernatural" -- too bad for them It must be nice to be able to be so arbitrary for the sake of your worldview.

The real point with miracles is not, "Was the thing that Jesus did supernatural or not?" but, "Did he actually do it or not?" How he did it is another issue entirely. If it takes some greater power to explain it, so be it. Ditto, ditto, ditto.

The more I read of Pikachu's stumbling around Christianity's origins, the more I realize who the real fool is. His case amounts to outright bias disguised as fairness; it amounts to leaving out crucial information, limiting his use of sources, all slathered with a ha ha, wee wee approach that deserves a pummeling like Hitler's face smiling at a death camp.