The case against

I was hoping to post this earlier, but I had (and continue to have) problems with blogging that appear to be related to Firefox 4. I finally broke down and used another browser to try to catch the end of the Easter octave. So here goes...

In my last post "Who Cares?" I made the case for the Resurrection as a historic fact. Since this is sort of a courtroom dialogue, and having "accused" Christ of the Resurrection, I will now give the "defense" a chance to refute the arguments. These arguments have been proposed over the years to explain away the Resurrection, as described in the Catholic Encyclopedia and other places. Here they are:

The Wrong Tomb theory
This theory posits that the Disciples all forgot where Jesus was buried and went to the wrong tomb on Easter morning. The guards were still standing outside the tomb where Jesus lay, still dead.

While it must have been a stressful day for the Disciples, they can't have been that stupid. Nor does this theory explain the appearance of Jesus for the next 40 days, nor why the officials didn't immediately call them out and point them to the right tomb and the body of Christ.
I declare this theory

The Swoon theory
This theory, proposed by Paulus in 1842, supposes that Christ did not die, but only fainted on the cross, and woke up in the tomb on Easter morning. This supposes that the Gospels' description of the treatment of Jesus (scourging, crown of thorns, etc.) are wrong, since according to medical experts even without the crucifixion those torments would have eventually killed, or at least permanently crippled Jesus. Then we have the piercing of His side and the testimony of the Roman executioners, who no doubt had seen people faint before. Added to that is that nobody, even Jesus' enemies, attempted to deny that Jesus had died. Finally, when Jesus does appear, after three days of laying in a tomb, He is not described as a barely living cripple.
There are far too many contradictions in this theory, and so I declare it

The Imposition theory
Matthew 28:11-15 tells us.

While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had happened.
They assembled with the elders and took counsel; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers,
telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.'
And if this gets to the ears of the governor, we will satisfy (him) and keep you out of trouble."

According to this theory the disciples really did steal Jesus' body. At first glance this sounds plausible. By some accounts the disciples themselves thought Jesus had been taken (John 20:1-2):

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."

However, as I said in part one of this discussion, what is their motive? To spend the rest of their days traveling in poverty? To end their lives in torture and death? This theory also doesn't explain how Jesus appeared, to over 500 people, as St. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians, 15:6

After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

We' have to add to the disciples' trickery a doppleganger who could teach and perform miracles for 40 days, then disappear as mysteriously as he appeared.
Nope, this one is

The Vision theory
This theory claims that the whole thing was just a vision by deluded people who desperately wanted someone to be resurrected. There are a number of problems with this theory.

• The disciples were not looking for Christ to rise. They are reportedly amazed by it. Thomas doesn't even believe it at all, requiring Jesus Himself to appear to him personally.
• Jesus does not appear as what would have been expected from a resurrection. He is neither the "same old Jesus" as they would have seen in the case of Lazarus and the little girl, not is He coming in heavenly glory as they would have expected in the resurrection at the end of the world. He is something totally unexpected.
• It does not agree with the actions of the disciples following Easter. They are not running around spreading the good news (that happens after Pentecost, when Jesus has already ascended). Instead they are trying to understand what's going on and deliberating what to do about it.
• Apparitions are typically a one time thing, or else permanent (insanity). Lasting 40 days is not consistent with any psychological phenomenon.
• Likewise, the "vision" appeared in unusual places. One would expect them to happen in or around the tomb itself (ala a "ghost") or in Galilee (where Jesus was from).
• The "vision" appeared to many people simultaneously. Despite the popularity of the term "mass hysteria" there is no such phenomenon as mass visions.

Because of these contradictions, this theory does not seem possible.

The Modernist view
This theory states that the Resurrection is a supernatural event, and can therefore not be known historically and nothing can be said about it. The accounts of the Resurrection were made up little by little over the centuries as a representation of the disciples' belief that Jesus was with God.

This view disagrees with what we know. Although the Resurrection is a supernatural event, we can and do know things about it historically. Although science cannot explain the cause of supernatural events, they can in fact be measured, and do take place at a particular place and time, historically. We know that Jesus was crucified and buried, and that the tomb was empty. We know this through the testimony of historians other than the Gospel authors. Furthermore, the disciples preached Jesus' Resurrection from that very first Easter morning. This was not an idea that came later.
So, I declare this also is

So, the best that can be done to deny the Resurrection is to ignore historical documents and evidence, and simply call on "blind faith" that it did not happen. In other words it is not irrational to believe in the Resurrection. It is, in fact, irrational not to believe in the Resurrection.

Read More

I love my children

One of the entries in the Manhattan Declaration video contest.



Check out the web site for more.

Read More

invading the president's "spiritual privacy"

A recent survey shows nearly 1 in 5 Americans think president Obama is Muslim. No surprise there. The White House issued the following statement:

President Obama is a committed Christian, and his faith is an important part of his daily life," the statement read. "He prays every day, he seeks a small circle of Christian pastors to give him spiritual advice and counseling, he even receives a daily devotional that he uses each morning. The president's Christian faith is a part of who he is, but not a part of what the public or the media is focused on everyday.

But the president's faith is what the public and media are focused on, as the poll demonstrates. It simply isn't what the president would like the public or the media to focus on. I wonder why we have to rely on a press release to know anything about what the president believes, anyway? Other presidents have shown, or at least talked about, their beliefs.

Even better is this statement, by Dr. Clyde Wilcox of GWU:

It's a troubling thing," Wilcox said. "I think it would be good for all of us to stop invading the president's spiritual privacy. We don't know what anyone's true faith is. It doesn't tell us about what their true core values are.

Say WHAT!? Religion has nothing to do with their values? That statement is as laughable as "what a person eats has nothing to do with their diet."

A non-sequitur, but this talk about religion and the president got me to thinking... President Obama has been criticized for bowing to foreign heads of state. Rather than keeping the tradition of US president never to show subservience to a foreign power, he has taken the tack of bowing to other heads of state. So did he kiss the Pope's ring, or at least bow to the Pope? Given the pictures and lack or notice from the press it would appear no, yet the Pope is a head of state, and one which has diplomatic relations with the US.

Read More

Pax in Caritas on 9-11

My mother has one of the best attitudes of anyone I know. One of her axioms is when you're sad or lonely or depressed, get out there and help someone who's worse off.

I remember 9-11. I was working for a small company, and when I walked into the office that morning, something was amiss. "The twin towers were hit by a plane" someone said. I remembered how the Empire State Building had been hit by a plane many years ago, and thought it was something similar at first. Some idiot in a Cessna had takena wrong turn. "No, it's a jet" I was told.

The offices we were in had cable, but no TV (we were using it for internet access only). One of the guys went across the street to an electronics store and bought a TV, and we connected it in the conference room. The entire office piled into the room and we sat around the TV.

The images were shocking. We watched the towers go down, and spent the rest of the day talking about it and watching it played over and over. Being in central NJ, we could actually see the cloud of smoke near the horizon drifting southward. That faint cloud no the horizon made it much more real than the images on the TV set.

Over the next few days, stories began to come in. One of my best friends worked in the towers, but took that day off to take care of a parking permit issue. He was one of the only survivors in his company. Our church was hit especially hard. We had (if I recall the numbers correctly) something like 40 parishioners who were in the building, and we lost many of them. I remember going to memorial services and hearing them play the 4^th verse of "America the Beautiful"

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

while we all sat and cried. Over the next few days it became clear that I was sad. Well, now I'd say "duh", but it didn't hit me right away. I decided it was time to help someone. Fortunately for me DW's company had a program where employees (and their spouses) could volunteer to help support the rescue efforts. So we signed up, got our assignment and set out for some warehouse in northern NJ to do something. What we wound up doing was sorting donated material and moving it around a hug warehouse to be sent over by barge to the rescue workers.

We had pallets of work gloves, dust masks, water, sports drinks, T shirts. You name it, we loaded it up. In retrospect the work was fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things, and we weren't equipped with the skills to do it very well (computer geeks are not known for their strong backs), but we were doing something to help, and it was like therapy for me. When I went home that evening, sweaty and dirt streaked, I felt 100% better.

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that sometimes, mother knows best. Feeling blue? Find someone and help them. You'll be doing both of you a favor.

Read More

Junk? Science?

I recently stumbled upon a "60 Minutes" (for those abroad "60 Minutes" is an hour long weekly news show) video segment from April 22, 2009 (my anniversary! Yay!) about Cold Fusion. "Isn't that just junk science?" you might ask. Well, check out the video and come on back for the rest of this post.

I remember the day 20 years ago sitting in my Bell Labs' office, pondering with my office mate whether or not the discovery would be confirmed. "I'd bet against it" he stated, matter of fact-ly. That way if it's fake at least I win the bet, and if I lose the bet at least we'll have cheap energy. I wasn't such a pragmatist. I really wanted it to work. My friend and I actually spec'd out palladium, so if the experiment were confirmed we could grab some before the price went through the roof and start experimenting with our own cells.

Alas, it was not to be. When the news came that results could not be duplicated, I was crushed. But some people didn't give up hope, and it seems for 20 years they've been trying to duplicate the experiments of Pons and Fleischman, with varying decrees of success. Now, according to 60 minutes, there are a number of experimenters who have results that are indisputable. Of course, most scientists still dispute it, and I would hardly consider 60 Minutes to be my weather vane for science. Still, I hope the effect turns out to be something real, although I'm not pricing palladium this time.

If there's any moral to this story it's this. We are taught in science class, and indeed even in history class that scientific discoveries are absolute and empirical, and that they are based purely on observation, hypothesis, prediction and test, using reason and logic only. The truth of science is it is filled with as much faith, doubt, and uncertainty as the religion some scientists spurn.

So, don't hold your breath, but you might want to look into deuterium futures. What do you think?

Read More