@ otto
I suggest the resurrection for several reasons. It is central to the religious doctrine of Christianity. It is controversial, by it's very nature. It an event about which much has been written pro and con. There is opportunity to base argument on Scripture, historical record, and science. Therefore it's a pretty interesting subject. If you'd prefer to speak of any other event in the Scripture, that's fine by me. I'd ask that you provide the Scriptural reference for me though, so that I don't spend lots of time thumbing through the Bible on a quest for a particular verse or set of verses. I agree to do the same for you.

True Ninja:

"EVEN NOAH's ARK in exact proportion resting in present day turkey according to the Bible's description of its resting place. satelite imaging has produced evidence of metals within the ark that fit the description of animal cages and the 3-layers described in the Bible."

I would like to know where you found this out? This is news to me. All the different accounts, that I have heard of Noah's ark being found, were scandals.

its been in christian news lately. heres one such site:

http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah's_ark.htm

In this article written by Christians: http://creation.com/has-the-ark-of-the-covenant-been-found

These Creationists don't believe it. They believe this particular find, among others, is a hoax. In fact, in this particular article, they debunk many of the things/artifacts that www.arkdiscovery.com says have been found. Things like the ark of the covenant, Sodom and Gomorrah etc. I needn't list any secular or athiestic evidence against Noah's Ark being found, I have found Christian evidence to the contrary. This Creationist article also specifically discredits this Wyatt of whom www.arkdiscovery.com is so proud.

Here is an excerpt from this Christian article:

Are the claims true? If they are, such a staggeringly impressive list would mean that Ron Wyatt had been almost as miraculously assisted by God as the patriarch Moses. If, however, a careful examination of just one or two of these claims reveals them to be false, fanciful or fraudulent, the ‘divine leading’ option evaporates, and it is clear that Christians are being seriously misled.

I have far more respect for these Creationists who are willing to tell the truth, no matter what that truth is, than for others who have to have evidence at all costs, even if it is false. If the ark were actually found, it might prove something, if it is never discovered, it doesn't actually affect arguments about God and the Bible.

To recap, in a briefer fashion:
Crazy Anglican believes that there is a God and asserts that the Bible is consistent with the notion of an inspired "word of God" written down over a long period of time by a variety of human beings. He has asked ottovanbis to provide evidence that this is the case and has suggested that they confine themselves to the consideration of the resurrection as recounted in Matthew 27v45-28v10, Mark 15v33-16v8, Luke 23v44-24v12 and John 19v31-20v18.
On the other side ottovanbis states that he does not believe in God and that thus the Bible must have been generated by entirely human agency. He states that religion (specifically JudeoChristian religion) was created in order to subdue the masses of less intelligent people and, I think, asserts that there is a relativism applied to the notion of truth so that a statement such as "there is a God" can be true for one person and not for another.
Other people have added their two cents to elucidate or muddy the waters - apologies for not summarising your thoughts.
Have I summarised appropriately? I think that I may have missed something from the threat that preceded this one but I don't know which one it is.

i think that is pretty good, except i don't recall CA giving any Bible verses.

Yes, that seems to be a pretty good summary of my position (although I asked ottovanbis to provide evidence that it isn't the case). Thanks for the Bible verses too Parallelopiped, I had not the time to look them up so far today.

The preceding thread was "Imagine" and ottovanbismarck threw down the gauntlet to Orathaic (I took it to be tongue-in-cheek, and it has been). I took up the challenge to take it outside, hence the name of this thread.

trentonp, what does you references to the Ark of the Covenant and Noah's Ark have to do with each other? One is a fancy box that supposedly contains the remains of the original 10 Commandments Moses smashed and the other a large boat that carried a bunch of humans and animals to safety when their part of the world was flooded. Indiana Jones found the first and it has been hidden in a government controlled warehouse since 1936.

@ page 2
A great book that discusses this issue is "How We Got the Bible", by Neil R. Lightfoot. Suffice to say, the thousands of copies extant, a number from the second century even, allow detailed comparisons and examinations to be made, allowing us to determine the original wording.

Actually the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has said that they have possession of the Ark of the Covenant. There is no independent corroboration of this though, as they won't let anyone in to see it at the moment.

I think that the Ark of the Covenant reference was a mistake upon the part of the people who set up the website that Trentonp cited. I thought it was a curious mistake, but it doesn't really discount their point-of-view. While there have been many archaeological finds (as far as I know) that support the historicity of the Bible, there have been hoaxes too. As far as I know, Ronald Eldon Wyatt's finding's are disputed by several groups. I'm not sure that they have been proven to be a hoaxes, nor do I know that anyone has independently corrobarated them. There is certainly controversy, but even if they are hoaxes, I wouldn't exactly call a nurse anesthesiologist from Tennessee faking a few archeaological finds a scandal. It wasn't as if he was acting on Church orders to fake it, His own Church is one of the groups who dispute his claims.

I tend to agree with trentonp on this issue inasmuch as even if either Noah's Ark or the Ark of the Covenant are never found it does nothing to question the validity of the Bible or existence of God. Basically, a sacred artifact covered in gold went missing after a foreign invasion, and a wooden ship laid on a mountainside for more than 5000 years decayed to the point that nothing is left of it. Do either of those statements really surprise anyone?

To start with, it seems that the existence of God is, a priori, slightly less likely than His non-existence by Occam's razor as the non-existence assumption requires one fewer agent to be postulated.
Having taken this into account the Bible seems to me to be as one would expect from an omnipotent, omniscient deity: as a revelation it is not exactly how we would like it but surely we'd expect our desires to be at odds with God's plan for the universe? Different parts of it have meant different things to different people at different times which is either a sign that the Author is incredibly clever (some poetry seems also to have this property - that you can get different things out of it depending on your situation when you read it: if God were an omniscient poet then he could arrange things so that different people could get different things out of the same reading and for it all to be for the best) or a sign that humans are not particularly good at the listening/reading part of communication - or both. The revelation of God seems to develop during the Bible which is consistent with a document that has been revealed in chunks to a group of people over a period of generations. I can't see that we need postulate any more than the existence of God for this theory to hold water.
The alternative theory starts holding the advantage - no deity to postulate. Religion, for one reason or another, comes naturally to humans - different tribes have their own take on it but the belief that there must be someone out there to blame for the universe seems central to our species. There is, however, a question of why this is. If there is a God then belief that there is a god is already explained. If there is no god then why do so many humans believe in one? There are a number of possibilities but they all involve a bit of postulating. Maintaining an oral history of the tribe and interpreting it in terms of the gods of the tribe seems natural, as does writing it down. When something is written down after generations of fireside story-telling it is possible that there will be exagerations, that history will have turned into legend and fairy story, that odd events will have turned into miracles. The Old Testament, I think, is quite consistent with the "no god" hypothesis. The New Testament is a little more complicated. The tribe is now settled, writing is common, they are in contact with well documented nations. The stories are not the results of generations of oral tradition, they are written as eye-witness accounts by contemporaries of the Jesus character. There are a few possibilities. Possibility 1) It's true but not evidence of the existence of God - this is very tricky, the resurrection of a crucified person requires quite some explanation. Maybe there was a secret cult that arranged a pretend crucifixion, maybe the Romans didn't do a very good job, maybe current medical understanding of death is flawed. None of these are very satisfactory to my mind. Possibility 2) it's the result of hysteria. Jesus was a very charismatic preacher, the disciples were caught up in his dream and when he was killed they went a little mad, told each other that he had said that he'd rise again, told each other that they saw him and went out into the world to tell everyone of what they thought they had seen. Possible, but it does require that we believe in the power of this hysteria. Possibility 3) it's all lies. Paul, Peter, John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, James, Jude, The writer of the Hebrews and several other people either cooked up a set of lies for self aggrandisement or went along with what they knew were someone else's lies. Again, possible, but they didn't get much by way of wealth and fame out of it. There would have been some glory from the leadership of a cult but it was glory that ended for most of them in death by torture. Possible, but not, I think, convincing. Possibility 4) I'm all out of possibilities, sorry.
The "No God" assumption can be made to hold water but it requires some postulation about the behaviour of people that I think removes the Occam's razor advantage previously held. Which story do you believe?

@Parallelopiped - Could that be formatted into something a little more readable? My head hurts just thinking about trying to dig into that obscenely long paragraph.

@ Draugnar

Crazy Anglican kindly answered your question for me. I listed the Ark of the Covenant and Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of 'discovered' artifacts, along with Noah's Ark, that Wyatt fails to deliver on.

I believe that the Judeo/Christian tradition holds that God is spiritual. ie. not discernable via material/spacial/sensual means. Quite genius. For an atheist to be consistent he would have to KNOW (true justifiable belief) that there is no spiritual-ness beyond the material. How can a purely material being KNOW this? Agnosticism on the other hand...

Crazy Anglican, I would like to hear you provide your evidence for Jesus rising from the dead. Or anyone else's evidence for that matter.

@Trentonp: you said: "Crazy Anglican, I would like to hear you provide your evidence for Jesus rising from the dead. Or anyone else's evidence for that matter."

the F**k you would? either you want to believe (and don't have evidence) OR you claim that this is highly unlikely and you want someone to try and disprove you.

Well as it happens, in a mature community we RESPECT other people's believes, and if you want anyone to respect your belief (that Jesus of Nazarath was a guy who left a message of peace now kept alive by his followers ~ or that he was just some smuck who died 2000 years ago) then i'd rather you started acting maturely.

If you don't think it probable that Jesus rose from the dead then state that as a fact. Support your opinion (and htat is all it is) with evidence, but don't waste your time suggesting that any other opinion is invalid (and asking for their evidence) That does not amount to respecting the difference in what you believe.

- i have here specifically claimed some things about the human race (more or less implying that some people will find religion on their own, and if it doesn't exist they will found one which suits them) I have even suggested that this tendancy is a successful human trait (those which evolution trains us to exhibit) AND that human societies function better (and spread/procreate more) when they have some religious/spiritual movement within them.

I have nothing beyond circumstantial evidence of any of my claims. It is opinion, and i hope that others will respect this (I don't claim anyone has made up a religion to subdue or take advantage of other people, though scientology may be an exception to that rule - if you are counting scientology as anything other than a money-making scam) I respect that there is no evidence to prove the Bible is not divenly inspired; That God didn't create the world in 7 days, ~6-10 thousand years ago (and possibly create rocks which had cretain radioactive isotope ratios which would imply - by our understand of radioactive decay - a Universe 13.7 billion years in age) Fact: an omnipotent God can do anything - by definition - hence there can be no evidence which disproves ANYTHING an omnipotent God has done. (obviously any Omnipotent God can perfectly fool us - relatively impotent - humans with whatever evidence he feels like.)

In conclusion, you have an opinion, well done. Many other have had the same. Please respect the opinions of others OR f**k off.

my 68 cent.

Apologies to every one I may have disrespected. I have not been intentionally disrespectful towards anybody. Here are some guesses at possibly disrespectful comments i have written in this thread:

1. "I have far more respect for these Creationists who are willing to tell the truth, no matter what that truth is, than for others who have to have evidence at all costs, even if it is false." This was not directed towards Tru Ninja, I was telling Tru Ninja that I have little respect for Mr. Wyatt and other artifact hunter hoaxes. I do not think Tru Ninja was offering 'evidence at all costs' and so this was not directed towards him.

2. "For an atheist to be consistent he would have to KNOW (true justifiable belief) that there is no spiritual-ness beyond the material." This is one of my opinions. In my honest opinion, it is quite difficult to be a consistent atheist (someone who claims there is no God) and I explained why I think this is difficult. No disrespect intended. It's my opinion. An honest response as to why atheism can be consistently held is welcome.

3. "Crazy Anglican, I would like to hear you provide your evidence for Jesus rising from the dead. Or anyone else's evidence for that matter." This is an honest comment. I want to hear the evidence. I am not intentionally bashing other people's opinions or asking for their opinions so that I can bash them.

trentonp - Here is why we don't have to justify our beliefs to a non-believer.

John 20:29 - Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

That refers to both people who believed by word of mouth alone in Jesus' time as well as those of us 2000 years later who believe.

And the reason we believe is because we have faith. A couple of verses on faith...

Luke 17:6
He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

So, as you can see, a believer doesn't need evidence in the physical word of that which resides in the spiritual world. But if you really want evidence, then look around you at the beauty of nature and continue to tell yourself that it was all an accident; that random chance resulted in the beauty you see. Whether you have a belief in Jesus Christ, Budda, Mohammed, Jahweh, or any other higher power, just find a belief. There is a higher power that guided the process called creation. Even if you believe in evolution (and I do, I view Genesis as an origins tale to explain something that was unexplainable to early man and to provide reasons for "world" events like a localized flood), some higher power had a hand in evolutions development or there would be a lot of evidence of failed species occuring even today.

@trentonp - that was being written before you apologies post above. I'm glad you have at least an agnostic's view of the spiritual world.

@trentonp - sorry, i'm a bit drunk, if i came off as overly offensive I apologise. Had i the time and sobriety i may have phrased my words in a more concillatory manner - you did not deserve the severity of my reaction and for that i apoligise.

@Draug: you said "...But if you really want evidence, then look around you at the beauty of nature and continue to tell yourself that it was all an accident; that random chance resulted in the beauty you see." - FYI I find that the fact the the beauty of nature occured by random chance rather awe-inspiring - it is particulairly amazing when you think about it that we are the products of the universe - this alone isn't evidence of anything but it is difficult to comprehend (i have some idea based on the physics involved because that's what i studied, but that doesn't go particulairly far to explaining the biology which i imagine doesn't even come close to explaining the art/culture we have managed to produce) That makes me go WOW, and how? when i think about it, but it doesn't make me go, "well of course God cause that makes sense" - In fact an explaination as simple as "God" seems far too simple to the complexity, the amazingness of the Universe (even just thinking of the underlying quantum mechanics which you never notice in day-to-day life never mind the general relativity...)

Whatever the explaination - and you can call it God if you like - I am nowhere near comprehending it, I do not think any human really understands this "How?".

I have in many places said "Who the f**k do you think you are that you understand the mind of God?" - of from an atheist's prespective - "Who do you think you are that you understand our place in this amazing thing called the Universe?" - It is entirely human pride to think we understand but a tiny fraction of reason, the Why behind the universe (even as we explain parts of the How with physics and other sciences)

That doesn't mean Religion can't answer questions about how we SHOULD treat each other (a thing which science does not - can not - talk about) - at the very least Religion tries to answer these very hard questions; and in most cases does a good job.

@orathaic

Did I say God was the name of the answer to what is around us for everyone? I said "a higher power". You may interpret that as a guiding force of some form. Call it God, call it Nature, call it what you will. The fact that it amazes you should tell you that, with a natural tendency of the universe towards chaos and entropy, there must have been a guiding force to create the order that we see.

I choose to believe in the Judeau-Christian God of the Old and New Testaments, but have no problem with others from different cultures having beliefs in a different god, provided those beliefs don't infringe upon my right to believe as I choose or on my right to live.

@Draug:
We see a local order based on the ever increasing disorder in the sun. (our local star) - so locally, ie on earth, we have more order - but within the Solar system we do not, and if the sun dissapeared tomorrow all the life and 'nature' and ability for me to be in awe would wither and die (and disorder) - that does not mean I worship a Sun god.

but yes, i call it nature, i call it the Universe, i see and understand some fraction of the tendancies described by our physics (i don't claim to understand all of our physics, or that they currently or ever will describe all of the Universe and it's many awesome things)

I see any claim that the new or old testament is the word of God (or equivalently the mind or thougths of God) as pure unadulterated pride on the part of humankind. Never-the-less I think the words written in the new and old testament have some value because they tell us how we SHOULD live our lives (which science can never do).

and I respect your right to live your life as you wish so long as your offer me that same right - I even think i SHOULD help you live the best life you can, and I should do things for you (whatever thing you would find difficult but i would find easy - depending on where my particular talent lie - here-in lies the basis of barter/trade/equitable exchange and if i've come off as a socialist in other threads it is because i extend this idea in that direction...)

I can assure you there is no God.
If there was a God, I would be feeling a lighting striking at my ass right now.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha and HA Classic!

Thanks orathaic. I believe, as I've stated above, much the same. I would prefer no one not have some faith in something, be it a higher power or mankind itself. But I also respect everyone's right to believe as they wish (and, much like voting, not believing in a higher power is still a belief).

And, while I think somethings should fail and not receive help, this is usually because, as Nietzsche said, that which does not kill us makes us stonger. I do believe we have a responsibility to see to the needs of our fellow man. And capitalism is a form of the barter and trade system. One person pays money for something they want and receives money for providing a good or service someone else needs. Money is basically a fancy IOU.

@hellalt - things are happening and you just haven't noticed them. Your balls are being stretched while your wanger gets less "funtional". your hair is slowly dying to either turn grey or fall out and, while you may not have noticed it yet, your hearing and eyesight are failing, your skin is wrinkling, and you memory is fading. Eventually, you heart will beat it's last beat and your lungs draw their last breath. Then you will realize that the higher power has "struck your ass with lightening" in a proverbial way.

That would be a rather naive approach to Capitalism.
My sad experience of it says that capital goes to capital, meaning that the rich get richer and the poor poorer.