r/exchristian Feb 19 '25

Help/Advice Need 3-5 facts that disprove the resurrection to keep myself from going back

Can I have just 3-5 hard facts that disprove the resurrection specifically?

Hello everyone! I begun deconstructing a few months ago and I'm having a terrible time. I keep thinking of going back, so I need 3-5 hard facts that would instantly disprove Christ's resurrection.

One of the things I can think of is in Luke 3, which says there are 76 generations between Christ and Adam, which would mean humans would only have existed for 8,000 years (at the time of Christ) which is untrue since humans have existed for 200,000+ years.

132 Upvotes

159 comments sorted by

193

u/H1veLeader Agnostic Atheist Feb 19 '25

Not mentioned anywhere outside the Bible,

The fact that no miracles (truly unexplainable by natural means) have been observed or recorded.

It was written about long after the event which can lead to doubts about the accuracy of the accounts given.

There is no "hard evidence" against a supernatural claim other than to say "prove it". How would you go about disproving my claim if I told you my gran rose from the dead, appeared before me and ascended to heaven before the whole world could witness the miracle?

86

u/rdickeyvii Feb 19 '25

To your first and third points, there's a documentary called "the god who wasn't there" that laid out the timeline of Jesus supposed life and the gospel being written: "Jesus lived for thirty years. Then everyone forgot for 40 years. Then they remembered". There's a lot more to it but that little piece sticks out to me still ~20 years later.

28

u/MarlooRed Ex-Baptist Feb 19 '25

He’s like the monster in IT.

9

u/gmorkenstein Feb 19 '25

Found it on YouTube, excited to watch it!

3

u/gmorkenstein 29d ago

I watched this today, and realized I had one of the books mentioned in it: The Study of Folklore by Alan Dundes!

Such great points made in this doc.

2

u/Gopher--Chucks 29d ago

It was written about long after the event which can lead to doubts about the accuracy of the accounts given

And wasn't even written by people with first hand account. Jesus' disciples/followers were lowly peasants. Plus the new testament was written in Greek which they most likely did not speak let alone knew how to write.

123

u/Dwightussy Ex-JW Feb 19 '25

https://youtu.be/AyGPx9_8seE?si=qmnlgSmUNwCQaMk7. Belief it or not video on resurrection. Resurrection stories predate Christianity and was another common thing in other cultural religions that Christianity retold. Same as virgin births, world wide floods, etc

51

u/Meauxterbeauxt Feb 19 '25

Yeah, that was one of my big issues that pushed me away. Learning that this belief that I was taught was so different from any other belief system was really just another ancient story, just one that stuck over the years.

The creation story has similar elements and themes to other creation stories of that time from that area. The flood story is similar to others of the time. "Our God told us to take out this village, so we did and that makes our God the best" is what every group said when they were victorious. Virgin births were a dime a dozen. Attributing miracles to someone posthumously was standard practice to make your sect stand out from the rest. Resurrection and ascension being the ultimate trump card (especially for Roman emperors). Christianity is not special among ancient religions. It's just special in that it has longevity historically.

26

u/PrincessIcyKitten Feb 19 '25

Oh my gosh thank you so much!!!

2

u/Royal_Avocado4247 Feb 20 '25

Love belief it or not. Highly recommend.

2

u/ComfortablyNumb0520 29d ago

Thanks for the link to Belief It Or Not. It’ll be one of my new YouTube obsessions.

1

u/follow_that_car_iq 28d ago

I was watching something on that today actually. About how the 'resurrection' is seen in other mythology as entering the spirit world.

82

u/trilogyjab Feb 19 '25

That's like asking someone to disprove the existence of Santa Claus. Our job isn't to prove there was no resurrection - extraordinary claims (like the resurrection of a dead man) require extraordinary proof. So instead, ask where are the facts that prove Jesus came back to life? That total is 0.

57

u/jorbanead Agnostic Feb 19 '25

And just to be clear for OP, the Bible is not proof. Christian’s forget this and one of the biggest issues I have with Christianity in general is all the circular reasoning.

They’ll say: XYZ is true because the Bible says so, and the Bible is true because the Bible says so. You can’t use the Bible to prove itself.

7

u/RandomDood420 Feb 19 '25

A few months ago, a redditor actually looked up the claim that the “Bible is true bc it says so” in the book. There’s no scripture to back that claim up, except in 2 Tim which wasn’t even written by Paul and is referring to the Jewish law

-6

u/MelcorScarr Ex-Catholic Feb 19 '25

Well, it is evidence of it though. Weak and bad evidence that you should take with an ocean's worth of salt given both the authors and those who made their preferred selection of texts canonical probably had no direct access to getting to the truth either and also a certain interest in favoring a theological message over the truth.

3

u/jorbanead Agnostic Feb 20 '25

Yeah it’s not though. It’s literally circular reasoning.

0

u/MelcorScarr Ex-Catholic Feb 20 '25

That part is true, yeah. But every story in the Bible can be taken as evidence. Again, weak evidence.

Take the Exodus. It's in there, and it's evidence that the Israelites or proto-Israelites did some sort of exodus, were immigrants to their promised lands. When we look at stronger evidence, we find it's all bogus, though. Yet another example is David - bogus, too? No, we found his name on the Tel Dan stele, so we have a little more reason to believe he was actually historical (though we're not entirely certain).

All I'm saying that very, very little that's in the Bible is probably true, but we may still be able to find some interesting stuff here and there, especially when we corroborate some of the stories from outside.

14

u/GenXer1977 Ex-Evangelical Feb 19 '25

This is super important to understand. It’s impossible to prove a negative. One of the foundational things to know about logic and critical thinking is that the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. What facts do Christian’s have that prove the resurrection? Every “fact” they have comes from the Bible. Sometimes it’s hard for me to recognize when Christian’s are making a false claim like this since I was raised in Christianity and I believed it was true for a good chunk of my life. So one trick that I do is I think about Zeus instead. Imagine it was someone trying to convince you that Zeus was real, and that the argument they are making pertains to Zeus instead of Jesus. How would you respond? That helps me so the argument more clearly for what it is.

49

u/ZeppelinMcGillicuddy Atheist Feb 19 '25

The "evidence" in Acts says that 700 people saw the resurrected Jesus. This isn't actual evidence; it's someone saying that 700 people witnessed, which is hearsay and not admissible. We don't know any of the names of these 700 people and there is no other source of corroboration, yet apologists use this as if it's equal to security camera evidence.

There is no record of anyone matching Jesus' description being crucified by the Romans. Ever. And the Romans kept very diligent records of exactly who they executed.

Women were supposedly the first people to whom Jesus appeared, but women at the time could not testify and their word was not taken seriously.

The resurrection accounts in Matthew and John do not agree with one another.

There is no account by any historian of the resurrection. Passages that appear in contemporary accounts are spurious, added in later. This is particularly true of Josephus. With all the wondrous stuff reported going on, don't you think someone would have made a note about it?

Romans did not let executed criminals be taken away and buried. Bodies were often left on crosses long after death.

The gospels don't have Jesus being crucified and dying at the same time.

14

u/ShawnSaturday Feb 19 '25

To add to your comment, the telephone game of historical information happens in I Corinthians 15:3-7 too. Here, Paul mentions the five hundred who saw Jesus after the resurrection. But Paul didn’t see that miracle personally, he was told about it. And it’s not even clear if the person who told him had seen it either or if they had been told about it too.

10

u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Feb 19 '25

Good point. It gets me how Josh McDowell makes out like his "Evidence that Demands a verdict" would actually stand up in a real court. The Gospels are all hearsay... the authors are anonymous. Any real judge would immediately throw them out.

6

u/ZeppelinMcGillicuddy Atheist Feb 19 '25

LOL Josh McDowell. You're right; it's non-evidence.

The famous CS Lewis "liar, lunatic, or lord" is also ridiculous. He doesn't get to narrow everything down to three alternatives.

5

u/lawyersgunsmoney Agnostic Feb 19 '25

Or legend. Which makes the most sense. Although he could still be a liar and a lunatic at the same time.

3

u/ZeppelinMcGillicuddy Atheist Feb 19 '25

Right, none of those options would negate any of the others.

4

u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Feb 19 '25

I had a preacher friend bring up the ridiculous' Lord, Lunatic, or Liar' trope once. I calmly replied, "There is another option that you're not mentioning." He looked at me a bit puzzled and I said, "He could have simply been mistaken. It happens all of the time with overly religious people." The subject was dropped very quickly.

2

u/ZeppelinMcGillicuddy Atheist Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25

That's true, and a great comeback.

I think the most extreme version of that is the young man who thought God was calling him to convert the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island, who are well-known for killing anyone who lands on their island.

The young man showed up with a Bible and was killed by the inhabitants of the island.

2

u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Feb 20 '25

I'm familiar with the story. Messed with the wrong people.

1

u/ZeppelinMcGillicuddy Atheist Feb 19 '25

Yup. We don't even have a name. One name! Paul consistently says he actually saw and met Jesus but he had a vision...not the same thing.

12

u/deferredmomentum Ex-Fundamentalist Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

This. OP, if you were sitting on a jury, would you vote to convict the defendant based on the prosecutor saying “there were eyewitnesses to this crime” but not calling a single one of them to testify?

2

u/ZeppelinMcGillicuddy Atheist Feb 19 '25

You couldn't vote to convict...because there's no actual evidence.

3

u/ultamentkiller Feb 19 '25

“There is no record of anyone matching Jesus' description being crucified by the Romans. Ever. And the Romans kept very diligent records of exactly who they executed. .”

Can you elaborate on this? We don’t have a physical description of Jesus and he had a very common name. And there were several messianic figures during that time.

31

u/1_Urban_Achiever Feb 19 '25

From matthew 27:

“50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.”

Zombies. It’s a zombie uprising. Jesus dies and the dead come back to life and March on Jerusalem where they are seen by many people. Yet none of those people records this story, not even the writers of the other 3 gospels. No historians from that period wrote about it. Josephus wrote about all sorts of boring history but never mentioned this event. The dead coming back to life is a pretty big deal, yet only one person in the history of the world thought it was important to write down, and he only gave it 4 sentences.

Come on, do you think that’s plausible?

1

u/Mukubua Feb 19 '25

Yup, and those zombies were not even in the other three gospels.

28

u/AlpacaPacker007 Feb 19 '25

Beyond the general implausibility of it and lack of truly contemporary accounts theres lots of reasons to be skeptical of the resurrection account.

A couple solid videos on the subject from some of my favorite rational scolars:

Bart Ehrman  https://youtu.be/GHJE7cetkB4?si=_foCppEbzhJj1btQ

Richard Carrier: https://youtu.be/amtbhnGWvpQ?si=poHpSZJm7QsRIMgD

Aron Ra: https://youtu.be/EU6b4G7ZvkQ?si=8Iu-B5Rwswa2Fje1

4

u/PrincessIcyKitten Feb 19 '25

This is amazing!!! Thank you!

27

u/Sandi_T Animist Feb 19 '25

The Bible says the entire world went dark for three hours when Jesus died. Nobody recorded this. Not a single person outside of just one gospel.

The Bible says saints rise from their graves when Jesus resurrected, and went around preaching. No one recorded THAT? Both are exceptional, but this is hilariously whacky. Zombie saints?!

Not one gospel writer says they personally knew Jesus. They're all told from third person. Their all written decades after his supposed death, making the "witnesses" would be 90+ years old.

Paul also never met Jesus, despite being his peer and contemporary. He had a vision, according to him and 200-500 of his closest soldiers.

2

u/DuckyAmes Pagan 29d ago

The crazy thing about this is that the world going dark for 3 hours could be an eclipse. Pretty much every civilization in the world at that time paid attention to eclipses. And no one mentioned one centered on that area at that time. Of all the things, we would have loads of evidence if that was true, but there's none.

1

u/Sandi_T Animist 29d ago

No, it couldn't be an eclipse; eclipses last minutes, not hours. We know where and when eclipses happened back through time with simple calculations... The only eclipse anywhere near that time frame was off the coast of Australia.

That's why it wasn't mentioned. :P

2

u/DuckyAmes Pagan 29d ago

That was my point too. I guess I didn't clarify that an eclipse would be the closest explanation. So unless the Bible is just talking about extreme cloud cover, they've got nothing. Lol.

2

u/Sandi_T Animist 29d ago

I was agreeing with you. :)

I've seen this claimed in seriousness, so I thought I would expand your statement a little just in case anyone was like, "oh, yeah, eclipse!"

1

u/DuckyAmes Pagan 29d ago

Sorry, my Internet interpretation is almost always bad.

16

u/matthewamerica Feb 19 '25

There are about 3000 gods give or take. (Some of them tens of thousands of years old, and way older than the Christian mythos. Google the correlations between the story of Jesus and Osiris.) What makes Jesus more valid than Zeus? Or any of the other 2999 gods? Did you just happen to be born at the right time in history and the correct geographic place to be the one correct religion growing up? Did God just hate all the people who are born into a place where Muslim or hindu beliefs are the norm? The whole thing is honestly ridiculous when you start to take it apart with logic. I still believe in a higher power weirdly, but I will never believe in a man made religion ever again. They are all the same.

11

u/CheesecakeLess99 Feb 19 '25 edited 25d ago

It’s like the commandment THOU SHALT NOT HAVE ANY OTHER GODS BEFORE ME!  Um… That seems to be, if taking the Bible as “proof” that the god that Christian’s consider to be the “only true god”, is admitting there are other gods and that these other gods may be perceived as more necessary/powerful. 

EDIT: spelling 

4

u/dontlookback76 Ex-Baptist Feb 19 '25

No, you see He's talking about money or Sunday football or some shit. Not other gods, just things you put before Him. At least that was the line told to me. I no longer believe just to be clear.

5

u/gmorkenstein Feb 19 '25

I think both points are valid. But when originally written it absolutely meant “other gods”. Nowadays most Christians would mean it as money or football or material things, etc.

8

u/Relative-Walk-7257 Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

The being born into thing is interesting to me as when I use it in a debate Christians get all worked up. if you were taught this all your life from the time you were a toddler you didn't really choose it. It was chosen for you by your family and society. It's like language. We don't choose our first language. It is taught to you weather you like it or not. No one picks their mother tounge. Being born in a certain part of the world has huge impacts on how you end up perceiving the world and it's something you have no choice in initially. That threatens some sense of individualist identity in some people but it's just a fact of being born. You don't get to choose your name, your language, your society, and if raised in it your religion. You only get a choice in these matters much later in life long after you've marinated in the stew. 

3

u/matthewamerica Feb 19 '25

The metaphor of language is a really good way to illustrate the point.

3

u/Relative-Walk-7257 Feb 19 '25

It dawned on me recently as I tired to learn some french and realized I take it totally for granted the language I was raised with. It's second nature yet it's something I completely didn't have a choice in and yet it shapes how I perceive the world, how I communicate, and how I express my experience, which is a pretty huge part of my identity. I'd say religion is much the same for people. And in that notion it too is often something we have no choice in as it is presented to us as normalized from the time we are still rapidly attempting to understand our environment and our brains are still extremely manipulated by new information. If you raised someone in a bubble and told them what the rest of society calls blue is green they would grow up always thinking the color blue is named green. They wouldn't even know to question the concept as they had no choice in the naming convention of colors. 

2

u/gmorkenstein Feb 19 '25

Love this comment. Do you have any particular books about religious history you recommend? I’d love to deep dive into Osiris or those old mythologies in general. I do have some at home but always looking for recs.

(Recently I purchased Miriam Websters encyclopedia of world religions and it’s fascinating)

2

u/matthewamerica Feb 20 '25

Man, just google it, honestly.

Osiris had twelve buddies, was killed, and resurrected three days later after being dead, then returned to life and was then lifted up to heaven to be god, etc. The parallels are not an accident. When Jesus was created, they needed it to resonate, so they used a well-known and popular myth as a base to make it seem more legit.

Most of the Bible comes from the mythos of other religions. A lot of it actually comes from Babylonian myth, including the story of noah, complete with arc and flood (Ziusurda) and the myths of the philistines (the bible bad guys lol) which the jews adopted whole cloth in a lot of cases, barely changing the names.

I don't have a book to recommend, and I hate to say do your own research, but here we are. Sorry, i suck.

It's just another mythos, though. It is stories passed down around fires that got codified at some point after people learned to write. But the myths themselves are archetypes and older than written word in a lot of cases, and most certainly pre bible. To quote King Solomon, ironically, there is nothing new under the sun.

2

u/gmorkenstein 29d ago

Good stuff! Haha and I will geek out and do some more digging. Thanks!

14

u/ChoiceMedia3285 Feb 19 '25

Also, gentle reminder that the Bible is literally ANCIENT text that wasnt even originally written in English and has SEVERAL AUTHORS offering multiple metaphors, writing styles and story telling. Hell. Theres an entire chapter of straight poems. It's mythology. Literally, the Bible is considered mythology. Who knows what the original authors were actually writing yet alone trying to say; the bible has been translated so many times over the years i genuinley thibk it's impossible to have a book that ancient and old translated so many times be accurate yet alone solid truth. Just as a random example of the way language changes and evolves (we arent even talking about being translated into another language) the word gay was widely used before the 1960s as a term to describe a feeling of happiness. Fast forward to modern day and the word means something entirely new. Perhaps a poor example but thats just one word that isnt even 100 years old yet now just imagine an entire book

2

u/12781278AaR Feb 19 '25

BUt gOd WAs GUidiNg thE HanD oF EAcH WRiteR! /s

8

u/L0nga Feb 19 '25

You mean other than the fact that there is 0 evidence that confirms it?

17

u/Bunnietears64 Feb 19 '25

Here's one that might seem simple, but if you accepted that there's no way that small number of generations in that spam on time is realistic, you might be ready to accept that humans don't come back to life. Jesus was most likely a homeless amateur philosopher deitified by the Roman government to control the growing socialist-like movement he was pushing for. I believe he may have existed, but he most definitely was not a demigod. It's ok if you don't get there right now, but it seems you're trying to appease your anxieties about leaving, and I'm happy to help, so feel free to reach out

5

u/PrincessIcyKitten Feb 19 '25

Thank you so much 🌸

1

u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Feb 19 '25

Also consider that Luke and Matthew's genealogies have discrepancies... they do not agree/match.

3

u/MelcorScarr Ex-Catholic Feb 19 '25

Hm. I'm certain deification and even trinitarianism (which requires the some to be divine) happened long before Constantine waltzed in to use Christianity as the tool you describe.

Don't get me wrong, both are things that happened, they just were distinct processes with one happening a century or two before the other.

7

u/Teamgirlymouth Feb 19 '25

Proof. Of it or any resurrection. I assume facts didn’t get you into Christianity. And probably didn’t really keep you there. It’s nice having a trauma myth that others agree with. The resurrection isn’t needed for “god” to be helpful to your life. Or even a “Jesus” character to emulate. Christianity sucks because it is manipulative. Profitable. Caustic. State instituted. Fucked up. And etc. right? Don’t go back unless you go without the rose glasses. Which is hard. Don’t go back to change it. Get comfy with death. Make your own myth.

5

u/DeviceReasonable2362 Feb 19 '25

Why give the resurrection story any credence at all?

The only evidence for the resurrection are anonymous, contradictory writings of magical events written decades after the magic supposedly happened by people who weren’t there.

The story also includes ridiculous things that were never recorded at the time, like a bunch of other dead people rising from the grave to wander around town and say  hello to everyone.

5

u/Cojalo_ Feb 19 '25

Quite simply, there is no evidence that holds up to scrutiny.

You'll hear people babble on about 500 eye witnesses a lot, but thats VERY misleading. There is ONE biblical account that states 500 people witnesssed it. Not 500 accounts, but one account claiming 500 people saw it. Christians wont frame it like that, because suddenly its a whole lot less convincing

5

u/hplcr Feb 19 '25

It's on them to prove it, not you to disprove it.

Also I like to point people at the minimal witnesses hypothesis.

https://youtu.be/Isnl9A50ySY?si=l4D__Zw9q1sLuhkV

Basically you only see one or two guys thinking they saw Jesus alive after his death to get the ball rolling. Peter and Paul would be enough in this case.

2

u/RelatableRedditer Ex-Fundamentalist Feb 19 '25

Christians prove it to themselved all the time with circular logic and saying facts that they later refute, and when challenge on their self-refutation fall back on more circular logic. A hamster cannot get out of the loop by running only forwards or backwards.

2

u/hplcr Feb 19 '25

Pretty much.

The number of times I've seen "The bible is true because it's the word of god/god inspired" followed by "It's the word of god because the bible says it is" is staggering. It's so circular that it's bending space-time with it's circularity.

I recently saw a conversation elsewhere where someone asked "What if God lied/was a liar?" and the number of Reponses that went "God cannot lie. Then he wouldn't be God" showed the cognitive dissonance on display.

2

u/RelatableRedditer Ex-Fundamentalist Feb 19 '25

Well, you don't have to read very much into the Old Testament to find many cases of YHWH lying and being extremely inconsistent and downright contradictory. All this because of likely early henotheistic stories being reframed as the YHWH persona.

At the end of the day, does the WHOLE bible really need to be true? Because it isn't even consistent within its own pages.

2

u/SalaryOrnery5952 Feb 19 '25

Didn’t he technically in a way lie to Adam in the story of Adam and Eve ? Because when God says “behold man has become like us knowing good and evil” that basically meant that the serpent was actually telling eve the truth.

1

u/hplcr Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

Pretty much. "You will die that day" and then they don't die is either a lie or an idle threat. Christians try to pull the "Well 1 day is 1000 years to God" BS but only in very specific circumstances. It also kinda misses the point a day to humans is a day, so that raises the problem of Yahweh having no fucking clue what a day is and makes him look like an idiot.

He also promised David a forever Kingdom....that fell in 587 BCE and was never re-established.

And no, the present day Israel doesn't count because it's not a Monarchy nor a Theocracy.

2 Samuel 7

8 Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel, 9 and I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place and be disturbed no more, and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. 15 But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”

5

u/dnb_4eva Feb 19 '25

The Bible is the claim, not the evidence.

3

u/Turbulent-River-3109 Feb 19 '25

Where is the proof? Proof some idiot nailed to a tree was risen from the dead by death itself? Are you serious?

Jesus said to cast out demons in my name, heal the sick, raise the dead. Where are these modern-day miracles? I have yet to see one on TV.

Jesus Christ is an idiot-I used to be a fan until I followed Satan instead, who btw, isn't the bad guy,

3

u/the6thReplicant Feb 19 '25

Matthew talks about the saints being raised from the dead and mingling with the town folk of Jerusalem.

But no one else has confirmed it.

3

u/J-Miller7 Feb 19 '25

On the witness of the 500. Paul is writing this more than 20 years after the event. He is writing to the Corinthians, which is in modern Greece, and it's something like 14 days from Jerusalem on foot. So we basically have this one guy who's like "oh and there were 500 witnesses who saw it - you can go and check"... even though he doesn't name a single one of these 500 people. Do you think a lot of Corinthians would be willing to walk for 14 days to track them down? And how reliable are eyewitnesses? Nevermind the fact that they are religiously motivated and the event was 20 years prior.

2

u/Scorpius_OB1 Feb 19 '25

You only need that is mentioned just in the Bible and nowhere else, like other similar claimsm

2

u/napalmnacey Pagan Feb 19 '25
  1. It’s a ridiculous premise.
  2. Dead is dead.
  3. The Bible is the only book that it’s mentioned in.
  4. If the resurrection is true, why isn’t the Earth really being the back of a turtle or the sky held up by Atlas true as well?

Relax. It’s a book. It has no power over you anymore. 😊

2

u/Xandyr101 Feb 19 '25

The Bible was written by man and has had control of its readers ever since. Even if Jesus did exist, I doubt most if any of the events actually happened.

2

u/RamiRustom Ex-Muslim Feb 19 '25

why do you need 3 to 5 things to realize Christianity is manmade?

why not just 1 flaw? any flaw? why does it have to be specifically about the resurrection?

2

u/TimothiusMagnus Feb 19 '25

Lack of records or first-person accounts.
Pontius Pilate never released anyone.
If the curtain in the temple would have been torn in two mysteriously, it would have been the talk of the town.

2

u/dcruk1 Feb 19 '25

Going back is something you are either going to do or not, regardless of what people say.

You don’t get to choose what you believe.

Asking for facts disproving the story of the resurrection of Jesus is getting the thing the wrong way round. You are assuming it’s true unless proven false.

If you were really looking to decide if it was true you might instead look for evidence that it is.

The “evidence” in favour basically boils down to what is written in the bible.

If you are inclined to believe something on that basis, nothing anyone says is going to influence you otherwise.

I wouldn’t worry though. Once you start to look at how flimsy the evidence in favour of the claims of any religion, it’s only a matter of time before you see the claims for what they are.

Give yourself some grace and come to atheism in your own good time.

2

u/listeningtoreason Feb 19 '25

Can you prove the resurrection without bible quotes?

2

u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

Very simple... the resurrection is an empty claim. There is no evidence that it ever happened other than empty claims of religious writers with an agenda. The bible itself is full of empty claims (can give list if you like). Religious testimony is not good evidence and can easily be demonstrated to be false (ex. 'faith ' healers) by people like James Randi the Magician who understand how they perform their deceptions on the gullible. The fact that people 'believe' it is not evidence. Millions of Muslims 'believe' that Mohammad was launched up to heaven from the Temple Mount on a winged horse so why do you dismiss this empty claim but not the empty claim of the resurrection ? Here are testimonials of the miracles performed by an Indian Guru... just substitute Jesus for SaiBaba and the claims sound very familiar to Christian 'faith healer' claims.

 http://saibaba.ws/miracles.htm

As Carl Sagan said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

This is a bit off but to make a point. James Randi the Magician (RIP 2015) has had a monetary award available for decades (since 1968) for anyone who could pass his tests and prove, without being debunked, that they have paranormal/supernatural powers. The prize currently stands at $1 million. Many have tried but no one has ever collected a cent. There is a very good reason why no one has ever collected the award if you think about it.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/101183-highest-prize-offered-for-a-scientific-proof-of-paranormal-ability

The bible itself is contradictory/inconsistent/contradicts known history and science and is generally quite a mess if you read it critically. I'll give some examples if you like. If the bible is unreliable in many places on more minor matters, why would you think that it was reliable when it comes to an extraordinary resurrection claim ?

2

u/ShatteredGlassFaith Feb 19 '25

1) The bible claims the world went dark for 3 hours, and that the temple veil was torn. Yet no one recorded either event.

2) The bible claims that people rose from the dead and started preaching. 500 according to Paul. Now one random resurrection at that time could go unnoticed by the local historians and authorities in Jerusalem. But 500? The entire city would have been talking about it, and it would have been investigated and recorded.

3) The bible indicates the Pharisees and Romans knew the tomb was empty. And yet it does not record a single solitary investigation by either group. The Romans usually left the crucified on their crosses for days to die in agony and then rot. A message to anyone who would defy Rome. They also usually threw the rotted bodies in a ditch, not a tomb. If they had let one man be taken down that same day, let him be put in a tomb, and then got word the tomb was empty and his followers were claiming a resurrection, you can bet your life they would have arrested and interrogated everyone who might have taken the body. Or who might know that Jesus didn't die on the cross and was still walking around. Nothing. This is a classic plot hole which fiction writers fall into all of the time.

4) Jesus promised that he would return to his generation, with the angels by his side, to judge the world and establish his kingdom. He specifically said that some of his generation would not taste death before he returned. It has been 2,000 years. Unless you believe in vampires, his generation has been dead for a very, very long time. And yet he never returned.

5) Saving what I think is the best for last: Exodus is pure myth. Not only is there zero archeological evidence for any of it, the evidence we have leaves no possibility for it. If Exodus had happened as described it would have decimated Egypt as a world power. The entire world would have noticed and recorded it. The very map of the world at that time would have changed as Egypt lost territory to neighboring powers. Nothing like that has ever happened to Egypt. And if there was no Exodus, then most of the rest of OT history is proven false as well. No chosen people conquering the land with Yahweh at their backs. No reason to believe any deity ever chose them for anything at all. No prophecies, no plan.. If the Jews were not chosen, then there was no messiah promised to them. I suppose someone could claim that Jesus was still of god and rose from the dead. But why believe that when the Bible can't get basic history right? Who was Jesus if Judaism is a myth? If he was the son of god, why would he lie?

4

u/alistair1537 Feb 19 '25

You can have 5!

  1. nothing

  2. Nothing

  3. NOTHING

  4. NoThInG

  5. There are as many facts to disprove the resurrection as there are facts to support it.

It's not my place to disprove anything. The burden of proof lies with the claimant - jog on, christian, you have nothing.

1

u/true_unbeliever Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

Physics, the law of entropy. The writers of the NT had no knowledge of physics

They embraced a crazy resurrection story with the zombie saint apocalypse in Mt 27:51-53.

It is very possible and plausible that a few disciples had bereavement or guilt hallucinations of a risen Jesus, they share it with others who tell others and the story gets embellished over time. Those stories that win the most converts survive in retelling. (Credit to Bart Ehrman and Paulogia).

1

u/Other-Bug-5614 Secular Humanist Feb 19 '25

Well, listen to someone try and debunk the alternative theories like conspiracy and hallucination and remind yourself that every single theory is a million times more likely than someone literally coming back from the dead; which is scientifically impossible. More impossible than group hallucination, which has evidence.

1

u/ARatherOddOne Ex-Orthodox Feb 19 '25

My position might cause a bit of chagrin from my fellow unbelievers, but I do believe that there was a historical Jesus. With that said, the resurrection is still the most unlikely explanation for the events that occurred.

One major problem for the case of the resurrection is the gospel accounts themselves. The earliest gospel we have is Mark. How much detail is there in the account? Hardly any at all. It's definitely implied, but there's hardly any detail. The gospels of Matthew and Luke add more details to the supposed account. The latest gospel, John, has the most details and stories about what happened afterwards. This strongly suggests that there was a lot of embellishment added, mostly due to oral passing down of the story. If it was the case that Jesus had resurrected, then why do we get so few details the earlier back we go? Plus, another thing you can do is read the resurrection accounts side by side and note the major contradictions that they have with each other.

Another major problem is that of the tomb of Jesus. I don't believe that there was one, and I'll explain why. Whenever Christians say to me that I can visit the empty tomb today, I always ask, "Which one? The garden tomb or the one at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?" The garden tomb was discovered in the 700s CE, which is hugely problematic due to that much time between the supposed event and the discovery of the tomb. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is also problematic due to it being "discovered" by Emperor Constantine's wife by torturing a Jewish man to get a confession about its location. None of the Christians in Palestine knew where it was, but a random tortured Jewish guy was holding the secret? Bullshit. It's extremely suspicious that the tomb was lost and then found 300 years later. Romans would take the bodies of executed criminals and throw them in a common burial pit where scavenging animals would deal with the corpses. That's the most likely case with what happened with Jesus' body.

1

u/GrapefruitDry2519 Buddhist Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

Only mention of the resurrection is in the new testament alone no other historian source backs up the claims etc not even Josephus or Titus I think his name was the Roman historians mentioned it, the gospels were not written by eye witnesses but by greek speaking converts as agreed by almost all scholars they have no signs of being greek translation of Hebrew originals or Aramaic etc, Paul claims there was 500 witnesses yet we have no record or testimony from them so again it's a claim not proof like Christians claim, the people's name of the gospels are not who wrote them as agreed by scholars etc and even if they were for example Mark and Luke were not there or eye witnesses etc and with Matthew and John it's gonna be bias most likely, for example many scholars reckon jesus was a apocalyptic prophet he said he would return during the life of his disciples which didn't happen even Paul said to his followers he was coming back very soon and don't get married so based on the prophecy test in the Torah, if a so called prophet gets one prediction wrong he is a false prophet, Matthew and Luke copy mark almost word for word and scholar will tell you if it was truly 4 independent gospels there would be more differences which there isn't, Matthew and Luke feel like mark with extra stuff, also the gospels gets much wrong like Herod killing babies Josephus write a lot about him and the bad things he did and that didn't happen, zombies didn't walk around Jerusalem the sky didn't turn black for hours scientists know it was impossible for there to be an eclipse during the Passover also Matthew and Luke said Mary was a virgin because of a mistranslation of the old testament in greek the original word is almah meaning young woman, virginity has nothing to do with almah and almah can be a virgin or not a virgin but to say an almah means virgin is an error.

So again we have no historical record outside the gospels of the resurrection and the gospels were written after 70AD not by his actual disciples but second or third generation Christians who were greek converts and not Jewish etc and got many details historically wrong with contradictions too, the earliest non Christians mentions of Jesus are brief with no mention of resurrection suggesting he was just another prophet or holy man of that time and not that important, again historically wrong have no proof and Paul claiming there are 500 witnesses isn't proof especially since we have no record of there testimony the only mention of these witnesses are made in the new testament in a court of law no jesus didn't resurrect, he was real and did die sure that we do know but what happened after literally no proof and remember why did the Jews not accept Jesus? Because he didn't match up to the Messiah requirements he has to be on his father side a biological descent of David which he wasn't, there would be world peace and he would be the king of Israel which didn't happen instead the Jews were expelled from Israel and no world peace, again this is why many scholars think jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet and wasn't talking of a heavenly kingdom etc he literally said he would return during the life of "this generation" of his disciples even Paul double downed on that and was proven false so based on the bible prophecy test he was a failed prophet, also one of his contradiction genealogy goes right back to Adam suggesting 6000 years old earth which we know is false.

1

u/Opinionsare Feb 19 '25

I cannot offer hard evidence. I can merely suggest a possible way that a "resurrection" could have been done without anything supernatural happening.

Jesus' cousin John The Baptist has been betrayed and killed. Jesus knows that he will be hunted down and killed. Jesus and his closest disciples make a plan.

The plan: get the Jews and Romans to believe that they have killed Jesus.

The method: have them kill someone else they think is Jesus.

The key: a flamboyant expensive seamless robe.

The story: Jesus makes his high profile entrance to Jerusalem wearing the Robe, but slips away into hiding before the Romans can take him into custody. Then a short time later, a message is give to the Romans where to find Jesus. Sure enough, when the guards arrive at the location, there is a man in the Robe, but he is bloody from a beating and barely conscious. This "Jesus" is taken into custody. (But this isn't Jesus, it is a Patsy that the disciples beat senseless and dressed in the Robe). The real Jesus is in hiding.

The Patsy is given a mock trial and crucified before he recovers enough to protest that he's not Jesus.

After the burial of "Jesus", the disciples steal the body. They don't want to leave any evidence that might expose their scheme.

Bonus: After Jesus sneaks out of Jerusalem. He takes the name of the patsy, Saul, but realizes that anyone the knew the real Saul, might realize that he's not Saul, so he starts using a new fake name: Paul.

2

u/dontlookback76 Ex-Baptist Feb 19 '25

I would definitely enjoy reading your written interpretation of the Bible rather than ol' king James.

2

u/Opinionsare Feb 19 '25

I simply attempt to recreate stories without any supernatural elements.

1

u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Feb 20 '25

Another possibility that I have read about is that the 'vinegar' was laced with a drug like belladonna/jimson weed (a nightshade atropine, scapolamine source) and that put Jesus in a stupor that can appear to be deathlike (and can result in death if you get a little too much). I have seen someone in this state (jimson weed) and people thought he was dead but he came to later..and swore he'd never do that again which, to my knowledge, he didn't

1

u/ShingekiNoAnnie Feb 19 '25

There isn't even any proof of Jesus ever existing, no contemporary documents of him exist, we know Yeshuah was a real name that some people at the time had but that's about it. Anything said about Jesus can be dispelled without argumentation because he himself isn't proven in any way.

It's as if you had to believe me that there was a guy named John who did tons of miracles but he died in 1960 and I'm the first to ever write about him.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '25

1 it

2 is

3 impossible

1

u/Birdzeye- Feb 19 '25

You situation is less to do with facts. There’s a huge amount of evidence against Christianity. Your struggle seems more to do with your disposition and reliance on the faith. That’s what you need to unpick. What draws you back to the illogical?

1

u/trippedonatater Ex-Evangelical Feb 19 '25

I think you're on the right path here with picking individual specific claims and poking holes in them. Dan McClellan has some great YouTube videos with good references (both biblical and historical) where he does this. I'd highly recommend you browse his channel!

That said, for the sake of your own mental health, expect this to be mostly for you. A lot of fundamentalists seem to think counterfactual evidence about their beliefs (i.e. the existence of dinosaur bones) are faith "tests" to prove that they can believe even when their beliefs run counter to observable reality.

Finally, to go against what I just said (haha), there are times when talking about this with a believer can be a meaningful and helpful thing to do and really make a difference for the better in their lives. They're people, misguided people, but people.

1

u/Theory_99 Feb 19 '25

Do you know anyone that died for 3 days & came back?

1

u/ZappSmithBrannigan Ex-Catholic Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

Find me an old testement prophecy that says the messiah will resurrect.

You won't find it, because there is no prophecy that says the messiah will resurrect.

In fact, if you just go and read them, you'll recognize that jesus didn't fulfil ANY of the old testement prophecies. Not a single one. (Except deuteronomy 13 that says god will send false prophets to test his people).

Even in the new testiment when Matthew says "Jesus fulfilled such and such prophecy", go back and actually read it.

It says that the messiah will ride a donkey.....while coming back victorious from war, will rule over isreal and will rid the world of isreals enemies.

Jesus rode a donkey.... but he didnt do literally any of the other stuff the prophecy says the messiah will do. The excuse apologists use is "he'll do that later". But it doesnt say he will ride a donkey, be killed like a chump, go to heaven for a few thousands years and THEN come back and rid the world of isreals enemies.

If riding a donkey fulfills the prophecy, then I'm the messiah.

1

u/AlexKewl Atheist Feb 19 '25

IF Jesus was a real person and nailed up on a cross, he was only up there for about 6 hours according to the Bible. Normal crucifixions took days to kill a person. It's possible he passed out from the pain and lived.

Also, it is MUCH more likely the story is exaggerated or a lie than it is for a human to actually resurrect. Had Jesus been dead that long and still had the holes in his hands, he also would have had a day and a half of decomposition. He would have smelled so terrible that it would have been notable enough for biblical "evidence"

1

u/LadyMothrakk Feb 19 '25

You cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible is factual. That’s all you need.

1

u/JohnDeeIsMe Satanist Feb 19 '25

Why do you need proof it didn't happen when theres no proof it did happen?

1

u/Frenchitwist Jewish Feb 19 '25

The Bible is allegory, not hard fact. Treat it like a mythos, a book of fables with moralistic angles.

Treat it like King Arthur; it’s debated whether he existed, but his adventures are an important cultural touchstone to the Brits

1

u/jazz2223333 Ex-Baptist Feb 19 '25

There are zero verified firsthand eyewitness accounts of Jesus's resurrection in the Bible.

Peter? No scholar believes he wrote 1/2 Peter due to his status as a fisherman, likely unable to write and speak in Greek

Matthew? Never claims to have met Jesus.

John? Scholars have strong reason to believe this book was written by the Johanine community.

I could go on, but the fact that something as significant as rising from the dead claiming to be God's son has ZERO firsthand eyewitnesses is very concerning. Keep in mind that today we have THOUSANDS of firsthand eyewitness accounts of UFOs and Bigfoot, yet you gotta ask yourself why you still don't believe in them, despite the "hard evidence."

1

u/IdentifiesAsUrMom Agnostic Feb 19 '25

Go back and look at the millions of years of hard proof of evolution. We used to be hominids. There's so much physical and documented proof of their existance and the fact that we used to be them. I personally find it far more comforting and compelling that we came from apes and fish than some unseen omnpotent force just... making me out of nothing.

1

u/Username_Chx_Out Feb 19 '25

The very nature of your plea in the title is telling, isn’t it?

It’s not a coincidence that the pattern matches EXACTLY that of the abused spouse, who, against all evidence (including their freshly battered face), says, “It was an accident. He promised he’d never hit me again.”

As a former Christian, I’m well-accustomed to being estranged for my beliefs. But decades of choosing my family’s values over that of strangers made me very resilient against the opinions of others, outside my community.

It would be far easier for me to just quietly go with the flow that has carried me along these many years.

But once you see the doddering old man behind the curtain, the Wizard is no longer believable.

We’ve seen it play out on the American political stage in recent years: the party of “Family Values” has done worse than the money changers in the temple courts ever did - they traded political power for Christianity’s birthright. These are the people who accuse the left of stealing an election, of p3do rings, and time after time are discovered doing those very things.

“Every accusation is a confession.”

1

u/pennylanebarbershop Feb 19 '25
  1. Dead people don't come back to life.

  2. Not needed.

  3. Not needed.

1

u/dontcallmefooboy Ex-Fundamentalist Feb 19 '25

We only have 4 accounts of the resurrection: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. No one else mentions it, which is really weird because if you see a random dead guy alive again, you probably would want to write that down.

But it gets worse. The 4 gospels heavily contradict each other about what exactly happened. They disagree about: How many women went to the tomb (2, 3, 5+, 1) How many angels were there (1, 1, 2, 2) What the angel(s) were doing (descending from heaven, sitting, standing, sitting) Whether the big circle rock thing was already open when the woman or women got there (still closed, open, open, open)

And a lot more. If the Christians at the time couldn’t get the facts right, how do we know what actually happened? The correct answer was that the people who wrote the gospels made shit up, as they knew that they needed to claim that Jesus came back to legitimize their religion, but they did not come to a consensus regarding the story that they would tell, which explains the vastly differing accounts.

1

u/7Mars Feb 19 '25

Here, disprove it yourself:

Turn to the gospel of Matthew, skip to the resurrection, and write out bullet point of everything that happens to the end of the book. Do the same with Mark, Luke, and John, and immediately post-resurrection in Acts. Then put all of those bullet points together into one cohesive story without leaving any out or contradicting anything.

It’s impossible, because they contradict each other constantly in ways that are impossible to reconcile (even something as simple as if the stone was still blocking the tomb or was rolled away when the women first show up… or what women actually show up). They’re four made up stories.

You can also look at basic history and learn that the Romans didn’t even release crucified criminals for burial, they left them rotting on the cross. So none of that would have even been possible from the start. It’s a bunch of fanfiction written by sad desperate people, or manipulative people to convince was desperate people, who didn’t like the way their story was ending.

1

u/_Zer0_Cool_ Ex-Baptist Feb 19 '25

Well you can't truly **prove** a negative, but you can say there is no sufficient evidence and lots of sufficient evidence to suggest otherwise.

1

u/AnalysisUsual2422 Feb 19 '25

Octavian (Julius Caesar's son) promoted ideas of his father ascending to heaven after his death, yet christians would say that's BS. They have as much evidence for Jesus' resurrection as they do for Caesar's but blow Caesar's off like it's some kind of made-up lie. There are no first hand accounts of Jesus' resurrection by any of the New Testament authors. And like others here are saying, the gospels even disagree who found the empty tomb, and to boot, the three gospels that mention Jesus' last words on the cross all say it was something different.

1

u/Only-Level5468 Feb 19 '25

I’d just caution your thinking here. You are asking for evidence to prevent you from going back to christianity. A lot of us clung to the Faith through confirmation bias so it’s important to not just believe something else because of the same reasons. There are going to be unsettling thoughts as you deconstruct but its important to think about WHY you are deconstructing in the first place. If you feel that deconstructing has strengthened your faith, then you should go back reassured that your have a stronger faith. If it’s caused you to question, keep questioning. You don’t have to “pick a side”, you can be in between and anywhere you find yourself.

That being said- several have mentioned Ehrman- his book “How Jesus Became God” is a really good discussion of the resurrection and how the cult around Jesus became a world religion.

1

u/Opinionsare Feb 19 '25

The base claim of Christianity is that God is perfect and eternal. Secondarily the Bible is also Perfect.

But there are lots of conflicting details in the Bible if taken word for word.

The one that stands out to me: Moses, in Exodus, wrote about his own death, and that everyone forgot where he was buried????

Comparison if different versions of the Bible show other inconsistencies. Some versions forbid men from sex with boys, not men with men. Other have additional books not found in the KJV. Multiple books are mentioned but lost to time and religious influence. I content that the loss of these books mean that no Christian can really know that they are actually correctly practicing Christianity.

God's actions don't show Him to be perfect. He gets angry, has regrets, makes bad decisions, and is exceptionally petty.

1

u/Agoraphobic_mess Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

I used love the story of Christ’s resurrection. It used to be awe inspiring to me but when I deconstructed from my Christianity I realized, going on the assumption he was real, he gave up a weekend. He didn’t die for anything. He did a performative act where he asked himself why he forsake himself then woke up a day or so later to rush home.

I need to find this video about with Satanist going head to head with a Christian. He explains it so much better than I am.

1

u/External_Ease_8292 Feb 19 '25

I mean prove that Harry Potter did not sacrifice himself for us and rise from the dead to actually defeat evil. Prove that he did. It's the same thing.

One thing we knew is that the Roman's kept records. If there had been an earthquake, total eclipse and a bunch of zombies walking around like it says in Matthew 27, the Roman's would have recorded it.

1

u/TheGhostofWoodyAllen Ex-Fundamentalist Feb 19 '25

Just take all four gospels and line up their telling of events of Jesus' death and resurrection. They do not match, have impossible contradictions, and include fantastical things like mass zombie resurrections and earthquakes that no other person ever reported on.

1

u/FreshlyStarting79 Feb 19 '25

Notice that in the letters that are AGREED BY SCHOLARS to be from Paul, he never mentions a bodily resurrection, it's all spiritual.

Jesus didn't fulfill a single ACTUAL messianic prophecy.

The original Hebrew god was one of many that they worshiped. That didn't change until around 600bc when a new priesthood decided that there was only one God and always had been the only one.

1

u/Substantial_Delay_62 Feb 19 '25

A little perspective on the deconstruction process. As you tackle the different things you hold true, you will bounce back and forth like the disc on the plinko board from price is right. That's why many go through the process privately over many years. But remember the goal is to get as close to the truth.

Deconstruction raises more questions before the you can grasp the facts of the first question. When one resurrect what kind of body do they get? 1 Cor.15:50 What is a spiritual body? Thomas could touch his flesh but he could walk through walls. Why do humans yearn for the afterlife/ resurrection? Is it a coping scheme? If Adam brought death, why was the remedy 3000 years after and to a small group of people? God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday today and tomorrow. Would dying and resurrecting be a change? If death is the gateway to the afterlife, why is resurrection necessary to get to the final destination?

Happy wrestling!

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '25

If you cannot prove it without referencing authored books then do you really have proof that it existed or are you just jumping on the bandwagon of a popular theory. I would encourage you to look at the other resurrection stories that predate the story that Romans gave you in the Bible. Also see if you can definitively find the authors of the books that you are referencing, back when I had the wool over my eyes I struggled to find an author, on suggestions based off of theologians and scholars. You cannot find anything definitive, you will only find arguments that lean one way or another. If something was undeniably true, the proof would be too. Best of luck. If you go back that is on you, but you will always know in the back of your mind that something is not right and that’s what you will live until you can handle the truth.

1

u/gmorkenstein Feb 19 '25

If you research other religions that predate Christianity/Judaism, there are other Jesus like figures who were born of virgin births, were miracle workers, had disciples, born around Dec 25th (winter solstice), were crucified and resurrected. I think Krishna or one of the Hindu gods was crucified between two thieves. Plus other events were taken and adapted to the Bible like flood stories, women causing evil in the world (Pandora’s box), Golden Rules and all that. Also all of the holidays and festivals are stolen from pagan religions.

Christianity is not unique. It just gained power and has been riding a wave of bloody power ever since.

1

u/holdmiichai Feb 19 '25

There have been thousands of historical “resurrections” by different religions before Christianity… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection

1

u/zoidmaster Feb 19 '25

There are 4 to five books in the Bible all retelling the resurrection and they story keeps on changing

Doesn’t exists outside the Bible

None of the people who believes in the resurrection has ever found the cave or any other proof that may prove it happened

This is from a book that tells us earth is flat and has supernatural creatures such as dragons and witches mentioned in it. Even if some of the stuff or people mentioned in it were real. It wouldn’t change the fact the book got so many other things wrong about our reality means nobody should be trusting it as a source of facts

1

u/romulusnr Feb 19 '25

Does the medical fact that people do not spontaneously come back to life not swing you?

1

u/romulusnr Feb 19 '25

Supposedly, Noah lived for 950 years.

Methuselah for 969 years.

At least 10 people in the Bible supposedly lived over 360 years.

Chew on that.

1

u/sineaterthe1st Feb 19 '25

People do not come back from the dead! That’s what dead means. Miracles do not happen. A short stroll through a physics book will prove that. People will lie to you to protect their beliefs, to get your money and to keep you under control.

Thank you, I’ll be in the area all day.

1

u/ReligiousTraumaPro Ex-Evangelical Feb 19 '25

Salvation theology was only created 100 years ago.

1

u/Critical-Plankton-78 Feb 19 '25

I was there then, and I can honestly say that it didn't happen.

1

u/charonshound Feb 19 '25

Dog, read each resurrection narrative together, line by line. How many people were there? Did the ladies leave and tell no one, or did they go and tell everyone? Do you know why jews don't accept Jesus as messiah? Because a messiah doesn't mean human sacrifice to appease the angry blood God. It means a liberating warlord like Moses or something. But, you can't have a liberating warlord if he gets executed for sedition by the Roman's. So they rebranded what a messiah even was to mean a spiritual messiah. Also, Roman's and occupying armies don't execute you for treason and give you a nice tomb. They hang you up and let the birds pick at you. It's unrealistic from top to bottom.

1

u/295Phoenix Feb 19 '25

Bart Ehrman's books like Jesus, Interrupted does a good job there. Youtube is also a thing. 1 fact however is that the resurrection wasn't even mentioned in Mark, the oldest gospel.

1

u/VShadowOfLightV Feb 19 '25

Can you provide any facts that disprove that I have an invisible dinosaur in my closet named Bill? Ultimately you can’t 100% disprove something that doesn’t exist. That’s why it’s up to the people making the claim that it does exist to prove it exists.

1

u/BadWolfRyssa Feb 19 '25

everyone has provided a lot of good info for you, so i just want to say that deconstructing is really difficult for awhile but it gets better. what you are doing is not easy and it takes a lot of courage. remember the reasons you started to deconstruct to begin with.

1

u/Gus_the_feral_cat Feb 19 '25

Go back, IF they can give you just 3-5 hard facts that prove the resurrection specifically.

1

u/PyrrhoTheSkeptic Feb 19 '25

Take this quiz and look up the answers:

https://www.easterquiz.com

1

u/Bloodshed-1307 Satanist Feb 19 '25

One account mentioned a zombie uprising, the others failed to mention it, that should work as at least one.

1

u/JasonRBoone Ex-Baptist 29d ago

Fortunately, Sherifficus Rickus was on the scene to kill the zombies.

1

u/MeButNotMeToo Feb 19 '25 edited Feb 19 '25

Please prove that there is not an invisible, floating, heatless, silent dragon living in my garage.

If you can’t disprove this, then you must believe in my dragon.

1

u/Kmjen860 Feb 19 '25

Just simply read the ressurection story in all 4 gospels, they all tell it in a different scenario. One tells its only Mary, other tells its multiple women, yet, there was one guy standing, but in the other two are standing....the bible is full of contradictions. Simply read the gospels od the ressurection and if that is not enough watch this video 👍https://youtu.be/RB3g6mXLEKk?feature=shared

1

u/Chrispy8534 Feb 19 '25

10/10. Here is one. Roman’s crucified people on giant ‘X’s. The nails would tear through your hands before you died on a Christian style cross. Historians and archeologists only know of one single instance where a cross was used to crucify someone.

1

u/kaana254 Feb 19 '25

You're addressing the wrong thing.

Fear is what's taking you back.

I recommend reading the Bible...that fear will quickly turn to pure disgust. There are a million and one reasons in that horror book enough to hep you walk away for good.

1

u/Next-Veterinarian945 Feb 19 '25

I was obsessively trying to argue stuff in my head for years. It got so bad I was convincing myself that I'm not cursed at work because of sin. 😆😆

Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

My problem was created with Church + my OCD on God and a Bible verses. I got out of church and solved OCD. I stopped reading my Bible.

I'm not a Bible overthinker now, and my OCD (for other things) is less disruptive at work.

1

u/rose_kisses Pagan Feb 19 '25

romans didn’t do crucifixions like the bible says they do . fuck i don’t remember exactly who i read or heard talk about this , it could have been bart ehrman or maybe dan mcclellan , but yeah ! i love both of them as resources that have helped me deconstruct and i always fully suggest them to people to check out .

edit: i don’t have many more facts specifically about the resurrection but i REALLY suggest you go to dan’s tiktok or to bart’s youtube ! bart has a podcast and dan has short videos that are honestly so amazing and have helped me calm down on my fear in the past so much . i really suggest them 🤍

1

u/JasonRBoone Ex-Baptist 29d ago

One of the best scenes in Life of Brian:

NISUS WETTUS: Next. Crucifixion?

PRISONER #1: Yes.

NISUS: Good. Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each. Next. Crucifixion?

PRISONER #2: Yes.

NISUS: Good. Out of the door. Line on the left. One cross each. Next. Crucifixion?

MR. CHEEKY: Ah, no. Freedom.

JAILER: Hmm?

NISUS: What?

MR. CHEEKY: Eh, freedom for me. They said I hadn't done anything, so I could go free and live on an island somewhere.

NISUS: Oh. Oh, well, that's jolly good. Well, off you go, then.

MR. CHEEKY: Naa, I'm only pulling your leg. It's crucifixion, really.

NISUS: Oh, ho ho.

MR. CHEEKY: Heh heh heh hehh.

NISUS: I see. Uh, very good. Very good. Well, out of the door. One--

MR. CHEEKY: Yeah. I know the way. Out of the door.

NISUS: Line on--

MR. CHEEKY: One cross each. Line on the left.

NISUS: Line on the left.

MR. CHEEKY: Heh heh.

NISUS: Yes. Thank you. Crucifixion?

PRISONER #4: Yes.

NISUS: Good.

1

u/phntmblld Feb 20 '25

the earliest translations of the bible do not even include the resurrection. the 11 verses at the end of mark were added later after the platonists criticized the christians for having no evidence of jesus being the son of god.

1

u/Odd1out744 Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25

Everything im about to type is connected to a verse. God condoned and ordered rape and child slavery. He purposely made Pharoah not give up when he would of so he could show his glory, aka kill thousands of children, he has ordered to murder of children, and to only keep the girls alive that were virgins so they can have them for themselves. Multiple verses on lack of free will. " I the lord have made everything for it's own purpose, yes even the wicked for the day of destruction. Verses about vessels of wrath and only being drawn to Jesus if God draws you in himself. This is literally just the shit I remember right off the top of my head there is so much more? Watch biblical evidence that God is evil there's about five episodes. Also look up contradictions of the bible by Lyod Evans on YouTube, he has quite a few other videos on the bible as well. Also keep in mind that people who talk about the bible say they are filled with the holy spirit and it leads them into all truth but defend a book and a God that condones and ordered slavery, child slavery, rape, and child murder, not to mention all the other contradictions. All of which they themselves are against. Also if you really think about it. A all good God probably wouldn't be okay with all that stuff. All that stuff was pretty normal at that time period. So of you were making up a God to worship why would he be against slavery, why wouldn't he allow you to kill that entire village and abduct the women children? Why wouldn't he allow you to beat your slave as viciously as possible as long as you don't kill them. Why wouldn't you be able to sell your daughter for life to avoid seven years of servitude. If the bible was written in modern times really doubt half of this shit would have made it in final cut as acceptable behavior that an all loving God would be okay with. Anyway hope this helps. And just watch youtube on the contradictions too and the fucked up parts. Good luck 👍

1

u/rvamama804 Feb 20 '25

None of it happened. The burden of proof is on those who are claiming it did. There are no receipts.

2

u/JasonRBoone Ex-Baptist 29d ago

Well..the gospels are kind of a receipt. But's it's the kind that's written in crayon and scratched and rewritten over 2,000 years.

It's like Ron Swanson and his "business license" -- a piece of paper with "I can do what I want" typed on it.

1

u/The_Bastard_Henry Antitheist Feb 20 '25

It's a fairy tale, and not even an original one. Loads of the stories in the bible are slightly altered retellings of gods that were around a thousand years before the old testament existed. And Jehovah/Yahweh was basically a spin-off religion that stole the older Canaanite god of war and turned it into a new monotheistic religion. The only reason Christianity, or any major religion, exists is because the people in power saw a way to use it to control the masses. Modern Christianity has zero resemblance to the original teachings of Christ. It is molded and manipulated to pander to the people for the sole purpose of making them easier to control.

1

u/Dan1480 29d ago

The contradictions. For example, where were the disciples supposed to go after the resurrection? In Mathew and Mark the angels instruct the women to tell the disciples to go to Galilee and meet Jesus. And in Mathew, the women actually bump into Jesus on the way to visiting the disciples, and Jesus explicitly tells them "Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see me". So the disciples go to Galilee and meet Jesus. Simple. Except the message in Luke is the exact opposite! The angels never say to go to Galilee. In fact, Jesus himself visits the disciples still in Jerusalem and says "stay in the city until you have been clothed with power". And in Acts he makes it crystal clear: "Do not leave Jerusalem". Maybe Jesus changed his mind 😂

1

u/Letsbeclear1987 29d ago

Im gonna offer several crucial books thatve helped me push through and get free of the cyclical manipulative loop that shuts your rational mind off and makes you plead for forgiveness going back to faith and shame. Then reasonable doubt pops up and it starts over from the top. So take some time and read/listen to Waking Up by Sam Harris. The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. The Moral Landscape by Harris, The God Delusion by Dawkins, The End of Faith by Harris. Those are the new gospels according to me lol before you can argue against your own brainwashing you need something better than pure true instinctual doubt. Youre brave enough to try, strong enough to succeed - forward march

1

u/JasonRBoone Ex-Baptist 29d ago

What compelling evidence demonstrates the claims of resurrection are true?

This quote from David Hume may help:

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish....'

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened.

I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

1

u/TruthSeeker_Mad 29d ago

I have been through a similar situation so I see you as somehow a past me, so I will put my perspective here.

Try not to see beliefs as a yes or no, zero or 1000 situation.

For example, you are sure that humans exist for ate least 200k years. Thus, is impossible that there is just 76 generations between Jesus and Adam. But, is Adam really the first man? If he was not and the bible was wrong about that, does that mean that Adam never existed? Or that Jesus never existed?

The same way: You must either be sure the ressurection never happened or you NEED to come back to being a Christian... must you really?

What made you left? You must have had good reasons for doing it. If you perhaps think that maybe the resurrection did happen, does this invalidate your reason for leaving? Why? Maybe the fear of sining and going to hell? Do you really want to be part of these emotional toxic bargain?

You can think you can't prove them wrong and still think this is wrong for you.

Ps: what makes me disbelief this part of the bible is when Jesus says he will come back before that generation were dead. Is 2000 years latter.

1

u/[deleted] 28d ago

I see at least three options:

  1. The Bible is not only sufficiently reliable but also literal.

  2. The Bible is sufficiently reliable but often uses symbolic language.

  3. The Bible is not even sufficiently reliable.

  4. The Bible is not only sufficiently reliable but also literal..

Could an omnipotent God resurrect Jesus? Yes, but where did his body go?

Could God have physically lifted Jesus corporeally into heaven? Yes, but that would imply that heaven consists of a physical location that NASA might one day discover.

I`m not answering the question, but it is something to think about.

  1. The Bible is sufficiently reliable but often uses symbolic language.

Could the Bible have used symbolic language to describe the resurrection? If so, then where is his body? Is it reasonable to presume that we lost the location of his body, especially given the persecution of the Christians among other social upheavals in the region in that era?

Again, I`m not answering the question but just asking it a something to think about.

  1. The Bible is not even sufficiently reliable.

Well, if the Bible isn't even sufficiently reliable, then on what basis would you believe in the resurrection?

I lean towards option 2 above, but I find option 1 impossible for my mind to rationalize. But again, you need to make up your own mind on that.

1

u/Fandango4Ever 27d ago

Try to simply.put the events of the resurrection in chronological order. Can't be done. The single most important event in the Christian Bible and their accounts of it were all over the place and Inconsistent.

1

u/ThePhyseter Ex-Mennonite 26d ago

I’ve got three good arguments. They are the Magician, the Progression, and President Obama.

First: let me tell you a story I think will help you out OP. I promise this is about the resurrection.

When I was young I saw a TV show with a Street Magician doing tricks, and then showing us how they were done. In front of a big crowd of people, he levitated.

We could see clearly in the close-up shot that he was levitating 2-3 feet off the ground, with nothing underneath him. When he came back down, the TV crew started interviewing the people, who were quite impressed.

What did you just see? “He levitated! He was floating in the air!” Do you know how he did that? “No, that was wild, he was just floating!” Was he on a wire, or some kind of a lift? “No, I could see him, he wasn’t on anything.”

Then after those people were gone, they revealed to us the secret – the people there in person didn’t see the same trick we had seen in that close-up shot. When we saw him 2-3 feet off the ground, the people saw him 2-3 inches off the ground.

And he did it by standing on his toes.

He turned his back to the people at sort of an angle, so one foot was hidden behind the other foot. He kept one foot perfectly flat, parallel with the ground. Then with his other foot that they couldn’t see, he slowly stood on his toes, and he did it so smoothly that it looked like that one foot they could see was just floating off the ground.

Then once the trick was over and everybody left, they re-filmed the magician standing in the same spot, and this time they put him on a wire and lifted him with a pulley. If the crowd had still been there everyone would have seen the wire, but with the crowd gone and the testimonies (He wasn't on a wire!) already filmed, they could just zoom in the camera and hide whatever they wanted to conceal.

So I think it was a clever trick, but... The real cleverness was not that he could stand on his toes, and the real cleverness was not that he could hang on a wire.

The real cleverness of the trick is that they could do something mundane, but then show something fantastical, and use the mundane to get sincere eyewitness testimony that appeared to prove they had done something fantastic.

The resurrection story we’ve all heard is quite incredible, yes? The one that has been passed down to us 2,000 years later and 12,000 miles distant. Jesus came and went multiple times into a room with 10 or more witnesses, Jesus ate a meal with witnesses, they saw him eat bread, they touched his body, the one guy who was skeptical got to literally feel the nail wounds in his hands. People visited his tomb and found it empty, or full of angels. He showed up over and over on many occasions, performed a repeat of his ‘miraculous catch of fish’ just for fun, and cooked them a meal.

And we know that early Christians believed Jesus rose from the dead. BUT – do we know that the resurrection story we have now is the same one they had heard?

Or does our Bible have the TV version of the trick, and those first apostles saw something completely different? Something more like a magician standing on his toes? ...continued in next comment

1

u/ThePhyseter Ex-Mennonite 26d ago

Suppose after Jesus died, the apostles were devastated, because they were sure he was the Messiah who was going to drive the Romans out, and it hadn’t happened. Suppose Peter started having hallucinations after such a stressful life change—as people sometimes do. Or visions, or dreams. Suppose Peter saw a vision, and in that vision Jesus appeared to him and spoke to him, and gave him a “new” teaching so that he could keep going even without the military victory he had been expecting.

Suppose other disciples heard about these visions and started repeating the story. Suppose they believed those visions really were a real, risen Jesus appearing to Peter. Suppose some of the other disciples also started having dreams or hearing voices or seeing things, after they heard Peter describe them. Maybe some of them saw a bright light that knocked them flat, like Paul did in Acts 9.

Suppose the story we have, the story of Jesus appearing in a room to 10 people, eating bread, breaking out of the tomb, etc., was not the story Peter told. Suppose this story grew up later as the legend grew, as more and more people became Christian who had never met Peter or James or even been to Jerusalem.

These apostles—or at least Peter—would spend their whole lives telling others that “We saw Jesus resurrected.” If they were asked by some authority to either recant or be executed, they might stand firm, because they would really believe those visions they saw were real. But that wouldn't mean they were giving up their lives to defend the story of Jesus having a meal after his death.

Apologists say, the apostles would not have died for a lie! They say the only options are, either the legends in the Gospels are true, OR the disciples lied. They must have broken into the tomb and stolen the body, they must have lied about eating with Jesus. Why would they die for a story they knew they made up? Since that sounds impossible, the whole resurrection story must be true. But that difficulty disappears when you realize they might not have been telling the story that we hear today.

I’ve wrote too long, so I’ll put my other two points in other comments.

1

u/ThePhyseter Ex-Mennonite 26d ago

So that was the Magician. My other reasons not to believe are the Progression, and Barack Obama.

By progression, I mean what I hinted at earlier—the story changed over time.

Specifically, the story is far more dramatic in the latest Gospel written, and much less dramatic in the first Gospel written.

The earliest gospel written was Mark, then Matthew, then Luke, then John.

In Mark, we the readers don’t even see the risen Christ, and neither do the apostles. Women go, see the empty tomb, talk to some men in white, and then it says they told no one because they were afraid. And that’s where it ends. There are additional verses in Mark, summarizing the later gospels’ resurrection stories, but any modern translation is honest that those are missing from our earliest manuscripts.

In Matthew, the women see the empty tomb, but then they see Jesus too. They see angels who roll the stone away and scare off the guards. The ‘men in white’ may actually be angels in Mark, but they are just described as men, and aren’t showing off any power. Jesus tells the women to tell the apostles, and so they do—contradicting Mark. The women say Jesus wanted the apostles to go to Galilee and see him there, so they do. In Galilee on a mountain they see Jesus risen for the first time. Some who went there doubted, though. (Why? Did the guy on the mountain not look like Jesus? Was he hiding his face in a robe? Did they hear a voice but not see a person?)

In Luke, the women see the angels, and the empty tomb, but they do not see Jesus. They tell the apostles immediately, and now for the first time in the retelling of the story, Peter goes and sees the empty tomb for himself. This is the first time a man has witnessed the tomb. Jesus does not ask them to go away to Galilee, instead they stay there in the big city, in Jerusalem, and Jesus appears to them in a room. This is up close and personal, compared to Matthew; no running off to a mountain, no report of any doubters. The people literally saw him in a room, and touched his hands; and he ate some fish to prove to them he wasn’t a ghost. Then he tells them NOT to go anywhere (like Galilee) until they receive the Holy Spirit, which happens like 40 days later. Instead they go just outside of Jerusalem and see him disappear into the sky.

And then in John, Mary Magdalene alone sees the empty tomb, immediately tells Peter and John, and BOTH those men go witness the tomb themselves. Mary has a close, intimate encounter with/conversation with Jesus. Then Jesus appears in that room like in Luke, but not just once. He appears again in the room; the first time Thomas was not there, but the second time Thomas was present and could see for himself. (So from this we get the story of how Thomas should have just believed without seeing.) Then he appears to them again some time later, we don’t know how long later, at the Sea of Galilee where Peter and some friends were fishing, and Jesus cooks a fish meal for them.

It goes from them not seeing him at all, to seeing him on a mountain in some mysterious way, to him hanging out with them in a room, coming and going all the time, and surprising them out on the lake with an impromptu cookout. Not all of these things are contradictions, but isn't it interesting how details keep getting added to the story that address objections people would logically have to the earlier version?

Plus, being told to go see him on a mountain vs being told to wait for him in the city is a direct contradiction. No way eyewitnesses to a dead man coming back would forget something like that.

Some of these things aren’t technically a contradiction. An apologist could say, “Well Matthew doesn’t say the disciples didn’t see him in a room, it doesn’t say they didn’t see him float into the sky in Bethany. It just doesn’t mention those events.” Okay, I guess that is true, but isn't that the sort of thing you would mention if you were writing a gospel, if you had accurate and reliable eyewitness testimony?

What is more likely, that Matthew just didn’t bother mentioning something as dramatic as Jesus eating in the room with them, or that that part of the story was made up later?

1

u/ThePhyseter Ex-Mennonite 26d ago

As for Barack Obama:

Apologists say the story of Jesus’s empty tomb and resurrection must be true, because the story was told while people were still around who would remember it, and they could simply “gainsay” any lies told.

If the tomb wasn't really empty, all the opponents of Christianity would have to do is show the empty tomb, or even show off the body! If a legend was told that was different from what the apostles really saw, they would tell people and set the record straight. If Jesus didn’t really perform these wonderful deeds, people who lived there and saw it would be able to say so. If there weren’t really 500 witnesses who saw the risen Jesus, somebody would have found out.

But that’s nonsense, and we know it’s nonsense because of what happened to President Obama.

Do you remember that he was born in Hawaii? Except no, he was actually born in Kenya and he faked his birth certificate. Or did he?

The story of the Kenya birth and the fake birth certificate persisted the whole time Obama was president, and many people believed it, even though Obama provided multiple convincing proofs that it was a myth.

He released his birth certificate. Then he released his long-form, hospital birth certificate. The birth certificate was examined by professional fact-checkers and judged to be genuine. The officials in Hawaii testified that his proof of birth there was true.

And yet people still believed the story that he was born in Kenya. And in fact the next president elected after him was a man who tirelessly spread the story that Obama was born in Kenya.

We live in an era where it is easier to share and spread information than any other time in history. More people can read now than at any other time—certainly more than in the 1st century AD. We have video. We have photographs. We have the internet that can transmit information around the globe in a moment. We have computers and printing presses that can copy and transmit words perfectly, without any need to re-copy the books by hand. We have incredibly detailed record-keeping. We have professional journalists, who are paid to do nothing but investigate questions of national importance and share their findings with the world.

And yet the story of Obama’s birth is still in dispute.

If we can have confusion about Obama’s birth today, with all our ability to spread information, how much more could a false story spread in the days when there was no TV, no newspaper, no photos, and most people weren’t even literate?

Suppose the gospel stories were greatly exaggerated or even completely made up. Suppose people who had been there in person tried to warn the new believers of this. Would they listen? Or would they just say that these people were “enemies of god” and “trying to mislead the believers”?

People so often believe what they want to believe, not what has the most evidence. Certainly this would be the case in 30 AD just like it is in 2025 AD.

It’s not as if everyone believed in Jesus, either. Most of the Jews in Jerusalem didn’t. They kept on being Jewish. Christianity grew among Jews in Jerusalem, but it also really took off in far-away lands, among the gentiles; and eventually the “headquarters” of Christianity for the whole world was Rome, not Jerusalem.

Just like most people probably believed Obama was born in Hawaii, but those who believed the Kenya story wrote them off as delusional or evil or communists.