Did the Resurrection Actually Happen? Not Likely

In his article for The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-10/10-reasons-the-resurrection-really-happened/) Jeffrey Hart gives 10 reasons as to why he believes the resurrection of Jesus did take place. As he points out, the resurrection is key to Christianity itself.

The first six reasons are dedicated to proving that a man was in fact crucified and wrapped in the Shroud of Turin.

1. Pollen does not decay. And ancient pollen in the linen cloth indicates the origin of this linen cloth in Jerusalem and also traces its journey from Jerusalem from the Middle East through Europe. It is almost impossible that forgery could accomplish this. (David Hume: Call your office.)

2. The body was laid on the cloth and the remainder of the cloth folded over the body to produce front and back images of the man.

3. A startling fact: The image of the man on the Shroud turns out to be a photographic negative. When photographed it became a positive. Again, this seems to rule out an ancient forgery, that is, long before the invention of photography.

4. In most modern representations of the Crucifixion, the nails are shown as going through the palms. But as this image shows, the nails actually went through an aperture in the wrists. Had the nails gone through the palms, they would not have sustained body weight and would have torn through the flesh, the body falling from the cross. Execution required that the man die on the cross from lack of oxygen as he repeatedly tried to raise his body on the nails in order to breathe. Execution was slow.

5. Wounds on the back of the body indicate flogging by the Roman flagrum—metal weights attached to leather cords wielded by a wooden handle.

6. Had the image been painted on the cloth by a forger, the paint traces of the pigment would have remained on the surface. The color here penetrates the cloth evenly from one side to another. Note: In this, it is more like a scorch.

Aside from the fact that these reasons have nothing to do with a resurrection itself, (maybe Mr. Hart should rename this to 4 reasons the resurrection really happened, though in a moment we'll see that even this wouldn't be an appropriate title). It does nothing to suggest that the person executed was in fact Jesus. Mr. Hart does address this objection in his next point,


7. An objection: The Romans executed many men this way. Indeed, two criminals were executed that day along with Jesus. Could this shroud be that of another similarly executed man? It’s very unlikely. Crucifixion was disgraceful and an expression of contempt for the criminal. It is unlikely that the family or friends of a man of that sort would have wrapped his body in an expensive linen cloth—or that such a cloth would have been saved later on and made its way from the Middle East across Europe. Representations of Jesus in art reflect a knowledge of the Shroud by European artists.

This point still doesn't actually prove that the man wrapped in the shroud was the divine son of God, all it proves was that someone of importance, was crucified, and that there were those who still cared for him enough to wrap him in expensive linen cloth. It seems to me that Mr. Hart is simply making (pardon the pun) leaps of faith to conclude that the man who was executed was Jesus, which so far from his arguments has not been proven.

The next argument, to me, feels like it shouldn't even bother being argued but here it goes.

8. Ian Wilson concludes that the image on the cloth is a “paranormal” phenomenon. That is, not made by hands. But how?

Mentioning the "paranormal" in the same article as empirical evidence (defined as derived from or guided by experience or experiment) should not be allowed as a "reason" or reasonable thinking for that matter.

9. Speculation: The scorch might have been made by radioactivity attendant upon the resurrection. Whether or not it is pertinent, the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe produced measurable radiation that determines that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. If the scorch on the Shroud is the result of radiation, it could have been radiation that reconstituted the dead body. But that is merely speculation.

What's wrong with this argument. The first word, "speculation" again I believe Mr. Hart does not know the meaning of the word empirical evidence. However, I will still address the argument of this point, rather than simply argue over the meaning of a word again. Reconstituted is defined as "to constitute again; reconstruct; recompose." At first I assumed that Mr. Hart was saying radiation caused the resurrection, of course this is beyond foolish, and foolish for me to initially think that. No, I believe what Mr. Hart is saying is that radiation is what caused the supposed image of Jesus to be burned into the shroud. There is no doubt that an image of a man was burned into the shroud but, that doesn't mean it was Jesus wrapped in that shroud.
A quick Google search of "Radiation+Resurrection" brought up the site, "Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation" (http://www.resurrectionoftheshroud.com/). The first line that jumped out me on this site was, "These test results have revealed that the Shroud contains the most unprecedented body images and blood marks in the world whose features literally defy the laws of physics and chemistry. Interestingly, modern science has only been able to discover and illustrate many of the shroud's unique features, but it has not come close to duplicating them." I have two problems with this statement,1) How can body images and blood marks defy the laws of physics and chemistry? I suppose this would be running on the assumption, once again, of Jesus'divinity. How could his body defy the law of physics? Was he not depicted in the Gospels as a man? It would be hard to defy any laws of physics then. Any scientist who discovers something that defies the laws of physics and chemistry, and then jumps to the conclusion that it could be work of the divine, might want to stop calling themselves scientists. 2) The fact that scientists have not be able to duplicate the shrouds features, should not be taken as evidence that it is the work of an outer-world entity. I believe scientists have tried to rebuild the pyramids, they couldn't. Most rational people did not leap to the conclusion that the pyramids were the work of outside forces.

Now onto the final point, the one that tries to prove that the shroud came from the time of Jesus' execution.

10. Ian Wilson’s book appeared in 1978. In 1988, carbon 14 tests were conducted indicating a medieval date for the Shroud. But that result is controversial and almost certainly wrong, for reasons cited above. In fact, along its journey to Turin, the Shroud was in a church that was the scene of a fire, and that could have corrupted the carbon dating.

I am willing to accept that the carbon dating is wrong. However, proving that it was from the time of Jesus' execution is not enough to say that he was resurrected, crucified yes, perhaps, but resurrected certainly not.

Mr. Hart's reasons, do not give evidence, let alone empirical evidence, that the resurrection actually took place. What they give evidence for is that a man of importance was crucified somewhere between the early A.D.s and medieval times. I feel that people who actually accept these arguments as reasons for the resurrection are simply filling in the gaps with the conclusion that it must have been the holy son, empirical evidence does not allow for such leaps.

America was not Founded on Christian Ideas

I watched a debate today between Christopher Hitchens and Ken Blackwell on the issue of whether or not America was founded on Christian ideas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJNsWN-QGW8). While I'm not going to discuss the debate dircetly, I am going to discuss the main issue of the debate.

62% of Americans believe that the U.S. is a Christian nation according to a recent Newsweek poll. To put things nicely, 62% of Americans are not aware of their country's history and what their founding fathers declared. The Declaration of Independence (http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm linked here so that you can be sure I'm not making anything up) does make mention to "Nature's God" and that "men...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." It does not make any direct references to Christianity. Nature's God and Creator could be interpreted as many things, technically speaking it could refer to Nature itself and the natural processes by which we came into existence.

The Declaration goes on to mention of the tyranny of the King of Britain. A man who had absolute power and control over his people. It would seem to me that those founding a country that is supposed to be free from such tyrannical rule would not found the country in the name of any single religion. We have recently seen what happens when a country is allowed to be controlled by religious ideals. In Afghanistan the government has considered the legalizing of rape of women within marriage all to appeal to the religious. Let's not forget Saudi Arabia, where a woman can be punished because she was the one who was raped. Religious control of a country breeds the tyranny the founding fathers fought against.

New World Order? Sort Of

The far-right has been talking about the possibility of a One World Government lately and you know what? They're right, sort of. While we aren't moving towards the age of one government that runs the entire world and makes decisions that affect everyone on the plant, we are moving towards an age in which efforts of governments around the world are becoming much more co-ordinated.

The recent G20 meeting is the best example of this trend. Leaders from around the world gathered to create a global plan to deal with the global economic recession. Our economy is globalized, why shouldn't our governments behave that way? It is becoming increasingly necessary for governments to co-ordinate their efforts.

The US government recently announced it's plan to guarantee the warranties on all Chrysler and GM vehicles. Today the Canadian government announced the same plan. GM and Chrysler operate in both Canada and the US. If we want them to remain successful in both countries, it only makes sense that the governments of the two countries act together in order to solve the problem, which brings us back to the economic recession. The recession is global, the only way to solve a global problem is to act globally.

The far-right will likely shudder at the thought of many governments acting as one and while it is likely true that there can be no one-size fits all plan (even the G20 agreement seems to have been the result of compromise), it is the best way to go about solving the crisis. A global effort to fix a global problem will not lead to One World Government. I do not believe that any G20 leader is considering such an idea, they simply wish to act together on the economy. Such an act is certainly not a surrender of a nation's sovereignty.

Is This What We're Fighting For?

If you've been following the news over the past day, then no doubt you have heard about this, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/31/hamid-karzai-afghanistan-law. All the efforts that have been made to improve women's rights in Afghanistan could be undone so that Hamid Karzai can win more votes in the upcoming election. Karzai plans to introduce laws that would "legalize rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission." In this day and age, such a law, is absolutely unacceptable. However, as the Guardian notes, "Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was "worse than during the Taliban". "Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam." In fact, the laws are meant to appeal to a small minority group within the country that happens to have a lot of political power. I do not think we should concern ourselves with the thought that speaking out against these laws might offend a minority group. If your beliefs include the idea that a woman can be raped, then something is very very wrong. Of course,

"The international community has so far shied away from publicly questioning such a politically sensitive issue.It is going to be tricky to change because it gets us into territory of being accused of not respecting Afghan culture, which is always difficult," a western diplomat in Kabul admitted"

This issue, that criticizing these laws may be disrespectful to Afghan culture, does bring up another point. It proves that, while our leaders in the West seem to be focused on bringing Western style democracy into Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan (at least those with power) are not concerned, and do not want the West to do what it is trying to do. I believe this leaves two options, 1) Karzai resigns at the request of NATO and a government that truly represents the majority of the Afghan people is brought in, 2)We in the West come to the realization that trying to introduce our lifestyle and cultural attitudes into another country is foolish. There is no point in sending soldiers to die in a country where the leaders are pushing to enact the very laws that have been fought against for the past 8 years.

Update: There were protests recently in which many women were actually in support of the new law. Religion sure can twist your mind and prevent you from thinking logically.