Sunday School Question - Week #2

da, your question of the week is largely reproduced from a post which I published on May 17, 2009. Here it is:

I have to admire the frankness of Paul the Apostle who admitted that belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus is fundamental to faith in Christianity:

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 1 Corinthians 15:14 (KJV)

Christians pay little attention to the historical record surrounding this supposedly miraculous event. Now let's be clear on what they believe: Jesus was crucified and was dead as a doornail on Good Friday. He remained dead on Holy Saturday and presumably started to rot as he lay in his tomb. He then rose from the dead sometime on Easter Sunday.

The first written account (Mark 16) of the supposed resurrection was not written until around 70 AD. If you research this point, you will discover two pivotal facts:

1. Jewish prophets had been promising the arrival of a messiah for hundreds of years prior to the crucifixion of Jesus.

2. The earliest manuscripts of Mark 16 break off abruptly at 16:8, where the men at the empty tomb announce Jesus' resurrection, lacking post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. The modern text of Mark 16:9–20 does not appear in the earliest manuscripts. In other words, it appears that the myth of Jesus' resurrection evolved many decades after the supposed event.

However, let's assume that you are still willing to believe that it happened. My question is why are you unwilling to believe that ALL of the following occurrences are true as well:

1. That the prophet Muhammed ascended to heaven on a winged horse.

2. That an angel named Moroni (also resurrected, by the way) appeared to Joseph Smith Jr. and assisted him translate the Book of Mormon from ancient egyptian written on gold plates.

3. That 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes. The thetans (i.e. souls) then clustered together, stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to do this today. You might recognize this as one of the core beliefs of Scientologists.

4. Castrating oneself is the only true path to salvation - see the Skoptsy sect.

5. Transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope.

6. Blood transfusions should not be used under any circumstances in medical treatment.

7. That eating figs is wrong because God hates them: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/figs.html

8. Everything and everyone are just figments of your imagination (i.e. solopsism). You are God and you are truly alone.

da, if you are willing to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, why aren't willing to believe #'s 1 -8? Why are any of them any less probable?