Easter is approaching, but skeptic John Loftus doesn’t believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. What’s more, he thinks you’re delusional if you do. I happen to believe in the Resurrection, but I freely admit that I might be mistaken. I think Loftus is wrong, and his case against the Resurrection is statistically flawed; however, I don’t think he’s delusional. In today’s post, I’d like to summarize the key issues at stake here, before going on to explain why I think reasonable people might disagree on the weight of the evidence for the Resurrection.
The following quotes convey the tenor of Loftus’ views on the evidence for the Resurrection:
What we have at best are second-hand testimonies filtered through the gospel writers. With the possible exception of Paul who claimed to have experienced the resurrected Jesus in what is surely a visionary experience (so we read in Acts 26:19, cf. II Cor. 12:1-6; Rev. 1:10-3:21–although he didn’t actually see Jesus, Acts 9:4-8; 22:7-11; 26:13-14), everything we’re told comes from someone who was not an eyewitness. This is hearsay evidence, at best. [Here.]
The Jews of Jesus’ day believed in Yahweh and that he does miracles, and they knew their Old Testament prophecies, and yet the overwhelming numbers of them did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead by Yahweh. So Christianity didn’t take root in the Jewish homeland but had to reach out to the Greco-Roman world for converts. Why should we believe if they were there and didn’t? [Here.]
…[F]or [Christian apologist Mike] Licona to think he can defend the resurrection of Jesus historically is delusional on a grand scale.[Here.]
My natural explanation is that the early disciples were visionaries, that is, they believed God was speaking to them in dreams, trances, and thoughts that burst into their heads throughout the day. Having their hopes utterly dashed upon the crucifixion of Jesus they began having visions that Jesus arose from the dead. [Here.]
My natural explanation [additionally] requires … one liar for Jesus, and I think this liar is the author of Mark, the first gospel. He invented the empty tomb sequence. That’s it. [Here.]
Loftus is not a dogmatic skeptic; he allows that he can imagine evidence which would convince him that Christianity is true. However, it is his contention that the evidence of the New Testament falls far short of this standard. The problem, to put it briefly, is that evidence for the authenticity of a second-hand report of a miracle does not constitute evidence that the miraculous event described in the report actually occurred. This evidential gap is known as Lessing’s ugly broad ditch, after the 18th century German critic, Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781), who first pointed it out.
In this post, I will not be attempting to demonstrate that the Resurrection actually occurred. Rather, my aim will be to outline the process of reasoning whereby someone might conclude that it probably occurred, while acknowledging that he/she may be wrong. I’ll also endeavor to explain how another person, following the same procedure as the tentative believer, might arrive at a contrary conclusion, which would make it irrational for him/her to espouse a belief in the Resurrection.
The key facts required to establish the Resurrection
Before I begin, I’m going to make a short list of key facts, whose truth needs to be established by anyone mounting a serious case for the Resurrection.
Key facts:
1. The man known as Jesus Christ was a real person, who lived in 1st-century Palestine.
2. Jesus was crucified and died.
3. Jesus’ disciples collectively saw a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus, after his death.
N.B. By a “non-ghostly” apparition, I mean: a multi-sensory [i.e. visual, auditory and possibly tactile] apparition, which led the disciples to believe Jesus was alive again. I don’t mean that Jesus necessarily ate fish, or had a gaping hole in his side: many Biblical scholars now think that these details may have been added to the Gospels of Luke and John for polemical reasons. Are they right? I don’t know.
Readers will note that none of the key facts listed above makes any mention of the empty tomb. My reason for this omission is that St. Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 15, which is the only eyewitness report, makes no explicit mention of Jesus’ empty tomb, although it seems to imply this fact when it says that Jesus was buried and raised. I won’t be relying on the Gospel accounts here, as they are probably not eyewitness accounts: most scholars date them to between 70 and 110 A.D. By the same token, I won’t be relying on the accounts of St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus in the Acts of the Apostles, which some scholars date as late as 110-140 A.D. St. Paul simply says of his experience: “last of all he appeared to me also.” That makes him an eyewitness.
It will be apparent to readers who are familiar with debates regarding the resurrection that my list of “key facts” is more modest than Dr. Willam Lane Craig’s list of minimal facts which he frequently invokes when he is debating the subject. Craig assumes that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, and that the following Sunday, his tomb was found empty by a group of women followers of Jesus. I make neither of these assumptions, although I happen to think he is right on both. For those who are inclined to doubt, Dr. Craig’s article, The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus, is well worth reading.
Two types of skepticism
I propose to distinguish between two kinds of skepticism: Type A and Type B. Type A skepticism casts doubt on people’s claims to have had an extraordinary experience, while Type B skepticism questions whether a miraculous explanation of this extraordinary experience is the best one. In the case of the Resurrection, Type A skepticism seeks to undermine one or more of the key facts listed above, whereas Type B skepticism doesn’t question the key facts, but looks for a non-miraculous explanation of those key facts.
Carl Sagan’s maxim that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs” is often quoted when the subject of miracles comes up. But we must be careful not to confuse extraordinary claims with extraordinary experiences: the former relate to objectively real occurrences, while the latter relate to subjective experiences. There is nothing improbable about someone’s having an extraordinary experience. People have bizarre experiences quite often: most of us have had one, or know someone who has had one. However, extraordinary occurrences are by definition rare: their prior probability is very, very low.
The distinction I have made above is a vital one. The key facts listed above imply that Jesus’ disciples had an extraordinary experience, but as we’ve seen, there’s nothing improbable about that.
On the other hand, the prior probability of an actual extraordinary occurrence (such as the Resurrection) is extremely low. So even if we can show that Jesus’ disciples had an extraordinary experience which persuaded them that he had risen again, one still needs to show that the posterior probability of all proposed non-miraculous explanations of this experience is less than the posterior probability of a miracle, given this extraordinary experience, before one is permitted to conclude that the miraculous explanation is warranted. And even then, one is still not home free, because it makes no sense to posit a miracle unless one has independent grounds for believing that there is a God, or at the very least, that there is a small but significant likelihood that God exists.
To sum up, in order for belief in Jesus’ Resurrection to be reasonable, what one has to show is that:
(i) the total probability of the various Type A skeptical explanations listed below is less than 50%; and
(ii) given the key facts listed above, and given also that there is a reasonable likelihood that a supernatural Deity exists Who is at least able to resurrect a dead human being, if He chooses to do so, then the total [posterior] probability of the various Type B skeptical explanations listed below is far less than the posterior probability that Jesus was miraculously raised.
What’s wrong with Loftus’ argument, in a nutshell
Basically, there are two errors in John Loftus’ case against the Resurrection: first, he overlooks the fact that the probabilities of the various Type B skeptical explanations are posterior probabilities, rather than prior probabilities; and second, he thinks that because the prior probability of a resurrection is very small, any Type A skeptical explanation whose prior probability is greater than that of the Resurrection of Jesus is a more likely explanation of whatever took place. The following excerpt from a 2012 post by Loftus illustrates these errors (emphases mine – VJT):
In what follows I’ll offer a very brief natural explanation of the claim that Jesus resurrected. Compare it with the claim he physically arose from the dead. You cannot say my natural explanation lacks plausibility because I already admit that it does. As I said, incredible things happen all of the time. What you need to say is that my natural explanation is MORE implausible than the claim that Jesus physically arose from the dead, and you simply cannot do that.
As it happens, I’d estimate the probability of Loftus’ preferred explanation for the Resurrection of Jesus to be about 10%. That’s much higher than the prior probability that God would resurrect a man from the dead, even if you assume that there is a God. However, I also believe that there’s a 2/3 3/5 probability (roughly) that Jesus’ disciples had an experience of what they thought was the risen Jesus. If they had such an experience, and if there is a God Who is capable of raising the dead, then I think it’s easy to show that the posterior probability of the Resurrection, in the light of these facts, is very high.
Type A skeptical hypotheses regarding the Resurrection
The following is a fairly exhaustive list of skeptical hypotheses that might be forward, if one wishes to contest the “key facts” listed above.
1. Jesus didn’t exist: he was a fictional person.
2. Jesus existed, but he didn’t die on the cross: either (i) he fell into a swoon on the cross, or (ii) it was actually a look-alike who was crucified in his place.
3(a) The fraud hypothesis: Jesus’ disciples didn’t really see an apparition of Jesus; their story that they had seen him was a total lie. For thirty years, they got away with their lie and attracted quite a following, prior to their execution during the reign of the Emperor Nero. (James the Apostle died somewhat earlier, in 44 A.D.)
3(b) Jesus’ disciples saw what they thought was Jesus’ ghost, but much later on, Christians claimed that the disciples had actually seen (and touched) Jesus’ risen body – either (i) because of deliberate fraud on the part of some individual (possibly St. Mark, in John Loftus’ opinion) who first spread the story of an empty tomb, or (ii) because Jesus’ body had already been stolen by persons unknown, which led Christians to believe Jesus’ body had been raised, or (iii) because the body had disappeared as a result of some natural event (e.g. a local earthquake that swallowed it up), or (iv) because a later generation of Christians (living after the fall of Jerusalem) was no longer able to locate Jesus’ body (or his tomb), which led them to speculate that Jesus had in fact been resurrected from the dead.
3(c) Jesus’ disciples initially thought they had seen Jesus’ ghost, but shortly afterwards, they came to believe that what they had seen was a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus’ resurrected body – either (i) because of the unexpected discovery that Jesus’ tomb was empty or (ii) because of the mis-identification of Jesus’ tomb with another empty tomb nearby.
3(d) Jesus’ disciples experienced individual (rather than collective) non-ghostly apparitions of Jesus, on separate occasions, which convinced each of them that he had risen, and which made them willing to be martyred for their faith in that fact.
[UPDATE: New hypothesis added.]
3(e) Jesus’ disciples experienced a collective non-ghostly apparition of Jesus, which they all saw, but only one of the disciples (probably Peter) actually heard the voice of Jesus. It may have been because Peter was able to talk to Jesus that they were convinced that he was not a ghost; alternatively, it may have been because Jesus was not only visible and audible (to Peter) but also radiant in appearance that the apostles concluded he had risen from the dead.
Type B skeptical hypotheses
Supposing that one grants the key facts listed above, I can think of only two skeptical hypotheses by which one might seek to explain away the disciples’ non-ghostly post-mortem apparition of Jesus, without having recourse to a miracle. Either it was a purely subjective experience (i.e. a collective hallucination), or it was an illusion, created by mind control techniques.
4. Jesus’ disciples had an apparition of Jesus after his death which was so vivid that they came to believe that what they had seen was no ghost, but a resurrected human being. In reality, however, their experience was a collective hallucination, caused by either (i) the grief they were experiencing in the wake of Jesus’ death or (ii) Jesus hypnotizing them before he died and implanting the idea that he would rise on the third day.
5. Jesus’ disciples had a collective non-ghostly apparition of Jesus after his death, but in reality, either (i) aliens or (ii) supernatural beings (demons) were controlling their minds and making them see things that weren’t objectively real.
The Resurrection: Varieties of skepticism
Broadly speaking, there are resurrection-skeptics who believe in a God Who is capable of working miracles, and then there are resurrection-skeptics who have no particular religious beliefs.
Resurrection-skeptics who believe in a God Who can work miracles disagree with the claim that the total probability of the various Type A skeptical explanations listed above is less than 50%. For their part, Jews have traditionally favored explanation 3(a) [fraud], while Muslims favor explanation 2(ii) [a look-alike died in Jesus’ place]. Personally, I find the Muslim explanation wildly implausible: try as I might, I simply cannot imagine anyone volunteering to die in Jesus’ place, and managing to fool the Romans, the Jews, and (presumably) Jesus’ family and friends into believing that he was Jesus. The mind boggles. The fraud hypothesis was put forward by the Jews back in the first century. In the second century, St. Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (c. 160 A.D.) records a Jewish skeptic asserting that Jesus’ disciples “stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven” (chapter 108). I have to say that I regard this explanation as a much more sensible one. If I had nothing but the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection available to me, I might be persuaded by it, but for my part, I find it impossible to read the letters of St. Paul to the Corinthians without becoming convinced of their author’s obvious sincerity. The man wasn’t lying when he said that Jesus appeared to him.
Non-religious skeptics who deny the Resurrection fall into different categories: there are both Type A skeptics and Type B skeptics. Among the Type A skeptics, there are a few Jesus-mythers (G.A. Wells, Earl Doherty, Robert Price, Richard Carrier) favor hypothesis 1, while swoon-theorists such as Barbara Thiering and the authors of the best-seller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, favor hypothesis 2(i). However, most skeptics tend to either favor the Type A hypothesis 3(b) [the disciples saw a ghostly apparition; later Christians made up the resurrection – this is Loftus’ proposal] or the Type B hypothesis 4 [Jesus’ disciples had a collective hallucination, which was so vivid that it caused them to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead]. Hypothesis 3(c) has few proponents, and I don’t know anyone who advocates hypotheses 3(d) or 5.
My personal evaluation of skeptical explanations for the Resurrection
Reasonable people may disagree in their estimates of the probabilities for the various skeptical hypotheses listed above. However, my own estimates of the probabilities of these hypotheses are as follows:
Type A skeptical hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1 – Jesus never existed. Probability: 1%.
Pro: There’s no contemporaneous pagan or Jewish attestation for the amazing miracles Jesus supposedly worked (healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the 5,000), which is puzzling. Also, certain aspects of Jesus’ life (e.g. the virgin birth, dying & rising again) are said to have mythological parallels.
Con: No reputable New Testament historian doubts the existence of Jesus. Professor Graeme Clarke of the Australian National University has publicly declared: “Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ – the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming.” Indeed, there is pretty good attestation for Jesus’ existence from Josephus (Antiquities, book XX) and Tacitus. Miracle-workers were a dime a dozen in the Roman Empire; one living in far-away Palestine wouldn’t have attracted any comment. The mythological parallels with Jesus’ life are grossly exaggerated. In any case, the question of whether Jesus existed and whether most of the stories about him are true are distinct questions. Perhaps there was a small kernel of truth behind the stories: Jesus healed some sick people.
Hypothesis 2 – Jesus didn’t actually die from crucifixion. Either (i) he fell into a swoon on the cross, or (ii) a look-alike was crucified in his place. Probability: 1%.
Pro: (i) Some individuals were known to survive as long as three days on the cross. Jesus’ death after just a few hours sounds suspicious. (ii) Some of Jesus’ disciples appear not to have recognized him, when they saw him after he was supposedly crucified.
Con: (i) Jesus was flogged, and pierced in the side, if we can believe St. John’s account. That would have hastened his death. But even if Jesus had survived crucifixion, he would have been severely weakened by the experience, and his subsequent apparition to his disciples would have alarmed rather than energized them. (ii) What sane person would volunteer to take Jesus’ place on the cross? Also, wouldn’t someone standing by the foot of the cross have noticed that it wasn’t Jesus hanging on the cross? Finally, the appearance of a risen Jesus who didn’t bear any of the marks of crucifixion would surely have made the disciples wonder if he really was the same person as the man who died on the cross.
Hypothesis 3(a) – fraud. Probability: 10%.
Pro: The perils of being a Christian apostle in the first century have been greatly exaggerated. The apostles Peter and Paul, and James brother of the Lord, lived for 30 years before being martyred, and even the apostle James lived for 11 years. During that time, the apostles would have been highly respected figures. Maybe they were motivated by a desire for fame and/or money. And maybe the apostles were killed for political rather than religious reasons, or for religious reasons that were not specifically related to their having seen the risen Jesus. We don’t know for sure that they were martyred for their belief in Jesus’ Resurrection.
Con: The fact remains that some apostles were put to death, and as far as we can tell it was for their testimony to the Resurrection. St. Clement of Rome, in his (first and only) Epistle to the Corinthians (Chapter 5), written c. 80–98, reminds his readers of Saints Peter and Paul’s martyrdom: “Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most just pillars of the Church were persecuted, and came even unto death. Let us place before our eyes the good Apostles. Peter, through unjust envy, endured not one or two but many labours, and at last, having delivered his testimony, departed unto the place of glory due to him. Through envy Paul, too, showed by example the prize that is given to patience: seven times was he cast into chains; he was banished; he was stoned; having become a herald, both in the East and in the West, he obtained the noble renown due to his faith; and having preached righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the extremity of the West, and having borne witness before rulers, he departed at length out of the world, and went to the holy place, having become the greatest example of patience.” Additionally, there is no doubting St. Paul’s obvious sincerity when he writes in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:
Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
There is little doubt among scholars that Paul is the author of this letter.
Hypothesis 3(b) – the disciples saw what they thought was Jesus’ ghost. Probability: 10%.
Pro: St. Paul writes that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” and it seems that his own experience of Jesus was just a vision. He never claims to have touched Jesus.
Con: St. Paul speaks of Jesus as the first person to be raised from the dead: he is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” If being raised simply means “being seen in a vision after one’s death,” this would make no sense. Post-mortem visions were common in the ancient world. Jesus wasn’t the first to be seen in this way. Nor would it account for St. Paul’s assertion that the resurrection of other human beings would not take place until the end of the world – “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” If a post-mortem appearance by a ghost counts as a resurrection, then many people are raised shortly after their death, and will not have to wait until the Last Day.
Hypothesis 3(c) – the discovery of the empty tomb tricked the disciples into thinking their visions of Jesus’ ghost were really visions of a resurrected Jesus. Probability: 10-15%.
Pro: It’s easy to imagine that people who’d had a post-mortem vision of Jesus might think it was something more than that, if they subsequently found his tomb empty. They might think he really had risen from the dead, after all.
Con: Despite its ingenuity, this hypothesis is at odds with all of the accounts of the Resurrection. In the Gospel narratives, the discovery of the empty tomb occurs before the appearances of Jesus, while in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, there’s no explicit mention of the tomb being found empty, and no suggestion that its discovery led to a belief in the Resurrection.
Hypothesis 3(d) – the disciples saw the risen Jesus individually, but never collectively. Probability: 3%.
Pro: It’s easy to imagine that over the course of time, the apostles’ individual post-mortem apparitions of Jesus were conflated into one big apparition, especially when many of them were being martyred for their faith in the Resurrection.
Con: The hypothesis assumes that the apostles (including St. Paul) were passionately sincere about their belief that Jesus had appeared to each of them, but that during their lifetimes, they did nothing to stop a lie being propagated: that they had seen him together. St. Paul himself propagates this statement in 1 Corinthians 15 when he says that Jesus appeared “to the Twelve”: are we to presume he was lying?
[UPDATE]
Hypothesis 3(e) – the disciples saw the risen Jesus collectively, but only Peter [and maybe James] were able to talk to Jesus and hear him speak. That may have been what convinced the others that Jesus was not a ghost; alternatively, it may have been because Jesus looked radiant. Probability: 10%.
Pro: There have been apparitions in which all of the seers experienced a vision, but only one seer was able to talk to the person seen – e.g. Fatima, where only Lucia was able to talk to Our Lady. (Jacinta heard her, while Francisco saw her but did not hear her, and did not see her lips move.) The hypothesis would also explain the pre-eminence of Peter [and James] in the early Church, since those who could actually hear the risen Jesus’ message would have been accorded special status.
Con: Seeing and hearing alone would not make a vision non-ghostly. Think of the Biblical story of Saul and the witch of Endor. The ghostly apparition frightened the witch, and even though Saul was able to communicate with the spirit of Samuel, that did not stop him from thinking it was a ghost. Appearing radiant doesn’t seem to have been enough either; in the Biblical story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9) it is interesting to note that even though Moses and Elijah were visible, radiant and heard conversing with Jesus, the apostles did not conclude that Moses and Elijah were risen from the dead. On the contrary, the early Christians expressly affirmed that Jesus was the first individual to have risen from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20). [Please note that it does not matter for our purposes if the Transfiguration actually occurred; what matters is what the episode shows about Jewish belief in the resurrection in the 1st century A.D. Evidently, being radiant, visible and audible did not equate to being resurrected.] Finally, it is worth pointing out that St. Paul also claimed to have spoken to the risen Jesus – see Galatians 1:12, 2:2.
Total probability of Type A skeptical hypotheses: 35-40%. 45-50%.
Type B skeptical hypotheses:
Let me begin by saying that if one has prior reasons for believing that the existence of God is astronomically unlikely, then the evidence for the Resurrection won’t be powerful enough to overcome that degree of skepticism. (John Loftus is one such skeptic.) If, on the other hand, one believes that the existence of God is likely (as I do), or even rather unlikely but not astronomically unlikely (let’s say that there’s a one-in-a-million chance that God exists), then the arguments below will possess some evidential force. I have explained elsewhere why I believe that scientific knowledge presupposes the existence of God, so I won’t say anything more about the subject here. I would also like to commend, in passing, Professor Paul Herrick’s 2009 essay, Job Opening: Creator of the Universe—A Reply to Keith Parsons.
Hypothesis 4 – collective hallucination. Posterior Probability: Astronomically low (less than 10^-33).
Pro: Collective visions have been known to occur in which the seers claim to have seen and heard much the same thing (e.g. the Catholic visions at Fatima and Medjugorje). And if we look at the history of Mormonism, we find that three witnesses testified that they had seen an angel hand Joseph Smith some golden plates.
Con: There has been no authenticated psychological study of a collective vision where the seers all saw and heard pretty much the same thing. It stands to reason that after having had the experience of seeing Jesus alive again after his death, the apostles would have cross-checked their reports, to see if they were in agreement about what they saw, before accepting the veracity of such an extraordinary miracle as a resurrection from the dead. If we very generously calculate the odds of one of Jesus’ apostles having a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus on some occasion as 10^-3, the odds of all eleven of them (Judas was dead) seeing and hearing substantially the same thing at the same time are: (10^-3)^11, or 10^-33. [See here for a more detailed explanation by Drs. Tim and Lydia McGrew.] And for a longer message delivered by the risen Jesus, (10^-3)^11 would be far too generous.
Re Catholic visions: it turns out that the Medjugorje seers didn’t all hear the same thing: they got different messages. Additionally, there is good reason to suppose that they were lying, on at least some occasions (see also here). The Fatima seers, on the other hand, were undoubtedly sincere, but only two of them heard Our Lady and saw her lips move; the other visionary, Francisco, didn’t hear her and didn’t see her lips move. Of the two seers who heard Our Lady, Jacinta never spoke to her and was never directly addressed by Our Lady; only Lucia spoke to Our Lady. The parallel with the Resurrection is therefore a poor one. [See also my post, Fatima: miracle, meteorological effect, UFO, optical illusion or mass hallucination?]
Re Mormon visions: each of the three witnesses who saw the angel hand Smith the golden plates had experienced visions on previous occasions. Also, the angel who handed Smith the plates did not speak, whereas Jesus’ disciples spoke with him on multiple occasions. Not a very good parallel.
Hypothesis 5 – alien or demonic mind control. Posterior Probability: Far less likely than the Resurrection.
Pro: An advanced race of aliens could easily trick us into believing in a resurrection-style miracle, if they wanted to. And if demons are real, then they could, too.
Con: The key word here is “if.” While this hypothesis is possible, we have absolutely no reason to believe that aliens or demons would bother to trick people in this way. The straightforward interpretation of the events – namely, that they actually happened – is far more likely.
That leaves us with the hypothesis of a miracle.
Resurrection hypothesis – Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead. Posterior Probability: Well in excess of 10^-11. Arguably close to 1.
Rationale: The number of human individuals who have ever lived is around 10^11, and well over 90% of these have lived during the past 2,000 years. Given the existence of a supernatural Creator Who can raise the dead, then in the absence of any other information, the prior probability of any individual being raised from the dead is 1 in 10^11, by Laplace’s Sunrise argument. Given the evidence listed in the key facts above (a death, and a post-mortem apparition with many witnesses substantially agreeing about what they saw and heard), the posterior probability of a resurrection is much higher. But even if it were only 10^-11, that’s still much higher than 10^-33, as in hypothesis 4.
Conclusion
Since my estimate of the total probability of the various Type A skeptical explanations is less than 50%, and since the posterior probability of the Resurrection is much greater than that of the various Type B explanations, belief in the Resurrection is rational, from my perspective.
Based on the evidence, I estimate that there’s about a 60-65% 55-60% chance that Jesus rose from the dead. That means I accept that there’s a 35-40% 45-50% chance that my Christian faith is wrong.
However, I can understand why someone might rate the probabilities of hypotheses 3(a), 3(b) and 3(c) at 20% each, instead of 10%. For such a person, belief in the Resurrection would be irrational, since the total probability of the Type A skeptical hypotheses would exceed 50%.
Summing up: a strong case can be made for the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection. However, a responsible historian would not be justified in asserting that Jesus’ Resurrection is historically certain. As we’ve seen, such a conclusion depends, at the very least, on the claim that there is a significant likelihood that there exists a supernatural Being Who is capable of working miracles, which is something the historian cannot prove. In addition, estimates of the probabilities of rival hypotheses will vary from person to person, and there seems to be no way of deciding whose estimate is the most rational one.
What do readers think? How would you estimate the likelihood of the Resurrection?
Recommended Reading
“Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?” Online debate: Jonathan McLatchie (a Christian apologist) vs Michael Alter (a Jewish writer who is currently studying the Torah with Orthodox Jews, as well as with non-Orthodox Jews). Originally aired on the show, Unbelievable, hosted by Justin Brierley, on March 26th 2016.
The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry by Michael Alter. Xlibris, 2015. Meticulously researched, by all accounts. (I haven’t read it yet.) Probably the best skeptical book on the Resurrection available.
The Resurrection of Jesus by Dr. William Lane Craig.
The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus by Dr. William Lane Craig.
The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth by Drs. Tim and Lydia McGrew.
The odds form of Bayes’s Theorem [Updated] by Dr. Lydia McGrew. Extra Thoughts, January 6, 2011.
My Rebuttal to the McGrews – Rewritten by Jeffrey Amos Heavener. May 13, 2011.
Alternate Critical Theories to the Resurrection by Dr. John Weldon. The John Ankerberg Show, 2004.
Origen, Contra Celsum, Book II. Chapters 57-70 provide an excellent historical summary of pagan arguments against the Resurrection of Jesus in the late second century, and Origen’s rebuttal of those arguments in the mid-third century.
Good and bad skepticism: Carl Sagan on extraordinary claims by Vincent Torley. Uncommon Descent post, March 15, 2015.
Cavin and Colombetti, miracle-debunkers, or: Can a Transcendent Designer manipulate the cosmos? by Vincent Torley. Uncommon Descent post, December 1, 2013.
Hyper-skepticism and “My way or the highway”: Feser’s extraordinary post by Vincent Torley. Uncommon Descent post, July 29, 2014.
Is the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Better Than Mohammed’s Miracles? by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, March 6, 2012.
Oprah Winfrey’s Half-Sister and The Odds of The Resurrection of Jesus by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, January 21, 2012.
A New Explanation of the Resurrection of Jesus: The Result of Mourning by Gerd Lüdemann, Emeritus Professor of the History and Literature of Early Christianity, Georg-August-University of Göttingen. April 2012.
Michael Licona’s Book is Delusional on a Grand Scale by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, July 22, 2011.
Dr. John Dickson To Me: “You are the ‘Donald Trump’ of pop-atheism” by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, April 2, 2017.
Yeah, just get that human soul gone from Christianity – exclude it! – and ‘Intelligent Design’ might be compatible with it. Hmmm, kinda sounds like an upside-down inclusive strategy. 😉 Yet without the human soul there is no ‘Intelligent Design Theory’ to begin with, such a paradox.
Or were you suggesting instead it was Catholicism that needs to become compatible with the human soul? Yikes.
Thank goodness the DI came along to let Torley know about it so that he in his wise language-teaching hobby-time capacity could let the Pontifical Academy of Sciences know that though he personally hasn’t made any (natural) scientific contribution to the topic, he is darned sure IDists funded by the DI have already made that Revolutionary Theory! and empirical science-like contribution that he is sure Torley-ID likewise validates.
I thought the (religious) point was that humans were distinguished from other species by uniquely possessing a soul. Why human soul?
Alan Fox,
Don’t quote me, Torley brought up “the human soul” here. Torley & I agree on human uniqueness.
Just thought it was odd that “soul” needed qualifying with “human”. How do you know that only humans have souls? When did they start to get them? Did Neandertals miss out? Denisovans? Cromagnons?
(Yes, I’m being mischievous, the whole idea of souls is a made-up concept.)
Simple. You type the following words: “I see that all of my posts on this thread have been completely confused. Sorry for that–and I appreciate the trouble taken by those who have set me straight on this topic.”
Evidence for the Resurrection: Why reasonable people might differ, and why believers aren’t crazy
This is a very good post no doubt about it… but since this blog seems to be more in-depth…I have a feeling that at least the skeptics would like to hear how the resurrection happened”?
While there were witnesses to many resurrections, there are many skeptics of Larry Moran’s kind that can claim all they want…following the evidence they don’t have… they never did and they never will havd it…
Vincent,
Since many if not most of your fellow Christians do believe that, you are telling us that their beliefs don’t add up. I agree. 🙂
I’m not sure why you regard the Pope as having any special insight into this question, particularly since that position seems to be at odds with the Bible, and you’ve been defending the Bible’s accuracy. Do you think the Bible gets it wrong after all?
A decent God would certainly do so. This whole business of demanding belief is goofy. It turns credulity into a virtue and punishes the thoughtful.
But again you run into a problem: If faith isn’t necessary for salvation, why has God allowed this misconception to run rampant? Why does he allow the Bible to reinforce it?
It doesn’t make sense. Unless, of course, God doesn’t exist. Then it makes perfect sense.
There’s a moment at the end of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength when the bad guys are given 100 percent certainty of heaven, and the path to it.
But they have incompatible operating systems, and what is intended to give joy just causes pain.
I’m not sure I fully understand Lewis, but he obviously believes people choose heaven or hell, and are not simply punished for misdeeds or lack of faith.
My own take is that Lewis’ choice is a bit like a drug addict’s choice. Doesn’t seem kind or loving or fair. Just me, I suppose.
“the whole idea of souls is a made-up concept”
The whole idea of ‘Alan Fox’ both here digitally and in real life, is also ‘made-up.’ The man himself may deny Creation (just can’t see it!) forever, to spite himself, the mini-/co-creator, from (maybe?) having a creative soul.
petrushka,
Yes, he was definitely not a Biblical inerrantist.
The advantage of rejecting inerrancy is that it gives you some leeway in shaping God according to your preferences. You can replace the nastiness of the Bible with something more palatable.
The disadvantage is that you can’t then convincingly ground your faith in the authority of the Bible.
Inerrancy was one of the first things I gave up on my path to deconversion. It will be interesting to see what happens with Vincent.
“shaping God according to your preferences” – that was obviously the ‘god’ you rejected, an idol you had made up to convince yourself that you ‘keiths’ are the centre of the universe. And then what were you left with between death and life, but your-Self. Such a small package.
Apostates seem to make Gregory feel insecure.
I’m reminded of this exchange:
Patrick, to Gregory:
Lizzie:
keiths:
If only it had been 1000 witnesses instead of 500.
Then I’d be convinced.
Apostates are what they are, often thinking (at least at the start) that they gained what they lost. ‘Secure’ in their lack of knowledge and commonly damaged personal spiritual history. ‘Secure’ in their own empty-souled dehumanising lives (as if that would make others ‘insecure’?), which they define themselves that way because something was broken in their worldview and now it is just patchwork nonsense.
keiths’ worldview has little coherency other than selfishness, and only anger at good citizens and human beings who are theists. Sad USAmerican hates his surroundings because the only thing left in his little grinchy heart is hating the God he doesn’t believe in, which apparently he has been attempting to replace with a ‘god’ that he can keep in control of by himself. How horrible for a person to be going through this. 🙁
Gregory, you’re officially the most entertaining wacko of TSZ, congrats!
Compare that to several thousands of UFO sightings every year .
I presume that makes it rational to believe in UFO’s too.
All concepts are made up.
“of TSZ”
No, I’m definitely not from or ‘of’ a place like this, Liddle’s bastardised dungeon of confused ‘skeptics’.
Keep heaving on Vincent so he changes his mind & starts spending his (if eventually IDism healed, valuable) time instead somewhere else.
Lee Strobel and James Warner Wallace aren’t crazy.
Wallace was a nationally renowned detective who was an atheist until he reviewed the evidence. Wallace appeared on national TV for solving a famous cold case…
The big question is why God would conceal the evidence. He could for example speak from the sky, incinerate his opponents for all to see, and say, “believe the Gospel of Luke.”
Relative to God speaking from the sky and working real time miracles, the evidence for the Resurrection is very very faint, but not non-existent.
There is a movie coming out, “The Case for Christ.” published by pureflix today, this Good Friday.
Short answer to the question as to why God makes faith hard and evidence of the resurrection hard to find when He could, in principle just work miracles in real time and appear before us and try to persuade us:
2 Thes 2:11-12
Molto Conveniente. FWIW, That’s what I tell people who don’t agree with everything *I* say, but it hasn’t worked yet.
Trailer for Case For Christ which debuts today:
http://caseforchristmovie.pureflix.com/
Oddly enough, that’s just what he used to do, according to the Pentateuch, mostly. So the big question is why he stopped. Why did he only do that a long time ago, when we can’t check? It’s almost as if it never happened.
I’ve never been able to make sense of that. Which comes first, believing not the truth or the sending of strong delusion? Isn’t the strong delusion the reason they believe not the truth? It appears that, most charitably, god punished unbelief by providing evidence to support unbelief. And what’s all this about sending a delusion that causes people to be damned? Isn’t god being a real dick here?
To those on the receiving end of his cruelty, I can see how they might feel that way. But if he’s God, then by what standard is right and wrong judged? His or ours?
It follows along the lines of 2 Thes 2:11-12 and the further axiom that all humans are already condemned, except God’s mercy gets extended to a few.
Yes. But people come to faith because God extends mercy and removes the delusion and darkness from their eyes. You can see the truth if God’s grace is extended to you and you are willing to receive it.
He does make the evidence to find hard, but not non existent. For example what do we have in the Pentateuch is the claim of Abraham being the father of Isaac and Ishmael. Jews are descended from Isaac, the arabs from Ishmael according to the long standing traditions. The PHYLIP program and similar programs confirm the timeline of this. Look up the Abraham Modal Haplotype. That at least lends some credibility to the account, imho. It’s not non-existent, just very very faint.
Now, if mitochondrial Eve is younger than supposed, but accords with Christ’s genealogy, this accords with the Gospel of Luke.
So why aren’t people eager to prove this, why do they doggedly ignore evidence the fossil record is young? If even there is a 1% chance life is as young as the Bible says, then it is worth giving faith a chance.
But instead, what I see is people will sooner put their faith and trust in Charles Darwin who can provide no salvation for their souls even if Darwin were right.
Now, I certainly respect you don’t find the evidence convincing. It is faint, so I respect that most people will find the Gospel to be foolishness. I would be on your side of the ailse if I found convincing evidence against the literal interpretation of Luke 3, namely the claim human life appeared about 6,000 years ago. Whether the rest of the world is old is a separate question, but I think the case of Luke 3 is promising. That’s plenty of reason for me not to write off the Gospels as a human myth, but rather divinely inspired.
If that doesn’t work for you, I respect that, but it works for me.
I hope you will excuse me for not taking the time to watch it. I’ve listened to too many Lee Strobel interviews on radio.
Too bad for you that there’s nothing like a 1% chance that life is young. You don’t really have any problem ignoring enormous evidence that you’re wrong, however, and I respect that. No, of course I don’t.
If we had faith in Charles we’d believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. But some of us like honest science more than we like dishonest apologetics. We’d rather know the ugly truth than your fantasies.
Glen Davidson
Alan Fox and Gregory,
I wrote about “the human soul” rather than “the soul” because I (like the Catholic Church) use the term “soul” to mean: that whereby a living organism is alive. Plants and non-human animals have a soul, but all of its activities (growing, reproducing, sensing, having appetites, imagining and remembering) are physical processes. In Catholic theology, humans have a soul, two of whose acts (reasoning and choosing) are non-physical activities. Because the human soul can’t be cashed out in purely physical terms, it can only be created by an act of God. Most Catholic theologians believe this happens at conception.
In Dennett-speak: Catholics are mind-creationists as regards human beings but not other animals. Their souls are generated naturally. For these animals, “soul” might be defined as the “livingness” of a living body.
No thanks for the Fox lump. He asked. The point was obvious to me already.
What is not obvious is how you think this is anything near coherent: “I happen to believe that Intelligent Design [Theory] is compatible with Catholicism … provided that it excludes the human soul.” – Vincent J. Torley
Since Catholic Christian teachings *include* the human soul, Intelligent Design Theory is incompatible with them. Is that your point?
Or are you simply suggesting there can in principle be no such thing as ‘Intelligent Design Theory’ in social sciences and humanities?
Either way, Vincent, you’re wasting your breath in IDT idolatry.
Euthyphro.
Doesn’t seem much like mercy if it’s only extended to a few. But I suppose you think you’re one of those few, and screw the rest. I seem to recall that you agree that your god is evil, at least in human terms. I’d think that would bother you, but it apparently does not.
Why is that grace extended only to a few? And why do you have to be willing in order to receive it? This is nothing more than the statement that in order to believe, you already have to believe.
Yes, faint enough that it’s accepted as evidence only by those who already believe. The identification of a particular haplotype to the mythical ancestor Abraham doesn’t come from the data. And in fact it requires a silly notion that Abraham is the sole male ancestor of Arabs and Jews. You do understand that human populations don’t arise from single ancestors, right?
Yes, and if Lord Voldemort has returned to power and menaces the muggle world, this accords with Harry Potter.
What evidence that the fossil record is young am I ignoring? And what if there is a 10^-30 chance that life is as young as the bible says? Is it still worth giving faith a chance?
Pascal’s Wager again? How many times has that been refuted for you on TSZ alone?
Reasons that are only reasons if you desperately want to be convinced. The idea that even human life, much less the whole universe, is only 6000 years old requires the rejection of everything we know about human prehistory.
I’m sorry, but I can’t possibly respect that. It works for you only because you have determined to make it work in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Gregory,
Your obession with Vince is tiresome. Though his statement was poorly worded, I was easily able to figure out what he meant. I could explain if you like, but he already has.
Gregory writes:
I found the thread interesting, and I also found some of the science-related links highly informative, notably these two:
Reaping the Whirlwind: protein function without stable structure (New post by Dennis Venema, April 20, 2017 – well worth reading.)
Understanding Evolution: the Evolutionary Origins of Irreducible Complexity – Blog Series (Six articles by Dennis Venema, written in 2012.)
What I did not find was any arguments purporting to show why “IDism” is incompatible with Catholicism, or any other version of Christianity.
Let me clear: the merits of ID should be decided on strictly scientific grounds, rather than theological grounds.
This raises a potential contradiction. If god personally creates each human soul at conception, why is he constrained to create that soul stained by original sin? If souls are created anew, how can sin be inherited? Is the seat of sin somewhere other than the soul?
Gregory’s bogus quote
Here’s what Gregory reckons I said:
“I happen to believe that Intelligent Design [Theory] is compatible with Catholicism … provided that it excludes the human soul.”
Here’s what I actually said:
“I happen to believe that Intelligent Design is compatible with Catholicism, but so are Young-Earth Creationism, Old-Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution (which many people now prefer to call Evolutionary Creationism) – provided that it excludes the human soul.”
Here, the “it” refers to Theistic Evolution, not Intelligent Design. My meaning should be perfectly clear to anyone: the Catholic Church allows you to believe in as much evolution as you like, provided that you leave the human soul out of the picture, since each human soul is supernaturally created by God.
Gregory, I’m not demanding an apology, as I’m not that petty-minded. But I do think a public retraction is called for, on your part. You misread me.
John Harshman,
You asked a few questions about original sin, so I thought I’d clarify what the Catholic Church teaches on the subject. Take it as you wish.
In Catholic theology, “original sin” is not a stain on the soul. That’s just a metaphor. It’s simply an absence of sanctifying grace. What it means, in plain English, is that no-one is born (or rather, conceived) a child of God. [The Virgin Mary is the only known exception – and even in her case, it was only by a singular privilege bestowed by God.] Hence baptism is necessary, to make us truly children of God. [And no, the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that if you’re unbaptized, you’re doomed to go to Hell.]
Original sin is said to be inherited in the sense that because Adam sinned, the human race has forfeited the wondrous privilege of enjoying God’s life-long friendship. God loves all of us, but none of us is now born a “friend” of God. Ever since Adam, the new default is to be born (or rather, conceived) in a state of estrangement from God.
Original sin has other effects too: a weakening of the will and a darkening of the intellect, which makes it difficult for us to know and do the right thing.
In modern English, when we hear the word “sin,” we think of wrongdoing. But in Catholic theology, original sin is something quite distinct from personal sin. Of course newborn babies are guiltless of any personal wrongdoing. They are not vessels of Divine wrath, or anything like that. Hope that helps.
Vincent,
Why would a benevolent God withhold that privilege from everyone else?
Who are the “vessels of divine wrath”*?
*Note to those who aren’t familiar with the phrase: it comes from the King James translation of the following nasty passage from Romans 9:
Thanks, but it doesn’t. Surely even you must realize that the story is silly. God removes his grace from everyone because one (certainly mythical) person did something he didn’t like? Sprinkling water on a baby’s head fixes all that? One might also ask where “a weakening of the will and a darkening of the intellect” might reside, if not in the soul. Surely you don’t believe that there are changes in the structure of the brain that caused it. And so we’re back to the faulty soul hypothesis, with each soul created as faulty.
Refuted in whose eyes, yours or mine? I think I’m better qualified to judge application of Pascal’s theories than anyone here since I have practical experience using Pascsal’s wagering principles. 🙂
But for the benefit of VJ and others who might be interested, Jordan Peterson, an Elite scholar, former Harvard Professor mentions Pascal in passing in this lecture that includes a take down of the Enlightenment and so-called godless rationalism. He mentions Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Viktor Frankl, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and the existential philosophers with some good psychology form Karl Jung.
His passing quote from Pascal was one I never heard before.
The good stuff is from 49:00 to the end. Pascal’s quote was at around 36:15
That’s what you lead with (and end with too)? Your supposed qualifications? Pascal’s wager is nothing more than a false dichotomy. Refute that.
And hey, whatever happened to “I respect that”?
True. A claim is a form of evidence after all. Very weak evidence, but evidence nonetheless. A collection of claims from people we can’t interview, 20 centuries removed, none of which can be verified were present at the supposed events, is utterly fucking ridiculous evidence and simply can’t serve to ratially substantiate belief in the claim.
Or maybe you can, but with standards like that, should you manage to apply them consistently, you’d end up believing all sorts of utterly ridiculous claims. If you believe those claims, you can’t rationally reject all the other ridiculous claims we hear all the time in the present. You’d have to be simultaneously a scientologist, mormon, crystal-healer, UFO conspiracy nutter and on and on.
You are welcome for the thread.
Funny that, it’s a Protestant evangelical site, so they don’t have much on Catholic Christianity. But try your ‘strictly scientific’ nonsense there and see how far it gets you. Upright, pious people, who call you friend and expose your IDist nonsense again and again (is that why you stay here instead of going there?).
Take a shot at what you think ideological IDism might look like and mean sociologically, Vincent, since you put it in ‘scare’ quotes. A little imagination might do some good here.
And what about philosophy? This is what your theological ‘Intelligent Design’ cross nails to the DI’s ‘strictly scientific’ IDT. Your ‘Intelligent Design’ is intentionally theological (merits) and theirs is intentionally scientific (without merits).
Yet they are supposed to be the double talkers and you’re not? And if you’re not, then your view is empty because is offers no ‘strictly scientific ground’ on which to base your ‘theory.’ The fact is, Vincent, you don’t even have a theory, you have a kind of Christian philosophistry, which is perhaps why this place appeals to you beyond apologetics.
It would be asinine to ‘demand an apology’ from me for adding “…” bloggy Vincent. You said it and it is still highly questionable.
The notion that “provided that you leave the human soul out of the picture, since each human soul is supernaturally created by God” is rather loose wording.
Vincent, ‘theistic evolution’ is the position that God created ‘super-/extra-naturally’ using (%) natural evolution. Are you simply saying at a flip a switch moment the term ‘creation’ trumps the term ‘evolution’? God theistically-evolved or evolutionarily-created human beings human beings?
In that case, the Lamoureux move to ‘evolutionary creation’ makes more sense, again than IDism, and he even now says he accepts (theological) ‘intelligent design’ but not (pseudo-scientific) ‘interventionist intelligent design’ (IID), which is the DI’s ‘theory.’ (And I’m not really interested in your critique of Lamoureux’s IID label accuracy because I’m not defending his IID schmuck.)
You’ve got your bonnet buzzing over ‘theistic evolution,’ Vincent because you’ve got your personal theology (outwardly Catholic) wrapped up as tight as a snare drum with ‘INTELLIGENT DESIGN’, that DUO specifically. What you should look more closely at, but never do, is the ideological poison you swallowed from the Discovery Institute.
Do you think you imbibed no ideology from them, or from *ANYONE* in the IDM, VIncent? I see it as easily as one can see a foreigner in an ethnically homogenous culture. It is astonishing that you don’t think IDist ideology drenches your writings. But also understandable that for muddled reasons, you actually want to be that Emperor walking around with “INTELLIGENT DESIGN” tattooed on your naked chest, the accustomed minority squawking IDism … as if Darwinism weren’t bad enough.
Well, you might think so, but it turns out that careful consideration ends up yielding a 63.24479% likelihood of truth!
It’s like a miracle!
True.
But I hear that the odds of VJT coming up with odds that Jesus was resurrected as 50% or less were 0.00013%, maximum.
Probably a miracle of grace, though.
Glen Davidson
Yes!! That’s exactly what I got!
VJT,
This is a very good post. Lot’s of information.
However, these claims do nothing to move the so-called scientific minds” to accept resurrection…Many of them accept abiogenesis though there is no shred of evidence to support it has ever happened but they reject resurrection the same way they reject creation…
BTW: I’ve been working (slower than I thought I would) on the post “How the ID/Creator did it”-created life, and while researching this subject it occurred to me that the resurrection could be closely related, and probably is, to the creation. If ID/God created life, including human life, what difficulty would bringing back the life He had already created present ?
And not just HIS life! Everyone’s!!
But wait—–how old will he/we be? Jesus and Walto at birth? At eleven? (My father, at 83?) Will it be nice, or will we need rain gear?
Oh, also. Do our eyes have to be the same–because not only am I a bit color-blind, I’d like a more definite eye color. Also, I’d like better knees and ankles. You think that could be arranged?
Gotta tell you j-mac, I can HARDLY WAIT to see your forthcoming opus!!
Neil Rickert,
You got me there! 🙂
I see Gregory has already objected to the association. 🙂
OK. Not heard this idea before. Is the non-human soul physical?
Disagree with that unsupported assertion.
Don’t agree with premise or conclusion.
Fine. I get this about religion that it is a question of hope over experience. I’m not an antitheist.
Well, my worthless opinion is that one can apply Occam’s razor to “soul” and dispense with it altogether, human or animal. You can do this with mind, too.
Life exists, so it happened. Get over it.
Dunno, maybe he got immaterial-soul-arthritis in the mean time? Or ran out of materials? Or his magical powers ran dry because he couldn’t find a “divine powers” refill station? Who knows? All these questions and more will be answered with AncientWisdom(tm) in my upcoming book. Stay tuned.
Exactly.
That’s why we have zombies.
Glen Davidson
walto,
Didn’t see your alternatives…must have forgotten what your faith hangs on… it ain’t science that’s for sure..but who cares if you chose ti believe it…