A response to Gerald O'Collins

In this post, I will respond to the arguments Gerald O'Collins gives against the Hallucination hypothesis from the appendix of his book Believing in the Resurrection: The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus. I have mentioned them before here. Unlike Habermas, O'Collins is actually familiar with the phenomenon of bereavement experiences, and so his critique is much more relevant.

O'Collins starts by summarising Dewi Rees' study of Bereavement experiences in senior widows and widowers:

Rees found that close to half (46.7%) reported contact with their beloved dead at various times during waking hours; dreams were not considered in the study.  The bereaved had “felt the presence of the deceased” (39.2%), “seen” them (14%), “heard” them (13.3%), “spoken” to them (11.6%), and, very occasionally, been “touched” by them (2.7%). Some of the widows and widowers interviewed reported having had more than one type of experience, and in 36.1% of all the cases these experiences of the beloved dead lasted for years.

Than, he pointed out two similarities between Bereavement experiences and the supposed Resurrection appearances of Jesus:

first, the grief experienced by both Rees’ bereaved persons and the disciples after the death and burial of Jesus... A second addition that I now make to the analogy proposed by Rees concerns the unexpected nature of the encounters with the risen Jesus

I agree with him that these are some fairly striking points of similarity. However, despite the shoe fitting finely, O'Collins argues that the parallels end here, and proposes eight areas of dissimilarity between these bereavement experiences and the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. I will review each of them below.

Area's of dissimilarity

 

The first area of dissimilarity is that Dewi Rees' bereavement study only considered Widows and Widowers: as far as we know, Mary and the disciples were not married to Jesus.

1) By naming “the disciples,” what I had in mind was, first of all, the fact that the Twelve and others, both women (e.g., Mary Magdalene) and men (e.g., Cleopas of Luke 24: 13-35), were disciples and not married partners of Jesus.

He also adds that the disciples made radical claims about Jesus, and that this somehow acts as an additional dissimilarity. This argument is weak, since it ignores the many stories of non widows having supposed encounters with the deceased. Besides, if these bereavement experiences are hallucinations, something which I will argue for in the future, than there is no reason to suppose they would be exclusive to widows. I can imagine widows and widowers being more likely to hallucinate their loved ones, but that's it. The second argument is equally poor:

2)  Jesus died a horrible and utterly shameful death on a public scaffold. In the eyes of his contemporaries, the crucifixion involved being cursed not only by human beings (the religious and political authorities responsible for his execution) but also by God... Rees reports no cases of anything like that among his 293 widows and widowers.

Well, we do live in the 21 century; not very many are cursed and publicly executed. Some of the widows Rees interviewed did have spouses that were killed by accidents, which I think suffice as "violent deaths". O'Collins, however, needs to prove his point, so he declares that only a perfect analogy will do. I think he forgot where the burden of proof lies.

3) A third, enormous difference emerges from the fact that, unlike the disciples of Jesus, none of Rees’s widows and widowers ever alleged that their beloved departed had been raised from the dead

Oh come on! Even Licona acknowledges that this is a poor argument (see the appendix of The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical approach). At any rate, there aren't very many people in the modern day that believe in corporeal resurrection, so the lack of modern day analogies shouldn't be surprising. At any rate, modern widows and widowers would probably say their spouse became a ghost or went to heaven, since those are the modern day expectations. The resurrection was an ancient expectation, even if it was supposed to occur at the end of the world.

4) A fourth reason for differentiating between the Easter experiences of the disciples and Rees’s widows and widowers emerges from the New Testament reports about appearances to groups, as well as to individuals

This argument is interesting, since he actually criticizes a lot of the Apparitional literature Allison uses to make his case.

On the question of bereaved people experiencing (or not experiencing) as a group some beloved, deceased person, Allison (who knows and values Rees’ ground-breaking research)  has also taken issue with me. He claims that there are “many firsthand accounts of several people seeing at once the apparition of a person recently deceased.” But he cites no examples and gives no references. Notice that he does not say “bereaved people” having such an experience, and that is the issue. Is he thinking of parapsychology and alleged cases of the spirits of the deceased being brought back from the dead through mediums? But many scholars, including professional psychologists, find only pseudo-science in the works of parapsychologists. In fact, Allison himself observes: “reports of collective apparitions are…prominent in the literature of parapsychology but not in normal psychology.” That silence on the part of professional psychologists might have warned Allison not to introduce, as he does, repeated references to a number of long-discredited parapsychologists.

Allison himself is very forthright about the lack of rigor in many of his cases. As a matetr of fact, he clearly states that he is comparing "like with like" when he uses them, since the Gospels are also equally poor sources. I concede, however, that I don't quite know how to explain the group experiences in naturalistic terms. After all, I don't even know what goes back to the eyewitnesses! Our earliest source, 1 cor 15, gives us three group experiences: one to "the twelve", one to the "five hundred", and one to "all the apostles". By the time we reach the gospels, however, the appearance to"the twelve" is all that remains. How one explains this one naturally depends on how accurate you think the narrative is.

5) A fifth dissimilarity arises when we notice that around 40% of Rees’ widows and widowers continued to experience their deceased spouses for many years. But the appearances of the risen Jesus to individuals or groups took place over a limited period of time and did not continue for years.

How do we know what they would've made of later experiences? Apologists often argue that the initial experiences must of been qualitatively different from later ones, since the early church called them "appearances" instead of visions. However, this still doesn't tell us exactly how they were different? Perhaps the difference between appearances and visions had to do with whom had them, or when they occurred. How could one prove these suggestions wrong? Furthermore, according to Licona, word studies don't help either, as the greek word for "appearance" could mean many things. So, even if the disciples had later experiences, how would we know?

6) “one difference between the Easter experiences and those reported by the widowed…Widowed  people’s experiences of their dead spouses tend to occur weeks  or months after the person’s death; in contrast, Jesus appeared to his friends soon after the crucifixion.

Depends how you define "soon". A few weeks doesn't seem too long to me. At any rate, how do we even know when the disciples started having their experiences? The phrease "the third day" was an idiom that could refer to any short period of time, not just 3 literal days. Another issue is whether the experiences all happened within a short period of time. What if some occurred weeks or months later than others? After all, the creed Paul refers to in 1 Cor 15 includes the appearance to himself, which occurred years after Jesus was crucified. We just don't know how much time passed between appearances.

(7) Prior to Rees’ study, only 27.7 % of the bereaved who experienced their dead spouses had mentioned these experiences to others

This is really weak. Did O'Collins forget the stigma that is associated with hallucinating in the modern day?

8) In Easter Faith I pointed out an eighth difference: unlike the first followers of Jesus, “none of those whose bereavement experiences are reported by Rees dramatically changed their lifestyle and became missionaries proclaiming to the world their experience and what it implied.”

O'Collins got so desperate for another pot-shot that he re-used the seventh point. Again, in the modern day there is a stigma against having wierd experiences. In ancient times, no such stigma existed. The problem wasn't whether you saw something- it was how you interpreted it. This, if anything, was the problem the disciples would have had.

Well, there you have it. For what it's worth, I'm still offering a copy of the paper to anyone who wants it. Conact me here for it.

A point by point rebuttal of Gary Habermas

I apologize for not posting anything for a while. As a special treat, I wrote a point by point rebuttal to Gary Habermas' essay "Explaining away Jesus' Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories". The full essay can be found here. Since Habermas is frequently considered the world wide expert on the Resurrection, I figure he'll have the best arguments. The first batch of arguments specifically oppose the idea of group hallucinations.

Group Hallucinations

(1) To begin, the chief examples of "collective hallucinations" provided by Zusne and Jones were group religious experiences such as Marion apparitions. But these citations simply beg the question regarding whether such experiences could possibly be objective, or even supernatural, at least in some sense. 

Why is it okay for Christians to assume that every miracle of every Religion comes from either the Christian God or Satan? Why not from Krishna or the demon king Ravana? This is a classic "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario.

(2) Further, the collective hallucination thesis is unfalsifiable. It could be applied to purely natural, group sightings, simply calling them group hallucinations, too. On this thesis, crucial epistemic criteria seem to be missing. How do we determine normal occurrences from group hallucinations?

Why do we have to be able to tell the difference? The burden is on him to show they aren't group hallucination, not me. At any rate, I assume we could tell whether or not a group shared the same hallucination by interviewing each person and asking them what they saw. The fact that all the witnesses are dead in Jesus' case is his problem, not mine.

(3) Even if it could be established that groups of people witnessed hallucinations, it is critical to note that it does not at all follow that these experiences were therefore collective. If, as most psychologists assert, hallucinations are private, individual events, then how could groups share exactly the same subjective visual perception? Rather, it is much more likely that the phenomena in question are either illusions--perceptual misinterpretations of actual realities -- or individual hallucinations.

As it happens, I also doubt that multiple people can share the exact same hallucination. For the first time, we're in agreement. I also agree that so called cases of group hallucinations are better explained as either individual ones or illusions. Sadly, Habermas never explains how this exactly counters the Hallucination thesis. If anything, it gives us skeptics more ammunition!

(4) For instance, Zusne and Jones argue that "expectation" and "emotional excitement" are "prerequisites" before such group experiences will occur. In fact, expectation "plays the coordinating role." But this scenario contradicts the emotional state of the early witnesses of Jesus' resurrection appearances. Even psychologically, the early believers were confronted face-to-face with the utter realism of the recent and unexpected death of their best friend, whom they had hoped would rescue Israel. As those recent events unfolded in a whirlwind of Jesus' physical beatings, crucifixion, and seeming abandonment, the normal response would be fear, disillusionment, and depression. To suppose that these believers would exhibit "expectation" and "emotional excitement" in the face of these stark circumstances would require of them responses that would scarcely be exhibited at a funeral! All indications are that Jesus' disciples would exhibition the very opposite emotions from what Zusne and Jones convey as the necessary requirement.

As Dale Allison has stated before, this only applies to the first Christophany. Surely Peter or Mary created some excitement and expectation after their initial experience. Furthermore, what if Jesus really did predict his death and resurrection? That would certainly create a lot of expectation.

By comparison, the disciples' experience is totally unlike those in the other cases above where pilgrims expressly traveled long distances, exuberantly gathering with the explicit desire to see something special. There would seem to be very meager grounds of comparison here with Jesus' disciples.

We don't know that. We don't know anything about the original Christophanies or the circumstances leading up to them. Even if we were to take the Gospels at face value, we'd still know nothing about the appearance to "the five hundred" or to "all the apostles". As I pointed out before, we don't even know whether Jesus made any pre-Easter predictions. There's meager grounds for comparison since there's nothing to compare!

Many other crucial problems also plague the thesis of group hallucinations, and we will pursue several more below. But for now we will repeat that Zusne and Jones never attempt to apply their approach to Jesus' resurrection. Rather, they even rather incredibly close their examination with the admission that group hallucinations have a "dubious status" because it is not possible to ascertain whether these individuals were actually even hallucinating!

Re-read my critique of #3. Habermas seriously has no clue where the burden of proof lies. Anyways, the second batch of arguments have to do with conversion disorder. These ones are a bit more persuasive.

Conversion disorder

(1) Initially, only Paul is known to have manifested any such symptoms, so Goulder's inclusion of the others is not factually grounded.

Not surprisingly, he is relying too much on the texts. How do we know what state of mind Peter or Paul was in? We don't, unless we rely on the gospels to give us an accurate psychological analysis. But can we really do this? After all, present expectations shape past memories- and the Gospels are filled with present expectations.

(2) Simply a huge problem is that, from what we know about Paul and James in particular, there were no mitigating grounds to suppose such a disorder. We have no indication that there was the slightest inner conflict, doubt, or guilt concerning their previous rejection of Jesus' teachings. Critics agree that James was an unbeliever during Jesus' earthly ministry (John 7:5; cf. Mark 3:21). Paul's skepticism is even better known, since he persecuted early Christians (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13, 23). But we do not know of any guilt on Paul's part, for he considered his actions to have been both zealous and faultless (Phil. 3:4-6). In short, there is no indication of any desire for conversion by either of these men. To suppose otherwise is groundless. In short, these men are exceptionally poor candidates for this disorder.

This point is valid, but stretched too thin. Yes, James was probably an unbeliever during Jesus' ministry. Does this mean he converted due to a christophany of his brother? Perhaps, but until we find a reliable narrative of the event, we can only speculate. Perhaps he did feel guilty for rejecting his brother? Or maybe he was predisposed to hallucinate simply because Jesus was his brother and he loved him as such. Paul's experience occurred a year or more after the crucifixion, so I can't say much about it. It seems to me that, within a years time, anyone can go from skeptic to believer.

(3) Further, the psychological profile strongly opposes an application to any of these three apostles. Conversion disorder most frequently occurs to women (up to five times more often), adolescents and young adults, less-educated persons, those with low IQ's, low socioeconomic status, or combat personnel.  Not a single characteristic applies to Peter, Paul, or James.

If conversion disorder occurs five times more often in women than men, that means it STILL APPEARS IN MEN!!! What more needs to be said?

(4-5) Further, holding that victims of conversion disorder are strong candidates for both visual and auditory hallucinations is stretching the case a bit. These are uncommon characteristics. Not only are these apostles poor candidates for the disorder in the first place, but even apart from this malady, they were additionally not predisposed to experience hallucinations. And here we even have two separate critiques, due to very different sets of circumstances. There is no indication that either James or Paul, in particular, longed to see Jesus. Their unbelief is a poor basis for producing hallucinations! James the skeptic and Paul the persecutor are exceptionally tough obstacles for the hallucination thesis! Once again, to say otherwise is mere conjecture apart from historical data.

To repeat the point I made in #2, we don't know much about the psychological profile of James. Even if he were a skeptic, it doesn't follow he'd be less likely to hallucinate Jesus. After all, they were family, and family members are the ones who most often experience these bereavement experiences.

(6) Neither does this hypothesis account for what would otherwise be considered delusions of grandeur--in this case the apostles' belief that God had imparted to them a message for the entire world that others must accept. But it is unlikely that there are other delusions involved here, even occurring at precisely the same time, so the case is further weakened.

Christianity isn't the only religion to claim it has a divine message. As a matter of fact, I think the vast majority of supernatural religions make this claim. At any rate, people come to believe weird stuff all the time. Just read this list of people that claimed to be Jesus. You can't just say "this belief is weird, therefore, God did it"- there would be far too many strange, obscure cults to choose between. The last part of Habermas' essay deals with regular, good old fashioned individual hallucinations.

Individual Hallucinations

(1) Even individual hallucinations are questionable for any believers who felt despair at the unexpected death of Jesus just hours before. Their hopes and dreams had suddenly been dashed. Extreme grief, not exuberance, would be the normal response.

As I've pointed out before, the bereaved do occasionally have experiences of their deceased loved ones. Ludemann pointed this out in his book so, unless Habermas never read it, he has taken to ignoring it.

(2) The wide variety of times and places when Jesus appeared, along with the differing mindsets of the witnesses, is simply a huge obstacle. Men and women, hard-headed and soft-hearted alike, all believing that they saw Jesus, both indoors and outdoors, by itself provides an insurmountable barrier for hallucinations. The odds that each person would be in precisely the proper frame of mind to experience a hallucination, even individually, decrease exponentially.

What is this "wide variety of times and places"? Last I checked, 1 Cor. 15 gives us a grand total of six christophanies, one of which occurs a year after the others. Furthermore, it includes an appearance to "five hundred brothers" and to "all the apostles" that are never elaborated on and vanish by the time the Gospels were written. If Habermas knows the insurmountable circumstances these visions occurred in, he should've included them.

(3) Generally, hallucinations do not transform lives. Studies have argued that even those who hallucinate often (or perhaps usually) disavow the experiences when others present have not seen the same thing. Critics acknowledge that Jesus' disciples were transformed even to the point of being quite willing to die for their faith. No early text reports that any of them ever recanted. To believe that this quality of conviction came about through false sensory perceptions without anyone rejecting it later is highly problematic.

We live in the modern day, remember? Visions are no longer culturally acceptable. Rees himself notes the apprehensiveness of his subjects to share their experiences due to a fear of being called crazy. Contrast this with ancient times, where visions where accepted and even encouraged. On a final note, we don't know whether the disciples stuck it out for life.

(4) Of course, if the appearances were hallucinations, then Jesus' body should have been located safely and securely in its grave just outside the city of Jerusalem! That body would undoubtedly be a rather large disclaimer to the disciples' efforts to preach that Jesus was raised! But hallucinations do not even address this, so another naturalistic thesis is required.

So what if another naturalistic explanation is needed? Why couldn't a rival Jewish sect or a necromancer steal the body? If not, than why couldn't the church make it up?

(5) Why did the hallucinations stop after 40 days? Why didn't they continue to spread to other believers, just as the others had? 

Probably because most bereavement experiences only last a set amount of time before disappearing. While it is true that about a third linger for several years, not all follow this pattern.

(6) The resurrection was the disciples' central teaching, and we usually take extra care with what is closest to our hearts. This is what drove Paul to check out the nature of the gospel data with other key disciples on at least two occasions, to make sure he was preaching the truth (Gal. 1:18-19; 2:1-10). He found that they were also speaking of Jesus' appearances to them (1 Cor. 15:11).

Yeah right, tell that to the Mormons who followed Joseph Smith unquestionably, never once asking to see the plates. This is Special pleading.

(7) What about the natural human tendency to touch? Would no one ever discover, even in a single instance, that their best friend, seemingly standing perhaps just a few feet away, was not really there?

Perhaps just a few feet away... what if Jesus was seen several yards away? We'd need reliable accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances before we can claim that all the disciples saw Jesus simultaneously "just a few feet away".

(8) The resurrection of an individual contradicted general Jewish theology, which held to a corporate event at the end of time. So Jesus' resurrection did not fit normal Jewish expectations.

Neither did Joseph Smith's plates of gold, or a myriad of other wacky religious claims. A persons deviation from the norm can hardly be counted as evidence for anything. However, even if we were to assume the disciples were too dense to invent anything new, it is still possible that Jesus' own teaching were the basis of their wacky belief. It all depends on whether or not you think Jesus really predicted his own death and resurrection. If this is the case, it would be a self fulfilling prophecy.

(9) Lastly, hallucinations of the extended sort required by this naturalistic theory are fairly rare phenomena, chiefly occurring in certain circumstances that militate against Jesus' disciples being the recipients.

What does "extended sort" mean? Is he suggesting that the Gospel accounts are accurate? If so, than how accurate? Accurate enough so determine the length of the experiences? What about the sporadic nature of 1 Cor. 15, as well as other Gospel accounts? Habermas will have to elaborate on what he means by "extended sort".

Well, those are Habermas' arguments against the Hallucination thesis. He has published many books and essays on the Resurrection, but none are as comprehensive as this essay (he references it in every one of his books I've read). If you got anything to add, send me a message!

"Visions of Jesus" Review

Yes, here is the review of Philip Wiebe's book "Visions of Jesus". For anyone who doesn't already know, "Visions of Jesus" is a book about contemporary visionary experiences with Jesus. One can really say it is a two part book. In the first part, the author, thru the use of magazine ads, fan letters, etc collects 30 stories in which individuals of all Genders, ages and  (nominal, conservative, etc) and theological opinions claim to have seen Jesus. Than, he goes thru church history, and cites a few more "Christic Apparitions" that have supposedly occurred. However, as Ken Pulliam briliantly reminds us in his own review of the book, there are far, far more Marian apparitions than Christic apparitions. The second part of the book is a critical analysis of psychological and neurological theories on hallucinations, and why Wiebe feels that they alone cannot account for certain details in the accounts. Misfortunatley for me, Wiebe's grasp of cognitive science and Psychology is far above my own, so I will not be commenting on this part of the book much. However, I will comment about the first part.

Now to begin, I'd like to challenge Weibe's claim that cases like these may be under reported since many of them came from his home province of BC, and some live near him (Pg 40). This is true, but one also has to keep in mind that he sent magazine ads to Religious magazines in Canada, America, Britain and Australia, as opposed to trying to stay within a geological boundary. So, it seems to me that he merely cherry picked cases that were impressive, and ignored ones that weren't. Also, considering that there were only 30 cases included, I think it's more coincidental that many stories come from BC and places near him than that they are significantly under reported. If there were 1000 cases studied, than this would be good evidence- but not 30.

Anyways, after reading the thirty modern cases he documents, I couldn't help but notice the interesting qualities they exhibit. For instance, in one of the cases, Jesus was seen and felt, and temporarily replaced a piece of furniture the visionary was currently leaning on. In another case, the Visionary could see Jesus, regardless of whether her eyes where open or closed. In most of the appearances, Jesus appeared as a solid figure, much like Apparitions supposedly do. Many cases also included him talking- sometimes without his lips in sync with the dialogue! In a few visions, Jesus could also be touched- feeling "warm". All these features remind me (and Wiebe) of the New Testament visions of Jesus in which he was supposedly solid and capable of communication and touch. And if that isn't enough, one case (Case #4) featured someone who supposedly "hated God" having an experience of Jesus himself after quietly one night admitting that Christianity might be true. Sounds like a possible candidate for Paul?

Wiebe, however, argues that these cases prove that Jesus was resurrected, and still appears to his followers today. I see them as evidence for the contrary. Anyways, despite Wiebe's argumentation in the later chapters, I still found one glaring problem with the accounts- one that makes me fairly sure that these are just hallucinations- and that's that they are all extremely Private occurrences. Of all 30 cases he brings to the table, only one features a collective apparition. And even that sole case is extremely dubious, to say the least. Furthermore, some of these cases occur in public, with many people present- yet, only one person can ever see them. Of all the cases I read, there are only five cases in which the Christic apparition leaves some sort of a trace on the environment:

Case #1. The recipient fell unconscious at church and had a vision of a heavenly city with Jesus, who offered her wine. When she woke up, she appeared to be drunk, and other church members claimed that they could smell wine coming from her mouth.

Case #2. The recipient battled an evil creature while in a state of being half awake/half asleep. Jesus occasionally appeared to him to help him, but was rejected, until the demon got too powerful and he finally accepted Jesus' help. During the "battle", his hysteric wife claims to have seen him levitate. Strangely enough, the wife never sees Jesus or the demon, and the man never noticed that he was levitating. The pets and children slept thru the whole thing.

Case #25. The recipient has a vision of Jesus in 18" deep snow. The spot where Jesus stood, about 3' in diameter, was bare ground, with no tracks leading to it or away from it. The visionary was unsure whether Jesus was transparent or not.

Case #26. The recipient had a skiing accident, in which he injured his neck vertebrae. He saw Jesus in the hospital and made a miraculous recovery. Jesus appeared somewhat transparent.

Case #27. The recipient saw Jesus standing over the bed of a sick friend, but looking at him. The recipient tried to touch Jesus, but he disappeared, touching the sick friend as he left. The sick friend jumps up, healed, and reports that he felt something touch him when it happened.

The cases are rather interesting. But, as I said before, we have no good reason to think that these coincidences are of divine origin. For all I know the rain gutter could've released a bunch of water that made the spot in the snow. And the little girl in church may have drank grape juice before the event, leading some to think it was wine. After all, the church she went to wasn't allowed to drink wine, remember? How would they know what it smelled like. Furthermore, Wiebe himself admitted that he could not verify the details of each account. And we all know how bad memory can be.

Anyways, there was one case that was very impressive. Apparently, according to Case #28, an entire congregation and a Pastor all saw Jesus appear in the middle of a sermon. And if that isn't enough for you, the apparition was filmed! Although this case may seem impressive now- the entire case looks far more like deliberate deception when you look at it more closely. Ken Pulliam had a very good response to this case (here) which I will not spoil for you. Another fierce critique of this case comes from, strangely enough, a Christian  apologist (here).

As I've said before, the second part of the book is far too complex for me to critique. What I do know, however, and what Pulliam points out quite rightly is that Cognitive scientists are learning more and more every day- so we shouldn't feel bad just because we don't have an answer now. Perhaps in the future, when we understand how the brain works better, will we be able to come up with a more complete theory that accounts for the types of experiences honest people like these have. After all, most Psychologists are atheists.

I'm gonna review "Visions of Jesus"

After reading Chris Halliquists review of Craig Keener's "Miracles", I decided that I should probably get around to doing a book review. So what better book to review than Visions of Jesus from Philip Wiebe. I first heard of this book from a reader, Chris W. Later, I discovered that it had been quoted by Dale Allison, Maurice Casey, Gerald O'Collins, as well as several other scholars in various other books. When I think back, I wonder why it has taken me so long to review this book. So I went on my computer and started reading parts of the book thru Google books. Yes, that's how I read books in which I have no plans to buy. However, after reading a few samples of the book, I was impressed enough to go and get my own copy of it, so I could read it in it's entirety.

So, I'll do a proper review of the book when I get a copy and finish reading it. As a heads up, I doubt I'll be able to interact much with the material, especially his in-debth criticisms of psychological and Neurological explanations for apparitions, since I lack the scientific expertise needed. For the time being, I suppose you can all wet your appetite on the late Ken Pulliams critiques of this book on his blog. They are very good.

Gerald O'collins on Dale Allison, Part 2

I asked Gerald O'collins for a copy of his essay criticising Dale Allison, and much to my surprise he immediately sent me a copy. I have to admit, despite remaining totally unconvinced by his arguments, I was nonetheless very impressed by his level of scholarship. Now, I agree with him that ordinary Bereavement experiences are not enough to account for the resurrection belief- However, where we part ways is in how useful we think they are. I think there are enough parallels so that, combined with pre-easter prophecies and an empty tomb, the disciples would have concluded he was resurrected. O'Collin's, on the other hand, does not think there are enough parallels with these kinds of experiences.

After reading his essay, I only felt two of his arguments were convincing. The first one is that bereavement experiences tend to occur weeks after the persons death, not within days. The second argument is that 40% of bereavement experiences last for several years. To the first argument, I can only point out that, although many don't start this early, some do, such as Allison's own case (as recounted in Resurrecting Jesus). Furthermore, positing that the disciples had bereavement visions a few weeks (perhaps two) after the crucifixion just doesn't seem like a big stretch to me. For all we know, they could've have pushed the appearances back a little to make it seem more convincing.

The latter criticism of the two is a hard one to solve. I think, as Allison does, that a good explanation may be the fact that there was some expectation. Jesus declared that he would be resurrected. So, the disciples would have classified certain visions as resurrection appearances, and other ones as mere visions. O'Collins foresees this objection, but responds to it by appealing to the lack of Jesus visions in later material, such as the book of acts. Sorry, but I just don't feel like this criticism is particularly good. There may have been many postmortem visions of Jesus that simply were never recorded. I know it's an argument from silence, but it's still a strong possibility. Another possibility is that, as many scholars have suggested, the visions ending after "forty days", is allegorical, and really means "a long time".

I just want to conclude by saying that, although studying bereavement experiences in the modern world can be very useful, I am skeptical of how far they can really take us in terms of understanding the Resurrection. In the cases documented by Dewi Rees, only widows and widowers were interviewed. The disciples, as O'Collins rightly points out, are very different than widows and widowers. The disciples had not only a lot of grief, but a lot of messianic expectations and possibly even an empty tomb to account for. Furthermore, they lived in a different time with a different mindset. For example, Rees' study showed that the bereaved rarely ever talk about their experiences. However, in ancient times, these sorts of experiences were well understood; as a matter of fact, the gospel writers went thru great pains to emphasize that Jesus was not one!

So, despite himself, O'Collins is right- just for the wrong reason. We have no precedent for what the disciples went thru, so we shouldn't be surprised if their testimony seems a little bit different than what we see in these kinds of modern surveys. And as a final note, O'Collins reassured me that his criticism of Bereavement experiences was so far the only one done by a professional scholar. So, if you want a copy of O'Collins essay, just send me an email.

UPDATE

O'Collins didn't send me his essay from the Irish Theological quarterly, but his arguments from the appendex of his new book, Believing in the Resurrection: The Meaning and Promise of the Risen Jesus. Nonetheless, the document still contains all the arguments from his earlier essay, as well as some new ones.

Garald O'Collins on Dale Allison

Theologian Gerald O'Collins has very recently written a critique of Dale Allison's hypothesis that the visionary experiences of the disciples could be explained away as typical bereavement visions. In his paper, he claims that the similarities between bereavement visions/apparitions and the resurrection appearances are too few to be significant, and are therefore useless in explaining away the resurrection appearances. Misfortunatley, Gerald's essay is unavailable on the web (unless you pay a fee), so I cannot comment on it or it's arguments. If you know of any of his arguments, comment on this post immediatley!

Fortunately, Mike Licona's (Pg's 623-641) and JP Holding's (Pg's 317-318) books on the resurrection briefly mention a few of O'Collin's criticisms of Allisons theory. Misfortunatley, the issues they bring up are quite easy to rebut. For instance, in Holdings book, Jonathan Kendall asserts (Pg 318) that in order for the Apparition theory to be viable, the visions would have had to have stopped immediately after 40 days. This criticism is exceptionally weak when we look at cases in "Resurrecting Jesus"- especially in Allison's own case in which:

"Of the reports I received of apparitions of my late father, half came during the week immediately following his death, and all came during the following months; and nothing has happened since"

So, at least we know that in some cases, people have apparitional experiences within the first week of the persons death. Isn't that enough? As Allison suggests in his essay- The disciples could have easily interpreted early Apparitions as "appearances" and later ones as "visions from heaven". I see no reason why conservative Christians can't at least acknowldge this scenario as a possibility. Also, Licona states in his book that, according to O'Collins, Apparitional experiences would not be a good explaination since they never cause their recepients to start a new Religion (Pg 636). To this criticism I am shocked. Who's saying that visions alone changed the disciples lives? Let us not forget the empty tomb and pre-easter expectations, which I thick would certainly get them exited. I don't think I need more examples to prove my point.

On a final note, in another essay  "Doubt and the resurrection of Jesus" (which can also be found here), the author claims that Gerald isn't the only person who has critically evaluated Allison's Apparition theory.

"There has been a concerted effort recently to show the similarities between postdeath apparition experiences and Jesus' resurrection appearances"

Misfortunatley, the snipit that I aquired had little information on exactly how much interest has gone into this, or how many scholars have actually listened to it. Considering the poor responses from Habermas and Craig, I doubt that these critiques of Allison have garnered much popularity. Still, a part of me wants to know what kind of critiques these are, and how serious they are to Allisons theory. After all, if I am wrong about the Resurrection, I would certainly like to know about it. So, once again, if any of my readers knows anything about this, I would be very grateful.

JP Moreland's angel encounter

As many skeptics are probably aware, JP Moreland has recently claimed to have had an angelic encounter. Although never actually saw the angles (and still hasn't, page 157), he has a little story about how he now "knows" they are real. According to his book and this report, he claims that an old woman at his church saw 3 angels around him. At first, he thought the woman was crazy. 8-10 months later, however, Moreland experienced a tragedy of some sort and decided to pray not only for the angels to protect him, but for God to verify the angels' existence to him. Less than a week later, a student claimed to have seen 3 angels hovering around Moreland in, apparently, the exact same manner described by the woman (pages 155-156). Hallelujah!

Now- what could've happened? Well, I'm sure even Moreland would agree that it could have been a very large coincidence. However- I think that, if we properly scrutinize the story, the coincidence in the end will not be that impressive. we'll begin by breaking the miracle claim into 3 separate parts- the Old woman, the prayer, and finally, the Student.

First off, lets keep in mind that he thought the old woman was crazy. Why was that, a skeptic will rightly ask? Could it be, perhaps, because the old woman was slightly crazy? It's not like it's hard to tell the difference between a crazy person from a sane person- they just don't look right. Also, we don't have evidence that the angels were in a sophisticated position- one that could not otherwise be guessed. According to the book, one angel stood by each of his sides, and another behind him. This position doesn't sound that complicated. In fact, it's really the only photogenic way three angels could huddle around someone! The only thing that seems strange is that the angel behind him was taller than him. Then again, it would look kinda funny if the angel behind him were shorter than him- since you wouldn't be able to see him! Plus, Moreland appears to be fairly  average height, at least according to this video (The first few seconds). Therefore, I doubt the backmost being taller is really that implausible to guess.

Moving on, lets look at part two of the miracle- the prayer. Now, it does seem somewhat odd that Moreland would think of the angels in his prayer- after all, he did say that he was experiencing a hard time. And remember, the first part of his prayer was for the angels to help him. Only later did he decide he wanted proof. In addition, keep in mind that Moreland only prayed that God would verify the angels' existence. He never instructed God in how this would happen. Moreland could've accepted anything as evidence for angels, as he never set up any limits.

Finally, we get to the icing on the cake. Why that student say 3 angels as opposed to two or four is beyond me. However, we must keep in mind that the old woman told Moreland of her vision 8-10 months ago, remember? For all we know, she could have seen two or five angels, and Moreland ended up changing the numbers in his head. She could have also said something ambigous, like "a few". Same thing for the details. Ten months is a lot of time to change the details- and he never mentions anything about going back and verifying what the old woman saw. He let 8-10 months pass, and thought very little of the experience, admitting that he "wasn't even sure if it was real". The details, like the angels height or even numbers could have been retrofitted. We do have precedent for this sort of thing happening- and 8-10 months is a hell of a lot of time.

I admit, this is all speculation, of course. What I do know, however, is that sane people regularly experience hallucinations. They typically occur when the person is tired or stressed out- conditions not uncommon in a university classroom. However- even sane people can and do experience hallucinations of strange things they don't even understand. Now, keep in mind that most hallucinations are of faces or humans. We all have an innate ability to detect patterns- and the most common ones tend to be faces. This is why we see faces in toast and why we see other people when we hallucinate (I will add a relevant link later). Interestingly enough, the angels all looked like regular people. Also, at least in the case of the student, the vision only lasted 5-10 minutes. Now, if we consider how bad human memory is, we can probably say the vision was closer to 5 minutes. Sound like a Hallucination to you? It does to me. Also, curiously enough, in this video, he claims that the vision from the student was "10-15 minutes", as opposed to the original "5-10 minutes". We can clearly see him changing the numbers.

So, I would like to conclude by saying that this case is an interesting one. It is the only angel case I have seen in which different people see the same entity(s) at different times. It is also rather strange that the student's angel appearance occurred at such a similar time to Moreland's prayer. According to Moreland, the student's vision occurred a few days prior to his sending the email to Moreland, which happened less than a week after the prayer. This means that, if Moreland can be taken at his word, the student saw the angels 2-4 days after the prayer. Although the angels's and their details don't impress me at all, it's the timing of the second prayer that makes me feel bad about dismissing the case entirely. Of course, I find it very strange that Moreland doesn't give out any numbers at all. All he says is "less than a week later", and "a few days earlier". I don't know why he wouldn't just give us hard numbers as opposed to estimates. It could be because, although he knows when he got the email, he forgot when he made the prayer request. If this is true, than the students email could've occurred much later, and, once again, Moreland was just retrofitting his memories to suit his expectations. It seems possible to me. According to Morelands "Closer to the truth" interview, the visit with the angel happened "2 years ago". Therefore, the miracles would have happened at least a year prior to the filming of that episode. I don't know when the episode was released, but I think it would be safe to say that the reports of his "miracle" came in about a year after they occurred- more than enough time to polish them off for apologetic purposes.

By the way, sorry for not doing a post on the OT. I was going to post a link to the  documentary "Unearthing the bible", but found that the video was removed from YouTube. I'll try to get a copy of it at the library.

Kevin Brown's miracle claim

For the last few weeks, I've been looking for impressive miracle claims. Events that, if true, would totally shatter my deeply held world-view. I looked all over the Internet- I honestly have. But so many of the stories are just lame. The vast majority of them are miraculous healings that could easily  be explained by spontaneous remissions. There are some nature miracles- but they are far and few. For the most part, I haven't seen a single miracle that CANNOT be explained naturally. Now, I am agnostic as to whether the best explanation for the combined sum of miracles leans toward Atheism or not- but I think it can at least explain them all away. Well, all except one...

One of my favorite Christian bloggers Kevin Brown (AKA Diglotting) made a rather large claim in the comments sections of one of this posts. He claimed that only himself, but his entire family witnessed a supernatural entity on not only once, but several occasions. When I first read it, I immediately responded by saying that perhaps, in the future, a naturalistic explanation will be discovered. A few days later, however, I just couldn't keep it on the back of my head. I knew that this claim was different than the other ones. For one thing, he is an eye-witness- rarely do paranormal investigators and skeptics get the privilege of speaking directly to the ones who were involved. Secondly, I know that Kevin isn't a primitive, superstitious African tribal prone to hallucinating due to lack of food and clean water. Thirdly, there isn't much of a reason to lie.

All these factors made me want to investigate the claim further. I mean, I only have my immortal soul at stake, right? So, I commented on Kevin's post under the alias of "Darwinfish" in order to get some information out of him. Yes- I know the employment of alternate accounts is seen as dishonest in the bloggerspere, but cut me some slack, will you? I wanted to know the truth- even if it meant getting dirty and forcing it out of him. And so, I didn't want to stain my reputation with what I was planning to do to extract information.

Anyways, I waited for a few days; He didn't respond. Frustrated, I sent him two other comments, just to make sure he got the first one. Again, I got no response. Finally, I sent him a longer comment, accusing him of withholding valuable information that, according to him, could save my soul. At this point, I was extremely offended. How dare he let someone suffer for an eternity due to their ignorance. What kind of messed up, holier than thou attitude is that? Anyways, this time he deleted my comment, as well as every comment made under my alias of "Darwinfish".

Even when I pointed out the consequences of his actions, he still chose to ignore me. What the hell. At this point I am debating in my head whether he really did see a "supernatural entity". Did he make it up? Did he exaggerate his story so that he'd have something to fire at Papalinton, who he was debating in the comments section? I don't know- and I doubt I ever will. But this unproductive attitude isn't uncommon amongst miracle believers.

One middle aged woman claimed that her mother in laws arm miraculously grew one and a half inches longer right in front of her eyes. However, when one commenter suggested that she report the event to a skeptical investigator, she stated that she "didn't want to test God". Really? If God doesn't want us to be convinced by his miracles, why the hell does he permit them? The New Testament puts heavy emphasis on Jesus' faith healings, so I see no reason why Jesus would all of a sudden change his mind. To me, a better explanation is that people like her just don't want to challenge their beliefs. They'd rather believe in a miracle than admit to being mistaken. In the case of the woman, I found this video from Randi, explaining how faith healers do the elongated limbs trick.

Now, this whole preference to supernatural explanations seems innocent at first- I mean, I'm sure that old woman is enjoying thinking she's been healed out of what is obviously a sham. However, when you consider how many people like may change their minds- you realise it's a cruel, cruel thing they are doing. They are maintaining their comfort at the potential expense of other peoples eternal suffering. This attitude insults, degrades and belittles my worth as a human being.

So Kevin, if you are, by some miraculous coincidence reading this post, I am not accusing you of putting your feel-good beliefs before of my eternal soul. All I am saying is that it looks an awful lot like that from this perspective. Also, I don't really care if you find out that "Darwinfish" was me this whole time. Why should I? I just wanted answers. Your the one possibly sending me to hell. Something tells me I'm not visiting your blog anytime soon. And finally, thank you to the anonymous gent who asked me to blog thru the Old Testament. I would love to crack open the history books and look at a few of the sillier parts of the Bible in greater detail.

HT James McGrath for the picture


UPDATE

The information in this post is now outdated. Read this for more. I will keep this post up to serve as a lesson on how powerful coincidences can be.

Resurrection Sundays: Concluding thoughts

As promised, here is this weeks "Resurrection Sundays" post. It will be a special post since, in addition to being quite late, it will also be my last one. Don't get me wrong- I will always post on the Resurrection. However, it will be the last one with the name "Ressurection Sundays", and the last one to be posted strictly on a Sunday. I had fun making this little series, I really did- but now it's Christmas season, and I have Christmas shopping and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim playing to do. So until further notice, Resurrection Sundays are on hiatus. However- as a little Christmas gift, I will put a poll on the side of my blog, allowing you to suggest to me what topic I should post on next.

Now for the post. To begin, I would like to state that, throughout my posts, I have never claimed to have "debunked the Resurrection". I have never even claimed to be infallible- after all, there is only one pope. However, I do think that I have sufficiently demonstrated why the Resurrection cannot be proven on historical grounds. Alternate scenarios cannot be ruled out. We know that many people can come to hold a false belief. We also know that tombs can become emptied in non-miraculous ways, and that stories of empty tombs have been invented. Long story short, there are alternative explainations that, at minimum, explain away the Resurrection without appeal to the divine.

As mentioned beforehand, we have precedent for claims of visionary experiences from multiple people. Hell, according to this article, angels have been seen and experiences not only Christians, but by Jews and Muslims as well. Although these angel cases are totally anonymous and of extremely poor evidential value, they can still be tell us alot about how easily people will accept unsubstantiated stories. Skeptics have usually argued that these cases arise due to the witness' altering their memories subconciously. Often, when these cases are scrutinized-it is revealed that only one person actually saw the entity, while the others, in a state of hysteria, just went along with it. In faith communities, especially conservative Christian ones, miracle claims are quite celebrated, and it becomes almost a contest of who has the better miracle story. Does this sound like the early Christian church to you? Add some end of the world prophecies to the mix, and I think it does!

Also, when it comes to the empty tomb, it could've been made up. Why not? According to Dale Allison, we have precedent for stories of empty tombs being discovered back in the day. Even if it can be proven improbable- it will always remain a possibility. Of course- the tomb could have been emptied naturalistically as well. For instance, what if the Jews were to have entered the tomb and stole Jesus' remains. Perhaps they didn't parade the corpse around the streets, as they merely wanted to deny Jesus a proper burial- perhaps in protest of Joseph of Aremathea's descision to let him be buried. Going even  further, what if this is the controversy Matt 28:11-15 alludes to? Now, I'm not saying this is what happened- but I am saying that a scenario like this is certainly possible- and perhaps even probable. As Allison maintains througout his excellent book and article on the Resurrection, there are many ways in which a tomb can be emptied naturalistically.

Finally, to conclude this post, I want to remind apologists that the sources we do have come only from believers. We haven't a shred of evidence that any non-Christian living at Jesus' time thought of him as being "unique". To them, he was the same as any other false messiah. He helaed a few people and was eventually killed. I have always felt that this is the very best argument against the divinity of Christ (and by extention, the Resurrection). Jesus' life was just simply unremarkable. He held common false beliefs at the time; he performed the same type of Psychosomatic healings other Pagans and false messiahs did; legends arose around him after he died; etc.

Overall, I think that the case for the Resurrection is strong. However, I also think that the evidence for alien encounters and angels are strong too. In all of these cases, we have groups of people claiming to have seen the same thing. However- angels are often affiliated with New age beliefs incompatible with Christianity, and Aliens are just hard to fit into a world where Theism is true. All these strange phenomena just don't seem to lead anywhere and, as I have argued before, all seem to be incompatible. And that's it for Resurrection Sundays! I hope that you all enjoyed these little posts as much as I have.

Pitting incompatible Supernatural beliefs against each other

Supernatural claims are a dime a dozen now adays. Many of them can be consistent with Christianty, like NDE's, Apparitions and Poltergeists. However, many aren't as adaptable, such as Reincarnation and Alien sightings. Furthermore, amonst the phenomena that are consistent with Christianity, I think that many cases can be shown to be incompatible with it as well- such as non-Christians having NDE's featuring members of their Religion. I have used this strategy in various posts, such as this one, this one and this one.

Here is an interesting article I discovered recently that illustrates my point. What makes it interesting, however, isn't the story itself- but the couple starring in it- Sarah & Michael Feeley. These two claim that they experienced  angelic visitations. Now, angelic visitations aren't incompatible with the truth of Christianity- as a matter of fact, they are what we'd expect if Christianity were true! Therefore, this couples experience serves as evidence that Christianity is true, right?

Wrong! In addition to the beliefs they hold that support Christianity, they also hold many absurd claims that don't gel as well with it- such as that they experienced ascended masters, energy meditations and even alien encounters. They also believe that  they had past lives in Egypt and Atlantis- a claim that is completely in conflict with most forms of Christianity since it removes hell from the picture.

So- if we were to assume that an angel did, in fact, visit them- one would have to ask why they hold all these absurd beliefs- some of which are irreconcilable with Christianity. Perhaps a demon disguised as an angel decieved them. That's a possible explaination- but than, how can ever we know whether "genuine" religious experiences are authentic? After all, they have just as much evidential merit as this couples experiences, don't they? Plus, the demon hypothesis can't be disproven, so it's on quite shaky ground. Only two other possibilities stick out in my mind- that they are all correct beliefs, or that they are all incorrect beliefs- and I think we all know what the answer is.

Now, as well as a being a good example of pitting incompatible beliefs against each other, this couple should also shed light on the power of belief. For those that have read the article, you'll know that these two aren't just superstitious tribals- their ex-police officers! This should demonstrate how even the most credible of witness' could be utterly, utterly deluded.

Christian entity encounters

There are some Christians out there who claim to have experienced miracles. Well, the Christian understanding of a miracle has always been that it is an event that brings the recipient closer to God. No, when I say a miracle, I mean an event that is far harder to explain in naturalistic terms than by an appeal to the divine. Anyways, these miracles usually involve seeing and/or communicating with Angels, Demons, Jesus and Apparitions. Skeptics usually label these visionary experiences as entities- and usually group them together with UFO's, Bigfoot, and other strange, supernatural beings.

However, despite the popularity of entities amongst laymen, intellectuals rarely mention them, if ever. Really, the only ones I have ever heard even mention these kinds of events are Gary Habermas, Mike Licona and JP Moorland. And even they say little of value about them. I suspect the reason why they are unpopular in academia would be because, sadly, these events rarely have any evidence other than bare testimony. Even Habermas, who has argued in favor of these Miracles, admits this here.

"In my own study of apparition cases, in spite of my very positive mindset, I hardly ever saw a case for which there were not several potential alternative theses. In fact, when even the best cases are studied, something regularly seems to be lacking"

Usually the problem with entities are that they never interact with the environment (ie: leave footprints) and that they are usually experienced using one sense (usually sight, but they are sometimes heard, see here). However, there are exceptions, such as cases in which the supernatural entity is seen and heard, and/or appears to multiple people. These experiences are challenging to fit into a naturalistic worldview, but they are not impossible. Many explanations have been put forward from skeptics, such as Pereidola and false memory recalls. Personally, I think that some cases can also be explained by some form of group hallucinations. The experiences themselves tend to be very simplistic and short, so it seems plausible that many Apparition reports can be explained with them. Also, don't forget that Christians of all creeds- and even non-Christians (see here and here) claim to have these types of experiences! Dale Allison is certainly open to the possibility of group hallucinations- and he supposedly experienced one himself!

Just as a final thought, I'd just like to say that, if there really were supernatural entities out there- why haven't they ever been photographed or caught on film? Bill Nye makes an excellent point in this video that, only a little while ago, car collisions were considered impossible to catch on film. Nowadays, there are so many traffic cameras out there that they are captured regularly. So, my question is simple: why do so many of these entities appear when no one else is looking? There should be far more entity reports than there were several years ago, simply because of the fact that we now have the means to record them. Yet nothing unexplainable has turned up. This is a real problem for believers indeed.

NDE's and universal salvation

Remember my post on Apparitions? Well, everything I said about them can be applied to NDE's. Also, we just so happen to have an NDE report from a member of the Baha'i faith. I wonder how Christians will respond to this?

Resurrection Sundays: The Twelve, The Five Hundred and the rest of the Disciples

I think it is fair to say this is the only area where the Christian has a significant advantage over the Atheist when it comes down to explaining away the resurrection. While hallucinations were common enough back in Jesus' day, collective visions were and still are rather rare. Many New Testament scholars remain agnostic about it, while others like Gary Habermas are militantly opposed to them as even being possibilities. Before I go any further in this post, I will briefly argue that group hallucinations are not only real- but more common than we'd suspect. Also, keep in mind that I am, for the sake of argument, assuming that the early church Creed found in 1 Cor 15 is 100% reliable. I will blog about that in the future.

The common argument against the "Group hallucination" hypothesis is that it is impossible for two people to share a hallucination, since hallucinations are projections of the mind; and obviously two people hallucinating the exact same thing is improbable, right? Well- I cringe when I hear apologists say this, since that isn't what the group hallucination hypothesis proposes at all! Actually, the best work on this phenomena states that the hallucinaters experience an "altered state of consciousness", or a type of trance. The trance alone does nothing- it's the hallucinaters that decide what they are seeing- and usually the dominant opinion is the one that comes out on top. They are also not as improbable as we'd think. Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh's great book, "Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels" quote this study:

"Erika Bourguignon, who compiled a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, at various levels of technological complexity, and found that ninety percent of these societies evidence 'altered states of conciousness' Her conclusion: "Societies which do not utilize these states are historical exceptions which need to be explained, rather than the vast majority of societies that do not use these states" (cited by Pilch 1993)."

For more information, see here. Now, it's important to note that, although these experiences can feel "more real than reality" at some times, the Hallucinaters usually disregard the experience when they are over. However, if we add some pre-Easter prophecies and expectations, it makes sense out of why the disciples would not only believe their experience was genuine, but also re-interpret it the way they did. Lets not forget that the creed is silent on whether Jesus talked or did anything, so it seems likely to me that Jesus just appeared to his disciples and than vanished- just like a hallucination! Now, this fits the data that we have for the group appearance to the twelve, but the appearance to the five hundred seems a bit improbable. Plus, I don't even know where to begin with "the rest of the disciples". So lets consider the appearance to the 500 next.

Well, the appearance to the 500 is a notorious one since it is full of mysteries. For example, the 500 are nameless. William Lane Craig argues that because Paul says "although some of them have fallen asleep", that means he must've known at least some of them personally. I am surprised an otherwise smart man would say this. Maybe he did know someone involved, so what? That hardly means he knew them personally. And even if he did- Paul certainly doesn't share any of the details. We don't know any of the recipients names, we don't know where it happened, or even if they were drinking bad water or something. What little we do know seems to say the opposite! Now, if Paul knew some of them, why would he chose to mention that they had died, rather than name names? He could easily say that the appearance was to "Ralph and 499 other followers" or something like that. Perhaps he says this because the event happened a long time ago (AKA 10-12 years ago), so logically someone would have had to have died by than, considering that people in his day only lived until the ripe old age of 40!

But even if Paul did mention this information, we still have one big problem- it's not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament! This is prime evangelising material, people! How a story this incredible could evade the quills of the New Testament authors are beyond me. Now, if we consider the "Group Hallucinations" explanation, we know that often, the visions are discredited afterwards. As a matter of fact, this argument is used by apologists like Habermas arguing against the "Group hallucination hypothesis". So with that in mind, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which a large amount of people had an experience that some members considered Jesus. these ones reported it, and the rest discredited it. Eventually the dissenters are heard, and the appearance is later removed from the creed, and thus from scripture (Maurice Casey makes this argument here).

The same can be said of the group appearance to "the rest of the disciples". It's just sad that we don't know how many people were involved. We know that very early Christianity was fairly small, so it couldn't have been that big an appearance (considering a supposed 500 followers already saw him). Still- the fact that they give no number almost seems to imply that it isn't impressive, or isn't even a group appearance at all. At least they added some details to the appearance to the 500, like that some of them died. I'll have to look into it in more detail later, but it seems like at worst it's another massive group appearance that can be explained away in the same manner as the appearance to the 500. Of course, it may not be- but just relying on the text alone doesn't help us much. I'll have to devote a post to this topic in the future.

Is the Hallucination Hypothesis improbable?

Sorry for not posting much recently, my dear readers- um, reader. I have recently contracted some sort of nasty virus which makes me feel dizzy and think not-good. My brother got it a few days before me, and is already better- so I doubt it'll take much longer for myself. Anyways when I checked out my blog, I got this comment from Chris W:

"So, do you think we have to simply go down the list in 1 Cor 15 and explain each appearance? Or do you think there might have been an earlier historical core on which the list is based on--one with less fantastic group visions and no additions like 'according to the scriptures'? "

As soon as I read it, I hastily sent off a response, admitting that I don't know, and that I usually concede that the creed is accurate, for the sake of argument. For me, it's nice to have a  theory that accounts for all of the potential data- and hallucinatory experiences seem to do that. However, after thinking about it a bit- I realised that he has a point. This theory does seem kinda improbable.

Of course, I believe that no naturalistic theory for the resurrection has ever been "perfect"- that is, none have ever accounted for all of the available data at least as well as the "resurrection hypothesis". However, I don't think a naturalistic explanation needs to be exactly on par with a supernatural explanation for it to be considered, let alone favored over it. For one thing, if one is a naturalist, and finds it extremely difficult to fit God into the universe, the probability of the resurrection completely plummets, until anything is more probable than it. Also, if one has a religious experience incompatible with Christianity, they would also consider Jesus' resurrection to be very improbable.

Of course, I am not saying that we need to believe in space aliens or evil twins to remain skeptics- quite the contrary, I believe that some alternative explanations for the resurrection actually account for different pieces of information better than the resurrection hypothesis- for example, they explain the nature of the visions very well. They also explain away failed prophecies and the early disciples false scientific beliefs- but I'll save that for a later post.

All that I intend to do is show is that skeptical hypothesis aren't too implausible to believe. For one thing, apparitions are quite well known- and studied from a secular perspective (see here and here). However, I don't want to spoil too much since I plan to blog about them in the future. All that's important is that they happen more often than we'd think. We also know that visionary experiences (including group visions) were actually very common in Jesus' day- in fact, they were so common they were considered "normal". We also know that in many of these instances, the seers don't see the same thing, even though they initially think they do- which seems much more probable according to a naturalistic hypothesis than a supernatural one.

Just as a concluding thought- I want to discuss apologists that undermine the hallucination hypothesis. William Lane Craig, in spite of his ego, usually accepts that they are at least possible, stating that he feels that they are ad-hoc and improbable. Fair enough. Some other scholars, however, are much more antagonistic towards it. These scholars are most notably Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. For one thing, Habermas denies that they can even happen! Being a protestant, I wonder how he'd explain away the Marian Apparitions? Licona falls into this same trap as well. As a matter of fact, during his debate with Bart Ehrman, he once again claims ignorance as to how the Marian apparitions came to be, once again stating he hasn't seen the evidence! This is academic dishonesty, plain and simple.

Apparitions of the dead: Can they disprove Christianity?

I was thinking about Apparitions of the dead. They are an interesting phenomena that can very adequately explain away Jesus' resurrection in natural terms. However, they are also a double sided sword. For if they can be proven to be veridical- than that not only becomes evidence in support of the Resurrection, but against Naturalism itself! So, I think that before we cling to apparitions data for support, we better first try to prove, at least to ourselves, that the apparition data fits a naturalistic worldview. Sadly, most atheists scientists just ignore apparitional data; hell, according to Dale Allison, Theologians do too!

"Now I share Gary's fascination for NDEs, and I am nonplussed that theologians by and large seem content to ignore them"

However, these scientists may have good reason to ignore them. Here is a great article on this sort of phenomena here. As Gary Habermas admits in his essay here, may of these events do not have very good evidential merit.

"In my own study of apparition cases, in spite of my very positive mindset, I hardly ever saw a case for which there were not several potential alternative theses. In fact, when even the best cases are studied, something regularly seems to be lacking."

So it seems to me that, by Gary's own admission, the burden of proof lies on the Theist to explain why they think that these apparitions constitute as proof of an afterlife, and not of vivid Hallucinations. However, I think that, even if one where to concede that apparitions are strong evidence in support of an afterlife, that they could still turn around and mount a powerful attack against traditional Christianity. To do this, one has to show that the apparition data is inconsistent with the Bibles teachings and thus, Christianity. The doctrine that stands out most quickly to me is the doctrine of hell. Traditional Christianity has always taught that not all will enjoy salvation. However, if within the vast amounts of apparitional data we find at least one case of a non-Christian enjoying his/her stay in the afterlife, than that should constitute as damning evidence against the doctrine of hell and, by extension, traditional Christianity as we know it.

Now, I'm not sure what Theologians would make of this sort of argument- perhaps they would find it convincing. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is why they are so hesitant to embrace the data in the first place! Personally, I see apparitional data as being, if anything, quite relieving to the atheist, since it offers some hope of an afterlife, even if we don't believe it.