I'm volunteering my perspective on this as someone who was brought up in an evangelical Christian household/community, and left that after I was exposed to alternate ways of looking at the world. I hope it's useful. :)
"From inside my little bubble of Christian thought, there is a strong meme that goes like this: everyone who seriously researches the historical basis of the Resurrection from a truth-seeking point of view - even an antagonistic, 'I want to prove this didn't happen' point of view - finds out that they actually end up proving that it must have happened, and usually end up converting to Christianity."
You're certainly right about it being a bubble. Having come from this background myself and investigating it "when I got out" - as it were - I was surprised (or rather, not really surprised at all, considering the rest of the dogma I was exposed to) at how few credible sources anyone could actually name.
In my personal experience, Christian thought (including "christian" versions of science, history and so forth) tends to suffer from the typical cognitive biases you'd expect from any heavily guarded dogma, especially confirmation bias. Occasionally you will hear stories of miracle healing, or of someone having a vision which saved their life, or of conversion after "looking into the evidence". Like all of these stories it's quite possible that there was someone who experienced what they thought was a miracle. But then that one example gets taken as gospel, has all the inconvenient bits stripped away, and is then amplified within the echo chamber to the point where it's "everyone who ever investigated" (conveniently forgetting any counter-examples, to boot). I have literally seen this happen myself as stories moved around from church to church, and the story which came back later was unrecognisable to those who were actually present. Unsurprisingly, that part gets ignored.
I suspect the vast majority of people who claim to be an authority on subjects relating to this particular point in history are anything but, and certainly not the ones who are most vocal about it and trying to sell books to a willing audience. Unfortunately the serious hard work required to do this sort of historical study can take a lifetime and even then might not produce a solid answer - leading to people's prior biases coming to light, and very little chance for verification.
My conclusion is, since I've not been able to verify any credible historian discovering solid proof for the existence of a historical Jesus - let alone his supposed resurrection, that it didn't happen. Now, I personally don't think it's all that unreasonable that some rabble-rousing Jewish bloke was the centre of a messianic cult, because from what I've read that shit happened all the time and the weight of proof required is much lower. Is there a historical basis for the dude actually being the son of God and being resurrected after being crucified? None that I've been able to make out - extraordinary claims, and all that.
Coming back to the original point about it being a bubble - how much literature have you and/or most of the Christians in your life actually read which seriously attempts to debunk or disprove the arguments? It's a serious question and I don't think it's one that many people can answer truthfully without admitting their own confirmation bias. If you live in a world where you don't see the other side of the story, of course all the examples you have to hand are the ones that support your side.
no subject
"From inside my little bubble of Christian thought, there is a strong meme that goes like this: everyone who seriously researches the historical basis of the Resurrection from a truth-seeking point of view - even an antagonistic, 'I want to prove this didn't happen' point of view - finds out that they actually end up proving that it must have happened, and usually end up converting to Christianity."
You're certainly right about it being a bubble. Having come from this background myself and investigating it "when I got out" - as it were - I was surprised (or rather, not really surprised at all, considering the rest of the dogma I was exposed to) at how few credible sources anyone could actually name.
In my personal experience, Christian thought (including "christian" versions of science, history and so forth) tends to suffer from the typical cognitive biases you'd expect from any heavily guarded dogma, especially confirmation bias. Occasionally you will hear stories of miracle healing, or of someone having a vision which saved their life, or of conversion after "looking into the evidence". Like all of these stories it's quite possible that there was someone who experienced what they thought was a miracle. But then that one example gets taken as gospel, has all the inconvenient bits stripped away, and is then amplified within the echo chamber to the point where it's "everyone who ever investigated" (conveniently forgetting any counter-examples, to boot). I have literally seen this happen myself as stories moved around from church to church, and the story which came back later was unrecognisable to those who were actually present. Unsurprisingly, that part gets ignored.
I suspect the vast majority of people who claim to be an authority on subjects relating to this particular point in history are anything but, and certainly not the ones who are most vocal about it and trying to sell books to a willing audience. Unfortunately the serious hard work required to do this sort of historical study can take a lifetime and even then might not produce a solid answer - leading to people's prior biases coming to light, and very little chance for verification.
My conclusion is, since I've not been able to verify any credible historian discovering solid proof for the existence of a historical Jesus - let alone his supposed resurrection, that it didn't happen. Now, I personally don't think it's all that unreasonable that some rabble-rousing Jewish bloke was the centre of a messianic cult, because from what I've read that shit happened all the time and the weight of proof required is much lower. Is there a historical basis for the dude actually being the son of God and being resurrected after being crucified? None that I've been able to make out - extraordinary claims, and all that.
Coming back to the original point about it being a bubble - how much literature have you and/or most of the Christians in your life actually read which seriously attempts to debunk or disprove the arguments? It's a serious question and I don't think it's one that many people can answer truthfully without admitting their own confirmation bias. If you live in a world where you don't see the other side of the story, of course all the examples you have to hand are the ones that support your side.
(part 1 of 2)