Wednesday, March 08, 2017

"If Christianity is true, then people don't really die..."

I heard the Unbelievable radio show featuring David Smalley and Frank Turek last month. It annoyed me as both contributors seemed to keep misunderstanding and misrepresenting the views of the other. Possibly deliberately. But for some reason I then went on to download the Dogma Debate episodes that were recorded after this, which again featured Smalley (he's the host of Dogma Debate) and Turek. That's episodes 298 and 299 of Dogma Debate. Once again they seemed to misunderstand each other, although I think that for the most part it was Smalley who did most of the misunderstanding. But anyway, I don't want to review either show, I just want to mention one thing that Turek said in part 2 of the Dogma Debate show. About 1 hr, 16 minutes into episode #299, Turek says:
"If Christianity is true, then people don't really die, they just change location."
Wow. That's a strong statement. And I know exactly where Turek is coming from here, I used to believe much the same thing myself. But when I heard it expressed this way, coming just a few minutes after the discussion of what Christ achieved by dying on the cross, I suddenly saw a problem. 

Using the logic of the above statement, if Christianity is true, then Jesus did not die on the cross, he merely changed location. It suddenly seems a lot less of a thing that Jesus changed location for your sins, how could changing location atone for anything?

Where was Jesus in the days following his death 'at the ninth hour' on Good Friday, and his resurrection at dawn on the first day of the week? The harrowing of hell isn't actually in the Bible (there's a compelling case that the 1 Peter 3 verse is a mistranslation, and refers to Enoch, not Jesus). If Jesus changed location, where did he go? Does it actually matter where he went? Surely what matters is whether he lived or died?

Was he actually dead? Did the Trinity become a Duality for 2 or 3 days? I don't know anyone who would actually claim that. Fundamentally, Christians believe that Jesus was somewhere and was (in at least some sense of the word) alive during that time. So, essentially, Jesus did not die on the cross. Sure, his earthly body died, but his Spirit remained alive somewhere, and then changed location back into his resurrection body a couple of days later. So what was the sacrifice? Jesus took on flesh when he incarnated, and that flesh died on the cross, but Jesus himself was eternal, did not die, and lives eternally, at least if we believe some of the claims of the NT.

Sounds to me that if the above claim of Christianity is true, then other claims of Christianity must be false...

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