Belated Easter Post

Watch and weep

Yes, I'm well aware it isn't Easter. I might be mad but strangely enough, I have a very sane conception of the passage of time. I was fervently hoping to post this erudite piece for Eastertide but real life intruded and I had to prepare for a difficult lecture this week. Thus, my readership missed out on my wisdom and had to wait a whole week before this much-anticipated piece came to full fruition. Please forgive me.

A very good friend contacted me the other day, by email. Yes, I do have friends, but as a very wise man once said: “Never have more friends than fingers on your right hand after a chainsaw accident”. I’m starting to digress. My friend is a Christian and considers the Flaxen haired one an unrepentant sinner ripe for conversion to the one true path that leads to the light……… Anyway, at Eastertide, he thought it a good idea to direct my attention to a film entitled, 'The Case for Christ' by a chap called, Lee Strobel. The thrust of the film is to provide absolute proof that Jesus died and rose from the dead after three days.

Before tackling the film, I would like to make a few points about the concept of the resurrection from a rationalist perspective. Most Christians seem happy to accept the resurrection without considering the profound implications of their belief. I, like Paul/Saul of Tarsus, devoutly believe that if Jesus didn’t come back to life after three days then Christianity as a true belief collapses into the dust of woe and despond and therefore, is no more. Out of respect for my friend I decided to watch the film in its entirety. But even without watching a single frame I can put forth a very good argument for the falsehood of the ‘resurrection’. 

Over the past four hundred years, very clever men have been uncovering, divining (even winnowing) and refining this pesky concept called knowledge and very importantly, determining how we can distinguish between concepts that are worthy of the name and concepts that deserve to be consigned to the mental bin of false belief. When someone says to me that a dead man has come back to life, I am honour bound to ask two salient questions. "Was the man truly dead or just resting? Mayhap he was in a state of suspended animation, coma or had partaken of a drug, such as curare, which temporarily robs him of his sensibilities. Or did the person undergo true biological death?" For me, as a biologist, true death of a human happens at brain death. This occurs when the brain cells are deprived of oxygen and therefore stop metabolising. This process starts about eight minutes after being deprived of oxygen. Once cell death sets in the process is irreversible; enzymes unfettered start to digest the cell turning the insides into a biological soup. Although, cells in the muscle of the deceased may still be viable two days after brain death, the loss of brain cognitive function which necessarily follows brain tissue death, really defines our demise.

If true death is to be reversed then the natural order of causality could/would not apply. What is required is a bona fide miracle formulated by the hand of god. But I ask you, how many miracles do we experience in everyday life? A miracle, by definition, is the suspension of natural order and causality. But, natural order is how things work and it has always been this way. I would contend that miracles never happen. To accept that a single miracle has occurred carries grave epistemological consequences. If we allow one miracle to occur then why not two, or a million. A world with miracles soon becomes a morass of inconsistency- a world where acorns can grow into theologians and where the dead roam the earth. David Hume's sobering take on the problem, although written in the 18th century, is still resonating relevant today. For your edification, I quote in full:

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish".

As for the film: Tis total crap and does not put forth a single coherent argument and consequently is not worthy of contemplation by my prodigious intellect. All the so-called experts are Christian believers/apologists and are convinced of the resurrection anyway, regardless of any purported evidence. Hardly an unbiased panel to assess the verity of the resurrection.

I truly believe that my friend thought I would somehow be convinced by the film. When I told him that I was unimpressed and that the film skirted over the main issues he genuinely looked sad and shook his head and said. "Flaxen, you may be a god amongst men, clothed in mortal guise. A face so fair and radiant that mere mortals can only stare for but a while lest their retinas become seared and their kneecaps move about a bit, but Sir, you are also a rampant rationalist and possess, no soul".  I countered thusly: "Indicted on all accounts. To not think rationally is equivalent to not thinking at all". In mitigation to my poor friend, he's totally ignorant of the ways of science and philosophy and holds a degree in Sociology- may the gods grant him peace for he shall receive none from me.