What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

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_DoubtingThomas
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

KevinSim wrote: More recently I got to thinking that I was solidly convinced that I had free will, and that I was therefore non-deterministic. It didn't make sense to me that something non-deterministic could result from a totally deterministic universe. Where would the non-determinism have come from?


but LDS doctrine rejects creation ex nihilo,which means that God didn't literally create everything in LDS thought. In fact, LDS cosmologist Dr. Ron Hellings doesn't believe God created the universe.

KevinSim wrote: More recently I got to thinking that I was solidly convinced that I had free will, and that I was therefore non-deterministic.


1.There is a big debate about free will.
2. Ever heard of Quantum Mechanics? The uncertainty Principle? See
"Michio Kaku: Why Physics Ends the Free Will Debate"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNZQVyabiM

KevinSim wrote:I believed in God pretty much because I didn't see a good reason to conclude that there wasn't a God. .


but you can say the same thing about the brain in a vat theory, or the matrix. You can't prove our world is not a matrix.

KevinSim wrote:I asked God if the LDS Church was true, and was immediately overwhelmed by a very affirmative rushing sensation that left my whole body feeling tingling. I felt like I had no choice but to accept that that sensation came from God.


or you would read the illusion of God's presence, written by a neurologist.

KevinSim wrote:. I'm especially curious if the Talmud says anything that contradicts such a theory.


doesn't the Talmud date from 200 AD to 500 AD ? I don't think it can tell us much about 1st century Palestine.
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _KevinSim »

I have a question wrote:
KevinSim wrote:I did not hear his voice. I struggled for a while trying to get to the point where I was willing to accept either a yes or a no answer, and then, achieving that goal, I asked God if the LDS Church was true, and was immediately overwhelmed by a very affirmative rushing sensation that left my whole body feeling tingling. I felt like I had no choice but to accept that that sensation came from God.


How did you rule out the possibility the sensation was caused by:
A. Satan trying to trick you
B. Confirmation bias
C. Physiology
D. Male menopause
E. Emotion

I guess I might be mistaken, but my own personal opinion is that confirmation bias is caused by people wanting one answer more than another, kind of like when I said, "I struggled for a while trying to get to the point where I was willing to accept either a yes or a no answer." Someone doesn't have to consciously be abusing the process; I didn't realize I was being insincere when I asked God over and over again if the Book of Mormon was His word. But every time I asked, and got a good feeling I felt in response, I realized after the fact that I had wanted a positive response, and deep down I knew that I couldn't count on God really answering me until I was just as ready for a no answer as I was for a yes answer. It took a while, but eventually I got to that point, and then I asked my question and got my answer.

How do I know that the sensation I took to be my answer wasn't caused by Satan trying to trick me, physiology, male menopause, or emotion? Simple. Because if the sensation had been caused by any of those things, then I would have gotten two sensations, not one. I have faith that the God in control of the universe wants each of us individually to understand His will. God knows full well that if someone asks Him a question, really wanting to discover what God has to say, fully willing to base the rest of her/his life on whatever answer God provides her/him, and if that someone can't count on God answering that question, then that someone will never have any way of knowing what God's will is in her/his life. Since God wants that someone to understand His will, I conclude that God will answer that question. I asked that question; God has to answer; I got one answer; therefore that answer has to have come from God.

I have a question wrote:
We Can Be Deceived

Be ever on guard lest you be deceived by inspiration from an unworthy source. You can be given false spiritual messages. There are counterfeit spirits just as there are counterfeit angels. (See Moro. 7:17.) Be careful lest you be deceived, for the devil may come disguised as an angel of light.

The spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual. We occasionally find people who receive what they assume to be spiritual promptings from God, when those promptings are either centered in the emotions or are from the adversary.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1983/01/the-candle-of-the-lord?lang=eng

Yeah, and we know that quote is telling us the truth, how? I don't disbelieve that quote. It's absolutely true. If Satan thinks he can deceive us by giving us a message and getting us to believe it came from God of course he'll send us the message. But that is way less of a deal in the beginning. After God has given us the kernel of truth each of us needs as a sure foundation for her/his own personal theology, if we try to get more information maybe God will answer directly or maybe He will expect us to find some other way of learning the truth. But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth. So when someone is getting started, when someone asks God that foundational question, God has to answer. So if someone asks, and gets only one answer, that someone knows the answer came from God.
KevinSim

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_I have a question
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _I have a question »

KevinSim wrote:But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth. So when someone is getting started, when someone asks God that foundational question, God has to answer. So if someone asks, and gets only one answer, that someone knows the answer came from God.


That's simply a baseless assertion you are using to convince yourself of what you have chosen to believe.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _KevinSim »

huckelberry wrote:Considering the idea focused upon by Crossan that Romans would normally have tossed the body into the streets I wonder why that suggestion would not have been the one of choice by first century skeptics of the Christian story. Matthew and the Talmud indicate this stolen body theory had more currency. That would indicate I think that the idea of Jesus landing in a proper burial spot was believable to people then and Christians were about believing Jesus left that burial.

Huckelberry, this is exactly what I have been looking for. Where precisely in the Talmud does it "indicate this stolen body theory had more currency," and what precisely does it say?

I have a question wrote:
KevinSim wrote:But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth. So when someone is getting started, when someone asks God that foundational question, God has to answer. So if someone asks, and gets only one answer, that someone knows the answer came from God.

That's simply a baseless assertion you are using to convince yourself of what you have chosen to believe.

Why do you think it's baseless? Do you think it's unreasonable to have faith in a God who wants us to understand His will in our lives? Or do you think it doesn't follow that the existence of that God means we can ask a foundational question like the one I described and count on God answering?

honorentheos wrote:KevinSim,

You might find this past discusison on this board of interest: http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... 1&p=970955

Given the four gospel authors wrote in ways that help us understand what it is was they wished to convey about Jesus, it is helpful to look at what they say that none of the others said and how that aligns with their other unique points.

The author of the Gospel of Matthew is unique in claiming the Pharisees asked that there be a guard to prevent theft of the body, otherwise the body could be stolen and the claim made he was resurrected. Matthew also tells us this is a rumor he has heard and with which the reader of his day may be familiar. The author of Matthew not being an eye witness to the events being described, one is probably justified in the belief that this is about something contemporary to Matthew's writing and location. Beyond that, there is isn't much that is justifiable to accept as reasonablely true about this event in the account.

Honorentheos, thanks for pointing me to this thread! I just got done reading it (I confess I skipped a few posts that didn't look relevant to our discussion), and it was really interesting.
KevinSim

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_Aristotle Smith
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _Aristotle Smith »

KevinSim wrote:Does anybody know what the relevant parts of the Talmud are, and what exactly they say about Jesus?


The Talmud is an amalgamation of various legal rulings and stories spanning several centuries. The organization is mostly topical, not chronological. It is very hard to date passages of the Talmud to any given time period. Even when the Talmud says "Rabbi A said..." it hard to tell if the citation is actually of Rabbi A or if the attribution is mostly honorific. So even if we know when Rabbi A lived, it's still hard to date the passage to that time period.

No historical Jesus scholar I am aware of uses the Talmud to establish anything about the life and teachings of Jesus, it's too late, the references are very sparse, and dating is very difficult.

KevinSim wrote:Do we know, independently from the New Testament, that Pilate did actually give the Jewish leaders a watch of soldiers to stay by the tomb where Jesus was laid?


No.
KevinSim wrote:Do we know, independently from the New Testament, that a very large boulder was rolled over the entryway?


No.

KevinSim wrote:Quite a while back, I even remember some critics of the New Testament account saying that it was their opinion that Jesus' body didn't make it into the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea at all. They said that it was the standard practice among Romans to take the dead bodies of crucified men and just cast them into the streets, to be eaten by dogs and other animals; and they didn't know any good reason to believe that's not what happened to the body of Jesus.


That was John Dominic Crossan's theory. Although a nice guy and a good writer, his dating of the sources is unique to him and not a single other scholar I know of agrees with his source dating. In my not so humble opinion his source dating is the tail wagging the dog. He has a methodology he uses, a conclusion he wants to assert, and the dating of the sources miraculously bridges the gap.

KevinSim wrote:I'm especially curious if the Talmud says anything that contradicts such a theory.


Not that I'm aware of.

KevinSim wrote:At times I find myself doubting the existence of God, and at times I wonder, given the existence of God, what God is likely to want me to believe and what He is likely to not want me to believe.


He wants you to believe that Joseph Smith was a false prophet who did many highly unethical things.
_huckelberry
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _huckelberry »

Aristotle Smiths comments made me wonder if comments about Jews repeating the stolen body story got repeated enough time without a source that I just accepted it without knowing a source. Simple Wikapedia investigation indicates Jesus stories in Talmud are a tangle of ambiguity. I found reference to the more commonly repeated story of Jesus being an illegitimate child who took to magic work and lead people astray. Unsure about stolen body story.

Outside of Matthew, Justin Martyr Dialogue with Typhro may be the earliest reference to the story in connection with a Jewish voice. I suppose one could wonder how much the Jewish voice there is fictional and the stolen body story coming from Matthew.

Perhaps the stolen body theory was current in the first century, or perhaps not so much.(?)
_KevinSim
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _KevinSim »

Aristotle Smith wrote:
KevinSim wrote:Does anybody know what the relevant parts of the Talmud are, and what exactly they say about Jesus?

The Talmud is an amalgamation of various legal rulings and stories spanning several centuries. The organization is mostly topical, not chronological. It is very hard to date passages of the Talmud to any given time period. Even when the Talmud says "Rabbi A said..." it hard to tell if the citation is actually of Rabbi A or if the attribution is mostly honorific. So even if we know when Rabbi A lived, it's still hard to date the passage to that time period.

No historical Jesus scholar I am aware of uses the Talmud to establish anything about the life and teachings of Jesus, it's too late, the references are very sparse, and dating is very difficult.

KevinSim wrote:Do we know, independently from the New Testament, that Pilate did actually give the Jewish leaders a watch of soldiers to stay by the tomb where Jesus was laid?

No.
KevinSim wrote:Do we know, independently from the New Testament, that a very large boulder was rolled over the entryway?

No.
KevinSim wrote:Quite a while back, I even remember some critics of the New Testament account saying that it was their opinion that Jesus' body didn't make it into the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea at all. They said that it was the standard practice among Romans to take the dead bodies of crucified men and just cast them into the streets, to be eaten by dogs and other animals; and they didn't know any good reason to believe that's not what happened to the body of Jesus.

That was John Dominic Crossan's theory. Although a nice guy and a good writer, his dating of the sources is unique to him and not a single other scholar I know of agrees with his source dating. In my not so humble opinion his source dating is the tail wagging the dog. He has a methodology he uses, a conclusion he wants to assert, and the dating of the sources miraculously bridges the gap.

KevinSim wrote:I'm especially curious if the Talmud says anything that contradicts such a theory.

Not that I'm aware of.

Thanks, Aristotle Smith; this is precisely the information I was looking for.

Aristotle Smith wrote:
KevinSim wrote:At times I find myself doubting the existence of God, and at times I wonder, given the existence of God, what God is likely to want me to believe and what He is likely to not want me to believe.

He wants you to believe that Joseph Smith was a false prophet who did many highly unethical things.

Are you saying that God wants me to abandon my belief in His inspiration of the LDS Church? If so, is there something else God wants me to believe instead?
KevinSim

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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _I have a question »

I have a question wrote:
KevinSim wrote:But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth. So when someone is getting started, when someone asks God that foundational question, God has to answer. So if someone asks, and gets only one answer, that someone knows the answer came from God.

That's simply a baseless assertion you are using to convince yourself of what you have chosen to believe.

KevinSim wrote:Why do you think it's baseless? Do you think it's unreasonable to have faith in a God who wants us to understand His will in our lives? Or do you think it doesn't follow that the existence of that God means we can ask a foundational question like the one I described and count on God answering?


It's baseless because you're stating a conclusion that has no foundational logic.
If you google "baseless" you get 'without foundation in fact'.

You're making a statement based solely on what you want to believe, not on any kind of reasonable, rational, objective enquiry into what is already known. Your very first statement "But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth" is completely wrong, an entirely false premise, but you need it to be right because the rest of your conclusion relies solely upon it.
Last edited by Guest on Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _Benjamin McGuire »

At least some of what we know about crucifixion comes from the one historical person who we know was crucified and then placed in a tomb in Jerusalem.

The burial process is pretty well understood. If you had a tomb (if your family was wealthy enough to own one - or had been at some point in the past), you first took the body of the dead person into the tomb where they get placed on a stone table of sorts. The body is wrapped and embalmed. It gets left there for a year (or longer). After that time period, what is left is gathered up, and placed in a stone box (an ossuary). A typical ossuary could contain the remains of several people (entire families potentially) - you would simply add to the pile inside when someone died (or until it was full). For the poor, there was usually a double burial. First to get the decay for the corpse (and the burial was to protect the body from scavengers). Later it was dug up and moved to its final resting place (another burial in a cemetery).

You can see parts of this process is various well known (and sometimes contested) artifacts right? The Shroud of Turin (the burial shroud in theory used for Jesus). The much more recent ossuary with the inscription James the son of Joseph the brother of Jesus. And so on.

So, in 1968, at Giv‘at ha-Mivtar, an ossuary was found in a tomb that contained what was clearly a victim of Roman crucifixion. It remains (I think) the only such victim ever discovered in Israel. Part of the reason for this discovery had something to do with technical problems during the crucifixion. Normally, when the guy is dead, we would expect the nails to be removed (perhaps even reused) and the body taken down and disposed of. In this case, the pole was made of olive wood, and the nail for the feet hit a hard knot in the wood and bent around it (forming a bit of a hook). When they couldn't pull it free, they simply used an axe to chop off the guys feet (at the ankle) to remove the body, and then ripped the rest out of the pole (the feet, the the nail, and some of the wood attached to it were included with the rest of the body and eventually placed in the ossuary). There was evidence in this case for a plaque (of the sort described in the gospels) made of a different kind of wood than the olive wood from the pole.

What also comes out of this is the problem of preservation. The ossuaries at this site had a moisture problem. All of the ossuaries at this tomb were about 30% filled with a thick liquid - containing a lot of limestone (much of it coming from the ossuary itself). This limestone liquid did a great deal to help preserve the bones at the bottom of the ossuary - and while it made it difficult to really figure out initially what was going on with this guys feet (his name was Yehohanan) it actually helped preserve the bone structure and keep the nail intact under a coating of limestone buildup. So while the remains were fragile, they hadn't come apart, the nail hadn't come out, and so on. This allowed us to see the way in which they were all put together during the crucifixion.

In all of this, we have several additional ideas. Crucifixion was generally reserved for slaves and political criminals. The process (for the Romans at least) is well documented. And while the process of disposing of bodies probably was generally quite simple, in cases where the family could afford a tomb and to go through the process of burial in this way, it seems likely that the Romans would allow them to do so. Since most of those crucified were not wealthy, that at least in part explains the scarcity of remains. The others, if not claimed, would normally have been taken to a dumping site and left there (not simply left in the streets) although scavengers would've course take care of exposed remains.

However, Jewish law generally required burial (part of the question in the OP). And this is where we get information from the Mishnah (Talmud).

The most vocal about this is the Talmudic work titled Sanhedrin (which has the rules for capital punishment), but it comes in both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmudic versions, and with a Tosefta to accompany the Mishnah. So here is an excerpt from the Babylonian Sanhedrin Mishnah:

And then they undo him immediately. If he stayed there overnight, violates a negative commandment on his account, as it says, (Deuteronomy 21:23), "His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury him the same day; for he that is hanged is a reproach unto God...." That is to say: why has he been hanged? Because he 'blessed' God, and God's name has become desecrated.

Said Rabbi Meir, when a human being is in distress, what expression does the Divine Presence use, as it were? "My head is in pain, My arm is in pain." If so, the Omnipresent feels distress over the blood of the wicked that is spilled; how much more so over the blood of the righteous. And furthermore, anyone who leaves a dead body hanging overnight transgresses a negative commandment. But if one leaves a body hanging overnight for the sake of its honor, to bring it a coffin or shroud, he does not transgress. And such a body would not be buried in the grave of his ancestors. Rather, two grave-sites were set for the courthouse, one for those put to death by decapitation and strangulation, and one for those put to death by stoning and burning.

When the flesh decomposed, they collect the bones and bury them in their proper place. And the relatives come and greet the judges and the witnesses, as if to say, we hold nothing against you, since your verdict was just. And they would not mourn, but they would grieve, since grief is only in the heart.


As far as a guard being placed, there isn't any way to verify this. Stones at the entrance to these family tombs is something we know from archaeology as a common practice (to keep scavengers out). Now obviously, crucifixion isn't one of the proscribed punishments in Jewish law, and so there is some leeway in how they could deal with these bodies (there wasn't a separate cemetery for crucifixion victims), and so we don't really know how this was usually handled in Jerusalem under Roman occupation. We only have a minimal amount of evidence. But from what we have, the circumstances with Jesus would have been unusual, but not outside of what we might expect.

Of course, the Roman occupation of Jerusalem continues for a significant period of time. And the narrative about Jesus would (if it were fictional) be more of a contemporary fiction rather than a historical fiction. And so we don't really expect to have issues here in these circumstances. We have more skepticism when the narrative details are intertwined with proof-texting - since this tends to come up as we get interpretations of the movement and the shift towards a more institutional church (when the narratives are re-interpreted to create some of the prooftexting that we see).

Mark, for example, contains a number of details about the crucifixion which match reasonably well to our expectations based on independent information. The part that might grab our attention would be something like Mark 15:28 - "And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors." This is where we start getting significant interpretive layering in the text (and potential editorial insertions). Jewish tradition in the Mishnah that I quote above deals with hanging on a tree - and so when we get the next layer of traditions in Acts, we see that this has already become a part of the interpretation:

Acts 5:30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
Acts 13:29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.
Acts 10:39 And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:

You can see how this shows an interpretive layer being applied on top of the crucifixion narrative - and being done in a specific way to connect it back to earlier texts (suggesting why the Jews might have killed Jesus - since it was only for certain issues that you might be hung from a tree, and so on). This doesn't make the crucifixion fictional - but it illustrates that we have a developing formal understanding of the earlier narratives within Christianity as it transitions out of the early movement and into an institution. And that these understandings also change the way that the early Church is talking about the crucifixion. And (in my personal opinion) this helps us conclude that the original crucifixion narratives were part of the earlier traditions about Jesus - and so more likely to reflect a historical reality. (And his is partly why the figure of a political revolutionary is popular among the various historical Jesus models).

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Re: What Do We Know about the Resurrection of Jesus?

Post by _KevinSim »

DoubtingThomas wrote:
KevinSim wrote: More recently I got to thinking that I was solidly convinced that I had free will, and that I was therefore non-deterministic. It didn't make sense to me that something non-deterministic could result from a totally deterministic universe. Where would the non-determinism have come from?

but LDS doctrine rejects creation ex nihilo,which means that God didn't literally create everything in LDS thought. In fact, LDS cosmologist Dr. Ron Hellings doesn't believe God created the universe.

Yes, I too don't believe in creation ex nihilo. What's your point? I don't know if I agree with Hellings or not, but either way, I still don't see your point.

DoubtingThomas wrote:
KevinSim wrote: More recently I got to thinking that I was solidly convinced that I had free will, and that I was therefore non-deterministic.

1.There is a big debate about free will.
2. Ever heard of Quantum Mechanics? The uncertainty Principle? See
"Michio Kaku: Why Physics Ends the Free Will Debate"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNZQVyabiM

I watched the first three presenters. The first said there is free will. The second said we can't tell whether there is free will or not. The third did say that free will is an illusion. That hardly looked to me like a conclusive argument that "Physics Ends the Free Will Debate." Do I need to keep listening to it, move on to the fourth and fifth presenters, perhaps? After listening to three presenters that didn't have any conclusive arguments against the existence of free will, I kind of got tired of listening.

DoubtingThomas wrote:
KevinSim wrote:I believed in God pretty much because I didn't see a good reason to conclude that there wasn't a God. .

but you can say the same thing about the brain in a vat theory, or the matrix. You can't prove our world is not a matrix.

You're right. I can't prove that "our world is not a matrix." So what? What's your point? Our world might be exactly what it seems to be, and there might be a deity controlling it. Our world might be a matrix. It seems much more productive to assume the former than the latter. We don't have to know something is true in order to live what, as far as we can tell, is a productive life. I don't see how living our life on the assumption that the world is a matrix would result in more productivity than if we lived our life on the assumption that the world is what it seems to be and that there is a deity in control.

DoubtingThomas wrote:
KevinSim wrote:I asked God if the LDS Church was true, and was immediately overwhelmed by a very affirmative rushing sensation that left my whole body feeling tingling. I felt like I had no choice but to accept that that sensation came from God.

or you would read the illusion of God's presence, written by a neurologist.

Can you point me to what you're referring to here as "the illusion of God's presence, written by a neurologist"? For example, do you know the mentioned neurologist's name?

DoubtingThomas wrote:
KevinSim wrote:. I'm especially curious if the Talmud says anything that contradicts such a theory.

doesn't the Talmud date from 200 AD to 500 AD ? I don't think it can tell us much about 1st century Palestine.

That seems to be the consensus. It seems that traditional Christians just don't know any way to corroborate the story of soldiers guarding Jesus' tomb, and I was also interested in their revelation that the author of Matthew's Gospel was the only one that mentioned it in the New Testament.

I have a question wrote:
I have a question wrote:That's simply a baseless assertion you are using to convince yourself of what you have chosen to believe.

KevinSim wrote:Why do you think it's baseless? Do you think it's unreasonable to have faith in a God who wants us to understand His will in our lives? Or do you think it doesn't follow that the existence of that God means we can ask a foundational question like the one I described and count on God answering?

It's baseless because you're stating a conclusion that has no foundational logic.
If you google "baseless" you get 'without foundation in fact'.

If you're saying that I have no foundational logic to use as a base for my assertion that there is a God in control of this universe, who I can be certain wants us individually to know Her/His will, then I agree completely. But if someone is not going to believe in the existence of such a God, what alternative does that someone have? Someone who doesn't believe in anything might have the assurance that at least s/he is not wrong, but such a victory rings kind of hollow to me.

I have a question wrote:You're making a statement based solely on what you want to believe, not on any kind of reasonable, rational, objective enquiry into what is already known.

Reasonable, rational, objective enquiries into what is already known, can indeed produce a lot of positive results. But they are not the only things that result in positive results. Being based in reality is a good thing. But just as important as (or perhaps more so than) understanding the truth of the things that are, is understanding the truth about what things should be. I look at the universe and make the observation that if someone doesn't take action to preserve some good things forever, then nothing good will be preserved forever. And I register my rejection of an outcome where nothing good gets preserved forever. My conscience will not let me content myself with such a probable outcome. Conscientious people need a forever preserver. The only choice is whether one believes such a preserver currently exists, or whether one realizes that s/he must work toward producing such a preserver. I have simply made the former choice.

I have a question wrote:Your very first statement "But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth" is completely wrong, an entirely false premise, but you need it to be right because the rest of your conclusion relies solely upon it.

Sorry about that! I left out one very important word. I should have said, "But in the very beginning, there isn't another way of learning the truth" about God. We can't begin our knowledge about the will of God in our lives without input from God.

Do you think that that statement "is completely wrong, an entirely false premise"? If you do think so, then are you aware of another way to start one's knowledge of the will of God in our lives? Going on the assumption that a deity in control of the universe exists, of course.
KevinSim

Reverence the eternal.
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