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I understand grief hallucinations may be a real thing, but I can’t believe over 500 people at once imagined seeing a risen Jesus. Has there ever been a documented case where hundreds of people had the same hallucination at the same time? If not, I wonder upon what you base your hypothesis.
I think this actually works against the case for Christianity. It’s 1st Corinthians, chapter 15, toward the beginning.

And it’s sparse.

It says 500 persons, many of these brothers and sisters still living, and that’s all it says on the 500. And it also lists some other persons such as the 12 disciples who were supposed to have seen Jesus after Resurrection.
I asked for documented case(s) of grief hallucination being experienced by hundreds of people at the same time seeing the same thing. What you offered is a documented case of more than 500 people witnessing the risen Jesus at once. There is absolutely no indication in the Bible nor from contemporaneous secular sources that suggest this was a hallucination. Unless you can offer something to substaniate your claim, you're being somewhat intellectually dishonest. Pulling a thought out of thin air, based on one's personal bias is not evidence. Now, you are free to believe all these folks hallucinated if you so choose, but unless you can present evidence to support your position, your position has no validity.
If Paul had been enthused about the more than 500, he would have told us where he had heard about it.

Conclusion: Paul wasn’t enthused.
Again, this is pure conjecture on your part. After meeting the risen Savior, Paul spent the remainder of his life telling others about Jesus. Paul suffered more than any other of the apostles recorded in the Bible, and yet he continued to preach about Jesus. Paul was enthused about salvation offered by faith in Christ so much that it eventually cost him his life. Just because you assume Paul should have been more enthusiastic about an event you think he should have been, does not mean the event did not happen. Your conclusion is therefore silly.
 
It is possible for the early Church Fathers to have been wrong. What determines that is evidence. A scenario where we might know more later on is if more evidence is found later on that the Church Fathers weren't aware of.
I would agree with this. But has there been any newly discovered evidence that would disprove the positions of the early church fathers?
 
. . . more than 500 people witnessing the risen Jesus at once. There is absolutely no indication in the Bible nor from contemporaneous secular sources that suggest this was a hallucination. . .
I don’t think this incident happened at all.
 
. . . more than 500 people witnessing the risen Jesus at once. There is absolutely no indication in the Bible nor from contemporaneous secular sources that suggest this was a hallucination. . .
I don’t think this incident happened at all.
And you are perfectly entitled not to believe it. But I don’t believe you are entitled to claim it was grief hallucinations without some type of evidence to support your claim.
 
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Unless you can offer something to substaniate your claim, you're being somewhat intellectually dishonest. Pulling a thought out of thin air, based on one's personal bias is not evidence.
Moderator Comment:
To keep things civil here, I don't allow negative personal comments about a person even if it is true (e.g. they are intellectually dishonest or worse). Feel free to criticize someone's view but not the person themself.
 
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Chapter 6 —

32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he [Jesus] had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

============

I like how Jesus gives a blessing before the Miracle. There’s a good moral lesson in there. Buddhists may do something similar.

People have to be open to the miracle.

In fact, evangelical Christians like the story of a man on the roof of his house who’s in danger from rising water. People in boat come by and say, Hi, let us save you, get in the boat. The man says, no, I’m waiting for God. A bigger boat and a helicopter both come by, and the man tells them the same thing. Finally, the man dies and go to Heaven. He asks God why He didn’t save him? God says, I tried! You have to do your part, too.

I think being open to good things and adventures is a good way of going through life.


* even though as a good-hearted agnostic, I think it’s most likely that neither miracle of loaves & fishes actually happened
5 and 12, 4 and 7 is a possible point, even if largely lost on us now?
 
I find it amazing how early church fathers, who lived within one generation from the original writing, accept the authorship of Mark, but modern "scholars", two millennia removed, reject Mark as the author. . . .
We have some agreement.

Yes, people have world views. And the closer it is to the core of their personality, the tighter they’re going to cling to it.

For example —

I believe grief hallucinations are a real thing. I remember the number 25 percent who have recently lost a friend or loved one will feel their presence, or hear them, or see them. I’m guessing briefly but maybe repeatedly.

Now, it’s possible that some researchers are really down on organized religion, that in edge cases of whether to keep someone in a study or not, they’re cheating on the side of keeping their numbers. Or . . . or they might just be doing that to make their study more important [ and likely to be published! ]

With spouses, I understand the number is higher then 25%.

Grief hallucination — and this does seem to be the term in the literature

Yes, I’m using the term in a religious and/or philosophy discussion.

But I think most of the researchers and mental health pros are doing it to help people. To be able to tell people, yes, this is normal, please don’t worry about it. In fact, maybe even learn from other people’s experiences [ some of this is lost when psychologists try to summarize too much ]
I understand grief hallucinations may be a real thing, but I can’t believe over 500 people at once imagined seeing a risen Jesus. Has there ever been a documented case where hundreds of people had the same hallucination at the same time? If not, I wonder upon what you base your hypothesis.

Please notice that I brought up grief hallucinations first, and you brought up Paul’s claim of the 500+ witnesses second.

Since grief hallucinations are surprisingly common, north of 25% for loved ones, Yes, I think one or several disciples could have had this experience. And then he was believed by most of the other disciples.

With the claim of the “more than 500” in 1st Corinthians chapter 15, to me this sounds like urban legend. And urban legends start and grow in many different ways. Although I guess back then, mostly “rural legend.”

* too round a number, not repeated elsewhere in Paul’s teachings

** not repeated in Luke which was written decades later than 1st Corinthians, so it seems like the early rumors/reports didn’t firm up, but instead faded away
 
You are perfectly free to believe it is an urban legend. Even though nothing in the Bible is considered urban legend by theologians and scholars. I guess you don’t need evidence to support your beliefs.