Asking about “Jesus’ remains” is a bogus question. It is as if the captains of this website On Faith haven’t yet read my response last week. One can always formulate a self-answering question that is contrary to fact. “If pigs could fly, would that change your opinion about pigs?” “If weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, would that change your opinion about Cheney?” “If it could be definitively proven that your mother is Satan, would that change your observance of Mothers’ Day?”

These questions are bogus because they are based on fanciful speculation, not on facts.

You don’t have to accept the resurrection of Jesus as fact in order to see through this question. People have been trying to refute the resurrection since it happened. His body has not been found for one of two reasons: either 1) Jesus did rise from the dead; or 2) his body was stolen from the tomb. The latter is what non-believers at the time argued, basing themselves on unassailable logic about death and its finality. But they never found the body.

It would seem that any one smart enough to perpetrate one of the biggest hoaxes in history would have destroyed Jesus’ body immediately so that no remains would ever be found. If his remains weren’t found by the people of Jesus’ day, I say, it is irrational to suppose there could be “definitive” proof two thousand years later. A bogus question is a bogus question.

Writing for this website, I’ve learned a lot about atheists. So far, none have claimed on line that they are atheists because of the negative reason that God did not appear in a vision or work a miracle for them. Virtually all say their atheism results from the absence of a rational proof that God exists.

But almost as common as this metaphysical reason are the verifiable experiential facts of religion: untrustworthy clergy, hypocritical believers, fundamentalist crackpots, etc. These are all good reasons for personal decisions: but they are not definitive proof that the atheistic faith is the correct one. Just because God didn’t cure your cancer or because you haven’t met a believer whom you like, you can’t presume such do not exist.

There are clergy who are dedicated, believers who practice what they preach and persons of integrity who live by the bible teaching. Categorizing a whole class of people based on negative proof alone is bigotry: admitting the limitations of your personal experience is truth. Were I an atheist, I would deserve respect if I said: “I can find no logical reason to believe in god.” It is unreasonable, however, to add: “and because I personally can’t find a reason to believe in God, none exists.”

Apropos of atheism today are the Gospel accounts of the Easter Event. The disciples of Jesus are said to have been disbelievers in the resurrection until they saw, spoke with and touched Jesus, risen from the dead. The bible says they had undeniable existential proof. If you take their word for it, you profess the apostolic faith.

Presumably, if one of our blogging atheists of today encountered the same type of physically irrefutable proof of the resurrection, he/she would make the only rational choice available and profess that Jesus is God. In fact, there are written accounts of hundreds of such conversions of atheists who came to believe in God. And although the most common reason that atheists abandon their faith is that they meet believers whose life values make more sense, there are many incidents when scientifically unexplained miracles are the immediate cause of conversion.

Does any of this mean that atheism is unreasonable? Not really. Even if Jack-the-atheist witnesses a miracle, it may not be the experience of Jill-the-atheist. It is perfectly reasonable for Jill to continue to believe in atheism, although it is illogical for Jack to pretend that what he saw happen with his own eyes, didn’t happen.

So the answer to my own version of this week’s question is “No.” Not finding Jesus’ remains doesn’t disprove atheism: it is positive experience that is most important for making decisions about faith. Jesus knew that. He said some would not believe, “even if a man were to rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Nice idea to keep in mind at Easter, especially if you’re on the outside looking in.