here is an article, is religion the problem?, about a debate betwixt dinesh d'souza and Christopher Hitchens, a leading athiest.
you can read the article and watch a clip of the debate if you like. i'm not into this kind of thing because it usually just makes me wanna puke.
anyway . . . d'souza writes: for Christians it is not the death of Christ but the resurrection that is the central doctrine. as a catholic, it is my understanding that it is the death of Christ that makes our salvation a possibility. it is the death of Christ as the ultimate Sacrificial Lamb, not His resurrection into glory, that gives us hope.
am i wrong?
It's both - Good Friday and Easter Sunday aren't meant to be viewed as completely separate events; you can't have one without the other.
You are not wrong. Dinesh missed by a wee bit. Paul said, "we preach Christ crucified." Can't recall the citation just now.
I'd say it depends on how you look at it.
Without dying, Christ could not be risen.
But if Christ be not risen, then empty is our faith.
Christ's death and resurrection are inseparable, and meaningless without each other.
My favorite analogy is from baseball. If you hit a home run but don't round the bases, no run scores. If you round the bases without hitting a home run, no run scores. You do both, and you score. (And in Christ's case, He brings everyone home with Him.)
I like Tom's baseball analogy. He's right you can't pull the two apart.
St Paul says: If Christ didn't rise, then we have no hope of rising.
"If Christ be preached, that he rose again from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain"
1 Corinthians 15:12