Reflections on the Empty tomb and evidential argumentation!

[Blake Reas]

After reading Richard Carrier's argument about the "possibility" that Jesus' body had been moved and then reading Glenn Miller's response the wheels in my head began turning an little.
As I was going through both men's arguments I saw more than just historical "plausibilities" being tossed around, but instead I saw both men's Presuppositions come to the surface. For Carrier, the Supernatural cannot happen, for Miller the Supernatural can happen. I think Christians and Atheist should learn something from these very thoughtful works of scholarship and research. That When the Christian tries to put forward a case for the Resurrection to the Skeptic it will ALWAYS be rejected or, pretty much always. The Atheist or Materialist simply cannot allow for the super natural to happen so even if we had "irrefutable"(no such thing really) historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, the skeptic would come up with a naturalistic "plausibility"(the Supernatural Cannot happen so we go in search for another explanation). In Carrier's rebuttal of Miller he admits that his "scenario" may be implausible but to Carrier it is not less plausible than a Miracle. I would whole heartedly agree with Richard, but I do not hold to the same Presuppositions. I think Glenn knows this, and he knows that Richard would never accept the Resurrection but that is not the purpose of Glenn's site, all the Christian has to do is defend the faith, and give it rational grounding. The Atheist may say that the Chrsitian has no rational grounds but that in fact is a ruling out of his/her own worldview (Presuppostions)!

I think that both sides of the debate need to recognize this. I think as TheFiveSolas has pointed out it is not neutral ground that we start out on, but presuppositions. In a sense Carrier will never accept Jesus or the Resurrection (unless God opens his eyes but this is for the Theology threads!) because he has a fundamental presupposition that God does not exist, therefore there is no God to raise Jesus from the dead so he must search for another more "naturalistic" explanation and I think that Carrier is justified for believing that to be so WITH IN his worldview. The Christian(or Theist) on the other hand can allow for the possibility of God raising Jesus from the dead and the Historical evidence does weigh in favor for those who accept the Supernatural, it is more rational than to go with a speculative "temporary burial"(assuming Richard is Correct, which I think he is not.) So both sides as we debate these issues remember that your opponent is debating you from a totally different "world"!

A good view on this, which is much more eloquent than mine can be found in an article on the very subject by Greg Bahnsen Here:
http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/PA003.htm

By His Grace, For His Glory
Blake

P.S. If you feel that I have misrepresented either side of the debate let me know! :thumb:

[Celsus]

Hi Blake,

You do have a point in some ways. However, up till now, I haven't heard an adequate response to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Perhaps this is the problem? Carrier's paper is simply showing that there isn't "extraordinary evidence"--either skeptics need a good rebuttal to the extraordinary claims/evidence idea, or we need to actually see extraordinary evidence.

Joel

[Pate]

But for the theist, the claim that God raised Jesus from the dead, is not nearly so extraordinary as it is for the atheist. For the atheist, this explanation would require postulating the existence of God, just for the purpose of explaining the historical evidence for resurrection. The theist, however, already has the existence of God in his background knowledge. The issue is just whether or not God really did intervene in history in such a radical way. This is not so ad hoc when considered in the context of Jesus's exceptional life, his claims to divinity, his moral teachings and miracles (most scholars admit at least some of the less spectacular ones).

[Celsus]

Pate,

I see what you're saying. However, surely the evidential proof of God follows a similar pattern? I mean, what is "proof of God's existence" to you is not "extraordinary proof" to the skeptic? And the question that follows, of course, is why or why not? If the proof for God's existence to the theist is "extraordinary", then it can still follow that the evidential argument for a resurrection must be valid, right?

Joel

[markg]

Your Worldview is Showing

It is my observation that theists and their naturalist (i.e. materialist, mechanistic and atheistic) opponents frequently do not really argue WITH each other, they argue PAST one another. They start from different premises and presuppositions refusing to engage each other on any grounds but their own. Like the old "apples and oranges" scenario each approaches the issue from a particular pre-existing metaphysical framework. I think we have all been guilty of arguing from different premises and presuppositions and not seeking to recognise where our opponents are coming from. This criticism is thus applicable to both sides of the debate but it is particularly characteristic of those espousing philosophical naturalism. Indeed it is inherent in that worldview.


Philosophical naturalism is a worldview that rules out a priori anything supernatural. No evidence for the supernatural is sufficient to convince a naturalist because his "closed box" worldview demands that everything be explained "naturally" therefore there can be no evidence for the supernatural. If some “supernatural” event is supposed to have occurred it will need to be explained naturally or not at all. And if not at all then it does not exist: it is a mere figment of the imagination, a fantasy, a myth or the ravings of a deluded lunatic. End of story.


The atheist will often invoke “Ockham’s razor” to support this notion that one must not consider non-natural, non-physical explanations. That this is a misuse or even abuse of William of Ockham’s thought hardly enters the equation.


For how does one explain “naturally” what is by definition above and beyond nature? How can the tools of naturalism grasp, measure or explain things which transcend nature?

How do we even know that reality is totally encompassed by nature? If physical reality is the sum total of reality, one has no other option than to posit that all non-physical, transcendent values, morals, art, beauty, love, beliefs, etc. are the product of physical things and forces. But how does one physically pinpoint goodness or evil, beauty or truth, hope, love or - dare I say it - God? Does one simply dismiss them as illusions?


There is an inherent arrogance in the physicalist belief system. And “belief system” is exactly what it is – like the theist, the atheist bases his worldview on foundations which themselves are not open to empirical verification. Of course the naturalist will argue that he doesn't have "faith" or "belief" and is free from dogma and irrationality. “Just the facts, ma'am.” He might as well be an automaton rather than a human being because his belief system attempts to deconstruct the very essence of humanity into mere "facts".


I believe a humble agnosticism is a very admirable position to hold. But I also believe that hard philosophical atheism is often the trap of the arrogant intellectual “skeptic” just as blind faith is the trap of the gullible and naïve “believer”.


The naturalist loudly proclaims that he is a "freethinker", a "rationalist", a "humanist", a "skeptic", (by implication theists can never be any of these things, enslaved as they are to superstitious dogma and blinded by religious authority.) But in reality he is not a genuine skeptic or a freethinker or even a rationalist when it comes to his own presuppositions. These are not open to skepticism, nor are they able to be explained “rationally”. They just are, like the universe…or God. What it boils down to is: he is right and you are wrong. The testimony and witness of millions of theists over the millennia does not constitute evidence to the naturalist because he has narrowly redefined the standard of acceptable evidence to a preconceived narrow bandwidth. Your "evidence" is mere fantasy or wish-fulfillment and ruled out of court.


Being human the atheist still acts irrationally and dogmatically and gets worked up when cherished ideas and beliefs are challenged or threatened. Ever noticed the number of atheists who are obsessesd by sci-fi/fantasy movies, books and role-playing games. Deep inside they too are as "myth seeking" as any theist. For which we can thank God.

Philosophic naturalists continually assert that their views are the result of logic, reason and empirical evidence. Well, I will state my own observation here: I do not believes any human being arrives at any position on the weightier matters of existence, origins, purpose and meaning (and a lot of less weightier matters besides) solely on the basis of logic, reason or scientific evidence. Now I am a great believer in using all three. I believe that a degree of skepticism is essential for making informed judgments. But in being able to function as human beings in both the great and small issues of life we all have to act "on faith". One cannot avoid doing so. Unless one is dead already…


You will notice I said "on faith", but this does not mean that faith is without evidence. Belief need not be blind. Reflective Christian faith is not blind or unevidenced; it is based upon a solid framework of evidences - the witness of history, my own and others experiences of the human condition, my own and others observations of our fellow humans, and my own and others encounters with God. I'm sure atheists "believe" many things using similar principles. They exercise trust and place their faith in a wide range of emotions, intuitions, ideas, relationships, concepts, etc., that have not, or cannot, be tested by their own rigid naturalism. They at very least trust (i.e. have faith in) their own rational faculties – and the judgments and perceptions that flow from them.


There is also the issue of subtext, for what people say and do often reveals deeper psychological motivations and needs operating beneath the surface bravura. One only has to observe the phenomenon among many a committed atheist of his deep need to engage someone, anyone in a debate about God – even - as I once memorably witnessed - if that person is only Richard Dawkins’ interviewer! As for us all, there are wheels within wheels. Indeed “the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing”…


Whatever the deeper motivation, the non-theist's tactic is to constantly demand that the theist operate from the ground rules which he sets – which presupposes philosophical naturalism. This puts the theist on the defensive and allows the atheist to command the debate. The theist of course doesn't deny "science" or reason or logic but he maintains that he has arrived at a position that is valid, true and satisfying - a position not in the least opposed to logic, reason and evidence but certainly BEYOND naturalistic logic, reason and evidence. He has NOT arrived soley on the basis of naturalistic presuppositions and evidences because naturalistic evidences alone can never take anyone there. He contends that we live in an "open box" universe regulated and ordered by the laws of an author/designer, but which is open to another level of reality - the level of soul, spirit, psyche - not explainable by the mere cogs of natural existence.


Steve Turner touches on this tension in his "Humanist's Love Poem":


Why don't we try loving each other?
(A strange collection of atoms I am).
Feeling this molecular urge for you
we must chemically react if we can.


We may laugh. Sure we know chemicals and molecules and atoms interact in our bodies but does anyone really reduce love to this interaction? Being in love is accompanied by all sorts of physical, sensations but is it any less a profoundly emotional and transcendental experience for that? Isn't the whole greater than the sum of the parts and isn't the whole not fully explainable as the sum of the parts? But this is just what the consistent philosophical naturalist is proposing: the whole IS the sum of the parts and fully explainable by the parts. Yet I contend that when we are in love even the humanist is a transcendentalist. Ask anyone who has been in love. Well, how does one explain it? All the words of the poets have still not exhausted its mystery.


Do you have children? Remember how you felt when you first held your new born child in your arms. I remember my tears and emotions and my sudden (would you say "irrational") need to thank a creator God. Why don't we stop ourselves and explain these peak moments away as merely the product of interacting chemicals and atoms? Why would we? Why should we? These "rumours of glory" are too profound and precious to be cheapened by rationalisations.


Remember the pride you felt when you graduated from college or won that sporting trophy? The music that brought tears of joy to your eyes, the sad movie that brought a lump to your throat? What is the meaning and significance of your hopes, dreams, ambitions and aspirations? "Tale(s), told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing"? Surely not. Why would you settle for mere naturalisic explanations of the most profound of human experiences? And what about that close brush with death when your life flashed before you? And the loss to eternal nothingness of a loved one – a child, a parent, a partner? Tell me then that we are just collections of atoms.


I am being melodramatic, perhaps, but am I being unfair to the naturalist? No, there ARE different ground rules to deal with such matters for there are places of the human soul and spirit that science, logic and reason do not take us.


I once read an exchange where an atheist invited a Christian theist to jump off a building to prove if naturalism was true or not! Unfortunately this is far too often the level at which atheists pitch their attacks. Such a challenge has nothing to with the validity of either metaphysical position - philosophical naturalism or Christian theism. It is the sort of challenge that may possibly have been usefully thrown at a Hindu or a Buddhist who affirms that all is “maya” or illusion but it is a rather shameless tactic to be directed at one who affirms the reality of the out-there physical universe, the creation of the God – as Christian theists most emphatically do. Try this stunt on an atheist and he would quickly respond with a disgusted post pointing out how childish, anti-intellectual, and "ad hominem" you are. The theist already knows and accepts that actions in the material world do have material consequences. He AGREES with the the materialist that there are "laws" of nature, but affirms that, in the spiritual or transcendant dimension, of existence such "natural laws" are not adequate explanations.

The theist’s position is that if one makes reason and logic the SOLE basis for deciding all matters of truth and falsehood, fact an fiction, right and wrong, good and evil then on what basis can you trust logic and reason to judge correctly? Why exempt reason and logic from judgment? After all they are mere products of naturalistic processes are they not? How can you trust the evidence of your own senses? What is the basis of your confidence that reality agrees with your perceptions? Does not the atheist naturalist have FAITH in the validity of his own rational faculties; a faith, with no naturalistic support, that those self-same faculties are the ultimate arbiters of truth?


Philosophical Naturalists have to make this big presupposition: 'My mind - my reason and logic - is the only valid ground for making truth judgments but my mind is only the product of a mindless, soulless, natural process for which questions of truth, beauty, love and God are but the actions of “selfish genes”, the interaction of molecules and atoms'. Reductio ad absurdum?


An atheist once said to me, rather surprisingly I thought, that we need to engage both heart and mind in discussions of the “big questions”. Well I see more theists than atheists exhibiting both heart and mind. To the atheist I would say: More heart to match your mind?

[Celsus]

markg: Are you tertius?

Joel

[markg]

03-07-2003 @ 08:01 PM
Celsus:

markg: Are you tertius?

Joel

Either that or I just shamelessly ripped-off someone else's work!

[Celsus]

Well which is it? :wink:

What sparked off my suspicions is that your article misses the entire point of this discussion. It is not that there is an a priori disregard for the "supernatural." It is that for those things that we don't see occurring frequently, we tend to be more skeptical. For Christians, they will be intensely skeptical about miracle stories coming from India about statues of Ganesha crying. For the Protestants, they are equally skeptical of statues of Mary crying. Atheists/Agnostics merely apply this same harsh skepticism a touch more evenly. The question is thus a matter of asking why Christian skepticism is less rigorous against their own faith as opposed to someone else's. I am interested in hearing your views.

Joel

[markg]

03-07-2003 @ 08:01 PM
Celsus:

markg: Are you tertius?

Joel

Either that or I just shamelessly ripped-off someone else's work!

[Jaltus]

If you are quoting from somewhere else, please let us know.

[Blake Reas]

03-07-2003 @ 10:21 AM
Celsus:

Well which is it? :wink:

What sparked off my suspicions is that your article misses the entire point of this discussion. It is not that there is an a priori disregard for the "supernatural." It is that for those things that we don't see occurring frequently, we tend to be more skeptical. For Christians, they will be intensely skeptical about miracle stories coming from India about statues of Ganesha crying. For the Protestants, they are equally skeptical of statues of Mary crying. Atheists/Agnostics merely apply this same harsh skepticism a touch more evenly. The question is thus a matter of asking why Christian skepticism is less rigorous against their own faith as opposed to someone else's. I am interested in hearing your views.

Joel

First off I want to thank everyone for their replies and doing so in a manner that is not hostile to one side or the other.

Celsus I think you have hit on something here that I do not think is universally true. I do not deny that Supernatural events happen in other religions, but I think they should be put through certain rigors, just as the resurrection has been for the last 2 millenia. I also think that people who claim to see angels every 5 minutes are not being honest either. As you said, you think that Carrier's view has not been succesfully refuted, I think that it has also the debate if far from over you know how much Miller rights:rofl:. Actaully I think that it is at best a low probability and I would not base a belief up on it.

Couldn't the naturalist say that it is more likely that UFOs came and picked Jesus up instead of a resurrection? If Carrier's argument has a low probability, then what makes someone who claims UFOs picked Jesus up any different? They appeal to naturalist processes do they not? I have always been curious why the scientitific minded naturalist never has proposed such an explanation. After all it is more "rational" than the supernatural for the Atheist is it not?

By His Grace, For His Glory,
Blake:cheers:

[Blake Reas]

Carrier's paper is simply showing that there isn't "extraordinary evidence"--either skeptics need a good rebuttal to the extraordinary claims/evidence idea, or we need to actually see extraordinary evidence.

Celsus,

Thanks for your reply, I think that Bahnsen discusses that in the article that I linked to. I think my post over covered the link and people forgot about it:bawl:. Well anyway I hope eveyone keeps the conversation going!

By His Grace, For His Glory
Blake Reas

[markg]

03-07-2003 @ 08:21 PM
Celsus:

Well which is it? :wink:

What sparked off my suspicions is that your article misses the entire point of this discussion. It is not that there is an a priori disregard for the "supernatural." It is that for those things that we don't see occurring frequently, we tend to be more skeptical. For Christians, they will be intensely skeptical about miracle stories coming from India about statues of Ganesha crying. For the Protestants, they are equally skeptical of statues of Mary crying. Atheists/Agnostics merely apply this same harsh skepticism a touch more evenly. The question is thus a matter of asking why Christian skepticism is less rigorous against their own faith as opposed to someone else's. I am interested in hearing your views.

Joel


I am sorry you cannot see it, but as I see it, an a priori disregard for the "supernatural" is exactly the point that Blake Reas was making about naturalism in his opening comment in this thread. I posted my own comments because they dovetail with this position. The obvious fact is that there IS an a priori disregard for the supernatural in the naturalist worldview. That is the very core of what makes it naturalistic. It may not be where you or Blake want to take the thread but it consonant with the tenor of Blake Reas’ original remarks. Now it may be that this thread is a continuation of some other thread of which I am unaware but as it stands my comments are very much within its frame of reference.

The issue is not really about honest and genuine skepticism. There is nothing wrong with skepticism; there is something wrong with dogmatic skepticism. Philosophic atheism is a dogmatic worldview, just as many overtly religious views are; but it dogmatically asserts there is no God on no greater basis than that the individual atheist has never experienced the reality of God. That other atheists have never experienced God is further confirmation to him that there is no God.

That reminds me of an interesting social and legal case in Australia. At one stage a majority of Australians vehemently disbelieved Lindy Chamberlain when she claimed a dingo (native wild dog) killed her baby because:
a) a dingo wouldn’t do such a thing;
b) Chamberlain didn’t show grief in the generally accepted way; and
c) She belonged to an outsider religious group

These presuppositions, held by Australians who had no experience of dingo attacks on children, who believed that grief must be registered in a narrowly defined “correct” way, and that people who take their religion seriously must be dangerous whackos or fruitcakes who practice child sacrifice (Chamberlain was a Seventh Day Adventist!) were the basis for the widespread view that she murdered her own child. Thus great satisfaction was felt when she was sent to jail. Several years were to pass before she was eventually released, exonerated and pardoned. The dingo did take her baby after all. And dingoes have killed and maimed others since then, even though dingoes, in the normal, natural course of events, apparently don’t do that kind of anti-social thing.

It was a blinkered and negative argument, claiming to speak authoritatively about what one does not know, had not observed or experienced rather than positively, based on what one knows, has seen or has actually experienced. It is the position of every “harsh” atheistic skeptic who haunts sites like Theology Web. And it is not healthy skepticism.

There is no dispute that most of us are skeptical of things which are unusual or rare or beyond our own past sensory experience. But, to say that is to recognize that we are skeptical of those phenomena which don’t fit our view of the way the world should be. Miracles are rare and unusual occurrences, but the fact that something is rare and unusual does not make it supernatural. The defining quality of Biblical miracles is not their rarity or their unusualness, but what they signify. Building a critique of miracles on their rarity and unusualness is a rather pointless exercise for you to undertake; it is equally a case against rare and unusual natural phenomena which undercuts your own naturalistic worldview. The whole process of something appearing from nothing, of life appearing from non-life, of the evolution of your own human consciousness is thus a rare and unusual miracle on massive scale. It makes weeping statues look rather amateurish.

Of course, being skeptical is part of the zeitgeist of the modern West. But I also believe it describes a normal human reaction. Indeed it was the frequent response of the disciples to the many signs performed by Jesus and most specifically to his resurrection. In fact the disciples and most particularly Thomas and later the apostle Paul were quite hard-headed skeptics and even non-believers until their encounters with Jesus turned their world upside down. He confounded their views of the way the world should be. When they were convinced by the weight of the empirical evidence of the reality of who he was and what had occurred it caused them to undergo a paradigm shift in their thinking.

A reflective Christian is often skeptical too, a doubting Thomas if you will. For him being a Christian is not about blind faith. I think that many of the Christians you may meet on this group have struggled and continue to struggle with doubts, fears, disappointments, and questions. In short there are always times when they are skeptics even about their own faith. Many of them would have at one time or another cried out “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” My own skepticism over the years has been quite rigorous and vigorous, and there is much that may pass as Biblical Christianity that I would reject. My own faith isn’t all worked out, set in concrete and beyond the possibility of change. But I still wholeheartedly affirm the Christian worldview. Probably it is the reverse side of the same coin that causes you to reject it. My experience, my examination of the historical evidence, my observation of the world and the human condition, my own reflection and thought, have led me to conclude that Christianity is not only reasonable but that it is true. I affirm it because it both correctly diagnoses the human condition and sets forth the cure. It makes sense of the universe and my place in it. Of course there is one other vital attribute that I have experienced in my pilgrimage to faith that you have not experienced in your pilgrimage away from God and that is the spiritual encounter with God. For that I have no words. It is not my place, to convince you that God exists, that Jesus is who Christians says he is. Such a task is impossible. I cannot do it nor do I try. What I do is tell you what I have found, and to seek to defend my beliefs from the attacks of a hostile worldview that has no experience of knowing God yet dogmatically tells me what is real and not real, possible and not possible, what exists and does not exist, in short that I am wrong and it is right.

In the atheist worldview a concept of the supernatural is pure fantasy. That is the point I was making. If one presupposes the existence of the God of the Bible then miracles are not only possible but probable and to be expected. If one asserts only the existence of nature they cannot even be entertained. And this is the source of the absolutist dogmatism that characterizes the philosophical atheist. By excluding the supernatural a priori there is no possible way one could ever accept a supernatural event even if it one hit you over the head. It would be of necessity have to be explained away as a natural phenomenon, no matter how strained the explanation. This is different from the agnostic skepticism that says "I do not know” or even “I cannot know” In this case “my” knowledge does not define reality, only reality-as-I-experience-it. It leaves room for what lies above and beyond.

For the atheist to become a theist requires the kind of spiritual paradigm shift that their present worldview actively and forcefully disallows. That God does not exist is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is indeed only by a spiritual awakening that such a one can ever break free from the box locked on the inside in which they dwell. It is indeed impossible for man but with God all things are possible, even miracles.

I have already pointed out there is nothing remiss in being possessed of a degree of healthy skepticism. Skepticism is a useful tool, the problem comes when one’s commitment to an a priori worldview dogmatically disallows a particular phenomenon on metaphysical or ideological grounds. Whether “real” or not weeping statues do not constitute any kind of parallel the kind of miraculous signs that occurs in the New Testament, especially the central one - the resurrection of Jesus. I am staggered that you use such a cheap “miracle” as an item in your arsenal against Christianity, whose central figure commands winds and waves, walks upon the water, feeds thousands, casts out demons, heals the sick, resuscitates the dead, is crucified for the sins of the world and who rises again to a new order of life. His every word and action was a sign that nature was not the whole story, that there is more to life than atoms and molecules. I would be skeptical of weeping statues purely on the grounds that such things are blatantly trivial and do not contain any teleological or theological significance or add anything of moral worth to our lives. Biblical signs and wonders always have to do with vindicating and confirming God and his message - not with cheap showmanship and entertainment. Indeed when it comes to it, the resurrection of Jesus is THE vindication of God.

One of the many things that I am skeptical of, along with weeping statues, is when an anti-theist says “I am interested in hearing your views…” Beware of Greeks bearing gifts they say, well I have learnt to beware of atheists making that kind of claim; I have never met one yet whose interest in hearing a theist’s views extended beyond…”so I can rip it to shreds”… Atheism is the philosophical equivalent of acid rain. Hard, cold and deadlyas it rips the soul asunder.

Mark

[Celsus]

03-08-2003 @ 12:02 AM
Blake Reas:
First off I want to thank everyone for their replies and doing so in a manner that is not hostile to one side or the other.
No problems, this is certainly a breath of fresh air.
Celsus I think you have hit on something here that I do not think is universally true. I do not deny that Supernatural events happen in other religions, but I think they should be put through certain rigors, just as the resurrection has been for the last 2 millenia. I also think that people who claim to see angels every 5 minutes are not being honest either. As you said, you think that Carrier's view has not been succesfully refuted, I think that it has also the debate if far from over you know how much Miller rights:rofl:. Actaully I think that it is at best a low probability and I would not base a belief up on it.
I know! Miller's writing, well even if I were a theist, I'd have trouble trudging through all of it. That said, Carrier's style is a pain to edit because his grammatical errors are fundamental yet not always obvious (too conversational).
Couldn't the naturalist say that it is more likely that UFOs came and picked Jesus up instead of a resurrection? If Carrier's argument has a low probability, then what makes someone who claims UFOs picked Jesus up any different? They appeal to naturalist processes do they not? I have always been curious why the scientitific minded naturalist never has proposed such an explanation. After all it is more "rational" than the supernatural for the Atheist is it not?
Not really. A UFO is just as unsupported (depite the "eyewitness evidence") as a resurrection story. In debunking UFO claims, we first attempt to exhaust all natural explanations--weather balloons, low-flying satellites, meteor showers, even secret Air Force testing sometimes, before attributing it to some thing alien (pun intended). The same goes for the resurrection (and of course, we put aside textual analysis for the time being so as to actually have a discussion). But to replace the resurrection with UFOs, to the skeptic, is simply to replace one unsubstantiated/unsupported claim with another. As Carl Sagan notes, pseudoscientific phenomena (ESP, aliens, etc.) have simply replaced the fairies, witches and monsters of old, but are not any different to the skeptic. The only difference is that they dress themselves with a cloak of "science" about them.

Joel

[Celsus]

Hi markg,

I still don't think you are getting at the crux of this. Indeed, reading through your posts, I keep asking myself where I have said any of those things. This is not a discussion about philosophical naturalism. It continues on from Richard Carrier's and Glenn Miller's exchanges on the resurrection and empty tomb. See Jewish Law, the Burial of Jesus and the Third Day (http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=125) and Good Question: Was the burial of Jesus a temporary one, because of time constraints? (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/shellgame.html) plus their replies (easiest way is to click on Carrier's name in the Secular Web page).

It is a good case to show how methodological naturalism (which we all, theists and atheists alike, apply in some ways) applies to the context of evidentiary arguments. It shows that presuppositions are important in predicting whether one person is going to be willing to accept something as "extraordinary" or otherwise. Most Christians are 99% skeptical with regard to other religions. The atheist differs only by an extra 1%.

As I have said already, skeptics do not rule out the supernatural, when defined as "unusual occurrences" (although the metaphysical naturalist would rule out the supernatural when defined as "against the laws of nature"). You are conflating the terms a little. I can recommend a good discussion between Alvin Plantinga and several philosophers of science in Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics edited by Robert Pennock for a thrashing out of the differences between metaphysical and methodological naturalism (of course, there is a bias against creationism, but it balances the theism/atheism debate very well).

Your last paragraph is called an ad hominem attack. Poor form.

Joel

Blake: I will definitely have to look over the Bahnsen article. Apologies.

[ItalianGold]

Blake,

What a delight your initial post is! How sincere and open. And I believe it goes to the heart of the matter.

During my atheist years (decades) I had little tolerance for anything not 100% material in nature. I thought I had made my peace with accepting that the universe, the world and my existance were all the result of random acts.

I am not Christian. I left the Catholic church at a young age and have never been able to resolve my disillusion with organized religions in general. However, I now believe that science is missing the boat by not being open to Spirit and likewise that fundamental relgion is missing by not realizing that Faith and Science are simply different ways of explaining the cosmos.

It was neither science nor Bible nor dogma that convinced me that the Divine is alive and well and that you and I are part of a plan so vast and uncomprehensible that our puny minds cannot begin to understand. Rather it was...meeting a stranger and feeling an overwhelming sense of Love.

Nothing in heaven or earth can explain away the direct experience of that which is Holy.

[Blake Reas]

Not really. A UFO is just as unsupported (depite the "eyewitness evidence") as a resurrection story. In debunking UFO claims, we first attempt to exhaust all natural explanations--weather balloons, low-flying satellites, meteor showers, even secret Air Force testing sometimes, before attributing it to some thing alien (pun intended). The same goes for the resurrection (and of course, we put aside textual analysis for the time being so as to actually have a discussion). But to replace the resurrection with UFOs, to the skeptic, is simply to replace one unsubstantiated/unsupported claim with another. As Carl Sagan notes, pseudoscientific phenomena (ESP, aliens, etc.) have simply replaced the fairies, witches and monsters of old, but are not any different to the skeptic. The only difference is that they dress themselves with a cloak of "science" about them.

I see what you are saying here! I do think that I was wrong, now that I think about it. Let me see if I can come up with another example.

In Christ,
Blake

[Pate]

03-07-2003 @ 09:46 AM
Celsus:

Pate,

I see what you're saying. However, surely the evidential proof of God follows a similar pattern? I mean, what is "proof of God's existence" to you is not "extraordinary proof" to the skeptic? And the question that follows, of course, is why or why not? If the proof for God's existence to the theist is "extraordinary", then it can still follow that the evidential argument for a resurrection must be valid, right?

Joel


I just disagree that God's existence is extraordinary claim. I see theism as a simple hypothesis, which postulates one simple entity, God, as an explanation of the observable reality and our experiences of it. It gives a strongly unifying element to our effort to understand the nature of reality. It's a good explanation, by the criterion of simplicity and explanatory power. I see no reason to call theism "extraordinary claim."

[flipper]

I'm underwhelmed by the arguments you have presented to make a hypothetical God "simple", although I agree that this is a matter of taste.

Theism does, by definition, require the existence of an extraordinary entity. Therefore, it is an extraordinary claim.

[Celsus]

Hi Pate,
03-08-2003 @ 07:27 PM
Pate:
I just disagree that God's existence is extraordinary claim. I see theism as a simple hypothesis, which postulates one simple entity, God, as an explanation of the observable reality and our experiences of it. It gives a strongly unifying element to our effort to understand the nature of reality. It's a good explanation, by the criterion of simplicity and explanatory power. I see no reason to call theism "extraordinary claim."
However, if God exists, then he is infinitely more complex than anything we've ever witnessed. Hence, explaining his existence is beyond anything we've ever witnessed. Ockham's razor still applies to him. It is not a "simple" solution. It's a abrogation of the responsibility to discover causal mechanisms--just as how we're grateful we didn't explain thunderstorms as the wrath of Thor. Scientific progress has always been about removing God from the gaps.

Joel

[flipper]

The UFO point is an interesting one, as people assume a 'supernatural' origin.

There are tens of thousands of people who will say they have witnessed a UFO. There are thousands who will claim to have been personally abducted by aliens. There are books and videos, and many eyewitness accounts to both of these events.

It seems to me that there is better evidence in support of alien abduction than there is for the resurrection of Jesus. However, I persist in seeking a rationalist explanation for this. Presumably, my Christian brethren who post here do not, right? You take these people at their word?

If not, then why not? Is this not a double standard?

[Celsus]

Hi flipper,

It gets even better. The parallel between the Gospels and Roswell, 1947 are actually a good case study in weighing up the strengths of the arguments. If an argument for the resurrection is of no stronger weight than an argument for Roswell, then perhaps we should be suspicious. For example from here (http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/roswell2.htm):
After its correct identification as weather equipment, the Roswell event drew no attention for decades. Klass details how both leading UFO groups (NICAP and APRO) did not even mention Roswell in their lists of "most important UFO cases" submitted for the Condon Report in 1966.

Details of Marcel's earliest Roswell interviews, in February 1978, are provided by Klass. Marcel did not save any news clippings from this "historic" encounter; he couldn't even remember what year the incident took place.

Klass describes, and demolishes, the accounts of the long string of witnesses who waited decades before coming forward to claim their 15 minutes of fame: Grady Barnett, Glenn Dennis, Walter Haut, Gerald Anderson, Jim Ragsdale, Frank Kaufmann, Frankie Rowe, Col. Thomas Dubose, and more. Page 105 lists the wildly different estimates of the numbers of alien bodies (three living; three dead; four dead/one living; three dead; one living; and, one dead). The search for mortician Glenn Dennis's "missing nurse" (Naomi Marie Selff) is detailed, along with strong evidence that she never existed. Witness Anderson's diary copying and phone-record tampering severely damage his credibility.
Notice the parallels: gaps between the original event and actual attestation; differing numbers of bodies/angels (along with the apologetic defense that the common element is the presence of an alien/angel; a subsequent charge of a conspiracy to cover up the evidence; a war occurring between the events (Vietnam and Jewish uprising) and widespread attestation; etc.

I remain thoroughly agnostic on the issue of Jesus' existence. However, if we compare those arguments with modern day myths, the evidentiary arguments for the resurrection (specifically) are weak at best. If a theist would care to demolish the Roswell incident here for us, I'd like to see if he/she thinks her/his arguments don't count when weighed against the resurrection. (And if spl_cadet and Snowball are watching, consider weighing Roswell against Strobel's tests)

Joel

[markg]

Joel,

You wrote:

“Your last paragraph is called an ad hominem attack. Poor form.”


You have quite a bit of cheek in making assertions about supposed “bad form” on my part and my supposed use of an “ad hominem attack” in my previous post. The quote from Celsus which you append to all your posts is taken from the opening sentence of Chapter 77 of Origen’s “Contra Celsus”. The rest of that chapter, which you ignore, contains Origen’s dismantling and refutation of Celsus’ charge. This Celsus is the same Celsus with whom you proudly identify, by using his name as your online handle; the same Celsus whose ad hominem attacks upon Christ and Christianity were answered and refuted soundly by Origen in the source from which you lift your tag line.

This particular statement that: "The teacher of Christianity acts like a person who promises to restore patients to bodily health, but who prevents them from consulting skilled physicians, by whom his ignorance would be exposed." which you are so fond of, I would consider to be a classic example of ad hominem. I find the sentiment distasteful, offensive and unfair but I have not objected to your using it. That you obviously endorse the sentiment does indicate to me that you see no problem in using ad hominem remarks yourself , but are quick to point the finger at someone else. [I personally find the use of aphorisms in tag lines to be rather childish, but that is just my opinion and should have no sway of what others choose to do.]

I merely point out that it does you no credit to presume to take the high moral ground about “bad form” and ad hominems in the light of this. It leaves you open to possible charges of hypocrisy in your high handed response to my posts. That you did not address the substance of my posts, because you consider them irrelevant to the debate at hand, is one thing, but to seek to make capital out of the final paragraph of my last post while dismissing the previous 10,000 words is a cheap tactic.

Let me now set the record straight: my last paragraph was not an ad hominem attack.

Here it is again:

‘One of the many things that I am skeptical of, along with weeping statues, is when an anti-theist says “I am interested in hearing your views…” Beware of Greeks bearing gifts they say, well I have learnt to beware of atheists making that kind of claim; I have never met one yet whose interest in hearing a theist’s views extended beyond…”so I can rip it to shreds”… Atheism is the philosophical equivalent of acid rain. Hard, cold and deadly as it rips the soul asunder.’

There is nothing ad hominem or bad form in this passage. It accurately describes my observations and experience. The final sentence I have adapted from atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett who proclaimed that Darwinism is “universal acid” that eats away and destroys all religious belief, a view I happen to share quite strongly. I AM skeptical of the bona fides of atheists who seek out Christian sites and then proceed to attack Christianity. I have YET to meet one whose views extend beyond attempting to rip Christianity to shreds. If that changes, I will be most happy. If you, or perhaps Kyle Gherkin, are that new kind of atheist, I would be very pleased.

I am fairly new here but until I meet, what up until now has been, “the rare and unusual event” of an anti-theist who engages in honest, open and fair dialogue, I can only describe the approach of such persons as I have observed them, and that is as wanting to tear down theistic and Christian belief including the use of personal attack, ridicule, abuse and insult. The atheists I have encountered up to this point pursue this line vehemently. As a rule I submit that atheists seek out Christian discussion boards in order to attack and ridicule Christ, the Bible, Christians and Christian beliefs. Do you deny this?

I read the views of lots of atheists who loudly claim that their atheism ONLY represents an absence or lack of belief in God. (Quite a few such claims are on this board). Pull the other one! Such a view is contradicted by their presence and behaviour on forums such as this. When you or another person demonstrates your sincerity in pursuing truth, free from a desire to tear down I will gladly revise my assessment. Until then the observation, garnered from my experience remains a valid expression of the facts for me.

I do detect in you a level of civility that I seldom find in the critics of Christianity. If this is borne out I thank God that for his common grace which extends to all men and I doff my hat to you. If your presence here confirms this intuition I have, I will of all people be most appreciative and will tell you so. If not it will only further reinforce the evidence that I have observed.

Mark

[Celsus]

Hi markg,

I apologise if my signature causes you upset. Sadly, this is vindicated by the debates I'm having with Socrates who shouts nothing but abuse and denial toward me. I will retract the signature when he shows the context of his quotation of J.B.S. Haldane in this thread (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1567). If another theist provides it, I will also retract. If an atheist/agnostic beats you to it, then it stays.

I still recommend that you observe the difference between methodological and metaphysical/philosophical naturalism as thrashed out in the book I reference above. If you wish to impose your definitions on the debate, then you are fighting your own straw man, and it doesn't strike me as a willingness to thrash out the issue according to the positions each side is holding. As for your adaptation of Dennett, that's fine--Dennett and his buddy Dawkins can speak for themselves. They are not the only ones who have a take on this issue. I'm sure you know about Gould's idea of NOMA.

My problem is simply with bad arguments, regardless of who is making them. You should see the debates I get myself into on politics over at II with the Ayn Rand Objectivists and Marxist-Leninists who spout their constant fallacies and misinterpretations of history (well actually, outright denial from the Objectivists). I have a great deal of respects for many Christians, most notably, Vinnie (aka ACFaith.com here), whose transformation in the pursuit of knowledge is nothing less than awe-inspiring.

The reason I come here is simply because I feel that I learn most effectively through debating. Firstly, I have to make sure my points hold, so I have to do research to make sure I'm not spouting crap out of my mouth. Secondly I have to explain the position in a concise manner, and am forced to try to convince the opponent, hence politeness. Thirdly, I have to listen to and reply to the objections of the opponent. In short, I learn much more than by simply reading about these topics. Besides, most of the theists at II use second-rate arguments or get overwhelmed too quickly by the responses to have a proper discussion.

Anyway, you never did make a 10,000 word post. :wink: So are you Tertius? Yes or no will do.

Joel

Edited to add: I am a former evangelical Christian and some time missionary.

[ryukyuk]

Speaking is an art and if you do it well any message you have can arrouse the masses look at the nazi party for example churches are they same was as well as aethiest to you you cannot be moved and to them you cannot move them on thier beliefs. The problem with christianity is its roots they were left behind now you have no real proof you just have faith and to some of you that is all you have so you cling to it with dear life one day you will understand scriptures like you walk by faith not by sight then truly you will have life and have it more abundantly and you will truly be free. To give you an example to translate a book from one language to another it takes an INTERPRETATION of the writer to make a so called accurate translation of the work

first bible tanach / old testament hebrew
new testament hebrew and greek and arabic

all went to greek from the greek we got latin from there we got hebrew again biblical hibraica stutgartensia translated by an SS officers son who was a renouned nazi most bibles are translated from this save the KJV which came from the ben rahim

and some bibles come from english which basically are wrong if you read them in true hebrew form they make no sense which is why you cant reach a jewish person who is strong in thier faith they know about the language barrier and better yet they know about thier roots something christians are trying to get back into but if they go too far they have to admit they are wrong and to some loosing thousands of dollars a year in thier congregation is not worth it so they will hide the truth that it was all originated by the RCC the founder being the emperor of ROME who gave the so called church a statue to symbolize power being transfered of athena all this is there in history read up on it not too hard to find as for the gospels i dont doubt the power of a god i have just yet to see a reproduction of a valid text that holds water to the original

[Pate]

03-09-2003 @ 02:38 AM
Celsus:

Hi Pate,

However, if God exists, then he is infinitely more complex than anything we've ever witnessed.

Why do you think so? What makes God infinitely more complex?



It is not a "simple" solution. It's a abrogation of the responsibility to discover causal mechanisms--just as how we're grateful we didn't explain thunderstorms as the wrath of Thor. Scientific progress has always been about removing God from the gaps.

Now you are assuming that the theist can only appeal to ignorance and gaps of our understanding in matters that are potentially explainable by science. But often this is not what the more intelligent theists are doing. Some things, like the existence of any states of affairs instead of nothingness, and the regularity of the laws of nature in the fundamental level, are outside the scope of science to fully explain. They are things that we need to assume in order to do any science. Any ultimate explanation that they may have, is therefore not scientific in nature. For example, if we had good scientific grounds to explain the Big Bang as a result of a previous "Big Crunch" in a cyclical model reaching infinitely to the past, there still wouldn't be, and couldn't be, any scientific explanation of why this kind of cyclical universe exists instead of nothing. Or it there are the most fundamental laws of physics, to which any lower level laws can be reduced, those fundamental laws are inexplicable in scientific terms.

This accusation of "God-of-the-Gaps" kind of reasoning is only warranted if God is employed as an explanation for something that we can't understand, but have good reasons to think that it will be explained naturalistically if we only wait a little longer. But if we have a good understanding of something and our understanding, instead of our ignorance, gives support for the God-hypothesis, then it's unfair to call this "God-of-the-Gaps".

[markg]

Joel,

You wrote:
‘I still don't think you are getting at the crux of this. Indeed, reading through your posts, I keep asking myself where I have said any of those things. This is not a discussion about philosophical naturalism. It continues on from Richard Carrier's and Glenn Miller's exchanges on the resurrection and empty tomb.’

Don’t flatter yourself. (Forgive me if this sounds harsh but you seem to be an advocate of “harsh” skepticism.) My first post had nothing to do with anything you posted. My second post, which was in response to you, clearly laid out the relevance, as I saw it, of my first contribution to the points made originally by Bleak Reas about the differing and conflicting presuppositions held by the two sides in this debate. My original post was an elaboration on the source of this conflict. If you read my post carefully you will see that I acknowledged that Blake Reas and you may wish to pursue this debate into a discussion of the Carrier-Miller exchange about the specifics of the resurrection and the empty tomb. That’s fine, but that does not lessen the relevance of my contribution.

You wrote:
‘Most Christians are 99% skeptical with regard to other religions. The atheist differs only by an extra 1%.’

100% skepticism is no longer skepticism, it is dogmatism pure and simple. This should be obvious, but yet seems to elude you. If I meet someone who says that they are 100% skeptical about, say, Jesus’ existence, that person is no longer a true skeptic, an “agnostic”, they are a committed “atheist” dedicated to the prospect that Jesus does not exist - to the point of perfect certainty. That’s what 100% means…Did you actually read my post where I supported the notion of genuine skepticism against what I termed dogmatic skepticism? You seem to want to define yourself as a dogmatic skeptic, which is something like a fox claiming he is really a chicken… and yet you also want to paint yourself as the fox who is deeply sympathetic to the idea that killing chickens is wrong. You describe yourself as “agnostic” about whether Jesus existed so I assume you should have not shut up the possibility of his reality, and yet, on the other hand, you do seem to advocate this very position, which must make it somewhat confusing and impossible for you to ever be convinced by ANY evidence that he or anyone else from pre-modern times ever lived as an historical figure.

of course, perhaps you really meant that you are skeptical about EVERYTHING, (not about the depth of certainty but about the breadth of certainty) a notion that I will dismiss as being completely solipsistic and therefore not actually a true picture of where you stand. All sane people accept their own presuppositions as being true. Again I addressed this issue in my previous posts.

You wrote:
‘As I have said already, skeptics do not rule out the supernatural, when defined as "unusual occurrences"; (although the metaphysical naturalist would rule out the supernatural when defined as "against the laws of nature"). You are conflating the terms a little. ’

I have already confirmed the difference between “true” skepticism and philosophically naturalistic “dogmatic” skepticism in my previous posts. If you had “re-read” them you would be aware of this. I also examined the notion that “rare or unusual” is not the appropriate category for determining the validity of Biblical miracles. Linking "rare and unusual" to the supernatural is a false premise. Indeed the whole use of the supernatural/natural dichotomy does a grave disservice to the Biblical God and his role in upholding all creation, but it one forced upon us by the limits of human comprehension.

The notion of a God-of-the-gaps, so beloved of critics of Christianity, is not a doctrine of Biblically informed Christianity, and no respected apologist or theologian, past or present, has employed it. It is Deism pure and simple, not full-blooded Biblical theism, and has passed from there into general folk belief in its use and misuse.

You also wrote:

“I still recommend that you observe the difference between methodological and metaphysical/philosophical naturalism as thrashed out in the book I reference above.”
…

“I can recommend a good discussion between Alvin Plantinga and several philosophers of science in 'Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics' edited by Robert Pennock for a thrashing out of the differences between metaphysical and methodological naturalism (of course, there is a bias against creationism, but it balances the theism/atheism debate very well).”

I would hope you are not trying to lecture or hector me with regard to both MN and PN. It is an area in which I have done quite a bit of reading, not just limiting myself to one book that hardly does justice to the issue. But in response to you specific enthusiasm for the discussion of the matter in this particular book, Robert Pennock’s Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives I would make the following comments.

Pennock’s book largely consists of articles published in other sources by advocates of intelligent design which he has collected and then subjected to critique by writers strongly opposed to ID. There are some exceptions to this, but in every case the critics of ID are given the last word. There is nothing wrong with this per se; it is a common practice on both sides of this issue, and in many others, but in the case of the chapter on naturalism (chapter 5) of Pennock’s book entitled “Plantinga’s Critique of Naturalism & Evolution”, this consists of an article by Plantinga called ‘Methodological Naturalism’? which is then followed by three critiques by his philosophical opponents: ‘Methodological Naturalism Under Attack’ by Michael Ruse, ‘Plantinga's Case Against Naturalistic Epistemology’ by Evan Fale, and ‘Plantinga's Probability Arguments Against Evolutionary Naturalism’ by Branden Fitelson and Elliott Sober.

Whatever else can be said about the merits of these four essays they cannot be described as a “good discussion between Alvin Plantinga and several philosophers of science” as you describe it. The tone of this remark seems to indicate that Plantinga is not one of the leading philosophers in the USA at this time but rather he is just some guy who has a discussion with “philosophers of science”. But there is no discussion or dialogue entered into by the two sides. Plantinga’s position is presented then deconstructed by his opponents. This does not constitute “discussion”.





You wrote:
‘As for your adaptation of Dennett, that's fine--Dennett and his buddy Dawkins can speak for themselves. They are not the only ones who have a take on this issue. I'm sure you know about Gould's idea of NOMA.’


My argument is largely with the militant form of ultra-Darwinian thought with its linking of reductionism, sociobiology, philosophical naturalism and atheism; this view is widely subscribed to not just by Dennett and his “buddy” Dawkins but by a significant number of leading Darwinians. It is also the position of many leading atheists and atheist foot soldiers on the Net. It is this militancy which is particularly disturbing, just as militant “fundamentalism” of a religious kind is very disturbing. There are evolutionists who take a much more restrained approach to biological evolution and its limits. Gould is not necessarily one of them, though, as an atheist and a Marxist, he and his Marxist “buddy” Richard Lewontin were involved in the ongoing “Darwin wars” with the ultras. Gould was somewhat disingenuous in his approach to God, and toward the end of his life he angered some of his fellow atheists and evolutionists by proposing the NOMA thesis. I use the word “disingenuous” because Gould equivocated quite a lot about God and his role in nature, but his atheism speaks for itself with regard to his real position.

You wrote:
Anyway, you never did make a 10,000 word post. So are you Tertius? Yes or no will do.

You are correct: I made a 10,000 “character” post, and yes I am. I thought I made that clear in an earlier post and it was confirmed when the moderator Jaltus made the remark “If you are quoting from somewhere else, please let us know.” I followed his direction and did not respond by “letting you know”, so therefore I was not quoting from some other source but myself. I thought that amongst all the intellectual giants with their witty aphorisms, devastating one-liners and clever handles on Theology Web that should be self-evident without my spelling it out in big letters.

Thank you for laying out your reasons for coming to a Christian site. I appreciate your candour and respectfulness, and hope that you get respectful and considered dialogue in return. It does leave open the probability that though you are a former Christian, you still have not "caught the Holy Ghost in the cellars and flung him out of them." Sartre further opined that for the convinced atheist "Atheism is a cruel, long-term business: I believe I have gone through it to the end."


Mark

PS
I am not involved, nor wish to become involved, in this other debate, but I certainly can get the Haldane quote in its full context for you if you wish, My source cannot get hold of a copy of the book for several weeks. So perhaps someone else can provide it more quickly. The book is certainly available in a number of university and state libraries. I myself know nothing about this quote or its context.

[flipper]

Markg:

Gee, that Roswell argument must really have upset you. you seemed quite reasonable up until then.

[markg]

03-10-2003 @ 12:00 AM
flipper:

Markg:

Gee, that Roswell argument must really have upset you. you seemed quite reasonable up until then.


Roswell argument? What Roswell argument? I am replying to Post# 30501 from Joel; that post has nothing to with Roswell, unless I missed something?

It's this kind of mindless one-liner from people obviously trying to get their post count up so they can get a funny avatar that makes me despair of ever having serious discussions with intelligent people on these forums. Maybe I am just old and slow but I've just spent a fair bit of time replying to Joel's comments. Please , please, keep your inane comments that you whipped up in a few seconds to yourself. Joel spent several paragraphs in his post expressing the need to develop good arguments and rebuttals so that he can test out his worldview against those who do not share it and along comes you, "Flipper", to prove every stereotype about mindless atheists. Good one.

[Celsus]

Hi Mark,

I am glad we are moving on in this discussion. Firstly, my apologies for quizzing you on your initial post. It is simply a matter of protocol which I hope you understand since cut'n'paste spammers are far too common here on the Internet. I would most certainly be upset if someone posted something of mine with no attribution and/or claiming it as their own.

Moving on: Your second post did reiterate Blake's point about the denial of the supernatural. However, I felt I had already answered that in posing the question on extraordinary claims/evidence. As yet, the response so far has been to express that it is not an extraordinary claim, but this obviously presupposes one's own beliefs, and it does not get us any where closer to an answer. All I have done with my other replies is to emphasise the powers of methodological naturalism in debunking claims which we can all accept as false: ESP, aliens, etc. The skeptic simply exhausts common natural explanations before being willing to take on unknown factors. Thus, I hope to show that this idea is acceptable, and hardly antithetical to faith.

There are too many examples to list here, but perhaps a good example might be the discoveries of nuclear fusion processes going on in the sun overturned its 20-200 million-year maximum lifespan (and vindicated other finds across the sciences that pointed to evidence of the earth being much older than the then-estimates of the sun's lifespan--especially given how William Thomson's estimates apparently damaged Darwin's theory at the time).

To bring my point back in to focus here was our initial exchange--I wrote (and apologies for cutting out much of the elaborations):
It is not that there is an a priori disregard for the "supernatural." It is that for those things that we don't see occurring frequently, we tend to be more skeptical.
To which you responded:
The obvious fact is that there IS an a priori disregard for the supernatural in the naturalist worldview. That is the very core of what makes it naturalistic.
I then tried to explain:
As I have said already, skeptics do not rule out the supernatural, when defined as "unusual occurrences" (although the metaphysical naturalist would rule out the supernatural when defined as "against the laws of nature"). You are conflating the terms a little.
I think in this exchange, it's worth repeating that the methodological naturalist procedure is simply to exhaust natural explanations first. Anything that we have not witnessed before, we assign either a low probability of occurring, or look for other means of testing its possibility as a new occurrence. I also wrote:
Most Christians are 99% skeptical with regard to other religions. The atheist differs only by an extra 1%.
Your last response missed my point:
100% skepticism is no longer skepticism, it is dogmatism pure and simple. This should be obvious, but yet seems to elude you. If I meet someone who says that they are 100% skeptical about, say, Jesus’ existence, that person is no longer a true skeptic, an “agnostic”, they are a committed “atheist” dedicated to the prospect that Jesus does not exist - to the point of perfect certainty. That’s what 100% means…
I wasn't referring to the degree of skepticism. What I meant was that a Christian shows skepticism toward 99% of religions, while letting skepticism lapse with respect to his own beliefs, whereas an atheist is skeptical of all religious beliefs, although the degree of skepticism may vary (a 100% degree of skepticism to all things would be sticking one's head in the sand, which seems to me an obvious point). Obviously, this is an over-generalisation, but what I'm trying to get at is that while our worldviews may be antithetical, the way in which we arrive at them is not altogether that different. Theist and atheist alike rely on methodological naturalism for explaining most aspects of our existence (weather forecasts notwithstanding :wink:). Again, this is not skepticism of "EVERYTHING," simply differing degrees of skepticism about certain aspects which fall under the category of "supernatural"--especially religion.

Regarding my agnosticism on Jesus' existence, it follows as such: There are plenty of arguments for Jesus' life and death as recorded in the Bible. There are plenty of arguments for Jesus' life and death in a manner distinct or adapted from the Biblical explanation. Finally, there are plenty of arguments that Jesus' life and death were a myth, or at least so greatly mythicised that we cannot recover the historical Jesus. I have come nowhere near to examining all the evidence, nor, as a layman, do I expect that I will ever have a satisfactory answer. Robert Price's book Deconstructing Jesus is perhaps the most influential on my views as yet. While I don't draw his conclusions, I do think they make a very strong case for agnosticism on the subject. However, regarding the first set of arguments (the literal truth as recorded in the Bible), I am highly skeptical because I do not believe there is extraordinary evidence for it (and noting the Christian responses that it is not an extraordinary claim, leaving us back at square one). This of course, would spawn a whole new thread.

Regarding Plantinga, I have no doubts that he is a learned and respected philosopher. However, when stepping out of the bounds of philosophy, my respect for him diminishes sharply. His attempt to conflate metaphysical and methodological naturalism are one such case. His regurgitation of Denton's arguments are another. The overwhelming evidence and the ontological unification provided by the evolutionary synthesis that provides us with respectful awe for nature cannot be dismissed as flippantly as he does. In this sense, I understand why Gould joins in with his idea of NOMA, since the evidence can be destructive to faith given the Christian insistence on a literal/semi-literal understanding of Genesis. Your response does not seem to disagree with NOMA, but instead you launch into ad hominems against Gould et al. I don't see the point of that.

The simple answer to skepticism is simply to provide evidence that only supernatural inferences may answer the question. This, in my humble opinion, has not been shown for the case of the resurrection.

Joel

P.S. I will attempt to address the God-of-the-gaps issue in a new response (to Pate).

[Celsus]

03-09-2003 @ 05:19 PM
Pate:
Why do you think so? What makes God infinitely more complex?
Simply because many of the attributes accorded to him (omnipotence, omniscience, etc.) point to something far more complex than we can imagine. Flipper did indeed hit the nail on the head by saying that positing an extraordinary being is, of course, an extraordinary claim.
Now you are assuming that the theist can only appeal to ignorance and gaps of our understanding in matters that are potentially explainable by science. But often this is not what the more intelligent theists are doing. Some things, like the existence of any states of affairs instead of nothingness, and the regularity of the laws of nature in the fundamental level, are outside the scope of science to fully explain. They are things that we need to assume in order to do any science. Any ultimate explanation that they may have, is therefore not scientific in nature. For example, if we had good scientific grounds to explain the Big Bang as a result of a previous "Big Crunch" in a cyclical model reaching infinitely to the past, there still wouldn't be, and couldn't be, any scientific explanation of why this kind of cyclical universe exists instead of nothing. Or it there are the most fundamental laws of physics, to which any lower level laws can be reduced, those fundamental laws are inexplicable in scientific terms.

This accusation of "God-of-the-Gaps" kind of reasoning is only warranted if God is employed as an explanation for something that we can't understand, but have good reasons to think that it will be explained naturalistically if we only wait a little longer. But if we have a good understanding of something and our understanding, instead of our ignorance, gives support for the God-hypothesis, then it's unfair to call this "God-of-the-Gaps".
Yes, there are some things science cannot and possibly will not ever explain (although I may one day have to eat my words), most prominently--what occurred prior to the Planck time at the beginning of the universe. It's a fair criticism on the likes of Hawking that he shouldn't persist in this abstract, almost metaphysical explanation of loop universe theory (excuse my inability to remember the actual term for it). However, it is still not a good idea to insert God into an equation, nor will it ever be. I'm afraid that I was unclear: I'm not saying that Christians use the God-of-the-gaps as a general rule of thumb (although many do). What I am saying is that methodological naturalism has been our tool at removing this horrible monster in the gaps, whether it is Thor, Neptune or Atlas.

Joel

[Muad'Dib]

Hello everyone,

Please forgive my jumping into the middle of an ongoing conversation. I found markg's initial post to be very interesting and insightful, and I would like to respond from my own perspective. Markg, if you would like me to address your subsequent posts, I am more than happy to do so, and I would be delighted to hear your thoughts on my post.

Let me begin by saying that, depending on how you define the terms, I am either an atheist or an agnostic. Based on my experiences, though, I believe there are far fewer differences between believers and nonbelievers than some on both sides of the fence seem to think. All are people, and all are fallible. I also think there is far more rancor between people with and without faith than there needs to be, and I applaud you for taking the time to make this post.

It is my observation that theists and their naturalist (i.e. materialist, mechanistic and atheistic) opponents frequently do not really argue WITH each other, they argue PAST one another. They start from different premises and presuppositions refusing to engage each other on any grounds but their own. I agree in most ways worth mentioning. In fact, I think is also the case with conservative versus liberal politics, or nearly any other widespread argument.

For reasons of brevity I will not comment here on your observations about philosophical naturalism; I'm in danger of running above the 12,000 character limit as it is.

There is an inherent arrogance in the physicalist belief system. And “belief system” is exactly what it is – like the theist, the atheist bases his worldview on foundations which themselves are not open to empirical verification. I don't speak for all nonbelievers, but I recognize that my foundations are not completely based in empirical data, although I do my best to make sure that things I affirm do not contradict empirical data. (I would also argue that whenever people think "I am right about this, and others are wrong," that may be construed as implicitly arrogant. Like anyone else I am implicitly arrogant in this way, though I work to make sure it doesn't become too distracting to me or others.)

Of course the naturalist will argue that he doesn't have "faith" or "belief" and is free from dogma and irrationality. I consider myself a rationalist (at least epistemologically), yet there is much about me that is irrational. That's just part of being human, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes if I want to avoid the stigma of calling something "irrational" I'll say "non-rational" or that rationality doesn't apply.

I believe a humble agnosticism is a very admirable position to hold. But I also believe that hard philosophical atheism is often the trap of the arrogant intellectual “skeptic” just as blind faith is the trap of the gullible and naïve “believer”. I may agree, depending on what you mean by hard atheism (and it's not an objection I feel strongly enough to argue). I believe that there are atheists who are pathologically obsessed with Christianity (for example), and engage in very unhealthy practices in their struggle against it. I also think this holds for many areas outside the field of belief and unbelief. Humans often do self-destructive things that are ultimately against their better interests.

The naturalist loudly proclaims that he is a "freethinker", a "rationalist", a "humanist", a "skeptic", (by implication theists can never be any of these things, enslaved as they are to superstitious dogma and blinded by religious authority.) Maybe this is true in general, but I personally know very good scientists who are also devout Christians. Personally I have no problem with that, since they do good science and I'm more interested in working together with them on that than in persuading them that I'm right about some philosophical proposition or other.

...The testimony and witness of millions of theists over the millennia does not constitute evidence to the naturalist because he has narrowly redefined the standard of acceptable evidence to a preconceived narrow bandwidth. ... I wouldn't say I deny that such things are evidence, though it's apparent from the fact that I'm an atheist that I don't interpret the evidence in the same way you do. Likewise, would you say that you reject the tesimony of good Mormons who have felt the Spirit of God give testimony to the Book of Mormon, or that you interpret it differently than you do? (I recognize that you probably don't put those two things in the same category--if so please let me know and I will try to give a better example in another post.)

Being human the atheist still acts irrationally and dogmatically and gets worked up when cherished ideas and beliefs are challenged or threatened. We surely do, just like everyone else! :)

I do not believes any human being arrives at any position on the weightier matters of existence, origins, purpose and meaning (and a lot of less weightier matters besides) solely on the basis of logic, reason or scientific evidence. Speaking for myself, I'm with you here.

I needed to skip the next paragraph for reasons of space, but I agree in the sense that nonbelievers tend to come to believe things in the same way that believers do, simply because we are all human.

... Indeed “the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing”… Hopefully we may come to know the reasons of our hearts better as time goes by. I value arguments where I "win" much less than I do discussions where I learn something about myself.

Whatever the deeper motivation, the non-theist's tactic is to constantly demand that the theist operate from the ground rules which he sets – I would argue that the "home court" principle applies here in the sense that people debating any side of any argument try to get the other side to implicitly agree with as many of their assumptions as possible going into the debate.

...Isn't the whole greater than the sum of the parts and isn't the whole not fully explainable as the sum of the parts? But this is just what the consistent philosophical naturalist is proposing: the whole IS the sum of the parts and fully explainable by the parts. ...Explaining something is not the same as explaining it away. How many Christians do you know who think about the beginning of the universe as, "Bah, that's just God creating things?" Hopefully not many! Often an explanation will make things even more meaningful than they were before.

It took me three years of university-level mathematics to be able to even understand the definition of the wave equation that describes the behavior of a single electron (and it took longer to learn to manipulate it). Atoms and molecules are much more amazingly complex. The emergent principles in chemical and biological systems ensure that in many ways, even from a strict reductionistic standpoint, wholes are greater than the sums of their parts. Seeing the astounding beauty of these "naturalistic" explanations makes the phenomena they measure and predict more beautiful to me than they could ever be without them.

I don't expect this to be persuasive; but if you are not satisfied with the algebraic and analytical symmetries in (e.g.) quantum theory and general relativity, then you know first-hand the feeling that an unbeliever gets when people say that God just "poofed" the universe into existence through a process we'll never understand. Is that an unfair and grossly oversimplified account of such a unique and marvelous event? If so I apologize, but for communication's sake, that is how I am inclined to feel about your treatment of reductionism.

...Remember how you felt when you first held your new born child in your arms. I remember my tears and emotions and my sudden (would you say "irrational";) need to thank a creator God. Why don't we stop ourselves and explain these peak moments away as merely the product of interacting chemicals and atoms? For exactly the same reason you don't stop and give a theological discourse on God's purpose for the family and children in general and your child in particular: the point is to experience the situation. Intellectualizing it at the time is inappropriate in my opinion; but months afterward, it may be useful to ask, "Why did I feel that way? What does that say about me, and about feelings?" That's not to say I think people should be compelled to ask such questions, but I would not want to be discouraged from asking them myself.

... Why would you settle for mere naturalisic explanations of the most profound of human experiences? ... Tell me then that we are just collections of atoms. Tell me instead that we are "mere" creations of God? This is (I think) what you might say, but certainly not the way you would say it. I think we can both agree that what is important and meaningful to one with one set of presuppositions is often the very opposite of meaning to another. Speaking for myself, I am perhaps not always right about why my views are not meaningful to others, so I will not presume to explain why you don't understand me. (That is not a discourtesy, by the way; in some ways even I don't fully understand myself, so you can't possibly be expected to. :))

...[T]here ARE different ground rules to deal with such matters for there are places of the human soul and spirit that science, logic and reason do not take us. This is true; science does not reign supreme in the realm of emotion. Yet it may still shed light on some relevant problems. Chemical treatment of clinical depression is one example; and let us not forget the statistical psychological studies that have taught (or reminded) us of many things about ourselves. Science is certainly not the only way of knowing that applies to the realm of emotion, and perhaps it is not even a primary way of knowing, yet I think it is not entirely unrelated.

..He AGREES with the the materialist that there are "laws" of nature, but affirms that, in the spiritual or transcendant dimension, of existence such "natural laws" are not adequate explanations. I would say this affirmation is true by the usual definition of supernatural; the difference between us as I see it is that nonbelievers often do not postulate such a realm of existence. Our two questions (often at war, unfortunately) are, "How can you exclude such a thing?" and "How can you include such a thing?"

...Philosophical Naturalists have to make this big presupposition: 'My mind - my reason and logic - is the only valid ground for making truth judgments but my mind is only the product of a mindless, soulless, natural process for which questions of truth, beauty, love and God are but the actions of “selfish genes”, the interaction of molecules and atoms'. ... Believers usually say there is not sufficent reason to put trust in this premise. Non-believers usually say there is not sufficient reason to put trust in its negation. To some extent I sympathize with both. This is not a question I have an answer to, and even if I did it may not satisfy you.

...To the atheist I would say: More heart to match your mind? I think you will agree with me when I say, Absolutely, provided the heart doesn't categorically overrule the mind! And to some Christians (and some atheists, too, perhaps in equal proportion) I might ask, "More mind to match your heart?"

Thanks again, Markg. I think it is very useful to have an introspective dialogue between believers and (e.g.) atheists, and I hope that we can continue a discussion, time (and space!) permitting.

Regards,
Muad'Dib

[Celsus]

Snowball, as promised:

I'm going to take a different approach, since it ties in with the discussions in this thread. This is all from Strobel, L., 1998, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, pp. 296-301: Chapter 12: The evidence of the missing body. For the historical discussion, I'll leave it to Carrier and Miller to thrash out possibilities. As for the extraordinary evidence/claims, you can also check up footnote (3) of Carrier's last reply for more on the topic. I know that issue remains outstanding, but I will carry on anyway.

Here are Craig's points on affirmative evidence summarised:
Early tradition of the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15
Site of tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike
Language points to an early source
Unprecedented growth of a legend
Simplicity of the account in Mark, as compared with later stories
Unanimously states that women were the first witness
The earliest Jewish polemic presupposes historicity of the account

Regarding (1), there is likewise an early tradition about Roswell, indeed numerous newspapers report the story at the time of the event. On (2), well everyone knows where Roswell is, right? On (3), the question is mute since we have originals. On (4) there is also a similar explosion in UFO belief, far outstripping any sort of growth that we saw in the first century. On (5), likewise, the first stories are nowhere near as elaborate as the modern UFO industry. On (6) we have incontrovertible witnesses by name and written testimony. The basic theme is unanimous: A local rancher brought some debris to a sheriff who referred it to a US Air Force officer.

That leaves point (7). This is presumably referring to Trypho (the references in the book are poor), who we only hear of from Justin Martyr's Dialogue (http://www.piney.com/FathJustinDiaTrypho.html) in the 150s CE. Is the tale an allegory? Are they really Trypho's words? etc. So it's hardly any evidence to begin with, and we haven't reached the point a century later anyway.

Anyway, some miscellaneous problems as well:
Strobel quotes Kirsopp Lake's proposal of an alternative theory. To begin with, it's bizarre that he refers to a theory from 1907. It's even more bizarre that, while trying to appear as the hard-nosed skeptic, his source for Lake is William Lane Craig himself! Talk about loaded questions. If a "UFO skeptic" were to ask questions specifically refuted by a UFO buff, would we have reasons to doubt his skepticism?

What we see then are certain presuppositions: These arguments assume that the contemporaries were skeptical and would necessarily check all these facts out. In fact, we do know that they were particularly gullible and believed plenty of things that we would now consider strange. Would a dying-godman be any more different than believing in their pantheon of Gods? The question is often asked, "Why would they say this, unless it's true?" Of course, this presupposes so many historically contingent factors that we subconsciously impose our own values in to the question in attempting to get to an answer. This, I believe, is undone by careful study of early writings, and seeing the evolution from simple to complex theology. Then we can understand better why a Christian might have written the things they did.

When we compare the evidence with the UFO buffs of today, we see nothing more substantial--indeed, the UFOlogists have a far stronger case than the early Christians, who had to declare diabolical mimicry when faced with parallels pointed out by my namesake Celsus. (Again, we have little of his works left) We have the strange absence of mention from contemporary historians, with tendentious connections to a historical character and his movement that was supposedly converting more Jews than there were Pharisees and Sadduccees at the time. Looking at Strobel's case again, there is hardly extraordinary evidence anywhere to be found.

Joel

[Joseph Alward]

PATE
The theist, however, already has the existence of God in his background knowledge. The issue is just whether or not God really did intervene in history in such a radical way. This is not so ad hoc when considered in the context of Jesus's exceptional life, his claims to divinity, his moral teachings and miracles (most scholars admit at least some of the less spectacular ones).

JOE ALWARD
You're arguing that the miracles Jesus worked are evidence that the resurrection miracle is true, but what evidence do you have that Jesus' miracles actually occurred?

[flipper]

Markg:

?

It's this kind of mindless one-liner from people obviously trying to get their post count up so they can get a funny avatar that makes me despair of ever having serious discussions with intelligent people on these forums. Maybe I am just old and slow but I've just spent a fair bit of time replying to Joel's comments. Please , please, keep your inane comments that you whipped up in a few seconds to yourself. Joel spent several paragraphs in his post expressing the need to develop good arguments and rebuttals so that he can test out his worldview against those who do not share it and along comes you, "Flipper", to prove every stereotype about mindless atheists. Good one.

I was simply commenting on the dramatic change of tone that appeared to have taken place after that post. Sorry if you thought I was being rude.

Perhaps you should take it to email and publish a learned monograph, or had you forgotten that this is a public forum?

To be honest, the only rude people I have encountered on this forum so far have been Christians. Yourself, and Socrates. Generally, the atheists have been rather mild, on here at least. Perhaps you've been having a bad weekend?

[Vorkosigan]

03-10-2003 @ 04:49 AM
Celsus:

Snowball, as promised:

That leaves point (7). Joel

The corresponding one would for Roswell would be: the Air Force's early and vigorous denials are proof positive that something really did happen...

[Peter Kirby]

Celsus:

7. The earliest Jewish polemic presupposes historicity of the account

That leaves point (7). This is presumably referring to Trypho (the references in the book are poor), who we only hear of from Justin Martyr

More likely it is a reference to Matthew 28:15 and the preceding story.

Tertullian mentions a rumor that the body of Jesus was whisked away by a gardener for fear of the crowds trampling his cabbages (De Spectaculis 30.6). Polemic isn't always in earnest.

best,
Peter Kirby

The Passage: Tertullian exults over the damned.

"This," I shall say, "this is that carpenter's or hireling's son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and devil-possessed! This is He whom you purchased from Judas! This is He whom you struck with reed and fist, whom you contemptuously spat upon, to whom you gave gall and vinegar to drink! This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants!"

[stevencarrwork]

03-10-2003 @ 05:18 AM
Joseph Alward:



JOE ALWARD
You're arguing that the miracles Jesus' worked are evidence that the resurrection miracle is true, but what evidence do you have that Jesus' miracles actually occurred?

At http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mirc1.htm I show how Christians show that the Book of Mormon and the Koran are false, using the same methods sceptics use to show that the NT miracles are false.

[Celsus]

Vorkosigan and Peter,

Thanks for your feedback. Peter: Is that rumour about the gardener mentioned anywhere else, and is there any evidence to show that it is earlier than Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho?

Cheers,
Joel

[markg]

Joel,

Time constraints mean I only have time for a short response. (Alas, I am sorry I do not have the time to manage the number of posts and do justice to the various issues being raised that many others on this group seem to be able to achieve.)

Much has been made on this thread and elsewhere about "extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence". I cannot see how any genuine discussion can occur, on anything even approaching a level playing field, until it is known what you and other atheists would consider as acceptable and reasonable evidence for the reality of a Biblical miracle - such as the resurrection of Jesus. In other words what is the nature of the extraordinary evidence that would be acceptable to you?

I have already posted several times my contention that philosophical naturalists, because of the presuppositions entailed in their worldview can NEVER accept the miraculous events could occur under any circumstances and despite any evidence.

The logic of this position would run something like this:

1. Someone claims to have witnessed or reported a rare and unusual event.

2.This person infers that the cause of this event is supernatural in origin.

3.However no inferences about supernatural causes can be made until all POSSIBLE natural causes have been eliminated.

4. But philsophic naturalists can never consider possible natural causes will ever be eliminated.

5. Therefore no supernatural explanation for any rare and unusual event can ever be justifed.

There is no possible way one who holds a Christian theistic worldview can engage in meaningful debate or discussion about the resurrection or other miracles of Jesus with a person holding such a dogmatic and circular line of reasoning.

Now, I know you make a distinction between skepticism and naturalism. You are obviously a skeptic, as we all are about many things, but if you are a philsophic naturalist, rather than just a methodological naturalist who does not rule out the supernatural, I can see no possible way of any theist engaging you meaningfully about the resurrection because the internal logic and presuppositions of our differing worldviews allow no common ground on this issue.

I've just had a quick look at a number of other threads on Theology Web and I see the same impasse occurring. The atheist pops up and posts criticisms, often short and sweet, and demands the theist "prove" his point of view, without any need for the atheist to justify his own position or metaphysical beliefs. The critic or skeptic, by the very nature of his negative stance, always has the upper hand in these kind of exchanges. And the atheist always skews the debate to his own frame of reference of naturalism. What is reall happening is a conflict of worldviews; until progress can be made there, all the rest is just shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic.

I have come to recognise you as a reasonable guy, but I wonder if you can appreciate the imbalance and even unfairness in such tactics. It is easy to play the skeptic when you have not laid ground rules and common foundations that both sides can fairly work from. Perhaps moderated debates are the only feasible option for progress? Playing the devil's advocate is cheap and easy tactic. There is no glory in it, and no room for gloating...



Secondly I am bemused from what you wrote earlier about honing your debating skills that you want to get involved in a debate over a lightweight populist piece of writing such as Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus" rather than over a more serious representative of Evangelical Christian theology/apologetics such as Paul Barnett's 'Jesus and the Logic of History' or "Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity", Richard Bauckham's 'God Crucified', Stephen T. Davies' 'Risen Indeed: Making sense of the Resurrection', or the volume edited by Geivett and Habermas "In Defence of Miracles: a comprehensive case for God's Action in History... or literally hundreds of other scholarly works that could be listed.

I was always told that the honest debater always seeks to interact with the best presentations of his opponent' arguments not with the slightest. This same distasteful scenario I observed with the fiasco over Josh McDowell book where atheists treated it as the definitive presentation of Christian apologetics rather than the populist piece it is. Do I take it that your beef then is not with God or Christ or Christianity but with certain forms or expressions of Christianity? If it is the former, you have a moral responsibilty to engage the best scholarship; if it is the latter, then what really is your issue with God...?

I actually view most of what goes on on these boards as an exercise in futility simply because most militant atheists are dogmatic naysayers; they do not believe there is any possible validity in their opponents position whatsoever - in fact several of them boast they don't actually have a position themselves, they just "have no belief in God or gods". No worthwhile discussion can be held with such a black hole. Therefore few if any meaningful exchanges can occur. People would have to be prepared to meet half-way, to be open and more agnostic, and less dogmatic for that to occur.

regards,

Mark

[Pate]

CELSUS:
Simply because many of the attributes accorded to him (omnipotence, omniscience, etc.) point to something far more complex than we can imagine.


How so? I don't think that there's anything enormously complex in having unlimited power and knowledge. On the contrary, this is simpler than having limited knowledge and power. In this latter case, we need a complex account of why there's just this amount of knowledge and power, and what kind of mechanisms and causal chains are employed to achieve them. Unlimited power and knowledge do not require this. According to the theistic hypothesis, God just has a direct awareness of everything and his actions don't require any intermediate causes either.



Flipper did indeed hit the nail on the head by saying that positing an extraordinary being is, of course, an extraordinary claim.


Hmm.. I wonder what's your definition for ordinary and extraordinary.



Yes, there are some things science cannot and possibly will not ever explain (although I may one day have to eat my words), most prominently--what occurred prior to the Planck time at the beginning of the universe. It's a fair criticism on the likes of Hawking that he shouldn't persist in this abstract, almost metaphysical explanation of loop universe theory (excuse my inability to remember the actual term for it). However, it is still not a good idea to insert God into an equation, nor will it ever be. I'm afraid that I was unclear: I'm not saying that Christians use the God-of-the-gaps as a general rule of thumb (although many do). What I am saying is that methodological naturalism has been our tool at removing this horrible monster in the gaps, whether it is Thor, Neptune or Atlas.


I'm not actually intending to "put God into an equation". I don't have much of a problem with methodological naturalism in science. But methodological naturalism does not entail philosophical naturalism. When we view science through the lens of methodological naturalism, we have to remember that it just leaves the question of God's existence outside of its scope and therefore any position with regard to the question of God's existence must have philosophical basis. I'm against God-of-the-gaps argumentation (though we may disagree on what arguments are legitimately characterized as such), but I'm just as much against atheism-of-the-gaps, which means a dogmatic refusal to even acknowledge the possibility that God might be the best explanation at the philosophical level and claiming disbelief in naturalism's philosophical merits as being just theistic appeal to ignorance. (Not that I mean to characterize you as a person using this kind of approach.)

[Pate]

03-10-2003 @ 05:18 AM
Joseph Alward:
You're arguing that the miracles Jesus' worked are evidence that the resurrection miracle is true, but what evidence do you have that Jesus' miracles actually occurred?

As far as I know, many scholars are willing to accept that Jesus probably worked some "miracles", at least if that word can be defined in such a way that it does not necessarily require supernatural explanation. (I'm talking about healings etc.) They may not be willing to accept those miracles which undoubtedly violate laws of nature, though. But my point was just that what can be known about the life of Jesus, is such that it raises him much above of average man as a candidate for being a true messenger of God, if not even more than a messenger. (Remember that this stage of my argument was meant to be viewed from theistic perspective, where existence of some kind of God is already included in our background knowledge). This being the case, it's not terribly ad-hoc to employ the hypothesis of divine action as an explanation for the evidence of Jesus's resurrection. In other words, if God were to act in the course of human history, the events surrounding Jesus's life would be appropriate context for such action.

[Snowball]

03-09-2003 @ 11:49 PM
Celsus:

Here are Craig's points on affirmative evidence summarised:
Early tradition of the empty tomb in 1 Corinthians 15
Site of tomb was known to Christian and Jew alike
Language points to an early source
Unprecedented growth of a legend
Simplicity of the account in Mark, as compared with later stories
Unanimously states that women were the first witness
The earliest Jewish polemic presupposes historicity of the account

Regarding (1), there is likewise an early tradition about Roswell, indeed numerous newspapers report the story at the time of the event. On (2), well everyone knows where Roswell is, right? On (3), the question is mute since we have originals. On (4) there is also a similar explosion in UFO belief, far outstripping any sort of growth that we saw in the first century. On (5), likewise, the first stories are nowhere near as elaborate as the modern UFO industry. On (6) we have incontrovertible witnesses by name and written testimony. The basic theme is unanimous: A local rancher brought some debris to a sheriff who referred it to a US Air Force officer.

That leaves point (7). This is presumably referring to Trypho (the references in the book are poor), who we only hear of from Justin Martyr's Dialogue (http://www.piney.com/FathJustinDiaTrypho.html) in the 150s CE. Is the tale an allegory? Are they really Trypho's words? etc. So it's hardly any evidence to begin with, and we haven't reached the point a century later anyway.



Hey Celsus!

I'm not sure I understand the whole Roswell analogy, forgive me! The resurrection of Jesus happened in a distinct time/culture that is quite different from the time/culture of Roswell. Maybe the whole Roswell mix-up wouldn't have become so blown out of proportion if it had happened in a high context collectivist society that used oral transmission as it's primary means of passing information on to one another.

I guess my point is that to ignore the social and cultural setting of the New Testament era is not playing fair.

Let's go over your 7 points anyway:
1. The early Christian tradition demonstrating the empty tomb is important for one reason: if you are going to go around proclaiming someone who died recently rose from the dead, then you better be sure that their tomb is actually empty! For example, for me to try starting a cult that centered around a resurrection of JFK would be stupid, since anyone can go and see for themselves that JFK is still rotting in his grave. Which brings me to point #2.

2. Everyone knows where JFK is buried.

3. You didn’t take issue with this, I assume you acknowledge Paul’s writings to be early, so I’ll skip it.

4. As for the growth of UFO belief, well I’ll take your word for it even though I’ve never personally met anyone that actually believes that stuff. I’m wondering if the people who do affirm UFO sightings would be willing to be tortured and killed for that belief, as the apostles were.

5. I don’t get Craig’s point in number 5 (and don’t remember that being in there, but I don’t have the book in front of me, so I’ll again take your word for it). Since I don’t understand the point behind this, I’ll skip it.

6. The women being the first witnesses. The Roswell story has no such counter-example, as by that time most people were considered to be credible witnesses. If the resurrection story is made up, then making women the first witnesses would damage the story incredibly -- why not have credible (male) witnesses be the first witnesses? I don’t think you dealt with this issue.

7. This has nothing to do with Trypho, but is based on the polemic at the end of Matthew. Matthew writes how the Jewish authorities “to this day” contend that the disciples stole the body. This would be an odd thing to write if, in fact, the Jewish authorities didn’t contend that. This also tells us that the Jewish authorities affirmed the empty tomb, for if they didn’t it would be strange to accuse the disciples of stealing the body. Again, no Roswell parallel is noted.



What we see then are certain presuppositions: These arguments assume that the contemporaries were skeptical and would necessarily check all these facts out. In fact, we do know that they were particularly gullible and believed plenty of things that we would now consider strange. Would a dying-godman be any more different than believing in their pantheon of Gods? The question is often asked, "Why would they say this, unless it's true?" Of course, this presupposes so many historically contingent factors that we subconsciously impose our own values in to the question in attempting to get to an answer. This, I believe, is undone by careful study of early writings, and seeing the evolution from simple to complex theology. Then we can understand better why a Christian might have written the things they did.

As for first century people being gullible – they were much LESS gullible than people are today, as far as I can see! As for the “evolution from simple to complex theology,” I’d like you to back this up with some evidence please, as in this case I’m not willing to simply take your word for it.


When we compare the evidence with the UFO buffs of today, we see nothing more substantial--indeed, the UFOlogists have a far stronger case than the early Christians, who had to declare diabolical mimicry when faced with parallels pointed out by my namesake Celsus. (Again, we have little of his works left) We have the strange absence of mention from contemporary historians, with tendentious connections to a historical character and his movement that was supposedly converting more Jews than there were Pharisees and Sadduccees at the time. Looking at Strobel's case again, there is hardly extraordinary evidence anywhere to be found.

Joel

I’d like you to provide me with:
1. Reasons why the contemporary historians would consider a Jewish carpenter to be something of interest to write about.
(Harris, Murray. 3 Crucial Questions About Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.)

"Roman writers could hardly be expected to have foreseen the subsequent influence of Christianity on the Roman Empire and therefore to have carefully documented" Christian origins. How were they to know that this minor Nazarene prophet would cause such a fuss?

2. Why historians would have bothered with someone that was executed as a criminal in the most shameful way possible. At that period of history, being executed on the Roman cross was a humiliating death (not to mention a cursed death according to the Jews).
3. Why historians would have bothered with a poor, Jewish teacher.

To me, it is simply amazing that we do have so many extra-biblical historical references to Jesus.

This is the most important thing you said:


this presupposes so many historically contingent factors that we subconsciously impose our own values in to the question in attempting to get to an answer.

Absolutely! That is why we have to be careful and study the culture, society, and era that a story originates in in order to get the full picture. I don't see where you've taken those things into account yet.

[stevencarrwork]

[i]03-10-2003 @ 08:32 PM
6. The women being the first witnesses. The Roswell story has no such counter-example, as by that time most people were considered to be credible witnesses. If the resurrection story is made up, then making women the first witnesses would damage the story incredibly -- why not have credible (male) witnesses be the first witnesses? I don't think you dealt with this issue.



Another blunder in the Bible!

John 4:39 'Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." '

Didn't the author know that women's testimony was not considered credible, and would not have been believed? (And a women from the hated Samaritan's as well)

[Peter Kirby]

03-10-2003 @ 01:31 PM
Celsus:

Thanks for your feedback. Peter: Is that rumour about the gardener mentioned anywhere else, and is there any evidence to show that it is earlier than Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho?

Typically Justin's writings are dated c. 150 and Tertullian's writings are dated c. 200. I am not interested in claiming priority for one tradition or the other. I bring up the gardener thing because it shows that an anti-Christian polemic need not be circulated as anything other than a joke. Which means that we don't have to take as serious evidence for anything much the claims that Mary was knocked up by a Roman soldier or that the body was stolen by the disciples of Jesus. Knowing human nature, the people who started the polemic probably hadn't gone to much trouble to verify that a tomb of Jesus was empty, if they even could have done so at all. Just as the people who told the Panthera story probably hadn't interviewed the Virgin first. It's not good evidence.

best,
Peter Kirby

[Celsus]

Hello again Mark,

Don't worry, I'm going to take a while to respond to all the issues that have been raised. Firstly, the easy question: I gave a quick rundown of why Craig/Strobel's evidence is poor because I was told that it was a good work by Snowball, who seemed less than forthcoming with proposing what he felt is the book's strongest argument and why. The reason I have not tackled every apologetic is because I have not read every apologetic. Being unemployed, I don't see myself going to splurge on something like that either (the book was given to me by my father). I'll get a reply to Snowball after I've replied to yourself and Pate.
03-10-2003 @ 10:16 PM
markg:
...snip... In other words what is the nature of the extraordinary evidence that would be acceptable to you?
Good question--you are right that the nature of skepticism is uneven. The one making the positive claim must establish positive proof. To save (me) some time, I refer you to Dave Matson's article, On the Matter of Proof (http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1997/6/976proof.html) (my emphases added):
In matters of science, we must ask whether it is more probable that a thoroughly tested law, which has successfully explained a great deal of nature, has failed or whether claims of its failure, which can often be traced to lies, confusion, distorted third-hand information, etc., are unsound. In that case, the proof must be so extraordinary that it is easier to believe that the law of science has failed than that a lie, confusion or faulty report has been involved. Clearly, that means the kind of scientific documentation that is available for all to see, one that forcefully rules out the alternatives.

Historical claims involving miracles, in the full supernatural sense of the word, are claims that scientific law has failed. Generally, the circumstances involved in those claims are beyond investigation, making extraordinary proof impossible. Rather than saying that such claims are clearly false, the skeptic need only note that scientific law is far more believable. That is, we reject the miracle because it is very likely a false or distorted claim. Accumulating sound public knowledge means rejecting claims that, in principle, might be right. We must accept the probable over the very improbable, and that's the bottom line.
The logic of this position would run something like this:

1. Someone claims to have witnessed or reported a rare and unusual event.

2.This person infers that the cause of this event is supernatural in origin.

3.However no inferences about supernatural causes can be made until all POSSIBLE natural causes have been eliminated.

4. But philsophic naturalists can never consider possible natural causes will ever be eliminated.

5. Therefore no supernatural explanation for any rare and unusual event can ever be justifed.
Ok, I see your point, but respectfully disagree. We accept what works, and without a question of a doubt, and despite all the abuses that have taken place in its name, science works. By extension, so too does the methodology of science. This argument above is exactly why Plantinga and Johnson have been pushing for some sort of "theistic" science, which is unproven, and opens whole cans of worms about testability and proof. As is pointed out by both atheist and theist philosophers of science in IDC & its Critics, this would destroy the foundations of something that we know already works. The old addage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" still applies--science was able to withstand the postmodernist assault, and I don't see how Plantinga's critiques will fare any better. To that, we can also add Matson's view that anything extraordinary must be backed evidence that gives us reason to believe that the laws of nature have failed.
There is no possible way one who holds a Christian theistic worldview can engage in meaningful debate or discussion about the resurrection or other miracles of Jesus with a person holding such a dogmatic and circular line of reasoning.
Why is it circular? Science is a great explanatory device. Its applications from research are directly responsible for the greatest increase in living standards humanity has ever seen. Why not stick to what works? Indeed, the problem, as I said, is that lapsed skepticism for the Christian occurs with respect to his own faith. The methodology and nature of science are good for everything else but explanations of certain central events to his faith. If dogmatism involves sticking to what works, then perhaps I concede that point to you.
Now, I know you make a distinction between skepticism and naturalism. You are obviously a skeptic, as we all are about many things, but if you are a philsophic naturalist, rather than just a methodological naturalist who does not rule out the supernatural, I can see no possible way of any theist engaging you meaningfully about the resurrection because the internal logic and presuppositions of our differing worldviews allow no common ground on this issue.
But there is common ground! As I said, we all look at certain things skeptically. Do you believe that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel? Neither do I. Do you believe that Mohammed was the last and greatest prophet? Nor do I. Do you believe that Tiamat was killed by Marduk? Nor do I. So what we have here is a common approach to things we don't hold to. I just ask that you understand that I apply this in exactly the same way to all theist beliefs.
People would have to be prepared to meet half-way, to be open and more agnostic, and less dogmatic for that to occur.I'll drink to that. :cheers:

Joel

[Celsus]

Pate,

I think I have dealt with the extraordinary claim/evidence definition in my reply to Mark. I also feel that we will just have to agree to disagree on "what would God be like if he existed?" since we are deep in the realms of speculation. As for your last idea, that God's existence should be dealt with through philosophical examination, it's an interesting one. Would you care to elaborate?

Joel

[Snowball]

03-10-2003 @ 09:28 PM
Celsus:
Firstly, the easy question: I gave a quick rundown of why Craig/Strobel's evidence is poor because I was told that it was a good work by Snowball, who seemed less than forthcoming with proposing what he felt is the book's strongest argument and why.

How was I "less than forthcoming?" You specifically asked me what chapter I wanted you to tackle, and since I am familiar with William Lane Craig's work both in and outside of that book, I chose the chapter where Strobel interviewed him. You didn't ask for more specifics after that, for if you had I would have gladly provided that for you.

I also said that I felt Strobel's book was a good starting point (in response to Diana, not you), not that it was the end-all and be-all of apologetics. I completely agree with markg that there are much more "meaty" books out there.

Just wanted to set the record straight.

[Celsus]

Hi Snowball,

Regarding "less than forthcoming," perhaps I have you mistaken with spl_cadet. As I recall, it took more than 6 or 7 exchanges before I had to volunteer to refute a chapter, as no one would provide the book's best argument.
03-11-2003 @ 04:32 AM
Snowball:
I'm not sure I understand the whole Roswell analogy, forgive me! The resurrection of Jesus happened in a distinct time/culture that is quite different from the time/culture of Roswell. Maybe the whole Roswell mix-up wouldn't have become so blown out of proportion if it had happened in a high context collectivist society that used oral transmission as it's primary means of passing information on to one another.

I guess my point is that to ignore the social and cultural setting of the New Testament era is not playing fair.
I would say that I have tried to address this, by stating that gullibility, polytheism and bizarre (to us) superstitions of that time stretch our credulity if we are to expect the either the pagan critics or Christian apologists to check up every evidence. Could some of the writers have been disingenuous? Most certainly, and on either side of the debate. Add to that the Church's destruction of almost all the documents that might have shown contrary evidence, and there is really no case to be made for historical evidence verified by contemporary skeptics. But let's look at how you've chosen to refute the points:
Let's go over your 7 points anyway:
1. The early Christian tradition demonstrating the empty tomb is important for one reason: if you are going to go around proclaiming someone who died recently rose from the dead, then you better be sure that their tomb is actually empty! For example, for me to try starting a cult that centered around a resurrection of JFK would be stupid, since anyone can go and see for themselves that JFK is still rotting in his grave. Which brings me to point #2.

2. Everyone knows where JFK is buried.
Let me rephrase that:
1. The early Roswell reports demonstrating the existence of aliens is important for one reason: if you are going to go around proclaiming aliens who recently rose visited earth, then you better be sure that the Roswell site actually had alien bodies! For example, for me to try starting a cult that centered around a discovery of aliens would be stupid, since anyone can go and see for themselves that Roswell is discredited. Which brings me to point #2.

2. Everyone knows where the UFO crashed at Roswell.
Despite all this, there are plenty of people who do believe in conspiracy theories, alien abductions, etc. Many will willingly come forward to share their experiences on UFO channels. What does this prove to us? This is the point of the analogy--Obviously, the question of methodology and motivation of the "witnesses" is important to case for either the resurrection or Roswell. Surely you understand what I'm getting at.
3. You didn’t take issue with this, I assume you acknowledge Paul’s writings to be early, so I’ll skip it.
That is correct.
4. As for the growth of UFO belief, well I’ll take your word for it even though I’ve never personally met anyone that actually believes that stuff. I’m wondering if the people who do affirm UFO sightings would be willing to be tortured and killed for that belief, as the apostles were.
Do a quick search for UFO, Roswell, alien abductions, crop circles, etc. and come back to me.
5. I don’t get Craig’s point in number 5 (and don’t remember that being in there, but I don’t have the book in front of me, so I’ll again take your word for it). Since I don’t understand the point behind this, I’ll skip it.
Technically, Craig only voiced 6 points, but I split #3 into two. You can read all of it under the section "Affirmative Evidence" (hence the subtitle of this discussion).
6. The women being the first witnesses. The Roswell story has no such counter-example, as by that time most people were considered to be credible witnesses. If the resurrection story is made up, then making women the first witnesses would damage the story incredibly -- why not have credible (male) witnesses be the first witnesses? I don’t think you dealt with this issue.
The attribution to women is hardly a strong evidence (as Steven points out). Even so, the Gospels, where they do mention it, are careful to add male witnesses to the scene later on. Perhaps this was their tactic of avoiding embarassment? We can't say for sure. There are also contradictions. Ditto with Roswell, which has the basic evidence of a local redneck/rancher (surely embarassing :wink:) who brings it to a sheriff (less embarassing) who brings it to an Air Force officer (firm proof no less!) The parallels simply lead us to show, that just as we question the motivation of the Roswell witnesses, a skeptic would point out that only believers witnessed the empty tomb--except on this last point:
7. This has nothing to do with Trypho, but is based on the polemic at the end of Matthew. Matthew writes how the Jewish authorities “to this day” contend that the disciples stole the body. This would be an odd thing to write if, in fact, the Jewish authorities didn’t contend that. This also tells us that the Jewish authorities affirmed the empty tomb, for if they didn’t it would be strange to accuse the disciples of stealing the body. Again, no Roswell parallel is noted.
Yes I see that now. Regardless, as Vorkosigan points out, there was a subsequent hush-hush cover up by the Air Force, and then a subsequent conspiracy theory that the Air Force knew it to be true, hence the need for hushing it all up. Likewise with the Pharisees, who might just as easily have had different motivations for covering something up, but a conspiracy theory is spread by the disciples as "proof" that there was indeed a resurrection.
As for first century people being gullible – they were much LESS gullible than people are today, as far as I can see!
You must be kidding me. What evidence do you have for this? Where were the proper skeptics of the first century? When you have historians like Pliny recording Augustus Caesar's virgin birth as fact, what does that say about the standards of the day?
As for the “evolution from simple to complex theology,” I’d like you to back this up with some evidence please, as in this case I’m not willing to simply take your word for it.
For an introductory approach, I'd recommend Geza Vermes' The Changing Faces of Jesus. If you still are interested in carrying on, you can try out the less conventional HJ theorists, something that is well worth the effort. For a simple start, if you accept the generally accepted dates for the Gospels, look at how the empty resurrection story grows more elaborate--with John providing so much as Doubting Thomas to feel Jesus' wounds, as compared with Mark, which ends simply with an empty tomb. Once you realise this, it's not such a leap when examining the NT pseudepigraphia to see the evolution of theology (which, if not for the efforts of the heretic Marcion in establishing a canon, would have continued on).
I’d like you to provide me with:
1. Reasons why the contemporary historians would consider a Jewish carpenter to be something of interest to write about.
As I said, they were apparently converting thousands by the day (as recorded in Acts). Is this not of interest that an explosive new sect has arrived?--estimates of the numbers of Pharisees and Sadducees are less than 10,000 combined (I'll have to check my reference for this, which I'm pretty sure is in Eisenman's James with numbers of between 3000 and 4000). Consider the resurrection of the dead, the earthquake, the darkness over the land, and the tearing of the Temple curtain (as recorded in Matthew). Surely this is an event so unprecedented in history and so bizarre that it would have attracted more attention from Josephus, if not other historians? Surely these events would have been of unrefutable value to Paul? I can play devil's advocate for the mythicist case if you like, but if only to show you that the historical evidence is weak.
2. Why historians would have bothered with someone that was executed as a criminal in the most shameful way possible. At that period of history, being executed on the Roman cross was a humiliating death (not to mention a cursed death according to the Jews).
Well the historians were certainly bothered enough by Spartacus.
3. Why historians would have bothered with a poor, Jewish teacher.
And Josephus was also certainly bothered enough by John the Baptist.
To me, it is simply amazing that we do have so many extra-biblical historical references to Jesus.
Which, in comparison to John the Baptist who did none of the miraculous things in the order of Jesus, has better attestation.

Joel

[stevencarrwork]

03-10-2003 @ 02:16 PM
markg:

I was always told that the honest debater always seeks to interact with the best presentations of his opponent' arguments not with the slightest.

Perhaps I can point out that William Lane Craig refuses to debate Doug Krueger, and refuses to debate Eddie Tabash again, after being trounced in his last debate. I'm not sure if Craig has refused to debate Lowder of http://www.infidels.org/ fame but I doubt if the debate will take place.

We want a Craig-Krueger debate!

[markg]

Joel,

You wrote:

"But there is common ground! As I said, we all look at certain things skeptically."


No, actually I think I said that! :smile:

(I always wanted to use one of those)



You then wrote:

"Do you believe that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel? Neither do I. Do you believe that Mohammed was the last and greatest prophet? Nor do I. Do you believe that Tiamat was killed by Marduk? Nor do I. So what we have here is a common approach to things we don't hold to. I just ask that you understand that I apply this in exactly the same way to all theist beliefs."



Just a minute. You are jumping the gun here assuming to know what I will or will not accept or believe. In fact you are quite wrong. I am indeed skeptical about all those things and more - e.g. the miracle of Buddha flipping a giant elephant on his big toe for two miles or Mohammed’s claim of riding from Mecca to Jerusalem and back in one night - but I do not dogmatically rule them out of court. To do so without investigating the evidence would be nothing more than arrogant bigotry.

I am currently a non-believer in these things, partially because such things do not impact in any meaningful way on my life but that does not mean I always will be so. That is the difference between an honest and humble skepticism and dogmatic skepticism, the latter being the kind that afflicts atheists. If the evidence appears to me to be strong enough, I have an obligation to become more open to them as genuine “miracles”. It doesn’t matter whether such miracles are part of my own religious tradition or metaphysical worldview or not. Actually my worldview, unlike yours, is big enough to handle it. I would not limit the power of God nor would I reject the possibility of other supernatural forces, apart form God, being at work. You and I do not share a common approach to these things but we might arrive at the same conclusion down the track about them. Until then I remain open to the possibilities, even while remaining skeptical.

What I understand, Joel, is this: it boils down to this fact - you have cooked the books, and stacked the odds in your favour, which is why I despaired in my previous post of any really meaningful dialogue between atheists and theists. In short, a dogmatic naturalist skeptic, such as yourself, will only accept a theist’s identification of a particular event as a miracle if he can convince you that it is… a miracle! And he can NEVER do that because your naturalistic worldview and its presuppositions and assumptions about “science”, ‘nature” and “reality” means you can NEVER, EVER be convinced that a miracle has occurred. Game, set, match.

Fortunately I have no desire to convince you of anything much except to highlight to you that “there are more things in heaven and earth, [Joel], than a dreamed of in your philosophy…

Mark

PS the common ground is that you are a genuinely decent guy.

[markg]

Joel,

You wrote:
“Well the historians were certainly bothered enough by Spartacus.”

Come on Joel, this sort of retort does not do your case much good. In fact it is truly cringe-worthy. You must know as well as the rest of us who saw the movie that Spartacus led a revolt of slaves against Rome in the heartland of the Empire up and down the Italian peninsula itself. He wiped out several legions and threatened the very power of Rome until Crassus and the others got their act together and the Empire struck back, finally running him down and destroying his army in a major battle in southern Italy, near the headwaters of the Siler river. Spartacus himself died in this battle but the historian Appian does indeed report that 6000 slaves were taken prisoner by Crassus and crucified along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome. By the way this was after Nero had used Christians covered in pitch as human torches to light his outdoor parties. The Roman historians didn’t miss that one either…

There is NO comparison between the life and death of Spartacus and the life and death of the Rabbi Jesus in an obscure, out of the way backwater of the Empire - except the Roman love of crucifixion. That was a rather cheap shot…

Mark

[markg]

Joel,

You wrote:

“The one making the positive claim must establish positive proof.”

You don’t sem to be aware of this, but such a dictum does not hold true in historical matters. In dealing with historical documents the burden of proof is deemed to fall upon the person who wishes to argue that a particular document is reporting things which are false or untrue. It is a matter of historical etiquette and common sense that one should accept an historical account at face value rather than as deliberately false. The reason for this should be obvious: if we cannot accept that most people are telling the truth we are then in the ridiculous position of suspecting the validity of any and all historical information about persons and events - of history itself. Perhaps I could suggest you take a moment and reflect on what this would mean for our understanding of the past and our interactions ib the present. Would one automatically assume that what you write in your posts, your letters, your job applications, etc. is a massive fraud, a hoax, or a pack of lies,or does one not accept that you are honest and genuine - until shown otherwise?

“Accepting at face value” does not mean historians accept things uncritically. There are well-defined grounds upon which any good historian makes judgments on the reliability of a particular account of an event, and about the perspectives, biases and intent of particular writers. It just means we cannot “do history” if we are dogmatically skeptical of the validity of the primary sources. The blanket assertion that certain accounts (such as the gospels and the book of Acts) are NOT historical unless proven otherwise is a philosophically prejudiced position. And is simply wrong from a historical perspective.

Mark

[markg]

Joel,

You wrote:

“Everyone knows where the UFO crashed at Roswell.”

No they don’t, actually; there are at least three competing locations for the supposed crash sites (see Joel Achenbach’s “Captured by Aliens: the Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe, Simon & Schuster, 1999 p226-227). Each site has its defenders and detractors.

I think you’d like your namesake’s book: he is a real skeptic and he is also big fan of the late Carl Sagan. I just figure you would be too.


Joel also wrote:

“…if you are going to go around proclaiming aliens who recently rose [sic] visited earth…”

A Freudian slip?

Regards,

Mark

[Celsus]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the kind remarks. You too, have been an outstanding representative for your faith. But enough of the backpatting, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. :wink:

Regarding Spartacus: to be honest, that was simply the first name to come to mind. John the Baptist is a much better case to examine. I didn't think the specific point raised by Snowball was a strong one to begin with. By the way, have you read about the discovery of the tomb of one Jehohanan, who was crucified around the same time as Jesus? Fascinating stuff: there's a brief discussion in Charlesworth, J.H. & Zias, J., "Crucifixion: Archaeology, Jesus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Charlesworth, J.H. (ed.), 1992, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, New York: Doubleday. Incidentally, there's a sidelong jab at one of Strobel's sources ("On the Death of Jesus Christ" in Journal of the American Medical Association, 1986). Josephus also records that plenty of Jews were crucified by Romans (though I'm not sure if he names any, the disputed Testimonium Flavianum notwithstanding).

Regarding my supposed Freudian slip, I'm afraid it's due to cutting and pasting Snowball's line, and evidently I didn't paste over enough. Oops.

Regarding the establishment of proof, the job application analogy is not really that useful--after all, you generally have to submit certified true copies of your educational qualifications, and also provide references from your last/most significant employer, etc. The standards, as I have already noted, are lower because the facts or claims involved are fairly mundane and unextraordinary (although, if you were to claim outstanding achievements, but had never been heard of in your field, you can be sure that employers would check up on it).

You have also basically stated reasons why I lean more towards a historical Jesus than a mythical one (is there any need in mentioning that I feel the evidence for miracles attributed to him are unconvincing?)--because the existence of his following is grounds enough to suspect there was a historical figure behind it.

Otherwise, on all the other matters, we may have reached an impasse. I would certainly like to carry on a discussion on other matters, but I'm not sure where we'd begin. I've always known, since my involvement in political debates, that one's preconceptual framework is the most important addressing in where people will stand on various issues. (One good examination of this idea with respect to politics is Amartya Sen's Inequality Reexamined.) When we head straight for the preconceptions (as this discussion has), we find there is not really a lot to be discussed after.

Perhaps I can leave this discussion on the words of Robert Park (a skeptic no less), writing in Voodoo Science, 2000, Oxford University Press, pp.36-37:
Small children are particularly open to new beliefs, accepting without question whatever they are told by adults. Their belief engine runs freely, finding few previous beliefs to contradict what they are told. For a small child who must quickly learn that stoves burn and strange dogs bite, this sort of credulity is important to survival. Because a child's beliefs are not enmeshed in a network of related beliefs, however, children seem able to cast them off almost as easily as they adopt them.
...
As the store of belief grows, conflicts with existing beliefs become more likely, and doubt begins to manifest itself. By the time the child reaches adolescence, beliefs tend to be enmeshed in an insulating matrix of related beliefs. The belief process becomes decidedly asymmetric: the belief engine is generating beliefs far more easily than it erases them.
...
We honor faith. Faith can be a positive force, enabling people to persevere in the face of daunting odds, but the line between perseverence and fanaticism is perilously thin. Carried to its extremes, faith becomes destructive--the residents of Jonestown for example, or the Heaven's Gate cult. In both cases, the faith of the believers was tested; in both cases, they passed the test.

The wonder is not that we can be easily fooled but that we function as well as we do on what would seem to be, as far as our genes are concerned, an alien planet that does not at all resemble the wild planet on which our genes were selected. If this sounds hopelessly gloomy, be patient, we are coming to the good news: we are not condemned to suffer the tyranny of the belief engine. The primitive machinery of the belief engine is still in place, but evolution didn't stop there. It provided us with an antidote.
The antidote? Science.

Joel

Edited to add: Regarding the location of the Roswell crash, surely you know of the efforts by Helena, the mother of Constantine, to locate Jesus' tomb?

[stevencarrwork]

03-11-2003 @ 12:52 PM
markg:

It is a matter of historical etiquette and common sense that one should accept an historical account at face value rather than as deliberately false. The reason for this should be obvious: if we cannot accept that most people are telling the truth we are then in the ridiculous position of suspecting the validity of any and all historical information about persons and events - of history itself.

Fascinating claim.

A few questions for you, to explore the implications of this claim.

Josephus's 'Wars of the Jews' was written with ten years of the events , by a direct participant , and he records eyewitness testimony - 'I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it' . He is referring to a heifer giving birth to a lamb in the middle of the Temple. Do you believe a cow gave birth to a lamb, in a work written within ten years of the event? Surely this is just as well attested as the raising of the widow of Nain's son.

In the 'Histories' by Tacitus, he records that the Emperor Vespasian cured blindness with spittle and cured lameness. Tacitus writes ' Persons actually present attest both facts, even now when nothing is to be gained by falsehood.' Do you believe Tacitus's reports, based on eyewitness testimony, and attributed by him to the god Serapis?

In Mark 8:23-26, Jesus cures blindness, partly by spitting on someone's eyes. Do you believe him?

In the Histories, Tacitus also records that a priest of the god Serapis, Basilides, was seen by Vespasian in the Temple, although Vespasian knew , and checked by sending horsemen to verify, that a moment earlier Basilides had been in a town some eighty miles distant. Do you believe Tacitus, reporting the eyewitness testimony of the hard-headed Emperor/Soldier Vespasian?


In Acts 8:39-40, Philip was 'caught up' (same verb as in 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul is 'caught up' into the third heaven) on the road to Gaza and reappears at Azotus. Do you believe Philip, like the pagan priest Basilides, transported from place to place like a character from Star Trek?

Are there any stories in the Gospels which, in your opinion , betray some of the credulity, gullibility and bias that we find in secular writers of the period, and in every single Christian writer who wrote non-canonical works?

Perhaps you can tell us which secular writers of that time period did not, at least occasionally, write stories which showed gullibility , credulity and superstition and why you believe no (canonical) Christian writer did.

[Celsus]

Hi Blake,

I finally read through the Bahnsen article. We might certainly have saved some time wouldn't we? I think it's interesting that he falls back to Scripture, but the general consensus of biblical critical scholarship is that there were redactions, and plenty of it (although no one can agree on just what). Some of these ideas are just beginning to seep into mainstream Christianity (e.g. Markan priority)... Do you feel that any more will occur if Christians learn more about the context of the first century CE?

Joel

[Pate]

Celsus,

I'm in hurry, so I'll just answer briefly. I'll find your definition for ordinary/extraordinary later.


03-11-2003 @ 02:32 AM
Celsus:
As for your last idea, that God's existence should be dealt with through philosophical examination, it's an interesting one. Would you care to elaborate?


I'm basically just saying that if the framework of methodological naturalism is used in science, then the questions of evidence for God's existence only arises as a philosophical question, not scientific one. Therefore it's not "putting God into an equation". Surely science still has many philosophical implications which need to be examined in the context of the God-question, however. Some of the more uninformed atheists may just say that they don't want to have anything to do with philosophy, it's just science that they're interested on. But if they are at the same time adhering to methodological naturalism, then they are just being inconsistent. They can't have it both ways. If science must be limited to examining physical reality (and I would agree with that, to quite large extent), then the fact that science does not have a place for God is in itself in no way a justification for atheism. Any take on the God-question will in this case have to have philosophical basis, the need of which the atheist of this type nevertheless refuses to acknowledge.

[Snowball]

03-10-2003 @ 11:11 PM
Celsus:

Hi Snowball,

Regarding “less than forthcoming,” perhaps I have you mistaken with spl_cadet. As I recall, it took more than 6 or 7 exchanges before I had to volunteer to refute a chapter, as no one would provide the book's best argument.


If you go back and read the thread, I think you’ll see that that must be the case. That’s OK, I have trouble following everywhere I’ve been and everyone I’ve spoken too also!


I would say that I have tried to address this, by stating that gullibility, polytheism and bizarre (to us) superstitions of that time stretch our credulity if we are to expect the either the pagan critics or Christian apologists to check up every evidence.


The people of the first century didn’t have the benefit of all the technological and scientific advances that we have now, so we can hardly blame them for some of the superstitions and religions we consider to be “bizarre”. And gullible – I still say they were less gullible than we are, especially given the type of society they were living in.


Could some of the writers have been disingenuous? Most certainly, and on either side of the debate. Add to that the Church's destruction of almost all the documents that might have shown contrary evidence, and there is really no case to be made for historical evidence verified by contemporary skeptics.

What evidence did the church supposedly destroy? If they destroyed it, how do you know about it? That seems like a paranoid claim.


Let me rephrase that:
1. The early Roswell reports demonstrating the existence of aliens is important for one reason: if you are going to go around proclaiming aliens who recently rose visited earth, then you better be sure that the Roswell site actually had alien bodies! For example, for me to try starting a cult that centered around a discovery of aliens would be stupid, since anyone can go and see for themselves that Roswell is discredited. Which brings me to point #2.


I wasn’t aware of any claim that the aliens stuck around or that there were bodies to view! Didn’t the government supposedly “hide” all that (wink, wink)? I can easily start a cult centered around the discovery of aliens, since I can claim that they took off and went home, or that the government swiped them up and is hiding them.


2. Everyone knows where the UFO crashed at Roswell.
Despite all this, there are plenty of people who do believe in conspiracy theories, alien abductions, etc. Many will willingly come forward to share their experiences on UFO channels. What does this prove to us? This is the point of the analogy--Obviously, the question of methodology and motivation of the “witnesses” is important to case for either the resurrection or Roswell. Surely you understand what I'm getting at.


Where the site is makes no difference, as anyone visiting there will be told that the government has hidden all the evidence! As for the “witnesses” you are using…I don’t deny that they saw something (even if it was just a weather balloon), and I also don’t deny that there may be something behind all of the alien abduction claims. See, unlike you, I don’t deny the supernatural or that the supernatural may be at work here.


Do a quick search for UFO, Roswell, alien abductions, crop circles, etc. and come back to me.

People are fascinated by this stuff, no doubt. I just haven’t personally come across anyone who believes it. Perhaps that will change in the future. Again, I also don’t rule out a very real supernatural possibility behind all of these “abductions.”


The attribution to women is hardly a strong evidence (as Steven points out).


Steven’s quote doesn’t help your case much, since we have extra-biblical historical data confirming the fact that women didn’t count as witnesses for important stuff. If Steven had continued to read beyond one verse, he’d see that the woman’s testimony brought the others to Jesus to hear Him for themselves – it certainly wasn’t her testimony alone that convinced them.


Even so, the Gospels, where they do mention it, are careful to add male witnesses to the scene later on. Perhaps this was their tactic of avoiding embarassment?

So what is your tactic here? Do you think the women really did discover the empty tomb and the disciples added male witnesses in later to avoid embarrassment? Or was the story made up to begin with, in which case, why would they bother with the women in the first place?


We can't say for sure. There are also contradictions.
I know of the supposed “contradictions.” These contradictions have a way of clearing up when the context of the society and culture are added in, or the original language is studied.


Ditto with Roswell, which has the basic evidence of a local redneck/rancher (surely embarassing :wink:) who brings it to a sheriff (less embarassing) who brings it to an Air Force officer (firm proof no less!) The parallels simply lead us to show, that just as we question the motivation of the Roswell witnesses, a skeptic would point out that only believers witnessed the empty tomb--except on this last point:

How do you know only believers witnessed the empty tomb? I find that it stretches my imagination to no end to think that Peter gave his speech on Pentecost (just over a month after Jesus’ crucifixion), within walking distance of the tomb, and no-one bothered to check it out! I can’t believe this sect arose out of Judaism within Palestine – the very place where the tomb was – with no one going to check out its claims!


Yes I see that now. Regardless, as Vorkosigan points out, there was a subsequent hush-hush cover up by the Air Force, and then a subsequent conspiracy theory that the Air Force knew it to be true, hence the need for hushing it all up. Likewise with the Pharisees, who might just as easily have had different motivations for covering something up, but a conspiracy theory is spread by the disciples as “proof” that there was indeed a resurrection.

So you are saying that perhaps the Pharisees are responsible for stealing the body (or something else conspiratorial, resulting in the body being missing), then they accused the disciples of doing it. Then they got ticked off that the disciples were proclaiming a resurrection and started beating and killing them to get them to shut up? Interesting. Far fetched, but interesting. It still doesn’t explain all those appearances of Jesus to his disciples, and the fact that they were willing to die for their belief in his post-resurrection appearances. Or the conversion of Saul or James. Actually, that explanation causes more questions than it answers.


You must be kidding me. What evidence do you have for this? Where were the proper skeptics of the first century? When you have historians like Pliny recording Augustus Caesar's virgin birth as fact, what does that say about the standards of the day?

The standards of the day were just fine for people who did not have the technology and scientific discovery that we have today. There would be no way for Pliny to disprove Caesar’s supposedly miraculous birth (and to record doubts about it probably wouldn’t win him any friends). On the other hand, are you suggesting that they were so stupid that they couldn’t determine if a body was, or was not, in a tomb?


<snipped for space purposes>.
For a simple start, if you accept the generally accepted dates for the Gospels, look at how the empty resurrection story grows more elaborate--with John providing so much as Doubting Thomas to feel Jesus' wounds, as compared with Mark, which ends simply with an empty tomb. Once you realise this, it's not such a leap when examining the NT pseudepigraphia to see the evolution of theology (which, if not for the efforts of the heretic Marcion in establishing a canon, would have continued on).

I see internal evidence within the gospels that they were all written before 70AD. I also see that each gospel writer had a different style, and each wrote to a different particular audience. The latest possible date I’ll accept for the writing of the gospels is that John is the last gospel, written to supplement Mark’s, in approx. 100AD. I see absolutely NO evidence for each gospel becoming more and more elaborate – and I know that scholars have not yet determined which came first, Matthew or Mark, or some aramaic version of Matthew before all of them! There is just way too much speculation for any of this to be used as evidence of legend.


As I said, they were apparently converting thousands by the day (as recorded in Acts). Is this not of interest that an explosive new sect has arrived?--estimates of the numbers of Pharisees and Sadducees are less than 10,000 combined (I'll have to check my reference for this, which I'm pretty sure is in Eisenman's James with numbers of between 3000 and 4000).

Oh my goodness! You use Eisenman as a source? :help:


Consider the resurrection of the dead, the earthquake, the darkness over the land, and the tearing of the Temple curtain (as recorded in Matthew). Surely this is an event so unprecedented in history and so bizarre that it would have attracted more attention from Josephus, if not other historians?

I find it odd when someone tries to ascertain what a first-century historian was thinking and what they would consider worth mentioning. Josephus mentions some pretty weird stuff, so I’d be really leery to guess what he would consider “unusual” or “bizarre.” I don’t think earthquakes are that unusual. We also have a mention of the “darkness” you are mentioning from Julius Africanus, who was referencing the work of Thallus (50-70AD). I assume you already knew about this and just don’t trust it.


Surely these events would have been of unrefutable value to Paul? I can play devil's advocate for the mythicist case if you like, but if only to show you that the historical evidence is weak.

Why would these things be of irrefutable value to Paul? Also, why would Paul mention these things at all, especially if everyone knew of them already? Also, how do we know Paul never mentioned them – because they aren’t mentioned in what we DO happen to have that was written by him? More unsubstantiated speculation.


Well the historians were certainly bothered enough by Spartacus.


Markg already took care of this, so I’ll skip it.


And Josephus was also certainly bothered enough by John the Baptist. Which, in comparison to John the Baptist who did none of the miraculous things in the order of Jesus, has better attestation.


John the Baptist has better attestation than Jesus? Josephus mentions both Jesus AND John the Baptist. I don’t see John the Baptist mentioned anywhere else other than the gospels and Josephus – the extra-biblical attestation of Jesus blows John the Baptist away.

I look forward to your response.

[Vorkosigan]

Snowball, there is no solid extra-biblical attestation of Jesus. What exactly are you thinking of?

Vorkosigan

[stevencarrwork]

03-11-2003 @ 09:38 PM
Snowball:

StevenÂ’s quote doesnÂ’t help your case much, since we have extra-biblical historical data confirming the fact that women didn't count as witnesses for important stuff. If Steven had continued to read beyond one verse, he'd see that the woman's testimony brought the others to Jesus to hear Him for themselves it certainly wasn't her testimony alone that convinced them.


More lies.
John 4:39-41

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

Notice 'many more' became believers.

So some had become believers because of the woman's testimony (as John 4:39 clearly states). For those people, it was her testimony alone that convinced than.

[stevencarrwork]

And the next verse is also interesting
They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

So the Bible clearly states that these believers believed just because of what the woman said, and that after they heard Jesus speak, they claimed that they also had *other( reasons to back up their belief which had previously been based on only the woman's testimony.

[Snowball]

03-11-2003 @ 05:23 PM
Vorkosigan:

Snowball, there is no solid extra-biblical attestation of Jesus. What exactly are you thinking of?

Vorkosigan

Vorko:

Should I bother to list them, since you would probably then reply that none of them are "solid," which is a subjective opinion? I'm sure you are well aware of the extra-biblical historical references to Jesus.

[Jaltus]

Women did not count as legal witnesses, that does not mean people disregarded everything they said.

Good grief.

[markg]

Hi Joel,

I would like in this post to address the following comments you made. I know they were not addressed originally to me but I feel they are very relevant to our discussion about skepticism.

You wrote:

“What we see then are certain presuppositions: These arguments assume that the contemporaries were skeptical and would necessarily check all these facts out. In fact, we do know that they were particularly gullible and believed plenty of things that we would now consider strange. Would a dying-godman be any more different than believing in their pantheon of Gods? The question is often asked, ‘Why would they say this, unless it's true?’ Of course, this presupposes so many historically contingent factors that we subconsciously impose our own values in to the question in attempting to get to an answer. This, I believe, is undone by careful study of early writings, and seeing the evolution from simple to complex theology. Then we can understand better why a Christian might have written the things they did.”

And:

“You must be kidding me. What evidence do you have for this? Where were the proper skeptics of the first century? When you have historians like Pliny recording Augustus Caesar's virgin birth as fact, what does that say about the standards of the day?”


We certainly do see “certain presuppositions” at work - in all of us, without exception. Thus I have no doubt that atheists and skeptics also "subconsciously impose our own values in to the question in attempting to get to an answer." But in moving on from that, you are very wrong. The evidence that skepticism was alive and well among those who witnessed the actual miracles of Jesus, whether they be his opponents among the religious and political elites, the ordinary people, or the disciples themselves is found throughout the gospels. The most notable skeptic is “Doubting” Thomas, but he is only one in a long line of people who had trouble coming to grips with who Jesus was and what he did. At one time or another all the disciples were awed and amazed at the things Jesus did and had trouble accepting them. Many of Jesus’ followers on encountering him after his resurrection were still skeptical. Matthew records that even in his presence and knowing who he was supposed to be, still "some doubted" (Matt. 28:17). Note also how the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as well as Mary Magdalene at the tomb were so disinclined toward believing that such a miracle had occurred they that they did not even recognize Jesus when they saw him - a classic case of psychological disassociation.

Now if you are referring to the kind of miltant, dogmatic, debunking skepticism, allied with a fervent scientism - that particularly affects and obsesses a certain class of secularised modern males, then that had to wait until the Enlightenment to become enshrined as the philosophical position of metaphysical naturalism. No matter how fervently it is defended, no matter how much it appeals to science for validation, now matter how successful it is at explaining the world, it is nevertheless still a metaphysical position like all others, based upon non-scientific, untestable assumptions and presuppositions. On the other hand, the phenomenon of skepticism itself is not some modern “scientific” discovery or invention, it is as old as Man himself, as old as the story of Eden...

Your inference that peoples of ancient times were more gullible than modern people is a piece of chronological snobbery, a manifestation of historical ignorance which imagines that people who lived before our enlightened, modern age were, in general, never critically minded and were much more easily fooled than we would be into accepting tales of miracles. It is seriously mistaken. A person living in ancient Rome or Palestine knew just as well as you do what is the difference between the normal, natural course of regular events and rare and unusual events. This is not just rhetoric from me, it is the view of a many scholars - historians, philosophers, etc.
For example:


‘No matter how events such as a parting of the sea or a resurrection are described, whether as "wonders" or as "miracles," it is clear that they were understood in Biblical times, as well as in contemporary times, to be in some remarkable sense "contrary to the normal course of nature." People living at the time of Moses or Christ knew just as well as we do that seas do not "normally" part and that people are not, in the normal course of nature, resurrected. What is required for a notion of the miraculous is not some sophisticated notion of what a law of nature is, but just a strong sense of what constitutes the normal, natural course of events. And this is something the ancients had just as much as those living in a scientific age have.’
Michael Levine, "Miracles", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2002/entries/miracles/



"In antiquity miracles were not accepted without question. Graeco-Roman writers were often reluctant to ascribe miraculous events to the gods, and offered alternative explanations. Some writers were openly skeptical about miracles (e.g. Epicurus; Lucretius; Lucian). So it is a mistake to write off the miracles of Jesus as the result of the naivety and gullibility of people in the ancient world."
Graham Stanton. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford 2002 p235


"This period [Hellenistic] may well have been the least superstitious period of antiquity…

… Our brief outline of this development may have done something to correct the widespread picture of an ancient belief in the miraculous which has no history. What we have found here is not a rampant jungle of ancient credulity with regard to miracles, but a process of historical transformation in which forms and patterns of belief in the miraculous succeed one another. If we accept this picture, we must firmly reject assertions that primitive Christian belief in the miraculous represented nothing unusual in the context of its period."
Gerd Theissen, Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition, T&T Clark: 1983 p269. 276


By the first century AD, Greco-Roman religion had developed far beyond the fanciful anthropomorphic myths of Homer’s day (ca. 750 BC) about 12 gods with human characteristics living on Mt Olympus. Even Plato in the fourth century BC had objected to the lack of positive moral values in those tales, which featured petulant gods and goddesses seducing mortals, deceiving one another, and behaving like children when they were offended by mankind. Few educated people took the old Olympian religion seriously by Plato’s period, and open skepticism prevailed among the upper classes by Roman times. Plutarch could advise his readers “not to believe that any of these stories actually happened” (Isis and Osiris 355b).

…Among the populace at large, belief in the old gods seems to have lingered into the last few centuries before Christ, although mixed with elements of magic, ruler cult, consciousness of the individual, and the syncretism of philosophy and religion which characterized the Hellenistic period…For most people…the worship of the Olympians was merely the official state cult, and conformity to it served as a test of an individual’s patriotism.”
Albert A. Bell, Exploring the New Testament World, Thomas Nelson, 1998 pp 125-126


"The self-conscious use by poets of a literary device known as 'the impossible' (adynaton) depends for its effect on widely held canons of the possible and the impossible, the ordinary and the extraordinary. Some such canons are implicit in the works, current in the Greco-Roman period, consisting simply of accounts of extraordinary phenomena. Labeled paradoxography by modern scholars…Aulus Gellius [mid 2nd century AD] characterizes the phenomena reports as 'unheard of' and 'incredible,' contained in books 'full of marvels and fictions.'"
Harold Remus. Pagan-Christian conflict over miracle in the second century. Patristic: 1983. p7


"It is in this light that we must judge the accounts we possess of other miracle-workers in Jesus' period and culture. We have already observed that the list of such occurrences is very much shorter than is often supposed. If we take the period of four hundred years stretching from two hundred years before to two hundred years after the birth of Christ, the number of miracles recorded which are remotely comparable with those of Jesus is astonishingly small. On the pagan side, there is little to report apart from the records of cures at healing shrines, which were certainly quite frequent, but are a rather different phenomenon from cures performed by an individual healer. Indeed it is significant that later Christian fathers, when seeking miracle workers with whom to compare or contrast Jesus, had to have recourse to remote and by now almost legendary figures of the past such as Pythagoras or Empedocles”
A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History, Duckworth: 1982 p103


"The rituals we studied [exorcism, love rites, alchemy, and deification] all point to the importance of the first three centuries [AD]. Ideas which only appeared in embryonic form before the turn of the millennium undergo tremendous development by the beginning of the fourth century [AD]".
Naomi Janowitz. Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians. Routledge:2001.


"We must remind ourselves, of course, of the spectrum of temperament and the degrees of exposure to a diversity of ideas, already emphasized. It was not a world in which absolutely everyone trembled on the edge of believing absolutely anything."
Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire A.D. 100-400, Yale:1984. p17

In summation, the evidence is that:
“When the gospel of the resurrected Savior was taken out into the ancient world, there was then - even as now - a general antagonism to the credibility of such claims. Paul proclaimed the resurrection of Christ before the Council of Areopagus in Athens, but the Greek poet Aeschylus many years before had related, in the story of the very founding of the Areopagus, that it was there declared that once a man has died "there is no resurrection." The ancient world knew its share of skepticism and denunciation of miracles. Luke writes that when Paul's address to the Areopagus brought him to the claim about Christ's resurrection, his audience could hardly be characterized by general gullibility and a predisposed willingness to affirm the miracle! Instead: "now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked," and others more politely put Paul off to another time (Acts 17:32). Ridicule of miracles did not begin in the modern world of enlightened science.

Just like our own culture today, the ancient world was an intellectually mixed-bag. Like us, it had its share of superstitious and mystically minded people; as we do, it had people whose thinking was ignorant, misinformed, lazy, stupid, illogical and silly. But also like our own age, the ancient world had plenty of people who were skeptical and cynical. (Indeed, those were even the names for two prominent schools of ancient Greek philosophy in the period of the New Testament!) Plenty of people in the ancient world were critically minded about reports of natural wonders and magical powers. Many not only doubted claims to miracles and found them incredible, but even precluded the very possibility that such things could occur.”
Greg Bahnsen, The Problem Of Miracles http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa165.htm



If you would like to see an in-depth discussion and refutation of the canard about gullibility in the ancient world you could visit Glenn Miller’s site at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qfx.html for one of his detailed and comprehensively research essays.



Mark

[markg]

“The philosophers’ opinions of the gods are littler more than the ravings of madmen. No less absurd are the spoutings of the poets, which are insidious because of their charm. The poets depict the gods as inflamed by anger and raging with lust, and have crafted, for us to see, their wars, battles, and wounds, as well as their hatreds, their feuds, their quarrels, their mourning, their licence, their adultery, their bondage, their couplings with humans, and the mortals born from immortals - all poured out in utter lack of restraint. With these mistakes of the poets can be linked the monstrosities of the Magi and the demented myths of the Egyptians, as well as the opinions of the crowd, which are a mass of inconsistencies based on ignorance.”

Cicero. "On the Nature of the Gods" 1:16

[stevencarrwork]

I see Markg has refused to answer my questions about miracles in the ancient world.

And why he thinks quoting the best educated Greek and Roman writers is evidence of what peasant Jewish fishermen thought is beyond me.

It is what the populos believed that he should be concerned about.

Even his quote concedes that popular beliefs ,such as the Magi's, (praised for wisdom in the New Testament, of course) were absurd.

And even Cicero claimed 'If we are to learn from popular belief and tradition whom to recognise as God, we shall have shall have all sorts, even the most monstrous and most ridiculous gods'

http://www.uah.edu/student_life/organizations/SAL/claslattexts/cicero/denatdeosum3.html

So even his authors say that people were gullible and superstitious.

[Blake Reas]

03-11-2003 @ 06:14 PM
Celsus:

Hi Blake,

I finally read through the Bahnsen article. We might certainly have saved some time wouldn't we? I think it's interesting that he falls back to Scripture, but the general consensus of biblical critical scholarship is that there were redactions, and plenty of it (although no one can agree on just what). Some of these ideas are just beginning to seep into mainstream Christianity (e.g. Markan priority)... Do you feel that any more will occur if Christians learn more about the context of the first century CE?

Joel

Hey Celsus,
I do think that Critical theories of Authorship and sources are helpful. The belief in Plenary Verbal inspiration (standard Inerrancy) takes this into account. For instance I do not speak of Mosaic Authorship of the whole pentateuch I would say Mosaic influence ( I do believe he wrote much of it). The only time problems come into play is when scholars say that certain documents and people did not exist such as Moses, David, Solomon. So to answer you question I do no think that Inerrancy has been succesfully refuted but there are good challenges to it such as Carrier's argument about the Census of Qurinius (this is the strongest case for a mistake in scripture). I have a more modified version of inerrancy that I am working out as of right now which takes into account slight differences in teh Gospels that people like Till complain about. Due to the use of scrolls in the ancient world we cannot expect a author to fit everything about a story on there for instance (Holding has come up with this to an extent)! I am also interested in Donald Bloesche theory of inspiration which I have not read much on as of right now.
When you mention that Bahnsen falls back on scripture it is because to Bahnsen that is the only thing that makes since of our world. People say that it is circular but all arguments break down into circularity at some point. This was Bahnsen's foundation for everything. You would have to talk to TheFiveSola's in the philosophy department for more on this. I do not think that Michael martin did full justice to TAG in his debate with Frame namely Martin's miunderstanding of Reformed theology hung him out to dry and Frame did not point that out.

You also made a good point on the fact that no one can make a decision on where things where redacted. I think in many places they force it becasue they read it into the text where it is not there. Also with regards to Israelite Monotheism there is a good book that I will post the title of some other time that discusses the rise of Monotheism to the time of Moses in Israel. Mark Smith one of the authoritys on critical theories of Israelite religion spoke highly of the book in a review i read. The fact is that the JEDP has been attacked for quite sometime now and is dying a slow death in some quarters. Also I think that scholars can be source happy:thumb: Sorry I went off on a tangent!
By His Grace, For His Glory
Blake

[markg]

Steven Carr wrote:

I see Markg has refused to answer my questions about miracles in the ancient world.

You are a rude and obnoxious individual, with the hide of an elephant, Mr Carr. I do not recall being in dialogue with you. I am addressing Joel , and there are many points that still need to be addressed in that exchange. You may have unlimited time to spend sitting on the Net spitting forth your venom and hatred for God and Christianity, but I have a job and a family that leaves me precious little time for what is ultimately a sideshow to life’s main event. There are other posters here who have addressed me before you did and I have not had time to respond to them either. You will have to wait your turn instead of assuming you are someone so important I have to break off from more fruitful dialogues to respond to your bigoted pronouncements. For your information I have begun drafting a response to you which will be finished when it is finished. Until then keep your sarcastic comments to yourself, get up off your arse, and do something worthwhile with your life. Instead of being one of the UK’s leading hate merchants.

markg

And read all the quotes I presented...

[stevencarrwork]

markg:[/i]

Steven Carr wrote:

I see Markg has refused to answer my questions about miracles in the ancient world.


And read all the quotes I presented... [/QUOTE]

In my Debate with David Wikinson,

http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/deb.htm

he also never got around to answering the questions, although he did cash my cheque for his fee for the debate.

I did read your quotes from highly educated Greek and Roman people, but none of them were from Jewish peasant fisherman. I'm not sure of their relevance.

I've cut out the insults. The moderators have too much work already

[markg]

Joel,

Though I should well and truly hit the sack as the hour is late and work beckons tomorrow, I will attempt a different kind of response to a recent post from you.


You wrote:
“I wasn't referring to the degree of skepticism. What I meant was that a Christian shows skepticism toward 99% of religions, while letting skepticism lapse with respect to his own beliefs, whereas an atheist is skeptical of all religious beliefs, although the degree of skepticism may vary (a 100% degree of skepticism to all things would be sticking one's head in the sand, which seems to me an obvious point).”

Actually Joel I confess I did know pretty much what you were referring to but I wanted to make a point about the nature and extent of skepticism and when skepticism is no longer skepticism but becomes dogmatism. But you thesis is still flawed. Why exempt atheism or any other ism or ideology from skepticism? What virtue is there in being skeptical of “all religious beliefs” and not being skeptical of the numerous religion substitutes that people replace them with to give purpose, value and meaning to their lives? As I have pointed out I do not buy the “atheism is the lack or absence of belief in God” line. I have said elsewhere there are indeed many practical atheists in the world who do live as if God does not exist but this is a completely different ball game than the one being played by yourself and all the other committed and militant atheists coming to Theology Web and similar sites to attack Christianity.

Let’s take it even one step further: what value is there in you being thoroughly skeptical of religious claims but not being skeptical of the metaphysical foundations and presuppositions upon which you build your own worldview and life? What evidential basis do those presuppositions have? If the unexamined life is really not worth living why do you let skepticism “lapse with respect to your own beliefs”? And if you reply that you have fully examined your worldview and that is why you are an ex-christian and an atheist, then on what grounds do you criticize my examined life as a Christian ? Just hubris? The pot is calling the kettle black? Your personal subjective beliefs versus mine? What?

It seems to me that atheists, like many religious fundamentalists, are afflicted with a high arrogance quotient. I particularly find it both creepy and scary to have young atheists often still in their teens and twenties acting as if they know it all when they haven’t even begun to really come to grips with life, to reflect and to learn from the experience and wisdom that age brings. (I am not referring to you.) The greatest folly that humans can indulge in is to be arrogantly certain of their own intellectual superiority over those in “the herd”. This kind of arrogance virtually gushes forth from the vast majority of “hard man” atheists that I have encountered on the Net. A lack of humility is often a sin of youth; it is particularly shameful in Christians. But atheists revel in it, and it is an ugly sight.

You are a member of homo religioso as much as any other man. You just think you are not religious, but religion runs in our veins, it oozes out of our pores, it is part of the very fabric of our being. We are born to worship someone, something, anything. The Bible divides humanity into two groups: those who worship the creator and those who worship the creation. It’s one or the other. This division (sheep and goats, I guess) rings true to me and everything I know about life. Someone who doesn’t believe in spiritual truth can hardly be anything other than spiritually blind, a condition particular prevalent in this brave new material world we have constructed. Nevertheless you may insist that you, unlike all other men, don’t worship anything. What, not even your own powers of rationality and logic, or science or humanism or pleasure or wealth, or anything? Maybe you are a complete worship-free zone! As I’ve gotten older I come more and more to see through such protestations. One thing you learn is that man is incurably religious - and this “religion” takes many forms, a lot of them are thoroughly “secular”. He is thus incurably a worshipping creature; if he doesn’t worship the true God, he will worship anything, even “Nothing”.

Christianity isn’t about “inserting God into the equation”. God is the equation. God is not inserted anywhere. People can do as much inserting as they want - and rampant inserting has probably been responsible for most of the world’s ills. Is it your purpose to argue against God , or against what people do with their idea of God? Because the two are not the same. Nor is God in the business of personally justifying himself to every atheist who demands he do some tricks for him. He doesn’t even give these kind of personal proofs to most of his own people let alone spending time giving demos to atheists. God has already given the greatest demonstration and proof of his good intentions in Jesus Christ. There is no more that he can do. As Jesus said even if an angel from heaven were to come to you personally and tell you the truth you wouldn’t believe it. You would rationalize, you would hypothesise, you would deny. That’s what we humans do. Dead people indeed don’t come to life of their own accord. Only God can bring the dead to life - and I am not talking just about physical death.

From my perspective belief in God is neither irrational or unreasonable, rather it is supremely rational and reasonable. But it is not confined by reason and or rationality, it transcends them. A consciousness of “God” is embedded into every human being, especially it seems in most atheists! However my thoughts about God are not God, nor do my lack of thoughts about God make him non-existent either. But, yet it is in my thought life, in my psyche, my spirit, my inner being, my “heart” - whatever - that I experience God as real.

In reading the Bible or hearing the gospel I really do encounter God, but I also encounter him in other people and in the solitude of my own thoughts. Sometimes I encounter God in my response to nature or love or beauty or in some “peak” experience. Sometimes I encounter him in the most ordinary things and sometimes I encounter in the most awful of situations. One of my most profound “encounters with God” was being there for the birth of my first child, another was watching, of all things, the movie “The Elephant Man”. You may have some other term beside “God” to describe those peak experiences or gentle intimations of something more - I like the term “rumours of glory’ - that you encounter. You may just explain them away or dismiss them. I hope that’s not true, for it seems so much of a denial of our true humanity. I have encountered God. You cannot rationlise that way on my behalf, nor can you explain it away scientifically or logically on my behalf. You can only do it for and to yourself.

You said that you were once an “evangelical Christian and a missionary”. That means nothing to me except you were once maybe closer to God and you blew it. Mice get in the cookie jar all the time, it doesn’t make them cookies. Christianity is not magic, no one waves a wand and all your Christmases come at once, everything suddenly perfect and wonderful, you knowing all the answers to life, the universe and everything. It’s a hard road. You have to run the race to the finish line, not stop after the easy first yards. The only true Christians are the pilgrims on the hard slog to the end of the journey. So you had a Christian experience along your life’s journey, great, but that doesn’t mean anything unless you keep on the journey one foot after another. Of course if you really are a cookie, even a wayward one, I believe that the hound of heaven will not leave you alone. You are here on this theology web site are you not? The hound hasn’t left you alone, has he? Anyway, it’s not my business what you believe. I leave that to you…and God.

I am not a mind reader as to what other people think about their deepest values and beliefs, but in my second post I clearly pointed out that I struggle with doubt and fear, and have questions about my faith and much more besides. I am by nature skeptical. It is a particularly virulent modern disease picked up from just breathing the air it seems, and while it strikes most everyone, certain kinds of persons are particularly susceptible. You seem to imply, through some kind of second sight, that people like me are skeptical of 99% of religions but lack any skepticism for their own . Give me a break, Joel! You are a smart guy, yet you believe such simplistic nonsense. It is not a case of letting skepticism lapse as you put it. It is a case that a Christian having met the one who is the way, the truth and the life, and having become convinced of this truth, does not then toss it for a mess of pottage at the first bump in the road. The only way that I understand the term Christian is a person who has encountered God in Christ and has committed his life as much as he is able to living out that commitment to the end of days.

Faith is clinging to what you have encountered, experienced and understood in the moments of pure enlightenment, during the mass of times when you doubt or fear or feel weak, unsure or uncertain. . Faith is holding on to the hem of the garment of truth and love one has experienced even in the darkest of times when the doors and windows of heaven seem shut tight. Christian faith is about trusting what you have found is true , not about believing things that aren’t true. I have met Christ experientially and having met him nothing can be the same again. If I do not meet him again in my life nothing can take away the significance of these encounters.

So I doubt a lot of the time, I am skeptical a lot of the time. Statements about not being skeptical about my own beliefs are false and uniformed. Often skepticism is very useful clears away the debris so that one can see clearly but that is all. But I turn to the issue of dogmatic, unbending skepticism. God usually confirms such skeptics in their unbelief. He plays cosmic hide and seek with them. He hides but they don’t seek. When I see you and other skeptics demanding what amounts to scientific proof of God I have to shake my head. You are looking for answers in all the wrong places and will never encounter God that way. But you have the machine on your side. Everything about our modern world and lifestyle is inimicable to finding spiritual truth. You may win the battle but you will lose the war for we nevertheless all remain worshippers. Always have been, always will be. We may worship the true God according to the knowledge we have of him or any number of other gods, we may worship ourselves or nature or idealism or sexual pleasure or sporting heores or whatever. We may put our faith in science to solve all our problems, to make us perfectly happy and contented, to allow us to live forever, but we never will find satisfaction or fulfillment until we find the truth, not as intellectual knowledge but as experiential possession. What is truth for you in this deeper sense may take a different form than for me, but where truth is God is. Destroy what faith others may have or rob them of the experience of God, boast of your intellectual victories over Christians, but in the end you miss the whole point of being here.

God is not a logical problem to be solved. God is not a scientific experiment to be conducted. God is not an argument or a debate to be won. God is; both immanent and transcendent, the ground of our being and the father in heaven. God is in us and around us and never far from us. The Bible is about encountering God not about explaining him.

Mark

[markg]

Muad'Dib wrote a very fine response to an earlier post of mine, and there was very little that I did not agree with or couldn't agree to diasagree with quite amicably. In the light of my (currently pretty much one sided conversation) with Joel I picked up these comments from Muad'Dib and found they sort of fitted to some comments I was drafting to Joel. Muad may think I wrote them especially in response to his points but alas I didn't.

I wrote:
...Remember how you felt when you first held your new born child in your arms. I remember my tears and emotions and my sudden (would you say "irrational";) need to thank a creator God. Why don't we stop ourselves and explain these peak moments away as merely the product of interacting chemicals and atoms?

M wrote:
For exactly the same reason you don't stop and give a theological discourse on God's purpose for the family and children in general and your child in particular: the point is to experience the situation. Intellectualizing it at the time is inappropriate in my opinion; but months afterward, it may be useful to ask, "Why did I feel that way? What does that say about me, and about feelings?" That's not to say I think people should be compelled to ask such questions, but I would not want to be discouraged from asking them myself.

I wrote:
... Why would you settle for mere naturalisic explanations of the most profound of human experiences? ... Tell me then that we are just collections of atoms.

M wrote
Tell me instead that we are "mere" creations of God? [didn't understand this one, M!] This is (I think) what you might say, but certainly not the way you would say it. I think we can both agree that what is important and meaningful to one with one set of presuppositions is often the very opposite of meaning to another. Speaking for myself, I am perhaps not always right about why my views are not meaningful to others, so I will not presume to explain why you don't understand me. (That is not a discourtesy, by the way; in some ways even I don't fully understand myself, so you can't possibly be expected to. :))

So I'm still addressing Joel, but perhaps I could include Muad'Dib:

To get along fairly successfully in day to day life we humans have to “forget” our presuppositions and beliefs (and I am not talking about religious people here but about everybody) in order to function. We have to take for granted a whole raft of things from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep. If we were obsessed with verifying every single thing that occurs we would go insane. Mental health requires forgetting. But good mental, psychological and spiritual health also requires times of refection and remembering. It is a paradox, a dilemma - we need both to operate on auto-pilot, as it were, for much of our daily grind but we also need at times to step back and examine our own beliefs and values as well. That there are people who are less or more reflective than the “norm” is surely to be granted. You and I both, I would suggest, fall into the “more” category. That doesn’t make us smarter, wiser, or more savvy than the rest of humanity; in fact it is often a curse and a burden to think deeply too often about too much. Sometimes people like us have to let it slide and let go of the rigid intellectualisng and formalizing and explaining of all issues in life. As a Christian I struggle with over-intellectualisng and rationalizing my faith rather than being open to that Spirit that can’t be contained in a box. And is beyond words to explain or describe.

Again, I am not a mind reader, but I see atheists particlarly as slaves to the “left brain” (of course I do not mean this literally), their thinking dominated by over-intellectualising ,over-rationalising, and with a deep denial of a spiritual dimension to life. In reality I know atheists are human and therefore are spiritual and myth-seeking, and soulful and that in their lives they also seek non-material affirmation. Atheists need to be loved like every other human, and while one can rationalize love as a necessary evolutionary development for the survivial of the species, one cannot experience love on those terms.. One part of your mind may be shouting this is only a biochemical reaction or a epiphenomenon of gene survivial, but to fall in love is not explicable in reductionist, rationalistic terms. It is for the lovers, metaphysical, spiritual, aesthetic and even miraculous. I made this point earlier but it prompted no response.

It is dehumanising and demeaning to see people so locked into a materialistic framework. I want to shout 'There's more, so much more!" but they don't get it. I do know there is no joy in endless debate and argument, as if debate and argument will entail some sort of introduction to the mysteries of soul or to the experience of the divine. It wont, it can’t. Sorry. As Pee Wee Herman said when he discovered there was no basement at the Alamo: "Some things they just don't teach you at school, you just have to find them out for yourself."

Mark

[stevencarrwork]

03-13-2003 @ 12:32 PM
markg:
I have said elsewhere there are indeed many practical atheists in the world who do live as if God does not exist but this is a completely different ball game than the one being played by yourself and all the other committed and militant atheists coming to Theology Web and similar sites to attack Christianity.




Like many people on the Errancy list, we were given invitations to post here. (Naturally, we get called rude, obnoxious, sick, twisted, perverted, militant, manifest liars etc, but as you point out, I have the hide of an elephant, so this does not bother me)

[stevencarrwork]

03-13-2003 @ 01:07 PM
markg:
Atheists need to be loved like every other human, and while one can rationalize love as a necessary evolutionary development for the survivial of the species, one cannot experience love on those terms.. One part of your mind may be shouting this is only a biochemical reaction or a epiphenomenon of gene survivial, but to fall in love is not explicable in reductionist, rationalistic terms.

How do you explain the operation of your computer in rationalistic, reductionist terms?

My computer can play chess. Everybody I know explains the workings of the computer in terms of castling, king safety, material counts etc etc.

Are you saying that the laws of chess are merely the workings of atoms and chemicals? I can alter the laws of chess (say by introducind a rule that castling can only happen after move 10) and I don't have to worry at all about whether or not I am violating the laws of physics. How can this be when a computer has no soul and obeys the laws of chess by obeying the laws of physics?

Perhaps the fact that abstract objects (like the rules of knight's moves) can be implemented by purely material objects might make us think that love can be implemented by purely material objects (naturally such objects would have to be a heck of a lot more complicated than a computer)

If you think that materialism denies the existence of abstract objects, then you should learn more about materialism and not attack a straw man view that materialism means that all can be explained by reference to atoms and chemistry.

You can't even explain a computer made of plastic and silicon that way, let alone a human being with billions of synapses.

[Socrates]

Blake Reas:the Census of Qurinius (this is the strongest case for a mistake in scripture).I think the leading New Testament scholar N.T. (Tom) Wright has made an excellent case that the census in Luke 2 was the one BEFORE the famous one that occurred when Quirinius was governing Syria (Acts 5:37 proves that Luke was aware of the latter). This is based on the common meaning of &pi;&rho;&omega;&tau;&omicron;&sigmaf; (protos) with the genitive as meaning ‘before’ (cf. Jn. 1:15, 15:38). A friend who lectures in Greek at a Bible College told me that he thought this long before he read Wright. And Wright has more scholarship in his little finger than Carrier has in his whole body! So if this is the best that these biblioskeptical bozos can come up with, they are REALLY in trouble :bonk:

[TenDimensions]

I'd like to take the opportunity to address some of your comments, Mark.

Actually Joel I confess I did know pretty much what you were referring to but I wanted to make a point about the nature and extent of skepticism and when skepticism is no longer skepticism but becomes dogmatism.


True skepticism is doubting the ability to arrive at "truth". I am unaware how extreme skepticism can become dogmatism - extreme skepticism should be doubting everything beyond reasonability.


What virtue is there in being skeptical of “all religious beliefs” and not being skeptical of the numerous religion substitutes that people replace them with to give purpose, value and meaning to their lives?

I agree with you - skepticism should be equally applied for the sole reason that humans are fallible.

As I have pointed out I do not buy the “atheism is the lack or absence of belief in God” line. I have said elsewhere there are indeed many practical atheists in the world who do live as if God does not exist but this is a completely different ball game than the one being played by yourself and all the other committed and militant atheists coming to Theology Web and similar sites to attack Christianity.

The personal motivations behind each atheist for posting is probably as diversified as reasons for Christians to be posting here. It is unfortunate that "a few bad apples" can spoil the image of atheists and I'm glad to see that it hasn't happened with you. That vast majority that I personally know never engage in attacking Christians, unless provoked :smile:. Unfortunately, atheism is the lack of a belief in a supernatural entity and I'm sorry that "atheist" has come to be synonymous with "attacker of Christianity". Many atheists are, some are attackers of "blind faith", and still others simply quietly go about their lives.

It seems to me that atheists, like many religious fundamentalists, are afflicted with a high arrogance quotient.

I'm glad you see this, but would you then agree that it is impossible to believe that you subscribe to one True Religion and that all others are wrong and NOT be highly arrogant? I believe you stated elsewhere that agnosticism is truely wise in this regard.

I particularly find it both creepy and scary to have young atheists often still in their teens and twenties acting as if they know it all

This has less to do with atheism than it does with human adolescent nature, don't you think?

The greatest folly that humans can indulge in is to be arrogantly certain of their own intellectual superiority over those in “the herd”.

Yes, but it is important to recognize that there is a "herd" and sometimes you follow it and sometimes you try not to. But it's there and should be recognized.

But atheists revel in it, and it is an ugly sight.

As you yourself stated - only those you've encountered on the Net who feel it necessary to go head to head with believers - careful of broad generalizations! :smile:

You just think you are not religious, but religion runs in our veins, it oozes out of our pores, it is part of the very fabric of our being.

I agree with this.

We are born to worship someone, something, anything.

But not this. We are taught the need to "worship" something. I feel no desire to bow before the might of anyone. I do however, feel the need to know answers to metaphysical questions. I personally feel there are none, but that doesn't make the feeling go away until an answer is reached - even if the answers are that there are no answers! :rofl:

The Bible divides humanity into two groups:

Careful! It's a logical fallacy to provide only two choices when there could easily be more.

In reference to worship:
What, not even your own powers of rationality and logic, or science

I'd agree that atheists hold these things in high regard, but the word worship carries meaning that I do not believe applies.

Is it your purpose to argue against God , or against what people do with their idea of God?

I can't answer for all Net posting atheists, but I can provide my answer. Unfortunately, I don't think there is enough space to go into it here.

As Jesus said even if an angel from heaven were to come to you personally and tell you the truth you wouldn’t believe it. You would rationalize, you would hypothesise, you would deny. That’s what we humans do.

Yes! Because that is all we have if we want to try and get at whatever "truth" we can! If you think we were made by God then you must admit that God put this questioning nature in us. So at the critical moment, when faced with a choice - to follow or not to follow why abandon reasoning for faith? Because (and this touches on my motivation) ultimately a belief in God is purely faith based. So why would he have created humans to question yet at the critical junction require a leap of faith for salvation?

From my perspective belief in God is neither irrational or unreasonable

Of course it's not to you, otherwise you wouldn't believe! It doesn't mean you're not wrong, though. It is possible to follow logic to incorrect conclusions if the starting premise is incorrect or unprovable.

I have encountered God. You cannot rationlise that way on my behalf, nor can you explain it away scientifically or logically on my behalf. You can only do it for and to yourself.

I don't doubt anything you said - any reasonable person has a spiritual side. It's still a long way from claiming one religion correct over another. (There's my motivation again).

You said that you were once an “evangelical Christian and a missionary”. That means nothing to me except you were once maybe closer to God and you blew it.

Are you aware of aspects to mind control and influence? One important aspect is the blaming of the doubter rather than looking at the doctrine. "If you doubt that this cult leader is the prophet he claims to be then your faith is weak." Alarms always go off in my head when someone lodges a complaint with any doctrine and the reply is "you were doing something wrong so you didn't get it".

Christianity is not magic, no one waves a wand and all your Christmases come at once, everything suddenly perfect and wonderful, you knowing all the answers to life, the universe and everything.

I'm comfortable saying this is not the message from most born agains. In fact, this is contrary to what makes the meme of being born again so contagious! To suddenly see someone be at peace in a world that is anything but - well, that makes for a very powerful message and causes others to want to understand how they can feel that way too. This is one of the primary factors to why the meme spreads so rapidly and effectively. Note: that has nothing to do regarding its validity or not.

It’s a hard road. You have to run the race to the finish line, not stop after the easy first yards.

That may be true, but the promised reward still makes being born again a very attractive idea (meme).

You are here on this theology web site are you not? The hound hasn’t left you alone, has he? Anyway, it’s not my business what you believe. I leave that to you…and God.

I hope that's not arrogance showing through after throwing similar accusations around.

but in my second post I clearly pointed out that I struggle with doubt and fear, and have questions about my faith and much more besides.

Since you said this before, do I get to make the statement?Perhaps your subconscious mind keeps you posting here because it knows your brain is under severe mind control and influencing effects? Perhaps the "hound of your subconscious" is trying to show you the way to free thinking.

I am by nature skeptical. It is a particularly virulent modern disease picked up from just breathing the air it seems

Are you saying skepticism is inheriently bad?

You seem to imply, through some kind of second sight, that people like me are skeptical of 99% of religions but lack any skepticism for their own . Give me a break, Joel! You are a smart guy, yet you believe such simplistic nonsense.

I understand how you think this may be simplistic, but then you must address this: How is it that the most important indicator of knowing someone's religion at birth is to look at the family they will be raised in? Does that sound like someone being truly skeptical of their family's religion if 9 times out of ten (figure of speech not an actual statistic) they will follow the same faith?

It is a case that a Christian having met the one who is the way, the truth and the life, and having become convinced of this truth, does not then toss it for a mess of pottage at the first bump in the road.

How is this any different from your above comment regarding an angel explaining to an atheist that it's all real and the atheist rationalizing it away? So then, if they are similar, please explain how they are different.

Faith is clinging to what you have encountered, experienced and understood in the moments of pure enlightenment, during the mass of times when you doubt or fear or feel weak, unsure or uncertain.

This was truly an excellent speech (sorry I had to clip it for space), but it only reinforces the fact that it is a leap of faith and not based on logic.

So I doubt a lot of the time, I am skeptical a lot of the time.

About your faith or in general?

But I turn to the issue of dogmatic, unbending skepticism. God usually confirms such skeptics in their unbelief. He plays cosmic hide and seek with them. He hides but they don’t seek. When I see you and other skeptics demanding what amounts to scientific proof of God I have to shake my head. You are looking for answers in all the wrong places and will never encounter God that way.

You're essentially saying that the methodologies that have led us all on this wonderful technological revolution can not answer if there is a God or not. I'm perfectly fine with that because it's a leap of faith.

You may win the battle but you will lose the war for we nevertheless all remain worshippers.

Absolutely! No matter how much we explore every inch of the galaxy God will always exist "just over the horizon". This is known as non-falsifibility and why any logical proof built upon the premise that God exists can virtually lead to any conclusion. Therefore, there are many religions in the world and many more to come, but proving one true over another is impossible!

but we never will find satisfaction or fulfillment until we find the truth, not as intellectual knowledge but as experiential possession.

I agree - but that's why religion is personal and should not be in our schools, our court system, or spoken by our elected leaders.

God is not a logical problem to be solved. God is not a scientific experiment to be conducted. God is not an argument or a debate to be won. God is; both immanent and transcendent, the ground of our being and the father in heaven. God is in us and around us and never far from us. The Bible is about encountering God not about explaining him.

This is really beautiful and I completely agree. Can I send all the loud-mouth Christians, who are screaming that evolution is a lie, to you? One is science and the other is religion - what brings you spiritual peace has nothing to do with the scientific discovery of physical reality.

[AtheistArchon]

One is science and the other is religion - what brings you spiritual peace has nothing to do with the scientific discovery of physical reality.

- Except... when one contradicts the other. :smile:

- Sorry. I couldn't resist. A well-worded post, TenD.

[TenDimensions]

03-13-2003 @ 01:08 AM
markg:
Your inference that peoples of ancient times were more gullible than modern people is a piece of chronological snobbery, a manifestation of historical ignorance which imagines that people who lived before our enlightened, modern age were, in general, never critically minded and were much more easily fooled than we would be into accepting tales of miracles. It is seriously mistaken. A person living in ancient Rome or Palestine knew just as well as you do what is the difference between the normal, natural course of regular events and rare and unusual events.


I would state this another way: People living back then were just as gullible as people living today!!

How many times do you see on the news stories of people believing in things you consider too incredible to believe? Do you think that somehow because you can easily spot their gullibility you couldn't be easily fooled yourself?

One man's gullible fantasies are another man's deeply personal, sacred religious beliefs. Who are we to say one is right and one is wrong?

The idea that ancient people were somehow more gullible is just as absurd as ancient people somehow being more skeptical - an argument I've heard in reference to supporting the resurrection.

[TenDimensions]

03-14-2003 @ 04:08 PM
AtheistArchon:
- Except... when one contradicts the other. :smile:


True! Science does sometimes inadvertantly step on previously held sacred beliefs and conflict never fails to arise. It's the natural tendency of people to resist new information, new ways of looking at things, etc. Especially when it may be radically different from previously held ideas.

But if science has taught us anything it is that over time nothing has proven more effective at gradually moving towards whatever "truth" can be found in the physical world. And so when science regrettably sometimes collides with traditionally held, dogmatic beliefs, science has been the victor time and time again.


- Sorry. I couldn't resist. A well-worded post, TenD.

Thanks for the compliment! :smile:

[markg]

TenDimensions wrote:
“I would state this another way: People living back then were just as gullible as people living today!!”

Excellent insight. Of course that is the flip side of my point, you realise. Why you need to tell me this fact but do not feel the need to address this specifically to those atheists on this thread who have argued quite explicity that ancient peoples WERE indeed more gullible than we smart moderns, is revealing of your own biases, is it not?


TD:
”How many times do you see on the news stories of people believing in things you consider too incredible to believe? Do you think that somehow because you can easily spot their gullibility you couldn't be easily fooled yourself?”

I hope the use of the second person ”you” or “yourself” is not addressed to me personally. “We” all - including atheists - can be misled and taken in. I note that several historians of late nineteenth century spiritualism have pointed out the irony that those most likely to be conned by fake mediums, and spiritualists were the more highly educated, including many scientists who became convinced of the reality of the “spirit world.” “Ordinary” people tended to be more skeptical.

This thread has many posts by atheists decrying the gullibility of ancient peoples and implying their own superiority in the skepticism stakes; yet you feel the need to address me and not them? Interesting…

TD:
“One man's gullible fantasies are another man's deeply personal, sacred religious beliefs. Who are we to say one is right and one is wrong?”

That is not accurate. It would be more correct to say: One man’s gullible fantasies are another man’s deeply personal beliefs (including the beliefs, assumptions and presuppositions of atheistic philosophical naturalists. Why excuse the metaphysics of your side and seek to make capital of the metaphysics of religionists?) I would assert that even the most secular beliefs are essentially “religious” impulses - that is part of my thesis, so your attempt to smuggle in “sacred” and “religion” as an attempt to blacken “organized”, overtly spiritual, religious beliefs is disingenuous. I think, if you seek to take the high moral ground, you need to lift your game and not make the same kind of broad and sweeping generalisations as you charged me with doing in my original posts.

As to who is right and wrong, that is an interesting topic already raised on other threads on TheologyWeb, but if one is a relativist and a subjectivist, as many atheists are, then that is a redundant question. Only an objectivist has grounds to decide what is right and wrong in principle, and not simply “right” according to individual preference, taste, or feeling.

TD:
“The idea that ancient people were somehow more gullible is just as absurd as ancient people somehow being more skeptical - an argument I've heard in reference to supporting the resurrection.”

Well I can’t say I have EVER heard such, but nothing surprises me. However I will remind you that if you check out the earlier posts in this thread you will find a number of fellow atheists - Celsus and Steven Carr come quickly to mind - who have been proposing just such a thesis of ["absurd"] gullibilty and complete lack of skepticism on the part of the ancients in order to DISCREDIT the resurrerction. So I don’t know why you feel the need to address me, who agrees completely with your position, while failing to criticise those who have erred on this matter. Why don’t you address a post to your compatriots on the folly of their line of argumentation? That would seem to be somewhat more logical and rational on your part.

TenDimensions, I appreciated your original post in response to mine, and I find that there is a great deal of apparent agreement between us. I’m sorry I won’t be able to respond again any time soon, because I will be berated and abused by Steven Carr if I don’t give him the reply he has demanded of me on this thread.

Regards,

Mark

[TenDimensions]

Today @ 07:20 PM
markg:
[quote]
TD:
”How many times do you see on the news stories of people believing in things you consider too incredible to believe? Do you think that somehow because you can easily spot their gullibility you couldn't be easily fooled yourself?”

I hope the use of the second person ”you” or “yourself” is not addressed to me personally. “We” all - including atheists - can be misled and taken in.

Of course it was meant to refer to people in general and I completely agree with you. I do think we agree on certain matters.

This thread has many posts by atheists decrying the gullibility of ancient peoples and implying their own superiority in the skepticism stakes; yet you feel the need to address me and not them? Interesting…

Well, to be honest, another friend of mine (on your side of the fence) pointed you out and held your posts up as excellent examples of reasonable potrayals of your side of the argument. As a result, I focused on you - consider it an odd form of flattery... :rofl:



TD: “One man's gullible fantasies are another man's deeply personal, sacred religious beliefs. Who are we to say one is right and one is wrong?”

That is not accurate. It would be more correct to say: One man’s gullible fantasies are another man’s deeply personal beliefs (including the beliefs, assumptions and presuppositions of atheistic philosophical naturalists. Why excuse the metaphysics of your side and seek to make capital of the metaphysics of religionists?) I would assert that even the most secular beliefs are essentially “religious” impulses - that is part of my thesis, so your attempt to smuggle in “sacred” and “religion” as an attempt to blacken “organized”, overtly spiritual, religious beliefs is disingenuous.

Okay, there are definitely some aspects about this that I agree with - you caught me on sneaking in religious beliefs. However, I would contend that "overtly spiritual, religious beliefs" do tend towards the "I'm right you're wrong" end of the spectrum - and to be fair that goes for both atheists and Christians. Although, don't you find it interesting that you don't find too many Buddhists joining in these debates? I happen to think that says something about their religion.

I think, if you seek to take the high moral ground, you need to lift your game and not make the same kind of broad and sweeping generalisations as you charged me with doing in my original posts.

Now that sounds like you're getting mad with me. I am human just like the rest of us and yes, I am an atheist, and yes, I disagree with strong religious convictions. Sometimes I'm prone to making generalizations, but when called on it I like to think that I own up to it. I'm going to post my motivations for being here since you've made me think about it. But I can tell you it's not to tear apart someone's religious beliefs.

Why don’t you address a post to your compatriots on the folly of their line of argumentation? That would seem to be somewhat more logical and rational on your part.

Yes, I think I might do just that.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 12:20 AM
markg:
I'm sorry I won't be able to respond again any time soon, because I will be berated and abused by Steven Carr if I don't give him the reply he has demanded of me on this thread.

Regards,

Mark

Do you mean berated and abused again? I can't actually remember abusing you. What number did you get from the machine? I'm doing 437 at the moment, so if you got a number over 500 in the queue, it could be a while before I get around to abusing you.

If you want to give the reply on a separate thread, it may be helpful, and clarify the threads on the board.

Up to you, of course.

[markg]

Steven,
This will be my last word to you on this matter. It was said that Rock Hudson’s frequent cry was “I need a boy!” Steven Carr’s cry is “I need a debate!” And if you don’t get your fix you start having withdrawal symptoms. Well, I’m not going to be your drug supplier. Forget the cheque. Keep it and try to buy yourself a real life.


I originally wrote to Celsus:

”It is a matter of historical etiquette and common sense that one should accept an historical account at face value rather than as deliberately false. The reason for this should be obvious: if we cannot accept that most people are telling the truth we are then in the ridiculous position of suspecting the validity of any and all historical information about persons and events - of history itself…”


Steven Carr interjected:
“Fascinating claim.”

It may be fascinating to a non-historian but it is precisely how most historians work when confronted with documentary evidence. So if your fascination is the response that is elicited on learning something new, of which you were previously ignorant, then by all means be fascinated.

Let me give another practical example of its essential “commonsenseness”:

[I originally addressed the following to Joel, as it related to his currently being unemployed, but I will let it stand.]

Let’s say, Joel, you send a resume and job application letter to me seeking a position in my business, You tell me your name is Joel N., you live at such and such an address, you can be contacted on such and such a number, your qualifications and experience are such. You tell me why you would like to work in my business, and what skills and aptitudes you have that will make you an asset to us in our industry. You even include a couple of references and supply the names of some referees. Now do I immediately take your written documents as obviously false, lies or a hoax or do I grant you the common courtesy of believing that what you have written is genuine, sincere, honest and correct?

I grant you the courtesy of accepting what you say. Of course, I do not leave it there. If there is a vacancy I will investigate and assess your suitability further, I will get you in for an interview, I will ring your referees, I will assess your potential as a possible employee, and then I will make a considered decision on whether to hire you or not. I certainly can check out how the reality holds up to the written document but when I ring you up for an interview and you answer the phone with, “Joel N. speaking.” do I immediately demand, “ Stop lying, kid, and get the real Joel N on the line!… And have him give me some data that verifies it is really him.” And what about when you turn up an interview… Do I ask to see your driver’s licence?

Now this analogy, like your Roswell analogy, is limited in its applicability to events that occurred 2000 years ago, but I would hope that my point is clear enough.

When historians approach historical documents; they do not begin from a basal assumption that such documents are to be assumed to be deliberately falsified accounts. On the contrary, the proper approach to studying ancient documents for the purposes of writing history is to assume accuracy and truth-telling unless the historian is led to believe otherwise. That is, documents are accepted at face value unless the sources or writers have something about them that makes them inherently suspicious. Obviously historians are not naively accepting of all that they find. They investigate using all the tools at their disposal to assess the authenticity and validity of the material. This will involve ascertaining the genuineness of the physical document itself - scientific procedures are very helpful here - and then assessing the biases, intent, provenance, etc. of the contents.

This is the way historians treat other historical documents, it should therefore be the way the Biblical historical documents are treated; it is to be assumed that the Gospels are reliable unless there are reasons to believe the contrary. That some scholars don’t do this is illustrative of metaphysical bias, not good history. Let’s grant that in reality most historians may actually take a mediating position between complete skepticism and total acceptance of the accuracy and value of a document. But this is not representative of the approach being taken by the average Internet Infidel in his dealing with the New Testament. Militant skeptics make a prejudiced assumption about the New Testament documents - namely, that they are unreliable unless it can be shown otherwise through independent corroboration. They assume it is full of distortion and error unless shown the contrary. But this approach leads to historical skepticism, a slippery slope if ever there was one. Other works of antiquity aren’t handled in this way, simply because if they were the whole structure of our history would collapse. You cannot “do history” this way.

For those of us living in the present age, the only access to the past we have is through conclusions drawn ultimately from the primary sources. You cannot build a house without a foundation, and the primary sources are the foundation of history. If the foundations are always to be immediately deemed suspect then very little of the superstructure will be able to be erected and the chain of events from past to present will be broken. I am particularly referring to accounts that purport to be factual retelling of events; I am not speaking about other genres of writing - poetry or apocalyptic, fable, or proverb, or fiction and so on.

“Historians examine primary sources, firsthand accounts of people who lived through the events-men and women who were in the best position to know what happened. Thus historians most commonly rely on the written record of human experience because, no matter how extensive the physical remains of a civilization may be, much of its history will remain a mystery if it has not left records that we can read...”
What is History and Why?" from A History of World Societies by John P. McKay, Bennett D. Hill, John Buckler (Boston, 1996)

to be continued...

[markg]

Steven Carr wrote:
”A few questions for you, to explore the implications of this claim.”
[Steven then repeats the statements he made in an online debate with Dr David Wilkinson on his webpage.]

”Josephus's 'Wars of the Jews' was written with ten years of the events , by a direct participant , and he records eyewitness testimony - 'I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it' . He is referring to a heifer giving birth to a lamb in the middle of the Temple. Do you believe a cow gave birth to a lamb, in a work written within ten years of the event? Surely this is just as well attested as the raising of the widow of Nain's son.”

[If Steven had read my post of 11/03/2003 he would have been aware of my attitude to such events. And there would be no need for me to spend my time giving him this extended personal reply simply because he is Britain’s Madalyn Murray O'Hair and thus, she who must be obeyed.]

No author, biographer or historian, ancient or modern is without bias, without a worldview, without a “take” on the events and personages he relates. This applies to the ancient Roman and Jewish historians as much as it applies to the authors of the Gospels and other New Testament documents. It applies to every other writer on historical matters through the centuries right up until the present. Historian Christopher Snyder notes:

One must always remember that objectivity (which many believe is impossible for even the modern historian) was not a priority for most ancient and medieval chroniclers."

Seutonius was a palace historian. His account focuses on the lives of the emperors and those around them; he virtually ignores events outside of Rome. Which, last time I checked included Palestine. So his lack of references to Jesus, a marginal Jew, is hardly surprising. Josephus of course toadied up to the Roman emperors to whom he was indebted, for his life and freedom, and for whom he wrote. So he is apt to downplay anything which might upset Roman sensibilities or portray them in a bad light. Tacitus was of the senatorial party, with a deep affection for the republic and not well disposed to the emperors, so that colours his writing. But all three are afforded deep respect by scholars today. Tacitus’ comment about Jesus being crucified under Pilate is considered an indisputable extra-biblical reference to him. Again, it comes in the context of a discussion of events occurring in Rome during the reign of Nero. Otherwise Jesus and the early Christians had no importance in his history of Rome. Such an influence was to come much later post-dating the lives of all these writers by many years.

Which leads me to a digression about PoMo.

Postmodernism, which is currently in vogue especially in the Humanities and social sciences, often glories in the biases, prejudices and idiosyncratic perspectives of the author, and often does not even seek to attempt to present an objective, dispassionate account of events free from personal interpretation. Traditionally, “modernist” historians have striven to uncover the facts and the facts only. Such a thing was never possible of course, because all history involves interpretation, but the effort was made to let the evidence speak for itself free from the injection of contemporary concerns. Since the 1960s, first with the rise of the “new history”, and now fully flowered in postmodernism, this view has been eclipsed by the more radical deconstructionist approach to writing and history. It has some plusses but it also has a number of negatives, the chief one being the loss of objective truth and its replacement by subjective, personal truths - whatever they may be.

Now many in the hard sciences are very suspicious of the postmodern attitude, and see it has a threat to the rationalistic naturalistic worldview that they have adopted as their own. Postmodernism undermines science just as it undermines history, just as it undermines a lot of other more rigid, more mechanistic, more logical, frames of reference. And yet postmodernism is the deformed monster child of enlightenment rationalism. It is where one ends up if one no longer is an objectivist or an absolutist but has adopted relativism and subjectivism as one’s outlook.

As to your specific question:
Let me quote again from noted historian Christopher Snyder:

"...all historians are taught to place the greatest value on primary
sources - that is, written evidence produced by eyewitnesses or at least contemporary witnesses to the events. These can come in many forms - chronicles, formal histories, inscriptions."

I accept that Josephus’ statement is genuine. He believes, on the basis of the testimony of reliable eyewitnesses, that this event occurred, and he has accurately and truthfully recounted it. He presents it as a rare and unusual event, one that immediately draws forth skepticism both from himself and his audience. Indeed, as he points out, it would be dismissed as a fable were it not for the corroborating eyewitness accounts that confirm the reality of such a remarkable thing. He is doing history well. He is basing his account, not on speculation, not on metaphysical and philosophical presuppositions of what is or is not rationally acceptable to the worldview of himself or his readers, but on the weight of the actual evidence itself. He does not ignore those concerns but he lets the evidence be his guide.

Just as we moderns, with our own expectations of the way the world works, are skeptical of the probability of this event occurring, and even if we grant that the first century had a more open expectations of possibilities than the modern age, Josephus is nevertheless skeptical and so was his audience - and so, it needs to be added, were the eyewitnesses to it.

That they could all be wrong is always on the cards. That there is another more “acceptable”, more “rational”, answer is also possible. That Josephus and the eyewitnesses are in fact wrong about the historicity of this event, is NOT ascertainable by us. If the rest of Josephus’ accounts have been corroborated and validated, as they have, and are accepted as reliable historical accounts, as they are, there is no valid historical reason to reject his account on this matter. A decision to do so is not made on historical grounds; it is made on metaphysical grounds. Josephus relates that eyewitnesses saw a heifer give birth to a lamb. I have no doubt that that is what they believed they saw and that is what Josephus reported. I would not dismiss it out of hand, even while remaining skeptical. History cannot explain miraculous events, it can only identify that something unusual and mysterious has actually occurred, one that is described in miraculous terms by the sources. To go beyond that is to go beyond the provenance of history and to enter the realm of faith and of the faith assumptions of one’s worldview.

Steven Carr continues:
“In the 'Histories' by Tacitus, he records that the Emperor Vespasian cured blindness with spittle and cured lameness. Tacitus writes ' Persons actually present attest both facts, even now when nothing is to be gained by falsehood.' Do you believe Tacitus's reports, based on eyewitness testimony, and attributed by him to the god Serapis?”

Yes, I certainly do. Again notice how Tacitus appeals to eyewitness testimony to confirm what otherwise would be a rare and unusual event that would normally elicit skepticism from the observers of his own era. I also know that Tacitus is highly regarded, as is Luke, as a reliable historian by the majority of scholars. I also recognise that Tacitus and Luke and Joel Ng and Steven Carr and myself are also men of their time. and consciously or unconsciously in greater or lesser degree, reflect the assumptions and presuppositions of the zeitgeist of their own age. Tacitus has his biases, they have been well known to other historians for a long time, but he is highly regarded as a solid source of information about ancient Rome. The incidents described involving Vespasian, like similar incidents involving Jesus, could be adequately explained, if one is so inclined, by psychosomatic causes. Again this reflects a worldview bias in favour of “naturalistic” explanations, but there is nothing wrong with that. I have clearly said several times now, that skepticism, and even a reliance on methodological naturalism, in certain things is valid and useful but I distinguish “honest skepticism” from the atheist’s “dogmatic skepticism that is so blinkered and boxed in, negative and naysaying, that it is a wonder that any of the paradigm breakthroughs in the history of science could have occurred if the current crop of philosophical naturalists had been in control.

I have no reason to doubt the bona fides of Cornelius Tacitus. He honestly records the eyewitness accounts of observers to these feats precisely to show that he is not gullible and would otherwise be skeptical. That the eyewitnesses believed that this is what they saw cannot be disputed historically, it can only be dismissed on ideological or metaphysical grounds. These healings are either psychosomatic or they are miraculous, in which case they cannot be explained by naturalistic means…

Whatever their origin none of the miracles recorded by Josephus or Tacitus impact on my life or yours. They are dead religions, even the Jewish temple worship - dead animals, dead priests, dead gods. Nobody practices these religions;. they are artifacts of history. Curiosities. But the Christian proclamation is that Christ is alive and his Church is living and growing and even the gates of hell will not prevail against it, let alone Steven Carr. It doesn’t matter about these "miraculous" events but it does matter about Jesus.

Steven:
”In Mark 8:23-26, Jesus cures blindness, partly by spitting on someone's eyes. Do you believe him?”

Yes, certainly, there is no reason not to accept Mark’s account either on historical grounds or even on naturalistic grounds ( if this event involved the power of suggestion or other psychosomatic causes.) If it is the spitting that has Steven riled up, I can suggest that one should not mistake the sign for the actual act. This event is one about which I would have the least skepticism. But in any case there is no reason for me not to believe, according to my worldview, that this is a true miracle.

Steven:
”In the Histories, Tacitus also records that a priest of the god Serapis, Basilides, was seen by Vespasian in the Temple, although Vespasian knew, and checked by sending horsemen to verify, that a moment earlier Basilides had been in a town some eighty miles distant. Do you believe Tacitus, reporting the eyewitness testimony of the hard-headed Emperor/Soldier Vespasian?”


Yes, certainly, he is reporting the eyewitness testimony of Vespasian. How honest was Vespasian?

I have to admit to being intrigued by how Vespasian managed to ascertain where Basilides had been “a moment earlier” if he had to send horsemen eighty miles to a town to check. On historical grounds there would be good reason to suspect this whole account because of the lack of internal logic. It does not add up, and this has nothing to do with one’s worldview or once stance on the miraculous. This could be a simple mistake over timing that led the participants to see the miraculous into an ordinary event.


Steven:
”In Acts 8:39-40, Philip was 'caught up' (same verb as in 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul is 'caught up' into the third heaven) on the road to Gaza and reappears at Azotus. Do you believe Philip, like the pagan priest Basilides, transported from place to place like a character from Star Trek?”

Yes. Same as above.

It cannot be “like a character from Star Trek” because the Book of Acts predates Gene Rodenberry by 1900 years. You’ve got it back to front; Star Trek copied it from Acts.


continued...

[markg]

Let me quote again from historian Christopher Snyder:

"...all historians are taught to place the greatest value on primary
sources - that is, written evidence produced by eyewitnesses or at least contemporary witnesses to the events. These can come in many forms - chronicles, formal histories, inscriptions."


Steven wrote:
”Are there any stories in the Gospels which, in your opinion, betray some of the credulity, gullibility and bias that we find in secular writers of the period, and in every single Christian writer who wrote non-canonical works?”

I do not find excessive gullibility or credulity in any of the contemporary secular writers (Tacitus, Seutonius and Josephus) nor do I find it in the gospels or Acts. Now if you are speaking about the later manifestly much more magical accounts about wonders and miracles stories of Jesus that appeared later in the second century under the influence of Gnosticism, that is a different issue altogether. If you read such post-apostolic stories the difference between them and the matter-of-factness of the gospels become very apparent. These works represent a completely different genre of writings and one would need to understand the nature of the beliefs and ideas inherent in Gnosticism in order to appreciate why Gnosticism was not following in the steps of apostolic Christianity, and why it was so strongly opposed even in the first century New Testament documents because of its departure from the original Christian message. It is irrelevant to our current discussion.

Bias, I have already noted is a universal human phenomenon. Steve Carr is biased. So is everyone else. Bias does not in and of itself preclude that one cannot accurately record the course of events, only that one may colour these events according to ones bias and one purpose in writing. All authors “betray” their biases including the authors of the Gospels. Does anyone doubt that? Steven Carr betrays his biases in everything he writes. Does that mean Steven Carr is a liar, a hoaxer, a con-man, a gullible fool, who is not to be believed in anything he says?

If rare and unusual events, beyond normal observed regularities have occurred and they are “miraculous” (i.e. with a supernatural origin) then an honest eyewitness, an honest historian will record them even if he cannot explain them, even if they contradict his own worldview. That is what good historians do. They tell it as it is, as best they can - usually with the kind of rider seen in the quotes from Tacitus and Josephus, and which appears in the gospels, that eyewitnesses have seen a these things and confirmed their accuracy otherwise they would be skeptical about believing or reporting them!

It is not history or science that rules out miracles, it is metaphysics – in this case a dogmatic commitment to philosophical naturalism. Now you may debate the accuracy of eyewitness accounts, the possibility of deception or misunderstanding of a naturally explicable cause, but that is not the line that you are pursuing. Here, based upon your own untestable worldview commitment, you, sit in judgment on the eyewitness reports of others because they do not align with your own assumed ideas of what is or is not possible. As a thorough-going Humean you are skeptical of everything that does not conform to your own biases and prejudices, but you are unwilling to be skeptical about the basis upon which that very same worldview is founded. It is also why Joel wants to write about methodological naturalism, when it is apparent that he is a metaphysical naturalist. He is trying to deflect the light of scrutiny being shone upon his own “myths”. Philosopher Peter Kreeft writes:

"You cannot scientifically prove that the only acceptable proofs are
scientific proofs. You cannot prove logically or empirically that only
logical or empirical proofs are acceptable as proofs. You cannot prove it logically because its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, and you cannot prove it empirically because neither a proof nor the criterion of acceptability are empirical entities. Thus scientism (the premise that only scientific proofs count as proofs) is not scientific; it is a dogma of faith, a religion."


Steven:
“Perhaps you can tell us which secular writers of that time period did not, at least occasionally, write stories which showed gullibility, credulity and superstition and why you believe no (canonical) Christian writer did.”


I believe TenDimensions is going to set you straight about the gullibility issue. As for me, I know of no historian who does not regard Tacitus, Seutonius, Josephus or Luke or the other gospel writers as reliable sources. It is non-historians who do that. All the manuscripts for the three named secular writers are few and incomplete and date centuries after the events they describe but that is NEVER held against them - accept when they make reference to Jesus or to Christianity or to some miraculous event.

Let me disabuse you of the misguided notion that I am not skeptical about many of the things recounted in the canonical writings. Many things in both testaments, I find, on purely naturalistic grounds to be improbable if not impossible. But of course they are! The bible is the account of God’s interaction with man, and God is not limited by the natural. Were the people who wrote the Bible possibly prone to moments of gullibility, credulity and superstition? They were human, just like us, so why not. I believe the Bible portrays many of the central figures in its cast exhibiting all three characteristics at various times. Do you think that prohibits them from reporting truthfully what they saw and heard? Do you think it is too hard for the perfect and infallible God of the Universe to adequately reveal his word to imperfect and fallible humanity so that the message of salvation is faithfully recorded? Do a few things you don’t like in Tacitus or Josephus, because they offend your worldview, prevent those authors from being reliable historical witnesses? No, nor do a few things you can’t explain according to your worldview, in the gospels make them historically unreliable.

Naturalism’s curse it that it is too rigid, too narrow, too dogmatic and too fundamentalist, when it tries to deal with the big issues of God, purpose, meaning, life and death, good and evil. Does it work within its own terms of reference? Sure it does, but that does not make it the “truth” about ultimate reality. A naturalistic worldview has to be blown apart by a new paradigm, and only when this paradigm shift has occurred will you be able to come to grips with life’s real mystery. Until then reductionism is fine for tinkering with toys, it is not useful for those who have matured and have to face up to the Big Questions and need to find wisdom about the things that really matter. The old book said it a long time ago: Jesus is a stumbling block to those who do not believe, just as he is salvation for those who do. The things of the Spirit cannot be understood by the natural man, to him they are foolishness. He is blind, he has eyes that cannot see, he is deaf with ears that cannot hear, and he is dumb, for thinking himself wise he has become a fool. He is a dead man - spiritually dead, and the dead stay dead - unless God wakens them to new life.


So long, farewell, thanks for nothing; I can’t say it was nice knowing you, Steven…


Mark

[stevencarrwork]

I think markg is saying that he believes a cow gave birth to a lamb, as the eyewitness testimony recorded by Josephus says, so proving mark's point that people 2,000 years ago were not more gullible than people of today.

[TenDimensions]

Today @ 10:16 AM
stevencarrwork:

I think markg is saying that he believes a cow gave birth to a lamb, as the eyewitness testimony recorded by Josephus says, so proving mark's point that people 2,000 years ago were not more gullible than people of today.

The problem with this line of argument is that you would essentially need to somehow prove that stories like this aren't believed in and retold today.

Sure, the content of the stories may have changed with new information about the world (can I hear three cheers for science?) - I don't know if cows giving birth to lamb's would survive very long as a plausible story in today's world. But making the assertion that people were more gullible back then seems absurd given the laundry list of ideas floating around today.

Today there are large groups of people who believe in Big Foot, crop circles, UFO's, ancient astronauts building the Pyramids, the moon hoax, -- I could go on and on. I know you know these stories exist today and the people that believe them believe those stories with one hundred precent of their being. How then are people less gullible today? The stories are just different, that's all.

No, I firmly believe that people are just as gullible today as they were 2,000 years ago - the actual aspects of reality that someone might be gullible about may have changed over the years, but we're still surrounded with just as many gullible people. Furthermore, it's probably unfair to use the term gullible - that would imply a lack of intelligence. I think the proper term would be a desire to believe in something unexplainable and an unwillingless to be skeptical of an idea that sounds good to you. It's very difficult to be skeptical and it's even harder to be skeptical of an idea that you love. It's human nature to love a good mystery and a lot of people don't like it when the man behind the curtain is revealed. It's a shame, really, because the world is just as fabulous and wonderous to us today as it was back when the motion of the planets was the work of gods.

Of course, this may not have been what Markg was hoping for when he said I was going to debate your point about people being less gullible today.

[TenDimensions]

Since you've made it clear you're not interested in trading barbs with Carr any longer, I thought perhaps I could hop in... :smile:

Today @ 08:39 AM
markg:
I originally wrote to Celsus:
”It is a matter of historical etiquette and common sense that one should accept an historical account at face value rather than as deliberately false. The reason for this should be obvious: if we cannot accept that most people are telling the truth we are then in the ridiculous position of suspecting the validity of any and all historical information about persons and events - of history itself…”

While I will agree with you about this to a certain extent I'd like to get you to clarify this a bit more. Surely everything historians write can not always be accurate - there are conflicting historical accounts of events that have occurred as recently as fifty years ago! Surely you can't mean that history is always accurate. The victors tend to be the historical writers and so there is always a bias in historical accounts. This also is not to say that someone is lying while testifying about something - it merely means that it can not be accepted without corroborating evidence. Whether that evidence consists of other historical accounts or better yet, real tangible evidence - it still must be corroborated.

You then cite an example of someone looking for a job and their resume accurately depicting reality.

I certainly can check out how the reality holds up to the written document but when I ring you up for an interview and you answer the phone with, “Joel N. speaking.” do I immediately demand, “ Stop lying, kid, and get the real Joel N on the line!… And have him give me some data that verifies it is really him.” And what about when you turn up an interview… Do I ask to see your driver’s licence?

This example doesn't really apply to historians, though. Historians are writing about things that may not be about themselves - if we were debating the accuracy of someone's autobiography this may be applicable. But even then, there is a large and important difference between someone outright lying and someone truly believing a falsehood. I would not necessarily call someone a liar if they write something here using information that is inaccurate. The benefit of the doubt does go to the writer when it comes to their honesty, but it doesn't make them infallible.

Obviously historians are not naively accepting of all that they find. They investigate using all the tools at their disposal to assess the authenticity and validity of the material. This will involve ascertaining the genuineness of the physical document itself - scientific procedures are very helpful here - and then assessing the biases, intent, provenance, etc. of the contents.

Two things here: 1) while true, it still does not guarantee total accuracy. War times is just one example of when facts can get very muddy. 2) while I'm not about to claim people in the past were more gullible, I will make the assertion that historians had less tools at their disposal for accurately recording events, particularly events that happened further away. I'd be willing to assert that the further geographically removed from an event the more the ancient historian would be required to rely on word of mouth.

it is to be assumed that the Gospels are reliable unless there are reasons to believe the contrary. That some scholars don’t do this is illustrative of metaphysical bias, not good history.

I have a question for you. When historians were in agreement that Troy never existed, that it was as fictional as Achilles and his heel, and then physical evidence uncovered they were wrong and Troy very likely existed - did they suddenly start wondering if Greek mythology was real? Why do you not cry "metaphysical bias" in that instance? It's easy to claim that non-believers have a "metaphysical bias", but if you never stop and listen to the reasons you'll never understand that it's not just a "bias". It's a carefully constructed, logical, and reasonable world view.


Militant skeptics make a prejudiced assumption about the New Testament documents - namely, that they are unreliable unless it can be shown otherwise through independent corroboration. They assume it is full of distortion and error unless shown the contrary. But this approach leads to historical skepticism, a slippery slope if ever there was one.

You never did answer me as to whether you felt skepticism in general was bad. Besides that, not only is historical skepticism not evil (although, as you correctly stated before, skepticism taken to an extreme can lead to unreasonable denial of reality such as Holocaust denials) - but it's not bad if done in moderation. Not to mention that slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Not one I understand, mind you, :smile:, but a fallacy nonetheless: Logical Fallacies Index (http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm)

Other works of antiquity aren’t handled in this way, simply because if they were the whole structure of our history would collapse. You cannot “do history” this way.

There is obviously a continuum here from extreme skepticism to unreasonable believer. I have no doubt that history must require a certain amount of "benefit of doubt". But that benefit of doubt in all cases of history does not extend into supernatural events! Other than early Christian history name a commonly held supernatural historical event.


For those of us living in the present age, the only access to the past we have is through conclusions drawn ultimately from the primary sources. You cannot build a house without a foundation, and the primary sources are the foundation of history. If the foundations are always to be immediately deemed suspect then very little of the superstructure will be able to be erected and the chain of events from past to present will be broken.

Those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it. Granted and point taken. But there is a line and that line, like it or not, is the physical reality that we all live in. Once you attempt to cross that line anything capable of being imagined becomes possible. There are no guidelines, no logic, no reasoning, that are applicable in the realm of the supernatural. That is in essence why the line gets drawn at that point. On one side is the realm of science and on the other side is the realm of philosophers and theologians. And when historians claim supernatural events as real they become part of the later category.

Again, to be clear, my motivations are not to destroy faith. My motivation is to make the clear distinction between religion and science since I did not begin this battle. It is the religious right who are coming after our schools and attempting to inch their beliefs into the curriculum.

On a side note, Markg, I noticed you used the term "ring up". You're not from the United States, are you?

[stevencarrwork]

Yesterday @ 11:16 PM
TenDimensions:

Since you've made it clear you're not interested in trading barbs with Carr any longer, I thought perhaps I could hop in... :smile:



I was most annoyed with markg. He called me 'rude' , 'obnoxious', and I never managed to find time to write anything bad about him at all.

[Vorkosigan]

But this is not representative of the approach being taken by the average Internet Infidel in his dealing with the New Testament. Militant skeptics make a prejudiced assumption about the New Testament documents - namely, that they are unreliable unless it can be shown otherwise through independent corroboration. They assume it is full of distortion and error unless shown the contrary. But this approach leads to historical skepticism, a slippery slope if ever there was one. Other works of antiquity aren’t handled in this way, simply because if they were the whole structure of our history would collapse.

No skeptic functions in this way. Everyone who seriously thinks about ancient history looks deep into the documents they study. Different kinds of documents are treated in different ways; a basic of historical inquiry. Some historical documents are fictions, others reflect good-faith attempts on the part of the writer to produce history consistent with what they knew to be true. How do we tell the difference. Let's talk about the NT.

Lots of people regard the NT documents as more or less fictions. The real scholarly argument is not over whether there is fiction in the NT, but how much. This does not mean that they contain no history, but it does mean that it is more difficult to demonstrate that the events depicted in the NT actually occurred, without some sort of independent verification.

For example, it is commonly noted that the gospels are built up using the OT stories as models for dialogue, scene and overall structure. Now, such practices were common in historical writing even into the Renaissance; Suetonius was copied by many writers over the ensuing millenium of historical writing. But this poses a problem: unless you have an outside vector, how do you know that the event described is history, or something recast from Suetonius? Ditto for the NT. The Passion story is almost completely built up from OT models. Maybe Jesus really was killed under Pilate, and maybe not. But because the OT has become the model for the Passion story, it is now impossible to recover the original story. Everything has been overwritten, and currently NT historians have no methodology for recovering truth from fiction in the gospels. The field is in a state of methodological crisis -- why do you think that there are so many historical Jesus-s (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html); one for each writer on the topic? If you want a firsthand look at the issues, find the archives for XTALK (http://ntgateway.com/xtalk/), the historical Jesus list where people talk about methodology all the time, and read some of the discussions.

So, with the impossibility of recovering truth from the NT stories, what should we turn to? Obviously outside vectors. But there Christians created a severe problem for themselves, for the best one, Josephus, has been tampered with. So the outside vectors are unreliable, and the stories themselves are clearly fiction-constructions of one kind or another. Worse still, it is well known that early Christianity was a forgery mill -- half the letters of Paul are not from his hand, for example -- so now you have another problem; that of the documents being redacted and edited in an atmosphere where forgery was common. It is only natural that nasty suspicious minds will have nasty suspicions.

Hope this clears up your misconceptions.

Vorkosigan

[flipper]

Vorkosigan:

A good summation, especially when one factors in the supernatural aspects of the gospel story. This should be cause for alarm bells, and a more skeptical approach to assessing the evidence and the sources of that evidence.

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,915125,00.html

[TenDimensions]

Great post, Vorkosigan. :thumb:

[djconklin]

I think markg is saying that he believes a cow gave birth to a lamb, as the eyewitness testimony recorded by Josephus says, so proving mark's point that people 2,000 years ago were not more gullible than people of today.

Josephus had eyewitnesses; what do you have?
===
For an understanding of how historians approach historical descriptions you might wish to read C. Behan McCullagh's Justifying Historical Descriptions or to see how it works when applied to the resurrection you can read William Lane Craig's article "Did Jesus Rise From the Dead?" in Jsus Under Fire pgaes 141-76.