Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[tabibito]

The onus is not on skeptics to disprove an extraordinary claim, the onus is on the proponent(s) of the extraordinary claim to provide evidence for that claim.

By no means. It is incumbent on persons engaging in both sides of any debate to show just cause to believe their position. So far, you have failed to do so - the best you have provided by way of support for your position is argument from incredulity. That and ridicule have been your mainstay throughout. Your "the next car to pass will be red" being a case in point.

So - what would a real equivalent to your "red car" scenario look like. Let's take a real event involving prediction ...

Some years ago, during mid winter, a man was having a phone conversation with a friend, a staunch atheist, whom he had not seen in several weeks. The friend's father lived in a town quite some distance from the city where they both lived. The man had not seen his friend's father since late summer. The man told his friend to travel home to visit his father during the coming weekend, because it would be the last opportunity for the friend to see him. The friend did so, and his father was in good health at the time. However, on the Monday afternoon, the father developed a chest infection - and on the Wednesday morning died of pneumonia.

So - ridicule away. What plausible explanation do you advance for the man's action - other than a supernatural ability to foretell the future?

[One Bad Pig]

what's an acceptable amount of evidence for a miracle

If someone who is generally trustworthy attests to it, I'm inclined to accept it as true. The greater number of people who attest to it make it increasingly likely to be true.

and do you think it's on par with that of alien encounters and abductions, magic and sightings of extinct animals?

No. Thank you for proving my point. By the way, sightings of "extinct" animals are rare, but they do happen. That's because it's rarely proven that an animal actually is extinct; proving a negative is not easy.

[Sea of red]

Are you serious, Red? You agree with their logic?

Dude, do you not understand that a bad argument is a bad argument regardless of whether we share a common belief?

PS: please make your posts shorter and more concise.

[Gary]

By no means. It is incumbent on persons engaging in both sides of any debate to show just cause to believe their position. So far, you have failed to do so - the best you have provided by way of support for your position is argument from incredulity. That and ridicule have been your mainstay throughout. Your "the next car to pass will be red" being a case in point.

So - what would a real equivalent to your "red car" scenario look like. Let's take a real event involving prediction ...

Some years ago, during mid winter, a man was having a phone conversation with a friend, a staunch atheist, whom he had not seen in several weeks. The friend's father lived in a town quite some distance from the city where they both lived. The man had not seen his friend's father since late summer. The man told his friend to travel home to visit his father during the coming weekend, because it would be the last opportunity for the friend to see him. The friend did so, and his father was in good health at the time. However, on the Monday afternoon, the father developed a chest infection - and on the Wednesday morning died of pneumonia.

So - ridicule away. What plausible explanation do you advance for the man's action - other than a supernatural ability to foretell the future?

I will answer your question with another analogy:

A woman bumps into you at the local grocery store. You do not know her, and as far as you know, she doesn't know you. She tells you she is getting a weird vibe from you. After closing her eyes and holding her hands to her head for a few seconds, she tells you that she is a medium and that someone you know who has passed on wants to contact you. She asks you if you had an uncle who was killed in a car accident 5-6years ago. You are shocked. How would she know this?

What are the possible explanations for your story and mine:

1. The Christian was told by God that his friend's father was going to die, and, the medium really is in communication with the dead.
2. Both were lucky guesses.
3. Both the Christian and the medium had inside information.
The Christian knew a mutual friend of the atheist. This friend had recently told the Christian that the atheist's father was very ill, but was hiding his terminal illness from his son, he looked well, but he had only days to live.
The medium's cousin works in the market and feeds her the names, addresses and other personal information about the store's clients. The medium did not just bump into you. It was a set up.

[Gary]

Dude, do you not understand that a bad argument is a bad argument regardless of whether we share a common belief?

PS: please make your posts shorter and more concise.

Please shut up. If you can't see that Dr. Johnson's argument completely destroys these Christians' pathetic defense of miracle claims, you are more dense than they are.

You've got something brown on your nose. Wipe it off. It's disgusting.

[psstein]

There are massive problems with Johnson's position. His argument is question begging, as is Hume's, which he rejects for not being strong enough.

[tabibito]

By no means. It is incumbent on persons engaging in both sides of any debate to show just cause to believe their position. So far, you have failed to do so - the best you have provided by way of support for your position is argument from incredulity. That and ridicule have been your mainstay throughout. Your "the next car to pass will be red" being a case in point.

So - what would a real equivalent to your "red car" scenario look like. Let's take a real event involving prediction ...

Some years ago, during mid winter, a man was having a phone conversation with a friend, a staunch atheist, whom he had not seen in several weeks. The friend's father lived in a town quite some distance from the city where they both lived. The man had not seen his friend's father since late summer. The man told his friend to travel home to visit his father during the coming weekend, because it would be the last opportunity for the friend to see him. The friend did so, and his father was in good health at the time. However, on the Monday afternoon, the father developed a chest infection - and on the Wednesday morning died of pneumonia.

So - ridicule away. What plausible explanation do you advance for the man's action - other than a supernatural ability to foretell the future?

I will answer your question with another analogy:

A woman bumps into you at the local grocery store. You do not know her, and as far as you know, she doesn't know you. She tells you she is getting a weird vibe from you. After closing her eyes and holding her hands to her head for a few seconds, she tells you that she is a medium and that someone you know who has passed on wants to contact you. She asks you if you had an uncle who was killed in a car accident 5-6years ago. You are shocked. How would she know this?

What are the possible explanations for your story and mine:

1. The Christian was told by God that his friend's father was going to die, and, the medium really is in communication with the dead.
2. Both were lucky guesses.
3. Both the Christian and the medium had inside information.
The Christian knew a mutual friend of the atheist. This friend had recently told the Christian that the atheist's father was very ill, but was hiding his terminal illness from his son, he looked well, but he had only days to live.
The medium's cousin works in the market and feeds her the names, addresses and other personal information about the store's clients. The medium did not just bump into you. It was a set up.

You have dreamt up a scenario that satisfies you - but look again: where are the parallels? The father in the story I gave you died of pneumonia - and on the weekend that his son visited, he showed no symptoms of pneumonia. You have also failed to address the issue of why the atheist paid any attention to what he was told. Moreover, while your scenario might serve to satisfy some, it certainly would not satisfy the Christian - who knows that nothing of the sort happened.
The task here is to convince that Christian that nothing miraculous was involved. What can you dream up to support your contention that there can have been no miracle and that there are no gods.

[Apologiaphoenix]

You believe JP Moreland's ear sprouting story because he is a respected member of your Faith. If he were a fundamentalist Muslim claiming that Allah had caused an ear bud to sprout, would you be so willing to believe him? I doubt it.

Why not? People aren't mistaken about that kind of thing. I would have no problem and in fact have believed similar claims from a Muslim. You just don't go with it because it goes against your faith that miracles don't happen.

Let me give you one possible explanation for Moreland's ear sprouting experience:

It is a faith healing service. The crowd has been whipped up into an emotional frenzy. They are all believers in miracles. Moreland and the ear-less man were not standing in front of a group of skeptical medical professionals. The man truly believed that Moreland could re-sprout his ear.

Moreland prayed for Jesus to start the ear-sprouting. The man, gripped with hysteria, violently grabs his head, causing a contusion to the area of the severed ear. A hematoma (collection of blood) develops and a bump/protrusion of skin/tissue begins to swell from the area of the opening of the ear canal.

"A new ear is growing. Praise Jesus!"

Wow. Seriously? You think someone like Moreland is stupid enough to think something like this? If he says he saw a new ear, that means he saw a new ear

I challenge you to provide just ONE miracle claim from Keneer's book or any other miracle claim, for which we are unable to provide a more probable, non-miracle explanation.

I challenge you to read his book because I already provided the list of miracles from the book that was worthy of looking at.

[Apologiaphoenix]

William,

Nick wants to convince you that miracles are just as probable in human experience as non-miracle causes for rare, odd, difficult-to-explain events.

Do show where I have said this.

Good night but you are such a fundamentalist.

[Apologiaphoenix]

Do you think someone is mistaken about an ear growing back?

No. It's dogma. Miracle accounts are also based on observation and a number have medical documentation and even mention in secular newspapers. Being skeptical of miracles does not mean you are reasonable. It means you are skeptical. When more and more evidence piles up against the position, it is unreasonable. No argument has been given that is persuasive as to why miracles cannot occur and have no occurred. Miracle accounts have been presented and you have to accept for your position that most people are lying or delusional.








Because they are. Either the person is saying X is true while knowing it is not, which is lying, or they are saying X is true, while it is not meaning they think it is for some mistaken reason, which I am putting under the word deluded, or else they are saying X is true and it is true, in which they are telling the truth.

http://psych.stanford.edu/~bt/memory...sh-tversky.pdf

I have explained what I mean. If you know of a fourth option, give it.



No. This assumes deity is a class of being. It isn't. God is not part of a genus but rather being in His very nature. This is shown through good arguments in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition.



And we believe testimony that can send people to death row on the testimony of strangers regularly. I prefer to think that the common man is not really as stupid as we think he is and if only a few people were claiming miracles, that'd be something. When millions all over the world are if not more, that's something else.


And your evidence that your present understanding of the world is accurate is?....









So is a feather's nature. It has mass and matter as well. Do they fall the same way on Earth? Nope.

Correct. Much of Aristotle's science is bunk. Much of it is not. That does not apply to his metaphysics.

But also, this isn't much of an argument. It would be like saying "William has got some things wrong in this thread. Therefore everything he says should be viewed with suspicion." Saying people got things wrong is not an argument to show they did not get some things right. The argument is simply about metaphysics. For that, referring to today's scientists will frankly be useless. Scientists are not philosophers in that sense.


Of course not, but it eliminates lying and if he's persuaded he's telling the truth, it's up to us to examine the claim.



I have presented the scholarly evidence that does not doubt the appearance tradition. This is not the issue with scholars. Ludemann tried to get this to fit with Acts 2 and Pentecost, but he has since abandoned that position and is not sure last I heard what Paul is referring to. Paul is sharing a statement known to Christians all over. This would mean that no Christian ever bothered to go and consult these eyewitnesses, which flies in the face of rich and influential pagans and Gentiles becoming Christians.

And people in churches today do not live in honor-shame societies where their reputation is on the line for what they believe and where claims of falsehood can be met with death. What would it be like for people walking around Jerusalem and other areas to claim they had seen Jesus risen and He was the Lord? Ask yourself what it would be like to be a Christian in a country where ISIS has a strong hand and claim that Jesus is Lord.

Actually, it is one. Paul is replying to questions that they have at the time. In the sequel to this letter, we see no indication that any of this was disagreed with.



So it looks like the standards change when it suits you. Earlier, Paul had a reputation as a liar. Now he has a reputation as someone they would trust. Which is it? If he had a reputation as a liar, to preserve his honor he would want to change that. If he had one as trustworthy, to preserve his honor he would want to keep that trust.

Is every early historical claim about any figure always assumed true?
This is kind of silly.

I didn't say anything about it being true there. I said it's a major figure and it's early. We would love to have this for any other ancient figure. Your adding in to my claim is what is silly.


I believe you're the one who had started the discussion about miracles and other religions. I was just answering.





No. I know no such thing. In fact, I am quite certain their memories were better and ours are usually horrible. Now if you think this is not the case, then please present scholarship on ancient societies and how they handled oral tradition.

Do you think they read Homer once and memorized the entire thing? No, the rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. Do you think they rehearsed every detail of their lives in that way? And then not everyone made a practice of this memory work. Life was slower back then.

Of course they rehearsed, but even still, many people heard things one time and they could memorize it all. Lord has shown this in even some modern societies where oral tradition is strong. Jews especially valued memorization. A young student was to repeat a text of Scripture 400 times and then do it from memory. If he couldn't, he did it 400 more times.



Our first biographies of him show up 400+ years after he lived. If 400+ years isn't a problem, the timeframe for the Gospels shouldn't be.

Then you should discount Alex because that's centuries later and that's a passage of time. Again, your methodology would destroy all of ancient history.

I have pointed to the work of Martin, Licona, Wright, and Gundry on this issue and argued repeatedly why this isn't a spiritual resurrection. There has been no response other than to repeat the claim.

Then do what stein and OBP and Adrift and others have been asking along with me. Give a better explanation of the data.







Why would you say you just think so? I don't know a historian who doubts this of the time.

And for good reason.

No. It's never hinged on them because I prefer to use earlier material with claims accepted by critical scholars.





This ignores much of what I said unfortunately.



Money? Sorry, but the early church was persecuted. That would mean the loss of possessions. Glory? From who? A Jew would want the glory of God most and to change their most cherished beliefs about Him would require darn good evidence. Attention? Oh they got attention alright. They got lit on fire for Nero's ceremonies. They got shamed. They got persecuted in general. Pride? Yeah. It feels good to be the leader of a sect seen as deviant and to be declared deviant yourself. Paul would definitely change his nice position with the Sanhedrin for that.

I find that we do not agree.

Could you offer a percentage of the critical scholars in that the field that believe history shows that jesus was actually crucified?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-d..._b_847504.html

"Jesus' execution is as historically certain as any ancient event can ever be but what about all those very specific details that fill out the story? Are they fact or fiction and, if fiction, what is their purpose, intention, meaning?"

There are multiple ideas of what happened to Dionysus. Osiris meanwhile came back to life....in the underworld! He never returned to life again.

He would have had to have been. If all that was done was the body that was crucified got up again with no healing, no one would have thought this was a new and glorified body. David Strauss said this years ago and he was no friend of Christianity.

Except you wont. You demand absolute proof for the natural explanations to your miracles while expecting that everyone believe the miracles based on nothing more than claims.

No. When you've given a natural explanation, I've shown what I consider problems with it. Those are not responded to other than pointing to biases and such supposedly that I find unconvincing. Meanwhile, every miracle account that is presented here is ipso facto dismissed.



Yeah. Ancient people knew the same kind of thing too. No one here is just saying "God did it." We're noting the life of a person charged with religious significance and a claim centered around their very theistic claims. The earliest eyewitnesses said it was a resurrection and we see that the other explanations are flimsy.

They would need to give evidence of that claim. We have in fact given evidence. We've argued He died, was buried, was seen again bodily and this by large crowds of people, and that the evidence was enough to convince the people who had the most to lose in an honor-shame society. We have not just said "He flew into Heaven."






Feel free to show it happened with Jesus.

Who said it was a ghost? It was just something. Even if it's a hallucination, they are still convinced they are seeing something.

They saw something that they mistook for something else. Do you really believe in ghost stories? Do you all feel this way?

I don't believe in ghosts, but I do believe that people are certain they see dead loved ones again and you know what it means to them every time? It means the person is dead. I don't know of cases where this happens and they say "Open the tomb! My spouse is alive!"

The same in the ancient world. If you saw someone like that, they were dead. A Jew would say it was the person's angel for instance.



I asked you to show something happened. If you have a case, make it. Don't just throw out an idea. Give evidence from the best scholarly material why that should be accepted.

Lack of education is still relevant because it speaks to an ignorance as well as a predisposoition to superstition.

Not in this case. For what reason would one superstition be traded for another, especially if this other one would put you on the outs with Rome and Judaism both and would mark you as shameful in your society as a whole?

Any recommendation?

Sure. Try Wax Tablets of the Mind, or try the Lost World of Scripture, or try Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels.

They get this by reading the ancients and by studying similar societies today. There are still oral societies today where memorization is praised.


Do you have any indication that this is going on in the case of Jesus? Do you have any indiciation of PTSD or that these were people who claimed to see dead people every day?

Youre just not making good sense and adding additional impactions with your phrasing.

Nice assertion.

You comfortable considering the possibility without scholarly input?

In an area that is readily available to all, sure.

[Sea of red]

Please shut up. If you can't see that Dr. Johnson's argument completely destroys these Christians' pathetic defense of miracle claims, you are more dense than they are.

You've got something brown on your nose. Wipe it off. It's disgusting.

You jackass. I'm throwing you a life jacket to keep from drowning and you're going "screw you! I can save myself!". You've got this thing were you go on and on with no real point (much less insight) and whining that anybody that disagrees with you is stupid. People have pointed out where you are not arguing well (including some of atheists on this board) and you just keep pushing in. Do you really think anybody takes you seriously? Dude, nobody really does. I keep in touch with most of the atheists on this board, and all of them that have mentioned you think you're a complete dumbass; some of them wonder if you're a parody.

Fact is, you failed miserably to disable Nicks arguments during your debate with him and people started out thinking you were just inexperienced. But instead of just turning around and taking the defeat like a man, you've babbled on about nothing, and you've managed to embarrassed yourself in a way I've only seen an atheist do once in my time on this site. That's a real accomplishment buddy, because I've seen em' all.

I was on Infidels for years, on AF after that, and then I moved to this site. I've argued with these guys off and on for fifteen years - committing blasphemy many times along the way. I was doing this long before it was cool, amigo. So maybe just go and pick on someone you're own size that's dumb enough to spend more time on you.

Keep on going though. You're hot $$$$ right?

[Adrift]

Why not? People aren't mistaken about that kind of thing. I would have no problem and in fact have believed similar claims from a Muslim. You just don't go with it because it goes against your faith that miracles don't happen.



Wow. Seriously? You think someone like Moreland is stupid enough to think something like this? If he says he saw a new ear, that means he saw a new ear



I challenge you to read his book because I already provided the list of miracles from the book that was worthy of looking at.

Asks for an example of amputated body parts growing back. Says that'll get his attention. Finds one. Still couldn't have been a miracle.

Skeptics constantly ask why God doesn't do some sort of special magic to prove that he exists just for them (having already ignored the most obvious miracle that is this universe). If only God came down and walked on water, calmed storms, healed people at a touch, then they would believe. No they wouldn't. Some people will always find a reason not to believe. Anything is possible, but God.

[Gary]

There are massive problems with Johnson's position. His argument is question begging, as is Hume's, which he rejects for not being strong enough.

Please give a specific example.

[RumTumTugger]

Please shut up. If you can't see that Dr. Johnson's argument completely destroys these Christians' pathetic defense of miracle claims, you are more dense than they are.

You've got something brown on your nose. Wipe it off. It's disgusting.

I see we have a sufferer of Dunning/kruegar syndrome

[Gary]

You have dreamt up a scenario that satisfies you - but look again: where are the parallels? The father in the story I gave you died of pneumonia - and on the weekend that his son visited, he showed no symptoms of pneumonia. You have also failed to address the issue of why the atheist paid any attention to what he was told. Moreover, while your scenario might serve to satisfy some, it certainly would not satisfy the Christian - who knows that nothing of the sort happened.
The task here is to convince that Christian that nothing miraculous was involved. What can you dream up to support your contention that there can have been no miracle and that there are no gods.

No, Tabby. You have missed the entire point of our discussion: We skeptics are not trying to convince Christians that this miracle or any other miracle did not happen. We are only trying to show you that there are always alternative explanations, and, that you cannot prove as absolute fact that this particular event was a miracle or that any other odd, rare event is a miracle. You can believe it, but you can't prove it.

How do you know this story is 100% accurate? How do you know that some of the details haven't been exaggerated, embellished or even fabricated? You don't. And that is our point. It is a story that has been passed around from one person to another, and when stories are passed around details can be changed.

Once again: Skeptics cannot prove that miracles do not happen, and, believers cannot prove that they do. Each one of us must evaluate the claim and determine for ourselves if there is a more naturalistic explanation of the facts. Believers have a much lower threshold for believing that a miracle has occurred, and we skeptics believe Christians have this low threshold due to the fact that they so very much want to believe a miracle has happened.