Charles Darwin still dead. Jesus Christ still alive.

[Kalkidas]

Happy Easter, everyone!

[Abner]

Kalkidas wrote:
> Happy Easter, everyone!

There is a lot of evidence for the first. The second ... pure faith. Happy Easter!

[Harry Krishna]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2023 07:00:41 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:

>Happy Easter, everyone!

Jesus came out of the tomb and saw his shadow. Six more weeks of Lent!

[jillery]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2023 07:00:41 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:

>Happy Easter, everyone!

Which Easter?
<https://www.rd.com/article/easter-on-different-sunday-every-year/>
*************************************
The decision as to when to celebrate Easter—and whether or not it
should coincide with Passover—was a topic hashed out between bishops
at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. A more standardized calendar, the
Gregorian one, was established in the 16th century under Pope Gregory
XIII, and that’s the internationally accepted civic calendar that most
of the world follows today. Orthodox Christians, however, still follow
the Julian calendar, the previous one created by Julius Caesar in 46
BC, meaning that Easter falls between April 4 and May 8 for them.
**************************************

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[Abner]

jillery wrote:
> Which Easter?

There was an incredible storm that showered candy everywhere ... it was obviously a Nor'Easter!

[jillery]

On Sun, 09 Apr 2023 13:55:17 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Here's a more comprehensive explanation:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awhGbKH3mGk>

[Burkhard]

Yup, we are off for holidays on Corfu next week - we thought we are clever and travel the week after Easter to avoid the travel chaos. Unfortunately we had forgotten that Greece is of course using the orthodox calendar... And just for fun, we come back as a result, via Heathrow, on the day of the coronation. So that will all be great fun.

[Martin Harran]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

'Contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and
biblical scholars and classical historians view the theories of his
nonexistence as effectively refuted.[7][9][48][49][50] Robert M.
Price, an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus, agrees that his
perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars.[51]
Michael Grant (a classicist and historian) states that "In recent
years, no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the
non-historicity of Jesus, or at any rate very few have, and they have
not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant,
evidence to the contrary."[9] Richard A. Burridge states, "There are
those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church's imagination,
that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know
any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore."[48][35]:
24–26'

You reckon you know better?

[broger...@gmail.com]

You seem to have misread the post.

The first statement, for which there is plenty of evidence, was "Charles Darwin still dead." The second statement, which requires pure faith, was "Jesus Christ still alive." There was no denial of the historical Jesus.

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> You reckon you know better?

None of that does anything to establish that Jesus Christ is still alive. *That* is pure faith. Plenty of people who once existed are not still alive ...

I have no objection to people having faith that Jesus is still alive, but Kalkidas came out swinging with a claim of faith as if it was a claim of truth and I tweaked his nose about it fairly gently IMO.

Happy Easter to you too!

[Öö Tiib]

Others have pointed out that it wasn't about historicity of Jesus
but about Jesus being alive.

About Easter I've read that hare was bird and was turned into animal
by spring goddess Eostre. Then hare did lay colourful eggs as thanks.

Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre> says that
Northumbrian monk St. Bede wrote in his "The Reckoning of Time"
A.D. 725 about Easter:
"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month",
and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in
whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they
designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the
new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."

I don't recall Bible saying anything about egg-laying hares.
Bible says that "And the hare, because it chews the cud but does
not part the hoof, is unclean to you." Leviticus 11:6

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 9 Apr 2023 18:07:18 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

Fair enough, I was taking 'first' and 'second' as referring to the
people rather than their state. Anyway, that takes us back to one of
your regular points - what do we mean by someone being "alive"? Jesus
is certainly alive to me and millions of other Christians.

[Martin Harran]

I've just commented to Bill Rogers that it depends on what one means
by "alive" and that Jesus is still "alive" to millions of Christians.
Kalki is actually wrong, however, in a different way. Christians
believe that Jesus passed through death into a new form of life but
they also believe that the same thing happens to all humans. Darwin is
therefore still "alive" in the same sense that Jesus is.

>Happy Easter to you too!

Happy hioliday to you :)

[Öö Tiib]

If "alive" is about popular vote then Jesus is perhaps alive.
Even Quran says that prophet Jesus was raised to heaven.
Kalki can be of Christians who believe that Darwin is dead
until Rapture. Hard to tell who is wrong as it is all question
of faith not evidence, like was already said.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

For more fun, make a visit to Mount Athos (though you'll have to leave
any female companions in Salonica). There is one modernistic monastery
that uses the same clocks as the rest of Greece, but in most of them
the clocks appear to be wrong.


--
athel -- biochemist, not a physicist, but detector of crackpots

[lyd]

Good one.

[broger...@gmail.com]

If you wish, you can define "alive" so that Jesus is "alive." Virtually any statement can be made true if you are willing to define the terms it contains in the right way. Indeed if you want to define "alive" as "remembered by some living person", then lots of biologically dead people are alive, including many who became biologically dead thousands of years ago.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2023 09:16:48 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

Christians believe that Jesus overcame death and returned to life. It
was clearly a different life from what we generally experience - he
was able to appear and disappear at will and pass through walls yet
there were still physical elements to him such as eating with his
disciples and inviting Thomas to insert his fingers into his (Jesus's)
wounds. That's a lot more than just alive in people's memories.

[broger...@gmail.com]

Well, sure, and that's the kind of alive Jesus the belief in which requires pure faith, as Abner said in the first place.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2023 10:23:10 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

More pertinently, he said there is no evidence of Jesus being alive. I
would dispute that. The Gospel accounts, for example, are evidence.
You and he might not want to accept the validity of that evidence but
that doesn't change the fact that it is evidence.

[broger...@gmail.com]

If you want to avoid special pleading, then you will need to use the same standard of evidence for other striking claims, the ascension of Mohammed, the Virgin Birth, bigfoot, ancient aliens building the pyramids, etc, for example. If the existence of somebody making a claim is evidence for that claim, then there are no claims for which evidence is entirely lacking. You may counter that as the number of people making the claim increases, the evidence is proportionately stronger, so because more people believe in accounts of the resurrection than believed in some miracle accepted by a small cult, the evidence for the resurrection is stronger in proportion to the ratio of Christians to members of the small cult. I don't buy that, and I think it would lead to a very poor epistemology, but you may find it convincing.

In would say that if you want to make a non-faith based claim about a proposed event involving a historical religious figure, for example the physical resurrection of Jesus, then you need to apply the same standards of evidence to that claim as you would apply to miraculous claims in Homer, or the Koran, or Herodotus, or the Gita. In my view, that means that while there is abundant evidence that lots of people believed and believe in the resurrection, there is no evidence for the resurrection itself according to a standard of evidence that a reasonable person would find convincing were it universally applied, say in a secular history book or a court of law.

But there's nothing wrong with faith. If you believe, you believe, that's fine.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:36:45 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

So effectively, you get into a debate on how conclusive or reliable
the evidence is. Not much different really from a courtroom where
there is no conclusive *forensic* evidence and both sides will argue
whether conclusions can be drawn from *circumstantial* evidence. The
point is that it is an evidence-based argument, not just "pure faith"
as Abner claimed.

[broger...@gmail.com]

Well, I'd agree with Abner, that the quality of the evidence for Jesus resurrection is poor enough that few would accept it were it not for it representing the desired conclusion. There's always a debate on how conclusive evidence is, if you are willing to call "a bunch of people say X" evidence for X. In that case, all claims have evidence to support, because at the very least the claimant supports the claim. So I'd say, yeah, you need pure faith. Which, more or less goes along with Jesus' alleged words to Thomas "Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Monday, April 10, 2023 at 6:55:17 PM UTC-4, broger...@gmail.com wrote:

> Well, I'd agree with Abner, that the quality of the evidence for Jesus resurrection is poor enough that few would accept it were it not for it representing the desired conclusion.

It isn't poor; the reason few would accept it in the circles in which you and I operate
(highly educated, very rational where rational argument is appropriate)
is the old saying, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
On a logarithmic scale of 1 to 10 of extraordinariness, arguments from medicine
and especially physics -- the most rigorous of the sciences, not counting mathematics --
put the extraordinariness of the Resurrection [medicine] and Ascension [physics] accounts well above 9.5.

> There's always a debate on how conclusive evidence is, if you are willing to call "a bunch of people say X" evidence for X.

Far too general a taunt. One has to have some idea of WHY they say it. For that, you have to read the gospels carefully,
and also ponder the question: how reliable are the claims of the *ordinary* events related in the gospels
in and around the resurrection, given that the accounts were by people who were adults when it occurred?

Today, the day after Easter, Catholics recall the events on the road to Emmaus, with Jesus conversing
with two disciples who do not think he is Jesus until he breaks bread in a way that reminds them of what
they had been told about the Last Supper. [1]. All ordinary events, not altogether different from things we
have experienced. The same is true of the details of their conversation. The only extraordinary event
claimed is that, mere moments after they decided this man must be Jesus, he disappeared [2].

[1] Luke 24: 13-35. [2] v. 31

Were they victims of a simultaneous momentary blackout, giving enough time for the man to disappear
in an ordinary way? I'd rate that between 7 and 8 on my (logarithmic) scale. But their conclusion that
the man had been the resurrected Jesus is below 2 on that scale, given that others to whom they talked
claimed that they had found the tomb empty, and that angels had appeared to the women saying
Jesus had risen from the dead. [v. 22-24]

> In that case, all claims have evidence to support, because at the very least the claimant supports the claim.

Again way too general. You of all people should know that evidence ranges from worthless
to convincing, with "fifty" shades of gray in between.

> So I'd say, yeah, you need pure faith.

But ONLY for the reason I gave. And even so, the word "pure" is disputable.

>Which, more or less goes along with Jesus' alleged words to Thomas

You mean the words of the man alleged to be Jesus, don't you?

> "Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I tend to be skeptical of Jesus having said the part after the semicolon; it sounds like a commentary by the
evangelist John or by the people who actually wrote it, to encourage and flatter those who never saw Jesus at any time,
yet believed in the Resurrection.

It is, after all, "the Gospel according to John," not "the Gospel written by John". There is a fascinating
pair of verses that suggest that John neither wrote it nor dictated it, although John
might have given them lots of accounts which they subsequently wrote down from memory.

Chapter 19,
[verse 34] But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
[v. 35] He who saw it has borne witness -- his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth --
that you may believe. [Revised Standard Version]

The whole gospel avoids using the first person [3], so this could still be John talking about
himself -- but it reads very differently from the other places where John refers to himself.

[3] unlike the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke writes in the first person about events in which he participated.


Peter Nyikos

PS I was hoping to write about fine tuning today, in continuation of what I wrote to Burkhard
on the "steady state theory" thread, but I got very involved in two other forums today,
and this is my only Usenet post of today. I'll try for tomorrow late afternoon.

[Burkhard]

I'd say while this is a possible reading of the Gospel, it's theologically somewhere between the least satisfying and the massively blasphemous. As all attempts to naturalise religion inevitably are. What it leads to is the interpretation of the resurrection as a vulgar zombie-apocalypse, that positively gets in the way of spiritual or redemptive (in Tilllich's sense) interpretation, and also creates conflicts with other passages of the text, in particular, Luke 24 13-16.

I would agree with you that as a matter of terminology, even extremely weak evidence is still evidence. I'd go even further and would argue that even evidence that later turned out to be misleading is evidence, (I remember some discussions with John H on this, where we disagreed on that point)

But apart from coming in degrees, the type of evidence that we use in court has also a range of other properties that you would not necessarily want in a religious context. One is the one Bill alluded to - it requires consistency in application, and I'd add, it inevitably gives you then a scale that allows comparisons. So it inevitably leads to statements of the form "The evidence for the resurrection is weaker, or at best as strong as, that for XYZ" where given what we are dealing here with more or less forces you to substitute for the XYZ things absolutely nobody or hardly anybody believes, from lots of "ancient "pagan" religions to lots of Victorian ghost stories. I'd say subjective certainty in faith where the content of the belief is incommensurable from any other belief is already much preferable over treating it as something that is made quantifiable and with that comparable and ranked on a scale.

But I think it is worse than that. Nothing is just "evidence" observations are evidence for or against a theory, and have to be evaluated with these two conflicting theories in mind, Which for instance for the observation of the empty grave means that it can't really distinguish between a supernatural resurrection and simp grave robbery (they produce the same expected observation. The reports of having seen Jesus fare a bit better, ( we grant here that they are genuine eyewitness reports and leave aside for the purpose of this analysis the possibility that they are later inventions, additions, misunderstandings and misreporting etc). So we read them ex hypothesis as "bare observations" - but now we really have a badly evidenced zombie walking around, because that physical reading is the only one the reported observations would be evidence for. With the additional problems that if we now test the hypothesis, an immediate problem becomes a) that this observation does not distinguish between a resurrection theory and one where his death was just misdiagnosed, which would be the much more natural explanation
b) even if granted that he had really died, why only so few people saw Jesus, and
c) even worse, why , as Luke indicates, some of those who should have identified him did not.

So once treated like ordinary evidence, it becomes inevitably subject to testing against other evidence (or the lack of it) .

So in exchange for treating the Gospels as "ordinary evidence", you only get an extremely weakly supported, part contradicted, theologically least palatable. Tillich's classification is helpful here even if one does not adopt his preferred solution. Treating the Gospel as a mere physical eyewitness account leads inevitably to the physical resurrection reading, which was a comparative latecomer: "Theologically speaking, it is a rationalization of the resurrection event, interpreting it with physical categories and making the benchmark of the facticity of the resurrection the presence or absence of a
physical body occupying a specific place Immediately the absurd question arises: what happened to the molecules which comprise the corpse of
Jesus of Nazaret. In this question, the mere absurdity becomes almost blasphemy."

And what you lose are the much more theologically rewarding readings of the text, the spiritual interpretation (which I'd say is by now mainstream) . And of course also Tillich's reading as restitution, which I always thought the most compelling:

"This theory concerning the event which underlies the symbol of Resurrection dismisses physical as well as spiritualistic literalism.
[...] and places at the center of its analysis the religious meaning of the Resurrection for the disciples (and their followers), in contrast to
their previous state of negativity and despair. This view is the ecstatic confirmation of the indestructible unity of the New Being and
its bearer, Jesus of Nazareth. In eternity they belong together. In contrast to the physical, the spiritualistic, and the psychological
theories concerning the Resurrection event, one could call this the "restitution theory". According to it, the Resurrection is the
restitution of Jesus as Christ, a restitution which is rooted in the personal unity between Jesus and God and in the impact of this unity on
the minds of the apostles."

With other words, the Gospels do not report a set of massively ambiguous observations, something done through the physical senses and subject to its limitations, but a profound life-changing experience of a transformation of a relationship - Christ-the-man has become now "The Church", not any longer an individual (hence Luke, unrecognisable for some, at least temporarily), ecstatic and experiential rather than descriptive-factual.

[Burkhard]

On Sunday, April 9, 2023 at 3:05:15 PM UTC+1, Kalkidas wrote:
> Happy Easter, everyone!

https://twitter.com/gnuman1979/status/1645496989365280782?s=20

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> I've just commented to Bill Rogers that it depends on what one means
> by "alive" and that Jesus is still "alive" to millions of Christians.
> Kalki is actually wrong, however, in a different way. Christians
> believe that Jesus passed through death into a new form of life but
> they also believe that the same thing happens to all humans. Darwin is
> therefore still "alive" in the same sense that Jesus is.

Even if the gospels were correct that Jesus rose from the dead ... that isn't evidence that he is *still* alive. It's been 2000 years ... he could easily have died again in the time since then! Even if you count the gospels as evidence that he was alive then, how could the gospels of 2000 years ago be evidence that he is alive 2000 years later? They certainly couldn't witness an inability to age, and an inability to be killed again wasn't tested, so ... the idea that he is still alive now is faith. Same with Darwin still being alive now.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 4:35:17 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> I'd say while this is a possible reading of the Gospel, it's theologically somewhere between the least satisfying and the massively blasphemous. As all attempts to naturalise religion inevitably are. What it leads to is the interpretation of the resurrection as a vulgar zombie-apocalypse, that positively gets in the way of spiritual or redemptive (in Tilllich's sense) interpretation, and also creates conflicts with other passages of the text, in particular, Luke 24 13-16.
>
> I would agree with you that as a matter of terminology, even extremely weak evidence is still evidence. I'd go even further and would argue that even evidence that later turned out to be misleading is evidence, (I remember some discussions with John H on this, where we disagreed on that point)
>
> But apart from coming in degrees, the type of evidence that we use in court has also a range of other properties that you would not necessarily want in a religious context. One is the one Bill alluded to - it requires consistency in application, and I'd add, it inevitably gives you then a scale that allows comparisons. So it inevitably leads to statements of the form "The evidence for the resurrection is weaker, or at best as strong as, that for XYZ" where given what we are dealing here with more or less forces you to substitute for the XYZ things absolutely nobody or hardly anybody believes, from lots of "ancient "pagan" religions to lots of Victorian ghost stories. I'd say subjective certainty in faith where the content of the belief is incommensurable from any other belief is already much preferable over treating it as something that is made quantifiable and with that comparable and ranked on a scale.
>
> But I think it is worse than that. Nothing is just "evidence" observations are evidence for or against a theory, and have to be evaluated with these two conflicting theories in mind, Which for instance for the observation of the empty grave means that it can't really distinguish between a supernatural resurrection and simp grave robbery (they produce the same expected observation. The reports of having seen Jesus fare a bit better, ( we grant here that they are genuine eyewitness reports and leave aside for the purpose of this analysis the possibility that they are later inventions, additions, misunderstandings and misreporting etc). So we read them ex hypothesis as "bare observations" - but now we really have a badly evidenced zombie walking around, because that physical reading is the only one the reported observations would be evidence for. With the additional problems that if we now test the hypothesis, an immediate problem becomes a) that this observation does not distinguish between a resurrection theory and one where his death was just misdiagnosed, which would be the much more natural explanation
> b) even if granted that he had really died, why only so few people saw Jesus, and
> c) even worse, why , as Luke indicates, some of those who should have identified him did not.
>
> So once treated like ordinary evidence, it becomes inevitably subject to testing against other evidence (or the lack of it) .
>
> So in exchange for treating the Gospels as "ordinary evidence", you only get an extremely weakly supported, part contradicted, theologically least palatable. Tillich's classification is helpful here even if one does not adopt his preferred solution. Treating the Gospel as a mere physical eyewitness account leads inevitably to the physical resurrection reading, which was a comparative latecomer: "Theologically speaking, it is a rationalization of the resurrection event, interpreting it with physical categories and making the benchmark of the facticity of the resurrection the presence or absence of a
> physical body occupying a specific place Immediately the absurd question arises: what happened to the molecules which comprise the corpse of
> Jesus of Nazaret. In this question, the mere absurdity becomes almost blasphemy."
>
> And what you lose are the much more theologically rewarding readings of the text, the spiritual interpretation (which I'd say is by now mainstream) . And of course also Tillich's reading as restitution, which I always thought the most compelling:
>
> "This theory concerning the event which underlies the symbol of Resurrection dismisses physical as well as spiritualistic literalism.
> [...] and places at the center of its analysis the religious meaning of the Resurrection for the disciples (and their followers), in contrast to
> their previous state of negativity and despair. This view is the ecstatic confirmation of the indestructible unity of the New Being and
> its bearer, Jesus of Nazareth. In eternity they belong together. In contrast to the physical, the spiritualistic, and the psychological
> theories concerning the Resurrection event, one could call this the "restitution theory". According to it, the Resurrection is the
> restitution of Jesus as Christ, a restitution which is rooted in the personal unity between Jesus and God and in the impact of this unity on
> the minds of the apostles."
>
> With other words, the Gospels do not report a set of massively ambiguous observations, something done through the physical senses and subject to its limitations, but a profound life-changing experience of a transformation of a relationship - Christ-the-man has become now "The Church", not any longer an individual (hence Luke, unrecognisable for some, at least temporarily), ecstatic and experiential rather than descriptive-factual.

And not just Luke. There's the Emmaus Road story in John, and Mark 16:12, where Jesus appears "in another form", and John 20:14 where Mary Magdalene does not recognize resurrected Jesus. I actually find all those instances of not recognizing the resurrected Jesus as some kind of evidence that the story was not made up out of whole cloth and that it is reporting an intense psychological experience following a traumatic loss. It would have been perfectly easy, had the thing just been invented entirely, just to make everybody recognize Jesus and feel his wounds to be sure.

[jillery]

In the same sense, so is Elvis.

>>Happy Easter to you too!
>
>Happy hioliday to you :)

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2023 19:18:27 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

>PS I was hoping to write about fine tuning today, in continuation of what I wrote to Burkhard
>on the "steady state theory" thread, but I got very involved in two other forums today,
>and this is my only Usenet post of today. I'll try for tomorrow late afternoon.

And you're still trying to run away from the crap you posted about me
on the Frozen Planet thread.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2023 15:52:03 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> >> >> >> >> 24-26'

A couple of problems with that. First of all, you and Abner are
effectively behaving in much the same way as you describe there - your
rejection of the Resurrection is not based on any contrary evidence
you have, you are coming to a conclusion that supports your existing
views about Christ.

Secondly, I don't think that "the desired conclusion" stands up to
scrutiny in regard to the Disciples. It is clear from the Gospels that
the disciples did not really grasp what Jesus foretold about his death
and Resurrection and were totally taken aback by his reappearance; we
can see that in the women who went to the tomb and ran from it in
terror, the disciples refusing to believe Mary of Magdala when she
told them that he had appeared to her and Thomas refusing to believe
the other disciples after Jesus appeared to them. They did not expect
Jesus to reappear in physical form and initially struggled to believe
it when it happened.

>There's always a debate on how conclusive evidence is, if you are willing to call "a bunch of people say X" evidence for X. In that case, all claims have evidence to support, because at the very least the claimant supports the claim. So I'd say, yeah, you need pure faith.

Of course one needs faith but faith and evidence are not mutually
exclusive. The stories in the Gospel are not *conclusive* evidence but
they are *supporting* evidence. I'll say a bit more about that in a
reply to Burkhard because I'm interested to hear his arguments from a
legal/judicial perspective.

[Mark Isaak]

[snip more worthy text]

There's also the problem that claiming an evidence-based belief in
religion raises issues of hypocrisy. The evidence for Jesus'
resurrection is no better than that for the divine inspiration of the
Qur'an or the divinity of Rama, and is roughly on par with evidence for
a thousand or so other gods, not to mention leprechauns, bunyips, Santa
at the North Pole, etc. Why, then, choose to believe just a highly
limited set of such religions?

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

[Öö Tiib]

No such problem. Extraordinary claims need evidence, but the
disbelief in such claims needs no evidence. How can anyone prove
(including yourself) that you do not have 100 kg of gold (hidden
somewhere)? But if you have then it would be lot simpler to prove
that you have it.

> Secondly, I don't think that "the desired conclusion" stands up to
> scrutiny in regard to the Disciples. It is clear from the Gospels that
> the disciples did not really grasp what Jesus foretold about his death
> and Resurrection and were totally taken aback by his reappearance; we
> can see that in the women who went to the tomb and ran from it in
> terror, the disciples refusing to believe Mary of Magdala when she
> told them that he had appeared to her and Thomas refusing to believe
> the other disciples after Jesus appeared to them. They did not expect
> Jesus to reappear in physical form and initially struggled to believe
> it when it happened.
>

I have read that Gospels were composed at least one human generation
after the crucification event so likely not by eyewitnesses of the events
described in those books. Are you saying that it wasn't so?

> >There's always a debate on how conclusive evidence is, if you are willing to call "a bunch of people say X" evidence for X. In that case, all claims have evidence to support, because at the very least the claimant supports the claim. So I'd say, yeah, you need pure faith.
> Of course one needs faith but faith and evidence are not mutually
> exclusive. The stories in the Gospel are not *conclusive* evidence but
> they are *supporting* evidence. I'll say a bit more about that in a
> reply to Burkhard because I'm interested to hear his arguments from a
> legal/judicial perspective.
>

Lot of stories written about actual events and people have big part of
fiction in those.

[broger...@gmail.com]

Sorry, it's not symmetrical, much as you might wish it to be so. You are once again applying a standard in the case of the resurrection which you would probably not be willing to generalize.

What I mean is this - you demand that Abner and I find evidence against the resurrection, presumably evidence beyond the simple observation that death has very widely been observed to be irreversible. You would perhaps argue that, well, that's irrelevant to any specific case, we would need specific evidence that resurrection was impossible, rather than just that it was very rare. That's a move you can make. But then you must apply that move to any number of claims which you, or at least most people, would consider so improbable as to be not worth entertaining. Where's the evidence that Apollo did not cause a plague among the Greek besiegers of Troy by firing magic arrows at them?

And just to be clear, this is unrelated to my conclusions about Jesus. When I was a Christian I was just as fully convinced that there was no credible evidence for Jesus' resurrection as I am now. It's just that back then I believed in the resurrection in spite of the lack of evidence. Like all those people who, unlike Thomas, are blessed "because they have not seen and yet believe."

>
> Secondly, I don't think that "the desired conclusion" stands up to
> scrutiny in regard to the Disciples. It is clear from the Gospels that
> the disciples did not really grasp what Jesus foretold about his death
> and Resurrection and were totally taken aback by his reappearance; we
> can see that in the women who went to the tomb and ran from it in
> terror, the disciples refusing to believe Mary of Magdala when she
> told them that he had appeared to her and Thomas refusing to believe
> the other disciples after Jesus appeared to them. They did not expect
> Jesus to reappear in physical form and initially struggled to believe
> it when it happened.

What written records there are are from decades after the reported events and are generally at least second hand, so they are not an obvious reflection of what anyone thought in the days immediately after the crucifixion. The "desired conclusion" is the one in the minds of people decades or centuries after the events, including people in the present. We have a much better chance at understanding what conclusions they desire than we do at trying to figure out the state of mind of peole thousands of years ago.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 10:10:57 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

A quick response due to time pressures but just to make clear that I
am NOT asking, let alone *demanding*, that you and Abner produce any
such evidence - that would be asking you to prove a negative which
would be nonsensical.. I'm simply making the point that your decision
to discard the Gospel accounts is based on a worldview, not an
evidential basis.

I will respond in more detail later.

[broger...@gmail.com]

In that case your claim is this - if someone rejects a claim for lack of convincing positive evidence in support of the claim and in the absence of definitive contrary evidence against the claim, then they can only do so on the basis of a worldview, not on the basis of the evidence. I think that is not terribly different than demanding proof of a negative, but suit yourself.

In any case, my decision to decision to reject the Gospel accounts, unlike your decision to accept them, is based on evidence, not a prior commitment to a worldview (well, except to the worldview that evidence matters). Here's what the difference is.

I have a standard of evidence for accepting claims. I apply that standard to all claims, regardless of what they are, whether they are claims about Jesus, about Homer, about Bigfoot, about economics, virology, secular history or whatever. I am, as far as is possible, consistent about accepting claims backed by evidence that meets that standard, and rejecting those that don't.

You, on the other hand, have standards of evidence that vary based on whether the claim is important to your religion or not. The same loose standards of evidence which lead you to accept the resurrection based on the gospel accounts should, by rights lead you to accept many claims of events you almost certainly consider incredible. If I were to adopt your standards of evidence, then I would be unable to reject any number of extraordinary and implausible claims, for example the claim that you are an apostate Catholic who assiduously hides his apostasy.

The whole problem only arises because you seem to want evidence to support your faith. The whole point of faith is that it does not need supporting evidence, apart from your own subjective experience of faith itself. And as I said before, when I was a Christian and believed in the resurrection I still did not believe there was evidence for it apart from my own faith. So I really do not think my world view makes any difference, since I had the same view of the evidence for the resurrection whether I was a Christian or an atheist.

[Lawyer Daggett]

I feel obliged to comment that your "point" above is not anything more
than an assertion on your part. There's no significant logic to support
it as required to be true. Further, there have been good arguments
made that suggest otherwise. The best involve using consistent
standards of evidence to support remarkable claims. Those arguments
suggest that it isn't about applying a specific prejudice against the Easter
story. Rather, it is not giving the Easter story an a priori special privilege.

It is, of course, theoretically possible to craft some more involved
argument that there exists within the gospels some over-arching
pattern that, taken in whole, promotes greater credibility to them
than to other religious claims whose origins in antiquity make it
difficult to produce more objective tests of veracity. However such
arguments seem to founder in rather troubling assertions of being
able to understand distant people's intensions, what they would or
would not do. And in particular they founder by making this assertions
about intentions with very unwarranted levels of confidence.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 01:34:44 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>> >> >> >> >> 24-26'

I don't see how you get to that, can you elaborate?

>As all attempts to naturalise religion inevitably are.

But I'm not trying to naturalise religion - I agree with you on the
futility of that. As I've said to Bill, however, evidence and faith
are not mutually exclusive; what we get in the Bible is *supporting*
evidence. Faith is indeed required to overcome the shortfalls in that
evidence and take it beyond the bare reported facts but that does not
eliminate its supportive nature.

>What it leads to is the interpretation of the resurrection as a vulgar zombie-apocalypse, that positively gets in the way of spiritual or redemptive (in Tilllich's sense) interpretation, and also creates conflicts with other passages of the text, in particular, Luke 24 13-16.

Again, I don't follow your logic there, especially your reference to

Luke 24 13-16.

>
>I would agree with you that as a matter of terminology, even extremely weak evidence is still evidence. I'd go even further and would argue that even evidence that later turned out to be misleading is evidence, (I remember some discussions with John H on this, where we disagreed on that point)

That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence. What I am arguing
is that there is *some* evidence even if it is not necessarily
conclusive.

>
>But apart from coming in degrees, the type of evidence that we use in court has also a range of other properties that you would not necessarily want in a religious context. One is the one Bill alluded to - it requires consistency in application, and I'd add, it inevitably gives you then a scale that allows comparisons. So it inevitably leads to statements of the form "The evidence for the resurrection is weaker, or at best as strong as, that for XYZ" where given what we are dealing here with more or less forces you to substitute for the XYZ things absolutely nobody or hardly anybody believes, from lots of "ancient "pagan" religions to lots of Victorian ghost stories. I'd say subjective certainty in faith where the content of the belief is incommensurable from any other belief is already much preferable over treating it as something that is made quantifiable and with that comparable and ranked on a scale.
>
>But I think it is worse than that. Nothing is just "evidence" observations are evidence for or against a theory, and have to be evaluated with these two conflicting theories in mind, Which for instance for the observation of the empty grave means that it can't really distinguish between a supernatural resurrection and simp grave robbery (they produce the same expected observation.

Whether the evidence is reliable or conclusive is matter of debate and
I tread cautiously in getting into any legal argument with you but as
I understand it, circumstantial evidence is measured on its overall
weight and extent. My own experience of this is limited to sitting
through one murder trial where the evidence against the defendant was
entirely circumstantial [1] but the judge explained this to the jury
with the single strand vs rope metaphor i.e. a single piece of
circumstantial evidence may be weak like a single strand of a rope but
when all the pieces of evidence are interlocked together, they can
form a strong case just as a number of strands interlocked together
can form a very strong rope.

I gave the Gospel accounts as a particular example and, on their own,
they could be explained away as you say by a claim of misdiagnosis of
death. When begin to add you add in other factors, however, such as
the way Jesus foretold his death and Resurrection and the reaction of
the authorities (bribing the guards to change their story), that adds
weight to the evidence. Again to be clear, I am not claiming that that
makes the evidence conclusive, only that there is some degree of
*supporting* evidence.

>The reports of having seen Jesus fare a bit better, ( we grant here that they are genuine eyewitness reports and leave aside for the purpose of this analysis the possibility that they are later inventions, additions, misunderstandings and misreporting etc). So we read them ex hypothesis as "bare observations" - but now we really have a badly evidenced zombie walking around, because that physical reading is the only one the reported observations would be evidence for. With the additional problems that if we now test the hypothesis, an immediate problem becomes a) that this observation does not distinguish
>between a resurrection theory and one where his death was just misdiagnosed, which would be the much more natural explanation
>b) even if granted that he had really died, why only so few people saw Jesus, and
>c) even worse, why , as Luke indicates, some of those who should have identified him did not.
>
> So once treated like ordinary evidence, it becomes inevitably subject to testing against other evidence (or the lack of it) .
>
>So in exchange for treating the Gospels as "ordinary evidence", you only get an extremely weakly supported, part contradicted, theologically least palatable. Tillich's classification is helpful here even if one does not adopt his preferred solution. Treating the Gospel as a mere physical eyewitness account leads inevitably to the physical resurrection reading, which was a comparative latecomer: "Theologically speaking, it is a rationalization of the resurrection event, interpreting it with physical categories and making the benchmark of the facticity of the resurrection the presence or absence of a
>physical body occupying a specific place Immediately the absurd question arises: what happened to the molecules which comprise the corpse of
> Jesus of Nazaret. In this question, the mere absurdity becomes almost blasphemy."
>
>And what you lose are the much more theologically rewarding readings of the text, the spiritual interpretation (which I'd say is by now mainstream) . And of course also Tillich's reading as restitution, which I always thought the most compelling:
>
> "This theory concerning the event which underlies the symbol of Resurrection dismisses physical as well as spiritualistic literalism.
>[...] and places at the center of its analysis the religious meaning of the Resurrection for the disciples (and their followers), in contrast to
> their previous state of negativity and despair. This view is the ecstatic confirmation of the indestructible unity of the New Being and
> its bearer, Jesus of Nazareth. In eternity they belong together. In contrast to the physical, the spiritualistic, and the psychological
> theories concerning the Resurrection event, one could call this the "restitution theory". According to it, the Resurrection is the
>restitution of Jesus as Christ, a restitution which is rooted in the personal unity between Jesus and God and in the impact of this unity on
> the minds of the apostles."

I'm not familiar with Tillich's ideas, is he actually discarding the
*physical* Resurrection or is he just emphasising the far more
important spiritual impact of it? If so, then I am in total agreement
with him and I don't think he is saying anything particularly
different to most theologians in that regard.

>
>With other words, the Gospels do not report a set of massively ambiguous observations, something done through the physical senses and subject to its limitations, but a profound life-changing experience of a transformation of a relationship - Christ-the-man has become now "The Church", not any longer an individual (hence Luke, unrecognisable for some, at least temporarily), ecstatic and experiential rather than descriptive-factual.

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

[1] The case was for the murder of my sister-in-law and the defendant
was found guilty on a unanimous verdict by the jury. You may well have
knowledge of the case - it was the first case in the UK where a
previous conviction was revealed to the jury due to the similarity
between the two crimes. It was also the first whole-life tariff given
in Northern Ireland though the Court of Appeal later set a 35-year
tariff.
https://attracta.martinharran.com

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 11:59:52 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wish you would stop misrepresenting what I said, I said nothing
about you needing *definitive* evidence - I said you are making a
decision in the absence of *any* conflicting evidence of your own. You
argue below that the failures of the evidence from the Gospels fail to
meet your standards but that constitutes a worldview as it is
something based on your personal standards, particularly your explicit
dismissal of the evidence rather than simply refusing to accept it as
conclusive.

>
>In any case, my decision to decision to reject the Gospel accounts, unlike your decision to accept them, is based on evidence, not a prior commitment to a worldview (well, except to the worldview that evidence matters). Here's what the difference is.
>
>I have a standard of evidence for accepting claims. I apply that standard to all claims, regardless of what they are, whether they are claims about Jesus, about Homer, about Bigfoot, about economics, virology, secular history or whatever. I am, as far as is possible, consistent about accepting claims backed by evidence that meets that standard, and rejecting those that don't.
>
>You, on the other hand, have standards of evidence that vary based on whether the claim is important to your religion or not.

My standards absolutely do not vary according to my religious beliefs
and I find it rtather insulting for you to suggest so. When evidence
is measurable or testable, I accept it based on the results of those
tests or measurements. When evidence is circumstantial and cannot be
verified, I treat it with a great deal of caution exactly as I have
done here, explicitly emphasising that the evidence from the Gospels
is not at all conclusive. I do not, however, dismiss it out of hand as
you are doing here which suggests that you are being driven by an
anti-religious entiment.

>The same loose standards of evidence which lead you to accept the resurrection based on the gospel accounts should, by rights lead you to accept many claims of events you almost certainly consider incredible. If I were to adopt your standards of evidence, then I would be unable to reject any number of extraordinary and implausible claims, for example the claim that you are an apostate Catholic who assiduously hides his apostasy.
>
>The whole problem only arises because you seem to want evidence to support your faith.

Again, you misrepresent my views. I do not need any evidence to
support my faith nor is my acceptance of the Resurrection based simply
on the Gospel accounts. I have explained several times in the past
that my faith is primarily based on my own experience of Jesus Christ
in my life.

>The whole point of faith is that it does not need supporting evidence, apart from your own subjective experience of faith itself.

The fact that faith does not *need* evidence does not obviate the
existence of evidence. As I have said already, faith and evidence are
not mutually exclusive, a point that you somehow seem unable to grasp.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 05:03:22 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

Let me get this right. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were
clearly downbeat and were regarding the Jesus "story" as effectively
over. Are you suggesting that they met a stranger and underwent some
sort of trauma-induced transmogrification which convinced them that
this stranger was actually Christ and converted their sense of
depression into a burning zeal which caused them to immediately return
to Jerusalem?

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 09:32:23 -0700, Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:

>On 4/11/23 1:34 AM, Burkhard wrote:

What particular evidence for those things did you have in mind?

[broger...@gmail.com]

And you complain that I misrepresent your views?

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 08:30:11 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

I asked you a question, I don't see how that misrepresents you views.
If you did think that, then answering the question would have been
helpful.

[broger...@gmail.com]

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence, perhaps you meant your last word to be inconclusive, rather than conclusive.

Perhaps it would be easier to understand your point if I understood what you are saying when you say my rejection of the resurrection is based on my world view. If by that, you mean that it is based on an atheist or anti-Christian world view, then you are simply wrong. But if the world view you are talking about is summarized by something like "proportion your belief to the evidence," "demand the same or higher standards of evidence for conclusions you like than for those you dislike," and "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," then, sure, my rejection of the evidence for the resurrection is based on my worldview.

Maybe this will make the distinction clear. At the beginning of the thread, you thought Abner was saying the existence of the historical Jesus was a matter of pure faith. Well, I think that to reject the existence of the historical Jesus would require a pre-existing hostility to Christianity, or (less likely) a willingness to reject the existence of many ancient historical figures for whom documentary evidence is no better than that for Jesus. By my standards of evidence, the evidence for the historical Jesus is just as good as the evidence for the historical Pericles, Socrates, Lao Ze, or Menelaus, so it would require a special pleading against Christianity for me to reject the historical Jesus.

On the other hand, the evidence for the resurrection is no better than the evidence for many other things which I consider not worthy of belief, Apollo's intervention in the Trojan War, the visitation of Joseph Smith by the Angel Moroni and the Golden Tablets, the existence of a pleiseosaur in Loch Ness, tabletop cold fusion, perpetual motion machines, or widespread voter fraud in the 2020 US elections. If I were to tweak my standards of evidence to allow myself to be convinced of the resurrection, I would have to accept any number of things that seem simply ludicrous to me (and probably also to you).

Now you, I think, meant to ask why I wouldn't just say the evidence is inconclusive. Well, that's fine. It's inconclusive in such a way that it gives me no reason to think the resurrection actually happened, in the same way that I have no reason to think that Apollo intervened in the Trojan War. I cannot prove that he didn't, but the evidence available gives me no reason to think he did. And I must admit, there's a worldview in here, too - one that says that the world acts according to regular laws and if you see something (and even more if you hear something at second third or fourth hand) that appears to break those laws you need a very strong mass of evidence to be convinced. But that's not an anti-religious world view, it's just pretty much orthogonal to faith.

So I guess I don't understand how the evidence for resurrection is supporting evidence for faith in the resurrection. It seems such poor evidence that in the absence of faith you'd have no reason to accept it, in part because if you accepted it you would, to be consistent, need to accept all sorts of other claims, religious and non-religious that probably do not seem worthy of belief to you. In such a situation, it is purely faith that allows you to pick one poorly evidenced claim out of millions to accept. SO I don't think Abner was too far off to say belief in Jesus being alive today is "pure faith." Unless, as we discussed before, you simply redefine "alive" to mean "venerated by lots of people."

> >
> >In any case, my decision to decision to reject the Gospel accounts, unlike your decision to accept them, is based on evidence, not a prior commitment to a worldview (well, except to the worldview that evidence matters). Here's what the difference is.
> >
> >I have a standard of evidence for accepting claims. I apply that standard to all claims, regardless of what they are, whether they are claims about Jesus, about Homer, about Bigfoot, about economics, virology, secular history or whatever. I am, as far as is possible, consistent about accepting claims backed by evidence that meets that standard, and rejecting those that don't.
> >
> >You, on the other hand, have standards of evidence that vary based on whether the claim is important to your religion or not.
> My standards absolutely do not vary according to my religious beliefs
> and I find it rtather insulting for you to suggest so. When evidence
> is measurable or testable, I accept it based on the results of those
> tests or measurements. When evidence is circumstantial and cannot be
> verified, I treat it with a great deal of caution exactly as I have
> done here, explicitly emphasising that the evidence from the Gospels
> is not at all conclusive. I do not, however, dismiss it out of hand as
> you are doing here which suggests that you are being driven by an
> anti-religious entiment.
> >The same loose standards of evidence which lead you to accept the resurrection based on the gospel accounts should, by rights lead you to accept many claims of events you almost certainly consider incredible. If I were to adopt your standards of evidence, then I would be unable to reject any number of extraordinary and implausible claims, for example the claim that you are an apostate Catholic who assiduously hides his apostasy.
> >
> >The whole problem only arises because you seem to want evidence to support your faith.
> Again, you misrepresent my views. I do not need any evidence to
> support my faith nor is my acceptance of the Resurrection based simply
> on the Gospel accounts. I have explained several times in the past
> that my faith is primarily based on my own experience of Jesus Christ
> in my life.
> >The whole point of faith is that it does not need supporting evidence, apart from your own subjective experience of faith itself.
> The fact that faith does not *need* evidence does not obviate the
> existence of evidence. As I have said already, faith and evidence are
> not mutually exclusive, a point that you somehow seem unable to grasp.

See above.

[broger...@gmail.com]

I listed the Emmaus Road story as an example, one of several, of accounts of the resurrection which involve Jesus disciples not recognizing him except in retrospect. Have you never met a grieving person who believed that their recently dead spouse or parent or child had visited them in the form of a bird or an animal? It hardly seems that great a stretch to imagine that those who had lost a dear teacher and friend might think he had visited them in the form of a mysterious stranger. In any case, I find those stories interesting in the sense that they are not what I'd expect if someone were to invent a resurrection story from whole cloth. To me they are some evidence of the sincerity of the authors.

[Burkhard]

I'd say everything that followed was that elaboration. In summary:
- if one wants to or not, it inevitably naturalises religion because it has to assume the divine leaves naturalistic traces and can thus be cajoled into answering our questions)
- it is only compatible with one of the (at least four) possible theological positions that have been argued over the centuries, to wit the "vulgar zombie version", and is incompatible with the theologically more rewarding ones
- it is inconsistent with other parts of the gospel, and in particular the non-recognition of Christ by other witnesses
- while it gives you as statement "there is some evidence for a (physical) resurrection" which may "feel" reassuring and comforting, it gives you also the equivalent statements (relative to the evidence given) "The evidence for Elvis being alive is much stronger than that of the resurrection of Christ" which is anything but. The problem is that naturalistic evidence can be quantified, quantification leads to commensurability, and that turns "it's a miracle" into "that's just silly". (this is I think related to the old argument David Hume made in "on miracles", possibly a direct corollary, though tbh I'd have to think that one through a bit more.

> >As all attempts to naturalise religion inevitably are.
> But I'm not trying to naturalise religion - I agree with you on the
> futility of that. As I've said to Bill, however, evidence and faith
> are not mutually exclusive; what we get in the Bible is *supporting*
> evidence. Faith is indeed required to overcome the shortfalls in that
> evidence and take it beyond the bare reported facts but that does not
> eliminate its supportive nature.

There is a simple and a more complex answer on this. The simple one is: even if you treat it as just "some" weak supporting" evidence, it still assumed that spiritual/supernatural events leave natural traces. That means you have to play by the rules of naturalistic evidence assessment, and that comes with a whole baggage of corollaries, inevitably. So I don't think the idea of a harmonious "supportive" relation works, not if you follow though through with the reasoning.

The more complex one in that "faith" , just like "belief" is a homonym, or at least has a very wide semantic field. In everyday language, we sometimes use "belief" for "less well confirmed" propositions, and contrast it with knowledge, as in "I don't know the answer, but I believe it is X". In philosophical contexts, we use it differently, as a perspective change. "Knowledge" then becomes "justified true believe", which means technically speaking, I should never say "I know X", only ever "I believe X", but we can say from an observer perspective about someone "He knew X". (terms and conditions apply, it might be different if X is a logical truth e.g.) And in religious contexts, we mean with "belief" something else entirely, "belief in" rather than "belief that", and not necessarily reducible to descriptive propositions. The problem is that these shades of meaning often get mixed up and confused.

With "faith" I'd say it's similar. In ordinary language, we use "faith" sometimes as a non-rational, non-evidential and in that sense lesser method to form an opinion. "Why do you think the guy you just elected will keep his promises? I have faith in him" (often despite that person's track record. Or as you implicitly do, as a sort of "last meter" crutch that makes sure you come to a decision after reasons have run out ("I looked at all the data, and all the score sheets, and whittled down the contenders to just two, but then time was running out so I put my faith in "Echoes in the Rain" at 20:1 at the Galway Races and what do you know...")

I'd say these correspond to the everyday notion of "belief" above, and make "faith" inherently suspicious, which is then why people feel the need to use it only when reason fails. And just as with the above, "faith" in the religious context ought in my view to be something categorically different, not a mere handmaiden to reason or an excuse - it can move mountains, all on its own.

>What it leads to is the interpretation of the resurrection as a vulgar zombie-apocalypse, that positively gets in the way of spiritual or redemptive (in Tilllich's sense) interpretation, and also creates conflicts with other passages of the text, in particular, Luke 24 13-16.
> Again, I don't follow your logic there, especially your reference to
> Luke 24 13-16.

We have two prima facie contradictory accounts One set of witnesses makes a positive ID. The other, despite excellent epistemic conditions (under the ADVOKATE factors on eyewitness testimony, ( amount of time, distance to object, visibility, known by witness etc ) fail to make an ID. If you treat this naturalistically, just ask yourself how you'd evaluate the totality of the evidence here - one witness claiming to have seen something inherently implausible, and several other witnesses in the same or better position not making an ID ("wasn't him, guv") As I said elsewhere, naturalism comes with baggage, one of it is testability of one piece of evidence against other pieces of evidence, and that's what we would have here.

But if you give up the "physical observation eyewitness model", reconciling the two accounts gets straightforward. All of the people here make the same spiritual experience - in my preferred redemptive reading, from a feeling of deepest depression and utter despair came a sudden, massive, totally unexpected (and unearned.... ) and unexplainable lifting of the spirit and a realisation of unbounded freedom (freedom which then explains the subsequent actions of the Apostle, which otherwise would make them look simply suicidal) At Easter, creation took a deep breath and said "all is well, we are home now". NOT just " some single person I care and was worried about turns out to be OK after all", that would have been way too egotistic, but literally "everything is (going to be) all right".

The people most directly affected with this don't initially understand this, and then, as humans do, try in varying degrees successfully to verbalise this and make sense of this experience. That explains the time lapse also for Maria Magdalena between the "physical" seeing (which would have been instantaneous) and the "recognition" part. None of this works well when interpreted as an ordinary physical observation, we would not expect it to happen like this given everything we know about facial recognition

>
> >
> >I would agree with you that as a matter of terminology, even extremely weak evidence is still evidence. I'd go even further and would argue that even evidence that later turned out to be misleading is evidence, (I remember some discussions with John H on this, where we disagreed on that point)
> That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
> so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
> is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence. What I am arguing
> is that there is *some* evidence even if it is not necessarily
> conclusive.

And I'd say you both underestimate or devalue faith here, just from opposite directions. And I don't think they work in synergy either, as this gives you again the "handmaiden role" of faith that makes it look like an excuse for the failure of reason

> >
> >But apart from coming in degrees, the type of evidence that we use in court has also a range of other properties that you would not necessarily want in a religious context. One is the one Bill alluded to - it requires consistency in application, and I'd add, it inevitably gives you then a scale that allows comparisons. So it inevitably leads to statements of the form "The evidence for the resurrection is weaker, or at best as strong as, that for XYZ" where given what we are dealing here with more or less forces you to substitute for the XYZ things absolutely nobody or hardly anybody believes, from lots of "ancient "pagan" religions to lots of Victorian ghost stories. I'd say subjective certainty in faith where the content of the belief is incommensurable from any other belief is already much preferable over treating it as something that is made quantifiable and with that comparable and ranked on a scale.
> >
> >But I think it is worse than that. Nothing is just "evidence" observations are evidence for or against a theory, and have to be evaluated with these two conflicting theories in mind, Which for instance for the observation of the empty grave means that it can't really distinguish between a supernatural resurrection and simp grave robbery (they produce the same expected observation.
> Whether the evidence is reliable or conclusive is matter of debate and
> I tread cautiously in getting into any legal argument with you but as
> I understand it, circumstantial evidence is measured on its overall
> weight and extent.

That misses a bit my point. Often, people say things like "DNA is evidence" or "confessions are evidence", or even worse, ""DNA is highly reliable evidence" or ""DNA is strong evidence" etc My students do this exactly once, and then I shout at them a lot, and then they don't do it again, at least not in my presence :o)

Nothing is just "evidence", let alone "strong/weak/conclusive/" etc evidence. The same "fact", a DNA match between say the suspect and a trace on the victim in a rape case, can be extremely important, IF the defense hypothesis is that someone else than the accused was the perpetrator, and utterly irrelevant IF the defence hypothesis is that it was consensual. With other words, an observation or data point becomes evidence only ever when there are two mutually exclusive hypothesis (in a legal context, the defense and the prosecution hypothesis), it is capable of increasing the probability of the one and lower the one of the other, and can only get assigned a weight once a whole number of background probabilities is factored in,. The old Forensic Science Service developed for this reason the "hierarchy of propositions", one of the best tools in my view to reason about evidence.

Or as R v Kilbourne[1973] AC 729, 756 put it

“Evidence is relevant if it is logically probative or disprobative of some matter which requires proof … relevant (i e logically probative or disprobative) evidence is evidence which makes the matter which requires proof more or less probable"

So in our case that creates a number of problems for the "evidential" account of the Gospel, One is more technical and I'd say less of an issue theologically, the other is more a theological problem. The first is the one about the background probabilities. You said e.g. that Bill dismisses the Gospel account "without any reason". But that is of course not true, quite on the contrary. He has lost and lots of contrary observations - every time someone dies and stays dead. That forms the prior probabilities against which the Gospel account would need to be evaluated, to assign "any" evidential weight. And here you run not only into Hume's problem and its corollary above, you get into all sorts of issues with consistency.

But the bigger problem is that if you treat this really as a naturalistic eyewitness account, it forces your hand regarding the possible theological interpretations. That is the "data" "witness X saw that Y" is evidence for "Y" only because our background causal theory how observations work, how the eye works etc etc , and that means it can only be evidence for the "physical zombie" version, and contradict the spiritual etc version. They are not different aspects of the same thing, and IF any of the other is the correct position, then the witness statements loses its evidential value That's because if we assume either of them the preconditions for reliable witnessing are not any longer given - witness evidence is evidence because of what we know about the way the eye reacts to physical bodies etc

My own experience of this is limited to sitting
> through one murder trial where the evidence against the defendant was
> entirely circumstantial [1] but the judge explained this to the jury
> with the single strand vs rope metaphor i.e. a single piece of
> circumstantial evidence may be weak like a single strand of a rope but
> when all the pieces of evidence are interlocked together, they can
> form a strong case just as a number of strands interlocked together
> can form a very strong rope.

That's both true and dangerous. It's absolutely correct when done properly. One aspect of this is as I said above, connect the bare observation and data with the competing hypothesis, and show for each pair of them how the evidence in question favours one over the other. In particular, keep track of the fact that disproving a proposition is always easier than proving one. 1 point of correspondence of a fingerprint match is not stronger than 8 or 16 or 32 points IF one of them has also a clear scar that rules out a possible match, here addition leads you astray. And crucially, make sure you avoid double counting, that is to add them, they must be independent, otherwise you get the Sally Clarke miscarriage of justice.

In the below, I'd say quite a bit of your evidence fails this test- in particular one a prediction is made (foretelling) , and observation of events after that risks to be tainted by that expectation etc.

>
> I gave the Gospel accounts as a particular example and, on their own,
> they could be explained away as you say by a claim of misdiagnosis of
> death. When begin to add you add in other factors, however, such as
> the way Jesus foretold his death and Resurrection and the reaction of
> the authorities (bribing the guards to change their story), that adds
> weight to the evidence. Again to be clear, I am not claiming that that
> makes the evidence conclusive, only that there is some degree of
> *supporting* evidence.

I'd say quite a lot of single point of failures here, and in particular a discounting of the "author effect", that is you hear them through a single narrator.

> >The reports of having seen Jesus fare a bit better, ( we grant here that they are genuine eyewitness reports and leave aside for the purpose of this analysis the possibility that they are later inventions, additions, misunderstandings and misreporting etc). So we read them ex hypothesis as "bare observations" - but now we really have a badly evidenced zombie walking around, because that physical reading is the only one the reported observations would be evidence for. With the additional problems that if we now test the hypothesis, an immediate problem becomes a) that this observation does not distinguish
> >between a resurrection theory and one where his death was just misdiagnosed, which would be the much more natural explanation
> >b) even if granted that he had really died, why only so few people saw Jesus, and
> >c) even worse, why , as Luke indicates, some of those who should have identified him did not.
> >
> > So once treated like ordinary evidence, it becomes inevitably subject to testing against other evidence (or the lack of it) .
> >
> >So in exchange for treating the Gospels as "ordinary evidence", you only get an extremely weakly supported, part contradicted, theologically least palatable. Tillich's classification is helpful here even if one does not adopt his preferred solution. Treating the Gospel as a mere physical eyewitness account leads inevitably to the physical resurrection reading, which was a comparative latecomer: "Theologically speaking, it is a rationalization of the resurrection event, interpreting it with physical categories and making the benchmark of the facticity of the resurrection the presence or absence of a
> >physical body occupying a specific place Immediately the absurd question arises: what happened to the molecules which comprise the corpse of
> > Jesus of Nazaret. In this question, the mere absurdity becomes almost blasphemy."
> >
> >And what you lose are the much more theologically rewarding readings of the text, the spiritual interpretation (which I'd say is by now mainstream) . And of course also Tillich's reading as restitution, which I always thought the most compelling:
> >
> > "This theory concerning the event which underlies the symbol of Resurrection dismisses physical as well as spiritualistic literalism.
> >[...] and places at the center of its analysis the religious meaning of the Resurrection for the disciples (and their followers), in contrast to
> > their previous state of negativity and despair. This view is the ecstatic confirmation of the indestructible unity of the New Being and
> > its bearer, Jesus of Nazareth. In eternity they belong together. In contrast to the physical, the spiritualistic, and the psychological
> > theories concerning the Resurrection event, one could call this the "restitution theory". According to it, the Resurrection is the
> >restitution of Jesus as Christ, a restitution which is rooted in the personal unity between Jesus and God and in the impact of this unity on
> > the minds of the apostles."
> I'm not familiar with Tillich's ideas, is he actually discarding the
> *physical* Resurrection or is he just emphasising the far more
> important spiritual impact of it? If so, then I am in total agreement
> with him and I don't think he is saying anything particularly
> different to most theologians in that regard.

I'd say he sees them as mutually exclusive, and would deny that you can mix and match them while staying consistent - that part of his work is largely descriptive, i.e. he maps the positions he found in church history, and they seem to lump clearly into groups)

> >
> >With other words, the Gospels do not report a set of massively ambiguous observations, something done through the physical senses and subject to its limitations, but a profound life-changing experience of a transformation of a relationship - Christ-the-man has become now "The Church", not any longer an individual (hence Luke, unrecognisable for some, at least temporarily), ecstatic and experiential rather than descriptive-factual.
> ====================================
>
> [1] The case was for the murder of my sister-in-law and the defendant
> was found guilty on a unanimous verdict by the jury. You may well have
> knowledge of the case - it was the first case in the UK where a
> previous conviction was revealed to the jury due to the similarity
> between the two crimes. It was also the first whole-life tariff given
> in Northern Ireland though the Court of Appeal later set a 35-year
> tariff.
> https://attracta.martinharran.com

Oh Martin, I'm so terribly sorry to hear that, that must have been a terrible experience! And it is arguably too close personally for you for a mere academic discussion - so tell me when to stop, or just ignore the next part, it's just about the law.

There had been cases before that where "similar fact evidence" had been admitted, and it was arguably never prohibited in English law, it was just very difficult to meet the admissibility threshold in practice (unless the accused brought up his " pastgood character" himself) . It was a case two years later, O'Brien (Respondent) v. Chief Constable of South Wales Police that finally settled the issue. I know both cases well, I was member of the expert group of the Scottish Law Commission when we discussed what to do with the Moorov doctrine, that permitted this type of evidence since the 1930s. Some of the arguments at the time had a strong theological flavour, some of the more skeptical voices in our group were concerned how the permissibility of previous convictions evidence "fits" theologically with the belief in the possibility of redemption, or in its secular version with the aspiration of the prison system to reeducate and rehabilitate (if prisons did what they claim they do, should a previous conviction not count in favour of the accused?) The judge in your sister-in-laws case touches on that debate in his decision, and turns it on its head for sentencing purposes, but that is the background of the debate.

I wasn't too worried about this, but had my own misgivings with the doctrine, as intuitive it is. It also has a bearing on the discussion above, what exactly is the evidence that is submitted, and what is it evidence for? The way the jury sees is is that the evidence is "the accused did crimes of that type in the past" and this is evidence for "he is still having a preponderance for violence". And if that would be the evidence, that would make sense for some crimes at least (and possible be evidence against the prosecution in some other cases, where we know that people are extremely unlikely to reoffend). But that's of course not what happens. Instead, the evidence that is submitted is "This person has a previous conviction" and this is evidence for "This person has committed a crime". But that's of course highly problematic. Remember the miscarriages of justice in the 1980s, when " speaking with Irish accent in the broad vicinity of an explosion" was all the evidence the police needed, and the rest were "confession after accident in custody". - if you ended up with one of these false convictions, your chances that you got another one would have massively increased. Crucially, the defense is not allowed, procedurally, to bring up the safety of the old conviction - an anomaly and deviation from normal rules of evidence without principled justification. (the reason is merely efficiency and costs) .

So I argued for stricter safeguards, and normal limitation to cases with "unlikely similarity" like the burglar who always took a piece of wallpaper as trophy - also because in most of the cases where this is not case, the other evidence is typically strong enough anyway. In your case, I (and our Scottish Fiscal) were surprised that the prosecution had introduced this as evidence, as it seemed unnecessary in our experience, while risking an appeal.

[Burkhard]

On Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 5:05:18 PM UTC+1, broger...@gmail.com wrote:

> On the other hand, the evidence for the resurrection is no better than the evidence for many other things which I consider not worthy of belief, Apollo's intervention in the Trojan War, the visitation of Joseph Smith by the Angel Moroni and the Golden Tablets, the existence of a pleiseosaur in Loch Ness,

Blocked and unfriended :o)

[broger...@gmail.com]

I agree with you about faith here. Although I don't have any religious faith any more, when I did, I did not think of faith as a way to justify a proposition about the world or about God, certainly not as a way to push inconclusive evidence to a conclusion. Rather I thought of it as more or less an enthusiastic way of saying "Yes" to existence and to God (in whom I believed at that point). I would have said that faith in God does not mean assent to the proposition that God exists, but rather a kind of personal confidence in God, in the same way that when I say I have faith in my wife, I am not saying "I believe she exists," but "I'm sure she'll do the right thing in any given situation." So, although I may have given you a different impression, I do not think of faith as a second rate, evidence free vehicle for accepting odd proposition, but rather as a sort of holistic, positive attitude towards life and God (if I remember correctly this is a bit like Kung's final argument in "Does God Exist?"). Faith might sweep along with it the acceptance of the resurrection and other miracles, but that, to me, anyway, is pretty much independent of evidence. If you accept something like the resurrection as a result of your faith, you are not even playing the same game as someone who is evaluating the evidence for or against a historical event.

[Burkhard]

Oh no, not at all, as so often we are in unison, that was exactly how I read you too :o)

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
> so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
> is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence.

Perhaps the reason that you are making arguments fruitlessly is that you aren't listening. I did not say what you just ascribed to me, and I have even corrected you in detail since. At this point I have pretty much given up on trying to correct you on this topic, you don't seem to be able to see anything other than what you want to see.

Just so you don't have to search for the last cycle again, here's what I said:
Even if the gospels were correct that Jesus rose from the dead ... that isn't evidence that he is *still* alive. It's been 2000 years ... he could easily have died again in the time since then! Even if you count the gospels as evidence that he was alive then, how could the gospels of 2000 years ago be evidence that he is alive 2000 years later? They certainly couldn't witness an inability to age, and an inability to be killed again wasn't tested, so ... the idea that he is still alive now is faith. Same with Darwin still being alive now.

If you insist, yet again, as taking that as an argument against the Resurrection, so be it. Life's too short to keep arguing with someone who isn't listening. Have fun arguing, but please stop claiming I said something I didn't say!

[Mark Isaak]

Two question about your standards:
1. Do you believe that the Qur'an was dictated to Mohammed by divine agent?
2. Do you acknowledge that the evidence for such divine dictation is
equal or better than evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

[Mark Isaak]

Written accounts, same as for Jesus's resurrection.

[jillery]

If you're interested in a rational and coherent commentary about
Jesus' resurrection, I recommend a series of Youtube videos created by
Paulogia, a former Christian who takes a look at the claims of
Christians:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yGpX2tyRHo&list=PLpdBEstCHhmWIewYyKPBoYbL4E2NVpjaK>

[jillery]

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 10:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

So how does that reconcile with Jesus performing miracles to
demonstrate that he truly was the Son of God? Were those miracles not
"evidence" and did people like the blind man and Lazurus not count as
naturalistic traces whilst they were alive?

>
>> >As all attempts to naturalise religion inevitably are.
>> But I'm not trying to naturalise religion - I agree with you on the
>> futility of that. As I've said to Bill, however, evidence and faith
>> are not mutually exclusive; what we get in the Bible is *supporting*
>> evidence. Faith is indeed required to overcome the shortfalls in that
>> evidence and take it beyond the bare reported facts but that does not
>> eliminate its supportive nature.
>
>There is a simple and a more complex answer on this. The simple one is: even if you treat it as just "some" weak supporting" evidence, it still assumed that spiritual/supernatural events leave natural traces. That means you have to play by the rules of naturalistic evidence assessment, and that comes with a whole baggage of corollaries, inevitably. So I don't think the idea of a harmonious "supportive" relation works, not if you follow though through with the reasoning.

I think that what you argue there really only applies if someone tries
to make the evidence into some sort of conclusive proof. To me, the
evidence is really only a starting point; various people say that they
saw Jesus resurrected. Most people listening likely laughed off the
idea but some people decided to probe a bit more; it is that probing,
in my opinion, that eventually leads to faith. To put it another way,
the evidence both for miracles and for the Resurrection open a door to
faith but the person still has to step through it and the decision to
step through is the first step into faith. That is the significant
difference I see between "Jesus is alive" and "Elvis is alive"; the
former opens up a whole new vista and sense of purpose but the latter
just leads to "so what , even if it were true?"

>
>The more complex one in that "faith" , just like "belief" is a homonym, or at least has a very wide semantic field. In everyday language, we sometimes use "belief" for "less well confirmed" propositions, and contrast it with knowledge, as in "I don't know the answer, but I believe it is X". In philosophical contexts, we use it differently, as a perspective change. "Knowledge" then becomes "justified true believe", which means technically speaking, I should never say "I know X", only ever "I believe X", but we can say from an observer perspective about someone "He knew X". (terms and conditions apply, it might be different if X is a logical truth e.g.) And in religious contexts, we mean with "belief" something else entirely, "belief in" rather than "belief that", and not necessarily reducible to descriptive propositions. The problem is that these shades of meaning often get mixed up and confused.
>
>With "faith" I'd say it's similar. In ordinary language, we use "faith" sometimes as a non-rational, non-evidential and in that sense lesser method to form an opinion. "Why do you think the guy you just elected will keep his promises? I have faith in him" (often despite that person's track record. Or as you implicitly do, as a sort of "last meter" crutch that makes sure you come to a decision after reasons have run out ("I looked at all the data, and all the score sheets, and whittled down the contenders to just two, but then time was running out so I put my faith in "Echoes in the Rain" at 20:1 at the Galway Races and what do you know...")
>
> I'd say these correspond to the everyday notion of "belief" above, and make "faith" inherently suspicious, which is then why people feel the need to use it only when reason fails. And just as with the above, "faith" in the religious context ought in my view to be something categorically different, not a mere handmaiden to reason or an excuse - it can move mountains, all on its own.
>
> >What it leads to is the interpretation of the resurrection as a vulgar zombie-apocalypse, that positively gets in the way of spiritual or redemptive (in Tilllich's sense) interpretation, and also creates conflicts with other passages of the text, in particular, Luke 24 13-16.
>> Again, I don't follow your logic there, especially your reference to
>> Luke 24 13-16.
>
>We have two prima facie contradictory accounts One set of witnesses makes a positive ID. The other, despite excellent epistemic conditions (under the ADVOKATE factors on eyewitness testimony, ( amount of time, distance to object, visibility, known by witness etc ) fail to make an ID. If you treat this naturalistically, just ask yourself how you'd evaluate the totality of the evidence here - one witness claiming to have seen something inherently implausible, and several other witnesses in the same or better position not making an ID ("wasn't him, guv")

Ah, you're not just talking about Luke 24 13-16 where only one pair of
witnesses were involved, you're contrasting them with other witnesses.
I don't see a great problem with people not recognising Jesus
initially; as I said way back at the start of this discussion, the
resurrected Jesus was clearly a different sort of being, a combination
of a spiritual being who could pass through walls and a physical being
who could sit down and consume food with the disciples. I think there
is also a very strong hint in the Luke account of the two disciples
that Jesus did not always want people to recognise him initially;
verse 13 says " but their eyes were prevented from recognising him"
and verse 31 says "And their eyes were opened and they recognised him"
- the language in both those suggest some sort of external
intervention.

>As I said elsewhere, naturalism comes with baggage, one of it is testability of one piece of evidence against other pieces of evidence, and that's what we would have here.
>
>But if you give up the "physical observation eyewitness model", reconciling the two accounts gets straightforward. All of the people here make the same spiritual experience - in my preferred redemptive reading, from a feeling of deepest depression and utter despair came a sudden, massive, totally unexpected (and unearned.... ) and unexplainable lifting of the spirit and a realisation of unbounded freedom (freedom which then explains the subsequent actions of the Apostle, which otherwise would make them look simply suicidal) At Easter, creation took a deep breath and said "all is well, we are home now". NOT just " some single person I care and was worried about turns out to be OK after all", that would have been way too egotistic, but literally "everything is (going to be) all right".
>
>The people most directly affected with this don't initially understand this, and then, as humans do, try in varying degrees successfully to verbalise this and make sense of this experience. That explains the time lapse also for Maria Magdalena between the "physical" seeing (which would have been instantaneous) and the "recognition" part. None of this works well when interpreted as an ordinary physical observation, we would not expect it to happen like this given everything we know about facial recognition
>
>>
>> >
>> >I would agree with you that as a matter of terminology, even extremely weak evidence is still evidence. I'd go even further and would argue that even evidence that later turned out to be misleading is evidence, (I remember some discussions with John H on this, where we disagreed on that point)
>> That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
>> so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
>> is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence. What I am arguing
>> is that there is *some* evidence even if it is not necessarily
>> conclusive.
>
>And I'd say you both underestimate or devalue faith here, just from opposite directions. And I don't think they work in synergy either, as this gives you again the "handmaiden role" of faith that makes it look like an excuse for the failure of reason

Sorry, I just don't see that. It's certainly not true in my own case -
my religious beliefs are based on far more than just the Gospel
stories - and I don't see it among other people who I know to have
carried out an in-depth appraisal of their faith.

I think the various points you have made above simply confirm what I
have said all along, that the evidence is not conclusive. That,
however, does not dismiss it has having no value at all.

>
>> >The reports of having seen Jesus fare a bit better, ( we grant here that they are genuine eyewitness reports and leave aside for the purpose of this analysis the possibility that they are later inventions, additions, misunderstandings and misreporting etc). So we read them ex hypothesis as "bare observations" - but now we really have a badly evidenced zombie walking around, because that physical reading is the only one the reported observations would be evidence for. With the additional problems that if we now test the hypothesis, an immediate problem becomes a) that this observation does not distinguish
>> >between a resurrection theory and one where his death was just misdiagnosed, which would be the much more natural explanation
>> >b) even if granted that he had really died, why only so few people saw Jesus, and
>> >c) even worse, why , as Luke indicates, some of those who should have identified him did not.
>> >
>> > So once treated like ordinary evidence, it becomes inevitably subject to testing against other evidence (or the lack of it) .
>> >
>> >So in exchange for treating the Gospels as "ordinary evidence", you only get an extremely weakly supported, part contradicted, theologically least palatable. Tillich's classification is helpful here even if one does not adopt his preferred solution. Treating the Gospel as a mere physical eyewitness account leads inevitably to the physical resurrection reading, which was a comparative latecomer: "Theologically speaking, it is a rationalization of the resurrection event, interpreting it with physical categories and making the benchmark of the facticity of the resurrection the presence or absence of a
>> >physical body occupying a specific place Immediately the absurd question arises: what happened to the molecules which comprise the corpse of
>> > Jesus of Nazaret. In this question, the mere absurdity becomes almost blasphemy."
>> >
>> >And what you lose are the much more theologically rewarding readings of the text, the spiritual interpretation (which I'd say is by now mainstream) . And of course also Tillich's reading as restitution, which I always thought the most compelling:
>> >
>> > "This theory concerning the event which underlies the symbol of Resurrection dismisses physical as well as spiritualistic literalism.
>> >[...] and places at the center of its analysis the religious meaning of the Resurrection for the disciples (and their followers), in contrast to
>> > their previous state of negativity and despair. This view is the ecstatic confirmation of the indestructible unity of the New Being and
>> > its bearer, Jesus of Nazareth. In eternity they belong together. In contrast to the physical, the spiritualistic, and the psychological
>> > theories concerning the Resurrection event, one could call this the "restitution theory". According to it, the Resurrection is the
>> >restitution of Jesus as Christ, a restitution which is rooted in the personal unity between Jesus and God and in the impact of this unity on
>> > the minds of the apostles."
>> I'm not familiar with Tillich's ideas, is he actually discarding the
>> *physical* Resurrection or is he just emphasising the far more
>> important spiritual impact of it? If so, then I am in total agreement
>> with him and I don't think he is saying anything particularly
>> different to most theologians in that regard.
>
>I'd say he sees them as mutually exclusive,

Maybe I'm being obtuse here but I don't see how he gets to that. We
are told in the Gospel that various people saw Jesus alive after his
crucifixion; I don't think we can just ignore that or regard it as
having no significance especially when that re-encountering with
Christ acted as such a massive a spur to the disciples

>and would deny that you can mix and match them while staying consistent - that part of his work is largely descriptive, i.e. he maps the positions he found in church history, and they seem to lump clearly into groups)
>
>> >
>> >With other words, the Gospels do not report a set of massively ambiguous observations, something done through the physical senses and subject to its limitations, but a profound life-changing experience of a transformation of a relationship - Christ-the-man has become now "The Church", not any longer an individual (hence Luke, unrecognisable for some, at least temporarily), ecstatic and experiential rather than descriptive-factual.
>> ====================================
>>
>> [1] The case was for the murder of my sister-in-law and the defendant
>> was found guilty on a unanimous verdict by the jury. You may well have
>> knowledge of the case - it was the first case in the UK where a
>> previous conviction was revealed to the jury due to the similarity
>> between the two crimes. It was also the first whole-life tariff given
>> in Northern Ireland though the Court of Appeal later set a 35-year
>> tariff.
>> https://attracta.martinharran.com
>
>Oh Martin, I'm so terribly sorry to hear that, that must have been a terrible experience! And it is arguably too close personally for you for a mere academic discussion - so tell me when to stop, or just ignore the next part, it's just about the law.

No problem discussing it but I will respond in a separate sub-thread
as it's not really related to what we are discussing above.

[…]

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:34:06 -0700, Mark Isaak

Perhaps you'd be so kind as to point me in the direction of some of
those writings about leprechauns, bunyips and Santa at the North Pole.

[Martin Harran]

I doubt it very much, just as I don't believe that the Bible was
dictated by God as some Christians believe so no difference in my
standards there.

>2. Do you acknowledge that the evidence for such divine dictation is
>equal or better than evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

I'm not aware of any evidence of such divine diction for either the
Qur'an or the Bible as far as I am aware, that idea of divine diction
is the opinion of people who have read the books, not the people
directly involved in them[1]. If you have any other evidence, I'll
have a look at it if you point me in the direction of it.

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

[1] There is considerable evidence that directly contradicts the idea
of the Bible having been dictated but I don't know if that applies to
the Qur'an

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 09:06:46 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, I have encountered instances of that but in every single case, it
was clearly a wistful yearning that only lasted a short time whilst
the person was coming around to accept the permanence of their loss. I
have never known anyone who permanently believed something along those
lines, certainly not with the level of zeal and passion that the
disciples showed, especially when insisting on its truth put their
very lives at risk from the religious authorities.

>It hardly seems that great a stretch to imagine that those who had lost a dear teacher and friend might think he had visited them in the form of a mysterious stranger. In any case, I find those stories interesting in the sense that they are not what I'd expect if someone were to invent a resurrection story from whole cloth. To me they are some evidence of the sincerity of the authors.

In that case, I'm not really sure why we are arguing as the difference
between us is what we take from the evidence, not whether it exists.

[broger...@gmail.com]

People are willing to die in the service of all sorts of ideologies. I don't think that that willingness is evidence of the truth of those ideologies.

> >It hardly seems that great a stretch to imagine that those who had lost a dear teacher and friend might think he had visited them in the form of a mysterious stranger. In any case, I find those stories interesting in the sense that they are not what I'd expect if someone were to invent a resurrection story from whole cloth. To me they are some evidence of the sincerity of the authors.
> In that case, I'm not really sure why we are arguing as the difference
> between us is what we take from the evidence, not whether it exists.

Burkhard and I have both, in slightly different ways, explained what we see as weaknesses in looking at faith as something which supplements inconclusive evidence. I don't really have anything further to add to that right now.

As to the Emmaus Road story, I'm only talking about it because you asked me to explain what I meant when I brought it up with Burkhard.

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/13/23 9:01 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:30:29 -0700, Mark Isaak

>> [...]

>> Two question about your standards:
>> 1. Do you believe that the Qur'an was dictated to Mohammed by divine agent?
>
> I doubt it very much, just as I don't believe that the Bible was
> dictated by God as some Christians believe so no difference in my
> standards there.

That is the answer I was expecting. (For what it's worth, I agree with
you.)

>> 2. Do you acknowledge that the evidence for such divine dictation is
>> equal or better than evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
>
> I'm not aware of any evidence of such divine diction for either the
> Qur'an or the Bible as far as I am aware, that idea of divine diction
> is the opinion of people who have read the books, not the people
> directly involved in them[1]. If you have any other evidence, I'll
> have a look at it if you point me in the direction of it.
>
> ===============================
>
> [1] There is considerable evidence that directly contradicts the idea
> of the Bible having been dictated but I don't know if that applies to
> the Qur'an

That does not answer the question, which asked about evidence for the
resurrection as described by the Bible (not for the dictation, or any
other sourcing, of the Bible).

As I understand, there is evidence claimed for divine dictation for the
Qur'an, to wit, that Mohammed was semi-literate and could not have
composed something so beautiful on his own. Not knowing any Arabic
(aside from Arabic numerals), I am not in a position to evaluate that
argument, but my impression is that it is weak. You don't need to know
how to write in order to express yourself well; plus, the scribes who
ultimately wrote it down could have cleaned up the text a bit more.
Still, that evidence is more than a mere written account for the
biblical resurrection.

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/13/23 8:49 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:34:06 -0700, Mark Isaak
> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
>> On 4/12/23 7:50 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 09:32:23 -0700, Mark Isaak
>>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 4/11/23 1:34 AM, Burkhard wrote:
>>>>> On Monday, April 10, 2023 at 10:55:17?PM UTC+1, Martin Harran wrote:

>>>>>>> [...]

>>>>>>> But there's nothing wrong with faith. If you believe, you believe, that's fine.
>>>>>> So effectively, you get into a debate on how conclusive or reliable
>>>>>> the evidence is. Not much different really from a courtroom where
>>>>>> there is no conclusive *forensic* evidence and both sides will argue
>>>>>> whether conclusions can be drawn from *circumstantial* evidence. The
>>>>>> point is that it is an evidence-based argument, not just "pure faith"
>>>>>> as Abner claimed.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd say while this is a possible reading of the Gospel, it's theologically somewhere between the least satisfying and the massively blasphemous. As all attempts to naturalise religion inevitably are. What it leads to is the interpretation of the resurrection as a vulgar zombie-apocalypse, that positively gets in the way of spiritual or redemptive (in Tilllich's sense) interpretation, and also creates conflicts with other passages of the text, in particular, Luke 24 13-16.
>>>> [snip more worthy text]
>>>>
>>>> There's also the problem that claiming an evidence-based belief in
>>>> religion raises issues of hypocrisy. The evidence for Jesus'
>>>> resurrection is no better than that for the divine inspiration of the
>>>> Qur'an or the divinity of Rama, and is roughly on par with evidence for
>>>> a thousand or so other gods, not to mention leprechauns, bunyips, Santa
>>>> at the North Pole, etc.
>>>
>>> What particular evidence for those things did you have in mind?
>>
>> Written accounts, same as for Jesus's resurrection.
>
> Perhaps you'd be so kind as to point me in the direction of some of
> those writings about leprechauns, bunyips and Santa at the North Pole.

The written accounts come from oral accounts, and I have little doubt
that you yourself have heard oral accounts of leprechauns and Santa
Claus. For bunyips, you may need to travel to Australia. Or ask a
librarian and read the written accounts. (The Wikipedia article has
several references. I don't remember which of my several Australian
myth books I encountered them in.)

[Burkhard]

"Dogeni fergus ogcoru tarsa nericso & luid doa tir & bir[t] a
cumail lais i foghnum. IN tan ronainic fergus a methus luid docum
mara sechis & a ara muena a ainm. contuilsit and for bru in mara.
dolota(ta)r lucorpain dond rig conidmbert[at]ar asa carpat & bertatar a
claidem nuad i tosach. runucsat iarum co rainic a muir(e) conidforcualae
o rancatar a cosa a muir. dofiuchtradar la sodain & argab triar" dib fer cechtar
a da la(i)m & araile for bruinnib. ‘anmain i nanmain’ .i.
anacal. ‘tartar mu tri drindro(i)sc’ .i. roga ol fergus. ‘rodbia’ ol int abac
‘acht ni bes ecmacht dun’. atgege fergus fair didiu eolas fobarta fo
muirib & lindaib & lochaib. ‘rotbia’ ar int abacc ‘acht aen ar[a]cuillimm
airiut loch rudrige fil ad crich ni dechais fai’. Dobertatar didiu in lucuirp
luibe dosom ina cluasa"

obviously! "lucorpain" is the earliest attested form of Leprauchan

"In consideration of this mulct Fergus concluded full peace and
went to his own land, bringing with him his bondmaid into servitude.
When he had reached his domain he went on to the sea accompanied
by his charioteer, whose name was Muena. There they fell asleep on
the sea coast. Leprauchans (lúchorpáin ) came to the king and bore him out of his chariot,
having first deprived him of his sword. They then carried him as far as
the sea, and when his feet touched the sea he became aware of it. At
this point he awoke and caught hold of three of them, one in each hand
and one on his breasts. ‘Life for life!’ [said the chief of the little people]. ‘Let my
three wishes be granted to me’ said Fergus. ‘Thou shalt have anything
that is not beyond our power’, said the little people. So Fergus chose to
ask from him a charm for passing under seas and pools and lakes. ‘Thou
shalt have it,’ said one of the little people, ‘save one that I bar to thee: thou shalt not
go under Loch Rudraige which is in thy own territory.’ Then the
Leprauchan gave him herbs [to put] in his ears, and he used to travel about
with them underseas."

From the Echtra Fergus mac Léti (Adventure of Fergus, son of Léti), set in 200 BC but the origin is probably in the 8th century. Leprechauns are probably direct descendants from the leprechauns are descended form the Tuatha De Danann, who ruled Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries BCE before being beaten in battle by the 6th wave of immigrants to Ireland, the Milesians (ancestors of the current population) and driven underground.

The text also made legal history, getting references in another important medieval text, the legal tract Cethairshlicht athgabálae.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 1:20:18 PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

I like Hume on miracles. He did not say it quite this way, but I think that it is simply impossible to have usefully convincing evidence of a miracle. The reason is straightforward. If miracles are possible, then natural laws are not the reliable regularities we think they are. But any chain of evidence relies on a whole series of events following reliable natural laws. Once you decide that natural laws are only "most of the time" then you cannot draw reliable conclusions from any evidence at all. Imagine you are considering a report of a miraculous cancer cure. You have the diagnostic tests before the alleged miracle and the diagnostic tests afterIt is only the reliability of those diagnostic tests that makes you think the patient really had cancer (before the candidate for sanctification prayed for them) and that the patient's cancer disappeared after the prayers. But if miracles are possible, they might just as well have altered the natural laws required for the normal operation of the original diagnostic tests in which case you have a miraculous error in diagnosis rather than a miraculous cure. I don't think you can get around that problem without special pleading for a certain religious point of view about what sorts of miracles are likely to happen. So I think once you open the door to miracles, all evidence, even partial, supporting evidence, is meaningless. That's not to say that miracles don't happen, only that if they do, their occurrence makes any evidence for them unreliable.

<snip>

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Friday, April 14, 2023 at 6:50:20 AM UTC-4, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
[ . . . ]

> I like Hume on miracles. He did not say it quite this way,
> but I think that it is simply impossible to have usefully
> convincing evidence of a miracle. The reason is
> straightforward. If miracles are possible, then natural laws
> are not the reliable regularities we think they are. But
> any chain of evidence relies on a whole series of events
> following reliable natural laws. Once you decide that
> natural laws are only "most of the time" then you cannot
> draw reliable conclusions from any evidence at all.

Oh I don't know. I've made a lot of toast over the years,
as have many others. And there have been some occasional
reports of seeing the Madonna or Jesus on some rather
amorphous pattern. Sure you can explain that away as a
fluke of nature. But this one time, my toast had a very
clear image of George Best's goal against Benfica in the
1968 final. Some might call it a fluke but it will always be
a miracle to me.

[Abner]

jillery wrote:
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yGpX2tyRHo&list=PLpdBEstCHhmWIewYyKPBoYbL4E2NVpjaK>

Thanks, bookmarked for later!

[Burkhard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-8WJxA-cI

[Burkhard]

Lots of really interesting stuff in there that goes beyond the resurrection issue - unfortunately, I'm now off to 3 weeks hiking in Corfu, so won't be able to comment on all of it, and it will also be the last post for a while.

There is a whole host of issues that follows from Hume, and also how science deals with observed (apparent) violations of an otherwise well corroborated law. Some time ago, as a thought experiment I introduced here a world with a malign deity that almost always interferes with the natural immune system of cancer patients so that they die. Only sometimes he gets distracted, and the person gets better - which for the observer looks "miraculous". One of the points was to show that any attempt to define "miraculous" as "interference with a natural law" falls short. As you say, the term expressed value judgements, and prior religious commitments and can't be defined neutrally

I think for other topic though there is another argument that runs in parallel, one of "narrative role". I think I picked it up from my pastor at the time, but he may have been citing someone else. If one reads the resurrection account as a miraculous revival from death, it makes no narrative sense. Or in the word of my pastor, if read like that, "It would have been just another effing miracle" (it loses a bit in translation...)

This is after all after the Lazarus revival. Christ had already ticket that box, - the ordinary miracles have a simple message, he is not bound by the law of nature. after the thrid one, everybody gets this. The followers also knew that the dead don't necessarily stay dead, and there was no particular reason for them to be surprised when the same happened to the body of Christ as did to that of Lazarus, IF that was really the same type of event. If this were a movie, you'd feel "they are running out of ideas". But the resurrection has a radically different narrative function. It's not just another bloody miracle that simply shows Christs/Gods power. Rather its the cumulation of the entire book. So if we don't read it as a mere physical resurrection, been there, done that, but the radical transformation into something unrecognisable ("the Church" in a reconciled word) it all makes much more sense. Now the witnesses could not simply use the Lazarus precedent to make sense of what they experience, etc



<snip for focus>

[erik simpson]

Same here. I toasted a tortilla on a gas stove, and the clear image of Diego Maradona's
"hand of God" in the 1986 quarter-finals of the Argentina-England World Cup appeared.
A miracle indeed, but not really a "blessed" one.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 8:30:18 PM UTC-4, Abner wrote:
> Martin Harran wrote:
> > That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
> > so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
> > is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence.
> Perhaps the reason that you are making arguments fruitlessly is that you aren't listening. I did not say what you just ascribed to me, and I have even corrected you in detail since. At this point I have pretty much given up on trying to correct you on this topic, you don't seem to be able to see anything other than what you want to see.

You've reminded me that I once caught you listing me as a "creationist." Or was that a different person in talk.origins named Abner?
I assure you, I am about as far from being a creationist as anyone here, and I'd like to know who or what it was
that ever put that idea in your head.

> Just so you don't have to search for the last cycle again, here's what I said:
> Even if the gospels were correct that Jesus rose from the dead ... that isn't evidence that he is *still* alive. It's been 2000 years ... he could easily have died again in the time since then! Even if you count the gospels as evidence that he was alive then, how could the gospels of 2000 years ago be evidence that he is alive 2000 years later? They certainly couldn't witness an inability to age, and an inability to be killed again wasn't tested, so ... the idea that he is still alive now is faith. Same with Darwin still being alive now.
> If you insist, yet again, as taking that as an argument against the Resurrection, so be it. Life's too short to keep arguing with someone who isn't listening. Have fun arguing, but please stop claiming I said something I didn't say!

I'm about to start my usual weekend posting break, but come Monday, I'll look to see whether you
have responded to my query.

Peter Nyikos

[Abner]

Peter wrote:
> You've reminded me that I once caught you listing me as a "creationist." Or was that a different person in talk.origins named Abner?
> I assure you, I am about as far from being a creationist as anyone here, and I'd like to know who or what it was
> that ever put that idea in your head.

I had gotten that impression from reading your posts over the years. I admit that it is entirely possible that you are not a creationist, but the most likely alternative IMO is that you are trolling for reactions. Trolls don't really hold allegiance to any position other than wanting to get a rise out of people.

If you wish, I will switch my mental category for you from 'probably a creationist' to 'probably a troll'. Based on extensive reading of your posts, I'm afraid those are the two options I have left for you.

Enjoy your weekend posting break!

[jillery]

Mr. Nyikos distinguishes between ID and Creationism based on his
speculation that ID's designer could have been a naturally evolved
civilization prior to life on Earth aka Directed Panspermia.
Logically, this begs the question of said designer's origin, and
eliminates said designer of fine-tuning the Universe, which Mr. Nyikos
also promotes. He avoids these logical conundrums by discussing DP,
ID, and fine-tuning in temporally separate threads.

There are other T.O. posters who support ID. I have asked each of
them how their designer could have done all the things they claim it
did without it being a supernatural entity. If so, that would
logically make their ID a form of Creationism in disguise. My
experience is all cdesign proponentsists either ignore the question
altogether, or admit they presume their designer is God.

[jillery]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 03:45:13 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 1:20:18?PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:

The above reasoning applies equally well against cdesign
proponentsists who claim natural selection works "sometimes".

[jillery]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 05:43:10 -0700 (PDT), Abner
<abneri...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yGpX2tyRHo&list=PLpdBEstCHhmWIewYyKPBoYbL4E2NVpjaK>
>
>Thanks, bookmarked for later!

You're welcome.

[Martin Harran]

I'm struggling to see your point here. You asked me if evidence for

such divine dictation is equal or better than evidence for the

resurrection of Jesus Christ, I told you I'm not aware of *any*
evidence for divine diction (and you seem to agree). How can I
evaluate something that I don't even think exists, let alone know
anything about ?

>
>As I understand, there is evidence claimed for divine dictation for the
>Qur'an, to wit, that Mohammed was semi-literate and could not have
>composed something so beautiful on his own.

At best, that's an argument from logic, not evidence. Even if it were
true, I'm not sure how it's supposed to support divine diction when
muslims don't belive Muhammed to be God.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 05:46:23 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

[...]

>Lots of really interesting stuff in there that goes beyond the resurrection issue - unfortunately, I'm now off to 3 weeks hiking in Corfu,

Nothing unfortunate about that, I hope you have a great break despite
the vagaries of different religious calendars

>so won't be able to comment on all of it, and it will also be the last post for a while.

You're right, there are lots of really interesting stuff in there,
hopefully we can get back to it when you return.


[...]

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 13 Apr 2023 10:30:18 -0700, Mark Isaak

Hmm, I was hoping for something a bit better in evidence terms than
written accounts of oral mythology. I don't know anything about
bunyips ( I never heard of them until you mentioned them here) but
I've certainly never heard anyone[1] claiming to have met a leprechaun
or Santa Claus - have you?

> For bunyips, you may need to travel to Australia. Or ask a
>librarian and read the written accounts. (The Wikipedia article has
>several references. I don't remember which of my several Australian
>myth books I encountered them in.)

[1] Young children excluded.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2023 19:25:39 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

Rather hypocritical of you to challenge someone else's unfounded
claims about you when you haven't provided anything to back up your
claims about me being a secret apostate and your commitment over two
weeks ago when you said you would produce detailed analysis *the
following week* of me having a "cavalier attitude" towards Jesus's
commandment against bearing false witness yet you have produced
absolutely nothing.

[Mark Isaak]

Are you aware of any evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

>> As I understand, there is evidence claimed for divine dictation for the
>> Qur'an, to wit, that Mohammed was semi-literate and could not have
>> composed something so beautiful on his own.
>
> At best, that's an argument from logic, not evidence. Even if it were
> true, I'm not sure how it's supposed to support divine diction when
> muslims don't belive Muhammed to be God.

It's evidence that the writing of the Qur'an was a miracle.

[Mark Isaak]

> [1] Young children excluded.

I get the impression you are trying to avoid the larger point. First,
as Burkhard posted, the existence of leprechauns has been taken
seriously in historical times. Second and more important is the "etc."
I included in my original comment. The standard of evidence that "I
believe it because an anonymous source said it, and someone else wrote
it down" could also be applied, off the top of my head, to thunderbirds,
chupacabras, Bigfoot, ET aliens, witches, dragons, kobolds, mermaids.
No doubt anthropologists could extend the list to thousands of items.

[broger...@gmail.com]

.....

> Hmm, I was hoping for something a bit better in evidence terms than
> written accounts of oral mythology.

Written accounts of oral mythology....Sounds like the gospels. None of the gospel authors signed their work. There is no explicit claim in any of them that the author is recording his own eyewitness testimony. To the extent that any Christian believes that the gospels are eyewitness accounts they are going on the same sort of inferences that lead the Muslim to conclude that the Quran was dictated by God. Like the belief that the Quran was divinely dictated, the identification of the gospel authors with specific individuals is a matter of religious tradition, not well-documented provenance. Luke, in fact, reports that he is writing down what others told him about the events. On the other hand lots of people claim to have seen the resurrected Elvis or to have been abducted by aliens.

If you are proposing a general principle of evidence that direct eyewitness accounts are more believable than written accounts of oral mythology, then the evidence for Elvis' resurrection is stronger than for Jesus's resurrection. If you are willing to accept the accounts of miracles in old religious texts as evidence for those miracles, then miracles reported in many religions are as well (or poorly) evidenced as those in your particular religion.

[Ernest Major]

On 15/04/2023 16:17, Martin Harran wrote:
>> As I understand, there is evidence claimed for divine dictation for the
>> Qur'an, to wit, that Mohammed was semi-literate and could not have
>> composed something so beautiful on his own.
> At best, that's an argument from logic, not evidence. Even if it were
> true, I'm not sure how it's supposed to support divine diction when
> muslims don't belive Muhammed to be God.
>

I may be misinformed, but I understand Muslim tradition to be that Allah
dictated the text of the Koran to Muhammed, via the archangel Gabriel,
and Muhammed wrote it down.

https://www.alislam.org/articles/quran-history-of-text/

That Muslims don't believe Muhammed to be God is irrelevant to the
question of the divine dictation of the Koran. (Christian Biblical
inerrantism is not that a far removed a position, but Christians don't
believe that the Gospel writers were God - only inspired by the Holy
Spirit?)

--
alias Ernest Major

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> Rather hypocritical of you to challenge someone else's unfounded
> claims about you when you haven't provided anything to back up your
> claims about me being a secret apostate and your commitment over two
> weeks ago when you said you would produce detailed analysis *the
> following week* of me having a "cavalier attitude" towards Jesus's
> commandment against bearing false witness yet you have produced
> absolutely nothing.

For the record, I haven't seen any sign that Martin is an apostate, secret or otherwise. IMO his stated beliefs and behavior seem to be within the Christian mainstream.

[Abner]

jillery wrote:
> There are other T.O. posters who support ID. I have asked each of
> them how their designer could have done all the things they claim it
> did without it being a supernatural entity. If so, that would
> logically make their ID a form of Creationism in disguise. My
> experience is all cdesign proponentsists either ignore the question
> altogether, or admit they presume their designer is God.

I agree with almost all of your analysis. In my experience, ID is just a false skin stretched thin over creationism; the slightest scratch and it splits open, revealing the creationist within. It is an attempt at respectability, but IMO honestly stating the creationist position is far more respectable than deception aimed at hiding it.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:30:05 -0700 (PDT), Abner

<abneri...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Martin Harran wrote:
>> That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
>> so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
>> is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence.
>
>Perhaps the reason that you are making arguments fruitlessly is that you aren't listening. I did not say what you just ascribed to me, and I have even corrected you in detail since.

Perhaps I missed it, where did you accept that there is evidence
supporting the Resurrection?

There is evidence in the form of eyewitness accounts; you may choose
to disbelieve those accounts, that's fine, but to make out that they
don't exist and that belief in the Resurrection is "pure faith" is
essentially a mirror image of your claim that "Kalkidas came out
swinging with a claim of faith as if it was a claim of truth".

>At this point I have pretty much given up on trying to correct you on this topic, you don't seem to be able to see anything other than what you want to see.
>

>Just so you don't have to search for the last cycle again, here's what I said:
>Even if the gospels were correct that Jesus rose from the dead ... that isn't evidence that he is *still* alive. It's been 2000 years ... he could easily have died again in the time since then! Even if you count the gospels as evidence that he was alive then, how could the gospels of 2000 years ago be evidence that he is alive 2000 years later? They certainly couldn't witness an inability to age, and an inability to be killed again wasn't tested,

Sorry, I'm interested in debating what people claim to have witnessed,
not some imaginary idea that nobody has claimed.

[Martin Harran]

I don't think anybody except Peter himself and Glenn takes Peter's
claims with any grain of belief. Glenn has disappeared off the scene
for several moths except for one brief popup a couple of weeks ago as
a shill for Peter. I have my doubts as to whether it really was Glenn.

The reason I keep hounding Peter is that we all have our flashpoints
and two of mine are people who try to besmirch my character by using
blatant lies and people who try to take the high ground on truth and
morality whilst propagating blatant lies themselves. Peter qualifies
on both scores.

[Martin Harran]

FWIW, I have said numerous times that the aspect that I as a Christian
find most detestable about ID is that they deny in public that they
are seeking to promote the Christian God as the "intelligent designer"
but openly admit to their followers that that is exactly what they are
doing. I regard lies and deception as the antithesis of Christian
belief.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 15 Apr 2023 09:31:53 -0700, Mark Isaak

The Gospels have been extensively studied for over 2000 years by
thousands of scholars from a wide range of backgrounds, some religious
and some secular; they, along with the rest of the Bible, are probably
the most studied ever piece of literature. There is clearly a lack of
consensus in many areas of them but that doesn't change the fact that
they are a serious and significant body of work.

You attempt to trivialise them by seeking to present them in the same
category as leprechauns, bunyips and Santa Claus. That doesn't make
any "larger point" - it simply shows your antagonism towards religious
belief and the futility of trying to have a rational debate with you
on religious issues.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Sunday, April 16, 2023 at 4:40:22 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2023 17:30:05 -0700 (PDT), Abner
> <abneri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Martin Harran wrote:
> >> That is the key point I have been trying to make - rather fruitlessly
> >> so far. Abner, endorsed by Bill, said that belief in the Resurrection
> >> is "pure faith" implying that there is NO evidence.
> >
> >Perhaps the reason that you are making arguments fruitlessly is that you aren't listening. I did not say what you just ascribed to me, and I have even corrected you in detail since.
> Perhaps I missed it, where did you accept that there is evidence
> supporting the Resurrection?
>
> There is evidence in the form of eyewitness accounts; you may choose
> to disbelieve those accounts, that's fine, but to make out that they
> don't exist and that belief in the Resurrection is "pure faith" is
> essentially a mirror image of your claim that "Kalkidas came out
> swinging with a claim of faith as if it was a claim of truth".
> >At this point I have pretty much given up on trying to correct you on this topic, you don't seem to be able to see anything other than what you want to see.
> >
> >Just so you don't have to search for the last cycle again, here's what I said:
> >Even if the gospels were correct that Jesus rose from the dead ... that isn't evidence that he is *still* alive. It's been 2000 years ... he could easily have died again in the time since then! Even if you count the gospels as evidence that he was alive then, how could the gospels of 2000 years ago be evidence that he is alive 2000 years later? They certainly couldn't witness an inability to age, and an inability to be killed again wasn't tested,

> Sorry, I'm interested in debating what people claim to have witnessed,
> not some imaginary idea that nobody has claimed.

Do read the title of the thread. Then you might contemplate an apology.
It's better to try to understand somebody's point than to complain
that they aren't talking about what you want them to.

[Lawyer Daggett]

The gospels have not existed for __over 2000 years__.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, April 16, 2023 at 5:05:22 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:

I would say that it is you, rather than Mark, who is trivializing the gospels. Hold on. What I mean is that you are treating them as evidence of a set of miraculous claims. You could simply accept the miraculous claims as a matter of faith. However, instead of doing that, you've insisted that there is "supporting evidence" for those miraculous claims. If you are serious about that, then you have just demoted the gospels to the point where they must be treated on a par with ANY alleged evidence for any miraculous claim, whether that's a claim about leprachauns or Santa Claus or re-animated Elvis, or miracles described in other people's religious texts. If you are going to treat the gospels as objective evidence in a purely detached way, then you cannot gripe that people fail to treat the gospels with the reverence that their importance in your religion entails. They are simply written records of somebody's claims about dramatic violations of natural law, just like someone's memoir of their uncle who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, or The Book of Morman's claims about Moroni and the Golden Tablets, or miracles in the Gita, or in Homer.

So one thing you've not done so far is to lay out what universal criteria should be used to evaluate evidence for claims of miraculous violations of natural law. If you say there must be, for example, a written record of oral testimony of the alleged miracle, then you will find supporting evidence for an enormous range of claimed violations of natural law, everything from tabletop fusion to leprachauns, to resurrected Elvis, to alien abductions. If there is, then, supporting evidence for a huge number of miraculous violations of natural law, then it is "purely faith," that allows you to decide which of those violations to believe in. The "supporting evidence" is irrelevant. You could attempt to tighten your criteria for supporting evidence to try to exclude miraculous claims you find absurd, like Elvis and the leprachauns, but to do so you'll have to write them so specifically that it will be obvious you are indulging in special pleading for your own favorite violations of natural law.

Finally, there is the problem that once you entertain the idea that you live in a world where natural laws can be violated, there is simply no such thing as reliable evidence. All evidence depends on the reliability of natural laws - my fingerprints do not morph into someone else's, the text of a document does not magically change while it sits in a museum, etc. So if miracles can happen, they can happen to evidence, too, and it's therefore pointless to look for evidence of miracles. THis does not mean miracles do not happen, only that if they do, then evidence is meaningless.

So, if you insist on treating the gospels as evidence for miraculous events, you will inevitably force them to be compared to evidence for all sorts of other miraculous claims, whether they are claims from other religions, or just weird stuff that some people say happened. It is not the case that Mark and I and Burkhard have a special animus against religion and treat evidence for religious miracles unfairly, it is you who want to privilege the gospels as evidence of just those particular violations of natural law you find attractive. If you want to prove that you are not engaging in special pleading, then go ahead and lay out what universally applicable criteria you would apply to evidence for miraculous violations of natural laws.

[broger...@gmail.com]

Well, maybe he got a little carried away. Details, details.

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> Sorry, I'm interested in debating what people claim to have witnessed,
> not some imaginary idea that nobody has claimed.

Nobody claims that Jesus Christ is still alive today? Interesting. I could have sworn that Kalkidas claimed it in the opening post, and it was that claim that I addressed. I didn't say one word about the Resurrection ... that was all you, and that's why all your claims about my having said anything about the Resurrection were completely off-target.

My point, from the beginning, was that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ is still alive - which was the claim that Kalkidas actually made.

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> The reason I keep hounding Peter is that we all have our flashpoints
> and two of mine are people who try to besmirch my character by using
> blatant lies and people who try to take the high ground on truth and
> morality whilst propagating blatant lies themselves. Peter qualifies
> on both scores.

Agreed with that as well. This is one of the rare cases where I'm agreeing with you and Jillery in the same thread. :)

[Martin Harran]

rOn Sat, 15 Apr 2023 09:47:33 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

John claims eyewitness testimony twice in his Gospel and 3 times in
the first 3 verses of his first letter (though those last references
are to Jesus in a wider context than specific to his resurrection).
Not everyone accepts John as the actual writer but even if he isn't,
there is no reason to doubt that the writer was giving John's direct
testimony. I'm not sure about the USA but in the UK and Ireland, the
recorded eye witness testimony of a dead person is admissible as
evidence in a court of law; me telling something I was told by my
father which he in turn heard from his father - the equivalent of oral
mythology - would not be admitted.

Most scholars think the Gospels were *probably* written between 60 AD
and 110 AD; Jesus is thought to have died between 30 AD and 33 AD so
the Gospels were likely *published* between 30 and 80 years after his
death. Deduct from that the time the authors spent researching and
preparing their accounts and there was considerable overlap in time
between the authors and contemporaries of Jesus; that includes St John
who scholars generally believe died around 100 AD. There is no reason
to think that they did not talk to and question eyewitnesses and other
contemporaries of Jesus. I wouldn't place too much significance on
them not stating that explicitly, these accounts were written to
spread the message of Jesus rather than as some sort of biography and
certainly not written as academic texts with citations required.

> To the extent that any Christian believes that the gospels are eyewitness accounts they are going on the same sort of inferences that lead the Muslim to conclude that the Quran was dictated by God.

Are there is any eye witness to that claim? I've already asked if is
even explicitly stated in the Qur'an and nobody has claimed that it
is.

>Like the belief that the Quran was divinely dictated, the identification of the gospel authors with specific individuals is a matter of religious tradition, not well-documented provenance. Luke, in fact, reports that he is writing down what others told him about the events.

He clearly found their accounts credible. He also refers to
previously written accounts which would have been even closer to the
time of Jesus than the Gospels as discussed above.

Another person who tends to get forgotten in these accounts is St.
Paul. He was not an eyewitness to any of the events relating to Jesus
but he was someone who was utterly opposed to them but he directly
interacted with the eyewitnesses and came to believe their accounts.

>On the other hand lots of people claim to have seen the resurrected Elvis or to have been abducted by aliens. If you are proposing a general principle of evidence that direct eyewitness accounts are more believable than written accounts of oral mythology, then the evidence for Elvis' resurrection is stronger than for Jesus's resurrection.

I've already dealt with Elvis claims in my response to Burkhard. I
pointed out one piece of circumstantial evidence is only of value when
it is supported by other evidence. Jesus foretold his Resurrection,
I'm not aware of Elvis doing that. There is also the question of
significance - the Resurrection opens up a whole new vista and sense
of purpose but sightings of Elvis just lead to "so what, even if it
were true?"

Another factor that comes into it is that to the best of my limited
knowledge, nobody who has claimed to see Elvis knew him intimately
when he was still alive; those whom the Gospels state to have seen
Jesus were people who were very close to Jesus before his crucifixion,
spending several years in his company. I would regard them as somewhat
more credible than some housewife who never even met Elvis but is
convinced that she saw him filling his tank at her local petrol
station.

>If you are willing to accept the accounts of miracles in old religious texts as evidence for those miracles, then miracles reported in many religions are as well (or poorly) evidenced as those in your particular religion.

I keep hearing that but it seems odd to me that nobody has referred to
evidence that is comparable to the evidence in the Gospels.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2023 02:28:48 -0700 (PDT), Lawyer Daggett
<j.nobel...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ok, around 1910 to 1970 years. If that's the worst miscalculation I
make in my life, I'll happily live with it.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2023 04:11:48 -0700 (PDT), Abner
<abneri...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Martin Harran wrote:
>> Sorry, I'm interested in debating what people claim to have witnessed,
>> not some imaginary idea that nobody has claimed.
>
>Nobody claims that Jesus Christ is still alive today?

No, nobody has claimed that he was resurrected and then died again as
you suggested *could* be the case.

[Martin Harran]

I went into that and other aspects in detail here:

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/zWkX4s5_DKk/m/JVZAOZt2CwAJ

[broger...@gmail.com]

As I said already, the belief that the Quran was divinely dictated, just like the belief that the authors of the gospels are the people whose names are attached to them, is based on religious tradition.

> >Like the belief that the Quran was divinely dictated, the identification of the gospel authors with specific individuals is a matter of religious tradition, not well-documented provenance. Luke, in fact, reports that he is writing down what others told him about the events.
> He clearly found their accounts credible. He also refers to
> previously written accounts which would have been even closer to the
> time of Jesus than the Gospels as discussed above.

Sure, I'm not doubting Luke's sincerity.

>
> Another person who tends to get forgotten in these accounts is St.
> Paul. He was not an eyewitness to any of the events relating to Jesus
> but he was someone who was utterly opposed to them but he directly
> interacted with the eyewitnesses and came to believe their accounts.
> >On the other hand lots of people claim to have seen the resurrected Elvis or to have been abducted by aliens. If you are proposing a general principle of evidence that direct eyewitness accounts are more believable than written accounts of oral mythology, then the evidence for Elvis' resurrection is stronger than for Jesus's resurrection.
> I've already dealt with Elvis claims in my response to Burkhard. I
> pointed out one piece of circumstantial evidence is only of value when
> it is supported by other evidence.

It's not one piece of circumstantial evidence. There are multiple sightings by multiple people.

>Jesus foretold his Resurrection,
> I'm not aware of Elvis doing that.

The evidence we have is that in a book written decades AFTER the events, Jesus is reported to have predicted the events. Fulfilled prophesies are not particularly convincing when the documentation of the prophesy occurs after the event foretold.

>There is also the question of
> significance - the Resurrection opens up a whole new vista and sense
> of purpose but sightings of Elvis just lead to "so what, even if it
> were true?"

That's irrelevant to the quality of the evidence. If anything, it's a point against the evidence, since it means that one would have a stronger tendency to overlook weakness in the evidence for in Jesus' case since his resurrection would be so much more meaningful.

>
> Another factor that comes into it is that to the best of my limited
> knowledge, nobody who has claimed to see Elvis knew him intimately
> when he was still alive; those whom the Gospels state to have seen
> Jesus were people who were very close to Jesus before his crucifixion,
> spending several years in his company. I would regard them as somewhat
> more credible than some housewife who never even met Elvis but is
> convinced that she saw him filling his tank at her local petrol
> station.

If you are then basing the evidence on what you might expect from people who knew Jesus intimately, then you have to explain why several of them did not recognize him. You've offered the explanation that Jesus looked different (in essence) and was not easily recognizable at first. That's fine, but it essentially means that his appearance renders eye witness testimony unreliable.

> >If you are willing to accept the accounts of miracles in old religious texts as evidence for those miracles, then miracles reported in many religions are as well (or poorly) evidenced as those in your particular religion.
> I keep hearing that but it seems odd to me that nobody has referred to
> evidence that is comparable to the evidence in the Gospels.

Please lay out a general set of criteria which you use to evaluate claims of miraculous events. Otherwise "comparable to the evidence in the gospels" simply means "comparably conformable to my preferred religious beliefs".

[Abner]

Martin Harran wrote:
> No, nobody has claimed that he was resurrected and then died again as
> you suggested *could* be the case.

*sighs* I give up. You don't seem to get the point of what I said no matter how many times I restate it in various ways.

Just please stop falsely claiming that I said anything about the Resurrection - I didn't - and I will call it even.

[Mark Isaak]

>> First,
>> as Burkhard posted, the existence of leprechauns has been taken
>> seriously in historical times. Second and more important is the "etc."
>> I included in my original comment. The standard of evidence that "I
>> believe it because an anonymous source said it, and someone else wrote
>> it down" could also be applied, off the top of my head, to thunderbirds,
>> chupacabras, Bigfoot, ET aliens, witches, dragons, kobolds, mermaids.
>> No doubt anthropologists could extend the list to thousands of items.
>

> The Gospels have been extensively studied for over 2000 years by
> thousands of scholars from a wide range of backgrounds, some religious
> and some secular; they, along with the rest of the Bible, are probably
> the most studied ever piece of literature. There is clearly a lack of
> consensus in many areas of them but that doesn't change the fact that
> they are a serious and significant body of work.

Tales of Coyote, the North American trickster, have also been
extensively studied and are a serious and significant body of work.
They are mainly an oral tradition so were not written down until
recently, but some of them probably are older than the Gospels. That
the study of Coyote tales is not as extensive as that of the Gospels
owes mainly to vagaries of history, especially of conquests and spread
of technology, and cannot easily be laid on the relative merits of the
stories. Coyote, after all, is another character who has resurrected.

> You attempt to trivialise them by seeking to present them in the same
> category as leprechauns, bunyips and Santa Claus.

On the contrary, in terms of value as evidence, the Gospels are
*exactly* in the same category as leprechauns, bunyips, and mermaids.
(Santa Claus was a poor choice as an example, being much *much* too
complicated.) I emphasize that my entire argument is and has been *in
terms of value as evidence*. I do not dispute in the least that the
Gospels have a great deal of value in other terms, especially religious
terms.

When you claim the Gospels as evidence, *you* implicitly bring in the
myriad other folklore traditions and raise the question of why only that
one, out of thousands, should qualify as evidence. It makes no sense to
me that your favorite religion deserves extraordinary epistemological
consideration that others don't. I have not seen anything from you to
help make sense of it.

> That doesn't make
> any "larger point" - it simply shows your antagonism towards religious
> belief and the futility of trying to have a rational debate with you
> on religious issues.

I think your problem with me (in this case) is not my antagonism towards
religion, but my appreciation of more than one religion, and of
non-religious abstract ideas too.

I suggest you consider, in addition to the question I mention two
paragraphs up, exactly what the values of the Gospels are, and where
value as evidence ranks on the list.