This is an offshoot of a question that Layman never answered. Here it is:

Polycarp said he would accept such miracles, with evidence. However, that struck me as similar to the creationist who tells the school board that he would accept Hindu creationism in the schools as well, in the interest of equal time, if only he could bring in Duane Gish. And then, of course, the creationist howling loudly when his christian children are forced to listen to the heathen preaching the Hindu religion to them.

But basically, the question still stands.

And I'll ad this second one as well:

Given the amazing nature of the resurrection claim, why should any evidence short of strong, independent, testable evidence be accepted here? If amazing claims require amazing proof, and if this is one of the most amazing claims in history, then shouldn't the proof be likewise staggering in nature?

We have tremendous proof for the accuracy of C14 dating, the age of the earth, and the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum. Yet this claim, if true, would be so much more phenomenal than any of these three. Why? Because these three claims are harmonious with the universe as we know it. But the resurrection claim would run contrary to the known character of the universe.

SO:
Given that fact, shouldn't the evidence for a resurrection be at least as solid as the evidence for these three things?

Not true. If the question being asked is "did these miracles and magic actually happen" then only an idiot would start off by assuming they didn't. More commonly when dealing with biblical texts that question is ignored. The question that gets asked is "Given that these miraculous events didn't happen, what really did?". Such a question is sensible in dealing with figures like Alexander the Great or Pythagoras or Apollonius, because no one questions the first assumption. But when the answer to the question is assumed at the beginning, (as it all to often is) then this is rightly deserving of criticism. For example, that website on the evidence for the exodus which you gave me in another thread did exactly this. It started off: given that the Bible's account of the exodus is not fact but rather a story made up centuries later based on a general historical theme, when would the historical theme which the story is derived from most likely be dated? What it is obviously not doing is answering the basic question of: Did the exodus happen as the Bible says it did? The answer "no" is assumed and things go from there.

Strong and testable in what way. I think it's strong and testable, but I may well be giving a different definition to these rather vague words. Independent??? Ah yes, independent. I say we have multiple independent accounts of the ressurection. You can disagree if you like...

C14 dating accurate??? Yeah sure.
The age of the earth? Do you mean we have evidence that the earth has an age?
The speed of light in a vacuum? As far I'm aware a complete vacuum has never been achieved.

If you were to tell me what the speed of light in a vacuum was I certainly couldn't say whether that was harmonious with the universe as I know it. I take it you mean that these claims use evidence which falls under the "Scientific Method". All well and good, but it's difficult to apply the "Scientific Method" to History, it only happens once by nature.

No. The experiment is not repeatable. It isn't Science. Don't compare it with Science because it isn't. It's History. Compare it with History if you wish. Clear?

Patently false. If someone told you that green men in a silver flying saucer landed last night, you are NOT going to give them the benefit of the doubt. You're going to think they're kooky, or on drugs.


Testable in that you can set up a test, one that is falsifiable, and observe the results.
Strong in the sense that the particular proofs are independent and have stood the test of rigorous investigation over time.

I think it's strong and testable, but I may well be giving a different definition to these rather vague words. Independent??? Ah yes, independent. I say we have multiple independent accounts of the ressurection. You can disagree if you like...


Do you have a specific complaint about c14 dating?
If so, bring it forth.

However, c14 dating has been independently verified by over 100,000 separate tests in the last 50-60 years. So it had better be good.


Yep.


Just curious: how old are you?

Of course you could. You could re-run the experiment 10,000 times, make observations, and hypothesize about the results. If your conclusions were proven out by the experimentation, hat would be the evidence that it was harmonious with the universe.


And again, another person who misunderstands the scientific method.

The repeatability requirement of the scientific method only applies to the repeatability of the results from your experiement. The event you are studying does not have to be repeatable. If that were the case, then we could not use the scientific method to study the Revolutionary War.


See the above.


[This message has been edited by Omnedon1 (edited March 20, 2001).]

I am generally skeptical of claims to miracles, whether made by Christians or others. However, provide me with historical evidence of miracles comparable to those I set forth in my post on Jesus, the Miracle-Worker, and then we can have ourselves a real discussion.

I look forward to it.

I already did, in that thread. I provided both historical and modern evidence.

Omnedon, simply reference that thread and read my posts about Wei Po-yang and Sai Baba.

More on Wei is coming....


Michael

Why should we give you historical miracles, when you yourself have not given us any?

Oh, wait do you mean to tell me that the Gospels alone give "historical" evidence of the ressurection? Bwah-ha-ha-ha. They were written by followers of Jesus and are therefore suspiciously biased. That would be attributable to reading (and quoting as evidence) stuff written by a surviving Branch Dividian who says they saw David Koresh after the fires at Waco.

Who else has written about the ressurection of Jesus?

Quite a few countries, people wrote about Hitler. And his death.
Quite a few countries, people wrote about Ghandi. And his death.

Where is this "historical evidence" of resurrection of which you speak?

[This message has been edited by isa457 (edited March 20, 2001).]

I never denied there were many ancient reports of miracles. But you offered no discussion of the criteria I did. Embarrassment, dissimilarity, mutliple attestation, coherence, etc.

Well, I was referring his miracle working. If you want to see my discussion of it, then check out the Jesus, Miracle Worker thread.

Let's repeat the question for Layman's benefit:

Given the amazing nature of the resurrection claim, why should any evidence short of strong, independent, testable evidence be accepted here? If amazing claims require amazing proof, and if this is one of the most amazing claims in history, then shouldn't the proof be likewise staggering in nature?

We have tremendous proof for the accuracy of C14 dating, the age of the earth, and the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum. Yet this claim, if true, would be so much more phenomenal than any of these three. Why? Because these three claims are harmonious with the universe as we know it. But the resurrection claim would run contrary to the known character of the universe.

SO:
Given that fact, shouldn't the evidence for a resurrection be at least as solid as the evidence for these three things?

The question is inapposite. The nature of a scientific constant, such as the speed of light, is incomparable to a one time historical event, such as the resurrection of Jesus.

[This message has been edited by Layman (edited March 20, 2001).]