Kate Long (KL): I don't know who originated that saying but it is a common-sense criterion…

ChristianSkeptic (CS): But we are not discussing a common-sense everyday event. We are discussing an historical question, which obviously common sense in not used as a criterion in providing an answer.

So will you please stop repeating that mantra.

KL: For example, if someone finishes a phone call and says, "That was my mother on the phone," you would probably believe it. On the other hand, if someone says, "That was the Virgin Mary on the phone," wouldn't you think the person was probably nuts? In these two cases, though, you have exactly the same amount of evidence, namely one person's say-so.

CS: Not exactly since neither assertion occurs in a social-religious void. Must people already have enough background knowledge to dismiss or laugh along with the Virgin Mary claim.

KL: CS, I thought you were avoiding this forum.

CS: You have no good reason to think that I have been “avoiding this forum.”

I get the impression that you and other "infidels" I have dialogued with (in my old Euthrypho for atheists thread) are desperately trying to score points on me since your moral beliefs were demonstrably shown to be irrational at best and delusional at worst.

I suggest that you stop taking our discussion so personally.

If not, please see my old thread Claims of proof of resurrection (from a post by MAS).

CS: I have plenty of “old” posts in other “old” threads (including threads that you started), and an old thread of my own A Euthrypho type dilemma for atheists?, where you have lots of posts to reply to.

KL: It contains links to rebuttals to an article you once asked me to read.

CS: It’s simply unreasonable for you to think that I will provide a rebuttal to each of those five links. I am willing to defend my link and its claims if you will defend your links and its claims.

Thus far only one person, Individual, has provided a rebuttal to my link and his response is so weak that I will let the link speak for itself.

Originally posted by ChristianSkeptic:
You did say something to that effect when I origially pointed you to my thread on claims of proof of resurrection, after I first created it. Maybe "avoid" isn't the right word, but you said something to the effect that you weren't interested in participating because other theists here were doing a better job than you could, or something to that effect.

As for our discussions in the Moral Foundations & Principles Forum, I still do intend to get back to you after I finish my discussion with bd-from-kg. I don't have enough time for too many heavy-duty philosophical discussions of that kind all at once. My responses to bd-from-kg in that forum take me literally all day to write, when I write them.


[This message has been edited by Kate Long (edited April 26, 2001).]

Originally posted by ChristianSkeptic:
If I'm not mistaken, historians do in fact use this criterion. The more improbable something is, the more evidence is required to consider it credible.

Kate Long: The other URL's you gave me here pertain to debates that are mainly about other matters entirely, such as the existence of God.

ChristianSkeptic: Not exactly. Since Dr. Craig also includes the historical case of the resurrection of Jesus. For a nice bite size of his case see the following essay @

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html

KL: …though the evidence might be conceivably be adequate to establish at least the probable existence of a man named Jesus and some mundane assertions about his life.

CS: What else do you expect from history?
How do you know that Caesar was assassinated?

KL: If I'm not mistaken, historians do in fact use this criterion. The more improbable something is, the more evidence is required to consider it credible.

CS: Let me be more specific and on topic the best explanation as to why you would consider the resurrection of Jesus improbable would be if you presuppose that miracles do not happen and that the Christian God does not exist.

Also, I am sure that an historian would not simply appeal to “common sense” as the basis of an historical fact. They may appeal to common knowledge of facts, but not just common sense.


[This message has been edited by ChristianSkeptic (edited April 26, 2001).]

ChristianSkeptic: Not exactly. Since Dr. Craig also includes the historical case of the resurrection of Jesus. For a nice bite size of his case see the following essay @

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html

CS, nobody has responded to your link because Craig's work is the usual collection of assertions, non-points and deliberate misconstruals of history. For example:

Consider this passage below:

According to Professor Sherwin-White, the sources for Roman history are usually biased and removed at least one or two generations or even centuries from the events they record. Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence what really happened. He chastises NT critics for not realizing what invaluable sources they have in the gospels. The writings of Herodotus furnish a test case for the rate of legendary accumulation, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts.

Even modest scholarship will turn up dozens of cases showing the accumulation of legends within days or weeks, and certainly within a person's lifetime (see, for example, Sai Baba, an Indian guru who has healed the sick, raised the dead, and materialized objects). Even a few days is more than enough. I could cite dozens of documented cases. Since Craig must know this, why is he writing this nonsense?

Note also the exaggeration: wipe out the hard core of historical facts. Not just graft on to it, expand it, redefine it, but "wipe it out."

If one denies that Jesus really did rise from the dead, then he must explain the disciples' belief that he did rise either in terms of Jewish influences or in terms of Christian influences.

No, she mustn't. The Middle East was a cockpit of influences from all over the Old World (does the phrased "hellenized jew" ring any bells?). Further, to take this false view is to deny human creativity and inventiveness. It's a kind of insidious enthnocentricism: the disciples were dumb, uncreative culture robots, blinkered prisoners of their own religious ideas. Who knows where the disciples got their ideas? Savior religions are very common in colonized, oppressed or economically desperate areas, from 3rd century Chinese folk religion (which came up with a Triple Godhead, a Savior cult, a Mary-and-baby figure, a paradise, a hell, and even a "pope," the Heavenly Master) to Wovoka.

If you want people to take you on, you'll have to post more wide-ranging, fair and reasonable articles than this one.

Michael


[This message has been edited by turtonm (edited April 26, 2001).]

Turtonm: Even modest scholarship will turn up dozens of cases showing the accumulation of legends within days or weeks, and certainly within a person's lifetime

ChristianSkeptic (CS): You are missing the point. The claim is not that legends do not develop within days of events etc., but that, as it was plainly stated, that legend does not “wipe out the hard core of historical facts.” The tomb was found empty [and we know at least we have a good idea where it is].

Turtonm: …The Middle East…

CS: We are not talking about the “middle east.” Also Oxford University historian Professor Sherwin-White researched this very question and did not find a “cockpit of influeneces” in the location in question.

See also. http://www.christian-thinktank.com/copycat.html

Who knows where the disciples got their ideas?

CS: If you do not know then you cannot say with good reason that they just made it up or borrowed from others.

Turtonm: If you want people to take you on..

CS: I prefer to dance with KL if you do not mind.

I’ll dance with you too if you insist.

Turtonm: you'll have to post more wide-ranging, fair and reasonable articles than this one.

CS: I have no good reason to accept your assessment.




[This message has been edited by ChristianSkeptic (edited April 26, 2001).]

Regarding the Resurrection, I've replied to you in the thread The Resurrection: cutting to the heart of the matter.

I would appreciate it very much if we could divert all further discussion of the Resurrection to that thread, so that this present thread can focus on the kinds of things that are more likely to be considered "well established historically" by scholars other than just conservative Christians.

To ChristianSkeptic:

Regarding possible Hellenistic influences on Christianity, please see PhysicsGuy's excerpts from articles by Earl Doherty (to which PhysicsGuy also provides links) in the thread How Many Myth Founders Where There?.

I'm not sure, but I think Thomas Paine first emphasized the idea. Carl Sagan popularized it.

Some theists have argued that only good evidence is needed to justify acceptance of an extraordinary claim, not unduly restrictive, extraordinary evidence. They think it is unfair to discredit a specific miracle claim (e.g., Resurrection of Jesus Christ) simply because it appears to be a miracle. The evidence should be examined without undue prejudgment. It's not fair, they say, to assert: "It's a miracle. Therefore, it could not have happened."