freetrader

Responses to Solo:


Very few Christians read anything written by Paul before 100 AD, long after the Jesus miracle stories were already popular. Very few knew that Paul existed. He was not a famous figure in the 1st century and not recognized by Christians generally. He had his limited circle of followers. It was only later that he became famous.

The notion that Paul created Christianity and the Christian belief system is a gross exaggeration.

Had his epistles not become canonized it's quite possible that he would have been totally lost to history and had virtually no influence at all. You cannot credit him with shaping the Christian belief system in the first century or establishing the resurrection story or any other of the reported Jesus events.


People don't have "visions" about a nobody. You have to give them a recognized hero to have visions about. The Jesus figure was not any recognized hero figure in the first century, outside the gospel accounts or the oral tradition containing those accounts which include the miracle stories.

Remove that and he is a nobody nothing irrelevant empty suit that meant nothing to anyone. To say masses of people would spontaneously start having "visions" about a nobody and acknowledge this nothing as "Lord" is ludicrous.


The miracle healings are also mentioned in the Q Document, independent of the Mark stories and probably just as early, so Mark cannot be the originator. Further, who was Mark writing about? Why would Mark be writing such stories about a nobody? Why would anyone want to read such stories? If you're going to create miracle allegories, you would assign these miracles to someone with recognition and standing, not a nobody.

This was the first century! Not 20th-century America where Jesus is a recognized hero. You have to put yourself back into their shoes 1900 years ago to try to explain what they did and why they wrote these stories and mythologized this unknown unrecognized figure.


Bingo! That's the only explanation that makes any sense. It's not just Paul and Luke, but also Matthew and Mark, which are too close in wording to Paul. The only explanation is that there was a common oral tradition, or common written account(s) they all relied on. And so it is nonsense to suggest that any one of them invented the "last supper" scene -- it already existed and was circulating, and probably most of the other gospel narratives as well.

There's little reason to believe the gospel writers took anything from Paul -- he was not a general recognized authority for them. His epistles did not become popularized until many decades later. There were probably several other "Apostle Pauls" evangelizing and traveling and starting up new Christian communities and writing letters to churches.

Just because Paul is the one they eventually made into the famous apostle does not mean he was really unique before 100 AD. If he had gotten killed in an accident in 40 AD, they would have chosen a different evangelist to play his role as theologian -- St. Simon or St. Joel or something -- and that's whose epistles they'd be reading devoutly every Sunday in Church. Otherwise everything would be the same.


Paul is just trying to assert his authority when he makes those claims -- we all know he got his information from the same oral or written sources that everyone else did. It's only as a theologian that he can make any claim to uniqueness. It is silly to take Paul literally that he got his information about Jesus directly from God. Get serious!

As I pointed out before, when Paul talks about the resurrection, he is giving INTERPRETATION of a reputed event which his audience is already familiar with. You have to be a fool to think his audience never heard of the resurrection of Jesus before Paul spoke of it. HE DID NOT INVENT THIS IDEA!

They were already familiar with the general biographical information on Jesus because there was an oral and probably written tradition circulating which contained most of what we have in the synoptic gospel accounts, including the miracle healings and the resurrection.


This is also in Mt. 10:10. It might have been an earlier saying they all picked up, like a proverb. The "scripture" doesn't have to be the Luke text but could be something earlier.


You're reading too much into 2:2. There's no contradiction. You need to stop taking so seriously Paul's claim to direct revelation from God. His biographical information on Jesus obviously comes from the oral/written sources in circulation at the time. He did not have any unique direct pipeline to God. He had some original theological or christological ideas of his own -- that's all.

Doug Shaver

OK, they didn't tell you that. So, what your logic professors teach you about what to believe when people tell you what they experienced?

I've had three logic classes in college, by the way. I'll be very interested in comparing what your professors told you with what mine told me.

Amaleq13

Cops, lawyers, and psychologists know how inherently unreliable eyewitness testimony is but you need to learn the difference between eyewitness testimony and anecdotal evidence in order to reduce your confusion.

Recognizing the inherent unreliability of anecdotal evidence and refusing to accept it without support is different from simply denying the claim. Why not focus on what I'm actually arguing rather than this silly straw man? Too difficult?

Please return to your professors and specifically ask them about the reliability of anecdotal evidence. Quick before you buy one of those copper bracelets that improve your golf game or one of those "fast defrost" cookie sheets!!!!

Only when that is all it is and, for your magical Jesus, that is all you've got.

No, the accounts in the Christian Bible are claims that require support in order to obtain credibility. You don't appear to understand the difference between "evidence" and "claim". As a result, you are engaging in the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. Considering a claim evidence for the claim should be an obvious error even to someone who only took two classes logic.


For mundane claims, one's standards need not be so high as for claims of magical powers or astounding feats that seem to defy physics.

Your knowledge of history appears to be as inadequate as your comprehension of logic.

Again, you do not appear to understand what "anecdotal evidence" represents. Please educate yourself before continuing.

Go here and learn something: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphi...s/premise.html

Specifically search for "anecdotal" if you don't have the time to read the entire page. Even more specifically, focus on the answers to the question: "What is the difference between anecdotal and other sorts of evidence?"

And ask for you money back from whatever school failed to teach you logic despite completing two courses.

Or you could take what I've actually been arguing and recognize that anecdotal evidence is inherently unreliable and requires support to be considered credible. Increasing the number of inherently unreliable anecdotes cannot provide any amount of credibility to a claim.

Please note that I have never argued that the claims about Jesus were false!! I have only argued that they lack sufficient support to be considered credible. Pay attention!

The difficulties you might have in trying to make the claims seem credible is not my problem. Pick easier claims to support.

The medical profession has more than unsubstantiated gossip to support it. Unless you consider witch doctors part of the medical profession.

I will add "modern medicine" to the list along with "logic" and "history". I think you are going to need a library card.

Yes, there are many claims of efficacy but, to my knowledge, none have managed to pass any objective testing by uninvolved scientists.

If that claim is true, they are not relying on anecdotal evidence for support. Please educate yourself about the terms you are trying to use.

Only when those claims lack objective support and, instead, rely on anecdotal evidence.

The facts that are apparently contradicted by any claim of miraculous or magical power. Duh. :banghead:

Do I need to add "physics" to the list?

Spontaneous remission of cancer is not the same as Jesus really healing someone by some sort of magical power.

Spontaneous remission of cancer is a known fact.

Confirmed cases of spontaneous remission of cancer are not anecdotal. They are supported by all of the data obtained throughout the patient's interaction with the medical profession.

If, on the other hand, we have a villager in rural China claiming that, without having ever seen a doctor a) he diagnosed that he had cancer and b) subsequently recovered after eating a donkey's ear, we are presented with an example of anecdotal evidence that should not be accepted as true without support. And that holds true even if his entire village supports his anecdotal evidence with their own.

Do you really not see the difference?

Nobody said they should. You need to read more carefully.

They might be true but you need more than just unsupported claims to establish that.

freetrader

Response to Toto:


No, the reasonable approach is to say we don't know, and beyond that we can take a stab at estimating the probability of a particular miracle claim being true. It's reasonable to say a miracle story is less probable, all else being equal. But its probability increases as the number of reported witnesses increases.

I have already given examples of possible events which would include no "miracle" element but which would be LESS probable than a miracle event.

For example, in the case of the Jesus miracle healings, it is possible that there was a conspiracy to pay the patients to do an act, or to hire actors to pretend to be a leper or blind person etc. and go through a healing scenario. There could have been an elaborate scheme to have these paid actors take the place of some real afflicted victims, perhaps even killing the real victim and have the actor made up to look like the original person, like a duplicate, and so on, in order to convince people who had known this victim earlier.

Perhaps some of the acquaintances of the healed victim would also be murdered and replaced by the duplicates who would then claim to be witnesses to the wondrous healing change that had taken place to the victim.

And so on. Such a conspiracy would not be a "miracle" because the natural explanation could be understood -- there would be no conflict with mainline science.

And yet, such a conspiracy is highly unlikely. It is possible -- you cannot rule it out as absolutely impossible, but only as highly improbable. Whereas the possibility of a real miracle healing as the explanation for what happened to the victim, though improbable, would actually have a higher probability than the elaborate conspiracy scenario which was not a miracle.

So you can't just rule out "miracles" as having zero probability -- they have to be given a low probability, but still a probability higher than some unlikely but possible non-miracle explanations.

Furthermore, sometimes a possibility that has less than 50% probability is accepted as a real possibility and is even acted upon. Some medical procedures have less than a 50% chance of success and yet are tried anyway. So even if something is less than 50% probable, one may consider it as a reasonable possibility without insisting that it has to be true or that it is a certainty.

Just because a certain kind of event is improbable doesn't mean ALL the reputed cases of it have to be fiction. It only means that each case is less probable than if the improbable element had not been there.


The healing acts of Jesus need not have violated any "laws of nature." All you can say is that acts of this kind are improbable, i.e., highly unusual or irregular.

But even a very unusual kind of act might rise up to the "probable" category if there is a sufficient number of reputed witnesses and accounts of the acts or of other similar reputed events.

There is no proof that such acts cannot happen or have never happened, even if some similar reputed events were proven false or if for some a plausible alternative explanation can be offered. Where plausible alternative explanations are not found and there were numerous witnesses or accounts of the reputed event, then the "miracle" claim becomes more credible.

Toto

You are just wrong on your probabilities. More reports of a miraculous event do not increase its probability, which is still 0.

spamandham

Does that include:

1. The number of witnesses of leprechauns
2. The number of witnesses of fairies
3. The number of witnesses of aliens
3.1 ...big foot
3.2 ...nessie
3.3 ...etc
4. The number of witnesses Joseph Smith had
5. The number of witnesses that saw Chris Angel walk on water
6. The number of witnesses at Madjugorie
7. The number of witnesses of Islamic and Hindu miracles

?

freetrader

Amaleq13:


The wide reputation before 100 AD of Jesus as a miracle healer cannot be explained easily without assuming that those healing acts did take place. Several responders here have tried to give an explanation, but they always have to assume that a mythologizing process took place which is totally different than that of all other reputed miracle-workers and so have to assume a completely unprecedented event (mythologizing process).

In all the other cases it is easy to recognize and explain the process of how the hero is mythologized into a miracle-worker figure, whereas in the case of Jesus there is no plausible explanation for the process. And so the case of Jesus has to be a unique one-of-a-kind example unlike any other in history.

When your explanation is this unlikely, it becomes more improbable than the simple explanation that the miracle acts did really happen.

So since the miracles having actually taken place best explains what we know happened, this explanation really is "necessary" in the sense that there is no other explanation as plausible as this one. Of course you can imagine some explanation, as I have described before, of a conspiracy involving Jesus in a plot to pay actors and so on.

So other explanations are possible, but they are less likely than the explanation that those miracle healing acts actually did happen. And in this sense this explanation is "necessary" to explain all the subsequent events.

spamandham

...just as the wide reputation of Benny Hinn as we speak as a miracle healer cannot be explained easily without assuming those healing acts do actually takle place?

freetrader

Response to Solo:


I.e., the explanation for the reputation of Jesus as a miracle-worker is that the human brain is wired for a miracle-worker, and so we have to manufacture such a hero figure to serve our need.

But there are many such figures in all cultures. All of them fit a pattern, and then Jesus lies outside this pattern.

All of them were widely-recognized hero figures who amassed a large following of disciples during their lives and became mythologized by these disciples, or they became mythologized by later disciples over many centuries.

The Jews and Greeks and Romans had many of these hero figures already -- is there any reason to think this human need for miracle-working heroes was going unmet? No, there was a wide assortment of such heroes already available.

So then, why did a nobody figure suddenly get mythologized into a miracle-worker savior for no apparent reason? The psychological need for such heroes was already being met, and this new figure had no recognition, no reputation during his life, and no long career and no large following of disciples (outside possibly a few direct followers, but none others, while all the others had a wide reputation far beyond their small group of direct followers).

No such other figure exists in any other culture, even though the psychological need for a miracle-worker is universal, not limited to just the Jewish or the Greek-Roman world.

So why does this one figure stand out as the world's most widely-reputed miracle-worker? During his life and right after his death he was of no repute at all, outside a very small following of direct disciples only. And yet from this state of obscurity he becomes the most famous of them all in less than 100 years.

All the others began with a wide reputation and thousands (or at least hundreds) of admirers. But over time they became disregarded or obscure, like Vespasion and Apollonius and Asclepius (lasted for a few centuries), or in a few cases, like Buddha and Krishna, more miracle acts were attributed to them over many centuries and they're still going strong.

But none of them popped into history suddenly and got quickly snuffed out leaving them no time to amass a following and having left behind no long career and no status from which to become made into a deity figure.

So why should some such obscure figure become the one to satisfy the psychological need for miracles, rather than these other well-established figures with long distinguished careers? So the psychological need explanation doesn't really address our specific question here.

Toto

You miss the point. The psychological need for heros is never completely met. This particular hero (Jesus) was imagined as someone who came from humble circumstances because of the needs and desires of that time.