Toto

In what way is dehydration at all similar to "lacking evidence of a historical Jesus?"

You can't live without water, but you can live very well with uncertainty about the historical Jesus.

ApostateAbe

Dehydration would correspond to the position of no historical conclusions about Jesus. If one values knowledge, then we can arrive at relative probabilistic conclusions using the best criteria of historical analysis (leaky buckets). If you do not value knowledge, or if you accept positions of uncertainty as a form of knowledge, then of course you don't need criteria, and you don't have to think of it as dehydration--you can be content with that position. There are a lot of us who do value relative probabilistic conclusions of history and other empirical fields, however (I don't think there is any other form of knowledge), and that is why I would compare the postmodernistic uncertainty to dehydration.

Solo

Well, as a former small businessperson - I understand what's going on, I think, in the business community. And businesspeople around the country are looking at all the spending and all the debt. They're looking at all the policies coming out of this Congress and this administration the last two years, and they - it's created all this uncertainty.

John Boehner

Some philoisophers evidently cannot find certainty except by giving up on syntax altogether

Jiri

aa5874

Well, the abundance of evidence of antiquity support the probabilistic conclusion that Jesus was a myth fable like the myth fables of the Greeks and Romans.

After all, Justin Martyr and his opponent Trypho the Jew did agree that the Jesus story was NOTHING different to myth fables. See "Dialogue with Trypho" and "First Aplology" by Justin Martyr.

beallen041

Are you troubled by the postmodernistic uncertainty regarding the kings of Rome, or Lycurgus of Sparta?

ApostateAbe

I am not troubled in either case. Be explicit with your argument, and I will be able to better explain.

Toto

Abe - suppose that you are accused of a crime and you are on trial. The prosecution proves that you are the most probable person who could have committed the crime, but the evidence that you did is very weak. Should you be convicted?

Or, if the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt complicates that example, suppose you are being sued by a giant corporation for a lot of money. They can show that someone signed a contract and owes them money, and you are the most probable person who might have done that, but the probability is only about 10%. Should the court order you to pay the corporation?

Or should the court recognize that the evidence is insufficient to support a verdict?

Why is the evidence for a historical Jesus different?

ApostateAbe

I would have to say, "No." Criminal convictions, as you know, require certainty "beyond a reasonable doubt."
For civil trials, the burden for liability is "preponderance of the evidence," which is satisfied when the proposition has a probability of more than 50%, so the verdict would be no liability, because the certainty is insufficient--10% is well below 50%.
The preponderance of the evidence does very well to support the proposition of a historical Jesus, well above 50% certainty.

aa5874

The is NOT so at all. There is NO source for an historical man/woman who lived in Nazareth was baptized by John and was crucified under Pilate.

We have MYTH fables about the Child of a Ghost, God Incarnate that was born in Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth, baptized by John when the Holy Ghost descended on him like a dove, was on the pinnacle of the Temple with Satan, and that the Ghost Child WALKED on water, TRANSFIGURED, RESURRECTED and ASCENDED in a cloud.

The PREPONDERANCE of evidence suggests Jesus was a MYTH fable that was BELIEVED by people of antiquity just like Christians BELIEVED Marcion's Phantom was a figure of history even without birth and flesh and still worshiped as the Son of a God.

Toto

But it doesn't. You don't have a way of measuring the probability, or even estimating it. That's the point of Richard Carrier's attempt to use Baysian statistics. All of your estimates of probability are subjective, and come down to arguments from your personal incredulity. You can't even disprove aa's contrary estimates of probability.