Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 03-19-2010, 02:37 PM

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Originally Posted by arnoldo

The supernatural claim would be the prophetic utterance of the capture of Jerusalem in the 60’s.

One correct prediction is not supernatural.

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A researcher could then determine that this was either an anachronism (dating the text post 1967) and/ or an interpolation of an earlier text.

This is generally only possible in a larger context. E.g., there are many correct "predictions" up until a certain date, and then the predictions become inaccurate. We can then conclude that the document was written just at the time when the predictions became inaccurate.

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Once establishing this fact the researcher could use various methodologies to attempt to determine if there was a historical core for this character or if she was entirely legendary.

We've been looking for those methodologies for most of the past decade. It's like putting on a barrel and looking for an honest man on K Street.

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Researches use the same methodologies when determining if legendary persons (with alleged supernatural attributes) , such as King Arthur, Santa Claus, etc, have historical roots as when they examine uncontested historical persons such as Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar.

What methodologies? Generally researchers look for corroborating evidence.

arnoldo, sometimes it's not clear if you are trying to be funny, or writing satire, or what. Is this post serious?

Johnny Skeptic · 03-19-2010, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Once establishing this fact the researcher could use various methodologies to attempt to determine if there was a historical core for this character or if she was entirely legendary.

Ok, for the sake of argument, a man named Abraham existed. Please provide the methodologies that you used to determine that the Partition of Palestine in 1948 was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. You do know what a self-fulfilled prophecy is, don't you?

arnoldo · 03-19-2010, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Researches use the same methodologies when determining if legendary persons (with alleged supernatural attributes) , such as King Arthur, Santa Claus, etc, have historical roots as when they examine uncontested historical persons such as Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar.

What methodologies? Generally researchers look for corroborating evidence.

There are many, such as the following;

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Argument from analogy

The structure of the argument is as follows:[14]
One thing (object, event, or state of affairs) has properties p1 . . . pn and pn + 1.
Another thing has properties p1 . . . pn.
So the latter has property pn + 1.

McCullagh says that an argument from analogy, if sound, is either a "covert statistical syllogism" or better expressed as an argument to the best explanation. It is a statistical syllogism when it is "established by a sufficient number and variety of instances of the generalization"; otherwise, the argument may be invalid because properties 1 through n are unrelated to property n + 1, unless property n + 1 is the best explanation of properties 1 through ln. Analogy, therefore, is uncontroversial only when used to suggest hypotheses, not as a conclusive argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

In the case of the hypothetical "prophetic" person in the 1930's Soviet Union a researcher could indeed look for corroborating evidence of this person's existence (textual accounts, eye-witness accounts, relics, forensic evidence,examine oral traditions, etc) find none, and conclude no such person ever existed.

Johnny Skeptic · 03-19-2010, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

In the case of the hypothetical "prophetic" person in the 1930's Soviet Union a researcher could indeed look for corroborating evidence of this person's existence (textual accounts, eye-witness accounts, relics, forensic evidence,examine oral traditions, etc) find none, and conclude no such person ever existed.

What corroborating evidence is there that Jesus performed miracles?

arnoldo · 03-19-2010, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

In the case of the hypothetical "prophetic" person in the 1930's Soviet Union a researcher could indeed look for corroborating evidence of this person's existence (textual accounts, eye-witness accounts, relics, forensic evidence,examine oral traditions, etc) find none, and conclude no such person ever existed.

What corroborating evidence is there that Jesus performed miracles?

What evidence is there that the mind is not immaterial?

Johnny Skeptic · 03-19-2010, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

What corroborating evidence is there that Jesus performed miracles?

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

What evidence is there that the mind is not immaterial?

Indeed, what evidence is there that Jesus' miracles were not immaterial?

Toto · 03-19-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

What methodologies? Generally researchers look for corroborating evidence.

There are many, such as the following;

Quote:

Argument from analogy

The structure of the argument is as follows:[14]
One thing (object, event, or state of affairs) has properties p1 . . . pn and pn + 1.
Another thing has properties p1 . . . pn.
So the latter has property pn + 1.

McCullagh says that an argument from analogy, if sound, is either a "covert statistical syllogism" or better expressed as an argument to the best explanation. It is a statistical syllogism when it is "established by a sufficient number and variety of instances of the generalization"; otherwise, the argument may be invalid because properties 1 through n are unrelated to property n + 1, unless property n + 1 is the best explanation of properties 1 through ln. Analogy, therefore, is uncontroversial only when used to suggest hypotheses, not as a conclusive argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

This does not seem to be applicable here.

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In the case of the hypothetical "prophetic" person in the 1930's Soviet Union a researcher could indeed look for corroborating evidence of this person's existence (textual accounts, eye-witness accounts, relics, forensic evidence,examine oral traditions, etc) find none, and conclude no such person ever existed.

Are you assuming that the Soviet government of the time had the physical ability to remove all the evidence of this person's existence? What do you actually know about how the Soviets of the time worked? Do you think that the government of the Roman Empire had one percent of the power that the Soviet Union did?

Do you really think that your hypothetical sheds any light on Biblical history?

And once again, is this serious? How can we tell?

arnoldo · 03-19-2010, 09:05 PM

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Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

What corroborating evidence is there that Jesus performed miracles?

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

What evidence is there that the mind is not immaterial?

Indeed, what evidence is there that Jesus' miracles were not immaterial?

You mean that there could have been RDA between this person and the rest of humanity?

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Originally Posted by radical_logic

RDA: There probably could have existed naturally relevant differences (e.g. physiological, technological, etc) between Jesus and the rest of humanity that would have enabled Jesus to rise naturally.

arnoldo · 03-19-2010, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

In the case of the hypothetical "prophetic" person in the 1930's Soviet Union a researcher could indeed look for corroborating evidence of this person's existence (textual accounts, eye-witness accounts, relics, forensic evidence,examine oral traditions, etc) find none, and conclude no such person ever existed.

Are you assuming that the Soviet government of the time had the physical ability to remove all the evidence of this person's existence? What do you actually know about how the Soviets of the time worked? Do you think that the government of the Roman Empire had one percent of the power that the Soviet Union did?

Do you really think that your hypothetical sheds any light on Biblical history?

Some MJ'ers believe that there are anachronistic examples in the NT, the hypothetical you are asking about can also be discredited by alleging a late date of authorship, anachronism/interpolations ,etc. See below;

Quote:

The supernatural claim would be the prophetic utterance of the capture of Jerusalem in the 60’s. A researcher could then determine that this was either an anachronism (dating the text post 1967) and/ or an interpolation of an earlier text. Once establishing this fact the researcher could use various methodologies to attempt to determine if there was a historical core for this character or if she was entirely legendary.

PhilosopherJay · 03-19-2010, 10:05 PM

Hi Arnoldo,

Photo tampering has been the norm since the beginning of photographic history. This was and is a routine practice in all political magazines and newspapers and is still done on a regular basis. This website shows evidence of this fact. It seems to have been pretty standard practice to erase unwanted people from photographs in the 1920's and 1930's throughout the world. The site includes a photograph of the Canadian Prime Minister with the British Queen, the British King was erased.

In fact, Trotsky was frequently mentioned in the 1930's in Soviet books and newspapers and denounced for his left wing communist views.

During the 1950's the names of blacklisted writers was taken off movie credits. For example, The name of Albert Maltz, who had written the original screenplay for The Robe in the mid-1940s, was nowhere to be seen when the movie was released in 1953.

The 2007 film "Redacted" ended with a montage of people who had been killed or mutilated in the war in Iraq. The montage was redacted. It was illegal in the United States to show dead American soldiers or even their coffins during the Bush years. The dead were erased so the cheerful propaganda for the war could continue unhampered by reality.

Currently the Texas School Board is rewriting their history books to eliminate Thomas Jefferson's secular liberal democratic philosophy. He is still named as a president, but apparently his role in writing the declaration of independence has been erased.

Extreme censorship in religious history is the norm rather than the exception. The Catholic Church denied that it had burned the Philosopher Giordano Bruno at the stake in 1600 for over two hundred years. It only released the official records of his torture and execution in the 19th century.

Here's an article about Kay Summersby, who was apparently General Dwight Eisenhower's mistress, "Her face was censored from the official photo taken by Technical Sgt. Al Meserlin, Ike's personal photographer, on that May morning in 1945 when the Germans surrendered at the red-brick schoolhouse in Reims, France." She became a nonperson too.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Surely the criteria for evaluating supernatural history require more evidence than the criteria for evaluating secular history.

I disagree that there is a different logic of truth between materialistic claims and immaterialistic claims. Mortimer Adler writes;

For example studies are currently being pursed by different disciplines to determine if the mind is immaterial or material.

Now, if a person was making supernatural claims in the 1930’s in Moscow that she was a savior of humankind that person probably would’ve ended up in an institution or killed. If fortunate, she may’ve had a trial/evaluation of some kind and asked to give a sign of her miraculous powers, judged to harmless and released. However, if she “disappeared” to Siberia or some other fate it may be extremely difficult to determine whether she was a historical person or not. See below;

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The Stalin-era Soviet Union also provided real-world examples of unpersons in its treatment of Leon Trotsky and other members of the Communist party who became politically inconvenient.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unperson

Nevertheless this charismatic woman allegedly had disciples that began to write her sayings including such audacious claims that another world war would break out eventually leading to the establishment of the State of Israel in the 1940's with Jerusalem eventually being captured temporarily in the late 60's . Now, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov, who more tolerant than Stalin, allowed this cult to spread judging it to be an opiate for the masses. However, by the 70’s the KGB began to see this cult as a threat. To discredit this cult they claimed that there was no charismatic woman leader in the 30’s who claimed to have prophetic powers. In fact , the KGB claimed all of these religious writing were written post 1967.

Fast forward to 2010, how would a university graduate student determine what actually happened?

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