Tharn

You could convince me of this in an instant if you had accepted my repeated invitations to supply even a single example of a claim for which there was as much evidence yet you rejected it. But again and again you dodge it, so again and again I insist that my point stands -- unless and until you can show me an example of another blatantly unparsimonious conclusion that flies in the face of all evidence you are willing to defend as reasonable.



One more time:

How the hell am I supposed to agree or disagree with the assertion that I "assume naturalism" if you refuse again and again to tell me what it means for something to be "natural"?

OK, two more times. How the hell am I supposed to agree or disagree with the assertion that I "assume naturalism" if you refuse again and again to tell me what it means for something to be "natural"? If you are asking whether I think hominids ever engage in valid language games whose purpose is not supplying the most parsimonious empirical model of observations, then who would disagree? But you seem (and so do people, Naturalists and Supernaturalists alike, who claim to understand what they're disagreeing about when I sure don't) to say that there is a distinction internal to the empirical description game and that I am somehow on the wrong side of it because of some vague, unstated "assumption" or "dogma".

Now, I love building true descriptions -- I have a borderline unhealthy addiction to being proved right by experience. If someone tells me there's a technique I'm missing that will improve my performance at the description game, then I'm all ears. But the catch is you have to show that this new technique produces results. If all you're trying to sell is a special-pleading exemption for one arbitrary set of beliefs you hold on emotional grounds, then I'm not interested.

All primates have a tendency to wish-thinking, or denying facts which are emotionally inconvenient. It's hard enough trying to consistently implement an error-correction routine without someone trying to enshrine "follow your feelings" as an explicit rationalization!

And if I have a special rectal monkey-projecting machine, then monkeys might mysteriously fly out of my butt.

All you are doing is admitting that it's ridiculous to make plans based around the possibility that monkeys might mysteriously fly out of my butt, but saying it's not at all ridiculous to entertain the unique claims being made about the unique rectal monkey-cannon. It is unique, after all!

You're just pushing the ridiculousness around the plate so you can fool me and skip to the dessert. One defends against accusations of special pleading by showing (not asserting or speculating) that the unique circumstances are operative. Show me the resurrection machine. Show me the monkey-cannon.

Could not logically or could not probably?

All I have to show is that one induction is stronger than another. Which is how you and I and everyone form beliefs every second of every day. It does not help you one iota to extract a concession from me that Yahweh could, as a bare logical possibility have the means, motive, and opportunity to raise this (and only this + Lazarus + Dorcas) corpse from the dead. But our induction about the reliability of god-soaked "eyewitnesses" in our experience, like Joseph Smith and Rev. Moon, tell us that it is highly probable that they lie, misremember, speak allegorically etc. And our induction about the behavior of corpses in our experience, consilient with biology and physics and chemistry, is that is vanishingly improbable that one would ever come back to life.

Unreliable source says X. Multiple cast-iron sources say not X. This is all anyone has to show, about anything from whether to believe your son about whether he's been drinking when you can smell it on his breath, to whether ice cream cures cancer.

OK, three times.

How the hell am I supposed to agree or disagree with the assertion that "naturalism is true" if you refuse again and again to tell me what it means for something to be "natural"?


Four times.

How the hell am I supposed to agree or disagree with the assertion that I "assume naturalism" if you refuse again and again to tell me what it means for something to be "natural"?

I love, love, love catching those truth fish! If you have some netting technique that's going to help me catch more fish, then show it to me. But that's what I insist you do. I insist you show me that this technique works. Just as you would insist the hair-tonic salesman show you his product works, not just assert that it works.

Let's take a concrete example. There's a horrible rattling coming from my car's engine. What, specifically, are you suggesting that I do differently that will help me "catch the fish" that my "naturalistic dogma" is preventing me from trying? What non-question-begging reasons can you give me for adopting this behavior?

And no, "if voodoo curses are real, then hiring a voodoo priest to perform an exorcism is a good idea" is not evidence. It's special pleading. Show me the voodoo mechanic with a higher success rate.

I don't know what it means to "reduce things" to induction. I've already said that I don't think empirical description is the only valid language game we can play.

However, whether at time-1 a mammal is alive, at time-2 it suffers catastrophic brain damage, and then at time-2-plus-three-days that same mammal is alive, is an empirical claim. It's a claim about what we would observe. If you think there is a distinction internal to the description game that is causing me to make less reliable predictions at greater computational costs, then by all means tell me what it is! But if you are trying to sell me on "believing contrary to evidence is a good idea", then I'm not biting. And you wouldn't either, in any other topic.

Actually, I explicitly said (and you just quoted me as saying), that even given supernaturalism (whatever that means), it is true.

Even if you believe it is literally true that Jesus supernaturally (whatever that means) fed thousands from a basketful of bread and fish, you still go to the grocery store when your fridge is empty. I betcha. No "assumptions" necessary, just the observation that even in your world-description which includes unparsimonious bread-multipliers, you can't count on some random person's bare assertion or hope that there might be one lurking in your particular refrigerator this weekend.

ercatli

We are discussing at this point how I make decisions. I said I made decisions about God in a similar way to I make decisions about other things. You said I don't.

What is the "much evidence" you have for how I make decisions?

Actually, I did, but you mustn't have noticed it. I said:

"I use the word naturalism as a quick summary of much of what you say about the validity and sufficiency of observation and induction to explain the universe and human existence." I gave a reference to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Naturalism. And I linked the statement "naturalism is true" with the belief that "nomological induction is sufficient to answer the question of the resurrection".

Unfortunately, again, your missing of these clear statements means that much of what you have written was unnecessary.

This is unfortunately not so. You are defending the argument that dead men cannot possibly rise. Showing one induction to be stronger than the other would only show (if successful) that it is more probable that the resurrection didn't occur than that it did. You need to do a lot more before you prove the statement you are defending. But if you were willing to give up on that mission, we could then discuss the two inductions.

In the end, my comments last time still apply. You are not addressing the matter you are supposed to be defending, you are basing your arguments on unproven assumptions, and really (I'm sorry) nothing was new this time.

I think I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Larkin31

I have read most of JD Crossan. He spends a good bit of time explaining the the criteria he uses for excepting and/or rejecting certain information. Do you find him helpful?

ercatli

Tharn

Regarding "natural" and "naturalism", I was thinking overnight that I should have spelt things out a little bit more, in case it wasn't that you missed my statements, but that you didn't understand them. I said:

So please allow me to elaborate on these a little:

1. Around us are the events we observe. Each of them has a cause or several causes (what philosophers term the efficient cause) - the tree fell because I attacked it with a chainsaw, etc.

2. We can, conceptually at least, trace chains of cause and effect back, ultimately as far as the big bang. e.g. galaxies are moving away from us because of the big bang.

3. Ultimately, we will arrive at one of two types of events: (i) If we are thorough-going materialists, we will trace everything back to the big bang, but (ii) if we are not, we may trace some events back to human initiation (the light came on because I chose to switch it on). Either way, the ultimate cause was still an observable event (though it may be a bit tricky to observe my intention to turn on the light, but it can be done indirectly).

4. All the above events are "natural events", they occur in space-time and they are observable.

5. If God exists "outside" of space-time, he is not observable, unless he initiates events within space time (just as I initiate the light coming on). Thus, in christian belief, a miracle would be an observable event whose ultimate cause is not observable, because God did it. In particular, the resurrection of Jesus would be a "natural" observable event within space-time which was initiated by God outside space-time.

6. A naturalist is a person who believes there are no causes outside space time, and all efficient causes can be traced back to natural observable events within space time.

Thus the definitions of Naturalism and natural events are entailed in each other's definitions. The Stanford Encyclopedia reference I gave says in its opening paragraph: "The self-proclaimed ‘naturalists’ .... urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality" (That article also discusses ontological naturalism and methodological naturalism, terms which I have also used previously.)

So if you had read the reference, I assumed you would have understood all this, but subsequently I thought it best to spell it out.

Best wishes.

ercatli

I have read (I think) three of his books. Like most of his peers that I have read, I find he has a good knowledge of many aspects of 1st century culture, but his historical methods/criteria are a little stretched beyond what most historians would use. Thus, while he is well-respected by his peers and has been quite influential, his views are probably not in the mainstream. I don't think I can ignore him, but personally I find his approach too speculative.

Why do you ask?

Elijah

I think the main problem with the god intervening idea in regards to miracles is that you make god inconstant and spatial/temporal. If there is a time and place in history where god is active and the rest of the area he is inactive or less active then god isn’t constant.

Justin: That which always maintains the same nature, and in the same manner, and is the cause of all other things—that, indeed, is God. From Letter to Typhro

I don’t think your understanding of God would fit within that criterion. I think you may need to reconsider the miracles in the bible as acts of faith and not God changing and intervening in a unique way at that point.

bacht

The problem with this is that we can't know for sure that God caused some "unnatural" event, assuming that there is enough evidence to declare the event as unnatural (and human witnesses being imperfect it's hard for me to concede this happening often).

More likely is that an event is caused by something unknown but theoretically explainable. In this case "God" is shorthand for "a process we don't understand yet", a stance which has been part of the scientific method for centuries with good results.

In the case of the resurrection of Jesus it's far more likely that the witnesses erred than that processes of organic decay were suspended or reversed.

aa5874

There were witnesses?

bacht

For the sake of argument I'll accept that there could have been people who thought they saw the risen Christ (this is the orthodox story, which Ercatli seems to follow more or less). I'm also including later generatons who accepted that such a thing was possible.

aa5874

But was not the tomb empty with his supposed linen and the people left the burial site trembling with fear?

Perhaps what they thought they saw was not Jesus hence the trembling and fear.

And believing that a resurection is possibly does not require witnesses just belief.