Johnny Skeptic

Or in Jesus' case, well over 70 years, which is understandable if he did not perform any miracles.

Johnny Skeptic

Better stated, if you entertain the hypothesis that Jesus did not perform miracles, that easily explains why the Christian church was barely noticeable in the first century, and why the Romans apparently did not pay any attention to the miracles. If there weren’t any miracles, obviously there would not have been anything for the Romans to pay attention to.

Why did millions of Christians believe that Katherine Kuhlman
(1907-1976) healed thousands of people? Even today, millions of charismatic Christians believe that miracle healings are commonplace.

There is not any reasonable proof who said that, when he said it, and what his source(s) were. In addition, it was said a lifetime after the supposed facts, which is not acceptable as reasonable evidence.

Johnny Skeptic

In my previous posts, I have given many examples why your arguments are not valid.

Even if Christianity is uniqure, don't you know that there is not a necessary correlation between uniqueness and the truth?

One thing that is not unique about Christianity is that since it is a false religion, it had to be spread exclusively by word of mouth just like all other religions are spread. Obviously, false religions have to be spread exclusively by word of mouth. If a God inspired the Bible, it is quite odd that he did not consider the Gospel message to be important enough to tell people about himself.

Why does anyone need a comparable case of other false miracles?

I request that you provide first century, non-biblical sources that Jesus performed lots of miracles, or do you wish to call upon the Bible to be its own witness?

Johnny Skeptic

If Jesus had given many amputees new arms and legs in front of the Roman government in Palestine, it certainly would not have taken him 20 years or longer to attract a significant following, or even one year, which suggests that he was not trying to achieve quick fame, which invites the question "Why would Jesus have wanted to attract fame slowly instead of quickly, and only in the Middle East, and never in front of the Roman government in Palestine?"

That is an example of begging the question. Consider the following from Wikipedia:

Although you claimed that something brought the Gospel writers together, there is not any credible evidence that such was the case. No one knows who wrote Matthew, Mark, and Luke, what their sources were, how much the Gospels might have been changed after they were written, and when the Gospels were written. Even if part of, for instance, the book of Mark was written around 70 A.D., later revisions of parts of the book are reasonably possible.

As many skeptic laymen and skeptic Bible scholars have reasonably speculated, the victors usually had their way regarding which texts survived, and which beliefs prevailed.

If I may digress for a moment, I wish to say that it is incredible the lengths that conservative Christians go to in order to use the ancient past to try to reasonably prove the existence and will of the God of the Bible today. Why would a God need questionable, often confusing ancient texts in order to reasonably prove his existence and will? Of course, he wouldn't. If tangible, firsthand evidence was what was needed to authenticate who Jesus was back then, the same is certainly true today. Why do you suppose that far more people in the world believe that Prime Mininster Putin of Russia exists than believe that the God of the Bible exists? Obviously, because of lots of tangible, firsthand evidence that reasonably proves that Putin exists.

What you propose is the existence of a God who wants people to hear the Gospel message, but only if another person tells them about it. That does not make any sense. If you discovered a cure for cancer, and were able to make it available all over the world within a week, you probably would in order to help people who had cancer. Does God consider the spread of the Gospel message to be more important than the spread of a cure for cancer? Apparently not.

You also probably propose the existence of a God who wants people to have enough food to eat (reference James chapter 2),
but only if they are able to obtain food through human effort. That does not make any sense either. Why would James say that if a man refuses to give food to hungry people, his faith is dead? What was God's reason for inspiring James to write that? I have ask many Christians that question, and I have never gotten a reasonable answer. Obviously, human effort alone would never be able to provide enough food for everyone in the world to eat.

Johnny Skeptic

There is an interesting article on the miracles of Jesus at http://godisimaginary.com/i14.htm, although I admit that it is not particularly revelant to this forum.

arnoldo

Agreed, in addition the fact that there were christians in the first century is highly significant. Rodney Stark has some interesting insights as well. . .

Johnny Skeptic

I already replied to freetrader's comment in two of my posts. I said:

How many Christians? In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that in 100 A.D. there were 7,530 Christians in the entire world. That is certainly not significant at all, and is quite surprising for a supposed miracle worker whose fame spread throughout Syria and many other places.

Since Jesus did not perform any miracles, that explains why Christianity did not start to grow faster until the second century. If Jesus performed many miracles in many places, the first century would have easily been the century that Christianity would have grown quickly because of the presence of thousands of still living eyewitnesses. History does not show that that happened.

Please stay on topic. This thread is about the miracles of Jesus. As far as I know, in "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark does not make a case that Jesus performed miracles. What is your historical evidence that Jesus performed miracles? Please post at least some first century non-biblical evidence.

Johnny Skeptic

It is not my position that supernatural events cannot occur, but it is my position that there is not reasonable evidence that any have occured. The New Testament says that Jesus' fame spread all over Syria and beyond after he performed many miracles. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the texts claimed that Jesus had a pet pig that always travelled with him, that the pig had wings, and that the pig frequently flew around him. If that had happened, it is probable that the Roman government in Palestine would have heard about it and investigated the claims. A flying pig is not any more unusual than the miracles that Jesus performed, which means that if Jesus performed many miracles in many places, it is probable that the Roman government in Palestine would have conducted an investigation, and would have discovered that Jesus performed many miracles, and history would be full of evidence that such was the case.

Consider the following Scriptures:

Matthew 4:23-25

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan."

How could the Roman government in Palestine not have been aware of, and quite interested in that if the claims are true? Who else was in Syria allegedly doing things like that? Probably no one.

Is there any evidence of the existence of Jesus in Syrian history, including Syrian archaeology?

freetrader

August 9, 2009 #6050560 / #180
gurugeorge


The Jesus depicted in the gospel accounts is obviously a Galilean. The proselytizers we're speaking of here are, among others, the gospel writers. Those writers chose a Galilean as the central figure for their new cult. Even if there was no such Galilean individual in fact, still they chose to make their fictional character a Galilean (if he is only fiction). So, why did they make that choice? If they were making up the whole story, why would they place their hero figure in that location?


No, obviously. All we get from Paul is his belief that Jesus and James were brothers, and in the gospel accounts James is identified as one of the sons of Mary and Joseph who lived in Galilee.


It's reasonable to believe Odysseus originated from the island of Ithaca, even though the only source for that is about 500 years after Odysseus. So why should anyone have trouble believing Jesus came from Galilee, when we have at least four separate sources within 100 years all agreeing that he originated from there?


If you're demanding absolute certainty or irrefutable proof from notarized documents written by direct eye witnesses -- how much of the historical record are you proposing to throw out, how many history books do you want to recall, because so many claims in them cannot be documented to the point of near certainty as the above demands?


If you start out with that dogma as your premise, and dismiss all evidence to the contrary as fiction, then of course you have an air-tight case. You can always prove your case by insisting that your conclusion is a necessary premise to the argument.

However, one need not start out from the premise that all "miracle" acts are ipso facto impossible and that all claims of such events must ipso facto be fictional. Reason and science do not require us to start out from that dogmatic premise.


There aren't any others represented on a similar scale. All the comparable cases that are named and alleged to be similar are actually very poor comparisons to the case of Jesus. This is a specific individual at a particular place and time period reputedly doing acts which were witnessed by other particular individuals, in history, and documented by multiple sources within 50-80 years later. This is a singular case and not one "among many" others reported.


No, there probably have been other such acts, but just not on the same scale for one individual healer. Out of the many reputed miracle healing acts historically it is quite reasonable to believe some are genuine and there is no known scientific explanation. And not all the healers were good people -- the case of Rasputin, the mad monk, is very convincing. Somehow this guy had an ability to heal one hemophiliac child.


"extant" evidence? What's an example of evidence that is not "extant"? Who is using non-"extant" evidence to prove anything? What is the need here to distinguish between evidence which is "extant" and some other kind of evidence?

It would be nice if arguers who over-use this jargon word would try to make some logical connection between it and the point they're supposed to be making, because there usually doesn't seem to be any connection.

We have plenty of legitimate evidence attesting that Jesus did perform miracle healing acts. The documents are not "proof" that he did these acts, but they are strong evidence. We have at least 4 sources attesting to his miracle acts, 5 for the resurrection event, from a period of 20-80 years after the alleged events.

That's good evidence upon which to draw conclusions and to give credibility to the reported events, though it is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It is stronger evidence than we have for much of what is accepted in the official historical record. It gives a reasonable basis to believe these events happened, but we don't have the same certainty as we have for the assassination of Lincoln or Caesar or for the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

And whether the evidence is "extant" or non-"extant" seems to be just a word game for sophists who pretend to be saying something but really are saying nothing.


It's reasonable to believe the general events of the Trojan War, from Homer who is the only source. Why is Homer any more "determinate" for the Trojan War events than the gospel accounts are "determinate" for the acts of Jesus? One can reasonably believe those events happened, even though it is 500 years later and is the only source, and even though the storyteller has a bias and includes miracle interventions by the gods.


No, not "prove" and not "at that time only" -- one does not imagine or prove that.

What we have is evidence, not proof, that at this one time and place there was a unique miracle-worker whose power went much farther than that of other reported cases of such persons, and also whose power was real rather than fictional, as in other reputed cases where the person in question was a distinguished celebrity for other reasons and became mythologized into a miracle-worker.


But "miraculous" events have been found, or rather, experienced. Just because they are very rare and are not found routinely does not mean they haven't happened.

Rational enquiry has not demonstrated that miracle events are impossible, but only that they are rare and to be placed in the "improbable" category in most cases, or that there is a general presumption of improbability in dealing with any given claim. But where the evidence is stronger or there's more of it, the probability increases. There can be exceptions to the general rule that such claims generally are fictitious.


Why? Why do you single out just this one category of writings to be excluded from having value as evidence? Many participants here keep expressing this bias, without any explanation, that the Christian writings or New Testament documents alone among all the ancient writings are to be relegated to some kind of unique taboo category that must be banished as having no credibility, even though they are just as reliable as most other ancient documents.

It is strange that people claiming to be logical and scientific seem to be spooked and driven by an uncanny instinct to banish these particular writings, as if programmed to treat them as haunted by evil spirits or containing a wicked curse upon any who dare to treat them equally to other ancient sources.


This is a virtual concession that Jesus might have really performed miracle healings. Adding semantics like "magic tricks" or "suggestion" or "hypnotism" doesn't contradict the basic hypothesis that Jesus did the miracle healing acts. It doesn't matter how he did these or what jargon you use to describe it. Nothing in our basic thesis imposes any conditions as to how the acts must have been performed, except that they were done outside the realm of currently known science.

(The use of herbs has to be ruled out, because this is never mentioned in any of the accounts. There is no reason why such methods would be totally omitted from the record if he commonly used them. Also, the stories clearly indicate that the healings happened immediately and not over a long period of time, which would be the case with herbs or drugs or chemicals.)


No, whatever Jesus did was not "pretty common" but very unique, because there are no comparable examples of other reputed healers doing such acts on a scale equal to the Jesus example.


There's virtually nothing to suggest that Parmenides or Empedocles performed anything like miracle healing acts. Possibly Parmenides promoted certain herbal remedies which were thought by some to be effective, and some accounts allege that Empedocles made some claims to miraculous powers.

But there's near-zero evidence that either of these celebrated philosophers performed miracle healing acts -- unlike the case of Jesus, for whom there are 4 (5) accounts within 80 years attesting to specific miracle acts which he performed.

And again, the case of Apollonius of Tyana is very short on evidence compared to the case of Jesus. There is ONLY ONE SOURCE for the miracle acts allegedly done by him, and this one source is 150+ years later than the alleged events if they happened.

Again and again and again the only comparisons offered to the case of Jesus are these pathetic examples for which there is little or no real evidence. Where are the real comparisons to Jesus? Where are the other examples of miracle healers similar to this one? Where are the anecdotes? the reported cases? Why do people keep claiming there are so many examples and yet they can offer none?

The closest anyone can come to any comparison are a few cases of celebrities or popular hero figures who had long public careers in which to amass a widespread following of admirers who obviously mythologized him into a superhuman idol, which can easily be explained by normal psychology without needing to believe the miracle acts really happened.


But there's no evidence that any philosopher actually performed any miracle healing act. Any belief they might have had special power was obviously due to the normal mythologizing process which took place in the case of famous celebrities who amassed a large following over a long teaching career, which didn't happen in the case of Jesus.

Johnny Skeptic

As an agnostic, it is not my position that miracles are impossible. In addition, millions of non-Christian theists believe that miracles are possible, but do not believe that Jesus performed miracles.

I agree, which makes my arguments much better since 1) the more miracles that Jesus allegedly performed over a wide geographic area, the more likely it would have been that Pontius Pilate would have conducted investigations, and 2) at least some credible first century, non-biblical evidence would confirm the miracles. Apparently, Pontius Pilate did not conduct any investigations, and there isn't any credible first century, non-biblical evidence that confirms the miracles.

How could Tactitus not have become very interested in Jesus' miracles?

Consider the following another thread at this forum: