Johnny Skeptic

If the issue of eyewitnesses is important, what is the minimum number of supposed eyewitnesses that it takes to make a given claim valid? How can we be reasonably certain how many people claimed to be eyewitnesses? If firsthand eyewitnesses testimony is important, how much supposed firsthand eyewitness testimony do we have? By what means can we reliably identify whether evidence is second hand, third hand, fourth hand etc.?

Toto

Hi Johnny - where are you going with this?

I assume you are thinking of the alleged 500+ eyewitnesses that Paul claims for the risen Jesus. Paul (or whoever inserted that passage) evidently thought that a large number of eyewitnesses were needed.

You might find the link in this thread of interest: eyewitness testimony invalidated: Mark Smith demolishes the eyewitness testimony for Jesus

Or if you want a general discussion of the legal weight of eyewitness testimony, the scope of mass hallucinations, etc., this might go in S&S.

Johnny Skeptic

Hi Toto,

Thanks for the links. What I am most interested in is what is the minimum number of supposed eyewitnesses that it takes to convince Christians? The Gnostics didn't require any at all. Why do fundies?

Mountain Man

That depends. If you claim you have a penny in your pocket, I'll believe you without any eyewitnesses. I'll even believe you without seeing the penny. That's because I could not care less if you have a penny or not. The claim is insignificant and the existence, or not, of that penny does not effect anything. Now, if you claim that some event happened long ago and that I am supposed to base my life on that claim, you had damn well better produce some eyewitnesses - and more! The extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.

Toto

I think you have missed the point here. One reliable eyewitness may be enough to convince you that something happened, but 1,000 deluded eyewitnesses may not be enough evidence.

But it isn't that Christians required eyewitnesses. People do not convert to a religion for rational reasons, such as evidence. People are converted to new religions because they have a social connection to a member of that religion; they then fish around for an explanation of why their new religion is in fact true. Christians did not require 500 eyewitnesses to be converted; they threw in those 500 eyewitnesses to prove that they were not just gullible fools to be following this new religion.

It's like apologetics. No skeptic has ever been convinced by the usual apologetic arguments. But Christians who already believe cling to those arguments to prove to themselves that they are not ignorant fools for believing in Christianity.

Johnny Skeptic

I understand what you are saying, and I agree with you completely, but a lot of Christians, especially fundamentalist Christians, place great emphasis on eyewitnesses, so I was hoping that some Christians would be willing to discuss the issue of eyewitnesses. If they are reluctant to do so, then that is quite understandable because it would be difficult for them to agree on the minimum number of supposed eyewitnesses that it takes for a given claim to be valid.

You are of course quite right that "....Christians who ALREADY [emphasis mine] believe cling to those arguments [the absurd Pascal's Wager is a good example] to prove to THEMSELVES [emphasis mine] that they are not ignorant fools for believing in Christianity." I was a church-going fundamentalist Christian for 35 years. During that time I never heard of Pascal's Wager, the Tyre prophecy, or Lee Merrill's utterly ridiculous Babylon prophecy. As you know, apologists love to tell people that they do not have to shelve their intellect in order to become a Christian, but actually, most of those apologists DID shelve their intellect when THEY became Christians. Therefore, the group that did shelve their intellect are dishonest because they ask people to accept arguments that they themselves did not accept until after they became Christians. The most successful evangelists by far are those who preach a simple faith message. Jesus told people to come to him as little children, not as experts in Biblical criticism and history.

Many skeptics are loving, kind, decent people. It would be completely out of character for them to reject any human or God that they believed was loving, kind, and decent. If the God of the Bible exists, then since he has greatly limited tangible evidence of his existance and will, surely he knew that the vast majority of humans would reject him due to insufficient evidence, a situation that most certainly would not have to be the case if he were to clearly reveal himself to everyone. The texts say that God demonstrated his supernatural powers on some occasions in order to convince people to follow him. The fact that these demonstrations are quite limited in the Bible (Dr. John MacArthur admits this) indicates to rational minded people that either God has deliberately refused to reveal himself to everyone, thereby knowingly increasing the number of people who will go to hell, or that he does not exist.

I submit that the Bible gives ample evidence that at best, God is bi-polar. Exodus 4:11 says "And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?" Another one of God's bi-polar moments was when he created Hurricane Katrina and sent it to New Orleans. Incredibly, bfniii defended God's actions by stating that some people became Christians because of the hurricane. Of course, bfniii conveniently failed to mention that some people gave up Christianity because of Christianity. I read where a number of Christian pastors gave up Christianity as a result of the recent tsunami in Asia. It is utter nonsense for anyone to assume the a loving God needs to allow the kinds of suffering that we have in the world in order to carry out his purpose. Rational minded people have been wondering for some time what that purpose is, but God is too bashful to tell us.

My arguments seem rude and unkind to some Christians, but the Bible is much more rude and unkind than I could ever be.

Half-Life

http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/r...-of-christ.htm

With the World Trade Center disaster, we had over 1,000 witnesses. Do any of you dispute the WTC disaster? If not, why would you automatically discount 500 EYEWITNESSES of the resurrection of Jesus?

Mageth

Way over 1,000. Millions, no doubt. Tens or hundreds of thousands "on the ground" in NY alone.

No, why should I?

Name them.

How can I not dispute the WTC disaster but still discount the alleged resurrection of Jesus? Because they're two totally different and unrelated events.

The one reports that some planes were flown into the WTC towers, causing them to collapse. Nothing magical or fantastical about that. I saw it happening on television.

The other reports that a man dead three days re-animated, walked through doors, etc. etc. and then flew up to heaven after a bit. A fantastical claim, that, one that would require some really good evidence for me to believe.

One I witnessed (via television, etc.) and have talked to in-person witnesses of; the other I only have (very) indirect evidence of in the form of some 1900-year-old texts.

Javaman

Half-Life, there is only the claim that there were 500 eyewitnesses - there is no account from them. There are exactly zero firsthand accounts of Jesus' ressurection. Why would you automatically think there was a ressurection if there are zero contemporaneous accounts? Why didn't any contemporary historians mention Jesus? The gospels themselves differ greatly about the accounts of the tomb journey and those accounts were not written down by those that 'saw' the events.

Viti

Half-life, I would really appreciate your responding to your NDE thread and other threads before starting new ones. This is quite annoying.