Skeptical

With all due respect, your dodging. The written records would indicate belief in something miraculous. Since we can't interrogate the witnesses, written records are all we would have. As far as transmission, you can assume that we have the same as we do for the NT, our most ancient documents being about 300 years after the supposed events. Bottom line, if your honest with yourself, I believe you can assume all the evidence you want and you still would not believe the story of the Buddha being "raised", no matter what the anecdotal evidence. Nor would I. The problem is the same as with the NT. Ancient mythology hardly qualifies as hard evidence.

Honestly, I don't see how theism helps. If I were to decide that the concept of a theistic God made sense, I can't see how that changes in any way the fact that Christianity relies on stories which to the unbiased eye are so rife with mythology. If the idea is that Christianity has "better evidence" than other religions, I'd say that's kind of like being valedictorian of summer school.

For the record, I think that all concepts of theism are nonsensical and absurd. Deism I find at least comprehensible, but I'm getting off topic again.

madmax2976

Madmax to Polycarp.... It may be in your best interest to continue to ignore me, but I intend to be persistent nonetheless.

I've stated several times now that what is considered extraodinary is a SUBJECTIVE thing and obviously so. It will vary from person to person - and so your not going to get the same answers from everyone on every issue.

This is not a suprise at all, nor should it be.(Unless you can point out an objective standard by which is could be measured which I highly doubt)

So with the understanding that what is "extraordinary" is subjective, and since we've used all these posts to determine that obvious fact, what exactly is your point???

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

Sauron

However, there is for Islam. Given that, why aren't you a Muslim?

Sauron

Not so fast. There is substantial agreement among skeptics of what constitutes an extraordinary claim, as a type or kind of claim.

The disagreement you see is over whether one *particular* claim satisfies the criteria or not.

Uh, no. The one thing that everyone agrees upon is that claims:

1. for which no direct supporting evidence exists;
2. for which substantial contradictory evidence does exist;
3. that contravene all of human history and experience; and
4. contradict the known laws of science; and
5. are not falsifiable or testable;

such claims are universally acknowledged as "extraordinary". This is like the argument over what constitutes murder:

a. abortion;
b. euthanasia;
c. killing someone in self-defense;
d. killing someone in military combat;
e. killing a totally unknown individual for no other purpose than stealing money from them

There may be debate about (a) and (b). But the fact that people debate (a) and (b) doesn't mean that (e) cannot reasonably be called murder.

However, the existence of god is an extraordinary claim, as per the five points above.

Vorkosigan

Nice try, Polycarp. But so far everyone agrees that your god claim is an extraordinary one. Subjective it may be, but a rather widely shared subjectivity.

Vorkosigan

Kosh

Good point Michael. This thread reminds me of that TNG episode where Q is tutoring a young Q. Something like "What you want to do is against the laws of physics? Simply change the laws of physics".

Can't get past a lack of evidence for extraordinary claims? Simply change the rules of what makes a claim extraordinary.

I knew PC was up to something...

DivineOb

blah nm

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: DivineOb ]</p>

NOGO

In the 19th century the border between France and Germany was not well defined. In some areas like Alsace people spoke both languages.

Now, the fact that a clear and well defined border did not exist does not give anyone the right to say that there is no such thing as a French and German people.

I am sure, Polycarp, that you see the fallasy in this way of thinking.

We do not need to get a full proof, ironclad definition to assert that there exists a set of beliefs which are extraordinary.

Put another way, the border between ordinary and extraordinary may be hazy but this does not meen that any item in one group can be moved to the other.

bd-from-kg

Polycarp:

Polycarp, this isn’t rocket science. It’s just a shorter way of saying “The more extraordinary the claim, the better evidence is required to justify rational belief.” There’s no magical point at which a claim becomes extraordinary and the standards of evidence suddenly change accordingly. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is not some arbitrary principle invented by skeptics to justify their rejection of Christianity. It is part and parcel of rationality itself.

Here’s a simple illustration.

It is reported that Stanick Bowles, who is virtually unknown, has run a mile in 6 minutes flat. Is this an extraordinary claim? Hardly. But now consider this series of possible alternative reports:

1. Stanick ran the mile in 5:59.
2. Stanick ran the mile in 5:58.
3. Stanick ran the mile in 5:57.
.
.
.
120. Stanick ran the mile in 4:00.
.
.
.
359. Stanick ran the mile in one second flat.
360. Stanick ran the mile in one second flat with no artificial aids in spite of being a quadriplegic.
361. Stanick ran the mile in one second flat in spite of being a quadriplegic, and ran through several solid brick walls in the process.
362. Stanick jumped across the Grand Canyon in spite of being a quadriplegic, after being dead for three days, and threw a perfectly cut thousand-carat diamond to each of the 5000 spectators while still in the air.

Now any sane person recognizes that somewhere between Report 1 and Report 362 the thing reported to have occurred has gone from being rather ordinary to being rather extraordinary. But it doesn’t matter where you draw the line; whether you say that Report 130 is “ordinary” but Report 131 is “extraordinary”, or whether you say that even Report 359 is “ordinary” but Report 360 is “extraordinary”. The point is that, if you’re sane, you will require a lot more evidence for Report 131 than for Report 1, and a lot more evidence for Report 362 than for Report 131. In fact, you’ll require somewhat more evidence for Report 131 than for Report 130, more for Report 132 than for Report 131, and so on.

The Christian position, in essence, is that this is all true up to a point - that it is reasonable, for example, to require more evidence for Report 131 than for Report 1 - but that it is unreasonable to require more evidence for Report 362 than for Report 1. In other words, they agree that it is reasonable to be skeptical of a claim that an unknown runner broke the world record, but they think it unreasonable to be skeptical of a claim that a person performed unheard-of feats that clearly violate all known physical laws after being dead for some time.

The plain reality is that the kind of evidence that exists for Jesus’ alleged deeds would be hopelessly inadequate even to establish that an unknown runner had broken the world record for the mile, yet Christians think that it’s reasonable to believe, on the basis of such evidence, that He rose from the dead, walked through walls, and ascended bodily to “Heaven”. This is literally insane.

Autonemesis

That's a very good point Wizard. Despite the passage of time, and the deepening skepticism about Bigfoot, the criteria for proving the claim that Bigfoot exists is the same as it was when the first claims were made: show us a body.