Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 06-20-2002, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Polycarp:

Yes. And so do you. Your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) cannot be proven.

It's not exactly the same. I lack religious beliefs in part because I see no reason to believe in the historical scenario that you believe in. I can't prove it didn't happen, but I can't prove that the Moslim historical scenario didn't happen either. And I consider the odds that it happened highly unlikely, even if I can't disprove it.

I was expecting you to say something about having been touched by the holy spirit or felt Jesus' presence in your life (as I have not). If that's not part of your religion, you are basing an awful lot on unprovable history.

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]

Polycarp · 06-20-2002, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto:
It's not exactly the same. I lack religious beliefs in part because I see no reason to believe in the historical scenario that you believe in. I can't prove it didn't happen, but I can't prove that the Moslim historical scenario didn't happen either. And I consider the odds that it happened highly unlikely, even if I can't disprove it.

It IS exactly the same in the sense of which I spoke: neither of our beliefs concerning religion can be proven true. Conversely, neither can be proven false.

Quote:

I was expecting you to say something about having been touched by the holy spirit or felt Jesus' presence in your life (as I have not). If that's not part of your religion, you are basing an awful lot on unprovable history.

If I had such an experience, I'd never use it to try to convince someone else. What would be the point?

Vorkosigan · 06-20-2002, 02:44 PM

It IS exactly the same in the sense of which I spoke: neither of our beliefs concerning religion can be proven true. Conversely, neither can be proven false.

Toto and I and the other atheists here are not in the position of having to "prove" our beliefs. We make no positive assertions that are not generally made by historians, like methodological naturalism, for example. Christians do.

We're in your position today, Polycarp. Go interview anyone regarding the recently deceased Lubavitcher Messiah. Supporters will tell you that he was the Messiah. Would you believe them? Why not? Other Lubavitchers will tell you that Rebbe Scheerson was not the Messiah. I suspect if we went back to Palestine in 35 and interviewed people, we'd find many who thought Paul and Peter were wacko. Should we believe them?

Vorkosigan

Skeptical · 06-20-2002, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Polycarp:
All of this debate over studying documents written almost 2000 years ago in order to determine which events described in the documents are actually historical seems to often be a waste of time around here. Not always, but often, this is the case in this forum. I’d like to propose a hypothetical scenario to test my hypothesis. Let us say the following were to happen…

You have just been transported in time to the year 35 C.E. and you find yourself somewhere in Palestine. This is easily verified by you after a rather short period of investigation. You still possess all of the knowledge you had when you left the 21st century, but you’ve somehow been transported back in time. You hear someone speaking to a small crowd of people in the area (they’re speaking Greek, but you’ve somehow developed fluency in this language). You soon discover that the person speaking to the crowd is known as the apostle Paul. He talks about a man named Jesus who was crucified, but appeared to his followers two days later and eventually appeared to Paul himself.

After his brief speech, you approach him to question him on everything related to this Jesus. He’s a bit ornery, so he tells you to go see someone named Peter (some call him “Cephas&#8221

because Peter was someone who actually knew this Jesus. You eventually find Peter and interrogate him on what you know about the gospel stories and Jesus. He affirms the main points of the gospels: Jesus healed people, told a lot of parables, angered religious authorities, was eventually crucified and buried in a tomb, and later appeared to Peter and some of the other followers. You question him on the details, some of them are fuzzy in Peter’s memory, but he insists the main events actually happened.

Just then you are transported back to the 21st century into the life as you had known it. Will any of your beliefs about Christianity change? What if you had spent several months living in the year 35 C.E. while interacting with Christians – would you become a Christian after being transported back to the 21st century?

My whole point in giving this hypothetical scenario is that I don’t think many (any?) skeptics would convert to Christianity even if they’d lived much, much closer to the time of Jesus. What does everyone else think?

I was actually thinking about starting a thread similar to this regarding the fallibility of human knoweldge, perception and reason and how it applies to the NT stories. Basically I have been thinking about the claims of some apologists that the NT stories are reliable because they come from "eyewitnesses" or someone who personally knew an "eyewitness". THe problem with this claim is that even if it is granted, it has almost no bearing on the reliability of the NT stories due to human fallibility and unreliability, especially during the period of time in question. (ubiquitous credulity, almost complete absence of skeptical thinking)

I'll go you one better than your example. Even if one were transported back to, say, around 30CE and actually met Jesus himself. (assuming he existed during this time period) You meet him, walk with him, talk with him and see him perform apparent miracles. What can you conclude? There are several possibilities:

1) He might be "divine" or "the son of God" (whatever one happens to mean by that)

2) He might be a very clever magician. (I saw David Blane levitate on TV the other night. If someone in first century palestine saw this, what would they conclude about him?)

3) He might be a space alien with technology so advanced it appears to be magic

4) He might actually have _real_ magic, but it might come from some source other than the Christian God. (demons, fairies, Zeus, etc)

The point is that given what we know about the unreliability of human experiences, especially in the presence of charismatic leaders, many skeptics wouldn't even trust their own senses or at least would not rule out that they were being tricked or mislead in some way.

I think your right that this is one of the fundamental differences between "believers" and "skeptics". In my opinion, the "believers" simply don't have an appreciation of human frailty and fallibility, especially as it applies to arguing about the veracity of the NT stories. Personal experiences of Jesus/God can, of course, only be felt and understood by those having them and is another matter entirely. (even if two people think they have had the same internal experience, they can never be sure)

This sort of begs the question of "what would a skeptic accept as evidence of divinity", and I'm not sure I have a completely satisfying answer. I suppose if someone were to perform truly astounding "miracles" like accurately telling the future, growing new arms and legs for people, levitating into the sky and flying around, creating peace and harmony in the middle east (don't ask me how, I have no idea) and this individual seemed to be very moral and genuinely deeply concerned about the welfare of all people, I might conclude that this person was at least worthy of my being a follower/supporter and see what that had to say about life and death. No doubt other opinions will vary.

Toto · 06-20-2002, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Polycarp:

Toto originally: I was expecting you to say something about having been touched by the holy spirit or felt Jesus' presence in your life (as I have not). If that's not part of your religion, you are basing an awful lot on unprovable history.

If I had such an experience, I'd never use it to try to convince someone else. What would be the point?

If you base your religion on a personal experience or feeling that I lack, I know that there are honest differences between us. Perhaps they can be understood with more dialogue, perhaps not.

If you base your religion on the existence of unprovable and improbable historical events, I am not sure if you are being honest about your motives. It would appear that you are distorting historical scholarship to get the result that you want, and you are ignoring the limits of knowledge and the limits of historical research.

So while I would not be impressed with your personal experience, and might chalk it up to self-hypnosis, I would respect it more than your attempt to get more meaning out of history than is there.

Logan · 06-20-2002, 04:25 PM

Interestingly enough, according to this page<a href="http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/contra_craig/contra_craig.htm" target="_blank">Contra Craig</a>, a similar question was posed to William Lane Craig from the standpoint that the gospels would be proven false. His response? "He [Craig] told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the "holy spirit" within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me."

Interesting.

Polycarp · 06-20-2002, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vorkosigan:
Toto and I and the other atheists here are not in the position of having to "prove" our beliefs. We make no positive assertions that are not generally made by historians, like methodological naturalism, for example. Christians do.

I don't think we disagree. You see... I don't think Christianity can be proven to be true. It's not such a big deal. Everyone (Christian and skeptic) believes all sorts of things that can't be proven. Can I prove to you that I ate Cocoa Pebbles for breakfast this morning? No. Am I justified in believing that I ate Cocoa Pebbles this morning? Yes. Why?

Yeah... Yeah... We'll hear about the extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, but that doesn't change the fact that we are justified in believing things that can't be proven. 80-90% of the world doesn't think it's an extraordinary claim to say that some type of god exists. It's only the 10-20% who don't believe in gods who think it's an extraordinary claim.

I remember a story about a group of Europeans who travelled to what would later be called Australia a few hundred years ago. They returned to Europe describing an animal about the size of a human that had a head like a deer, hopped like a rabbit, and had a pouch on its belly. Many of the people who heard this didn't believe them. Both groups of people were justified in their beliefs: those who saw the kangaroos had the necessary justification for believing in the existence of kangaroos, and those who didn't see the kangaroos were justified in their unbelief. However, the kangaroos existed whether anyone believed in them or not. Would you have believed in kangaroos had you been one of the people listening to the witnesses?

Quote:

We're in your position today, Polycarp. Go interview anyone regarding the recently deceased Lubavitcher Messiah. Supporters will tell you that he was the Messiah. Would you believe them? Why not? Other Lubavitchers will tell you that Rebbe Scheerson was not the Messiah. I suspect if we went back to Palestine in 35 and interviewed people, we'd find many who thought Paul and Peter were wacko. Should we believe them?

I think you missed the point of my story. What I was trying to say is that we're all wasting our time (Christians and skeptics) debating history IF our motive is to try to convert the other side to our belief system (Christians converting skeptics, and vice versa). For skeptics, even if they could travel to the time only a few years after the alleged life of Jesus, it would do nothing to change their outlook on Christianity. All this talk about dating the gospels, miracles of Jesus, existence of Jesus, burial, resurrection, Paul as the founder of Christianity, etc. is a complete waste of time. Even if the skeptics here could talk to people who claimed to know Jesus during his earthly life and hear the same things they hear from the Christians of the 21st century, they would still not convert to Christianity.

Had Rabbi Schneerson risen from the dead a few days after his passing I may have given it some more thought. As it stands, I see little evidence to indicate that he is any type of messiah. You can think Paul and Peter were wacko, it would only prove my point further that skeptics would not convert to Christianity even if the evidence in its favor were much greater than it is in our present state.

Polycarp · 06-20-2002, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Skeptical:
This sort of begs the question of "what would a skeptic accept as evidence of divinity", and I'm not sure I have a completely satisfying answer. I suppose if someone were to perform truly astounding "miracles" like accurately telling the future, growing new arms and legs for people, levitating into the sky and flying around, creating peace and harmony in the middle east (don't ask me how, I have no idea) and this individual seemed to be very moral and genuinely deeply concerned about the welfare of all people, I might conclude that this person was at least worthy of my being a follower/supporter and see what that had to say about life and death. No doubt other opinions will vary.

Are you saying that if you lived at the time of Jesus, and heard his teachings about God and how we should treat our fellow humans, saw him raise dead people, heal people who you knew had been blind from birth, saw him get crucified, and then had him appear to you after his death, then you would be a follower of him? I don't want to make assumptions, but that's what I'm hearing. Curious to know if I'm on target.

Polycarp · 06-20-2002, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Logan:
Interestingly enough, according to this page<a href="http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/contra_craig/contra_craig.htm" target="_blank">Contra Craig</a>, a similar question was posed to William Lane Craig from the standpoint that the gospels would be proven false. His response? "He [Craig] told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the "holy spirit" within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me."

That's an interesting link. Guess I won't ask him to join the William Lane Craig Fan Club

I disagree with Craig on this topic.

NOGO · 06-20-2002, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Polycarp
My whole point in giving this hypothetical scenario is that I don�t think many (any?) skeptics would convert to Christianity even if they�d lived much, much closer to the time of Jesus. What does everyone else think?

I would treat this subject like any other extraoridinary subject like flying saucers, witchcraft, demonic possessions etc.

In a word, I would "investigate".
Get all the information that I can get.
See if witnesses are consistent or they contradict. Find independent evidence is possible.

Hopefully I would be allowed to stay long enought to reach a conclusion.

I can honestly say that my decision would be solely based on the facts that I would be able to gather.

Based on the evidence that we have now I would say that the chances of meeting a Peter who would tell it as is written in the gospels is very unlikely. In such a case I would go though all the facts one by one and and verify that he was indeed an eyewitness. I would then check against othet eyewitnesses etc.

If all this came out splarkling clean I would definitely reconsider my beliefs.

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06-20-2002, 02:44 PM	#13
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	It IS exactly the same in the sense of which I spoke: neither of our beliefs concerning religion can be proven true. Conversely, neither can be proven false. Toto and I and the other atheists here are not in the position of having to "prove" our beliefs. We make no positive assertions that are not generally made by historians, like methodological naturalism, for example. Christians do. We're in your position today, Polycarp. Go interview anyone regarding the recently deceased Lubavitcher Messiah. Supporters will tell you that he was the Messiah. Would you believe them? Why not? Other Lubavitchers will tell you that Rebbe Scheerson was not the Messiah. I suspect if we went back to Palestine in 35 and interviewed people, we'd find many who thought Paul and Peter were wacko. Should we believe them? Vorkosigan

06-20-2002, 04:25 PM	#16
Logan Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Lousiville, KY, USA Posts: 6	Interestingly enough, according to this page<a href="http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/contra_craig/contra_craig.htm" target="_blank">Contra Craig</a>, a similar question was posed to William Lane Craig from the standpoint that the gospels would be proven false. His response? "He [Craig] told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the "holy spirit" within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me." Interesting.

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