Christoph

With the oppostition the Christians experienced from the Jews and their motivation for shutting down Christianity? I would definitely think so.

The Jews felt that the Christians were stealing their religion and corrupting it, taking many Jews with them.

Mageth

One interesting possibility is that the miraculous claims of the resurrection weren't made until long after the events. There's a big gap from the resurrection to the first gospel. The lack of written accounts claiming or reporting the "miraculous" crucifiction/resurrection of Christ from the period 30-70 A.D. speaks strongly against your claim of the lack of written accounts denouncing such events.

Christoph

I don't think that's evidence that it didn't happen. I don't think it speaks at all about whether or not it happened.

Do you disbelieve because it was miraculous or because there's not any historical evidence?

In other words, do you believe the writings of Josephus, even when there is no other historical information to confirm his writings?

To me the question seems to go back to what we believe about the supernatural. If we don't believe in the resurrection because people don't come back from the dead, we are having a problem with the supernatural. I agree that history would have to have some really good evidence to convince me that someone rose from the dead and many miracles were performed. Just one book wouldn't be enough.

The thing is that I look at the big picture. I feel that there are too many questions that seem impossible to answer without the supernatural.

Creation (if you believe in God, then it's only reasonable to think that He created the universe)

Purpose (if there's no purpose, there's no purpose. It doesn't matter if we live or die)

The Bible (a description of a God who is unique and humbles himself enough to come and die for his creation, not the kind of god men invent).

So, is it supernaturalism that you object to?

Mageth

I don't think that's evidence that it didn't happen. I don't think it speaks at all about whether or not it happened.

Doesn't it seem a little odd to you that over 500 people would witness a dead man risen from the grave and ascending into heaven and not write about it (as far as we can tell) for at least 40 years?

Do you disbelieve because it was miraculous or because there's not any historical evidence?

A combination of both, as you can't separate them, IMO. I don't believe in the "supernatural" because I've seen no credible, irrefutable evidence for the supernatural. I've not seen historical or other evidence to establish the events in question as reported in the NT. There are other, possible, more believable (IMO) natural alternatives. I know people make stuff up, lie, exaggerate, have hallucinations, etc. I have direct evidence of those things. I don't have any direct evidence of anyone coming back alive after being dead for 48 hours. To make me accept the latter when the former possibilities are available is going to take a lot more than a 2000-year old, questionable, fantastic account written by men who were definitely not unbiased witnesses.

In other words, do you believe the writings of Josephus, even when there is no other historical information to confirm his writings?

I don't know if your claim is true. Josephus recorded a lot of things, I would assume much of which is corroborated elsewhere, although you should go to BC&A with such a question.

To me the question seems to go back to what we believe about the supernatural. If we don't believe in the resurrection because people don't come back from the dead, we are having a problem with the supernatural. I agree that history would have to have some really good evidence to convince me that someone rose from the dead and many miracles were performed. Just one book wouldn't be enough.

My point exaclty.

The thing is that I look at the big picture. I feel that there are too many questions that seem impossible to answer without the supernatural.

Argument from incredulity. Doesn't carry much weight in my book. We quite simply don't know everything yet.

Creation (if you believe in God, then it's only reasonable to think that He created the universe)

I don't believe in god. And I know that a god is not necessary to account for the universe. As long as there are plausible natural alternatives, I can discard the supernatural alternatives.

Purpose (if there's no purpose, there's no purpose. It doesn't matter if we live or die)

This argument always floors, and saddens, me. I don't believe in god, and I find ample purpose to live, and definitely feel that it matters, to me and to my friends and family, whether I live or die. I feel sorry for anyone who claim they can find no purpose in life outside a 2000-year-old myth.

The Bible (a description of a God who is unique and humbles himself enough to come and die for his creation, not the kind of god men invent).

Much of which was borrowed from earlier religions, so is not unique. There are several religions with resurrection accounts.

So, is it supernaturalism that you object to?

You can't separate a claim of supernatural events from the evidence of such events. I don't believe in the supernatural because there's no real evidence for the supernatural. And there are alternative, plausible natural explanations for any supernatural claim I've ever heard.

To establish a supernatural event as at least probable, you'll need a lot more evidence than I've seen you or anyone else present. For one thing, you need to completely, convincingly discount every plausible natural cause.

Further there are lots of people that believe in the supernatural that don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, so binding belief in the supernatural to belief in the resurrection is not exactly correct.

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Hans

Christoph

How would we distinguish between what Jesus claimed he was (the son of a god) and a magical elf who appeared as a man then did and said the same exact things? A magical elf who would not suffer even during torture.

Do you have any answers?

{Edited to remove yet another red herring!}

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Hans ]</p>

Bilboe

HRG: "The point of my argument is not so much that we cannot exclude naturalistic explanations for an observation X, although this is in any case a very difficult task. But even if someone succeeds at this task, he still cannot claim that X is evidence for a particular supernatural explanation (Example: actual water-to-wine miracle vs. photon miracle which creates only the visual appearance of water-to-wine),

Me: Actually, I think your example is weak, but your case is stronger. Say we have access to the wine, and run it through whatever tests we can think of, and it passes all of them as wine. Does this prove a supernatural event took place? I would say No. There is always the possibility that there is a completely naturalistic explanation that we just haven't discovered, yet. However, in the absence of that naturalistic explanation, I think accepting a supernaturalistic explanation can be reasonable, depending upon the circumstances. For example, if the person who claimed to have performed the miracle was David Copperfield, there's no way I'd ever believe it was a supernatural event. If it had been performed by someone with more substantial credentials -- say Gandhi -- I'd be willing to believe it.

HRG:"For naturalistic explanations, we can quite often say that explanation E1 is better/more reasonable/more probable etc. than E2, because we have knowledge and experience about naturalistic phenomena and mechanisms. But we completely lack a corresponding basis for the supernatural realm."

Me: But if there is a supernatural realm, the only way for it to make itself known to us is through our natural realm. Therefore, unless we want to insist that there isn't a supernatural realm, we have to at least preserve an open mind to its possibility. How do we test for probability? One test might be the moral character of the person who is supposedly responsible for the miracle. Again, if Gandhi is credited with the miracle, and he at least doesn't deny it (I can't envision Gandhi going about claiming he had performed a miracle -- not in his character), I'd be willing to consider the claims.

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Bilboe ]</p>

Bilboe

Hans: "How would we distinguish between what Jesus claimed he was (the son of a god) and a magical elf who appeared as a man then did and said the same exact things? A magical elf who would not suffer even during torture."

Me: Based on what I have spelled out about Jesus' character, I'd say that it was a good magical elf, and believing its claims would be justified. Why would you say we shouldn't believe it?

Hans

Bilboe

My question:
Your response:
I would say I have no way of distinquishing between a good magical elf or a bad magical elf pretending to be a goog god, or between a good god or a bad god pretending to be a good god or any other supernatual being pretending to be a good god. That is exactly my dilemma with item 3.

Autonemesis

So how many fewer impossible questions would there need to be for you to no longer feel the need to invoke the supernatural? And what are some of those questions, if I may ask?

Would you agree that if god exists but is ineffectual - that is, god cannot cause any events to occur that have a discernable effect on human affairs - then I may as well regard god as if it did not exist, and conduct my life accordingly? Would you think that was a logical way to proceed?

If god exists, and he saves souls that are good enough to live for eternity in heaven, then it doesn't matter if you live or die, in fact if you believed your soul was saved, you should wish to die today. The rest of your life doesn't matter one bit in the "big picture" once you've been saved. What's another 40 years compared to eternity? It's an insignificant blip in your eternal lifetime.

And if god can't save your soul, why bother worshipping it?

Yes, I do. It cannot exist in any way that we mean ordinarily when we use the word "exist." If it - and by "it" I mean god, ghosts, souls, any supernatural or divine thing or force - exists then at some point we will be able to discern its effect on the physical world in some way. People will record their observations of these effects. If you claim that it is not possible to discern its effect in this empirical sense, then in what way does it exist?

But if you claim it does exist in an empirical sense, then as the raw observational data mounts, one of two things will happen. Either a pattern will begin to emerge, or the observations will resist attempts to establish correlations.

If we cannot make any sense of the data, then we cannot use it to make predictions. That is, we cannot say that prayer is effective, or that god has blessed you in any particular situation. We can't even assign any degree of probability that a prayer was answered, or that a blessing was bestowed. It follows then, that if we cannot make predictive or probabilistic statements about its effects, we have not really shown that it HAS any effects - at least, not in any sense that we ordinarily mean when we use the word "effect."

I find that many believers resolve the cognitive dissonance of maintaining their faith - especially those who do not cling to biblical literalness - by favoring a casual interpretation of the words "exist" and "effect".

HRG

I'd agree with that. However, to make the point appear in sharp contrast, let's assume for the sake of argument that all naturalistic explanations have been excluded.

This still does not mean that we have a method of preferring one supernatural explanation over the other which does not depend on a pre-conceived worldview.

I suppose that this is because based on your personal world-view (which includes statements about the supernatural) you associate a miracle with a good and moral "originator".

However, I - who lacks this world-view - can easily imagine a supernatural trickster, who makes miracles happen just to confuse us - once I accept any supernatural explanation. Once those flood-gates are opened, we have no control over what the tide will sweep in.
Why should there be a positive correlation between the moral character of a person and his tendency to perform miracles ?

Regards,
HRG.