Bilboe

Hans,

If I were to witness a man referring to himself as God (implicity or explicity), I would probably conclude that he was lying or crazy. However, if I knew him to be truthful and sane, it would leave me one option. Likewise, with Jesus, if we have good reason to think he implied divinity about himself -- and I think we do -- I think we're left with the same options. Based on the character of Jesus as presented in the Gospels, I find it difficult to believe that he was a liar or crazy. Again, I'm left with one option.

If you want to throw in the miracles he is alleged to have done, that would pretty much lock it up for me.

Bilboe

HRG: "If you say "I saw X happen, thus X really happened", you assume the regularity of many processes: the emission of photons by X and their propagation, the photochemical processes in your retina, the biochemical processes in the optic centers of your brain etc. They all have to run according to naturalism if you want to infer X from your perception of X.

Thus you can never say that you have observed a particular supernatural event, since the very notion of observation assumes naturalism."

Me: I think I agree with HRG's argument. However, I don't think it precludes supernatural explanations. For example, if we saw Jesus die, and remain dead for a considerable time, and then saw him alive again, it seems to me that concluding a supernatural cause for this is a reasonable thing to do. We haven't observed a supernatural cause, but then we know of no natural cause that would produce the result. I agree that this doesn't rule out possible unknown natural causes. However, I don't see how ruling out a supernatural cause follows from his argument.

Malaclypse the Younger

Bilboe

You are not agreeing with HRG's argument; indeed you are contradicting it. To believe that what we see is in any way representative of what is assumes naturalism; to conclude supernaturalism is to contradict one's own premise. If supernaturalism is true, there is no basis to connect what we see with what is.

Indeed it does not. It is trivially obvious that we cannot rule out unknown natural causes unless we know all natural causes. And, by definition, we can conclude that we know all natural causes only when all events have been naturalistically explained.

Because to infer a supernatural cause from a reasoning process that assumes naturalism is internally contradictory.

This observation does not itself rule out supernaturalism. It merely rules out the idea that we can conclude supernaturalism from evidential arguments.

Bilboe

Mal,

It sounds like you are confusing the premise, Every effect must have a cause, with the premise, Every natural effect must have a natural cause. I accept the latter, but don't see how that commits me to the former.

EDIT: Good ol' dyslexia. Let's try again: I accept the former, but don't see how it commits me to the latter.

[ March 31, 2002: Message edited by: Bilboe ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

If supernaturalism is true, then naturalism is false. They are mutually contradictory statements.

If naturalism is false, then we cannot conclude anything from the assumption that naturalism is true, since all reasoning is suspect from a false premise. Thus, if naturalism is false, all evidential arguments are unsound.

It should also be noted that by definition the observation that someone rose from the dead is at least a naturalistic event, since it can be observed. Naturalism defines epistemology such that all events actually observed are considered true (or rather are true perceptual experiences) by definition.

It is very strongly in doubt whether the text of the gospels references actual observations, or is merely fictious; indeed there is strong internal and external evidence for a fictional interpretation.

However, even if these observations actually occured, one cannot conclude supernaturalism; such a conclusion entails a contradiction.

Indeed one cannot even conclude that supernaturalism is a plausible (much less "true") conclusion, since the very term "plausibility" is incoherent under supernaturalism.

[ March 31, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Bilboe

Mal,

I'm no doubt just obtuse, but I still fail to see how supernaturalism rules out naturalistic explanations, or how assuming that most natural events have natural causes rules out occasional supernatural causes.

Bilboe

Ipetrich,

I've been reading The Jesus Puzzles. Is there any explanation offerred as to why Paul originally persecuted the early Jewish believers of this Messiah cult? Do you know of any on line attempts at refutation? If not, I'll try to find some, but I'm pretty computer illiterate.

Asha'man

Hi Bilboe,

I did exactly this, for years and years and years. I had doubts, but hadn’t made up my mind. I asked for guidance, for evidence, for the truth, for a sign. I prayed, I listened, I meditated, I sang, I shouted, I opened my heart, and I waited. What did I hear? Silence. Nothing. Nada.

(And please don’t reply with any of the usual crap about not listening hard enough. If an omnipotent God wanted me to hear him, there is no way I could have avoided getting the message!)

This is what finally convinced me, not all the contradictions and bad moral examples in the Bible, but the silence. Either God didn’t care about me, couldn’t talk to me, or didn’t exist. Since the Christian definition of God clearly ruled out the first two options, only the third could be true.

Malaclypse the Younger

I'm no historian, but it seems to me that persecuting heretics of various stripes was not all that uncommon two millennia ago.

Or it might simply be that some christians had cheesed Paul off personally and he had a vengeful character.

It doesn't seem, however, that Paul's persecution of christians, even if true, is prima facie surprising.

[ March 31, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

Bilboe

Naturalism is the idea that all events have comprehensible reasons.

Supernaturalism is the idea that no events have comprehensible reasons; events are the result of the unknowable "will" of a "deity".

These two ideas are mutually contradictory.

If we assume supernaturalism, we must conclude that any pattern or regularity in the world is an artifact of our minds, and not real; to assume otherwise would be to constrain the supernatural deity to behave naturalistically, which is self-contradictory.

Look at it this way. If supernaturalism is true, then any statement about the potential reasons for a document's existence is equally "likely", from the reason of it being the true and accurate representation of someone's accurate observations; to the reason that the document itself does not actually exist, that you saw it is a figment of your imagination.