So, all you need is a picture of God to prove his existence? Sheesh, I could have given you that a long time ago.

Sorry to butt in to the conversation, but I'd like to see that picture if you don't mind. Not that it would prove God's existence any more than a single picture of the earth would prove that the earth is spherical, but it would be interesting, nevertheless.

Go to an art museum, or google "Jesus--picture"

FWIW, I don't believe that anyone here is saying that one picture proves that the earth is spherical. It's actually tons of pictures and videotape from many space trips, lots of eye witness accounts by astronauts from several different nations, etc., that corroborate a massive amount of other evidence that all strongly points to the earth's being a sphere.

I understand this, which is why I specifically said that I knew Cop wasn't making the claim that one picture was sufficient evidence for him.

But as to what really does prove that the earth is spherical, we'd have to let Cop delineate the evidence that convinces him for himself.  As to your responses, I would still pose a similar question. I would bet that tons of videotape and pictures of Jesus would not be sufficient evidence for you.  We already know that eyewitness accounts are not accepted by you.  Why does that stuff work for you in one situation and not another?

Are you willing to apply your standards to the rest of what you consider history? Or will you continue to apply special (unattainable) conditions to any event which you don't find to be believable?

Why is there need for Copernicus or for anyone else to apply ANY conditions, special or otherwise, in further examination of a claim that fails the plausibility test?

If we come across a claim that says "Hannibal's army crossed the Alps on elephants" then we look for corroborating evidence and further examine the claim.

If we come across a claim that says "Hannibal's army flew over the Alps on flying elephants," well, the examination is over. The claim is false. There is nothing in our experience that can give such a claim the least bit of credence.

And that is it in a nutshell. You refuse to even examine the evidence. There is no way anyone could ever provide evidence of a supernatural claim to you, because you've predetermined that such evidence is false. It is called begging the question.

"Jesus was a Jewish rabbi in early first century Palestine." OK, we should examine the supporting evidence for that claim because it's a plausible claim.

"Jesus walked on water." This claim, like the one about flying elephants, is false and there is no need for further examination.

No need for further examination you say.  And do you yet claim that any evidence could be provided that would convince you of God's existence?  Nonsense.

Here's my two-cents worth on this: It is possible that all who claim to have found the truth are lying or are deluded or are mistaken.

It is NOT possible, however, that they are all telling the truth. We know this because some of their claims are contradictory.

Which is what I said.

What this means is that a method is needed to discern the more likely to be true (or accurate) from the less likely. What is your method for discerning truth and why don't you apply your method (whatever it is) fairly to all religions?

The method is simply the historical method, along with a little common sense.  And I believe that I do apply the method fairly.  Since you don't use the same method to discern truth, what method do you use?

For my part, I wonder, What would 'evidence' of the supernatural be like?

I'm not surprised you wonder that, because you've stated above that you deny any such evidence is possible.

It cannot be testimony because it is exponentially more likely that someone or some few who vouch for the occurrence of a supernatural event are lying or delusional or simply mistaken than it is that the event for which they vouch actually occurred.

See how crazy this is? If someone really, truly, actually saw something supernatural and told you about it, you wouldn't believe them anyways.  So how could you ever be convinced of anything?  Interestingly, you are more than willing to believe people who tell you that the world is round or that the moon isn't made of cheese...

So of what would evidence for the supernatural consist?

Using your approach, there could be none. It's an easy way to win an argument---begging the question.

But "improbable" is not reason enough for me to outrightly reject something, which is where we differ.

To say that a 'virgin birth' and a 'walk on water' and an 'arising from the dead' are merely 'improbable' is to say that my winning back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back powerball lotteries is improbable.

If this sort of improbability is no reason for you to believe that a claim is mistaken then you have no reason to believe that any claim short of an outright contradiction is mistaken.

Sure, a resurrection is more improbable than say, the Tigers making 8 errors in the World Series, but that is the point. You ask for evidence of the supernatural. This would have to be something improbable.  Then when presented with something improbable, you automatically disregard it because....it is improbable.  Do you see the circle?

And the thing is, you DO believe that claims other than just outright contradictions are mistaken -- and that makes no sense in light of the words you just wrote.

Because there is evidence for improbable claims. If you told me before the World Series that Detroit pitchers would make errors in 5 consecutive games and give up 8 unearned runs, I would have said that was highly improbable.  But, the evidence leads me to believe that such a thing really happened.  Some improbable claims are false, others are not.  The question is which ones are supported by the evidence.

If a source has never been disconfirmed, improbability alone is not enough to outrightly reject it. If it were, we would never have any unusual happenings in our recorded history...

Speaking of our recorded history, can you name a few historical non-biblical events that you believe are true which have roughly the same probability of being true that a 'virgin birth' or a 'walk on water' or an 'arising from the dead' has of being true?

Can you name one?

First off, improbability is to some extent I suppose a manner of subjectivity.  Maybe someone who follows the Tigers more closely than I do would not have thought it as improbable that they make so many errors.  I find Lincoln's assassination improbable, perhaps you do not.

Second, this deals again with the proof of the supernatural that you request.  If I presented a mundane event as proof of the supernatural, you would scoff because you want evidence of the supernatural to be something AMAZING that would prove no one other than God could have done it.  So, the fact that resurrection is more improbable than any event in history is precisely the point, and the reason that if it occurred, it would be very good evidence for the supernatural.

I would bet that tons of videotape and pictures of Jesus would not be sufficient evidence for you.

I'll call that brave bet of yours.

Now, produce the "tons of videotape and pictures of [the god] Jesus" and we'll see if it is sufficient evidence for me to form a belief in the existence of Jesus. If you can't produce the tons of videotape and pictures, then you forfeit the bet.

Cogito: Speaking of our recorded history, can you name a few historical non-biblical events that you believe are true which have roughly the same probability of being true that a 'virgin birth' or a 'walk on water' or an 'arising from the dead' has of being true? Can you name one?

rareairpug: First off, improbability is to some extent I suppose a manner of subjectivity. Maybe someone who follows the Tigers more closely than I do would not have thought it as improbable that they make so many errors.

What you call 'subjectivity' here is better called 'ignorance.' Someone with more experience about the game of baseball would never believe that to make a few more errors than usual in a five-game stretch of baseball constitutes a miracle.

Unfortunate for the Tigers? Definitely. Miraculous? Hardly.

I find Lincoln's assassination improbable, perhaps you do not.

Incredible.

A baseball team's committing a handful of errors and Abraham Lincoln's assassination are supposed to be examples of historical events that are approximately as improbable as is Jesus' alleged resurrection?!?!

I will be charitable and assume that you are joking here even though you don't seem to be.

My question, however, is a serious one. What other historical claims do you accept to be true that are as similarly improbable as is the claim that a person was resurrected from the dead?

For example, it's practically a foregone conclusion that you believe the  Lord Ganesha milk miracle is true given the number of witnesses there are for it. But still, I'd like to read that you do believe that it's true. You do believe that this 'miracle' actually happened just the way that millions of devout Hindus believe that it happened, right?

What about this alleged historical event? Did this probably happen, too?

A most relevant case of a Hindu miracle is that of Nambi Ambar Nambi, who lived about 1,000 ce. His father was priest of a small Ganesha temple in South India. One day he had to go to another village and asked his son Nambi to do the daily puja for Ganesha at the temple. Nambi did the best he could. But, assuming Ganesha always took the food his father brought, he became disheartened when Ganesha would not eat his food offerings. Nambi cried and cried and started to beat his head against the shrine wall. Suddenly Ganesha said, "Stop, Nambi, stop," and then proceeded to eat the food. Nambi was delighted to see all the food in front of Ganesha disappear and asked Ganesha to teach him all there was to know of religion. Later, when his father returned home, Nambi told him what had happened. Not believing his son's story, the father went to the temple and witnessed Ganesha's actually eating the food offerings.

The father was an eyewitness so given your epistemology you must believe that it happened.

What about this one?

Saint Jnanadeva is revered for his Bhagavad Gita translation and commentary in the Maharastrian language. Among several miracles that established this 13th-century saint's reputation, the most famous involved a water buffalo. Challenged by the arrogant brahmins of Paithan that he was not qualified to recite the Vedas, Jnanadeva replied, "Anyone can recite the Vedas." He placed his hand upon a nearby water buffalo, which proceeded to correctly chant Vedic verses for more than an hour. Not only Jnanadeva but the buffalo itself was thereafter revered--its samadhi shrine is today a place of pilgrimage.

Since there were eyewitnesses to this, we should assume that you believe that it happened, also. Correct?

 

Why does that stuff work for you in one situation and not another?

For the same reason that 'that stuff' works for any other rational adult in one situation and not another. There is nothing in my experience (nor, I'll wager, in yours) that is analogically close to the kind of physics-defying miracles we see described in the bible.

What justifies our counting 'testimony' as evidence in the first place? Experience. It is our experience that people usually tell the truth when they testify about some event or other which is the only reason that we accept testimony as evidence. If our experience were different then we wouldn't accept testimony as evidence.

But 'usually' is not 'always.' Obviously, people don't always testify accurately. Sometimes they lie. Sometimes they get confused. Sometimes they remember wrongly. Sometimes they are simply mistaken. And even sometimes when people do testify accurately, they testify equivocally or ambiguously and we misundertand their testimony.

Our experience has taught us several things about human testimony. Among the things it's taught us is that the more disinterested a person is in a particular event to which the person testifies, the more likely the person's account of that event is to be true. It's also taught us that the more mundane or ordinary the event is to which is being testified, the more likely the account of the event is to be true.

How disinterested were the Apostles? How 'ordinary' are the events to which they testify?

And yet you believe their passionate, biased account of the miraculous as if they were some disinterested bystander giving an account of current weather conditions.

Amazing.

And that is it in a nutshell. You refuse to even examine the evidence.

What evidence? What precisely is there that you wish me to examine more closely? It is someone's WORD, for heaven's sake. It's hearsay. The first thing you do with any testimony is to determine the credibility of the account. And that is exactly what I did with this testimony!

I know (and you should, too) that the more incredible and complicated a claim is, the less likely the claim is to be true.

1. Hannibal crossed the Alps.
2. Hannibal crossed the Alps on an elephant.
3. Hannibal flew over the Alps on a flying elephant.

Anyone should be able to figure out that 1 is more likely to be true than is 2 because if 2 is true then 1 necessarily has to be true but 1 can be true without 2's necessarily being true, as well.

Everyone on this board should realize that 3 is off-the-charts unlikely. It is something that our experience and any reasonable analogies that can be drawn from our experience argue unanimously against.

Any testimonial that contradicts physical law, ESPECIALLY TESTIMONIALS FROM HIGHLY BIASED SOURCES, has an incredibly steep hill to climb to be taken seriously. This doesn't mean that the account is absolutely false; it means only that the vast preponderance of human experience argues against its being true as strongly as it is possible for it to argue against any account's truth and thus, rationally, such an account cannot be accepted as true.

By accepting testimonial evidence that miracles are true you seriously undermine the very thing which gives such evidence the least bit of credence to begin with -- experience.

I'm sure that this breaks one or more of sntjohnny's so-called epistemic Golden Rules all to pieces. If it doesn't, it should.

Cog pointedly asked me to respond to this argument in another thread, so here it goes:

Since testimony relies solely on experience to justify its use as evidence, testimony about miracuolous events undermines the very thing (experience) that gives testimony credence to begin with.)

I'm not sure what you mean by testimony relying solely on experience. Why couldn't testimony of a miraculous event be based on experience?  It sounds to me like you are presupposing that miraculous events cannot occur.  If so, then you are begging the question.  Maybe you can clarify if I'm not understanding you correctly.

This is what is frustrating when discussing such things with you.  You ask for evidence of God's existence to prove that he is there.  But you don't take any such evidence seriously as you say.  You reject it without even considering it a possibility.  You are asking for something which you've already predetermined is impossible to exist.

That's just not true.  I am perfectly willing to consider evidence, but you haven't offered any worth considering.  Not yet, anyway.  

But this is the circle again.  You don't expect authors of "myths and fictional accounts" to identify their works as fictitious.  But how have you determined that they are fictitious?  You've assumed it.  I would be interested and pleased if you could provide some other reasoning for believing an account to be fictitious other than your own presumption.

I have provided that reasoning in the past repeatedly, but what the heck.  To the extent that you can, you look for evidence that corroborates the accounts.  For example, you examine archeological evidence and you look for reports on the accounts from independent sources.  Since religious movements are prone to give biased accounts, you look at what contemporaries may have written.  In the case of Jesus, there were zero references to his existence in sources that were contemporary with his life--e.g. in Roman records.  All reports of his life and performances of miracles came from documents written by Christians after his death.  That makes them no different from, say, accounts of the life of Apollonius of Tyana after his death.  

You are correct to say that this sort of embellishment has happened. I would not deny that fact.  But, can you provide a way of determining that it has other than your assumption?

You can't always determine the truth of written accounts.  There may be no evidence one way or the other.  In the case of purported miracles, skepticism naturally runs high.  You are no different from me in that respect, except that you suspend your skepticism when it comes to stories found in the Bible.  You have yet to make a good case for suspending skepticism with respect to biblical tales.

So how many events have to be corroborated before you trust a source? ...

It isn't a question of how many events. Could you answer such a question? We've been discussing the criteria that make us consider sources trustworthy. I consider the Bible no more trustworthy than the Upanishads, the Book of Mormon, or other religious works. Why should I consider it more trustworthy?

Because other events/facts in it have been corroborated by other sources that you do trust.  Can you say that for the Book of Mormon?

I cannot say it for the Bible.  As for the Book of Mormon, there does seem to be good evidence of where it came from.  The fantastic bits recorded in it seem as well-supported as those in the Bible.

Is there a right way and a wrong way to interpret the U.S. Constitution?

The document was never intended to be interpreted the same for all times and all places.  The authors were quite deliberate about that.  That is why James Madison destroyed all his notes on the proceedings.  They did not want "original intent" to reduce flexibility of interpretation in future generations.  Many, if not most, Americans have a different view of the document.  They often do see it as a kind of scripture whose interpretation is inflexible.

I'm not sure I agree with your claim that we no longer understand the intent behind the wording of ancient documents.  If this is true, it would negate a lot of what we already consider "history" would it not?  Is it your position that we are unable to understand the intent behind any writings that are in another language?  Or do you only apply this argument to the Bible?

Do you think that you are capable of understanding every cultural reference you read about in translated works, even though you are ignorant of the historical context in which they were written?  Why, for example, did Leviticus recommend the death penalty for eating shellfish or wearing clothing made up of two or more fabrics?  If you want some answers to why such things exist in the Bible, then I recommend Gordon and Rendsburg's The Bible and the Ancient Near East, which goes into fascinating detail.  Sntjohnny doesn't dare read it, but maybe you aren't quite so close-minded.

There is no special method, it's just treating documents fairly. You won't allow any evidence of support because you preemptively lump a document that contains supernatural events into the "not possible" category. I maintain that with your current approach there is no evidence that could ever exist which you would accept in support of a supernatural occurence.

Maybe so. Can you tell me what kind of evidence exists that you think ought to convince me? I would really like to know.

I'm not sure you are understanding what I'm saying.  I think you already know (or at least would know) of plenty of evidence, but you don't allow it to be considered evidence.  There is evidence that exists for supernatural events, but you reject it a priori because it attests to supernatural events.

You seem to have missed the question, so I'll ask again in boldface.  Can you tell me what kind of evidence exists that you think ought to convince me?  I would really like to know.  

It is impossible for anyone to give you other texts which you would accept to corroborate Luke, because you would simply consider them "Christian texts" as you put it, and therefore untrustworthy. It is begging the question again.

Maybe so, but can you confirm that that is all the evidence you know of?  Other Christian texts?  You may be correct that I would look with suspicion on any doctrine that relied solely on a collection of texts written by possibly biased sources.  But let's get it all out in the open.  Do you have anything other than that kind of evidence?  If not, then we can deal with my reaction to it as a separate issue.  I just want to clear the air here about the nature of the evidence that you think corroborates the NT.

As mentioned above, other events, places, happenings in Luke can be easily corroborated from other sources, even ones that you would consider ok.  Also, it has been a while since I've read the BoM, but as I recall, some of the major events Smith records (such as the discovery and existence of the gold plates) are witnessed by him alone, whereas Luke records events that were witnessed by other people.

That's interesting.  You made an oblique reference sources that even I would consider ok.  Could you be more specific?  BTW, Joseph Smith, being a competent con artist, was sure to get witnesses to corroborate some of the events that took place.  He was adept at convincing people of the truth of his claims, and I'm sure that even the Romans had people capable of putting on a good show for the gullible.  Indeed, as I have mentioned previously, Lucretius wrote around the time of Christ, and he reported on the general gullibility of population regarding alleged miracles.

How would you know whether the "atheist" scholars are correct?

I would examine the evidence and their arguments for myself.  I don't know why you find this concept so foreign.  To be fair, I know I've taken Christian scholars simply on their word before, but as a general rule, I try not to take any claim by anyone simply on their say-so.

And why would you think me any less skeptical than you?  Because I disagree with your conclusions?  I explained my biases in the OP and have never once tried to pretend lack of bias.  Let's try to get past that and examine the evidence.  You can't ever seem to get to the evidence, because you are always attacking my bias.  You have a Christian bias.  Does this mean that you won't even consider the possibility that some gospel stories about Jesus might have been fabricated?  And, if you do consider that possibility, how do you dismiss it?

I approach the Bible the same way that I approach other religious works.

Exactly!!  And you've already admitted that you don't approach religious works the same as other works.  You assume they are false at the outset.

No, I assume that supernatural claims are false unless some reasonable evidence is presented that they actually occurred and were not of the sort that Lucretius satirized in On the Nature of Things.  I think that religious works are sources of information about some historical events that really did occur.  We know that people often embellished such events with supernatural trappings.  That is why I reject the claims about Jesus.  They were no different than false claims made about other holy figures in those times.  They might have been true, but the odds seem stacked against that.

I don't invest trust in works that do not earn that trust.  But that determination isn't made by my opinion of the plausibility of the events in each work.

How did Christian documents earn your trust?  I may be wrong, but I suspect that you trust Christian documents because you have been continually bombarded with Christian propaganda throughout your life.  People can be conditioned to trusting just about any source, and that is why most adherents of a given religion trust their own documents and not those of other religions.

I will not approach the Bible in the same way that I do a scholarly or scientific work, because it is neither.

How do you know this?  Are you assuming it again?  Evidence?

It doesn't meet the minimal criteria for either.  It was never submitted for peer review as a condition of publication, and many of its claims appear to be both preposterous and unverifiable.  Scholarly and scientific works adhere to more rigorous standards.

Determining how to determine what constitutes evidence has to be the first step in this discussion.  I'm trying to give you evidence, but your approach to the evidence has been a logical fallacy.

Huh?    I certainly agree with your first statement, and I have told you what criteria I use to judge evidence as reasonable.  We appear to disagree on what those criteria should be.  Just because we disagree, that doesn't give you the right to then claim that I am making a logical mistake.  First, you must explain why your evidence is trustworthy.  As I've said many times before, textual claims alone are insufficient to establish truth, since you can use that methodology to validate anything at all.  You need something more.

At the same time, you accuse me of treating the Bible differently from other works, when it is plainly evident that you treat the Bible far differently than you treat other similar works.

As far as investigation into the veracity of the Bible, I do not treat it differently than other works.

It appears to me that you do.  Based on your evidential methodology, Cogito has deduced that you believe the truth of Ganesha's Milk Miracle.  At this point, I have not seen your response to his deduction, but I suspect you will show quite a bit more skepticism of Hindu claims of miracles than you do of Christian claims.  Can you honestly say that you do not?  

So, do you consider any event that has no natural explanation to possibly be supernatural?

Yes, provided that there is no reasonable explanation that can be based on our knowledge of physical laws.  Otherwise, I would have to entertain that all events, even those that have apparent natural causes, could have supernatural causes.  That would be an absurd position to take.

Are there any events that have occurred that have not been explainable in terms of natural forces?

I know of none that could not have reasonable physical explanations.  Resurrection is a physical possibility, but it is so preposterous that a supernatural cause might be considered as a reasonable alternative.  When fantastic claims of that sort come from unreliable or untestable sources, it is usually prudent to exercise one's natural skepticism.  Gullibility is not a desirable survival trait.

Then, how have you determined that the skeptical sources concerning Jesus are correct and the others are not? Please don't tell me you just assume that the documents supporting a supernatural occurrence are false, because that would be proving my point.

This isn't about what is false or true, but what licenses trust in a source of information.

Wow. Wouldn't the truth of something license your trust in it?

We are talking about events whose truth is in question.  You are begging the question by presupposing truth.

...It is the lack of any reasonable evidence for the Christian story and the existence of more plausible and natural alternative explanations.

Well, let's try an example.  Jesus touches a man blind from birth, and the blind man can suddenly see.  What is the natural alternative explanation for that?

I don't have enough information to be able to answer that question.  Fraudulent behavior by alleged faith healers has been exposed in the past, so one would need to make sure that this was not the case in your hypothetical situation.  The placebo effect is another possible answer.  It is so poerful that scientists have had to invent double-blind methods to verify their findings that drugs have the desired effect on patients.  Or it could be a genuine miracle, as were all the miraculous cures performed by Apollonius of Tyana, the so-called "Pagan Jesus".    More than likely, such reports of miracles in the gospels never actually took place.  We know that people have made up such stories in the past.  Joseph Smith did it in recent times, and his legacy now has quite a following.

OK. What is your evidence? Can you finally answer that question?

Been trying.  Part of my evidence is evidence that you are aware of but do not accept.  I think you probably know this.  What is being discussed here is really the approach to the evidence.

Please stop temporizing and stonewalling me.  It's a simple question, and you ought to be able to give a clear answer.  How is evidence for your religion different from evidence presented for false religions?  What distinguishes yours from the others?

It has been my consistent position that Christian converts were no more or less skeptical than converts to other religions. As we now appear to be in violent agreement on this point. Let's move on.

As long as you agree they would have been no more or less skeptical than the unbelievers of the time.

That would be illogical.  Skeptics are, by definition, more skeptical than believers.  You ask me to deny a tautology.

Whoa! We weren't talking about the folks who were alleged to have met Jesus in person. We were talking about converts who had no such direct evidence of Jesus. We don't even have reasonable evidence that Jesus existed, let alone performed a single miracle that was attributed to him.

Ah, so your argument is not against those people who converted in the Biblical accounts, only those who convert when not experiencing Jesus in person?  It seemed we were talking about the people of Jesus's day.  You used the term "early Christians."

I am not talking about eyewitnesses.  Whether or not there ever was a Jesus to be noticed by eyewitnesses is a reasonable question.  That people in the early Roman empire converted to Christianity is not in dispute.  The first fairly undisputed evidence of the existence of Christians was Pliny the Younger, who wrote to the emperor Trajan about them.  What I meant by that expression was people who converted on the basis of secondhand accounts.  

Those who disseminated and believed in the gospels were not people who had had an opportunity to "check out" Jesus in person. They were in no different position than the followers of Apollonius, who had not been direct witnesses to his alleged miracles either.

Matthew?  John?  Of course these people had an opportunity to check out Jesus.  Your concept of direct witness is interesting because I would bet you believe in plenty of events that you have never directly witnessed.  Of course, you will say that the ones you believe in aren't supernatural. But are some of them improbable?

What opportunity did they have?  Their accounts overlap but contain inconsistencies.  Looking at just the text itself, it appears that Mark was written before the other three, which cribbed some of Mark's materials.  As for my trust in sources that report events I've never witnessed, see the OP.  I explain it there.

That's a really great question. Since you first used that expression, I leave it to you to provide an answer. What exactly did you mean when you implied that people "checked out" Jesus? My guess is that their opinion was swayed by the smooth talk of those who proselytized them, just as opinion was swayed in the minds of converts to competing religions.

Your guess is.  My guess is that if Jesus allegedly healed a man blind from birth, that people would be checking that story out.  Asking the man who was healed, "Did Jesus really heal you?"  "Were you REALLY blind?"  "Were you faking?"  Probably asking his parents if the man was lying about being blind all his life...

Is it your position that the same techniques were not applied to the stories of Apollonius's miracle cures?  Modern faith healers get away with such nonsense, so it isn't clear why you think that it couldn't have happened in the past.   Such stories about holy men were a dime a dozen, and the faithful are either unwilling or unable to "check out" such claims.

It must be nice to just disregard evidence because "it isn't credible" to you.  Hmm.  You know what, I just decided that I don't accept the account of the Civil War.  It doesn't seem credible to me, families and relations fighting against each other, the whole country splitting up like that.  Good argument?

Bad argument based on false analogy.  We have plenty of strong physical evidence that the Civil War took place.  It is the very lack of evidence for the Gospel events that we are discussing here.  That is part of what makes them so implausible.

Let's recap:  You deny that Jesus did any miracles (if he existed).  But if he did do miracles, no one who saw them would have doubted them, leading you to claim the story of 'Doubting Thomas' is false.  So, the miracle stories are false, but if they aren't the rest of it sure is.  Heheh. It is amazing how you can take any outcome and turn it into an argument for you. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

That's a bit incoherent, and it sure isn't a fair recap.  I deny that there is good reason to believe that Jesus performed miracles.  If he did, then those who witnessed them probably would have believed in him.  Doubting Thomas witnessed his miracles and still did not believe in him.   I therefore suspect that the story of Doubting Thomas was apocryphal.  (I suspect that it is just a rhetorical invention to overcome the doubts of believers and to cast aspersions on a rival religious sect.)  However, even if there never was a Doubting Thomas, that does not mean that Jesus never performed miracles.  I would never make such a non-sequitur argument.

Well, you just gave me a good argument.  The evidence supporting Jesus must have been overwhelming, because the writers of the gospels had to "make up" stories about doubters to "help suppress the natural doubts" of those who hadn't seen him.

You consider this an argument in support of your position?  Suppose that there had never been any Jesus.  Are you saying that the proselytizers would never have thought it necessary to make up such a story?  All religions claim that faith has good consequences and lack of faith has bad consequences.  The Upanishads often mocked the stupidity and venality of the "charvakans"--materialist atheists in ancient India--who always ended up suffering for their lack of faith.  Doubt is natural.  For any belief to catch on, it has to come with strong mental antibodies.  Don't be a "Doubting Thomas".  Look what a fool he made of himself.  

Are you serious? You think that paintings of Jesus, as imagined by medieval European artists, are equivalent to photographs of the earth from space? And you think that all those photographs, not to mention all the other evidence provided over the past 3 millenia, could have been "easily forged"? The ancient Greeks were the first that I know of to actually use scientific evidence to deduce that the earth was round.

The point of the question is to determine why you trust the photograph takers, or I suppose NASA in general.  You don't question that a supposed photograph from outer space is really a photograph from outer space.  What makes these guys so worthy of your trust?

That's a tough one.  I can actually "check out" NASA's claims through independent sources of information and lots of corroborating evidence.  I can see the space station from the ground.  (In fact, I saw Sputnik I with my own eyes through a telescope shortly after the Russians launched it.)  In short, I have all the kinds of evidence I need to validate NASA as deserving of my trust.  In the case of the Bible, that is precisely the kind of evidence I lack.

Please provide some evidence for Jesus or God that even begins to compare with the evidence that the Earth is round.

I'm not attempting to compare evidence.  I'm attempting to determine why you trust who you do.

If you had read the OP, you would already know that.  And I don't doubt for a second that you would provide me with the evidence I asked for if you had it.

That's just not true. I am perfectly willing to consider evidence, but you haven't offered any worth considering. Not yet, anyway.

You are perfectly willing to consider evidence.expect evidence that supports anything "supernatural."

Once again, what kind of evidence do you have in mind?  What is it that you aren't giving me a chance to reject?  I would really like to know.

So, if Jesus did do miracles, and people who saw him recorded such events, you would expect them to be believers.  Then, you are going to complain that only believers recorded such events.  Once again, you are playing two sides of an argument.

Not really.  Your own scripture claims that people who did witness such events still didn't believe in Jesus.  I was just pointing out how counterintuitive that sounded.  But that wasn't what I meant about corroboration from non-Christian sources.  One would have expected contemporary secondhand reports of such miracles by people who did not personally witness them.  In fact, there was zero evidence from the actual dates of Jesus's life that the multitudes who were supposed to have witnessed his miracles actually did witness those miracles.  No contemporaries mentioned the Christian movement or the existence of a miracle-worker in Palestine.  All information was based on tales recorded well after the death of Jesus.  That doesn't prove that Jesus didn't exist.  It is just contrary to what one would reasonably expect if he really had existed.

Secondly, are you willing to apply your standard to the rest of history?  If a person is not mentioned in accounts contemporary with his life, does that mean we should doubt those sources?

"Yes" to the first question.  "No" to the second.  There might well be other types of historical evidence to support the claim, as there was for Alexander the Great.  Nobody doubts Alexander's existence, because the political map of Asia Minor was completely altered by him, among other things.  If Jesus had never existed, all that followed his alleged life could still easily have happened.  Religions don't actually need to be based on true events in order to attract followers.  They just have to have a message that hooks people the right way.

You can't always determine the truth of written accounts. There may be no evidence one way or the other. In the case of purported miracles, skepticism naturally runs high. You are no different from me in that respect, except that you suspend your skepticism when it comes to stories found in the Bible. You have yet to make a good case for suspending skepticism with respect to biblical tales.

So, you are admitting that you have no way of determining that the Bible has been embellished outside of your own assumption?  And remember, Im not asking you to suspend skepticism, not any more than you would for any other document that is alleged to record history.

In the case of the NT, scholars have come up with arguments to support an embellishment theory--especially in support of the claim that Mark predated the more elaborate stories in Matthew and Luke.  Given that the two latter gospels seem to contain passages from Mark, but with more elaborate details than were in Mark.  There appears to be a trend in which more details about the life of Jesus emerged as the authors became more distant from Jesus in time.  We know that people have a tendency to embellish tales when they retell them, so it is very natural that this might have occurred.

I cannot say it for the Bible. As for the Book of Mormon, there does seem to be good evidence of where it came from. The fantastic bits recorded in it seem as well-supported as those in the Bible.

Well, you probably need to do some research into this because I dont know of anyone who agrees with you.  Many Biblical events have been corroborated and are considered history by even the most anti-Christian historians.  There is no evidence to support any of the stories or peoples described in the Book of Mormon.  Check it out for yourself; dont take my word for it.

It doesn't trouble me that you are unacquainted with people who agree with me on this point.  You should get out more.  :p  I don't dispute that many biblical events have been corroborated, but those are invariably mundane historical events, not the fantastic bits.  What I said was that the fantastic bits recorded in it seem as well-supported as those in the Bible.

Do you think that you are capable of understanding every cultural reference you read about in translated works, even though you are ignorant of the historical context in which they were written?

Well, maybe not, but I also dont think that we are completely ignorant of historical context either.

I disagree.  I think that the vast majority of people who read the Bible have no idea whatsoever of the historical context that produced scripture.  They don't know anything about the various religions, languages, mores, or politics of those times.  Where would they get such information from?  From Sunday school?

I fully intend to read your book since you seem to have constructed most of your outlook based on its contents.  Really, I do.  Now, would you consider reading a book that contradicts the conclusions of Gordon and Rendsburg?

I am happy to read different perspectives, especially when written by scholars with similar credentials who are capable of examining the same kind of evidence.  BTW, I would not say that "most of my outlook" is based on Gordon and Rendsburg.  I would say that they had considerable influence in shaping my opinions about the historical origins of the Bible.  I have read lots of other sources, as well, but I consider that work to be among the most impressive.  For example, I like Gerald Larue as a historical scholar on religion and the Bible, but I don't think that he is as close to the source material as Gordon and Rendsburg. Larue is also a self-described religious skeptic, whereas Gordon and Rendsburg don't seem to have declared themselves on the subject of religious belief.  Not that I'm aware of, anyway.

You seem to have missed the question, so I'll ask again in boldface. Can you tell me what kind of evidence exists that you think ought to convince me? I would really like to know.

You seem to have missed the point. What kind of evidence exists?  Documentary, archeological, testimonial�.But that doesnt matter right now because you are still working from a faulty methodology.

It does matter very much, and you have exposed no "faults" in my methodology.  What archeological evidence?  Textual evidence is also worth examining.  If you want to sound convincing that there is actual evidence out there, it is extremely helpful when you name concrete instances of the type of evidence.  I do not reject reasonable evidence.  As I have said repeatedly, if all of the evidence is just texts written by Christians, then it is no better than similar texts written by adherents of other religions.  Christianity is not the only religion in the world, shocking as that revelation may be to you.  

Maybe so, but can you confirm that that is all the evidence you know of? Other Christian texts? You may be correct that I would look with suspicion on any doctrine that relied solely on a collection of texts written by possibly biased sources. But let's get it all out in the open. Do you have anything other than that kind of evidence? If not, then we can deal with my reaction to it as a separate issue. I just want to clear the air here about the nature of the evidence that you think corroborates the NT.

As I already stated, based on your reasoning below, you shouldnt find it surprising that all the writings about Jesus are Christian writings.  But, in fact there are references to Jesus in other historians as well.  In addition, there is archeological evidence supporting the people, events, and places recorded in the Bible.

I believe that the fictional events were depicted as occurring in real places and involving real people.  I've given you a thorough explanation as to why I consider such depictions alone to be the flimsiest of reeds to base a belief on.  You can show that Pontius Pilate probably existed with archeological evidence, but you can't show that he had a man called Jesus executed or that there ever was an actual crucifixion.  We have no Roman record of it.

That's interesting. You made an oblique reference sources that even I would consider ok. Could you be more specific?

You make a good point.  What would you consider 'ok'?  And the why would be interesting as well.

I can't really answer your questions until you answer mine.  YOU told ME that you had sources that I would consider "ok".  I asked for them, and then you responded with these questions.  Please just tell me what you had in mind.  I'll then tell you whether I agree with you that I consider them ok.

How many people claimed to have seen the plates?  Biblical events are corroborated by large crowds.

I don't recall the specifics of how many people witnessed the plates.  Maybe you can get that information from our Mormon friends.  As for Biblical events, they are alleged to have been witnessed by large crowds.  A claim that large numbers of people witnessed a miracle is not corroboration of the miracle.  Reports from members of the crowd would count as subjective corroboration.  But even that is dicey.  We have large numbers of reports of flying saucers, but such accounts are often based on misperceptions of some natural or manmade phenomenon.

Let's try to get past that and examine the evidence. You can't ever seem to get to the evidence, because you are always attacking my bias.

Well, that is sort of the point.  You dont accept evidence because you disregard it a priori.  What point is there in discussing evidence if we are approaching from different methodologies?

The point is to establish that you have something concrete that you call evidence.  When you temporize that I won't believe the evidence, you give the impression that you have no evidence and wish to conceal that fact.  Sort of like Nixon's "secret plan" to get us out of Vietnam and Bush's "secret plan" to get us out of Iraq.  Neither man had a plan, but they used the excuse to put off those who demanded to know their exit strategy.

No, I assume that supernatural claims are false unless some reasonable evidence is presented that they actually occurred and were not of the sort that Lucretius satirized in On the Nature of Things.

Could you explain to me how any such evidence could exist?  What would be evidence of Jesus performing miracles?

Here it is again:  corroborating evidence.  To find out more about what I mean, do a keyword search on that word on "corroborat" in this thread.  I've explained it before.

It is true that I was raised Christian and did believe in the truthfulness of the Bible before examining the evidence, but I have examined the evidence since growing older.  They meet a reasonable standard of historical accuracy.  Incidentally, couldnt people be conditioned into atheism as well?

Yes, one can condition people to be atheists, too.  Communist regimes have used anti-religious propaganda to that end.  I question the rigor of your "standard of historical accuracy", but you already knew that.  

[The Bible] doesn't meet the minimal criteria for either. It was never submitted for peer review as a condition of publication, and many of its claims appear to be both preposterous and unverifiable. Scholarly and scientific works adhere to more rigorous standards.

No one expects it to, as peer review didnt exist back then.  But there is that matter of corroboration with other sources, which is a sort of peer review after the fact I suppose.  At any rate, none of the historical documents that historians trust were peer-reviewed.  Does that make them less trustworthy?

That wasn't the question.  The question was why I didn't consider the Bible a scholarly work.  It never met the minimal criteria for such, e.g. submission to peer review.  While some events depicted by the Bible have been confirmed as accurate, some have been disconfirmed.  None of the so-called miracles have ever been confirmed by corroborating evidence.

...This is an example of begging the question.  That means you assume the point that is being discussed.  In my example, I (RAP) assume that SntJ is 7 feet tall.  You provide evidence that is contrary to my assertion.  But, I reject the evidence on the basis that it is contrary to my assertion.  See the problem?  My claim of johnny's height is precisely what is in question.  I can't decide the evidence is false just because I think it is.  I need to look at it without assuming the conclusion beforehand.

I'm sorry, but your analogy was completely inappropriate and silly.  We are not talking about that kind of evidence, and you know it.  For one thing, the question of sntjohnny's height can be established by other types of evidence than mere assertions.  What is in dispute here is what counts as reasaonable evidence to support a claim of historical accuracy.  We seem to disagree about the reasonableness of the evidence you present (or more often allude to) and nothing more.  There is no sense in which I have been begging the question, especially when getting you to actually present concrete examples of evidence is a tooth-pulling exercise.

Your approach to literature which includes record of supernatural events is the same.  You assert the supernatural events are false.  But when presented with evidence of such things, you predetermine that the evidence is false because it is not in line with your claim.  Now, there might be perfectly valid reasons for rejecting a document that claims a supernatural event occurred.  But it is not valid to say a document is false simply because it contains an account of a supernatural event, especially if that is the very point you are investigating!

You do not understand my approach, if that is what you think I have been saying.  In the absence of evidence, I assume claims of supernatural causes to be false.  You act as if you have presented me with reasonable evidence that I reject, but your evidence just turns out to be unverifiable textual claims.  That is not what I call reasonable evidence.  Worse yet, I do have knowledge of large numbers of supernatural claims that have been debunked as false.  So the track record for such claims is generally poor, and I find myself less and less inclined to believe them as time goes on.  BTW, I'm happy to stand corrected in my assumption that you were skeptical of Ganesha's Milk Miracle.  To be consistent, you have to entertain all supernatural claims as equally likely until they have been proven false, e.g. a report that a tooth was replaced by money under some child's pillow by the actual Tooth Fairy and not a family member.  You might discover it to have been a family member on some occasions, but you would need to test it out for every case that you hear of before allowing bias to overwhelm reason.  

First, you must explain why your evidence is trustworthy. As I've said many times before, textual claims alone are insufficient to establish truth, since you can use that methodology to validate anything at all. You need something more.

I doubt you could validate anything at all textually.  But that is a starting point.  And the more texts that attest to something is more evidence.  And the more events in a text that are attested to is more evidence.  Out of curiosity, what more than textual evidence do events like--I don't know I'll pick a random one----The Punic Wars have that makes them more valid?

As I've already explained many, many times, historians rely on multiple sources of information to confirm the truth, not just textual reports.  There is good, hard archeological evidence to bear out the textual claims, and there are a wide variety of different textual sources to confirm the textual accounts.  We have a very neat explanation for the state of the ruins of Carthage in that account.  Nothing like it comes to mind as validation of Christian claims.  It is far easier to verify that Hannibal and Scipio existed than Jesus.

I don't know why you would automatically assume I find the Milk Miracle to be false. I don't know enough about it, nor have I investigated it to the point where I'd make a strong claim about it.  But it certainly could be true---I don't rule that out at all.  That is where you and I differ it seems.  I'm willing to consider evidence, you have already predetermined what is true and what is not.

Well, well.  Cogito was right, after all.  You have to accept its truth, given the type of "evidence" that you rely on to verify Biblical claims.  I plan to go to India in December, but I doubt I'll witness the Milk Miracle.  If I come across any local charlatans who claim to have produced it, my blind prejudice will doubtless prevent me from paying to be made a fool of.  

So, do you consider any event that has no natural explanation to possibly be supernatural?

Yes, provided that there is no reasonable explanation that can be based on our knowledge of physical laws. Otherwise, I would have to entertain that all events, even those that have apparent natural causes, could have supernatural causes. That would be an absurd position to take.

What about, say, the Bermuda Triangle?  Could there be something supernatural at work there?

I doubt it.  I have never seen any credible evidence that it is anything other than an urban legend.  I haven't ruled out the possibility that aliens are manipulating space-time there, but I'm too much of a curmudgeon to spend much of my time worrying about it.  

Are there any events that have occurred that have not been explainable in terms of natural forces?

I know of none that could not have reasonable physical explanations.

How about a patient who is diagnosed with cancer, takes no medicine, comes in for surgery and when they open her up, there is no cancer.  Doctor says he can't explain it.  Is there a reasonable physical explanation?

My first guess would be misdiagnosis, but spontaneous remissions are also quite common.  A miracle would be way down on the list of possibilities for me.

Resurrection is a physical possibility,

That is news to me! How would that work exactly?  What natural processes would bring such a thing about?

Just invent a machine that can assemble all of the physical ingrediants that made up the body of the deceased into an exact replication of the original body.  That would qualify as a bona fide resurrection.  Surely you've read this idea in science fiction before.  It's theoretically possible, but nobody has invented such a machine or is likely to.

We are talking about events whose truth is in question. You are begging the question by presupposing truth.

I did not claim there that you should believe the source in question because it is true.  I asked a question, which you did not answer.  I'll restate:  If something were proven to be true, wouldn't that make you trust it?  In other words, if we can determine the truth of a document, I would think that would be a good reason (dare I say the only reason?) to trust it.  So, I think this IS about what is false and what is true.

First of all, statements can be true or false.  Documents aren't exactly in the same category.  If something is proven to be true, then I have no problem accepting it as true.  Even trusted sources of information can be wrong.  So I might trust what a scientist tells me about some natural event when I first hear it, but that trust is always subject to revision.  Similarly, my belief that Jesus probably did not exist is subject to revision.  Someone might actually come up with good evidence that he did.  Proving that he performed all the feats that were attributed to him--well, I still tend not to trust hagiographies.  Nothing wrong with good, healthy skepticism, especially when people ask you to believe rather fantastic claims.

But the point was, IF such "miracles" actually took place, is there a natural alternative explanation for them?  It seems the answer is no.  So, I can only presume that in your previous statement there, you don't know of any natural alternative explanations for a man who was blind all of his life suddenly being able to see.

Nonsense.  Spontaneous cures have been known to happen, and there are a variety of reasons for that, including the placebo effect.  In some cases, there is no good explanation for the cure.  That still does not tell you that it had a supernatural cause.  Since faith healers are adept at tricking people into believing that they have miraculous powers, it is only prudent to remain skeptical when confronted with such an event.  In Roman times, as today, there were lots of charlatans out there selling snake oil cures.  There are always gullible folks out there who would rather believe in a miracle than a more mundane explanation.

Please stop temporizing and stonewalling me. It's a simple question, and you ought to be able to give a clear answer. How is evidence for your religion different from evidence presented for false religions? What distinguishes yours from the others?

I'm really not attempting to stonewall you.  There is historical evidence, archaeological evidence, textual evidence, testimonial evidence yadda yadda yadda.  But we both agreed earlier that it is really the methodology that needs to be established first.

I think that we also both understand that you can't back up your handwaving references to evidence.  There's nothing there, so you fall back on temporizing--issuing promisory notes that never come due.

I used the term unbelievers, not skeptics.  I certainly believe that there were/are skeptics who are/were/became Christian.  You apparently do not believe this is possible.  I think that is a somewhat arrogant presumption on your part, as if not a single Christian thought it worthwhile to examine the evidence before believing.

The arrogant presumption is your gratuitous claim about what I do not believe.  There is a trivial sense in which every convert starts out as an "unbeliever".  You used an ambiguous word, and I took "unbeliever" to be a synonym of "skeptic".  I don't think that my interpretation of your wording was unreasonable.  However, just to be clear, I do not think that people who joined religious cults of any stripe were as skeptical as those who rejected the cult.  Skepticism of a new belief is default behavior in all of us.  It has to be, if we are to survive this world for long.  I applaud your general religious skepticism, but not your suspension of skepticism about your own religion.  I don't think that said suspension is licensed by any rational or logical chain of thought.  

Matthew? John? Of course these people had an opportunity to check out Jesus. Your concept of direct witness is interesting because I would bet you believe in plenty of events that you have never directly witnessed. Of course, you will say that the ones you believe in aren't supernatural. But are some of them improbable?

What opportunity did they have?

These men were disciples of Jesus, they hung out with him for three years.

There is no reason to believe that the gospels were actually written by people who hung out with Jesus.  Many scholars now think that Mark was the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, although Mark, unlike Matthew, was not supposed to have known Jesus.  What we are dealing with are stories about men who were disciples of Jesus.  Whether or not they originated with disciples of Jesus is simply not an established fact.

Their accounts overlap but contain inconsistencies.

So do the accounts of Socrates, but no one seems to doubt his existence. Why is that?

I think that a few people may have doubted Socrates' existence, but no one seriously doubts it as much as they doubt Jesus.  It does make it easier to believe in Socrates in that nobody attributed supernatural origin and powers to him.  Nevertheless, the evidence that Socrates existed has been based largely on texts that his student Plato and his contemporary Xenophon left, not to mention references from Aristophanes and Aristotle.  There really isn't much more than that to go on.  However, that is a separate question from whether the gospels represented genuine eyewitness accounts or myth.  There are also questions about whether Robin Hood and King Arthur really existed or whether they were composites of actual historical figures.  Earl Doherty has come up with a theory that Jesus was a composite of two earlier themes in Greek circles at the time: a Son of Man and a Son of God movement.

Looking at just the text itself, it appears that Mark was written before the other three, which cribbed some of Mark's materials.

I've actually heard the opposite, with some pretty good evidence to back it up.  But, to be fair, I think the best we can say is that it is unsure which were written first. I'm not sure that matters, unless you think that the other three writers all copied off of the first one.

I think that it was a combination of that and other sources, such as the mysterious 'Q', which figures large in Doherty's account.

Is it your position that the same techniques were not applied to the stories of Apollonius's miracle cures? Modern faith healers get away with such nonsense, so it isn't clear why you think that it couldn't have happened in the past. Such stories about holy men were a dime a dozen, and the faithful are either unwilling or unable to "check out" such claims.

Well, I provided you with a record of such an examination.  Does such an account exist in regards to Apollonius?  In this case, the people were able and willing and DID check out the claim.

You provided me with a "record of such an examination"?  Where?  I can't find it.  I know that you have alluded to one, but that is hardly the same as providing one.  Apollonius, of course, did not benefit from two millenia of worshippers and hucksters trying to lend credibility to his reputation.  There was no brisk traffic of Apollonian religious relics in the Middle Ages.  No Shroud of Apollonius.  

It must be nice to just disregard evidence because "it isn't credible" to you. Hmm. You know what, I just decided that I don't accept the account of the Civil War. It doesn't seem credible to me, families and relations fighting against each other, the whole country splitting up like that. Good argument?

Bad argument based on false analogy. We have plenty of strong physical evidence that the Civil War took place. It is the very lack of evidence for the Gospel events that we are discussing here. That is part of what makes them so implausible.

You illustrated my point very nicely there.  It is evidence for the occurrences of supernatural events that we are discussing (like those in the Gospels).  But then you beg the question by saying the existence of the very thing we are looking for in the documents is what makes them implausible.

Huh?    We have lots of evidence of the Civil War from a variety of sources, not just documents.  And nobody is calling the Civil War a supernatural event.  Outside of a handful of ancient textual accounts, we have no evidence that bears witness to Jesus or his miracles.  

Curiosity again: What physical evidence do we have that the Civil War took place?

Photographs (actually daguerrotypes), newspapers from that time, battlefields strewn with evidence of military conflict, the recollections of Civil War veterans up through the 1950's, and so on.  The chair that Lincoln was assassinated in sits in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan.  But all of that could have been faked, right?  

But this is why I'm confused.  If you are correct that people who witnessed Jesus' miracles would probably have believed in him (a point I'm not necessarily agreeing with), then by your explanation the presence of a Doubting Thomas story should be evidence that Jesus really DID perform miracles.  Why create such a story if Jesus wasn't so convincing?

I see no reason for your confusion, unless you simply haven't been reading what I wrote.  Doubting Thomas is not evidence that Jesus did or did not perform miracles.  The Gospel of Thomas was considered apocryphal.  He is alleged to have ended up in India, where a Christian community of his followers--a very small but influential group--still exists.  Similarly, the Gospel of Judas was considered apocryphal by those who eventually won control of the Christian community.  So it is perfectly reasonable that Thomas and Judas would show up as a fool and a villain, respectively, in the surviving strain of Christianity.  Not only would their stories served as lessons to those who would stray from the True Path, but they made excellent propaganda against rival communities of Christians.  The scenario I paint is speculative on my part, but it is a reasonable alternative to the speculation that Jesus actually performed the miracles attributed to him.  People actually made up such stories in those days, as the tales of Apollonius and the writings of Lucretius prove.

...Suppose that there had never been any Jesus. Are you saying that the proselytizers would never have thought it necessary to make up such a story?

So, you think such a story would have been created even if Jesus wasn't all that convincing.  Again, I don't know how to argue against you since you claim that either outcome is a victory for your point.

I'm not claiming any kind of "victory" here.  I'm merely pointing out that there are plausible explanations for the existence of the Gospels that don't necessitate belief in his actual existence or his miraculous powers.  Every religion has its tales of miraculous historical events.  Such things to get invented, you know.  The question always comes back to how you distinguish your religion from false religions.  What do you know that believers of other religions do not?  How would an objective person make a decision in favor of your religion and not one of the others?  The type of evidence you bring to the table is the same--textual accounts.

Just for the record, I don't consider Thomas a fool.  I mean, he's the real skeptic of the bunch isn't he??  He is one of you.

Despite your denial, he comes off as an utter idiot in the NT.  He had witnessed miracles before the crucifixion, so why would he doubt that Jesus would perform yet another?  Skeptics don't believe the evidence until their noses are rubbed in it, right?  The whole point of the story was to give ammunition to those who confronted doubters.  This technique was also used by Hindu brahmins to convince their followers that the Charvakans (atheist materialists) were fools who invariably ended up suffering for their lack of faith.  Charvakans were the clowns of Hindu scripture.  Thomas redeemed himself, but the idiot had to be dragged back into the fold when everyone else kept their faith.

That's a tough one.  I can actually "check out" NASA's claims through independent sources of information and lots of corroborating evidence. I can see the space station from the ground. (In fact, I saw Sputnik I with my own eyes through a telescope shortly after the Russians launched it.) In short, I have all the kinds of evidence I need to validate NASA as deserving of my trust. In the case of the Bible, that is precisely the kind of evidence I lack.

Let's probe this a little deeper.  What sort of independent sources do you use?  What constitutes corroborating evidence?  Only your eyewitness views?  Yes, I agree that your actually viewing of Sputnik is an excellent reason to trust that Sputnik was really up there.  But, that is just one thing.  Just because we can rocket a piece of metal into space, does it necessarily follow that we can land men on the moon?

Hah!  You remind me of my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Schnerle.  The day after the launch of Sputnik I, she explained to a classroom of shocked youngsters that we could orbit the earth with satellites, but we would never actually send a man up into space.  Years later, I watched live pictures on TV as Neil Armstrong plopped his foot down on lunar soil and botched his historic line.    The whole point is that our natural doubts are gradually suppressed.  We require multiple sources of information to beat down the doubts.  Christians normally spend a childhood being taught not to doubt that which lacks any real evidence at all.

Hey Cop--

Sorry, that was a REALLY long delay.  But I did have some time to think about these issues, so I'll give you an attempt at a summary of what I see happening here.

I maintain that your approach to the evidence concerning so-called "miracles" is illogical.  You, of course, disagree.  Now, since I feel that logic is an objective standard (would you agree?) I don't know where to go from there.  We both are convinced we are holding a logicially consistent view---I don't know how to break the deadlock.

In short, as best as I can understand your position, you reject all evidence that points to the supernatural because it points to the supernatural.  When you've denied this, I've asked on what grounds you reject the evidence, but I don't recall you ever giving another reason.  I have a feeling you will deny this and I'd like to go back and get examples, but it appears most of our thread is missing.  I might go back to the old forum and check it out, but we could just take the gospel of Luke or the gospel of John for example. 

So, here is a thought I had.  Since you seem to think that the evidence for Jesus doing miraculous events is not good, what sort of evidence would you expect to find if such a thing (God walking around on the earth doing miracles) had occurred?

I know I didn't respond to the last post---I thought an attempted summary might be better.  But, I will still respond to any points you want me to if you think they are important and I didn't cover them above.

Logic is mainly about the preservation of truth.  When the premises are faulty, the logic can be impeccable but still lead to a false conclusion.

Agreed, and it seems we both start from different premises, thus creating the disjunct.

And let's not forget the two types of logical inference:  deductive and inductive.  Science is more about induction than deduction.  I do believe that religious claims are more vulnerable to inductive refutation, because the track record of religious claims is phenomenally bad.  Hence, I would agree with Dawkins in his claim that the existence of God is ultimately a scientific question.  If God interacts with physical reality, then we should be able to discover phenomena that point to the existence of God.  That is a reasonable expectation, but not a certainty.

That is a-ok with me.    One of the few things Dawkins said in his book that I agreed with.

In short, as best as I can understand your position, you reject all evidence that points to the supernatural because it points to the supernatural.  When you've denied this, I've asked on what grounds you reject the evidence, but I don't recall you ever giving another reason.  I have a feeling you will deny this Wink and I'd like to go back and get examples, but it appears most of our thread is missing.  I might go back to the old forum and check it out, but we could just take the gospel of Luke or the gospel of John for example.

Not quite.  I reject claims that certain phenomena count as evidence of the supernatural, because such claims always seem to have more plausible natural explanations.  A case in point would be the origin of biological species, which can now be reasonably interpreted as caused by natural biological evolution.

Well first of all, the testimony of the eyewitnesses is that these were actual miracles.  I realize that there is always a possibility that witnesses are mistaken, but the starting point is that everyone at the time assumed Jesus was doing some freaky stuff. 

Second, I doubt there is a plausible natural explanation for a man dying and coming back to life.

The Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John can be seen as no different from other religious works that you and I both presume to be apocryphal.  In order to take them as evidence of supernatural causes, you would have to show how they are different from false accounts of miracles.

Can you present some evidence that shows them to be false?  (Assuming that the 'miracles' recorded in them are false does not constitute evidence.  I might add, even if Luke and John were fooled into thinking Jesus was doing miracles when he wasn't, that doesn't mean that the events that occurred aren't recorded accurately.)

what sort of evidence would you expect to find if such a thing (God walking around on the earth doing miracles) had occurred?

There is a seemingly endless supply of types of evidence.  For example, one might find relics from that era that behave differently from other relics--e.g. the funeral shroud that Christ was wrapped in or pieces of the cross that he was crucified on.  A piece of wood that never decayed would be an excellent example of possible evidence of supernatural causes, because that would have uniquely different properties from wood that we observe in nature.

Don't you think that you'd come up with some natural explanation for it?  I mean, come on, be honest, someone would come up with some explanation that would sound more plausible to you than a supernatural solution.  We could just take life as an example.  Even evolutionists admit that they don't have the whole process and origins figured out, but that doesn't stop you from believing it instead of a supernatural cause (as you delineated in the first post of this thread--which appears to be lost).

On the other hand, does this mean that you are interested in findings like the Shroud of Turin?  If it was real, do you think you'd be convinced of Jesus' existence just like that?

The holy grail would be another useful piece of physical evidence.

Indiana Jones found that, didn't you hear? 

A manuscript or engraving dating from that time that mentioned Christ's miracles would be super evidence.

Ummm....isn't that what we're looking at?  We have quite a few of those, but they certainly haven't convinced you.

A really nice touch might be some message written in the sky--e.g. "In hoc signo vinces" with a cross visible to Christians and non-Christians alike.  The Bible and religious writers have been describing that kind of evidence for centuries.  Unfortunately, we see nothing like it in modern times.  And we also see that pagan writers also wrote about the same kinds of miraculous events, although most of us tend to reject their "evidence" without much difficulty.

I have two responses to this:
1. Lost sometimes in the shuffle is the realization that Jesus could only die once.  I mean, once He's been resurrected and all, He can't very well come back and play the string out again and get killed again.  When He returns this time, it will be the end, because there will be no room for doubt.  Point being, God coming to earth was a one-time event only.  So we didn't get to be around at that exact time----sucks to be us, but that is the way it goes.  He had to pick SOME time.

2. About the whole message in the sky thing, I bet there would be people who could come up with natural explanations for that too.  I'm sure it wouldn't be hard.  And as we've seen, and you've even admitted, you will cast your lot with the natural explanation (now matter how far-fetched) every time.  Could Jesus come and do something that would remove all doubt from everyone's mind?  Sure!  But, as I know has been mentioned in other threads, you wouldn't really want that to happen, because that would be the end.  As someone wise (I forget) once said, "if there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for you."

It is far easier to respond to smaller posts than larger ones.  I like summaries, because they allow us to focus better on the issues.

Good, then I hope this was useful. 

Only experience justifies the use of testimony as evidence; thus, to believe that an extraordinary event actually occurred based on someone's or some few's testimony is to devastatingly undermine the only justification we have to accept that testimony as evidence in the first place.
This means that someone's or some few's testimony that they saw Jesus walk on water cannot possibly justify a belief that Jesus walked on water.

You're missing my point.  The point I was trying to make was that the people who recorded these events believed them to be miracles as opposed to thinking they were making up nonsense stories or witnessing a illusionist.  They actually believed that what they witnessed was supernatural.  Now, they could be right or wrong about that, but the fact that they thought they witnessed the supernatural is a different starting point than some other accounts start from. 

I realize that there is always a possibility that witnesses are mistaken, but the starting point is that everyone at the time assumed Jesus was doing some freaky stuff.

What justifies the belief that "everyone at the time assumed Jesus was doing freaky stuff"? At best, we have only third-hand hearsay from a handful of mostly anonymous individuals. For the reason I point out above, it is not possible for this sort of "evidence" to justify such an incredible claim.

All the evidence we have corroborates the fact that Jesus was doing SOMETHING that was out of the ordinary.  Even the people who didn't follow Jesus conceded the fact that He was performing miracles.  Some of them accused him of being satanic (see Matthew 12:22-28). 

Third hand?  The writers of the gospels were contemporaries of Jesus who walked and talked with him.  And again, I think you are misunderstanding my point.  I wasn't claiming in that statement that this justifies believing in the miracles.  What I was saying was, everyone acknowledged that there was something strange going on.  Now, you might not believe that actual supernatural events were happening, but then you'd have to explain what exactly you think was going on and why.

Second, I doubt there is a plausible natural explanation for a man dying and coming back to life.
. . . and, therefore, no reason for us to believe that any man did die and come back to life.

And there you have it. If anything that lacks a natural explanation is considered impossible, how could you ever believe that anything supernatural ever happened?  You couldn't.  You rule it out a priori.  That is what I'm trying to get at.  It really isn't about looking at the evidence for you.  You've already made up your mind before examining the possibilities.

It is almost infinitely more likely that the few people who testify that such a scenario occurred are simply mistaken than it is that they accurately describe a chain of actual physical events. Yet, you choose to believe the almost infinitely less likely claim. There is no epistemic justification for you to do this.

But consider, what if a supernatural being really did come to earth thousands of years ago.  What would you expect people to say?  Probably exactly what the gospels say about Jesus.  But since you rule out the supernatural before examining the evidence, you would never even CONSIDER the possibility that these people MIGHT be telling the truth.  It's called begging the question.

Can you present some evidence that shows them to be false?
I'm sure he can. I know that I can. They, the miracles written about in the bible, are contrary to beliefs that are based on the greatest human experience that we have had -- the experience that has established our physical laws. To disregard that vast experience and to choose to believe instead the claims of a few is an entirely irrational decision.

Thanks for proving my point. 

I might add, even if Luke and John were fooled into thinking Jesus was doing miracles when he wasn't, that doesn't mean that the events that occurred aren't recorded accurately.
And just because we disbelieve that the moon is made of green cheese doesn't mean that it isn't made of green cheese.

So what?

We were talking about the reliability of the gospel accounts.

We're talking about rational belief; about that which we have justification to believe. Anyone can always believe whatever irrational nonsense that he chooses.

So true.  To you, rational means, "able to be explained by natural or human processes."  But I submit this:  Not everything that CAN be explained by natural processes actually IS explained by natural processes.

...Hence, I would agree with Dawkins in his claim that the existence of God is ultimately a scientific question.  If God interacts with physical reality, then we should be able to discover phenomena that point to the existence of God.  That is a reasonable expectation, but not a certainty.

That is a-ok with me.    One of the few things Dawkins said in his book that I agreed with.

Don't be too quick to agree with Dawkins.  It commits you to the view that is at odds with the majority opinion that science and religion do not overlap--what Gould refered to under the rubric of NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria).  Dawkins writes at length on why he considers NOMA to be wrong.

Not quite.  I reject claims that certain phenomena count as evidence of the supernatural, because such claims always seem to have more plausible natural explanations.  A case in point would be the origin of biological species, which can now be reasonably interpreted as caused by natural biological evolution.

Well first of all, the testimony of the eyewitnesses is that these were actual miracles.  I realize that there is always a possibility that witnesses are mistaken, but the starting point is that everyone at the time assumed Jesus was doing some freaky stuff.

Do you also consider the possibility that the accounts of eyewitnesses were simply false?  That there never were any eyewitnesses as reported in the gospels?  The true starting point is at the nature of the evidence for the existence of those witnesses, and that is no better than the evidence for eyewitnesses to any supernatural events.  Assuming that the eyewitnesses really existed and that their account is accurately represented in the gospels, THEN there is the question of their interpretation of what they saw.

Second, I doubt there is a plausible natural explanation for a man dying and coming back to life.

Me, too.  Unlike you, though, I doubt that any such thing ever happened.  Resurrection myths predate Christianity by centuries, and there is no more reason to believe them than there is to believe that the Frankenstein monster was real.

The Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John can be seen as no different from other religious works that you and I both presume to be apocryphal.  In order to take them as evidence of supernatural causes, you would have to show how they are different from false accounts of miracles.

Can you present some evidence that shows them to be false?  (Assuming that the 'miracles' recorded in them are false does not constitute evidence.  I might add, even if Luke and John were fooled into thinking Jesus was doing miracles when he wasn't, that doesn't mean that the events that occurred aren't recorded accurately.)

I don't need to provide evidence for non-events any more than I need to provide evidence that there is not a china teapot revolving in orbit around the sun (Bertrand Russell's famous example).  Nobody takes the claim seriously that there is such a teapot, but nobody can disprove it.  So, whatever evidence I do provide you with, you can still claim that I haven't provided you with enough. 

But you can ask what makes reports of such miracles implausible.  That kind of evidence would be inductive in nature.  We know that false stories of that sort were quite commonly reported in those times.  (Apollonius of Tyana is but one such example.)  We cannot prove that any of the accounts of miracles never happened, but we exclude them on the grounds of lack of evidence.   The burden of proof is on those who claim that the miracles did occur.  How compelling is the evidence that they did occur?  The answer is that it is no more compelling than common, ordinary folktales are compelling.  You can point to the Bible.  I can point to Mother Goose.

what sort of evidence would you expect to find if such a thing (God walking around on the earth doing miracles) had occurred?

There is a seemingly endless supply of types of evidence.  For example, one might find relics from that era that behave differently from other relics--e.g. the funeral shroud that Christ was wrapped in or pieces of the cross that he was crucified on.  A piece of wood that never decayed would be an excellent example of possible evidence of supernatural causes, because that would have uniquely different properties from wood that we observe in nature.

Don't you think that you'd come up with some natural explanation for it?  I mean, come on, be honest, someone would come up with some explanation that would sound more plausible to you than a supernatural solution.  We could just take life as an example.  Even evolutionists admit that they don't have the whole process and origins figured out, but that doesn't stop you from believing it instead of a supernatural cause (as you delineated in the first post of this thread--which appears to be lost).

In all honesty, I think that there could be compelling evidence of miracles.  The critical point is that the evidence be verifiable--something that we can observe repeatedly not to be reducible to natural explanation.  An object with magical properties would fit the bill.  (Magic, by definition, fails to obey natural laws.)  It's not that the existence of such objects has never been reported.  It is that the objects themselves always seem to become inaccessible. The accounts of their existence always have to be taken on faith.  That is precisely the kind of credulity that mountebanks and frauds rely on.

On the other hand, does this mean that you are interested in findings like the Shroud of Turin?  If it was real, do you think you'd be convinced of Jesus' existence just like that?

The shroud has already been debunked by scientists already, although there are still some who claim that the dating methods were flawed.  Even if it could be shown to date back to the time of Christ, and not the medieval period (which had a booming trade in faked religious relics), that would not prove claims of supernatural events.  The point of the shroud is just to establish the mundane claim that a historical Christ existed, and we can't even do that.  Now, if the shroud could be shown to be impervious to all forms of decay--if it could not rot, for example--that would be evidence of a supernatural property.  The cloth would not behave as normal cloth does, and there would be no natural explanation for it.

A manuscript or engraving dating from that time that mentioned Christ's miracles would be super evidence.

Ummm....isn't that what we're looking at?  We have quite a few of those, but they certainly haven't convinced you.

Oh, goody.  Where are they?  I thought that we only had copies that dated back to centuries after the events reported in them.  Is Jesus mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls?  Er, no.  That would be a good place to find mention of him, though.  So, where are these documents that date back to the time of Jesus?

A really nice touch might be some message written in the sky--e.g. "In hoc signo vinces" with a cross visible to Christians and non-Christians alike.  The Bible and religious writers have been describing that kind of evidence for centuries.  Unfortunately, we see nothing like it in modern times.  And we also see that pagan writers also wrote about the same kinds of miraculous events, although most of us tend to reject their "evidence" without much difficulty.

I have two responses to this:
1. Lost sometimes in the shuffle is the realization that Jesus could only die once.  I mean, once He's been resurrected and all, He can't very well come back and play the string out again and get killed again.  When He returns this time, it will be the end, because there will be no room for doubt.  Point being, God coming to earth was a one-time event only.  So we didn't get to be around at that exact time----sucks to be us, but that is the way it goes.  He had to pick SOME time.

Come on, Rare.  Don't expect me to take this objection seriously.  All you are doing here is saying that God chooses to give us insufficient evidence to believe that his miracles ever took place.  Maybe that's true, but you could easily make the same claim for any god that didn't exist.  To justify the existence of a false god, one would have to come up with SOME explanation for why the god was so difficult to discover.  Your explanation is that he left unverifiable accounts of spectacular miracles around, expecting us to take them on faith alone.  And Christians preach that it is somehow a good thing to believe these accounts without any credible method of verifying them.

2. About the whole message in the sky thing, I bet there would be people who could come up with natural explanations for that too.  I'm sure it wouldn't be hard.  And as we've seen, and you've even admitted, you will cast your lot with the natural explanation (now matter how far-fetched) every time.  Could Jesus come and do something that would remove all doubt from everyone's mind?  Sure!  But, as I know has been mentioned in other threads, you wouldn't really want that to happen, because that would be the end.  As someone wise (I forget) once said, "if there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for you."

What makes #2 so implausible is that Jesus is supposed to have shown up and removed all doubt 2000 years ago.  So what's the problem with showing up AGAIN, long after the original eyewitnesses died off?  The original witnesses didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects, and most of them probably ended up in Heaven, right?  Was there "no room for them" after they witnessed Jesus?  How can you believe such poppysmall bunnies?  You and others keep trying to sell us on the idea that removal of doubt is really not in our best interests, even as you simultaneously urge us not to have doubt!  And then we lose our doubt after we get to heaven anyway.  What is heaven?  A divine booby prize?  If an omnipotent being wanted me to know of its existence, there would be nothing standing in its way of my knowing it existed.  Of that I do have no doubt.