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Author Topic: The Limited Value of Logical Arguments For or Against the Existence of God and H  (Read 6985 times)

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Copernicus

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First of all, you cannot produce a single eyewitness to an event that allegedly happened two millennia ago.

True, but thankfully written testimony from an eye-witness or 4 can last for two millennia. Which is what the gospels are.

There is no written testimony from eyewitnesses.  The gospels were originally spread by oral tradition, which was recorded in writing much later.  What survives of the gospels today are copies of copies.  There is no "eyewitness testimony" in the conventional meaning of that expression, and it is disingenuous to suggest that there is.

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Oh darn your logic is bullet proof, until one realizes that the Bible isn't just one document, but rather a compilation of different documents and thus can indeed verify itself. Matthew can be verified by Luke, Mark, and John, John can be verified by Matthew, Luke, and Mark, etc. etc. That my very short-sighted friend is the nature of the historical method and eye-witness testimony.

I see.  We are now into word games.  What does "document" mean?  The Bible is a document that has been compiled from other documents. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you do not know what the synoptic problem is and do not understand the reasons why most scholars do not take similarities between the gospels to be corroborative evidence of the sort that you imply here.  The person who first came up with the "fourfold gospel", Irenaeus, bundled the three synoptic gospels together with the Gospel of John, which he included because of his mentor Polycarp's influence, and he essentially created the concept of Christian orthodoxy.  In the 4th century, his work became the basis for the state religion of the Roman Empire--a so-called "orthodox" version of Christianity.

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But you don't even appear to know anything about how historical claims are validated.  For that, we look at physical evidence--archaeological relics--independent corroboration by those who were in a position to know about events, and historical consequences.

Actually that's exactly what the Gospels are, as the apostle's were indeed in a position to know about events. That they actually believed what they were testifying to is the natural following from witnessing such events, and is a very flimsi reason to dismiss such claims.

I can only repeat what I said.  You appear not to know anything about how historical claims are validated.  The "gospels" are just religious texts, like any other myriad such texts, oral and written, that have existed all over the planet throughout recorded history.  What distinguishes them from all others is that you were brought up to revere the Bible over all other religious texts.
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There is no written testimony from eyewitnesses.  The gospels were originally spread by oral tradition, which was recorded in writing much later.  What survives of the gospels today are copies of copies.  There is no "eyewitness testimony" in the conventional meaning of that expression, and it is disingenuous to suggest that there is.

It's outright laughable to suggest there isn't. As it doesn't really matter who put pen to paper. All that matters is that if they reflect reality correctly, then at best it points to being written by eye-witnesses or at worst having eye-witnesses as the source. Either way it's still eye-witness testimony in the very literal meaning. I simply take your criticism as evidence of the usual spinelessness of skeptics to accuse them of lying.

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I see.  We are now into word games.

The ever expected response from you.

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What does "document" mean?  The Bible is a document that has been compiled from other documents. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you do not know what the synoptic problem is and do not understand the reasons why most scholars do not take similarities between the gospels to be corroborative evidence of the sort that you imply here.

No, I've heard of the "dependency" theory. I just know it's as debunked as the Christ-Mythers as many scholars can have the same theological ax to grind as you do. No wonder you appeal to it. Read here for why:

http://www.tektonics.org/qm/qmhub.html

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I can only repeat what I said.  You appear not to know anything about how historical claims are validated.  The "gospels" are just religious texts, like any other myriad such texts, oral and written, that have existed all over the planet throughout recorded history.  What distinguishes them from all others is that you were brought up to revere the Bible over all other religious texts.

And thus you prove, again, of SJ's accusal of special catagories. Which is hypocritical, even if completely predictable, given your "equal skepticism" challenge. Cake, eating it too.
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Copernicus

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It's outright laughable to suggest there isn't. As it doesn't really matter who put pen to paper. All that matters is that if they reflect reality correctly, then at best it points to being written by eye-witnesses or at worst having eye-witnesses as the source. Either way it's still eye-witness testimony in the very literal meaning. I simply take your criticism as evidence of the usual spinelessness of skeptics to accuse them of lying.

I have bolded the part of your reply that begins to make sense.  And what you see bolded there--that is a conclusion, not a premise.  In your case, however, it is clearly a premise.  And you are back to confusing premises with conclusions.  You do not build any case for us to come to that conclusion, because you have started out believing that the stories are true and that there were eyewitnesses.  The fact remains that all stories have their "eyewitness" accounts, even the false ones. 

So we need something more than a bare assertion.  We need evidence to suggest that the gospels are anything but apocryphal. 


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No, I've heard of the "dependency" theory. I just know it's as debunked as the Christ-Mythers as many scholars can have the same theological ax to grind as you do. No wonder you appeal to it. Read here for why:

http://www.tektonics.org/qm/qmhub.html

Well, gosh, you really do know how to use Google, don't you?  Unfortunately, you did not bother to google JP Holding, the author of that essay.  He is far from being a recognized scholar.  In fact, his real name used to be Robert Turkel, and he has been exposed as something of an internet fraud and a notorious troll.  (He apparently changed his name legally to James Patrick Holding in 2007, after having been unsuccessful in getting people to use his online pseudonym.)  He has engaged in lots of online debates over the years, and Farrell Till has an interesting essay on his background.

But we can quibble over sources of information.  There are better scholars than Holding whom you might draw on to try to support your position, and I hope that you explore the matter further.  I would suggest that you go beyond Holding's internet screeds.
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I have bolded the part of your reply that begins to make sense.  And what you see bolded there--that is a conclusion, not a premise.  In your case, however, it is clearly a premise.  And you are back to confusing premises with conclusions.  You do not build any case for us to come to that conclusion, because you have started out believing that the stories are true and that there were eyewitnesses.  The fact remains that all stories have their "eyewitness" accounts, even the false ones. 

No, that's what's to be determined. As such your arguement becomes circular to argue they aren't eye-witness accounts before it's even determined. Thankfully 2nd-century testimony is unanimous in subscribing the Gospels to the persons who carry the books name. And it's begs the question of how the early Church could view the Gospels with any authority if they didn't know who wrote them, or even how it could be so widely accepted over the Roman Empire. Or even why they would choose to assign such auther's as Luke was obscure, Mark abandoned Paul, and Matthew was a hated tax collector. Not to mention 1st and 2nd generation Christians would still be alive to recall the apostles and there teachings, making it impossible to subsribe authorship to anyone but the genuine authors or the teachings as anything, but the real thing.

So the fact of the matter is the Gospels are indeed eyewitness accounts. Skeptics like you simply can not take up CS Lewis's challenge to either accept what they testified to as true or call them liars, as accusal of lying requires proof. And as you have no proof of them lying, you must come up with other excuses to avoid being confronted with your circular belief.

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So we need something more than a bare assertion.  We need evidence to suggest that the gospels are anything but apocryphal. 

We need more than the bare assertion that they aren't as well. Which is where you fail.

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Well, gosh, you really do know how to use Google, don't you?

I believe I reference this site many times in our discussions.

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Unfortunately, you did not bother to google JP Holding, the author of that essay.  He is far from being a recognized scholar.  In fact, his real name used to be Robert Turkel, and he has been exposed as something of an internet fraud and a notorious troll.  (He apparently changed his name legally to James Patrick Holding in 2007, after having been unsuccessful in getting people to use his online pseudonym.)  He has engaged in lots of online debates over the years, and Farrell Till has an interesting essay on his background.

Aww, Ad Hominems. The sign of someone who has lost an arguement. Especially when one doesn't know Holding and Flemming had something of a "back-and-forth" then:

http://www.tektonics.org/af/flemmingflushing.html#buckbuck

And I can say Till is also not someone with an ounce of scholarship and has had his arguements taken to the cleaners as well:

http://www.tektonics.org/tsr/tsrpages.html

So you think sighting what amounts to "bad-mouthing" from Holding's debate rivals proves anything, or can be considered credible? That is truly laughable.  Especially as this simply shows your own hypocrisy when you subscribe to the Christ-Myth theory, whose main supporters are neither scholars as well.

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But we can quibble over sources of information.  There are better scholars than Holding whom you might draw on to try to support your position, and I hope that you explore the matter further.  I would suggest that you go beyond Holding's internet screeds.

I would hope you would come up with a better rebuttal than bald face ad hominems. But such tactics are signs of someone whose arguement lacks force otherwise. You should have quit while you were ahead Cop.
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Anthony Horvath

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"Actually broke out a sharpie and some papyus? No, I didn't mean that and I think you know it."

No, I didn't know it and I think if you didn't want to mean that then you shouldn't have said that.  I see no other way of interpreting what you said.  But if you didn't mean it, fine.

"Christianity claims God inspired/guided/had something to do with it's contents. Yes?"

A far different thing than 'written by a supernatural deity.' 

"I have found nothing in it to indicate or give reason to believe God, or a God, had anything to do with it's writings."

Well, let's be clear here.  You are doing some serious equivocating.

For example:  "Christianity claims God inspired/guided/had something to do with it's contents. Yes?" Compared with:  "I label [the Bible] religious because it claims to be written by a supernatural deity, gives instruction on how to worship said being, lays out rituals etc."

So we have two different things going on.  On the one hand, you ask if Christianity claims that God had something to do with it.  On the other hand, you say the Bible itself 'claims to be written by a supernatural deity.'

These are two different things.  We should be clear precisely what the Bible claims for itself compared to what others claim regarding it.  Does the Bible 'claim to be written by a supernatural deity'?  No.  Does the Bible claim even that God 'inspired/guided/had something to do with it?  Some of the books, yes, but then there are sixty-six of the things and if you want to toss out the ones that make such claims for our consideration let's just do that and remove this obstacle/excuse.

Just because Christians believe that God has something to do with the Scriptures does not mean that they can't be taken on their own terms, and as a number of the books within the collection put themselves forward on historical terms, there is no reason why we can't receive them as such.

Take the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts for example.  Luke says he sat down to compile a trustworthy account, having investigated matters for himself.  There is nothing in Luke and Acts where Luke says, implicitly or explicitly, that he is writing anything God inspired.  Who cares if Christians nonetheless believe God did?  Here I am, one particular Christian, willing to set aside the inspiration point altogether and deal with the document on its face.  I should be commended for my openness and my willingness to face the truth, whatever comes out of it.  This doesn't seem to be happening.  Instead, we see a relentless attempt (see Cop's posts for evidence) to make sure we pigeonhole the entire Bible into a special category.

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Copernicus

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"Actually broke out a sharpie and some papyus? No, I didn't mean that and I think you know it."

No, I didn't know it and I think if you didn't want to mean that then you shouldn't have said that.  I see no other way of interpreting what you said.  But if you didn't mean it, fine.

I took his statement to mean that he thought many Christians believed the Bible to be inspired by God.  But these kinds of quibbles work as rhetorical distractions, appearing to respond without really responding.

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"Christianity claims God inspired/guided/had something to do with it's contents. Yes?"

A far different thing than 'written by a supernatural deity.' 

I got his meaning from the beginning.  It's hard to believe that you did not, but this clearly seems to be the issue you have picked to nitpick.  A new fallacy created on the spot by sntjohnny:  argumentum ad nitpickerum.  ;)

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Just because Christians believe that God has something to do with the Scriptures does not mean that they can't be taken on their own terms, and as a number of the books within the collection put themselves forward on historical terms, there is no reason why we can't receive them as such.

This is true.  Is anyone disagreeing with this point?  Nope.  But putting it this way makes it look like you are responding to a position that someone has actually taken.

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Take the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts for example.  Luke says he sat down to compile a trustworthy account, having investigated matters for himself.  There is nothing in Luke and Acts where Luke says, implicitly or explicitly, that he is writing anything God inspired.  Who cares if Christians nonetheless believe God did?  Here I am, one particular Christian, willing to set aside the inspiration point altogether and deal with the document on its face.  I should be commended for my openness and my willingness to face the truth, whatever comes out of it.  This doesn't seem to be happening.  Instead, we see a relentless attempt (see Cop's posts for evidence) to make sure we pigeonhole the entire Bible into a special category.

Argumentum ad nauseam.  I said no such thing.  What I said was that it was a religious text (true) and that you appear to have approached it with a lower standard of belief than you accord competing religious and/or historical texts.  This is not openness or willingness to face the truth.  It is unwillingness treat other accounts of historical miracles on the same level that you treat those in the Bible.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2008, 02:53:59 PM by Copernicus »
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