Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on January 02, 2017, 09:04:31 PM
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I think he went to live with Biggus Dickus
http://www.historytoday.com/kevin-butcher/strange-afterlife-pontius-pilate
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He has a wife, you know ..
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I think he went to live with Biggus Dickus
http://www.historytoday.com/kevin-butcher/strange-afterlife-pontius-pilate
I heard it was Argumentum ad populum........or maybe Leprechaunum Hibernium.
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I think he went to live with Biggus Dickus
http://www.historytoday.com/kevin-butcher/strange-afterlife-pontius-pilate
He has a strange connection with Switzerland, specifically Luzern for some reason. The mountain overlooking the town is known as Pilatus, and the legend goes that his soul is imprisoned at the bottom of the Lake, because of his misdemeanors.
(Luzern is a beautiful place, and the top of Mount Pilatus can be accessed by cogwheel railway, and descended from by cable cars. And Wagner enthusiasts will know that the composer once lived by the lake there, courtesy of King Ludwig of Bavaria.
There is also the "Plague Bridge" which commemorates less pleasant matters of the past.)
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And supposedly born in Fortingall
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortingall
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It's probably unsurprising that I accept the Gospel accounts regarding Pilate, that he reluctantly had Jesus put to death at the demands of the Jews. He showed his weakness by not doing what he felt to be the right thing. I quite like the tradition that Christ moved him to such a degree that, in some form or another, he believed in him.
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So do I but we may be fanciful about that.
As for the demands of the Jews, Jesus had plenty of supporters amongst the Jews. Don't forget that. Pilate couldn't couldn't please everyone so he washed his hands of the whole business.
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He has a wife, you know ..
I hope you don't find it......
....risible.
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So do I but we may be fanciful about that.
As for the demands of the Jews, Jesus had plenty of supporters amongst the Jews. Don't forget that. Pilate couldn't couldn't please everyone so he washed his hands of the whole business.
Pilate wasn't particularly worried about what the Jews thought. Philo and Josephus both recorded that he repeatedly did things to antagonise them. Had Jesus really come before Pilate, he would have been condemned to death without a moment's thought.
The gospel accounts are almost certainly fiction. After all, who was in Pilate's house to record what was said?
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... After all, who was in Pilate's house to record what was said?
Jesus?
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Jesus?
Jesus was dead later the same day having been in custody the whole time. He had no opportunity to tell anybody else what had happened.
Welcome back, by the way.
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Jesus was dead later the same day having been in custody the whole time. He had no opportunity to tell anybody else what had happened.
Only if you don't believe in the resurrection.
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Only if you don't believe in the resurrection.
There is not the slightest bit of verifiable evidence to support Jesus resurrecting after three days dead.
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There is not the slightest bit of verifiable evidence to support Jesus resurrecting after three days dead.
Zzzzz!
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Zzzzz!
you sound like the flies round his dead body (if there ever was one)
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you sound like the flies round his dead body (if there ever was one)
Nice one! ;D
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And supposedly born in Fortingall
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortingall
Quite a character, all in all. Born in Fortingall (or somewhere in Spain, or Germany), met his end in Luzern, and is either spending a damp eternity at the bottom of the Vierwaldstattesee, or enjoying endless bliss having been named a saint by the Coptic Church (and maybe some branches of the Orthodox too)
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Only if you don't believe in the resurrection.
Welcome to the real world
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Jesus was dead later the same day having been in custody the whole time. He had no opportunity to tell anybody else what had happened.
Welcome back, by the way.
Wot, AO said.
Thanks for the welcome. I doubt I'll be around much though. I tend to hang out on atheist Facebook pages these days or, at least, when I don't get banned. The standard of discussion there is far inferior, usually, to what it is here, but the range of subjects is quite interesting (as is much of the language).
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Only if you don't believe in the resurrection.
Yep!
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Wot, AO said.
Thanks for the welcome. I doubt I'll be around much though. I tend to hang out on atheist Facebook pages these days or, at least, when I don't get banned. The standard of discussion there is far inferior, usually, to what it is here, but the range of subjects is quite interesting (as is much of the language).
Actually, it is only if the resurrection didn't take place rather than whether anyone believes it took place or not.
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Actually, it is only if the resurrection didn't take place rather than whether anyone believes it took place or not.
it's only if there weren't unicorns.... Shifting the burden of proof and begging the question. Economic with fallacies as ever
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Wot, AO said.
Ad O just said (I paraphrase slightly) "but what about magic?" That's not a serious argument.
Thanks for the welcome. I doubt I'll be around much though. I tend to hang out on atheist Facebook pages these days or, at least, when I don't get banned. The standard of discussion there is far inferior, usually, to what it is here, but the range of subjects is quite interesting (as is much of the language).
Are you on Kay's Faith Values and Beliefs (http://"https://www.facebook.com/groups/1709448139333978/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED") group?
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Ad O just said (I paraphrase slightly) "but what about magic?"
Not even close, pal.
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I think he went to live with Biggus Dickus
http://www.historytoday.com/kevin-butcher/strange-afterlife-pontius-pilate
A good question. One wonders why Jesus didn't appear to Pilate when he supposedly was resurrected?
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A good question. One wonders why Jesus didn't appear to Pilate when he supposedly was resurrected?
Or why doesn't he appear now to people? That would settle a lot of arguments, wouldn't it? Just imagine if bluehillside got up one morning, and Jesus was sitting there, ready for breakfast, and a good chat.
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Hi Wiggs,
Or why doesn't he appear now to people? That would settle a lot of arguments, wouldn't it? Just imagine if bluehillside got up one morning, and Jesus was sitting there, ready for breakfast, and a good chat.
Well, for starters I suspect I’d want to check his bona fides, after which I’d probably be pretty pissed off with him about all those babies he’d let die of brain cancer and similar.
Once I’d got that off my chest though I guess I’d want to ask him why the evidence he’d left for his man/god status is so desperately thin. Surely if he’d genuinely wanted his “message” to get across he could have thought of a more effective way than appearing in front of tribal iron age people who readily embraced all manner of superstitious beliefs, none of whom thought his resurrection important enough to write down at the time, and for whom he didn’t think it a good idea to bequeath a technology or something that would at least suggest some sort of divine intervention.
All that said, he was clearly an interesting moral philosopher too so it’d be fun I’m sure having him tell me what he really thinks about the moral issues that seem to get some of his followers so vexed. I might even cook him a full English as a thank you (not sure about the bacon though).
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Not even close, pal.
No, right on the money. Resurrection qualifies as magic.
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Or why doesn't he appear now to people? That would settle a lot of arguments, wouldn't it? Just imagine if bluehillside got up one morning, and Jesus was sitting there, ready for breakfast, and a good chat.
He could only be with a few people at a time. He went to heaven so he could send the Holy Spirit, who can be with everyone at the same time.
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He could only be with a few people at a time. He went to heaven so he could send the Holy Spirit, who can be with everyone at the same time.
Well He is supposed to have appeared to 500 people together, so why couldn't He appear, say, to the UN General Assembly while it was being televised. That might cause some consternation. :)
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He could only be with a few people at a time. He went to heaven so he could send the Holy Spirit, who can be with everyone at the same time.
What a joke, if Jesus was some sort of entity, the guy could be wherever he wished to be! ::)
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He could only be with a few people at a time.
Why? According to whom? That seems an unusual constraint on omnipotence, doesn't it?
He went to heaven so he could send the Holy Spirit, who can be with everyone at the same time.
So you swap an entity who could (but now we learn apparently couldn't) have appeared in the flesh to the entire human population for an alleged silent, invisible, non-material entity whose existence/appearance can't be demonstrated to anybody.
As ever, old stick, your would-be rationalisations have the distinct whiff of the 'made up as I go along' about them ;)
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Shakes,
Why? That seems an unusual constraint on omnipotence, doesn't it?
Quite so. Makes you wonder why Jesus didn't just poof into existence iPods for everyone and then Skype his message to them all. That's not the story we're asked to believe though - instead we're told that "God" sat with arms folded for 150,000 years or so watching his creation getting up to all sorts of mayhem, then 2,000 years ago finally thought, "You know what - I think I'll make a blood sacrifice of my son now by sending him to a remote tribal society that's credulous enough to believe in all sorts of superstitious nonsense anyway, that won't bother writing anything down, that will nonetheless accurately discern what's happening, and that will then somehow ensure that it'll be passed down verbatim to subsequent generations. Yup, that'll do it it I reckon. Now then, if you'll excuse me I have to invent some parasites that burrow into people's eyes..."
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It is strange that god and Jesus, who are supposed to be divine and therefore beyond our restrictions, seem to have less room for manoeuvre than humans!
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It is strange that god and Jesus, who are supposed to be divine and therefore beyond our restrictions, seem to have less room for manoeuvre than humans!
Hm. Funny, that ;)
Incredible Shrinking God Syndrome, I call it. So on the one hand we're told that God is powerful enough to poof a cosmos into being from nothing and perform all manner of miracles provided they're shoved far enough back into the past (and, by sheer coincidence I'm sure, are in barely literate, pre-scientific, superstitious cultures), yet when it comes to doing anything useful, anything meaningful - preventing the Holocaust (some chosen people!*) or the Rwandan genocide, for example, or curing/better still not creating in the first place cancer in children, things I'd want to do and would do with omni powers at my disposal - its powers suddenly desert it and we're told (on what authority I have no idea) that "God doesn't work like that." Indeed, gives every appearance of working indistinguishably from no God at all.
As I say: funny stuff.
* As I think Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, "Lord, perhaps you could choose someone else for a change?"
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He could only be with a few people at a time. He went to heaven so he could send the Holy Spirit, who can be with everyone at the same time.
How come Spud you can't see you're kidding yourself, you don't strike me as some kind of dimwit, except with this religion nonsense, can't you see that it doesn't matter how many billions of well intentioned people there are that share your distorted view, it's still a distorted view, no matter how many.
I noted Blue's ref to parrasites burrowing into people's eyes, how about the daddy of them all a wasp that captures another insect paralises it and then injects its eggs into this living paralised insect and the young of the wasp eat the insides of this victim, knowing in what order to eat the victim's organs so that it stays fresh/alive for as long as possible, so that this wasp's young have their best chance of survival.
Good thingy whatever this thing of yours you call god is, it's very inventive.
ippy
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ippy: I noted Blue's ref to parrasites burrowing into people's eyes, how about the daddy of them all a wasp that captures another insect paralises it and then injects its eggs into this living paralised insect and the young of the wasp eat the insides of this victim, knowing in what order to eat the victim's organs so that it stays fresh/alive for as long as possible, so that this wasp's young have their best chance of survival.
:o I will never view a wasp in the same way again.
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ippy: I noted Blue's ref to parrasites burrowing into people's eyes, how about the daddy of them all a wasp that captures another insect paralises it and then injects its eggs into this living paralised insect and the young of the wasp eat the insides of this victim, knowing in what order to eat the victim's organs so that it stays fresh/alive for as long as possible, so that this wasp's young have their best chance of survival.
:o I will never view a wasp in the same way again.
They don't all do that - but the ichneumon wasp does. This so to speak calculated cruelty (it isn't; that's just a figure of speech) so horrified Darwin that it played a part - a small part but a part all the same - in his loss of belief in God. He couldn't accept that an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God would create something that acts in such a way.
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Brownie,
I will never view a wasp in the same way again.
It's actually fascinating (if macabre) stuff. Try this to chill yer bones:
“Few parasitoids are more bizarre or disturbing than the wasps of the genus Glyptapanteles, whose females inject their eggs into living caterpillars. There, the larvae mature, feeding on the caterpillar’s fluids before gnawing through its skin en masse and emerging into the light of day. Despite the trauma, not only does the caterpillar survive—initially at least—but the larvae mind-control it, turning their host into a bodyguard that protects them as they spin their cocoons and finish maturing. The caterpillar eventually starves to death, but only after the tiny wasps emerge from their cocoons and fly away.
Because he has awesome ideas and not because he’s some kind of sadist, ecologist Arne Janssen of the University of Amsterdam brought this remarkable lifecycle into the lab a few years back to study it. What he and his colleagues confirmed for the first time is that not only do Glyptapanteles larvae actively manipulate the behavior of their hosts, but by transforming caterpillars into bodyguards, they greatly boost their chances of survival compared to their unprotected comrades.
It goes a little something like this. A female Glyptapanteles wasp pounces on a caterpillar, drilling into its flesh with what is known as an ovipositor (literally, “egg placer”), and pumps up to 80 eggs into its body cavity, according to Janssen. When the eggs hatch into larvae, they begin feeding on the caterpillar’s bodily juices, taking care to avoid attacking vital organs—somewhat of a rarity for parasitoids.
“Most parasitoids eat the host completely empty,” said Janssen. “The Glyptapanteles don’t do that. We don’t know exactly why, but one of the reasons may be that if you kill the host it cannot defend you afterwards.”
Inside the caterpillar, the larvae will go through several stages, or molts, to shed their exoskeletons as they expand. During all of this, the caterpillar, which grows more and more bloated as the larvae mature, isn’t yet showing any signs of being manipulated. Incredibly, you can’t even tell it’s behaving any differently, even as it swells to the point where it looks like it’s going to burst, like a can of soda in a freezer … that’s filled with parasitic larvae instead of soda, I guess.
Inevitably, though, the larvae must make their exit. All 80 at once. Over the course of an hour. They release chemicals that paralyze the caterpillar, then each individual begins gnawing its way out. It’s a horrific happening, as you can see in the amazing National Geographic video below, yet keep in mind that the caterpillar survives this incredible trauma.
How? Well, it’s thought that the larvae time their final molt to coincide with the exit, so as they squeeze through the caterpillar’s skin, the exoskeleton they leave behind blocks the exit hole. Thus they perform their own slapdash surgery on their gravely wounded host.
As the larvae congregate in a mass and begin spinning their cocoons, the caterpillar snaps out of it and helps them, using its own silk to construct a protective covering. And you can imagine it has somewhat conflicted feelings about all of this, much like Kevin Costner’s emotional struggles in The Bodyguard.
Once everyone is done spinning, the caterpillar switches into defense mode, lashing out at not only predatory insects, but other wasps known as hyperparasitoids. The Glyptapanteles pupae (the final stage before they complete their development), you see, don’t have it so easy. In a nice little bit of poetic justice, these hyperparasitoids will inject their own eggs into Glyptapanteles.
But not if the caterpillar has anything to do with it. The bodyguard doesn’t wander, and it doesn’t eat. It dutifully stands sentry over the pupae, rearing up on its hindmost legs and violently lashing out with swift swings of its head at anything that approaches. “And we’ve also seen that occasionally they take predators into their mouthparts and just throw them away,” said Janssen. Not exactly what you’d call normal behavior for a placid vegetarian. (Though there really are some incredibly vicious carnivorous caterpillars out there.)
What Janssen found is that when he removed the caterpillar and left the pupae to fend for themselves, twice as many fell prey to either predators or hyperparasitoids. It would seem, then, that Glyptapanteles has evolved this behavior to boost its chances of survival. Interestingly, though, the caterpillar itself attracts predators that can also opportunistically attack the pupae.
“This suggests that there may also be costs involved with the behavioral changes in the caterpillar: Behavioral changes might attract some predators against which the caterpillar cannot defend the parasitoid pupae,” Janssen and his colleagues wrote in a paper. “Nevertheless, the overall effect of caterpillar presence on survival of parasitoid pupae was positive.”
But one big question remains: How on Earth are the pupae able to mind-control the caterpillar after they’ve left its body? Given the long span between the injection of the eggs and the behavioral changes, Janssen reckons it couldn’t be the initial sting. And it probably isn’t the larvae exiting the caterpillar either, because “the caterpillars do not respond strongly to disturbance during egression, but only one to two hours after the event,” he wrote.
Janssen and his colleagues may have found their answer when they dissected caterpillars that had given painful birth to larvae three to four days before. Remarkably, they found one or two larvae still hanging out inside. It could well be that they were staying behind to mind-control the host with some kind of cocktail of chemicals in order to protect their siblings, which “would represent a cost of host manipulation: some offspring are sacrificed for higher survival of their kin,” Janssen wrote.
So it seems that this horror story could actually be a rather touching … well, horror story still. But as the tiny wasps hatch and flutter away, and as the exhausted caterpillar wavers and collapses dead of starvation, we must remember the larvae that we lost, the brave souls that stayed behind and gave their lives so their siblings might live."
(https://www.wired.com/2014/10/absurd-creature-week-glyptapanteles-wasp-caterpillar-bodyguard/)
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Thanks for that, both of you. I will remember all of it fondly. They must have some purpose, I wonder what.
Very glad they are not found in the UK.
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Thanks for that, both of you. I will remember all of it fondly. They must have some purpose, I wonder what.
Very glad they are not found in the UK.
"All things bright and beautifull the lord god made them alll, I think the hymn goes something like that.
Quite impressive this imaginary lord god figure of yours Brownie.
ippy
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"All things bright and beautifull the lord god made them alll, I think the hymn goes something like that.
Quite impressive this imaginary lord god figure of yours Brownie.
ippy
That's why Monty Python created a rather more rounded version:
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen.
http://www.montypython.net/scripts/allthing.php
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"All things bright and beautifull the lord god made them alll, I think the hymn goes something like that.
Quite impressive this imaginary lord god figure of yours Brownie.
ippy
Or as Monty Python have it
http://www.metrolyrics.com/all-things-dull-and-ugly-lyrics-monty-python.html
Ah I see that Shaker and I went the same way
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I remember that well, Shaker and NS, was a great Python fan back in the day; went to see them at Drury Lane with fiance (now husband). Rod Stewart was in the audience, everyone was looking at him and his female friend (not a blonde!) in interval, I pretended not to. He was wearing a luminous green suit.
John Cleese walked through the theatre during intermission wearing a white overall and carrying a "Miss Candy" tray with a big white bird on it, crying, "Albatross! With or without wafers!" Happy memories.
However, back to Pontius Pilate if we haven't exhausted that one :D.
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Or as Monty Python have it
http://www.metrolyrics.com/all-things-dull-and-ugly-lyrics-monty-python.html
Ah I see that Shaker and I went the same way
link don't not work on my tablet, my P C's in hospital at the mo, it may have worked on there.
It never ceases to impress me, the intellectual depths Monty Python goes to.
ippy
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it's only if there weren't unicorns.... Shifting the burden of proof and begging the question. Economic with fallacies as ever
Unicorns have nothing to do with it. JeremyP was asking who could have recorded what was said. If Jesus was raised from the dead, he is an obvious source. If he wasn't, then we don't know of any.
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Shakes,
Quite so. Makes you wonder why Jesus didn't just poof into existence iPods for everyone and then Skype his message to them all. That's not the story we're asked to believe though - instead we're told that "God" sat with arms folded for 150,000 years or so watching his creation getting up to all sorts of mayhem, then 2,000 years ago finally thought, "You know what - I think I'll make a blood sacrifice of my son now by sending him to a remote tribal society that's credulous enough to believe in all sorts of superstitious nonsense anyway, that won't bother writing anything down, that will nonetheless accurately discern what's happening, and that will then somehow ensure that it'll be passed down verbatim to subsequent generations. Yup, that'll do it it I reckon. Now then, if you'll excuse me I have to invent some parasites that burrow into people's eyes..."
Wotcha BHS.
If you witnessed Jesus' (alleged) resurrection, would you accept that it had happened? I ask because I have discussed this with some atheists in the past who have said that even if they say it (apparently) happening they wouldn't believe it.
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Unicorns have nothing to do with it. JeremyP was asking who could have recorded what was said. If Jesus was raised from the dead, he is an obvious source. If he wasn't, then we don't know of any.
Are they the only two options?
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If you witnessed Jesus' (alleged) resurrection, would you accept that it had happened? I ask because I have discussed this with some atheists in the past who have said that even if they say it (apparently) happening they wouldn't believe it.
Perhaps they're aware - there's rather a lot of evidence to shore this up - of just how dodgy eyewitness testimony is when it comes to accurate reportage of fact.
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Wotcha BHS.
If you witnessed Jesus' (alleged) resurrection, would you accept that it had happened? I ask because I have discussed this with some atheists in the past who have said that even if they say it (apparently) happening they wouldn't believe it.
I'd say any claim like this would require close investigation: the problem arises in respect of Jesus of even knowing that there was an event to investigate. Since the only reports are post-hoc (by decades) anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance the start point would be to exclude the risks of bias, mistakes or lies in these accounts.
How has this been done to your satisfaction?
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Perhaps they're aware - there's rather a lot of evidence to shore this up - of just how dodgy eyewitness testimony is when it comes to accurate reportage of fact.
So even if you stood there and watched it (apparently) happening you wouldn't believe it?
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I'd say any claim like this would require close investigation: the problem arises in respect of Jesus of even knowing that there was an event to investigate. Since the only reports are post-hoc (by decades) anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance the start point would be to exclude the risks of bias, mistakes or lies in these accounts.
How has this been done to your satisfaction?
Except that the 1 Corinthians 15 account it believed to go back to the early years after Jesus' resurrection and even if it weren't it would be no later than about 20 years after it. In Galatians Paul tells us of his time he spent with Peter some years before. What do you think they discussed? The weather?
Do you think you would be able to remember seeing Jesus for 20-30 years if you saw him after his death?
Would you believe the resurrection happened if you were to have watched it actually (apparently) happen? This is a slightly separate subject to the items above as no-one in the gospels claims to have seen the resurrection happen, "only" that they met Jesus afterwards as individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions that we know of and that the tomb was empty.
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So even if you stood there and watched it (apparently) happening you wouldn't believe it?
I said what I said. In fact I said what David Hume said about miracles, in essence, which Gordon went on to say in his own words. Eyewitness testimony - as I think just about every and any law enforcement agency in the world is just about unanimously agreed upon - is woefully poor as a guide to veridical reality. Laws-of-nature-breaking alleged events are always far, far, far further down the list of possibilities than deliberate deception (i.e. conscious and explicit lies) or sincere mistake and misapprehension, but mistake and misapprehension for all that.
The truly, actually and genuinely dead don't return from such a state of deadness or deaditude. I have no seen no evidence - not a single and solitary scrap, anywhere, ever - that such a thing is the case or has ever occurred anywhere, any time, ever. I'm not referring here to death-mimicking conditions, of which there are various and several, but actual death, which I believe is the Christian claim about Jesus.
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Except that the 1 Corinthians 15 account it believed to go back to the early years after Jesus' resurrection and even if it weren't it would be no later than about 20 years after it. In Galatians Paul tells us of his time he spent with Peter some years before. What do you think they discussed? The weather?
Who knows? How do you know that they didn't exaggerate or fabricate propaganda for their cause? I don't, and I'd suggest nobody else does either, so these concerns are unresolved risks involving anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance: 'pinch of salt' stuff.
Do you think you would be able to remember seeing Jesus for 20-30 years if you saw him after his death?
Only if I visited an undertaker pre-funeral: you're begging the question here, Alan.
Would you believe the resurrection happened if you were to have watched it actually (apparently) happen?
You are begging the question again, but even putting that to one side how do you know that the accounts of Jesus being resurrected aren't fiction: how could you ever know this?
This is a slightly separate subject to the items above as no-one in the gospels claims to have seen the resurrection happen, "only" that they met Jesus afterwards as individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions that we know of and that the tomb was empty.
So the story goes, Alan: but you are treating these claims as being historical facts yet you don't know that they aren't fiction: that they may be fiction is, at the very least, a clear risk to the extent that the resurrection claims are indistinguishable from fiction since it seems they can never be demonstrated to be historical fact. So, as I said, 'pinch of salt' stuff.
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I said what I said. In fact I said what David Hume said about miracles, in essence, which Gordon went on to say in his own words. Eyewitness testimony - as I think just about every and any law enforcement agency in the world is just about unanimously agreed upon - is woefully poor as a guide to veridical reality. Laws-of-nature-breaking alleged events are always far, far, far further down the list of possibilities than deliberate deception (i.e. conscious and explicit lies) or sincere mistake and misapprehension, but mistake and misapprehension for all that.
The truly, actually and genuinely dead don't return from such a state of deadness or deaditude. I have no seen no evidence - not a single and solitary scrap, anywhere, ever - that such a thing is the case or has ever occurred anywhere, any time, ever. I'm not referring here to death-mimicking conditions, of which there are various and several, but actual death, which I believe is the Christian claim about Jesus.
This is why I've not been around for about a year. The same conversation as I used to have year after year. Now it might be me being wrong, I accept that, but I don't see much point in discussing the same stuff again and again, both of us putting forward the same arguments. However, this discussion has been started (despite it not having much to do with the original discussion).
1) Hulme did not take into account that we need to factor in the probability of there being evidence for the resurrection if the resurrection did not take place.
2) Dissing all eye-witness evidence just because they are eye-witnesses is daft. Eye-witness evidence is admissible in places like courts and particularly so if lots of people on lots of occasions saw something! If you are going to say that all the alleged eye-witnesses were wrong, you need to give a better explanation.
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Who knows? How do you know that they didn't exaggerate or fabricate propaganda for their cause? I don't, and I'd suggest nobody else does either, so these concerns are unresolved risks involving anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance: 'pinch of salt' stuff.
If you think they exaggerated or fabricated, why do you think that? What reasons do you have for not taking at face value the claim that the individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions were convinced they met up with Jesus, please?Only if I visited an undertaker pre-funeral: you're begging the question here, Alan.
Nope, I'm asking you a question so I know if there is anything, any evidence which is worth putting forward.
You are begging the question again, but even putting that to one side how do you know that the accounts of Jesus being resurrected aren't fiction: how could you ever know this?
See first line above.
So the story goes, Alan: but you are treating these claims as being historical facts yet you don't know that they aren't fiction: that they may be fiction is, at the very least, a clear risk to the extent that the resurrection claims are indistinguishable from fiction since it seems they can never be demonstrated to be historical fact. So, as I said, 'pinch of salt' stuff.
See first line above.
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This is why I've not been around for about a year. The same conversation as I used to have year after year. Now it might be me being wrong, I accept that, but I don't see much point in discussing the same stuff again and again, both of us putting forward the same arguments. However, this discussion has been started (despite it not having much to do with the original discussion).
1) Hulme did not take into account that we need to factor in the probability of there being evidence for the resurrection if the resurrection did not take place.
2) Dissing all eye-witness evidence just because they are eye-witnesses is daft. Eye-witness evidence is admissible in places like courts and particularly so if lots of people on lots of occasions saw something! If you are going to say that all the alleged eye-witnesses were wrong, you need to give a better explanation.
So presumably you accept that the story of, say, St Winifred is also true - that she was decapitated and had her head and life restored to her. After all, there were apparently eye witnesses, we know where it happened, in fact you can visit her shrine at Holywell - there's documentary evidence as to her existence and apparently she did have a scar on her neck.
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If you think they exaggerated or fabricated, why do you think that? What reasons do you have for not taking at face value the claim that the individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions were convinced they met up with Jesus, please?
It's an extraordinary claim, and as such requires extraordinary evidence - the likelihood that a few people with a vested interested were reported after the fact by other people with a vested interest to have made claims that were actually false is significantly more likely than the possibility that this one claim of life after death is correct, whilst the other equally poorly evidenced claims are all incorrect.
Ultimately, even if you consider that the people involved were telling what they thought was the truth, and that this has been accurately reported after the fact, human fallibility is readily apparent in any episode of Derren Brown's shows.
O.
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Alien,
If you think they exaggerated or fabricated, why do you think that? What reasons do you have for not taking at face value the claim that the individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions were convinced they met up with Jesus, please?
You're missing it. There may well have been a person you call Jesus or similar, and there may well be records that accurately record that people met him. There's no particular reason to doubt that.
What's disputed here though is the likelihood of that person also being a man/god, and that the records we have of that status are not fabricated, exaggerated or just plain mistaken. Which incidentally is just what you believe the records of faiths in which you don't believe to be.
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If you think they exaggerated or fabricated, why do you think that? What reasons do you have for not taking at face value the claim that the individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions were convinced they met up with Jesus, please?
Because people have biases, make mistakes and tell lies: they still do, as we saw from the Hillsborough enquiry. So where there are anecdotal reports of anything, including where the provenance is uncertain, then there is a risk of bias, mistake or lies.
I'm simply asking how you've meaningfully excluded these risks in respect of the NT accounts of the resurrection claim since unless you have then as evidence for what claimed these accounts are inadequate, since they can't be moved from a position of anecdotal claim to a position of established historical fact since the risks of bias, mistake or lies remain
So, if I may borrow from your post with an amendment, let me ask you this: What reasons do you have for taking at face value the claim that the individuals and groups on about a dozen occasions were convinced they met up with Jesus, please?
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So presumably you accept that the story of, say, St Winifred is also true - that she was decapitated and had her head and life restored to her. After all, there were apparently eye witnesses, we know where it happened, in fact you can visit her shrine at Holywell - there's documentary evidence as to her existence and apparently she did have a scar on her neck.
Which eye-witnesses are they? Their accounts were recorded where and when? Where are the oldest copies of those accounts? Where are those copies? What effect did all this have?
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Seeing isn't always believing as I can attest. I have 'seen' some remarkable things in my 67 years on this planet. However, when what passes for my brain kicked in, I have questioned if what I thought I saw and reality were in cinque.
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Alien,
Which eye-witnesses are they? Their accounts were recorded where and when? Where are the oldest copies of those accounts? Where are those copies? What effect did all this have?
That's some awful thin ice you're skating on my friend - exactly the same could be asked of the records on which you rely for your faith.
Either way though, it misses the point entirely. The fact is that there are lots of reasons to doubt any such ancient records because the authors had none of the tools available to them that we'd consider now to be basic tests of veracity. Even if tomorrow someone dug up a contemporary account of the resurrection, that would tell you nothing about the credulity of the author, how savvy he was at recognising conjuring tricks, the other supernatural stories he believed in just as readily etc. All it would tell you in fact is that Fred thought a resurrection was the correct explanation for what he saw.
And that's a pretty wobbly basis on which to rest a supposedly fact-based religious belief.
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This is why I've not been around for about a year. The same conversation as I used to have year after year. Now it might be me being wrong, I accept that, but I don't see much point in discussing the same stuff again and again, both of us putting forward the same arguments.
The reason that it goes round and around in circles is that you keep promulgating beliefs for which there is zero evidence, and we keep on pointing out this fairly elementary fact.
1) Hulme did not take into account that we need to factor in the probability of there being evidence for the resurrection if the resurrection did not take place.
I don't understand what you mean here. Evidence for something that didn't happen?
2) Dissing all eye-witness evidence just because they are eye-witnesses is daft. Eye-witness evidence is admissible in places like courts and particularly so if lots of people on lots of occasions saw something!
Leaving aside the poorly disguised argumentum ad populum at work here, you're not saying anything to challenge the established fact that eyewitness testimony can be and often is extremely shaky indeed.
If you are going to say that all the alleged eye-witnesses were wrong, you need to give a better explanation.
This has already been provided to you, multiple times by multiple people. Hume's point stands as validly as it ever did. We have abundant evidence that people lie. We have abundant evidence that people can be genuinely mistaken. We have abundant evidence that people can be biased. We have no evidence that any dead human being has ever come back to life. Therefore, in evaluating an alleged resurrection, we have to say that deliberate deception, sincere error and bias are orders of magnitude more probable than a reanimated corpse.
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Alien,
Dissing all eye-witness evidence just because they are eye-witnesses is daft. Eye-witness evidence is admissible in places like courts and particularly so if lots of people on lots of occasions saw something! If you are going to say that all the alleged eye-witnesses were wrong, you need to give a better explanation.
Here’s a better explanation for you.
1. You’re attempting a negative proof fallacy. It’s for the claimant to show beyond reasonable doubt that the record is accurate, not for others to prove that it's not.
2. There is no eye-witness evidence. Such records as there are were written decades later, and so merely reported what eye-witnesses allegedly said.
3. There aren’t records from lots of eye-witnesses. What there actually is is effectively one record that says, “Fred and all his mates saw a resurrection”. In a court of law various witnesses would be given more credence than just one, but there wouldn’t be more credence given to just one because he said his mates saw it too.
4. In a court the witnesses wouldn’t be allowed to collude.
5. In a court there’d be the opportunity to cross examine in order to help eliminate the risk of bias, mistake, dishonesty etc. None of these things can be tested from the limited account we have.
6. In a court of law there’d be the opportunity to ask what else the witness thought to be true. If he also thought ten other superstitious beliefs to be true then his credulity would be taken into account.
7. In a court expert witnesses could be produced to present evidence about, say, drug-induced coma that would provide alternative explanations for the events that were supposedly witnessed.
And so on.
Are you beginning to see the problem here?
Oh, and we didn’t go round and round before as you suggest. If someone asserts that 2+2=5 and is shown to be wrong, just repeating it doesn’t provide an alternative fact worth considering. The trick would be instead to attempt an argument that isn’t shown to be logically false.
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Which eye-witnesses are they? Their accounts were recorded where and when? Where are the oldest copies of those accounts? Where are those copies?
All fair questions, especially given the incredible nature of the claim - I suspect you're as sceptical as I given the claim is of recovery from decapitation. I'm equally as sceptical regarding the resurrection of Jesus claim for the same reasons.
What effect did all this have?
Irrelevant to the veracity of these accounts: what people made of these accounts, for whatever reasons, says nothing about the veracity of said accounts.
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It's an extraordinary claim, and as such requires extraordinary evidence - the likelihood that a few people with a vested interested were reported after the fact by other people with a vested interest to have made claims that were actually false is significantly more likely than the possibility that this one claim of life after death is correct, whilst the other equally poorly evidenced claims are all incorrect.
Ultimately, even if you consider that the people involved were telling what they thought was the truth, and that this has been accurately reported after the fact, human fallibility is readily apparent in any episode of Derren Brown's shows.
O.
Yes but are you really factoring in that little word 'show'.
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Vlad,
Yes but are you really factoring in that little word 'show'.
Of course. People are highly fallible in many ways - Derren Brown exploits those fallibilities, and then explains them (or at east tells you that that's what he's doing). Other showmen past and present though have been less honest.
The amount of possible fallibilities you'd have to be able to discount to think the resurrection story to be the most probably true is pretty eye-watering, but I guess that thing "faith" enables you to sweep all that under the carpet. What's odd though is the phenomenon of the Alien's of this world trying to argue it to be the other way around - no faith at all but a rational evaluation of the evidence, and then the faith bit sits on that. Seems all backwards to me, but there you go.
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Vlad,
Of course. People are highly fallible in many ways - Derren Brown exploits those fallibilities, and then explains them (or at east tells you that that's what he's doing). Other showmen past and present though have been less honest.
The amount of possible fallibilities you'd have to be able to discount to think the resurrection story to be the most probably true is pretty eye-watering, but I guess that thing "faith" enables you to sweep all that under the carpet. What's odd though is the phenomenon of the Alien's of this world trying to argue it to be the other way around - no faith at all but a rational evaluation of the evidence, and then the faith bit sits on that. Seems all backwards to me, but there you go.
You seem to have faith that what you see and hear on tv is straight up.
How can we know that.
Also strangely the Derren Brown experience asks us to believe two contradictory things firstly nothing is as it seems and I'm being straight with you.
It could all be pisstake so I can understand the appeal for some.
As for the resurrection........that is the craziest thing. The sort of thing that can only be believed if it's true.
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You seem to have faith that what you see and hear on tv is straight up.
How can we know that.
Context: we tend to know which programmes are fiction and those which aren't.
Also strangely the Derren Brown experience asks us to believe two contradictory things firstly nothing is as it seems and I'm being straight with you.
Not contradictory at all - you're being clearly told that what you are seeing is a trick and isn't literally true: this being the point of 'magic'.
It could all be pisstake so I can understand the appeal for some.
It's just entertainment, and a matter of taste.
As for the resurrection........that is the craziest thing. The sort of thing that can only be believed if it's true.
Only if you are highly credulous as regards this specific claim.
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As for the resurrection........that is the craziest thing. The sort of thing that can only be believed if it's true.
I would just love to see explained the "logic" behind that one, Tertullian.
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Vlad,
You seem to have faith that what you see and hear on tv is straight up.
How can we know that.
Well that's weird. Are you suggesting that Derren Brown performs bona fide miracles only he pretends that he doesn't?
Seriously?
Also strangely the Derren Brown experience asks us to believe two contradictory things firstly nothing is as it seems and I'm being straight with you.
It could all be pisstake so I can understand the appeal for some.
And now weirder still. DB uses various techniques to facilitate his audience's willing suspension of disbelief, but he's quite open too about saying that they are techniques rather than kosher magic.
As for the resurrection........that is the craziest thing. The sort of thing that can only be believed if it's true.
Wow. So now you're trying the line that if something seem batshit crazy but people believe it, then it can't be batshit crazy at all?
Do you apply this rule of Vlad principle only to the batshit crazy stuff that you think is true, or to batshit crazy stuff across the board that anyone else thinks to be true too?
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I would just love to see explained the "logic" behind that one, Tertullian.
Well spotted. I think the original in Tertullian is: 'Certum est, quia impossibile', it is impossible, therefore true. Also translated as 'credo, quia absurdum est'.
As blue has just pointed out, this criterion is not applied outside Christianity, for example, go to India, where some people believe impossible things, e.g. levitation or translocation. Are they therefore true?
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Well spotted.
Not a total dimwit, y'know ;)
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Well spotted. I think the original in Tertullian is: 'Certum est, quia impossibile', it is impossible, therefore true. Also translated as 'credo, quia absurdum est'.
Lovely man, Tertullian, always worth quoting for a good argument, or as a representative of a good, loving human being, especially when speaking of women:
"Do you not realise that each one of you is an Eve....You are the Devil's gateway - because of you, even the Son of God had to die."
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You seem to have faith that what you see and hear on tv is straight up.
How can we know that.
That in itself is quite a good point. However, I note that Donald Trump's team has immediately started to work on the principle. The greatest ever attendance at a presidential inauguration ever (and of course, there were also a multitude of witnesses to the Resurrection, and that was written down on parchment, so has a far greater degree of credibility).
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So even if you stood there and watched it (apparently) happening you wouldn't believe it?
If I stood there and watched it happen, I probably would believe, but even the official accounts do not claim anybody watched it happen.
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Vlad,
Well that's weird. Are you suggesting that Derren Brown performs bona fide miracles only he pretends that he doesn't?
Seriously?
And now weirder still. DB uses various techniques to facilitate his audience's willing suspension
Hillside..........its entertainment.
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Alien,
Here’s a better explanation for you.
1. You’re attempting a negative proof fallacy. It’s for the claimant to show beyond reasonable doubt that the record is accurate, not for others to prove that it's not.
2. There is no eye-witness evidence. Such records as there are were written decades later, and so merely reported what eye-witnesses allegedly said.
3. There aren’t records from lots of eye-witnesses. What there actually is is effectively one record that says, “Fred and all his mates saw a resurrection”. In a court of law various witnesses would be given more credence than just one, but there wouldn’t be more credence given to just one because he said his mates saw it too.
4. In a court the witnesses wouldn’t be allowed to collude.
5. In a court there’d be the opportunity to cross examine in order to help eliminate the risk of bias, mistake, dishonesty etc. None of these things can be tested from the limited account we have.
6. In a court of law there’d be the opportunity to ask what else the witness thought to be true. If he also thought ten other superstitious beliefs to be true then his credulity would be taken into account.
7. In a court expert witnesses could be produced to present evidence about, say, drug-induced coma that would provide alternative explanations for the events that were supposedly witnessed.
And so on.
Are you beginning to see the problem here?
Oh, and we didn’t go round and round before as you suggest. If someone asserts that 2+2=5 and is shown to be wrong, just repeating it doesn’t provide an alternative fact worth considering. The trick would be instead to attempt an argument that isn’t shown to be logically false.
And yet you believe the accounts of the existence and deeds of other people about whom there is less testimony than about Jesus. Isn't the problem that because the claim is that the impossible happened, then no evidence, first-hand, hearsay or even seeing it with ones own eyes (in the case of Floo but possibly not jeremyp), is acceptable because it's more likely there are mistakes or it's made up.
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jeremyp,
If I stood there and watched it happen, I probably would believe, but even the official accounts do not claim anybody watched it happen.
But why? If you stand there and watch a woman sawn in half and then re-joined on stage your don't think, "There's a woman sawn in half and re-joined then". Eye-witness accounts even when we do have them can be highly unreliable guides to what's actually happening.
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Spud,
And yet you believe the accounts of the existence and deeds of other people about whom there is less testimony than about Jesus. Isn't the problem that because the claim is that the impossible happened, then no evidence, first-hand, hearsay or even seeing it with ones own eyes (in the case of Floo but possibly not jeremyp), is acceptable because it's more likely there are mistakes or it's made up.
It's hard to think of accepted historical records about which there's actually less "testimony" than there is about the resurrection, but why is it a problem when experience tells us that natural explanations are more likely than supernatural ones? If you really want to accept the latter, then you need some robust reasons for rejecting the former. And such records as we have from the Bible don't come even close to doing that.
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And yet you believe the accounts of the existence and deeds of other people about whom there is less testimony than about Jesus. Isn't the problem that because the claim is that the impossible happened, then no evidence, first-hand, hearsay or even seeing it with ones own eyes (in the case of Floo but possibly not jeremyp), is acceptable because it's more likely there are mistakes or it's made up.
Claims that something impossible happened like the resurrection, it has to be challenged, especially when it was written down years after Jesus died, and there is no supporting evidence. If Jesus hadn't disappeared up to heaven very conveniently, but stuck around until today then it would be much more believable.
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And yet you believe the accounts of the existence and deeds of other people about whom there is less testimony than about Jesus. Isn't the problem that because the claim is that the impossible happened, then no evidence, first-hand, hearsay or even seeing it with ones own eyes (in the case of Floo but possibly not jeremyp), is acceptable because it's more likely there are mistakes or it's made up.
Of course deception/error/bias are vastly more probable - that's certainly no problem to me ;)
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Spud,
It's hard to think of accepted historical records about which there's actually less "testimony" than there is about the resurrection, but why is it a problem when experience tells us that natural explanations are more likely than supernatural ones? If you really want to accept the latter, then you need some robust reasons for rejecting the former. And such records as we have from the Bible don't come even close to doing that.
It's a problem for Christians who think of the New Testament as incontrovertible evidence. Actually John knew this and says he has written about it so that you may believe. He doesn't say you have to believe. I suppose he guessed that people would be reading it many years later.
Actually, if someone I had worked with for three years died while I watched, then appeared three days later, the same person with the same characteristics, then I would have to accept this as evidence.
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It's a problem for Christians who think of the New Testament as incontrovertible evidence.
Ah well - as I say, no problem to me :)
Actually, if someone I had worked with for three years died while I watched, then appeared three days later, the same person with the same characteristics, then I would have to accept this as evidence.
Would the thought "Medically untrained as I am, it's vastly more probable that they only seemed to be dead rather than actually dead" not cross your mind? Given that there are plenty of well-documented cases of the phenomenon, I mean.
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If Jesus hadn't disappeared up to heaven very conveniently, but stuck around until today then it would be much more believable.
True - he'd have to not age at all over the lifetime of the average person. Maybe there's some important reason why we are invited to accept it by faith?
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True - he'd have to not age at all over the lifetime of the average person. Maybe there's some important reason why we are invited to accept it by faith?
What would be an important reason - a real reason, I mean, not an after-the-fact, question-begging reason - to accept anything by faith?
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Spud,
It's a problem for Christians who think of the New Testament as incontrovertible evidence. Actually John knew this and says he has written about it so that you may believe. He doesn't say you have to believe. I suppose he guessed that people would be reading it many years later.
And that's called "faith", which is fine for those who find it helpful. The problem with it though is that it offers nothing whatever to suggest to other people that they're right - especially given the bewildering (and often mutually contradictory) array of faith beliefs on offer.
Actually, if someone I had worked with for three years died while I watched, then appeared three days later, the same person with the same characteristics, then I would have to accept this as evidence.
So would I. What tests though would be available to me to verify that he actually was dead, that the same he was alive again a bit later, that there hadn't been a switcheroo of the bodies etc?
A brain scan? DNA samples? What?
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It's a problem for Christians who think of the New Testament as incontrovertible evidence.
Then they think wrongly since we've yet to see a means of distinguishing the supernatural NT claims from fiction.
Actually, if someone I had worked with for three years died while I watched, then appeared three days later, the same person with the same characteristics, then I would have to accept this as evidence.
Then you'd be credulous, especially in this day and age when confirmation of clinical death is rather more precise than in the middle east of antiquity and since there re now means of verifying that the resurrected person was the same person who was certified as dead.
Much harder to claim 'resurrection' these days!
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Spud,
True - he'd have to not age at all over the lifetime of the average person. Maybe there's some important reason why we are invited to accept it by faith?
The most obvious of which being that it wasn't true in the first place.
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Maybe there's some important reason why we are invited to accept it by faith?
There sure is: 'faith' in this sense is the avoidance of critical thinking, thereby allowing unfaslifiable and ridiculous claims to persist in the minds of the credulous.
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#52
The truly, actually and genuinely dead don't return from such a state of deadness or deaditude. I have no seen no evidence - not a single and solitary scrap, anywhere, ever - that such a thing is the case or has ever occurred anywhere, any time, ever
So because of your confirmation bias The truly, actually and genuinely dead don't return from such a state of deadness or deaditude
you can never see anything as evidence for any resurrection claims. Yet you use lack of evidence I have no seen no evidence - not a single and solitary scrap, anywhere, ever - that such a thing is the case or has ever occurred anywhere, any time, ever.
for not believing any resurrection claims, something you reiterate in #63
We have abundant evidence that people lie. We have abundant evidence that people can be genuinely mistaken. We have abundant evidence that people can be biased. We have no evidence that any dead human being has ever come back to life. Therefore, in evaluating an alleged resurrection, we have to say that deliberate deception, sincere error and bias are orders of magnitude more probable than a reanimated corpse
It’s a classic circularity and is a problem here for some non-theists here, in particular you and bluehillside. Until you accept that your position is a tautology, you will be prevented you from getting the answers to the questions you are asking. As Alien said in #54:
This is why I've not been around for about a year. The same conversation as I used to have year after year.
Hardly surprising that arguments based on circular reasoning go round in ... erm ... circles!
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So because of your confirmation bias
No. Because of the lack of evidence.
you can never see anything as evidence for any resurrection claims.
On the contrary, I can think of several scenarios that would be supporting evidence. Some have been mentioned on this thread, in fact. None of these scenarios exist in actuality, however.
Yet you use lack of evidence for not believing
Indeed. Lack of evidence is my most favouritest reason for not believing something.
It’s a classic circularity and is a problem here for some non-theists here, in particular you and bluehillside. Until you accept that your position is a tautology, you will be prevented you from getting the answers to the questions you are asking.
Hardly surprising that arguments based on circular reasoning go round in ... erm ... circles!
Actually it isn't circular reasoning at all but straightforward evidentialism, which I can only assume you don't understand. Listen to claim X, look for evidence which supports X. If none is found, disbelieve claim X.
It's not difficult.
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What would be an important reason - a real reason, I mean, not an after-the-fact, question-begging reason - to accept anything by faith?
If you were convinced that the world was made by chance without any supernatural input then you would have no reason to accept the Bible by faith. But since most people would not claim they were 100% certain, then they have a reason to accept the Bible by faith
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If you were convinced that the world was made by chance without any supernatural input then you would have no reason to accept the Bible by faith. But since most people would not claim they were 100% certain, then they have a reason to accept the Bible by faith
Non sequitur. Why the Bible?
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Non sequitur. Why the Bible?
Because, as Mark says, it contains good news!
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Because, as Mark says, it contains good news!
Does it?
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Because, as Mark says, it contains good news!
Where?
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Because, as Mark says, it contains good news!
Even if it did appear to contain good news (and it wasn't the inconsistent, contradictory mess that it actually is), that would not be a reason to accept it by faith.