Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

The point is that the people who did witness the crucifixion , or knew it to have happend, would in general be unlikely to believe in the resurrection, because Jesus didn't physically appear to most of them. Hence why Christianity didn't 'spread like wildfire' among the Jews in Palestine.

It maybe took them a few decades to get their stories down.

[ProfessorDavey]

In the lecture I mentioned, Peter Williams presented evidence that the gospel writers got the details right.

That is a faith position. There is absolutely no way that anyone at this distance could verify whether they got their details right. And to do so takes us out of the world of objective evidence and into the world of supernatural claims.

[ProfessorDavey]

The point is that the people who did witness the crucifixion , or knew it to have happend, would in general be unlikely to believe in the resurrection, because Jesus didn't physically appear to most of them. Hence why Christianity didn't 'spread like wildfire' among the Jews in Palestine.

Except that there is a claim that the resurrected Jesus appeared to 500 of them in one place. If you had been a witness to such an astonishing thing do you think you'd just mosey on home and mutter about the price of fish to your family and friends.

Of course not, you'd be telling everyone you knew (perhaps including plenty who might have witnessed the crucifixion or other purported 'miracles'). And they'd tell the people they know too. This news would have spread like wildfire. And given that elsewhere there are claims that thousands had been witnesses to other miracles, who surely would be highly receptive as they'd seen miracles too.

Given that the population of Judea was only about 100,000 you'd end up with a pretty sizeable proportion of that population as either first hand or second/third hand witnesses to claimed astonishing miracles.

Really weird that by and large they did not believe in the christian claims, did not follow Jesus, rejected the developing religion.

Almost as if there were no witnesses to the claimed events ... perhaps because they never happened as claims decades later by unknown writers, writing in far off places and in a different language from that spoken by the people around at the actual time and in the actual place where the events were claimed to have occurred.

[Spud]

NS,

You’re confusing evidence with proof. Axiomatically I cannot prove the absence of a purposive world, of pixies or of anything else. What I can do though is to call the various methods I referred to a while back (Occam’s razor, absence of justifying evidence etc) as evidence on which to base a claim of knowledge.

If you insist on pursuing the line “but how would you know it’s not a supernatural X with the same effect instead?” however, then you’re also arguing that there can be no such thing as knowledge. If that is your intention then we part company there.       

Pixies holding things up isn't a good example, as it has been disproved by the theory of gravity. Evolution from single celled organisms to everything is a better example, as the evidence is incomplete and is contradicted by the lack of transitional species such as two, three or ten-celled ones. So we can either believe that the incomplete TOE is true or that supernatural creation is true or that we just can't know or maybe one day we will know. We all put our faith in some explanation or another for how we got here.

[Spud]

That is a faith position. There is absolutely no way that anyone at this distance could verify whether they got their details right. And to do so takes us out of the world of objective evidence and into the world of supernatural claims.

Here is one of his examples:
Luke 19 says that Zacchaeus climbed into a Sycomore tree. The Greek word has an o in it, meaning fig-mulberry. https://biblehub.com/greek/4809.htm
This species is found in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Israel, Lebanon and Northeastern Egypt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_sycomorus
Whoever wrote Luke either must have known the area or was told the story by someone who knew it. So we know that this detail in the story is likely authentic.
Again, corruption of the story wouldn't be selective. So if this detail in Luke is authentic, why wouldn't the healing of the blind man in the verses immediately preceding, which are part of the narrative, be also?

[torridon]

Pixies holding things up isn't a good example, as it has been disproved by the theory of gravity. Evolution from single celled organisms to everything is a better example, as the evidence is incomplete and is contradicted by the lack of transitional species such as two, three or ten-celled ones. So we can either believe that the incomplete TOE is true or that supernatural creation is true or that we just can't know or maybe one day we will know. We all put our faith in some explanation or another for how we got here.

This doesn't make sense.  The missing pieces in a partially complete jigsaw do not contradict the puzzle. They just reflect the knowledge not yet discovered.  The TOE being incomplete does not justify faith in a supernatural belief which has zero evidence in its favour.

[Gordon]

Here is one of his examples:
Luke 19 says that Zacchaeus climbed into a Sycomore tree. The Greek word has an o in it, meaning fig-mulberry. https://biblehub.com/greek/4809.htm
This species is found in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Israel, Lebanon and Northeastern Egypt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_sycomorus
Whoever wrote Luke either must have known the area or was told the story by someone who knew it. So we know that this detail in the story is likely authentic.
Again, corruption of the story wouldn't be selective. So if this detail in Luke is authentic, why wouldn't the healing of the blind man in the verses immediately preceding, which are part of the narrative, be also?

The bar you've set yourself is so low you'll need to be careful you don't trip over it.

[ProfessorDavey]

Here is one of his examples:
Luke 19 says that Zacchaeus climbed into a Sycomore tree. The Greek word has an o in it, meaning fig-mulberry. https://biblehub.com/greek/4809.htm
This species is found in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Israel, Lebanon and Northeastern Egypt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_sycomorus
Whoever wrote Luke either must have known the area or was told the story by someone who knew it. So we know that this detail in the story is likely authentic.
Again, corruption of the story wouldn't be selective. So if this detail in Luke is authentic, why wouldn't the healing of the blind man in the verses immediately preceding, which are part of the narrative, be also?

So what - the notion that the writer gets some basic detail correct tells us nothing about the veracity of the claims. There are plenty of examples where the gospel writers get stuff demonstrably wrong too.

But try this for size. Walnut trees are native to the UK - we have one is our garden. So I might write the following:

'Last night I climbed up a walnut tree just before sunset. Looking west I could see five golden dragons circling just a few yards from me. One swept down and attacked the pink unicorn on the lawn. The leprechaun who was tending the unicorn was furious.'

So Spud, you simply accept everything in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th sentences as true just because walnut trees grow in the UK.

Oh, and by the way - that particular type of tree is mentioned numerous times in the old testament so a NT writer would be on a pretty safe bet in naming this to be the type of tree. But none of this tells us one iota about the veracity of the claim about the blind man (or the dragons, unicorn and leprechaun).

[ProfessorDavey]

This doesn't make sense.  The missing pieces in a partially complete jigsaw do not contradict the puzzle. They just reflect the knowledge not yet discovered.  The TOE being incomplete does not justify faith in a supernatural belief which has zero evidence in its favour.

To build on your jigsaw analogy.

If we have a jigsaw with many of the pieces in place that shows it to be a scene of a steam train at a station. We might be missing the pieces that show the name of the station and the name of the engine, but we'd still have evidence that it is ... err ... a scene of a (currently unknown) steam train at a (currently unknown) station. Spud's approach would be to suggest that if we don't know the name of the engine and station we should conclude that it is just as likely that the jigsaw is a picture of Windsor Castle!!!

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

And again no evidence or reasoning about non purposive vs purposive 'world'.

And again, yes there is. Lots of it. To take just one example, a purposive world would require many more assumptions to be true than a non-purposive one and Occam’s razor is one part of the “body of facts or information” available to me. That makes it evidence which, in the axiomatic absence of material evidence for the non-existence of anything, is a justification for believing there to be a non-purposive world and not a purposive one and calling that belief "knowledge". 

I pointed out as regard the analogy that it the proposals were different because of the supernatural claim of pixies. That was an internal problem to it.

Internal problem or not it’s still irrelevant for the reason I set out.

I also pointed out that it isn't relevantly analogous to the non purposive vs purposive discussion in part because it's includes the element of the supernatural and that isn't the case with the your positive, and as yet unjustified claim, about it being a non purpisive world and there being evidence and reasoning against it being purposive.

The supernatural or not supernatural status issue is still a red herring. The point here remains that unless you can reasonably call the better-evidenced claim (no matter what it happens to be) “knowledge” then you have no basis to call anything knowledge.   

And since I haven't said 'the possibility of a different cause for an observed phenomenon (whether natural or supernatural) negates any claim to knowledge'", I'm not ducking it.

Yes you are. You’re arbitrarily excluding reasoned argument from the body of available evidence, and then asserting that we cannot therefore claim to claim to “know” that the world is non-purposive. This is nonsensical – as any evidence for the no-existence of anything can only be reason and argument, you thereby deny the possibility of claiming knowledge about anything.

Try it. Pick something you claim to have knowledge about – that there’s a computer in front of you for example. How do you know that an alien didn’t show up last Tuesday and just hypnotise you into just thinking there was a computer in front of you instead? You don’t, but you can reason your way to a justification of your claim to knowledge about that on the basis of the “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid”. QED.       

I have no reason to believe the 'world' is purposive. For you have evidence and reasoning to justify your belief that it is not purposive?

Yes you have – lots of them.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

Pixies holding things up isn't a good example, as it has been disproved by the theory of gravity.

No it hasn’t. The theory of gravity provides an evidence-based explanation for an observed phenomenon, but it doesn’t thereby “disprove” my pixie conjecture at all. 

Evolution from single celled organisms to everything is a better example,…

Actually it some ways it’s a worse one because it’s been argued that the theory of evolution is better evidenced than the theory of gravity, but anyway…

…as the evidence is incomplete and is contradicted by the lack of transitional species such as two, three or ten-celled ones.

That’s not a contradiction – it’s just gaps in the fossil record.

So we can either believe that the incomplete TOE is true or that supernatural creation is true or that we just can't know or maybe one day we will know. We all put our faith in some explanation or another for how we got here.

No, that’s a false equivalence – akin to claiming the theory of gravity and pixies are equivalent faith claims. We can put our “faith” – ie evidence- and reason-based confidence – in the ToE rather than in “goddidit” because a jig-saw with some pieces missing is much more likely to give you an accurate picture than a jig-saw with no pieces at all. 

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

And again, yes there is. Lots of it. To take just one example, a purposive world would require many more assumptions to be true than a non-purposive one and Occam’s razor is one part of the “body of facts or information” available to me. That makes it evidence which, in the axiomatic absence of material evidence for the non-existence of anything, is a justification for believing there to be a non-purposive world and not a purposive one and calling that belief "knowledge". 

Internal problem or not it’s still irrelevant for the reason I set out.

The supernatural or not supernatural status issue is still a red herring. The point here remains that unless you can reasonably call the better-evidenced claim (no matter what it happens to be) “knowledge” then you have no basis to call anything knowledge.   

Yes you are. You’re arbitrarily excluding reasoned argument from the body of available evidence, and then asserting that we cannot therefore claim to claim to “know” that the world is non-purposive. This is nonsensical – as any evidence for the no-existence of anything can only be reason and argument, you thereby deny the possibility of claiming knowledge about anything.

Try it. Pick something you claim to have knowledge about – that there’s a computer in front of you for example. How do you know that an alien didn’t show up last Tuesday and just hypnotise you into just thinking there was a computer in front of you instead? You don’t, but you can reason your way to a justification of your claim to knowledge about that on the basis of the “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid”. QED.       

Yes you have – lots of them.

You don't appear to understand Occam's Razor, and it's a bit odd when replying to a post where I pointed out the supernatural is unimportant to the position, that it's unimportant to the position.

I'll go back to a question asked earlier which you ignored. What would the difference be to us between a non purposive 'world' and a purposive world that we couldn't know the purpose of?

You're confused by the idea that there might be some things that we might not be able to know into thinking that  would mean we could know nothing.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

You don't appear to understand Occam's Razor,…

At this stage I appear to understand Occam’s razor better than you do. It simply states that an explanation that requires fewer assumptions is more likely to be correct than an explanation that requires more assumptions. A non-purposive world explanation requires fewer assumptions than a purposive world explanation because the latter also needs a purposive agent (or agents, whether supernatural or not). That’s why the gravity vs pixies example is fine: for the latter to be true, you’d have to establish first that pixies even exist at all before concerning yourself with whether or not they could be causing gravitational effects.

…and it's a bit odd when replying to a post where I pointed out the supernatural is unimportant to the position, that it's unimportant to the position.

You were the one who raised the issue of supernaturalism. I merely explained why it’s irrelevant, and by the way why there was no more a category error than there is in the “a good man is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack” analogy notwithstanding that needles and men are in different categories too. 
 

I'll go back to a question asked earlier which you ignored. What would the difference be to us between a non purposive 'world' and a purposive world that we couldn't know the purpose of?

And I’ll go back to the answer that you seem to have missed. There would be no more observable difference than there would be if invisible pixies caused gravity and yet, like me, you believe you “know” that gravity isn’t caused by invisible pixies. How so?

You're confused by the idea that there might be some things that we might not be able to know into thinking that would mean we could know nothing.

No, you’re confused by your wrongheaded idea that any claim to knowledge could be undone by a “but what if?” question, because that would mean no possibility of anything being a legitimate claim to knowledge. You seem to have fallen into the same trap that Vlad has essayed here so many times, namely that a claim of truth (or knowledge about the truth) is an absolute, rather than a statement that a claim is true/knowledge only insofar as it’s supported by the evidence – “evidence” meaning only the contemporaneously available facts and information.

It seems to me that the application of Occam’s razor (among other things) to the claim of a purposive world or of pixies equally produces information, and that information is therefore evidence for the purpose of justifying a claim of knowledge. Your seem to disagree with this, but I don’t know why. Nor do I know how, following your reasoning, any claim to knowledge could ever be justified.       

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
That's why simple cover all answers like goddidit or evolution did it tend not to satisfy....Except of course goddidit IS asatisfactory answer for why there is something rather than nothing.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
That's why simple cover all answers like goddidit or evolution did it tend not to satisfy....Except of course goddidit IS asatisfactory answer for why there is something rather than nothing.

Have you spilt your alphabet soup again?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Have you spilt your alphabet soup again?

No, what I am saying is that fuller explanations of the razor dismiss the idea that just having fewer steps or stages or entities in an argument necessarily makes that argument more likely.
All stages, steps or entities have to be necessary.

[Gordon]

No, what I am saying is that fuller explanations of the razor dismiss the idea that just having fewer steps or stages or entities in an argument necessarily makes that argument more likely.

What "fuller explanations"?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What "fuller explanations"?

Those definitions of Ockham's razor which mention or suggest "necessary entities" within an argument or explanation.

That is, things that are necessary for the fullest explanation.

[Nearly Sane]

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
That's why simple cover all answers like goddidit or evolution did it tend not to satisfy....Except of course goddidit IS asatisfactory answer for why there is something rather than nothing.

It's not clear that 'why something rather than nothing' is a coherent question. Could nothing be? And since  god is a something, it wouldn't be an explanation in any sense. As so often you are special pleading.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,
 

At this stage I appear to understand Occam’s razor better than you do. It simply states that an explanation that requires fewer assumptions is more likely to be correct than an explanation that requires more assumptions. A non-purposive world explanation requires fewer assumptions than a purposive world explanation because the latter also needs a purposive agent (or agents, whether supernatural or not). That’s why the gravity vs pixies example is fine: for the latter to be true, you’d have to establish first that pixies even exist at all before concerning yourself with whether or not they could be causing gravitational effects.

You were the one who raised the issue of supernaturalism. I merely explained why it’s irrelevant, and by the way why there was no more a category error than there is in the “a good man is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack” analogy notwithstanding that needles and men are in different categories too. 
 
And I’ll go back to the answer that you seem to have missed. There would be no more observable difference than there would be if invisible pixies caused gravity and yet, like me, you believe you “know” that gravity isn’t caused by invisible pixies. How so?

No, you’re confused by your wrongheaded idea that any claim to knowledge could be undone by a “but what if?” question, because that would mean no possibility of anything being a legitimate claim to knowledge. You seem to have fallen into the same trap that Vlad has essayed here so many times, namely that a claim of truth (or knowledge about the truth) is an absolute, rather than a statement that a claim is true/knowledge only insofar as it’s supported by the evidence – “evidence” meaning only the contemporaneously available facts and information.

It seems to me that the application of Occam’s razor (among other things) to the claim of a purposive world or of pixies equally produces information, and that information is therefore evidence for the purpose of justifying a claim of knowledge. Your seem to disagree with this, but I don’t know why. Nor do I know how, following your reasoning, any claim to knowledge could ever be justified.       

The razor is a logical tool, it is not evidence. Likelihood does not mean a claim to knowledge. Having reason to believe a horse will win a race does not amount to knowledge that it will win. Not having a reason to believe something is not equivalent to knowledge that it is not the case.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's not clear that 'why something rather than nothing' is a coherent question. Could nothing be? And since  god is a something, it wouldn't be an explanation in any sense. As so often you are special pleading.

Maybe we should then say why does something exist rather than nothing exist. That has the advantage that we can conceive of non existence and it would seem to cover non naturalistic and naturalistic definitions of existence.

Anyone arguing from the full meaning of Ockham’s razor imv signs up to a necessary entity beyond which one shouldn’t add more.

[Nearly Sane]

Maybe we should then say why does something exist rather than nothing exist. That has the advantage that we can conceive of non existence and it would seem to cover non naturalistic and naturalistic definitions of existence.

Anyone arguing from the full meaning of Ockham’s razor imv signs up to a necessary entity beyond which one shouldn’t add more.

But non existence isn't the equivalent of nothing. Non existence is a time based concept, nothing isn't.

And simply using the word 'necessary' doesn't make anything an explanation.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But non existence isn't the equivalent of nothing. Non existence is a time based concept, nothing isn't.

And simply using the word 'necessary' doesn't make anything an explanation.

non existence a time based concept?
Your assertion, your burden.

[Nearly Sane]

non existence a time based concept?
Your assertion, your burden.

If you are measuring something non existing, you are stating that at a time it does not exist. Existence is time based.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

No, what I am saying is that fuller explanations of the razor dismiss the idea that just having fewer steps or stages or entities in an argument necessarily makes that argument more likely.
All stages, steps or entities have to be necessary.

You’re mixing up assumptions (Occam’s razor) with logical steps (not Occam’s razor).