'Cold-Case Christianity'

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hope,

Make your mind up! Either you had an original point or you did not - you can't first claim that it was ignored and then tell us that you didn't have one!

No, the category "naturalistic" and the category "supernatural" are different categories. You cannot therefore just assume that an investigatory method that is naturalstic will also work for the supernatural.   

"Claimed", not "pointed out". You cannot "point out" something that is demonstrably wrong. The part I quoted, the part I commented on and the part that Vlad responded to was (we're told) begun after his conversion.   

Read it again. He made some "investigations" of an unspecified nature before his conversion. He used his cold case techniques after his conversion. Now it could be that some of his pre-conversion "investigations" also involved cold case techniques but that would be just speculation.   

Perhaps if you tried reading the article you wouldn't keep screwing up about this? His unspecified investigations were before his conversion; his use of cold case techniques came after his conversion.

This "setting out to prove" bit is - so far at least - just your assertion, and even if it turns out to be true it's irrelevant because there's no way for naturalistic cold case methods either to prove or to disprove supernatural claims. 

Please stop lying about this - it's getting dull.

No it can't. The arguments against claims of the supernatural do not necessarily transfer as arguments against claims of the natural.

Hillside

Enjoying the posts but can't help thinking that what you so want to say is that if this detective had been a true atheist he would never have converted.

That an atheist can convert must be a bit shocking to some I suppose.

Go on Hillside treat yourself to ''the no true atheist fallacy''.............IMHO you know you want to.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Witnesses tend to talk in the first person. Witness statements could not credibly include narrative about incidents at which the witness was not present. Witness statements are made by people who were witnesses. If the statement is anonymous, it has no real credibility.
It's well established that Matthew and Luke had Mark as a source. It's also possible that John had at least one of the three synoptics as a source.

Jeremy. Many history books are written which don't directly quote witness in the first person.
Many of the personae mentioned in the Gospels and those contempory with it were still consultable by Paul who wrote some of the epistles. This is why your Christianity myther ideas only gain traction centuries after when mythers can feel comfortable spouting any theory no matter how bad the historical fit.
I believe you are specially pleading here.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hope,

Make your mind up! Either you had an original point or you did not - you can't first claim that it was ignored and then tell us that you didn't have one!

No, the category "naturalistic" and the category "supernatural" are different categories. You cannot therefore just assume that an investigatory method that is naturalstic will also work for the supernatural.   

"Claimed", not "pointed out". You cannot "point out" something that is demonstrably wrong. The part I quoted, the part I commented on and the part that Vlad responded to was (we're told) begun after his conversion.   

Read it again. He made some "investigations" of an unspecified nature before his conversion. He used his cold case techniques after his conversion. Now it could be that some of his pre-conversion "investigations" also involved cold case techniques but that would be just speculation.   

Perhaps if you tried reading the article you wouldn't keep screwing up about this? His unspecified investigations were before his conversion; his use of cold case techniques came after his conversion.

This "setting out to prove" bit is - so far at least - just your assertion, and even if it turns out to be true it's irrelevant because there's no way for naturalistic cold case methods either to prove or to disprove supernatural claims. 

Please stop lying about this - it's getting dull.

No it can't. The arguments against claims of the supernatural do not necessarily transfer as arguments against claims of the natural.

But the spectre at your feast here is that science could detect a rising from the dead.
Firstly scientific tests could establish death then scientific tests could establish life.
Those things are undeniable.
What isn't establishable instrumentally is what you quaintly refer to as supernatural cause.
You cannot appeal any more to no such thing as a resurrected man than you can appeal to no black swans because of Nearly Sane and Wigginhall's beloved ''problem of induction''.

Jesus and Thomas pre-empt the hard bottomed materialist empiricist hundreds of years before any walked the Earth when Thomas asks for empirical proof and Jesus
provides it.

Not bad for Bronze aged Goat herders.

[Sebastian Toe]

Jesus and Thomas pre-empt the hard bottomed materialist empiricist hundreds of years before any walked the Earth when Thomas asks for empirical proof and Jesus
provides it.

...allegedly.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Enjoying the posts but can't help thinking that what you so want to say is that if this detective had been a true atheist he would never have converted.

That an atheist can convert must be a bit shocking to some I suppose.

Go on Hillside treat yourself to ''the no true atheist fallacy''.............IMHO you know you want to.

Nope. "Not a true atheist" is meaningless - either you follow the logic to its conclusion or you don't.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

But the spectre at your feast here is that science could detect a rising from the dead.
Firstly scientific tests could establish death then scientific tests could establish life.
Those things are undeniable.

If “science” was available and was applied then yes it would. It would say something lie, “according to the best available tests person X was clinically dead and subsequently was clinically alive.” There’d still be scope for other explanations of course – science doesn’t claim to know everything so could have been mistaken, person X’s twin could have been substituted etc - but within the reality that contemporaneous science could model then that’s what it would say.

So what? 

What isn't establishable instrumentally is what you quaintly refer to as supernatural cause.

It’s not my term – raise it with those who claim it

You cannot appeal any more to no such thing as a resurrected man than you can appeal to no black swans because of Nearly Sane and Wigginhall's beloved ''problem of induction''.

No-one does that. You could perhaps point to organ decomposition and the non-availability of a means to restore that, but when you’re in “miracle” territory anything goes. Again, so what? All you’re doing here is pushing at the open door of “anything’s possible.” 

Jesus and Thomas pre-empt the hard bottomed materialist empiricist hundreds of years before any walked the Earth when Thomas asks for empirical proof and Jesus provides it.

Not bad for Bronze aged Goat herders.

Really? What “empirical proof” would that be, and why do you think that a book that claims it is true or accurate?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

And that's your problem here.

Actually, what you said prior to this illustrates the problem!

The most they could achieve would be to say something like, "I can't find a natural explanation for this claim" but that's just a big "so what?" It would say nothing whatever to the truthfulness or otherwise of the supernatural claim.

If you were on a genuine search for truth, you would have said, I can’t find an explanation. The nature of the explanation would be irrelevant!! You would not be prejudicing the search by saying what the nature of the truth should look like.

If the search is for truth, then I have outlined a method, which in the absence of certainty will be an inductive one. Again, you are prejudicing the search by saying that certain techniques can be used for all kinds of truths except those that are claims about the supernatural; a bit similar to this confession.

In essence, I was trying to answer the question, "Does God (a supernatural Being) exist?" by starting with the premise that nothing supernatural exists. It was an exercise in circular reasoning.

Except that rather than admitting that circular reasoning is used, you are transferring the so-called burden of proof onto the religious believer to break the circularity, knowing full well that they can’t!

Again, what relationship do you think "faith" to have to the probabilistic determination of truths?

Erm...in your question! “faith”, probabilistic. If any action is based on a probabilistic determination, then clearly there is no certainty, so faith is used. The only certainties are if the probability is 1 (certain to happen) or 0 (certain not to happen). For any other probability, faith is required.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Inductively dead people stay dead

No, that is a deduction, based on your implied assertion as fact that there are only natural causes and explanations. That is why I keep on challenging it using the same criteria that are applied to religious belief.

[Nearly Sane]

No, that is a deduction, based on your implied assertion as fact that there are only natural causes and explanations. That is why I keep on challenging it using the same criteria that are applied to religious belief.

No. It's induction. Based on people being dead staying dead. And there is no implied assertion about natural causes or explanations. People may stay dead for non natural causes, just as the sun may rise because Ra turns the earth with his magic farts. Having raised induction, I.e. deriving a rule from a set of observations as some method for determining the non natural you appear to have no understanding of it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

If you were on a genuine search for truth, you would have said, I can’t find an explanation. The nature of the explanation would be irrelevant!! You would not be prejudicing the search by saying what the nature of the truth should look like.

Flat wrong. Read it again - we were talking about what the methods of science would be capable of doing. Science is naturalistic. That's why all it could say would be, "I can find no scientific explanation for this phenomenon."   

If the search is for truth, then I have outlined a method, which in the absence of certainty will be an inductive one. Again, you are prejudicing the search by saying that certain techniques can be used for all kinds of truths except those that are claims about the supernatural; a bit similar to this confession.

No you haven't. You've suggested a naturalistic method - induction - but you've offered no argument to suggest why the supposedly supernatural would be amenable to a naturalistic method of enquiry. What makes you think that claims of the supernatural would be induction apt?

In essence, I was trying to answer the question, "Does God (a supernatural Being) exist?" by starting with the premise that nothing supernatural exists. It was an exercise in circular reasoning.

Who said that?

Except that rather than admitting that circular reasoning is used, you are transferring the so-called burden of proof onto the religious believer to break the circularity, knowing full well that they can’t!

There's nothing to admit because there's no circular reasoning because I haven't started with that premise.

Oh, and the burden of proof problem is still all yours. "God" is your conjecture; it's your job to make an argument for it. 

Erm...in your question! “faith”, probabilistic. If any action is based on a probabilistic determination, then clearly there is no certainty, so faith is used. The only certainties are if the probability is 1 (certain to happen) or 0 (certain not to happen). For any other probability, faith is required.

Nope. I appear to have a computer in front of me, but "I" could just be an algorithm in a computer game programmed to believe that. The truth "computer" is therefore a probabilistic one. 

There could also be invisible tap dancing pixies jumping off the keys just before my fingers reach them. I have no reason to think they're there but I can't disprove it, so the truth "no pixies" is also a probabilistic one.

Should I proceed on the basis that one of them is true, that neither of them is true, or that both of them are true?

Why?

Now swap "pixies" for "God".   

[Gordon]

No, that is a deduction, based on your implied assertion as fact that there are only natural causes and explanations. That is why I keep on challenging it using the same criteria that are applied to religious belief.

Wrong - it is induction.

[wigginhall]

No. It's induction. Based on people being dead staying dead. And there is no implied assertion about natural causes or explanations. People may stay dead for non natural causes, just as the sun may rise because Ra turns the earth with his magic farts. Having raised induction, I.e. deriving a rule from a set of observations as some method for determining the non natural you appear to have no understanding of it.

A very nice post, showing how some theists keep muddling up observations, causes and explanations.    This ends up as a kind of mangled nonsense - for example, that observing that someone is dead somehow involves natural or non-natural causes.   Not really, as we haven't gone into that yet.     It's just the observation that someone is dead, and is still dead. 

[Nearly Sane]

A very nice post, showing how some theists keep muddling up observations, causes and explanations.    This ends up as a kind of mangled nonsense - for example, that observing that someone is dead somehow involves natural or non-natural causes.   Not really, as we haven't gone into that yet.     It's just the observation that someone is dead, and is still dead.

Yes, and I suppose the best indicator of this is the classic inductive issue of the black swan. The inductive belief of there being no black swans because you have only ever seen white swans gives you nothing about causes. It has a disinterest in causes. The connection only happens when you connect two separately inductive rules by observation and the deduce that one is effectively the cause.

The idea that inductively we can say something about causes without a presuppositions, which in science's and history's and police work's cases are all naturalistic presuppositions, misunderstands it completely.

As always rather than talking about this in theory, it would be better if Sword or Hope worked through how they are applying this to back up their claim. Show the working!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

A very nice post, showing how some theists keep muddling up observations, causes and explanations.    This ends up as a kind of mangled nonsense - for example, that observing that someone is dead somehow involves natural or non-natural causes.   Not really, as we haven't gone into that yet.     It's just the observation that someone is dead, and is still dead.

I agree. Sword has brought to this board an edifice of an argument that he thinks to be a knock-down one, but it's built on sand. Rather than repeat it endlessly he'd be better advised addressing the arguments that undo him but all we get instead is that we need to change our "world view" (which itself is a straw man). What that different world view should be, why he thinks it would apply to claims of the non-natural, and how it would lead to "God" in any case is anyone's guess but as the burden or proof remains his I guess all we can do is to wait for some answers.

Be nice if he'd sort out his inductive from his deductive for starters though.   

[Spud]

But the spectre at your feast here is that science could detect a rising from the dead.
Firstly scientific tests could establish death then scientific tests could establish life.
Those things are undeniable.
What isn't establishable instrumentally is what you quaintly refer to as supernatural cause.
You cannot appeal any more to no such thing as a resurrected man than you can appeal to no black swans because of Nearly Sane and Wigginhall's beloved ''problem of induction''.

Jesus and Thomas pre-empt the hard bottomed materialist empiricist hundreds of years before any walked the Earth when Thomas asks for empirical proof and Jesus
provides it.

Not bad for Bronze aged Goat herders.

"What isn't establishable instrumentally is what you quaintly refer to as supernatural cause."

The 'voice from heaven' at Jesus' baptism and transfiguration?

[Dicky Underpants]

"What isn't establishable instrumentally is what you quaintly refer to as supernatural cause."

The 'voice from heaven' at Jesus' baptism ............?

That truly must have happened - I've read it somewhere. John's gospel says John the Baptist said he heard it. And by tradition, Peter told Mark it did. And Matthew and Luke read Mark, so they said it happened as well. (Did someone tell Peter, by the way? Was he a disciple at this point*?)

*Nope, I've just checked - Simon Peter was away casting his nets in the Sea Of Galillee at the time, along with Andrew and co.

[Nearly Sane]

That truly must have happened - I've read it somewhere. John's gospel says John the Baptist said he heard it. And by tradition, Peter told Mark it did. And Matthew and Luke read Mark, so they said it happened as well. (Did someone tell Peter, by the way? Was he a disciple at this point?)

and again it is so much worse. Because let's say there is a voice, how do we determine it's from heaven (without Spud's begging the question) and not say James Earl Jones in a time machine with a megaphone

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

If “science” was available and was applied then yes it would. It would say something lie, “according to the best available tests person X was clinically dead and subsequently was clinically alive.” There’d still be scope for other explanations of course – science doesn’t claim to know everything so could have been mistaken, person X’s twin could have been substituted etc - but within the reality that contemporaneous science could model then that’s what it would say.

So what? 

It’s not my term – raise it with those who claim it

No-one does that. You could perhaps point to organ decomposition and the non-availability of a means to restore that, but when you’re in “miracle” territory anything goes. Again, so what? All you’re doing here is pushing at the open door of “anything’s possible.” 

Really? What “empirical proof” would that be, and why do you think that a book that claims it is true or accurate?

Sorry,
But it is your sloppy use of the word supernatural.....applying it to a resurrection which science is more than adequately equipped to measure.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

But it is your sloppy use of the word supernatural.....applying it to a resurrection which science is more than adequately equipped to measure.

Again, it's not my word. I was just using the term because it's the word generally used by those who believe it to have happened.

Are you suggesting that the resurrection happened instead within the known laws of the universe?

[Nearly Sane]

Sorry,
But it is your sloppy use of the word supernatural.....applying it to a resurrection which science is more than adequately equipped to measure.

How do you establish that? BTW given that it isn't a one off event according to what you believe, it isn't a miracle.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How do you establish that? BTW given that it isn't a one off event according to what you believe, it isn't a miracle.

I think you are salting this with a deal of cod Christianity Nearly Sane.
I don't think Christians are falling over themselves to utter or insert the word miracle with a toothy grin and Macleans sparkle.

I've told you that words such as natural, supernatural and miracle are sloppily vague and used.
What Christianity wants you to grasp is that the resurrection happened. That's why I point out that it is a unique event in the sense that every historical event is unique but special in that it don't usually happen.

As I said to Hillside it looks as though it happened a few times but in this case it's who it happened to.

[Nearly Sane]

I think you are salting this with a deal of cod Christianity Nearly Sane.
I don't think Christians are falling over themselves to utter or insert the word miracle with a toothy grin and Macleans sparkle.

I've told you that words such as natural, supernatural and miracle are sloppily vague and used.
What Christianity wants you to grasp is that the resurrection happened. That's why I point out that it is a unique event in the sense that every historical event is unique but special in that it don't usually happen.

As I said to Hillside it looks as though it happened a few times but in this case it's who it happened to.

can't help if you define things vaguely, after all it was your definition I used.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Again, it's not my word. I was just using the term because it's the word generally used by those who believe it to have happened.

Are you suggesting that the resurrection happened instead within the known laws of the universe?

I'm saying that a person can be declared dead by scientific method and the same person can be declared alive by scientific method whichever order that may come.

Polkinghorne on the other hand might say that resurrection may be an improbable event but would question the explanatory power of the term spontaneous.

[Nearly Sane]

I'm saying that a person can be declared dead by scientific method and the same person can be declared alive by scientific method whichever order that may come.

Polkinghorne on the other hand might say that resurrection may be an improbable event but would question the explanatory power of the term spontaneous.

so not a one off so not in line with your definition

[Maeght]

I'm saying that a person can be declared dead by scientific method and the same person can be declared alive by scientific method whichever order that may come.

Polkinghorne on the other hand might say that resurrection may be an improbable event but would question the explanatory power of the term spontaneous.

Super natural doesn't mean 'can't be measured' but refers to being outside of the known laws of nature.