My Kingdom is Not of This World

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Certainly: mistakes and lies are always a risk with anecdotal accounts, and especially where the provenance is uncertain and where the details may could involve those with a personal interest in what is being portrayed. The police accounts of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 is a more recent example of risks associated with human artifice.

Just did: anecdotal/witness accounts come with risks, which is why perjury can get you locked up.

That doesn't preclude fiction though: for example if I said that while in Asda earlier I bought some butter it would be unremarkable and involves no supernatural agency. but it would still be a lie. The key point is though that my buying butter claim is trivial whether I'm telling the truth or not but if my claim involved something highly unusual that, if true, would go against how we expect things to work (for instance that I saw an adult walk on water without flotation aids) then the evidence bar needs to be raised a lot higher and the risks of mistakes or lies become much more important since a claim such as this is definitely non-trivial (unlike whether or not I bought butter this morning).

Before you get to the exploited but you first have to determine that there was such an event, and that involves excluding the risks of mistakes or lies. People can exploit fictitious claims too you know, as we saw recently when 'Niburu' failed to show.
 
No idea what you're trying to say here.
 
Indeed: if you know it actually happened that is: since if not you have another type of historical event involving the perpetuation of unsupported claims.

Which is fine when a) these things are natural, and b) they can be shown to have occurred. Of course people making mistakes and telling lies is natural too.

Correct: so where is it?

Must be windy where you are, Vlad, since you seem to be flying several kites at the same time.

Unusual claims unusual evidence.
You mean that your testimony is not enough, we need two, or maybe three.......or maybe 500.

[Gordon]

Unusual claims unusual evidence.
You mean that your testimony is not enough, we need two, or maybe three.......or maybe 500.

The '500', or any number of claimed witnesses at all, could still be a post-hoc lie though - how could you check this independently of the claim itself?
 

[Sebastian Toe]

Unusual claims unusual evidence.
You mean that your testimony is not enough, we need two, or maybe three.......or maybe 500.

...or maybe more than that even?
The miracle of the sun in 1917 for example. Do you believe that event actually happened as described by the witnesses?
A simple yes or no will do for a start.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The '500', or any number of claimed witnesses at all, could still be a post-hoc lie though - how could you check this independently of the claim itself?

Yes it COULD be as you say although the probability decreases with each.
I believe that the people on the ground did a bit of checking up.
Of the 500 we don't know who were disciples and who, at the end of everything did not convert but who could not lie about their experience.
There has to be more behind it though and that is the encounter with the risen and ascended Christ which would confirm to disciples the truth of their experience and for those of us without participation in the historical resurrection we find we cannot finally dismiss this as just sincere belief so we can join with the easter proclamation 'He is Risen, He is risen indeed'.

[ippy]

Did the Holy Ghost or God come upon Mary?

It wouldn't be a bad idea to rephrase this post of yours Spud.

ippy

[Gordon]

Yes it COULD be as you say although the probability decreases with each.

Don't be silly - all it takes is one person to say 'there were 500 witnesses'.

I believe that the people on the ground did a bit of checking up.

Super- what methods did they use?

Of the 500 we don't know who were disciples and who, at the end of everything did not convert but who could not lie about their experience.

You don't know there were 500: you are simply accepting this claim at face value.

There has to be more behind it though and that is the encounter with the risen and ascended Christ which would confirm to disciples the truth of their experience and for those of us without participation in the historical resurrection we find we cannot finally dismiss this as just sincere belief so we can join with the easter proclamation 'He is Risen, He is risen indeed'.

There might be mistakes and lies behind it though: and these are risks you're clearly ignoring, and in doing so it seems you are indulging is special pleading that the risks of mistakes or lies in relation to anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance don't apply when it comes the the NT (which contains anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance).

[Walt Zingmatilder]

1:Don't be silly - all it takes is one person to say 'there were 500 witnesses'.

Super- what methods did they use?

You don't know there were 500: you are simply accepting this claim at face value.

There might be mistakes and lies behind it though: and these are risks you're clearly ignoring, and in doing so it seems you are indulging is special pleading that the risks of mistakes or lies in relation to anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance don't apply when it comes the the NT (which contains anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance).

1: Yes people lie but this would be a lie at a time when it could be demonstrated to be a lie in that it is dated to within living memory. Why would someone invite scrutiny of a lie?
The statement is a response to expressed doubts within the community it was written too after all.
I have said it could be fiction Gordon but what are you suggesting is the fiction, the resurrection? The 500, The community to whom it was written?

I cannot be specially pleading lies unless you have evidence that they are. Lies happen yes.

Let's however turn to your methodology. People lied at Hillsborough. Are we now to tar everybody with lying. I don't really get the link further than lies happen.

The motivation for lying at Hillsborough was not getting caught for a criminal offence. What would Paul's motivation be since this is a take it or leave it thing?

[Spud]

Don't be silly - all it takes is one person to say 'there were 500 witnesses'.

If there weren't loads of witnesses who could verify the story, the church would have fizzled out, surely. There must have been an effort made to verify it, as there was with the cause of the Hillsborough disaster. The Jews at the time were so intent on eradicating Christianity that it was 300 years before it was formally accepted as the truth.

[Sebastian Toe]

it was 300 years before it was formally accepted as the truth.

....what do you mean by "the truth"?

[Gordon]

If there weren't loads of witnesses who could verify the story, the church would have fizzled out, surely.

Nope - all you need is some charismatic people and a bunch of credulous ones and your off: Scientology, Mormons etc are more recent examples.

There must have been an effort made to verify it, as there was with the cause of the Hillsborough disaster.

How? In relation to Hillsborough there was evidence other than testimony, which is why the accounts of some police officers didn't stand eventual scrutiny, whereas the claims about Jesus in the NT are solely anecdotal, post-hoc by decades and of uncertain provenance.

The Jews at the time were so intent on eradicating Christianity that it was 300 years before it was formally accepted as the truth.

Since when was Christianity 'formally accepted as the truth', and on whose authority?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Nope - all you need is some charismatic people and a bunch of credulous ones and your off: Scientology, Mormons etc are more recent examples.

These are relatively short term localised religions. But if we are talking recent religions, what about stealth religions like New Atheism?

[Gordon]

These are relatively short term localised religions. But if we are talking recent religions, what about stealth religions like New Atheism?

Much is made of these 'church fathers' in, say, the 1st/2nd centuries when the NT was produced - so the comparison with Mormonism seems reasonable to me.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Much is made of these 'church fathers' in, say, the 1st/2nd centuries when the NT was produced - so the comparison with Mormonism seems reasonable to me.

I don't understand.

[Gordon]

I don't understand.

Mormonism was started by Joseph Smith in the 1820's - so it has been around for the same length of time Christianity had been around when it got up and running in the 1st/2nd centuries, and Mormonism is still going. Therefore, that Christianity managed to gain a foothold over a couple of hundred years really isn't that remarkable.

[Outrider]

That is now, maybe, But these ideas were embarrassing then, in a world where you say claims of a resurrection were in a sense extreme, then.

The specific instance might have been embarrassing back then, but the nature of the claim - supernatural resurrection, healing by divine whim - those were part of the fabric of their understanding of reality.

And the fact that I as a Christian can admit to them being extreme belies your picture of a world which accepts this as not extreme.

The fact that you can see them as extreme now is testament to a couple of centuries of hard work by empiricists, natural philosophers and scientists.

Look let me prove you wrong at a stroke.

Should I get some popcorn?

Extreme in this sense means an event that doesn't naturally happen. Most Christians believe that the resurrection is a rare miracle. That it doesn't happen naturally is therefore a given

Hold the popcorn, then, you didn't even get past the first sentence. No, extreme does not mean 'unnatural', extreme means outside of our understanding of the possible. Skyscrapers don't naturally happen, aircraft carriers don't emerge spontaneously from the undergrowth, you cannot come across wild 700 seater airliners. Resurrection into a different corporeal body, elevation to a spiritual realm, these are things that defy our understanding of reality, not things that result from our understanding of reality.

Having usefully declared that the world of the first century was not as gullible as some of your co stealth religionists would say.[/quote

I said no such thing, I've testified here and elsewhere about the fundamental (and entirely explicable) ignorance of the historical eras. I don't blame them for believing, I blame people today for still believing the same nonsense.

You announced that religionists see the resurrection as not something that doesn't happen naturally or being unusual. That they view resurrection as a miracle and an almost unique event proves you wrong.

No, I said that religionists see the resurrection as something that did happen, despite the complete absence of any sort of evidence sufficient to support such an outrageous claim. That they view this as a 'miracle' is just an excuse not to address the fact that it defies our understanding of how the universe works.

In the question of the term of long term memory. We have to apply the implications that to all history for you not to be specially pleading again.

I'm perfectly happy to apply it to all of history; all of history does not make claims so fundamentally unbelievable as this; all of history does not have the documentary evidence of the various councils where minutes were taken of which elements of the story were going to be kept and which ditched as they didn't match up to the desired orthodoxy of the time; all of history does not have the examples from various eras showing the tracked changes...

There are papers with equations regarding the length of survival for conspiracies.

And they show that these things exist on a spectrum; some fizzle and die immediately, others endure despite their lack of any depth to the supporting evidence. That Hinduism and Shintoism and Buddhism and Paganism and Islam and Judaism have lasted as long as they have is, presumably, no indication that they are fundamentally true, so why should Christianity's endurance put it in a different bracket? People still think we didn't go to the moon, people still think multiple bullets hit Kennedy's entourage, people think the Twin Towers was an inside job... some people believe what they want to believe rather than looking deeply at the evidence.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The specific instance might have been embarrassing back then, but the nature of the claim - supernatural resurrection, healing by divine whim - those were part of the fabric of their understanding of reality.

The fact that you can see them as extreme now is testament to a couple of centuries of hard work by empiricists, natural philosophers and scientists.

Should I get some popcorn?

Hold the popcorn, then, you didn't even get past the first sentence. No, extreme does not mean 'unnatural', extreme means outside of our understanding of the possible. Skyscrapers don't naturally happen, aircraft carriers don't emerge spontaneously from the undergrowth, you cannot come across wild 700 seater airliners. Resurrection into a different corporeal body, elevation to a spiritual realm, these are things that defy our understanding of reality, not things that result from our understanding of reality.

No, I said that religionists see the resurrection as something that did happen, despite the complete absence of any sort of evidence sufficient to support such an outrageous claim. That they view this as a 'miracle' is just an excuse not to address the fact that it defies our understanding of how the universe works.

I'm perfectly happy to apply it to all of history; all of history does not make claims so fundamentally unbelievable as this;

Well you've confirmed my view that this is, for you, not down to history but what you can believe. However if you are suggesting that there is a long term memory problem that must be true of all history.
For some reason you've started guffing on about what can be believed. That's Shuffling of Sammy Davis JR proportions.

In what way does a miracle not address the way the world works when it is recognition of how the world works?

These things defy our understanding of reality?......That's why they are called miracles. Reality? You've already stated that that's whatever you can believe. Bong!

[Spud]

Gordon, #209
Christianity was formally adopted as the world religion by a guy called Peter Pan, or was it Constan Teen, I can't remember. In terms of evidence other than testimony, what about people who were once known to be paralyzed, crippled  or blind, who were now cured? As regards things like Mormonism; these are counterfeits of something that is true, ie the four gospels. The latter are clearly distinct from the counterfeit gnostic gospels, having been written under the supervision of the apostles.

[Shaker]

Gordon, #209
Christianity was formally adopted as the world religion by a guy called Peter Pan, or was it Constan Teen, I can't remember. In terms of evidence other than testimony, what about people who were once known to be paralyzed, crippled  or blind, who were now cured?

Also known as "unevidenced claims."

[Nearly Sane]

Gordon, #209
Christianity was formally adopted as the world religion by a guy called Peter Pan, or was it Constan Teen, I can't remember. In terms of evidence other than testimony, what about people who were once known to be paralyzed, crippled  or blind, who were now cured? As regards things like Mormonism; these are counterfeits of something that is true, ie the four gospels. The latter are clearly distinct from the counterfeit gnostic gospels, having been written under the supervision of the apostles.

OK, you are a Poe and I claim my five pounds



https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law

[Spud]

Also known as "unevidenced claims."

In the context of #207, the point is that had there been no evidence the church would have fizzled out.

[Shaker]

In the context of #207, the point is that had there been no evidence the church would have fizzled out.

No. Gordon dispatched this in #209 (amplified in #213).

[Gordon]

Gordon, #209
Christianity was formally adopted as the world religion by a guy called Peter Pan, or was it Constan Teen, I can't remember.

Possibly the name you are looking for is Prof B. Ollocks.

In terms of evidence other than testimony, what about people who were once known to be paralyzed, crippled  or blind, who were now cured?

Indeed: problem is, Spud, these are all unevidenced claims else this would be a fact issue and not a faith one. Any success with amputees regrowing limbs yet?

As regards things like Mormonism; these are counterfeits of something that is true, ie the four gospels. The latter are clearly distinct from the counterfeit gnostic gospels, having been written under the supervision of the apostles.

This sounds like a touch of No True Scotsman (said the Scotsman).

[Outrider]

Well you've confirmed my view that this is, for you, not down to history but what you can believe.

You think that claims of divine incarnation are the stuff of normal historical enquiry? You don't think there's a higher burden of proof required to support the idea of the reincarnation of Jesus than, say, that it was Caesar who crossed the Rubicon rather than Augustus? Do I accept the historical records of Christianity, yes, as evidence of Christianity, but not as evidence of Christ as a divine being.

However if you are suggesting that there is a long term memory problem that must be true of all history.

Yes. Any historical account - any modern account, for that matter - written after an extended period (memoirs, for instance) has to be considered suspect. Even when it's based upon notes made at the time, inferences and opinions and understandings of the matter change; we only remember the last time we remembered the event, we don't necessarily remember the event itself.

For some reason you've started guffing on about what can be believed. That's Shuffling of Sammy Davis JR proportions.

Who would have thought credibility and possibility might come into a discussion about people believing incredible things in the absence of evidence!!!

In what way does a miracle not address the way the world works when it is recognition of how the world works?[/quote

No, it's a claim of something that is outside of the way the world appears to work; the conclusion are either that the claim is somehow false, or there is something about the way the universe works that we don't understand.

These things defy our understanding of reality?......That's why they are called miracles.

They're called 'miracles' because calling them 'probably apocryphal' makes it harder to get the tithes in.

Reality? You've already stated that that's whatever you can believe. Bong!

No, I've explained that's the things that actually happen; we consider things to probably be part of reality when they're in accord with things that can be repeatedly demonstrated.

O.

[Outrider]

In the context of #207, the point is that had there been no evidence the church would have fizzled out.

I see your 'Millions of people can't be wrong' and raise you a 'the global homeopathy market in 2016 was estimated to be over $2 billion'.

As a health and safety professional I can attest to the rule 'Always count on human stupidity'.

O.

[Sebastian Toe]

The motivation for lying at Hillsborough was not getting caught for a criminal offence. What would Paul's motivation be since this is a take it or leave it thing?

What would be the motivation for lying for those who witnessed the miracle of the sun in 1917?
Do you believe that event actually happened as described by the witnesses in the crowd of 30,000?