Debate with a Christian

[discipulus]

If Disc wishes to rebut this, I invite him to first, without recourse to empirical evidence, demonstrate which of the statements "Jesus is god," and "Jesus is merely a prophet of god," is true, and which is false. Stripped of empirical evidence, neither claim is any more compelling than the other; how do you determine which is true?

I am not at all against using empirical evidence to determine the veracity of a truth claim where empirical evidence is expected to be present.

I do not expect empirical evidence to exist for historical accounts of anything that happened 2,000 years ago because what happened 2,000 years ago is beyond the scope of observation and experimentation.

I do not throw my hands up and say, "My goodness! I cannot know anything about what happened 2,000 years ago because I cannot verify any historical claims or accounts empirically!"

If historians thought like you do, then historiography would be impossible Esquilax. Any endeavor to provide an account about what happened in the past would be rendered futile a priori.

Do you understand this Esquilax?

No?

Let me give you a simple illustration to show you why your thinking and reasoning are wrong.

Suppose you were living during the time that Nero was Emperor and you and your family witnessed first hand the great fire that ravaged a great portion of Rome during that time. The fire destroyed your home and you had to start all over from scratch with just the clothes on your back.

Now suppose you die and when you die, you discover you are not bound by time but can see in an instant what life is like in the year 2014. You see the triumphs of man as he flies into outer space and you see the numerous inventions man has created over the years since you were alive, you see the fire trucks that you wish had existed when your house was burning and all you had at your disposable was a wooden bucket full of water. You see the marvels of computers and you see people using the internet and you decide that you want to enter this time period and engage with some people who were responsible for recording the events of the past. You want to see what they had to say about that great and dreadful fire that changed not only your life, but the lives of thousands who lived during the time you did.

So you enter into time and you decide to go to one of the most prestigious universities in the United States of America. You walk in and head to where you think the History wing would be hoping to speak with some of the history professors there, and to your astonishment........

There is no history department at all!!!!!!!

You marvel at this and then see an old professor meandering through the halls with his google glasses on and ask him with great concern:

"Sir, where is your history department?"

The old professor looks at you with mild amusement and says:

"Son, we have no history department."

"Why in the world is that?" You ask.

"Where have you been son, under a rock?" The crotchety old professor snaps.

"History, bah! History is for ignorant, uneducated souls. Ever since the rise of verificationism, any endeavor at historiography has been looked upon as simply a waste of time. We cannot know what happened in the past. Since past events are not subject to verification via empirical means, we cannot say what happened in the past. All we have is the "now" my son."

Flabbergasted, you start stuttering,

"But, but, but the fire, the fire, the great fire that destroyed my home, that destroyed my life, that destroyed a great portion of that great city Rome! What about that, have you not heard of that? And, and, and Nero, surely you have heard of him, how he blamed it on those pesky Christians who were running around talking about how we should love one another, surely you have that written in a book somewhere?"

The professor looks at you sadly and says,

"Son, we burned all the history books, there are no more........when the verificationist movement gained momentum, they stopped at nothing, but destroyed every historical document, all of it is gone. They simply saw them all as being wastes of space, since what was written within those books could not be verified by empirical means......they considered them useless."

Now in anger you let loose with one last dejected cry:

"But it happened, I swear it all happened, it really did! I am not lying, I was there!!!"

The professor laughs and as he walks away leaving you crying all alone in the hall. Pausing, he turns and says:

"Son, if you need help dealing with reality, we have classes that might be of some benefit. Check them out some time."

He then walks on down the hall and into his classroom.

Through clenched teeth, you too walk down the hall, muttering and cursing under your breath:

"How could they do it! How could they say those things never happened! They are so stupid!!!"



***


This would be a nightmare, and thankfully verificationism has been long dead. But the above illustrates what would happen if it was utilized the way you seem to imply it should.


You see my friend, all that you are saying "sounds" good. You sit behind your computer and say things like "We should use empirical this and we should use empirical that". It all sounds intelligent and smart, but no serious academic would actually suggest we utilize such a restrictive theory of knowledge. That is why verificationism died out in the late 60's.

Do you understand this?