When you're checking his eyes, your checking the validity of the source--the man. When you're checking the weather report, you're checking another source--a document submitted by human beings. In each case, finding the truth is entirely dependent on people. How can the event speak for itself when the event has already passed? The event merely leaves traces. We interpret those traces with our reason. There are natural traces (as Darkstar explained) and testimonial traces. I brought this up because FallentoReason implied that the gospel events have no evidence:

Quote:Faith is essential. With it, the believer is capable of short-circuiting the brain and skipping the step of asking if something is sensible in the face of no evidence being present.

There is no evidence if and only if your definition of evidence is "information which is scientifically testable". Testability, in the strictly scientific sense, relies on repeatable processes. An event in the past is not repeatable. Therefore, no events have evidence. Of course, we could reform the definition of evidence to include the "trace" kind. Traces range from places and objects to written accounts. All could be manipulated, but all exist physically as clues. If we are reasonable and admit that events should have some evidence, we will find that the gospel events are in fact supported by traces. There are remnants of the cities described in the text, objects such as boats and clay pots, and writings. We must make sure we are fair regarding this evidence. For example, we cannot expect to find Jesus' cross or robe with his name inscribed on it. But we can expect to find the towns he passed through, and the sorts of objects he came in contact with. Personal accounts should be judged with the same care. If you don't call these evidence, then no historical event has evidence and the accusation that the gospels have no evidence is a deceptive one. If you do call these evidence, go to the next step and evaluate it. And evaluate it fairly, as in a neutral court of law. When several billion people believe in a person's life, and there is evidence, he is not "false until proven true by repeatable experiments."

So which is it? Is evidence that which is testable (repeatable) or that which has the capacity for human error?

While driving my red bus through London yesterday, I learnt to fly and have now become a seagull with excellent typing skills.

(December 8, 2012 at 11:26 pm)jonb Wrote: While driving my red bus through London yesterday, I learnt to fly and have now become a seagull with excellent typing skills.

Do you have three witnesses and two billion people who believe you? Has your turning into a seagull been prophesied? Was there is purpose to the change? Did seagulls have some connection to you in the past?

(December 8, 2012 at 11:33 pm)Undeceived Wrote:

(December 8, 2012 at 11:26 pm)jonb Wrote: While driving my red bus through London yesterday, I learnt to fly and have now become a seagull with excellent typing skills.

Do you have three witnesses and two billion people who believe you? Has your turning into a seagull been prophesied? Was there is purpose to the change? Did seagulls have some connection to you in the past?

Sure. I'm one of the witnesses, and all of the above are true. Well, two bilion don't believe us today, but let the recency wear off and people will start wondering if maybe it is all true. Oh, wait. We aren't guillable stone age people with no idea how science works. If someone tried the whole Jesus thing today, only the most guillible would believe it.

(December 8, 2012 at 11:33 pm)Undeceived Wrote:

(December 8, 2012 at 11:26 pm)jonb Wrote: While driving my red bus through London yesterday, I learnt to fly and have now become a seagull with excellent typing skills.

Do you have three witnesses and two billion people who believe you? Has your turning into a seagull been prophesied? Was there is purpose to the change? Did seagulls have some connection to you in the past?

I also witnessed it.
It has the same validity of Jesus, just less people believing and no book about it. Because according to Christian logic is perfectly possible as long as goddidit.
Also: "no amount of belief makes something a fact" James Randi

As prophesied in Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, see connection to seagulls also covered. I am sure I can gather a few to testify. Just wait a few years and my fan base will no doubt increase. Anyway why wouldn't anybody believe me its not as though I'm claiming my dad invented everything that has ever or will ever exist in under a fortnight or anything stupid like that is it?
PS
I must say how gratifying that the truth of my claim is so readily verified, by such fine witnesses, I have heard tell of similar stories where the so called rock solid witnesses run out at the first opportunity. I think it must be a testimony to the truth of my claim that my good witnesses so readily stand up for me.

(December 8, 2012 at 11:19 pm)Undeceived Wrote:

Quote:Faith is essential. With it, the believer is capable of short-circuiting the brain and skipping the step of asking if something is sensible in the face of no evidence being present.

There is no evidence if and only if your definition of evidence is "information which is scientifically testable". Testability, in the strictly scientific sense, relies on repeatable processes. An event in the past is not repeatable. Therefore, no events have evidence. Of course, we could reform the definition of evidence to include the "trace" kind. Traces range from places and objects to written accounts. All could be manipulated, but all exist physically as clues. If we are reasonable and admit that events should have some evidence, we will find that the gospel events are in fact supported by traces. There are remnants of the cities described in the text, objects such as boats and clay pots, and writings. We must make sure we are fair regarding this evidence. For example, we cannot expect to find Jesus' cross or robe with his name inscribed on it. But we can expect to find the towns he passed through, and the sorts of objects he came in contact with. Personal accounts should be judged with the same care. If you don't call these evidence, then no historical event has evidence and the accusation that the gospels have no evidence is a deceptive one. If you do call these evidence, go to the next step and evaluate it. And evaluate it fairly, as in a neutral court of law. When several billion people believe in a person's life, and there is evidence, he is not "false until proven true by repeatable experiments."

So which is it? Is evidence that which is testable (repeatable) or that which has the capacity for human error?

I see what you're saying Undecieved, and I actually think you have a fair point to an extent regarding evidence.

evidence
a : an outward sign : indication [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evidence]

If we grab simplest definition for evidence then I agree with you that there's evidence for Jesus... just like there's evidence for Heracles killing the Hydra.



Now, for some unknown reason, you're tempted to completely stop there and claim that Jesus was real but Heracles wasn't, given that we have to an extent the same sort of evidence for both (I'll address the actual evidence more closely soon). Why would you do that exactly? I go one further and ask questions regarding the evidence to determine if it's credible evidence, and I think that's what most people on here refer to when they say "evidence". It's information that can be trusted to a degree.

So what do we have for Jesus? Well... 4 anonymous Gospels and a bunch of early Christian letters that ignore the events of these 4 Gospels almost completely and even threaten Jesus' own humanity at times. Not to mention other non-canonical documents that were just as valid as the documents that would eventually win over the others. So regarding the Gospels, none of the authors have the "qualifications" for us to trust them at all (e.g. witnesses), because we have no idea who they were and the textual evidence suggests they weren't written by the people that Tradition claims wrote them. So this is really no different to someone telling you there's dragons living in Jupiter and they heard this from someone who never saw those dragons for themselves, but instead read what he claims was the astronaut's journal of his journey to Jupiter, but later evidence suggests otherwise. Would you believe them solely based on that dubious evidence?

At the end of the day, you need faith to believe all of this is "credible" evidence (although, by definition, having "faith" means trusting in the face of no evidence, otherwise it's justified knowledge). I'm forced to conclude that you chose Jesus over Krishna, Heracles, Baal, Sol Invictus, Ixchel, Apollo, Ra, Osiris, Thor, Odin, Horus, Hades etc etc simply because you were born in the western world at a particular time. I'm afraid that's what it comes down to in the end, given that the credible evidence isn't there to justify your faith, and in fact, the evidence arguably opposes (or makes less probable) what you claim.

(December 9, 2012 at 2:14 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Now, for some unknown reason, you're tempted to completely stop there and claim that Jesus was real but Heracles wasn't, given that we have to an extent the same sort of evidence for both.

Myths like Hercules were written in hyperbolic style to influence public thought or to entertain. Read a myth and the gospels side-by-side and tell me which sounds more like a personal account to you. There is an understatement in the gospels which we have been taught to think of as "Western". However, they are written in a time and region where writing styles were more flowery and blunt and intended to impress the reader. Hercules' life indeed has evidence that should be considered. But when we hold his story up to history, it is weakly supported. If the Passion of the Christ was set entirely in the clouds of heaven, or a mountain nobody knew about, I would view it much the same way. But we have archaeological evidence. We have an explosion of converts willing to die for the faith. A religion began, and every beginning needs a catalyst--a person and an event. Jesus has a purpose and a background--myths have neither. I think we can both agree the evidence is stronger for Jesus than the old Greek and Roman myths. Just because we said past events require a certain type of evidence doesn't mean we can't start ranking that evidence. In fact, it is the only evidence that can be ranked. When we weigh truth and lie in our minds, we are consciously or subconsciously comparing "traces" to our experiences. The moment evidence of any sort enters our mind, it becomes subjective.

(December 9, 2012 at 2:14 am)FallentoReason Wrote: ...and the textual evidence suggests they weren't written by the people that Tradition claims wrote them.

Would you mind providing some of this evidence?

(December 9, 2012 at 2:14 am)FallentoReason Wrote: by definition, having "faith" means trusting in the face of no evidence, otherwise it's justified knowledge

What is justified knowledge? The dichotomy stated above goes like this:
faith=no evidence
all else=justified knowledge
Does that mean some evidence constitutes justified belief? Or is justified belief a result of testable, repeatable evidence? I think you were careless in your wording because this sounds like a false dichotomy to me.
Where is this definition of faith coming from? Whoever said faith is trusting on nothing? I didn't even know it was possible to trust nothing! The purpose of faith is to discover truths that are of the highest importance to us yet are unavailable to us through purely natural means. Questions like Why am I here? What should I love? What should I live for? live outside of the field of science. Faith is an attempt to reach beyond the empirical realm and illuminate those questions. Where the agnostic stops, the believer finds a new path to the summit. He uses faith to access a domain of revelation. The believer embraces faith not "blindly" but rather with his "eyes wide open." The goal is not to suppress the rational mind, but guide it so it may see more clearly. When scientists make hypotheses, they assume a variable and plug it into the equation. Believers plug God into the universe and see if it makes more sense. But we're still skeptical, and we still judge the newly-colored evidence in front of us. In Mark 9:17-24 Jesus came to cure a man's son of demon possession. He said, "If you can believe, all things are possible." The man replied, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." The Christian has faith even though he is not sure, while the unbeliever refuses to believe because he is not sure. Faith is a statement of trust in what we do not know for sure. But there is some evidence, or we would have no trust. Give me a taste of chocolate and I will trust that other foods taste good too--though in my solitary cell I may be uncertain.

Undeceived Wrote:Myths like Hercules were written in hyperbolic style to influence public thought or to entertain. Read a myth and the gospels side-by-side and tell me which sounds more like a personal account to you.

Neither, and that's exactly the point. Read the Gospels and Josephus side-by-side and tell me which one sounds more like genuine history.

Quote:There is an understatement in the gospels which we have been taught to think of as "Western". However, they are written in a time and region where writing styles were more flowery and blunt and intended to impress the reader. Hercules' life indeed has evidence that should be considered. But when we hold his story up to history, it is weakly supported.

Agreed.

Quote:If the Passion of the Christ was set entirely in the clouds of heaven, or a mountain nobody knew about, I would view it much the same way. But we have archaeological evidence.

Just like we have evidence of Troy from the Iliad. Still, for some trivial reason you choose Jesus over any other myth.

Quote: We have an explosion of converts willing to die for the faith.

It's not an uncommon motif for man to die for what he believes in, which has nothing to do with what's true or not. Plus, what you should have gathered from the OP is that Paul used deceptive mechanisms to lure in the Jew. From the website:

Quote:Paul's epistles predate the written Gospels. Their purpose was to build and sustain a Church, and one of their most prominent aspects was their apologetic content. Paul used every means at his disposal to convince others of the validity of his doctrines. He invoked the authority of the soon-to-be "Old Testament," making abundant references to support his arguments. He claimed that "[w]hatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning" (Romans 15:4), rendering it into a precursor and prologue to his theology. And lest anyone dispute their value, he and his successors need only insist that "[a]ll Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16). That these Scriptures had been subjected to severe abuse in their interpretation was a problem that could only be paved over with guile.

Quote: A religion began, and every beginning needs a catalyst--a person and an event. Jesus has a purpose and a background--myths have neither.

And yet myths took off still. You've disproven your own argument therefore leaving the doors open still.

Quote: I think we can both agree the evidence is stronger for Jesus than the old Greek and Roman myths.

Agreed. I'd still rather not trust anonymous authors who never claim to have seen anything for themselves, who didn't write in an historical format like their contemporaries did & whose documents got edited over and over again. That's just me though.

Quote: Just because we said past events require a certain type of evidence doesn't mean we can't start ranking that evidence. In fact, it is the only evidence that can be ranked. When we weigh truth and lie in our minds, we are consciously or subconsciously comparing "traces" to our experiences. The moment evidence of any sort enters our mind, it becomes subjective.

The problem is that even before it enters your mind, it is known that the evidence itself is dubious. There's nothing credible about the Bible, and keep in mind, that the NT specifically is the "battle of the fittest" between all competing ideologies. Even then it doesn't hold any water.

(December 9, 2012 at 5:24 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Read the Gospels and Josephus side-by-side and tell me which one sounds more like genuine history.

Both check out with other sources. There are references to places and people that turn out to be real, and no contradictions. Where do you get your idea of how Roman historians write? Josephus' style and Mark's style are not so different from Tacitus or Suetonius or Livy. If Mark’s account pays extra attention to Jesus’ actions it’s because he has already been convinced by his actions that Jesus was God. If you had been in his position, would you have written differently?

(December 9, 2012 at 5:24 am)FallentoReason Wrote: It's not an uncommon motif for man to die for what he believes in, which has nothing to do with what's true or not.

Of course it's not, but the fact they do makes the gospels’ case stronger than contemporaneous myths’. We're not trying to prove anything with black and white evidence. But some evidence makes it more likely that certain events are true. Enough small clues and it becomes unreasonable to chalk events up to coincidence or conspiracy.

Quote:these Scriptures had been subjected to severe abuse in their interpretation

The article relies on this assertion. Does it provide any evidence in its support?

(December 9, 2012 at 5:24 am)FallentoReason Wrote: And yet myths took off still. You've disproven your own argument therefore leaving the doors open still.

Took off? They're dead now. They never left their originating culture. Christianity is one of the few belief systems to have leapt cultures.