Has Randy actually given a clear explanation of the "five facts?" All I'm hearing is "god did it" but not "this is how god did it." I'm also confused as to what he's trying to explain. Is it the "five facts" or is it the resurrection? First he says he's trying to support the resurrection claim with the "five facts" then he's trying support the "five facts" with the resurrection claim. When it is pointed out that resurrection contradicts known facts about biology, he claims "God caused a resurrection to happen." What a question begging mess. I still don't know why deists and other non-Christian theists are to take this seriously, let alone atheists and agnostics. Isn't the whole point of proving the resurrection happened is to prove the Christian god exists?

Quote:Has Randy actually given a clear explanation of the "five facts?"

It's the Habermas shit.  A bunch of theologians looked at the holy horseshit and decides that THEY agree that this shit happened so he calls it a fact without a single shred of non-biblical evidence to back it up.

It's just bullshit.


Originally I think there were more than 5.

Randy to prove the resurrection with five facts you must first prove the facts. I give you two of five on that: Jesus was crucified and Paul switched sides after having an experience of some sort. After that you must explain how those five facts prove the resurrection happened. That you have utterly failed to do.

When people find a body missing they don't usually jump to the conclusion it was raised from the dead and for very good reason. That the disciples claimed to have seen him is not particularly credible evidence since we no virtually nothing about them, their credulity, or their veracity. Saul's vision is a vision and proves nothing. If James changed his mind, he did. But that isn't evidence of the resurrection only Jame's state of mind. And your minimal facts don't explain why he changed his mind.

Now you want to add martyrs, eyewitness accounts, details about the exact circumstances of the five "facts" and who knows what else. But you don't have good evidence for those things and they are beyond the scope of the five facts.

(July 8, 2015 at 6:24 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(July 8, 2015 at 11:40 am)KevinM1 Wrote: Stop.  Stop right there.  This is you trying to twist what evidence exists of the events at the time to support a conclusion that you already believe in without consideration of the evidence itself.  This is how creationists work: "We know god exists, now let's compile evidence for it."  It's a completely fallacious, intellectually dishonest means of 'inquiry'.  And that's the main reason you've been taken to task.  The scholars that you have no problem quoting?  They don't work that way.

You also continue to prop up the claim - the biblical account of Jesus' resurrection - as evidence of itself.  It also doesn't work that way.  You need corroborating evidence.  And there's very little.  Most of it is in the form of, "This is what these people in the ancient middle east actually believed, and here's some actual history providing context for some of the oddities/events/whatever."  There is nothing at all that suggests that the resurrection actually happened.  Nothing at all to suggest divinity in action.  Except in your bible.

Moreover, the bible as the claim is suspect itself since the gospels aren't direct evidence.  They're not even direct eyewitness testimony.  They were written, what, 50+ years after the fact?  And contain conflicting accounts of Jesus' life?  The claim is literally hearsay, compiled and written by people with a vested interest in selling their messiah to the masses.  It cannot be taken with nearly the seriousness you demand.

You want to talk about presupposition?  You're exhibiting it in spades.  And stomping your feet while repeating the same thing with new quotes from various scholars (often bereft of context and not actually saying what you think they're saying) is not an argument.

If this is the best you can do after a decade of online apologetics, consider me unimpressed.

Only since May 13 with atheists, but I'm coming up to speed pretty quickly on the arguments and tactics.

However, in this thread, I'm defending five minimal facts.

What refutation have you offered to any of them?

Did you even read what I wrote?

You continue to conflate the claim for evidence of the claim.  The claim itself is incredibly weak, given it's hearsay.

Your 'facts' are mostly assertions.  Others have given you plenty of point-by-point refutation, so I don't feel the need to regurgitate what they have already said.  I'm not a Christian apologist; I understand that simply repeating the same thing in different ways doesn't strengthen my position.

Quote:I give you two of five on that: Jesus was crucified and Paul switched sides after having an experience of some sort.

Why?

There is no better evidence for those than for the rest of them.  You cannot give these people an inch.

(July 9, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Has Randy actually given a clear explanation of the "five facts?"

It's the Habermas shit.  A bunch of theologians looked at the holy horseshit and decides that THEY agree that this shit happened so he calls it a fact without a single shred of non-biblical evidence to back it up.

It's just bullshit.


Originally I think there were more than 5.

I remember listening to a debate between and Arif Ahmed (atheist) and Gary Habermas. Habermas couldn't clearly reply to any of Ahmed's points, especially the point that if we rule in irregularities, and supernatural explanations we have no reason to prefer one supernatural explanation over another(at 13:20).

https://youtu.be/Mg7rYJxHA4Y?t=18m20s

Habermas' bullshit is designed to get idiots who already believe to buy his books.  It's easy to convince the easily deluded.

(July 9, 2015 at 2:45 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Habermas' bullshit is designed to get idiots who already believe to buy his books.  It's easy to convince the easily deluded.

That's apologetics in a nutshell. I've never seen apologetics seriously targeting the non-Christian demographics. They are so lazy.

More like there's no money in it.

It's telling that every theist I've talked with has made the same tired arguments, regurgitated the same tired talking points, and in response to the various fallacies, absurdities, holes poked in their evidence, and everything else that's been pointed out to them, their response is, without fail:

"You obviously don't understand.  <previous argument said in a new way, maybe with a new quote or something>  See?  Now do you get it?"

They never point me to my 'obvious' failures.  They never acknowledge that I've slashed at the underpinnings of their arguments.  They just deny, reformulate, and go at it again.  They seem to think that changing the lipstick on a pig makes it something other than a pig wearing lipstick, and changing from Luscious Red to Tempting Tangerine really isn't the seismic rhetorical shift they think it is.

I can see how it would work on those people already sympathetic to their beliefs, but to a skeptic?  It's laughably transparent.