Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[TheBeardedDude]

I never did get an answer from SteveII on this post, so I'll ask it again:
Christians, are you serious? Do you think there is evidence to consider outside Saul of Tarsus' head?


Get it yet?

My question was in regard to what actually counts as evidence that claims are true, as opposed to evidence of what people believe. If Joseph Smith's "evidence" doesn't convince you of Mormonism, why in the world does Saul of Tarsus' "evidence" convince you of the validity of Christian claims?

You really don't have a firm grasp on the facts of which you seem so confident. 

Regarding the general interpreting of evidence as to who Jesus might really be (the crux of Christianity)? There is all kinds of evidence to weigh.

- Documentary (both actual and inferred--by careful textual examination). There has been no other set of writings so thoroughly investigated in the history of the world. 
- The presence of churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and somehow it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that. I read recently that over a period of 50 years, at least nine authors wrote 27 books containing more than 55 major doctrines and 180 doctrinal concepts centered on one figure – Jesus Christ.
- Paul and his writings on application and affirmation of the major claims--done before the Gospels were independently written. 
- This one can't be stressed enough: the unlikelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard an alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have. If you think that having an alternate theory on one or two will make your case, it will not--these are a package deal. Address them all or or your objections are meaningless.  

You could write books on any one of the points above (and people do). The point is, it is not as simple as saying "there is no evidence" There are layers upon layers of evidence that one person or another will find somewhere between uninteresting to compelling.

You didn't actually answer my questions. Why is one person's anecdotes/stories/hallucinations valid, but not another person's?


(edit to add: what you did do was engage in a lot of special pleading. The very subject of your OP. You have demonstrated well the special pleading necessary to be a christian)

(edit # 2 to add: and you appear to be under the impression that the gospels are written as eye witness accounts of Jesus and his life. You do realize that no one who ever met the guy ever wrote down anything about him, right? There are no contemporary accounts to validate any of the claims made of Yeshua from a Bethlehem or Nazareth, such as: born of a virgin, when he was supposedly born be that Dec 25th or some later date in the Spring, any of his miracles or events surrounding them such as the tombs of the saints emptying when he supposedly was resurrected and a bunch of dead people wandering through Jerusalem. No one ever wrote about those dead people in Jerusalem...not one person. No one. None. Zero. Nothing to independently validate any of those claims. But you still special plead for them?)

[Mister Agenda]

It would be nice to have more evidence. However, there is no way to know what "third-party" evidence there was and was lost to history (what percentage of documents do you think survived the sacking of Jerusalem or even the normal hazards of the first couple of centuries?).

If that is supposed to be an argument in favor of your claims, it's an argument from ignorance. And you know what that's worth. 'Maybe there's evidence that would back me up but it's lost' is something I would never say, because, frankly, it's pitiful.

There is no rebuttal evidence.

What do you imagine rebuttal evidence would look like? Pliny saying 'I heard there were no dead people walking around Jerusalem the other day'? Without corroboration, all you've got are assertions and claims; and they're in the form of hearsay, to boot.

It becomes a matter of opinion as to the weight you put on the evidence we have and what is or is not compelling. There is no proof. Most Christians believe because of a variety of reasons and not just because the first century Christian docs are unassailable proof.

In the thread on testimony as evidence, I maintained that testimony alone is not evidence at all, but an assertion or claim. There may be elements within the testimony that make it more or less plausible, and there may be other testimony it can be compared to that allow us to evaluate the plausibility better. That analysis can be evidence, but the testimony in itself is exactly what you are trying to determine the truth of. For mundane claims of little consequence, we usually take people at their word, because it makes living with each other easier and usually doesn't matter. You're not making a mundane claim of little consequence though, are you?

 
However, germane to the subject, Christians do have way more to consider in their cumulative case for their beliefs than do other religions.

More is not necessarily better. One verifiable miracle that accomplishes the physically impossible would be worth more than the entire Bible plus the entire history of all Abrahamic religions in establishing the existence of the supernatural.

[TheBeardedDude]

I fixed that for you.

A lot of atheists say the cosmological arguments of Aquinas are fallacious but none have yet revealed any flaws in his impeccable logic. Since I am feeling generous I'll just assume you mistakenly relied on the pronouncements of some authority or were swayed by the confident tone of some YouTube video.

But really the topic is essentially whether the claims of the Christian faith are categorically different than those of other faiths and it is pretty obvious that they are.

The cosmological arguments start with unproven assumptions. For instance, demonstrate that the universe requires a cause and that this cause must necessarily be something supernatural and that this supernatural thing must be a god and that it is specifically the god of the Bible. Step 1 is showing that the universe REQUIRES a cause, not that you assume it had one because you can't conceive of it not having a cause.

---

It would be nice to have more evidence. However, there is no way to know what "third-party" evidence there was and was lost to history (what percentage of documents do you think survived the sacking of Jerusalem or even the normal hazards of the first couple of centuries?).

If that is supposed to be an argument in favor of your claims, it's an argument from ignorance. And you know what that's worth. 'Maybe there's evidence that would back me up but it's lost' is something I would never say, because, frankly, it's pitiful.

There is no rebuttal evidence.

What do you imagine rebuttal evidence would look like? Pliny saying 'I heard there were no dead people walking around Jerusalem the other day'? Without corroboration, all you've got are assertions and claims; and they're in the form of hearsay, to boot.

It becomes a matter of opinion as to the weight you put on the evidence we have and what is or is not compelling. There is no proof. Most Christians believe because of a variety of reasons and not just because the first century Christian docs are unassailable proof.

In the thread on testimony as evidence, I maintained that testimony alone is not evidence at all, but an assertion or claim. There may be elements within the testimony that make it more or less plausible, and there may be other testimony it can be compared to that allow us to evaluate the plausibility better. That analysis can be evidence, but the testimony in itself is exactly what you are trying to determine the truth of. For mundane claims of little consequence, we usually take people at their word, because it makes living with each other easier and usually doesn't matter. You're not making a mundane claim of little consequence though, are you?

 
However, germane to the subject, Christians do have way more to consider in their cumulative case for their beliefs than do other religions.

More is not necessarily better. One verifiable miracle that accomplishes the physically impossible would be worth more than the entire Bible plus the entire history of all Abrahamic religions in establishing the existence of the supernatural.

I agree wholeheartedly about testimony/anecdotes/observations NOT being evidence that they are true. They are evidence of what people believe (they are claims), but not evidence that their claims are true. 

I believe Christians when they tell me that they believe Jesus rose from the dead as it says in the Bible, but their sincere belief and the fact that it is claimed in the Bible, doesn't validate the truth of that claim.

[Huggy Bear]

And more evidence against Huggies silly narrative

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-placebo-narrative/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/can-the...-the-body/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo...ditioning/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-pla...-stronger/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/bait-an...e-studies/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/spin-ci...nd-asthma/

You just acknowledged that the placebo effect is real, so what "silly narrative" are you trying to debunk?

[SteveII]

You really don't have a firm grasp on the facts of which you seem so confident. 

Regarding the general interpreting of evidence as to who Jesus might really be (the crux of Christianity)? There is all kinds of evidence to weigh.

- Documentary (both actual and inferred--by careful textual examination). There has been no other set of writings so thoroughly investigated in the history of the world. 
- The presence of churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and somehow it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that. I read recently that over a period of 50 years, at least nine authors wrote 27 books containing more than 55 major doctrines and 180 doctrinal concepts centered on one figure – Jesus Christ.
- Paul and his writings on application and affirmation of the major claims--done before the Gospels were independently written. 
- This one can't be stressed enough: the unlikelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard an alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have. If you think that having an alternate theory on one or two will make your case, it will not--these are a package deal. Address them all or or your objections are meaningless.  

You could write books on any one of the points above (and people do). The point is, it is not as simple as saying "there is no evidence" There are layers upon layers of evidence that one person or another will find somewhere between uninteresting to compelling.

You didn't actually answer my questions. Why is one person's anecdotes/stories/hallucinations valid, but not another person's? [1]


(edit to add: what you did do was engage in a lot of special pleading. The very subject of your OP. You have demonstrated well the special pleading necessary to be a christian) [2]

(edit # 2 to add: and you appear to be under the impression that the gospels are written as eye witness accounts of Jesus and his life. You do realize that no one who ever met the guy ever wrote down anything about him, right? [3] There are no contemporary accounts to validate any of the claims made of Yeshua from a Bethlehem or Nazareth, such as: born of a virgin, when he was supposedly born be that Dec 25th or some later date in the Spring, any of his miracles or events surrounding them such as the tombs of the saints emptying when he supposedly was resurrected and a bunch of dead people wandering through Jerusalem. No one ever wrote about those dead people in Jerusalem...not one person. No one. None. Zero. [4] Nothing to independently validate any of those claims. But you still special plead for them?) [5]

1. It is not one person's account. There are 9 writers of the NT and hundreds more people referred to that the addressees know.
2. No, your concept of special pleading is off. I am not applying different standards--I am considering the evidence we have.
3. You are espousing a fringe theory. The evidence can be interpreted just as the authors claimed (which is how we interpret every other historical document). Again, I don't care if you don't believe it or believe another theory. You don't have any proof that it is not what it claims to be. It is a matter of opinion as to what the evidence indicates. 
4. How in the world would you know that no document every existed that mentioned these things? The only point you have is that there are no surviving documents. Absence of additional evidence is still not evidence of absence. 
5. Since you did not debunk any of my points above, we are still left with evidence to consider. Which means that your charge of special pleading is simply wrong.

[TheBeardedDude]

You didn't actually answer my questions. Why is one person's anecdotes/stories/hallucinations valid, but not another person's? [1]


(edit to add: what you did do was engage in a lot of special pleading. The very subject of your OP. You have demonstrated well the special pleading necessary to be a christian) [2]

(edit # 2 to add: and you appear to be under the impression that the gospels are written as eye witness accounts of Jesus and his life. You do realize that no one who ever met the guy ever wrote down anything about him, right? [3] There are no contemporary accounts to validate any of the claims made of Yeshua from a Bethlehem or Nazareth, such as: born of a virgin, when he was supposedly born be that Dec 25th or some later date in the Spring, any of his miracles or events surrounding them such as the tombs of the saints emptying when he supposedly was resurrected and a bunch of dead people wandering through Jerusalem. No one ever wrote about those dead people in Jerusalem...not one person. No one. None. Zero. [4] Nothing to independently validate any of those claims. But you still special plead for them?) [5]

1. It is not one person's account. There are 9 writers of the NT and hundreds more people referred to that the addressees know.
2. No, your concept of special pleading is off. I am not applying different standards--I am considering the evidence we have.
3. You are espousing a fringe theory. The evidence can be interpreted just as the authors claimed (which is how we interpret every other historical document). Again, I don't care if you don't believe it or believe another theory. You don't have any proof that it is not what it claims to be. It is a matter of opinion as to what the evidence indicates. 
4. How in the world would you know that no document every existed that mentioned these things? The only point you have is that there are no surviving documents. Absence of additional evidence is still not evidence of absence. 
5. Since you did not debunk any of my points above, we are still left with evidence to consider. Which means that your charge of special pleading is simply wrong.

Show me even a single contemporary source that validates any of the claims made by the (unknown) authors of the NT.

More special pleading in 3...2...

(Hint: it's clear that some of the NT writings copy one another, indicating that the gospels aren't independent accounts at all)

(You still didn't answer my questions I reposted for you)

[Harry Nevis]

I never did get an answer from SteveII on this post, so I'll ask it again:
Christians, are you serious? Do you think there is evidence to consider outside Saul of Tarsus' head?


Get it yet?

My question was in regard to what actually counts as evidence that claims are true, as opposed to evidence of what people believe. If Joseph Smith's "evidence" doesn't convince you of Mormonism, why in the world does Saul of Tarsus' "evidence" convince you of the validity of Christian claims?

You really don't have a firm grasp on the facts of which you seem so confident. 

Regarding the general interpreting of evidence as to who Jesus might really be (the crux of Christianity)? There is all kinds of evidence to weigh.

- Documentary (both actual and inferred--by careful textual examination). There has been no other set of writings so thoroughly investigated in the history of the world. 
- The presence of churches, the growth, the persecution, and the occasional mention in surviving secular works.
- The characters, their actions, character, stated goals, meaning of their words, and eventual circumstances
- Jesus' own claims (explicit, implicit, connections to the OT--some of which the disciples may have never known).
- The actual message: how it seems to fit the human condition, resonate with people, and somehow it does not contradict the OT--which would have required a very sophisticated mind to have navigated that. I read recently that over a period of 50 years, at least nine authors wrote 27 books containing more than 55 major doctrines and 180 doctrinal concepts centered on one figure – Jesus Christ.
- Paul and his writings on application and affirmation of the major claims--done before the Gospels were independently written. 
- This one can't be stressed enough: the unlikelihood of alternate theories to explain the facts. I think it is obvious people believed from day one when Jesus was still walking around. I have never heard an alternate theory which could account for most or all of the concrete and circumstantial evidence we have. If you think that having an alternate theory on one or two will make your case, it will not--these are a package deal. Address them all or or your objections are meaningless.  

You could write books on any one of the points above (and people do). The point is, it is not as simple as saying "there is no evidence" There are layers upon layers of evidence that one person or another will find somewhere between uninteresting to compelling.

Once again (but I doubt it will get through), your evidence supports the belief of christianity, but not the reality of the claims in the bible.  No evidence of miracles, the supernatural, etc. except rewritten and edited claims.  And a nice "out" you left yourself: "Address them all or your objections are meaningless".  The evidence you list is meaningless, whether addressed to your liking or not.meaningless

[SteveII]

Regarding the last few posts on evidence and testimony. You are simply redefining the word. I can do a find/replace on every post and substitute 'information' for 'evidence' and it would no nothing to my point. People rationally believe things every second of every day based on testimonial information. It does not impact the topic of the OP: Is it necessary to engage in special pleading to believe Christianity is true --especially as it related to other religions -- but you can expand it to historical criticism if you like.

[TheBeardedDude]

Regarding the last few posts on evidence and testimony. You are simply redefining the word. I can do a find/replace on every post and substitute 'information' for 'evidence' and it would no nothing to my point. People rationally believe things every second of every day based on testimonial information. It does not impact the topic of the OP: Is it necessary to engage in special pleading to believe Christianity is true --especially as it related to other religions -- but you can expand it to historical criticism if you like.

People believe crystals can heal them based on personal testimony (bullshit information is still information). Who gives a shit? It doesn't mean they are correct. Stories only tell us what you believe, not that what you believe is valid or true or meaningful. You assert otherwise, so back up your claims or acknowledge your logically fallacious bullshit and admit you don't believe for any logical or valid or evidence-based reason.




Or don't and just keep preaching the same drivel as if you are anything other than a simpleton who has been indoctrinated into a cult

[Harry Nevis]

You didn't actually answer my questions. Why is one person's anecdotes/stories/hallucinations valid, but not another person's? [1]


(edit to add: what you did do was engage in a lot of special pleading. The very subject of your OP. You have demonstrated well the special pleading necessary to be a christian) [2]

(edit # 2 to add: and you appear to be under the impression that the gospels are written as eye witness accounts of Jesus and his life. You do realize that no one who ever met the guy ever wrote down anything about him, right? [3] There are no contemporary accounts to validate any of the claims made of Yeshua from a Bethlehem or Nazareth, such as: born of a virgin, when he was supposedly born be that Dec 25th or some later date in the Spring, any of his miracles or events surrounding them such as the tombs of the saints emptying when he supposedly was resurrected and a bunch of dead people wandering through Jerusalem. No one ever wrote about those dead people in Jerusalem...not one person. No one. None. Zero. [4] Nothing to independently validate any of those claims. But you still special plead for them?) [5]

1. It is not one person's account. There are 9 writers of the NT and hundreds more people referred to that the addressees know.
2. No, your concept of special pleading is off. I am not applying different standards--I am considering the evidence we have.
3. You are espousing a fringe theory. The evidence can be interpreted just as the authors claimed (which is how we interpret every other historical document). Again, I don't care if you don't believe it or believe another theory. You don't have any proof that it is not what it claims to be. It is a matter of opinion as to what the evidence indicates. 
4. How in the world would you know that no document every existed that mentioned these things? The only point you have is that there are no surviving documents. Absence of additional evidence is still not evidence of absence. 
5. Since you did not debunk any of my points above, we are still left with evidence to consider. Which means that your charge of special pleading is simply wrong.

So, it's a "fringe theory" to look for corroborating evidence for supernatural and historical claims?!