The Deceptive Mechanisms

[Samson1]

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:

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?

This unnecessary focus on ''repeatable'', ''observable'',''testable'' is just a path to ''where you there'' falacy and all the dancing around definitions as if the same criteria (of evidences ) is used by apologists.
For s start,''Bible sais'' doesn't count for anything.Archaeological evidence doesn't exist. If 1000y.from now people uncover ruins of London-would not mean that Sherlock Holmes was a real person. There are tourists today,visiting his house on Baker street,thinking He was a real detectiv. (New York-Spiderman) is more like your super hero. In a distant future will find NY-city & that will be archaeological evidence for Spiderman.
Billions of people? Billion muslims? Muslims ar right? Billions thot (knew) the world is flat. It's a fallacy (''ad populum'')
People giving their life-proves only that they were convinced - same as suicide bombers & all those cults with group suicide. Eye witnesess? So called temporary accounts were written down decades latter, based on Oral tradition-which is a telephone game played by superstitious gullible bronz age shepherds. We have counless of UFO (abduction) personal testemonies in present days,regular people from different places with similar stories....
Scientific method & standards of historical evidence are clear. You can't play with definitions, ''traces'', ''kinds'' of evidence. Btw,the strongest / reliable evidence in antient texts is so called ''disinterest'' comment.

[FallentoReason]

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.

Ok, so it seems like I'll be forced to believe that you have faith that Achilles was a great warrior who fought at Troy because Troy was a real place and it's found in the Iliad. How's that working out for you?

A real place in a story =/= true story. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Where do you get your idea of how Roman historians write?

Just this semester gone by I did ancient history as an elective unit. I'm hoping that my university taught me well.

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?

If we assume that this is all true and I was in his position, I would have definitely written the same content, but as an historical account. "Mark" never once says where he got his information from, who he is, doesn't use a first person p.o.v. style of retelling events (which would be second nature in explaining to someone an event)... I mean it just doesn't sound like this author was writing genuine history. It's instead an oral tradition that god knows where it came from. Pure hearsay from someone who saw nothing for themselves.

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.

Except the evidence stacks up against you. As a whole, we have the godman whom no author ever met, whose very attributes were a jumble of different things that covered a ridiculous spectrum, who supposedly caused an uproar where ever he went but never gets a credible mention in history, whose early followers talked about him in mysterious/cultish-sounding ways, whose only evidence is written by unknown people, whose very words got tampered with (extra verses that had been added after a couple of centuries for which we have evidence of)... shall I keep going?

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?

I'm quite sure a Jew would be happy to show you how Christianity hijacked the religion in a nonsensical way.

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.

You've got Constantine to thank for that. Politics unfortunately my friend

[The Grand Nudger]

When you're checking his eyes, your checking the validity of the source--the man.

Again, I'm checking both. He needs eyes to have seen anything, sure. He could have seen somethingthing that didn't actually happen - happens all the time. The validity of his account would be something I tackled after making sure that the required apparatus for the event he described (seeing something) was present. Eyes are as important to the source as they are to the event - if the event is "seeing".

When you're checking the weather report, you're checking another source--a document submitted by human beings.

Is that how the weather gets handled where you're from? A guy stands outside all day and then yells "Yep it rained yall!". That's not how it's done here. Barometers record, cups fill with water, radar pings, nary a human being is involved. Let alone the guy in question, the source (unless he runs a weather station...and I could still check his instruments, now couldn't I?)

In each case, finding the truth is entirely dependent on people.

In each case, you were incorrect. To tackle this from a wider perspective, if the only way of "finding the truth" was entirely dependent on people (hell, even if it weren't, supposing I just thought that it was...) I'd just give up looking (and clearly you have, throwing your hands in the air saying "well I guess we have to go by what Joe says or we can't know" - so we might have that in common).

[Undeceived]

Except the evidence stacks up against you. As a whole, we have the godman whom no author ever met, whose very attributes were a jumble of different things that covered a ridiculous spectrum, who supposedly caused an uproar where ever he went but never gets a credible mention in history, whose early followers talked about him in mysterious/cultish-sounding ways, whose only evidence is written by unknown people, whose very words got tampered with (extra verses that had been added after a couple of centuries for which we have evidence of)... shall I keep going?

I'm glad we have finally agreed on the nature of evidence and can begin examining it. For starters, do you consider Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius reliable sources? Or maybe I should ask, do you consider any 1st century historical account unreliable apart from the Bible?

You've got Constantine to thank for that. Politics unfortunately my friend

After 250 years of Christianity being illegal and still growing

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Is that how the weather gets handled where you're from? A guy stands outside all day and then yells "Yep it rained yall!". That's not how it's done here. Barometers record, cups fill with water, radar pings, nary a human being is involved. Let alone the guy in question, the source (unless he runs a weather station...and I could still check his instruments, now couldn't I?)

I laughed reading this. Good one. But really, barometers, cups of water and computer data are still traces. We know there was a rise in pressure, but the time and date escape us. The water could come from anywhere. People can still manipulate computer data. I think our definitions of "event" are just not meeting. I look for evidence of the event, you give me evidence that indicates there may have been an event. In any case, for the "weather station" method to work, you must anticipate an event--time, place, material and all. Weather is predictable, people are not. I guess I'd say any event having to do with people should not be expected to to have unfalsifiable evidence. That basically includes any history worth knowing.

[pocaracas]

Weather is predictable, people are not. I guess I'd say any event having to do with people should not be expected to to have unfalsifiable evidence. That basically includes any history worth knowing.

Just remember, the same goes for your holy book.

[FallentoReason]

I'm glad we have finally agreed on the nature of evidence and can begin examining it. For starters, do you consider Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius reliable sources? Or maybe I should ask, do you consider any 1st century historical account unreliable apart from the Bible?

History, by its very nature, will always have a degree of unreliability because it's coming from people with certain biases and at times even agendas. I guess to answer your question in a nutshell though, I'd say I trust most documents that were definitely written by the true author and it's not a pseudo-graphic work of that author.

[The Grand Nudger]

I laughed reading this. Good one. But really, barometers, cups of water and computer data are still traces. We know there was a rise in pressure, but the time and date escape us. The water could come from anywhere. People can still manipulate computer data. I think our definitions of "event" are just not meeting. I look for evidence of the event, you give me evidence that indicates there may have been an event. In any case, for the "weather station" method to work, you must anticipate an event--time, place, material and all. Weather is predictable, people are not. I guess I'd say any event having to do with people should not be expected to to have unfalsifiable evidence. That basically includes any history worth knowing.

Those things may have escaped you, but here we have a little thing known as a clock. Sure, the water could come from anywhere, and if some asshole was running around multiple counties spoofing every weather station along the route (and our claimant just happened to be situated somewhere along that route or was the spoofer) we might have a problem. People might manipulate data but to make that one stick in this example you'd have to show that -I- was manipulating data. I don't have to predict anything - it was a claim of a past event. In my example we're just lucky that the event occurred at a point in time when adequate instrumentation existed. You think we shouldn't expect unfalsifiable evidence about any event that involves people? That's absurd. It's more likely that you -wish- for it to be true so that you might excuse some other concept you're about to pitch which suffers from an unfortunate lack of evidence.

[Undeceived]

I'm glad we have finally agreed on the nature of evidence and can begin examining it. For starters, do you consider Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius reliable sources? Or maybe I should ask, do you consider any 1st century historical account unreliable apart from the Bible?

History, by its very nature, will always have a degree of unreliability because it's coming from people with certain biases and at times even agendas. I guess to answer your question in a nutshell though, I'd say I trust most documents that were definitely written by the true author and it's not a pseudo-graphic work of that author.

In your mind, did Livy write "History of Rome"? Were Tacitus' "Annals" written by Tacitus? Did Suetonius author "Lives of the Twelve Caesars"? While we're at it, was "Antiquities of the Jews" written by Josephus?

[FallentoReason]

History, by its very nature, will always have a degree of unreliability because it's coming from people with certain biases and at times even agendas. I guess to answer your question in a nutshell though, I'd say I trust most documents that were definitely written by the true author and it's not a pseudo-graphic work of that author.

In your mind, did Livy write "History of Rome"? Were Tacitus' "Annals" written by Tacitus? Did Suetonius author "Lives of the Twelve Caesars"? While we're at it, was "Antiquities of the Jews" written by Josephus?

Yes, yes, yes and yes

[Undeceived]

Those things may have escaped you, but here we have a little thing known as a clock. Sure, the water could come from anywhere, and if some asshole was running around multiple counties spoofing every weather station along the route (and our claimant just happened to be situated somewhere along that route or was the spoofer) we might have a problem. People might manipulate data but to make that one stick in this example you'd have to show that -I- was manipulating data. I don't have to predict anything - it was a claim of a past event. In my example we're just lucky that the event occurred at a point in time when adequate instrumentation existed. You think we shouldn't expect unfalsifiable evidence about any event that involves people? That's absurd. It's more likely that you -wish- for it to be true so that you might excuse some other concept you're about to pitch which suffers from an unfortunate lack of evidence.

That all depends on your definition of "unfalsifiable" or "confirmable". We can't use the scientific method, so what can we use? This is a black-and-white issue. It doesn't matter what I "expect", what matters is whether the event can be confirmed by something other than human logic. So can it?

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In your mind, did Livy write "History of Rome"? Were Tacitus' "Annals" written by Tacitus? Did Suetonius author "Lives of the Twelve Caesars"? While we're at it, was "Antiquities of the Jews" written by Josephus?

Yes, yes, yes and yes

So you trust them?