Evidence: The Gathering

[Randy Carson]

This thread serves as a repository for my thoughts on the evidence for God's existence and for Christianity as well as for discussion of this topic. The following addition is relevant to the overall understanding of the nature and role of evidence:


There are only two categories of evidence, and Christians use both types of evidence when making a case for Christianity:

Category One: Direct Evidence

Eyewitness testimony. We must recognize that cross-examination of historical witnesses is not commonly possible.

Category Two: Indirect (Circumstantial) Evidence

Everything else. This includes:

• the internal evidence of language, pronoun use, and frequency of names relative to the population at large
  
• the internal descriptions of geography, culture and politics
  
• the evidence of archaeology
  
• the early reluctant parallel descriptions offered by non-Christians and Jewish believers
  
• the early dating of the Gospels established indirectly
  
• the transmission of the Gospels found in the writings of the early Church Fathers
  

Source.

I think you need to look up the difference between direct and circumstantial (otherwise know as indirect evidence).  Direct evidence is merely evidence that does not require further information or inferences to be probative.  Indirect evidence does.  Eyewitness testimony can be either.  I say I saw you come out of a hotel, that's direct evidence that you did, and indirect evidence that you either had a room there or were visiting someone who did.  

I'm not certain why you feel the need to differential between circumstantial and direct evidence because some direct evidence is less probative than indirect evidence and vis-versa.

If a drunken man says he saw a man walking two feet above the ground, it's direct evidence that a man was walking two feet above the ground but not very good direct evidence.   If I say that I was outside at noon and the ground was dry, but when I went out at two the ground was covered in snow, that's indirect evidence that it snowed between noon and two.  The snow itself is direct evidence that it snowed at some time.

That said, Christians don't have ANY eyewitness testimony,  unless you count Paul's statements in his letters.   The Gospels and Acts are not written in the first person and there is nothing about them that suggests that the are written by eyewitnesses.  

Finally, even as a collective all Christian evidence is laughably short of what is need to make the divinity, miracles, or resurrection of Jesus more likely than not.  Six eyewitnesses modern accounts would be insufficient.  So why bother trying to prove the unprovable?

If there were a god and he had any interest in proving his existence, he could do it.

Jenny-

First, you are flat dead wrong about the eyewitness accounts contained in the gospels. I have other threads which have demonstrated the evidence, and your constant harping to the contrary doesn't change the fact one bit. I'm not sure why you cling so DESPERATELY to this false notion...well, actually, I have a pretty good idea. Because if the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, it changes everything for you, doesn't it?

Second, I have looked at this a fair bit, and although I'm not an attorney, I suspect that J. Warner Wallace, a detective who has a flawless record in convicting solving cold case murders in California, has some understanding of how evidence is accepted in a court of law. I have quoted Wallace who in turn has quoted California's instructions given to jurors. Wallace WAS an atheist, but not today. Think about why.

In the meantime, I'm going with his definitions and explanations. Thanks.