(October 30, 2015 at 8:16 am)alpha male Wrote:(October 30, 2015 at 8:11 am)Irrational Wrote: It's a much more likely explanation than that they actually saw Jesus rise from the dead, appear to them as some form of spiritual being, and then ascend to heaven. It's also backed up by heaps of evidence from modern days that people are all too willing to believe things without evidence.
Miracles are by definition unlikely, so arguing that they're unlikely isn't really saying anything.
Yes... they are by definition not normal or everyday and repeatable occurrences. However unlikely in frequency does not equate to unlikely to have occurred. Also that it occurred is not dependent on knowledge or understanding of the event. I am an electrical engineer. I build machine controls and interfaces, as well as troubleshoot industrial electrical equipment for shops in the area. There are many number of times, where I have been told by a manufacturer tech support, that the event I had seen cannot happen. However my observance of it, is better evidence that it can happen, than the phone techs understanding of it. As a contractor, I often get called out (even by places that have good techs) to troubleshoot odd and unlikely issues. I also have to deal with non-repeatable issues. So the argument that X cannot happen, when someone has seen it, does not carry as much weight with me.
Now a lot of my troubleshooting work is investigative, and I agree, that people do make mistakes. I get bad reports of an issue often, and have to examine the evidence and filter out bad info (often not paying attention or making assumptions). Which is why I prefer to talk to multiple people who where there when the event occurred if possible. There are also other methods, that by carefully examining all of the testimony, to determine what is accurate and more reliable. I do like J. Warner Wallace at ColdCaseChristianity.com He was a very successful cold case homicide detective who also described himself as a militant/aggressive atheist for a majority of his life. When he started reading scripture for it's value as wisdom literature, he describes that it was the quality of the testimony and his experience dealing with witnesses that started him on the path to Christianity. Similar to my own experience, he also says that simply dismissing evidence because of a priori assumptions is a poor investigative technique.
