(July 5, 2016 at 6:24 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote:(July 5, 2016 at 5:50 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: You have plenty of reason to doubt that the miracles in the NT happened, you just choose not to exercise those reasons with regard to the NT. You doubt that Joseph Smith talked to an angel. You doubt that Mohammed did likewise. You choose not to exercise those doubts with respect to the NT. That makes you guilty of special pleading and your conclusions are therefore not reliable. You treat the truth claims of the NT differently than you do other truth claims. That's simply being biased.
Precisely!
(July 5, 2016 at 4:15 pm)SteveII Wrote: First, every belief you hold, you 'chose' to believe it. Second, the phrase "choose to believe" in no way impacts the truth of the NT. It could be true, it could be false, and it could even be that the facts are true but my belief is false because I believed for the wrong reason. So, no, it does not demonstrate anything. If you want to attack my belief, you'll have to give reasons why my belief is false.
The NT contains multiple attestations of miracles and it is clear that the early church (before any books of the NT were even written) believed them to have happened as well (that would be 2 separate bodies of evidence even before you break the NT into 27 separate documents). I don't have any reason to think they are lying, so I believe they happened, therefore I believe there is evidence for the existence of God.
Why do you 'chose to believe' that the 1) the early church held false beliefs and later 2) the 8 authors of the NT claimed to have knowledge that they did not have? You just admitted it has nothing to do with whether miracles happened or not (because then your argument would be circular).
Jörmungandr already nailed it with Special Pleading.
I would just reiterate about the burden of proof. If you make claim X you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that X is true. I don't have to prove that X is false, because until you demonstrate that it is true, I don't have enough evidence to accept that it is true to begin with.
The claim X is false Is not equal to the claim X is not true. I don't have to say X is false, I say I do not have enough evidence to support the claim that X is true, therefore I do not believe it.
I do not choose to believe that the early Church held false beliefs. I am simply not convinced that they ever held true beliefs. I find the evidence insufficient to support belief.
I am not saying that the 8 authors of the NT did not have the knowledge they claimed, I am simply that there is insufficient evidence to think that everything they said was true - least of all the accounts of miracles.
A miracle is the suspension of the laws of nature - no case of a miracle has ever been proven. It is an extraordinary claim to say that a miracle occurred, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. NT evidence is extraordinarily bad evidence. Therefore I do not believe that there is a God, or that Jesus performed miracles, or that the Bible is any kind of moral authority. I don't say I can prove its all false - I don't need to, because it doesn't meet the burden of proof to establish its truth in the first place. It's that simple.
Well, no. It is not special pleading. Since I clearly have no problem with the possibility of their being a God, it comes down to the facts, evidence, and content of various religions. I believe that Christianity has more compelling evidence for its truth claims than do other religions.
I am confused. Do you believe the NT authors are lying or telling the truth?
