Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[SteveII]

This charge comes up from time to on this forum. 

First, let's define our terms:

Special Pleading: Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification. Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason. reference

Evidence: Evidence is not proof. It is a fact that supports a conclusion. For the purposes of this discussion, eyewitness testimony (from any religion) is evidence.  

Central Question: Is it true that other religions have bodies of evidence that can be examined in the same or similar way as Christianity's is and therefore are legitimate comparisons in which special pleading can actually occur?

Yes, all the supernatural claims of any religion can be examined in the same or similar way as Christianity's are. As far as I can tell, no religion has what could reasonably be described as a 'body of evidence' for their supernatural claims. Which are their most central and important claims, because their claim to authority depends on having a supernatural source for it.

Is there any debate that no major religion that has a fraction of the amount of evidence of Christianity to even examine in support of its main claims?

I'm not aware that this is the sort of thing that serious scholars of religion debate...if they did, I'm sure they'd have announced a winner by now.

If other religions do not have a body of evidence or there only exists one piece of evidence, then how could there be any special pleading in favor of Christianity?

When Christians use special pleading, they use it the same way as every other theistic religion: 'My God is the exception. My God is different. My God is unique. My God is the only explanation. Their God isn't real, my God is.' [1]

 

If you are tempted to just answer there is no evidence for Christianity, they we are just arguing definitions of words. Whatever you call the material under consideration, there is more of it under Christianity and therefore no special pleading.

Christianity, of course, exists. There is ample evidence of that. If you think Christianity has special evidence for its supernatural claims that other religions do not possess, I would be interested in seeing it. If your definition of what constitutes 'more evidence' is arbitrarily picking some criteria that conveniently and arbitrarily favors Christianity, that would be some sort of fallacy, but I'm not sure it would be special pleading. I'm sure other religions would find which religion is the oldest persuasive, or which religion has the lowest body count, or which religion has the highest percentage of people willing to pierce themselves to show their faith. Whatever evidence you have that Christianity in particular is true, it should be something relevant to whether its supernatural claims are true. [2]

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The topic is the often repeated charge that somehow Christianity is no different than any other religion and to think it is different is "special pleading". I contend that it is different in that there is more information to weigh than any other religion (by far).

Christianity is quite unique. As are all the other religions. Of course it's different from the other religions.

But if you've got actual evidence of the supernatural, I'd like to know what it is.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I don't have time to address every point. But here are a few comments.

1. It would only be special pleading if there was no justification for the Christian belief. I think that the significant amount of information available in the NT make a better case by far than most religions have. With this justification, there is no special pleading. 
2. I am talking about the writings of 27 sources we combined into the NT as well as dozens of other surviving documents that at least attest to a part of the overall narrative. No special criteria--just the only evidence that we could ask for from that time period for the truth of the claims of Christ--people writing about things within the lifetime of witnesses and possible rebuttal witnesses. 

The statements "Christianity is true" and "there is more evidence for Christianity than any other religion" are independent of each other (a belief on one does not have an impact on the other). This discussion is on the latter. 

Lastly (and generally), the case for Christianity does not rest on one aspect (i.e. unassailable 1st century documentation). It is and always will be a cumulative case with many aspects (natural theology, message content, predisposed to the supernatural, historicity of Christ, morality, personal experience, influence of others). We are discussing one aspect and how it compares to other religions.

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Well, except for John, Peter, and James...

Estimated dates of composition and author identity:

Interpretations differ:

• Conservative Protestants typically believe in the inerrancy of all of the books in the Bible. Thus, they believe that the authors, as identified in most of the Epistles, were the actual writers. Most believe that the Apostle John wrote both the Gospel of John and the Epistles 1,2, and 3 John. They generally believe that the Epistles were written early in the history of the Christian church; all but 1, 2 & 3 John were written before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, at 70 CE.
  
• Liberal Christians typically believe that those Epistles whose approximate dates can be estimated were written after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, by unknown persons. By that time, various segments of the early Christian movement had introduced new beliefs that were not present in primitive Christianity as taught by Jesus of Nazareth and Paul. They contain a lot of information about how beliefs developed within the church in the later 1st century and first half of the 2nd century CE.
  
• Roman Catholic scholars: Fr. Raymond E. Brown, is a member of the Vatican's Roman Pontifical Biblical Commission, and was described by Time magazine as "probably the premier Catholic scripture scholar in the U.S." 7 He has expressed his beliefs concerning the authorship of these epistles:
  In "Hebrews" there is no reference to Paul being the author; there is no reference to the Hebrews. It was only in the second century CE that this epistle became interpreted as being directed at Hebrews.        1,2 and 3 John contain no reference to authorship by the author(s) of the Gospel of John. That belief also arose in the second century.        Fr. Brown suggests that among critical scholars of the Bible:            
  • 95% believe that Peter did not write 2 Peter;
               
    
  • 75% believe that Jude did not write Jude;
               
    
  • 75% believe that James did not write James;
               
    
  • about 50% believe that Peter did not write 1 Peter.
    

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb4.htm

Congratulations.  You've manufactured a fact out of minority or disputed opinions.  With such "evidence" it's not surprising that you've found an abundance of it.  You present a biased and distorted interpretation of the evidence, much like the advocates of other religions.  When we can't trust you to represent the facts faithfully, all we have left to examine is your antics.  In that you are no different from the advocates of other religions.  Claiming that your distorted misrepresentations of the facts is different from those of other religions is the real special pleading.  They have their arguments and "evidence" and you have yours.  In that you are no different from them.  Your objection that you are "different" deserves to be dismissed just like your bogus "evidence".

The fact that we are discussing difference of opinion on dates and what % of what kind of scholar believes what--illustrates my point. At least Christianity has something to consider. I never claimed the evidence is proof. At most, it is part of a cumulative argument that encompasses a large number of things. There is nothing to prove that the events of the NT did not happen, so we are left with people's opinion of the evidence in light of their other experiences, knowledge, predispositions, influences, and reasoning.