RE: Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?
September 13, 2017 at 10:19 am
(This post was last modified: September 13, 2017 at 10:28 am by SteveII.)
(September 13, 2017 at 9:46 am)TheBeardedDude Wrote:(September 13, 2017 at 9:35 am)SteveII Wrote: Perhaps a refresher...
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.
The only circumstances that were similar in this situation were that something was written. Everything else was different. So, we have one similarity and hundreds of dissimilarities. Therefore the circumstance were not even close to being similar and therefore no special pleading can occur.
They are literally the same thing. Joseph Smith makes claims of visions and conversations with God and claims to have been divinely-inspired to write about Jesus. Saul of Tarsus does literally the exact same thing. One is accepted, the other not. Both have the same level, type, and quantity of evidence to back-up their claims (none at all).
So yeah, it is literally a textbook example of special pleading. Thank you for demonstrating it well
Two things wrong with that statement.
1. Paul's letters where on Christian living--not original statements of fact on the life of Jesus or other historical instruction (as Joseph Smith's were full of).
2. Where did Paul claim even his instructions on Christian living were divinely inspired?
Again, the comparisons are not there.
(September 13, 2017 at 10:01 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: Steve, what evidence lead you to these two beliefs, and why do you find that evidence persuasive?
The quote you were referring to was about Paul. Even Bart Ehrman firmly believes Paul was real and wrote most of the epistles ascribed to him. He also believes the the NT is 99% today what it was when it was written.
