RE: Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?
October 11, 2018 at 10:42 am
(This post was last modified: October 11, 2018 at 10:59 am by SteveII.)
(October 11, 2018 at 8:47 am)polymath257 Wrote:(October 11, 2018 at 7:02 am)SteveII Wrote: Sources: Depends on the premise. The 27 documents contained in the NT. Other documentary evidence that discusses the existence of churches and their beliefs (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/), Josephus, Tacitus.
There you go using the word 'prove' again. You really need to re-read my post above.
Further, what exactly do you mean by "prove"? It seems there are different kinds of proof.
* Scientific proof
* Historical proof
* Logical proofs (both deductive and inductive)
* Proof resulting from personal experience
There also also different thresholds of proof:
* Possible
* More likely than not (preponderance of the evidence)
* Beyond reasonable doubt
* Absolute certainty
These lists result in 16 different combinations alone (and I'm sure I missed some).In my experience, a discussion like the one you are intending is a long series of shifting the goal post until you arrive at demanding something akin to absolute certainty resulting from scientific proof for a specific belief. The problem is that this is not the standard necessary for a rational belief. Another point, atheist constantly miss the fact that religious belief is due to a cumulative set of reasons to believe--all with their own kind/threshold of proof needed for that particular individual. So, to simply demand "proof" is insufficient. What kind, what threshold, single issue or cumulative, and to what end?
Well, let's eliminate 'personal proof', which is the same as anecdotal. We can also eliminate 'logical proof' since logic alone can say nothing baout the real world.
So, in this context, scientific and historical proof will be the main contenders.
For a claim in the existence of a deity, 'possible' is rather too weak. I would go for 'beyond a reasonable doubt', but this requires *all* of the evidence, including the nature of the society, the local history, the biases and personalities of those involved, the provenance of any writings (not just the claimed authors), and any scientific evidence that the events could actually happen as stated. Evaluation of texts should be done in the same way as any other texts from the time period and society. Any extraordinary claims made should be treated the same as similar claims made by other authors.
Which means, you loose, badly
I know lots of atheists think that I should be loosing badly. But the funny thing is I'm not losing at all. You lost when you agreed to play the game. But your feeling that you are winning comes from 1) bad logic (usually question begging) and 2) not actually understanding what the NT is.
You picked Scientific evidence as a standard and you said "and any scientific evidence that the events could actually happen as stated". That is question begging. You are assuming they could not have happened so the documents relating such events must be wrong.
The correct standard for the 27 NT documents and what we know about the churches is Historical (as you also identified). However, beyond a reasonable doubt is not the standard historians use for believing a historical event happened. To insist that be my standard is called special pleading (your second logical misstep).
Give me an example of "Evaluation of texts should be done in the same way as any other texts from the time period and society. Any extraordinary claims made should be treated the same as similar claims made by other authors." in the ancient world and I will describe the 100 ways in which that example is different than the 27 NT documents.