(December 8, 2012 at 11:19 pm)Undeceived Wrote: When you're checking his eyes, your checking the validity of the source--the man. When you're checking the weather report, you're checking another source--a document submitted by human beings. In each case, finding the truth is entirely dependent on people. How can the event speak for itself when the event has already passed? The event merely leaves traces. We interpret those traces with our reason. There are natural traces (as Darkstar explained) and testimonial traces. I brought this up because FallentoReason implied that the gospel events have no evidence:
Quote:Faith is essential. With it, the believer is capable of short-circuiting the brain and skipping the step of asking if something is sensible in the face of no evidence being present.There is no evidence if and only if your definition of evidence is "information which is scientifically testable". Testability, in the strictly scientific sense, relies on repeatable processes. An event in the past is not repeatable. Therefore, no events have evidence. Of course, we could reform the definition of evidence to include the "trace" kind. Traces range from places and objects to written accounts. All could be manipulated, but all exist physically as clues. If we are reasonable and admit that events should have some evidence, we will find that the gospel events are in fact supported by traces. There are remnants of the cities described in the text, objects such as boats and clay pots, and writings. We must make sure we are fair regarding this evidence. For example, we cannot expect to find Jesus' cross or robe with his name inscribed on it. But we can expect to find the towns he passed through, and the sorts of objects he came in contact with. Personal accounts should be judged with the same care. If you don't call these evidence, then no historical event has evidence and the accusation that the gospels have no evidence is a deceptive one. If you do call these evidence, go to the next step and evaluate it. And evaluate it fairly, as in a neutral court of law. When several billion people believe in a person's life, and there is evidence, he is not "false until proven true by repeatable experiments."
So which is it? Is evidence that which is testable (repeatable) or that which has the capacity for human error?
This unnecessary focus on ''repeatable'', ''observable'',''testable'' is just a path to ''where you there'' falacy and all the dancing around definitions as if the same criteria (of evidences ) is used by apologists.
For s start,''Bible sais'' doesn't count for anything.Archaeological evidence doesn't exist. If 1000y.from now people uncover ruins of London-would not mean that Sherlock Holmes was a real person. There are tourists today,visiting his house on Baker street,thinking He was a real detectiv. (New York-Spiderman) is more like your super hero. In a distant future will find NY-city & that will be archaeological evidence for Spiderman.
Billions of people? Billion muslims? Muslims ar right? Billions thot (knew) the world is flat. It's a fallacy (''ad populum'')
People giving their life-proves only that they were convinced - same as suicide bombers & all those cults with group suicide. Eye witnesess? So called temporary accounts were written down decades latter, based on Oral tradition-which is a telephone game played by superstitious gullible bronz age shepherds. We have counless of UFO (abduction) personal testemonies in present days,regular people from different places with similar stories....
Scientific method & standards of historical evidence are clear. You can't play with definitions, ''traces'', ''kinds'' of evidence. Btw,the strongest / reliable evidence in antient texts is so called ''disinterest'' comment.
