(May 23, 2015 at 11:54 am)robvalue Wrote: OK, so you yourself would not believe 10 eye witnesses who just said they talked to god. You'd assume they were mistaken. But you want me to believe a bunch of guys I've never met writing 2000 years ago about what they think they have experienced. I hope you can see the problem there.
Rob, the significance of this is huge. You have graciously conceded virtually every objection that skeptics have with regard to the NT and the claims of Christianity.
First, I would want to know what they had to say. But YOU specified that God told us all to become Muslims. This I would know to be false, and the real issue is Islam itself. Second, if they claimed to speak to God about something else, I would be more inclined to listen. As an atheist, however, I do not expect you to make such distinctions. However, the character of Mohammed and the earliest converts to Islam do not offer much in the way of positive reinforcement. Mohammed wanted to be a prophet, the Jews rejected him, so he took his frustrations out on them by violence.
Quote:I've tried to make my challenge very clear, but it seems you don't have anything more than "they wouldn't lie" and I've said already it's not a matter of whether they are lying. People can believe they are telling the truth, as in the above example, and be mistaken, just as you would say your mates are. Considering I've given you absolutely every advantage I possibly can, I'm afraid you're going to have to do better than that, especially with the clear double standard you are showing with my example.
And I do appreciate your willingness to find some common ground. We agree that the disciples did not think they were lying...a better way of saying it is that they clearly believed what they were saying, and their lives...indeed, the course of human history...reflects the sincerity of their beliefs. This rules out the oft-repeated conspiracy theory, for example.
So, if you were in a courtroom, and men of demonstrably good character spoke in obvious detail about something they claimed to have witnessed, how would you decide whether to believe them or not?
Philosopher Richard Swineburne speaks of the "principle of testimony" - in the absence of counter evidence, we should believe what others tell us they have done or seen. Without this principle, Swineburne tells us we would have very little knowledge of anything because most of our beliefs are based on what others have told us about geography, science or history. What we know is not based upon our own direct experience but upon the testimony of reliable and knowledgeable people.
If the authors of the NT wrote early, demonstrated themselves to be eyewitnesses or recorders of eyewitnesses, showed considerable knowledge of the locale, people, customs, etc., were corroborated by internal and external evidence, and stood by their stories despite threats, punishments and death, would you say that they were both reliable and knowledgeable?
Quote:If you want me to stop giving you all those bonuses, I could just say I don't believe a word of anything in the bible except where it can be independently verified. Which is barely anywhere. Proving there was "a Jesus" is a far cry from every word being true.
That's true. We can agree that there was a Jesus simply on the basis of external witnesses. However, we need to consider whether reliable and knowledgeable men recorded the accounts of Jesus in the the NT, don't we? If they did, what are we to make of those accounts?
