RE: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
May 24, 2015 at 7:51 pm
(This post was last modified: May 24, 2015 at 8:02 pm by Randy Carson.)
(May 24, 2015 at 7:05 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote:(May 24, 2015 at 12:41 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Muslim, Jewish, Atheist - makes no difference to me what someone's beliefs are. If they are NOT Christian, then they are forced to explain away the account of the resurrection of Jesus one way or another.
Bullshit. We're not forced to "explain away" a fucking thing.
Not to me. You have to explain the resurrection in some fashion to yourselves.
Quote:It's up to you to convince us if you want us to believe. You really don't get the whole burden of proof thing, do you? So far you've done a shit job. If that gawd of yours actually exists, it bust be epic face-palming at the poor job your doing.
In the sciences, the burden of proof falls to the one proposing a hypothesis. It doesn’t matter what the hypothesis is. If you want to propose that Particle X exists, the burden of proof falls to you. If you want to propose that Particle X does not exist, the burden again falls to you.
Either way, in science the person proposing a hypothesis needs to provide evidence for it by using the scientific method (i.e., making a prediction based on the hypothesis and then seeing whether the prediction is fulfilled when a test is run). Only by doing this can the hypothesis be scientifically established (to the extent that anything can ever be scientifically established).
Most discussions about the existence of God are not scientific ones. They may involve observations about the universe and things that science studies (e.g., order, design, etc.). However, they also involve premises that cannot be verified scientifically. Many of them involve premises of a philosophical nature, and so the discussion of God’s existence is often regarded as a philosophical matter rather than a scientific one.
Who holds the burden of proof in philosophy? As in science, it’s whoever is making a claim. It doesn’t matter whether you’re asserting the existence or non-existence of Plato’s Forms, claiming the truth or falsity of a particular view of epistemology, or asserting that moral judgments are just expressions of emotion or something else. The principle remains the same: The burden is on you to argue for your own claims. Philosophy may use a different method than science, but its assignation of the burden of proof is the same.
Quote:oh, but his infallible church didn't
Quote:vote that gospel into the cannon so it's not true/doesn't count.
Well, of course. If I could hack your forum account and post that I, SoW, had been visited by an angel and converted to Christianity, etc., would you claim that the post was spurious? Heretical, so to speak? Or what if I came online and claimed that I actually witnessed you responding to an altar call at a tent revival meeting and that the only reason you were denying it is because you were embarrassed to be a Christian?
Would you want to include those posts in the "canon" of authentic SoW postings here at AF? Or would you "vote" them out?
The early Church evaluated the various epistles and gospels that were circulating and recognized which were inspired and which were not. This is how the canon was formed.
