Evidence: The Gathering

[LastPoet]

I have a garage that's empty. That proves the existence of my Ferrari.

You have shown it to me. It is undetectable, and we need to believe it really to be there.

Nice car. But with today's invisible gas prices and invisible taxes.... how much does a civil servant earns?

[Cyberman]

If I can get back into the department I'll let you know.

On the other hand, I also have an empty envelope that obviously used to contain a £100k wage slip.

[Pat Mustard]

It doesn't automatically follow that you lack confidence in each, no. You may simply have so much time left in the exam you want to spam the markers with arguments I guess. I would have thought two or three different sound methods would be sufficient. More than that and I am becoming suspicious that it's quantity over quality.

Interestingly, I heard it said once that the theist only needs one of those arguments to be true, but the atheist must be sure that all of them are false.

Wrong, dead wrong. The theist needs a whole pile of massive improbabilities to be true in order for there to be a god out there, and that leaves aside the fact that there are thousands of different gods not all of whom can exist side by side, so for a specific god it is a pile of a pile of improbabilities.

All the atheist needs to kick the stool out from under any specific god is to turn one improbability into an impossibility, e.g. for yhwh and his descendant religions, all we need do is point out the impossibility of a being being both omnipotent and omniscient or point out the fact that his whole mythology starts with two mutually incompatible creation myths, both stolen from other older theistic traditions. To use an older set of examples, all we need to do to disprove the various thunder and lightning gods is to show how thunder and lightning actually work.

[Randy Carson]

That's the rub.  The possibilities for an empty tomb are: theft (with benign or malignant intent for honest or fraudulent reasons), waking up from what wasn't really death; failure to actually inter the body (again for benign or malignant reasons); the witnesses lied; dogs, people, or other animals ate the body; or rising from the dead like Lazarus is said to have done; or even more improbably waking to eternal life.  The first five are reasonably probable.  The later two impossibly improbable.  It is not for those arguing that it might of been one of the first five to show that it was a particular one of the five, but he who argues for the impossible to show that the first five are really and truly impossible.  Otherwise the empty tomb is proof of nothing like resurrection.  It is circumstantial evidence of nothing in particular, just possibilities, much like the light that doesn't come on.

Jenny-

I'm aware of all of these theories; however, they simply do not account for ALL of the facts...not even the Five Minimal Facts.

For example, how would dogs eating the body of Jesus account for Paul's conversion? As an enemy of the early Church, Paul would have been quick to accept that theory more readily than the resurrection theory.

But he became a Christian. Why?

[Randy Carson]

I think it's cute that regurgitating claims is considered evidence.

Not as cute as ignoring them is called enlightenment.

[Randy Carson]

I have a garage that's empty. That proves the existence of my Ferrari.

No, Stimbo.

That merely proves that your Ferrari is no longer where you would expect it to be since it cannot move on its own.

Neither can a dead body.

[Iroscato]

That's the rub.  The possibilities for an empty tomb are: theft (with benign or malignant intent for honest or fraudulent reasons), waking up from what wasn't really death; failure to actually inter the body (again for benign or malignant reasons); the witnesses lied; dogs, people, or other animals ate the body; or rising from the dead like Lazarus is said to have done; or even more improbably waking to eternal life.  The first five are reasonably probable.  The later two impossibly improbable.  It is not for those arguing that it might of been one of the first five to show that it was a particular one of the five, but he who argues for the impossible to show that the first five are really and truly impossible.  Otherwise the empty tomb is proof of nothing like resurrection.  It is circumstantial evidence of nothing in particular, just possibilities, much like the light that doesn't come on.

Jenny-

I'm aware of all of these theories; however, they simply do not account for ALL of the facts...not even the Five Minimal Facts.

For example, how would dogs eating the body of Jesus account for Paul's conversion? As an enemy of the early Church, Paul would have been quick to accept that theory more readily than the resurrection theory.

But he became a Christian. Why?

Perhaps he was rather like you in his capacity to leap to conclusions.

[abaris]

For example, how would dogs eating the body of Jesus account for Paul's conversion? As an enemy of the early Church, Paul would have been quick to accept that theory more readily than the resurrection theory.

But he became a Christian. Why?

And outside of scripture and apologetic literature the evidence for this is what exactly?

[Jenny A]

That's the rub.  The possibilities for an empty tomb are: theft (with benign or malignant intent for honest or fraudulent reasons), waking up from what wasn't really death; failure to actually inter the body (again for benign or malignant reasons); the witnesses lied; dogs, people, or other animals ate the body; or rising from the dead like Lazarus is said to have done; or even more improbably waking to eternal life.  The first five are reasonably probable.  The later two impossibly improbable.  It is not for those arguing that it might of been one of the first five to show that it was a particular one of the five, but he who argues for the impossible to show that the first five are really and truly impossible.  Otherwise the empty tomb is proof of nothing like resurrection.  It is circumstantial evidence of nothing in particular, just possibilities, much like the light that doesn't come on.

Jenny-

I'm aware of all of these theories; however, they simply do not account for ALL of the facts...not even the Five Minimal Facts.

For example, how would dogs eating the body of Jesus account for Paul's conversion? As an enemy of the early Church, Paul would have been quick to accept that theory more readily than the resurrection theory.

But he became a Christian. Why?

Given the number of people who think they saw a miracle or had a vision (not all Christian miracles either) and convert to something or another often at great cost or risk to themselves, Paul's conversion doesn't need any explanation at all.   Certainly it wouldn't require an actual resurrection, merely that Paul thought Jesus rose from the dead.  Frankly, Paul's conversion is proof of exactly one thing, Paul's conversion.

[Cyberman]

I have a garage that's empty. That proves the existence of my Ferrari.

No, Stimbo.

That merely proves that your Ferrari is no longer where you would expect it to be since it cannot move on its own.

Neither can a dead body.

Yet you had to assume the existence of the Ferrari before drawing conclusions as to its status, when all you have is my word that there's even a garage.