Can't prove the supernatural God

[robvalue]

It may be reasonable to take a wealth of anecdotal evidence as sufficient if the claims being made are mundane.

But once they include extraordinary events, previously not even known to be possible, this should be reflected in the scepticism applied. To pretend these two scenarios are comparable is either naive or dishonest.

To me, no amount of anecdotal evidence would be enough in such a case, to be sure beyond reasonable doubt that something that extraordinary really did happen. We don't even know if the probability of it happening is above 0%. And we have a wealth of mundane and very plausible explanations that are far more likely. You have to already believe it happened, if you are to do anything other than dismiss it along with every other similarly extraordinary claim. What's special about the one from your religion? People make loopy claims all the time.

The fact that people still believe these claims after so long is only testament to how effective indoctrination is.

How many people would have to say that they saw a ghost commit a murder before you'd be willing to sign off on that in a court of law, and so drop the case?

[SteveII]

Your first paragraph relies on dismissing the entire NT (and any other claims of miracles).

No. It relies on all miracle/supernatural claims lacking sufficient evidence to justify believing them. The claims in the New Testament are not supported by sufficient evidence to convince me (or any rational person) that they are true. Thanks, by the way, for acknowledging (via this bold part here) that the NT is, in fact, forwarding miracle claims. Now, if you agree that a claim cannot be used to prove itself, then we agree that the NT cannot be used as evidence of miracles. Right?

I have a bad feeling about this...

But in addition, even though you are carefully wording your sentence, you are really saying that events can only have naturalistic explanations.

Again, no. I'm really saying that all known explanations, objects, and events are naturalistic, so it is not reasonable to believe or expect supernatural explanations for things, especially in the absence of any sort of evidence (or, as far as I can tell, adequate definition).

You are simply moving "unknowns" over to the naturalistic column for no reason other than they must not have had a supernatural cause.

 ...nope...I am leaving unknowns in the unknown column, which is where they belong.

I do not generally expect unknowns to turn out to be supernatural, and that is because they literally never have. If even one known, supernatural thing existed, then it might be reasonable to expect other things to perhaps have supernatural origins/explanations, but since that isn't the case, I find it unreasonable to believe or expect supernatural explanations for any event (no matter how bizarre). If good evidence to the contrary ever surfaces, then I will change my mind.

I am also, among other things, a magician and a hypnotist, so I am very, very thoroughly acquainted with the psychology and mechanisms by which man can be convinced of the supernatural using entirely natural means. I was also an advanced Biblical apologist for some years, so I also know the kind of mental gymnastics it takes for an otherwise intelligent, skeptical person to believe in things like gods, ghosts, and demons (even while understanding and accepting science in other matters).

Why is this not the equivalent of saying " miracles do not exist because miracle can't happen"--which is circular?

Because that isn't what I'm saying. What I'm saying is this: "There is insufficient evidence that miracles happen or have ever happened, so it is not reasonable to believe that miracles happen or have ever happened. If you have even one good reason to believe in miracles or the supernatural, what is that reason?"

It's pretty much the same thing I've been saying the whole time. Still waiting on an answer, too.

I do keep hearing the claim that healing happens at the same rate between religious and non-religious. Do you have something that explains that study? Please note, I was not using modern healing miracles as evidence in this discussion because of some of the reasons you pointed out.

Ummm...what do you need explained, exactly? Prayer studies are a dime a dozen, and they always reach the same conclusion: prayer to any and all gods has absolutely no statistical impact on the rate of healing or survival from any illness; it's virtually the same as not praying at all. Whether you get better has to do with your health, the availability of appropriate medical treatment, and luck. Prayer is a non-factor.

Actually, that's not true, I should be fair here; in the case of some heart conditions, people who know they are being prayed for survive at an objectively worse rate than other patients with the same problem. Doctors speculate that this is because they get a form of performance anxiety over not wanting to make prayer look bad, and anxiety in any form does not mix well with heart trouble.

o yeah...prayer will either do nothing, or it will actually give you a heart attack. How useful.

I don't think you can consider the NT as the claim. "The claim" is Jesus was God, came to Palestine in the first century, performed miracles, preached a new message, died, and rose again for the purpose of redemption.

 DAMMIT, Steve! We agreed!

We meet again, Captain Semantics! How's your mother? She still sore from that fireball?

Steve, look at what you just wrote. "'The claim' is Jesus was God, came to Palestine in the first century, performed miracles, preached a new message, died, and rose again for the purpose of redemption."

Those claims are made by the New Testament, Steve. The New Testament claims that Jeshua Josephson von Nazareth was a god and performed miracles. Those claims are not sufficiently supported by extraneous evidence, and those claims cannot be used as evidence of themselves.

We agreed, Steve. How could you?

I will agree that the NT passes on the claim, but you are missing my point. People already believed that claim (as stated above) prior to any of the 27 books writing it down (beginning around 50AD). So, if there were never any books/letters written, there would have still been a claim. Why do I believe this, because there were already churches outside of Palestine for Paul to write to and established doctrine to discuss 20 years from Christ's death. 

This moves the 27 books from the claim column to the evidence column. There seems to be two possibilities that this was not true:
1. The NT books misrepresented the claim
2. The NT books were all fabrications in pursuit of some other goal

[SteveII]

I think the gospels and letters are not fiction because they were written within the lifetime of those who would have witnessed the actual events (and in some cases witnessed the actual events: John, Peter, James). The authors and early church believed what they preached even if that meant adversity. The church grew between the time of Christ and the first appearances of the epistles. Alternatively, there was every reason to let things die down after Jesus' death if the events were not other than what was related.

If the events of the NT were not true, I do not think there is ground for positing an "honest mistake". I think the only logical alternative is a conspiracy. No one has yet to give me good reasons why this might be the case.

[SteveII]

deleted. still having problems with my content not showing up when I post. Lost what I typed. Try again later.

[Mister Agenda]

Are you defending the charge of circular reasoning and/or are you saying the 27 books/letters are not reliable? If so, why should I believe them to be unreliable and not, in general, what they purport to be?

You might consider that Paul never encountered any 'historical Jesus', so nothing he wrote (discounting that some of 'his' letters were likely not written by him) counts as an eyewitness testimony concerning Jesus; and the identity of the Gospel authors is unknown (but almost certainly not the disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John), so it is difficult to claim they are reliable. Also, Matthew, Luke, and John seem to be largely copied from Mark, with additional miracles that grow the farther in time from the supposed events the books were written.

I lean about 51% toward there having actually been a Yeshua who came to a bad end at the hands of the Romans for sedition whose sayings were collected and referred to by Mark, but almost nothing about him in the Bible can be considered reliable using normal historical methodology to determine such.

If you want to know more, there are books on the topic.

[Mister Agenda]

If Mark was supposed to be an editor, he must be the worst one imaginable since he omitted the most important part of the whole story. It had to be added in later because even people at that time could see what he had written was not convincing enough.

Why do you think it was added later? There are many that think that he simply included an earlier narrative in with his writing. There, all fixed. Good editor again.   

Yeah, adding to documents in ancient times was almost always good editing and not revisionism....

[Mister Agenda]

I will agree that the NT passes on the claim, but you are missing my point. People already believed that claim (as stated above) prior to any of the 27 books writing it down (beginning around 50AD). So, if there were never any books/letters written, there would have still been a claim. Why do I believe this, because there were already churches outside of Palestine for Paul to write to and established doctrine to discuss 20 years from Christ's death. 

This moves the 27 books from the claim column to the evidence column. There seems to be two possibilities that this was not true:
1. The NT books misrepresented the claim
2. The NT books were all fabrications in pursuit of some other goal

You left out: The NT books represent the claim fine, it just happens that the claim they represented wasn't true. Modern people are not that much better than the Ancients when it comes to believing that hearsay claims that have had plenty of opportunity to be corrupted by the 'Chinese whispers' effect are true. People don't have to by lying to be wrong.

And many people are happy to make shit up for the thrill of watching others believe it.

[SteveII]

Which Paul are you talking about, exactly? Historians can only generally agree that about seven of the Epistles traditionally attributed to Paul were actually written by him, and those seven do not reference the humanized gospel story at all; in fact, looking at just the letters that Paul actually wrote, it appears that Paul himself believed in a purely celestial Jesus character whose battles and sacrifice took place somewhere other than Earth, and about whom knowledge could only be gained through the visions and writings of prophets (as opposed to history).

Your assertion here seems to be that the New Testament is a compilation of evidence about a series of claims that had already been made and circulated by the time the NT was actually written/compiled. I disagree. The New Testament is a catalog of religious claims that were being made by a particular religious group at a particular time in history; it does not actually offer any evidence for those claims. What's worse, various parts of the Bible are flatly contradicted by science and/or history (The Flood, The Exodus, The Origin of Man and the Universe, etc.). When some parts are unsupported by evidence and other parts are outright contradicted by it, the reliability of your document starts to dwindle considerably.

Thinking that idea Paul believed that Jesus wasn't real is nonsense. He mentions him in every other paragraph and the resurrection in almost every chapter. Just because he didn't mention facts about his life means absolutely nothing. He was writing to churches that already had basic beliefs. His focus was on doctrine and christian living. He also met with and corresponded with people who did hold the belief that Jesus was real. You think that Paul not believing them on so important of a point might have come up? 

The NT does not just catalog the claim. It talks of real people, real eyewitnesses (by name), and a church that was growing quickly all within the same generation of Jesus. It is evidence that the first generation believed "the claim" (from above). The epistles are written well within the memory of eyewitnesses (some by eyewitnesses themselves). The gospels are written as the generation of Jesus was dying off. The thing about generations is that they overlap. There is an unbroken chain of belief about "the claim" all the way to today.

[SteveII]

You might consider that Paul never encountered any 'historical Jesus', so nothing he wrote (discounting that some of 'his' letters were likely not written by him) counts as an eyewitness testimony concerning Jesus; and the identity of the Gospel authors is unknown (but almost certainly not the disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John), so it is difficult to claim they are reliable. Also, Matthew, Luke, and John seem to be largely copied from Mark, with additional miracles that grow the farther in time from the supposed events the books were written.

I lean about 51% toward there having actually been a Yeshua who came to a bad end at the hands of the Romans for sedition whose sayings were collected and referred to by Mark, but almost nothing about him in the Bible can be considered reliable using normal historical methodology to determine such.

If you want to know more, there are books on the topic.

As I have pointed out, Paul gives evidence of the belief being held by the early church (and how widespread it had become in 20 years) within the same generation as Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and John writers are probably editors who followed the disciple the book was named for. Luke was a well-educated man who was sent to find out what happened and wrote Luke and Acts. They all had differing audiences so you get some things emphasized as important to the audience. There is evidence that any writings were copied and disseminated to the various pockets of Christianity. It is easy to see why one editor of a gospel would have in his library any earlier writings. That does not mean that "his" apostle didn't remember some things the same and other things differently. There is no contradictions on main theological points.

I am curious why you do not think that Jesus' life (notice I do not say resurrection) is not the most attested series of events in ancient history. What event has more sources and more evidence that the people of that day believed at least the basic facts of Jesus?

[SteveII]

You left out: The NT books represent the claim fine, it just happens that the claim they represented wasn't true. Modern people are not that much better than the Ancients when it comes to believing that hearsay claims that have had plenty of opportunity to be corrupted by the 'Chinese whispers' effect are true. People don't have to by lying to be wrong.

And many people are happy to make shit up for the thrill of watching others believe it.

You are alleging that the writers of the 27 books of the NT believed something that was false (in spite of 3 of them being eyewitnesses) as well as that first generation that would have been contemporaries of Jesus. I am going out on a limb, but I think you don't have any evidence for that other than your belief that miracles cannot happen. So, we are back to miracles didn't happen because miracles can't happen. Circular.