History is written by the winners.

All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon.  ~Voltaire, Jeannot et Colin

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.  ~Thomas Babington Macaulay

Dan, 

I'm sorry, but I will not take reliance on word of mouth alone to be 100% accurate proof of anything.  I'm not going to budge on this. Understand that I'm not asserting that this means word of mouth is 100% innacurate.  What I am saying is that if all you have is word of mouth to go by, then you don't have 100% verifiable evidence. Sure, many parts could be accurate, but there are many parts that could be wildly inaccurate.

For example: Let's talk about the Trojan War and the stories that came from it.  It's stories have been told for thousands of years.  We have, in recent years, found evidence to support that the war actually happened and that Troy actually existed.  Does this mean I have to believe the stories are 100% accurate?  No.  I don't believe there was a man named Achilles who was actually immortal all over his body except for his heel. I don't believe that general Odysseus actually fought off a cyclops.  Are we to say that Homer was a liar? No, but I'm going to say he wasn't 100% accurate.

How is this any different from the stories of the Bible?  Sure there are many historical accuracies, but there are also many inaccuracies.

Getting back to my circular reasoning argument: Why are the only stories of Jesus from the Christian point of view?  Where is the public record which takes into account the miracles he performed?  Where are the non-Christian stories of Jesus from that time?  Where is the archaeological evidence to back up the claims?  There simply are none.

I still assert that the "scientific" method is the best tool we have to properly derive the truth out of any given claim.  But let's go ahead and use the "historical" method you brought up and put the four gospels to the test. 

Here is a copy/paste of the core principals of the Historical Method of which you linked to in your post with my notes in green intersected in between:

• Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.

There aren't any relics to back up your claims. Like I said before, the gospels were made decades after, and the oldest fragment of the gospels we have is dated to 117-138 AD which is almost 100 years after the life of Jesus.

• Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability.

This is a significant part of my argument. I believe the stories of Jesus HAVE been forged or corrupted.

• The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened.

You have acknowledged that the writings of Jesus were written decades after the event.

• A primary source is more reliable than a secondary source which is more reliable than a tertiary source, and so on.

I have already stated that I believe the gospels to be secondary sources at best.

• If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.

Considering all of the sources we have for Jesus' life are in the New Testament, NONE of the sources are independent.

• The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.

If you are trying to claim your leader is the foretold Messiah, your stories are most absolutely biased and motivated to saying he is who you claim he is.

• If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased.

Again... the gospels were written by the followers of Jesus.  They are absolutely biased sources in terms of making claims of him being the Messiah.

I'm sorry, but all of your evidence doesn't even comply with the method you're trying to use.  To use the Bible as evidence for Jesus is to use biased testimony from a biased source.

I appreciate your sparring with me Dan.  I think it's time that I make note that I hope you understand that even though we have this debate, I respect your beliefs even if they aren't my own. I do think we're getting close to having to agree to disagree on what constitutes valid evidence, which is where I expect the argument to go.

Take care!

-Mike

Bare Metal

Mike,

I don't think our argument is obscured at all. On the contrary, I think we've actually almost gotten all the way through the paint and primer and are starting to expose the bare metal that underlies your objections.

The video you linked to is certainly interesting, but ultimately it is not terribly helpful in supporting your position. The producers of this clip make a big deal of the divergences between the eye witness testimonies, but they say absolutely nothing of the intersections of their testimonies. I'd bet you a nickel that everybody in that class would agree that "Yes, a man walked into the class and stole the professor's purse"--the historicity of that event is without question.

The point is well taken that eye witnesses testimony is subject to human frailties, but this is precisely why we cross-examine eye witnesses--to find the common thread that stitches together the truth. This video leads one to believe that we can never discern the truth from eye witness testimonies, but even popular televisiion programs such as "America's Most Wanted" clearly demonstrate that corroborated eye witness testimony is absolutely invaluable and indeed necessary to come to the truth (this is, after all, why police departments employ sketch artists).

The video also fails to prove your point because of the drastic differences in the very nature of the events being compared. The purse snatcher was in that classroom for about 10 seconds and in that short time frame he created a mild emotional "trauma" (for want of a better word) in the students as evidenced by their cry of outrage that went out when the 'perp' grabbed the purse. This is hardly equivalent to events that transpired over the three year earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

History comes to us reliably through, among other things, reliable eye witness accounts (which is not an oxymoron as you seem to be asserting). If eye witness accounts were always unreliable (which really is what you are arguing when you discount such testimony out of hand), we'd have no hope of ever knowing anything about the past apart from what our shovels might unearth. Using your standard of historical "proof," I defy you to prove to me that Washington crossed the Delaware River on December 25, 1776; that Abraham Lincoln really signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863; that Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes booth in Ford Theater or any other event that took place in the days before photography and that itself did not leave physcial scars or remnants behind. You are attempting to (in)validate history using the scientific method (or more precisely, by empirical means), which is utterly fallacious--historical events are not directly observable, measurable or repeatable--they're also not always tangible. To properly analyze historical events, one must use the aptly named "historical method." Relying upon the scientific method on historical events is like trying to overhaul an engine using only a pair of pliers and a screwdriver.

Now, regarding the authorship of the four Gospels. That Mark penned his Gospel first is fairly well understood, but your assertion that none of them were eyewitnesses is completely without merit.

Matthew (a.k.a. Levi the tax collector) was one of the original 12 disciples called by Jesus (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27) and he is also enumerated among the 11 in Acts 1:13.

Mark, it seems, was indeed heavily influenced by Peter, who was an excellent primary source for his writings. Primary sources are crucial in the construction of an accurate historical record. But to presume that he was not an eyewitness to the accounts himself assumes too much. Jesus had more than 12 disciples (Luke 6:17), so just because Mark was not one of the 12 doesn't mean he wasn't there. Additionally, it is commonly held that Mark was referring to himself in Mark 14:51,52 as the young man who was with Jesus when the latter was arrested in Gethsemane.

Luke, the gentile "beloved physicician" was perhaps not an eyewitness to all events, but Luke tells us up front in the first few verses of his Gospel that he set out to write an orderly account of Jesus' life using primary sources. He was also Paul's traveling companion, so he got to see and experience first-hand what Paul was up to during his ministry. Luke's acumen as an historian is widely attested, so I see no reason to belabor this point.

Your assertion that the Gospel of John is not penned by him also appears to be without any real basis in reality. There are very good reasons to believe that the author John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" but I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find those reasons and interact with them on his own.

So I suppose if I wanted to be ultra precise, I would have to say that "The Bible was written by eye witnesses or by companions of eye witnesses..." but even with the insertion of of this new clause, the weight of the statement still stands--we still have these records written during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses which is also why your argument about the accounts being penned "decades after the events took place" doesn't really hold any water. Are you willing to admit that you cannot accurately recall events that took place when you were a boy? If your parents are still alive, ask them if they have lived through anything that they can "remember like it happened yesterday."

The New Testament is the single most well attested work of ancient literature extant, period. It has more document support (in terms of the number of MSS and MS fragments--well over 5,000) and some of these fragments date, as you noted, to within a couple of decades from the originals. Compare this with any other work of antiquity, where a dozen copies that date to within several hundred years is considered "really good." Again, this is a very well documented fact, so I see no reason to drone on about it here.

That's all I have time for right now...gotta get ready for work.

Until next time...

-dan

Why Eyewitness Testimony is not good proof.

Dan, our argument is getting very obscured, so I'm going to try and narrow it down.
It seems to me that our major argument is about if there is or isn't fallibility in the testimonies in the Bible.

To make it clear, the human memory is not only fallible but more importantly, it is malleable.
Watch this short video as evidence of this.  Please make special note as to how the witnesses can be lead to believe something they didn't see, even without realizing it.  This happens every day. I'm not calling anyone an "ignorant ignoramus" as you have put it.  We are all susceptible to it, even scientists.

THIS fallability is exactly why I won't accept eyewitness accounts as evidence. You MUST have better evidence for the truth of your claims then eyewitness accounts. This should be true not only as proving the existence of god, but also in the courtroom.

I acknowledge that the Bible has many accuracies as proven through actual archaeological evidence.  But please, show me the actual archeological evidence that proves Jesus actually fulfilled the prophecies you have indicated. If all you have is the writings of the Bible, I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough.

Just as I acknowledge the Bible does contain accuracies as well as inaccuracies, I can put that argument to other texts like that of Socrates or Homer are probably not 100% accurate as well. I will full on acknowledge that what we know of Julius Caesar may not be completely true.

Also, as a role reversal for you Dan (and a side argument), if you're so sure that eyewitness testimony is proof, then please read the first few parts of the Book of Mormon, which has the testimony of 11 eyewitnesses to the truth of it's claims. Tell me why you would discount the eleven of them, and yet you accept the testimony of the four Apostles.

In defense of the "Eyewitnesses writing in the time of other eyewitnesses" argument:
The gospels of Matthew and Luke are based on and used the Gospel of Mark to make their writings.  The Gospel of Mark was based on the DISCOURSES of the Apostle Peter.
The Gospel of Luke and Acts were written by Luke, who was most likely NOT an eyewitness to Jesus.
The Gospel of John is actually written based on the TESTIMONY of the Apostle John, and not by John himself.
NONE of the four gospels of Jesus' life were written by eyewitnesses.  The stories of Jesus that we account as true are based off of stories told by others. The earliest estimation of the first of these writings was 70 years after the life of Christ.
I'm not talking about how many times the Bible has been translated.  When I say the New Testament is like a game of telephone, I mean, the original works are a game of telephone. They are written by people who heard stories decades after the events took place. This is not an intellectually dishonest claim.

I acknowledge your "Two Fathers" argument, but like I said before, I think it's a band-aid response.  This is the same for the Census argument. You are side-stepping the error by coming up with a way it "could" be true, thus keeping your argument valid.  In the same vein, I could side step the stories of Jesus as the being metaphorical, and that's how they "could" be invalid.  This is not proving you are wrong, but I ask you, if the gospels are true, why aren't they blatantly accurate? Why do we have to find a way to make them work, when it's much easier to explain that they are probably just sometimes wrong? Again, this argument is getting off topic, and I acknowledge it for later debate.

"So you really don't believe that eyewitness testimony is completely unreliable. Belief is not belief unless you're willing to live it out when even when it is inconvenient for you; otherwise what you have is pragmatism--whatever works at the time'll do. You are applying one standard for yourself and another for those who walked the roads and fields of Israel during the 1st century A.D.--eyewitness testimony is okay if it agrees with your position, but unreliable when it grates against your belief system."  

No, I wouldn't tell someone, "Believe me, because I'm infallable."  I never said that eyewitness testimony was completely unreliable.  There's a difference between "completely unreliable" and "possibly innacurate".  If you're talking about a court of law, of course I would use eyewitness testimony to prove my innocence.  That's a matter of self preservation.  But if I were on the other side, and I was trying to prosecute someone who had eyewitness testimony to prove their innocence, I just may use the argument against testimony to prosecute them. IS that pragmatism?  Absolutely: YES.  But does it actually PROVE innocence or guilt? Nope. That's the difference between "courtroom truth" and "actual truth" that I'm so desperately trying to define for you.  We are not in a court of law trying to convince 12 people that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies.  We are actually trying to prove if Jesus fulfilled the prophecies.

I think Cory better argues about Joseph Smith than I can, so I'll leave that argument alone from here.

"I think Cory mentioned this in one of his earlier posts--you have set up an impossible criteria for believability, Mike. You cry "bullocks" because something sounds ridiculous without really trying to understand it. You ask for proof of historical events, but then reject a priori eyewitness testimony as recorded in the Bible…because it's in the Bible. Then you turn around and ask for corroborating accounts from outside of Scripture for every miracle recorded--but this would require more eyewitness testimony from superstitious folks who simply cannot tell fact from fiction. When a plausible explanation is given for reconciling the discrepancy, you call it a "Band-Aid answer" and dismiss it a priori as so much "poo-poo."

No, I don't want more eyewitness testimony at all.  I want real evidence. I'm not dismissing it a priori because I don't want to believe.  I'm dismissing it I don't accept testimony to be infallable evidence.  I will accept eyewitness testimony when there is actual infallable evidence to back up what the testimony says.  To go back to my cake in the box argument: I can question you if you say you have a cake in the box, but you can prove it by actually showing me the cake.

Using your example:You CAN prove to me that you had a smoothie for every morning last week.  One piece of evidence would be to show me the receipts from the smoothie bar. Another, better piece of evidence would be to show me (forgive me for being disgusting) analysis of your stool samples which were collected throughout the week which show smoothie pieces.  At least these pieces of evidence are based on proof that is much less fallible than human testimony.

I don't have an infinitely scalable wall.  I will accept actual evidence. But human testimony is NOT that evidence.

Please excuse my "terseness" as well.  My arguments may come off as attacks, but they are meant as a matter of discourse and not as personal attacks.

-Mike

 

 

Scaling the Infinitely High Wall

1. You are arguing, "My belief is true, because what I believe in tells me it's true." It's a circular argument.

That does look fairly circular, doesn't it? Fortunately, though, that's not my argument. My argument is that

My belief is true because it is based upon the Bible which is a "reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They record events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophesies, and they claim their writings are divine rather than human in origin." (see Why I Choose To Believe the Bible) This is demonstrable via manuscript evidence, archaeology, prophesies and the statistical probability against these prophesies being fulfilled by chance.

If I tell you I am God, you can't logically argue that I am because I say I am regardless of how many people believed me.

You seem to be hinting that I've pulled an appeal to the majority, but to the best of my recollection, I have never made the argument that "X billiion Christians can't be wrong." If I'm reading too much into this statement, please forgive me, but it just seems like you're teetering on the edge of a straw man argument there.

I can argue that you're not God because you fail to meet your own standards of God's attributes that you outlined in your very first post (i.e. omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, etc.). Now, if you were to start pullin' off some miracles like raising folks from the dead, then I'd have to take another look. :-)

It sounds ridiculous to me, and that is why I discount it's testimony.

"If, at first, an idea does not sound absurd, then there's no hope for it." -- Albert Einstein

It is NOT historically reliable (as I eluded to in my last post about getting the dates wrong about the census).

The message I'm getting here, Mike, is that if something sounds absurd to you then no amount of evidence or rational explanation is going to sway you. This is just being arbitrary. I've offered you reasonable explanations for the dating and mode of the census in question, yet I have not seen you acknowledge them. I don't know if you saw it, but I posted a follow up comment on an earlier post that offers a reasonable explanation for the "Joseph has two fathers" objection as well.

And I can write a whole post with examples on how it isn't internally consistent. If Jesus is the son of God, there needs to be proof other than the hearsay of people who couldn't explain the world without the use of superstition. Of course parts of the Bible are true. We have archaeological evidence to back up that there were cities, people, and even some events talked about in the books. But we have no evidence of the supernatural tales which were written. The inaccuracies alone in the Bible show that we need outside evidence to prove any sort of validity in the tales.

Now this is very interesting indeed. You say in this post that "The miracle must have actually happened, and be verifiable that it happened." You ask for evidence for an historical event, yet you reject out of hand any testimony from the people that saw them happen in the presence of other eyewitnesses based upon a presupposition that the witnesses were superstitious ignoramuses simply by virtue of epoch in which they lived--guilt by association. Does this not seem rather arrogant to you?

Special pleading is a tactic I could use in a court of law, but not in the field of science and logic. That's exactly my point when I say there's a difference between, "Courtroom proof" and "actual proof". I elaborated more on this in my recent response to Cory here.

So you really don't believe that eyewitness testimony is completely unreliable. Belief is not belief unless you're willing to live it out when even when it is inconvenient for you; otherwise what you have is pragmatism--whatever works at the time'll do. You are applying one standard for yourself and another for those who walked the roads and fields of Israel during the 1st century A.D.--eyewitness testimony is okay if it agrees with your position, but unreliable when it grates against your belief system.

6. "I wonder…when you last played "telephone," were you allowed to verify the message you received with the person who originated the message?" Even if I did, sometimes it still turns out wrong, especially if it's a game of telephone that has gone on for decades.

This is the mother of all false analogies. In the game of Telephone, the message has its origins in the mind of one person who tells one other person, all the way around the circle. However, this is absolutely not what happened with the accounts we read in the Bible--remember when I said that the Bible was written by eyewitnesses who lived during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses? Most events took place in full view of the public--only a handful were done in private. Thus, there's not even a passing resemblance to the game, and any attempt to draw such an analogy is patently absurd, if not just plain intellectually dishonest.

I can try and come up with a list of inaccuracies of the New Testament if you want, but that's for another time. I already gave a few examples, which I think is more than enough to make my point.

I look forward to addressing a list of alleged inaccuracies.

8. Joseph Smith was MURDERED for his claims... why does him having to be physically tortured make a statement any more valid? From my understanding, I'm not an LDS Historian, but Joseph Smith had a chance to get away, but when confronted about it, decided to go face the ensuing mob. That sounds like martyrdom to me. All he had to do was leave, or change his claims, and he did neither.

The context of this question was my statement that the disciples would not go from cowards to dying for their message if they knew it to be a lie. This says nothing about someone who sincerely believes what he believes he is telling the truth. Your assertion is that the biblical authors "fabricated/adjusted/stretched from the truth in order to fit the tales of him to the predetermined indicators of the messiah"--i.e. that they lied. If they lied, then they knew they were liars. If they knew they were liars, then they would not have gone from cowards to turning the Roman Empire upside down. Can you imagine the apostles getting together over some matzohs and wine and writing up these stories just so a "dead guy" would look like the messiah the nation had waited for for centuries and then being faced with stonings, beatings and crucifixion and not a one of them would recant? I don't know about you, but my imagination isn't that good.

BTW, Smith went to face the mob because he thought they were out to rescue him (wikipedia). But then again, this is all just heresy based upon unreliable eyewitness testimony, so it's probably all bunk anyway.

9. It sounds to me like having to come up with a band-aid answer to reason why it's not wrong.

I think Cory mentioned this in one of his earlier posts--you have set up an impossible criteria for believability, Mike. You cry "bullocks" because something sounds ridiculous without really trying to understand it. You ask for proof of historical events, but then reject a priori eyewitness testimony as recorded in the Bible…because it's in the Bible. Then you turn around and ask for corroborating accounts from outside of Scripture for every miracle recorded--but this would require more eyewitness testimony from superstitious folks who simply cannot tell fact from fiction. When a plausible explanation is given for reconciling the discrepancy, you call it a "Band-Aid answer" and dismiss it a priori as so much "poo-poo."

Physical, tangible, put-it-in-a-test-tube evidence is not how historical accounts of events are verified, Mike. If this is the kind of evidence you require for a transient event in history that left no physical trace of its passing--then to be consistent you're going to have to throw out a good portion of all of recorded history. Using this criteria for historical proof, I can't even "prove" to you that I had a smoothie for breakfast every day last week, so how is anyone supposed to be able to scale this infinitely high wall you've erected between yourself and the truth claims of the Bible?

Please forgive my terseness…I'm not irritated or angry (though I am a bit perplexed)--I'm just trying to keep the length of my replies under control so as not to scare away those in our audience with short attention spans. :-) I continue to appreciate your willingness to allow me to discuss these issues with you.

Until next time,

-dan

Evidence: In argument.

Thank you Dan for your very well thought out post. I'm glad to see you're out in full force!

Before I get into my retort, I want to address that we are starting to get into a game of "Who can do more research than who." Which I think is going to get us into a downward spiral of endless debate, and not at all my intent of this blog. That's exactly why I try to keep specific religions out of it. At some point, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

That being said, I'll try to address your arguments.

1. "I'm having a hard time with this, Mike. On one hand you concede that the 66 books of the Bible were penned by ~40 different authors over the course of ~1,500 years, yet your assertions belie your concession of these facts because they either presume collusion between the authors or some sort of conspiracy to edit all 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the NT into harmony with one another. The former is quite literally impossible given the time frame we're talking bout and the latter is rather preposterous in the light of the manuscript evidence against that argument. So really, it's actually quite arbitrary to discount the validity of 66 books just because they are bound under one cover." 


I'm not arguing anything about conspiracies or some formal setting where people over hundreds of years sat down to put a book together.  You are missing my whole point, which I'll try to make a little clearer.  Instead of saying, "The Bible is true because it says it is." maybe I should say you are making the argument, "Christianity is true because it says it is." or "Jesus is the son of God, because he says he is."  It's all referring to the same belief system.  You are arguing, "My belief is true, because what I believe in tells me it's true."  It's a circular argument.  If I tell you I am God, you can't logically argue that I am because I say I am regardless of how many people believed me.  I've explained this several times, and I'm not sure how else to tell you.


"If it claims to be true and it demonstrates itself to be historically reliable and internally consistent, what rational reason would we have to discount its testimony of itself? " We are talking about an invisible man in the sky, who we've never seen. He sent his son, who is also himself, to perform miracles, tell us how we can also go to the sky instead of burning underground.  This son not only raised the dead, but came back from the dead himself. This all happened 2000 years ago or more, in a time when people had no other reasoning to explain the unknown world then to attribute it to supernatural forces. I'm calling shenanigans.  It sounds ridiculous to me, and that is why I discount it's testimony.  It is NOT historically reliable (as I eluded to in my last post about getting the dates wrong about the census). And I can write a whole post with examples on how it isn't internally consistent. If Jesus is the son of God, there needs to be proof other than the hearsay of people who couldn't explain the world without the use of superstition.
Of course parts of the Bible are true.  We have archaeological evidence to back up that there were cities, people, and even some events talked about in the books.  But we have no evidence of the supernatural tales which were written. The inaccuracies alone in the Bible show that we need outside evidence to prove any sort of validity in the tales.


"Claiming invalidity of this kind of testimony is just plain invalid unless it can be demonstrated that the writers colluded with one another or that the documents have been altered over time to make the books cohere" Argument from Ignorance fallacy aside, No, I'm not claiming anything like that.  I am however claiming that the stories of Jesus were fabricated/adjusted/stretched from the truth in order to fit the tales of him to the predetermined indicators of the messiah.  I'm sure we'll get into an argument over this, but I think that argument is best left for another thread.


"If I'm reading you correctly, you don't seem to have a problem with the prophesies that were made so much as the record of their fulfillment. Would that be an accurate assessment? If so, perhaps it would be more productive if you could pick out a specific prophesy and demonstrate why it is a lie or otherwise invalid?" I'm not willing to concede that the prophecies' provide accurate wording for there to be indisputable proof of their fulfillment.


2. "Okay, fair enough. But what do you do when you have no newspaper articles from the time that talk about his speeches? Do you discount what we know about Julius Caesar because his Commentaries on the Gallic War is the only source we have? From what I understand, though I'm certainly not an expert on Socrates, all we know about him is what was written by Plato. Do we then have to throw out Plato's writings as unreliable and "without proof"? We don't have to discount anything, but we also don't have to consider it to be 100% accurate, and it's certainly NOT proof.  For all we know, Plato did make up Socrates.  He also made up Atlantis. I assume that Socrates is real, but if given good enough reason to doubt his authenticity, then I'm willing to doubt. In fact, you have me doubting now.... thanks.


"Please correct me if I'm misreading this, but it sounds like you are saying that if the witnesses were testifying in your favor, you would accept their testimony but if they were testifying against you, you would claim that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Assuming I'm reading you correctly, isn't this special pleading?" Yep. Special pleading is a tactic I could use in a court of law, but not in the field of science and logic. That's exactly my point when I say there's a difference between, "Courtroom proof" and "actual proof".  I elaborated more on this in my recent response to Cory here.


3. I'm not quite sure why you re-listed your arguments for the prophecies of the messiah. I know what you posted earlier, and why you believe they fulfill my requirements. That is what we are in the middle of debating.


4. "I think you have a false dichotomy here, Mike. You are presuming that those in the first century church recognized the canon based on a purely arbitrary basis. Why do you suppose none of the apocrypha enjoyed anything more than temporary or local recognition? Why did none of the apocryphal writings have anything more than a semi-canonical status? Why did no major canon or church council recognize them as canonical?"


We are getting WAAAY off topic here.  So this is the last I'm going to discuss this in this thread. The early Christian Church was a hodgepodge of ideas and beliefs that were very much a result of where they being taught, and who was teaching them.  When a system of formality was put into place, they picked things to be considered dogma based on what would show the Church in a light they deemed appropriate.  This doesn't mean what was left out was inaccurate, or that what was left in was accurate. On the occasion of the first Council of Nicaea, leading members of the church were FORCED to concede or be exiled. This is what happened to Arian (who's followers did not recognize the Council's results as canonical).


5. "Again, similarity means nothing especially in light of the differences between the works you cite and the account of Christ. But really this is just a red herring, Mike. That the ancient mystery religions and other pagan accounts bear some passing resemblance to the life and work of Christ is completely irrelevant. The question on the table is "Is the Bible trustworthy?" Let's stick to that question and not get distracted with the periphery." The statement I made was first started to show how invalid the story of Jesus (and therefore the New Testament) most likely is.  My statements are the proof I am showing to back up my claims. At the time when I first stated them, it was poignant to my argument, but I also agree it has become non-sequitur and we can address these issues at a later date.


6. "I wonder…when you last played "telephone," were you allowed to verify the message you received with the person who originated the message?" Even if I did, sometimes it still turns out wrong, especially if it's a game of telephone that has gone on for decades.


7. "About what story are you unsure? That the disciples were a bunch of cowards? Or that all but one were murdered for their testimony? Aristotle is credited as saying that "the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself." What about these accounts of the disciple's actions before and after Christ's resurrection do you find that discredits them?" I can try and come up with a list of inaccuracies of the New Testament if you want, but that's for another time.  I already gave a few examples, which I think is more than enough to make my point.


8. "Joseph Smith, Jr. was murdered by an angry mob while trying to defend himself from within the confines of a jail cell. I don't really think he had time to go about making statements before he passed. Secondly, Joseph Smith, Jr. was never (to the best of my knowledge) stoned, beaten or flogged for for his doctrine (2 Corinthians 11:16ff), and he never suffered physical torture, much less death, at the hands of someone seeking a retraction of his teachings. " Joseph Smith was MURDERED for his claims... why does him having to be physically tortured make a statement any more valid? From my understanding, I'm not an LDS Historian, but Joseph Smith had a chance to get away, but when confronted about it, decided to go face the ensuing mob. That sounds like martyrdom to me.  All he had to do was leave, or change his claims, and he did neither.  


"So I ask you, is your comparison of Joseph Smith, Jr. to the biblical writers fair?" I don't see why not. He is just as much a prophet to the Mormons as the Apostles are to all of Christianity.


Of course, this topic is also getting WAY off subject, and I'd rather leave it alone at this point.


9. "A discrepancy is not the same as an error, Mike. A discrepancy is simply a difference. Just because there is a difference reported by two people concerning the same event doesn't mean that they are not both telling the truth--it just means you have to do more than scratch the surface to discover the truth." It sounds to me like having to come up with a band-aid answer to reason why it's not wrong.  There may also be a DISCREPANCY to weather or not Jesus was actually the Son of God (which there is). The Bible, and more narrowly, the New Testament is full of them.


This is getting to be another non-sequitur argument, much like the "Jesus is based of old god stories" argument.


Well, these are getting to be amazingly long posts. I think we'll need to take it down a notch, lest we start running off would-be readers.


Thanks Dan!


-Mike

Evidence

Hi Mike,

Thank you for the quick turn-around. I'm sorry I couldn't reply in like time, but I generally like to "sit on" things for a couple of days to think over what my interlocutor says and evaluate not only his arguments but also my own position (this is partly why I don't get involved in many real-time discussions of this nature--I need time to mull things over a bit. :-) At any rate, I'm very appreciative of the time you're putting into this discussion and the respectful manner in which you frame your responses. I'm not sure whether to apologize for my long response--I try to be very thorough to minimize the volleying, and my concern is that if my responses are too terse then that will leave more room for misinterpretation (e.g. "Oh now he's getting snippy!") and then we have to go 'round and 'round to clarify points; so it seems to be somewhat safer to be a little on the verbose side. *shrug*

Again, I'll address your objections point by point.

1. I understand that the Bible was written over several centuries by many people. You still can't use it to justify itself. It doesn't matter if it was written by one person, or a hundred thousand people. You can't say the Bible is correct because it says it is. You MUST have outside evidence, of which, we just don't have.

I'm having a hard time with this, Mike. On one hand you concede that the 66 books of the Bible were penned by ~40 different authors over the course of ~1,500 years, yet your assertions belie your concession of these facts because they either presume collusion between the authors or some sort of conspiracy to edit all 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the NT into harmony with one another. The former is quite literally impossible given the time frame we're talking bout and the latter is rather preposterous in the light of the manuscript evidence against that argument. So really, it's actually quite arbitrary to discount the validity of 66 books just because they are bound under one cover.

Secondly, nowhere in my post did I say that the Bible is correct because it says it is (though I agree with the statement). But even if I had, the reverse argument can also be applied here: "The Bible is not false just because it says it is true." If it claims to be true and it demonstrates itself to be historically reliable and internally consistent, what rational reason would we have to discount its testimony of itself? But this is really something of a straw man anyway. What I am arguing is that specific prophesies were made in the Old Testament and their specific fulfillments are recorded by authors (often by multiple authors) who lived centuries later. Claiming invalidity of this kind of testimony is just plain invalid unless it can be demonstrated that the writers colluded with one another or that the documents have been altered over time to make the books cohere. Could it be that the reason you reject the Bible is because you have decided a priori that it is invalid?

If I'm reading you correctly, you don't seem to have a problem with the prophesies that were made so much as the record of their fulfillment. Would that be an accurate assessment? If so, perhaps it would be more productive if you could pick out a specific prophesy and demonstrate why it is a lie or otherwise invalid?

Yes, I actually believe this. I addressed this in my post to Cory, but I'll address it again. If I felt that there was a discrepancy about a certain event in Lincoln's life while reading his biography... yes, I would want outside evidence of his claims. If I didn't believe that he gave the Emancipation Proclamation, I would look for newspaper articles written in that time which talked about his speech. It's an outside source given at the time of the speech. It may actually be more accurate than Lincoln would claim himself 30 years after giving the speech.

Okay, fair enough. But what do you do when you have no newspaper articles from the time that talk about his speeches? Do you discount what we know about Julius Caesar because his Commentaries on the Gallic War is the only source we have? From what I understand, though I'm certainly not an expert on Socrates, all we know about him is what was written by Plato. Do we then have to throw out Plato's writings as unreliable and "without proof"?

In your courtroom example: of course I would take every possible measure to prove my innocence. But I would absolutely use that excuse if a dozen eyewitnesses were claiming I was guilty.

Please correct me if I'm misreading this, but it sounds like you are saying that if the witnesses were testifying in your favor, you would accept their testimony but if they were testifying against you, you would claim that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Assuming I'm reading you correctly, isn't this special pleading?

But in this example, like I said in my previous post: There is a difference between courtroom "Proof" and "actual proof". We are talking about what's true, not what people THINK is true. Something is either true or it isn't, and it doesn't matter how many people believe it, that doesn't make it true.

I'm not clear on the difference between "courtroom proof" and "actual proof." Could you elaborate on this, please?

In your post Atheist: What would I accept as proof ? PART 1: Prophesy, you listed nine criteria for determining whether a prophesy were acceptable as proof:

a. The prophesy must predict something that is going to happen in the future.

All the prophesies I cited did just this…

b. It must predict something extremely specific.

…and this.

c. It must predict something that if true must be beyond probability.

You would not commit to a specific answer on this, but I would think that a 1 in 10^17 chance of fulfilling 8 prophesies and a 1 in 10^157 of one man fulfilling 48 prophesies would qualify as "beyond probability."

d. We must have no other way of knowing beyond that of god's insight. The event must be something that cannot be predicted by natural means.

You have not cited this as a reason for rejecting the prophesies concerning Christ that I listed, so I can only assume that prophesies concerning Christ also meet this criteria.

e. It must predict something that we have no control over. I could predict that a certain person was going to win the lottery on a specific day. If that prediction came true, I would find it far more likely that there was tampering with the lottery than there was an actual god inspired event.

Ditto here. While it could be argued that Jesus could have manipulated some events to fulfill prophesies (e.g. riding into town on a donkey) there are even more that could not be within his power to manipulate (e.g. soldiers dividing lots for his clothing, that his legs would not be broken on the cross, the seed of Abraham, descendant of David, etc., etc., etc.).

f. The prophecy MUST come true and must be verifiable that it did.

This is where I suspect you are hanging your hat, so to speak. However, you have not demonstrated under cross-examination why the testimony of the Gospel writers and their respective accounts of Jesus fulfillment of the OT prophesies should be rejected or even called into question other than the purely circumstantial evidence of the accounts bearing surface similarity to ancient myths and legends.

g. When it comes true, the extreme specifics of the prophecy must be carried out accurately. It must be beyond a statistical coincidence that it came true.

This is also demonstrated in Scripture (e.g. hands and feet pierced, bones not broken, born in Bethlehem, etc.) and the peer-reviewed statistical analysis done by Peter Stoner.

h. It must be fulfilled legitimately. There must be no tampering with evidence, or influence toward making the prediction occur in any way. This is probably easier said than done, but it is a crucial part of being able to consider a prediction to be true.

I have not seen you make any specific claims of evidence that has been tampered with or illicit influence, so the prophesies I cited also seem to pass this criterion.

i. One measure of a prophet's communion with god is repeatability of prophesy. I would consider it to be proof if a prophet made multiple accurate predictions that are statistically impossible to predict, and who's results are impossible to fake or manipulate.

We haven't gone into an in-depth analysis of any individual prophet's track record, but again you have not objected to messianic prophesies based upon this criterion, so I'm assuming they pass this one as well.

So based upon your own criteria and a lack of substantial, specific argumentation against the fulfilled prophesies I cited, I see no rational reason to reject their validity.

3. There is clearly a difference between what story is to be considered true and what is to be considered myth, and what theory is backed by evidence and what theory isn't backed by evidence. You are making a false analogy. You are making a comparison where there just isn't one to be made. If the debate was about "What do we have EVIDENCE for, and what don't we have evidence for." And "whatever actually has evidence goes in, and the rest is left out." But that's not why things were left out. They were left out for the literary purposes you posited, which is not evidence based.

I think you have a false dichotomy here, Mike. You are presuming that those in the first century church recognized the canon based on a purely arbitrary basis. Why do you suppose none of the apocrypha enjoyed anything more than temporary or local recognition? Why did none of the apocryphal writings have anything more than a semi-canonical status? Why did no major canon or church council recognize them as canonical?

There were five basic criteria a work had to meet to be recognized as canonical:

1. Was the book written by a prophet of God?
2. Was the writer confirmed by acts of God?
3. Did the message tell the truth about God? God cannot contradict Himself (2 Cor. 1:17,18), nor can He utter what is false (Heb. 6:18). Hence, no book with false claims can be the Word of God. For reasons such as these, the church fathers maintained the policy "if in doubt, throw it out." This enhanced the validity of their discernment of the canonical books.
4. Does it come with the power of God?…The presence of God's transforming power was a strong indication that a given book had His stamp of approval.
5. Was it accepted by the people of God? [Canonicity is recognized, not declared.]

(McDowell, Evidence, pp. 21,22)
So yes, this is about evidence--textual evidence: authorship, internal consistency, consistency with other works that are recognized as canonical; and no, this is not a false analogy by any means.

4. But the difference between the similarities of the god stories and the scientific theories is that the god stories came hundreds of years before Christianity ever did. The people had plenty of time to have heard the stories of Dionysus, RA, Mythra, Krishna, and Horus. Have you ever heard of, "The passion of Osiris"? In making a comparison to Jesus' ability to hit the mark in terms of prophecy, there are just too many similarities for me to consider this to be a coincidence.

Again, similarity means nothing especially in light of the differences between the works you cite and the account of Christ. But really this is just a red herring, Mike. That the ancient mystery religions and other pagan accounts bear some passing resemblance to the life and work of Christ is completely irrelevant. The question on the table is "Is the Bible trustworthy?" Let's stick to that question and not get distracted with the periphery.

You are saying that the Bible was written by people who knew people that saw it? Sorry, but I've played the telephone game before, I know how that works out. By the way, let me tell you what happened to a friend of a friend of mine *insert urban legend here*.

I wonder…when you last played "telephone," were you allowed to verify the message you received with the person who originated the message?

c) ...Well.. for one, we don't know how true this story is.

About what story are you unsure? That the disciples were a bunch of cowards? Or that all but one were murdered for their testimony? Aristotle is credited as saying that "the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself." What about these accounts of the disciple's actions before and after Christ's resurrection do you find that discredits them?

And 2. I've heard from Cory that you're not LDS. Do you take that when Joseph Smith's [sic] didn't confess to making up the church on his deathbed as proof that the LDS Church is true? Just because someone doesn't confess to making it up doesn't mean they weren't wrong. As far as we know, they believed every word of what was preached and were still wrong.

Joseph Smith, Jr. was murdered by an angry mob while trying to defend himself from within the confines of a jail cell. I don't really think he had time to go about making statements before he passed. Secondly, Joseph Smith, Jr. was never (to the best of my knowledge) stoned, beaten or flogged for for his doctrine (2 Corinthians 11:16ff), and he never suffered physical torture, much less death, at the hands of someone seeking a retraction of his teachings.

So I ask you, is your comparison of Joseph Smith, Jr. to the biblical writers fair?

6. Here's an article about the Roman censuses of that time period. Luke is not only wrong about Joseph having to go to Bethlehem. He's also wrong about what time period the census was taken.

Archaeological discoveries show that the Romans had a regular enrollment of taxpayers and also held censuses every fourteen years. This procedure was indeed begun under Augustus and the first took place in either 23-22 BC or in 9-8 BC. The latter would be the one to which Luke refers. (McDowell, Evidence, p. 63)

Secondly, we find evidence that Quirinius was governor of Syria around 7 BC. This assumption is based on an inscription found in Antioch ascribing to Quirinius this post. As a result of this finding, it is now supposed that he was governor twice--once in 7 BC and the other time in 6 AD (the date ascribed by Josephus) (Ibid)

Thirdly, having to go back to one's birthplace to register was not altogether unheard of during this time period, as evidenced by a papyrus found in the early 20th century bearing a decree made by Gaius Vibius Maximus, prefect of Egypt during the first century A.D., which said in part:

Since the enrollment by households is approaching, it is necessary to command all who for any reason are out of their own district to return to their own home, in order to perform the usual business of the taxation… (Cobern, C.M. 1929. The New Archeological Discoveries and their Bearing upon the New Testament. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, p. 47; Unger, M.F. 1962. Archaeology and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 64).

McDowell also quotes Dr. Norman Geisler as saying "Was Luke confused? No; in fact he mentions Quirinius later census in Acts 5:37. It is most likely that Luke is distinguishing this census in Herod's time from the more well-known census of Quirinius: "This census took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria." There are several New Testament parallels for this translation." (Ibid, p. 64)

Skeptical 19th century German archaeologist Sir William Ramsay, setting out to make a topographical study of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), was compelled to consider the writings of Luke. As a result he had to admit a complete reversal in his beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence uncovered in his research. Speaking of this reversal, he said "I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without prejudice in favor of the conclusion which I shall now seek to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavorable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tubingen theory had at once time quite convinced me. It did not then lie in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative shoed marvelous truth. In fact, beginning with a fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations." (McDowell, New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, sidebar on p. 62).

Ramsay is also quoted as saying "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy…this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians…Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness." (McDowell, Evidence, p. 61)

At the risk of exploding this post into a full-blown novel, I'll cut this point short by simply pointing out that in light of the tremendous amount of painstaking detail that Luke documented both in his gospel and in the book of Acts, and that Luke is widely regarded, even by some secular scholars, as a first-rate historian, I really don't see any solid evidence to discount his testimony.


7. You are admitting that there's a discrepancy, which is all the point I was trying to make. Obviously you understand that there is room for error in the Bible. And since we can't know how many errors they are, we can't assume anything is absolutely true. There is obviously an explanation for the error, which you linked to, but it is obvious proof that the Bible isn't 100% accurate.

A discrepancy is not the same as an error, Mike. A discrepancy is simply a difference. Just because there is a difference reported by two people concerning the same event doesn't mean that they are not both telling the truth--it just means you have to do more than scratch the surface to discover the truth. To use a modern day example, consider the following statements:

1. "Shaq's father is Joseph Toney."
2. "Shaq's father is Phillip Harrison."

There is definitely a discrepancy here, but is there an error (i.e. a contradiction)? For these two statements to violate the law of noncontradiction, they have to both be true at the same time and in the same sense. But they're not because statement 1 talks about his biological father whereas #2 talks about his legal father (since his biological father relinquished parental rights)--the man that Shaq calls "my father."

Wow..another novel…time to send this one to the publisher. :-)

-dan

No True Scotsman would believe in miracles.

Cory,

1. Are you talking about the, "No True Scotsman.." fallacy?  I must confess, I've not heard of the "Scotsman Fallacy" besides that one. 

But I think I'm following your argument in that I've made the definition of "miracle" to be too complex to happen.
I tried to admit to this in my original post when I said that it should really be entitled, "Why I don't believe in miracles."

I full on agree that if miracles happen, it's possible that they will be rooted in natural causes.  But my argument is, and I haven't changed this: If we are going to use miracles as PROOF of god's existence, then they must be supernatural.  I'm not trying to say this in order to say there are never miracles. My reasoning behind this statement is because if there's a natural cause for a "miracle" then that's all the more explanation there needs to be. 

For example: If someone survives a horrible car accident, it may be because god made sure the seat belts worked.  But if they survived the car accident, it may just be because they were wearing a seat belt. Surviving the car accident is evidence that the seat belt worked, but not evidence that god exists, even if god had everything to do with it.

My point isn't to say there are no miracles, but to set up a standard for how miracles could actually prove the existence of god.  If you can come up with a way for a miracle to have naturalistic origins, and yet still be proof of god's existence, I would love to discuss that with you.  The problem I am finding is that in order for it to be proof, we have to find a situation where god is the only explanation.  In order to rule something as being divine in nature, we have to rule out all other possibilities.  This is the heart of scientific testing.
Call it lack of creativity on my part, but I can't think of any other way in which a "miracle" can be proof of god's existence without there being an unnatural event. Otherwise, we haven't taken out all of the other possibilities it could be.

2. You said, "That said, it wouldn't matter if a million people said you had no cake in the box; if 2 people saw you do it and could testify that there was cake in the box, all the people in the world couldn't make such a thing untrue by not believing it. There is simply cake in the box and someone besides you said there is. Now whether or not people want to believe your eyewitnesses is a different story, and clearly this is where we are reaching our impasse." The problem I have with this statement is, if you tell me there's cake in the box, and I don't believe you, all you have to do is open the box and show me the cake.  I don't have to take it on blind faith or human testimony that there's cake in the box.  You can give me real evidence to prove that the cake exists.

As far as credibility is concerned: It doesn't matter if someone is a cop, a lawyer, a criminal, a priest, someone of fantastic moral values, etc. People see the world based on their perceptions.  If someone "sees" what they perceive to be a ghost then that's what they will tell you they saw. They can be telling what they consider to be the truth, even if in reality, all they saw was an odd shadow. Not only that, but it's a well known documented phenomena that people's perceptions and memories can be altered through intentional and unintentional suggestion. This is true for individuals as well as with groups.  In many cases, the power of what a group says will significantly alter what someone's perceptions are. Here and here are two fantastic video examples of this.  There is nothing magic going on in either video, it just happens to be people who are being taken advantage of under mass suggestion.  Benny Hinn may be able to knock people over, but he'll never be able to grow someone's arm back by smacking them with his jacket.


So no, I don't accept human testimony as evidence of god, and it doesn't matter if they are of fantastic moral value or not, or if there are hundreds of people testifying or not. Human perception is just far too unreliable. Like I said before, there is a difference between courtroom truth and actual truth.


3. I'm looking forward to your arguments.  I agree that if you can prove that Christ is who Christians say he is, then that's pretty fantastic evidence for God.  Unfortunately, I think you'll find with me, that's easier said than done.


I wasn't deliberately holding out on you about my knowledge of the Bible.  My journey to atheism has come with a lot of investigation. I don't take my dis-beliefs lightly.


-Mike