Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[SteveII]

I think part of the problem with the evidence, is... If I'm correct he thinks the documents of the NT confirm each other as they sorta count as multiple authors therefor multiple witnesses, however there's more than a few problems with this. Also he takes claims of "500" people seeing something happen (which was written by one guy) as evidence that 500 people actually saw it. (this was in fact in one of his premise) and to be fair I'm pretty sure he doesn't care if it's weak evidence, that anything at all exists to make the claim he seems to equate it to evidence. Now this is my impression based on what he has said. I could be wrong however, but if you read back you'll see everything I'm talking about in his posts, regardless if I'm interpreting it the way he meant it, what led me to this is there.

I do care about the strength or weakness of evidence. Just on a macro sense of whether I have justified belief, I don't want to argue about one point and then another. So what about the 500 eyewitnesses. This is the passage from Paul that it comes from:

1 Corinthians 15:1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephasa and then to the Twelve. 6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.

Paul is restating (from v1) a series of core beliefs (v3 "first importance"). ..."6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." Four points:

1. Paul meets the standards of historic methodology of credibility: he was in a position to know.
2. This is not a claim to a new fact that the recipients did not know.
3. This is not a claim to a fact that could not be verified when it was made.
4. While there is no place else with that exact number, Luke relates that Jesus spent 40 days appearing to the apostles (Acts 1). He makes no attempt to relate all the appearances.

It seems you have three choices: Paul is lying, Paul is mistaken, or Paul is relating a fact that he has reasons to believe are true. Which is more likely and why?

[I'm going to reply in piecemeal - I'll address more later]

[SteveII]

You actually contradicted yourself within one paragraph. You start with "Personal experience is NOT evidence" and then go on to explain why its not good evidence. But even that is wrong. Testimony is a statement of what you experienced. We rely on testimony in EVERY facet of our world EVERY day in serious matters:

Criminal Court
Civil Court
Family Court
All levels of government meetings
All levels of business meetings
News reporting
Etc...

So, it would seem you are engaging in special pleading--testimony is not evidence only when religion is the subject.

Criminal,  civil courts, family courts, toss out personal experiences that are NOT verified by several other sources or lack physical evidence to back up the claim. All lawyers are aware of this.  News reporters are legally required to  use the word "alleged" when  referring to a serious  crime that took place,  that is until the person in question is convicted in a court of law.  After that they don't use the word "alleged".  If the report is about a cat stuck up in a tree,  Girl Scout cookies or some other fluffy topic, nobody cares.

Government meetings heavily revolve around documents and laws, not personal experience.  Business meetings  revolve around documented money.....how much money is gong out, how much is returning, what's the profit margin, not personal experience.

No courts don't "toss out personal experiences" but it doesn't matter because you proved your own argument wrong. It would seem from your statement that if more people report the same experience, then we are good to go. Seems my premises are on solid ground!

[unfogged]

I do care about the strength or weakness of evidence. Just on a macro sense of whether I have justified belief, I don't want to argue about one point and then another.

Your overall belief is based on the individual beliefs. If you come to see that the criteria you are using to accept the pieces is flawed then you may see that your overall belief is not actually based on good evidence.

 So what about the 500 eyewitnesses. This is the passage from Paul that it comes from:

1 Corinthians 15:1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephasa and then to the Twelve. 6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.

Paul is restating (from v1) a series of core beliefs (v3 "first importance"). ..."6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." Four points:

1. Paul meets the standards of historic methodology of credibility: he was in a position to know.

He was also in a position to lie or exaggerate as he was trying to convince people of his beliefs. That is why corroborating testimony, especially from a disinterested third party, would be useful. Paul also doesn't really tell us how he knows these things except "according to the scriptures" which can be read at least 2 ways: a side comment that these things were foretold or an admission that he believes they happened because they were in the scriptures.

2. This is not a claim to a new fact that the recipients did not know.

It doesn't say that they knew this independently. It says that Paul is reiterating what he already taught them.

3. This is not a claim to a fact that could not be verified when it was made.

Possibly, but in the end that is irrelevant. We have no information that anybody tried to check it let along whether they succeeded or failed. We can only base decisions on the information we have not information that we wish we had.

4. While there is no place else with that exact number, Luke relates that Jesus spent 40 days appearing to the apostles (Acts 1). He makes no attempt to relate all the appearances.

The implication in Paul is that he appeared to 500 at once although it is not completely clear on that. The room for interpretation is another part of the problem since we can't cross-examine Paul for specifics. Luke says he hung around 40 days, other gospels have him gone sooner, again with lots of wiggle room for interpretation. Unless you already believe and are willing to be generous in how you read it the stories have a lot of holes in them.

It seems you have three choices: Paul is lying, Paul is mistaken, or Paul is relating a fact that he has reasons to believe are true. Which is more likely and why?

We know people lie and we know people make mistakes and we know people exaggerate and we know people honestly believe things that are wrong. What we do not know is that anybody can rise from the dead. Without a great deal of specific corroborating evidence, any of the mundane explanations have to be given far greater weight than that Paul was conveying accurate information. We don't even have to get into whether or not Paul actually even said that or it was edited later because even dating it early and attributing it to Paul it doesn't help the case.

Even if we grant that Paul is relating what he honestly believes we have no good reason to accept Paul's word. You can talk right now to followers of Jones and Moon and Applewhite and they will relate the miracles they saw. Belief, even shared belief, is not enough to accept extraordinary claims.

[SteveII]

The very definition of God (as supernatural) makes it clear that this is not a scientific statement.

Exactly.  Your supernatural god is as unprovable and as untestable as  a Magical Invisible Cupcake that orbits the universe. There is the same probability that the Cupcake exists as your god,  so you may as well worship the Cupcake or any of the 4000 deities that people believe in.  They all have the same probibility of existing.  You've been making statements, one after another, that your god is a real entity and you have proof of this deity but  there is no  possible way you can provide any evidence that this invisible being exists. The bible certainly isn't evidence because people 2000 years ago believed in the same non-falsifiable, invisible deity that you do today.

I'm glad you agree with the definition of God being supernatural. After that your reasoning goes off the rails.

'Unprovable' and 'untestable' does not mean the same probability of a Magic Invisible Cupcake. Probability is assessed after considering reasons given for a proposition being true. I have listed a dozen reasons that can't be proven wrong, so the probability is not zero. What are your dozen reasons that your cupcake exists? See, you were wrong. The probabilities are not the same.

You are very mistaken when you say I claimed proof of God. The "Bible" isn't evidence because people believed in God?? That just seems like big-time question begging (aka circular reasoning). You'll have to lay out that argument a little better.

[SteveII]

Direct personal experience is evidence only that a nervous system had a sequence of electrical signals pass thru.  That's all.  To answer why that particular nervous system had that particular sequence of electrical signals pass thru at that time requires further corroborating evidence and a broad bank of knowledge the nervous system itself most likely doesn't have.

You have a stomach ache.  That's direct personal experience.  By itself it signifies only that pain signals from a region of the body are in process.  To go beyond that to a determination of whether it's indigestion or appendicitis or the edge of a piece of furniture poking you requires additional evidence and a competent synthesis of corroborating evidence and knowledge.

Here's a length of 2x4 lumber.  You've got it in your hands.  How long is it to the nearest 16th of an inch?  You can't say until you obtain additional evidence from using a tape measure.  Your immediate direct personal experience holding the 2x4 in your hands is inadequate by itself to make any claims about its length accurate to within a 16th of an inch.  Unless you're educated in the various species of wood your direct personal experience is also inadequate to identify whether the 2x4 is Douglas Fir, Pine, Redwood, Oak, Beech or polyester.

Was it sawn and planed to size, or sanded to size?  Is it old growth or farm grown?  How many pounds of compressive force can it withstand before crushing?  There are an infinite number of questions that 2x4 raises about itself that mere direct personal experience with it cannot begin to answer.

Because we're able to form an opinion about something gives us the illusion our opinion has merit.  That's our most difficult illusion to overcome:  that being able to imagine an answer gives that imagined answer any veracity.

Most of our 'opinions' derived from our senses have merit--that's what get's us through the day.

Are saying my experience of the supernatural need more evidence...to be what? Considered as evidence? A stomach ache is evidence that your stomach hurts and since that's not a normal state for most of us, we justifiably infer there is something wrong.

Be careful of a category error. With the stomach and the 2x4, we are talking about physical objects that have physical attributes and cause/effect relationships with a host of physical things. When you are talking about experiencing God, you have a unique supernatural relationship that is not physical, has no physical attributes and has a no cause/effect relationship to a host of physical things.

[airportkid]

... experiencing God ... has a no cause/effect relationship to a host of physical things ...

If that were true there'd be no reason to pray.  That's rather a limiting attribute of your god.

"Host of physical things" implies there's another host of physical things not included in that first host - what are some of those?  And what's in the first host anyway?  Where are these two hosts of physical existence delineated as to what each contains?

Claiming an entity has no cause/effect relationship to a group of physical things is assigning a specific attribute to that entity.  What competent corroborating evidence takes you there?

What bank of knowledge do you possess that supports your assertion that your god is this severely constrained?

[Sunflower]

Are they one in the same, the same thing.
I believe they are the same thing.
any dissenters?
please explain

Historical Jesus seems to have been a story from Semitic Mystics originating somewhere in the AD 50 - AD 60 timeframe.  As an offshoot of Judaism, it gained a following in what is modern day Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Israel, much to the chagrin of the Hebrews, as well as the local and Roman governments of the region.  Outside of the Bible, very little is written about the life of Jesus, though he is reference by the Roman Historian Tacitus, but only in relation of the fledgling Christian religion.

[JesseB]

My argument has a list of evidence and reasons why I believe God exists.

Once again, you're just confirming what you already believe. You have it ass-backwards. That's not how you prove something is true.    The gold standard in science is "falsifiability".  Scientists make every effort to prove a hypothesis  is false, not true.  It's only after  rigorous testing  and deliberate attempts to falsify a hypothesis, to knock it down, often for decades or hundreds of years, wiil it be accepted as a theory.   The deliberate attempt to prove something is false is called "falsifibility".  (Go learn what this is.)

So how do you test your god hypothesis to falsify it.  First you need to define it so it's testable. How do you go about that? Give it a try and we'll see what you come up with. 

Falsification is the test to determine whether something is scientific. Statements and theories that are not falsifiable are simply not scientific statements. The very definition of God (as supernatural) makes it clear that this is not a scientific statement.

 

Are you really going to go with personal experience is not evidence?

YUP! Personal experience is NOT evidence.  Far from it!  Thousands of people claim they were taken aboard alien spacecrafts and given medical exams then returned home.  They swear it happened.  Do you believe them?  Personal experience is the least reliable of any evidence.  Hindus claim they've seen Vishnu.  Buddhists claim they've had conversations with Buddha.   I have a Native American sister-in-law who experienced  the "Spirit God of the Trees" talking  to her.  Personal experience is about the worst kind of evidence you can bring to the table.

I don't know how you're not throwing up with all the circular reasoning  spinning you around. Geesh! 

(Oh, where is EvolutionKills when you need him.  He was so much better at this than I am)

You actually contradicted yourself within one paragraph. You start with "Personal experience is NOT evidence" and then go on to explain why its not good evidence. But even that is wrong. Testimony is a statement of what you experienced. We rely on testimony in EVERY facet of our world EVERY day in serious matters:

Criminal Court
Civil Court
Family Court
All levels of government meetings
All levels of business meetings
News reporting
Etc...

So, it would seem you are engaging in special pleading--testimony is not evidence only when religion is the subject.

Actually, the answer to your question is that the problem is what you think is personal evidence doesn't actually qualify as personal evidence beceause none of it is personal. Me saying 500 people saw this does not mean 500 people saw that. In order for 500 accounts of personal evidence to apply you would have to have 500 eyewiness accounts. Not one account (which wasn't eyewitness to begin with, but whatever) claiming 500 people saw said event.

[JesseB]

You actually contradicted yourself within one paragraph. You start with "Personal experience is NOT evidence" and then go on to explain why its not good evidence. But even that is wrong. Testimony is a statement of what you experienced. We rely on testimony in EVERY facet of our world EVERY day in serious matters:

Criminal Court
Civil Court
Family Court
All levels of government meetings
All levels of business meetings
News reporting
Etc...

So, it would seem you are engaging in special pleading--testimony is not evidence only when religion is the subject.

Criminal,  civil courts, family courts, toss out personal experiences that are NOT verified by several other sources or lack physical evidence to back up the claim. All lawyers are aware of this.  News reporters are legally required to  use the word "alleged" when  referring to a serious  crime that took place,  that is until the person in question is convicted in a court of law.  After that they don't use the word "alleged".  If the report is about a cat stuck up in a tree,  Girl Scout cookies or some other fluffy topic, nobody cares.

Government meetings heavily revolve around documents and laws, not personal experience.  Business meetings  revolve around documented money.....how much money is gong out, how much is returning, what's the profit margin, not personal experience.

No courts don't "toss out personal experiences" but it doesn't matter because you proved your own argument wrong. It would seem from your statement that if more people report the same experience, then we are good to go. Seems my premises are on solid ground!

More people didn't report your experience, your now basically creating a scenario where in a court I say well 500 people saw the event and they all know I'm innocent. WELL IF 500 PEOPLE SAW IT AND KNOW YOU"RE INNOCENT IT MUST BE TRUE. 

Wait  a second...... can we um.... talk.... to these eyewitnesses? Or are you just going to claim it?

[JesseB]

I think part of the problem with the evidence, is... If I'm correct he thinks the documents of the NT confirm each other as they sorta count as multiple authors therefor multiple witnesses, however there's more than a few problems with this. Also he takes claims of "500" people seeing something happen (which was written by one guy) as evidence that 500 people actually saw it. (this was in fact in one of his premise) and to be fair I'm pretty sure he doesn't care if it's weak evidence, that anything at all exists to make the claim he seems to equate it to evidence. Now this is my impression based on what he has said. I could be wrong however, but if you read back you'll see everything I'm talking about in his posts, regardless if I'm interpreting it the way he meant it, what led me to this is there.

I do care about the strength or weakness of evidence. Just on a macro sense of whether I have justified belief, I don't want to argue about one point and then another.  So what about the 500 eyewitnesses. This is the passage from Paul that it comes from:

1 Corinthians 15:1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephasa and then to the Twelve. 6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.

Paul is restating (from v1) a series of core beliefs (v3 "first importance"). ..."6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." Four points:

1. Paul meets the standards of historic methodology of credibility: he was in a position to know.
2. This is not a claim to a new fact that the recipients did not know.
3. This is not a claim to a fact that could not be verified when it was made.
4. While there is no place else with that exact number, Luke relates that Jesus spent 40 days appearing to the apostles (Acts 1). He makes no attempt to relate all the appearances.

It seems you have three choices: Paul is lying, Paul is mistaken, or Paul is relating a fact that he has reasons to believe are true. Which is more likely and why?

[I'm going to reply in piecemeal - I'll address more later]

Wait isn't Paul the guy who openly said he never even met Jesus? Like in Acts and I think in one other place and that he received his knowledge of Jesus from divine revelation.....

That Paul?

Also it's good that you care about the strength of your evidence. Because it's important to the acceptance of your premise. And thus your argument (the one you presented earlier)

[SteveII]

Falsification is the test to determine whether something is scientific. Statements and theories that are not falsifiable are simply not scientific statements. The very definition of God (as supernatural) makes it clear that this is not a scientific statement.

And, as has been said and contrary to your claims, whether or not something actually exists is a scientific question.  To claim that something exists when you can give no evidence for that specific thing is not rational.  

That's simply not true. The definition of science is

sci·ence
/ˈsīəns/Submit
noun
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

I highlighted the relevant words.

The supernatural is excluded by definition.

You actually contradicted yourself within one paragraph. You start with "Personal experience is NOT evidence" and then go on to explain why its not good evidence. But even that is wrong. Testimony is a statement of what you experienced. We rely on testimony in EVERY facet of our world EVERY day in serious matters:

We accept testimony for mundane claims because we have reason to believe those things are possible and we have experience evaluating the probability of those claims and ways to falsify them and even then it is still one of the lowest forms of evidence.  Claiming you have a dog is not in the same category as claiming that you are in communication with a supernatural entity.  

Do you accept claims of alien abductions or seeing ghosts or NDEs or Out-of-body experiences?  Do you think Catholics are visited by Mary or Muslims by Mohammed?  If so, you are more gullible than I thought.  If not, why are they different?  If you think they experienced something but misinterpreted it then that is special pleading because they can say the same about your beliefs and neither of you can support your position to a neutral third party.

My guess is that you do not actually believe every bit of testimony you hear regardless of the sincerity behind it unless it conforms to your preconceptions and that's where your whole argument falls apart.  Your evidence is not specific to your beliefs the way you think it is.

Testimony about extraordinary events may be enough to spark investigation.  It can never be enough to believe that the explanation being offered is correct.

I certainly don't believe everything I hear people claim. I'm not sure how many people claim to see Mary or Mohammad so I think that might be a bit of a red herring. But, nevertheless, are those examples analogous to what Christian's claim (required for a special pleading charge). Christians claim a life-changing presence of God that stays with them, promotes real change in their hearts and minds, and is described as a relationship--ALL promised and described at length in the NT. They don't actually see anyone. Mary, Mohammad, aliens, and NDE are all different than that in significant ways. So, no special pleading when I dismiss them. No falling apart argument.

Regarding your last statement, is that because of the nature of testimony or the extraordinary part?

[SteveII]

Criminal,  civil courts, family courts, toss out personal experiences that are NOT verified by several other sources or lack physical evidence to back up the claim. All lawyers are aware of this.  News reporters are legally required to  use the word "alleged" when  referring to a serious  crime that took place,  that is until the person in question is convicted in a court of law.  After that they don't use the word "alleged".  If the report is about a cat stuck up in a tree,  Girl Scout cookies or some other fluffy topic, nobody cares.

Government meetings heavily revolve around documents and laws, not personal experience.  Business meetings  revolve around documented money.....how much money is gong out, how much is returning, what's the profit margin, not personal experience.

No courts don't "toss out personal experiences" but it doesn't matter because you proved your own argument wrong. It would seem from your statement that if more people report the same experience, then we are good to go. Seems my premises are on solid ground!

More people didn't report your experience, your now basically creating a scenario where in a court I say well 500 people saw the event and they all know I'm innocent. WELL IF 500 PEOPLE SAW IT AND KNOW YOU"RE INNOCENT IT MUST BE TRUE. 

Wait  a second...... can we um.... talk.... to these eyewitnesses? Or are you just going to claim it?

What are you talking about? There is two different conversations going on. One about the 500 witnesses in 1 Cor and the other is about whether personal experience is evidence. No one tried to merge them into one.

[SteveII]

I think part of the problem with the evidence, is... If I'm correct he thinks the documents of the NT confirm each other as they sorta count as multiple authors therefor multiple witnesses, however there's more than a few problems with this. Also he takes claims of "500" people seeing something happen (which was written by one guy) as evidence that 500 people actually saw it. (this was in fact in one of his premise) and to be fair I'm pretty sure he doesn't care if it's weak evidence, that anything at all exists to make the claim he seems to equate it to evidence. Now this is my impression based on what he has said. I could be wrong however, but if you read back you'll see everything I'm talking about in his posts, regardless if I'm interpreting it the way he meant it, what led me to this is there.

I do care about the strength or weakness of evidence. Just on a macro sense of whether I have justified belief, I don't want to argue about one point and then another.  So what about the 500 eyewitnesses. This is the passage from Paul that it comes from:

1 Corinthians 15:1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephasa and then to the Twelve. 6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.

Paul is restating (from v1) a series of core beliefs (v3 "first importance"). ..."6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." Four points:

1. Paul meets the standards of historic methodology of credibility: he was in a position to know.
2. This is not a claim to a new fact that the recipients did not know.
3. This is not a claim to a fact that could not be verified when it was made.
4. While there is no place else with that exact number, Luke relates that Jesus spent 40 days appearing to the apostles (Acts 1). He makes no attempt to relate all the appearances.

It seems you have three choices: Paul is lying, Paul is mistaken, or Paul is relating a fact that he has reasons to believe are true. Which is more likely and why?

[I'm going to reply in piecemeal - I'll address more later]

Wait isn't Paul the guy who openly said he never even met Jesus? Like in Acts and I think in one other place and that he received his knowledge of Jesus from divine revelation.....

That Paul?

Also it's good that you care about the strength of your evidence. Because it's important to the acceptance of your premise. And thus your argument (the one you presented earlier)

Right there in verse 8. Paul said Jesus appeared to him. We know that was on the road to Damascus from other places. You will have to give me a verse about Paul getting everything from divine revelation.

[JesseB]

I do care about the strength or weakness of evidence. Just on a macro sense of whether I have justified belief, I don't want to argue about one point and then another.  So what about the 500 eyewitnesses. This is the passage from Paul that it comes from:


Paul is restating (from v1) a series of core beliefs (v3 "first importance"). ..."6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." Four points:

1. Paul meets the standards of historic methodology of credibility: he was in a position to know.
2. This is not a claim to a new fact that the recipients did not know.
3. This is not a claim to a fact that could not be verified when it was made.
4. While there is no place else with that exact number, Luke relates that Jesus spent 40 days appearing to the apostles (Acts 1). He makes no attempt to relate all the appearances.

It seems you have three choices: Paul is lying, Paul is mistaken, or Paul is relating a fact that he has reasons to believe are true. Which is more likely and why?

[I'm going to reply in piecemeal - I'll address more later]

Wait isn't Paul the guy who openly said he never even met Jesus? Like in Acts and I think in one other place and that he received his knowledge of Jesus from divine revelation.....

That Paul?

Also it's good that you care about the strength of your evidence. Because it's important to the acceptance of your premise. And thus your argument (the one you presented earlier)

Right there in verse 8. Paul said Jesus appeared to him. We know that was on the road to Damascus from other places. You will have to give me a verse about Paul getting everything from divine revelation.

That'll take a bit to dig through, Have patience. And I could be wrong about that.

[JesseB]

No courts don't "toss out personal experiences" but it doesn't matter because you proved your own argument wrong. It would seem from your statement that if more people report the same experience, then we are good to go. Seems my premises are on solid ground!

More people didn't report your experience, your now basically creating a scenario where in a court I say well 500 people saw the event and they all know I'm innocent. WELL IF 500 PEOPLE SAW IT AND KNOW YOU"RE INNOCENT IT MUST BE TRUE. 

Wait  a second...... can we um.... talk.... to these eyewitnesses? Or are you just going to claim it?

What are you talking about? There is two different conversations going on. One about the 500 witnesses in 1 Cor and the other is about whether personal experience is evidence. No one tried to merge them into one.

And it doesn't matter where the claim of 500 witnesses are, without 500 accounts it's hearsay. That's the point.

[JesseB]

No courts don't "toss out personal experiences" but it doesn't matter because you proved your own argument wrong. It would seem from your statement that if more people report the same experience, then we are good to go. Seems my premises are on solid ground!

More people didn't report your experience, your now basically creating a scenario where in a court I say well 500 people saw the event and they all know I'm innocent. WELL IF 500 PEOPLE SAW IT AND KNOW YOU"RE INNOCENT IT MUST BE TRUE. 

Wait  a second...... can we um.... talk.... to these eyewitnesses? Or are you just going to claim it?

What are you talking about? There is two different conversations going on. One about the 500 witnesses in 1 Cor and the other is about whether personal experience is evidence. No one tried to merge them into one.

The problem is it isn't personal experience, since you love to quote wiki

"The conversion of Paul the Apostle, was, according to the New Testament, an event in the life of Paul the Apostle that led him to cease persecuting early Christians and to become a follower of Jesus. It is normally dated to AD 33–36".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion...he_Apostle

1 Corinthians 15:1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. 
-He received on the road to Damascus after the death of Jesus. Depending on the version this reads differently and if I recall in the original text he used a word for received that deals with divine revelation I'll have to do some digging but I just noticed this reads wrong to how I'm used to seeing it which made me remember that little tidbit, by his own admission if I recall correctly he claims he got it from divine revelation which he preached to them, seems like a christian didn't like that fact and revised the bible.... Again.....

"Paul is restating (from v1) a series of core beliefs (v3 "first importance"). ..."6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." Four points:



1. Paul meets the standards of historic methodology of credibility: he was in a position to know. 

2. This is not a claim to a new fact that the recipients did not know. 

3. This is not a claim to a fact that could not be verified when it was made. 

4. While there is no place else with that exact number, Luke relates that Jesus spent 40 days appearing to the apostles (Acts 1). He makes no attempt to relate all the appearances. 



It seems you have three choices: Paul is lying, Paul is mistaken, or Paul is relating a fact that he has reasons to believe are true. Which is more likely and why?


[I'm going to reply in piecemeal - I'll address more later]" To quote you (and I prefer piecemeal as it's easier to handle, in fact this is the appropriate way to go through this mass clump of claims)

So no Paul was not in a position to know a damn thing, he was not eyewitness to the events. His account is entirely based on hearsay, or possibly drug induced or schizophrenia induced visions. He didn't even convert until  after Jesus supposedly died.

As for the 500 bit, I thought you claimed Paul said it, I may have gotten a bit confused in the mess of claims however. Doesn't matter if paul said it however the 500 "eye witnesses" are a claim unless you can dig up 500 accounts from actual fucking eye witnesses. Thus you can not claim it is an eyewitness account or personal experience. 


Edited and bolded what I said for readability.

P2 in your claim is also false, it could not be verified as all if it was written after the fact. Supposedly Jesus was already dead. Funny enough the Romans kept good records about who they killed and had no record of the event, thus it couldn't even be verified then that Jesus died let alone lived. There were a number of street preachers who did get killed sharing the name Yeshuwa but you don't want any of them to be your Jesus, what they preached you would consider blasphemy so.... Bit of a problem there dude.

OK LAST EDIT I SWEAR: Also it's important to remember that the NT has a whole lot of factual errors and contradictions from historical figures out of place, to Jesus supposedly being in multiple places at the same time. Including accounts of his birth which supposedly took place with his non magical parents in two places at the same time.

Also one last point, every single one of the gospels are plagiarized off the first one, and none of them were written when the people alive during the supposed events could have reasonably still been alive. So at best you have haresay of actual events recorded in the bible at worse you have one made up account and a dozen or so plagiarized copies of the account dressed up to look pretty and renamed under different apostles for events that never happened.

[Paleophyte]

Your statement about the Bible is far to broad to address. Which of the 66 books written over a 1000 years by 40 different authors are you referring to?

Exactly.

As a general note that applies to several posts, thanks to methods of textual criticism, our versions of the NT are more accurate TODAY than they have been in 1500 years. We know all the textual variations.  There is little to no disagreement among scholars who are textual critics that we have pretty good knowledge of what was originally written--at least there are no actual reasons to think we don't have pretty much what the authors intended. I am unaware of any textual variants that cause even a minor doctrinal problem.

(1) Which Bible?

(2) How would you know what authors dead several milennia actually intended?

(3) Of course they don't cause doctrinal problems by simple virtue of the fact that the church interprets all such doctrinal problems out of existence. The fact that God's Holy Word needs mortal interpreters should set off alarms. Factual problems is a whole other matter. Try reconciling Jesus' two differing lineages without resorting to the absurd.

[Dancefortwo]

Unprovable' and 'untestable' does not mean the same probability of a  Magic Invisible Cupcake.

 

Yes it DOES mean the same thing .  A Magical Invisible Cupcake is just as supernatural and untestable as  your god. The Hindu gods are supernatural and untestable, Leprechuns are supernatural and untestable.  Zeus is supernatural and untestable.  Gnomes are supernatural and untestable.  They, like your god, are  supernatural and untestable.  The supernatural has never been proven to exist because it's not falsifiable. 

I have listed a dozen reasons that can't be proven wrong

   Annnnnnnnd the reason your god  can't be proven wrong is because it's supernatural and unfalsifiable  JUST LIKE HINDU GODS!  OR GREEK GODS or AMERICAN INDIAN GODS!  OR NORSE GODS OR LEPRECHAUNS OR INVISIBLE MAGIC CUPCAKES!!!!!!     You might as well believe in  Invisible  Garden Fairies.  

 You're not getting this concept, are you?  


 

The "Bible" isn't evidence because people believed in God??

  Exactly!   Believing in a god is NOT evidence,  even if you write what you believe down on a piece of paper and make stories out of it, it's still not evidence. Even when dozens of people write about believing in a god and get together and put it in a book....it's STILL not evidence.        There are a billion people who believe in Hindu gods.  Using your criteria for evidence,  Vishnu must exist.  

What you need is UNBIASED  evidence OUTSIDE  of your book of claims that a magical man walked on water,  and there are none to be found.  Even though contemporary historians were living in the same area and writing about the events of the day, not one of them ever heard of a Jesus or wrote about him.  Even though the bible says his,  whose fame was known "as far as Syria."   

















 


Holy shit,  it's like talking to a fucking wall.  

[Snoopy]

There were a number of street preachers who did get killed sharing the name Yeshuwa but you don't want any of them to be your Jesus, what they preached you would consider blasphemy so.... Bit of a problem there dude.

What do you mean by what they preached?
What are the sources of this information?

[brunumb]

Christians claim a life-changing presence of God that stays with them, promotes real change in their hearts and minds, and is described as a relationship--ALL promised and described at length in the NT.

Are these the same Christians who had their beliefs inculcated by indoctrination from early childhood?  Of course they will make claims that sit well with their peers and help them feel one with the herd.  The belief came first and the rationalisations followed later when they felt the need to prop up that belief.  People can have life-changing experiences reading any number of inspiring authors or even self-help books.  None of that needs any gods pulling strings in the background.

[brunumb]

Holy shit,  it's like talking to a fucking wall
 

Is that anything like the Wailing Wall?  

[unfogged]

And, as has been said and contrary to your claims, whether or not something actually exists is a scientific question.  To claim that something exists when you can give no evidence for that specific thing is not rational.  

That's simply not true. The definition of science is
...
The supernatural is excluded by definition.

You are missing the point entirely.  You claim that the supernatural exists and that you have knowledge about some aspects of what it contains but the only evidence we can examine is effects.  If we can't examine the thing itself then we can never verify any of the claims about it and can never reach a rational conclusion that it even exists.  Something that can't be detected or tested in any way is indistinguishable from something that does not exist.

What we are left with is a bunch of untestable claims where the people making those claims put forth wildly different ideas about what the cause is.  You are certainly free to believe what you want but stop fooling yourself that your beliefs are based on reason.  They aren't.  They are an application of what you've been indoctrinated into slapped over things that we have no answers for.  Yet.

I certainly don't believe everything I hear people claim. I'm not sure how many people claim to see Mary or Mohammad so I think that might be a bit of a red herring. But, nevertheless, are those examples analogous to what Christian's claim (required for a special pleading charge). Christians claim a life-changing presence of God that stays with them, promotes real change in their hearts and minds, and is described as a relationship--ALL promised and described at length in the NT.

Not surprising since that's what they are taught to believe will happen if they accept Jesus and what they are told did happen when they do have a change of heart.  The problem is that there is no justification for assuming that Jesus had anything at all to do with it.  Causal relationships have to be demonstrated, especially when the proposed cause is undetectable.

They don't actually see anyone. Mary, Mohammad, aliens, and NDE are all different than that in significant ways. So, no special pleading when I dismiss them. No falling apart argument.

It is a form of special pleading when you see somebody else's unverifiable claim as unbelievable but accept your unverifiable claim as a rational conclusion.  It's a really convenient set of unfalsifiable beliefs you have going on.  You've tied them up into a nice little ball and convinced yourself that it all makes sense but until you can tie it to reality on some way it is all indistinguishable from fantasy or delusion.

Testimony about extraordinary events may be enough to spark investigation. It can never be enough to believe that the explanation being offered is correct.

Regarding your last statement, is that because of the nature of testimony or the extraordinary part?

Primarily the extraordinary part although testimony is always somewhat suspect IMO. I'm generally willing to accept people at their word about trivial matters (e.g. they have a cat), less about more unusual ones (e.g. they were on the team that killed Bin Laden), and pretty much not at all about the supernatural. I'm very willing to believe that they had an experience but I am not ready to accept their explantion of it unless and until the proposed cause is shown to be at least possible.

[unfogged]

Right there in verse 8. Paul said Jesus appeared to him. We know that was on the road to Damascus from other places. You will have to give me a verse about Paul getting everything from divine revelation.

I can't be arsed right now to waste time looking up the specific verses but didn't the people with him either see the light and not hear the voice or hear the voice and not see the light depending on what version of the story you read? If Paul saw and heard something and the people next to him didn't then that sure sounds to me like something other than a physical appearance. If Paul says Jesus appeared to him and it was some kind of vision then all the other claims of appearances become suspect that they may be similar even if we accept that they happened at all.

[JesseB]

There were a number of street preachers who did get killed sharing the name Yeshuwa but you don't want any of them to be your Jesus, what they preached you would consider blasphemy so.... Bit of a problem there dude.

What do you mean by what they preached?
What are the sources of this information?

Eh, the source is richard carriers work, I'll have to dig up the specific one. Keeping in mind I only use the information of his that no one contests.

[JesseB]

Unprovable' and 'untestable' does not mean the same probability of a  Magic Invisible Cupcake.

 

Yes it DOES mean the same thing .  A Magical Invisible Cupcake is just as supernatural and untestable as  your god. The Hindu gods are supernatural and untestable, Leprechuns are supernatural and untestable.  Zeus is supernatural and untestable.  Gnomes are supernatural and untestable.  They, like your god, are  supernatural and untestable.  The supernatural has never been proven to exist because it's not falsifiable. 

I have listed a dozen reasons that can't be proven wrong

   Annnnnnnnd the reason your god  can't be proven wrong is because it's supernatural and unfalsifiable  JUST LIKE HINDU GODS!  OR GREEK GODS or AMERICAN INDIAN GODS!  OR NORSE GODS OR LEPRECHAUNS OR INVISIBLE MAGIC CUPCAKES!!!!!!     You might as well believe in  Invisible  Garden Fairies.  

 You're not getting this concept, are you?  


 

The "Bible" isn't evidence because people believed in God??

  Exactly!   Believing in a god is NOT evidence,  even if you write what you believe down on a piece of paper and make stories out of it, it's still not evidence. Even when dozens of people write about believing in a god and get together and put it in a book....it's STILL not evidence.        There are a billion people who believe in Hindu gods.  Using your criteria for evidence,  Vishnu must exist.  

What you need is UNBIASED  evidence OUTSIDE  of your book of claims that a magical man walked on water,  and there are none to be found.  Even though contemporary historians were living in the same area and writing about the events of the day, not one of them ever heard of a Jesus or wrote about him.  Even though the bible says his,  whose fame was known "as far as Syria."   

















 


Holy shit,  it's like talking to a fucking wall.  

I believe my penis is god. Does this qualify as evidence that my penis is god?

If I get more people to believe my penis is god, does that make it more true?

If millions of people believe my penis is god 2000 years after I'm dead does that make it even more true?

(just helping with an analogy)