tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post1334730747223495585..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Miracles, Singularities, and MoonwalkingVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-58298927214105143272010-07-17T16:46:54.709-07:002010-07-17T16:46:54.709-07:00Doctor Logic: You have this exactly backwards!
Qu...Doctor Logic: <i>You have this exactly backwards!</i><br /><br />Quite possibly — I am trying to follow your line of thought and you don't seem to know whether you're coming or going. For instance, you seem to be confused about the laws in your unstated assumptions vs. the laws in your conclusions. In your example about the deck of cards, there is a regularity or pattern to be argued for in your conclusion (the order of the sorted deck). But there are also patterns implicit in your premises. You are assuming absolute laws of physics. You are assuming that no agent, natural or supernatural, manipulates the cards before you deal them. If we live in Wonderland and the cards are alive and can spontaneously reorder themselves because they don't want the Queen of Hearts to chop of their heads, then your conclusion won't follow. If solid objects can pass through each other and swiping your hand across the top of the deck might actually pull a card out from the middle somewhere, then your conclusion won't follow. You need to spell out your premises and justify your probabilities. <br /><br /> <i>This is because the aggregate probability of being dealt a hand is high, even as the individual possible sequences that contribute to the aggregate are low. You're gonna get something!</i><br /><br />You're going to get something IF a whole bunch of conditions hold true, from the laws of physics to Occam's razor. Where was Occam's razor when you were counting God's appearing as a thousand dragons on the other side of the universe as an equal probability to anything else? You're premises are wildly inconsistent depending on what conclusion you prefer.<br /><br /><br />Doctor Logick: Tell me, good sir, how was your journey to the new land of Australia?<br />DL: Truly, it was astounding! I saw divers delightful sights. I even beheld a black swan!<br />Doctor Logick: Liar! Every man knows all swans to be white.<br />DL: This is outrageous, sirrah! You dare to impugn my honesty? Why every member of my party can testify to the existence of these black swans!<br />Doctor Logick: Preposterous. <b>The odds of such happening <i>based on observed frequencies</i> are far lower than the odds of multiple people all suffering madness all at the same time and misreporting the facts.</b><br />DL: Crikey! You, sir, are a quack.DLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-16754982003496166072010-07-16T11:57:27.324-07:002010-07-16T11:57:27.324-07:00"Doctor Logic", for all his efforts, has...<i>"Doctor Logic", for all his efforts, has only managed to prove the truth behind what Paul wrote in First Corinthians (1:19-26).</i><br /><br />Um, when you argue against reason itself, you lose the debate.<br /><br />Thanks for the anti-intellectualism.<br /><br />http://bit.ly/9rcAK6Doctor Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03182745193512661770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-60633933407606620872010-07-16T11:21:44.018-07:002010-07-16T11:21:44.018-07:00"Doctor Logic", for all his efforts, has..."Doctor Logic", for all his efforts, has only managed to prove the truth behind what Paul wrote in First Corinthians (1:19-26).<br /><br />For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart." Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-46726649120387662422010-07-16T10:06:00.137-07:002010-07-16T10:06:00.137-07:00DL,
Similarly, your claim rules out science: ther...DL,<br /><br /><i>Similarly, your claim rules out science: there are infinitely more possibilities without laws of nature than there are when restricted by laws, so we should never believe in natural regularity.</i><br /><br />You have this <i>exactly</i> backwards!<br /><br />It is precisely because there are infinitely more possibilities without laws than when restricted by laws that we have a Bayesian inference to the laws in the first place!<br /><br />I have a deck of cards that is either shuffled or sorted by suit and rank. I deal 2,3,4,5,6 of clubs off the top of the deck. Consistent with sorting. What should you rationally believe? Is the deck sorted or shuffled?<br /><br />Well, while a shuffled deck is possible, it's not probable. You ought to believe the deck is sorted. There are 310 million alternative ways we could have dealt the top 5 cards of the top of the deck if the deck were shuffled. The observations are consistent with a tiny subset of possibilities consistent with shuffling, but necessarily true of the sorting scenario. That why inference from evidence can be so powerful when the alternative theory has more possibilities.<br /><br /><i> We have evidence of Lincoln's getting shot? But it's vastly outnumbered by possibilities that he merely swooned and everyone around him suffered a mass hallucination, or planted false evidence just as a gag, or was replaced by alien pod replicates. Etc.</i><br /><br />Again, you have it backwards. <br /><br />If I deal you a poker hand from a shuffled deck, the exact sequence of cards you receive is hyper improbable (again, 310 million to one). But you don't double-over in shock every time you're dealt a poker hand. This is because the aggregate probability of being dealt a hand is high, even as the individual possible sequences that contribute to the aggregate are low. You're gonna get something!<br /><br />And the odds of getting one sequence is the same as the odds of getting any other.<br /><br />If you told me a story about a person who was dealt a straight flush, in order, from a shuffled deck, it would be a little surprising, but not shocking. There are hundreds of millions of poker games a year. Probable every sequence is dealt very few years.<br /><br />However, if you said that a person was dealt a card face up from a normal deck, and this card spontaneously transformed into a photo of Michael Jackson, I'm not going to believe you. The odds of this happening <i>based on observed frequencies</i> are far lower than the odds of multiple people all having schizophrenic psychosis all at the same time and misreporting the facts. That is, the "transforming to MJ" hand is far far less probable than even a straight flush.<br /><br />That said, if you can repeat the card trick, we can easily be convinced. We can array equipment with enough reliability to confirm the phenomenon.<br /><br />If, on the other hand, the card transformation only happened once, I won't believe you and I ought not believe you. Even if it really happened, it would be irrational for me to do so because the alternatives are MORE likely.<br /><br />So, there are plenty of naturalistic scenarios (i.e., scenarios validated by our experience of frequencies) that can account for the NT. Yet you want to choose a scenario that is overwhelmingly discounted by our experience of frequencies. It makes no sense.Doctor Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03182745193512661770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-28732221446915484012010-07-16T09:59:38.697-07:002010-07-16T09:59:38.697-07:00Bob,
But that is the case ONLY if you first make...Bob,<br /><br /><i> But that is the case ONLY if you first make the (unproven) assumption that all events are commonplace. You have ruled out, prior to any discussion, the possibility of unique events.</i><br /><br />As Hume showed, the assumption of induction can never be proven deductively. But neither can deduction!<br /><br />You yourself must subscribe to induction, and if you didn't, then you would be incapable of believing anything at all. Not even mathematics. But you're being inconsistent about it. You want to suspend induction when it's inconvenient for Christianity.<br /><br />And, again, Bayesian reasoning does not rule out the possibility of unique events. Rather, it discounts the PROBABILITY of unique events by weighting possibilities equally. If I pick an apple from an orchard, that apple is NOT LIKELY to give me superhuman powers of telekinesis. But there's nothing in anything that I have said that suggests it is impossible. What we have is a lower bound on the frequency of apples giving people telekinetic powers (and on telekinetic powers in general). If we're rational, then that frequency observation conditions our expectation that an apply will give us telekinetic powers. Roughly speaking, if a trillion apples have been consumed without creating telekinetic effects, then we ought to think the odds of getting telekinetic powers from an apple are a trillion to one against. But that doesn't make it impossible.<br /><br />In your defense of scripture, you state all sorts of mundane facts about kings, authors, human behavior, etc. You think it is improbable that people would act a certain way, e.g., that the NT authors would have written fiction. Buy why, by your logic, should we assume the people of the first century were like people of today? Why should we believe that people in the first century didn't just make stuff up? Why should we think humans in the first century didn't have magical powers of their own? It's only because YOU are assuming consistency and regularity. Maybe they were unique people! You just want to throw that consistency and regularity out the window when it suits your needs.Doctor Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03182745193512661770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-51529551315777530572010-07-16T08:49:17.425-07:002010-07-16T08:49:17.425-07:00Doctor Logic: DL is saying that the a priori proba...Doctor Logic: <i>DL is saying that the a priori probability that God would incarnate himself in Jesus ought to be assessed by gut feeling.</i><br /><br />Um, is that supposed to be sarcasm? Of course I reject a "smooth distribution of probability" — that is to conflate probability with possibility. Or do you really suppose that God's becoming incarnate on the other side of the universe where no being could ever detect it is just as likely as becoming incarnate on Earth? But then I guess you'd also have to include "possibilities" such as God's becoming incarnate light-years away yet miraculously causing people to <i>think</i> they saw him on Earth, etc., etc. Or becoming incarnate two or three, etc. times but only being seen once. And of course becoming incarnate multiple times or as different creatures increases the possibilities — but at the same time reduces them because every additional fact puts restrictions on what else is possible [in that same universe]. Similarly, your claim rules out science: there are infinitely more possibilities without laws of nature than there are when restricted by laws, so we should never believe in natural regularity. We have evidence of Lincoln's getting shot? But it's vastly outnumbered by possibilities that he merely swooned and everyone around him suffered a mass hallucination, or planted false evidence just as a gag, or was replaced by alien pod replicates. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. <br /><br /><i>the story is still vastly more likely to have arisen from a naturalistic scenario.</i><br /><br />Except if you really meant what you said then, as indicated, "naturalistic scenarios" would always be <i>less</i> likely than supernatural alternatives. So the real conclusion you ought to draw is that given the infinity of ways God could have become incarnate rather than not being incarnate at all, is that you should believe that God definitely did become incarnate, even if you're not sure quite how or when. I doubt you'll convince anyone else that way, though.DLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27003895626035970372010-07-16T07:07:41.934-07:002010-07-16T07:07:41.934-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
Thank you, Thank you, Dr. Log...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />Thank you, Thank you, Dr. Logic! <br /><br />You have precisely stated the thought process that I am questioning. You write, “it is a tenet of rational thinking that the past is a guide to the future.” But that is the case ONLY if you first make the (unproven) assumption that all events are commonplace. You have ruled out, prior to any discussion, the possibility of unique events. All I am asking is why? What is the justification, beyond “cause I said so!”, to this assumption?<br />By making it a “tenet”, you have decided the issue beforehand. Sorry, but that’s just not good enough.<br /><br />As to the odds against our individual existence, the issue was best illustrated in a perfectly wonderful book by (of all things!) a Unitarian minister, Forrest Church, in Chapter 14 (Beating the Odds) of “Love and Death”. Indeed, I probably understated the case. The odds against any of us being here are an infinity of infinities to one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-42612783468379961022010-07-16T06:27:02.489-07:002010-07-16T06:27:02.489-07:00Bob,
My being here at all is so improbable (the o...Bob,<br /><br /><i>My being here at all is so improbable (the odds against it approach infinity) that it qualifies as a miracle. It just happens to be one that happens all the time. Christ's coming to life a second time is not less probable simply because it happened only once. </i><br /><br />I'm sorry Bob, but this is complete and utter nonsense.<br /><br />First, you're equivocating on the definition of miracle.<br /><br />Second, if we take your claim as true, then we can concoct arbitrarily bizarre explanations for mundane events, and rank them as equally probable. But not every kooky explanation is equally probable.<br /><br />When your car fails to start, why don't you look for the dragon that's causing the engine not to run?<br /><br />Indeed, it is a tenet of rational thinking that the past is a guide to the future. If that were not so, then everything we know from experience would be worthless.<br /><br />If you have an argument against Bayesian reasoning, you should state it in Bayesian terms, and then we'll see if it holds up.Doctor Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03182745193512661770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-68225191169774411242010-07-16T05:24:35.782-07:002010-07-16T05:24:35.782-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
To Steven Carr: No one was tr...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />To Steven Carr: No one was trying to "convince" you of anything. Please re-read the original post that started this whole conversation, especially the quote from George MacDonald. The whole point is that the are many things in this world that we take for granted, simply because they happen all the time. The fact that you and I are alive at all, with consciousness, free will, and inconceivably complex physical bodies, is utterly miraculous. We normally don't perveive this because we are surrounded by billions of such miracles. as the saying goes, "familiarity breeds contempt".<br /><br />But until you come to grips with your unexamined predisposition against singularities, then there is no good reason to reject the Resurrection solely on the grounds that we don't see it happening every day.<br /><br />My being here at all is so improbable (the odds against it approach infinity) that it qualifies as a miracle. It just happens to be one that happens all the time. Christ's coming to life a second time is not less probable simply because it happened only once.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-25301132998020338452010-07-16T00:12:39.763-07:002010-07-16T00:12:39.763-07:00'Why should coming to life a second time be an...'Why should coming to life a second time be any more unbelievable than the first time? '<br /><br />Well, I'm convinced.<br /><br />There is nothing remarkable about the resurrection.<br /><br />It hardly proves there is a god as there was nothing extraordinary about it.Steven Carrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11983601793874190779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-74304542095116119472010-07-15T14:26:35.661-07:002010-07-15T14:26:35.661-07:00Walter,
What's your point? That a lot of peop...Walter,<br /><br />What's your point? That a lot of people with advanced degrees think Luke made a mistake? I could have told you that already. And a lot of people with advanced degrees think he didn't. That's a wash.<br /><br />In a case like this, counting noses doesn't advance the discussion. It all comes down to the evidence and the arguments.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-40912652287967754982010-07-15T14:13:01.549-07:002010-07-15T14:13:01.549-07:00More for Tim:
The majority view among modern sch...More for Tim:<br /><br /><i><br />The majority view among modern scholars is that there was only one census, in 6 AD, and the author of the Gospel of Luke misidentified it with the reign of Herod the Great. In The Birth of the Messiah (1977), a detailed study of the infancy narratives of Jesus, the American scholar Raymond E. Brown concluded that "this information is dubious on almost every score, despite the elaborate attempts by scholars to defend Lucan accuracy."[72]James Dunn remarks: “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Luke was mistaken”.[73] Geza Vermes comments, "from whatever angle one looks at it, the census referred to by Luke conflicts with historical reality".[74] W. D. Davies and E. P. Sanders: “on many points, especially about Jesus’ early life, the evangelists were ignorant … they simply did not know, and, guided by rumour, hope or supposition, did the best they could”.[75] J. P. Meier considered "attempts to reconcile Luke 2:1 with the facts of ancient history... hopelessly contrived",[76]. Raymond Edward Brown (May 22, 1928 - August 8, 1998), was an American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar. ... James D. G. (Jimmy) Dunn was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. ... Geza Vermes (born 22 June 1924) is a Jewish scholar and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. ... Ed Parish Sanders (born 1937) is a leading New Testament theologian (Th. ... John Paul Meier is a prominent Biblical scholar and Catholic priest. ...</i><br /><br />Excerpted from here:<br /><br />http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Census-of-Quirinius#Sixteenth_to_eighteenth_centuries%20Encyclopedia%20%3E<br /><br />I am done with this thread for good, now. I promise :-)Walterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597511645534603563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-34735790852262641022010-07-15T14:05:14.807-07:002010-07-15T14:05:14.807-07:00Right, Walter -- as I said, I read Carrier's a...Right, Walter -- as I said, I read Carrier's article. The problem is just that what he says is false. <br /><br />The interpretation in question does require that we take πρωτη as a term of comparison, on the model of John 1:15 (... πρωτος μου ην ...). But constructing a genitive of time with adverbs of comparison is done in the Septuagint, e.g., Jer. 29:2. It's a little awkward, but then, the whole sentence is somewhat awkward any way you slice it. And it avoids making Luke contradict himself -- a point you seem intent on ignoring.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-75784296078258295632010-07-15T13:56:06.193-07:002010-07-15T13:56:06.193-07:00Here's another one just for Tim:
Some have tr...Here's another one just for Tim:<br /><br /><i>Some have tried to argue that the Greek of Luke actually might mean a census "before" the reign of Quirinius rather than the "first" census in his reign. As to this, even Sherwin-White remarks that he has "no space to bother with the more fantastic theories...such as that of W. Heichelheim's (and others') suggestion (Roman Syria, 161) that prôtê in Luke iii.2 means proteron, [which] could only be accepted if supported by a parallel in Luke himself."[10.1] He would no doubt have elaborated if he thought it worthwhile to refute such a "fantastic" conjecture. For in fact this argument is completely disallowed by the rules of Greek grammar. First of all, the basic meaning is clear and unambiguous, so there is no reason even to look for another meaning. The passage says hautê apographê prôtê egeneto hêgemoneuontos tês Syrias Kyrêniou, or with interlinear translation, hautê(this) apographê(census) prôtê[the] (first) egeneto(happened to be) hêgemoneuontos[while] (governing) tês Syrias(Syria) Kyrêniou[was] (Quirinius). The correct word order, in English, is "this happened to be the first census while Quirinius was governing Syria." This is very straightforward, and all translations render it in such a manner.</i><br /><br />Excerpted from here:<br /><br />http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/quirinius.html#WordWalterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597511645534603563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-9252423345278365792010-07-15T11:42:22.533-07:002010-07-15T11:42:22.533-07:00Walter,
Thanks for that. So
(1) Brown is simply...Walter,<br /><br />Thanks for that. So <br /><br />(1) Brown is simply arguing from silence regarding Matthew, <br /><br />(2) he is tendentiously assuming that πασαν την οικουμενην means the whole empire, notwithstanding Luke's use of a similar phrase elsewhere to mean Judea, and <br /><br />(3) he has nothing to say (at least in your excerpt) about the hard evidence cited by all scholars since the days of Ramsay. <br /><br />I doubt if anyone ever gave up anything but his faith on such flimsy grounds.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-72973813278537763332010-07-15T11:03:16.138-07:002010-07-15T11:03:16.138-07:00I just had to pop back in to show a quote from Fat...I just had to pop back in to show a quote from Father Raymond E. Brown:<br /><br /> Brown goes even further, calling into question the reliability of large sections of the New Testament. He encourages his readers to face the possibility that portions of Matthew and Luke "may represent non-historical dramatizations:"[10]<br /><br /> <i> Indeed, close analysis of the infancy narratives makes it unlikely that either account is completely historical. Matthew's account contains a number of extraordinary or miraculous public events that, were they factual, should have left some traces in Jewish records or elsewhere in the New Testament (the king and all Jerusalem upset over the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem; a star which moved from Jerusalem south to Bethlehem and came to rest over a house; the massacre of all the male children in Bethlehem). Luke's reference to a general census of the Empire under Augustus which affected Palestine before the death of Herod the Great is almost certainly wrong, as is his understanding of the Jewish customs of the presentation of the child and the purification of the mother in 2:22-24. Some of these events, which are quite implausible as history, have now been understood as rewritings of Old Testament scenes or themes.[11]</i><br /><br />Excerpted from here: http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christian_Credibility.htmWalterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597511645534603563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-91033927204289889582010-07-15T10:52:23.941-07:002010-07-15T10:52:23.941-07:00Walter,
Re: the census:
(1) That's not even ...Walter,<br /><br />Re: the census:<br /><br />(1) That's not even <i>prima facie</i> a contradiction between Matthew and Luke; it's a charge that Luke got something wrong. So your saying this in response to my earlier comment is really beside the point.<br /><br />(2) Luke has already dated these events to the reign of Herod the King (Luke 1:5). He further demonstrates elsewhere (Acts 5:37) that he is quite familiar with the census of AD 6 mentioned by Josephus. Therefore, readings of Luke 2:2 that are consistent with his knowledge of the census mentioned by Josephus are, all else being equal, preferable to a reading that makes Luke contradict <i>himself</i>.<br /><br />(3) There are several reasonable ways to read the rather awkward Greek of Luke 2:1-2. Only one reading suggests that Luke (or his source) was dating the birth to the time of the census of AD 6 and thereby creates a <i>prima facie</i> tension within Luke's writings. <br /><br />You dispute this, pointing to an essay by Richard Carrier. I pointed out in response that Carrier has a poor reputation as a translator of the Greek of the New Testament, and I directed your attention to nearly a hundred pages of detailed discussion by people who actually <i>are</i> qualified scholars, of the translation of Luke 2:2. As far as I can tell, you haven't bothered to look into any of it. (For what it's worth, I did read Carrier's article.)<br /><br />I might add that Nigel Turner, who is the author of one of the leading textbooks on New Testament Greek, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=WZaS56aEkjgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:Grammatical+intitle:Insights+inauthor:Turner&hl=en&ei=BEY_TLbnAcndnAfRyvDiBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow">argues</a> that Luke 2:2 should probably be translated, "This census was <i>before</i> the census taken when Quirinius was governor." [Turner, <i>Grammatical Insights into the New Testament</i> (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2004), pp. 23-24.] There is precedent for this use of πρῶτος, e.g. in Aristotle's <i>Physics</i> 8, 263a11; see also the use of πρῶτον in John 15:18. A large number of scholars of various persuasions think this is the best rendering of the Greek.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-46318826735420430662010-07-15T08:15:03.537-07:002010-07-15T08:15:03.537-07:00You can't cite a pair of contradictory claims ...<i>You can't cite a pair of contradictory claims from the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke, but you just don't believe that they're substantially historical, and you kind of somehow feel that they're contradictory anyway, because each mentions so much stuff that the other leaves out.<br /></i><br /><br />I already mentioned the most glaring contradiction: Herod died in March of 4 BC and the census took place in 6 and 7 AD. The best you can do is retreat to mere possibilities to salvage any harmony between the two accounts. Lots of things are possible, but are they plausible?<br /><br />As far as Paul's lower christology, that is a complicated subject that is difficult for me to defend using a combox on someone else's blog.(This is not a Forum/Messageboard). I would steer you towards Dr. McGrath's book "The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context" where he lays out the claim that the earliest Jewish believers would have seen Jesus as the agent of Yahweh and not the incarnation of Yahweh, which would have been blasphemous to a Jewish monotheist. <br /><br />With this said I am going to end with this: C.S. Lewis once remarked that Christianity never felt less real to him than when he was defending an argument using apologetics. I have to agree. The more an apologist resorts to ad hoc explanations to harmonize disparate accounts in the New Testament, the less likely I am to believe. <br /><br />Nuff typed! I will see y'all again in a future discussion.Walterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597511645534603563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-3755202781029362852010-07-15T06:49:40.146-07:002010-07-15T06:49:40.146-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
Don't want to get bogged ...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />Don't want to get bogged down in terminology here, but I'm not "staunchly defend[ing] innerancy". I happen to greatly dislike that term, as it has no universally agreed upon definition. But I am defending the Gospels' historicity - quite a different matter. An account can be historically accurate without being literally true in every fine detail. Otherwise, we would have no history at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-71356647643152285092010-07-15T06:27:57.987-07:002010-07-15T06:27:57.987-07:00Walter,
Let me summarize your position as you'...Walter,<br /><br />Let me summarize your position as you've presented it here: <br /><br />(1) You <i>can't</i> cite a pair of contradictory claims from the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke, but you just don't believe that they're substantially historical, and you kind of somehow <i>feel</i> that they're contradictory anyway, because each mentions so much stuff that the other leaves out. <br /><br />(2) You realize that, although at the end of his Gospel he mentions only appearances in Judea, Luke doesn't actually <i>say</i> that these are the only ones that took place. But you think the fact that he didn't talk about the appearances in Galilee is enormously telling. That, along with a comment about Kool-aid, is all that you think is necessary in the way of actual <i>argument</i> for this thesis.<br /><br />(3) You claim that the Gospels were "propaganda documents." <br /><br />(4) You deny that the earliest Christians worshiped Jesus as God. <br /><br />On points (1) and (2), as far as I can tell, you're arguing from silence. This form of reasoning isn't, as such, an instance of anti-supernatural bias; it's just incredibly weak, particularly under the circumstances, as I've pointed out elsewhere on this blog. The mistaking of it for a strong argument is, however, very convenient for those who have anti-supernatural biases.<br /><br />As for (3), the claim that the Gospels are "propaganda documents" is severely underdetermined. I freely grant that (a) they were intended to be persuasive, and (b) they were written by people who believed that what they were saying was important. But this is true of a great deal of good historical writing -- and of a physics textbook as well. It does not follow that the authors had motives to shade the truth. <br /><br />As for (4), as Bob has pointed out, the evidence of Paul's epistles simply kills the hypothesis that the earliest Christians had a significantly lower Christology than that portrayed in the Gospels. The undoubtedly authentic Pauline epistles are jam packed with the highest Christology, and Paul (who, as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRx0N4GF0AY&feature=player_embedded" rel="nofollow">Bart Ehrman himself admits</a>, knew the founders of Christianity, including a member of Jesus' immediate family) expressly claims that he had compared his doctrine with theirs.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09752886510692318211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-21792334586861187812010-07-15T05:41:27.971-07:002010-07-15T05:41:27.971-07:00I could go on, but you get the point. Paul clearly...<i>I could go on, but you get the point. Paul clearly worshiped Jesus as God and creator.</i><br /><br />I believe that Paul worshiped the Father through Jesus as mediator, but we will have to save this argument for a future thread. Suffice it to say that the Jews in this time period were thoroughly familiar with the concept of a mediator between a transcendent Yahweh and humankind. Deification of Jesus is a later development in predominantly Gentile Christianity.Walterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597511645534603563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-17429972794507520352010-07-15T05:36:51.032-07:002010-07-15T05:36:51.032-07:00Bob, since you have no problem believing that the ...Bob, since you have no problem believing that the bible contains errors in the post-easter accounts, then why staunchly defend the inerrancy of two obviously different virgin birth stories? I know you don't like to follow links, but I have posted a few which shows these stories to be irreconcilable except with flights of apologetic imagination. <br /><br />Such as:<br /><br />It is "possible" that Quirinius was legate twice in Syria.<br /><br />It is "possible" that there were two censuses.<br /><br />It is "possible" that "Luke" was referring to an earlier Governor, etc.,etc.. <br /><br />Dr. McGrath pointed out serious discrepancies in the accounts here:<br /><br />http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/12/contradictory-christmases.html<br /><br />Apologists like to break out the elmer's glue and paste together two different stories to produce an implausible "harmony", then declare that is not a discrepancy, just an Argument from Silence. Another famous example is the differing tales of Judas's death. Apologists will glue the story of his hanging with the one of him throwing himself headfirst into a field where his bowels burst out. The apologist will try to claim that both happened but each author was only emphasizing part of the story. The most parsimonious explanation is that the gospels are based off of divergent oral traditions.Walterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597511645534603563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27345313205899141822010-07-15T04:39:47.485-07:002010-07-15T04:39:47.485-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
A family of four (father, old...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />A family of four (father, older son, younger son, daughter) go to the circus. The next day, the daughter describes in great detail the clowns, the balloons, and the elephants. The younger son goes on and on about the hot dog, ice cream, and candied nuts that he ate. The older son, so taken by a beautiful girl he saw there, doesn’t mention the circus at all, but describes his meeting her. The father talks about the traffic, the difficulties in parking, and complains about the high ticket prices.<br /><br />Incompatible accounts? Contradictory? Using the same “logic” used by skeptics concerning the infancy narratives, there probably was no circus, or at the least, this family obviously did not go there!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-18848767136960640162010-07-15T04:31:44.062-07:002010-07-15T04:31:44.062-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
Walter, just who are these ea...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />Walter, just who are these earliest believers, who supposedly did not worship Jesus as God? I won’t even try to quote Acts here, because I’m sure you’ll dismiss that book as “propaganda”. But what about Paul? Even the most atheistic of biblical scholars admit that his letters pre-date the Gospels. Yet they contain statements such as (paraphrasing here, I’m too lazy to look up the passages right now):<br /><br />“He is the image of the invisible God.”<br />“In him the fullness of God dwelt bodily.”<br />“All things were created through him and for him.”<br /><br />I could go on, but you get the point. Paul clearly worshiped Jesus as God and creator.<br /><br />And by the way, I actually agree with you that the four Gospels flatly contradict each other in minor details concerning the post-Resurrection appearances. Not being a literalist, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest, because they are unanimous in the main point, which is that Christ literally and physically rose from the dead and was seen by the disciples.<br /><br />But my challenge to you was specifically directed to cite a contradiction in the infancy narratives. You will not be able to find one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-3463404385180108482010-07-14T20:35:53.205-07:002010-07-14T20:35:53.205-07:00Walter writing-
It seems plausible to me that you...Walter writing-<br /><br /><i>It seems plausible to me that your objections are directed, not principally at the truth of the central line of the Gospel history, but at some version of fundamentalism that carries a lot of extra baggage with it. If this is what's going on, you would save yourself from some unnecessary criticism by trying hard to separate the baby Jesus from the fundamentalist bathwater</i><br /><br />Your criticism does not bother me. Let me be clear what I believe. I believe that there was likely an historical Jesus who was just a man, not the incarnation of God. I believe that the gospels contain some history that is shrouded in myth. I do not believe the gospels were written by eyewitnesses at all; they are propaganda documents written to foster belief in Jesus as the Messiah. I am not convinced that the earliest believers worshiped Jesus as a God but instead saw him as a mediator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com