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This post is a response to the December 11th episode of Raborn Johnson and Steve Sensenig’s wonderful podcast Beyond the Box. The podcast is basically the two’s take on Christianity free from the interpretational filter of organized religion. Even as a non-believer, I find the podcast intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining. I highly recommend listening to them. I especially recommend listening to this episode in order to fully understand my response.
Hello Steve and Raborn,
Thanks for tackling this topic and answering some of my questions. It’s challenging but very interesting. You guys approach your beliefs with an astounding mixture of enthusiasm and intelligence. As I listen, I’m amazed at how well you anticipate my next question and then proceed to answer it. It enabled you to cut straight to the heart of the issue. You can color me impressed… again.
First, allow me to express my thoughts on historical accounts and why I have my doubts about the resurrection of Jesus so that you can get an idea of where I’m coming from. There are at least a couple of ways to verify that a historical event actually occurred. The best way is via multiple, first-hand accounts, as you two note. First-hand is best because it has only one layer of interpretation, bias, and embellishment. Multiple sources enable us to reduce said interpretations, biases, and embellishments via comparative analysis. A second way to verify is forensic/physical evidence. For the examples of Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s assassinations that you cite in your episode, we have bodies with bullet wounds to the skull, for instance. With respect to the resurrection, we have only second-hand accounts at best and no physical evidence.
There is also the problem of how much evidence is enough to be convincing. For this, I often appeal to Sagan’s Balance. Stated simply it says that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence. Another way of stating this is that the amount of evidence required is proportional to how outside of normal experience the event is. Assassinations of political leaders happen quite frequently. Resurrections are far less common (if they occur at all) and well outside of normal experience. Thus the burden of proof that Lincoln and Kennedy were killed is much lower then a reported fantastic event like the resurrection.
In another part of the episode, you claim that not only were there eye-witnesses to the resurrection, but these witness later died for sticking to their accounts of what happened. I’ve heard the eye-witness and the martyrs explanations before, but never in combination. It’s an interesting angle. But isn’t it the case that since Paul wrote about the eye witnesses, we actually don’t have a first-hand account? No one wrote “this is what I saw”, but instead “this is what they saw”.
This is where my Biblical ignorance my lead me to err, but I thought that the Bible didn’t say that the disciples were martyred. I thought those accounts were supplementary (and likely apocryphal) Catholic texts.
In any event, the founders of a religion being martyred is not unique to Christianity. For one example, see the persecution and, indeed, execution of Bab and his followers. Does this make the Baha’i faith just as legitimate as Christianity? After all, Raborn said that he can’t imagine anyone [the Bab and his followers included] dying for something that the person didn’t believe in.
When you start talking about presuppositions is when you cut to the core of the issue. You are correct; people do try to downplay their suppositions. Here is one of mine: The only way humans are capable of discerning truth from fiction is through the faculty of reason. Here’s another: inductive reasoning is generally reliable. Pretty much everyone agrees with the later, whether they know it or not. This is the reason that Raborn ‘has faith’ that his Bank of America account actually has the funds the webpage displays. Every time the webpage says he has funds available, he has been able to withdraw those funds. The verification is not only repeatable, but has been repeated multiple times in the past. Now if he receives a one-time email saying that he has $1.2 million in a Nigerian bank account, he has reason to doubt since he has never withdrawn funds (and thus has no inductive basis for belief) from said account.
Beyond those two, I am not aware of any further presuppositions I may hold. Does this preclude the miraculous? Partially. However one chooses to define miracle, it always has an aspect of a temporary suspension of the way the world usually operates. As such, a miracle by definition is a violation of inductive reasoning.
Note that I said that inductive reasoning is generally true. There can be exceptions. So what is a rationalist to do when confronted with an apparently miraculous event? First, see if it’s repeatable. If so, repeat the event looking for a way to understand how it occurred. If it’s not, check the evidence to see how valid the account of the miracle is. This is where many parts of the Bible fall apart and where we differ. I’ve examined evidence in support of and against the accuracy of the Bible as you two undoubtedly done as well. We appear to have come to differing conclusions.
The part of your podcast that I disagreed most with is when Raborn claimed that skepticism is an article of faith. Using your own definition of faith that you used in the podcast: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”, skepticism is the opposite of faith. Skepticism is doubt about things not seen and the rejection of believing things simply because we hope for them to be true. Thus skepticism is the rejection of faith not a manifestation of faith.
I think you both are doing a great service to modern Christianity by re-inserting rational discourse and some skepticism into the increasingly doctrinal religion. Far too many churches claim to have a monopoly on interpretation and socially ostracize any one who dissents too much. I encourage the continuation of that practice. If more believers approached their beliefs and non-believers in the same manner you both do, I have no doubt that Christianity would regain much of its respectability that it lost when evangelical leaders began lusting after political power. I am glad that we can disagree on even the most deeply held beliefs and still maintain mutual respect.
It’s been a while since I’ve stopped by this site, but an eventful semester is over and I think I might have something to add to what sid has said thus far.
To Steve and Raborn, I would like to thank you graciously for the fact that you are fully willing to present your beliefs to others as they are. To me, such is the best trustworthy path to improvement for everyone involved. It also shows that you take your beliefs seriously enough to defend them. That being said, I have some experience with these types of debates and with philosophical analysis in general, so I have a couple things to add in addition to the many good points sid has brought up thus far.
The first pertains to martyrdom. As sid has said, the other faiths have had plenty of people who were willing to die for them. I would add that not only religions, but political systems, good causes, and family among other things have provided reasons for people to “martyr” themselves, so to speak. What martyrdom demonstrates is not that the thing which is martyred for is true (there may, in fact, be no connection with truth), but rather that martyrdom shows incredibly strong belief. As one of you (I apologize that I do not remember which one) said during the podcast, you would not die for something you knew was false. I would refine that statement to say that you would not die for something you believed to be false. To reverse that, “I would only be willing to die for something that (among other factors) I believe to be true.” There is a vast difference between truth and belief, namely the fact that beliefs can be false. Perhaps the martyrs who “saw Jesus resurrected” had an uplifting experience, or a vision of sorts, or they were just thoroughly convinced by something. They need not have seen Jesus to be willing to die for him. One of you also noted that it wasn’t for 40 days that the disciples started to preach his resurrection. What happened in those 40 days? Perhaps they built the confidence, or they shored up their beliefs, or something of the sort. Either way, the main point is that martyrdom is not a proof of truth, only of devotion.
A further point about martyrdom. Say that, shortly after Jesus’ death, the disciples weren’t really convinced. This would obviously explain why they were afraid of confronting those in power. But, over time and through the prodding of others, visions, and what have you they became convinced of what Jesus was and what he said. Now he said that the righteous would go to heaven. If they believed that, then it would make sense to risk martyrdom. What will you lose but this mortal coil? This is another way of making the above point; martyrdom only indicates belief, not truth.
Sid has caught most of the other central points that I would bring up, but I do have some subtler barbs to make. The first is about the veracity of scripture. This is, of course, important to the resurrection issue among others. As you put it, we can trust that Scripture was not meddled in the church, because the church obviously does thing that do not sit well in Scripture. My first point here is that the church did decide what was Scripture . . . in 325. The Council of Nicea, to be specific. At that point Scripture was set, and even I would say probably hasn’t changed since. The Catholic church, obviously, has. So the differences between the two do not discount the church’s control, but rather are explained by the church differing from what it chose to be in Scripture at another point in time.
It is, however, true, that there may have been specific points even then in the chosen Scriptures that those around disagreed with. My response is threefold. 1) From what I understand, they chose whole unaltered works (books, letters, etc.) to build Scripture, not pieces which they heavily edited or anything. This would have been sensible on their part, since the works they were selecting from were already available to many people, and so it would be more prudent to just use them as is instead of make alterations that have to be explained, especially if one believed that whatever works were true told the absolute truth, word for word. 2) The reason the Council of Nicea was called was because there was so much disagreement. No one was certain what exactly to make of Christianity in the way of doctrine; it was the Council’s job to do that. Thus there was as yet no central message to enforce; finding one was the mission. This leads into 3): people did disagree about what was being put in. They disagreed a lot. Some were labeled heretics. There was no unified thought as to what positions need to be defended.
I share sid’s heavy disagreement with the idea that skepticism is a faith. I get the feeling you are conflating skepticism with the sort of popular anti-Christianity one finds these days. To be short, dogmatic scientists or atheists are not skeptics. They are just as dogmatic as fundamentalist Christians; in that sense I agree with you. An actual skeptic, however, thinks differently. He (or she) doubts miracles because he doubts in general. He does not limit himself to beliefs he disagrees with. To help make this apparent I will ask you a simple question: What does the skeptic have faith in, exactly? If you say he has faith in the belief that miracles are non-sensical, or that the supernatural doesn’t make sense, or something along those lines, you misunderstand skepticism. I should note, however, that I’m not sure you were referring to a thoroughgoing skepticism, which I generally subscribe to in speculative matters (and could gladly tell you more about, should you wish).
Finally, Simon Greenleaf, who you say was pivotal in bringing about Harvard Law School, and that it was very significant that he said (roughly) that the resurrection has more evidence than anything else of the sort. Following Emerson, I distrust quotations. I looked up Greenleaf and found two things. First, he lived from 1783 to 1853. To call the resurrection defensible in that time was not too significant. Second, he was an important figure in Christian apologetics. I would say this is enough to discount him as an authority (although, as I said before, I distrust quotations in general).
When I make arguments or criticism, I can be a little polar in tone; whereas sid always tends to keep a happy medium, I am often either a bit too soft or a bit to cold. Hopefully I have committed neither of these errors against you, and I am interested in listening to what you have to say here as well as to your podcasts in general. Thanks for reading.
Hello Snurp,
Welcome back. Congratulations on the end of the semester as well. I have no doubt that it was successful since I know the passion you have for the topics you study.
Thanks for expanding on my points. Especially interesting was your section on martyrdom. “…martyrdom is not a proof of truth, only of devotion” sums it up nicely.
Pointing out that the initial disagreement within the Church and subsequent changes after scripture was established are also very good points. Power has a tendency to corrupt and the Catholic Church had lots of power over the centuries. I’m sure Steve and Raborn would agree that they became corrupt at some point.
Your tone sounded medium to me, but then again, I agree with what you have written. We’ll have to see what a reader unsympathetic to our opinions thinks.
Hey, guys. I just wanted to let you know that I am reading, and hope to respond. This is obviously an issue which (based on Sid’s post and Snurp’s comment) can result in lengthy discussions! So I want to take my time in responding and not “react” to what you’re saying (although I don’t even know that I need to “react” at all — the tone is civil and the points are well-made).
The first thing I’m doing is re-listening to the episode myself to make sure I know what we said and didn’t say. I think you guys might have missed a particular nuance in the part about martyrdom, but I want to be sure I don’t misrepresent what we actually said in our discussion.
Snurp, you might need to check some of your church history. The Council of Nicaea did not deal with the canon of scripture at all, in my understanding, and was not called to codify Christian doctrine as a whole. There was a very specific doctrinal question (namely, the divinity or not of Jesus) that was causing division.
Additionally, I think that there was sufficient corruption in the institutional church by that time. I don’t think it’s so much a matter of the Church having changed so much over time. Yes, the Church did “settle” the canon, so to speak, but the point I was trying to make is exactly the point you made — they were debating documents already in existence, not manufacturing documents to suit their purposes. The whole point I was making in the podcast is that it is highly unlikely that the Church manufactured written accounts of the resurrection. These were documents that already existed.
Sid, you said that you are unaware of anyone in scripture claiming to be first-hand witnesses to the resurrection. However, there are at least two. One is Paul himself. Yes, we were referring to his mention of other eyewitnesses, but he also says that Jesus appeared to him. So he is claiming to be an eyewitness. Secondly is John. He not only is credited with writing one of the gospels which accounts the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, but also uses language in his first letter (1 John) that indicates a living Jesus.
Anyway, I hope to return for more discussion with you guys soon. Thanks for your patience! And thank you both for the very civilized discussion here.
steve
You are likely right about Nicea specifically and what issue it was meant to deal. However, I think my point still stands, which I’ll get into here.
In regards to corruption at the time that Nicea was called: there was probably corruption in some form in Christian groups by that point. This would be more than likely, given 300 years. However, “the church” hardly existed at that point. Communication between Christian communities would have been slow and difficult, and different groups were generally separated from one another. This led much autonomy to early church leaders at least until Christianity became the state religion of Rome. To use “corruption” in the sense of a corrupt organization working to manufacture documents doesn’t apply here, because there was as yet little organization in a tangible sense. (Unless you want to say that the documents which became the Bible were chosen much later on, which I doubt.)
I think the first point goes into the second one you respond to. I simply disagree that the church hasn’t changed enough to make a difference here. The church is very different from the new organization that rose to power 1600 years ago, and the most rapid changes of all were in the first few centuries of Christianity, when much was still fluid. The main point in bringing up Nicea was essentially that, at the time that much of what would become permanent doctrine was being worked out, people were often either unsure about doctrine or disagreed about what it was. Different groups had their own ways of practicing Christianity. Compromise was necessary in order to get anything done. I highly doubt that there was a single document that everyone agreed with on all points. They had to make concessions. They were dealing with what a variety of people were already practicing, and what their own theologians believed.
All these points lead to this: The church that was being formed had to settle on doctrine. People disagreed. Those who were involved made the best decisions they could and compromised when they had to, but that does not mean they were always happy with what was decided. I think many of the points we would debate now they didn’t even consider, given the comparatively limited interpretation of Christianity and of any scriptures by the time that a canon was settled. Christians then had different viewpoints, as did the church that was developing, so they made compromises. Thus Christians of the time could have control over documents were “authentic” without just bending everything in Scripture to their will, which was to be demonstrated. The Bible didn’t exist in spite of them, but because they did what they felt they had to.
So much for influence over selection. Now the point that they were selecting from whole documents, which I accepted as likely, is still valid here. However, what I have argued means (1) that the early church (or perhaps I should say, the early church leaders) decided which whole documents to use, and (2) they still very likely disagreed with parts of what they ultimately accepted. So the case is far more complicated than it would appear, and there is room for more than reasonable doubt.
And I still see no reason to believe that one should accept the veracity of the documents simply because the modern church doesn’t follow through with all of it. For example, the church started formulating the set of documents centuries after the fact. How these documents had changed, if they did, in the time between Jesus and the first doctrinal councils is something that I believe to be up for questioning. Then, of course, come the writers and witnesses themselves. You still have to trust in the integrity of the original documents and in the reports of the witnesses mentioned in them. A defense attorney, when faced with a witness, casts doubt. I think there are within the witness accounts of the Bible plenty of ways that one could cast doubt. Ultimately I agree with sid on Sagan’s Balance, and would say that any argument about claims such as those in the Bible need far more than ordinary proof, which I have yet to see.
Sagan’s balance is an eminently reasonable approach to anyone saying extraordinary things whether they are of a supernatural or more earthly endeavor.It can be classified as worldly wisdom and does’nt come naturally or easily but it can prevent one from getting sucked into nonsense.The old saying “if it is too good to be true it probably is” would be a variation of this idea.
The Romans had their own variation on this idea of someone saying preposterous things then he should be able to prove them.
Jesus said he was the son of god which in the whole history of man is probably the most preposterous thing anyone could say so the Romans put that statement to the test in the most stark way they could.
They nailed jesus to a board and basically said show us your stuff if you are the son of god and of course nothing happened which would’nt happen to anyone else in that situation.He died and nothing saved him.Case closed.
The Romans being logical never imagined that somehow the story would be spread that jesus came back to life and people would actually believe it!
Hi Sid & all,
I just wanted to say that I haven’t forgotten you! I have been reading and pondering what each person has said and am looking forward to posting my response. I apologize for not having done this so far, but I didn’t want to treat this topic lightly and post something that wasn’t thought out or worthy of contemplation. I have really been thinking this through and hopefully I can post something soon. Thank you everyone for your patience and participation, but most of all for your civility in expressing your views! Sid, thanks for hosting this discussion!
Hello Steve and Raborn,
You can take your time in responding. That’s the great thing about internet debate is that it exists in a semi-permanent place where you can respond when you are ready. Please take all the time that you need. If you’d like, you can respond with a post of your own (on BtB or one of your other blogs). I’m enjoying the conversation and looking forward to your thoughts.
My brain hurts.
You dudes are very intelligent, knowledgeable, and worth learning from. But my brain hurts. My only point to all of the wonderfully written ideas here is you all seem to leave out the simplest point. Jesus came to save people. Be it whatever you want to call him – he dealt with people all the time infallibly (my big word to make me feel a part of the gang.) He didn’t establish rules, he didn’t worry about the bible or doctrine, and only quoted scripture when the discussion was pulled into it by others like the pharisees.
To me faith is simply living what you believe instinctually. The science of Sagan’s balance seems to draw away from your ablilty to feel the truth. I have found that if I feel like somethings wrong religiously or otherwise to trust that feeling and do my research. I know man was involved in interpreting the bible, and I believe that God is supreme. I know that 90% of the points in the bible that we argue don’t really matter ultimately.
I gotta ask to the science folk – Did you use Sagans balance or some other scientific method to determine if you loved your significant other? How about to determine if they love you? And to any faith or religious ones did you “recieve confirmation from God” or did you just know?
Science sometimes seems to strive to take away the humaness of us as does religion. I strive to reinsert that in faith or in science if you forget to actually live – like Jesus “lived” his life – then none of these arguments matter. What is life without living? What is knowledge without application? What is love without pain? And what is faith without constant testing?
Thank all of you being open to discussion and putting forth some really good points. I have learned some things here today and look forward to further education.
Hello Big C,
Thanks for dropping a comment and asking some good questions (and thanks for the compliments as well). I’ll do what I can to address your points and give some answers.
We weren’t discussing the quality of the character of Jesus in the Biblical account, though we certainly can address that topic if you’d like. I was simply wondering how one can trust the Biblical account in the first place. How do we know that the portrayal of Jesus is accurate and not sugar-coated, edited, embellished etc. by people who loved him? Confirmation bias is a strong force.
Sagan’s balance is only a tool for determining truth from falseness regardless of how one feels about something. I can’t speak for the others, of course, but I don’t trust my feelings to determine truth. I may write more about that in a future post if I can find the time.
I’ll try to answer the direct questions:
Unconsciously, yes. Love is not all that extraordinary, really. Every person feels it for multiple people throughout their lives. Thus believing I feel love doesn’t require extraordinary evidence. Inductive reasoning also helped with respect to my significant other. I felt love for my parents, siblings, ex-girlfriends, etc, so I knew what it was when I felt it again. Evidence even helps. I observe behaviors that are common to others when they are in love. I notice that express a similar set of behaviors. Similarly, my wife expresses the same types of behaviors. Since love is not extraordinary, these mundane bits of evidence suffice to convince me.
Note that when I say that love is not extraordinary, I am not saying that it’s unimportant. Water isn’t extraordinary either, but it certainly is important. Indeed, I consider love very important. Note also that I didn’t consciously apply the methods listed above to determine my and my wife’s emotional status. It was a subconscious process that all but the most gullible of us use. I’ve just made it explicit.
There is one statement you wrote that I don’t quite understand, “Science sometimes seems to strive to take away the humaness of us…” I don’t have that feeling. Perhaps if you explained what you mean by ‘humaness’ and how science affects it that would help.
“Science sometimes seems to strive to take away the humaness of us…”
It is more of a generic statement and not directly addressed to anything listed here. What I mean is … well maybe I should rephrase it now that I look at it. Some people choose to replace their humaness with science or religion (or politics). By that I mean the person who says/thinks if science says its true then thats it. Those who would use science as a weapon, a wall, or anything else that would keep them from interacting and relating. It seems to me that those who rely heavily on science have to have an answer for everything, as do those who rely on religion has to know how everything today fits in the bible.
Theres a faction of hiding, and/or manipulating of information to fit what we need to be comfortable in both religion and science.
Obviously I have trust issues and I will challenge anything I percieve as a system or a way to not interact, and I do apologize if I strayed off topic. I just read the discussion here and say peices of two systems and wanted to way in.
How do we know the bible is true? How do we know that anything is true? “To the victor goes the spoils” as does the history. In my experience everything that has been written has some sort of bias. Absolute truth is not something easily achieved if at all because we all have a bias. So why do I believe the bible is true. It rings true to me. Its not about the accounts and where they came from, its not about if someone else tells me this is true or not ( as in any church verification) and it isn’t about taking your (generic) word for it. I read as much as I can, keep an open mind, and well its like the movie Dogma. Beliefs start wars, set up walls, and cause pain. But an idea is always flowing to where it needs to be.
Like you say about love – I see the effects in my life and in others. I learned recently that muslims who follow the teachings of the Nation of Islam believe 90% – to 95% of the same things that the christian faith believes. You can probably find many similarities in most of the religions of the world.
I am rambling and lost now. I hope I clarified my thoughts about that statement. I am not a strong writer like you guys and thats why I podcast. I think much better when I am talking. I feel like the 14yo trying to talk to the edjucated adults. Thanks for letting me and not making me feel stupid.
You are a very interestign man Sid. We have much to discuss. Email me at bearcrawling@gmail.com and lets go.
One more thought
I define “faith” as the ability to let go of belief and knowledge and relax in what you find true.
The key being that those who have faith in sciene or the supernatural (or both – not mutually exclusive) can let go and be in the truth.
Hello Big C,
Don’t sell yourself short. I’ve listened to your podcast a number of times and you’re no dummy. I think you are right that you express yourself very well by speaking.
Thanks for clarifying what you meant. You’ve expressed a sentiment similar to what I (through Hume) am trying to express in part with the quote in my header.
I wanted to comment on this:
I get what you mean. That’s why I try to admit my ignorance when I don’t know something. Unfortunately, humility is not one of my qualities. But one aspect of my skepticism is reducing the number of unfounded beliefs I holds. This often results in having very few answers.
“In my experience everything that has been written has some sort of bias.”
This is why multiple sources is so vital, especially if the sources are from opposite ‘sides’. We can be more confident about the parts they agree on.
“I define “faith” as the ability to let go of belief and knowledge and relax in what you find true.”
That’s an interesting definition and I can see it being quite useful. I’m very curious what other religious-minded people think of it. This definition keeps me solidly in the category of ‘faithless’ though. Not because I have trouble letting go of belief, but because I cannot relax and be comfortable in what I find true.
Hello Big C.
I have a couple things I’ll add to what’s been said so far.
The first is about Sagan’s Balance. In philosophical jargon, Sagan’s Balance is concerned with one thing, and that’s justification. It’s not something that gives you the truth every time or even oftentimes, and it’s not a law of reasoning in the formal sense. Think of it as a practical guideline. I think it’s something that we all actually follow in everyday life. For example, when someone tells you they’ve got a bridge in Florida to sell you, you don’t merely accept their word for it; you want a little more evidence. That’s Sagan’s Balance in a nutshell. It is not used as some guarantor of truth, but as a useful tool.
Now the point I really want to address. Over the posts you’ve made you seem to have a pretty consistent definition of truth as something you feel. Truth’s a tricky word, depending on who uses it. In the conventional sense, truth is thought of as a fact, something correct. The problem with instead defining truth as something you feel is that, simply put, people feel different things. What people feel to be true has changed over time and place, due to culture, era, race, gender, mental stability, and so on. If you center truth on feeling, it gets unstable, and as a result truths contradict each other, which doesn’t really make any sense in the regular sense of truth. What I’m saying is that people can “feel” different things to be true, even if they contradict. That makes “knowing” anything in a universal, factual sense really difficult. You pick up on this when you talk about bias, but that only belabors the point: how do we get past the feeling brought about by biases and get to the feeling connected to truth? Who is the impartial judge? (Even notice here the judge is supposed to be “impartial”) You also recognize that often people aren’t so different in what they believe, that many differences are superficial, but to that I would say that there are still others who feel different but feel just as strongly and, in some cases, feel the same way as you do (in terms of what “truth” is). How do we reconcile this while being fair to all sides? Or do we end up as relativists?
Personally, I fight to resolve the problem of truth with the weapon of clarity: debate, think, and become clear in your own thoughts so as to become clear to others (though I am also very much of the belief that there are untranslatable parts of the human experience). Subjectivity is a part of us, but to communicate a common idea of what is true requires more than just what one feels. Discussion is a useful method, especially when the people involved don’t agree.
Also, one last point about one’s humanity. I think it’s more of a stereotype than anything else (though that far from makes it nonexistent) that science robs people of their humanity, in part because there’s no simple definition of “humanity.” What I find makes me feel human is different from what others do. The scientist, diligent in his work and the duty he feels towards human progress, shares no less in humanity simply because of his tastes, goals, or even his feelings towards other human beings or himself. Personally, I think to fulfill one’s humanity is to fulfill one’s individual self whatever that may be, the one not designated by the human species as such. In the same sense, religion, the arts, social work, and anything else is no better towards giving one their humanity so long as the individual is not doing anything to achieve that humanity. The occupation, goal, or event matters not; it’s what the human does that makes humanity.
Big C… You mentioned that muslims believe 90-95% the same things that christians believe but that does’nt mean anything at all and here is what I mean.
If you have computer program with a million lines of code and you change even one line you can have an output totally different from the original even exactly the opposite!
Likewise a chimpanee has a genetic code I believe 98% the same as humans in yet look at the result.Information is’nt the same as strawberries you can’t weigh it and say two systems are mostly alike because most of their coding is similar!
It is very important to understand that distinction.
As I continue to mull over what has been said here (and I must say that I LOVE discussions such as this one!), one question continues to burn in my mind: What is the basis for Sagan’s Balance? I mean, it sounds reasonable, but isn’t it rather arbitrary?
Furthermore, I’m not convinced that the application of the “balance” is consistent. For example, several of you are saying that the resurrection of Jesus would require extraordinary evidence because it would be an extraordinary event for a man to come back from the dead. Yet you rather casually dismiss the veracity of the scriptural accounts and imply that it is unlikely that they are true. Is extraordinary evidence required for a person saying, “This is what I saw with my own eyes?” Eye-witnesses are considered to be the strongest of witnesses. So, an eye-witness account wouldn’t be considered “extra-ordinary”, would it?
Please note that I’m not talking about (nor did Ray or I ever bring up) the issues of “inspiration”, “inerrancy”, etc. In fact, I would be the first to say that I don’t think those doctrines have to even enter in to a discussion such as this. I’m simply talking about the reliability of the scriptural accounts as historical records of first-century events.
Maybe you all are not aware (I have no idea what type of scriptural knowledge exists in each person discussing this here, so I’m not trying to patronize, but simply to be fair) that there is numerous manuscript evidence for every portion of the New Testament, and any variations that have been found are relatively minor (i.e., nothing substantial is varied). We’re talking thousands upon thousands of existing manuscripts (fragments, etc.) from various parts of the world of that day, various time periods, etc.
Yet, you doubt that they are accurate documents. Snurp wrote:
Except for the fact that there is absolutely no manuscript evidence of significant changes. Some of the manuscripts that have been found have been dated as early as the early second century. And they had already been circulated throughout the Christian world at that time. How would changes have been made in all those scattered documents that would cause them to remain consistent with each other, yet consistently false?
What puzzles me here is the “guilty until proven innocent” approach. I’d be very surprised if any of you approached science in the same way. In fact, my understanding of the scientific method is that you develop a hypothesis, and then set out to prove that hypothesis. Not to disprove it, but to prove it. Am I wrong? If, say, the theory of evolution does not have any substantial witness (i.e., no one has ever observed major changes taking place in a species from generation to generation), why should anyone accept it? Sagan’s Balance, if consistently applied, would require extraordinary evidence of a single-cell species gradually becoming something that climbs ashore and begins to grow legs, no?
OK, let’s get specific, if we’re going to have this discussion. Enough of the broad stroke dismissals. The burden of proof would seem to be on the skeptic to say why we can’t trust the eyewitness accounts in the scriptural record.
Snurp mentioned a defense attorney casting doubt on a witness. OK, Snurp, you have the floor, and the biblical writers are on the stand as witnesses. You may begin your cross-examination
Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you know that I have compiled some of my thoughts into a blog post. Here is the link, Raysxchange:Resurrection Response I hope that this helps to clarify some of my thoughts! Thanks everyone for the great dialog. You guys are great!
Steve,
You must have been writing at the same time as me. I got finished writing my thoughts, placed a comment over here and then saw that you were the last commenter before me. Do you have ESP…N?
Hello Steve,
You have some good thoughts there. I’m glad you came back to comment.
Allow me to specify with respect to Sagan’s balance and the Bible. First, the Bible contains both mundane and extraordinary content. I consistently apply Sagan’s balance to the various parts. Thus I’m fully satisfied that some of the Bible is accurate even if filtered through a religious perspective.
The fact that there was a religious leader name Jesus living in that area at that time is not extraordinary. Verifying those facts requires relatively little evidence. The ‘miraculous’ parts require much, much more evidence. Thus when it seems that I am dismissing the veracity of the Bible, I should specify that I am unconvinced by the miraculous parts. It would take more than eye-witness accounts to convince me of someone’s return from the grave.
The basis for Sagan’s Balance is inductive reasoning. I see snow on the ground outside and find that it’s cold. I see snow on the ground again elsewhere and find that it’s cold. After enough times and in enough places, I can inductively conclude that snow is cold. My familiarity with snow’s coldness makes that fact mundane. If someone tells me that the snow in Antarctica is cold as well, I can take his word for it. It’s weak evidence, but it’s a mundane fact.
Now suppose that someone tells me that snow is hot in Antarctica. That’s extraordinary. That is, I have no inductive basis with which to accept this new fact. Lacking that, I require more evidence to convince me.
Replace the concepts of cold snow and hot snow above with permanent death and temporary death and you see why I have no problem believing a man named Jesus lived and died around the area we call Israel in the first century BCE, but require more to convince me that he rose from the dead.
Of course, if you don’t think Sagan’s balance is legitimate, I have over $10,000,000 in an overseas account that, for various political reasons, I am unable to access. Now if you just give me your bank account number…
Unfortunately, eye-witness accounts are not as reliable as we’d hope them to be. Consider, for instance, the number of UFO abductees and the witnesses to the miracles of Hindu Gods, Allah, or what-have-you.
Especially when it comes to miracles, there’s the additional problem of metaphysical interpretation of the observer. A Christian, a UFO enthusiast, and a psychic walk into a bar. They witness the same miracle in that bar. Their descriptions of the event agree, but they attribute causation differently. The Christian claims it’s an act of God, the UFO enthusiast claims it’s alien technology, the psychic claims it was a spirit of the dead. Which is it? If they all happened to be psychics, would that make their interpretation correct?
I hope the above example demonstrates that even if we take an eye-witness’s account of the facts of an event as accurate, we cannot always trust the interpretation.
Consistent manuscripts found throughout time would only speak to the integrity of the text itself, not the veracity of its content. Unfortunately, as you picked up on, my knowledge of the history of the Bible is spotty at best, thus I cannot offer a differing opinion on that portion of your comment. I’d like to learn more about it, but that is the case for many topics. Someday, I’ll learn more about it.
One last point from me and hopefully Snurp can comment on your direct challenges to his statements.
Well, in a perfect world, a scientist develops a hypothesis and then tests it. But scientists are human and subject to the weaknesses of the species, which includes pride and vanity. So often scientists do try to prove their hypothesis instead of merely testing it. That one scientist aside, it is the job of all the other scientists to disprove the hypothesis. This acts as a check on any one scientist’s bias. So, in that sense, you are mistaken, the scientific method does involve trying to disprove hypotheses.
I hope to hear more for you. I’ll check out Raborn’s response as time permits.
Thanks for contributing guys!
Sid, fair correction on the scientific method. I’m more than willing to retract that part of my comment.
I do think we’re back to one of the earlier points we made in the podcast, however, that “scientific method” does not necessarily apply (nor can it) to historical events.
Take, for example, the Big Bang theory. There would have to be extraordinary evidence, according to Sagan, to support that theory, right? There are no eyewitness accounts, there are no “repeats” of this event. Why would anyone bother to hold to such a view?
The first thing I will do is try to elucidate sid’s comment on the nature of science. In science, there are a couple of standards that are important here. The first is testability, as sid noted. A hypothesis has to be testable; you need to actually be able to demonstrate its truth. From this comes verifiability and falsifiability. Verifiability says that a hypothesis must be something that can be scientifically (empirically and consistently) demonstrated to be true. What concerns this discussion, however, is the latter. It is a general scientific requirement of a theory that the there are conditions which prove the theory false. With no falsification conditions a theory is not scientifically legitimate. The point I am making is that disproving hypotheses is an essential part of the conduct of science. As sid said, scientists are human, but they are also in competition. There is reason and motivation to disprove others, and it helps the progress of science ultimately.
Secondly, about both eye-witness accounts and Sagan’s Balance. I am tying these both together because, when it comes to eye-witness accounts, I apply Sagan’s Balance. If someone tells me he saw my car in the parking lot a minute ago, I am likely to take his word for it. If the same person, trustworthy though he may be, says that he saw my car flying through the air a minute ago, I will not believe him. The fact of an eye-witness account (or, in this case, the written record of an eye-witness account) does not guarantee anything. One has to take consideration for content and context.
On the note of context:
This confuses textual consistency with historical accuracy. If there are more accounts of the Bible than the Iliad, and they are consistent, then I will call the Bible we have more textually consistent. But that does not carry over to the truth of what is described. Even with 600+ copies of Homer, I disbelieve just about everything he said.
Now to get to what was specifically addressed to my words.
It’s still a belief, first of all. They very well may have seen an empty tomb; that does not tell us why the tomb was empty. They may also believed that they had seen the resurrected Jesus. If they believed these two things, then perhaps they believed them strongly enough to die for them. That still does not demonstrate anything in terms of truth, only belief, and belief need not have anything at all to do with truth.
Secondly, there is a false dichotomy here. If their beliefs were false, the only choices were not that they died for a known lie or were deceived. Calling the latter deception unfairly simplifies and colors the possibilities. It could have been a self-induced delusion. It could have been deeply sincere hope that changed what they thought they experienced. It could have been a completely different reason that convinced them that they needed to believe this or argue for it. These are not the only possibilities, so just attacking would miss the point: that what led to their belief, if it was belief as we think of it, is unknown to anyone today, ultimately. Many things could have happened for those forty days in between. Even assuming that the disciples did all believe, were all convinced, and that none of them “cracked under the pressure,” as you put it, I see nothing proven. Why so doubtful? Sagan’s Balance.
“Bobby went off to fight in the war.”
“Why?”
“His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all fought in wars, and he said that his father said he should carry on the legacy.”
“Oh. They probably did, then”
versus
“Bobby went off to fight in the war.”
“Why?”
“He said that the garden gnomes living on his lawn told him to.”
“…”
(This example was not intended to denigrate Christian belief in any way, but was just a quick way to make the point: what constitutes good reasons for believing something to be true, or for believing someone else’s belief and the truth of its reasoning, is subject to Sagan’s Balance as much as anything else. For me a resurrection after three days of being dead is subject to a considerably higher than normal standard of proof, just like talking garden gnomes.)
The “criterion of embarassment” you use I find to be very interesting, though terribly subjective and not at all useful in terms of finding the truth of something. It assumes a very simple set of human motives and actions.
As for the definition of skepticism: to be flat, skepticism is not a faith in human reason. That is exactly, precisely, perfectly what actual skepticism is against. There is an absolutely vital difference between skepticism as a tool and skepticism as skepticism. Skepticism as tool is as Descartes used it: a way to reach better truths. In this sense, for example, Sagan’s Balance can be seen as something of a skepticial tool (which also allows me to reiterate that Sagan’s Balance is a tool, not a law). But this is, ultimately, anti-skepticitim par excellence; any faith here (which there may very well be, such as a faith in the ability to reach the truth) is a faith in something else, one that is absolutely not permissible in skepticism as disposition, as “system” (though the term system itself is anti-skeptical). Skeptics do not devote themselves to much of anything, for that would be unjustified. Let’s take the example of sid. Sid, as you have probably noticed, believes very much in the Enlightenment goals of human reason and ability. He feels that skepticism can be used to refine our beliefs and get us to the truth (or to something better approximating it). This is a good idea. But this is not skepticism per se. The actual practicing skeptic attacks reason before all as being illegitimate to understand “truth.” In the sense that sid sees certain parts of experience or nature to be simply beyond reasonable explanation, for example when he casts a consistent doubt on the verifiability of the supernatural, he is a skeptic in the proper sense. Pilate hit the nail on the head, interestingly enough. “What is truth?” is a real skeptical question. Thus you can attack someone who uses skeptical questions and doubts, but you cannot do so on the grounds that skepticism implies any faith, for skepticism by definition and practice has no faith. If there is faith, it must be elsewhere.
Lastly, I did say, and do believe, that there are untranslatable parts of the human experience. I also said, “Subjectivity is a part of us, but to communicate a common idea of what is true requires more than just what one feels.” Thus that untranslatable part of us cannot be used as a criterion for truth. For what can justifiably judge it? This applies to the idea that faith is alogical – if it exists beyond a standard of judgment, how does one justifiably judge it? I don’t know. Therefore, I think it unjustified to use faith or anything that stems from it to tell someone that something is true, because when we say that X is true, we always mean to say that it is intersubjectively true – for me and for you, and for everyone else. That requires proof, and beyond proof there is nothing (to judge, that is).
This much and I haven’t even read Steve’s response yet! I’ll read over this again, see what I have addressed, and maybe post again with more in a bit.
Okay, Part II. This will probably repeat much of Part I, but I have no problem with that if it clarifies the points better.
David Hume, the philosopher whom sid has quoted on the top of this page, made what is easily one of the most powerful and long-lasting arguments in the history of philosophy. He attacked induction, saying that it was circular. I will not go into details, as this is not a philosophy lesson, but in short I will say that he was right and that two and a half centuries have yet to prove he was not.
So, what does that say for Sagan’s Balance, which is an inductive argument? It says that Sagan’s Balance does not guarantee truth. And indeed, I have no problem with that. Neither does sid, I bet. Sagan’s Balance is something that is used in practice, because we need a standard, a rule, a guide by which to make judgments. That is all.
How does this apply to the Scripture? It means what was said, that Sagan’s Balance does not guarantee anything. It does not prove or disprove the resurrection. It says that the resurrection should be backed up, and strongly at that, if we are to get a good (only good, not guaranteed) answer. This means that I accept the possibility of the resurrection. I think that sid would too, to be consistent. But that admits the mere possibility, nothing more. I also admit that unicorns may exist, and that there may be ten dimensions, as those string-theorists (I think it’s them) argue. For me all these are possible, but I would expect stronger justification. This is practice, this is how we reason.
So, what constitutes good enough evidence? Eye-witness accounts? For the resurrection, no. If twenty people walked up to me right now and told me that some guy who’s been laying in the morgue for three days got up and left, and that he did so because of God, I would not believe them. I believe that I am far from alone in this, and I think you would agree with that. I see no reason to believe that people return from the dead. Nothing in experience, in life, in history, from the accounts from others, has told me there is good reason I should. Therefore it seems more than reasonable to doubt the accounts before doubting what they describe, if what they describe is so extraordinary. Such is the nature of miracles, after all. Once again, this is on the same grounds to me as unicorns. I see no more reason to believe one than the other. To say otherwise, to me, seems based on the idea that returning from death is more likely than unicorns, and I see no reason to believe that, either. Why should I? Because account say so? I have heard Bigfoot accounts as well. I doubt them both
All of the above applies even assuming the Scriptures were preserved flawlessly and that what was written was really as it was experienced. Now, in terms of the Scriptures themselves, it was said above that the manuscripts were dated to the early second century. Let’s assume that they had circulated for at least twenty years, putting them right at about 100 AD. Jesus died around 33 AD, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John likely wrote their accounts not long after he died. That leaves a good sixty years before the first documents are dated. A lot can happen to a text in that time. Remember that there was no printing press, no mass production, and so on. These are the “eye-witness accounts.”
What of the other works? They come much longer after the fact, from other people who did not share the first-hand experience of the Apostles, with the supposed exception of Paul. However, I could dismiss Paul much more easily than the synoptic gospels, since Paul’s experience was just that, an experience, and I’ve heard plenty about “experiences” and such.
This assumes that the Scriptures were never, ever, edited when they were brought together, and that for the earliest of documents, of which we have “some,” that there was no interaction between the groups that received them. If there was communication enough to move these things, there was enough to attempt to explain and interpret them.
Evolution was used as an example for Sagan’s Balance at one point. I don’t really want to get into evolution right now, but I will say this much. Darwin didn’t get his consensus by just making claims and calling for the downfall of The Man. Look into “On the Origin of Species.” It’s one of the most boring books you’ll ever read. This is because Darwin was a man who knew how to do science. He had volumes of evidence, and he crammed it right into your head until you collapsed. Science has faithfully (so to speak
) carried out that tradition, so evidence is very much there to confirm its more extraordinary claims (which is also not to say that all parts of evolutionary theory are equally accepted). Also, I believe that the concept of evolution is one of the simplest, easiest to accept things in the world, and that Sagan’s Balance fully agrees. This I will explain upon request, but for now will try to keep this post shorter (than it could be, anyway).
I think that’s all for now. I was supposed to write my Statements of Purpose for graduate schools today, but it looks like that will happen over two days now. But hey, there are worse ways to lose your time.
Now for something a little different… go to youtube then type in george carlin then go to the religion bit.Sometimes comedians cut to the chase quite effectively and the thing about carlin is that he is not saying anything untrue R.I.P George Carlin
Once again everyone I apologize for taking so long to gather more of my thoughts. As many of you know, I work in retail and this is a VERY busy time. When I get home I’m finding myself a little too lazy to think through my comments. I have been slowly putting some thoughts together, and hopefully will have something up this weekend. Sid, thanks again for hosting this discussion. I am impressed by the thinking process of both you and Snurp, but more so by your tone and willingness to bear with my sporadic remarks. It is great to be able to actually dialog with people on the “other side of the fence”.
I read your thoughts and they are ginormous. They make me tired. Not that it’s bad but these kind of questions should be left to those who can write fancy. I am a smart cookie but my gift ain’t writing or conveying my thought in this medium. My gift is creative communication. I had a point. Oh, yeah you are awesome!
Hey everyone,
I mentioned the Shroud of Turin in an earlier comment. I just thought that I would let everyone know that a documentary on the Shroud will be airing at 10pm EST on Discovery. It will replay at midnight EST as well.
Sid,
I wasn’t sure where to post a response to your inquiry, so I just decided to put it here. As to eyewitness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, John is one of the best places to start. John chapters 20-21 are good descriptions of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to each of His disciples. John was one of the disciples who followed Jesus for 3.5 years and was among the first to witness the empty tomb. Matthew also was one of the disciples and gives an account as one who actually saw Jesus after He arose from the dead. Of course the other two Gospel writers give accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, but these are not necessarily eyewitness accounts. However, many scholars believe that Mark gained his information directly from Peter, and is probably the boy mentioned in Mark 14:51-52. Peter in 1 Peter 1:3-5 & 1:18-21 says that Jesus rose from the dead as well. This is especially important considering that Peter was the one who denied Jesus in order to evade being persecuted and possibly executed as He followed Jesus from a distance during His trials before the Jewish authorities. James, the brother of Jesus who wrote one book of the New Testament, does not mention the resurrection, but it is interesting that he was one of the brothers of Jesus who mocked Him and did not initially believe in Jesus as the Messiah. What would cause him later to refer to his own brother as the “Lord Jesus Christ”? Paul states that Jesus appeared to James, Peter and as many as 500 people at one time in an effort to appeal to his audience’s knowledge of and access to these persons and their resurrection testimony (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
As to your (and Snurp’s) observation that “your point supports textual consistency, not historical accuracy”, you are absolutely right. I thought that this might be an issue though since it seemed that, after Snurp’s original comment, the textual preservation of the New Testament documents might be an issue. As to historical accuracy though, the New Testament has been proven to be historically accurate in many details that it reports by various archaeological findings. I won’t go into great detail at this point, but just to name a few:
Gallio as proconsul of Achaea: This title was thought to be bogus by historians for a long time until an inscription was found at Delphi that has this title for Gallio and dates him to AD 51. This was at the same time that Paul was in Corinth, which is part of the story that Luke is writing about in Acts.
There have been coins discovered which have inscribed on them the names of the Herod family. This family is mentioned throughout the Gospels as an integral part of the Roman rule in the provinces in which Jesus ministered.
Proof has been found for Caiaphas the high priest and Pilate the governor, both participants in the trials of Jesus. An ossuary has been discovered inscribed with “Joseph son of Caiaphas” in Aramaic. Josephus, the Jewish historian, also mentions Caiaphas. In 1961, an inscription was discovered in Caesarea, which had, the Latin words “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judaea”. Josephus, Tacitus and Philo also mention Pilate.
Why should any of this make a difference? To me, it shows that the New Testament is historically verifiable on any issue in which it intersects history. This is important in that it establishes that the New Testament writers gave attention to historical detail in conveying the story of Jesus. Providing details such as when a census was given or who ruled a certain province during a certain time does not seem consistent with the construction of a legend. Who else in the ancient world presents us with such historical, archaelogically verifiable detail in the midst of a myth or legendary tale?
I hope that I am not grossly oversimplifying, but I think that it all comes down to basic presuppositions that we each have about the nature of reality. I think it’s a lot like two little boys waking up on Christmas morning to find a pile of manure, instead of presents, under their tree. While the one little boy simply stands staring at and studying the pile of manure, the other little boy runs around the house, searching as he declares “we got a horse”. The manure was a simple clue that the parents left to point their children’s attention to the ultimate reality of a horse.
I believe that the Gospel accounts contained within the New Testament are as historically reliable as any written history of ancient happenings. I have tried to give some evidence of that here, but I would be glad to present more reasons along these lines if it would be helpful to our discussion. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and contributions to this discussion. I am very appreciative for your time both in reading and responding to this dialog!
Sorry for yet another comment, but I just found out that I need to correct the date/time I gave for the documentary on the Shroud of Turin. The documentary will actually being airing Monday, December 22 at 7pm EST. Sorry for the wrong info earlier!
Hello again, Raborn.
Here, for reference, is the crux of your argument in post 26:
I don’t know about sid, but by and large I don’t doubt many, if not most, of the historical names and events mentioned within the New Testament documents. Generally speaking, I don’t doubt that there was a Jesus, that he walked and spoke to people, and that he was tried and crucified. But that, to me, doesn’t make the case the validity of the resurrection.
You say, “Providing details such as when a census was given or who ruled a certain province during a certain time does not seem consistent with the construction of a legend.” The short response is that those who were trying to support Christianity probably did not believe themselves to be telling a myth. They believed in Jesus, whatever that means (this is important; I don’t think what they believed is as clear as some thing, nor as unified). If they’re going to defend their beliefs to someone else, of course they would want to use verifiable evidence to describe the life of Jesus; doing so would be much easier than making everything up and trying to defend it. It seems foolish to do otherwise, if given the choice. But to argue from that to the claim that “the New Testament is historically verifiable on any issue in which it intersects history” is simply unjustifiable, particularly because of the nature of many of the claims.
The fallacy here reminds me of (but is not the same as) a certain kind of trick fortunetellers use. A fortuneteller gains your trust by making specially (vaguely) worded claims that can in some way be related to you, depending on your personality and how you interpret things. You come to trust the fortuneteller, and then one day the fortuneteller tells you to join X community because it will be the only one to survive the coming apocalypse (or perhaps tells you to give him/her all your money to save your future, etc.). The point here is not the nature of the fortuneteller’s trick; the point is that, even if the fortuneteller was right before, the kinds of claims now being made are very different, and should be subject to, at the minimum, caution. With the historical people and events described in the New Testament, I will accept that some of them are true, perhaps many. But that’s no reason to give uncritical assent to all claims in it, particularly (and especially) when the claims are supernatural. That a certain person was in charge at a certain date is one type of claim; that someone rose from the dead is an entirely different one. They are not subject to the same treatment or standards, and in real life I don’t believe we ever treat them as such.
Hello Raborn,
Thanks for the info. I’ll get to reading after the holidays.
Snurp has an interesting point about the historical accurate bits. If one is trying to make a case for a subjective judgment (that Jesus was God), then one would naturally include factual detail as well as their subjective conclusion. Like Snurp, I have no reason to seriously doubt the accuracy of the names and dates of many of the people and events described in the Bible. This includes point 1 on your blog post. The fact that Jesus lived, was a social rebel, and was executed via crucifixion are not extraordinary at all. Thus the evidence burden is relatively low.
It’s the parts about talking snakes, 300+ year-old people, fiery, talking plants, spontaneously parting waters, magically broken city walls, dead people crawling out of graves etc. that I require more evidence. Lacking convincing evidence, I disbelieve these portions.
I regard the Bible as a blend of myth and reality. The two are often blended in mythology where historically accurate events are mixed with the miraculous. I’m not willing to accept that the fantasy-like portions are accurate simply because the mundane bits are accurate.
Your points 2, 3, and 4 are all part of the same narrative written to support the resurrection hypothesis. I’m not convinced that the conclusion came first followed by these ‘facts’. The legitimacy of the narrative itself is in question and requires evidence.
Point 5 just describes someone who underwent a dramatic religious conversions. There’s not much else to say other than those occasionally happen.
Thanks for clarifying what you feel skeptics have faith in. You wrote “I believe that it is an expression of undying devotion to human reason as the only mediator of truth.”. I believe it to be the only trustworthy mediator of truth. Perhaps I have not adequately considered other mediators of truth. Which do you trust to accurately convey truth?
This really help clarify where you are coming from. This, combined with your rational defense of Jesus as Christ makes why you are a Christian (and why you are the type of Christian you are) very clear. I cannot step beyond logic simply because I think that once one does, there is no way that I know to determine what is true and what is not. Is this were you use some alternative mediators of truth?
The last part of your post address Sagan’s balance. I described the basis for it in a previous comment.
The authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is a separate subject but I will point out that three independent labs did controlled, radiocarbon dating on the shroud (pdf). It’s from the about the 14th century, about the same time that the first account of the existence of the shroud appeared in Church records. It’s simply not old enough to have been Jesus’. But, even if it was the real deal, it gives no evidence of the resurrection, only of the death.
Thank you for patiently waiting for my response.
Sid & Snurp,
Thanks for your replys! I too will comment more after Christmas, but I did want to quickly point out something from your last comment, Sid. I am very familiar with the Carbon 14 dating that was done in 1988. But, in 2005 it was proven to be inaccurate and it is now believed by many that the Shroud is much older. This is not some “new” evidence conjured up by religious fanatics. This was actually confirmed by Ray Rogers, one of the original STRP team members who conducted experiments on the Shroud. He was very skeptical regarding the initial suggestion that the Carbon 14 dating might be inaccurate and actually set out to prove the theory wrong. But what he found actually shocked him and caused him to rethink his original conclusion. This was reported in Thermochimica Acta in January 2005. You can find more information about this finding here Shroud Story
Merry Christmas everyone and I’ll see you after the holiday!
Merry Christmas!