# Brushes with the divine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 9, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585 "2013-06-09T21:12:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/261 "2013-06-19T12:51:13Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > See this is your problem in a nutshell right here. You know the evidence for the resurrection is insufficient to warrant belief. However you claim you have this extra evidence that none of us can see. But when you tell is about your extra evidence, you are not Thomas who saw the holes in the hands of Jesus. You are just some guy who heard a song, or just thinks he did. As far as you have written you have no way of knowing that the song was sung by Jesus or by and angle sent by Jesus. That’s just what you attached it to because it’s the religion myth you know the best. That’s irrational. > > Just think about it. It’s considerably more likely that aliens were probing you and that’s why you heard the song, then some dead guy named Jesus or one of his angels sang it to you. It’s also more likely that you just imagined you heard it, had a hallucination, or someone drove by playing his radio loud. Some ghost playing it for you is likely the least probable (I’ll go so far as to say impossible) of all explanations, and to top it off you think you can say what particular ghost sent the singer, yet admit you couldn’t see either and you couldn’t understand what any of the words were. Which is why I didn’t want to get into this discussion in the first place. I know my testimony of my experience is not sufficient to compel belief in others, and have said so from the outset. Mystical experiences are not provable by scientific means. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/262 "2013-06-19T12:52:12Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Sure, and Zeus, Isis and Thor as well. Just keep in mind the fact that you are a finite creature judging a concept that is, at least for the standard idea of the Christian God, by definition beyond the scope of human understandng. That’s a convenient definition. Where did you get it? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/263 "2013-06-19T12:54:43Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > I can give you an emphatic maybe. Doesn’t look like it to me. So you think the entire book of Revelation is most likely false too? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/264 "2013-06-19T12:57:50Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Which is why I didn’t want to get into this discussion in the first place. I know my testimony of my experience is not sufficient to compel belief in others, and have said so from the outset. Mystical experiences are not provable by scientific means. Forget whether it would compel others-you have yet to explain why this incident compelled _you_ to identify it with any particular deity. Without seeing them, what caused you to think they were angels and not some other mystical entity, and what led you to believe that these entities came from the Biblical “God”? If this same incident had occurred if you were Indian, do you think you might attribute it to another cause and if so, why doesn’t this cause you to step back and say, “I really don’t know what happened here.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/265 "2013-06-19T12:59:07Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > That’s a convenient definition. Where did you get it? It’s in the Book, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/266 "2013-06-19T12:59:11Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Isaac Asimov, noted atheist, commented in his commentary on the New Testament something to the effect that, however the text reads, something formed a group of confused and frightened disciples into the seed of a major religion. If not resurrection, then what was it? Anything else! Any non-miraculous explanation, regardless of how unlikely it may seem, is more likely than a miraculous one. Disagree? ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/267 "2013-06-19T12:59:26Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Which is why I didn’t want to get into this discussion in the first place. I know my testimony of my experience is not sufficient to compel belief in others, and have said so from the outset. Mystical experiences are not provable by scientific means. I didn’t think you were trying to persuade or convert your readers. But I am curious as to your bias towards Christianity when you have knowledge of quite a few similar belief systems. Or why not just credit your experience to a twinge in the parietal lobes? ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/268 "2013-06-19T13:00:03Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Then it wasn’t originally allegory, and thus it isn’t allegory _now_. You can’t turn someone else’s inaccurate story into allegory by decree-it has to be the intent of the original author. Form Criticism of the OT is more than I want to get into right now. The origin narrative has been taken and shaped; there is a symmetry there that bespeaks conscious human design in the placement of the symbolic elements, hence an allegorical use of literary symbols to represent abstract truths that the redactor may have believed. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/269 "2013-06-19T13:02:48Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And Jesus’ supposed 500 witnesses? I mentioned them in connection with Troppus’s statement there were only a handful of eyewitnesses. Giving an apt scriptural reference in support of a position that arguably proceeds from other scriptures is relevant and appropriate: any evidence of the number of eyewitnesses necessarily comes from the NT itself. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/270 "2013-06-19T13:03:09Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > If you check the OP, I’m pretty certain I said that I don’t expect people to accept it here, and that if it hadn’t happened to me I wouldn’t believe it either. You are trying to get people to accept a whole lot more than the claim that you heard a song. Why are you attaching so much specific theological baggage to your hearing a non-descriptive song? ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/271 "2013-06-19T13:03:50Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > I think if you do a web search of popular Christian apologetics you will come back blaming evil on free will. Of course it does. It starts with Adam’s fall from grace. What’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/272 "2013-06-19T13:04:30Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Form Criticism of the OT is more than I want to get into right now. The origin narrative has been taken and shaped; there is a symmetry there that bespeaks conscious human design in the placement of the symbolic elements, hence an allegorical use of literary symbols to represent abstract truths that the redactor may have believed. Massive overthink, in my opinion. How well designed could it be with two different origins of the universe next to each other? It is a collection of stories, some more probable than others, and some contradicting others. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/273 "2013-06-19T13:04:57Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > That’s a convenient definition. Where did you get it? Let’s see, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, for starters, and centuries of theologians since. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/274 "2013-06-19T13:05:57Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Of course it does. It starts with Adam’s fall from grace. What’s your point? And if it didn’t actually happen, what actual event caused Mankind’s fall from grace? ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/275 "2013-06-19T13:06:27Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Form Criticism of the OT is more than I want to get into right now. The origin narrative has been taken and shaped; there is a symmetry there that bespeaks conscious human design in the placement of the symbolic elements, hence an allegorical use of literary symbols to represent abstract truths that the redactor may have believed. You mean like the Fox and the Grapes? Is God the fox? Who are the grapes? Scratch that. The inclusion of some hackneyed morality tales in a disjointed, rambling amalgamation of history, law, the ramblings of a few madmen, and heavily borrowed mythology does not an ordered masterpiece make. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/276 "2013-06-19T13:07:16Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > The TV camera and studio audience were on a revolving platform. The view was blocked. It was night. They revolved. David Copperfield doesn’t claim to perform anything but stage illusion. You can’t prove David Copperfield can’t do real magic. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/277 "2013-06-19T13:07:35Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > So you think the entire book of Revelation is most likely false too? I think that the particular symbolism used in apocryphal literature of the period the book was written in allows for too many interpretations to pin it down to anything specific. There are a numbers of books just on the history of its interpretation. Only the strictest of fundamentalists take it literally. ---
**Author:** ![Troppus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Troppus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troppus)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/278 "2013-06-19T13:12:28Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > I think that the particular symbolism used in apocryphal literature of the period the book was written in allows for too many interpretations to pin it down to anything specific. There are a numbers of books just on the history of its interpretation. Only the strictest of fundamentalists take it literally. So basically you just poke around in the Bible as a hobby, gratified when you stumble across something relevant to your experience and blasé when you discover improbabilities and contradictions? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/279 "2013-06-19T13:12:29Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Really? The plates were reportedly seen be a dozen witnesses, all of whom were obviously partisan. I understand your skepticism, but how do you know the song you heard wasn’t sung by the angel Moroni? > [@](#): > > I mentioned 1 Corinthians refers to over 500 witnesses to Christ’s resurrection and you hooted it down because it was partisan. I mentioned 500 people saw me fly by flapping my arms. > [@](#): > > I don’t see where that makes them better attested. Signed statements by actual witnesses is better attestation than hearsay reports of witnesses. I would agree that even the Mormon reports are insufficient to warrant belief. They are just better than your Christians ones. But then again, why would they lie?😃 ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585/280 "2013-06-19T13:14:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Forget whether it would compel others-you have yet to explain why this incident compelled _you_ to identify it with any particular deity. Without seeing them, what caused you to think they were angels and not some other mystical entity, and what led you to believe that these entities came from the Biblical “God”? If this same incident had occurred if you were Indian, do you think you might attribute it to another cause and if so, why doesn’t this cause you to step back and say, “I really don’t know what happened here.” I’ve already agreed that if I was raised in India I would accept this in accordance with the prevalent faith. I really DON’T know what happened here. My thought was and is that since I had been presented with a personal epiphany that God exists, I should seriously explore the ramifications of that, and the most obvious place to start was the Christian church, since it’s the most prevalent. Through trial and consideration, I eventually came to the Presbyterians largely because they encourage discussions of comparative religion and how that relates to the Bible, and because their social religion platform is uniformly beneficial to humanity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brushes-with-the-divine/660585.md?page=15)