Does that mean that if a 17th century person didn’t believed that there was no 8th planet, as you suggest they must if there was no evidence, they were wrong for the right reasons? What this illustrates is that if you follow the proposed “logic” of a null or default position, that you will be lead into believing a number of incorrect things. Absense of evidence does not equal evidence of absense. Without any sort of evidence for or against the existence of something nothing ban be truthfully said about its existence. You can come up with arguments that show that it is likely that something does not exist. For instance it is unlikely that there is a 9th planet (since Pluto got demoted from planethood) because we have mapped enough of the sky that if one was there we would have seen it by now. That is a positive arguement in favour of the non-existence of a 9th planet. If Diogenes wants to assert that supernatural beings don’t exist, he has to come up with some sort of argument.
I’m not trying to shift the burden of proof, I am trying to correct your logic.
First of all, the “null” hypothesis is itself a logical fallacy. If you have an argument for a position, then by all means present it. You can’t just assume that you are right until someone proves you wrong. Assuming the null also makes your argument circular, because if the null is true then the test hypothesis necessarily cannot. So the rejection of the test hypothesis has ultimately nothing to do with the quality or quantity of evidence presented, but because the null hypothesis contradicts it.
So far Diogenes argument has really boiled down to:
There is no evidence for the resurrection because the resurrection didn’t happen (because it is a supernatural event, which contradicts the null)
The resurrection didn’t happen because there is no evidence for it.
It is a circular argument, and therefore logically invalid. This is what happens when one assumes a null hypothesis.
Or, I can put it another way. The existence of the natural world is not in question. Even supernaturalists agree that there is a natural world. What is at issue is whether there is also a supernatural world, or whether the natural world is all there is. If you assume the latter, then you are assuming the conclusion of the argument going in, and your argument is circular.
What evidence do you have that the laws of physics are inviolable and that anything that happens outside them is impossible. You are just begging the question.
In fact come to think of it, what evidence do you have that any physical laws exist at all? If you really followed your own logic, you would have to say that the non-existence of physical laws would be the null (because non-existence is always the null). Therefore by your own logic you would have to assume that there are no laws and things just happen randomly, unless of course you had good evidence that there really did exist laws that directed the behaviour of matter. And if we assume the null then we would have to conclude that any apparent order in the natural world was either confirmation bias, hallucination, diliberate deception, ect, because the null tells us that therer is no order.
Of course all of this is silly, because the logic that you emply here is simply fallacious. I am curious though, if everything that exists needs evidence of it’s existence before it can be believed to exist, what is your evidence that natrual laws do in fact exist? Can you overcome the null that things just happen randomly in this case. If you can’t then I suggest your whole line of argument is dead in the water from the get-go.
No, it not logically necessary, as it also happens to be the conclusion of your argument. Unless by necessary you mean fallacious.
You are making the positive truth claim that inviolable laws of nature exist. You therefore have a burden of proof to demonstrate that your truth claim is valid.
First of all referring to the resurrection as “magic” is simply a bit of rhetorical showboating that gets us nowhere. Secondly, assuming that the resurrection is impossible is simply question begging on your part.
No, I think I am following entirely your logic. Your logic is that if there is no evidence, or even insufficient evidence for something then it is impossible for it to exist. Therefore the resurrection did not happen because there is not enough evidence to prove it did. If you assert that, then you must also assert that the planet Uranus did not exist until the 18th century when evidence for it’s existence was discovered.
So in your view did Uranus exist in the 14th century? If it did, what is the error in either my understanding of your logic or my application of it?
Because everyone either agrees with you or they are an “appologist” of some sort. The Jesus Seminar and Richard Carrier are not “mainstream” scholars.
This statement is assinine, fallacious and hypocritical.
Assinine because NT scholarship includes question of history. To understand the thinking of the NT writers you have to understand their history, and to understand their history you have to understand their thinking. So when he is writing about the history of the New Testament he is well within his area of credentials and expertise. I also wonder what “doctrinaire” qualifications are. It seems like something that you made up to hide the fact that N.T. Wright is an expert in the New Testament, including it’s history.
Secondly it is fallacious, becuase it is the very definition of an “ad hominem” argument. If his arguments are fallacious then demonstrate it. Attacking his credentials proves nothing.
Thirdly it is hypocritical because, even though you may have a degree in religious studies, that does not make you either a credentialled historian or theologian. Yet you expect the people here to just believe whatever you say without cites or even much in the way of a reasoned argument. Given the trustworthyness of sources I think I would rather take a well renowned NT scholar over some guy on a messageboard.
And Paul’s point in doing so was to point out that earthly flesh is temporal and celestial flesh is eternal. He doesn’t say that celestial flesh is non-material, which is what you are arguing. Show me where Paul says that celestial flesh is non-material.
No, Paul thought of the spiritual body as having a different substance to the fleshly body. Paul does NOT talk of us becoming a spirit, but of becoming a spiritual body. As I have already pointed out the word for body (soma) always means a body that is in some way material. I think you have simply missed the point of the passage because you are fixated on the adjective spiritual rather then the full noun “spiritual body”. When you understand the full noun, and also the context of the passage, then I think it is clear that Paul is saying that our resurrection bodies will be physical, although not the same as our present ones.
What I meant is that Jesus appeared to Paul in his physical resurrection body. Also Paul did think that phyical bodies could resurrect, you are simply reading him wrong.
When did Jesus go into outer space? All that Acts records is that Jesus went up behind a cloud. And while the angels do say that Jesus has gone to “heaven”, that does not mean literally outer space. Thirdly the resurrection body does not decay, so no, it would be fine even if he did take it into outer space.
I think I see what you are saying Calculon, but it seems to me to be an issue of certainty and not what is rational to believe (or perhaps I’m misinterpreting you).
Here is the way I see it and the state of the present discussion - please correct any misinterpretations or strawmen (I’m attempting to be charitable and as objective as possible):
Both naturalists and supernaturalists would agree that resurrections are extremely unlikely events.
Both naturalists and supernaturalists would require some form of evidence or argument in order to accept an event X as being a resurrection - neither, I would think, would simply believe me if I stated that I resurrected the firmly dead Jimbo the other day, for instance. I would think that both would require more than my word.
Tangent - I realize you could argue that naturalists presuppose the miraculous out of existence, but I’m assuming philosophical charity here and suggesting that naturalists simply have not been persuaded by any alleged evidence of the supernatural as opposed to a priori dismissing it
So the of the thread is, what is the best evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?
So far it seems that what Paul experience is the evidence - at least primarily.
Now, the problems that the naturalists are having is:
Paul was not a witness to the crucifixion, nor the resurrection. He witnessed, and I’ll be charitable, an experience of Christ through a vision.
It’s not entirely clear that Paul did think that Christ had physically risen. This has been a point of contention.
On point one, it seems that even anecdotal, Paul isn’t a direct eyewitness of the resurrection and is, at best, repeating hearsay. Keep in mind that I’m making a distinction between the resurrection and Paul’s subsequent experience of a vision of Christ.
On point two, if it can be successfully argued that Paul believed that Christ rose spiritually then not only does point one still hold, but the subsequent Gospels must be tossed out as fabrications.
There is no evidence of anything supernatural ever. That’s why we need evidence in order to accept a supernatural event.
You want a positive argument akin to there not being a ninth planet because we’ve searched enough of the sky? Okay: Every piece of data we have points to a rational, natural universe and nothing supernatural has ever been recorded.
If you propose an irrational, supernatural universe you need to provide evidence for it. In the universe, as we understand it, corpses putrefy. There is no known mechanism by which their wounds heal and their mushy brains reattain their delicate pre-death structure and start thinking again.
If not, I can say, “Jesus was just one of a small number of people that naturally and spontaneously revert back to life.”
I guess we have to accept that Jesus is not supernatural now. Since, you know, there is no evidence for what I said, and you can’t prove me wrong. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
Huh? The the test hypothesis necessarily cannot what? Accepting the null doesn’t mean that you’re assuming you’re right that the null is true, evidence be damned, it means that your mind is open, but without evidence for the test hypothesis you’re going to reject it. You live your life like this every day - I can’t believe you’re questioning this. If someone tells you that he was given a ride to work this morning by an alien intergalactic spacecraft, do you just say “well, I guess that could be true, since I don’t have a disproof of it, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, I’ll just remain in an undecided state”?
Where did you get this idea? It’s certainly not in Dio’s posts. Someone else claimed that he had evidence for the resurrection, and Dio challenged him on that point. So far, evidence has not been shown. The null in this case is clearly that this person in question did not come back to life after having been dead for a day and a half, so the only reasonable thing to do is to continue to accept the null until sufficient evidence is presented to warrant changing our minds.
What’s a circular argument?
We don’t assume that the natural world is all there is - but we do accept it provisionally, since there has been no evidence presented that there is a supernatural. My mind is open, and I think Dio’s is too, but until we see evidence of something else, we have to accept that the supernatural has not been demonstrated.
Tangential, I suppose, but how do the “laws of physics” imply that physical resurrection is impossible? Maybe impossible as a practical matter — but I see no contradiction in the possibility of taking a dead body, rebuilding it, and [del]making it better … stronger … faster[/del] bringing it back to life.
I’m not suggesting that Omni Consumer Products was mucking around circa 30 AD, you understand. But if resurrection is not impossible, and if someone comes to this discussion assuming that an omnimax deity exists (rather than the other direction of using the resurrection as proof for that deity), then entertaining the idea of Christ’s resurrection is … well, less unreasonable, maybe.
Also, this whole exercise is a futile challenge to someone asking for a separate thread to be opened where he will show his powerful evidence. Me, I would have assumed that he was full of shit and had no startling new powerful evidence to show (else he would have opened up the thread hinself, and boasted about it) but simply wanted a free way to assert “I have evidence” without being challenged to show it. I admire Dio for being so indulgent, but it’s always a total waste of time to pursue this course.
a) Either witness the event yourself (I saw the planes crashing in the twin towers standing there at the time)
b) Learn about it from reliable resources (I saw the crash in TV, read about in newspapers)
Now, in the case of Christ resurrection no one living can claim to be an eye witness, so presumably the OP concentrates in (b) Information from reliable resources.
Of course the next question is what constitutes a ‘reliable resource’ in this case.
The OP mentions that he is not interested in intellectual arguments about the existence of God but unfortunately there is no way to argue around this subject without first establishing an answer as to whether God exists or not.
This is so because the only resources we have come from disciples and/or followers of Christ.
If we take as a default that these people were hallucinating or had some kind of mental illness then we cannot accept their claims.
If on the other hand we take as a default that they are correct and actually witness what they (or the people they quote) say then their claims are accepted as truth.
So in order to have a meaningful discussion I think Diogenes should make clear which sources he accepts. If he discards NT and other testimonies and only accepts what he read or was taught (he did mention a degree) there might be a slight problem as to how things progress in this discussion!
So, could you please clarify which sources you trust and which you do not?
As a parting thought I would like to mention that Gospels and NT in general is NOT considered the absolute authority in ALL matters regarding Christianity. Christianity survived just fine before it was written and will even if all copies of the bible are destroyed now.
There are even a couple of passages in the Gospels testifying the fact that what is there is an incomplete account of the events described. Each gospel was written to communicate a certain point and not encompass all matters of religion.
The early Church depend heavily on ‘ιερά παράδοση’ (Holy Tradition) meaning the written AND verbal teachings of the Apostles which were past among Christians.
PS On a completely different note, Diogenes claims that Mark knew nothing about the empty tomb of Christ, because none of the women in Mark’s gospel mentioned this to anyone, despite the very fact that IT IS WRITTEN in his Gospel. This could be a Zen question. ‘How is it possible to mention another’s experience if he did not mention this to anyone?”
And yet no one has presented any argument at all as to why Paul should have viewed Jesus’ resurrection as different from anybody else’s. That’s certainly not in any of the text.
Incidentally, if only Jesus could be physically resurrected, then how does Paul explain Lazarus and the others that Jesus raised from the dead? How does Paul explain the person that he himself raised from the dead (according to Acts)?
We know a fair amount of what Paul believed. We just don’t know everything.
When he said that Jesus “appeared” to him and spoke to him.
Now I make known unto you brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, 15:2by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. 15:3For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 15:4and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures; 15:5and that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; 15:6then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep; 15:7then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles; 15:8and last of all, as to the child untimely born, he appeared to me also.
(1 Cor. 15:1-8)
Paul lists the appearance to himself as part of the same formula he lists for the apostles. He makes no distinction in their nature. Obviously, Jesus didn’t actually appear to him, so he was lying or hallucinating. If you want to suggest that these were all “meditative” experiences for everybody, then the whole resurrection theology becomes meaningless.
Paul himself is quite vague about the nature of how Jesus “appeared” to him, and gives no details. The road to Damascus story (where he got blinded by the light and revved up like a deuce) is found (in multiple, contradictory versions) in Acts, but not in any of Paul’s own writings.
As you can see above, Paul’s description of Jesus’ appearances to the other apostles is also very vague (nothing other than “he appeared”), which is exactly the problem here for anyone trying to say that paul definitely believed in a physical resurrection. If he did, he never said so, and if you were to read Paul’s letters without any knowledge of the Gospels, the strongest implication from a plain reading would be that Paul was talking about visionary experiences, not a physical resurrection.
Those are not resurrections, nor are they miraculous. They never died in the first place.
If you want to suggest that Jesus survived the crucifixion…well, that’s not physically impossible (Josephus gives an account of seeing a friend recover from a crucifixion after Josephus beseeched the emperor to take him down from his cross), but it would also mean there was no literal, physical resurrection quo erat demonstratum.
Technically there could be physical evidence, but I must admit, it’s hard to see how that would apply to the resurrection itself. I would say that it could apply to the surrounding details though.
Well, one could suppose that magic exists and Jesus was magically resurrected. Conversely would could suppose God exists, yet would have no interest in resurrecting Jesus.
So it’s not simply a matter of whether God exists or not.
There’s a number of issues here:
There are no direct witnesses to the event. The closest we can get is Paul, who was not an eye witness.
If there were direct witnesses, they could have been mistaken and/or their memory could be contaminated. Eye witness testimony is poor evidence in general.
The time period was filled with magical accounts - the majority of which most people reject. Josephus, who is regarded as one of the best historians of the time, has miraculous accounts in his histories - yet we do not believe them. Why should we afford the unknown authors of Christ’s resurrection, decades after the fact, with more authority than Josephus?
DtC’s position on the NT is not controversial. Most new testament scholars acknowledge that the Gospels rely on Mark and that the authors are unknown. Mark was not an eyewitness account.
Paul is a different story. It is not - as far as I know - the consensus opinion that Paul thought that the resurrection was spiritual. However, it is a reasonable and evidenced (textual) one that has been argued in this thread. That said, Paul was not a witness of Christ’s life/resurrection, so his POV is a bit moot - unless further argumentation can show it’s relevance.
I don’t agree with this. Certainly one version of Christianity survived just fine, but keep in mind that there were a few different versions of Christianity floating around back then. We even have uncovered some of the gospels from those versions. I should point out that this isn’t really new, since there were dozens of different messiah related judaisms floating around as well.
The explanation I’ve read was that the reason the ‘empty tomb’ wasn’t widely known among Christians at the time when Mark was circulating was because the women told no one. This was meant as an explanation as to why no one had heard of it.
No, sorry. I know you apologists desperately want this to be truye because the physical laws of the universe are massively inconvenient to you, but they are what they are. The burden is on you to show that they have ever been violated.
No, it’s not a conclusion, it’s the null. If you want to assert that fairies make the grass grow, I don’t have to prove they don’t.
Not at all. Physical laws are merely observations. The burden is yours alone to show they’ve ever been violated. “You can’t prove it DIDN’T happen” is no argument in your favor anyway. I asked for evidence for a physical resurrection of Jesus. You’re not going to convince anybody of magic by stamping your feet and saying, “you can’t prove it’s NOT magic.” That’s the weakest apologetic possible.
How so? If the resurrection didn’t happen by magic, what caused it? What’s teh difference between magic and miracles?
No, the physical impossibility of a dead body coming back to life is provable fact.
Wrong. I’ve made no such assertion whatsoever.
"Apologist just means “defender.” It’s not an insult.
The JS is mainstream, by the way (and most of them are believers…many are clergy), but I haven’t cited either the JS or Richard Carrier, so what’s your point?
No, that’s not what I’m arguing. Paul thought spirit was a kind of “material,” but he didn’t think it was flesh and blood.
Oh yes he does:
All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fishes. 15:40There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 15:41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory.2So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 15:43it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 15:44it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body
A distinction without a difference. Just because Paul though ghosts were material didn’t mean he didn’t think they were ghosts.
No, I’m reading it plain. You’re the one torturing the text.
Uh huh. Why was he rising into the sky at all then?
“Resurrection body?” So now you do think he came back in a spiritual body rather than a physical body? Why did he still have holes in his hands?
Exactly. If he believe there was no 8th planet, he might be going beyond the evidence, but lacking belief in the 8th planet was exactly the correct default position at the time. The ancient Atomists were right for the wrong reasons also.
All belief in science is provisional. It might be true that accepting the null hypothesis might lead to accepting something shown to be incorrect when more evidence is gathered, but that is exactly why science gathers evidence and does experiments to falsify a null hypothesis. And the results you get are a lot more correct than when you believe five impossible things before breakfast.
As for absence of evidence, it is indeed evidence of absence if you expect the evidence to be there. The claim is made that a UFO landed in Yankee Stadium during the seventh inning stretch. You consult the papers and see no reports of it. Absence of evidence = evidence of absence? Sure hope so.
You just contradicted yourself. Not seeing a ninth planet, and not seeing the gravitational effects of it is the absence of evidence for it. Dio, and the rest of us, have scoured the new reports and history books for reports of supernatural beings and evidence of their existence. Lacking any, just like we lack evidence of a real ninth planet, we can conclude that the null hypothesis that they don’t exist is provisionally valid until we see some evidence.
Well, there goes all of science. He’s not assuming anything. Let’s say that the null hypothesis about death is that it doesn’t happen, since we see people walking around. The evidence of people dying, and staying dead, falsifies that, and the null hypothesis then becomes that people die and stay dead. That’s based on evidence, and not assumed. In fact all apparent contradictions, like comas, have been shown to be cases where the person was not really dead. Now, if you think that people get resurrected, you need to show evidence, not assume it, and “Night of the Living Dead” doesn’t count.
Enough people have already shown why you totally misunderstand his argument, so I won’t bother.
We don’t assume the natural word, we accept it based on evidence. (And only provisionally, a la Descartes.) All you need to do is show evidence for the supernatural; without that you are going to have a hard time telling me what supernatural entities you do accept. God? Vampires? Frost giants? What method do you use to reject zombies and accept Jesus (or vice versa?)
Not so. There are hypotheticals under which Jesus could have been physically resurrected without gods. Magic ice ants from Pluto could have done it, for instance.
We don’t even have that. We don’t have any resources from disciples or followers of Jesus. If the disciples left any writings, we don’t have them now. We don’t know what they believed or claimed about Jesus.
We don’t know what they claimed (other than Paul), so they can’t be discussed at all.
I don’t trust any sources at all. I want physical evidence.
Having said that, I’m also trying to make a point that it can’t even be established that the disciples themselves ever claimed Jesus had been physically resurrected. Others, long after the fact, asserted that they had made those claims, but we have nothing from the disciples themselves. We can’t trace the empty tomb story before Mark’s Gospel until 70 CE, and the first claims of Jesus appearing in physical form can’t be traced before Matthew’s Gospel in 80 CE - 50 years after the events allegedly occurred.
No I didn’t. I said that Mark’s Gospel says that PETER wasn’t told.
Meatros and Diogenes, as we are discussing whether Christ and not any hypothetical person resurrected or not I think you will both agree that magic and giant ice ants from Pluto come as a second to God as far as how Christ was resurrected.
Don’t forget that the only information we have for Jesus comes from the NT and although I haven’t read that for a long time, I am quite positive that Jesus relationship with God is discussed more detailed than one with giant ice ants from Pluto. As the NT goes to a great length explaining how Jesus is God and vice – versa God gets first claim as far as miracles are concerned.
Now Diogenes claims that we have no direct resources claiming that Jesus resurrected so we can eliminate:
Gospels – all four of them and particularly John’s
Epistles
Acts.
You also discard oral tradition so that one goes outside the window as well.
That leaves us only with revelation to prove the resurrection. Interesting but I think it’s a safe bet that you also discard that one as well.
So to recap – You basically think that the whole NT is worthless, oral tradition holds no ground and to top that you require actual PHYSICAL evidence (I don’t even know how this is possible) that the resurrection occurred.
Well, I would hate to be a waiter serving you and no two ways about it. I can almost imagine the conversation ‘… and the eggs must be exactly round with diameter 3.14 inches, I’ll calculate the circumference with an opisometer just to make sure and it better adds up or else!, crispy on the outside but the yokes should be runny, bacon 1.23inches wide and 2.54 long fried for exactly….’
Under these circumstances, yes there is no evidence about the resurrection. I freely admit it.
Now we’ve got that one clear, I believe your assertion that Paul did not believe in physical resurrection is without merit but there is no point debating that since even if you are convinced about it, still I will have no physical evidence to show so there, I’ve had it again.