Regarding the War of th worlds issue, let’s say that people believed that millions were generally frightened.
I don’t see how that’s an event (or a false event), since it’s impossible to see if people are frightened or not. There was no physical reaction by millions of people.
For example, I could believe that millions of Jews are scheming to destroy the world in their sinister minds. That belief is very different than believing that millions of Jews wear T-shirts which say, “we want the world to collapse.” That would be a false action, and if a nation believes THAT, it would be relevant to Kuzari.
(Yes, Jews wear boxes during morning prayes which contain the exodus story. Phylacteries, they are called.)
How do we explain that? One pretty plausible explanation is that the people who lived in Canaan told campfire stories about the olden days. Over the years and generations, these stories naturally became embellished to the point that they involved their ancestors rising up against powerful oppressors and surviving miraculously. The kids who heard these stories grew up believing them, because everyone they knew believed them too - they were common knowledge. After all, if a whole nation of people believe something happened to their ancestors, it must be true, right?
The stories finally stopped mutating and being embellished further when they wrote them down on paper.
Mostly just curious about this:
Where does the “millions” of Hebrews number come from?
It’s not in the bible. The only places I can find references to it are fundamentalist websites dismissing out of hand the idea that there weren’t 2 million Hebrews in Exodus.
It seems like someone, at some point, extrapolated out the population from the 600,000 able-bodied men (which appears in a couple of places) by a factor of 3. Who decided to do that? What did they use to justify that factor? When did it happen?
No offense, but this does sound like circular reasoning - in essence, you are asking me for support for my claim of a false event by asking me for evidence of another false event. If I do provide a different example of an entire nation making such an error, won’t you then ask me to provide yet another example to back up that claim?
Also, I wouldn’t characterise it as an “error”, so much as an exaggeration. But that’s semantics.
Perhaps as miraculous seeming finding of food. I’ve certainly heard people today claim that competitions they’ve won, or good results in their life, have come “from God”. I have no trouble believing that, at the time, some people could claim that some providence is from God in general terms, and then mutating as a story over time to it being *directly *from God, and in miraculous form.
Actually, it is - the media of the time gave examples of that fear reaction. Phoning in to the studio and news media, panicing on the streets. Supposedly such reaction was widespread, when it fact, what there was of it was considerably more limited.
Quite right. But we have no hard count of the ‘and the rest’ on Giligan’s Sinai. The average family size could have been 10, making them 6 million. The whole thing could have been a giant sausagefest and there were only 4 very tired and sore women.
At some point someone decided they could simply multiply the number of men by factor X to determine the population size. Something settled on at the time? Something computed later by bored clergy, like Bishop Ussher’s age of the world?
…
Gah, now that I’ve typed that I figured out exactly what was pushing my buttons about Kuzari. It’s not the horrible logic, it’s the fact that it’s really just the flimsiest of veneers of rationality coating a big ol’ lump of biblical literalism. I get enough of that stuff from my extended family on Facebook.
Relevant: My argument is not circular AT ALL. We have to look at the world and we have to analyze. When we hear certain reports we have to see, “how common is it for these types of reports or myths to arise.” Otherwise, we can never know anything, if we assume that any and all reports of miracles are false. We can take a time machine even back to the time of Joshua, twenty years after the events, and we can hear everyone, all millions of them, swear that they saw miracles and will still wouldn’t be compelled to believe.
People do lie. And myths do form. But when one story is so much more difficult than any of the others to arise - a national, commemorated event. AND, INDEED, WE ONLY FIND ONE OF THEM, then we have to stop and think. We can’t just say, this is just another myth. It may be, but it may not be. The story presented here, if it was not true, does not seem as if it would have been believed. If you can present one other national, commemorated event, a story of miracles, we can understand why you would distrust it.
But if there is only one, why don’t you believe it? You admit that it wouldn’t be easy for such a myth to get off the ground. And you admit that it only happened once. Why?
Who the hell are you responding to? Nobody here admitted anything of the sort. Is this some sort of script you are reading from, because I don’t think the rest of us got a copy of it.
I was responding to Relevant.
Let me add one more point to what I was saying, regarding the fact that it only happened once is important.
There is an old question of why we don’t trust miracle stories. If Mohamed claims that an angel spoke to him, why don’t we believe him?
There are two answers: 1) It is a form of evidence which has shown itself to be fallible. 2) There are equal reports of Zeus speaking to some prophet, as well. Both can’t be true.
These two issues don’t apply to Kuzari.
The conservative estimate is at least one wife for every man (they wouldn’t have shared wives), and one kid (in a time with no concept of birth control and where they were expected to be fruitful and multiply. That puts the number at 1.8 million right there. Add in the elderly and the non-Israelites, and 2 million is a very reasonable, conservative estimate. Besides, we’re talking about a literary story here. It’s not like any of those people really existed. We don’t have to sleuth out any actual history, we’re going on what we can reasonably infer that the authors wanted to impart to the audience.The audience would have understood this as 600,000 families plus elderly and non-Israelites.
I don’t think there’s a specific person or time. It’s just the obvious inferences that the text intended to imply.
Let me compare what you’re asking of me to your own points, and try and make what I mean a little clearer.
It’s as if you’d said to us, “Look at the exodus. Here’s an example of a nationally commemorated event; this is evidence.” And in return we say, “Well, we haven’t heard of this argument before. Give us another example of such an event.” And when you do (if you have another), then we ask for yet another to prove the worth of that new argument. And so on and so forth, because if, at each turn, you require a new argument to prove the last one, even the most well-founded point, the most common and useful evidence, is going to run out.
Beyond that, to break a rule you only need one example, if that rule is said to be all-encompassing. To maintain a rule requires each and every example fall in line with it. If I believe that all geese are white, then each and every goose I see must be white in order for the rule to be maintained. But it only takes one black goose to break the rule; even if there are 1000 white geese and a sole, solitary black goose, if the rule is that there are zero deviations from the rule, then we must abandon it in favour of a more nuanced one.
Honestly, I don’t share your opinion that if the event in question wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be believed. I think that’s rather putting the cart before the horse, at least as regards evaluating the evidence.
As for another event - how about 9/11? Despite the number of people at the scene who have survived to this day, there are some who believe that it was missiles that hit the towers, not planes; or that the towers were rigged to explode. That’s just nine years ago now, and despite the events pretty much being seared onto many people’s consciousness, false beliefs such as those aren’t rare. There are many self-named Truther groups.
I don’t admit that it wouldn’t be easy for such a myth to get off the ground. It would be very easy for such a myth to get off the ground. Look at the variety of myths we have dating back from that time. Nor do I admit it only happened once - and my point remains that only one time would still be enough to break the rule.
That doesn’t need to be explained because it didn’t happen. More importantly, it’s logically inconsistent of you to ask your opponents in the debate to prove negatives and demand more and more historical evidence when your own story involves taking miraculous Biblical claims at face value, including multiple miracles (there’s no evidence they were there because “clothes did not whither, and their shoes did not rub out,” which somehow also explains a lack of dead bodies), and now the manna story. This is not coherent.
The exodus myth isn’t any harder to believe than a lot of other myths, and there is nothing unique about its commemoration. I realize you’re not going to acknowledge that because it would put your beliefs on par with the beliefs of everyone in other religions, but it’s true.
Regarding 9/11, there is no evidence that 9/11 was based on rigged towers. However, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of evidence that 9/11 wasn’t based on rigged towers. Rational people say, "until I see evidence of foul play, I don’t believe it. Irrational people say, “I will believe in rigged towers, even though there isn’t much evidence [they won’t be so open, but that’s what they mean.]”
It’s the same thing with the ALL the ancient myths. There wasn’t a shred of evidence that the earth sat on the back of three turtles. But people believed it, becuase people believe things without evidence.
Regarding Kuzari, things are much DIFFERENT. Here, the nation who believed this story, must have believed it despite overwhelming EVIDENCE against it. Let’s say a prophet comes and says, “millions of your ancestors saw mass-miracles and were commanded forever to tell the story to their furture descendent FOREVER.” Whoever believed this story (if it was false), was believing it despite overwhelming evidence against it: WHY HAVEN"T WE HEARD ABOUT THIS STORY FROM OUR PARENTS?
There are two answers you can give: a) The Jews were exremely irrational; b) the story took place. I never claimed that I am sure that “B” is the right answer. I am merely claiming that since “A” didn’t take place anywhere else, we have no reason to assume that A is true.
There is overwhelming evidence against that proposition. For starters, there’s the extremely strong evidence that something else DID happen, and once we get beyond that, there are questions of plausibility, opportunity, physics, and so on.
Thank you. I believe that concludes this disc- wait, you’re going to continue?
How many more times are you going to present this false dichotomy? It’s obvious they were not aware of the evidence against their beliefs.
You are right. It could have evolved slowly. You believe that it is natural for nationally, commemorated history to come abouth through a different way. It hasn’t yet. So don’t worry to much about that possiblity. Worry more about the alternative: that the events under question DID HAPPEN.
Regarding Relevants point about the black geese, I simply don’t follow your logic. All I am saying is this: The evidence for this miracle is much more substantial than the evidence for any other miracle, since this only happened once.
Now, you argue, despite the fact that the evidence is much more substancial, you don’t believe the story BECAUSE IT’S A MIRACLE. If so, just come out and say: NO MATTER HOW MUCH EVIDENCE I HAVE FOR A MIRACLE I SIMPLY DON’T BELIEVE IT.
I’m starting to worry we’re going to run out of instances of this happening.
I don’t believe the story “BECAUSE IT’S A MIRACLE.” I don’t believe it because contradicted by historical evidence, supported by no evidence, and above all, because it’s absolutely impossible.