tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post3632278687406476346..comments2024-03-19T02:00:34.750-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: What We Owe the New AtheistsEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger488125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-41871592741851479752014-05-10T14:49:33.085-07:002014-05-10T14:49:33.085-07:00http://www.skepticink.com/atheistintermarried/2014...http://www.skepticink.com/atheistintermarried/2014/04/20/edward-fesers-imaginary-knockout-of-new-atheism/<br /><br />I am curious as to your response to this. It seems to me to be the same internet infidel or new philistine response to your position. I did not see this link anywhere else so if it here please excuse me. <br /><br />The poster does not seem to understand your views or the scholastic position in general. <br /><br />As I said, I am curious as to how you would respond to this person? Thanks.jfrontier1https://www.blogger.com/profile/05385068614290490453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-10352192949219034322014-05-10T14:46:25.134-07:002014-05-10T14:46:25.134-07:00Prof. Feser, 1st I did enjoy reading the text of t...Prof. Feser, 1st I did enjoy reading the text of the talk you had as it was very informative. <br /><br />I have scanned the comments and have not seen this post referenced (if it is here and I missed it please excuse me).<br /><br />http://www.skepticink.com/atheistintermarried/2014/04/20/edward-fesers-imaginary-knockout-of-new-atheism/<br /><br />I am not sure this is any better than many of the new philistine replies we can typically see from the internet infidels. He seems to dismiss metaphysics and does not entirely understand your position nor the scholastic position. <br /><br />So I am curious, what is your response to this and also the YT link provided as it claims that Sean Carroll did a good job against WLC. jfrontier1https://www.blogger.com/profile/05385068614290490453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13190500531713809862014-05-02T15:47:23.737-07:002014-05-02T15:47:23.737-07:00“Maybe to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? Maybe ...<i> “Maybe to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? Maybe these same people spread the rumors about his resurrection to mock them? Much like the very term “Christian” was originally a term of derision.”</i><br /><br />So who were these people? What reason did they have to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? And why would (a) these people think that spreading rumours of Jesus’ resurrection be a good way to mock his followers, as opposed to getting themselves labelled as nutcases, and (b) the disciples believe them? I mean, come on, if some bully said “Hey, I hear your dead relative has come back from the dead,” would you believe him? No. That’s just a ridiculous idea.<br /><br /><i> “Or maybe the influential person themselves changed their mind about burying a criminal there, and had his body moved elsewhere? Influential people do change their minds.”</i><br /><br />And didn’t tell anybody else that he’d changed his mind, even when they started founding a new religion based on the idea that he’d come back?<br /><br /><i> “Or maybe the Romans removed it to prevent his tomb from becoming a shrine of martyrdom for his followers? I’m pretty sure that Roman officials would not be afraid to cross Joseph of Arimathea.”</i><br /><br />So what, when Jesus’ followers instead started proclaiming his glorious resurrection, the Romans didn’t think to dig up the body again and show it to the disciples? Wow, what a convenient attack of incompetence.<br /><br /><i> “I would reject both aliens and miracles in the context of evaluating an ancient historical claim.”</i><br /><br />So why is the age of the claim relevant? Surely it’s the amount of evidence that’s important?<br /><br /><i> “However, your scenario was a contemporary event with a plentitude of empirical evidence involving thousands of people, all of whom could be reached for confirmation of their testimony, as well as independent and skeptical investigators. The resurrection in ancient history and the alien crash landing in today’s world are not even remotely comparable. We would both agree that the likelihood of aliens and miracles are low, even if incalculable, but if one actually presented itself to thousands of people who independently confirm their observations, and skeptical investigators have ruled out all plausible natural explanations, then I’d say we must believe in a miracle and/or alien life.”</i><br /><br />So basically you’re saying that we wouldn’t have to completely rule out every non-alien explanation first. So why are miracles different? Just because they all took place a long time ago?<br /><br /><i> “Sure, it does, especially if someone is using that evidence to support an extraordinary claim. The case for the extraordinary claim must itself by extraordinarily well supported, and that means that all the pieces of evidence must themselves be extraordinarily well-supported, because any piece of evidence that is flimsy would undermine the extraordinary claim itself. “</i><br /><br />OK, name me one mainstream scholar who thinks that the Book of Acts is wrong in its dating of the apostles’ beginning to preach.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-33474189344978985482014-05-02T15:46:47.028-07:002014-05-02T15:46:47.028-07:00“Who exactly are these “several hundred of them”? ...<i> “Who exactly are these “several hundred of them”? What are their names? Where did they come from? Where did this interaction with Jesus happen? What did they see and hear? Who actually went out to speak to them to determine whether their stories were accurate and consistent with one another? All you have is a claim made decades later after the event in question, and absolutely nothing to substantiate it.”</i><br /><br />Again, common sense suggests that you don’t point to witnesses who don’t exist, since that only damages your credibility.<br /><br />But even leaving aside the several hundred claim – can you find any parallel instances of twelve people who all say that they had a conversation with somebody at the same time, that this somebody interacted with the world around him in such a way as to be noticeable – and then it was later proved that they were all actually suffering a hallucination? And I don’t just want some vague “All these people started getting disease-like symptoms” or “A couple of people had a fit when someone else walked into the room”. Nor do I want “Well, *individually* all these things happened, so…” Wild speculation isn’t the same as an explanation.<br /><br /><i> “And note that this is the central issue between us. You take the stories at face value and utterly dismiss the very possibility that the narratives that are preserved in the texts that you possess could have been distorted or altered in any way. Without any independent evidence closer to the event in question, we simply cannot rely upon your texts as inherently reliable, especially when they describe such extraordinary circumstances. And given that the texts in question are consistent with a number of possible events, and a number of possible chains of natural causes from the events to the texts, and there is simply no non-question begging way to independently determine which possibilities are accurate, the matter is simply an open question.”</i><br /><br />No, the central issue is that I don’t take your evidence-free speculations seriously. I mean, sure, maybe it *could* have happened like you say. Maybe one day we *will* be able to explain consciousness naturalistically. Maybe one day we *will* subsume all fields of enquiry into the natural sciences. But just gesturing at the idea isn’t enough. You need to give some reason for us to take that idea seriously, and so far you haven’t done that at all.<br /><br />Also, “without any independent evidence”? The letters of Paul are independent of Acts, which is independent of the Synoptics, which are independent of John. That’s four independent sources right there.<br /><br /><i> “We simply do not know what happened to them, and taking the New Testament texts as inherently reliable -- given all that we know about human psychology and its tendency towards revision and distortion of memories, especially when powerful emotions and motivations are involved -- just begs the question altogether.”</i><br /><br />Actually there’s some evidence to suggest that being emotionally involved makes people remember events better, not worse. Also, there’s evidence that unusual events, important and life-changing events, and events which we frequently have reason to recount are remembered better. The inclusion of vivid imagery and irrelevant detail is also associated with more accurate remembering. All of these, of course, are present in the Gospel narratives, so there’s good reason to suppose prima facie that they’re more likely to be accurate than the average memory.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-62808454533238895882014-05-02T15:46:07.668-07:002014-05-02T15:46:07.668-07:00dguller:
“But you wouldn’t accept that all of th...dguller:<br /><br /><i> “But you wouldn’t accept that all of them were genuine. And that means that you must have some account of the false claims themselves. I think that there are ultimately two broad categories of such explanations: fraud and/or self-deception.”</i><br /><br />For heaven’s sake, are you pretending to be David Hume or something? If you want to actually refute the Resurrection, just actually refute the Resurrection. Don’t just talk in vague generalities about how there are lots of miracles claims I’d presumably reject if I’d heard of them. What does that have to do with anything?<br /><br /><i> “Fervent belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for the reality of a miracle. There were people who observed Jesus’ miracles, and did not follow him at all. There are people who fervently believe in their delusions, and yet their delusions remain false. That only leaves the claim that fervent belief is present more often in the presence of a miracle than in its absence, and that claim requires evidence to justify it. How many people became fervent believers after observing a miracle? How many people did not? And note that you cannot rely upon the degree of fervent belief in this case to determine the reality of the miracle without begging the question, and so how do you establish that the miracles in question were genuine at all?</i><br /><br />How is this supposed to follow on from what I’ve written? I said that if somebody has a motive for faking a miracle – if, say, his reputation as a miracle-worker nets him a large amount of earthly wealth and status – the chances are more likely that he, y’know, actually is faking a miracle. What on earth are you objecting to here? Are we not allowed to take into account people’s motives when considering whether they’re telling the truth?<br /><br /><i> “First, the world does look different in the Seekers case. A world in which the Seekers have the power to avert an apocalypse is different from a world in which the Seekers lack that power.”</i><br /><br />In the Seekers’ case, there are three possible worlds:<br /><br />1 – The apocalypse was going to happen, and the Seekers lacked the power to avert it. Goodbye, world.<br />2 – The apocalypse was going to happen, but the Seekers managed to avert it somehow.<br />3 – The Seekers do lack the power to avert the apocalypse, but luckily it was never going to happen anyway.<br /><br />So how exactly does world 2 look different to world 3?<br /><br /><i> “Second, the world where Jesus is resurrected and interacting with his disciples looks the same to the disciples as it would if they were having a bereavement hallucination of him.”</i><br /><br />If they all happened to have the same hallucinations, sure. But if one of them had a hallucination and tried to convince the others that Jesus was risen – which, remember, was one of your proposed scenarios – the others’ world is going to look different, since if Jesus rose they’d be talking to him themselves, whereas if he didn’t, they’d be listening to somebody going on about how he totally saw this dead man.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-45431534177636126112014-05-02T05:20:32.849-07:002014-05-02T05:20:32.849-07:00Not every piece of evidence used for an extraordin...<i>Not every piece of evidence used for an extraordinary claim has to be extraordinarily well-supported</i><br /><br />Sure, it does, especially if someone is using that evidence to support an extraordinary claim. The case for the extraordinary claim must itself by extraordinarily well supported, and that means that all the <i>pieces</i> of evidence must themselves be extraordinarily well-supported, because any piece of evidence that is flimsy would undermine the extraordinary claim itself.dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71142469129418722562014-05-02T05:20:13.627-07:002014-05-02T05:20:13.627-07:00And note that this is the central issue between us...And note that this is the central issue between us. You take the stories at face value and utterly dismiss the very possibility that the narratives that are preserved in the texts that you possess could have been distorted or altered in any way. Without any independent evidence closer to the event in question, we simply cannot rely upon your texts as inherently reliable, especially when they describe such extraordinary circumstances. And given that the texts in question are consistent with a number of possible events, and a number of possible chains of natural causes from the events to the texts, and there is simply no non-question begging way to independently determine which possibilities are accurate, the matter is simply an open question. <br /><br />All we know with a fair degree of certainty is that Jesus’ disciples were transformed by an experience that made them fervent believers to the point of martyrdom, and that recorded texts dating decades after the transformative event in question describe their interaction with what they believed was a risen Jesus. That’s it. We do not have the testimony of the disciples themselves soon after the event in question, which means that we lack the ability to determine whether their testimonies were consistent with one another. We simply do not know what happened to them, and taking the New Testament texts as inherently reliable -- given all that we know about human psychology and its tendency towards revision and distortion of memories, especially when powerful emotions and motivations are involved -- just begs the question altogether.<br /><br /><i>Who would have a motive to do this? Especially given that the tomb belonged to a member of the Jewish ruling council – that is, quite an influential person whom you probably wouldn’t want to cross. Why risk arousing his anger by stealing from his tomb, all for the sake of moving some dead guy whose claims to Messiahship had proved to be empty?</i><br /><br />Maybe to play a prank on Jesus’ followers? Maybe these same people spread the rumors about his resurrection to mock them? Much like the very term “Christian” was originally a term of derision. Or maybe the influential person themselves changed their mind about burying a criminal there, and had his body moved elsewhere? Influential people <i>do</i> change their minds. Or maybe the <i>Romans</i> removed it to prevent his tomb from becoming a shrine of martyrdom for his followers? I’m pretty sure that Roman officials would not be afraid to cross Joseph of Arimathea. I mean, there are a number of possibilities here, and all are more likely than <i>Jesus rose from the dead and walked through the stone blocking the entrance</i>. <br /><br /><i>Of course there is. You’d be quite happy to accept alien claims on the basis of probabilities, but refuse to consider miracles before totally ruling out any other explanation. That’s a double standard right there.</i><br /><br />I would reject <i>both</i> aliens and miracles in the context of evaluating an ancient historical claim. However, your scenario was a contemporary event with a plentitude of empirical evidence involving thousands of people, all of whom could be reached for confirmation of their testimony, as well as independent and skeptical investigators. The resurrection in ancient history and the alien crash landing in today’s world are not even remotely comparable. We would both agree that the likelihood of aliens and miracles are low, even if incalculable, but if one actually presented itself to thousands of people who independently confirm their observations, and skeptical investigators have ruled out all plausible natural explanations, then I’d say we must believe in a miracle and/or alien life. <br /><br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25066589875317943802014-05-02T05:19:32.384-07:002014-05-02T05:19:32.384-07:00Msgrx:
First up, I’m not totally opposed to the i...Msgrx:<br /><br /><i>First up, I’m not totally opposed to the idea that some of those miracles could be genuine. There’s no inherent reason why God couldn’t choose to miraculously heal somebody in a non-Christian country, for example. And of course there’s the possibility of demons granting people supernatural powers to lead others astray, etc.</i><br /><br />But you wouldn’t accept that <i>all</i> of them were genuine. And that means that you must have some account of the false claims themselves. I think that there are ultimately two broad categories of such explanations: fraud and/or self-deception. <br /><br /><i>So the mere fact that I reject lots of miracles claims doesn’t ipso facto mean that I should reject the Resurrection, because the circumstances are often different.</i><br /><br />That is true.<br /><br /><i>A lot of these claimed miracle-workers ended up doing quite well out of their religion (Muhammad, Joseph Smith, etc.), unlike Jesus or the Disciples. Since they have clear motive to fake/lie about miracles, then, it’s perfectly justified to treat their accounts more sceptically.</i><br /><br />Fervent belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for the reality of a miracle. There were people who observed Jesus’ miracles, and did not follow him at all. There are people who fervently believe in their delusions, and yet their delusions remain false. That only leaves the claim that fervent belief is present <i>more often</i> in the presence of a miracle than in its absence, and that claim requires evidence to justify it. How many people became fervent believers after observing a miracle? How many people did not? And note that you cannot rely upon the degree of fervent belief in this case to determine the reality of the miracle without begging the question, and so how do you establish that the miracles in question were genuine at all?<br /><br /><i>And again, the world would look much the same if “Our actions averted the apocalypse!” were true to if “There was never going to be an apocalypse in the first place” were true. The world where “Our Messiah is risen and walking among us” is true would be noticeably different to that where “Our Messiah’s dead and decomposing in a tomb somewhere” is true. So the two situations aren’t really comparable.</i><br /><br />First, the world <i>does</i> look different in the Seekers case. A world in which the Seekers have the power to avert an apocalypse is different from a world in which the Seekers lack that power. <br /><br />Second, the world where Jesus is resurrected and interacting with his disciples looks the same to the disciples as it would if they were having a bereavement hallucination of him. <br /><br /><i>No, I just assume that even when people are dejected and grief-stricken, you don’t find several hundred of them all convincing themselves that a dead man has risen and spoken and interacted with them. Given that you haven’t been able to find a single other case of this happening, I don’t really think you’re in a good position to criticise others for not taking account of how normal humans behave.</i><br /><br />Who exactly are these “several hundred of them”? What are their names? Where did they come from? Where did this interaction with Jesus happen? What did they see and hear? Who actually went out to speak to them to determine whether their stories were accurate and consistent with one another? All you have is a claim made decades later after the event in question, and absolutely nothing to substantiate it. <br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-41658421982152130272014-05-01T01:47:07.078-07:002014-05-01T01:47:07.078-07:00“Even if they checked and found no body, that coul...<i> “Even if they checked and found no body, that could have meant that someone had removed it and buried it in an undisclosed location, as often happened to criminals.”</i><br /><br />Who would have a motive to do this? Especially given that the tomb belonged to a member of the Jewish ruling council – that is, quite an influential person whom you probably wouldn’t want to cross. Why risk arousing his anger by stealing from his tomb, all for the sake of moving some dead guy whose claims to Messiahship had proved to be empty?<br /><br /><i> “There is no double standard. You are comparing an event that occurred 2,000 years ago and has sparse historical evidence to an event that hypothetically occurred at this time with a wealth of observational and scientific evidence. I would say that the likelihood of thousands of witnesses, and hundreds of scientific experts, engaging in a massive conspiracy would be more unlikely than a dozen or so grieving religious followers subconsciously convincing themselves that their messiah had risen from the dead to reduce the cognitive dissonance of their messiah having been a failure. And given the vagaries of human memory, I see nothing remarkable in the fact that their memories grew more exaggerated and inaccurate in the decades that followed.”</i><br /><br />Of course there is. You’d be quite happy to accept alien claims on the basis of probabilities, but refuse to consider miracles before totally ruling out any other explanation. That’s a double standard right there.<br /><br /><i> “No, but you are using it as evidence of a miracle, and so that piece of evidence had better be remarkably well supported. Again, every piece of evidence for the miracle must be well-established, because the conjunction is supposed to support an extraordinary event. Look at the level of precision and control that went into proving the Higgs boson. Every possible confounding factor was controlled for and ruled out. A massive effort was performed to get at the truth of the matter. I think something similar must be performed to demonstrate that a miracle occurred. If that standard of evidence cannot be met, then I’m afraid that it will remain an open question whether the miracle, in fact, occurred.”</i><br /><br />Not every piece of evidence used for an extraordinary claim has to be extraordinarily well-supported. Say, to adapt Jeremy’s ghost example, Orwell claims to have seen a figure walking out of a church and across its graveyard. Now, I say that I was in the church at the time, and hence I would have had a clear view of anybody leaving the church. Nevertheless I saw nobody. Now, if Orwell then uses this as a piece of evidence to claim that the figure must have appeared out of nowhere, this would be quite an extraordinary claim. Nevertheless the claim that I happened to be in church at that time isn’t at all extraordinary, and it would be unreasonable not to believe me when I say I was there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-70848434517259220632014-05-01T01:46:34.072-07:002014-05-01T01:46:34.072-07:00dguller:
“True. And yet history is littered with...dguller:<br /><br /><i> “True. And yet history is littered with religious and spiritual leaders who are claimed by their followers to have performed miracles, and whose followers continue to believe, even in the face of false predictions, often even more fervently. I doubt that you believe that all of these groups are correct in their beliefs, and you would probably utilize the psychological phenomena that I have applied to the resurrection to them, and concluded that their followers are victims of subconscious biases and cognitive distortions. You and I only differ in that I apply the same possibilities to the early Christians, who were human beings, and also prone to the very psychological phenomena that we have been discussing.”</i><br /><br />First up, I’m not totally opposed to the idea that some of those miracles could be genuine. There’s no inherent reason why God couldn’t choose to miraculously heal somebody in a non-Christian country, for example. And of course there’s the possibility of demons granting people supernatural powers to lead others astray, etc.<br /><br />Secondly, there’s also the possibility of hoaxes, e.g., finding somebody who claims to be crippled and then miraculously “healing” them. Such instances wouldn’t be genuine miracles, but also wouldn’t be comparable to the Disciples hallucinating Jesus out of whole cloth, as it were. So the mere fact that I reject lots of miracles claims doesn’t ipso facto mean that I should reject the Resurrection, because the circumstances are often different.<br /><br />Thirdly, as mentioned up-thread, there’s also the wider situation to take into account. A lot of these claimed miracle-workers ended up doing quite well out of their religion (Muhammad, Joseph Smith, etc.), unlike Jesus or the Disciples. Since they have clear motive to fake/lie about miracles, then, it’s perfectly justified to treat their accounts more sceptically.<br /><br /><i> “Again, look at the Seekers whose followers continued to believe in their cult even after its main prediction failed miserably. They managed to convince themselves that their actions had averted the apocalypse rather than accept that their leader was conning them.”</i><br /><br />And again, the world would look much the same if “Our actions averted the apocalypse!” were true to if “There was never going to be an apocalypse in the first place” were true. The world where “Our Messiah is risen and walking among us” is true would be noticeably different to that where “Our Messiah’s dead and decomposing in a tomb somewhere” is true. So the two situations aren’t really comparable.<br /><br /><i> “You assume a level of impartial rationality in people that is rarely present, and you continuously underestimate the power of our subconscious to bias and distort our perceptions, interpretations and memories in the service of reducing cognitive dissonance. You keep talking about what the followers of Jesus would reasonably believe, as if they were not human beings that were prone to the same cognitive mechanisms that we are all vulnerable to, especially in times of high emotional distress, such as grief.”</i><br /><br />No, I just assume that even when people are dejected and grief-stricken, you don’t find several hundred of them all convincing themselves that a dead man has risen and spoken and interacted with them. Given that you haven’t been able to find a single other case of this happening, I don’t really think you’re in a good position to criticise others for not taking account of how normal humans behave.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67491594238017813252014-04-30T18:07:59.430-07:002014-04-30T18:07:59.430-07:00Now, none of these things is particularly likely o...<i>Now, none of these things is particularly likely on its own, but taken together they are so improbable that they’d be laughed out of literally any other situation than somebody trying to explain away a miracle. In fact, about the only thing this theory has going for it is that it avoids all reference to the dreaded M-word.</i><br /><br />Look, the bottom line is that there simply is insufficient evidence for the resurrection, given the historical texts that we have available. There are simply too many gaps to trust the narrative as reliable. Perhaps if there were records of the disciples individual testimonies soon after Jesus appeared to them, and a way to compare the testimonies for consistency, and to do the same for all the other witnesses, especially the 500 witnesses that you mentioned above. That would be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to establishing the reality of the resurrection, and yet we simply lack this essential piece of evidence. Without it, we do not know what happened to the disciples in the month after the death of their messiah, and the only records that we have were recorded decades later, which leaves more than enough time for their memories to have been revised and edited outside of their awareness.<br /><br /><i>The reason you give is that we don’t know the probability of miracles, but we do know the probability of highly improbable naturalistic events. But here, you seem to be saying that we can choose to believe in alien life – something for which, again, we have no idea of the probability – without first ruling out every possible non-extraterrestrial cause. (I mean, it *could* theoretically be a massive and highly successful government conspiracy, right? You can’t completely rule it out.) So why the epistemic double standard?</i><br /><br />There is no double standard. You are comparing an event that occurred 2,000 years ago and has sparse historical evidence to an event that hypothetically occurred at this time with a wealth of observational and scientific evidence. I would say that the likelihood of thousands of witnesses, and hundreds of scientific experts, engaging in a massive conspiracy would be more unlikely than a dozen or so grieving religious followers subconsciously convincing themselves that their messiah had risen from the dead to reduce the cognitive dissonance of their messiah having been a failure. And given the vagaries of human memory, I see nothing remarkable in the fact that their memories grew more exaggerated and inaccurate in the decades that followed. <br /><br /><i>Why do I need one? Surely you aren’t going to claim that “The Apostles started preaching on such-and-such a date” is an “extraordinary claim”?</i><br /><br />No, but you are using it as evidence of a miracle, and so that piece of evidence had better be remarkably well supported. Again, every piece of evidence for the miracle must be well-established, because the conjunction is supposed to support an extraordinary event. Look at the level of precision and control that went into proving the Higgs boson. Every possible confounding factor was controlled for and ruled out. A massive effort was performed to get at the truth of the matter. I think something similar must be performed to demonstrate that a miracle occurred. If that standard of evidence cannot be met, then I’m afraid that it will remain an open question whether the miracle, in fact, occurred. <br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-53966482281867524942014-04-30T18:07:44.661-07:002014-04-30T18:07:44.661-07:00Msgrx:
It’s not being based upon well-known pheno...Msgrx:<br /><br /><i>It’s not being based upon well-known phenomena that makes an explanation likely or not, but the probability of these phenomena’s coinciding in such a way as to produce the evidence we have.</i><br /><br />True. <br /><br /><i>For example, people lying, politicians covering things up and governments fabricating casus belli are all well-known and –documented, and are far more common than terrorists flying planes into skyscrapers. Nevertheless we do not accept the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, because the sheer number of people who would have to be in the know without telling anyone is far too great to be credible.</i><br /><br />True. And yet history is littered with religious and spiritual leaders who are claimed by their followers to have performed miracles, and whose followers continue to believe, even in the face of false predictions, often even more fervently. I doubt that you believe that all of these groups are correct in their beliefs, and you would probably utilize the psychological phenomena that I have applied to the resurrection to them, and concluded that their followers are victims of subconscious biases and cognitive distortions. You and I only differ in that I apply the same possibilities to the early Christians, who were human beings, and also prone to the very psychological phenomena that we have been discussing.<br /> <br /><i>Now with your hallucination theory, we’d have to assume that large numbers of people either had the same hallucinations (or sufficiently similar hallucinations to convince themselves that they were the same) or somehow bought the idea that their deceased Messiah had come back bodily from the dead, rather than the far more likely explanations that (a) Jesus was actually a ghost or (b) the person reporting the story was a madman spouting lunacy.</i><br /><br />Again, look at the Seekers whose followers continued to believe in their cult even after its main prediction failed miserably. They managed to convince themselves that their actions had averted the apocalypse rather than accept that their leader was <i>conning them</i>. You assume a level of impartial rationality in people that is rarely present, and you continuously underestimate the power of our subconscious to bias and distort our perceptions, interpretations and memories in the service of reducing cognitive dissonance. You keep talking about what the followers of Jesus would <i>reasonably</i> believe, as if they were not human beings that were prone to the same cognitive mechanisms that we are all vulnerable to, especially in times of high emotional distress, such as grief.<br /><br /><i>Oh, and not one of them thought to check the tomb and see if the body was still there.</i><br /><br />Even if they checked and found no body, that could have meant that someone had removed it and buried it in an undisclosed location, as often happened to criminals.<br /><br /><i>Also, their hallucinations all stopped at the same time, about forty days after Jesus was executed.</i><br /><br />As most bereavement hallucinations do.<br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-59901529739734739242014-04-30T11:30:30.945-07:002014-04-30T11:30:30.945-07:00dguller:
“Not at all. I’m relying upon well-know...dguller:<br /><br /><i> “Not at all. I’m relying upon well-known psychological phenomena that would have to be ruled out before a miracle could be established.”</i><br /><br />It’s not being based upon well-known phenomena that makes an explanation likely or not, but the probability of these phenomena’s coinciding in such a way as to produce the evidence we have. For example, people lying, politicians covering things up and governments fabricating casus belli are all well-known and –documented, and are far more common than terrorists flying planes into skyscrapers. Nevertheless we do not accept the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, because the sheer number of people who would have to be in the know without telling anyone is far too great to be credible.<br /><br />Now with your hallucination theory, we’d have to assume that large numbers of people either had the same hallucinations (or sufficiently similar hallucinations to convince themselves that they were the same) or somehow bought the idea that their deceased Messiah had come back bodily from the dead, rather than the far more likely explanations that (a) Jesus was actually a ghost or (b) the person reporting the story was a madman spouting lunacy. Oh, and not one of them thought to check the tomb and see if the body was still there. Also, their hallucinations all stopped at the same time, about forty days after Jesus was executed. Now, none of these things is particularly likely on its own, but taken together they are so improbable that they’d be laughed out of literally any other situation than somebody trying to explain away a miracle. In fact, about the only thing this theory has going for it is that it avoids all reference to the dreaded M-word.<br /><br />Speaking of which—<br /><br /><i> “That’s ridiculous. Assume that the reality of alien life is highly unlikely. Even if we do not know what that prior probability estimate is, if your alien scenario arose, then the subsequent probability would be incredibly high, given all the different lines of evidence that independently converges to the same conclusion, i.e. that alien life exists. In that case, a high subsequent probability would trump a low prior probability, even if we don’t know what the precise number of the latter is.”</i><br /><br />So why doesn’t the same apply to miracles? I mean, you’ve said multiple times on this thread that we have to completely rule out a naturalistic explanation, “no matter how improbable” that explanation might be – indeed, that even if the naturalistic explanation were so improbable it might only have happened once in all of human history, we’d still have to rule it out before we could say “Yup, this looks a miracle, alright.” The reason you give is that we don’t know the probability of miracles, but we do know the probability of highly improbable naturalistic events. But here, you seem to be saying that we can choose to believe in alien life – something for which, again, we have no idea of the probability – without first ruling out every possible non-extraterrestrial cause. (I mean, it *could* theoretically be a massive and highly successful government conspiracy, right? You can’t completely rule it out.) So why the epistemic double standard?<br /><br /><i> “What record to you have that dates from the time of the Pentecost that supports your claim?”</i><br /><br />Why do I need one? Surely you aren’t going to claim that “The Apostles started preaching on such-and-such a date” is an “extraordinary claim”?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-87026432429748528742014-04-29T18:26:28.862-07:002014-04-29T18:26:28.862-07:00First, the disciples were not in a psychological s...<i> First, the disciples were not in a psychological state that rendered them susceptible to a hallucination.</i><br /><br />They were grieving the loss of their messiah. As McGrew writes: “Their primary emotion was not exalted expectation but a combination of grief and simple fear”, and we know that being in a state of grief makes one susceptible to a bereavement hallucination, which is a fairly common experience. <br /><br /><i> Also, the article makes the point -- which I'll admit I hadn't really considered before -- that the Apostles started preaching about the Resurrection right after Pentecost. So unless you want to dismiss this as a hallucination as well, you don't actually have "decades" for delusions of seeing Christ to spread, but a period of about fifty-three days.</i><br /><br />What record to you have that dates from the time of the Pentecost that supports your claim?<br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-33936220673805631932014-04-29T18:26:13.784-07:002014-04-29T18:26:13.784-07:00Msgrx:
Oh, sorry, didn’t realise you had everyda...Msgrx:<br /><br /><i> Oh, sorry, didn’t realise you had everyday experience of UFOs.</i><br /><br />I don’t. The fact that alien life is so foreign to ordinary experience demands that <i>extraordinary</i> evidence would be required to justify the claim. Certainly, the scenario that you described above would count as extraordinary evidence, and thus would justify the reality of alien life.<br /><br /><i> That’s like the gnu atheist who says that he’ll believe in theism when somebody can show something which can’t be explained naturalistically. Of course, since he can always pull some naturalistic just-so story out of his ass, his challenge is designed, consciously or not, to save him from ever having to change his mind. Your attitude in this thread has been much the same.</i><br /><br />Not at all. I’m relying upon well-known psychological phenomena that would have to be ruled out before a miracle could be established. If the only evidence that we have of a miracle is a written text that was written decades after the alleged miraculous event, then that is simply insufficient to establish the reality of the miracle, because too many alternative possibilities could account for the existence of that written text, many of which involve the very psychological phenomena that I have been appealing to. And since none of them can be ruled out, given the scarcity of historical evidence available, it follows that the matter remains an open question, to say the least.<br /><br /><i> If we should reject miracles because we can’t assign prior probabilities to them, we should reject EVERYTHING that we can’t assign a prior probability to, NO MATTER WHEN THEY TAKE PLACE.</i><br /><br />That’s ridiculous. Assume that the reality of alien life is highly unlikely. Even if we do not know what that prior probability estimate is, if your alien scenario arose, then the subsequent probability would be incredibly high, given all the different lines of evidence that independently converges to the same conclusion, i.e. that alien life exists. In that case, a high subsequent probability would trump a low prior probability, even if we don’t know what the precise number of the latter is.<br /><br /><i> None of which have been similar to the account contained in the Gospels.</i><br /><br />And since the account in the Gospels is a written account that dates decades after the events in question, it is precisely the Gospel account that is suspect, especially if that account includes miracles and other supernatural phenomena.<br /><br /><i> “In law, it has long been recognized that minor discrepancies among witnesses do not invalidate their testimony – indeed, that they provide an argument against collusion.</i><br /><br />I never argued that the disciples conspired to invent a false narrative.<br /><br /><i> In the most natural and common meaning of the word, a hallucination is a private experience.</i><br /><br />Agreed. <br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47971407918086245332014-04-29T12:10:34.670-07:002014-04-29T12:10:34.670-07:00Also, the article makes the point -- which I'l...Also, the article makes the point -- which I'll admit I hadn't really considered before -- that the Apostles started preaching about the Resurrection right after Pentecost. So unless you want to dismiss this as a hallucination as well, you don't actually have "decades" for delusions of seeing Christ to spread, but a period of about fifty-three days.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-44800553249122153482014-04-29T12:07:49.870-07:002014-04-29T12:07:49.870-07:00“In the most natural and common meaning of the wor...“In the most natural and common meaning of the word, a hallucination is a private<br />experience. (See Slade and Bentall, 1988, p. 16.) Some examples given in popular authors, e.g. Rawcliffe (1959, pp. 114-15), are of misidentification rather than a hallucination properly<br />speaking. See, e.g., the tale of the walking cook in Henry Ellis’s abridged edition of John Brand (1842, p. 44). In cases of collective hallucination, expectation, emotional excitement, and suggestion are the primary factors. In particular, “all participants in the hallucination must be informed beforehand, at least concerning the broad outlines of the phenomenon that will constitute the collective hallucination” (Zusne and Jones, 1982, p. 135).” (pp. 33 f.)<br /><br />“First, the disciples were not in a psychological state that rendered them<br />susceptible to a hallucination. Unlike the eager pilgrims who flock to holy sites hoping to see<br />visions and prodigies, the disciples were not anticipating a miracle of any sort, let alone a<br />resurrection; the gospels make it plain that the disciples, to their embarrassment, did not<br />understand Jesus’ somewhat enigmatic predictions of his own death and return to life to indicate an imminent bodily resurrection until after the fact. Their primary emotion was not exalted expectation but a combination of grief and simple fear (Matthew 26:56; John 19:38, 20:19). Messianic expectations in Judaism at the time did not include the resurrection of the messiah except in the general resurrection at the final judgment.25 As we have pointed out, they –collectively at first and individually in the case of Thomas – were understandably skeptical of others’ accounts of the empty tomb or of encounters with Jesus. When Jesus did appear to them, they sometimes failed to recognize him (John 21:4-7). These were not men who were likely to suffer a hallucination of any sort, much less one of their risen master.” (p. 34).<br /><br />“And then, abruptly, they stopped. Christ no longer appeared on earth. Whatever their<br />causes, the visions of Peter and Cornelius in Acts and even of Paul on the road to Damascus are qualitatively distinct from these appearances. Paul never claimed that Jesus broke bread with him or ate a meal with him. Theodore Keim’s argument on this point is inexorable:<br /><br />Not one of the five hundred repeats the ecstasy, and all the cases of ecstasy irrevocably<br />end with the fifth vision. What a contradiction of high-swollen enthusiasm and of sudden<br />ebb even to the point of disappearance! Just when fervid minds are beginning to grow<br />fanatical, the fanaticism absolutely and entirely ceases. It might be possible that a few less<br />ardent natures, though perhaps not Peter, rather James, would quickly recover their<br />mental equilibrium; but in the greater number of the twelve and of the five hundred a<br />movement which had burst the dams would certainly not be stayed in an instant; and yet<br />the narrative says nothing of a third vision to the twelve and nothing of a second to the<br />five hundred (Keim, 1883, p. 356)” (p. 35)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-85559448540894188772014-04-29T12:07:24.581-07:002014-04-29T12:07:24.581-07:00Incidentally, you really should read the article F...Incidentally, you really should read the article Fake Herzog linked to. Here’s the link again, to save you the trouble of having to scroll up:<br /><br />http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf<br /><br />A few quotations to whet your appetite:<br />“In law, it has long been recognized that minor discrepancies among witnesses do not<br />invalidate their testimony – indeed, that they provide an argument against collusion. The eminentlegal scholar Thomas Starkie stresses this point in his discussion of testimonial evidence:<br /><br />It is here to be observed, that partial variances in the testimony of different<br />witnesses, on minute and collateral points, although they frequently afford the adverse<br />advocate a topic for copious observation, are of little importance, unless they be of too<br />prominent and striking a nature to be ascribed to mere inadvertence, inattention, or defect<br />of memory.<br />It has been well remarked by a great observer, that “the usual character of human<br />testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety.” It so rarely happens that<br />witnesses of the same transaction perfectly and entirely agree in all points connected with<br />it, that an entire and complete coincidence in every particular, so far from strengthening<br />their credit, not unfrequently engenders a suspicion of practice and concert.<br />The real question must always be, whether the points of variance and of<br />discrepancy be of so strong and decisive a nature as to render it impossible, or at least<br />difficult, to attribute them to the ordinary sources of such varieties, inattention or want of memory (Starkie, 1833, pp. 488-89).” (pp. 6 f.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15313059518004632032014-04-29T12:06:42.179-07:002014-04-29T12:06:42.179-07:00dguller:
“First, the more a claim diverges from ...dguller:<br /><br /><i> “First, the more a claim diverges from our everyday experience, the more evidence is required to justify that claim.”</i><br /><br />Oh, sorry, didn’t realise you had everyday experience of UFOs.<br /><br /><i> “Third, I never said that a miracle was impossible, but only that demonstrating the reality of a miracle requires the exclusion of possible natural explanations.”</i><br /><br />That’s like the gnu atheist who says that he’ll believe in theism when somebody can show something which can’t be explained naturalistically. Of course, since he can always pull some naturalistic just-so story out of his ass, his challenge is designed, consciously or not, to save him from ever having to change his mind. Your attitude in this thread has been much the same.<br /><br /><i> “I was specifically talking about a situation where we are trying to understand a historical event E for which the only record is a text dated decades after E. In that scenario, if we are trying to understand E, then we should prioritize accounts that we can assign a probability estimate to, and exclude those explanations that are such that it is impossible to assign a probability estimate at all, due to a multitude of unknown factors. After all, you cannot say that account A1 is more likely than account A2 when only A1 has a probability assigned to it. That means that we should exclude any explanation that requires the postulation of aliens or miracles, because both of them lack a probability estimate.”</i><br /><br />Wow, the sophistry here would make Hume blush. WHO CARES IF E IS A HISTORICAL EVENT? If we should reject miracles because we can’t assign prior probabilities to them, we should reject EVERYTHING that we can’t assign a prior probability to, NO MATTER WHEN THEY TAKE PLACE. If, on the other hand, we CAN accept things we can’t assign a prior probability to – such as an alien spaceship crash-landing on Earth – EVEN THOUGH we can’t 100% rule out other explanations (“Hey, maybe it’s just a mass conspiracy! Or a hallucination! Or I’m in a coma and I’m dreaming!”), THE SAME APPLIES TO HISTORICAL EVENTS AND TO MIRACLES. Good heavens, this really isn’t hard.<br /><br /><i> “Except that I’ve cited examples of mass hallucinations.”</i><br /><br />None of which have been similar to the account contained in the Gospels.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-80758189293602973622014-04-29T10:35:57.684-07:002014-04-29T10:35:57.684-07:00I presume you mean prior probabilities? If so, see...<i>I presume you mean prior probabilities? If so, see the alien example above.</i><br /><br />Except that the alien example involves a <i>contemporary</i> event with <i>hard evidence</i> that has been examined by <i>reputable experts</i> and has <i>a huge number of witnesses</i>, including <i>myself</i>. That isn’t <i>nearly</i> comparable for our evidence for the resurrection, which is why I would be happy to accept the existence of aliens in your example, but still remain highly skeptical of the existence of the resurrection.<br /><br /><i>Personally I find the fact that you've been reduced to positing some sort of unique and otherwise totally unknown mass hallucination to be a pretty good reductio ad absurdum of your naturalist position.</i><br /><br />Except that I’ve cited examples of mass hallucinations. I mentioned the accusers at the Salem witch trials who all witnessed the spectral persona of the accused tormenting them in the courtroom. <br /><br />Furthermore, there is the ghost epidemic of Thailand since the tsunami in which there have been a large number of people who claim to have seen the ghosts of people who died in the tsunami. And yes, there are <i>groups</i> of people who hallucinate en masse. For example: “In Khao Lak, a local family say their telephone constantly rings through the day and night. When answered, the voices of friends and relatives cry out to be rescued from the flames of the crematorium.” <br /><br />And regardless, the account that I have been defending does not require that a number of people have the <i>same</i> hallucination, but only have a <i>similar</i> one. Subsequent communication and subtle social influences upon one another could have resulted in an agreed-upon narrative that was subsequently transmitted. dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-49305559135391244782014-04-29T10:34:46.131-07:002014-04-29T10:34:46.131-07:00Msgrx:
Why this sudden epistemic privileging of e...Msgrx:<br /><br /><i>Why this sudden epistemic privileging of experience? You said yourself that miracles aren't inherently impossible, so why are meant to treat them as impossible just because "we" (ignoring for the moment all those people who claim to have experienced miracles) have no first-hand experience with them?</i><br /><br />First, the more a claim diverges from our everyday experience, the more evidence is required to justify that claim. That is what <i>extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence</i> means. In other words, if X is beyond our ordinary experience, then justifying the reality of X requires evidence beyond our ordinary experience. <br /><br />Second, since a miracle necessarily <i>diverges</i> from our everyday experience, we cannot appeal <i>to</i> our everyday experience to justify the existence of miracles. <br /><br />Third, I never said that a miracle was impossible, but only that demonstrating the reality of a miracle requires the exclusion of possible natural explanations. If a number of possible natural explanations cannot be ruled out, then the miracle hasn’t been demonstrated. It <i>may</i> have happened, but we simply lack the evidence for it.<br /><br /><i>what does the fact that the text was recorded decades later have to do with anything?</i><br /><br />It has to do with the reliability of the transmission of information from the original event to the recorded text, and that transmission also includes <i>one</i> person recollecting and telling the information to themselves and/or others. The longer the period between the event and the written text, the more opportunity exists for the transmitted information to have been distorted or altered by well-known psychological mechanisms. <i>That</i> is why the <i>decades long</i> lack of textual evidence for the resurrection is important.<br /><br />For example, just look at the Challenger study where a psychologist at Emery University asked his students to record their memories of the Challenger disaster <i>the day after the event</i>. He then followed up with them <i>three years later</i>, and asked them the <i>same questions</i>. It turned out that 25% of them had significant changes to their accounts, that over 50% of them had minor changes, and only 10% had all the details correct. Even more amazingly, the students often continued to believe their later account to the earlier account, because it was more vivid in their minds, even though there was <i>documentary evidence</i> of their earlier accounts. <br /><br /><i>If we should reject miracles because we don't know their prior probability, we should reject them because we don't know their prior probability.</i><br /><br />I was specifically talking about a situation where we are trying to understand a <i>historical</i> event E for which the only record is a text dated decades after E. <i>In that scenario</i>, if we are trying to understand E, then we should prioritize accounts that we can assign a probability estimate to, and exclude those explanations that are such that it is impossible to assign a probability estimate at all, due to a multitude of unknown factors. After all, you cannot say that account A1 is more likely than account A2 when only A1 has a probability assigned to it. That means that we should exclude any explanation that requires the postulation of aliens or miracles, because both of them lack a probability estimate. <br />dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-3078137238323677072014-04-29T05:16:57.415-07:002014-04-29T05:16:57.415-07:00dguller:
"No, because we have experience of...dguller:<br /><br /><i> "No, because we have experience of sentient and intelligent life, i.e. our own, and can infer the possibility of other sentient and intelligent life elsewhere. However, we have no experience of miracles, and thus cannot infer from our experience that such miracles exist."</i><br /><br />Why this sudden epistemic privileging of experience? You said yourself that miracles aren't inherently impossible, so why are meant to treat them as impossible just because "we" (ignoring for the moment all those people who claim to have experienced miracles) have no first-hand experience with them?<br /><br /><i> "Furthermore, I argued that when evaluating a historical claim for which all we have as evidence is a text recorded decades after an event,"</i><br /><br />First of all, have you read the McGrews' article linked to above? If not, you really should, it's quite good.<br /><br />Secondly, what does the fact that the text was recorded decades later have to do with anything? If we should reject miracles because we don't know their prior probability, we should reject them because we don't know their prior probability. If we should reject the Resurrection because the evidence isn't good enough, we should reject the Resurrection because the evidence isn't good enough. You're just conflating the two arguments, which means that your views are immune to refutation because whenever one argument comes under attack you can always just take refuge in the other, before going back to the first one when the second one is called into question.<br /><br /><i> "then we should prefer an account that has some probability associated with it rather than an account that we cannot calculate any probabilities for."</i><br /><br />I presume you mean prior probabilities? If so, see the alien example above.<br /><br /><i> "However, since that has nothing to do with the situation regarding the resurrection, we must conclude that there is an utter lack of compelling reasons to prefer the supernatural account to the natural account, and since we cannot calculate the probability of the former, but can calculate the probability of the latter, then we should prefer the latter to the former."</i><br /><br />If you say so. Personally I find the fact that you've been reduced to positing some sort of unique and otherwise totally unknown mass hallucination to be a pretty good reductio ad absurdum of your naturalist position.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11583636336608420182014-04-28T23:38:32.272-07:002014-04-28T23:38:32.272-07:00No a Freudian slip is what Freud's Mother had ...No a Freudian slip is what Freud's Mother had on underneath her dress.Son of Ya'Kovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-83674200346393043012014-04-28T18:33:16.608-07:002014-04-28T18:33:16.608-07:00@Step2:
"There isn't anything natural ab...@Step2:<br /><br />"There isn't anything natural about television. Freudian slip?"<br /><br />I think that's a national inference. ;-)Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74680647264240113022014-04-28T17:56:02.421-07:002014-04-28T17:56:02.421-07:00dguller,
There isn't anything natural about te...dguller,<br />There isn't anything natural about television. Freudian slip?Step2noreply@blogger.com