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I know basically nothing about the ancient religions as such, but justice meted out in the afterlife was very much a viable proposition in the context of Greco-Roman religion. It’s a topic discussed all over Plato.
Given HW’s skeptical hypotheses, an answer is readily available: They believed in the Resurrection, a myth that had set in in the first couple of decades; they believed wrongly, but their belief is a good explanation for Christian growth after that point.
Not that there’s any evidence for the hypothesis, or a clear reason to doubt the evidence we do have for the Resurrection.
And it’s not a reasonable way to characterize these people, rather dramatically incompatible with the NT’s clear portrayal of the early believers’ attention to evidence, fact-checking, verification, and so on.
As far as I can tell, HW’s hypothesis only works if we presume that these people were remarkably gullible and remarkably uninterested in confirmation. Very different from how they actually were, with Peter and John emphasizing eyewitness testimony, Paul inviting people to check with the eyewitnesses, the doubts of Thomas, and so on.
Kennard’s scholarship is extremely good on this sort of thing.
Yeah, I’m swamped over here. I’ll do more some other time.
It is possible that demons and angels exist.
I can’t say that I know with certainty that demons and angels don’t exist. But what explanatory value to these demons and angels have? If I get sick, should I call in an exorcist? This is something that can be tested in a clinical setting.
My mind is not closed to Christianity or Hinduism or Mormonism or Islam in the sense that if one of these religious beliefs could be proven to be true, I would be converted.
What I have been doing is explaining why I think Christianity and other religions appear to fall short in terms of being demonstrably true. It is often said that one can not put God to the test. But if one can’t put God to the test, we won’t be able to determine if he actually exists or is just a product of our imagination.
We’ve all seen movies like Star Wars and various James Bond movies where various events are depicted. But these events didn’t actually happen. This shows that human beings have vivid imaginations. Don’t we want to separate out what is real and what is not real? To engage in this inquiry isn’t to posses a closed mind. It is to engage in a very human process of discovery.
If you have not converted to Buddhism, this doesn’t mean that you are, in principle, closed-minded with respect to Buddhism. It simply means that the evidence presented to you has not, at this point, convinced you. That’s it.
We do have good reason to doubt written testimony for the Resurrection.
On October 4, 1992, an El Al Boeing 707 that had just taken off from Schipfol Airport in Amsterdam lost power in two engines. The pilot tried to return to the airport but couldn’t make it. The plane crashed into an eleven-story apartment building in the Amsterdam suburb of Bijlmermeer. The four crew members and thirty-nine people in the building were killed. The crash was, understandably, the leading news story in the Netherlands for days.
Ten months later, in August 1993, Dutch psychology professor Hans Crombag and two colleagues gave a survey to 193 university professors, staff, and students in the country. Among the questions was the following: “Did you see the television film of the moment the plane hit the apartment building?” In their responses 107 of those surveyed (55%) said Yes, they had seen the film. Sometime later the researchers gave a similar survey with the same question to 93 law school students. In this instance, 62 (66%) of the respondents indicated that they had seen the film. There was just one problem. There was no film.
These striking results obviously puzzled the researchers, in part because basic common sense should have told anyone that there could not have been a film. Remember, this is 1992, before cell phone cameras. The only way to have a film of the event would have been for a television camera crew to have trained a camera on this particular apartment building in a suburb of Amsterdam at this exact time, in expectation of an imminent crash. And yet, between half and two-thirds of the people surveyed – most of them graduate students and professors – indicated they had seen the non-existent film. Why would they think they had seen something that didn’t exist?
Even more puzzling were the detailed answers that some of those interviewed said about what they actually saw on the film, for example, whether the plane crashed into the building horizontally or at vertical and whether the fire caused by the plane started at impact or only later. None of that information could have been known from a film, because there was no film. So why did these people remember, not only seeing the crash but also details about how it happened and what happened immediately afterward?
Obviously they were imagining it, based on logical inferences (the fire must have started right away) and on what they had been told by others (the plane crashed into the building as it was heading straight down). The psychologists argued that these people’s imaginations became so vivid, and were repeated so many times, that they eventually did not realize they were imagining something. They thought they were remembering it. They really thought that. In fact they did remember it. But it was a false memory. Not just a false memory one of them had. A false memory most of them had.
The researchers concluded: “It is difficult for us to distinguish between what we have actually witnessed, and what common sense inference tells us that must also have been the case.” In fact, commonsense inference, along with information we get by hearsay from others, together “conspire in distorting an eyewitness’s memory.” Indeed “this is particularly easy when, as in our studies, the event is of a highly dramatic nature, which almost by necessity evokes strong and detailed visual imagery.”
This was a memory of a large group of people who all remember seeing the same thing (or nearly the same thing) at the same time, even though none of them saw it.
The thing about false memories is that they are just as firmly implanted in our brains as real memories – sometimes even more firmly implanted. There is no way to differentiate between true and false memories. Our brains can’t do it.
If you goal is to have any religion “proved” scientifically, you are out of luck. There is nothing that can happen that will prove a God, let alone anything else. No thing, no matter how unlikely can be proof of a God. Even messages hidden in math, like in Contact. That could just be proof of a simulation and not of God.
Outgrowth, yes.
But a distinct religious tradition by this criterion, the enormous doctrinal differences. Not even monotheist.
Also distinct on the criterion of authority. A separate book is recognized as the word of G-d, and living prophets are also recognized, making for an open canon.
Kennard and other NT scholars think those words are historical. Should we care about what scholars disagree on?
I’m much more interested in the evidence behind their positions.
In this case, does the evidence involve the alleged lack of divinity-claims by Jesus in the synoptics? If so, it’s decent reasoning I’d say. But it has a false premise, as previously observed in this thread.
What on earth is all this about?
You said you have an anti-supernatural bias (# 283, # 303).
Indeed.
I’ll believe in it if I encounter convincing evidence, and disbelieve it otherwise; you really don’t think that’s the way to think about this?
If I knew of any, I would like to.
That’s just following the evidence. That seems appropriate as long as there is no evidence for a supernatural. (However, I can’t say that I see any flaws in the logic of the Kant/William James strategies of rational belief without evidence).
But when there is evidence, this is precisely the wrong approach for precisely the same reason, namely: that we should follow the evidence!
On what basis do you make that claim?
Phrased differently, what is your evaluation of the evidence–your evaluation of the historical testimony by the criteria for good historical testimony (to which we have alluded in # 92 and # 97)?
Along with Socrates, Cicero, Plato, Confucius, and so on.
Or are you willing at last to point out some relevant advantage in the historical evidence for those guys which the Gospel testimony lacks? I’ve pointed out plenty of advantages going the other way.
Or do you reject the superior evidence–the Gospel testimony–because you don’t like the conclusion?
And if none of these, will you please deign at last to explain yourself?
Well, yes, that actually is bad. And if you insist on comparing apples to oranges, this evidence is much worse than the evidence for Socrates since Plato and Aristotle are not anonymous.
But if you are willing to be consistent, comparing apples to apples, you should call Plato’s and Aristotle’s writings anonymous on the same grounds you call the Gospel writings anonymous.
I reject your premise that the Gospel testimony is as you describe. I think the eyewitnesses wrote, and in most cases the eyewitnesses were killed. What’s wrong with that belief? It has some testimonial evidence in its favor. You surely wouldn’t deny that testimony counts as evidence, would you?
As for your hypothesis, we have already established that it only works if there are several filthy liars. Why would you believe they are filthy liars? You have not one shred of evidence for this skeptical hypothesis.
And so we have “reason to doubt” everything else relying on written testimony, from Socrates to 99% of what I personally know from science, and even your own evidence presented in this very comment!
In fact what you have shown here is only that testimony tends to be fallible.
But whoever denied that?
I assume only two things: that testimony counts as evidence, and that the text means what it plainly means.
Then, if you like, rephrase accordingly, but at any rate please stick to the present point:
Your hypothesis only works if we presume that these people were remarkably gullible and remarkably uninterested in confirmation–in other words, that they are quite different from how they appear in the historical records, with the authors of the Petrine and Johannine letters and of the fourth Gospel emphasizing eyewitness testimony, the author of 1 Corinthians inviting people to check with the eyewitnesses, the doubting by the character of Thomas, and so on.
Believing astonishing things with no corroboration? Whether typical of humans or not, I call that remarkably gullible and uninterested in evidence.
What sort of proof would you accept?
That’s not what that verse means.
The only verse I can think of on empirical testing is the one in the Minor Prophets where G-d actually invites his people to test him to see whether he will provide if they tithe.
It’s also an attitude I don’t see much of in the ancient world.
We tend nowadays to be victims–perpetrators, rather–of what Lewis calls “chronological snobbery.” We think, as a matter of course, that the earlier eras must have been less rational than we.
I daresay there were many irrational people in the ancient world. But they tend not to be the ones who wrote the books, appeared as characters in books, or left a lasting mark on history.
The Manicheans–now they could be quite irrational, and they wrote books, and left a mark for a time; but now their main function is to serve as a set of egregious errors to be contrasted with the truth in the writings of Augustine.
If we seek models of critical thinking–of attention to logic, evidence, corroboration, reasoning, basing belief on evidence, being skeptical where evidence is lacking, and so on–we can find some superb examples in Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, Sextus Empiricus, Seneca, Epictetus, Cicero, Paul, Thomas, rabbis in the Talmud, and so on.
I actually see more gullibility and disinterest in evidence in the modern university than I find in the ancient world. Of course, that’s partially a matter of sampling. The worst of the ancient world fades, and the best shines perennially, while the worst of the modern world has not yet had a chance to fade–and sometimes finds itself in the same room as me at an academic conference.
Socrates drinking hemlock is very similar to something that happens everyday: suicide.
Just because someone wrote that Socrates drank hemlock does not mean that Socrates actually drank hemlock. The evidence for Socrates drinking hemlock is not very good.
One can could conclude that the story of Socrates drinking hemlock was invented by someone rather than an event that actually happened. I don’t know what the evidence is in favor of Socrates drinking hemlock and whether the story has enough evidence to support it.
I will let the PhDs in ancient history debate that issue.
As for the issue of whether Jesus walked on water, was born of a virgin, turned water into wine and rose from the dead, those are stories we should be extremely skeptical of.
Must I investigate and debunk the claims of every Palm Reader individually? Or can I simply draw the tentative conclusion that no one can predict the future by reading someone’s palm?
That’s really the point.
Once we look at the evidence supporting Jesus’s rise from the dead it looks weak, not strong.
But why investigate every crazy tale?
Human beings are no more rational today than they were back in the 1st century.
However, we have developed methods by which we can understand our irrational thoughts and actions.
We have learned much about how the human brain works, how it constructs its memories and how its behavior can change based on environmental conditions.
Think of how someone might come to believe in Jesus in the 21st century. This person does not have a first hand account of Jesus rising from the dead. Yet they believe the story anyway.
This means that someone like Paul, who converted from Judaism to Christianity, is really in the same situation as some 21st century Christian. Paul heard Christians talk about Jesus rising from the dead. At first, Paul persecuted the Christians. Later, Paul converted to Christianity.
Paul thought that Jesus spoke to him, providing him his Gospel. But Paul could have been mistaken, not necessarily lying.
Was Paul gullible? No more than the billions of people who have believed in various gods like Hercules, Zeus, Apollo, Zalmoxis and others over the course of human history.
Human beings are not 100 percent rational. Our brains do not store information the way a computer hard drive stores data or the way a video recorder stores information.
Stories are told and retold and eventually you have a myth.
Most people are not like Detective Columbo.
Who wants to be the “bad cop” who investigates whether the good news is true?
This is the ancient world where people already believe in various gods, that harvests are determined by which gods your worship, that military battles are won and lots based on which gods you worship. Diseases are cured, not by medicine tested in a clinical trial, but by praying to the gods.
I am truly amazed how long this thread has gone on. The originator did no favor by looking for the “quaint” aberrations found in the backwoods of Romania. Fastening on these provides no useful information regarding Orthodox theology. So, in the spirit of St. Paul*, I would remind you debaters that, while we regard God’s word as absolute truth, we cannot fully know God’s mind as we are imperfect humans and thus imperfectly interpret what we are told. If the Protestants, and all other non-Orthodox wish to worship apart from the Orthodox Church, so be it. We should each have the humility to remember that it God who will decide. No policy, philosophy, theology from the mind of man can supersede Him.
*St. Paul’s Letter to Titus, 3:8.
Hey, I’m in NY. We might even be in the same time zone for once!
And all this belief about cause and effect without any kind of corroboration?
I don’t follow. Are these remarks supposed to make sense together?
I don’t get this. I would think everyone interested in truth and evidence would want to investigate–in proportion to the importance of the topic and the time he has available.
Given Galatians 1:12 and 1 Cor. 9:9, he’d have to be a liar.
Or, if not a liar, a man with a damnably cavalier attitude to both logic and language.
Or a total loony.
Yes, indeed. I have said endlessly that this relatively ordinary historical claim needs less evidence than a claim for a miracle.
That’s a fine tentative conclusion, but its very good support comes from Ockham’s Razor; by definition, when you do have some good evidence for a palm reader, the support for this tentative conclusion evaporates.
No, you need not investigate every possible claim individually. But when the evidence for a remarkable claim has–perhaps literally–fallen into your lap and when it is actually pretty good and allegedly is much more important than a palm reading, you should investigate it.
Here we have a claim that the Resurrection of the Yeshua the Messiah has taken place; the claim comes from diverse threads of eyewitness testimonies, which testimonies were by all extant accounts sealed by torture and death; and the testimony concerns the meaning of life and history.
Yes, we should investigate that.
What an interesting conclusion. Once again I wonder: What on earth is your premise for it?
Yes, it is very good indeed!
To your credit, you can be consistent on that sort of thing–one of three people I’ve met, I believe, who is willing to not believe that Socrates drank hemlock.
If your premise is that no ancient testimony can be convincing at all, we are back to where we occasionally were on earlier threads: I’m not sure how to refute you, but I would be happy to point out that you are mistaken.
But I do have an anti-Palm Reader bias and for good reason.
Similarly, we should have an anti-person rises from the dead bias.
So, if someone asks me if I would be willing to pay 50 dollars to have my palm read by a Palm Reader, my response will be “No,” without any investigation.
If someone asks me if I would be willing to pay 30 dollars to get my car’s oil changed, my response might be, “Yes.”
But in the case of Jesus’s resurrection, New Testament scholars have been investigating this issue for over 200 years. The conclusion of most New Testament scholars is that the gospels were written anonymously by people who wrote about 30 to 70 years after Jesus’s death based on hearsay.
Given my anti-person rises from the dead bias, this evidence is very bad evidence.
As for the Christian martyrs, while we do have evidence that anonymous Christians died, we don’t have very much good evidence of how most of the 12 disciples died.
Judas betrayed Jesus. Perhaps Judas wasn’t convinced that Jesus was divine? We don’t know.
As for most of the 12 disciples, the gospels and the New Testament generally, provide us very few details about these people. Were they married? Did they have children?
Were these 12 disciples actual human beings or were they simply part of a story that was told and retold over a period of decades?
A written story is just a story. Just because a story was written down does not mean that the events depicted in the story actually happened.
When we do see a story about how Paul died by getting beheaded and a bunch of milk sprayed from his neck, are we to actually believe this story is true or just another work of fiction/myth?
Similarly for Peter being crucified upside down. Do we believe that this is true or just another piece of fiction?
But even if Paul were killed. So what? Does a Joseph Smith being killed in Illinois demonstrate the truth of Mormonism? Of course not.
And even if we all agreed that Jesus rose from the dead, for the sake of argument, this would not mean that Jesus’s death and resurrection atoned for the sins of mankind.
What reason is that? I don’t have a bias. I just follow the evidence.
Why?
So what? I care little for the authority of scholars. Do they have any good evidence for their skepticism? I care about the evidence.
Indeed. But why not examine the evidence objectively?
If you accept the evidence that some Christians died based on the historical testimony, why do you reject the evidence that certain specific people lived and died based on the same sort of evidence? This looks like a double standard.
It would be some darn good evidence for Mormonism if he were killed precisely for his eyewitness testimony.
Whoever said it would?