Christ-belief is not a "fallacy" or a quibble over semantics or an absolute certainty. It is a reasonable hope based on evidence.
I have been loosely reading lumpenprat's ravings...
anybody have a summary of the major fallacies that are being used?
He uses a lot of argument from incredulity and ignorance. His evidence for a claim is often 'What else could explain it?'
How is this a fallacy? Why is it not legitimate to argue that
x would be the best explanation for
y, and so since
y is the case,
x must have happened, because otherwise it is difficult to explain how
y could have happened?
This requires showing that it's difficult to explain
y without
x having happened.
Though this isn't
proof that
x must be so, it's a strong case for it as long as
y is true and needs an explanation and if
x is the best explanation for it.
Some events or facts of the 1st century, mainly after 30 AD, are difficult to explain unless there was a person, the historical Jesus Christ, who had power, such as the kind we see presented in the reported miracle healing acts in the gospel accounts.
You need to explain why Jesus was mythologized into a god.
A new religion or cult formed which made him into a god, and there's no explanation why. He was gone in a short time before he had time to establish himself the way other hero figures or prophets became established, through gathering disciples over a long career of teaching and impressing hearers with his charisma and noteworthy deeds.
A normal, but not average, human can become mythologized into a god or mythic hero, but there have to be some facts about him which make this happen. It does not happen to someone whose career was less than 4 years or who did nothing noteworthy.
If Jesus did perform those miracle acts we read in the gospel accounts, this explains what was noteworthy about him that brought him to be mythologized into a god. But if those acts never happened,
why was he mythologized into a god? You cannot dismiss this question. We have a ready obvious answer. Why isn't it a reasonable possibility if no one can come up with a credible alternative?
The clichè that people "make up shit" explains nothing. This kind of retort is just a way of acknowledging that we have no explanation. Of course there are cases where someone "makes up shit," but not without a reason or without there being a pattern that explains why they "make up" the shit. In the case of miracle hero myths, there is always something noteworthy about the one who is mythologized.
In some cases the hero was charismatic and greatly impressed his listeners or followers over a long career. One way or another he made an impact. In some cases he was truly strong or did something heroic, and this later became exaggerated, e.g., Hercules. But it required generations of story-telling plus something noteworthy at the beginning in order for this mythologizing process to get started.
If it's not the miracles of Jesus which explain how he became mythologized into a god, then what else could have caused this mythologizing? So far no one has offered any explanation other than the empty slogan that "people make up shit." With this universal refuter, you could dismiss virtually any fact of history you want to deny.
He also is fond of 'special case' arguments.
What is a "special case" argument?
The key to this being a fallacy is that there is no adequate reason for treating the situation differently. Since a different situation is, by definition, different, there is always some distinction to be made; the issue is whether this difference is sufficient. Obviously, the person making the argument thinks that it is sufficient, and stating that it is not will simply be dismissed as not recognizing the fact that this situation is totally different.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special_pleading
Miracle stories are generally dismissed as fictional. But the case of Jesus in the gospel accounts is "different" and is not to be dismissed as fictional.
Is this a "special case" argument? Do ALL miracle legends have to be regarded the same? Must they ALL be fictional? Is it a logical fallacy to say that this particular miracle story here is fictional, whereas that one over there is factual? Why is that a logical fallacy?
Can't one claim be false and another true? Why is it necessary for all miracle claims to be false instead of some of them being true and others false?
Even if many or most miracle stories are proved false, must we then suppose that ALL such stories are false? Why? Why couldn't some be true, i.e., ones for which there is some evidence, though others are false.
Why isn't it sufficient to show a similarity, or common pattern, shared by the ones which are false and which easily explains how they were "made up" by someone, but not shared by the ones for which there is evidence and are more difficult to explain?
How is it a "fallacy" to say that this one case is different than those others? Aren't some "fish stories" true even though others are false?
If you prove that most lawyers are crooked, does that then mean ALL lawyers must be crooked? and if some lawyers claim to not be crooked, must they necessarily be committing the "special case" fallacy by claiming they're "different"?
Science can NEVER say that Christ's miracles are impossible because science can't make that claim. Except when it does and says exactly that about savant syndrome, . . .
No, science does not say that Christ's miracles are impossible or did not happen, or that savant phenomena did not happen or are impossible. These and some other phenomena are events which science cannot explain.
When science cannot explain something, honest scientists simply acknowledge that, i.e., that the explanation is not known. It's only pseudoscientists who say it's "impossible" if science cannot explain it, or that it could not have happened.
. . . which means maybe there's a power to heal.
Yes, maybe it's not necessary to start out with the dogmatic premise that there can be no such power, regardless of any facts suggesting otherwise. Maybe there is no such power, or maybe there is.
The Jesus-debunker arguments are mainly based on the dogmatic premise that there can be no such power, regardless of any evidence that such power has been demonstrated. Whereas the basic Christ-belief starts from the reasoning that we don't know for sure -- there may or may not be such power -- but evidence recorded in the gospel accounts, from the 1st century, shows the possibility that Jesus had such power.
So one side precludes discussion or reasoning on the question, ruling dogmatically that it cannot be so --
period, end of discussion! Whereas the pro-belief reasoning leaves open the possibility, leaving it an open question, and taking the accounts or evidence we have from history to draw the reasonable hope that such life-giving power is possible.
And he makes up self-serving definitions for words rather than try to use the common tongue.
The only word over which we quibbled was "miracle":
But there is no Absolute Scientific Decree that a "miracle" event cannot ever happen.
Actually, that's been offered many times as THE definition of miracle, something that is scientifically impossible, therefore the very fact of the event would prove God's hand must be involved.
Actually, that's been offered many times as THE definition of miracle, . . .
This isn't about someone's definition of a word. We're talking about whether something happened 2000 years ago. You cannot determine whether something happened by defining it out of existence. Only a historical investigation can deal with this, not someone's definition of a word. We're talking about "miracle" and "sign" etc. used in the New Testament, such as in the following:
It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, . . .
(Hebrews 2:3-4)
1) "by signs" -- σημείοις
2) "wonders" -- τέρασιν
3) "miracles" -- δυναμεσίν
The meanings of these words are as follows:
1) semeion: sign, mark, token, a sign from the gods, an omen, a sign or signal to do a thing
2) teras: a sign, wonder, marvel, sign in heaven, a monster
3) dunamis: power, ability to do a thing, strength, might, authority, a force for war
from Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon.
"something that cannot ever happen" is not part of the meaning. It can include notions about "the gods" doing it, but it doesn't have to include this meaning.
It might mean a rare happening, something difficult, improbable, "impossible" for normal humans. But not something that cannot ever happen, and not necessarily something that only the "the gods" could do.
The topic is demeaned by turning it into a petty squabble over word meanings.
