Fine-Tuning Argument vs Argument From Miracles

[Keith&Co.]

than that the Romans who crucified Jesus were incompetent bumblers who wasted expensive resources doing a half-arsed job.

Ah! First draft of Life Of Brian!
The Romans are doing a lousy job. Jesus, a carpenter, keeps offering advice, offers to help, 'oh, let me do it.' But they refuse, the cross keeps falling apart, dumping Jesus face-first on the ground, or he falls onto a Legionaire and gets a spear in the side, tips over onto a thorn salesman's cart....

But they decided the target of their humor wasn't Jesus, but all the people around him, using him for their agendas....

 

[Rhea]

No, if someone had said something was witnessed by 500 others, and if additional sources also reported the same events, that would make it credible. After a certain degree of corroborating reports is attained, it becomes credible, even though there is still doubt and it's not a certainty. But it becomes a reasonable possibility if there are enough extra sources confirming it.

So Lumpy, it appears you are claiming that EVERY TIME you read a document that says 500 people witnessed ANYTHING, then you ALWAYS believe it?

Zat true?

 

[Keith&Co.]

No, if someone had said something was witnessed by 500 others, and if additional sources also reported the same events, that would make it credible. After a certain degree of corroborating reports is attained, it becomes credible, even though there is still doubt and it's not a certainty. But it becomes a reasonable possibility if there are enough extra sources confirming it.

So Lumpy, it appears you are claiming that EVERY TIME you read a document that says 500 people witnessed ANYTHING, then you ALWAYS believe it?

Zat true?

Dude, 500 people have seen me ride a unicorn to work. Big pink thing, glowing hooves and horn. Hair like Medusa.
Only about 60 people have seen me in my dinosaur costume at work. But i have a picture of that. Even posted one on the firum.

Which is more credible?

 

[steve_bank]

Another Christian retort. God does not have to obey how reality works for us humans. After all he, she, or it is 'god'.

First to steve..........That to me, is nothing more than an axiomatic statement about the relationship that exists between a creator and its created. If that is incorrect as you infer, then tell me what is correct.


Now skep............

No argument. But Christians using that reasoning are making a circular argument, another logical fallacy. Jesus was determined to be a god only because there were hearsay claims that he could do miracles (violate the laws of physics). Then after having declared him a god because of the miracle claims, the fact that he has been declared a god explains how the hearsay claims are true since, as a god, he could do the miracles.

Congratulations you just found the correct fallacious reasoning in your own incorrect fallacious straw man.

Axiomatic? Too intellectual. Religion is about feelings. God created the universe. Biblically he caused destruction at will. God controls reality. It is in the bible, numerous examples.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

No, if someone had said something was witnessed by 500 others, and if additional sources also reported the same events, that would make it credible. After a certain degree of corroborating reports is attained, it becomes credible, even though there is still doubt and it's not a certainty. But it becomes a reasonable possibility if there are enough extra sources confirming it.

So Lumpy, it appears you are claiming that EVERY TIME you read a document that says 500 people witnessed ANYTHING, then you ALWAYS believe it?

Zat true?

Dude, 500 people have seen me ride a unicorn to work. Big pink thing, glowing hooves and horn. Hair like Medusa.

OMG! I had a vision on my way to Damascus that you were riding a big pink horse with a horn and glowing hooves with snakes for hair and that exactly 500 people saw you!

Therefore it's all true and I am now the ultimate authority on all things Keith&Unicorn. If all those who read my words do not believe in the good news of K&U then we are still in our sins. For the horn is the unicorn, but in death, it will be changed into the incorruptible and our sins will be stomped into the earth by the glowing hooves of K&U.

ETA: Well, OMK&U! Look at that. We just created an entire mythology and the basis of a new religion in exactly two posts.

And no one can disprove it because proximity and all of history and logic and reason.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Dude, 500 people have seen me ride a unicorn to work. Big pink thing, glowing hooves and horn. Hair like Medusa.

OMG! I had a vision on my way to Damascus that you were riding a big pink horse with a horn and glowing hooves with snakes for hair and that exactly 500 people saw you!

Therefore it's all true and I am now the ultimate authority on all things Keith&Unicorn. If all those who read my words do not believe in the good news of K&U then we are still in our sins. For the horn is the unicorn, but in death, it will be changed into the incorruptible and our sins will be stomped into the earth by the glowing hooves of K&U.

ETA: Well, OMK&U! Look at that. We just created an entire mythology and the basis of a new religion in exactly two posts.

And no one can disprove it because proximity and all of history and logic and reason.

So cool.
But it's not a religion until we get some funds. Lucky for us, Patooka owes me $5 over in Politics, that'll be our first donation.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Dude, 500 people have seen me ride a unicorn to work. Big pink thing, glowing hooves and horn. Hair like Medusa.

OMG! I had a vision on my way to Damascus that you were riding a big pink horse with a horn and glowing hooves with snakes for hair and that exactly 500 people saw you!

Therefore it's all true and I am now the ultimate authority on all things Keith&Unicorn. If all those who read my words do not believe in the good news of K&U then we are still in our sins. For the horn is the unicorn, but in death, it will be changed into the incorruptible and our sins will be stomped into the earth by the glowing hooves of K&U.

ETA: Well, OMK&U! Look at that. We just created an entire mythology and the basis of a new religion in exactly two posts.

And no one can disprove it because proximity and all of history and logic and reason.

So cool.
But it's not a religion until we get some funds. Lucky for us, Patooka owes me $5 over in Politics, that'll be our first donation.

Brilliant! I'll contact the IRS and we'll be millionaires in a year. Just like ol' Ron Hubbard.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So cool.
But it's not a religion until we get some funds. Lucky for us, Patooka owes me $5 over in Politics, that'll be our first donation.

Brilliant! I'll contact the IRS and we'll be millionaires in a year. Just like ol' Ron Hubbard.

Excellent. Wait, though, we need three people to found a church. My wife is rather insistently NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS today, and Patooka may not want to go any further than the fiver...

 

[Atheos]

The use of nails in crucifixion would have been unusual at best - outside biblical accounts, I am not aware of any evidence of their use for that purpose. Nails were expensive in the C1st, and the Romans had plenty of experience in crucifying people; A process that usually took many days, even a couple of weeks, to be fatal; And after which the bodies were left up until they rotted, as a warning to others.

This may be the first time I've ever heard that particular argument put forth. It's intriguing to say the least.

There's an old christian saying, "It wasn't nails that held Jesus to the cross." Maybe they were right: Perhaps it was fiction that held Jesus to the cross.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

So cool.
But it's not a religion until we get some funds. Lucky for us, Patooka owes me $5 over in Politics, that'll be our first donation.

Brilliant! I'll contact the IRS and we'll be millionaires in a year. Just like ol' Ron Hubbard.

Excellent. Wait, though, we need three people to found a church. My wife is rather insistently NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS today, and Patooka may not want to go any further than the fiver...

Don't worry. K&U will provide. Not you, K&U, the holy unicorn spirit part of you, of course.

 

[remez]

You are unquestionably assuming your conclusion is true and working backward from there.

This is no one's first rodeo, remez.

Well it seems to be your first rodeo. Because your statement is very very questionable in the face of the abductive argument I provided. The conclusion is not assumed to be true. That is obvious in the construction. So how in the face of the evidence to the contrary can you delude that I’m assuming the conclusion?

Before you respond…..let me give it a shot. Because I have seen this one before in the rodeo. Possibly you have my reasonable belief in God existence conflated with my arguments conclusion. I do not deny I have a prior reasonable belief that God exists and that belief is not presumptuous either, for I have provided my reasoning supporting that belief here in this thread more than once. It is there for you to challenge.
But…….
The conclusion of my abductive argument is dependent upon the truth of the premises and the abductive reasoning that leads to the conclusion. No overt presumptions anywhere.
Unless…….you fooled yourself here………….and………..
You are reasoning that since I already believe (and can argue) that God exists. Then any argument I provide related to his existence is therefore presumptuous because I already believed he existed in the first place.
Well….
Think carefully about that this time. That faulty reasoning would eliminate all argument for anything. The scientific search for anything. Because the minute you try to argue for anything, you must first have the thing in mind that you are arguing for, but that, by your reasoning renders the conclusion presumptuous. We believed that the Higg's Boson existed and had reasons to look for it. Were those looking for it presumptuous?
See…………
Even your conclusion, that I’m unquestionably presuming my conclusion, is presumptuous on your part, because you are arguing for that thing you’ve already concluded.

 

[remez]

(2) But I do and did get the drift of your challenge. You would address it with the same rules of reasoning and evidence that you would in adjudicating any event in a court of law, hence my list of jury instruction regarding testimony that I provided last time. Now I know many of you missed the point there. Those are the same jury instructions for cold case events as all and that is what were are concerned with here. You are just assuming there is no reasoning involved. I have in my conversations here presented evidence and reasoning for my four facts. Basically to this context the governing rules of historical criticism are a must. But keep in mind that your are not exactly comparing apple to apples here. Your alien fixation doesn't seem to be presented as a cold case, historical event. In regards to the resurrection we would be addressing the evidence and reasoning as we were addressing a any cold case event.

You missed that jury instructions are to ignore hearsay. This isn't given in the final instructions because, if some sleazy lawyer slimps hearsay in during the trial, that testimony is struck and the jury, at the time, is instructed to ignore it. This is because hearsay is meaningless.

I haven’t ignored that at all. You have made the charge of hearsay. Fine. But even sleazy lawyers would correctly contest that a charge is not a case for rejection. Which of my four facts is hearsay and why? Make your case.

Keep in mind. This is a very cold case. A case that greatly predates modern terminology. My presented jury instructions were provided in the context of “your what” rules we could use to adjudicate the cases of the resurrection vs alien abduction. AGAIN my point there was that there was more reasoning to consider than just blind faith, which was what you were inferring by guilt of association. What I presented is the bar of adjudication for even cold cases. Cases so cold that the witnesses are gone and their testimony was never recorded in court. Are you aware that there are over two dozen exceptions to your stated rule of hearsay? I reasonably do not accept your hearsay charge upon face value. You need the make a case for rejection in the context of the supporting historical criticism present here in this case. Look again at the simplicity of the facts I have claimed. The conclusion is debatable no doubt, but the four simple facts? Which one is hearsay and why is it hearsay?

Keep in mind, our context here is ancient historical criticism……..ex..
All of what we know of Alexander comes from sources 400 years or later than his life.

 

[remez]

So Unfair…….

I knew you'd do that. I saw my error on that point after posting. But I figured someone interested in reason must apply the principle of charity and skip niggling over an error

I clearly addressed your concern of atonement and immortality. For the third time now, they are not directly related to my case and I’m not going to address them in the middle of this case. What you quoted there was my “just in case you go there caution” based on what YOU wrote. Your ad-hominin attack was unfair.
Now…
Let me reestablish your the context of your next quote/response. You claimed that you had no supernatural bias. You were asserting that the supernatural could exist. So you instructed me that I should just address your reasoning based upon your openness to the supernatural.
So…
I began by attempting to show you the contradiction in your reasoning and your stated openness to the supernatural. You were begging the question for naturalism in reasoning but blindly asserting an openness to the supernatural. Despite your believed openness to the supernatural, your reasoning clearly rejected it. So that is what I attempted to show you.
Watch…………

you are begging the question to naturalism
with
your insistence/reasoning/conclusion that the judgement of experiences must have a naturally explained outcome
or
it is all to be conclude just human imagination
which is
by reverse association of guilt
supernatural.

You've done a wonderful job illustrating that undermining reason is necessary to make Christian mythology seem reasonable.

(1) your statement there by design was meant to infer I was being “mean/bully/negative” because I undermined your reasoning. Think about it for a minute this time. You and I have been here before, with you complaining about the same nonsensical nonsense. When two people oppose one another in their reasoning, it is implied domain to reveal where the others reasoning is wrong as well as put forth a positive case for the POV. I have the positive case on the table. You are opposing that. Should I infer you are a negative representative of your group because you find fault in my reasoning?

(2) Your attempt to report fault in my reasoning was based on …..Your reasoning. Your reasoning is what I was addressing above. The reasoning of where you addressed my reasoning as wrong. I simply attempted to show you the fault in your reasoning AGAINST my reasoning, and your reply, directly but incorrectly, inferred was I was being a negative and that reflects poorly on Christianity. Nonsense.

(3) your statement again…………..

You've done a wonderful job illustrating that undermining reason is necessary to make Christian mythology seem reasonable.

…….seems to admit/confirm I was correct. You are not open to the supernatural what so ever. You couldn’t (as challenged) name a supernatural event.
So………..
You confirm I was correct but infer that Christianity is negative because I, a representative thereof, showed you to be wrong on one point. Unfair to say the least.
But you dug deeper…………..

Some folk want evidence, and I want to know why God uses symbology to perform his magic. And your response is unbelievers are dogmatically closed off.

Regarding evidence…. I gave a positive argument as and with evidence.

And now……” I want to know why God uses symbology to perform his magic.”..I never claimed God did magic. That is your straw man to flame.
And…
My response was not dealing that newly constructed magic straw man. My response was dealing with your old reasoning regarding naturalism.
So…
To infer that my reasoning was addressing your unrelated magic straw man is again unfair.
And deeper still you dug…………….

It's an extreme elaboration on the "you skeptics are close-minded" ploy. "Reasoned faith" is nothing but the excuses that "the dumb Christians" use, except elaborated.

Another absurd straw man. I do not espouse that skeptics are close minded in any general sense. On that particular issue, with one particular individual,…YOU…I provided reasoning to expose your one fault with that one line of reasoning.
So
To extend that you the extremes you did was completely ….UNFAIR.

 

[remez]

Another Christian retort. God does not have to obey how reality works for us humans. After all he, she, or it is 'god'.

That to me, is nothing more than an axiomatic statement about the relationship that exists between a creator and its created. If that is incorrect as you infer, then tell me what is correct.

Axiomatic? Too intellectual. Religion is about feelings. God created the universe. Biblically he caused destruction at will. God controls reality. It is in the bible, numerous examples.

As I see it. Your response is a complete non-sequitur. You aren’t defending the pseudo-complaint I challenged. You just brought forth a new set of feelings.

 

[skepticalbip]

(2) But I do and did get the drift of your challenge. You would address it with the same rules of reasoning and evidence that you would in adjudicating any event in a court of law, hence my list of jury instruction regarding testimony that I provided last time. Now I know many of you missed the point there. Those are the same jury instructions for cold case events as all and that is what were are concerned with here. You are just assuming there is no reasoning involved. I have in my conversations here presented evidence and reasoning for my four facts. Basically to this context the governing rules of historical criticism are a must. But keep in mind that your are not exactly comparing apple to apples here. Your alien fixation doesn't seem to be presented as a cold case, historical event. In regards to the resurrection we would be addressing the evidence and reasoning as we were addressing a any cold case event.

You missed that jury instructions are to ignore hearsay. This isn't given in the final instructions because, if some sleazy lawyer slimps hearsay in during the trial, that testimony is struck and the jury, at the time, is instructed to ignore it. This is because hearsay is meaningless.

I haven’t ignored that at all. You have made the charge of hearsay. Fine. But even sleazy lawyers would correctly contest that a charge is not a case for rejection. Which of my four facts is hearsay and why? Make your case.

You obviously don't know what the word 'hearsay' means. Your four claims are not first hand or even second hand accounts. That makes them hearsay. Since you cited the California legal system, you may want to read California's position on hearsay evidence (it's not allowed). The post immediately below the one you are quoting here has a link to the official position and definition they use. They do list extraordinary exceptions but your claims do not meet any of those exceptions.

And a sleazy lawyer that offered such hearsay in a California court would be warned by the judge and the testimony struck. If he persisted then he would be cited with contempt.

Dude, the fact that you want to believe something that is not so does not make it so.

ETA:
Oh yeah, while the kind of 'testimony' you want to offer would not even be allowed in a California court because it is all hearsay, the first hand testimony of those claiming to have been abducted by anal probing aliens would be allowed and would be considered... It may be decided by the jury that the witness was delusional but the testimony would be heard.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You are unquestionably assuming your conclusion is true and working backward from there.

This is no one's first rodeo, remez.

Well it seems to be your first rodeo.

Jesus, it just never ends.

Because your statement is very very questionable in the face of the abductive argument I provided.

No it isn't and you provided no abductive argument. You just refuse to concede that you have always just assumed a god exists and worked backwards from there.

Why you keep doing this is a mystery. To you. Not to any of us. We know why. We have told you why. Yet you keep denying it's what you're doing. Why? What's the point?

You can't stand the fact that your beliefs aren't justifiable. Welcome to religious "faith," aka belief in spite of the evidence against.

Before you respond…..let me give it a shot.

Ok, let's go to your rodeo. Again.

I do not deny I have a prior reasonable belief that God exists

You have no such thing. You have a belief that one exists. There is nothing "reasonable" about it nor can there be nor should there be. That's what faith is all about.

and that belief is not presumptuous either, for I have provided my reasoning supporting that belief here in this thread more than once.

It is there for you to challenge.

I have, repeatedly and conclusively destroyed it. You just refuse--obstinately, petulantly--to concede that fact. So here we go again.

The conclusion of my abductive argument is dependent upon the truth of the premises and the abductive reasoning that leads to the conclusion.

Stop using the word "abductive." It's not impressing anyone and you're not using it properly to begin with. "Magic is real" cannot ever possibly be either the simplest nor the most likely explanation for any observation, let alone the idea that a magical, omnicapable multi-dimensional "Supreme Being" that blinked the universe into existence be either "simplest" or "most likely," let alone that such a being trifurcated into flesh in order to kill himself as a necessary sacrifice to himself in order to save us all from his wrath and to show the world this is true, he only allegedly showed a few people and then nonsensically (i.e., by flying off into outer space).

No overt presumptions anywhere. Unless…….you fooled yourself here………….and………..

Are you ever going to get to it?

You are reasoning...

*YAWN*

Well….
Think carefully about that this time.

Uh huh. ARE YOU EVER GOING TO GET TO IT?

That faulty reasoning would eliminate all argument for anything. The scientific search for anything. Because the minute you try to argue for anything, you must first have the thing in mind that you are arguing for,

AIRN'T!

Wrong. It's not about having something "in mind" it's about you have ALREADY CONCLUDED THAT A GOD EXISTS. You don't simply have it in mind; you are 100% a believer that a God exists. You are then working backward from that conclusion to your premises, which is not permissible.

You are NOT proving that a god exists, or, in this case, proving that a divine resurrection from the dead happened. You are ASSUMING ONE HAPPENED (because your beliefs require it) and now desperately trying to work backwards from that preconceived conclusion to try and make your premises fit in a "reasonable" manner, which is the most ludicrous of all of this nonsense.

Because, again, there can be nothing "reasonable" (or "simple" or "most likely") about a magical being using magic to resurrect himself/any human being from the dead. Full stop.

It doesnt' matter how many times you try to spin it, there is no such thing as magic. At best--at the very very very very very best--is that a perfectly natural alien being from a much more advanced culture than ours just happened to be passing by in their ship and broke the prime directive.

THAT is far more reasonable than the notion that there is a magical omnicapable sky daddy that blinked the universe into existence by will alone because he was, what, lonely? And wanted to create quadrillions of planets, but only ONE with creatures on it, and then among those billions of creatures, only one species that could even possibly conceive of him and then only to blindly worship and obey his every ineffable order, no matter how insane.

It's NEVER going to be the "most likley explanation." Ever.

We believed that the Higg's Boson existed and had reasons to look for it.

False. We could not explain why our model of the physical world was off. The math kept giving us results that shouldn't be. So it was theorized that we were missing some component in our calculations. Iow, it was something there that we missed.

YOU are not thoerizing any like missing component in regard to a story about a man/god that is resurrected from the dead as the most likely explanation for the mythology that sprang up around him.

The tomb was open and the body gone. MOST LIKELY OR SIMPLEST EXPLANATION CAN NEVER BE: divinely resurrected from the dead.

Never. That can never ever ever be the simplest or most likely explanation for that myth. So, either you do not understand what "simple" (or "most likely" or "reasonable") means, OR you are simply preconceiving a pet conclusion to be true and working backwards.

Which is it?

Were those looking for it presumptuous?

Just, for the love of your god, please stfu.

You have failed. Again. As you always will. Because you--an adult, presumably--believe in Santa Claus.

 

[remez]

You obviously don't know what the word 'hearsay' means.

I know what it is in regards to today's court. I also understand how historical criticism works. You are getting the two mixed up. Did you read my last post? What you are inferring here would nullify all that we know about all of ancient history. We know nothing of Alexander the Great if all is judged by only "your hearsay process". So I asked you to address that contradiction. How do the historians determine what is true and what is not about the ancient past?

Your four claims are not first hand or even second hand accounts.

How can you actually conclude that?
because .........
Ironically by your process you could not reach that conclusion. All is hearsay that long ago. You can't have it both ways.

Since you cited the California legal system, you may want to read California's position on hearsay evidence (it's not allowed).

You are again ignoring the context of my reason to cite the jury instructions(which said nothing of hearsay). No... you are actually twisting my reasoning to your ends. Go back and read post 350. I specifically cited those jury instructions to confront your inference that I was inferring that testimony only, was the end all of truth. Thus all alien abductions are true by that reasoning, you interjected. Therefore I cited that testimony needed to be judged by more....the jury instructions (nothing about hearsay) I provided. You then jumped all over your introduced modern hearsay straw man. Ancient history is dealt with by a process call historical criticism. I provided some examples earlier.


Your modern reasoning of hearsay does not fit in that context of historical criticism. If we were to use your "hearsay" approach to ancient history we would know nothing of ancient history. If that is your position you are welcome to it. But the moment you claim you can no anything of Alexander the Great then you are contradicting your hearsay procedures.


So again you are welcome to your strict hearsay rejection process. But to be consistent you can know nothing further of ancient history. Alexander was made up. What of his mentor Aristotle I ponder? Or his Plato? Or his Socrates? All of that today just hearsay fantasy. OK?

Now in the case of So-crates would time travel count?

Dude, the fact that you want to believe something that is not so does not make it so.

Goodbye Plato.
Goodbye Alexander.
Goodbye Tacitus.
Goodbye Christopher Robin.
Hear-we-say rest in peace.

 

[remez]

Because your statement is very very questionable in the face of the abductive argument I provided.

No it isn't and you provided no abductive argument.

here again.......

So lets set the stage for a real discussion.

Lying (disciple imagination) and the Resurrection (the miracle).

Here are the four minimal facts regarding the Resurrection.....

1- Jesus was crucified and (buried) placed in a tomb.
2- the tomb was empty and no one ever produced a body
3- the disciples believed they saw the risen Jesus
4- the disciples were transformed following their alleged Resurrection observations

I positively assert that the best explanation of those four minimal facts is obvious........Jesus miraculously rose from the dead.
vs.
You asserting that lying is the better explanation.

(1)...remember that was in context with atrib.
(2)...you began to unsuccessfully attacked it back in 260. You could not defend your reasoning for Mark as the only accepted source. That all differences infer embellishment and/or contradiction...etc. All the beneath the surface reasoning you called gish gallop.

That faulty reasoning would eliminate all argument for anything. The scientific search for anything. Because the minute you try to argue for anything, you must first have the thing in mind that you are arguing for,

Wrong. It's not about having something "in mind" it's about you have ALREADY CONCLUDED THAT A GOD EXISTS. You don't simply have it in mind; you are 100% a believer that a God exists.

You are still making my point. I have CONCLUDED that God exists. Concluded means I have researched and reasoned that God exists. For me it's mostly cosmology/math and fine tuning and philosophy. It was not presumed on blind faith as you assume.

You are then working backward from that conclusion to your premises, which is not permissible.
You are NOT proving that a god exists, or, in this case, proving that a divine resurrection from the dead happened. You are ASSUMING ONE HAPPENED (because your beliefs require it) and now desperately trying to work backwards from that preconceived conclusion to try and make your premises fit in a "reasonable" manner, which is the most ludicrous of all of this nonsense.

You are correct I'm not trying to prove God exists. That was in the context of the question that brought me here. "How could a Christian believe in miracles?" So I addressed that this way......Since God (given not presumed) exists then miracles are possible. He agreed that reasoning was reasonable but it then inferred that any event can be considered a miracle. Thus I asserted.....No, reason still reigns supreme. So for example I set the stage by way of an abductive argument to examine the reasonableness of the resurrection event being miraculous.
So
I'm not working backwards by way of presumption. You are.

You are blindly assuming my trust in God is without evidence and therefore presumed. I repeat...I DO NOT PRESUME GOD EXISTS. I HAVE CONCLUDED HE EXISTS. However the reasoning of my conclusion (God's existence) was not the reasoning for my argument that the resurrection was a miracle. They are two different but related arguments and neither is presumed. Neither is blind faith. I have evidence and reasoning for each. And each is reasoning from a different context.

You just refuse to concede that you have always just assumed a god exists and worked backwards from there.

Why should I concede to your undefended reasoning? You seem to emote that all you have to do is post some simple surface objections and you defeat the argument. As Dawkin's would phrase it.....that's too lazy. That is not the way it works. The reasoning behind your objections I have found fault with and therefore in need of defending. But you can't go deeper. At that point beneath the surface it just turns into gish gallop for you.


like..............

The tomb was open and the body gone. MOST LIKELY OR SIMPLEST EXPLANATION CAN NEVER BE: divinely resurrected from the dead.

Never. That can never ever ever be the simplest or most likely explanation for that myth.

Begging the question for naturalism. Your reasoning for the surface presumption needs to be addressed.


and like this...........

Stop using the word "abductive." It's not impressing anyone and you're not using it properly to begin with.

You overtly have no clue. Thus for me to continue at your surface only level would be perceptively unfruitful here. Should you get beneath the surface of your objections...to the reasoning of those objections, which I challenged....then we would have something further to explore. Right here and now it just looks like mud slinging.

So.....
Thank you for the informative discussion.
and...
Have a great day.

 

[skepticalbip]

I know what it is in regards to today's court. I also understand how historical criticism works. You are getting the two mixed up. Did you read my last post? What you are inferring here would nullify all that we know about all of ancient history. We know nothing of Alexander the Great if all is judged by only "your hearsay process". So I asked you to address that contradiction. How do the historians determine what is true and what is not about the ancient past?


How can you actually conclude that?
because .........
Ironically by your process you could not reach that conclusion. All is hearsay that long ago. You can't have it both ways.

Since you cited the California legal system, you may want to read California's position on hearsay evidence (it's not allowed).

You are again ignoring the context of my reason to cite the jury instructions(which said nothing of hearsay). No... you are actually twisting my reasoning to your ends. Go back and read post 350. I specifically cited those jury instructions to confront your inference that I was inferring that testimony only, was the end all of truth. Thus all alien abductions are true by that reasoning, you interjected. Therefore I cited that testimony needed to be judged by more....the jury instructions (nothing about hearsay) I provided. You then jumped all over your introduced modern hearsay straw man. Ancient history is dealt with by a process call historical criticism. I provided some examples earlier.


Your modern reasoning of hearsay does not fit in that context of historical criticism. If we were to use your "hearsay" approach to ancient history we would know nothing of ancient history. If that is your position you are welcome to it. But the moment you claim you can no anything of Alexander the Great then you are contradicting your hearsay procedures.


So again you are welcome to your strict hearsay rejection process. But to be consistent you can know nothing further of ancient history. Alexander was made up. What of his mentor Aristotle I ponder? Or his Plato? Or his Socrates? All of that today just hearsay fantasy. OK?

Now in the case of So-crates would time travel count?

Dude, the fact that you want to believe something that is not so does not make it so.

Goodbye Plato.
Goodbye Alexander.
Goodbye Tacitus.
Goodbye Christopher Robin.
Hear-we-say rest in peace.

AHA. so by your "reasoning" there have been a hell of a lot of real live gods and demigods that have walked among us such as Mithras, Zoroaster, all the Egyptian pharaoh gods, etc. and even Hanuman, the Hindu flying monkey god, and Ganesha, the Hindu elephant headed god. All have been reported to be real and to have miraculous powers. Hell, even Julius Caesar was reported to have performed miracles and was officially declared to be a god. To look at more recents gods, Kim Il Sung is reported to have been a god with miraculous powers which he used and the feats recorded. The god myths of Kim Il Sung are better documented than the Jesus myths because they were written by people who actually knew him so could actually be eye witnesses. And the fact that Kim actually existed is much better documented since he is referenced and recognized by many, many other sources than those in his god myths.

The question is why you are so fixated only on this one god, Jesus, while you ignore the thousands of others that are as well or, in some cases, better documented. Special pleading not being allowed, I again ask why?

ETA:
You may have to look up the meaning of 'special pleading' since you don't seem to understand.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I positively assert that the best explanation of those four minimal facts

Joy. Round and round we go.

None of the four things you presented are facts, and all but the first are contradicted by other sources:

1- Jesus was crucified and (buried) placed in a tomb.

Not a fact. We have only an assertion this occurred. Since it's non-controversial, I have no problems stipulating that a man named Jesus was crucified by the Romans and either buried or placed in a tomb, though buried is the most logical considering he was allegedly a homeless carpenter.

2- the tomb was empty and no one ever produced a body

According to GMark, the tomb was not empty. There was a "young man" sitting inside of it and he produced the body by telling Mary that Jesus went ahead into Galilee.

According to GMatthew, it was not a young man that said those things, but an Angel of the Lord, who, inexplicably, magically moved the stone from in front of the cave for no apparent reason before speaking almost the exact same words/phrasing that Mark put into the young man's mouth (strongly suggesting Matthew simply copied Mark, but added his own embellishments, like changing the young man into an angel):

5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Well, wait, why is Jesus suddenly there telling them the exact same thing the Angel of the Lord grave-opener just told them? What was the purpsoe of the Angel of the Lord then? And why is there is no mention at all of Jesus' shapeshifting and appearing as a "gardener" or the like?

GLuke mentions that there are two men inside (yes, two men, not Angels of the Lord) and they are the ones who say the things (more or less) as Mark's one young man and Matthew's one Angel.

GJohn contradicts them ALL and says there are two Angels inside.

So, only ONE author asserts there was an empty cave.

3- the disciples believed they saw the risen Jesus

No, we are told this by the authors, but we have no corroborating evidence (and much disproving) that any of the gospels were written by actual disciples. This is, at best, hearsay, not a fact.

4- the disciples were transformed following their alleged Resurrection observations

Same. So your list of four "facts" is actually:

1. Assertion
2. Contradiction
3. Hearsay
4. Hearsay

is obvious

So the support--the proof--of your argument is that your conclusion is "obvious." And that conclusion is:

Jesus miraculously rose from the dead.

So, your conclusion is magic is real. And this is "obvious."