Fine-Tuning Argument vs Argument From Miracles

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Lump, you just seriously argued: A claim that magic is real is evidence that magic is real.

No, it isn’t. Anecdotes are NOT evidence that the content/subject of the anecdote is real; they are only evidence that someone had an experience that they could not explain.

How many times must that be pointed out to you?

Likewise:

Virtually all our historical record comes from biased witnesses.

That’s right. Which is why no historian—or educated individual—should ever think that the “historical record” constitutes incontrovertible evidence of actual events being faithfully or in any way accurately depicted.

You are destroying your OWN position, not ours.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You are destroying your OWN position, not ours.

He really thinks he's holding History hostage. If we want to keep the textbooks that he thinks are based on nothing more than someone's memoirs, we have to accept the magic memoirs as historical, or else treat the accepted history the same.
He just doesn't understand that we already do....

 

[Rhea]

despite your theory that it defies "the laws of nature"




It defies common experience for anyone to be able to play piano suddenly without having had any lessons or training. There are a few known cases of this, so we know it can happen. But it cannot be explained. Everyone else CANNOT do this.

Suddenly you’re incredulous?

That baby did something remarkable, but not supernatural. There was a piano in the house, so one can assume he heard someone playing it. His mother said he had a toy with that tune on it.

So he may not have had formal lessons or training, but any 11 month old kids is learning OODLES of things every day. Like how to walk. Learning scores of vocabulary words every day. They learn by listening. They experiment. This is not trivial.

So he was remarkable - very! But not supernatural.

 

[remez]

regarding post 495

atrib,

Looking for clarity

Here is my take………

You asked for some “Christian” to express why miracles are possible/reasonable?

I thought the answer was in the question……I answered…If the Christian God exists then miracles are possible and reasonable.

And you agreed.

But still proclaimed that naturalistic explanations trump supernatural explanations. I agreed in most cases but it seemed like you wanted to put me to the test regarding supernatural vs natural explanations. So I chose the resurrection argument (RA) to open the discussion.

You said that the better explanation was that people make things up.

Now to you the debate was over.

I tried to (1) show you the error in your reasoning. It was too global and eliminates too much, including your own reasoning. And (2) asked you to be more specific to my argument by which non-supernatural fact was made up and why? You still have done that you just keep telling me I need to defend not assume. DEFEND WHAT? WHAT IS YOUR SPECIFIC PROBLEM? I can’t defend until I know which one and why?

You then went all over the map. Now we are here……….

So stay with me here…..if miracles are possible then I need provide and argument to delineated the resurrection from fantasy. Hence my argument that the resurrection was a miracle, because given those four facts you cannot have a better natural explanation unless you beg the question that all explanations must be natural.

Since…….
Then you have turned this back around the 180 degrees and think I’m trying to argue that the resurrection proves God’s existence. That I’m not doing with the argument I gave you. More later.

First, I don't particularly care if the explanation relies on supernatural premises. What I do deeply care about is that the premises be supported by appropriate evidence. You are allowed to submit supernatural explanations as long as you can support them with an appropriate level of evidence.

Second, there is no evidence to establish either of the following propositions:

1. A god exists.
2. About 2,000 years ago, the corpse of a man named Jesus was resurrected and then levitated into the atmosphere, seemingly under its own power.

In other words, based on the available evidence, neither of the following arguments can be demonstrated to be true:

1. A god exists, therefore it performed the seemingly miraculous events described in the Bible.
2. Seemingly miraculous events occurred as described in the Bible, therefore god exists.

Moreover, for argument (1), even if you could demonstrate that a god exists, it would still not necessarily follow that this god intervened in our affairs in the manner described in the Bible regarding the Jesus resurrection story.

And for argument (2), even if you could demonstrate that the miraculous events described in the Bible actually happened (i.e. the laws of the universe were broken or overpowered), it would still not follow that these events could be attributed to Biblegod's intervention.

Parsed….

First, I don't particularly care if the explanation relies on supernatural premises. What I do deeply care about is that the premises be supported by appropriate evidence.

First, you say that, but then deny the context of the supernatural altogether.

Second, none of my four simple facts/premises are supernatural.
He died
The tomb was empty
The disciple SAID they saw him resurrected
Their lives were changed.

Which one is supernatural?
Which one is made up and why do you think that?

Second, there is no evidence to establish either of the following propositions:

1. A god exists.
2. About 2,000 years ago, the corpse of a man named Jesus was resurrected and then levitated into the atmosphere, seemingly under its own power.

That’s it right there. I’m not trying to establish the reasonableness of God/supernatural existence. That was given in your context that the supernatural did not matter. If I were trying to establish the reasonableness of God/supernatural existence I would not present the (RA). I would first journey into the sciences of cosmology and physics to address the reasonableness of God’s existence.

But I was trying to provide the best explanation for my four (non-supernatural) facts/premises …your mocking (2) so to speak.

So you are confusing the two.

Which one do you want?
Number (1)
OR
Number (2) given number (1)?
The latter being where I thought we were.

Now a different (1) and (2)

In other words, based on the available evidence, neither of the following arguments can be demonstrated to be true:

1. A god exists, therefore it performed the seemingly miraculous events described in the Bible.
2. Seemingly miraculous events occurred as described in the Bible, therefore god exists.

I’m for sure not trying to argue (2) because that is backwards. (1) Is where I thought we were granted God exists. Now if you were not granting the reasonableness of God’s existence then I would not have offered the RA.

Moreover, for argument (1), even if you could demonstrate that a god exists, it would still not necessarily follow that this god intervened in our affairs in the manner described in the Bible regarding the Jesus resurrection story.

For clarification. I presented an abductive argument. Deductive and inductive arguments require the conclusion to necessarily follow. I’m clearly arguing for the best explanation. Meaning what is the most reasonable explanation provided the context that it is reasonable God exists.
Therefore…..
In order for you to defeat the RA, you need to provide a better explanation and defend it. You originally presented that “people make things up”. I addressed the self-defeating nature of that, which you did not address. And I also asked you for specifically which of my four non-supernatural premises were made up and why? That you did not address either. Other than I provided no argument for their truth. To which again, I replied in the same manner of reasoning, which one is not true and why? How can I address your concern if you do not specifically state what it is?

All you did to that end, was complain that a discussion directed to the motivation of the four non-supernatural facts would be pointless. To which I pointed out that your counter was precisely founded on motivation, thus you were undermining your own natural explanation. And it stayed right there.

Your counter has been shown, as stated, to be self-defeating. Your counter explanation is based on motivation but you proclaim any discussion on motivation here is pointless. And finally, you are, for some inexplicable reason, unwilling or unable to tell me which of my four non-supernatural facts is made up and why?

You and I have been here before. Your counter explanation does not defeat the RA simply b/c you presented it. I presented the several defeaters of your counter and you need to address those.

But this is more important................from above.....

Second, there is no evidence to establish either of the following propositions:

1. A god exists.
2. About 2,000 years ago, the corpse of a man named Jesus was resurrected and then levitated into the atmosphere, seemingly under its own power.

Which one do you want?
Number (1)
OR
Number (2) given number (1)?
The latter being where I thought we were.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Remez, you have never once presented any "defeaters" to anyone's argument. You think that you have, but you have not. The reason you think that you have is that you seem to be under the impression that all you have to do is call something a "defeater" and it therefore defeats an argument.

To defeat an argument, you must actually show how the argument fails. Saying it fails, does not show how it fails.

ETA: I'll demonstrate on one of your arguments:

Meaning what is the most reasonable explanation provided the context that it is reasonable God exists.

You just said: given the conclusion that it is "reasonable" that magic is real, it is therefore reasonable that magic is real.

It is not possible that you cannot see what's wrong with that statement. You have assumed a conclusion that cannot be assumed in order to assert another conclusion based off of the assumed-to-be-true conclusion.

You would NEVER stand for any such sophistry in regard to any other condition in your life. You are ONLY accepting such unacceptable tortures of logic because you think it justifies your belief that magic is real.

It doesn't. No matter how many times you try to re-word it or torture language and logic, it will never, ever, ever be reasonable that magic is real.

You are literally trying to argue that it's reasonable for you to believe in Santa Clause given the "context" that it's reasonable that Santa Claus exists. That's simply asinine.

Stop it.

 

[Rhea]

You asked for some “Christian” to express why miracles are possible/reasonable?

I thought the answer was in the question……I answered…If the Christian God exists then miracles are possible and reasonable.

And you agreed.

You said, “if we assume a god exists, then miracles are reasonable”
And you are surprised that someone can say, “yeah, if we assume that, then I’d agree. But since we don’t assume that, you have proved nothing.”

You can’t assume there’s a god in order to claim miracles are reasonable.


This is not college logic. My six year-old would see through this if I had a six year-old!
(My former 6 year-olds are now in their late teens and would laugh at this evasion)

 

[skepticalbip]

^^^

It is a really bad circular argument...

All the miraculous claims prove that god is real. The miraculous claims are true and reasonable because god can do such things.


Substitute Superman for god and the idiocy becomes obvious even to Remez but then he just switchs to special pleading.

 

[atrib]

atrib,

Looking for clarity

Here is my take………

You asked for some “Christian” to express why miracles are possible/reasonable?

I thought the answer was in the question……I answered…If the Christian God exists then miracles are possible and reasonable.

And you agreed.

This is insane.
I am NOT debating the proposition : "If a supernatural creator god exists, then it would be reasonable to believe that he could perform miracles".
Neither am I debating the proposition : "Christians believe in God, and therefore it is reasonable for them to believe Biblegod could perform miracles".

I concede that both of these propositions are likely true.

The proposition I am trying to debate is as follows: "Is there sufficient evidence for an unbiased, reasonable person to believe that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true".

That is, could an unbiased person who does not already believe in god be convinced that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true based on the weight of the available evidence?

I was under the impression that you were willing to discuss this third proposition. But I could be wrong, since I clearly have no idea where you are trying to go.

But still proclaimed that naturalistic explanations trump supernatural explanations. I agreed in most cases but it seemed like you wanted to put me to the test regarding supernatural vs natural explanations. So I chose the resurrection argument (RA) to open the discussion.

You said that the better explanation was that people make things up.

Correct. Because we have an enormous volume of very high quality evidence that humans make up stories like this. And we have an enormous volume of very high quality evidence that corpses do not rise up from the dead and fly off into space under their own power. Therefore, the probability that the Jesus resurrection story is made up is much higher than the probability that the event occurred as described. Therefore, it would be reasonable to treat the Jesus resurrection story as likely untrue.

Which part of my reasoning is in error?

Second, none of my four simple facts/premises are supernatural.
He died
The tomb was empty
The disciple SAID they saw him resurrected
Their lives were changed.

Which one is supernatural?

The part highlighted in the BOLD RED color.

Which one is made up and why do you think that?

I think the entire resurrection story is a fabrication. I don't think any of these events ever occurred. Because the story involves elements (resurrection of a human corpse) that go against the laws of nature, and because we know humans make up stories like this.

But you are still missing the point. Even if we could conclusively establish that all the elements of the story (the four "facts") were factual, it would still not be sufficient to overcome the mountains of evidence that speak against the resurrection.

EDIT:
For context, I wanted to add that this story-line of Jesus being killed and resurrected just so God could spread his message to all of humanity, and so he could forgive humans for their transgressions and grant them an eternal afterlife is completely irrational. If Biblegod exists, he could choose to do all of these things in a manner that was clear, consistent and not subject to any interpretive error. That he chooses to remain silent and unseen speaks volumes about his existence, and about the veracity of Biblical claims.

 

[atrib]

All of what we know of Alexander comes from sources 400 years or later than his life.

I find this hard to believe. What are your sources for this assertion?

 

[atrib]

Too many blatant logical fallacies. You really need to study logic. Your rants are entirely based on special pleading, assuming the conclusion, circular reasoning, etc. These have been pointed out to you (in specific detail) several times by several posters but you appear to be completely incapable of self examination, I assume because of your complete ignorance of logic.

No, but you see, he has done all the work. He has studied cosmology and math and concluded that Biblegod created the universe. He has studied the historicity of the Bible, even though he doesn't appear to understand how evidence and credence works, and concluded that Jesus's corpse was indeed resurrected and flown off into space. Why can't you just take his word for it?

 

[bilby]

This is insane.
I am NOT debating the proposition : "If a supernatural creator god exists, then it would be reasonable to believe that he could perform miracles".
Neither am I debating the proposition : "Christians believe in God, and therefore it is reasonable for them to believe Biblegod could perform miracles".

I concede that both of these propositions are likely true.

The proposition I am trying to debate is as follows: "Is there sufficient evidence for an unbiased, reasonable person to believe that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true".

That is, could an unbiased person who does not already believe in god be convinced that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true based on the weight of the available evidence?

I was under the impression that you were willing to discuss this third proposition. But I could be wrong, since I clearly have no idea where you are trying to go.




Correct. Because we have an enormous volume of very high quality evidence that humans make up stories like this. And we have an enormous volume of very high quality evidence that corpses do not rise up from the dead and fly off into space under their own power. Therefore, the probability that the Jesus resurrection story is made up is much higher than the probability that the event occurred as described. Therefore, it would be reasonable to treat the Jesus resurrection story as likely untrue.

Which part of my reasoning is in error?

Second, none of my four simple facts/premises are supernatural.
He died
The tomb was empty
The disciple SAID they saw him resurrected
Their lives were changed.

Which one is supernatural?

The part highlighted in the BOLD RED color.

Which one is made up and why do you think that?

I think the entire resurrection story is a fabrication. I don't think any of these events ever occurred. Because the story involves elements (resurrection of a human corpse) that go against the laws of nature, and because we know humans make up stories like this.

But you are still missing the point. Even if we could conclusively establish that all the elements of the story (the four "facts") were factual, it would still not be sufficient to overcome the mountains of evidence that speak against the resurrection.

EDIT:
For context, I wanted to add that this story-line of Jesus being killed and resurrected just so God could spread his message to all of humanity, and so he could forgive humans for their transgressions and grant them an eternal afterlife is completely irrational. If Biblegod exists, he could choose to do all of these things in a manner that was clear, consistent and not subject to any interpretive error. That he chooses to remain silent and unseen speaks volumes about his existence, and about the veracity of Biblical claims.

Quite.

Even if it were possible to establish the existence of a divine miracle that resurrected the Messiah in the form of Jesus of Nazareth a couple of thousand years ago, that would be evidence of a God who behaves as though He has no grasp of the size of the Earth, or the extent of humanity; No understanding of the difficulties in communicating any message uncorrupted in the first century CE; And no clue how to communicate important information to humanity as a whole.

Here we are, two millennia later, and this message STILL hasn't reached everyone - despite the best efforts of missionaries. Worse still, about two thirds of the people who HAVE heard of Jesus's resurrection don't believe it even happened, much less that it would have any significance for anyone other than Jesus and his close family and friends if it had.

Is God really that incompetent, that He can't save humanity without scapegoating his son? And assuming that scapegoating actually works, how come a) People appear not to have changed since; b) Christians don't seem to be any kinder, more moral, or more successful by any measure than any other group of humans; and c) the "Good News"^TM of this hugely important and significant event still hasn't reached everyone, two millennia after it occurred?

None of it makes sense. It's fractally irrational - even if you could demonstrate that the myths were reasonably plausible history (and they most certainly are not), they would still be the foundation of a profoundly irrational belief in an all powerful and all knowing God who doesn't even know that Australia or the Americas exist, some tens of thousands of years after they were first settled by humans; Or who doesn't know how to communicate a vital message to those places in time to prevent a further fifty or sixty generations of sinners from being damned.

It's bullshit upon bullshit. Belief in this without reason would be insane, but understandable. Belief that this is reasonable is insanity squared. It's cargo cult reason - it looks like reason to the naïve eye, but it's not reason any more than a cargo cult airfield with a radar made of coconut fibre, and a runway of smoothed soft sand, is a working aviation facility.

 

[remez]

This is insane.
I am NOT debating the proposition : "If a supernatural creator god exists, then it would be reasonable to believe that he could perform miracles".
Neither am I debating the proposition : "Christians believe in God, and therefore it is reasonable for them to believe Biblegod could perform miracles".

I concede that both of these propositions are likely true.

I did not say you were arguing that. You simply asked a question and I answered it.
But that did lead to a conversation where natural explanations always trump supernatural. Hence we moved to the RA.
Now………….

The proposition I am trying to debate is as follows: "Is there sufficient evidence for an unbiased, reasonable person to believe that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true".

I conceded that would be a different argument. Several times. So I asked which one do you want? Because we were discussing the (RA) and I didn’t want you to continue to reason that I was arguing miracles (RA) made God’s existence reasonable. That would be backwards. They are two different arguments.

So with you and with your permission I will postpone the RA (because it is different) and address your question……………"Is there sufficient evidence for an unbiased, reasonable person to believe that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true". ……….Well that would depend on how reasonable it is to believe in God’s supernatural existence.
Yes….
We would first need explore the reasonability of God’s existence long before the RA. I explained all this earlier.

Does that make sense?
And
Do you want to go there again?
(meaning we discussed the cosmology, physics, philosophy and theology on this years ago)
I’m fine with that.
Because…..
(the rest is taken from your posts with Skep and directly referencing me)…….

No, but you see, he has done all the work. He has studied cosmology and math and concluded that Biblegod created the universe.

…that is logically what one would have to do if he were interested in a reasonable conclusion. So you know where I’m going.
and

He has studied the historicity of the Bible,

I have…..

even though he doesn't appear to understand how evidence and credence works,

…….that is completely your biased opinion on a topic in postponement for now. Ironically coming from someone asking this question of me………….

All of what we know of Alexander comes from sources 400 years or later than his life.

I find this hard to believe. What are your sources for this assertion?

Do the work. I provided some easy to research context clues. That fact is well known, but may require some simple math. Simply google it. But once you find it you’ll have to admit, that was a crushing counter to Skep’s “hearsay process.” And to any inference that the gospels weren’t early enough to provide knowledge.

Seriously you seem to be criticizing me for basing my conclusions upon research and reasoning. That is insane.

Now if that is not the case and you were actually just being sarcastic why would you then ask this fool for the easy to find research of Alexander?
See….
I never asked you to just believe me……. How brilliant…….to use your laziness in research to infer I’m just asking you to believe me. Shall we postpone the sarcasm as well? Fair?

 

[remez]

Remez, you have never once ……

You lied.
I quoted it to you twice now and explained it to you in post 440
You have yet to address it.

 

[remez]

You said, “if we assume a god exists, then miracles are reasonable”
And you are surprised that someone can say, “yeah, if we assume that, then I’d agree. But since we don’t assume that, you have proved nothing.”

You can’t assume there’s a god in order to claim miracles are reasonable.

There you go again jumping to conclusions. I was not presenting an argument. I was not assuming God exists. The question seemed to assume that. I was answering a question. As I said a question that seemed to contain the answer. Please the 3 short posts of the conversation was 236, 238 and 242.
That’s twice now.

 

[remez]

It is a really bad circular argument...

All the miraculous claims prove that god is real. The miraculous claims are true and reasonable because god can do such things.

What you are responding to was not an argument.
It was an answer to a question that assumed God’s existence…. for the question.
Thus there was no circular reasoning.
That conversation (posts 236, 238 and 242) then lead to the RA
But….
At no time was I ever arguing that miracles proved God’s existence.
I repeatedly addressed this.

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

All of what we know of Alexander comes from sources 400 years or later than his life.

I find this hard to believe. What are your sources for this assertion?

Do the work. I provided some easy to research context clues. That fact is well known, but may require some simple math. Simply google it. But once you find it you’ll have to admit, that was a crushing counter to Skep’s “hearsay process.” And to any inference that the gospels weren’t early enough to provide knowledge.

Seriously you seem to be criticizing me for basing my conclusions upon research and reasoning. That is insane.

You are either just claiming to be doing research but actually just making blind assertions or you are piss poor at doing research.

Alexander's exploits are chronicled by those actually involved like his campaign historian, Callisthenes... generals, Ptolemy and Nearchus... a junior officer on the campaigns, Aristobulus... Alexander's chief helmsman, Onesicritus......

But for real historians these would not be sufficient for the certainty they demonstrate. Completely independent stories and records from the civilizations in areas he conquered (such as official records of tribute paid and official accounts of battles lost) corroborate the accounts from the chronicalers that were traveling with him. Plus there is hard archeological evidence that corroborates all those accounts.

For comparison, the Jesus myths are only one hearsay story repeated by four writers more than two thousand kilometers away in space and decades away in time. Apparently these writers heard slightly different hearsay accounts, but that is expected in a decades long 'game of telephone'. That is if they were actually repeating a hearsay account rather than inventing a base for a religion (like Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard). Generally accounts of actual extraordinary events are found in records other than those of the true believers.

 

[abaddon]

We would first need explore the reasonability of God’s existence long before the RA. I explained all this earlier.

Does that make sense?

No it doesn't. That's an effort to keep the discussion up in the clouds, to avoid the details of the mythology.

atrib's question to Learner was: "My question relates to why YOU find the Jesus miracle stories to be convincing."

Here's more contextual background:

Ok, you say miracle, but Jesus Himself , you must agree has something over the Fairies , Easter bunny and Santa Claus.

Why should the Jesus miracle stories be treated differently? Because you believe them?

This line of inquiry goes past EoG, to the details of the mythology. Tales of Jesus aren't different from other mythological tales just because it seems reasonable to believers that God exists.

Your answer, "If its reasonable that God exists then it reasonable miracles are possible", was such a trivial observation that it illuminated nothing at all. So going back to EoG would go on illuminating nothing at all. Probably everyone here is thoroughly familiar with that lipstick on a pig of an argument that is the KCA.

That God makes miracles possible does not explain why any sensible person would believe specifically the miracles and other tales in the Bible. That some medieval thinkers, under the influence of Greek thought, came along and tagged "transcendent" onto this mythic tribal creature, and not onto other mythic creatures, does not make Jehovah more plausible than them.

So, the questions that need answering a LONG time ago, are ones along these lines:

What is it in the miracles of the Gospels themselves that make them so reasonable to believe? A godman is tortured and murdered as a human sacrifice. This scapegoating is to redeem select bits of humanity. Etc. What makes such things sensible/reasonable/plausible? The answer is not "If a transcendent personal creator God exists, then that specific weird shit (among all the world's weird shit) follows".

You're the theist who stepped forward to answer why Christian mythology is more reasonable to believe than other mythologies and fairy tales. So, you give the details because the theist explanations and theist details go hand-in-hand.

 

[atrib]

I did not say you were arguing that. You simply asked a question and I answered it.
But that did lead to a conversation where natural explanations always trump supernatural. Hence we moved to the RA.
Now………….

I conceded that would be a different argument. Several times. So I asked which one do you want? Because we were discussing the (RA) and I didn’t want you to continue to reason that I was arguing miracles (RA) made God’s existence reasonable. That would be backwards. They are two different arguments.

So with you and with your permission I will postpone the RA (because it is different) and address your question……………"Is there sufficient evidence for an unbiased, reasonable person to believe that the Jesus resurrection story is likely to be true". ……….Well that would depend on how reasonable it is to believe in God’s supernatural existence.
Yes….
We would first need explore the reasonability of God’s existence long before the RA. I explained all this earlier.

Does that make sense?
And
Do you want to go there again?
(meaning we discussed the cosmology, physics, philosophy and theology on this years ago)
I’m fine with that.
Because…..

That's what I thought. You don't actually have any evidence to support the Jesus resurrection story. And you have nothing to rebut my argument that a naturalistic explanation is more probable than a supernatural explanation.


I had also asked you to to describe how you go about seeking and testing supernatural claims, after you had asserted that an epistemology based on naturalistic principles was flawed. You implied that you had some knowledge in the supernatural arena, that you were able to use reason to assess supernatural claims. In fact, I had explicitly called you out on this point, and you chose to ignore it completely. Your silence speaks volumes.

meaning we discussed the cosmology, physics, philosophy and theology on this years ago

No, but you see, he has done all the work. He has studied cosmology and math and concluded that Biblegod created the universe.

…that is logically what one would have to do if he were interested in a reasonable conclusion. So you know where I’m going.

I worked on my PhD at Berkeley, in the field of nonlinear dynamics and earthquake engineering. Although my diploma says engineering, my work was primarily mathematical. I probably took 6 or 7 graduate (MS/PhD) level classes in the Math department. My foundation in mathematics is well above the level of the typical engineer, or the average 4-year diploma holder in mathematics. And I have trouble following along with a lot of the math that you find in modern physics, in General Relativity, or the derivation of cosmic inflation. Most junior graduate students in physics don't fully understand these concepts and the mathematics behind them.

But here you are, seemingly a layperson in this field of study, and you have studied all the cosmological models out there, and you have figured out stuff that no senior researcher with decades of specialized knowledge and experience in this field has been able to figure out. That God created the universe. And you are sure about this. What incredible hubris!

He has studied the historicity of the Bible,

I have…..

So show us your work. Tell us how you have answered questions like these:

Who was Mark?
What are Mark's sources, and what are the primary sources for this story?
What were Mark's motives behind writing this story?
How can we go about corroborating Mark's account? Were other people writing about this event at the same time, for or against, and is there any physical evidence to support the text?
Can we conclusively establish that this Jesus character he talks about was a real person in history?
Why does a plain reading of Mark come across as strongly allegorical, seemingly making up fictional accounts to make the story more palatable to lay folk?
What is the historical context within which this story originated?
Were other cults making up similar stories that attempted to place what were originally conceived as spiritual entities into roles as real people in history?
Are there other stories from that time period in that part of the world that describe personal savior messiahs, usually described as the son of God, who endured a great passion and/or died, and were then resurrected with the ability to conquer death, and pass on this ability to conquer death to their believers?
What conclusions have unbiased historians reached on this matter? What literary and historical analyses did they conduct? Is there a consensus in this matter?
What does a formal Bayesian analysis of this story tell us?

Studied historicity indeed.

even though he doesn't appear to understand how evidence and credence works,

…….that is completely your biased opinion on a topic in postponement for now. Ironically coming from someone asking this question of me………….

No. I have been trying to explain how evidence and credence should work in assessing various proposition related to the resurrection claim. But you have been unwilling to touch this subject. Because you have four "facts" and you are damn sure these witnesses were real people and that they could not have lied.

All of what we know of Alexander comes from sources 400 years or later than his life.

I find this hard to believe. What are your sources for this assertion?

Do the work. I provided some easy to research context clues. That fact is well known, but may require some simple math. Simply google it. But once you find it you’ll have to admit, that was a crushing counter to Skep’s “hearsay process.” And to any inference that the gospels weren’t early enough to provide knowledge.

You made a naked assertion. When called out on it, you ask us to google it. Yup....

Seriously you seem to be criticizing me for basing my conclusions upon research and reasoning. That is insane.

Stop making up shit. Seriously.

Now if that is not the case and you were actually just being sarcastic why would you then ask this fool for the easy to find research of Alexander?
See….
I never asked you to just believe me……. How brilliant…….to use your laziness in research to infer I’m just asking you to believe me. Shall we postpone the sarcasm as well? Fair?

Postpone the sarcasm? No. We are well beyond that at this point after weeks of playing "where is Remez going to hide his argument next?"

What a waste of time.

 

[skepticalbip]

It is a really bad circular argument...

All the miraculous claims prove that god is real. The miraculous claims are true and reasonable because god can do such things.

At no time was I ever arguing that miracles proved God’s existence.
I repeatedly addressed this.

Really???

Are you now saying that if the Bible attributed absolutely no miracles to Jesus (like his supposed resurrection) then you would still believe he was a god? Then on what exactly do you base your belief in Jesus' divinity?

ETA:
I was assuming that you hold to the Christian trinity idea of god but if not and you believe in several gods in the Christian godhead (Jesus being only one of them) then the same questions would still apply for your claim for the separate big guy god. If the Bible didn't attribute him as doing miraculous creation shit then on what exactly do you base your belief in this big guy creator god?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Remez, you have never once presented any "defeaters" to anyone's argument.

You lied.

That's not a lie. Patticularly when you include the rest of that thought:

You think that you have, but you have not. The reason you think that you have is that you seem to be under the impression that all you have to do is call something a "defeater" and it therefore defeats an argument.

To defeat an argument, you must actually show how the argument fails. Saying it fails, does not show how it fails.

You prove this very fact next:

I quoted it to you twice now and explained it to you in post 440
You have yet to address it.

This is post 440:

That was completely dishonest.

No, that was completely dishonest. You are a shining example of the harms of cult indoctrination.

Once again you failed to produce any evidence for your dishonest charge. I at least provided the evidence of your dishonesty. So once again here is my evidence…..….Do you deny that this …..

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."

….was a lie?

You obviously made it up.
You lied and inferred it was my reasoning.
You were completely dishonest there.

You had a chance to address it and instead you doubled down.
Your charge of dishonesty against me has no evidence and was simply a childish reaction.
Anyone could see that.

What have I "yet to address"? Where did you show how my argument fails?