Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

[leroy]

Violating the laws of physics is not known to occur. Claiming that it did once at a particular time and place with no better evidence than scripture is a non-starter. Citing that it can't be shown to be impossible isn't reason to believe that it occurred. As I explained, an alien abduction of Jesus can't be shown to be impossible, either, and we know that technological civilization and space travel are possible. If there were actually witnesses claiming to see a resurrection and they actually saw something that could be mistaken for one, and it wasn't an ancient David Copperfield's (magician) illusion, then alien abduction and resurrection both become more likely, but resurrection is always at the bottom of any list of candidate hypotheses for why those scriptures say what they say, because it violates the known laws of physics and requires the existence of gods and supernaturalism, both major violations of Occam's parsimony principle.

The evidence supports a naturalistic view of reality. There is none supporting supernaturalism beyond the bare, unfalsifiable claim that it exists, and the weak argument that it cannot be proved that it doesn't. Supernaturalists try to tell us that there may more to reality than nature, but that's not good enough. They still need evidence to support their claims, which they consider an unfair requirement. But this is what protects the critical thinker from collecting false and unfalsifiable beliefs like a belief in gods and supernaturalism. Once you do that, you use your reasoning faculty not to reason, but to rationalize. One engages in so-called motivated thinking, which leads one where he wants to go rather than to where the evidence points using fallacy-free (valid) reasoning.

This is my second reply to your long post………… I will only address that stuff that I am quoting.

Violating the laws of physics is not known to occur. Claiming

Well we are stock with that problem in any case, all the naturalistic explanations for the “bed rock facts” that have been proposed, involved things that have never been observed, so weather if you want to propose a natural explanation or a super natural explanation in either case you are stock with something extraordinary that has never been observed.

but resurrection is always at the bottom of any list of candidate hypotheses

Why is the resurrection at the bottom of candidate hypothesis? , why don’t you provide such hypothesis and explain how is that better than a resurrection

because it violates the known laws of physics and requires the existence of gods and supernaturalism, both major violations of Occam's parsimony principle.

Other alternative explanations also violate Occams,Razor, ¿do you have one in mind that doesn’t?

But even more important, O.R. is not the only nor the most important criteria to determine what is the best explanation.

The evidence supports a naturalistic view of reality

What evidencie supports natrualism? (nature is all there is?)

There is none supporting supernaturalism beyond the bare, unfalsifiable claim that it exists, and the weak argument that it cannot be proved that it doesn't. Supernaturalists t

Well if we have events that can´t be explain with known natural laws, the to propose a supernatural event is completely valid ………… this is true unless you provide good conclusive evidence for naturalism.

I am not sayigfn that one should immediately jump to “God did it”……….. but it shouldn’t be considered within your pool of possible explanations.

They still need evidence to support their claims,

And usually evidence is provided.

In my experience theist usually don’t say …………“you can’t explain abiogenesis naturally therefore God did it”

But rather they would provide a series of arguments for why an intelligent designer is a better explanation than others.

We wont have a conversation on abiogenesis in this thread, all I am saying is that theist typically don’t appeal to the God of the Gaps fallacy that you seem to be claiming………… but rather we usually provide good testable and falsifiable arguments…………… you might claim that the arguments fail………….. but your God of the gaps accusation is not a fair accusation.

In the specific example of the resurection and using the OP as a start point.

Licona doesn’t say “we cant explan the bed rock facts” therefore God did it.

But rather he takes all the naturalistic explanations that have been proposed in the literature and he explains why a resurrecting is the best explanation according to commonly accepted criteria like, Explanatory Power, explanatory scope, predictive power etc.

I will add that the argument in the OP is falsifiable, new archeological discoveries are made every time, you could potentially find something that would falsify the argument in the OP, once again your accusation of the argument being unfalsifiable is an unfair accusation.

so in summery

1 correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be saying that *first* one has to show that miracles are possible, and then you would consider miracles as a potential alternative. (This type of thinking is demonstrably flawed)

2 your accusations of God of The Gaps and unfalisifiable arguments are unfair, (the OP nor Licona are guilty of those fallacies)

3 Any explanation (natural or not) for the bed rock facts involve something that has never been observed ……… and a violation to parsimony

4 parsimony is not the only nor the most important criteria for establishing the best explanation.

If you don’t explicitly disagree with this points, I will assume that you grant them

 

[leroy]

I saw that.

Then I read what followed it, and it was more of your preaching without cooperating. I asked you to address my rebuttals, and specifically stated that failing to do that and repeating previously rebutted claims would lose my attention, yet you did it anyway. I literally predicted that you would do that as a challenge to see if any words could be written that would cause you to do that, and I failed, or rather, you did. How many more posts like that were you expecting me to read? Apparently 2 or 3 more just like that one.

You ignored this comment:

• "Can you explain that posting etiquette? Why did you choose to deny my request? You're not blind. You're fluent in English and literate. You don't seem to be here to troll. Yet my words flew by you without apparent effect. I don't expect you to ever cooperate, which is a common phenomenon with the faithful and a mystery to me, but there needs to be something in it for me to continue with you, and addressing your same arguments already rebutted while you ignore those rebuttals isn't any more appealing than reading Licona. I don't expect answers to the two questions heading this paragraph, but don't understand how or why this happens."

What does this tell me about the future of continuing this discussion? It tells me that there is some cognitive disconnect between my posting and yours that is apparently insurmountable - some impenetrable barrier to communication.

I am willing to discuss that with you, but I no longer think that's possible for you even if you were interested. And that's a huge mystery to me. I suggested multiple logically possible explanations for it, but that didn't interest you, either. Leroy, I simply cannot fathom how you think or how to reach you using language. I can't imagine anybody writing that quoted comment above to me and me not answering responsively with a good reason. I don't expect you to acknowledge this paragraph either, another one I can't imagine ignoring, but I fully expect that from you even after essentially challenging you to prove me wrong, something easily done if I were.

You ignored this comment:

Yes I gnored most of your comments, because I made it clear that I will not address everything at once.

In that reply I simply addressed this point............... and why I think is historically true.

"Very soon after his death, his disciples reported having experiences which they interpreted as the risen Jesus appearing to them, both individually and in groups."

have I ignored any rebuttal related to that specific point? (if yes I wil be happy to answer)

I will address your list of points in the future, (you don’t have to repeat such points)

 

[leroy]

They appear to be your semantic games. And it's not a straw man. You have asserted that the probability of the existence of the god you believe in is 50% and I'm wondering how you got there. It appears you got there by imagining that it's possible.

You are asserting probabilities without showing your math. I have no idea how likely or probable the existence of the exact god you believe in is, because you haven't actually demonstrated the math to us. You've just asserted a 50% probability without showing it.

If you have 2 alternatives (God and NO-GOD) and you have no evidence on either side, and no reason to conclude that one is more likell than the other the default probability for each should be 50%............ this is how math and probabilities work. And is necessarily true.

If there are red and blue balls in a box, and you have no idea which color is more common, then your default position should be that you are equally likely to get a red ball than a blue ball.

In this context evidence is anything that moves the wager.

Honestly I find it perplexing that you are still dancing around this semantic game, instead of simply providing evidence against the existence of God, so that the 50% number no longer applies.

That's right. Notice how nobody here has claimed that lack of evidence for a god means "no god" .... ?? That's just your straw man.

No, you're wrong. No evidence is required on my part at all, to say to you "I'm not convinced that your claim is true." It's up to you to demonstrate your claim is accurate. Once again, this is another attempt on your part to shift the burden of proof. Which seems to be how most of your arguments around here turn out.

Ok, I can do the same,

No evidence is required to say that I am not convince that naturalism is true. It is up to you to demonstrate that naturalism is true………………..

 

[leroy]

Except there is evidence for the natural world. Your logic is flawed.

There is no sufficient evidence for god(s), therefore the default position is to not believe in god(s). That is not the same thing as declaring that "no god exists." Which I just pointed out to you.

Ok I will use the same fallacious logic

There is no sufficient evidence for naturalism therefore the default position is to “accept the supernatural”

 

[SkepticThinker]

If you have 2 alternatives (God and NO-GOD) and you have no evidence on either side, and no reason to conclude that one is more likell than the other the default probability for each should be 50%............ this is how math and probabilities work. And is necessarily true.

I've already explained this. So have many others. That is not how math and probabilities work. Unless you've got something new to say, we can move on from this claim.

If there are red and blue balls in a box, and you have no idea which color is more common, then your default position should be that you are equally likely to get a red ball than a blue ball.

No. Your default position is "I don't know how likely it is to get a red ball or a blue ball, in this particular case." Maybe there are 69 red balls and one blue one. Maybe there are 87 blue balls and 3 red balls. We don't know even know the total amount of available balls in the box.

If I have no idea how many red balls and how many blue balls are in the box, I cannot even begin to calculate the probability of getting either a red ball or a blue ball.

In this context evidence is anything that moves the wager.

Honestly I find it perplexing that you are still dancing around this semantic game, instead of simply providing evidence against the existence of God, so that the 50% number no longer applies.

I find it truly bizarre that you still believe anyone should be showing you "evidence against the existence of god" at this point in the conversation.

We're not playing a semantics game here. YOU are trying to play a probability game here. One that you can't demonstrate. And as usual, you're putting it upon other people to argue the negative of your argument. That's not how this works.

Ok, I can do the same,

No evidence is required to say that I am not convince that naturalism is true. It is up to you to demonstrate that naturalism is true………………..

You're not convinced that a natural world exists? You want me to demonstrate to you that nature exists?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Ok I will use the same fallacious logic

There is no sufficient evidence for naturalism therefore the default position is to “accept the supernatural”

This was in response to, "There is no sufficient evidence for god(s), therefore the default position is to not believe in god(s). That is not the same thing as declaring that "no god exists." Which I just pointed out to you."

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why is the resurrection at the bottom of candidate hypothesis?

Already answered.

Other alternative explanations also violate Occams,Razor, ¿do you have one in mind that doesn’t?

That was the answer - a huge parsimony violation that requires that unseen realities exist.

What evidencie supports natrualism? (nature is all there is?)

Already answered, and the same answer.

Well if we have events that can´t be explain with known natural laws, the to propose a supernatural event is completely valid

Sure, but there is no reason to take unfalsifiable proposals seriously. All one can say is that we cannot rule them out, so they belong on candidate hypotheses lists, but at the bottom. Occam again.

1 correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be saying that *first* one has to show that miracles are possible, and then you would consider miracles as a potential alternative. (This type of thinking is demonstrably flawed)

Yes, that thinking is flawed, but it's not my position. Miracles not being known to be possible puts explanations that depend on their exitance at the bottom of the list.

2 your accusations of God of The Gaps and unfalisifiable arguments are unfair, (the OP nor Licona are guilty of those fallacies)

I don't believe that I made a god of the gaps argument, which is usually made by the creationist looking for a job for his god as natural explanations accumulate for reality assembling and running itself daily absent intelligent oversight.

And the second claim means little to me except that you didn't like something your read using the word unfalsifiable, Did you mean any of these? What's unfair here?:

post 341 - "I don't consider gods 50% likely to exist (or any other percentage for reasons given relating to possible knowledge about unfalsifiable claims)."
post 428 - "There is none supporting supernaturalism beyond the bare, unfalsifiable claim that it exists, and the weak argument that it cannot be proved that it doesn't."
post 459 - " Nor do I consider science wrong to take no position on unfalsifiable claims or any other insufficiently evidenced claim."

3 Any explanation (natural or not) for the bed rock facts involve something that has never been observed ……… and a violation to parsimony

Disagree. All other logical possibilities except alien abduction have been observed. Fraud and error top the list.

4 parsimony is not the only nor the most important criteria for establishing the best explanation.

Disagree, I've told you why before (which you ignored), and I have no idea why you think otherwise than wishful thinking. You rarely if ever include arguments with your claims. Not with the last three. And you don't address my refutations. Why is that? Just kidding. Already asked and ignored multiple times.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but when you behave like that, you convert yourself from somebody who might have something to say and seriously consider (lecture section) into somebody whose only value is to be studied (lab section). Why is he or anybody at all like this? What does it take to get a responsive reply? Is it impossible? Maybe.

I'll just keep tapping the glass a bit longer hoping to gain some insight into how that serve you or why you can't or won't get on board the discussion express with me. You have zero interest in why I think what I do, and I have been unable to successfully kindly ask even to embarrass you into changing that.

 

[leroy]

I've already explained this. So have many others. That is not how math and probabilities work. Unless you've got something new to say, we can move on from this claim.


No. Your default position is "I don't know how likely it is to get a red ball or a blue ball, in this particular case." Maybe there are 69 red balls and one blue one. Maybe there are 87 blue balls and 3 red balls. We don't know even know the total amount of available balls in the box.

You are confusing “actual probability” with intrinsic probability (I am talking about intrinsic probability).(also called "prior probability"

The point that I made is that if you are forced to make a bet, picking the blue or the red ball would be equally good bets.

If you have 2 options and zero additional information then you have no other option but to assign 50% on each side.


This is true by definition, is a tautology,

If I have no idea how many red balls and how many blue balls are in the box, I cannot even begin to calculate the probability of getting either a red ball or a blue ball.

Exactly, since you have no idea about how many red balls and blue balls are there, you can´t simply assume “red balls” untill someone provides evidence for “blue balls”

What you are doing is saying “I will not accept any hypothesis that involves blue balls until someone proves to me that blue balls are “realistically probable”………. There is no evidnece for blue balls, therefore I will assume “red balls” and I don’t have to provide any evidence for red balls.

In this example

red balls = no god

blue balls = yes god

you are arbitrally favoring red balls and all you are doing is using “creative semantics”………… one can make the exact same fallacious argument in favor of blue balls.

You're not convinced that a natural world exists?

I said that ……..I am not convinced that natrualism is true (nature is all there is)…….. so If I use your fallacious logic, I can simply reject naturalism under that basis.

By your logic, I don’t even have to present evidence against naturalism…… the burden proof is on you alone.

 

[leroy]

This was in response to, "There is no sufficient evidence for god(s), therefore the default position is to not believe in god(s). That is not the same thing as declaring that "no god exists." Which I just pointed out to you."

Oh ok, since I never made such a claim I thought you made a typo i though this was what you meant.

There is no sufficient evidence for god(s), therefore the default position is to not believe in no god(s).

But why are you responding to a claim that I never made anyway?

I said, since we don’t have evidence for god, nor evidence for “no god” the default answer is “we don’t know” and we shouldn’t exclude any of them by default.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You are confusing “actual probability” with intrinsic probability (I am talking about intrinsic probability).(also called "prior probability"

Oh so you mean useless.

The point that I made is that if you are forced to make a bet, picking the blue or the red ball would be equally good bets.

They would? How do we know that? You didn't respond to anything I said about these balls. Instead, you're just saying the same thing again.

If you have 2 options and zero additional information then you have no other option but to assign 50% on each side.

Nah, the best option there would be "I don't know, I don't have enough information."
There could be 6000 red balls in that box and just 1 blue ball.

This is true by definition, is a tautology,


Exactly, since you have no idea about how many red balls and blue balls are there, you can´t simply assume “red balls” untill someone provides evidence for “blue balls”

You can't assume anything at all here. In your scenario here we have zero information to go on. We don't know how many red balls. We don't know how many blue balls. We don't even know how many balls there are in total. We can't make any assessments with zero information. The numbers we are missing are the ones we need to be plugging into the equation. But we don't have them.

What you are doing is saying “I will not accept any hypothesis that involves blue balls until someone proves to me that blue balls are “realistically probable”………. There is no evidnece for blue balls, therefore I will assume “red balls” and I don’t have to provide any evidence for red balls.

No, I'm not. You should try reading what I actually say.

In this example

red balls = no god

blue balls = yes god

I've not done anything except point out we don't have enough information to determine anything at all about the balls. I don't know what you're going on about.

you are arbitrally favoring red balls and all you are doing is using “creative semantics”………… one can make the exact same fallacious argument in favor of blue balls.

I'm using the rules of reason and logic. You should join me.

I repeat, because you didn't seem to read it the first time:
No. Your default position is "I don't know how likely it is to get a red ball or a blue ball, in this particular case." Maybe there are 69 red balls and one blue one. Maybe there are 87 blue balls and 3 red balls. We don't know even know the total amount of available balls in the box."

From that, you've decided that I've made an argument in favour of blue balls? Huh?

I said that ……..I am not convinced that natrualism is true (nature is all there is)…….. so If I use your fallacious logic, I can simply reject naturalism under that basis.

By your logic, I don’t even have to present evidence against naturalism…… the burden proof is on you alone.

I haven't made that argument that "nature is all there is." What I've actually said is, if there is a supernatural realm, it needs to be demonstrated to exist before I can believe in it. We know that nature exists because we can observe and measure it. This is just you (again) attempting to shift your burden of proof (again).

We can and do study the natural world. We perform experiments on the natural world. We observe the natural world. We can explain the mechanisms at play in the natural world. None of this is possible for anything declared to be "supernatural." If and when that time comes, I'll believe there is a supernatural world.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Oh ok, since I never made such a claim I thought you made a typo i though this was what you meant.

There is no sufficient evidence for god(s), therefore the default position is to not believe in no god(s).

I don't even think this makes sense. Too many negatives.


I meant what I typed:
"There is no sufficient evidence for god(s), therefore the default position is to not believe in god(s)."

But why are you responding to a claim that I never made anyway?

I said, since we don’t have evidence for god, nor evidence for “no god” the default answer is “we don’t know” and we shouldn’t exclude any of them by default.

It was in response to your interpretation of the above when you said, "There is no sufficient evidence for naturalism therefore the default position is to “accept the supernatural”

That's wrong and doesn't follow from what I said.

 

[leroy]

Oh so you mean useless.

They would? How do we know that? You didn't respond to anything I said about these balls. Instead, you're just saying the same thing again.

Nah, the best option there would be "I don't know, I don't have enough information."
There could be 6000 red balls in that box and just 1 blue ball.

You can't assume anything at all here. In your scenario here we have zero information to go on. We don't know how many red balls. We don't know how many blue balls. We don't even know how many balls there are in total. We can't make any assessments with zero information. The numbers we are missing are the ones we need to be plugging into the equation. But we don't have them.

No, I'm not. You should try reading what I actually say.

I've not done anything except point out we don't have enough information to determine anything at all about the balls. I don't know what you're going on about.

I'm using the rules of reason and logic. You should join me.

I repeat, because you didn't seem to read it the first time:
No. Your default position is "I don't know how likely it is to get a red ball or a blue ball, in this particular case." Maybe there are 69 red balls and one blue one. Maybe there are 87 blue balls and 3 red balls. We don't know even know the total amount of available balls in the box."

From that, you've decided that I've made an argument in favour of blue balls? Huh?


I haven't made that argument that "nature is all there is." What I've actually said is, if there is a supernatural realm, it needs to be demonstrated to exist before I can believe in it. We know that nature exists because we can observe and measure it. This is just you (again) attempting to shift your burden of proof (again).

We can and do study the natural world. We perform experiments on the natural world. We observe the natural world. We can explain the mechanisms at play in the natural world. None of this is possible for anything declared to be "supernatural." If and when that time comes, I'll believe there is a supernatural world.

I haven't made that argument that "nature is all there is." What I've actually said is, if there is a supernatural realm, it needs to be demonstrated to exist before I can believe in it.

ok and my claim is:

if nature is all there is, it needs to be demonstrated before I can believe in that claim. and suddenly, I have no burden proof.

We can and do study the natural world. We perform experiments on the natural world. We observe the natural world. We can explain the mechanisms at play in the natural world. None of this is possible for anything declared to be "supernatural." If and when that time comes, I'll believe there is a supernatural world.

Yes, but none of that shows that nature is all there is.

I repeat, because you didn't seem to read it the first time:
No. Your default position is "I don't know how likely it is to get a red ball or a blue ball, in this particular case." Maybe there are 69 red balls and one blue one. Maybe there are 87 blue balls and 3 red balls. We don't know even know the total amount of available balls in the box."

Yes that is my point,

But “we don’t know” means that you shouldn’t prioritize one alternative over the other. You shouldn’t prioritize “no god” over “god” unless you provide evidence for no god.

 

[leroy]

It was in response to your interpretation of the above when you said, "There is no sufficient evidence for naturalism therefore the default position is to “accept the supernatural”

That's wrong and doesn't follow from what I said.

Obviously that is wrong. that is fallacious logic. That is my point.

But it is the same logic that you are using.

1 you say, there is no evidence for god………therefore no-god is the default position

2 I say , there is no evidence for naturalism…….. therefore “no-naturalism” is the default position.

I´ll say that both statements are fallacious. (agree?)

if not, how is "2" different form "1"?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If you have 2 options and zero additional information then you have no other option but to assign 50% on each side. This is true by definition, is a tautology,

When are you going to step up and engage your collocutor? You need to rebut her comment regarding the number of each of the balls in the bag. Instead, you repeated the comment she falsified, and you ignored. How many times does this need to be repeated? Seriously, Leroy - do you have no interest in upping your game? People here can and are willing to help you there, but you need to do better than this for that to happen.

my claim is: if nature is all there is, it needs to be demonstrated before I can believe in that claim. and suddenly, I have no burden proof.

Not analogous. Her words were, " if there is a supernatural realm, it needs to be demonstrated to exist before I can believe in it." The natural and supernatural don't have equal ontological status. One is known to exist, the other a speculation. Either one or both nature and the supernatural exist, but it can't be that neither exist, and if only one exists, it's nature. It's this asymmetry that invalidates your effort to imitate her.

What you are doing is saying “I will not accept any hypothesis that involves blue balls until someone proves to me that blue balls are “realistically probable”………. There is no evidnece for blue balls, therefore I will assume “red balls” and I don’t have to provide any evidence for red balls.

That's not close to what she said. Perhaps it's time to give up paraphrasing others. Try again. See if you can rewrite what she wrote using your own words but without changing her meaning.

This seems to be one of the commoner cognitive deficits seen on these pages - a significant loss of fidelity between reading, conceptualizing, and then paraphrasing.

Would you like to practice? Begin with the sentence above: "This seems ..."

Spoiler: one possible answer

"It's my impression that it is very common for RF posters to unwittingly transform thoughts when using their own words. "

How did you do? Did you even try? If not, why not? And how about answering these italicized questions? What does it take to engage you in mutually agreeable terms or at a minimum for you to acknowledge my effort to do that? How about: Be a mensch Leroy and do a favor for an acquaintance with your best interests at heart just to see how it turns out or explain why that's not a good idea for you. Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

From the pen of the poet:

Come on baby, baby please
Come on baby, cause I'm on my knees
Turn on your lights let it shine on me turn on your love light
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

 

[paarsurrey]

Left Coast said:
Because people don't come back alive after being dead for days, as a rule. It's a one way trip. Any claim of some miracle explanation for a phenomenon that violates everything we know about how the world works is going to have automatically very low plausibility.
Apologes said: #10
We know that people don't rise from the dead on their own, true, but here we are talking about God raising someone from the dead. This isn't going against how the world works as its not the laws of nature that are raising the dead but an act of God. On what basis would you assign a low plausibility to God choosing to raise Jesus from the dead a priori?
paarsurrey said: #421
Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah rising from the physical dead is against Sign of Jonah, I (therefore) must say (Jesus did not resurrect at all), as I understand?
Right?

paarsurrey said: #430
Jonah did not die in the belly of the fish so Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah could not and did not die on the Cross or in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, please, right?

paarsurrey said: #449
Jesus/Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah pegged the Sign of Jonah to be shown to the Jews and the Jews knew as per Book of Jonah that (1) Jonah entered the belly of fish alive, (2)remained alive in the belly of the fish and (3)came out alive from the belly of the fish, so if the Sign was for the Jews then Yeshua had to remain alive and he did remain alive (1) on the Cross, (2) in the tomb where he was laid and (3) afterwards as he was seen by many, please, right?

paarsurrey adds:

Since Jonah was a truthful prophet of G-d so applying the same criteria Jesus/Yeshua- the Israelite Messiah was also a truthful prophet, please, right?

Regards

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am simply amazed that some people do not seem to realize that the natural world exists. That does not refute the existence of a supernatural world, nor is it evidence for a supernatural world @leroy 's lack of belief in a natural world could be proven to him in a face to face debate with a simple slap to the face. A reaction is an admission that the natural world exists. I would ask permission first of course, since he claims that there is no evidence for the natural world. A denial of permission would also be akin to admitting that evidence for the natural world exists.

 

[leroy]

I would word it as, lacking sufficient evidence to support belief in gods according to the laws of inference, one should not believe gods exist.

Which laws of inference ??

wikipedia talks about rules of inference, is that what you mean by laws of inference?

Rule of inference - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

to different conclusions?"

• "Disagree. You're making a positive claim that something is equally likely to be true as untrue if it's unknown which it is. Both parents carry the same recessive gene. We don't know if the fetus has the trait yet. The chances are not 50/50 that it does."

That is a straw man…………I said, in a hypothetical case where you have 2 alternatives and zero evidence for any of these alternatives…………you most assign a 50% probability to each.

In the example that you mentioned, we have evidence that receive genes are less likely to become part of the phenotype. Given that you have evidence in favor of one alterative, you are justified in moving the wager in favor of such alternative.

• "You argue that others cannot make estimates of a low likeliness, yet you would set the default position at 50% with the same information."

I don’t remember saying that (in red) and I have no idea what is that suppose to mean.

• "One need only rejects god claims for lack of sufficient supporting evidence to justify belief. No further argument is necessary."

Disagree.

I think there is a lack of sufficient supporting evidence for naturalism……………. Is that a good reason to reject naturalism? (nature is all there is)?

There is a lack of sufficient evidence that the stock market will go down tomorrow……………doesn’t that mean that I should reject “down” and buy stocks?

The lack of sufficient evidence at most gives agnosticism (50%probability)

• "You call John and Paul independent because they are separate people. That's not enough. So are any pair of witnesses."

Most scholars agree that John and Pául are independnet (they didnt copied form each other)

When one testimony is copying form another, there are obvious signs that make this evidently true. These signs are absent when you compare Paul and john.

Some of the signs are

1 same (or similar) words in the same context with the same purpose. (for example Jesus turign water in to wine, is probably not independent)….. for example both Jonh and Paul claim an appearance to Peter, but they do it in a different context with a different purpose and provide different details for that event. This means that it is unlikely that John knew about this appearance, because he read Paul´s letters.

2 the same mistake

3 one source seems like a degradation (or an exageraton) of the other source.

Obviously Paul knew the apostole John, which means that they shared teachings and ideas, so if he author of John was John the apostle, it could be that he borrowed some ideas from Paul, …… (this is a possibility),………….. but few if any scholars believed that the author of John knew about the resurrection because he read Paul.

Besides, we are talking about the first century; tons of witnesses were still alive when John was written (including John the apostle) why would any author need to rely on Paul in order to write a gospel?

I consider all of those matters resolved. You've accepted them all without rebuttal or even comment, which is the end of any debate.

Can you explain that posting etiquette? Why did you choose to deny my request? You're not blind. You're fluent in English and literate. You don't seem to be here to troll. Yet my words flew by you without apparent effect. I don't expect you to ever cooperate, which is a common phenomenon with the faithful and a mystery to me, but there needs to be something in it for me to continue with you, and addressing your same arguments already rebutted while you ignore those rebuttals isn't any more appealing than reading Lincona. I don't expect answers to the two questions heading this paragraph, but don't understand how or why this happens.

I am pretty sure I addressed most of the pointd that you claim that i didn’t address. But who knows, perhaps I forgot to uploaded it, perhaps I got confused and answered to someone else, perhaps you skipped the post………… etc.

Obviously this forum is not my number 1 priority in my life, and sometimes I get docnes of replies in one day, sometimes I simply cherry pick some comments and ignore others. It´s not personal against you

But you seem to be a very discent person who is willing to learn and has an honest interest in other peoples view………. So for now on, your comments will be my priority over other users.

So before I continue…….

Ignoring the comments that you have made within the last 24 hours (because I haven’t read them)……………have I ignored something relevant? Is there anything that you think I should address?

 

[Subduction Zone]

hat is a straw man…………I said, in a hypothetical case where you have 2 alternatives and zero evidence for any of these alternatives…………you most assign a 50% probability to each.

Then your example fails. We have plenty of reliable evidence for the natural world. We do not have any reliable evidence for the supernatural.

 

[leroy]

When are you going to step up and engage your collocutor? You need to rebut her comment regarding the number of each of the balls in the bag. Instead, you repeated the comment she falsified, and you ignored. How many times does this need to be repeated? Seriously, Leroy - do you have no interest in upping your game? People here can and are willing to help you there, but you need to do better than this for that to happen.

Not analogous. Her words were, " if there is a supernatural realm, it needs to be demonstrated to exist before I can believe in it." The natural and supernatural don't have equal ontological status. One is known to exist, the other a speculation. Either one or both nature and the supernatural exist, but it can't be that neither exist, and if only one exists, it's nature. It's this asymmetry that invalidates your effort to imitate her.

That's not close to what she said. Perhaps it's time to give up paraphrasing others. Try again. See if you can rewrite what she wrote using your own words but without changing her meaning.

This seems to be one of the commoner cognitive deficits seen on these pages - a significant loss of fidelity between reading, conceptualizing, and then paraphrasing.

Would you like to practice? Begin with the sentence above: "This seems ..."

Spoiler: one possible answer

"It's my impression that it is very common for RF posters to unwittingly transform thoughts when using their own words. "

How did you do? Did you even try? If not, why not? And how about answering these italicized questions? What does it take to engage you in mutually agreeable terms or at a minimum for you to acknowledge my effort to do that? How about: Be a mensch Leroy and do a favor for an acquaintance with your best interests at heart just to see how it turns out or explain why that's not a good idea for you. Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

From the pen of the poet:

Come on baby, baby please
Come on baby, cause I'm on my knees
Turn on your lights let it shine on me turn on your love light
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

I will let her reply by herself,( unless she claims that your post represents her view and that she has nothing to add nor to modify)



But as for your request it seems to me that she/(and you) are saying that given there is no sufficient evidence for the supernatural, one should always prefer naturalistic explanations.

But I am open to be corrected, if this is a misrepresentation of what she (or you) is claiming, feel free to correct me, with clear and direct words.

How did you do? Did you even try? If not, why not? And how about answering these italicized questions? What does it take to engage you in mutually agreeable terms or at a minimum for you to acknowledge my effort to do that?

That is easy, it takes clear and direct answers.

You can start with my previous comment……………. Does that represent your view? Is that what you are saying? If not, could you correct me in a clear and unambiguous way, so that I can understand your view?

You (plural) seem to be more interested in creative strategies to avoid the burden proof, than in actually supporting your view.

Specifically, why didnt you simply attend to the requests from the OP and provide an alternative hypothesis for the “3 bed rock facts” and explain why that hypothesis is better?.,…. Answers such as “any naturalistic explanation is better because I say so” are not accepted.

 

[leroy]

I am simply amazed that some people do not seem to realize that the natural world exists. That does not refute the existence of a supernatural world, nor is it evidence for a supernatural world @leroy 's lack of belief in a natural world could be proven to him in a face to face debate with a simple slap to the face. A reaction is an admission that the natural world exists. I would ask permission first of course, since he claims that there is no evidence for the natural world. A denial of permission would also be akin to admitting that evidence for the natural world exists.

Can you quote anywhere where I said that the natural world doesn’t exists? Or that I lack belive in such world?

Ofcourse you cant……….. so why are you making things up?





Ohhhh I see, wow, you are brilliant… I finally understood your attitude.

You are trying to refute the claim that people (like the apostles) won’t make something up for no reason or when they have nothing to win and everything to lose with that lie.

In this case

1 you are making something up (that I deny the existence of the natural world)

2 you don’t win anything by making it up, but you lose a great deal of things, your reputation in this forum, you are exposing yourself as a dishonest person, and likely people won’t treat you seriously.

You what to show that sometimes people can make something up, even when they have no reason to do it. (and good reasons to be honest and tell the truth)………. And you succeeded in refuting the claim that the apostles wouldn’t lie about the resurrection.



Wow brilliant.