The Tension of Faith

And yet I haven't said all the things you attributed for me. For example, in your Message 650 you said: Tangle and I both indicated that we couldn't see where I'd ever said anything like that.I think what you're trying to do with much of what I say is a kind of Reductio ad absurdum by identifying ridiculous implications of what I say and then accusing me of actually saying them. The implications you're identifying are not the only ones, and your reasoning seems to ignore a great deal of what I've already explained. It seems to have put a bee in your bonnet that I'm using the word "evidence" to apply to the results from events of the real world, and that I'm using the word "information" to apply to our attempts to record those events using the written word. I recognize there are other ways of looking at this and other words we could use, but whatever perspective and terminology we use what's important is the information we gather and whether it's supported by anything credible. As Tangle says in his Message 669, "The discussion about whether something is evidence or not is spurious, we could claim almost anything to be evidence of something. The issue is whether the stories about specific key events amount to anything more than just stories about them?"So if you don't like the way I tried to break things down between direct real world evidence versus written accounts of that evidence then that's fine. You and I will just have to find another way to talk about this. Certainly you referenced my comment about astronomical records. In your Message 647 you said: About the human perceptual system that we have to rely upon: But our perceptual system is not a "useless criterion", as I said in the part of my quote you chopped off. What I actually said was, "I'm afraid it's all we have, and the progress of science (which involves replication, and which, combined with instrumentation that has grown increasingly sophisticated over time, helps overcome imperfect perception) shows that it is sufficient." If you see that same unreliability then that's a good step forward toward common ground, but then why do you object so strenuously to my proposal that they not be called evidence. "Information", "accounts", "reminiscences", any of a number of other words, but not evidence. Too unreliable to be called evidence. Specifically the exchange was: I wasn't calling your naturalistic explanations unlikely and inadequate. I was disagreeing with your characterization of them as unlikely and inadequate. I view the supposed miracles and your naturalistic explanations on a completely different axis from you and would choose a completely different characterization, such as that you're attempting to find naturalistic explanations for events that likely never happened, which is something I've said before. Well, first of all, I did tell you this in an earlier message that I was only talking about 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 when I was hopefully clear that that's what I was talking about. This is from Message 626: And second of all, nowhere did I insist that you must be doing the same. I was trying to bring the source of a possible disconnect to your attention. I just don't know what I'd do without all your help! --Percy

Personally, i was never concerned so much about who wrote it--be it John, God through John, another author, or God through another author.I was more interested in why they wrote it and what the motive was for saying the words they said.

quote:

---

And yet I haven't said all the things you attributed for me. For example, in your Message 650 you said:

---

Since you are going off into other messages entirely I take it that you concede the point with regard to our discussion.Moreover the could be wrong criterion does indeed rule out all scientific and legal evidence.

quote:

---

I think what you're trying to do with much of what I say is a kind of Reductio ad absurdum by identifying ridiculous implications of what I say and then accusing me of actually saying them

---

If the mere possibility of error is sufficient to rule something out as evidence then everything is ruled out. If you want to set a more reasonable criterion then it is far from clear that you can rule out all written evidence.For instance in discussions with Ron Wyatt supporters here I relied on the inscriptions on a block statue - and not even the inscriptions themselves but a translation - to identify the statue. And I still consider that good evidence, when what I have is not just written evidence but a second-hand report that I can’t even validate!Did I really do,something horribly wrong there? Because I don’t see it - I still think I had a very strong argument there.

quote:

---

As Tangle says in his Message 669, "The discussion about whether something is evidence or not is spurious, we could claim almost anything to be evidence of something. The issue is whether the stories about specific key events amount to anything more than just stories about them?"

---

As I pointed out, Tangle was fundamentally wrong since we can certainly ask other questions concerning the texts and a lot of interesting questions have little or nothing to do with the truth of the stories.

quote:

---

Certainly you referenced my comment about astronomical records.

---

Indeed I did, but you will note that you still do not point to any mistakes I made nor any reference to scribal errors (Because I never singled out any particular source of error)

quote:

---

But our perceptual system is not a "useless criterion", as I said in the part of my quote you chopped off. What I actually said was, "I'm afraid it's all we have, and the progress of science (which involves replication, and which, combined with instrumentation that has grown increasingly sophisticated over time, helps overcome imperfect perception) shows that it is sufficient."

---

I’m sorry for making the mistake of assuming that you were trying to make a relevant point. If nothing we have qualifies as evidence by your standard then your standard is wrong. Arguing that we do adequately treating things that could be wrong as evidence hardly helps you.

quote:

---

If you see that same unreliability then that's a good step forward toward common ground

---

No, it’s not a step forward. That I agree with things I already agreed with from the start just is not any advance,

quote:

---

...but then why do you object so strenuously to my proposal that they not be called evidence. "Information", "accounts", "reminiscences", any of a number of other words, but not evidence. Too unreliable to be called evidence.

---

Because the reliability of written accounts greatly varies - and even a largely false account might be useful evidence for some purposes. Is 1 Corinthians really too unreliable to be used as evidence of early Christian beliefs ? Are astronomical records really too unreliable to be used as evidence for dating correlations ? Are the inscriptions on Egyptian block statues too unreliable to be evidence of the subject’s identity ?

quote:

---

I wasn't calling your naturalistic explanations unlikely and inadequate. I was disagreeing with your characterization of them as unlikely and inadequate.

---

Presumably you mean you disagree with my assertion that they were NOT unlikely and inadequate. Which of course does mean that you thought that they were unlikely and inadequate. For which you have still offered no real support.

quote:

---

And second of all, nowhere did I insist that you must be doing the same. I was trying to bring the source of a possible disconnect to your attention.

---

I can see no other reason why you should think my explanations to be unlikely and inadequate. And you still haven’t provided any other.

That part is pretty self-evident; the Gospel of John was meant as a marketing tool since the author felt that the issue of Jesus' deity was being replaced by Jesus' message that what you do now is what was important. It was an attempt to change the focus from somewhat odious immediate duty to attractive future benefits; the later being a far easier sell.

Did most of the canons include it?How would we determine which other of the 66 books were "marketing tools" and which were identified as part of the book?Should there be only 3 gospels?Add by edit:Also, since you use the term marketing was there any financial benefits to writing one's own gospel? Isn't Christianity a plethora of beliefs rather than only one? Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

This supposed discussion is utterly futile. You don't believe in miracles and somehow that means there is absolutely nothing that could be evidence of a miracle for you. The only possible evidence you might consider is a miracle you witness yourself, but anyone else telling you about one or writing about one won't do it. Yet that of course is the only way you could possibly ever know about a miracle. And since the miracles of the Bible are there to persuade the reader of the reality and character of God so that a person could be saved as a result, all that goes for naught with you.The Bible IS full of evidence of miracles and you'll never know it. There is really nothing to discuss with you. Futility upon futility.I am certainly glad there are a lot of people who do know how to judge evidence rightly.Blessed are those who did not see and yet believed.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

We would read them to determine their purpose and the concept of "a Book" itself is simply a marketing tool. But again, it is simply silly to think there was some singular purpose involved. The important point is to understand that John's Gospel is entirely different in substance and nature and emphasis than the other three Gospels. There were far more than just three or four Gospels and the Synoptic Gospels seem to be at least partly based on some earlier lost Gospel.

That's ridiculous Phat. Witness evidence is evidence and is not "scientific" evidence.

Scientific evidence and historical evidence are not always the same. We don't have scientific evidence for the existence of Socrates. We don't have scientific evidence for the last years of Anne Frank. We can apply those standards though. We do apply those standards. You don't think people haven't used source criticism and historical methods on the various things discussed in the Bible I'm sure! It is also evidence regarding the claims that author wrote. How credible we decide that evidence is, varies, as I said.

Hi PaulK,I'm afraid I found parts of your message a bit confusing. I'll do my best to respond. By "concede the point", are you referring to where you said, "And yet you have said all the things I attributed to you"? If so then the answer is "Of course not," since what you replied to was a counter to that. Why would you interpret a rebuttal as concession?I'm not sure why you think I'm "going off into other messages entirely." Message 650 is the message from you that contained the example I cited of you asserting something I never said. In that message you claimed I said, "Percy has clearly rejected modern-day scientific and legal standards as inadequate," yet neither Tangle or I could see where I ever said any such thing. Not the way I'm defining evidence it doesn't, but I can see that the perspective on evidence I attempted to introduce isn't working for you. We can find a different perspective and terminology. Not that it isn't true that "a lot of interesting questions have little or nothing to do with the truth of the stories," but this discussion has been focused on the evidence for the truth of the stories. Tangle was just continuing that discussion, and it makes little sense to fault him for not addressing things not under discussion. Sorry, I thought the mistake was obvious. You said this in your Message 647: When I mentioned "ancient astronomical records" I was using the example of Tycho Brahe, saying that even meticulous as he was he still made errors, but I didn't reject his work. It was just another example of the unreliability of the written word. What I said in reply in Message 656 about the written word was, "I've been calling it information whose accuracy and correspondence to reality may be good, bad or absent, or anywhere along that spectrum. Evidence always corresponds to reality."I'm not sure what your issue is with the scribal errors. All I said in the same message was, "I didn't even mention the scribal errors that crept into his records." I was just noting another potential source of error in the written word. Did I do something to piss you off? Because whatever it is I'd sure like to undo it so we could resume a civil and constructive conversation.Anyway, I did make a relevant point. This seems to be the reason you think it wasn't relevant: But it's not true that "nothing we have qualifies as evidence by your standard." As I've said many times, evidence is the results of events in the real world, and so the written word isn't evidence. It's information or an account or a reminiscence or a story or something like that, and of course I mean when trying to establish the truth or falsity of something in the real world. Something I've said many times. And how do you tell which part of a largely false account is true without evidence from the real world? I don't think that was ever the question. The question was whether it was a true and accurate account of actual events, not whether it was a true and accurate representation of early Christian beliefs. I never said anything about dating correlations, but you keep including it, so if it has some special significance then you'll have to let me know what it is. For now I'll just ignore it and address the question, "Are astronomical records really too unreliable to be used as evidence?" The answer is, "No, of course not, and I never said they were." The reason for the Tycho Brahe example was to show that even someone so meticulous couldn't prevent errors from creeping in to the times and coordinates he wrote down. But we just finished agreeing that there can we a wide range of reliability in the written word. Names on statues, shopping lists, street name signs, these are short and sweet examples of the written word and their reliability probably isn't too bad. But their reliability is practically the opposite of accounts about miracles. Whoops! Yes, sorry, I accidentally left out the word "not". I'm sorry I was insufficiently clear, but I *did* just explain what I meant, though you chose not to quote it or address it. What I said I meant in my previous message was, "I wasn't calling your naturalistic explanations unlikely and inadequate. I was disagreeing with your characterization of them as not unlikely and inadequate. I view the supposed miracles and your naturalistic explanations on a completely different axis from you and would choose a completely different characterization, such as that you're attempting to find naturalistic explanations for events that likely never happened, which is something I've said before."--PercyEdited by Percy, : Left out the word "not" again in the last para: "not unlikely and inadequate."

I expect, however, it would be a large percentage of those Christians that have been exposed to the arguments and evidence for those arguments. I'm not suggesting all, but I haven't heard 'After hearing about why Christians attribute the Gospel of John to John, I lost my faith' a great amount. You 'guessed' right. The fact that this disciple is present for the interaction between Peter and Jesus, is put at the Last Supper and various other scenes suggests more than an implication of being an eyewitness:

quote:

---

Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? ... Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things

---

We agree on the credibility of the evidence. But a text that proclaims to be the testimony of an eyewitness is evidence even if we, on examination decidea) The eyewitness is unreliable
and/or
b) The testifier was not actually an eyewtiness I'm not trying to persuade you to agree that John *is* true. I'm just saying how one might go from the evidence for John's authorship to trusting John as a source. The relationship of evidence and faith. There is one, even if you personally don't think the evidence is of such a nature that it can justify the faith - the trust. I did say 'if the story is remotely true' - the conditional was there to avoid this objection. Your view of this is not important. My point here was to say that in the example you provide - the 12 disciples and 12 tribes - there are some possibilities:1) The story is true, but it isn't a coincidence because Jesus deliberately chose 12 as a conscious reflection of the 12 tribes
2) The story is false and the 12 were chosen deliberately by the author for the same reasons.With the Egypt story - Jesus' journey to Egypt is not engineered by Jesus so option 1 in this case is out. So if the story is somewhat true (ie. the history is of a mundane Jewish preacher who had myth erected around him later) - we don't suppose it was a conscious effort by Jesus. He was a babe at the time. So either it was the author's conceit or...God had hand in the arrangement (or coincidence, but we were leaving that theory behind).

I could be convinced of miracles by scientifically replicable evidence. Stories written by believers wouldn't do it for me. Why should I consider the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine, which is just a story in the Bible, any more evidence of a miracle than the splitting of the moon, which is just a story in the Koran? The Bible is full of stories of miracles. You mean like the creationists, who's excellent judgment of evidence hasn't yet contributed a single whit to science? Nice definition of faith.--Percy

quote:

---

By "concede the point", are you referring to where you said, "And yet you have said all the things I attributed to you"? If so then the answer is "Of course not," since what you replied to was a counter to that. Why would you interpret a rebuttal as concession?

---

There was no rebuttal. Rather than go back and pick up on the points I was referring to you went and picked out a statement from another post. That’s not a rebuttal, that’s an evasion.

quote:

---

I'm not sure why you think I'm "going off into other messages entirely." Message 650 is the message from you that contained the example I cited of you asserting something I never said. In that message you claimed I said, "Percy has clearly rejected modern-day scientific and legal standards as inadequate," yet neither Tangle or I could see where I ever said any such thing.

---

I said that you went off into another post entirely because you did. The things I was referring to came from Message 647 as should be obvious if you follow the context of the discussion

quote:

---

Not the way I'm defining evidence it doesn't,

---

If your definition is at odds with the criterion you put forward then that’s just another example of incoherence.

quote:

---

Not that it isn't true that "a lot of interesting questions have little or nothing to do with the truth of the stories," but this discussion has been focused on the evidence for the truth of the stories. Tangle was just continuing that discussion, and it makes little sense to fault him for not addressing things not under discussion.

---

Except that the point is a major point of the discussion - even if we restrict it to my exchanges with him and he has repeatedly failed to even notice it when it is explicitly laid out for him.

quote:

---

When I mentioned "ancient astronomical records" I was using the example of Tycho Brahe, saying that even meticulous as he was he still made errors, but I didn't reject his work

---

But as we know you were objecting to my point that ancient astronomical records were useful evidence in dating. Obviously you do insist that they are not evidence, yet I cannot see any reason why. The mere possibility of error hardly seems sufficient.

quote:

---

Did I do something to piss you off? Because whatever it is I'd sure like to undo it so we could resume a civil and constructive conversation.

---

The evasion and even dishonesty in service of an obviously ridiculous view seem to qualify

quote:

---

But it's not true that "nothing we have qualifies as evidence by your standard." As I've said many times, evidence is the results of events in the real world, and so the written word isn't evidence. It's information or an account or a reminiscence or a story or something like that, and of course I mean when trying to establish the truth or falsity of something in the real world.

---

The written word is obviously a product of events in the real world. What you mean! I presume is that an account of events is not a direct product of those events. Nevertheless the idea that there is even an absolute distinction between information and evidence is silly. Any information that provides even a little support to a claim is evidence.

quote:

---

And how do you tell which part of a largely false account is true without evidence from the real world?

---

What makes you think that is necessary?

quote:

---

I don't think that was ever the question. The question was whether it was a true and accurate account of actual events, not whether it was a true and accurate representation of early Christian beliefs.

---

In other words it is useful as evidence of Christian beliefs even if it is false. Do you see why a blanket dismissal ofvwritten accounts as evidence is silly ?

quote:

---

I never said anything about dating correlations, but you keep including it, so if it has some special significance then you'll have to let me know what it is.

---

Obviously it is an example of the written word being useful evidence.

quote:

---

But we just finished agreeing that there can we a wide range of reliability in the written word. Names on statues, shopping lists, street name signs, these are short and sweet examples of the written word and their reliability probably isn't too bad. But their reliability is practically the opposite of accounts about miracles.

---

So, instead of insisting that the written word is never evidence maybe you should concede that in some cases it is pretty good evidence. THAT would be progress.

quote:

---

I'm sorry I was insufficiently clear, but I *did* just explain what I meant, though you chose not to quote it or address it. What I said I meant in my previous message was, "I wasn't calling your naturalistic explanations unlikely and inadequate. I was disagreeing with your characterization of them as unlikely and inadequate. I view the supposed miracles and your naturalistic explanations on a completely different axis from you and would choose a completely different characterization, such as that you're attempting to find naturalistic explanations for events that likely never happened, which is something I've said before."

---

Making obviously contradictory claims followed by a non-sequitur is hardly useful discussion.Firstly you have done nothing to establish that it is likely that the events never happened. Even if you did, that does not address the question of whether my explanations involve likely events that are adequate to explain what little we are given. We are not given clear miracles, we are given events that are taken as miraculous. Which comes back to the point - if likely events can adequately account for what is given why should we not prefer that explanation to one that assumes that the accounts are pure fiction ?

Um, yes. That's part of my point. I'm not concerned with what you call the evidence - scientific, forensic, witness, historic, archeological, scientific, whatever. The only issue is its quality and credibility and whether it's supported by any other objective source. A story in a book is not that. And as I said, it's evidence that someone - we don't know who - wrote a story. That is not evidence as we normally understand it. We normally require evidence to support a substantive claim. What we have in the bible is a series of allegations requiring evidence.

So we agree that the discipline we're talking about matters with regards to what should be considered evidence? As I said in Message 655. Although there are no objective sources, just different kinds of bias. Where the story is located is not material - especially if we remember they weren't originally in a book A story can be credible. It being a story doesn't make it low quality in itself. The more it fits narrative structures typical of myth or fiction, the less credible of course. Yes you did say that. That's why I said 'also' as in, in addition to it being evidence that someone authored it, it is also evidence regarding the contents. It's also evidence of Hellenistic Syncretism. In history - eyewitness testimony, claimed eyewitness testimony, and histories that say they are written after interviewing witnesses etc etc., are evidence.The question is, "does the evidence we have support the claim?" - not "is there evidence?" We both agree that many allegations in the Bible would require more evidence than we have to render them credible. But they are evidence, regardless of our view on their credibility.Evidence can be supported with other evidence. If we found Pilate's diary and there was mention of a curious Jewish rebel called Yeshua who claimed to be King of the Jews for whom he felt some sympathy due to his pleasant passivity for and whose crucifixion was the source of consternation followed by his followers claiming post mortem sightings...that'd be supporting evidence for some of the broad strokes of the story. The fact we do not have this supporting evidence doesn't render the original evidence non-evidential, nor would a sudden discovery of such a text suddenly render the Biblical account of the trial, evidential where it was not before. It's evidence, it's just not well supported. It is only supported by other author's who share common biases - and seemed to share unknown source material.