The Tension of Faith

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This reminds me of crashfrogs favorite argument...that Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence. I never agreed with that premise.

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It is true when used correctly. When evidence that should be present is not. The absence of any significant evidence for the Flood story in geology, archaeology and genetics is pretty good evidence that the Flood story is not literally true.To use an example where I clashed with Crashfrog:If the records of crucifixions under Pilate were preserved then the absence of a record for Jesus would be evidence that Jesus didn’t exist. However that is not the case. The fact that those records are completely missing is only evidence that they were lost. Since we shouldn’t expect to have an official record of Jesus’ crucifixion, the absence of the record isn’t evidence against Jesus existence in any way.

Let’s consider Joseph Smith. We know that he was a con-artist, that his translations were inventions, that the Book of Mormon history is fiction. And there are more negatives there.Yet, his success as a messenger can’t be denied.

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Could you please describe how a miracle could ever be evidenced in a scientific way or "real world" way?

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That depends on the miracle. A miraculous healing could be well-documented through medical records. If an organic condition - one that doesn’t have a record of sometimes reversing itself - were properly documented and if it were found to have been cured (regrowing an amputated limb is a good one) then we’d have evidence.The Randi Foundation cane up with some decent tests for claimed paranormal abilities.At a less ambitious level, if there were really good examples of Biblical prophecy (where we can confirm that the prediction was made before the event, where the prediction isn’t too vague, where the prediction came true without resorting to creative interpretations etc.) then that would be pretty good. Oddly people do seem to claim to have good examples but we never see any. I wonder why.

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However, if they did occur, as long as you have that caution in your statement about how organic illnesses may spontaneously reverse we couldn't have the kind of evidence that would prove there was a miracle to your satisfaction.

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I didn’t say that ALL organic conditions spontaneously reverse, just that if some do we shouldn’t count such cases as miracles. If we know something can happen anyway how can we call it a miracle ?

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Paranormal abilities aren't miracles, properly speaking, and my impression is they are not predictable enough to be tested.

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They are close enough that the same considerations might apply.

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The problem with Biblical prophecy is that it IS vague, but also even when it's completely clear, such as in the Book of Daniel, even though it makes Daniel out to be a liar Metzger could just claim the prophecy was made after the event.

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The predictions up to Antiochus IV Epiphanes (including most of his reign) do seem to have been made after the events - but then I did say that you needed to be able to show that the prophecies were made before the event, and you can’t. Metzger is going with the evidence. And all the prophecies of Daniel said to come later either failed or require creative interpretation.

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These aren't really relevant examples in context anyway. The question is about the kind of miracles Jesus did where you wouldn't have medical records, and wehre any written attestation is easily dismissed as everybody has been doing on this thread. The question is how there could aver be acceptable evidence of that sort of miralce, for Percy or you or whoever.

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It’s difficult, perhaps impossible, but that really isn’t our fault. The evidence isn’t even as good as it could be. If God had merely stirred Philo of Alexandria to note one of Jesus’ miracles you would be noticeably better off. That would be nowhere good enough but it would be better.But you were the one claiming to have good evidence - if that isn’t even possible, that just makes your claim foolish as well as false.

Some more thoughts.It is indeed hard to see how the relatively small scale miracles attributed to Jesus could leave sufficient evidence to be proven today. They can’t be supported by archaeological evidence, leaving us with at best eyewitness accounts which are always going to be unsatisfactory simply because of ordinary human failings and the greater credulity if the times.This, however, does not demonstrate a flaw in the thinking of the skeptics. It does demonstrate that those sort of miracles can’t be good evidence to us today even if they did occur. Therefore the suggestion that God intended them to be evidence for us only asserts that a God made a foolish mistake.But it must also be said that the evidence for those miracles could be better than it is. We can’t confirm that any of the stories were written by eye-witnesses. None come from neutral, hostile or (best of all) skeptical sources. None of them were written close in time to the supposed events. Even for mundane events we would have to consider the Gospels unreliable. If God was trying to provide evidence to us he did a very poor job.Prophecy is better because it is much easier to have good evidence. But let’s note that the only prophecies Faith picked out were those of Daniel covering history from Nebuchadnezzar to Antiochus Epiphanes. Now, these would be good - especially those concerning Alexander - if we could confirm that those parts of Daniel were written earlier than the events. But we can’t. We don’t have any clear references to Daniel himself, despite his supposed prominence. The author seems to confuse Nabonidus with Nebuchadnezzar - which would be hard for any contemporary to do. We don’t find any reference to the book itself - and the book even indicates that part of it would only be revealed in the End Times. The prophecies concerning events after the supposed date of writing have other problems (and this is the main evidence for the date). It would hardly be impossible to have better evidence in any of these respects. Yet we don’t.So, in all, the problem is that the evidence is bad. And it could quite easily be better if there was a God who wanted it to be better. Blaming the skeptics is hardly a sensible or honest response to the problem. It would be better to blame those who falsely claim that there is good evidence - whether through negligence, bias or dishonesty. Whatever the cause, they do believers a dissservice in promoting falsehood and unrealistic claims.

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How I long for a few sane people to argue with.

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Sane people realise that stories of miracles, decades after the event are not good evidence of miracles. Sane people realise that eyewitnesses can be mistaken or deceived. Sane people accept the fact that stories grow over time. Sane people recognise that the Gospel authors can’t be reliably identified as eyewitnesses. Sane people don’t insist that the Gospels were accepted as infallible from the start.But you don’t seem to like arguing with people who do accept those facts.

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The second opinion, the one advanced by David Hume, seems closer to Modulous's opinion

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It’s the view that jar has been putting forward. The one that Faith can’t understand.

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Aa for the content, it actually still holds that there is nothing more to say. Once you've decided I'm misjudging the evidence there's nothing more to say.

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Given that your case relies on assuming that the Gospel writers were not subject to ordinary human weaknesses - and you won’t even consider the possibility that they weren’t witnesses, were credulous, were strongly biased and that their sources were also credulous and biased it seems rather obvious that you are misjudging the evidence.Of course, if you were not simply assuming those things you could make a case for them - which would be more to say. Obviously you have none which means that you are certainly misjudging the evidence.

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I'm a Chrixtian because it's true.

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But you do have a strong tendency to believe quite ridiculous falsehoods just because you like them. So your belief in something is hardly proof it’s true. (I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be evidence of falsehood).

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I'm in tune with the entire history of orthodox Christianity so when you insult me you are insulting all of that.

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But I didn’t insult you.Pointing out the fact that you are not evaluating the evidence properly - and implicitly admit that you can’t defend the underlying assumptions - is not an insult. It’s just fact.Pointing out that you do believe ridiculous falsehoods isn’t an insult either - it’s another fact.If you don’t like either of those facts it’s up to you to change.And I don’t see how orthodox Christianity has any objection to that.

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The evidence of the supernatural has in fact been given over and over here, it's the witness of the Bible

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Which is obviously not good evidence and you have given no valid reason to think it is. And you don’t intended to even try to do that. So what’s the point ? Making assertions that you can’t back up is just a waste of everyone’s time.

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As I said, telling the supernatural from the natural is no harder than telling when you are experiencing something while awake or dreaming. It takes no superpowers at all. Even you could do it.

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The fact that we get false reports of miracles and successful mediums and the like suggests the opposite.

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"Not been established." How many times do I have to point out that you can't verify the existence of something that occurs once and leaves only the evidence of witnesses. Well, you COULD establish it by accepting that witness evidence, as Chrsitians do, but since you wont', no supernatural for you.

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If the only way to get evidence is to be deceived into accepting unreliable and likely false reports then it may well be because there are no real miracles.

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Christianity does have evidence and not only evidnece for the miracles in the Bible, but evidence of a massively transformed world which is knowalbe through good histories -- not totday's revisionist antireligious crap

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Given your record of bias and - to be generous - poor judgement why should we trust your opinion on which histories are good ?Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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I guess you just can't trust anything I say. Nothing I can do about that.

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You could learn good judgement and demonstrate it.Or in the short term you could actually discuss the issues and provide real evidence.But if you are going to go on trusting people who say things you like no matter how untrustworthy they are, and go on claiming to have good evidence and good arguments when you obviously don’t - then of course your unsupported assertions aren’t going to be believed. It is the only sane response.

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Well, it IS the evidence, the only evidence there is, I have nothing else to offer you,

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So? That doesn’t make it good evidence. If that's all you have, if you can’t answer the reasons why it is poor and inadequate evidence - and you certainly haven’t - then that is your problem. Just insisting that it is good evidence despite that and blustering and bullying as you always do is neither honest nor productive.

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...and you accuse me of bad judgment etc. just because you don't like that fact and there is nothing I can do about that

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That is not even a sensible lie. I don’t object to the fact that you don’t have any other evidence - not at all. I accuse you of bad judgement because it’s true - you’ve proven it over and over again - and because you keep putting unsupported opinions forward as fact. Why should we believe the opinions of someone who is obviously grossly biased ? Someone who clearly isn’t making any effort to get at the truth ?You said not so long ago that you don’t believe Alex Jones when he claims to have actually seen human-animal chimeras. But you will believe him when he makes equally wild claims - where he doesn’t even claim to be a witness - whenever you like the idea. How can that be anything other than bad judgement ? Accepting the unevidenced word of a man who tells crazy lies ?

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It's been enough to persuade millions, but you and Percy can be holdouts if you like.

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Millions have been persuaded by religions you regard as false. According to the Revelation many people are supposed to be persuaded to worship the Beast. Aside from the fact that you give no credit to the persuasive efforts of the proselytisers - itself a big omission - that’s not a good argument. It doesn’t say anything about the actual quality of the evidence.Reality doesn’t have to be the way you want it to be. We don’t have to pretend that reality is the way you want it to be. We don’t have to accept that your evidence is good evidence just because it’s the only evidence you have. If you can’t rationally answer the criticisms of you evidence then you lose. Too bad.

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The evidence available, all witness evidence, is quite sufficient, even, yes, good evidence. The witnesses are trustworthy to anyone able to make such judgments, and Jesus says so anyway.. Your judgment is seriously lacking, and of course that I cannot help.

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Just more assertions you can’t support.

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I don't have a problem at all because proving anything to you is impossible. Your reasons are just a lot of hot air out of a prejudiced mind. The manner of the writers of the NT and the quality of the witnesses are unimpeachable to anyone who can think clearly.

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The usual dishonest bullying to try to cover up the fact that you don’t have a case.

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As I said, I'm sorry I have nothing more to offer. And your accusations don't amount to an argument.

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I’ve made arguments. You haven’t responded. You haven’t even offered real arguments of your own.

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No, millions have NOT been "persuaded" by other religions. People are either born into them, or as in the case of the original "converts" to Islam, dissenters were murdered by Mohammed until those remaining were intimidated into accepting his demon-inspired religion. At first he couldn't get any followers at all, but the sword does work wonders. Only Christianity actually persuades, because of its inherent attractiveness and believability.

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What a silly lie. There are and have been converts to Islam - even in modern America - who weren’t forced into it. Muhammad Ali wasn’t forced into it, to mention just one famous name.

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Well, that's easy. The Beast represents ordinary fallen human nature under the influence of demon "gods," it's the default position for those whose minds have been poisoned against the truth.

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Well that explains you.

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The evidence is wonderful, a matter of appropriate facts in human context and besides, according to Christian theology, it is God who chooses anyway.

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You know if you actually thought about it you would see that this silly pretence only makes your religion look worse. At least with the argument that Faith is required you can be honest about the weakness of the evidence.

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Losing a debate at EvC is pretty much evidence in itself of bring right.

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No. Being defeated in rational argument is evidence that you are wrong.

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The evidence is more than sufficient, and further evidence is that Christianity turned the western world from a demon-run superstitious nightmare that left newborn babies and the sick and elderly out to die from exposure, mistreated women and slaves among others, into a nearly rational compassionate civilization.

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In reality the story is rather more mixed. The humanism of the Enlightenment did a lot. The increase in wealth and (eventually) living standards through industrialisation and exploitation of less developed peoples did, too.Christians argued for slavery as well as against it. And for apartheid and Jim Crow laws. The witch hunts with their tortures and executions were a product of Christianity. Christianity helped foster anti-semitism, and persecution of the Jews.But all that is a subject for another thread.

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There have not been MILLIONS of converts to Islam or any other religion even over the long centuries, as there have been to Christianity.

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Haven’t there ? Please produce evidence.