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Author
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Topic: The Tension of Faith
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 645 of 1540 (823670)
11-15-2017 10:07 AM
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Reply to: Message 641 by PaulK
11-15-2017 12:21 AM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes: Maybe if you bothered to lay out a coherent position I’d feel more like putting in the work to answer it. But after losing one post it just wasn’t worth the effort to rewrite it. Sorry you lost your post. If it was a crash then I guess it's gone, but if not then sometimes you can get stuff back by clicking the back button, or if you lost a tab then you can often get it back, at least in Chrome, using the History menu item. I'm also sorry you can't find anything coherent in the position I've layed out. The position itself can be expressed simply: The written word is not evidence. The rationale for that position is somewhat longer, and it become significantly longer as our discussion progressed.
Unfortunately for you we do not have reality, only our perception of reality which could be true, false, anywhere in between, or a combination. And it is impossible to be absolutely certain which it is. True, but that's a constant that applies to everything we view, whether the written word or true evidence.
Which is a fine example of your perception of reality being utterly wrong. If anyone should be accused of bias, surely it must be the person who is taking the clearly unreasonable and extreme position - which would be you. This is a clear statement of how you feel, but you include no justification. That what people say and write is frequently unreliable is hardly an "unreasonable and extreme position." To put your faith and trust in the written word is to trust reality after it's been put through a meat grinder.
In reality I have no problem dismissing parts of the NT as fiction. Both Nativity stories are in my view fictional. The Empty Tomb story is more likely fiction than fact. If you cannot distinguish between uncritically excepting a story as fact and carefully evaluating it to pull out the bits that are likely true then the problem is yours and it is quite a severe one. We're not so far apart as you think. We agree that some parts of the NT are true, some are false, some are unverifiable, some are internally or externally inconsistent or both, and some are impossible. Where we disagree is on our ability to accurately ferret out which category each passage falls into. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 641 by PaulK, posted 11-15-2017 12:21 AM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 647 by PaulK, posted 11-15-2017 12:41 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 646 of 1540 (823671)
11-15-2017 10:17 AM
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Reply to: Message 643 by kbertsche
11-15-2017 8:02 AM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
kbertsche writes: We understand the distinction that you are making between written evidence and other kinds of evidence, and it is a useful one. Nonetheless, it is very idiosyncratic (and, I believe, wrong) to say that written accounts are not evidence. Good point about it being "useful" but "very idiosyncratic," but I only felt it necessary to approach the discussion from that perspective because Faith was arguing that the Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy. Since Faith seems to have dropped out of the discussion maybe I no longer need to push that point. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 643 by kbertsche, posted 11-15-2017 8:02 AM | | kbertsche has not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 649 by Faith, posted 11-15-2017 1:15 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 656 of 1540 (823716)
11-15-2017 5:13 PM
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Reply to: Message 647 by PaulK
11-15-2017 12:41 PM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes: Except that you do accept written words as evidence for some things, and yet reject them in other cases that seem eminently reasonable - I’m thinking of the use of ancient astronomical records in dating. And your rationale - that the mere possibility of error or falsehood disqualifies a thing as evidence applies to everything we might consider evidence. So, no, you don’t have a coherent position. I agree that my position as you've expressed it has issues, but that's not my position. Evidence is the result of events in the real world. The written word is a method of recording evidence, an imperfect one, but isn't evidence itself. 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. You've misremembered what I said about astronomical records. I used the example of Tycho Brahe, saying that meticulous as he was, even he made recording errors. I didn't even mention the scribal errors that crept into his records. So I think I do have a "coherent position," and if I don't then you haven't shown that yet.
That’s my point. If it applies to true evidence then it cannot be the criterion that distinguishes between things that are evidence and things that are not. 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. In thinking about the imperfection of the entire human perceptual system from sensory elements to brain I'm reminded of N-Rays, a story probably already familiar to you. A professor Blondlot discovered N-Rays, but other researchers were unable to replicate the results. A conference was convened to settle the issue at Blondlot's lab. A prism was necessary to project the N-Rays on a screen, and as Professor Blondlot pointed out aspects of the N-Rays on the screen another scientist surreptitiously removed the prism, and later even removed the N-Rays source. Professor Blondlot continued as if nothing had changed. The other scientist wrote up a report for Nature, and that was the end of N-Rays.
Except that isn’t even a distinction between your position and mine. Which rather proves my point. If you really think that is all there is to your position you don’t understand what you are saying at all. And if you realise that you have gone a LOT further than that then you aren’t even being honest here. It is the unreliability of the written and spoken word and it's disconnection from reality by it's passage through the human perception system that defines a true distinction between our positions, so I myself don't see what you say as proving your point. I'm sorry you don't think I know what I'm talking about, but my general suggestion in such situations is that it isn't worth conversing with such people, so you may want to stop wasting your time and break off this discussion. And if you don't think I'm being honest with you then that's even more reason.
If you wanted to argue specifically about that then you could fairly take in my arguments. I thought I was.
Instead you assert that I am inventing implausible naturalistic explanations for supernatural events... I hope I didn't use the word "implausible," and if I did then I misspoke. I think your naturalistic explanations are invented, in the sense that they're made up, unverifiable, unevidenced. And I think I also said that you're inventing naturalistic explanations for events that you can't even be sure ever happened. In specific terms, Jesus may never have appeared to anyone - the appearances may just be elements of a story composed by someone who understood that his audience found miracles highly persuasive.
- and that my descriptions don’t even fit the events. Sorry, I don't recall ever saying anything like this. I *did* say the events may have been made up.
Yet you never offered any support for either claim unless we count your sudden introduction of a claim made in a different book by a different author written decades later (Acts instead of 1 Corinthians). I said in an earlier message that I was discussing the entire NT, not just 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 except where I hopefully made it clear that's what I was talking about. Sorry I seem to be making such a hash of this for you. I wish I could do a better job, but I'm doing the best I can. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 647 by PaulK, posted 11-15-2017 12:41 PM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 664 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 12:49 AM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 657 of 1540 (823717)
11-15-2017 6:52 PM
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Reply to: Message 649 by Faith
11-15-2017 1:15 PM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
Hi Faith, welcome back. I assume we should still not expect any replies to all the messages you ignored?
Faith writes: This phrasing "The Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy" is just weird. I thought it was a condensed version of your position. For example, in your Message 540 you said:
Faith in Message 540 writes: The Bible is evidence... ... Because I recognize the truthfulness of the reporters and all those who have believed they really happened. ... Nobody has the ability or the desire to invent such stuff, but especially the Bible. Earlier in your Message 511 you said:
Faith in Message 511 writes: That is only because you deny the truth of the Bible,...If Jesus performed the miracles John describes in his gospel, which John says he described for the purpose of persuading readers to believe in Christ and receive eternal life through Him, it certainly is evidence. It's evidence of Christ's deity and therefore His power to save. Only by denying the truth of the account is it not evidence,... So since you don't "deny the truth of the account," I think I captured the meaning of your words pretty clearly when I summarized it as, ""The Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy," but let me read on and see what you're saying now.
"The Bible" is writings by different authors. John for instance wrote a gospel and some letters and the Book of Revelation. He himself is well enough identified as one of Jesus' disciples in the other gospels, the idea that you need to know more than that is ridiculous, it's not as if contradictory things are said about the man. I'm convinced. John is an incredibly unique name, almost no one in history has ever had the name John, so if the name John is attached to the Gospel of John then there is only one person it could be, and that is the Apostle John. Just kidding. About the attachment of the name John to that Gospel Wikipedia says:
quote:
The Gospel of John is anonymous. Traditionally, Christians have identified the author as "the Disciple whom Jesus loved" mentioned in John 21:24,[15] who is understood to be John son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. These identifications, however, are rejected by many modern biblical scholars.[1][16][Notes 5] Nevertheless, the author of the fourth Gospel is sometimes called John the Evangelist, often out of convenience since the definitive name of the author is still debated.
His own gospel is his account of events that occurred in the life of Jesus as he witnessed them and heard about them. But you don't know that John the Apostle wrote the Gospel of John. It's just part of your Christian tradition that you've chosen to believe.
You have a prejudice against the miraculous... I think it's better described as a predilection for accepting that which has evidence.
John does not describe the miracle events in any other way than he describes the simple factual events that aren't miracles. He describes Jesus walking and talking and teaching in the same way as he describes Jesus raising someone from the dead or multiplying food to feed thousands. Oh, of course. You're asserting the well known Law of Equivalent Expression. Everyone knows that anything miraculous written about in the same style as the mundane must be true. Just kidding, of course. If you can think of a weaker reason for believing in miracles it would be an amazing accomplishment.
It's you who make the distinction, based only on your prejudice that miracles don't exist. Any time you've got the evidence for miracles, I've got the time to review it.
The whole point of John's report is to convince the reader that they DO exist, that they were performed by this man Jesus Christ and that the power He demonstrated through those miracles can give a person eternal life. Uh, yeah, about this eternal life stuff? Haven't seen any evidence of that either.
It's YOU who introduce a problem that John does not see, and neither do Christian believers who take John at his word. But I don't see a problem. It's not a problem, at least for me, that John's Gospel is just a story with possibly true elements that also contains supernatural elements that are clearly false. It's also not a problem for me that you believe John true and accurate. I don't consider what other people believe religiously a problem, unless they want to teach it in science class. By the way, after reading your entire post and everything you said about how what John said and how he said it is evidence that what he said is true, I still see, "the Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy," as a pretty good condensation of what you've been saying. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 649 by Faith, posted 11-15-2017 1:15 PM | | Faith has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 658 of 1540 (823718)
11-15-2017 7:05 PM
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Reply to: Message 650 by PaulK
11-15-2017 1:29 PM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes: Percy has clearly rejected modern-day scientific and legal standards as inadequate. Gee, that's so strange, because I don't recall ever saying anything like that.
All allow things that could be wrong as evidence. The legal system even allows personal testimony. I think my emphasis was on the written word, which has known reliability problems. I never said that scientific evidence couldn't be wrong. A simple example is an uncalibrated voltmeter. And I covered eyewitness testimony in an earlier message, maybe the one you chose to skip, but one thing I mentioned was how the unreliability of eyewitness testimony is indicated by the number of prisoners jailed on eyewitness testimony but later freed by DNA evidence. I won't reply to the rest of your post because I liked Tangle's answer. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 650 by PaulK, posted 11-15-2017 1:29 PM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 665 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 12:51 AM | | Percy has seen this message but not replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 661 of 1540 (823723)
11-15-2017 9:17 PM
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Reply to: Message 660 by Modulous
11-15-2017 8:35 PM
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Re: john
Modulous writes: The evidence may not be sufficient for Percy to have faith in the conclusion, but it is apparently sufficient for many Christians. The evidence is sufficient for many Christians? Do you really think many Christians have looked into the evidence for who wrote John? Also, I wasn't sure if by Christians you meant all Christians, or only those Faith considers Christians. Anyway, the reason who wrote John came up is because Faith said that the Gospel author's account of Jesus' ministry can be trusted because he was an eyewitness. I've always had reservations about the Apostles being real people. Twelve Apostles, twelve Tribes of Israel? Too coincidental for me. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 660 by Modulous, posted 11-15-2017 8:35 PM | | Modulous has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 662 by Modulous, posted 11-15-2017 9:39 PM | | Percy has replied | | | Message 677 by Phat, posted 11-16-2017 12:39 PM | | Percy has seen this message but not replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 671 of 1540 (823736)
11-16-2017 7:56 AM
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Reply to: Message 662 by Modulous
11-15-2017 9:39 PM
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Re: john
Modulous writes: I expect most Christians actually think the Gospel of John is called that because that is what it calls itself right at the top! We're on the same page, then, though about this part:
Yes. Not 'most'. But many, for sure. It's not a hyper-obscure theological point held by some edge case of Christians...But I expect it's something that gets covered in plenty of seminaries and schools of divinity and that kind of thing. For me "many" would have to be a rather small percentage of Christians. In talking religion with Christian friends I've never found anyone who comes close to what you might call knowledgable. I always turn out to be the most knowledgeable person about the Bible, and I don't know much. I would expect that in less religious Britain that this would be even more true.
Also, I wasn't sure if by Christians you meant all Christians, or only those Faith considers Christians. I don't think the distinction makes a difference to my point. Maybe not. I only said that because different religions place different emphases on knowing your Bible.
Indeed: the Gospel of John claims at least some of its contents were provided by an eye witness who it is at least implied, is John,... You're forcing me to guess which passage you're talking about, so I'll guess that you're referring to this passage:
quote:
John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies about these things and has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
Sorry if I guessed wrong, but at least here there doesn't seem to be any implication of an eyewitness, and the assumption that the author is the disciple whom Jesus loved, mentioned in the previous paragraph, isn't implied anywhere either - I think it's more just part of Christian tradition.
...but certainly a disciple. The Gospel certainly says it was a disciple, and a very particular (though never identified) disciple, but the whole Gospel is a story filled with so much hooey that it's difficult to associate credibility with any of it.
If you have faith that this is eye witness testimony, one can understand treating its claims with more credibility than someone who has faith that it is some person(s) unconnected writing a Gospel for financial reasons. The key part of this passage is "If you have faith..." I think what people accept on faith is a personal matter and it raises no complaint from me. But I could never agree that John *is* true (in the sense of literally inerrant) and *does* contain direct eyewitness testimony.
A better example might be Jesus' journey to Egypt. Yeah, you're right, that's a better example.
There's no reason to suppose that if the story is remotely true, this was constructed by Jesus for symbolism. A couple of times now you've referred to the possibility of Jesus as an active player in the construction of his story, so I should make you aware that I don't believe Jesus was a real person. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 662 by Modulous, posted 11-15-2017 9:39 PM | | Modulous has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 672 of 1540 (823738)
11-16-2017 8:43 AM
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Reply to: Message 663 by Faith
11-15-2017 10:14 PM
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Re: God's given LOTS of evidence and you refuse it
Faith writes: Any time you've got the evidence for miracles, I've got the time to review it.
Read the entire Bible then, it's chock full of evidence for miracles,... Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Bible is "chock full of stories of miracles"?
You aren't going to get any better kind of evidence for miracles than eyewitness reports,... Wouldn't it be more accurate to call them stories about people seeing miracles? If someone approached you tomorrow with a tale of yesterday seeing the Virgin Mary glowing bright on a hilltop, a direct eyewitness report, would you believe them? Whatever your answer, the problem is obvious. People can say anything, true or not, and if someone were to write her account into an article in the weekly Church gazette, that doesn't turn it into eyewitness evidence of a miracle.
Miracles are one-time events, and in many cases thousands upon thousands witnessed them as reported in the OT and NT. They are Biblical stories authored by believers, not reports by reliable and objective reporters.
We have the benefit of all that witness testimony, our cup runneth over and you act like you're dying of thirst for a miracle... I have no interest in seeking evidence of miracles because I don't believe they exist. They're a common element of many religions, that's all.
...or a genuine Bible author. We don't know the authors of most of the books of the Bible.
God's gone to great lengths to give you everything you could possibly need for belief, so sad to see it distrusted and rejected. I think you read much more into the Bible than is really there.
I guess you want to see a miracle for yourself? That's the only thing that will convince you? Well, no, I don't want to see a miracle for myself. I don't believe they exist, so why would I want to see one, any more than I would want to see a unicorn. But you must think my views would change were I to witness an actual miracle. What kind of miracle are we talking about? Someone beats cancer? Or Mount Wheeler moves overnight from Nevada to New Hampshire?
The God who said "Blessed are those who did not see and yet beleived" already did that for Thomas as an extra aid to skeptics such as yourself,... I presume that you consider me a skeptic when I reject the supposed evidence of Christianity, but a realist when I reject the supposed evidence for Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and so forth.
Yes i believe the traditions, I believe they come from honest people. I do not believe the modern scholars. I do not believe anyone who talks about the Bible in terms like "Well the evidence is a bit thin for this but on the other hand..." God says "believe." "Repent and believe." That's what He tells you. Try it sometime. This reads like a straightforward rejection of evidence in favor of faith. As religion it's commendable. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Punctuation.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 663 by Faith, posted 11-15-2017 10:14 PM | | Faith has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 675 by Phat, posted 11-16-2017 11:04 AM | | Percy has seen this message but not replied | | | Message 681 by Faith, posted 11-16-2017 1:59 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 676 of 1540 (823754)
11-16-2017 11:58 AM
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Reply to: Message 664 by PaulK
11-16-2017 12:49 AM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes: And yet you have said all the things I attributed to you. And yet I haven't said all the things you attributed for me. For example, in your Message 650 you said:
PaulK in Message 650 writes: Percy has clearly rejected modern-day scientific and legal standards as inadequate. 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.
quote:
You've misremembered what I said about astronomical records. I used the example of Tycho Brahe, saying that meticulous as he was, even he made recording errors. I didn't even mention the scribal errors that crept into his records.
If you want to say I misremembered you could at least produce a relevant error. Instead of introducing something I didn’t even mention. Certainly you referenced my comment about astronomical records. In your Message 647 you said:
PaulK in Message 647 writes: Except that you do accept written words as evidence for some things, and yet reject them in other cases that seem eminently reasonable - I’m thinking of the use of ancient astronomical records in dating. About the human perceptual system that we have to rely upon:
quote:
I'm afraid it's all we have,
We’ve got to use a useless criterion because it’s all we have? Given the fact that nobody else uses it it seems entirely possible to do without it. 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."
quote:
It is the unreliability of the written and spoken word and it's disconnection from reality by it's passage through the human perception system that defines a true distinction between our positions, so I myself don't see what you say as proving your point.
You actually think I have been arguing that written records are not subject to that unreliability ? Really ? 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.
While I won’t quote here, you did say that my explanations of the appearances in 1 Corinthians were both unlikely events and inadequate to explain the appearances in 1 Corinthians. Message 626 Specifically the exchange was:
Percy in Message 626 writes: PaulK in Message 618 writes: If the naturalistic explanations were unlikely or inadequate I would tend to agree. Well, first I don't share your opinion that your naturalistic explanations weren't unlikely or inadequate. 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.
quote:
I said in an earlier message that I was discussing the entire NT, not just 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 except where I hopefully made it clear that's what I was talking about.
By which you mean that the discussion had to lump,all the NT stories about the appearances together as one thing, despite there being multiple contradictory accounts by different authors. Which is a silly thing for you to do, and it is certainly not sensible to insist that I must be doing it to. You don’t get to change what I am talking about by unilaterally deciding that the topic is broader. 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:
Percy in Message 626 writes: For me that short passage from 1 Corinthians was the basis for only a single issue, not the topic of this whole subthread. For the most part I've been talking about the entire NT, and hopefully when I was just talking about 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 I've said so. 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.
quote:
Sorry I seem to be making such a hash of this for you. I wish I could do a better job, but I'm doing the best I can.
See above for many things you shouldn’t be doing. I just don't know what I'd do without all your help!  --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 664 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 12:49 AM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 678 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 12:57 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 685 of 1540 (823779)
11-16-2017 2:38 PM
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Reply to: Message 678 by PaulK
11-16-2017 12:57 PM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
Hi PaulK, I'm afraid I found parts of your message a bit confusing. I'll do my best to respond.
PaulK writes: 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. 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.
Moreover the could be wrong criterion does indeed rule out all scientific and legal evidence. 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.
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. 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.
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) Sorry, I thought the mistake was obvious. You said this in your Message 647:
Paulk in Message 647 writes: Except that you do accept written words as evidence for some things, and yet reject them in other cases that seem eminently reasonable - I’m thinking of the use of ancient astronomical records in dating. 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.
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. 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:
If nothing we have qualifies as evidence by your standard then your standard is wrong. 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.
Because the reliability of written accounts greatly varies - ... Something I've said many times.
...and even a largely false account might be useful evidence for some purposes. And how do you tell which part of a largely false account is true without evidence from the real world?
Is 1 Corinthians really too unreliable to be used as evidence of early Christian beliefs ? 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.
Are astronomical records really too unreliable to be used as evidence for dating correlations ? 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.
Are the inscriptions on Egyptian block statues too unreliable to be evidence of the subject’s identity ? 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.
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. Whoops! Yes, sorry, I accidentally left out the word "not".
Which of course does mean that you thought that they were unlikely and inadequate. For which you have still offered no real support. 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." --Percy Edited by Percy, : Left out the word "not" again in the last para: "not unlikely and inadequate."
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 678 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 12:57 PM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 688 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 3:17 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 687 of 1540 (823781)
11-16-2017 2:59 PM
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Reply to: Message 681 by Faith
11-16-2017 1:59 PM
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Re: God's given LOTS of evidence and you refuse it
Faith writes: 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. 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 evidence of miracles and you'll never know it. The Bible is full of stories of miracles.
I am certainly glad there are a lot of people who do know how to judge evidence rightly. You mean like the creationists, who's excellent judgment of evidence hasn't yet contributed a single whit to science?
Blessed are those who did not see and yet believed. Nice definition of faith. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 681 by Faith, posted 11-16-2017 1:59 PM | | Faith has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 695 by Faith, posted 11-16-2017 11:28 PM | | Percy has seen this message but not replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 692 of 1540 (823788)
11-16-2017 7:48 PM
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Reply to: Message 686 by Modulous
11-16-2017 2:44 PM
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Re: john
Modulous writes: 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:
John 21:20-24 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
You left off the closing part, "and we know that his testimony is true." I suppose others will argue that this is just the way people wrote back then, but to me it looks like hooey written for rubes. "Hey, trust me, would I lie?" Yes, there are elements that imply that the disciple Jesus loved wrote the Gospel of John, but they're rather clumsy and heavy handed, and taken as a whole John seems like a typical piece of religious writing designed to serve a community rather than pass down an accurate history.
The Gospel certainly says it was a disciple, and a very particular (though never identified) disciple, but the whole Gospel is a story filled with so much hooey that it's difficult to associate credibility with any of it. We agree on the credibility of the evidence. Well, as you know I have a different perspective on this. We might agree on the degree of credibility, but we probably don't agree that it is evidence of what actually took place in the real world. I suspect we disagree about whether to label it "evidence" or not.
But a text that proclaims to be the testimony of an eyewitness is evidence even if we, on examination decide a) The eyewitness is unreliable and/or b) The testifier was not actually an eyewitness Yeah, I think we disagree on what to label evidence. I would label the Gospel of John a religious text rather than evidence. If there's anything true in it, other than the obvious things like "Jerusalem existed" and so forth, we have no way of knowing what parts.
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 have no problem with faith, just with claims of evidence where none exists. And I view faith that requires evidence as not faith at all. The definition of faith I like is found in this sentence taken from here:
quote:
Faith is acceptance of what we cannot see but feel deep within our hearts.
Interestingly, Faith has given a somewhat similar definition several times (e.g., Message 681, "Blessed are those who did not see and yet believed."), even though at other times she has insisted that faith be supported with evidence, which is what you seem to be saying, too.
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. 3) 12 were chosen deliberately by the author because it would be more appealing and convincing to his Jewish audience.
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. Jesus was a babe in the story, but wasn't necessarily a babe when the story was written. If Jesus was a real person, and if he played a role in constructing his story, the Egypt story could have been his composition. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 686 by Modulous, posted 11-16-2017 2:44 PM | | Modulous has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 693 of 1540 (823789)
11-16-2017 8:54 PM
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Reply to: Message 688 by PaulK
11-16-2017 3:17 PM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes: The things I was referring to came from Message 647 as should be obvious if you follow the context of the discussion. If you follow the discussion back, you only have to go back as far as Message 676 to see where you went adrift.
If your definition is at odds with the criterion you put forward then that’s just another example of incoherence. Yes, if it were at odds, but it's not.
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. Oftentimes when you use the phrase "the point", it isn't clear what point you're referring to. Like now.
But as we know you were objecting to my point that ancient astronomical records were useful evidence in dating. No, I wasn't. Honestly, I didn't know what your point was by mentioning dating. At first I believed it was a reference to Tycho Brahe's date/time entries and wasn't something particularly important to the discussion, but then you kept mentioning it so I began to wonder.
Obviously you do insist that they are not evidence, yet I cannot see any reason why. The mere possibility of error hardly seems sufficient. Well, as I said, my particular perspective doesn't seem to be working for you, and it seems to be making you upset. If you're so strongly opposed to not viewing the written word as evidence then why don't we work out something else?
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 Ah. Well, no evasion or dishonesty was intended. Obviously we see things differently, but if the only characterization of the situation that you're open to is that you're completely in the right and me and Tangle (is there anyone else?) are completely in the wrong, then finding our way toward common ground isn't going to be possible.
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. Yes, that's correct. I thought I already said this in messages to you, but if not let me repeat something I've said several times before to someone, that I see the recording of evidence after it has passed through the human perceptual system as the equivalent of passing reality through a meat grinder, i.e., not very reliable and not properly evidence anymore.
Nevertheless the idea that there is even an absolute distinction between information and evidence is silly. Okay, so let's find other terminology. I originally walked down this road in response to Faith's assertion that the Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy. What would be a good response?
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? You don't think people are interested in knowing what in a written account is true and what is false? That in some cases it's essential, such as a suspect's statement?
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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 of written accounts as evidence is silly ? No, that wouldn't be an accurate "in other words" consistent with how I was trying to distinguish between evidence and the written word.
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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. I'm still not clear on what dating correlations you're referring to.
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. What's wrong with calling it fairly reliable information?
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 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."
Making obviously contradictory claims followed by a non-sequitur is hardly useful discussion. Can't tell what's bothering you this time, though I did accidentally leave the "not" out again, so I've inserted it in the above quote.
Firstly you have done nothing to establish that it is likely that the events never happened. I think showing that events actually happened requires positive evidence, not the absence of negative evidence.
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. As I've said, for all you know you're explaining events that never happened.
We are not given clear miracles, we are given events that are taken as miraculous. Not sure what you're saying here.
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 ? Why should we? --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 688 by PaulK, posted 11-16-2017 3:17 PM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 701 by PaulK, posted 11-17-2017 12:28 AM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 709 of 1540 (823821)
11-17-2017 1:58 PM
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Reply to: Message 701 by PaulK
11-17-2017 12:28 AM
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Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes: quote:
If you follow the discussion back, you only have to go back as far as Message 676 to see where you went adrift.
Obviously I didn’t. You took a statement out of context, and tried to rebut it by citing something it wasn’t talking about. That is fact. A quick reading of the top of Message 676 reveals that you're wrong about evasion, wrong about changing the topic, wrong about everything pretty much.
quote:
Yes, if it were at odds, but it's not.
Your criterion only allows things that are certainly true to be considered evidence. And you explicitly said that your definition contradicts that. So obviously something you said isn’t true. But you accuse me of saying lots of things I didn't say. It's your MO, as they say, that you find it much easier arguing against things that you make up yourself, because things you make up can be ridiculous and wrong in ways that what people really say often are not.
quote:
Oftentimes when you use the phrase "the point", it isn't clear what point you're referring to. Like now.
Unless you are going to insist on multi-level quotes some things have to be worked out from context, which may include following the thread back. If you do that you will find it is perfectly clear. When I trace back I find that you seem to have lost the flow of the discussion. I think you confuse yourself more than anyone else when you write things whose meaning isn't clear.
quote:
No, I wasn't. Honestly, I didn't know what your point was by mentioning dating.
You don’t understand why I would respond to the claim that writings can’t be evidence by producing an example where written records ARE useful evidence ? Given how poorly you express yourself, no.
quote:
Well, as I said, my particular perspective doesn't seem to be working for you, and it seems to be making you upset. If you're so strongly opposed to not viewing the written word as evidence then why don't we work out something else?
The claim - silly as it is - is hardly the worst thing. So, in other words, you're not interested in finding common ground, you just want a pissing contest.
quote:
Ah. Well, no evasion or dishonesty was intended.
If you are being unintentionally evasive and dishonest then you have a problem. I think you assuming the worst in people is more your problem. How long will you be prattling on about these invented offenses?
quote:
Okay, so let's find other terminology. I originally walked down this road in response to Faith's assertion that the Bible is evidence of its own truth and accuracy. What would be a good response?
The sensible response is that the Bible is full of evidence of its unreliability. The Bible contains errors and inaccuracies and myths and legends. Even the better parts are heavily biased. The Bible at its best doesn’t live up to the standards of the best ancient historians. Sounds good to me, but I've already been down that road with Faith more than once, as have many others, so I tried an alternative approach. You don't like this approach. Neither does Modulous. I'm not sure I do either, I'm sort of trying it on for size, and discussing it with others helps me do that, or would except you keep misstating what I'm saying.
quote:
You don't think people are interested in knowing what in a written account is true and what is false? That in some cases it's essential, such as a suspect's statement?
And another evasion. It's beginning to seem that casting accusations of evasion is just your way of avoiding having an actual discussion. There was no evasion.
The question is whether a written document can be useful as evidence in some ways without caring about the truth of its claims. You are wrong again. The full quote runs like this:
Paulk writes: quote:
PaulK writes: 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? You don't think people are interested in knowing what in a written account is true and what is false? That in some cases it's essential, such as a suspect's statement?
And another evasion. The question is whether a written document can be useful as evidence in some ways without caring about the truth of its claims. So you turn out to be wrong. Your question was not "whether a written document can be useful as evidence in some ways without." Your question was, "What makes you think that is necessary.' Your error rate is getting way up there, plus you're becoming increasingly accusatory and unpleasant.
quote:
No, that wouldn't be an accurate "in other words" consistent with how I was trying to distinguish between evidence and the written word.
That’s probably because your distinction doesn’t make sense. Obviously if you agree that 1 Corinthians gives an accurate picture of early Christian belief then it is evidence that early Christians believed that, by any reasonable understanding of the word evidence. Well, I can tell it doesn't make sense to you. I think that if you take a break from being outraged and irrational that it will make it easier to find some common ground. When I started this discussion with Faith it was in the context of evidence of events that had taken place in the real world, specifically miracles, and the assertion that the Bible was it's own evidence of its truth and accuracy. I said that John's account of Jesus turning the water in to wine was not evidence of an event in the real world, that the written word could never be evidence of real world events, only descriptions of it. I tried to generalize this to rejecting the written word as evidence at all, instead giving it an alternative classification like information, and saying that just scribbling something on a piece of paper doesn't suddenly turn it in to evidence of events in the real world. But this view is receiving a great deal of push back from you and Modulous, so I'm trying to find some common ground. Maybe it would be better to say that there are some ways in which the written word is evidence. For example, the Gospel of John could be considered evidence of what an early Christian community believed, even if it isn't evidence that Jesus ever turned water into wine.
quote:
I'm still not clear on what dating correlations you're referring to.
Then maybe you should have asked instead of trying to dismiss the point with irrelevancies. Seriously, ancient records of known astronomical events are often dated. Using those dates we can relate their dating systems to ours. Then maybe you should have explained what you meant at the outset.
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What's wrong with calling it fairly reliable information?
What’s wrong is using it as evidence while refusing to call it evidence. But that was the basis of my whole proposal, that we should only call things evidence when they're a result of events of the real world, when they're unadulterated by the human perception system. I was proposing different nomenclature. It's legitimate to disagree with the proposal, but your counterargument makes no sense because it confuses my proposed definition with the standard definition.
quote:
I think showing that events actually happened requires positive evidence, not the absence of negative evidence.
Then you are putting the cart before the horse. Definitely not. Things are true because they're supported by evidence, not because of an absence of negative evidence.
I was talking about a priori likelihood - ... Okay, you were talking about the likelihood of something happening.
...which doesn’t need establishing that the events actually happened. And if they didn't actually happen then you're inventing explanations for fictional events, which is what I've been saying for a while now.
In fact it is useful information in making a judgement of whether they did actually happen. What you're doing seems like building castles in the clouds. You're assigning probabilities you can't be sure of to explanations for events that you don't know what they are and may never have happened.
quote:
As I've said, for all you know you're explaining events that never happened.
Which is, again, irrelevant to the question. I think you're making up your own questions as you go along.
The question is whether the events in my explanation are ones which would be likely to occur and adequate to explain the account. Whether the events in the account happened or not doesn’t affect that, That doesn't change the fact that for all you know you're inventing explanations for events of an unknown nature that never happened.
quote:
Not sure what you're saying here.
I’m saying that rejecting the events in the grounds that they are miraculous is a mistake since they are not clearly miraculous. We reject the idea that people actually saw Elvis Presley after his death - but we don’t reject the claim that some people thought that they saw Elvis Presley after his death. Yes, some people believe weird things for which there is no evidence. If they write descriptions of what they believe, those descriptions don't suddenly become evidence that their beliefs are true.
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Why should we?
I’d say on the grounds that it is the more plausible explanation. Why is it more plausible that the miracles were actually just natural events misinterpreted as miracles, instead of that the miracles are just made up? --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 701 by PaulK, posted 11-17-2017 12:28 AM | | PaulK has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 712 by PaulK, posted 11-17-2017 2:52 PM | | Percy has replied |
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Percy
Member Posts: 22494 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
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Message 710 of 1540 (823822)
11-17-2017 2:03 PM
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Reply to: Message 707 by Phat
11-17-2017 9:09 AM
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Re: Percy 2001 Unplugged
Phat writes: You stated this in 2001. Do you still believe that way, or has your belief evolved any? I said that in 2001? Wow! It reads like something I could have written yesterday. Obviously the answer is no, my beliefs have not changed one iota since 2001. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 707 by Phat, posted 11-17-2017 9:09 AM | | Phat has not replied |
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