Best Argument For or Against God's Existence

[Moral Orel]

Are you denying the validity of the superiority of eyewitness testimony in court or in history?

Eye witness testimony is extremely unreliable. Read this:

Eye Witness Testimony

Here are some excerpts:

Mistaken or flawed identification has assumed a newfound prominence in recent years: It's been cited as a factor in nearly 78 percent of the nation's first 130 convictions later overturned by DNA testing

Like trace evidence, eyewitness evidence can be contaminated, lost, destroyed or otherwise made to produce results that can lead to an incorrect reconstruction of the crime​

There are lots of other studies showing how unreliable eyewitness testimony is if you care to look them up for yourself.

 

[The Cadet]

I did. I showed how the information in Luke 1 and 1 Corinthians 15 was provided by eyewitness testimony. Are you denying the validity of the superiority of eyewitness testimony in court or in history?

How much eyewitness testimony would you need to believe that a group of people were abducted by aliens? 10 people? 50? 100? Wikipedia claims between 5-6% of the population has claimed some experience with alien abduction, and while I'm unsure on the numbers, the fact of the matter is that we don't have to rely on old documents (or in the case of the bible the selectively cherry-picked second- or third-hand translations of second-hand accounts whose origins cannot be reasonably verified due to a complete lack of original manuscripts), we can literally go talk to people alive today who believe that they were abducted. It's not a small number. Should we believe them?

I'm going to be frank and say that for something like that, no amount of eyewitness testimony could possibly be convincing enough. I'd go even further and say that someone bringing that up in a court case would immediately lose all credibility, and their testimony would probably be ignored as a result. And that's just alien visitation - a good sight more likely than some dude coming back from the dead after three days.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

x/1r^5 = G anyone?


Going from is to God, is like is to ought. You (allegedly) cant go from natural premises to moral conclusions. And you cant go from natural premises to theological conclusions.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

So in other words, take physics and bin it? Look, I'm sorry, but this is a perfect illustration of why we use methodological naturalism. Because "a supernatural entity did it with unknown mechanisms" makes any boat float. Rocks showing 4.5 billion years of age? They're actually 6,000 years old; magic rock pixies fiddled with the isotopes. Genetic bottlenecks found that are older than the ark and yet still somehow show up in the genome? Satan trying to fool us. Patterns of endogenous retroviruses which point clearly to common descent? Satan again. The universe created last thursday (with age)? I don't see how you could possibly make the claim that this is somehow less likely than your God holding that ark together for a year, because in appealing to the supernatural as an explanation, you've abandoned the only tools we have for establishing the veracity of claims.

In reality, Noah's Ark is not possible. The fact that you have to invoke the supernatural to make it work is an admission of failure. It's saying, "Yeah, you're right, without some external force which we cannot prove exists, this could not happen." You could apply that to anything. Maybe the cold fusion guys weren't fraudulent - it was just that in their experiments, a supernatural entity fiddled with their results. It's so easy to make up supernatural stories and explanations for things. But it's not productive and it leads us on flights of fancy that don't actually go anywhere.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

And even that had iron cross-bracing. You just can't make a wooden boat that big seaworthy.

If you need magic to make your ship seaworthy, then I suspect the problem runs deeper than just the engineering.

 

[OzSpen]

How much eyewitness testimony would you need to believe that a group of people were abducted by aliens? 10 people? 50? 100? Wikipedia claims between 5-6% of the population has claimed some experience with alien abduction, and while I'm unsure on the numbers, the fact of the matter is that we don't have to rely on old documents (or in the case of the bible the selectively cherry-picked second- or third-hand translations of second-hand accounts whose origins cannot be reasonably verified due to a complete lack of original manuscripts), we can literally go talk to people alive today who believe that they were abducted. It's not a small number. Should we believe them?

I'm going to be frank and say that for something like that, no amount of eyewitness testimony could possibly be convincing enough. I'd go even further and say that someone bringing that up in a court case would immediately lose all credibility, and their testimony would probably be ignored as a result. And that's just alien visitation - a good sight more likely than some dude coming back from the dead after three days.

And you use Wikipedia as a reliable source of information? Come on!!

 

[Archaeopteryx]

And you use Wikipedia as a reliable source of information? Come on!!

You use the Bible.

 

[The Cadet]

And you use Wikipedia as a reliable source of information? Come on!!

The number of eyewitnesses of alleged alien abduction is fairly large, no matter what measure you take. It's hard to find a legitimate source, because, well, no serious source takes alien abduction claims seriously. Here's over a hundred. I even stated I was unsure on the number.

It's also not the point of my argument - did you even read my post?

So... Yeah. Nice nitpick; care to actually address the argument made? How many eyewitness account would you consider sufficient to believe in alien abduction?

 

[SkyWriting]

The real truth is it's a story about a flood from the melting Ice Caps that flooded a lake and turned it into the Black Sea. so rescuing a few farm animals was imperative. Once it's examined by using real evidence.

You can't scientifically examine history. It's impossible.

 

[The Cadet]

You can't scientifically examine history. It's impossible.

For something that's supposedly impossible, it's odd that it's done on a daily basis by countless fields of science. Someone had better call the Society of American Archaeologists, the Paleontological Society, the Tree Ring Society, the American Anthropological Society, the Royal Historical Society, the American Historical Association, the European Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology and quite a few more and tell them that they're wrong about how science works!

...There should be at least a little bit of cognitive dissonance going on here, SkyWriting. There should be some little voice in your head saying, "Hang on, I'm a layperson with absolutely no education in science or the scientific method and no knowledge about any of these fields or the methods they use; am I really sure that I have it right, and all of these countless scientists have it wrong?" It might not be loud, but you should probably listen to it, because 99% of the time, if someone claims "X is impossible" and there are a whole lotta people whose job it is to do X and produce tangible results from doing X, that someone is wrong.

 

[HitchSlap]

Hitch,

Your presuppositions are coming through: 'The credulity of devotional "historians"'. That's a fallacy of appeal to ridicule that you have committed.

I find it disappointing that you didn't even interact with the information I provided to refute your position. Who was Sir William Ramsay who was the skeptic who investigated Luke-Acts and came through with a resounding affirmation of the historical veracity of Luke-Acts?

He was an eminent British archaeologist and New Testament scholar. See his details HERE.

Your perspective is that of theological liberalism that does not want to affirm the historical credibility of NT documents.

F. F. Bruce's 1943 publication, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? http://www.bible.ca/b-new-testament-documents-f-f-bruce.htm refutes your perspective, as does Craig Blomberg 1987, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press).

John A T Robinson is hardly known for his theological conservative position (of Honest to God fame), but his seminal work, Redating the New Testament http://richardwaynegarganta.com/redating-testament.pdf (1976. London: SCM Press Ltd) dates all 4 Gospels before the fall of Jerusalem in A D 70. Documents about Jesus' life only 30-40 years after his death in the first century are incredibly recent when compared with other documents from that era. John Wenham has provided further more recent evidence in Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (1992. Downers Grrove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press). His research redates Matthew, Mark & Luke to prior to AD 55. He admits that this breaks rank with the majority opinion.

The evidence is mounting to refute the view you are promoting.

Oz

Appeal to authority is a fallacy. I'm asking you to provide actual evidence for the gospels being written by eyewitness accounts.

The facts: Mark was the first gospel written, and was most likely penned after 70 CE, as the author alludes to the destruction of the temple. All 6/7 of Paul's letters were written before the gospels, and he never once mentions them. Matthew and Luke copied heavily from Mark, then added their own commentary. John is altogether different from the Mt/Mk/Lk. They were written in a language Jesus never spoke, by men Jesus never met, in third person narrative, from countries Jesus never traveled to. Additionally, the gospels vary wildly in their content, bringing into question their reliability.
For instance, the birth of Jesus; did it happen during Herod's rule - Matthew, or during Quirinius' rule - Luke?

"In the first letter of Clement of Rome -written 95 CE- Clement cited the Old Testament as "scripture" over a hundred times, and frequently refers to Hebrews and some of Paul's letters, though he considers them as "good counsel," and not scripture. But oddly, Clement never refers to any Gospel. On two occasions he even "quotes" Jesus, but without ever referring to any written source, and these two "quotes" don't quite correspond to anything in our Gospels. Remarkably, this suggests that Clement - a prominent leader of the Church in Rome - had no knowledge of them." "Nailed" pp 50/1

You are right about one thing, the evidence does seem to be mounting.

 

[OzSpen]

Appeal to authority is a fallacy. I'm asking you to provide actual evidence for the gospels being written by eyewitness accounts.

The facts: Mark was the first gospel written, and was most likely penned after 70 CE, as the author alludes to the destruction of the temple. All 6/7 of Paul's letters were written before the gospels, as he never once mentions them. Matthew and Luke copied heavily from Mark, then added their own commentary. John is altogether different from the Mt/Mk/Lk. They were written in a language Jesus never spoke, by men Jesus never met, in third person narrative, from countries Jesus never traveled to. Additionally, the gospels vary wildly in their content, bringing into question their reliability.
For instance, the birth of Jesus; did it happen during Herod's rule - Matthew, or during Quirinius' rule - Luke?

"In the first letter of Clement of Rome -written 95 CE- Clement cited the Old Testament as "scripture" over a hundred times, and frequently refers to Hebrews and some of Paul's letters, though he considers them as "good counsel," and not scripture. But oddly, Clement never refers to any Gospel. On two occasions he even "quotes" Jesus, but without ever referring to any written source, and these two "quotes" don't quite correspond to anything in our Gospels. Remarkably, this suggests that Clement - a prominent leader of the Church in Rome - had no knowledge of them." "Nailed" pp 50/1

You are right about one thing, the evidence does seem to be mounting.

This is a red herring fallacy as you are not addressing the issues I raised concerning your approach. You are off and running with where you want to go without dealing with what I stated at #1775.

We can't have a logical discussion when you do that.

 

[OzSpen]

You use the Bible.

Red herring!

 

[OzSpen]

You can't scientifically examine history. It's impossible.

How do you define 'scientific'? Are you referring to the empirical scientific method of testing over and over with repeatability of experimentation?

 

[HitchSlap]

This is a red herring fallacy as you are not addressing the issues I raised concerning your approach. You are off and running with where you want to go without dealing with what I stated at #1775.

We can't have a logical discussion when you do that.

What, exactly, would you like me to deal with.

ETA: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/7862#more-7862

 

[bhsmte]

So what? He was an eminent archaeologist and New Testament scholar. He was no dilbo!

If you want to check out the reliability of Luke as an historian, go take a visit with Craig Blomberg, the author of The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (IVP 1987). He is a distinguished professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, Denver CO. His PhD dealt with the parables and Luke-Acts. Why don't you make contact with a living, vital investigator of the New Testament Gospels and a specialist in Luke-Acts?

One thing I have found out in my investigation into the work of NT scholars and historians is; it is good to read the work of varied people; conservative, moderate and liberal. The other thing I have noticed, is the conservative one's are usually the ones who get a paycheck from a conservative christian institutions and have motivation to toe the line. It has also become evidence in my investigation, that the conservative scholars, tend to play fast and loose with the historical method.

If I want to find out if cigarette smoking is bad for me, I am not going to ask the Phd scientist who is employed by the tobacco company.

 

[HitchSlap]

One thing I have found out in my investigation into the work of NT scholars and historians is; it is good to read the work of varied people; conservative, moderate and liberal. The other thing I have noticed, is the conservative one's are usually the ones who get a paycheck from a conservative christian institutions and have motivation to toe the line. It has also become evidence in my investigation, that the conservative scholars, tend to play fast and loose with the historical method.

If I want to find out if cigarette smoking is bad for me, I am not going to ask the Phd scientist who is employed by the tobacco company.

This is something I've also noticed as well. While "conservative" or devotional scholars tend to make their case from arguments of silence, that is to say, because a certain event or person was not mentioned, then we're free to assume it's true. Whereas critical scholarship tends to fall on the side of actual evidence, or lack of, and compared to other literary styles of the time, and then draw the most likely conclusion, not the least likely conclusion.

In the case of the gospels, it's no longer accepted by current scholarship that they were written by eye witnesses, or even people who lived in Palestine.

 

[HitchSlap]

This is long, but worth the time. Carrier makes the case for the gospels as fiction.

 

[KCfromNC]

In like manner, the KCA supports the belief in a narrow range of suggested beings with specific characteristics.

Not the KCA you've been posting. All it does is say that there is a cause. We know of a wide range of non-god causes to lots of things. You'll need to do a lot more work to rule these out before gods are the only options left.

 

[KCfromNC]

I don't need Craig to figure out that you do not understand the doctrine of the Trinity correctly.

I guess having faith in that belief would make it easier to ignore the fact that you can't come up with an answer to my points.