Thought Experiment

Not my argument. My argument is all humans recognize beauty, beauty can be described objectively with a mathematical formula therefore beauty objectively exists.
All humans perceive certain things as beautiful, and that perception can be described with said formula. That formula is describing human perception rather than objective beauty.
 
True, but there is evidence that some of the sources for the gospels are eyewitnesses, so they should be treated as such and unlike many other historical events should be considered historical knowledge.
To the extent that there is good evidence that some sources were eyewitnesses, we should conclude that some sources were probably eyewitnesses. But even "eyewitnesses testified that this happened" does not establish something as truth.
I am not claiming that eyewitness testimony PROVES something, but it is strong evidence.
El Cid said:
True but I think you would also agree that if someone who was a family member or a friend of yours wrote a biography of you, you would think that it is probably be more accurate than if it was written by a total stranger. Especially if it touched on your personality.
If you ever read a biography of me, written by a friend or relative, which says that I won every argument I ever entered -- let alone that I performed feats which defied the laws of nature -- don't believe it.
If there were enough eyewitnesses and you were not an atheist, I might. But nevertheless, I notice you did not disagree with the gist of my argument above and my point.
El Cid said:
There is also the testimony of the women of the empty tomb. In first century judaism, the testimony of women is practically worthless. And yet they recorded that the first to see the empty tomb were women, this is strong evidence that the tomb actually was empty. If they had wanted to truly impress and convince other jews they would have written that the male disciples found the empty tomb, but rather the evidence points to them trying to be accurate in their recording of this event rather than making up events to impress others.
This is not relevant to the claim I responded to, which was that the Jews themselves conceded that the tomb was empty.
There is evidence that the Jews did concede that fact.
And it is possible that "women were the earliest to express faith that Jesus was alive" was true but "they came to his tomb and found it empty" was not.
Why not?
El Cid said:
The jewish high priest would not have allowed or caused his execution unless James was guilty of blasphemy...
Why do you say that? Josephus strongly implies that the high priest had no concern about whether he was following the law, he just wanted some people dead.
No, the high priest is not going to just randomly kill people for no reason. But blasphemy is a rational extrapolation given what we know about the historical and religious context.
El Cid said:
which was the belief that Jesus was the Son of God...
That is not the only possible way to be "guilty of blasphemy."
Maybe, but the evidence says otherwise.
El Cid said:
and James would not have believed that Jesus was the Son of God if he had not seen the resurrected Christ.
Countless numbers of people have believed things which they have not seen.
Yes, But remember there is evidence he was a skeptic.
El Cid said:
I think my line of reasoning and my explanation of James' train of thought above is pretty logical about why James was killed.
Even if it were, you simply cannot claim that Josephus says that this is why James was killed, if Josephus does not say that is why James killed, it is only your deduction that this is why James was killed. How can you not see this?
I dont deny it is my and other scholars rational deduction.
 
I am not claiming that eyewitness testimony PROVES something, but it is strong evidence.
It can be strong evidence, in some circumstances. Not always.

If there were enough eyewitnesses and you were not an atheist, I might. But nevertheless, I notice you did not disagree with the gist of my argument above and my point.
To be more explicit then, I do disagree with the claim that a biography from a friend or relative is generally more reliable than one from a stranger. The friend or relative will have access to more information, but will also generally have more bias.

There is evidence that the Jews did concede that fact.
You haven't offered any yet.

You're asking why it is possible that the women did not come to the empty tomb? Because it is possible that there never was an empty tomb as described in the Gospels, obviously.

No, the high priest is not going to just randomly kill people for no reason.
My apologies, I should have said "he just wanted certain people dead," not "he just wanted some people dead"; I didn't mean to imply that he had a quota which could have been filled by any individuals, but that he had some grudge or some suspicions of some particular individuals, including James, and wanted to be rid of them. That seems the implication of the passage in Josephus, anyway.

But blasphemy is a rational extrapolation given what we know about the historical and religious context.
You're arguing as if it were the only rational extrapolation, and it is not.

Maybe, but the evidence says otherwise.
What evidence says "the high priest wanted James dead because of his preaching about the resurrection of Jesus, and not for any other reason"?

Yes, But remember there is evidence he was a skeptic.
That is, there is testimony, written well after James's death, that he once was a skeptic. And there have also been countless people who have believed things they have not seen, and were once skeptics about. The whole point of apologetics is to bring such skeptics to belief.

I dont deny it is my and other scholars rational deduction.
Then say, "in my judgment, and the judgment of other scholars, the most reasonable explanation for James's execution is that it was punishment for his belief in the resurrection." What you can't say is that "we have an independent source, Josephus, for the claim that James died for his belief in the resurrection." Because Josephus simply did not say that this was why James died.
 
"Anybody who reaches a different conclusion than one I have reached must be motivated by greed and/or cowardice" does not show "understanding of human nature."
Even Psychologists say that the strongest motivations a significant percentage of people have for almost anything are sex, power, greed, and fear/cowardice. But one key motive that they left out, though is natural hatred of the Christian God which every human on the planet is born with and MAY be at least a factor in Ehrman's motivations. But I am not claiming I know this for certain. It could be any number of these things or combinations thereof. But of course, he may rationalize all of it as a search for truth.
 
Which would have a greater impact on someone, someone they know rising from the dead, or someone preaching new dogma?

This is not an answer to my question. Essentially, you were saying that the early Christians would not have said Jesus had risen unless it were true, because saying that one individual rose from the dead would be contrary to Jewish teaching. So I noted that any new religion (like the Mormons) contains many claims that are contrary to previous teachings. You seem to be responding, here, that the early Christians would be less likely to go against Jewish teaching about the general resurrection than the first Mormons would be to go against pretty much the entirety of monotheistic belief, because "a resurrection would have a greater impact." So you're saying we should believe in the resurrection, but not in Mormonism, because people are less likely to promulgate something (the resurrection) which would have a greater impact on them? That makes no sense.
No, I am just saying that people would be less likely believe a massive new dogmatic system, than a well attested claim of resurrection among a group of people with the same basic worldview plus being shown how His resurrection was confirmed by their prophets. With Mormonism you have an almost entirely new belief system including a new "Bible".
El Cid said:
Actually Jesus never criticized the teaching regarding the general resurrection so it is unlikely that up until His resurrection, they never really had any doubts about it. And in fact later Christ revealed that there will be a type of general resurrection when He returns to earth. So while His resurrection was of course unique from a jewish perspective, it was not as radical as you are attempting to portray it.
What? You are the one saying that the idea of one man being resurrected was so radically contrary to Jewish doctrine that the disciples would not have promulgated it unless they knew it to be true! If that's not the case, if his resurrection was not something radical from the Jewish perspective, then you have no case at all for saying it meets the "criterion of dissimilarity"!
No, it was radical but not in the way that you are thinking. Jesus and His disciples were still part of the Jewish milieu and still showed respect to many Jewish beliefs. But having a single individual being resurrected was unheard of.
(Also, is there any reason why you consistently fail to capitalize "Jews" and "Jewish"?)
No, sometimes I get to typing so fast I forget to.
El Cid said:
The criteria fits human nature, so I think it is a rational criteria and helpful in finding out what happened in the past. But of course, believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is much more profound and totally life changing than discovering that George Washington didnt cut down a cherry tree when he was child. So the disbelief is much more difficult to overcome. Not to mention overcoming our natural antipathy to the Christian God.
All things being equal, it is somewhat less likely that someone will make a claim that goes contrary to the beliefs of his neighbors than it is that they will keep quiet about things that go contrary to those beliefs. But there are a million ways in which things can be far from equal, in which circumstances make it more likely that people will adopt such claims, and one obvious example of that is when they are part of a breakaway religious community. Again, if we adopted your version of the "criterion of dissimilarity" (assuming you have just casually abandoned it, as your comment about "not so radical" would suggest), then any new religion is instantly granted extra credibility because it represents a departure from the beliefs of its neighbors. That's absurd.
No, it is more complicated than that. See above.
El Cid said:
All the evidence points to the story being a unified whole.
No it doesn't. The obvious fact that the earliest Christian writing we have (Paul's) does not refer to the empty tomb, or the women as the first to learn of the resurrection, is evidence of a story that changed over time.
When there were around 500 people still alive and testifying that they had seen the resurrected Christ in person, the empty tomb is not as important. But once they started dying off, it tends to increase in importance as a tangible piece of evidence. In addition, at the time of Pauls writings the gospels were circulating widely orally so there was no reason for him to repeat things that most Christians had already heard probably several times. It is unlikely that they would change a story to make it less believable by adding the story of the women finding the empty tomb and seeing the resurrected Christ before the men did.
El Cid said:
Of course you are not obligated, freedom of conscience and religion is a Christian principle. God wants you to freely choose Him not be forced into choosing Him.
I meant "obliged as a reasonable person." When I say I don't see how I'm "obliged" to adopt the religion which I consider best in the competition, I mean I don't see anything unreasonable about not adopting any religion at all.
In many ways atheism is a religion. So I think in fact you have adopted one.
 
Yes, but I didnt know you were going to be so interested in discussing it in detail.
Well, if you make a claim I find questionable, I'm going to question it; and if in doing so I make a claim you find questionable, you're going to question that. Details tend to accumulate when that happens.

El Cid said:
Yes. Because it reveals who He is, and by what authority He taught that.

Well, combined with the facts that He predicted His death and resurrection shows that He is. None of the other few people that rose from the dead did those things.
First, you're again starting with the assumption that everything in the Gospels is true.
No, my statements are just based on them being generally accurate. They do not require everything being true.
Second, even if it were true that Jesus predicted his death and resurrection, and that nobody else who has been reported to have been resurrected did so, it would not follow that Jesus was God; mortals can also know what will happen in the future, if God decides it fits his purposes to tell them what would happen.
Only God can raise people from the dead, and there is evidence Christ raised at least two other people from the dead. Only God can be in two places at one time. Among other things there is evidence He did.
El Cid said:
Many persons, things and events in the gospels have been confirmed by archaeology. Thereby, showing their reliability.
"Many things in these books have been confirmed, therefore everything in these books is true" just does not at all follow. Nobody in the world applies that "logic" to any book in the world except for their own sacred scripture.
That is not what I am claiming, I am saying that those confirmations show its general reliability, not its infallibility. Which is what historians conclude about many ancient documents if there are many things that have been confirmed by other sources like archaeology.
El Cid said:
Nevertheless there is evidence for this having occurred.
There is at least some evidence for pretty much any claim that anybody can make. The question is whether it is compelling evidence.
No, that is not true. For example there is no evidence that someone can change their gender or sex even though many claim they can.
 
And if is just emerges from us then it is relative and subjective so that you have no rationally objective basis for condemning Hitler.
I don't think we do.

Nor do I think that we need one.
Since most people want to live according to reality, the next Hitler may be stopped if we can convince him that there truly is an objective right and wrong and he will be held accountable for ignoring that truth both in this world and the next.
 
Since most people want to live according to reality, the next Hitler may be stopped if we can convince him that there truly is an objective right and wrong and he will be held accountable for ignoring that truth both in this world and the next.
How many people do you think you have convinced to your point of view here?
 
Since most people want to live according to reality, the next Hitler may be stopped if we can convince him that there truly is an objective right and wrong and he will be held accountable for ignoring that truth both in this world and the next.
And how would one possibly go about that?

In fact, pretend I am him, and try me.
 
I would honestly love to see him do that. In order to do that, he would have to prove the existence of God.
I'm on your side @El Cid, please substantiate your claim.
That wouldn't be enough - he would also have to tie that god to some notion of objective morality.

"My god exists, and he says "bad"" - so what? Why, besides your mere assertion, do your god's moral pronouncements connote - let alone consititute - objective morality?

Maybe he's just incorrect.
 
That wouldn't be enough - he would also have to tie that god to some notion of objective morality.

"My god exists, and he says "bad"" - so what? Why, besides your mere assertion, do your god's moral pronouncements connote - let alone consititute - objective morality?
If he can prove that God exists, then the rest follows.
Maybe he's just incorrect.
If God exists, your comment is wishful, erroneous thinking.

Since Jesus is the very image of God, that is, when you see Jesus, you are looking at God, then you have a misunderstanding of God's morality to say that He's just incorrect.
 
If he can prove that God exists, then the rest follows.
Why?

Why does the mere fact that an all-powerful, all-knowing being exists entail that objective morality exists?
If God exists, your comment is wishful, erroneous thinking.

Since Jesus is the very image of God, that is, when you see Jesus, you are looking at God, then you have a misunderstanding of God's morality to say that He's just incorrect.
It is left to prove that his morality is the morality.
 
Why?

Why does the mere fact that an all-powerful, all-knowing being exists entail that objective morality exists?
As the Creator he establishes those things according to his morality. Surely you don't think that you are more righteous that the One who made you.
It is left to prove that his morality is the morality.
If God is proven to exist (Go for it, @El Cid) then your statement above is nonsense and complete stubbornness.

Even though you don't believe, your view of the Christian God is skewed, imo.
 
As the Creator he establishes those things according to his morality. Surely you don't think that you are more righteous that the One who made you.
About some things everyone agrees they are wrong, like murder for example.
If God is proven to exist (Go for it, @El Cid)
He's had enough time and he hasn't done it yet.
then your statement above is nonsense and complete stubbornness.

Even though you don't believe, your view of the Christian God is skewed, imo.
Can you say, what is it that makes something wrong?
 
As the Creator he establishes those things according to his morality.
Why? Isn't that just "my dad says"?

Also, you said it yourself: his morality. If I think X is moral, and he does not, what makes him right, and me wrong?
Surely you don't think that you are more righteous that the One who made you.
I don't know why creatorship connotes superior righteousness - I work with a guy that I'd call an angel, and his father is in prison.

"I created you, therefore, I'm morally superior to you" just won't fly.
If God is proven to exist (Go for it, @El Cid) then your statement above is nonsense and complete stubbornness.
Why?

All I've had from either of you is mere assertions - "he's the Creator, so his morality is Correct".
 
Can you say, what is it that makes something wrong?
Unfortunately, this is a trick question - if the definiton involves a god, it's circular; the god would have to exist in order for the objective morality to exist, and vice-versa.

If it doesn't, it renders the god redundant.
 
Why? Isn't that just "my dad says"?
The only way that we even know right from wrong is by the conscience that was given to us by God.
It justifies us when we do what is right and convicts us when we do what is wrong.
Also, you said it yourself: his morality. If I think X is moral, and he does not, what makes him right, and me wrong?
You sense of right and wrong can get tainted by how you are brought up and the society you live in if you haven't developed a relationship with your Maker.
I don't know why creatorship connotes superior righteousness - I work with a guy that I'd call an angel, and his father is in prison.
Your either righteous or not righteous. There is not in between. Is your angel a God-seeker?
"I created you, therefore, I'm morally superior to you" just won't fly.

Why?

All I've had from either of you is mere assertions - "he's the Creator, so his morality is Correct".
You have no other basis for morality. Do you?
 
Back
Top