I am sure that the great, learned men of the past contorted themselves magnificantly, much as some of them continue to do today.
BINGO!
[/quote]
Not rip it apart, but expose the pretentiousness of it, as it exists in an organized, institutional way. I don’t mean to say that religious people as individuals are pretentious.
And yes,it has been reason that has done this. Using adjectives like “humble” and “common” doesn’t change that fact.[/quote]
The problem is that the humble and common should not be so convinced that their reasoning does not have holes in it. Certainly a humanist should have read Potter (not Harry) but this was ignored in the responses because it indicates the general lack of desire or unwillingness to actually investigate the accuracy of your position. It gives one some power to indicate their brilliance by mocking those who are religious without having any substance to back it up.
Organised humanism is as pretentious but most wouldn’t notice it.[/quote]
Anybody or group can be pretentious; religion being pretentious is serious because it has led to so many injustices.
I agree we should have some humility, but not to the point where we lose confidence in our ability to reason.
The amazing thing about this forum is how often what I write is presented as the complete opposite of what I actually wrote. I did not say that at all. What I said was ‘Hey anyone wanting to challenge the resurrection claim, let me help you out by presenting the most commonly cited and referred to arguments by atheists’. I then said I wasn’t going to post the same convenient kind of list for the opposing side. As I should have predicted, making a post which was so obviously biased towards helping the atheists, has resulted in the claim that I am making unrealistic demands on them. It’s like ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ in here.
I did not urge anyone to become familiar with the evidence and cite it accordingly, then attempt to disprove that evidence. I didn’t urge anyone to become familiar with the evidence at all. I simply gave the atheists a nice long list of articles well respected in the atheist community as presenting the best arguments against the resurrection. For this, you complain? 
[/quote]
I am just surprised that you - Forumosa’s very own biblical scholar extraordinaire - initiated the thread, clarified the rules of engagement and, yes, went to the unprecedented step of equipping the enemy for battle and then forthrightly offered not a single argument for the proof of anything. :aiyo:
Surely, Christianity’s existence relies on the claim that it is, in some sense, ‘true’. Yet we seem to have reached a point where its proponents cannot - for whatever reason - articulate this publicly. And with mainline Protestantism continuing its decline I cannot help wondering if there is connection. Today, the growth in Christianity seems to be largely with the Pentecostalists - who are willing to state their ‘truth’ very explicitly.
Instead,
[quote=“antarcticbeech”]I am just surprised that you - Forumosa’s very own biblical scholar extraordinaire - initiated the thread, clarified the rules of engagement and, yes, went to the unprecedented step of equipping the enemy for battle and then forthrightly offered not a single argument for the proof of anything. :aiyo: [/quote] I can’t read the man’s mind, but one possiblity among a range of them is that he has shaken the dust off his feet, so to speak (or at least temporarily). But again, I can’t read his mind.
Anyway, this looks to me to be rather a meta-type thread. I don’t think we’ve really been discussing the resurrection vel non here. And maybe most of the threads on the board are really meta-type threads, 'cept maybe the ones about gigs, or sour cream, or Costco, or how to soundproof your apartment or get an APRC, or stuff like that.
At the severe risk of putting words in Fortigurn’s mind, it seems to me he was motivated in starting this thread by suggestions that arguments against religion were not being given a fair shake here.
Also I think he does make a fine explanation of his position here:
At the severe risk of putting words in Fortigurn’s mind, it seems to me he was motivated in starting this thread by suggestions that arguments against religion were not being given a fair shake here.
Also I think he does make a fine explanation of his position here:
viewtopic.php?f=121&t=98137&start=110#p1289867[/quote]
Yikes, sorry, I edited before I saw your post, to add “or at least temporarily” (about the dust-shaking part), and some other stuff about meta-type threads.
I agree he states his case well in the post you linked to.
He also warned in the title that it’s a free-for-all. In a free-for-all, a participant is free to remove to a relatively uneventful area of the thing and watch everyone else have at it, which is what I thought he originally had in mind anyway.
You shouldn’t be surprised, because I have already said on this forum that [url=The Easter/resurrection rumble thread [warning: this is a free for all] - #117 by Fortigurn would not say there is proof of the resurrection[/url]. I can’t offer proof of that for which there is no proof, that’s completely illogical. Furthermore, the only evidence which can be presented is no longer Popper falsifiable, and therefore has extremely limited use in the establishment of the claim. In any case, all any atheist has to do when any evidence is presented is say ‘But I don’t believe that’, and that’s the end of the discussion as far as they’re concerned.
Since atheists are already as predisposed against belief in the supernatural as Christians are to belief in it, it doesn’t matter if I can demonstrate that Jesus really lived, really died, was really buried, and the tomb was really empty; for the atheist there is always an explanation for the empty tomb which has more credible explanatory power than a supernatural event. This is why there’s also some truth in what Charlie Jack says; I see only diminishing returns in trying to make a case for the resurrection here, and since I am not here to convert anyone anyway, I’m not particularly interested in posing pages of reasons to believe it took place.
Certainly it can be articulated publicly, it just can’t be proved. Furthermore, mainstream Protestant theologians are at the forefront of articulating it; Craig, Wright, Witherington, Habermas, Dunn, Bauckham, Keener, to name some of the most prominent Protestant defenders in recent times.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”]At the severe risk of putting words in Fortigurn’s mind, it seems to me he was motivated in starting this thread by suggestions that arguments against religion were not being given a fair shake here.
Also I think he does make a fine explanation of his position here:
viewtopic.php?f=121&t=98137&start=110#p1289867[/quote]
Correct, thank you TG. 
[quote=“Fortigurn”]
You shouldn’t be surprised, because I have already said on this forum that [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/the-easter-resurrection-rumble-thread-warning-this-is-a-free-for-all/64595/117 would not say there is proof of the resurrection[/url]. I can’t offer proof of that for which there is no proof, that’s completely illogical.[/quote]
Honestly, do you believe it happened because it’s in the Bible? Are there things in the Bible that you don’t believe?
[quote=“Fortigurn”]
Furthermore, the only evidence which can be presented is no longer Popper falsifiable, and therefore has extremely limited use in the establishment of the claim. In any case, all any atheist has to do when any evidence is presented is say ‘But I don’t believe that’, and that’s the end of the discussion as far as they’re concerned. [/quote]
No, atheists base their belief on empirical evidence and reason. They don’t dismiss things that are empirical or rational with ‘But I don’t believe that’. At least they shouldn’t. I am taking about a fair representative of atheist thought.
I have already explained why I believe it, in some detail.
If you mean ‘Are there things in the Bible that according to the Bible I am meant to believe but don’t believe’, the answer is no.
Not all atheists, no. There are many atheists who are simply fundamentalists who have deconverted; they remain fundamentalist in their thought processes. But in any case, that doesn’t contradict what I said. Do you know what ‘Popper falsifiable’ means?
I didn’t say they did. Please look up ‘Karl Popper’ and 'Falsifiability.
Ok great, so can you understand that the way you phrased it originally just doesn’t sound like that?
Yes, I did misinterpret you, as I’ve said. Sorry about that.
I know that, but you still agree with me that these are illegitimate arguments in favour of personal belief, right?
It’s a statement of proposed cause and effect; thus premise and conclusion. I don’t understand why you’re trying to deny the logical form of your argument. It doesn’t invalidate your argument.
Well let’s read what I wrote:
- ‘Of course people don’t believe in the resurrection just because it says so in the Bible. There are a host of other factors involved;’
No, clearly I’m not saying that.
I didn’t say it was a statement of logical proof. I was pointing out that if used as a justification of personal belief it is logically invalid. Incredibly, you keep disagreeing with me over this, even though I know you actually agree.
Yes all societies have unwritten social rules. To ask my question again, in which society does the rule ‘if you want to disagree with any of this on intellectual grounds, you have to do so in a way that doesn’t offend or disrespect those who do agree’ prevail? It certainly doesn’t prevail in the US, or UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. In certain social situations it is considered polite to avoid controversy on sex/religion/politics (such as at a dinner party), but other than that it’s perfectly clear that atheists and other critics of religion are experiencing absolutely no difficulty in disagreeing with religious people whilst being deliberately offensive and disrespectful to those who don’t agree.
Of course it isn’t. I’m just pointing out that the way you phrased your statements originally was completely ambiguous and highly misleading. If I say ‘Christ rose from the dead because it says so in the Bible’, do you seriously think anyone is going to interpret me as saying ‘Christ didn’t rise from the dead, even though it says so in the Bible’, or ‘People who aren’t me believe Christ rose from the dead because it says so in the Bible; they don’t believe it for rational reasons, it’s a matter of social influence’? It’s not up to me to dictate how you should phrase your statements, but if you want to be understood then it is up to you to phrase your statements with as little ambiguity as possible.
Please look up 'syllogism. Any statement taking the form ‘X therefore Y’ is a statement with a premise and a conclusion; a syllogism is a logical statement with two premises and a conclusion, yours were statements with one premise and a conclusion. I have no idea why you are trying to deny the logical form of the statements you made, it doesn’t detract from their force at all.
Of course you were making an argument. Your argument was ‘These are the reasons why people believe’. Each of your statements is also an argument; an argument is a process of reasoning to assert a fact, and all of those qualify (‘X because Y’).
bob your sympathy for those you depict in these terms has never been in question. If when telling people they are nutcases suffering from a serious delusion are successful in convincing people that you are sympathetic, determined, and principled, and they respond positively, then more power to you. I have not lumped you in with the atheists by the way.
I have already explained why I believe it, in some detail.[/quote]
Thanks for a clear, simple answer!
[quote=“Fortigurn”]
If you mean ‘Are there things in the Bible that according to the Bible I am meant to believe but don’t believe’, the answer is no.[/quote]
So, do you believe in Noah’s ark and the flood, the parting of the Red Sea? Are there asterisks that lead you to a text that says, “This part of the Bible is allegorical.” or do you decide which part to believe literally by yourself?
[quote=“Fortigurn”]
Not all atheists, no. There are many atheists who are simply fundamentalists who have deconverted; they remain fundamentalist in their thought processes. But in any case, that doesn’t contradict what I said. Do you know what ‘Popper falsifiable’ means?[/quote]
Well, all the atheist arguments against the existence of God that I am aware of are based on empiricism and reason. So this assumption that God probably does not exist because there is no direct physical evidence of him could be falsified by showing direct physical evidence of God. Then, atheists would say, “Wow!” and not “I don’t believe that”, IMHO.
[quote=“Fortigurn”]
I didn’t say they did. Please look up ‘Karl Popper’ and 'Falsifiability.[/quote]
Please try to make your own points without asking people to go read other people’s writings, OK?
You said that atheists just say “But I don’t believe that” to things they don’t agree with. If that is not your meaning, please find the original post you made this remark in and give a simple clear statement of what you actually meant.
Regarding your other points (for some reason they got chopped off when I tried to quote them), I will just say this:
I know what a syllogism, a premise, and a conclusion are. They are formal terms for logical argumentation.
I was not making a formal logical argument: I was making a series of statements that were somewhat interrelated. Take them as that, and nothing else.
[quote=“BigJohn”]
I was not making a formal logical argument: I was making a series of statements that were somewhat interrelated. Take them as that, and nothing else.[/quote]
Oh knock it off already, you were not.
You were stating opinions to support your position.
Even though you worded them as statements, they were still opinions.
I can say “I look like Sam fucking Elliot” until the cows come home, that doesn’t make it true.
bob your sympathy for those you depict in these terms has never been in question. If when telling people they are nutcases suffering from a serious delusion are successful in convincing people that you are sympathetic, determined, and principled, and they respond positively, then more power to you. I have not lumped you in with the atheists by the way.[/quote]
You did misquote me though, and in away that misrepresnted my tone. What I said was this…
bob, I didn’t even quote you, let alone misquote you.
You’re welcome. Since I gave it previously, and someone else linked to it, and I then linked to it again, I didn’t see the need to repeat it.
Yes. There’s empirical evidence for the first two, and the parting of the Red Sea is demonstrably plausible.
I have been through this in considerable detail on this forum, many times. I had an extended discussion on this very subject in another thread; see [url-A Fire-side Reading of Dawkins' Hate Mail - #75 by Fortigurn for example:
There are standard, established principles of interpretation (hermeneutics), which are applied when approaching any text (religious or otherwise), from which the reader is geographically, socio-culturally, theologically, chronologically, and historically isolated. You can find an overview of how them here. These are applied virtually universally in academia. It is not a matter of me picking and choosing what I want to believe, or anyone else picking and choosing what’s literal and what isn’t. It’s a matter of following these established principles.
My first step when analyzing a passage is to follow what is referred to as the ‘hermeneutical spiral’, and in the process of doing so I naturally check what has been written in the relevant scholarly literature on the subject; I don’t assume that my personal, insufficiently informed and amateur opinion is valid, I check what has been said by those who are professionally qualified.
That’s good.
That would be lovely. Unfortunately, as I have said more than once, there is no proof of God’s existence; thus the positive claim is unfalsifiable, so the negative claim (‘God probably does not exist’), cannot be proved untrue either.
Good grief. Ok, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:
- Falsifiability is the test which Karl Popper established to test whether or not a proposition or hypothesis is scientific; that is, whether or not it is following the scientific method (this does not say anything about whether or not they are true)
- Falsifiability refers to whether or not the proposition or hypothesis can be proved false (‘falsified’), even hypothetically
- If the proposition or hypothesis cannot be proved false (even hypothetically), it is not being made according to the scientific method; it is not a ‘scientific’ proposition or hypothesis
- Using this method, certain disciplines claiming scientific respectability (homeopathy, astrology, etc), are demonstrated to be non-scientific, in contradiction of the claims of their supporters
- Statements which are not falsifiable cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be verified; this does not say anything about whether or not they are true, it only shows that they cannot be proved true (where ‘true’ here means ‘validated’, or ‘consistently resistant to falsification’, that is, repeatedly overcoming attempts to prove them false)
No I didn’t. Please read what I actually said:
As I went on to explain:
Surely you wouldn’t disagree with that?
You changed what I said and put and quotes around it. Is that not a misquote? Seems to me a lot like a misquote.
bob, unless I attribute it to you then I am not quoting or misquoting you. If it’s not attributed to you, and it’s clearly not what you wrote, then that’s not a misquote. That’s simply me writing something you didn’t write.
So we have an atheist, a humanist and a christian sitting in a bar.
The humanist considers himself very intelligent but he hasn’t read anything on his subject and can not comprehend that he appears slightly uneducated to others due to his ignorance. Please save my family from your saving, they don’t need your rubbish.
The atheist and the christian are engaged in solid conversation but it is turning a little semantic don’t you think?
If the atheist was not making a formal logical argument, why is he questioning the logic of the christian?
Another beer?
[quote=“the chief”][quote=“BigJohn”]
I was not making a formal logical argument: I was making a series of statements that were somewhat interrelated. Take them as that, and nothing else.[/quote]
Oh knock it off already, you were not.
You were stating opinions to support your position.
Even though you worded them as statements, they were still opinions.
I can say “I look like Sam fucking Elliot” until the cows come home, that doesn’t make it true.[/quote]
No, I was not making an argument. Sorry if that was the impression I gave everybody. I was simply stating a position, I was not supporting them in any way, except in as much as some of them interrelated. For example, “The Bible is the Holy Book because people say it is” and “Christ rose from the dead because it said so in the Bible”. Those are obviously connected. I did not offer evidence or logical proofs. I asserted things. That is very different from an argument.
I was simply stating a set of ideas that I personally believe have some value, in order to get the pot boiling. If you don’t believe me, then too bad.
[quote=“Fortigurn”]
Good grief. Ok, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:
- Falsifiability is the test which Karl Popper established to test whether or not a proposition or hypothesis is scientific; that is, whether or not it is following the scientific method (this does not say anything about whether or not they are true)
- Falsifiability refers to whether or not the proposition or hypothesis can be proved false (‘falsified’), even hypothetically
- If the proposition or hypothesis cannot be proved false (even hypothetically), it is not being made according to the scientific method; it is not a ‘scientific’ proposition or hypothesis
- Using this method, certain disciplines claiming scientific respectability (homeopathy, astrology, etc), are demonstrated to be non-scientific, in contradiction of the claims of their supporters
- Statements which are not falsifiable cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be verified; this does not say anything about whether or not they are true, it only shows that they cannot be proved true (where ‘true’ here means ‘validated’, or ‘consistently resistant to falsification’, that is, repeatedly overcoming attempts to prove them false)[/quote]
I was asking you to make a clear statement about how falsifiability relates to your argument, if you even have one, buried in all your references.
Can’t you make a clear, simple statement, without always referring to something or someone or somewhere else?