Burden of Proof is on Atheists

[9-10ths_Penguin]

see my point @9-10ths_Penguin
Usually atheist don’t like to explain what they mean by evidence.

I told you I do consider the historical documents in the new testament as evidence for the resurrection .

It is your turn to explain, why is it that you don’t consider them evidence……………….. what do you mean by evidence (in the context of events that happened in the past) and why is it that the NT fisl to be evidence?

Out of curiosity: why do you consider the New Testament to be a "historical document" about the resurrection?

I mean, look at how the narrative developed:

• in the original short version of Mark, it ends on a down note: the tomb is empty and the disciples are all just confused and afraid.
• the later the date of the document, the more elaborate the story of Jesus's death: with the later accounts, there get added more and more mythic and fantastical elements.
• Finally, by the time we get to the latest account, John, we get a very elaborate account with things that would have been hard for an observer at the time to miss: a giant earthquake, the temple curtain ripped in two, the zombie invasion of Jerusalem, etc., etc.

Generally, when a story snowballs like this in the retelling, we don't take those added embellishments - e.g. the Resurrection - as reliable.

In the original version, all we have is that the tomb is empty and the disciples don't know why. Why aren't you just going with that account?

 

[KWED]

All I am asking is for a method / criteria that would allow me to test if something would count as evidence or not

Information that can be repeatably verified and tested through a source or process independent of the original claim.

 

[KWED]

No that is a subjective interpretation. (which is ok and good enough for me) but apparently you have problems with subjective interpretations.

The actual nature of living stegosaurs is a matter of subjective interpretation. The fact that a large animal with dorsal plates that we call a "stegosaurus" existed several million years ago is an objective fact.

 

[KWED]

Interpretations, explanations , conclusions, etc are subjective

So the conclusion that if you ad 2 and two you will get four is subjective?

This is how science works

You have repeatedly demonstrated that you have no idea how science works.

 

[KWED]

ok so testimonies count as strong evindce if:

The strength depends on the nature of the claim and the verification.

1 other independent testimonies confirm the same thing

Yes, that contributes to its strength

2 its consistent with current knowledge

Yes

3 has explanatory power

Only if the explanation is effective and reasonable ("Elves ate my homework" has explanatory power, but it is not a reasonable explanation)

4 has explanatory scope

Huh?

5 the one who is making the testimony has nothing to win by lying

Meaningless and unverifiable.

6 the guy making the testimony claims to be sure

Nope.

So if a testimony has all (or most of these 6 points) we can call it strong evidence, if a testimony fails at most of this points, we can call it week evidence.(but still evidence in ether case)

No.
1 and 2 are essential for a testimony to be considered as evidence. 3 helps if it is reasonable. 4, 5 and 6 are irrelevant.

But in general all testimonies count as evidence, (just not strong evidence in all the cases)

So you accept that there is evidence that I had sex with your mum.

 

[KWED]

I like to define evidence as “anything that makes a specific proposition more likely to be true, than without such thing”

For example X is evidence for Y if the existence of X makes Y more likely to be true than without “X”

So what is the evidence for the resurrection that makes an actual resurrection more likely than a myth or superstition?

 

[KWED]

explain why the FT arguments fails to be evidence.

"Argument for" and "evidence for" are not synonymous.

The fine tuning argument is basically just the argument from personal incredulity.

 

[Sheldon]

So you are claiming that the accounts of the resurrection in the gospels is "objective evidence"?

I doubt he even knows there are differing accounts of it in the NT. He claimed yesterday that Paul was a contemporary eye witness, when I asked if he knew Paul didn't know Jesus and had never met him, he rather predictably failed to answer me.

 

[KWED]

We have multiple independent testimonies for the resurrection (+ an empty tomb) this includes testimonies form skeptics, non believers, and even groups of people.

No you don't. You only have the accounts recorded in the Bible. That counts as one, partisan source.

If I wrote in my diary that myself and a load of other people (whose accounts cannot be independently verified) saw a unicorn, would you take that as several independent accounts? Of course not.

This makes “hallucinations” an unlikely and insufficient explanation. …..Unlikely because it´s unlikely (nearly impossible) for multiple people to have the same hallucination at the same time.
And insufficient because hallucinations would not explain the empty tomb

Where is the evidence for an empty tomb? Remember that the accounts in the bible are just unsupported claims from a partisan source with a vested interest in propagating the supernatural aspect of the story.

nor the belief in the resurrection.

Lies are also unlikely , early Christians where persecuted and died in the name of the resurrection, (this means that they were not trying to fool anyone, they honestly believed in the resurrection) besides this wouldn’t explain the empty tomb ether.

As for the resurrection well if God exist then miracles and resurrection would not be “very unlikely”

Even if we assume agnosticism (perhaps God exist perhaps not 50% probability) the resurrection seems to be the best explanation.

So it seems to me that resurrections are very unlikely (less likely than hallucinations or lies)only if the existence of God is unlikely.

And if something is the “best explanation” then it qualifies as “compelling evidence”

Please let me know your thought on this.

The problem you have here is that you are repeatedly question begging.
You are trying to show that the resurrection account is true, so you can't use the resurrection account as evidence for itself. You need something else, external to and independent of the resurrection account.

"How do you explain the resurrection account if it is true" is an utterly meaningless argument.

The point that I am making is that even if you are an agnostic, the resurrection is the best explanation.

If you really believe that the "best explanation" for an ancient myth story that requires the impossible is that it must have actually happened, you are beyond reason and help.
Any explanation that does not require an actually, properly dead person coming back to life by unexplained magic is "better" than the magic explanation.
To return to the lost keys analogy, we don't have to provide any evidence for what actually happened to the keys in order to reasonably dismiss the "stolen by elves" explanation.

 

[KWED]

How would I know if the fossils are authentic and not frauds? How would I know that there are no other explanations for how the “bone-like” things got there?

So presumably you dismiss the Bible as a fraudulent concoction. After all, you have no evidence that it isn't.

 

[Sheldon]

"Argument for" and "evidence for" are not synonymous.

The fine tuning argument is basically just the argument from personal incredulity.

People who use these argument use words like probability and have no understanding of it. Even calculating basic odds escape some of them in my experience. No shame there, as these things can often be counterintuitive, but that means making sweeping claims is something one should avoid.

Take this example.

There are 3 doors and behind 1 is a prize.

You have to choose and pick door 1.

Then you answer a question correctly, which means you can take away one of the empty doors, and so door 2 is removed.

You're left with door 1 and door 3.

You're now offered the option to change from your original choice (door 1) to door 3.

Now the question - Would changing increase your chances of winning the prize?

A lot of people get this one wrong. It's also a clue why stats are so easy to misrepresent, even without using a blatant lie.

For instance it is a fact that a smoker is less likely to develop lung cancer than they are to develop it. It seems wrong, but of course isn't. A lot less likely in fact.

 

[KWED]

That is no straw man.
Many atheists claim that the 93% of people in the world who believe in God are all crazy.
It is patently illogical to say they 93% of people in the world who are believers are ALL CRAZY as atheists claim that believers are.

Love how you say that you are not attacking a straw man, an then immediately attack a straw man.
You are cleraly struggling to understand what is going on here.

 

[KWED]

Yes I do believe that the evidence for Christianity is better than the evidence for any other religion,

And coincidentally, the apologists of other religions think their evidence is better than yours, with just as much conviction.
By the arguments you have been using here, we must accept that their belief is at least as true as yours, otherwise they wouldn't believe it.

specifically the evidence for the resurrection

There is zero evidence for the resurrection. All you have managed to produce are the (conflicting) accounts of the resurrection in the Bible.
If you claim that an account of something in a book is evidence that it actually happened, you have some serious cognitive issues.

 

[KWED]

For instance it is a fact that a smoker is less likely to develop lung cancer than they are to develop it. It seems wrong, but of course isn't. A lot less likely in fact.

On any given day, more non-smokers die than smokers. Therefore if you are a smoker you are less likely to die. QED.

 

[KWED]

I have a hierchy

I don’t see why the opinion of evolutionary biologists, zoologists, etc., there is nothing that contradicts the existence of a big ape with big feet..

"Bigfoot" isn't just an ape with big feet. It is something that doesn't correspond to any primate taxonomy. Also, there are no large primates in North America, so such a sighting would be questionable, even if it was just a large ape.

It depends on the testimony , if she says that she saw a distant shadow that moreless lookes like a big ape, her testimony won’t count much
If she directly saw the ape, and even played with it, her testimony would be much stronger

Actually, it is the other way around. A vague sighting of something that could have been something else is fairly reasonable and as such her testimony would be accepted for what it was (not much).
The claims of close interaction with a hitherto unknown species would be highly suspect.

If other independent witnesses where there and testified the same thing then the testimony would be much stronger to a degree of nearly 100% certainty

Independent witnesses (ie. people not know to granny and with a different vantage point) would certainly add weight to the claim. But if the claim was for something that would call into question well-established knowledge, it would still need more than a few people claiming to have seen "something in the woods".

Its all about probabilities
1 the probability that there is a big ape in the forest (and my grand ma saw it)
2 vs the probability that she is having hallucinations.

It is more probable that granny imagined it, hallucinated, or was simply mistaken than the actual existence of a completely new, large species that flummoxes science, found in a region that has long been well explored and surveyed.

It´s hard to put objective numbers to each of these probabilities, but at least intuitively one can tell which probability is higher.
If she saw an ape, played with him and other people saw the same thing, then 1 woudl be more likely than 2.
If she saw a distant shadow, that moreless looked like an ape, then 1 would seem more likely.

It is somewhat disingenuous to liken finding Bigfoot to coming across a supposedly extinct bear, or something.

 

[KWED]

Can I offer a thought here blu 2, I hope it is not too rude.

I see God has given a meaningful definition, we can not be judged for our response to God, if there is no meaningful definition.

You are correct God in Essence is far beyond our comprehension, as such God has allowed the Attributes to permate creation and for us to know of them. They are manifested in a Human Temple.

Thus the attributes are what define God for us and it is the Messenger that is the embodiment of those Attributes. They are known as the 'Self of God'amongst us. The only way we have come to know God is via the Messenger who was endowed with that capacity. That capacity, which is within all of us is manifested only via Faith, with faith we can embrace those attributes and in turn reflect them into this creation.

I personally see we must use our rational soul to connect to this Spirit and it is via this connection we can become one people. Jesus offered to the world we must be born again from the flesh into the Spirit.

Thus that is the meaningful reality of God, trust and faith in the Messenger that has been sent by God, to guide us in our actions.

Regards Tony

I understand the meaning of all the words you used there, but not in the order you used them.

 

[KWED]

A Messenger is not a theist,

I think they are. Let's check...
Theist: A person who believes in the existence of a god or gods, specifically of a creator who intervenes in the universe. (OED)
Yep.

they are God.

So you think Abraham and Jesus and Bahaullah are gods?
Yikes. I thought Bahai's were monotheists.

 

[KWED]

@KWED
Irrelevant
If someone is willing to die for jesus and the truth resurrection, then this person likely belives in the resurrection.
That is all i am saying.

I am not sure of what that actually means. How would someone "die for Jesus and the resurrection". Their death would not change the event in any way, so what would it achieve?
Are you claiming that if the resurrection did not happen, if enough people willingly die "for it", it becomes true?

 

[KWED]

Doesn't that mean that to talk about God is not to know what you're talking about?

It always puzzles me that religionists claim to accurately know god's intentions and expectations and even emotional state - until you ask them to think beyond dogmatic platitudes, when suddenly "we can never hope to understand the mind of god".

 

[KWED]

What he's saying is flying right over yall's heads. It's a weird thing watching people that are so certain of their position that they really just cannot see any other. Like it's completely invisible.

Au contraire. I can see other people's positions quite clearly. That's how I can explain that they are flawed.