leroy
Well-Known Member
This is my second reply to your long post………… I will only address that stuff that I am quoting.Violating the laws of physics is not known to occur. Claiming that it did once at a particular time and place with no better evidence than scripture is a non-starter. Citing that it can't be shown to be impossible isn't reason to believe that it occurred. As I explained, an alien abduction of Jesus can't be shown to be impossible, either, and we know that technological civilization and space travel are possible. If there were actually witnesses claiming to see a resurrection and they actually saw something that could be mistaken for one, and it wasn't an ancient David Copperfield's (magician) illusion, then alien abduction and resurrection both become more likely, but resurrection is always at the bottom of any list of candidate hypotheses for why those scriptures say what they say, because it violates the known laws of physics and requires the existence of gods and supernaturalism, both major violations of Occam's parsimony principle.
The evidence supports a naturalistic view of reality. There is none supporting supernaturalism beyond the bare, unfalsifiable claim that it exists, and the weak argument that it cannot be proved that it doesn't. Supernaturalists try to tell us that there may more to reality than nature, but that's not good enough. They still need evidence to support their claims, which they consider an unfair requirement. But this is what protects the critical thinker from collecting false and unfalsifiable beliefs like a belief in gods and supernaturalism. Once you do that, you use your reasoning faculty not to reason, but to rationalize. One engages in so-called motivated thinking, which leads one where he wants to go rather than to where the evidence points using fallacy-free (valid) reasoning.
Violating the laws of physics is not known to occur. Claiming
Well we are stock with that problem in any case, all the naturalistic explanations for the “bed rock facts” that have been proposed, involved things that have never been observed, so weather if you want to propose a natural explanation or a super natural explanation in either case you are stock with something extraordinary that has never been observed.
Why is the resurrection at the bottom of candidate hypothesis? , why don’t you provide such hypothesis and explain how is that better than a resurrectionbut resurrection is always at the bottom of any list of candidate hypotheses
Other alternative explanations also violate Occams,Razor, ¿do you have one in mind that doesn’t?because it violates the known laws of physics and requires the existence of gods and supernaturalism, both major violations of Occam's parsimony principle.
But even more important, O.R. is not the only nor the most important criteria to determine what is the best explanation.
What evidencie supports natrualism? (nature is all there is?)The evidence supports a naturalistic view of reality
Well if we have events that can´t be explain with known natural laws, the to propose a supernatural event is completely valid ………… this is true unless you provide good conclusive evidence for naturalism.There is none supporting supernaturalism beyond the bare, unfalsifiable claim that it exists, and the weak argument that it cannot be proved that it doesn't. Supernaturalists t
I am not sayigfn that one should immediately jump to “God did it”……….. but it shouldn’t be considered within your pool of possible explanations.
And usually evidence is provided.They still need evidence to support their claims,
In my experience theist usually don’t say …………“you can’t explain abiogenesis naturally therefore God did it”
But rather they would provide a series of arguments for why an intelligent designer is a better explanation than others.
We wont have a conversation on abiogenesis in this thread, all I am saying is that theist typically don’t appeal to the God of the Gaps fallacy that you seem to be claiming………… but rather we usually provide good testable and falsifiable arguments…………… you might claim that the arguments fail………….. but your God of the gaps accusation is not a fair accusation.
In the specific example of the resurection and using the OP as a start point.
Licona doesn’t say “we cant explan the bed rock facts” therefore God did it.
But rather he takes all the naturalistic explanations that have been proposed in the literature and he explains why a resurrecting is the best explanation according to commonly accepted criteria like, Explanatory Power, explanatory scope, predictive power etc.
I will add that the argument in the OP is falsifiable, new archeological discoveries are made every time, you could potentially find something that would falsify the argument in the OP, once again your accusation of the argument being unfalsifiable is an unfair accusation.
so in summery
1 correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be saying that *first* one has to show that miracles are possible, and then you would consider miracles as a potential alternative. (This type of thinking is demonstrably flawed)
2 your accusations of God of The Gaps and unfalisifiable arguments are unfair, (the OP nor Licona are guilty of those fallacies)
3 Any explanation (natural or not) for the bed rock facts involve something that has never been observed ……… and a violation to parsimony
4 parsimony is not the only nor the most important criteria for establishing the best explanation.
If you don’t explicitly disagree with this points, I will assume that you grant them