I reject the arbitrary distinction between 'actual' and 'potential' infinities. The concept is ill conceived. If you can have, and it's completely logically conceivable, to have an infinity of future events, it is acceptable to have had an infinity of past ones.
This is a misunderstanding of the concepts. If you can't count down from infinity to 1, then how can you count from 1 to infinity? If you can't reach infinity as a destination going foward, then you can't reach infinity as a destination moving backwards.
As far as the past of my birth, that is an event. It has a unique spacetime label. The events are ordered sure but all equally real. The event of my birth and the event of my death are 'equally real', and just 'as real' as the present events.
And if we imagine that the geneaology of your family is past infinite, and there were an infinite number of births which lead to your birth, so how would your birth ever come to past if an infinite number of births preceded it?? Makes no sense.
As far as the other Mormon claims, the issue is merely logical possibility since you seemed to say it is *logically impossible*. That means you need to show there is a logical incoherence in the very concept, and I don't think you've done that. Weirdness or implausibility doesn't do that.
But I did!! There is a infinity problem that you nor anyone else can reconcile, and that is the fact that the Mormon god was himself created by another god, and his god by another god, and so on and so forth, all the way back to eternity past. That is the problem, and the event of the Mormon god would not be reached if there were an infinite number of events which lead to his creation.
Now feel free to correct me if I am wrong in this regard, but if that is the case, then the Mormon god is based on something that cannot happen, which is the traversing of infinity. Now, if you can demonstrate how traversing infinity could happen, then you will make the entire case, but you nor anyone else can do this.
So you are basically saying that Joseph Smith saw something that could not logically exist, so therefore, he didn't see anything of the sort.
Why would an atheist find the typical Christian conception of God more or less likely than the Mormon one prima facie?
I've DEMONSTRATED why the Mormon god can not exist, can you (or the atheist) demonstrate why the Christian God cannot be said to exist?
Okay, suppose Paul saw Jesus in a 'spiritual form'. The problem for the argument is isn't it about the resurrection fo Jesus' dead body? If you make it about resurrection in a looser sense also, it will become even less motivating.
There is a distinction I was making there. Of course, the disciples claimed they saw Jesus' Resurrected body, and this is made clear in 1Cor 15:3-7. As far as Paul is concerned, the narrative of his conversion in Acts 9:1-20 doesn't necessarily imply that he saw Jesus' Resurrected body, but it does imply that Jesus spoke to him. So I can either conclude that the "light" that Paul saw in Acts 9 is ambiguous with him seeing Jesus in a manifested form of light, or that Jesus appeared to Paul bodily and that particular event wasn't recorded in the bible.
But the fact of the matter is, Paul claimed he saw Jesus, and as a former Christian skeptic and persecutor, there would have been no reason for him to turn to the faith and claim that he saw or heard anything if in fact he never saw or heard anything.
People see their dead relatives not infrequently it seems. At least I have heard such stories of so and so grandpa's coming back in spirit form to give some message. Now I do not think so and so's grandpa has come back. It seems to be a psychological thing that happens to some when they lose loved ones.
Yeah, and that is the point that I was making above, of course there are some psychological factors involved and not all cases are equal...BUT, according to the narratives, Jesus not only appeared to one person, but many people. Not just at one time, but MANY times. Not spiritually, but PHYSICALLY. Not only to believers, but skeptics as well. That is a big difference.
I suppose you'd have to show why I or anyone else ought to 'go by the narratives'. Why should I trust the events portrayed in Luke as written? The more details you ask people to accept, the more skeptical they ought to be.
Luke 1:1-4 states:
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught"
Sounds like someone is coming from the heart to me, and Luke was a physican of Paul, and Paul was a former Christian skeptic but converted and was in close fellowship with the ORIGINAL disciples.
I don't think there is any marvel in latter writings corroborating an earlier declaration of faith. That just suggests to me that the early movement survived to pass on its teachings.
True, but the point is 1 Corin 15:3-7 is early stuff...and most critics tend to want to harp on how long ago after the death of Jesus when the books were written, even though 40 years after the fact is not long in terms of contemporary (at the time) events. The point is the Resurrection story is a early, and not the result of lengendary crap that leaks in to the stories as centuries come and go.
