The Resurrection is it provable?

[Sheldon]

I don't believe so. The eyewitnesses writing about it are the closest thing to history.

There are no eyewitnesses writing about it, even the earliest written records we have are decades after the events they claim to describe, they are also anonymous, thus they are unevidenced hearsay. They are nowhere near satisfying the criteria required to be regarded as historical record, let alone historical fact.

The gospel authors are not known for a start, and the name Mathew Mark Luke and John, were fictitiously assigned later, centuries later.

 

[Sheldon]

I don't believe you are a reliable source. The Bible is the most trustworthy book I know.

You trust the disproven hokum of astrology, even after NASA entirely exposed it as nonsense, so to any objective observer, you're in no position to question anyone else's reliability as a source.

The bible is manifestly a human production, and filled with the ignorance, prejudice, and errancy of humans of the epoch from which it originates.

 

[Sheldon]

I believe those are apparent contradictions. At any event Mohammed was not an eyewitness.

Neither were you ironically, but who cares, the simple fact is no one can claim to know for sure Jesus existed at all, and even were one to accept that he did exist, no one can know what he did or did not say or do.

 

[Sheldon]

No, because I know that his arguments have been refuted. Any person that debates rationally and honestly will admit to this.

Christopher Hitchens tore WLC apart, I'm still stunned he has the temerity to pretend he can debate anything.

 

[Sheldon]

Because I demonstrated that it was so. But as usual when you know that you are wrong you use the ostrich defense. That happens to a lot of people with strong irrational beliefs. It is also why others will call you dishonest, not that you necessarily are so. Cognitive dissonance can be a very strong force in a person's life. I see a lot with guys or girls whose partner is cheating on them. They will rather do anything than admit that the evidence everyone else can see is true. It does not make them a liar when they defend their loved one, it just makes them a bit pathetic.

Well here's a corker:

WLC's 8 reasons for god:

"Reason no 1. God is the best explanation (goddidit has no explanatory powers fail 1) why anything at all exists (begging the question fallacy, he assumes there is a why fail 2)
A question we can all ask is ‘Why does anything at all exist?’ Here, Craig asserts that the existence of the universe wasn’t necessary – it didn’t have to exist. (begging the question fallacy, he assumes this based on what exactly? fail 3) So, he says, (i) it must have an explanation for its existence that (ii) itself needs no explanation. Are these true?" (circular reasoning fallacy, since his demands assume his premise. fail 4)

This typifies WLC's rationale.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again if you think that an argument fails because we “don’t know for sure” that the premises are correct, then we simply disagree on semantics, my understanding of a failed argument is not the same as yours.

People are not liars nor idiots just because they are not as strict as you are.



Says who? Besides this is just semantics, you don’t have to label the argument as a logical argument is you don’t want.

Okay, so you do not know what a ;logical argument is. In fact it appears from your discussion with @It Aint Necessarily So and me that you have no understanding of logic at all.

How do you expect to argue when you don't have a cluse a to how it is done?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Christopher Hitchens tore WLC apart, I'm still stunned he has the temerity to pretend he can debate anything.

Just about everybody tore him apart. He is as clueless as he is smarmy. Unfortunately his smarminess is misinterpreted as confidence by others that do not understand the basics logic.

I guess the weak in faith need something to hold onto. Many theists think that being strong in faith is believing all of the nonsense in one's book of myths no matter what arguments are brought against it. That is actually a rather weak faith. It is on that states:

God has to be as I imagine him to be or he does not exist and I cannot bear that.

The strong in faith will keep a belief in God even if some of his basic ideas about him are shown to be wrong.

If you demand that the Earth is flat, that there was a giant magical boat, if you insist upon the Adam and Eve myth, the tower of Babel myth, the Exodus myth or many other myths in the Bible your faith is weak.

 

[Sheldon]

Okay, so you do not know what a ;logical argument is. In fact it appears from your discussion with @It Aint Necessarily So and me that you have no understanding of logic at all.

How do you expect to argue when you don't have a cluse a to how it is done?

A lot of theists on here use the word logic in a rhetorical fashion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well here's a corker:

WLC's 8 reasons for god:

"Reason no 1. God is the best explanation (goddidit has no explanatory powers fail 1) why anything at all exists (begging the question fallacy, he assumes there is a why fail 2)
A question we can all ask is ‘Why does anything at all exist?’ Here, Craig asserts that the existence of the universe wasn’t necessary – it didn’t have to exist. (begging the question fallacy, he assumes this based on what exactly? fail 3) So, he says, (i) it must have an explanation for its existence that (ii) itself needs no explanation. Are these true?" (circular reasoning fallacy, since his demands assume his premise. fail 4)

This typifies WLC's rationale.

When WLC debates rational people put on boxing gloves for forehead protection:

 

[rational experiences]

In the beginning no earth no human existed.

Your opinions false.

In earth when the sun converted it...you weren't there.

Consciousness is exact. Even in human life if the body mind changes it cannot express what a healthier human can.

So you personally aware do not exist anywhere else.

Personal awareness is affected by everything else.

So conscious self. Explains ....space is. Flat plane. A body mass once in the non presence space is gone.

O bodies made space stretch.

As our space is totally filled in by gas mass water stretched oxygenated. Consciously we are aware in space.

Is how it's explained our mind effect.

Why O bodies are real. Our perception is not real.

Nuclear sun mass never a planet.
Asteroid sun mass evolution cooling of a sun.

Suns however doesn't evolve.

Mind condition effect.

The sun made sun holes first. Earths seam layers converted into dusts.

Is what body of god was saved in a Suns nuclear attack. Body of god

Body of god was theorised to status. No man is God. So human man stop looking back making false claims in natural history.

As no man was ever God. Or Gods body converted by sun as nuclear.

Pretty basic human thinking versus human liars. Who think for human status for human conditions only.

Which is brought into realisation. A human want for human built machines exist first before any machine was built.

Your exact warning.

Therefore cosmic mind changed by sun nuclear mass gave men the origin position of a metal...then machines to design before you took converted out of earths mass.

Mass is hence a preceding alien theme why you get tricked then die destroyed by its return.

As the suns mass tricked you by mind causes. Where you claim a machine existed before a human had.

Simply mass existed before you had.

And you certainly aren't mass. Cosmic history reactive energy.

 

[joelr]

I don't believe so. The eyewitnesses writing about it are the closest thing to history.

The Gospels are not eyewitnesses and so not claim to be. They start out with Kata - according to - which is how ancient literature named a source.
They are also copied from Mark who is the primary source.
Mark is writing fiction, there are several ways to tell, literary, plot, devices and sources.

 

[joelr]

I believe those are apparent contradictions. At any event Mohammed was not an eyewitness.

Yes, he had revelations from the OT angel Gabrielle. She updated Christianity. If you believe Abraham and Paul then Muhammad has just as good a claim.

 

[joelr]

Fisrt of all there is a Biiiiiiiiiig difference between

1 Creig is dishonest he makes false claims has been corrected and knowingly repeats those false claims, (which was your original accusation)

And

2 He is making an assumption that has not been proven with 100% certainty.(which is your current accusation)

So which one is it?

A video was done about WLC and his use of the
Kalam Cosmological Argument.
They brought in top physicists and showed clips of WLC, completely debunking him and showing how he lies.
We have assembled some of the world’s leading physicists and philosophers to reply to the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God (as presented in popular debates by the Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig). The argument says that everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause, which must be God. We show the flaws in this argument, featuring interviews we conducted with physicists Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Alan Guth, Carlo Rovelli, Alex Vilenkin, Niayesh Afshordi and many others as well as philosophers such as AW Moore (co-editor of the world's leading philosophy journal Mind), Oxford logician Daniel Isaacson, Cambridge philosopher Arif Ahmed, philosopher of science specialising in foundations of quantum mechanics Alastair Wilson, and Alex Malpass and Daniel Linford who have both published multiple articles on the Kalam in leading journals.

At 12:15 of this video Dr Carrier sums it up and says that WLC has been told this many times and he taylors his talks depending on the audience. He continues to lie to laymen, despite being told he's using the arguments wrong. To advanced audience he will not use his false material.

 

[leroy]

I think you misunderstand what the term non sequitur fallacy means. It refers to an argument with a piece missing that connects what came before the non sequitur with that idea

And your accusation is mistaken WLC does connect the cause of the universe with God......

No, we haven't seen that an infinite series of causes are impossible

Well 4 arguments where provided in the article, in support of that claim

. .

One cannot exist outside of time, since being in time is part of the definition of existence. Also, the idea of a creator being outside of time is incoherent, since creation, like existence and thought, require before and after states. First, no creation, then an act of creation, then the creation appears. Before and after. That's time.

What is incoherent about existing outside time ? Elaborate an argument

Do you disagree with any of that?

I disagree with the claim that it is incorrect to excist outside time

You read his words. Are you unsure what they meant? Don't they mean the same thing as the other examples of closed-mindedness I provided did? They all say that evidence cannot change their minds.

I dont think he meant that nothing, no amount of evidence would change his mind..... but if he did then I would simply join you and agree that he is a poor critical thinker.

Any naturalistic process that is not impossible is more likely that any supernatural one according to Occams Razor. It dispenses with gods and supernatural realms, which do not appear to be necessary or even helpful to explain reality. The empiricist can explain the belief in the resurrection without invoking either of those two. The creationist needs both.

Ok then pick a specific naturalistic process that explains the data.

And lets test it agains the resurrection hypothesis in terms of parsimony explanatory power explanatory scope plausibility etc....

So you believe the Bible's claims but not the Qur'an's because the latter doesn't have the same historical value to you? Not that it's relevant to evaluating extraordinary, supernatural claims, but I thought it had more history. Jesus was just a religious leader. We know little about his family or how he grew up. Mohammad established a religion AND military empire, and we are told about his wives, the government he established, and his succession. Even so, if you look closely, I'll bet you see that you really wouldn't have any grounds for believing one story but not the other. Your claim that the Bible has more historical value is irrelevant to the matter even if correct. It doesn't make the resurrection of Jesus likely and an analogous resurrection of Mohammad had the Qur'an also chosen to deify him with a larger-than-life story.

Well to be honest I am not well informed about the koran

I trust the New testament as a historical source because:
1 the authors where well informed and had access to good sources, we know this because most of the verifiable historical facts reported in NT are true


2 there intended was to report what actually happened, we know this because the NT is full of embarrassing details, anyone who intended to lie in order to promote an agenda would have ommit8those details.


if you show that the koran is has these 2 points I would accept it is as a valid historical source .

if a miracle in the koran is atested by multiple sources has explanatory power and explanatory scope, I would accept that there is good evidence for such miracle

I am being honest , I have no idea about the koran , the koran could pass or fail the test (so as any other holly book)

I don't think you're being arrogant, but I don't think I can make the argument any more clearly. Maybe this video, which makes the same argument, will help. Here we have a young Yahweh conversing with his mentor. It's really pretty informative video, but I've taken you to the part that covers what we're discussing here. Skip ahead to the nine minute mark (9:00):

The argument in the video is based on a false premise ..... nobody is claiming that God needs to FT the universe. God could have created a non FT universe it just happened to be the case that he descided to create a FT universe.


For example as an analogy, a video game programmer could FT his game such that if you change a single code , it would be impossible to save the princess. For example if you change the code such that Mario can jump 1% less than before , there would be obstacles impossible to overcome

Or he could create a game where it doesn't matter if you change the codes, there would always be a way to save the princess, the obstacles could be overcomed even if Mario can't jump as high as before

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Context please... did who meet the authors. Certainly today's scholars haven't met the authors.

Neither did the apologists you prefer.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

And your accusation is mistaken WLC does connect the cause of the universe with God

Craig's Kalam argument contains a non sequitur not rescued by looking elsewhere at what he said in other times and places. That is a fact, and you haven't rebutted it because you can't successfully rebut a correct statement.

What is incoherent about existing outside time ? Elaborate an argument

Imagine yourself existing outside of time. Are you conscious? Can you think or act? To exist is to be. "Be" has tenses - was, is, will be. To be conscious is to experience the theater of consciousness, of conscious phenomena parading by and evolving, coming into consciousness and going out again.

I don't think he meant that nothing, no amount of evidence would change his mind..... but if he did then I would simply join you and agree that he is a poor critical thinker.

I don't know why you don't think that's what Craig meant. You read his words. Were they unclear? Read them again. If the evidence ever appears to contradict what he believes the Holy Spirit has revealed to him, it means that he isn't interpreting the evidence correctly, that if he were to look at things in the right way that the evidence would actually confirm his faith-based beliefs:

"The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right."

What is truth to him, what the evidence suggests, or what he believes the Holy Spirit revealed to him? How does he decide if Christianity is true, by evidence or belief by faith? What will he decide if in some future date, evidence that proves he is wrong is shown to him? Will he believe the evidence or continue to believe what he believes by faith while waiting for that same evidence to someday confirm his beliefs? If this still isn't clear, then I don't know how to help you.

pick a specific naturalistic process that explains the data. And lets test it against the resurrection hypothesis in terms of parsimony explanatory power explanatory scope plausibility etc....

OK. I've already done this, but here's the answer I expect is most likely to be correct. A man died and a legend was borrowed from neighboring cultures to glorify that man in the effort to create and grow a new religion. That explains the scripture: it's a myth. It never happened. There was no resurrection. There might or might not have been an empty grave shown to people that may never have held Jesus. People believed this story to the point that some dedicated their lives to disseminating it, and some even died for it. This is a very parsimonious hypothesis. It doesn't even require that Jesus ever lived or was crucified. I only requires that that story was invented and appended to the story at some point. It completely explains the story, and it is quite plausible. I gave you examples of the same kind of deification happening in Korea and Japan even before death.

Your turn. Explain why resurrection is more likely than that. Explain why it is more likely that a supernatural entity, something we don't know exists, reversed biological death, something that we don't know is possible, than that nothing more extraordinary than a story being borrowed from a neighboring culture happened.

nobody is claiming that God needs to FT the universe.

That's what the fine tuning argument implies. It implies that there are values for the physical constants that reside within narrow limits that are necessary for a stable universe to evolve clusters of galaxies of solar systems where first life then mind can evolve.

 

[Sheldon]

A video was done about WLC and his use of the
Kalam Cosmological Argument.
They brought in top physicists and showed clips of WLC, completely debunking him and showing how he lies.
We have assembled some of the world’s leading physicists and philosophers to reply to the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God (as presented in popular debates by the Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig). The argument says that everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause, which must be God. We show the flaws in this argument, featuring interviews we conducted with physicists Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Alan Guth, Carlo Rovelli, Alex Vilenkin, Niayesh Afshordi and many others as well as philosophers such as AW Moore (co-editor of the world's leading philosophy journal Mind), Oxford logician Daniel Isaacson, Cambridge philosopher Arif Ahmed, philosopher of science specialising in foundations of quantum mechanics Alastair Wilson, and Alex Malpass and Daniel Linford who have both published multiple articles on the Kalam in leading journals.

At 12:15 of this video Dr Carrier sums it up and says that WLC has been told this many times and he taylors his talks depending on the audience. He continues to lie to laymen, despite being told he's using the arguments wrong. To advanced audience he will not use his false material.

That last video sums it up nicely, WLC is dishonest and misleads audiences who don't understand the science, then alters tack when he knows he's facing scientists with expertise, and they destroyed the Kalam argument, as the narrator says only gullible people use this first cause argument now, people who don't know that scientific knowledge has demonstrated it's nonsense.

 

[Sheldon]

Craig's Kalam argument contains a non sequitur not rescued by looking elsewhere at what he said in other times and places. That is a fact, and you haven't rebutted it because you can't successfully rebut a correct statement.

Is there where he leaps unevidenced from a first cause to a deity, or when he leaps unevidenced to the deity he believes in?

Craig doesn't seem to understand that not everything need necessarily have a cause, and this is particularly true before the big bang and the laws of physics would not have existed as we know them. He also seems not to have noticed that every single cause we have evidenced is a natural one, irony overload.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That last video sums it up nicely, WLC is dishonest and misleads audiences who don't understand the science, then alters tack when he knows he's facing scientists with expertise, and they destroyed the Kalam argument, as the narrator says only gullible people use this first cause argument now, people who don't know that scientific knowledge has demonstrated it's nonsense.

I swear that Willy has no respect for his audience at all. He is only interested in maintaining the belief of the gullible. When he speaks his smarmy attitude has become more and more obvious as he ages. It Is almost as if he is saying to himself "Hey Hitch! Look how bad these arguments are and they still eat it up".

 

[Sheldon]

I swear that Willy has no respect for his audience at all. He is only interested in maintaining the belief of the gullible. When he speaks his smarmy attitude has become more and more obvious as he ages. It Is almost as if he is saying to himself "Hey Hitch! Look how bad these arguments are and they still eat it up".

The few times I've been able to bear his smirking visage long enough to listen to his verbiage, he seems to be driven more by ego than any intellectual rationale. Imagine a teenage boy who's taken a couple of philosophy classes, and is trying to impress everyone.