There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the New Testament

[Subduction Zone]

God is needed for us to have hope.
Logically if Jesus was prophesied about and did what was prophesied then that gives us a hope that was not there before and physical evidence is not needed.
If you say that physical evidence for God is needed then that shows what you want to deny, that you are a believer in scientism and think that God needs to be and can be shown to exist by science.
If you deny that a spirit God can be shown to exist by science then you are a hard line atheist.



I don't care if bigfoot or leprechauns exist. They are of no explanatory value and supply no hope for me.

Prove it. That sounds like another bogus irrational claim. And you have the burden of proof backwards. You have to prove that God exists. That was the point of the leprechauns and Bigfoot argument.

Also what "prophecies of Jesus"? I am unaware of any such prophecies. By the way there are rules about what even is a prophecy. Abusing your Bible by quote mining it does not count.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

God is needed for us to have hope.
Logically if Jesus was prophesied about and did what was prophesied then that gives us a hope that was not there before and physical evidence is not needed.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, perhaps because I have not been closely following the thread.

So, for example, when you say "God is needed for us," does 'us' refer to Christians, to theists, or to humans in general? One reason I ask is because, as a general proposition, the claim is neither true nor useful.

• For millennia, humankind imagined gods, not God, and generally viewed them as a capricious and quarrelsome lot. The only hope involved was a pervasive and persistent hope that one's particular gods were being properly housed, fed, and pacified such that they remained in a reasonably good mood.
• Also for millennia, humankind derived hope from all manner of amulets and incantations havin nothing to do with a particular god.
• And even if we accept the your God is needed for you to have hope, that no more substantiates the existence of your God than does the ancient and continuing 'need' for apotropaic devices substantiate the existence of a plethora of evil demons.

As for "if Jesus was prophesied about and did what was prophesied" that is a clearly debatable IF, and one very much dependent the prophesy, the source of the prophesy, and the date of the prophesy -- hence over 1,200 posts in this thread alone.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Quibbles about burden of proof are generally indicative, not of a debate, but of a spat.

 

[SkepticThinker]

How do you know that?...how do you know that say the author of Luke was not a witness?

Because he flat out says he isn't.

Given that most (if not all) of the verifiable data in the NT is true, we can conclude that the authors where well informed, ether because they were witnesses or because they had good sources, any of these 2 possibilities is good enough as a starting point for me

How do you claim to know that?

I mean, you just claimed that Luke is some sort of eyewitness when Luke himself tells us that he isn't.

Because we know that the authors where well informed, that is why we trust them…………if they happen to be witnesses that would be a nice (but not indispensable) bonus

You do not know that.

BTW.............How do you (and historians) know that Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia if none of his biographies where written by witnesses?

Evidence.
And if there isn't enough evidence, then we're not warranted in drawing any conclusions.

Answer: because being a witness is not deal breaker, a source could still be reliable even if it was not written by a witness. There are many other criteria that determine if a source is reliable or not

You've got nothing to show us that the gospels are reliable or "well informed" or eyewitness accounts.

 

[SkepticThinker]

But there is evidence for the supernatural in history.

There is evidence in history that people make and believe supernatural claims. Yes.

If there was evidence for "inter-dimensional space aliens" or "invisible pixies" in history then they should be considered.

Not unless there is evidence indicating their existence.

So the pertinent question is "Why dismiss human experience and history as evidence for the supernatural?"

Human beings have been making up stories for millennia. That doesn't make them real.

To say "I understand this thing" does not mean that you fully understand it and does not mean that you have gotten rid of a need for God with that particular thing.

You seem to have missed the point.

This was in response to, "And simply invoking "the Supernatural" itself has no explanatory power anyway. It doesn't tell you anything. It doesn't provide you with any additional information. It's just a placeholder to say "I don't understand this thing."

Instead of responding to this, you've answered a different question instead.

It sounds to me like you have a science of the gaps in your reality, and all the gaps in science that you have no scientific answer for are a placeholder for future science discoveries because your superstition is that it can all be understood naturalistically and even those things that we have no idea about, we can confidently invoke science to explain them some time maybe, but never the supernatural or God because you don't believe in them because science has not found them even if it is said that humans have experienced them.

It seems to me that you're massively projecting the flaws in your belief system onto me.

Show that God(s) are necessary for anything to work, explain how gods provide any explanatory power, and I'll believe it.
Until then, you're just inserting things into the equation that don't appear to be necessary and don't add any explanatory power to our understanding of the natural world.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is not an answer to the question.

It certainly is.

You've shown us yourself that faith is not a reliable pathway to truth, because anything can be believed on faith.
I've even pointed it out to you, every single time you've demonstrated that.

If I was a scientist and wanted God included in science then I would have to demonstrate that one exists.

Yep.

So the question is, why talk science in a religious forum, a forum about faith? Do you have faith in science? Do you think that we all should put our faith in science and forget about anything else?

We are currently in a forum called "General Religious Debates."
We are debating.

For the last time: I have no faith in science. There is no faith needed in science. The scientific method eschews faith in favour of evidence.
I really need you to understand this and stop projecting your religious faith onto others. I don't have any.

 

[Muffled]

LOL! And Hindus will claim that people can only claim Brahman as a foundation and Muslims will claim that only Allah can be a foundation. They have faith, you have faith. How would any of you show the others to be wrong? Muslims will tell you that Jesus was just a man. A prophet of God, but still just a man. Hindus may even say that Jesus is just a myth. They would not even say that he was a prophet.

I believe they would be wrong to say that about Jesus. All we have to go by are the words and where they came from. However Chistians in addition have the Holy Spirit as a guide.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe they would be wrong to say that about Jesus. All we have to go by are the words and where they came from. However Chistians in addition have the Holy Spirit as a guide.

Of course you would. But as we have seen you cannot justify any of your claims. I would be just as accurate as you if I said, "I believe that people are wrong when they say that the sky is blue. I have the true guide that tells me it is chartreuse."

You should try to make a rational argument for your beliefs. If you cannot do that you might as well make that claim about the sky too.

 

[Brian2]

Yes, I know.

This was in response to, "It's the same "faith" required to imagine that leprechauns aren't needed. There's just no evidence for it, so there's no reason to include lerpechauns in our explanations.
That's not faith."

You seem to have just repeated yourself, instead of considering and responding to what I've said to you.

There is no evidence that a creator was not needed. If you believe that a creator was not needed then that is a belief without evidence. If you want to call your creator a leprechaun then go ahead. If you want to say, like science does, that it is not known if there was a creator that is OK.

That's not taken on faith. It's taken on where the evidence leads.

I suppose the ocean vent theory is a possible place for the chemicals of life to have formed.
Life does seem to have begun in the oceans with plant like microbes.

But I do find it strange that you seem to believe that unless we can travel back in time, we can't know what happened in the past, but you also claim that everything in the Bible is true, as written, correct? How can you possibly know that unless you've travelled into the past?

I have a faith and I don't mind admitting that I believe stuff that I cannot prove. You otoh seem to want to believe stuff that you cannot prove and say that it is not faith.

Yes, I do. If you can detect them, science certainly should be able to.

OK so you now admit that you do have a faith, scientism. Why didn't you just say that?
But it is not humans that detect spirits, it is spirits that communicate with us.

It's your claim that some supernatural realm exists in which spirits reside, that needs demonstrating.

In science that needs demonstrating. Your whole post I guess is based on science and a belief in that as the only way. OK the faith of science. But neither you nor science can demonstrate that the experiences of people whom have been contacted by spirits are not true. Neither you nor science can show that the miracles which people claim to have experienced are not true. The experiences are evidence of the supernatural but science is a tool for analyzing the material universe.

There is nothing illogical about not including undetectable things in our explanations of how the world works. The illogical part would be claiming that said thing exists without any way whatsoever to demonstrate it.

Yes that is how science works. That is fine and I do not deny that. But to say that science is the only way to find out anything is just a faith, like a religious faith.

There is no leap of faith required to observe that gods and spirits do not appear to us in any way demonstrable or observable way.
When scientists observe how the water cycle works, for instance, they don't see gods and spirits tinkering with it. They see natural mechanisms at work. There is no need to invoke unseen and unexplained realms.

True, but not being able to see gods or spirits does not mean that they do not exist. IMO it means that science is limited in what it can do.

Everything we know to exist is demonstrable, measurable, detectable or observable in some way. That's how we know they're there in the first place. But you're claiming that you can detect some unobservable, unmeasurable, non-demonstrable and undetectable thing. You take a leap of faith to imagine that it's there, and then project that onto people who are not taking any leaps of faith.

You are talking about the material world again of course. God has demonstrated His power etc in creation and in Biblical prophecy and if you want to deny it then that is your problem, but as I said, you have a faith also, your materialism convinces you that you have some sort of right to deny the existence of the supernatural because you cannot see it in nature and do deny the fulfilled prophecies because someone has suggested that they must be lies and that suggestion is better than the supernatural answer. Your faith in materialism is OK but the supernatural has to be confirmed by your faith (science) before it can be believed. That might be the case for you, but not for me.

You're projecting your own thoughts, feelings, shortcomings, etc. onto others in an effort to defend your beliefs.

I have a faith and you also have a faith. It's easy to see that even if you don't want to admit it.

 

[Brian2]

This was in response to, "Why you think that "skeptics believe things that have not been proven" is beyond me. It sounds like projection, tbh.

There is no need for faith when you've got evidence.
This kind of faith is antithetical to the scientific method which is evidence-based."

It seems you've just repeated yourself again, instead of responding to what I've said in regards to the claim you keep repeating.

I mean, how you got "sounds like skeptics believing things that have not been proven" from what I said is beyond me. I specifically pointed out that we rely on evidence. And your comeback is, "that sounds like you believe in unproven things," which demonstrates you're not even reading what I'm typing to you.

Have you never heard from people on this forum, other sceptics, that science does not prove things.
With that in mind, we all believe things that have not been proven, including skeptics.
But for some reason you want to say that your scientific evidence is the only evidence that counts and any evidence that convinces me of the supernatural and the Bible and Jesus is unacceptable. But really it is just unacceptable to you, not to me.
You have your scientism but believe things that science cannot prove and I also believe things that science cannot prove but with no scientism.

For the umpteenth time, I don't claim "there is no god." I have no burden of proof.

You claim there is a god, which means you've got the burden of proof here, since you're the one making a claim.

You don't just get to claim you can detect undetectable things and imagine you and I are on the same footing here.

You do say that science should be able to detect God and the supernatural if they are real. If God is spirit, show me why science should be able to detect it. You need to prove your own faith to yourself then you can come and try to prove it to me. But you don't want to prove your faith to yourself. It is just something that you believe but deny is a faith. You cannot prove your faith but want me to prove my faith to you.
I have a faith that God and other spirits communicate with me but I cannot prove that and I cannot show it to you.

Demonstrating yet again, that faith is not a reliable pathway to truth, given that anything can be believed (or not believed) on faith.
Faith is useless to me.


This was in response to, "What you've shown us time and time again, is that faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have a good reason/evidence. Otherwise they'd just give the evidence. And therefore it is an unreliable pathway to truth, because anything can be believed on faith. You've confirmed this many times over in your posts. (I've pointed that out every time.)"

Your faith, that you cannot show to be true, is that science should be able to detect the supernatural by scientific methods. Your faith, without evidence, is useful to you in eliminating the need to seek God on His terms.

 

[Brian2]

My question is, why are people willing to believe in spirts without any proof that any supernatural realm exists at all?

I mean, we accept the existence of the natural world because it's here for us to observe, measure, test, etc. I daresay you accept that the natural world exists, correct?
We have no such thing for claims of anything supernatural. Just faith on the believer's part.

As I have said, humans have experienced the supernatural. That is not the sort of evidence that your faith requires, not that still is evidence.

 

[Brian2]

There's more reason to believe the accounts of the Gospel than
the accounts of Alexander the Great or Socrates. Far less time elapsed between Jesus and the gospel writing that when these people lived and
the writings we have of others about them.

I like the way Gary Habermas does that, getting rid of the little objections that we get hooked into and going to the important thing, the divinity, death and resurrection of Jesus and showing that they are very early historical data for the truth of the gospel message. (and this from someone who seem to think that the gospels were written late) Even the date of gospel writing seems to be something he does not get hung up on.
After years on forums like this it is easy to be overwhelmed with doubts about the gospel but it is great to be brought back to the truth of the basics. So thanks for posting that. I have listened to some of Gary Habermas over the years but now in my later years I am taking the time to listen in more depth and not just skip through videos.

 

[Brian2]

There's more reason to believe the accounts of the Gospel than
the accounts of Alexander the Great or Socrates. Far less time elapsed between Jesus and the gospel writing that when these people lived and
the writings we have of others about them.

Here is one that I just listened to also. Good for witnessing to historicity of things in gospel.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There is no evidence that a creator was not needed. If you believe that a creator was not needed then that is a belief without evidence. If you want to call your creator a leprechaun then go ahead. If you want to say, like science does, that it is not known if there was a creator that is OK.

Actually we have plenty of evidence of events occurring naturally. You are now trying to shift the burden of proof again. If you want to claim that there was a creator the burden of proof is upon you.

You still do not understand the leprechaun reference. There is no evidence that a leprechaun was not needed by your standards either. You are not helping yourself when you bring up an argument that you did not understand.

I suppose the ocean vent theory is a possible place for the chemicals of life to have formed.
Life does seem to have begun in the oceans with plant like microbes.

It is one of several known possible sources. Once again, it used to be argued by creationists that those chemicals could only be made by life. We now know that is not true. And the first life would have hardly have been "plantlike". Photosynthesis was a much later development. The ocean vents even today spew chemicals that are a source of chemical energy. No photosynthesis required. Early life would have used those chemicals for their own energy.

I have a faith and I don't mind admitting that I believe stuff that I cannot prove. You otoh seem to want to believe stuff that you cannot prove and say that it is not faith.

No, we have evidence. If we do not have evidence we are happy to admit "I do not know yet". So we can point to how life most probably arose. It cannot be said "We are 100% sure that life arose this way". But we can say "This is the only explanation supported by evidence". Evidence is almost never "proof". If you were at a murder trial and there was only one piece of evidence the suspect would be very unlikely to be convicted. That is why the prosecutor almost always has multiple sources of evidence.

Right now natural abiogenesis has several lines of evidence supporting it. But scientists are not yet satisfied enough to say "The Butler did it" with absolute certainty yet. And even though abiogenesis is the only concept supported by evidence that does not absolutely rule out other unsupported ideas. At least not yet.

OK so you now admit that you do have a faith, scientism. Why didn't you just say that?
But it is not humans that detect spirits, it is spirits that communicate with us.

I sincerely doubt if she did. And I have yet to see a valid claim of "scientism" by a God believer. I am betting that you do not understand the topic.

Now as to your claim, how would you support that properly? How would you show that spirits try to communicate with us?

In science that needs demonstrating. Your whole post I guess is based on science and a belief in that as the only way. OK the faith of science. But neither you nor science can demonstrate that the experiences of people whom have been contacted by spirits are not true. Neither you nor science can show that the miracles which people claim to have experienced are not true. The experiences are evidence of the supernatural but science is a tool for analyzing the material universe.

Now you are using a strawman argument. Her point has always been that without some sort of reliable evidence there is no good reason to believe spiritual claims. Though the scientific method is the most accurate known way to get to the truth no one using the sciences says that it is the only method. The problem is that you have not shown any rational way to determine if your beliefs are true or not. People are waiting for you to elevate your God beliefs above the leprechaun level.

Yes that is how science works. That is fine and I do not deny that. But to say that science is the only way to find out anything is just a faith, like a religious faith.

Once again, she is not saying that. Science is useful because the evidence that it requires is very well defined. Scientific evidence also places the burden of proof upon the denier. It would be extremely helpful for you if you could figure out some sort of reliable evidence that supports your beliefs.

True, but not being able to see gods or spirits does not mean that they do not exist. IMO it means that science is limited in what it can do.

And you are back to using a strawman argument again while you attempt to shift the burden of proof.

You are talking about the material world again of course. God has demonstrated His power etc in creation and in Biblical prophecy and if you want to deny it then that is your problem, but as I said, you have a faith also, your materialism convinces you that you have some sort of right to deny the existence of the supernatural because you cannot see it in nature and do deny the fulfilled prophecies because someone has suggested that they must be lies and that suggestion is better than the supernatural answer. Your faith in materialism is OK but the supernatural has to be confirmed by your faith (science) before it can be believed. That might be the case for you, but not for me.

How has God demonstrated his power? This is the sort of claim that causes you to lose all credibility. You do not get to assume a God any more than those that oppose you Get to assume that there is not a God. And you really should drop the false accusations.

I have a faith and you also have a faith. It's easy to see that even if you don't want to admit it.

No, nonbelievers do not have faith. No faith is needed for a lack of belief. Those that have faith hate it when the burden of proof is rightfully placed upon them. To me that indicates a lack of faith on your part. A person with rock solid faith would find a way to test his beliefs. Not for himself. But for others. That is why one should learn what makes for reliable evidence. The best evidence does not have to be scientific but it should have the ability to cut both ways.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There is no evidence that a creator was not needed.

No scientific law or theory refers to a creator, requires one, or is improved by inserting the notion into the science.

I have a faith and I don't mind admitting that I believe stuff that I cannot prove. You otoh seem to want to believe stuff that you cannot prove and say that it is not faith.

Justified beliefs don't need to be proven, just convincingly demonstrated to be correct, whch is usually done by successfully using them to predict outcomes.

it is not humans that detect spirits, it is spirits that communicate with us.

That's incoherent, as in internally (self-)contradictory. If you're not detecting these spirits, then they're not communicating with you.

not being able to see gods or spirits does not mean that they do not exist.

We don't need to know that they don't exist to disregard the claims that they do. Will you never understand that? If you did, you'd stop making comments like that one as if they were meaningful.

You do say that science should be able to detect God and the supernatural if they are real. If God is spirit, show me why science should be able to detect it.

If your god is undetectable, there's no value in thinking about it. You're saying that it can't modify reality just like Santa Claus, who also cannot be detected.

You are talking about the material world again of course.

Yes, the physical world - nature. That's all of reality as far as we know. There's no value in considering other realities not a part of our own. They don't matter even if they can be said to exist in some meaningful sense if they don't impact our world or experience of it.

I have a faith and you also have a faith.

They're not the same thing or word even if they are spelled and pronounced alike. Let me illustrate:

I belong to no faith; I'm an atheist, Also, there are no Faiths in my family. Those are also different words spelled and pronounced the same as the first two.

humans have experienced the supernatural.

They have claimed that. Big difference.

 

[SkepticThinker]

There is no evidence that a creator was not needed. If you believe that a creator was not needed then that is a belief without evidence. If you want to call your creator a leprechaun then go ahead. If you want to say, like science does, that it is not known if there was a creator that is OK.

We're talking about how useless faith is as a pathway to truth right now.
You appear to be trying to change the subject to an argument we've been over umpteen times already.

I suppose the ocean vent theory is a possible place for the chemicals of life to have formed.
Life does seem to have begun in the oceans with plant like microbes.

Chemicals demonstrably exist.
Oceans demonstrably exist.
Nature demonstrably exists.
No faith required.

Faith is required when you want to start inserting gods into the equation. Gods that you have never even demonstrated the existence of.

I have a faith and I don't mind admitting that I believe stuff that I cannot prove. You otoh seem to want to believe stuff that you cannot prove and say that it is not faith.

I don't believe anything I can't show to be true.
And if I find I do believe such a thing, I stop believing it.

I don't have any use for faith. I've told you this umpteen times now. And yet you want to keep telling me I'm using faith, in some strange attempt to bring my beliefs down to the level of your religious beliefs. Well, I'm not.

OK so you now admit that you do have a faith, scientism. Why didn't you just say that?

This was in response to, "Yes, I do. If you can detect them, science certainly should be able to."

You've completely misinterpreted. I am trying to tell you that if you are able to detect spirits, that means that spirits are detectable, and then using the tool we call science, we should all be able to detect them. Just like any other thing that actually exists.

But it is not humans that detect spirits, it is spirits that communicate with us.

This sentence doesn't make sense.
If a spirit is communicating with you, then you're detecting it.

In science that needs demonstrating. Your whole post I guess is based on science and a belief in that as the only way. OK the faith of science. But neither you nor science can demonstrate that the experiences of people whom have been contacted by spirits are not true. Neither you nor science can show that the miracles which people claim to have experienced are not true. The experiences are evidence of the supernatural but science is a tool for analyzing the material universe.

Yes that is how science works. That is fine and I do not deny that. But to say that science is the only way to find out anything is just a faith, like a religious faith.



True, but not being able to see gods or spirits does not mean that they do not exist. IMO it means that science is limited in what it can do.

No. It means that the people who claim such things exist are the ones who bear the burden of proof. It's not up to the rest of us to show you they don't exist.

You claim things exist. But you cannot show that they exist. So why should anyone believe you??????

You are talking about the material world again of course.

Yes, the only world we know that actually exists. That we can measure and interact with and observe and make predictions about, etc.

God has demonstrated His power etc in creation and in Biblical prophecy and if you want to deny it then that is your problem,

So you claim. Other people claim similar things about their gods too. None can demonstrate it though, including yourself.
That's the problem.

but as I said, you have a faith also,

Stop telling me I have faith.

I have no use for faith. I eschew faith.

your materialism convinces you that you have some sort of right to deny the existence of the supernatural because you cannot see it in nature and do deny the fulfilled prophecies because someone has suggested that they must be lies and that suggestion is better than the supernatural answer. Your faith in materialism is OK but the supernatural has to be confirmed by your faith (science) before it can be believed. That might be the case for you, but not for me.

That's a lot of words to tell me that you can't demonstrate to anyone that your beliefs are true. You have faith. Not me.

I have a faith and you also have a faith. It's easy to see that even if you don't want to admit it.

I have no use for faith. You've not demonstrated anywhere here that I have any use for faith. You've just claimed it, like your god claims.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Have you never heard from people on this forum, other sceptics, that science does not prove things.

Yes I am aware. Hence my use of the word EVIDENCE.

With that in mind, we all believe things that have not been proven, including skeptics.

No, we do not. You might.

But for some reason you want to say that your scientific evidence is the only evidence that counts and any evidence that convinces me of the supernatural and the Bible and Jesus is unacceptable. But really it is just unacceptable to you, not to me.

It's the only evidence that actually works. Your personal experiences are not evidence for anyone other than yourself.

You have your scientism but believe things that science cannot prove and I also believe things that science cannot prove but with no scientism.

Nope.

I do not believe things that "science cannot prove." I do not believe things for which there is no evidence.

You do say that science should be able to detect God and the supernatural if they are real.

Yep. Just like every other detectable real thing that actually exists.

If God is spirit, show me why science should be able to detect it.

You need to show what a spirit is, and that god exists, and is a spirit.
That's a compilation of several different claims.

You want to claim some undetectable thing exists, that's on you to show that it actually exists. How you can claim that you're detecting an undetectable thing is a you problem.

You need to prove your own faith to yourself then you can come and try to prove it to me. But you don't want to prove your faith to yourself. It is just something that you believe but deny is a faith. You cannot prove your faith but want me to prove my faith to you.

I don't have any faith and none to prove.

I have a faith that God and other spirits communicate with me but I cannot prove that and I cannot show it to you.

Annnnd that's why it's called faith.
And with that, we're back to square one all over again:

Faith is the excuse people give for believing something when they don't have evidence. Faith is not a reliable pathway to truth, because anything can be believed on faith.

Your faith, that you cannot show to be true, is that science should be able to detect the supernatural by scientific methods. Your faith, without evidence, is useful to you in eliminating the need to seek God on His terms.

I have no faith.

If you are detecting some supernatural realm, then there should be evidence of that. I'm sorry you still don't seem to understand what evidence is at this point in our conversation.

 

[SkepticThinker]

As I have said, humans have experienced the supernatural. That is not the sort of evidence that your faith requires, not that still is evidence.

How? What? Why? Where? When?
How can it be demonstrated to anyone other than the person claiming it?

You do realize that people claim to have experienced all kinds of different gods from all kinds of different religions, right?