The Zzyzx Contradiction

[Goose]

However, unverified stories by supporters and promoters are VERY WEAK "evidence".

Let P = stories are evidence.

Evidence does NOT consist of stories...

~(P)

and

Stories are not evidence.

~(P)


(P)& ~(P)

Question for debate: Has DC&R's 2008 Best Debater, Zzyzx, contradicted himself?

Note: Zzyzx's quotes are taken from the OP Was/is Jesus Divine?

[Cathar1950]

It seems stories could be considered antidotal evidence and come with all the problems of antidotal evidence.
If metaphor and analogy are used then the stories come with all the problems that metaphors and analogy have.
I think that is enough reason to state that stories are not good evidence or maybe not evidence at all and the stories are making the claims through the reading of the interpreter.
I can’t help but think someone is making a mountain out of someone else’s molehill.

Some seem perfectly happy with such contradictions God never changes yet does something or Jesus was both fully human and fully divine or such metaphors and the Bible is God’s word while it creation, transmission and selection were all human activities.
Goose doesn’t really make a clear claim as to what the evidence the stories are for. Or how they are “used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion�. What is the assertion and how is it evidence?

[Scrotumus2]

It seems stories could be considered antidotal evidence and come with all the problems of antidotal evidence.
If metaphor and analogy are used then the stories come with all the problems that metaphors and analogy have.
I think that is enough reason to state that stories are not good evidence or maybe not evidence at all and the stories are making the claims through the reading of the interpreter.
I can’t help but think someone is making a mountain out of someone else’s molehill.

Some seem perfectly happy with such contradictions God never changes yet does something or Jesus was both fully human and fully divine or such metaphors and the Bible is God’s word while it creation, transmission and selection were all human activities.
Goose doesn’t really make a clear claim as to what the evidence the stories are for. Or how they are “used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion�. What is the assertion and how is it evidence?

I do not understand the entire deal with this. When has a story ever been accepted as Evidence? It does not happen. It seems, to be, that this thing has been confused with how it works.

We do not decide that the Roman Empire existed by stories, we have evidence such as archeological findings and then we may have stories that fits with the known evidence, and in this way considered to be 'true stories'.

You can can make a simile to Evolution. We do not just have our Biological Evolution as evidence for our evolutionary history, but all other fields that are not related to biology ALSO confirms this. In this sense, the 'stories' are just a puzzle that may, or may not confirm something that is true, but it is never evidence itself as its just one document.

Several documents not related to eachother, as an example, could be hold as believable, together with archeological evidence, we could then confirm that the documents are in fact, evidence, but can not be valid on its own merit because of the simple fact of lack of verity. The more documents, the more likelihood, the Bible, as you know, have no evidence of its truthness At all, it has only itself, one book that goes against all we know, the world is not flat, humans and all other animals evolved, the world is not thousands of years old, and so forth.

[dgruber]

The more documents, the more likelihood, the Bible, as you know, have no evidence of its truthness At all, it has only itself, one book that goes against all we know, the world is not flat, humans and all other animals evolved, the world is not thousands of years old, and so forth.

I have stressed this before and I will do so again. The Bible is not really one book. It is collection of books written by different people. I think often times many tend to overlook that. So instead of just having itself, it actually has separately all the different books within it. And not included in the Bible are plenty of writings that never made it in originally. So this whole notion of there being one book and that is it, is not very valid.

[Scrotumus2]

The more documents, the more likelihood, the Bible, as you know, have no evidence of its truthness At all, it has only itself, one book that goes against all we know, the world is not flat, humans and all other animals evolved, the world is not thousands of years old, and so forth.

I have stressed this before and I will do so again. The Bible is not really one book. It is collection of books written by different people. I think often times many tend to overlook that. So instead of just having itself, it actually has separately all the different books within it. And not included in the Bible are plenty of writings that never made it in originally. So this whole notion of there being one book and that is it, is not very valid.

Oh, Terrific, I apologize, as this thread is to bash Dave, I will correct my previous statement:
The Holy Bible are several books contradicting reality and goes against all we know, there is several authors that have written things that does not fit with the reality we live in.

I am thankful dgruber, that you rectified me, I hope my correction puts me back on track.

[Goose]

What a terrible thing I have done to be self-contradictory from 11:04 AM to 12:33 PM of January 15th 2009. I make a full confession and ask your forgiveness.

What have I done. What have I done. Woe is me. I allowed an opening for Mr. Goose to insert his best "argument" ever in defense of the bible. Our cause is lost.

OMG. Making such blunders and contradictions might indicate that I became a theist overnight. Say "atheist prayers" to save me from damnation and theism.

Ummm...a simple "Yes, I made a mistake and contradicted myself" would have sufficed. It's obvious from that rather juvenile rant that your concession was painful. I do, however, appreciate your intellectual honesty here.

A logical argument specifying that P cannot be equal to or coexistent with not P is valid.

Agreed. Now, on to the next issue.

Assignment of values to P is in question.

Yes, let's discuss the truth value of (P).

Let (P) = stories are evidence.

Where stories = stories concerning ancient persons, places, and events that are taken from ancient texts such as the Bible.
Where evidence is defined as: "Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion."

Proposition (P) - stories are evidence - is either true (1) or false (0). Which is it? Your personal opinion and feelings are irrelevant. (P) is either true or false.

[Cmass]

:yapyap: Jeezuz....is this thread still alive?

Dave, I also noticed on one of your posts - I think around post #654 or thereabouts - you had a rather poor choice of words. It also appears you may have misspelled one of them.
I think we can all take this as solid evidence that you can be wrong!
These glaring errors obviously mean your arguments are in error. Therefore, a personal god exists, the bible is right and all y'all are headn off to HELL!!!

And that pretty much summarizes this thread.

[Scrotumus2]

:yapyap: Jeezuz....is this thread still alive?

Dave, I also noticed on one of your posts - I think around post #654 or thereabouts - you had a rather poor choice of words. It also appears you may have misspelled one of them.
I think we can all take this as solid evidence that you can be wrong!
These glaring errors obviously mean your arguments are in error. Therefore, a personal god exists, the bible is right and all y'all are headn off to HELL!!!

And that pretty much summarizes this thread.

Oh Ratz, we where counting on you Dave, what the heck are we atheist gona do without you? You gave them our heads on a golden plate, You proved their God existed, Damnit Dave, I lost all respect for you now, whe tried to prevent Gods Word from reaching people for years and then you come, on what post? 654? And screw it all up, now Gods Army will be stronger.. DAMNIT ALL!!!



So is someone gona shut this rule-breaking thread down? (it is an attack on Dave which is against rules, Moderator? I call for cleanup).

[micatala]

Moderator Warning

What a terrible thing I have done to be self-contradictory from 11:04 AM to 12:33 PM of January 15th 2009. I make a full confession and ask your forgiveness.

What have I done. What have I done. Woe is me. I allowed an opening for Mr. Goose to insert his best "argument" ever in defense of the bible. Our cause is lost.

OMG. Making such blunders and contradictions might indicate that I became a theist overnight. Say "atheist prayers" to save me from damnation and theism.

Ummm...a simple "Yes, I made a mistake and contradicted myself" would have sufficed. It's obvious from that rather juvenile rant that your concession was painful.

I will remind goose that this thread was allowed to proceed provided it did not become a referendum on the debating character of the particular forum member raised in the OP, and in fact, this applies to any thread and any forum member.

Please refrain from making ad hominem comments about other posters or the mods will reconsider keeping this thread open.

[micatala]

.


I was inconsistent for a span of three posts (from question of the OP meaning of "evidence" in post #12 to clarification in post #15 in the thread http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 4&start=10)

What a terrible thing I have done to be self-contradictory from 11:04 AM to 12:33 PM of January 15th 2009. I make a full confession and ask your forgiveness.

I think that is enough reason to state that stories are not good evidence or maybe not evidence at all and the stories are making the claims through the reading of the interpreter.
I can’t help but think someone is making a mountain out of someone else’s molehill.

I appreciate Zzyzx's acknowledgment, and also agree with Cathar that this thread is making a mountain out of mole hill.


In an effort to move the thread past one claim made by one poster in one thread, I'd like to suggest we look at the idea of evidence in general and biblical evidence in particular.



First, I would suggest that what counts as evidence depends on the venue in which it is presented, and this venue includes the audience to which it is addressed. In particular, each of us as individual's is free to define our own criteria for what counts as evidence for us. So are groups. Scientists, for example, have fairly rigid requirements for what counts as evidence, theologians rather different requirements, and members of a particular denomination or church yet different requirements. Even the subforums of DC&R have somewhat different criteria, as has been noted above.



Secondly, as goat has pointed out through example, what counts as evidence depends on what claim that evidence is meant to support. Goat suggests the Bible can be taken as evidence for a group of people having believed in God and holding certain doctrines in relation to that belief. Granting this, however, does not mean one must accept that the Bible is evidence for the existence of God or that Jesus is God.




Now, as a question for goose, I would suggest he consider whether the statements made by Zzyzx present a stronger or more substantial or more important contradiction than one can find by statements made in the Bible.


Zzyzx's "contradiction" depends on the presence or absence of two qualifiers. Namely, that stories are not evidence "in this thread" and that stories (especially Biblical stories) are "weak" evidence versus "no" evidence.


Now, I have never known Zzyzx to claim "inerrancy" as a quality of what he writes on the forum. Thus, we can chalk up this alleged contradiction to a simple small mistake. The overall meaning that Zzyzx meant to convey however is pretty clear. He does not, nor does he think others should, take Biblical stories as evidence, particularly as evidence that Jesus was divine.


Let's consider an often argued Biblical contradiction.

15Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

23Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
25the son of Mattathias, the son of . . .

If we let P = "Jacob was Joseph's father, and Eleazar his great-grandfather"

and Q = "Heli was Joseph's father, and Levi his great-grandfather"

We have that P implies ~Q and Q implies ~P so that P and Q are clearly contradictory.

I would argue that this contradiction is clearly more substantive than the one cited by goose. After all, one could argue that "weak evidence" is pretty close to "no evidence" on a scale of "evidentiary strength." Both imply that the evidence is not to be relied upon, and that it is not compelling.

In addition, the contradiction cited by goose is quite explainable as a small mistake in wording, made on the rather ephemeral venue of an internet discussion forum.

The Biblical contradiction above appears in works that were copied by hand many hundreds or thousands of times. We can reasonably assume that they were the result of many many hours of work on the part of the authors, and that they would very likely have taken great great care in what they wrote.

In addition, it is pretty hard to consider the discrepancy between Matthew and Luke as merely one of "careless wording" or "slightly limiting the context" as the "in this thread" qualifier in Zzyzx's statement. Having entirely different individuals named as ones ancestors is a lot bigger difference than the difference between "no evidence" and "weak evidence". It is pretty hard to explain as "careless wording while writing on the fly."



I would ask if, since goose considers Zzyzx's statement to be a contradiction, if he is also willing to acknowledge that the Biblical passages above constitute a contradiction within the Bible?




Now, let me be clear on my own position. I do believe in God and do consider the Bible to be divinely inspired. However, I do not consider it inerrant and do not consider it to be authoritative evidence for many of the claims that it makes and that believers make on its basis. I do think it constitutes evidence for some types of claims, and am willing to accept it is stronger (or weaker) evidence for some claims than for others.


My personal view is that believers would be better off not insisting upon the doctrine of inerrancy. I do not think this doctrine is intellectually defensible, nor do I think it is theologically desirable.

[Homicidal_Cherry53]

However, unverified stories by supporters and promoters are VERY WEAK "evidence".

Let P = stories are evidence.

Evidence does NOT consist of stories...

~(P)

and

Stories are not evidence.

~(P)


(P)& ~(P)

Question for debate: Has DC&R's 2008 Best Debater, Zzyzx, contradicted himself?

Note: Zzyzx's quotes are taken from the OP Was/is Jesus Divine?

Seriously? It seems like you are just looking for a fight here. You're just arguing semantics and a slip of the tongue (or finger in this case) on Zzyzx's part. I have to wonder what this has to do with Christianity or what kind of intellectual debate this could ever stimulate.