Is eye witness testimony enough?

[Justin108]

The whole Bible basically relies either on claims of divine experience or eye witness claims. But are these enough?

If you willingly accept the claims made by these men, then on what grounds do you reject the claims made by people who believe they were abducted by aliens? On what grounds do you reject the claims of people who hear voices? On what grounds do you reject the claims of Bigfoot sightings?

How do you choose which eye witnesses to believe?

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 41:

And what sort of evidence would you presuppose that we weigh on a internet forum?

Some.

All you have is ready made excuse to avoid anything that contradicts what you already think.

Why don't ya just declare all our mommas whores, and be done with it?

After all BOOKS have the same problem do they not?

All them books that can't show they've got the best of it'll suffer from the condition that they ain't shown they do.

In fact, based on what you appear to be implying, nothing short of God appearing and slapping you silly until you acknowledge him will do.

Or putting a Lamborghini out there in the driveway. Either one. I'm plastic in this regard.

Well, that isn't how it works, but seeing that demand says quite a bit more about the weight of evidence in atheism than without.

If only for me, the "weight of the evidence" is that a good many Christians love to make them some claims, but if you dare ask 'em to show they speak truth, we get all manner of carrying on.

Of course, even if it DID happen to you, and you went out and told someone, no one, by your standard would or should believe you ... you are an eye witness and clearly, biased.

I'm an 'eyewitness' to Christians making all manner of goofy claims. What I ain't an 'eyewitness' to is that any of 'em ever show these goofy claims to be truth.

And so you see the problem set ... which is why we have scientific standards, historical and academic standards etc.

And 'religious standards'. Where, it would seem, 'religious standard' means such as, "I'm gonna declare it, and to Hell with you if you dare challenge me to show I speak truth about it!"

All of which appear to be rejected by atheism.

It ain't so much as I reject Christian claims, as I'm so upset they can't ever show those claims to be truth.

[GADARENE]

"I'm even a religious person myself. And I used to be a Christian..."

why were you a Christian in days gone by and what religious beliefs do you have now?

[GADARENE]

In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (now a secular agnostic who was formerly Evangelical) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God

[stubbornone]

And these aren't even supernatural claims and still they are unreliable.

It interesting that you make a claim, one that is called an appeal to authority (expertise) and is fallacious.

.

Ummm... what? Who did I appeal to?

MIraculously healed cancer is not supernatural, eh? Because YOU say so? The medically documented events are unreliable because YOU say so?

Cancer goes into remission. It is a perfectly natural occurrence. Show me someone who grows back a limb (unnatural) and I'd call it a miracle.

And I'm confused... where is all this coming from? I haven't even addressed any claim about cancer at all. I responded to SailingCyclops' references to false eye-witness testimony. I never said a damn thing about anything to do with cancer.

Oh yes, Cancer magically goes into remission all by itself ... so sayth the man who is suddenly a doctor? Making claims that are totally at odds with cancer treatment.

By all means snake oil saleman, go around telling people not to worry about cancer because it just naturally goes into regression all the time!

DO you see now what an appeal to fallacious expertise is? You should, you are using it.

And the lengths that some atheists will take to maintain their atheism is quite remarkable.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

the Synoptic Gospels are eye witness statements - how then do we weight them?

And the consensus opinion is that they are accurate because that which is in them that CAN be tested HAS been tested and is accurate.

Consensus among who? Certainly not biblical scholars, who have concluded that the synoptic gospels are in all likelihood not written by eyewitnesses.

Also, you are continuing to repeat the fallacy of composition. That some parts of an account contain accurate information has no bearing on the accuracy on the other parts of that account.

[stubbornone]

the Synoptic Gospels are eye witness statements - how then do we weight them?

And the consensus opinion is that they are accurate because that which is in them that CAN be tested HAS been tested and is accurate.

Consensus among who? Certainly not biblical scholars, who have concluded that the synoptic gospels are in all likelihood not written by eyewitnesses.

Also, you are continuing to repeat the fallacy of composition. That some parts of an account contain accurate information has no bearing on the accuracy on the other parts of that account.

Professor Stanton occupies the chair in New Testament Studies at Cambridge University and led the attack on Carston Theide's re-dating of the Jesus Papyrus. He considers the Jesus Myth crowd even more extreme as he writes in The Gospels and Jesus.

Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which as to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.

Given the broad consensus against the Jesus Myth, it has been left to a few non-professional commentators, such as Earl Doherty and GA Wells to question Jesus' existence. Despite their vigorous efforts, they have failed, and continue to fail, to even give their position respectability in the broader academic community.

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

There you go, that source contains several quotes from atheist and humanist period scholars.

If you insist on going down the well worn conspiratorial track of Jesus Mythery, then please bear in mind that I am with the consensus opinion of period scholars who state:

" Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

Having waded into that discussion before, it always ends with atheists randomly picking and choosing atheist web sites, who cannot, and indeed will not, build a compelling case ... indeed ignore Wells, the progenitor of modern Jesus Mythery, who was forced by the consensus opinion of his fully exposed trite, to back track and clam that he ONLY denies the gospel, not historical, Jesus.

In short the discussion is about how to treat eye witness statements, not about how to create entire conspiracy theories to deny eye witness statements.

If you wish to go there, you will do so alone fuzzy, as the end state, as has happened EVERY time I have engaged a Jesus Myther, is indolence resulting animosity and out right hatred that someone would dare question the Jesus Myth ... especially if that questioning is effective.

And finally, once again, declaring random fallacies where non exist is indeed a tried an true atheists tactic ... one that is, as usual, totally out of lock step with reality and problem solving.

I will leave it to you to figure out what has already been explained, wherein we get witness statement and have to check them for accuracy against what we can. And if what we CAN checks is verified, and we have multiple testaments to same basic premise ... its considered accurate ... not fallacious.

Because, though it might be true that these men are STILL lying, its extremely unlikely, and indeed they have no motive ... other apparently than sitting around and saying, "Heh Mark, watch this, this'll reallty send atheists into orbit 2,000 years for now!!!"

To assume that otherwise honest men are lying ONLY in the parts that you cannot verify is, not fallacious, its simply illogical. It caused by nothing other than your faith NEEDING other to be lying.

So, what is it about your faith choice that causes you to accuse people of being liars with absolutely no evidence whatsoever? Right, seems a downright pernicious faith choice to me.

Must be why I left it.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

the Synoptic Gospels are eye witness statements - how then do we weight them?

And the consensus opinion is that they are accurate because that which is in them that CAN be tested HAS been tested and is accurate.

Consensus among who? Certainly not biblical scholars, who have concluded that the synoptic gospels are in all likelihood not written by eyewitnesses.

Also, you are continuing to repeat the fallacy of composition. That some parts of an account contain accurate information has no bearing on the accuracy on the other parts of that account.

Professor Stanton occupies the chair in New Testament Studies at Cambridge University and led the attack on Carston Theide's re-dating of the Jesus Papyrus. He considers the Jesus Myth crowd even more extreme as he writes in The Gospels and Jesus.

Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which as to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.

Given the broad consensus against the Jesus Myth, it has been left to a few non-professional commentators, such as Earl Doherty and GA Wells to question Jesus' existence. Despite their vigorous efforts, they have failed, and continue to fail, to even give their position respectability in the broader academic community.

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

There you go, that source contains several quotes from atheist and humanist period scholars.

If you insist on going down the well worn conspiratorial track of Jesus Mythery, then please bear in mind that I am with the consensus opinion of period scholars who state:

" Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

Having waded into that discussion before, it always ends with atheists randomly picking and choosing atheist web sites, who cannot, and indeed will not, build a compelling case ... indeed ignore Wells, the progenitor of modern Jesus Mythery, who was forced by the consensus opinion of his fully exposed trite, to back track and clam that he ONLY denies the gospel, not historical, Jesus.

In short the discussion is about how to treat eye witness statements, not about how to create entire conspiracy theories to deny eye witness statements.

If you wish to go there, you will do so alone fuzzy, as the end state, as has happened EVERY time I have engaged a Jesus Myther, is indolence resulting animosity and out right hatred that someone would dare question the Jesus Myth ... especially if that questioning is effective.

Where in my post did I mention or even allude to the Jesus myth theory??? I reject the Jesus myth theory completely and have argued against it myself in the past. Please try to read more carefully.

The issue is with your claim that the synoptic gospels were written by eyewitnesses. This is not the case. They are hearsay.

And finally, once again, declaring random fallacies where non exist is indeed a tried an true atheists tactic ... one that is, as usual, totally out of lock step with reality and problem solving.

You have absolutely committed the fallacy of composition.

The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part). For example: "This fragment of metal cannot be fractured with a hammer, therefore the machine of which it is a part cannot be fractured with a hammer." This is clearly fallacious, because many machines can be broken-apart, without any of those parts being fracturable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

"This fragment of the document can be shown to be accurate, therefore the document of which it is a part is accurate."

It's a textbook example of the fallacy.

[stubbornone]

the Synoptic Gospels are eye witness statements - how then do we weight them?

And the consensus opinion is that they are accurate because that which is in them that CAN be tested HAS been tested and is accurate.

Consensus among who? Certainly not biblical scholars, who have concluded that the synoptic gospels are in all likelihood not written by eyewitnesses.

Also, you are continuing to repeat the fallacy of composition. That some parts of an account contain accurate information has no bearing on the accuracy on the other parts of that account.

Professor Stanton occupies the chair in New Testament Studies at Cambridge University and led the attack on Carston Theide's re-dating of the Jesus Papyrus. He considers the Jesus Myth crowd even more extreme as he writes in The Gospels and Jesus.

Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which as to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.

Given the broad consensus against the Jesus Myth, it has been left to a few non-professional commentators, such as Earl Doherty and GA Wells to question Jesus' existence. Despite their vigorous efforts, they have failed, and continue to fail, to even give their position respectability in the broader academic community.

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

There you go, that source contains several quotes from atheist and humanist period scholars.

If you insist on going down the well worn conspiratorial track of Jesus Mythery, then please bear in mind that I am with the consensus opinion of period scholars who state:

" Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

Having waded into that discussion before, it always ends with atheists randomly picking and choosing atheist web sites, who cannot, and indeed will not, build a compelling case ... indeed ignore Wells, the progenitor of modern Jesus Mythery, who was forced by the consensus opinion of his fully exposed trite, to back track and clam that he ONLY denies the gospel, not historical, Jesus.

In short the discussion is about how to treat eye witness statements, not about how to create entire conspiracy theories to deny eye witness statements.

If you wish to go there, you will do so alone fuzzy, as the end state, as has happened EVERY time I have engaged a Jesus Myther, is indolence resulting animosity and out right hatred that someone would dare question the Jesus Myth ... especially if that questioning is effective.

Where in my post did I mention or even allude to the Jesus myth theory??? I reject the Jesus myth theory completely and have argued against it myself in the past. Please try to read more carefully.

The issue is with your claim that the synoptic gospels were written by eyewitnesses. This is not the case. They are hearsay.

#1 - when you question the consensus of scholars on the subject, what exactly do you think you are raising?

#2 - You do so again when you dismiss the synoptic gospels as heresay, even though their claimed authorship clearly places them as eye witnesses and they are written in the time frame to be just that.

The best you can state is that their authorship can not be conclusively determined, which does not mean they are hearsay (that is just your faith's bias on the subject). And again, if you claim such, then you are claiming that someone ELSE provably wrote them other than the claimed authors. Guess what that means? You get to examine the record and PROVE that someone else wrote them.

You cannot. Ergo, as I stated right up front, lets forgo another delve into the Jesus Myth, and simply answer the question about how to treat eye witness statement.

If you cannot even entertain the premise, I would call that a rather srtong faith induced bias into the problem set.

You have absolutely committed the fallacy of composition.

Unfortunately, there are FOUR eye witness statements that are all in agreement.

Additionally, simply screaming fallacy here does not allow us to address the issue at hand. What are we to with eye witness statements when we cannot verify the whole? Scream fallacy? We should assume that anything we cannot verufy in AN EYE WITNESS STATEMENT must be lying?

Once again, perhaps you should back up and realize that I have already made the delineation between gospel and historical Jesus - quite clearly.

Now, you get to explain why your faith drives to to conclude, without evidence, that these statements are lies.

Speaking of fallacy: your analysis consists of the appela to belief (specifically your own).

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... elief.html

They must be lies because your faith tell you so? Convincing, eh?

In the mean time, here is how actual historians looking to solve rather than obfuscate deal with it:

1. If the sources all agree about an event, historians can consider the event proved.
2. However, majority does not rule; even if most sources relate events in one way, that version will not prevail unless it passes the test of critical textual analysis.
3. The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text.
4. When two sources disagree on a particular point, the historian will prefer the source with most "authority"—that is the source created by the expert or by the eyewitness.
5. Eyewitnesses are, in general, to be preferred especially in circumstances where the ordinary observer could have accurately reported what transpired and, more specifically, when they deal with facts known by most contemporaries.
6. If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably enhanced.
7. When two sources disagree and there is no other means of evaluation, then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

I suggest you write Harvard and tell them the historical method is fallacious. See how that goes for you.

"This fragment of the document can be shown to be accurate, therefore the document of which it is a part is accurate."

It's a textbook example of the fallacy.

And assuming that it is a lie is a text book example of a fallacious appeal to belief.

In the meantime, my analysis has the historical method on its side and seks to answer the question with SEEKING truth in mind. Yours?

Once again, the better argument wins. Have fun telling Harvard that they shoudl disband their History department post haste.

[no evidence no belief]

I don't know if this has already been addressed because I didn't go through the entire thread, but there is one very important thing to note:

NONE of the text in the is eye-witness testimony.

The Bible you read today is a translation of the codex vaticanus, written in 325 AD.

The anonymous author who wrote it was NOT an eye witness to any of the events that had happened 300 years earlier.

What he wrote is the copy of the copy of the copy of the copy of the translation of the translation of the translation of something somebody wrote because somebody told a story to somebody who told a story to somebody who told a story to somebody, etc and eventually somebody wrote it down.

If, for example, we had any original documents written by the hand of any of the thousands who allegedly witnessed the zombie invasion reported in Matthew, then that would be considered eye-witness testimony. Still not believable, because it contradicts much more conclusive evidence, but at least eye-witness testimony, thus comparable to people who claim to have seen the LochNess Monster.

There is absolutely ZERO justification for believing any of the fairy tales in the Bible are any more real than the Three Little Piggies or Humpty Dumpty.

[GADARENE]

"But what if he has never heard of God? How can he be expected to form a relationship with God if he doesn't know he exists?"

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.