Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[Goose]

Why have faith when you have evidence?

I have faith because I have evidence.

Nice try, but actually you are straw manning the thread. You are not being asked for evidence for your belief, you are being asked for evidence for your god/supernatural.

The OP demands: "Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?"

I have provided some evidence for my belief in the supernatural via the evidence for the resurrection. The demand is met thus I need not admit I have no evidence.

[no evidence no belief]

You are correct.
Numbers 22 is evidence that donkeys can talk.
Matthew 27 is evidence that zombies are real.
The lyrics to Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is evidence that reindeer can fly.
The latest Marvel summer blockbuster is evidence that Wolverine is real.
Ancient indian mythology is evidence that the earth rests on a giant plate on the back of a turtle
The website www.theflatearthsociety.com is evidence that the earth is flat.
This youtube clip is evidence for Bigfoot
The fact that I am hereby claiming "I HAVE AN INVISIBLE DRAGON IN MY BASEMENT" is evidence that I have an invisible dragon in my basement.
A drawing of a worldmap that my 6 year old made is evidence that New York City is in the Mid West.

What exactly are you arguing here with this little rant?

There are three major problems with considering this evidence valid.

First, as you said, it's non empirical.

And that’s a problem because…

Second, it's solidly and overwhelmingly countered, debunked and destroyed by an AVALANCHE of opposing empirical, testable, discrete, measurable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence.

Wrong. What you’ve listed here doesn’t make the evidence itself invalid. What you have listed here would be evidence in favour of the case against a particular claim.

Third, in terms of basic worldview, if you choose to lower your standard to the point that you accept one example of ridiculous and completely debunked "Evidence" as true, then for the sake of consistency, you are required to accept all similarly "strong" evidence for other claims.

I don’t think I need to lower the historical standard to accept, for example, the resurrection. In fact, on a historical evidential basis not many events from ancient history enjoy such strong evidence.

First mistake. "It's quite strong by ancient historical standards". Ancient historical standards are sufficiently high for determining the accuracy of claims that DO NOT VIOLATE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. Not high enough to courter overwhelmongly strong and conclusive physical, chemical, biological, medical evidence.

Allow me to clarify as that was poorly worded on my part. The evidence we have for the resurrection by way of comparison to the evidence for other ancient events is quite strong. Is that better?

Oh God. This is gonna be gruesome.

Ok, buddy. Imagine a scenario for me if you could:

Two guys are sitting in front of you.

The first one says to you: Hi my name is Steve, I won the lottery and am now a millionaire.

The other one says to you: Hi my name is John, I have the ability to fly without any mechanical assistance, I can become invisible at will, I can transform iron into gold just by touching it, I have the ability to breathe underwater, I can teleport to any moon of Saturn just by willing it, and my dog Fido poops diamonds every thursday.

The evidence for the story by Steve and the evidence of the story by John is equally strong: Direct first hand testimony.

They are both rather extraordinary testimonies.

Does the fact that your evidence for both claims is first hand testimony, and the fact that both claims are extraordinary, mean that you should take both claims equally seriously? Does it mean they have the same likelihood of being true?

How does any of this meaningfully address the evidence for the resurrection? You’re beating around the proverbial bush you complained about in your own OP.

But to answer your question I would take both claims seriously in as far as I would reserve judgment until I had investigated the evidence, especially if I had reason to trust the person giving the testimony in the first place. I would do this despite the fact the one claim might run against everything I know to be true. How else can we discover knew things about the universe? Perhaps we’ve uncovered the difference between us. You appear to dismiss the evidence for a particular claim a priori on the basis you don’t believe that claim to be likely. Presumably because the claim itself doesn’t fit your world view.

Because the first story, while unlikely and extraordinary, DOES NOT VIOLATE EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY, MEDICINE, MATHEMATICS AND PRETTY MUCH EVERY OTHER EVIDENCE-GATHERING DISCIPLINE KNOWN TO MAN.

Okay, okay, we get it. You don’t think the resurrection is likely because it violates what we know about the universe even though that knowledge base is incomplete. Fine. Do you have a meaningful argument to make against the evidence for the resurrection though since this thread is about the evidence?

So lets look at the resurrection:

Now you’re talking. And let’s do it using the control of another historical event.

Evidence for: An anonymous author from the iron age who had never met anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met anybody who ever met Jesus wrote it down.

For the sake of argument and to make it easier on you I’ll grant your assessment of the evidence for the resurrection.

Now, let’s compare that to the evidence for the assassination of Caesar. Not one single eyewitness report has come down to us despite the fact this event took place in front of the senate and allegedly involved dozens of senators. The first full narrative comes down to us about 60 years later and was written by Nicolaus of Damascus who, incidentally, was not a witness either. The only relatively early mentions of Caesar’s assassination are a few cryptic allusions in speeches by Cicero who was, you guessed it, not a witness.

Evidence against: Everything we know about science.

Your argument against the resurrection here would carry more weight if you could demonstrate that our knowledge base of the universe was complete.

Evidence against the assassination: Well, a leader of a country has never been observed to be stabbed to death in broad daylight in front of the senate by dozens of senators where no one came to the aid of the leader. Indeed, I can only think of one case that fits that description.

Alright. How was that? Are we done?

Nope. I'm just gettin’ started.

Goose, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get across to you, but I will try.

We disagree on the strength of the evidence FOR the resurrection. But let's agree to disagree on that for now, and assume you're right, and lets say that there is strong historical evidence for the resurrection.

Our other disagreement, which I want to address here, is best spelled out in our exchange here:

Second, it's solidly and overwhelmingly countered, debunked and destroyed by an AVALANCHE of opposing empirical, testable, discrete, measurable, repeatable, falsifiable evidence.

Wrong. What you’ve listed here doesn’t make the evidence itself invalid. What you have listed here would be evidence in favour of the case against a particular claim.

The fact that we know scientifically with a very very very very very high level of certainty that decomposing brain-dead bodies DO NOT come back to life, isn't just a claim in favor of something, it's also a claim AGAINST something.

The overwhelmingly strongly established scientific fact that bodies don't raise from the dead is evidence against the claim that bodies raise from the dead.

It's utterly laughable to say that when trying to determine if a claim is true or not, you should only examine evidence in FAVOR of it, but completely ignore evidence AGAINST IT just because this evidence against it also happens to be evidence in favor of an alternate explanation. What on earth are you talking about?

Please follow this example closely:
Imagine an athlete is accused of stabbing a woman.

The police might find a knife that belonged to the suspect at the scene of the crime. They might find a voicemail from the suspect on the victim's machine saying that he hates her and wishes she was dead. They might find a witness who claims he heard screaming that kind of reminded him of the voice of the suspect.

But if they also discover that at the time of the crime, the suspect was at the superbowl, PLAYING AS QUARTERBACK, clearly seen by tens of thousands of eyewitnesses including the President of the United States who was at the game, and hundreds of millions more seeing from their TV, if they check DNA evidence from the antidoping blood sample they took right before the game started which verified it was really HIM at the game, then the police will deem the suspect has an IRON-CLAD ALIBI, and will conclude he wasn't the killer.

The irrefutable fact that the suspect was playing at the superbowl at that specific time is evidence of two things:

It's evidence IN FAVOR of him playing at the superbowl at that specific time.

And it's also evidence AGAINST him stabbing a guy at that specific time.


Clearly, when determining if the suspect did indeed kill the victim we do NOT just consider the evidence in FAVOR of the claim, but also the evidence AGAINST.

Evidence in favor: Murder weapon belonged to suspect. History of animosity between victim and suspect. Witness who thinks the killer's voice sounded kind alike the suspect's.

Evidence again: The suspect was irrefutably at the center of a stadium with millions watching him at the time of the crime. It's physically impossible that he committed the crime.

The evidence AGAINST the claim that he killed the girl, is so much overwhelmingly stronger than the evidence in FAVOR, that the evidence in favor becomes moot, irrelevant, invalid.

We are so comfortable with this system of determining the truth, we are so confident that it's more accurate to consider both evidence for AND against, instead of just considering evidence for, that we decide whether to let people live or die on its basis. Do you disagree that it's completely acceptable, indeed a NECESSITY, to look at both evidence in favor, AND evidence against, if you wish to find out the TRUTH about what happened?


So let's look at the evidence in favor and against the resurrection of Jesus:

Evidence in favor: All the stuff you said about Paul having a seizure, and anonymous scribes writing centuries later that the apostles thought he was raised from the dead, etc.

Evidence against: We know for a fact that it's physically, chemically, biologically, medically impossible for a brain-dead and decomposing body to revert the chemical denaturing of the enzymes in the brain and other vital tissue, and come back to life after three days.

There is evidence FOR the quarterback stabbing a girl and for Jesus raising from the dead, but the evidence AGAINST these two claims (evidence which MUST be considered if you care about the truth) is so much stronger, so conclusive and undeniable, that the circumstantial evidence FOR doesn't matter anymore.

Are we done now?



As an aside, regarding the Lazarus Syndrome. Here is what it is: The heart of a person stopping for a few minutes and then starting again, with the brain of the person NEVER STOPPING AT ALL NOT EVEN FOR AN INSTANT, EVER. That's what the Lazarus Syndrome is. The heart stopping for a few minutes and then starting again. The brain never stopping.

That is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from brain death, which is irreversible and inevitable for a body dead for three days.

Would you like to make a lot of money? It's easy. I will give you $1000 for every confirmed medical report of brain-death reversal you can find. What, you can't find any? Oh well.

[Goose]

Right, I'll submit that a chain of mass-hallucinations has the same explanatory power as the resurrection and it is more plausible.

Uh, excuse me but a "chain" of mass-hallucinations is not an explanation but rather a, well, chain of multiple explanations. Each instance of an appearance would require a separate hallucination explanation since these appearances took place at different times, in different locations, for different lengths of time (some for days) and to different groups of people in different contexts. Each instance would require you to draw a whole different set of assumptions to justify they were all hallucinations. Again, it fails to the resurrection hypothesis on parsimony which is a single powerful explanation. Further, even if we were to grant the hallucination hypothesis it still would not account for an empty tomb thus it fails to resurrection hypothesis on the criteria of scope.

[Goose]

You'll need another ad hoc explanation for Paul.

Paul's conversion is easily explained. Paul, an avowed enemy of the movement Jesus headed up, without meeting Jesus himself or his disciples, invented a supernatural meeting with this dead messiah, mashed the Jesus myth with his own philosophies gained a following among Jews and non-Jews and railroaded Christianity into a shape that would not have been recognized by its founders.

Hey McCulloch it's been a while. How've you been?

Again, same dilemma. If we grant your hypothesis regarding Paul we now need additional hypotheses to account for the disciples belief, James conversion and an empty tomb. We have a single powerful explanation in the resurrection that has both scope and explanatory power.

[help3434]

[Replying to post 1181 by Goose]

How do you even know that the account of an empty tomb was accurate? Your explanation does not follow parsimony because it doesn't account for the contradiction of everything we know about brain death, decay, and other areas of science.

[no evidence no belief]

This isn't church. It's DEBATING Christianity. We are here because we disagree with you.

To be more precise...

The focus of this forum is primarily on those aspects of Christianity which make for a good debunker experience. The aspects of Christianity which don't make for a good debunker experience are almost entirely ignored.

That is not true. In addition to focusing on debunking the factual claims of the Bible such as the great flood, the talking donkey and the zombie invasion, I've also spent considerable time discussing the teachings of the Bible, the moral fiber of an hypothetical Bible-God if he existed, the homoerotic tendencies of Jesus, the stupidity and shallowness of Jesus's lessons, etc.

It's not just about demonstrating that it's all just a fairy tale, for me. It's also about demonstrating that it's a horrible fairy tale.

[Goose]

You falsely assume that every claim has to be accepted on equal standard of evidence. A simple practical experiment reveals that this is not the case at all. For example, it doesn't take much evidence to sufficiently show that I drove my car to work this morning. It takes considerably more evidence to show that I flew to work this morning with an invisible jet pack.

However, if the usual way you go to work is by taking the bus then by definition your driving is unusual and therefore extraordinary just as Caesar's death by assassination is since the usual way all people die is by natural causes.

So you cannot simply assert that since we have x evidence for A and x evidence for B, we should either reject or accept both of them. You have to show that Ceasar's assassination is analogous to Jesus's resurrection in terms of standard of evidence. You cannot just assert that. Dubious references of them both being 'unusual' doesn't do much anything.

I believe I have shown that Ceasar's assassination is analogous to Jesus's resurrection in terms of standard of evidence in my post #1171 to Danmark.

Bottom line, your evidence has to be sufficient to overcome the initial implausibility of the claim. I submit that any rational person would hold a bodily resurrection prima facie far less plausible than the assassination of an ancient ruler.

But since the assassination of Caesar itself is by definition extraordinary and since the details make it very implausible as well, you must feel it has sufficient evidence (unless of course you deny the assassination). Yet the evidence isn't any better than for the resurrection.

This conversation has no end game. You are going to keep asserting that extraordinary events shouldn't require more evidence than ordinary events, and everybody without prejudice will reject your view on the obvious grounds that the standard of evidence for a bodily resurrection is far higher than that of an assassination.

You are certainly welcome to claim victory but I believe I've justified my position well enough.

[10CC]

since the usual way all people die is by natural causes

Would that be the method god determines? Is death in war a natural cause?
Or what of death by atomic blast? Or death by worldwide flood?

[Danmark]

No, to be frank, I've never heard of [Nicolaus of Damscus] before. I just did some googling and found that he was a contemporary of Julius Caesar and interviewed eyewitnesses just a few [not 60] years after the assassination, according to the site.

Let’s look at some of your reasoning and apply it to the evidence for the resurrection.

You consider Nicolaus a “contemporary� of Caesar even though he never met Caesar nor was he an eyewitness to the assassination. I find this quite ironical considering it was you that, for some reason, felt it quite noteworthy that Paul never met Jesus. In light of this I’m inclined to claim Paul as a contemporary source for the resurrection since he, like Nicolaus, existed during the era of his respective event. I don’t see how you can now argue against this without committing a Special Plea fallacy. I’m further inclined to claim all four Gospels as contemporary sources as well in light of your view on Nicolaus.

I'll be happy to explain. First of all you appear to misunderstand the word 'contemporary.' He was a contemporary of Caesar whether he met him or not. There is no mention as whether or not he ever met Caesar, just that "He was not actually present when the assassination occurred but had the opportunity to speak with those who were."
Nicolaus was professional historian who interviewed the witnesses to the assassination for the very purpose of finding out what happened. I am not aware of any record of Paul conducting such an interview of any eyewitness to the resurrection. The 2d and 3d party statements we do have of the latter are in conflict. Also as has been pointed out several times, the assassination of J.Caesar did not involve supernatural claims.

[Danmark]

Right, I'll submit that a chain of mass-hallucinations has the same explanatory power as the resurrection and it is more plausible.

Uh, excuse me but a "chain" of mass-hallucinations is not an explanation but rather a, well, chain of multiple explanations. Each instance of an appearance would require a separate hallucination explanation since these appearances took place at different times, in different locations, for different lengths of time (some for days) and to different groups of people in different contexts. Each instance would require you to draw a whole different set of assumptions to justify they were all hallucinations. Again, it fails to the resurrection hypothesis on parsimony which is a single powerful explanation. Further, even if we were to grant the hallucination hypothesis it still would not account for an empty tomb thus it fails to resurrection hypothesis on the criteria of scope.

I agree that the 'mass hallucination' theory is a weak explanation; still it is more likely than people rising up into the sky and disappearing. As I recall the only claim of ascension comes from the last few verses of Mark that are considered by most scholars to be tacked on later.

Wishful thinking, bias, and gossip are all that are necessary to put a low value on the claims of resurrection and ascension.