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?

[Jax Agnesson]

I think that's a rubbish epistemology, practiced by many people here but not so many in real life. Belief is justified if there are sufficient reasons for that belief.

Ah, I get it now.

No evidence = no belief is a good system in regards to OTHER PEOPLE'S assertions, but....

It's rubbish epistemology when applied to one's own assertions.

Of course! What was I thinking??? Thanks for straightening me out on all this!

So you take NENB's position and demand instantc defend it. On what grounds? Blunderbuss strawman blasting again Phil? Can you ever engage a single poster on their own grounds? Too difficult, maybe, all that paying attention and staying focussed and such.

[JohnA]

I think that's a rubbish epistemology, practiced by many people here but not so many in real life. Belief is justified if there are sufficient reasons for that belief.

Ah, I get it now.

No evidence = no belief is a good system in regards to OTHER PEOPLE'S assertions, but....

It's rubbish epistemology when applied to one's own assertions.

Of course! What was I thinking??? Thanks for straightening me out on all this!

So you take NENB's position and demand instantc defend it. On what grounds? Blunderbuss strawman blasting again Phil? Can you ever engage a single poster on their own grounds? Too difficult, maybe, all that paying attention and staying focussed and such.

instantc is wrong. Justification for a belief is not knowledge.
You need evidence. Philosophy students often make this mistake due to their lack knowledge about the scientific process.

[Jax Agnesson]

[Replying to post 1260 by JohnA]
Instantc may well be wrong, in one thing or another. What I am questioning is Philbert's demand that instantc should defend NENB's position.
That is absurd, as I'm sure you will agree.

[Danmark]

1) There is no evidence you are currently persuasive on these topics.

There are good reasons to believe that the collective effort in this forum is yielding fruits.

Despite Philbert's demand for a list, [a fallacious debate tactic] there are indeed good reasons to believe this. We know there are members of this forum who have converted from theism to non theism. They have done so for many reasons, including being exposed to anti religious or atheist thoughts, presentations, arguments. One plants, another waters. Eventually the Spirit of Truth overcomes superstition and non reason.

[otseng]

More fantasy assertions, what a load of crap!

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[JohnA]

Why have faith when you have evidence?

I have faith because I have evidence.

That is your claim, that is not the evidence to justify your claim or to make your claim a fact.
Am assuming you do know the difference between a claim and a fact, do you?
(e.g. The bible is the claim, it is not the evidence that your favorite deity exists)

You have to convince me of your claim that faith is holding cognitive content as true because there is evidence for your supernatural & god's existence assertions. Remember the definition of dictionaries and epistemology disagrees with your claim; it says faith is a belief based on no evidence/proof for the assertions.
I am not interested in your evidence for your god claim. I am interested in your evidence for your claim that faith = evidence.

Hope you spot the difference.

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. Feel free to jump in the water is warm.

Nice try, but seems like you are in cold water, mine is warm. Care to join?
You claim is that your god exists, and that is what is meant by supernatural beliefs; your belief in the supernatural. The OP did not ask you for evidence that you have a belief (as you claimed in error before when you wrote "since the thread is asking for Christians to give evidence for their beliefs"). Your straw man stands, stop beating it please.

You have not given any evidence for your god's existence. All you have done is try and contradict your own faith. Am actually helping you here, remember your scripture clearly states that you have no evidence, all you have is faith. The OP knows that, and that is why he gave you the option to just admit that you have no evidence.

Now, pay attention this time. Below is a link to my questions again. Please try and answer them (and stop with the logical fallacies of straw manning and red herrings).

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 728#601728

Good luck.

[JohnA]

[Replying to post 1260 by JohnA]
Instantc may well be wrong, in one thing or another. What I am questioning is Philbert's demand that instantc should defend NENB's position.
That is absurd, as I'm sure you will agree.

I have seen many posts where instantc makes claims and not defend them; often ignore them or just deny he made the claim in the first place. When pushed he offers biased justifications, but hardly ever admits his mistakes or live up to his burden of proof.
My guess is that Philbert is also experiencing this, hence his understandable frustration with instantc.

[Goose]

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

If you could manage to pull yourself away from the incessant juvenile arguments by ridicule for even one post it would certainly be easier to take you seriously. I won't hold my breath though.

We disagree on the strength of the evidence FOR the resurrection.

And here you conceded the debate question as you’ve framed it in your OP. Your OP states:

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

Because you concede there IS evidence for the resurrection you concede the point and I need not admit I have no evidence. Everything else beyond this is a rabbit trail.

But, for the sake of interest and to be a good sport I’ll bite on the rest.

------

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:


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?

What on earth are YOU talking about? Would you like a blow torch for that enormous strawman? Where I have said, “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…�? No where I have said or argued we only look at the evidence in favour of a position while ignoring the evidence against. I was responding to your implication that evidence for a position is rendered invalid on the basis there is evidence against the position. Here’s what I wrote to refresh your memory, “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.� You need to pay closer attention before you fly off the handle ridiculing.

Now, what this essentially boils down to is whether or not the Christian is standing on strong enough historical evidence to justify the belief that our observation that usually dead people stay dead did not hold in the case of Jesus. Of course, I believe the Christian is standing on solid enough historical evidence – you no doubt disagree as you’ve stated. But you offer no real argument as to why the historical evidence itself is weak. I’ve at least provided a framework in this thread through which to demonstrate the evidence for the resurrection is strong by comparing it to other historical events we already take for granted which are also well supported in their own right. Since you seem reluctant at this point to get into that framework with me I don’t really see the point in continuing. I'm considering starting a separate thread on this anyway so I may not spend much effort on it here in this thread.

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

Since your example here and question regarding a round earth are attempting to knock down a position I do not hold I don’t feel in any way obliged to address them.

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.

This is a rather unsophisticated characterization of the evidence.

We’ll use the assassination of Caesar as control for the treatment of the evidence since the assassination is, in its own right, an undisputed well supported extraordinary event. This at the very least allows us a more objective way to evaluate the evidence. In addition, to meet half way with those who agree the assassination is extraordinary but less extraordinary than a resurrection I’ll also work toward establishing the resurrection has better historical evidence than the assassination of Caesar.

For now I’ll submit as historical evidence:
1. The letter’s and testimony of Paul who met eyewitnesses
2. The testimony of Peter who was an eyewitness
3. An eyewitness account in John
4. An eyewitness account in Matthew
5. The account of Luke who met witnesses
6. The account of Mark who met witnesses
7. Clement’s first letter.

Now, you argue these are anonymous accounts. But you offer no argument as to why that is the case. All the external data suggests these accounts were written by the people who bear the names and John in particular internally claims to be an eyewitness to the events.

Run a comparison for the evidence to the assassination.

1. A handful of cryptic mentions to an assassination in Cicero’s speeches. Cicero was not a witnesses and offers no details.
2. The first full account comes from the non-witness Nicolaus of Damascus writing almost 60 years later. His account is biased and embellished at points. We aren’t sure who his source of information was and he conflicts on key points with later writers.
3. Plutarch is the next source to offer a full account but he is quite late writing c. 70AD.
4. No eyewitness accounts have come down to us.

Any historical evidence for the assassination I've missed you'd like to add?

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.

You cannot logically claim we know for a fact (thus implying absolute certain knowledge) it is impossible since our knowledge base regarding death is incomplete and still growing.

I’ll also note here you are pigeon holing me into defending a literal three day period in which Jesus was dead. I don’t mind doing that so long as you admit that by forcing me to defend a three day period you are conceding the general reliability of the accounts. You don’t get to assume the text is accurate in its secondary details only when it helps make your case stronger. Sorry, that don’t fly. If you will not concede this point then it’s only necessary for me to defend a generalized resurrection (which is simply a return to life from being dead) and not a literal dead for three days resurrection.

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.

Google Zack Dunlap – he was declared brain dead. I’d send you my banking details but I suspect you won’t pay up.

You don’t seem to realize you’re merely shifting the goal posts anyway. Here’s how it runs.

Person A: “Dead people always stay dead.�
Person B: “Not always - The Lazarus Syndrome.�
Person A: “Oh, wait a minute, what I meant to say was brain dead people always stay dead. Yeah, that’s better. Brain dead people always stay dead.�
Person B: “Okay, Zack Dunlap was declared brain dead.�
Person A: “Bbbbut, that must have been a mistake. He couldn't have been brain dead because he came back to life and brain dead people always stay dead and besides he was in hospital receiving medical attention anyway.�
Person B: “Bye.�

As a side note: There is an incredible amount of noise in this thread and rabbit trails galore where people are snipping out my salient points and arguments and responding to partial posts. So I’ll focus my attention on you for the time being since this is your thread. Unless of course I feel someone else offers something material to my argument.

[Goose]

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.

You cut out almost all of my post. Why?

At any rate, you fail to define what you see as a “contemporary� and why. You’re merely asserting Nicolaus was a contemporary despite never meeting Caesar. The only criteria that makes him a contemporary you seem to supply is that Nicloaus had an opportunity to speak to those who were present at the assassination. But you fail to offer any primary evidence for this. Your reasoning here still allows me to introduce Paul as a contemporary of Jesus if we are to be consistent since Paul met witnesses and spoke to them as well (Galatians 1, 2).

You argue Nicoluas was a professional historian who interviewed witnesses but offer no primary evidence to establish this. In fact, I’m not aware of Nicloaus claiming to have interviewed anyone in Life of Augustus as compared to Paul who at least states he met the disciples and spoke to them (Galatians 1 and 2). Even Luke tells he received his data from witnesses (Luke 1:1). Where does Nicloaus even tell us that much?

By the way, your objection that the assassination "did not involve supernatural claims" is false. I gave you some examples which you conveniently ignored. Not to mention, simply objection to a claim on the basis it is a supernatural claim is meaningless and merely reveals a bias towards the supernatural.

[Danmark]

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.

You cut out almost all of my post. Why?

At any rate, you fail to define what you see as a “contemporary� and why. You’re merely asserting Nicolaus was a contemporary despite never meeting Caesar. The only criteria that makes him a contemporary you seem to supply is that Nicloaus had an opportunity to speak to those who were present at the assassination. But you fail to offer any primary evidence for this. Your reasoning here still allows me to introduce Paul as a contemporary of Jesus if we are to be consistent since Paul met witnesses and spoke to them as well (Galatians 1, 2).

You argue Nicoluas was a professional historian who interviewed witnesses but offer no primary evidence to establish this. In fact, I’m not aware of Nicloaus claiming to have interviewed anyone in Life of Augustus as compared to Paul who at least states he met the disciples and spoke to them (Galatians 1 and 2). Even Luke tells he received his data from witnesses (Luke 1:1). Where does Nicloaus even tell us that much?

By the way, your objection that the assassination "did not involve supernatural claims" is false. I gave you some examples which you conveniently ignored. Not to mention, simply objection to a claim on the basis it is a supernatural claim is meaningless and merely reveals a bias towards the supernatural.

Once you've expressed your point, I simply redact what seems to me as redundant or uninteresting. I get decide what I want to respond to. That is the debater's prerogative. My point then and now is that you do not understand the word 'contemporary.' As its Latin root suggests it means existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time; [example] Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.