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?

[no evidence no belief]

Dear everybody,
Because of [strike]hatchet job by a user who has just received a moderator final warning for repeatedly insulting me[/strike]
a misunderstanding with another debater who, like me, sometimes gets a little carried away, I am probably about to get kicked out from the forum.

I just wanted to say that it's been a lot of fun. My thread is, I think, the most active on the entire forum, and with 2500 comments, represents almost a third of all the activity on the apologetics subforum. I hope that Danmark, Scourge, Instantc, Divine Insight and many others will continue rocking the atheist side. I'll be sure to read the debates even if I can't participate.

I would like to thank Otseng for the magnificent job of putting this forum together. It really is a cool website, and I urge all people who enjoy using it to donate some money to pay for the server space.

Finally I would like to thank Dianaid, Sonofason 1312 (1213? don't have time to go look it up), Goose and all the other theists with whom I've had the pleasure of debating the many crucial issues that lie at the heart of the human condition. Even debating Winepusher was fun.

Darn, I've got a frog in my throat.

Ok, bye

[WinePusher]

I would like to publicly apologize for my behavior towards no evidence no belief. My posts towards him in this thread were completely unproductive and uncalled for and he made many valid and legitimate arguments that are worth responding to. Even though I disagree with him vehemently, I think he is a very good and productive debater who has contributed many valuable posts and topics to this site. My posts and actions against him were out of line and I'm truely sorry for any distress I may have caused him. I hope that he remains on this forum because if he doesn't we would be losing an excellent debater.

[Dantalion]

Wait...what just happened here ?

[otseng]

Dear everybody,
Because of [strike]hatchet job by a user who has just received a moderator final warning for repeatedly insulting me[/strike]
a misunderstanding with another debater who, like me, sometimes gets a little carried away, I am probably about to get kicked out from the forum.

Moderator Comment

For those wondering what is going on, no evidence no belief is not getting kicked out for getting carried away. The rule violation that is that there is overwhelming evidence that he is notachance. Per the rules, anybody that has been banned cannot rejoin the forum. And it is liable for an immediate ban.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[Joab]

Has nenb been banned?

[no evidence no belief]

Has nenb been banned?

Not yet, apparently. The mods are still deciding what to do with me.

While I'm still here, I'm gonna go ahead and respond to a few arguments being made, while I have time.

[no evidence no belief]

Hey guys, I just thought of something interesting.

WP is making the argument that a flying corpse is unlikely, but a flying corpse IF a skydaddy exists is more likely. IF a skydaddy exists.

But we shouldn't calculate the probability of X being true IF Y is true. We should calculate the probability of X being true AND Y being true.

Simple mathematics. I'll first relay my argument with a simple example, and then apply it to the miracles issue.

If you go to the store, you are 40% likely to be able to find and buy a Lindor chocolate bar.

A gift basket is 50% likely to contain a Lindor chocolate bar.

You are 50% likely to be given a gift basket.

So, the probability that you obtain a Lindor NOT contingent on a gift basket is 40%

The probability that you obtain a Lindor IF you obtain a gift basket is 50%

But the relevant figure is that the probability that you obtain a gift basket AND it has a Lindor bar in it is 25%. Lower than the standalone probability of a Lindor Bar not contingent on a gift basket.

If you stack sequences of uncertain claims and make the last one contingent on the previous one, the probability of the entire stack being true is decreased, not increased.

The probability that a corpse flew IF God exists is higher than if God didn't exist, but the probability that God exists AND that he caused a corpse to fly is lower than a corpse's spontaneous flight.

Remember your 4th grade maths: If you want to calculate the probability that something happened OR something else happened, you add the fractions resulting in a higher probability. If you want to calculate the probability that something happened AND something else happened as well, you multiply the factions, resulting in a lower number.

I am not mathematically talented, but it seems to me that your argument, above, applies to correlations, not causations. There is, for instance, nothing about a gift basket that necessitates a Lindor chocolate bar. There is nothing in the chocolate bar that requires it's presence in a gift basket; the presence of both together is the result of action by a third party; neither suffers from the lack of the other.

However, the argument (as I saw it, anyway) is that resurrection is only possible IF there is a God...a causal relationship, not just a correlative one. This puts your argument regarding probabilities into the proverbial cocked hat.

What you are saying about causality is accurate but incidental, and it has no impact on my argument. The probability of all events in a causal chain occurring is calculated in the exact same way as the probability of multiple correlative or even independent events all happening.

If probability of X is 20% and probability of independent event Y is 30%, the probability of X AND Y happening is 20% x 30% = 6%

If probability of X is 20% and probability of X causing Y is 30%, the probability of X happening AND of X causing Y is ALSO 20% x 30% = 6%. Causality or lack therefore has no bearing on the calculation of probabilities.

Let me try to explain in more detail.

I'm going to pick a number at random for the sake of argument. Let's say that the probability that God exists is 20% (0.2).

Let's say that IF God exists, the probability that he caused Jesus's resurrection is 30% (0.3 - again, number chosen totally arbitrarily just to illustrate the argument).

So the probability that God exists AND that he caused Jesus's resurrection is 0.2 x 0.3 = 0.06. Namely 6%.

The fact that there is causation, as opposed to just correlation does not affect the argument in the slightest.

And it actually gets better (or worse, from your prospective)

Most Christians believe that it's true that God caused the Resurrection but that it's not true that he caused Mohammed's ascension on a flying horse.

Let's say that IF God exists, the probability that he caused Mohammed's ascension is 20%. If so, the probability that he DIDN'T cause Mohammed's ascension is 80%.

Therefore the probability that God exists AND he caused Jesus's resurrection AND he did NOT cause Mohammed's ascension is calculated thus: 0.2 x 0.3 x 0.8 = 0.48 = 4.2%

Let's say the probability that IF God exists, he also inspired Joseph Smith to write the Book of Mormon is 50%. If so, the probability that he DIDN'T inspire Smith is 50% (again, picking numbers at random).

Therefore, the probability that God exists AND, he caused Jesus's resurrection AND he did NOT cause Mohamed's ascension and he did NOT inspire Joseph Smith is calculated thus: 0.2 x 0.3 x 0.8 x 0.5 = 0.024 = 2.4%

Also, we should mention that God might exists, but he could be one of several Gods. Let's say that IF any Gods exists at all, the probability that there are at least two, is 75%. That would mean that the probability that there is only one God is 25%.

So the probability that a God exists AND that he is the only existing God AND that he caused Jesus's resurrection AND that he didn't cause Mohammed's ascension AND that he didn't inspire Joseph Smith is calculated thus: 0.2 x 0.25 x 0.3 x 0.8 x 0.5 = 0.006 = 0.6%

What am I trying to illustrate here? Simply that it's mathematically inevitable that the more details you add to your belief system for which the probability of truth is not 100%, the more and more unlikely does it become that your entire belief system is accurate.

I'm trying to counter the argument that if God exists, then the resurrection is more likely. Sure. IF. But the probability that God exists is very small, and the probability that if he did exist is also very small. Therefore, the probability that he does exit AND he caused the resurrection is very VERY small.

And just so you know, terming such as 'flying corpses' is not only offensive, but highly inaccurate; a corpse is a dead body. The whole point of resurrection is that the person experiencing it is ALIVE. Not 'undead,' or 'zombie,' or walking/flying corpses.

Excuse me Diana, but as the husband of a doctor who has invested a fortune in her medical studies, and puts her heart and soul into doing nothing but saving lives day in day out, I find it TREMENDOUSLY OFFENSIVE that you would allege that corpses can come back to life. Terms such as "the Resurrected Body of Christ" are not only offensive, but highly inaccurate; a corpse is a dead body. The whole point of modern medicine is that a person that is dead cannot come back to life.

So you may continue to describe these events as 'walking/flying corpses' if you want to...but you need to be aware that doing so is an extremely inaccurate, as well as uncivil, way of presenting the doctrines and beliefs of those who believe in resurrection.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to try to be a little more civil on this forum, So let's make a deal:

When talking about the claims of the Bible, I will refer to them in ways such as "The Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ", in deference to your beliefs in Christianity, if you agree to refer to the same event as "a decomposing corpse undergoing a physically impossible reversal of the denaturing of enzymes in its brain, and inverting the gravitational interaction between itself and planet earth" in deference to my beliefs in modern medicine and in the law of gravity.

But that would be an inaccurate description of my beliefs regarding what resurrection is, so....sorry, no. As I mentioned before, the perception of most believers in resurrection figure that the resurrected body is alive, healthy, 'incorruptable' (that's biblical) and a fit and permanent home for the spirit that left your corpse behind. If we believed in a literal transformation of the decaying corpse, then all those sailors who were buried at sea, all those whose bodies have decayed past any hope of discovery, who were destroyed in whatever manner.....they would all be out of luck, would they not? Yet the doctrines all (as far as I am aware, anyway) promise resurrection for everybody, no matter what happened to the earthly corpse.

You mention being insulted because your wife is a doctor.....my goodness; the entire goal of medicine is to hold back death, make the unhealthy healthy again--and modern medicine routinely 'brings back' people who would have been pronounced unrecoverably dead a century ago.

Yes, and you achieve this by working for years, and putting your life on hold, and delay having children, and working really really hard. It is offensive to claim that such a feat of human ingenuity and labor can also happen magically. It is as offensive to me as people who reject medical treatment in favor of prayer. To say that what can be accomplished through a long line of doctors laboring for generations of tremendous work and sacrifice, can be duplicated by some guy somewhere hoping-out-loud for things to get better, is very demeaning to doctors, and I find it very offensive.

.........and that is not the same as resurrection, btw.

I do not ask that you refer to this in the terms you propose; just refer to it accurately, in light of what is really believed about resurrection, not your twisted and inaccurate version of it.

What we (most of us) believe is more akin to....oh...taking the spirit of Dolly (remember Dolly the sheep?) after her physical death, and putting it back into her cloned, perfected body. One that has all the genetic kinks gone (including the ones that seem to program death).

That's not the best of analogies either, but it's a lot closer than your 'flying corpses.'

Hi Diana, I honestly did not know about this particular nuanced version of the belief. In your opinion is this a widely believed version of the event in all denominations, or is it mostly a Mormon version?

Nonetheless, however common or uncommon your version of the belief is, I am interested in finding out more about it.

Luke 24:39 says this: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.�

So, according to Luke, the resurrected Jesus wasn't a spirit, he was flesh and bones. I'm assuming you agree with this much.

So what you believe, and obviously correct me if I'm wrong, is that Jesus died, all his organs failed, his blood clotted, etc. Then God somehow extracted from the bloody mush that used to be Jesus's brain all the data about Jesus's memories and personality (or maybe he had already backed up that info onto a hard drive back in the main office in heaven before the brain started decomposing). Then he created a clone of Jesus with the added bonus of indestructibility and the ability to fly. Then he implanted the personality data from the corpse into this new and improved body. Then he made the old corpse disappear (the tomb was empty, right). Then he teleported the new and improved body into the tomb. Then the new corpse flew into the sky.

In short, I understand you don't believe in the flying corpse. That would NOT be an accurate synopsis of your position. You believe in the Personality Transfer, the Vanishing Corpse, and the Teleported, Indestructible Flying Clone. P.T. - V.C. - T.I.F.C. for short. Pity Veecy Tifsy.

Would you accept that as a factually accurate synopsis of your belief, although stripped of the typical laudatory terminology? If not, which portion did I get wrong?

As to your math....

Someone once did the calculations upon the probability of life appearing on a planet, and evolving into sentience that can examine the probabilities of its own existence: the Drake equation, which produces wildly variable responses, from a million civilizations in the galaxy to just one or two........maybe.

But nobody can say that the probability of finding intelligent life in the universe is zero, because, well, here we are..........making the probability 100%

and someone, eventually, wins the lottery.

Basically, probabilities ARE just math; do you know what the odds are of someone getting Multiple Myeloma are? .67%........about the same as the final probabilities you have been tossing around.

But for those who actually GET it, the probability is 100%.

Basically, then, it doesn't matter what the probabilities are that there is a god (how would you figure those, anyway?)....that's a binary set. Either there is one or there isn't. All probability figures have to be based on one or the other premise, not both.

Right. That's what I'm doing. I don't think we're in disagreement.

Either God exists or he doesn't.

Once we assume he exists, he either is the only existing God, or he is one of several.

Once we assume he exists and is the only one, he either engaged in Pity Veecy Tifsy. or he didn't.

Once we assume he exists, is the only one, and performed Pity Veecy Tifsy, he either also caused Mohamed's white horse to fly or he didn't.

Once we assume he exits, is the only one, performed Pity Veecey Tifsy, did NOT make Mohammed's horse fly, he either also inspired Joseph Smith or he didn't.

Etc, etc, etc.

We don't know what the probability for any of these options are. But unless you claim the probability for any of these is 100% (if so please demonstrate) then it's mathematically inevitable that with every non-100% variable that is introduced, the likelihood of the whole series of events having happened is reduced.

[no evidence no belief]

I would like to publicly apologize for my behavior towards no evidence no belief. My posts towards him in this thread were completely unproductive and uncalled for and he made many valid and legitimate arguments that are worth responding to. Even though I disagree with him vehemently, I think he is a very good and productive debater who has contributed many valuable posts and topics to this site. My posts and actions against him were out of line and I'm truely sorry for any distress I may have caused him. I hope that he remains on this forum because if he doesn't we would be losing an excellent debater.

Hey WP, thanks for that. We're cool in any case.

While we're waiting for a mod decision, there's no harm in continuing our debate, if you're up for it.

This is a summary of our respective positions (please correct me anywhere I misrepresent yours, of course), coupled by requests for clarifications of the portions of your position that I don't understand.

We agree that it's reasonable to consider events which violate the laws of nature to be extremely unlikely. I've characterized the level of unlikelihood with the number 0.00000000000000000000000000000001%. Obviously I don't mean this as an actual number derived from calculation. It's just a symbol for how extremely unlikely it is for an event that violates everything we know about medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, etc to happen.

So my first question for you is this: We agree with the general idea of the unlikelihood of suspension of the laws of nature, but do you agree with the characterization I've given with the 0.00000000000000000000000001% number? In other words, we are on the same page on it being unlikely, but are we on the same page on how unlikely it is? You've compared the likelihood of a resurrection to the likelihood of the sun not rising tomorrow. OR at least I've characterized your statement as such. Do you agree with that approximate estimation of the likelihood of a supernatural event?

Secondly, you say that the circumstantial evidence for an alleged supernatural event can be sufficient to counter the overwhelming empirical evidence against it. Am I characterizing your position accurately? If so, you'll need to explain that to me better, because I genuinely don't understand how you could hold it.

An offshoot of your argument (as I understand it) that circumstantial evidence for something can be sufficient to counter empirical evidence against it is this: If there is a claim (say the existence of Bigfoot) for which the circumstantial evidence is greater than (or at least equal to) the circumstantial evidence for the Resurrection and Ascension, and the empirical evidence against it is less strong that the empirical evidence against the Resurrection and Ascension, then why would you believe in the Resurrection and Ascension, but not in Bigfoot? (Note: I do not mean to insult your faith by comparing it to belief in Bigfoot. I am making a purely academic argument about consistency in methodology of belief). I mean, think of evidence for and against as weights on a balance. If, in your opinion, the evidence for the Resurrection is sufficiently heavy to outweigh the evidence against the Resurrection, then the evidence for bigfoot, which is heavier than the evidence for the resurrection, should be sufficient to outweigh the evidence against bigfoot, which is lighter than the evidence against the Resurrection.

So my question is this: Do you hold the position that you are being consistent in your application of your method to form beliefs? Do you disagree that the existence of bigfoot violates less natural laws than a resurrection, and do you disagree that there is stronger evidence for bigfoot than for the resurrection (interviews with live people, just to name one).


You also mentioned the argument that, yes, the resurrection is extremely unlikely, but the probability of it increases if you assume that a God exists. Is that the gist of your argument?

I have two answers to that claim (if I understand it correctly). First, I have pointed out that, sure, IF God exists, then we can talk about his existence affects the probability of other claims. IF. But first you have to demonstrate God's existence. Otherwise all you're doing is instead of believing in an unsubstantiated claim, you are believing in a claim substantiated by an unsubstantiated claim. I regret if analogies I made in the past might upset you, but irrespective of whether it might be offensive to point this out, while there obviously are fundamental differences between belief in the resurrection and, say, belief in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, there is a noteworthy parallel in the mechanism whereby one doesn't believe in the Resurrection per se, but on the basis of the existence of God, and whereby one doesn't believe in flying reindeer per se, but on the basis of Santa's magic powers. Both resurrections and flying reindeer are equally meaningless beliefs if their foundational beliefs God and Santa, cannot be independently substantiated. What are your thoughts on that?

You refer to the existence of God (as part of the justification for belief in the Resurrection) as "background knowledge". I don't understand this. The existence of a personal God who intervenes in human's matters is not "background knowledge". It is "background unsubstantiated speculation".

The second response I have to the "Belief in the Resurrection based on the existence of God" argument is that the more variables you introduce, the less likely it is that all the events happened as you believe. If God's existence is comparable to tossing a coin and getting heads, then God existing, AND no other gods existing, AND God interacting with humanity, AND God being responsible for the Resurrection, AND God not being responsible for the saints leaving their tombs, AND God not being responsible for Mohamed's ascension, etc, is comparable to tossing a coin multiple times and getting heads each time. Do you understand this argument, and do you disagree?

The last point I made, and to which I haven't gotten a chance to get feedback from you on, is the issue of multiple corpses coming back to life according to the Bible. Your argument was that Jesus's resurrection was the only instance of supernatural intervention in the resuscitation of corpses. My counterargument is that supernatural resurrections seem to be very common back then, signifying that they are a common mythical motif rather than an historical account. I made the comparison with reports of people falling off the edge of the earth stopping when we realize the earth is round. Do you disagree with this characterization?

Also, could you retract your earlier statement that Jesus's resurrection was caused by a suspension of the laws of nature, but the simultaneous exodus of multiple corpses from their graves could have taken place without a similar suspension of the laws of nature? I'm pretty sure you misspoke. If on the other hand you stand by your statement, please elaborate.



In summary, my position is that if there is overwhelming evidence against a claim and very little to none in favor of that claim, than I don't believe it.

You seem to agree about there being overwhelming evidence against the resurrection, but seem to either disagree with the notion that the evidence in favor is insufficient to counter the evidence against, or seem to disagree with the conclusion that one shouldn't believe claims against which there is overwhelming evidence and in favor of which there is very little evidence. Could you clarify that?

Thanks,
NENB

[Sir Hamilton]

[Replying to post 1 by no evidence no belief]

What sort of evidence would you like? Would you like God to appear to you? talk to you? And even then how could you know for sure if it is God and not your imagination or an evil spirit deceiving you?

[no evidence no belief]

[Replying to post 1 by no evidence no belief]

What sort of evidence would you like? Would you like God to appear to you? talk to you? And even then how could you know for sure if it is God and not your imagination or an evil spirit deceiving you?

In this thread I'm asking for evidence for ANY supernatural claim, not just for the existence of God. The amount and kind of evidence I would find acceptable, depends greatly on what the claim is. If the claim is that you are able to move objects with your mind, then I'd expect you to show me and a team of impartial observers moving objects with your mind in a highly controlled environment. If your claim is that you can speak to dead people, I would need you to reveal discrete empirical information that can verifiably only have come from the dead as opposed to cold reading the info. If your claim is that a carpenter walked on liquid water 2000 years ago, I truly don't know what evidence you'd need to provide to convince me, but you would certainly have to start by demonstrating with a high level of confidence that our understanding of the laws of physics are fundamentally wrong, or that it's the case that these laws are sometimes suspended. Start with that.

You are correct that it is a fully documented and well established fact that the human brain is susceptible to hallucination, both visual and auditory, and even olfactory and tactile. Thus, my personal experience of hearing a voice or seeing an image in an isolated instance, would not be sufficient to convince me that, say, 2000 years ago the memories and personality (soul?) of a carpenter were artificially extracted from a corpse by a deity who then injected that data into the brain of an immortal clone of the carpenter which then flew into the sky - a belief recently presented by a user.