Do Christians apply logic consistently?

[Cmass]

Do Christians engage in the same depth of reasoning, apply the same thinking skills and invite the same level of skepticism when reading claims made by the Bible as they do when reading any other claims that they encounter?

I don't think so.

As I read through page after page of this forum, I watch otherwise highly articulate, logical people (albeit with "faith problems") create more and more elaborate - often bizarre - stories to hold together utterly nonsensical claims. There is no consistency in what they chose to believe and not believe.

One bible story is just a metaphor while another is literal - it all depends upon the debate and who is debating.

It comes across as a silly, fragmented belief system in desperate search for some way to justify it's existence and find evidence that it is real.

If you were to replace "Christianity" or "Jesus" or "God" with any other subject, would you treat it with the same level of "faith"? The claims made by the bible are absolutely astounding to say the least. If I was to make such claims, you would be very skeptical. No?

[Zorro1]

I am not. I am not even expecting the same level of insistance on if the ressurection happened today.

The 'ressurection' is decribing a supernatural event, that in our experiance does not happen.

I need much more than a couple of contrary accounts , written for religious purposes, that were written 40 years or more after it happened.

Oh, I am sure you would. That is why I asked you to provide an objective methodology to determine if the evidence is sufficient to affirm the event happened.

Allow me to suggest a few guidelines in selecting the criteria for such a methodology:

1) The criterion must be able to be met, at least in principle. Sometimes people will make demands for evidence that cannot be met. The Atheist may ask for evidence that will prove with 100% certainty that Jesus rose from the dead . If you are unable to provide such evidence, the Atheist will then consider his unbelief justified. What the Atheist doesn't realize, is that he has committed a categorical fallacy!

There are two types of reasoning that we use to determine truth deduction and induction. Deduction deals with formal logic that produces necessary conclusions; conclusions that are 100% certain. Induction deals with informal arguments and yields probable conclusions. These are conclusions that rational people adhere to, because the rational person goes with the evidence and not against it. When dealing in the areas of law, science and history we need to use inductive reasoning. All of these areas can only yield probable conclusions. As you can see, if the Atheist demands 100% certainty, he is asking for a deductive argument. But historical investigation is an inductive process. Here the Atheist is demanding a deductive conclusion to an inductive argument. He is asking that the characteristics of the one category (deduction) be applied to another category (induction). This is fallacious reasoning and must be pointed out. This type of criterion cannot even be met in principle. If the test cannot be met, at least in principle, then it is not a real test. It is simply masquerading as a test.

2) The conclusions of the criterion cannot conflict with known fact. It is also improper to have a test that not only falsifies the issue at hand, but other issues we already affirm to be true. For example, let's take David Hume's tests for the miraculous which are found in his "Treatise on Human Understanding." Here Hume set up a battery of tests. In the end these tests show that no one can affirm that a miracle ever took place. However, in Hume's own day it was shown that, given these same tests, no one could affirm that Napoleon had been Emperor of France, or that he had ever lived. This was an intriguing idea since Napoleon was still alive and living in exile.

3) The criterion must be objective. In other words, the test should yield the same result, regardless of the personal opinions of those applying it. If the test only disproves the resurrection when an Atheist applies it, or only substantiates the resurrection when a Christian applies it, the test should be rejected.

4) The criterion must be one which has been used in historical research and has been demonstrated as a reliable way of determining history. I was recently reading a paper written by an Atheist. In the paper he admits that there is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament than any other book of ancient times. However, he still rejected the resurrection because he felt there was not sufficient evidence for the reliability of the documents or the event. He listed what he considered to be sufficient evidence. At the top of the list was video tape of the event. If we could produce video tape of the resurrection of Jesus, this Atheist would be tempted to believe. Besides the obvious absurdity of this criterion, this criterion is not now, nor ever has been a criterion used by historians to detiermine ancient history. It is an instance of the logical fallacy "Special Pleading." It is a criterion which is set up with the sole purpose of disproving the event at hand, an event the Atheist does not like, but is never used to evaluate other events of the period.

Looking forward to your response.

Regards,

Z

[Abraham Simpson]

Hello cmass:
A completely logical Christian is one who recognizes that logic is the God given attribute that keeps all of us from dying young because of a really stupid accident.
If one approaches the bible with the same kind of logic that keeps him alive amidst all the normal dangers, then he should not have too much problem separating the obviously metaphorical from the possibly literal.
Today's orthodoxy requires logicly impossible biblical events to be considered literal, and logicly possible/probable biblical events to be considered metaphorical.
Since this is completely illogical, then I would say that modern Christians must switch off their logic when it comes to their faith.
Original Christianity is completely logical, and completely biblical, and is based on the one faith of the whole bible, not on the many dividing, mystery doctrines, established and proven with selected single verses.

[MrWhy]

It would take a lot of third party accounts, and they would have to be from outside the religious group.

Please quantify "a lot" and the specific sources you'd expect the event to be recorded in and why you'd expect them to be there. You are evaluating this as a 21st Cent event. Why must it be a non-religious group, by the way (there are mind you, but I'm still curious).

At least two accounts by other writers who were eyewitnesses, and were not part of the Christian movement. Why, because you should never rely on testimony of someone who has vested interest. Especially deep emotional interest. It like only listening to one political party line to make your voting decision. Humans are very emotion driven. Too often reason follows desire instead of leading it.

It is impossible for something as old as Biblical scripture to prove or even contain good evidence of a true resurrection.

This is your opinion. Show me why it is impossible

There's not enough corroboration from other sources. Fewer writers, writing gets lost, accounts are translated, retold, and modified. Much of the Bible stuff was passed along in oral tales. Ever heard of the telephone game?

If this happened today, think about how much substantiation would be required.

MrWhy, but it didn't happen today. This event is supposed to have taken place 2000 years ago. That is my point. I understand that you are looking at the Bible and the resurrection through 21st Cent eyes. But try again keeping in mind when this event took place.

Are you saying it is more credible because it took place 2000 years back? I don't understand that reasoning, but would like to hear more about it. It's exactly those ancient eyes I trust less because everyone was more superstitious, and less educated. The age does not improve the credibility of the resurrection story it make it more suspect. We can't even get the facts about who did what in our government last year. Extensive special investigation and it's still difficult to figure out who leaked the story. What chance is there we can trust the resurrection story?

[Goat]

I am not. I am not even expecting the same level of insistance on if the ressurection happened today.

The 'ressurection' is decribing a supernatural event, that in our experiance does not happen.

I need much more than a couple of contrary accounts , written for religious purposes, that were written 40 years or more after it happened.

Oh, I am sure you would. That is why I asked you to provide an objective methodology to determine if the evidence is sufficient to affirm the event happened.

Allow me to suggest a few guidelines in selecting the criteria for such a methodology:

1) The criterion must be able to be met, at least in principle. Sometimes people will make demands for evidence that cannot be met. The Atheist may ask for evidence that will prove with 100% certainty that Jesus rose from the dead . If you are unable to provide such evidence, the Atheist will then consider his unbelief justified. What the Atheist doesn't realize, is that he has committed a categorical fallacy!

Which, of course, you are using the logcal fallicy known as 'Shifting the burden of Proof'. You won't believe in the resurection stories of older
pagan religions, yet you will accept your own without question.

Your attempt to shift the burden of proof is an attempt to divert from the fact that aside from several accounts written decades after the alledged events by people with a religious adgenda, there IS no evidence at all.

You are, by the way, proving the OP of this thread quite nicely though.

There are two types of reasoning that we use to determine truth deduction and induction. Deduction deals with formal logic that produces necessary conclusions; conclusions that are 100% certain. Induction deals with informal arguments and yields probable conclusions. These are conclusions that rational people adhere to, because the rational person goes with the evidence and not against it. When dealing in the areas of law, science and history we need to use inductive reasoning. All of these areas can only yield probable conclusions. As you can see, if the Atheist demands 100% certainty, he is asking for a deductive argument. But historical investigation is an inductive process. Here the Atheist is demanding a deductive conclusion to an inductive argument. He is asking that the characteristics of the one category (deduction) be applied to another category (induction). This is fallacious reasoning and must be pointed out. This type of criterion cannot even be met in principle. If the test cannot be met, at least in principle, then it is not a real test. It is simply masquerading as a test.

But both induction and deduction have one peice of commonality. It depends on evidence. Accounts written decades later is not evidence that a supernatural event occured, it rather is evidence of a story. Your attempt to divert is showing the cognative dissodence in your position.

2) The conclusions of the criterion cannot conflict with known fact. It is also improper to have a test that not only falsifies the issue at hand, but other issues we already affirm to be true. For example, let's take David Hume's tests for the miraculous which are found in his "Treatise on Human Understanding." Here Hume set up a battery of tests. In the end these tests show that no one can affirm that a miracle ever took place. However, in Hume's own day it was shown that, given these same tests, no one could affirm that Napoleon had been Emperor of France, or that he had ever lived. This was an intriguing idea since Napoleon was still alive and living in exile.

Which, of course, is not even the level of evidence I am looking for. Have you ever wondered out of these 500 supposed witnesses, not ONE wrote something down? We also know from experiance that dead people don't come back to life.

3) The criterion must be objective. In other words, the test should yield the same result, regardless of the personal opinions of those applying it. If the test only disproves the resurrection when an Atheist applies it, or only substantiates the resurrection when a Christian applies it, the test should be rejected.

We know that ancienct religious texts are not always reliable. THe same criteria that the Christians use for the ressurection of Jesus could be used to prove the existance of the God Zues.

4) The criterion must be one which has been used in historical research and has been demonstrated as a reliable way of determining history. I was recently reading a paper written by an Atheist. In the paper he admits that there is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament than any other book of ancient times. However, he still rejected the resurrection because he felt there was not sufficient evidence for the reliability of the documents or the event. He listed what he considered to be sufficient evidence. At the top of the list was video tape of the event. If we could produce video tape of the resurrection of Jesus, this Atheist would be tempted to believe. Besides the obvious absurdity of this criterion, this criterion is not now, nor ever has been a criterion used by historians to detiermine ancient history. It is an instance of the logical fallacy "Special Pleading." It is a criterion which is set up with the sole purpose of disproving the event at hand, an event the Atheist does not like, but is never used to evaluate other events of the period.

See above. We have no eye witness accounts. We have the experiance that people do not come back from the dead. We DO have the archtype
in mythology of other 'gods' being 'ressurected' (such as Horus,Osiris,the early celebration of Eostre, among others).

I will give the same criteria for all those other resurrection events as for the Christian one.

What does the Christian have besides some books written decades after the fact that don't even fully agree with each other? Answer. NOTHING.



Looking forward to your response.

Regards,

Z[/quote]

[Lotan]

1) The criterion must be able to be met, at least in principle.

Hey Zorro, are you G. Brady Lenardos?

If you're not, then you might at least give him credit for the argument that you're presenting.

[McCulloch]

Unless you want to call into question the authenticty of the NT and the record I noted above of Josephus. But Then I suppose that will be a whole new thread or "resurrection" of an old one.

I question the accuracy of the New Testament. But you should have figured out that by yourself. No one can believe that the New Testament is accurate and still be an atheist. I also agree with the majority of scholars of ancient writings that the noted passage of Josephus is not authentic.

In your mind, what would constitute acceptable proof of the resurrection for you?

Why doesn't Jesus provide twenty-first century first person evidence that he rose from the dead? That would be proof!

Why must he do this? Show me where in scripture it says he must make modern day appearances to prove his resurrection?

I am not making any demands. You asked what would constitute acceptable proof. I gave one good example of acceptable proof. Do you disagree with my assertion that a twenty-first century first person visit by the resurrected Jesus to Toronto would be acceptable proof?

Is it Christ's fault that you choose to disregard the NT and records such as the Antiquites because of your own presuppositions?

I do not disregard the Christian New Testament. I have examined it carefully and find it not convincing. The later insertion into Josephus, I disregard.

Would you believe it anyway if he did make an appearance? Something tells me that he could walk up to you on the street, raise someone from the dead, and you would probably find a "rational" way to dismiss him and his actions. A hoax perhaps. Am I wrong?

I don't know, why doesn't he give it a try? If he were to raise a few will known people who are dead and who's DNA we may have on file, that would raise a few eyebrows and convince a few skeptics. And give a few lucky souls one more chance to accept him as saviour. James Dean, Jimmy Hoffa, George Harrison, John Lennon, we could list quite a few. But I'm making only one suggestion.

So how about evidence? Eye-witness accounts of mass resurrection of the dead from someone other than one of his followers.

See my post to Goat. What more do you want? What other records in your opnion should have recorded the resurrection and why? Why does it have to be a mass resurrection, by the way?

I again was answering your question of what might constitute evidence. The Bible states that a whole lot of folks got out of their graves when Jesus died. Independent objective validation of that particular claim, I would count as valid evidence. Wouldn't you?

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons. That would count as evidence.

Would you acknowledge them as authentic healings if these things did happen? Somehow I doubt it. If not, why use that arguement?

My neighbour's wife died two years ago. If you raised her from the dead, I would count that as evidence. My twenty-three year old son is non-verbal and self-abusive. Making him normally competent would constitute proof. My mother-in-law has Alzheimer's. Give her back her short term memory, that would count. Get someone I don't know who claims to have a slipped disk to get up and walk, I would be suspicious.

[McCulloch]

When there is no irrefutable piece of evidence to tell you that some awesome incredible miraculous event has happened that has been reported to have happened, you have determined that it is rational to believe that it is true?

By "irrefutable" do you mean 100% certain? That kind of deductive certianty is not available for anything in the realm of history, law or even science. We usually say that the rational man goes with the preponderance of evidence. If someone goes against the preponderence of evidence, it shows that his position is not based on the evidence, but something else; perhaps it is based on a presupposition.

Irrefutable was not my word, I was responding to someone else. However, if there is a plausible non-supernatural explanation for an event, I see no reason to favour the supernatural one. Do you?

Yes, without irrefutable evidence, a rational person must believe that dead people stay dead. We have lots of evidence to support the idea that dead people stay dead and none to oppose it.

Of course, you really mean that dead people that do not have a sufficient cause to change their state, stay dead. There are two categories here. Those who have a sufficient cause and those who do not. Some people upon death have CPR applied and some of them do not stay dead; others have defibulation applied and some of them do not stay dead. Those wo have no sufficient cause to change their state, stay dead. When it comes to Jesus, no one has made the claim that there was no sufficient cause. Just the opposite is true, the claim is that he rose because of a sufficient cause, one greater than a defibulator. So, we wouldn't want to prima facia place him in the wrong category; that would constitute a categorical fallacy.

I believe that the medical advances you speak of call in to question the point at which a person is dead. Our current understanding is that no one is dead until they are brain-dead. If the body can be restarted soon enough, ie before the brain is completely non-functional, then the person was not really dead. Defribulation does not change a dead person into a live one, it prevents death (actually postpones it, we all will die). Dead people, really dead people, fully and completely dead people, do not come back.

Now about this magician issue and the vanishing coin. You rejected the testimony. But of course rejecting the testimony is not based on the evidence at hand. The testimony is the evidence. Now, I am not saying I wouldn't do the same thing, but I am just wondering if you have a coherent epistemological reason or is this merely a subjective dislike for anything that is not "naturalism?"

I assume, and correct me if I am wrong, that you would also reject your own sense perception, if you saw the event yourself.

So, if you reject testimony and your own sense perception, what is your basis for knowledge?

"Because," Scrooge replies, "a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

There are many ways to deceive one's senses. People make a living at it. That is why for such evidence to be considered valid, controls must be in place to remove such possibilities.

[Zorro1]

1) The criterion must be able to be met, at least in principle. Sometimes people will make demands for evidence that cannot be met. The Atheist may ask for evidence that will prove with 100% certainty that Jesus rose from the dead . If you are unable to provide such evidence, the Atheist will then consider his unbelief justified. What the Atheist doesn't realize, is that he has committed a categorical fallacy!

Which, of course, you are using the logcal fallicy known as 'Shifting the burden of Proof'. You won't believe in the resurection stories of older
pagan religions, yet you will accept your own without question.

Your attempt to shift the burden of proof is an attempt to divert from the fact that aside from several accounts written decades after the alledged events by people with a religious adgenda, there IS no evidence at all.

You are, by the way, proving the OP of this thread quite nicely though.

My, My! Each of these guidelines simply keeps us from committing a logical fallacy. Do you have an objection to refraining from logical fallacies?

There are times where burdens do in fact logically shift. But, if you are going to accuse someone of committing a fallacy, it should be one that has some relationship to what was written and not just something that you pulled out of thin air. No where did I discuss sifting burdens. You have made claim after claim; I simply asked for the method you used to come to those conclusions.

Setting aside your comments about the documents (we get back to that later), this guideline only suggests that any criterion be one that can be met. Are you saying that the only way for you to maintain your position is to use criteria that are impossible to meet? Do you use impossible criteria for everything else in your life? No? So, you just use this when discussing Christianity.

But both induction and deduction have one peice of commonality. It depends on evidence. Accounts written decades later is not evidence that a supernatural event occured, it rather is evidence of a story. Your attempt to divert is showing the cognative dissodence in your position.

Actually, that is false. Symbolic Logic (the underlying structure of deduction) does not use evidence. It is based solely on necessarily implications. It deals strictly with logical forms and not with evidence.

So far, you have made a lot of assertions about the NT documents. At this point, I have asked you for the objective, historical methodology that you have used to come to those conclusions. Further, at this point, you have been unable to give an answer to that question. How in the world does that have anything to do with Cognitive dissonance?

I am asking you how you came to your conclusions, you can’t answer. I suggest a few guidelines to help you choose appropriate criterion, you say it is Cognitive dissonance.

Either you have a real objective methodology for coming to your conclusions or you don’t and you are just expressing your mere opinion. If it is not the later, then please provide the former.

2) The conclusions of the criterion cannot conflict with known fact. It is also improper to have a test that not only falsifies the issue at hand, but other issues we already affirm to be true. For example, let's take David Hume's tests for the miraculous which are found in his "Treatise on Human Understanding." Here Hume set up a battery of tests. In the end these tests show that no one can affirm that a miracle ever took place. However, in Hume's own day it was shown that, given these same tests, no one could affirm that Napoleon had been Emperor of France, or that he had ever lived. This was an intriguing idea since Napoleon was still alive and living in exile.

Which, of course, is not even the level of evidence I am looking for. Have you ever wondered out of these 500 supposed witnesses, not ONE wrote something down? We also know from experiance that dead people don't come back to life.

The level of evidence is what I have been asking you for. What is the method that you use to qualify and quantify the evidence? Is there an objective method, or are we to just accept your subjective preferences?

I addressed the fallacy you present regarding the resurrection a few post ago, I will let you find it, rather than reprint it here.

3) The criterion must be objective. In other words, the test should yield the same result, regardless of the personal opinions of those applying it. If the test only disproves the resurrection when an Atheist applies it, or only substantiates the resurrection when a Christian applies it, the test should be rejected.

We know that ancienct religious texts are not always reliable. THe same criteria that the Christians use for the ressurection of Jesus could be used to prove the existance of the God Zues.

OK, what are the criteria that Christians use? Please outline it point by point. I am willing to bet this criteria is only used by Christians that you make up.

4) The criterion must be one which has been used in historical research and has been demonstrated as a reliable way of determining history. I was recently reading a paper written by an Atheist. In the paper he admits that there is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament than any other book of ancient times. However, he still rejected the resurrection because he felt there was not sufficient evidence for the reliability of the documents or the event. He listed what he considered to be sufficient evidence. At the top of the list was video tape of the event. If we could produce video tape of the resurrection of Jesus, this Atheist would be tempted to believe. Besides the obvious absurdity of this criterion, this criterion is not now, nor ever has been a criterion used by historians to detiermine ancient history. It is an instance of the logical fallacy "Special Pleading." It is a criterion which is set up with the sole purpose of disproving the event at hand, an event the Atheist does not like, but is never used to evaluate other events of the period.

See above. We have no eye witness accounts.

Unless we first have a methodology for determining what constitutes eyewitness accounts in place, we have no idea if the evidence is sufficient to say that or not. How do you determine the authorship of any ancient manuscript? Please give us your method.

Z

[Cmass]

5 tokens for Zorro! You come bashing out of the gate like a pro and despite the sound of a huge vacuum cleaner, you cling to God's carpet!
Keep it up!

[Zorro1]

[Irrefutable was not my word, I was responding to someone else. However, if there is a plausible non-supernatural explanation for an event, I see no reason to favour the supernatural one. Do you?

I think we can agree on that. The question for you is, do you think that any and all naturalistic explanations are superior to a supernatural one? For instance if a naturalistic explanation fits only a few of the facts and contradicts others, whereas a supernatural explanation fits all the facts, which would you choose?

I believe that the medical advances you speak of call in to question the point at which a person is dead. Our current understanding is that no one is dead until they are brain-dead. If the body can be restarted soon enough, ie before the brain is completely non-functional, then the person was not really dead. Defribulation does not change a dead person into a live one, it prevents death (actually postpones it, we all will die). Dead people, really dead people, fully and completely dead people, do not come back.

But, your definition of “dead.” is merely a movement of the definition due to medical advancement. The fact is that without sufficient cause they all would have stayed dead. That is the point. Saying that “Brain Dead” is the real definition of “dead” is merely saying, “Current medical science can not do anything beyond this point.” It does not mean that another sufficient cause does not exist. It is possible that even a naturalistic one could move that definition again.

I simply pointed out that the claims about Jesus are not that there was no sufficient cause, but that there was one. So, to automatically put him in the category of “No sufficient cause,” has its problems.

Now about this magician issue and the vanishing coin. You rejected the testimony. But of course rejecting the testimony is not based on the evidence at hand. The testimony is the evidence. Now, I am not saying I wouldn't do the same thing, but I am just wondering if you have a coherent epistemological reason or is this merely a subjective dislike for anything that is not "naturalism?"

I assume, and correct me if I am wrong, that you would also reject your own sense perception, if you saw the event yourself.

Usually when someone doesn’t answer a question, but try to turn the question around, it means he has no answer. May I assume that is the case here?

I believe that our senses are fairly reliable because we live in a universe intended to be known. And that we are in turn creatures intended to know. That’s the short version. Now, how about you? What is the basis of your epistemology?

Z