Is faith a reliable method for determining truth?

[bluegreenearth]

For example:

Hebrews 11:3

3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at Gods command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

There are numerous verses following the one above that equally proclaim, "By faith," something is understood or known to be true. Therefore, in this context, "faith" is being encouraged for use as an epistemology. How does "faith" function to reliably distinguish true claims from false claims or does it fail in that regard? What would demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Christian community that "faith" is not a reliable tool for discovering what is true or false?

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 73 by Zzyzx]

I note that neither your, nor my, nor bge's posts have been responded to. Bluegreenearth made several excellent points in his post that I quoted, yet RealworldJack, while responding to others, has not responded to BGE's. I await his or others' responses. It may be the apologists have no good rebuttal.
Neither have I heard any response to my claim that 'faith' = 'confirmation bias.'

Faith is not a 'method for determining truth.' It is not an epistemology at all. Faith is simply believing what one has been taught.

I would like everyone to realize, this conversation has been ongoing since August 31, and there have been times when I have posted, and it would be a few days before I would receive a reply back. Now, did I assume from this, "It may be the my opponent has no good rebuttal"? Well no I did not, because there have been times in this conversation when it has taken me a couple of days to respond, because of the time constraints I have, having a full time job, a wife, and a grown daughter with autism, who also needs my attention.

I would also point out that I have responded to at least 2 members here in this conversation, who had objections to what I have had to say, and I have yet to hear back from them, and these post date all the way back to, Sept. 4, and 5. So, am I to suppose they had no rebuttal?

My job requires my presence at 6:00 am, and I will many times not arrive home until sometime around 5:00 pm, and sometimes even later. Therefore, I have limited time to spend here, and I attempt to do the best I can.

The fact of the matter is, I have been using the little time I have preparing my latest response to "Bluegreenearth" and would have more than likely submitted it this afternoon, if I did not feel compelled to respond out of turn to this post of yours.

With all this being said, I would like all who have had objections to some of my comments to know, not only do I intend to respond to everyone of them, I very much look forward to doing so.

So then, I would certainly appreciate everyone's patience, seeing as how I am only one person, who has limited time, and it looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I look forward to the challenge.

Now then, if you do not mind, I will get back to work on my latest response, which I hoped to submit this afternoon, but I kinda doubt that will happen now.

[Zzyzx]

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[Danmark]

[Replying to post 81 by Realworldjack]

I note this response ignores the issue at hand, whether faith is a reliable method for determining truth. We understand there has not been an avalanche of rebuttals. In fact there have been none. As BGE and Zzzzzzzzzyzzzzzzzx have noted, this failure to respond at this time is not definitive. We await your and others' insightful replies.

[William]

[Replying to post 43]

Zzyzx: Indoctrination may lead one have psychological personal experiences

ttruscott: So might eating the wrong mushroom, getting hit on the head, getting a visit from GOD, falling in love... your supposedly judgement against belief is discredited by the weasel word, may...it sounds good but indicates nothing.

Tcg: How is your use of the word "might" different from Zzyzx's use of the word "may" ?

Would you agree that your use of the word "might" sounds good but indicates nothing?

William: I Ascertain that the focus was upon 'weasel words' and in that context, ttruscott would likely have no problem agreeing with you here, as that appears to have been his point.

Sometimes arguments using weasly words seem to be an exercise in pointlessness - maybe a device to counter ennui...like what I am doing here, in this post.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 62 by bluegreenearth]

I am the only one here with the capability and authority to determine if someone else has properly understood my position since I am the only one inside my head. I've read your responses and determined that you are either missing my point or are deliberately ignoring it. If my responses do likewise for your point, please indicate as such. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I will assume the failure of our responses to properly address my intended point is a consequence of my failure to adequately describe it.

In a nutshell, your position is, we cannot demonstrate the claim of the resurrection either way, and therefore the intellectual honest thing to do is to remain agnostic.

Not exactly. For instance, there is a scene described in the gospels where Jesus is praying in a garden while the Apostles who arrived there with him were asleep. Presumably, Jesus was praying in silence. So, even if someone happened to briefly observe him praying while passing through the area, how would the author of the text know what Jesus was praying about? Even if Jesus was praying aloud, the text does not indicate anyone else heard his prayer. As such, how would the author of the text know what Jesus was doing at that time, let alone know the content of his private thoughts? This third person omniscient perspective is a literary device used by authors for fictional character development. There is nothing extraordinary about someone praying in a garden, but the fictional literary style of the narrative is a justifiable reason for me to doubt that particular event occurred precisely as described in the text.

As I go back and read all the things I listed, I do not see your example in the list, which would have been intentional since I was only talking about the events which would have occurred after the death of Jesus, and I took all the extraordinary events away, in order to demonstrate your problem is with the extraordinary events, which seems to be only one, of the two reasons you object. The other being, you do not have the ability to falsify the claim.

The Argumentum Ad Populum fallacy in your reasoning doesn't necessary mean the claim is false but it is a valid justification for my skepticism.

If you will notice, I never make the argument, "the claim must be true, because so many believe". Rather, my argument was, "this should at least cause us to pause, and attempt to consider if there may indeed be good reasons to believe", which is a far cry from attempting to make the argument "it must be true since so many believe".

As an example, one of the many things I have thought through concerning the matter is the fact that there are many intelligent folk on both sides of the equation, and therefore, this certainly causes me to understand that we cannot simply assume our position must, and has to be correct, when there would be many intelligent people on both sides of the equation.

So then, you either completely misunderstood my point, or you intentionally misrepresented my intent. However, it is difficult to believe that you misunderstood my point when I made it a point to be sure to say,

Of course, I am not saying that this should cause anyone to believe the reports, but I do believe it is enough to say we may better hold off on the idea that the extraordinary events somehow disqualify the reports, because either way we go, we are dealing with the, extraordinary.

So then, as you can clearly see, this was not my argument in the least.

However, I'll consider the possibility that a majority of people with limited information could be convinced to believe they have good reasons to support a claim. Whether those reasons are actually good is often a matter of subjective opinion.

The problem here is, you need to demonstrate how the reasoning these folks use, would not be good reasons. It is not enough to simply assume there would be no good reasons, which seems to be what you are doing.

As we have seen, I have every reason to believe the claim, and the only reasons you have given to doubt the claim is, "the claim is extraordinary", and "you do not have the ability to falsify the claim". Where I am from, this would give me all the more reason to believe the claim.

When I used to be a Christian, prior to becoming familiar with some of the common logical fallacies inherent to apologetic arguments and before learning how to think critically, I thought my reasons for believing the resurrection were good in the same way that you do now. I've since come to the understanding that any reasons I give myself for believing a claim is true are subjectively good until I discover otherwise.

All you are really saying here is, "I was convinced I was right, when I was wrong, and now I am REALLY convinced I am right, about being wrong". Simply because you did not think critically in order to make the major life decision to become a Christian, does not mean that every other Christian did not, or does not think critically before making such a decision.

This is a very weak argument in that, it assumes since there are folks who do not think critically to make such decisions, then all who make these sort of decisions, must operate just as you did.

Moreover, when one makes such major life decisions without the use of the mind, it kinda makes one wonder as to whether the thinking is any better now? In other words, simply because one has the ability to change the mind, does not mean the thinking has changed in any way.

Because, I will assure you there are those who admit to not using the mind to become convinced of Christianity, and rather simply accepted the reckless theology they were exposed to, and when things do not work out as they expect, it is not as though they begin to use the mind in order to critically consider whether the Biblical writers actually teach this reckless theology, but rather, they simply assume that it all, must, and has to be false.

This is what I have called, "easy in, easy out". In other words, it did not take a whole lot of thinking to persuade them into believing, and therefore it does not take a whole lot of thinking to talk them out.

Until you discover otherwise, I expect you will continue to insist you have good reasons to believe the resurrection claim.

This goes without saying, but after six years here on this site, I have found no reasons to change my position. In fact, it has caused me to understand there is all the more reason to continue with the position I hold, and one of the reasons for this is, I continue to hear arguments such as the ones I am hearing now.

Where I take issue is when you assert that I should accept your reasoning is good enough. Maybe the available facts and evidence are good enough for you to believe the resurrection claim, but I'm not convinced by them.

Then, we have no issue, because I have never insisted "you be convinced". Rather, what I have said is, "my problem comes in when there are those who insist, there would be no good reasons for me to believe the claim", without being able to demonstrate this to be the case".

Because you see, you and I could look at the same exact facts, and evidence, and you could be convinced by this evidence, while I may remain unconvinced, but this would not necessitate that I insist you have no reason to believe as you do, because the fact of the matter is, we could both have very good reasons for the position we hold, even when this would mean that one of us must, and has to be in error.

If it wasn't Christianity, some other man-made religious cult would have strategically benefited from political endorsement and subsequently forced upon a nation of people in the middle East during the ancient past.

This is not a fact, but rather an opinion. Next, this would have nothing to do with my point. The point was, we have a man who left nothing in writing himself, who somehow becomes the most significant man in the history of the world, and we are to simply assume it has nothing to do with the truth of the claims, but rather certain events continue to occur, which just so happens to bolster this person who left nothing in writing, to become the most significant figure in the history of the world?

The point is, I do not believe we can simply assume the reports would be true because of this, but I also do not believe we can simply assume, things just sort of happened that way.

However, just because Christianity happened to fill that extraordinary role in history, it doesn't follow that this should be a good reason for me to believe its claims are true.

Again, I never made that argument. However, we also cannot simply assume things just happened this way, especially when we have those who claim there was an event which would explain why this would be the case, with facts, and evidence to back up this conclusion, which would be extraordinary if these facts, and evidence would have somehow been fabricated.

The truth of what actually occurred is irretrievably lost to history.

My friend, we have a ton of information at our disposal, and all one has to do is to sit down in order to determine what all would have to be involved for the claim to be false.

In other words, think through every possible scenario, which could be used to explain the facts, and evidence we have, and then determine how extraordinary that particular scenario would have to be.

You know like, think through the possibility that all these reports, would be lies, and what all would have to be involved. Think through the idea that all these folks were deceived, someone else was working behind the scenes who orchestrated all these things, Jesus may have survived the crucifixion, and on, and on, and tell me if you can come up with a scenario, which would not be, extraordinary? Because you see, it is one thing to give us possibilities. It is quite another to attempt to explain how this would have all worked out, without it being an extraordinary event, in, and of itself.

So then, until you are able to do this, it seems to me, you are simply exchanging one extraordinary event, for another extraordinary event, unless you can give us a scenario which would explain all the facts, and evidence we have, that would not be, extraordinary.

It is not only plausible but likely that the surviving stories are legends.

How in the world can you say, "it is plausible, or likely" without any evidence in support? In other words, give me something I can sink my teeth into.

Because you see, we have direct evidence that at least what one author has to say would not be, "legend". Why? Well because there is very good evidence this author would have been alive during the life of Jesus, and there is also very strong evidence this author would have traveled around with Paul, would have known the original Apostles personally, which means he would have known the claims they were making first hand, which would demonstrate he could not possibly be reporting upon a legend, and he in fact claims to have actually investigated the claims himself personally, which means, if he was only reporting legend, then he was either lying, or somehow mentally deranged.

Moreover, we have direct evidence from the letters of Paul, this author did in fact travel around on these missionary journeys, and there would be those who traveled with Paul, and in fact Paul mentions the name of Luke several times in his letters.

On top of all of this, we have the author of the two letters to Theophilus, using the words, "we" and "us" all the way, and up until Paul is arrested, and this author ends his second letter with Paul being under arrest for at least 2 years. Couple this with the fact that, we have a letter written by Paul, that would have clearly been written while Paul would have been under arrest, and in this letter we have Paul telling his audience, which was someone by the name of, Timothy that, "only Luke is with me", which is very strong evidence to support the fact that, Luke would have indeed been the author of the two letters to Theophilus.

So then, do you see what I have just done? I have used the facts, and evidence we have, to demonstrate this author could not possibly be reporting some sort of legend, which he would have no idea about himself, while you simply give us possibilities, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and think you can go on to tell us, this possibility which is backed by absolutely no evidence whatsoever, is the "not only plausible, but likely"? This is why I can say, "simply because someone has the ability to change the mind, does not necessitate that they have changed the way in which they think".

Legends exist at the foundation of every major civilization including the United States of America. Not all legends involve supernatural events either. The story about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree is considered to be a legend and contains no supernatural elements. So, I'm skeptical about the cherry tree legend for the same reason I'm skeptical about the resurrection legend.

All you are doing here is to compare what is considered a "legend" to another event, and assuming they both must be the same, when I have just demonstrated the evidence would be against this idea.

You keep asking me to give you reasons to doubt the resurrection claim, but I can only demonstrate where I am not convinced by the reasons you've given for believing the reports.

Again, I am not asking, nor insisting you to be convinced. However, it would help if you would be able to give me some sort of reason to doubt the claims, backed by some sort of evidence. Otherwise, I have every reason to believe the claims, with no reasonable doubt.

I'm not sure why you are convinced by those reasons and am trying my best to respectfully understand your perspective.

If you are saying there would be no good reasons for me to believe the claims, then you are under obligation to demonstrate how the reasons I have supplied would not be good reasons, which you have failed to do. Otherwise, I am supplying facts, reason, and evidence in support of the claims, while you are simply insisting there is no good reasons to believe, in the face of these facts, evidence, and reasons.

If the reports are supposed to be sufficiently reliable enough to warrant belief in the resurrection claim, why do I remain unconvinced by them?

My friend, this is not uncommon at all. As I have said above, two people could look at the same exact facts, and evidence, and come to completely different, and opposing positions, and both could have very good reasons for the position they hold. Moreover, if you and I come to different conclusions, we could still acknowledge we both have good reasons to hold the position we each have, and can actually acknowledge we understand why the other believes as they do.

However, as it is now, I seem to be the one who continues to use the facts, and evidence we have available, while all you seem to do is to give us possibilities, with absolutely no facts, and evidence in support, and then go on to tell us, the position you hold, "is the more plausible, and likely scenario". How exactly does that work?

Moreover, to demonstrate how lame this question is, I could ask the same exact question. In other words, I could ask, why have your arguments not persuaded my to have the same doubts you have? I can assure you, your arguments have not. In fact, they have the exact opposite affect.

However, I would never ask such a question, because I realize how irrelevant it would be.

Please feel free to help me discover if there are any errors in my thinking that many be preventing me from reaching a reasonable conclusion.

You seem to be failing to understand. I am not attempting to persuade you to be convinced in the same way which I am, and I have said this, over, and over. Rather, what I have demonstrated is, there are good reasons to believe the claim.

Notice I am not insisting you would not have any good reasons to doubt the claims, (although I have not heard one from you as of yet) and this is because I could not care less, whether you believe or not. My problem comes in when one goes on to insist, that I have no good reasons to believe the claims, when they have in no way demonstrated this to be the case.

In the mean time, I don't feel like I'm being deliberately biased, unreasonable, or illogical.

I would suggest that none of us "feels" this way. However, feelings can be deceiving. The fact of the matter is, none of us are immune to being "bias" toward the position we hold, no matter how we,"feel".

Therefore, intellectual honesty compels me to disagree with the assertion that the available facts and evidence are good enough.

"Good enough" for what? If you are saying the facts, and evidence do not convince you, then I have no problem. However, if you are insisting the facts, and evidence are not good, then you are under obligation to demonstrate such a thing. Thus far, you have not, and it is mainly because I am using the facts, and evidence, while you simply share opinions.

In a court of law, the objective is to demonstrate a defendant is guilty of committing a crime; not to demonstrate the defendant is innocent. A "not guilty" verdict never requires a defense in a court of law. At the same time, a verdict of "not guilty" does not necessarily mean the defendant is innocent even if that is presumed on the outset. Just because there was insufficient evidence to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty, it doesn't follow that the defendant's innocence was demonstrated.

In the case of Jesus, he has been accused of resurrecting from the dead along with other violations of the natural laws. The default position of the Judge and Jury at the onset of the trial must be that Jesus is presumed to be not guilty of resurrecting until sufficient evidence is provided by the Christian prosecuting team to falsify that presumption beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no requirement on the part of the defense to demonstrate that Jesus did not resurrect.

As a member of the jury, I am evaluating the available facts and evidence provided by the prosecuting team to determine if they meet the burden of proof necessary to falsify the presumption that Jesus is not guilty of resurrecting. At this point, none of the arguments and evidence that has been presented thus far serve to falsify the presumption of "not guilty" beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, the verdict of "not guilty" does not require me to prove Jesus did not resurrect.

My understanding of your perspective is that the presumption of "guilty" must be falsified, and it is the responsibility of the defense to demonstrate Jesus did not resurrect. If that is how you are approaching this issue, it is obviously inverted.

Nice try, but this is not going to work. Because you see, I am referring to those who report the claim. Therefore, if one is going to insist that what these men report would be false, then they have the burden of demonstrating such a thing, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Because you see, the only thing I am insisting at this point is, there are very good facts, reasons, and evidence to support the claims, which means there is very good reasons to believe the claims. I am not insisting the resurrection occurred, at this point, and I am not insisting that there would be no reason to doubt. So then, it is the one who is doing the insisting who owns the burden.

So then, it is not the resurrection which is on trial here, but rather those who make the claim. Therefore, if there are those who insist the reports, must, and have to be false, then they own the burden of demonstrating this to be the case, beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you are not insisting the claims must, and have to be false, but rather simply doubt the claims, then you own no burden. However, if you go on to insist, there would be no good reasons to believe, you then own the burden to demonstrate this to be the case, and thus far you have failed.

So, my point was that the tactic of referring to facts and evidence in support of a religious belief is not unique to Christianity.

Agreed! However, let us recall who it was who brought this comparison into the conversation? That would be you. I did not, and would not, because I understand exactly what you have to say. However, if you are going to compare the two, as far as historical evidence is concerned, then you are obligated to demonstrate how they would compare, and it seems as if you have declined, and I would say that is a good decision on your part, and one I expected.

As such, there is no reason to engage in such a useless exercise.

Which seems to mean there would be no reason to make the comparison in the first place, which I did not. You did however, and now seem to want to back out?

The thing is here, you would be correct to be under the impression that, simply because one claim, had better, and more facts, and evidence in support, would have nothing to do with one claim having a better chance of being true, as opposed to the other, which means it would have nothing to do with one claim being more likely to be true than the other, because there is no chance, or likelihood at all involved in either of the claims being true or false.

Rather, it would simply demonstrate which one would actually have real historical facts, and evidence in support, as opposed to the other which may have very little, if any facts, and evidence in support. However, as we have seen, you have declined to make this comparison, even though you are the one who brought the comparison into the conversation.

(By the way, confirmation bias subconsciously influences people in such a way that it has an effect even when people don't want the conclusion they've arrived at to be true. I can provide more details on that later.)

"By the way"confirmation bias is not confined to only those opposed to you.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 85 by Realworldjack]

Because you see, the only thing I am insisting at this point is, there are very good facts, reasons, and evidence to support the claims, which means there is very good reasons to believe the claims.

You make statements like this over and over and over, but when push comes to shove you never actually present any verified, irrefutable facts and evidence. Everything is based on 'could have, 'should have' or 'would have'. Please present some of the most compelling facts and evidence you have so that we can evaluate its credibility.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 85 by Realworldjack]

Because you see, the only thing I am insisting at this point is, there are very good facts, reasons, and evidence to support the claims, which means there is very good reasons to believe the claims.

You make statements like this over and over and over, but when push comes to shove you never actually present any verified, irrefutable facts and evidence. Everything is based on 'could have, 'should have' or 'would have'. Please present some of the most compelling facts and evidence you have so that we can evaluate its credibility.

Precisely. The only hard evidence we have is stories from people claiming that there are other people who have witnessed someone who supposedly died and was seen walking around again. That's it.

The only thing we can verify is that there are indeed claims made. Unfortunately, we can't even determine who made most of these claims. Do we normally trust anonymous claims about other anonymous people witnessing something never seen before in the history of humanity? My answer is no. Some theists evidently are fine with that kind of evidence.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 63 by Realworldjack]

In other words, have you studied the facts, and evidence which may be in support of these sightings, to determine if there may be indeed reasons to support these sightings? You know like, maybe there were folks who saw someone who looked like Elvis playing an extra in a movie, and then much later someone came along and verified that the man who looked like Elvis was indeed his father, who was an extra in that movie, and that his dad had since passed away?

In other words you acknowledge that there are many other explanations for the sightings other than a resurrected Elvis. That makes the alleged sightings of Jesus pretty poor on the scale of compelling evidence. Got anything better?

You got it all wrong my friend. You see, if we had such evidence that the "Elvis sightings" would be something besides the "Elvis sightings" the we could use this evidence to demonstrate that it was not an, "Elvis sighting".

In other words, if there were people who were convinced they saw Elvis as a movie extra, and someone came along and explained, "this person who was mistaken for Elvis was indeed his dad", and this person could verify his dad did indeed play an extra roll in that movie, and he had a picture of his dad, then we would have evidence that at least this particular "Elvis sighting" would not be an actual, "Elvis sighting".

As it is, you are only telling us there is other possibilities, but you are not telling us what these other possibilities would be, and so we cannot determine what all would have to be involved for that possibility, to actually be a possibility. Moreover, and more importantly, you are not supplying any facts, and evidence to support any possibility at all.

All you seem to be doing is to compare one claim, which you simply choose to have doubts about, to another claim which you simply choose to have doubts about, and somehow assuming the claims must, and have to be the same, when the fact of the matter would be, it would not matter in the least, if you were to be able to demonstrate everyone of the "Elvis sightings" to be false, this would have nothing whatsoever to do with, the claim of the resurrection being false.

With this being a fact, the question to you is, "you got anything better"? Because, the one claim, would have nothing whatsoever to do with the other claim, so then the other question would be, what would make you think, this is any sort of argument?

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to post 64 by Realworldjack]

The author of the two letters to Theophilus does in fact claim to have been an eyewitness to many of the things he records concerning the life, and missionary journeys of Paul, and we have very strong evidence to support the fact that this author would have traveled with Paul, for a good number of years on these journeys.

You are still failing to realise that unsupported claims do not constitute evidence. That is even more significant when we cannot even irrefutably establish the identities of the people making those claims. You have yet to supply anything compelling to support your case.

There are any number of things, you are failing to realize. First, the NT authors owe us nothing at all, because they were not writing to us, and would have had no idea about us, which means they certainly could not have known we would ever read what they wrote.

Moreover, not one of them could have possibly known anything at all, about any sort of NT, so they could not have possibly have written with the intention of their writings being included in the NT, which they could not have possibly known about.

Rather, everyone of these authors, were addressing audiences at the time, with no concern, nor any idea that what they were writing would ever be read by anyone other than their intended audience at the time, and again, it goes without saying, they could not have possibly known about any sort of NT, their letters would be contained in.

Ergo, what we have in these letters, which were never intended for us is, testimonial evidence in support of the claim, and if you are going to insist these authors would be reporting falsely, then you own the burden to demonstrate this. If you cannot, then we have reason to believe these reports to be true.

Now, as we move on, we have overwhelming evidence the author of the two letters to Theophilus, would have traveled along with Paul on his missionary journeys, which would clearly demonstrate this author would have been alive during the lifetime of Jesus, would have known the Apostles personally, spent a lot of time with them, and would have known the claims they were making, first hand.

Now, would you like to explain to us, how all this evidence we have, could possibly be fabricated?

If not, it seems we have all the more reason to believe these reports, and as we have seen, comparing these reports to "Elvis sightings", or anything else, would have nothing to do with it.

So then, it seems that it is you, who needs to come up with, "something better"!

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 89 by Realworldjack]

Moreover, not one of them could have possibly known anything at all, about any sort of NT, so they could not have possibly have written with the intention of their writings being included in the NT, which they could not have possibly known about.

But we actually know nothing about these authors or their motives and intentions. Trying to read between the lines or indulging in speculation does nothing to support your case. That aside, you still have avoided presenting any compelling facts or evidence in support of your claims.