Can you please provide evidence for these Biblical events?

[Compassionist]

Can you please provide evidence for the following Biblical events?

1. Creation Miracles (Genesis 1–3)

Creation of the universe: God creates light, sky, land, seas, plants, stars, animals, and humans in six days.
Creation of angels: Implied in passages like Job 38:4–7; often considered an early act before physical creation.
Creation of Adam and Eve: God forms Adam from dust and breathes life into him; Eve is made from Adam’s rib.
Creation of other organisms: All species of plants and animals are said to have been created by divine command.
The Garden of Eden: A paradise created for Adam and Eve.
The Fall: The serpent speaks; Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit and are evicted from Eden; curses are pronounced.

2. Early Genesis Miracles

The mark and protection of Cain (Genesis 4:15).
The longevity of pre-Flood humans (many living 900+ years).
Noah’s Flood (Genesis 6–9): God floods the entire world, saving only Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark.
The rainbow covenant: God sets a rainbow as a sign of the promise never again to flood the earth.
Confusion of languages at Babel (Genesis 11): Humanity’s speech is divided, and people scatter across the world.

3. Miracles in the Patriarchal Era (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph)

Call of Abram: God speaks directly to Abram (Genesis 12).
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: Fire and brimstone from heaven (Genesis 19).
Lot’s wife turned to salt (Genesis 19:26).
Birth of Isaac to elderly Sarah (Genesis 21).
God’s testing of Abraham: A ram provided in place of Isaac (Genesis 22).
Jacob’s ladder dream and wrestling with God (Genesis 28; Genesis 32).
Joseph’s prophetic dreams and interpretations (Genesis 37–41).

4. Miracles of Moses and the Exodus

The burning bush (Exodus 3).
Staff turned into a serpent (Exodus 4).
The Ten Plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7–12):

1. Water to blood
2. Frogs
3. Gnats or lice
4. Flies
5. Livestock disease
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Death of the firstborn
The Passover protection (Israelites spared).
Parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14).
Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, guiding Israel.
Manna and quail were provided in the wilderness.
Water from the rock (Exodus 17).
Mount Sinai theophany: God’s voice, thunder, lightning, and tablets of stone.
Bronze serpent healing (Numbers 21).
Aaron’s rod budding (Numbers 17).
Moses’ radiant face after speaking with God (Exodus 34).

5. Miracles in the Time of Joshua, Judges, and Kings

Jordan River stops flowing so Israel can cross (Joshua 3).
Walls of Jericho fall (Joshua 6).
The sun stands still (Joshua 10).
Gideon’s fleece tests (Judges 6).
Samson’s strength feats (Judges 14–16).
Fire consumes Elijah’s offering on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18).
Elijah raises the widow’s son (1 Kings 17).
Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2).
Elisha parts the Jordan, purifies water, multiplies oil, raises the Shunammite’s son, feeds 100 men with loaves, heals Naaman’s leprosy, and makes an iron axe-head float (2 Kings 2–6).
The shadow on the sundial goes backwards for King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20).
Angelic destruction of the Assyrian army (2 Kings 19).
Daniel’s survival in the lions’ den (Daniel 6).
Three men survive the fiery furnace (Daniel 3).
Handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5).

6. Miracles in the Intertestamental and New Testament Era

Zechariah was struck mute until John the Baptist’s birth (Luke 1).
Virgin (immaculate) conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1; Luke 1).
Star of Bethlehem guiding the Magi (Matthew 2).
Angelic announcements to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.
John the Baptist’s prophetic calling before birth.

7. Miracles Performed by Jesus

Turning water into wine (John 2).
Healing the sick, blind, deaf, and lame (many Gospels).
Cleansing lepers (Matthew 8).
Casting out demons (Mark 5, etc.).
Feeding 5,000 (Matthew 14) and feeding 4,000 (Matthew 15).
Walking on water (Matthew 14).
Calming the storm (Mark 4).
Raising Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5).
Healing the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8).
Healing the bleeding woman (Mark 5).
Restoring sight to Bartimaeus (Mark 10).
Raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11).
The Transfiguration (Matthew 17).
Paying temple tax with a coin in a fish’s mouth (Matthew 17).
Cursing the barren fig tree (Mark 11).
The resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20).
Post-resurrection appearances (Luke 24; John 21).
Ascension into heaven (Acts 1).

8. Miracles in the Acts of the Apostles

Tongues of fire and the gift of languages at Pentecost (Acts 2).
Peter and John heal a lame man (Acts 3).
Peter raises Tabitha (Dorcas) from the dead (Acts 9).
Paul blinds and heals various people (Acts 13–28).
Earthquake freeing Paul and Silas from prison (Acts 16).
Paul survives a viper bite (Acts 28).
Philip’s teleportation (Acts 8).
Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for lying (Acts 5).

9. Apocalyptic and Prophetic Miracles

Visions of Heaven and angels (Revelation 4–5).
Trumpet and bowl judgments: cosmic catastrophes, locusts, plagues, blood rivers, darkness.
Two witnesses calling down fire (Revelation 11).
The New Jerusalem descending from heaven (Revelation 21).
Creation of a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21–22).
God dwelling with humanity eternally - the final miracle of restoration.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to 1213 in post #89]

Possibility Is Not Explanation — and “I Don’t Believe You” Is Not a Counterargument

1213, thank you for laying your position out clearly. That helps, because it exposes where the disagreement actually is.

I’ll respond point by point.

1. “Demons Could Be Behind It” Adds Zero Explanatory Value

You write:

modern "knowledge" doesn't rule out that demons could be behind it … it is possible.

Correct — and irrelevant.

Science does not operate by ruling out every conceivable possibility. It operates by identifying explanations that:

• Add predictive power.
• Reduce uncertainty.
• Constrain expectations.
• Can be tested against reality.

Saying “demons could be behind it” does none of those things. It explains exactly the same observations as “no demons,” predicts nothing different, and cannot be tested even in principle.

That is why it is an unfalsifiable add-on. Not false — just explanatorily empty.

Possibility ≠ justification.

2. Dismissing Pharmacology as a Conspiracy Is Not an Argument

You respond to modern pharmacology by saying:

That is what the quacks want you to believe.

This is not evidence. It is a blanket assertion of deception without mechanism, scope, or constraint.

Modern medicine works because it produces:

• Dose-dependent effects.
• Reproducible outcomes.
• Statistically measurable benefits.
• Predictive side-effect profiles.

If this were “quackery,” it would not work across cultures, ideologies, hospitals, and generations — including on people who reject the underlying theory.

Calling an entire empirical framework a lie does not replace it with an alternative explanation.

3. “Millions of Years” Is Not an Arbitrary Belief

You say:

Can be much faster. No good reason to believe in millions of years.

There are many good reasons, including:

• Radiometric decay chains.
• Stratified sedimentary sequences.
• Ice cores and varves.
• Continental drift rates.
• Fossil succession order.

Rejecting all of that requires rejecting multiple independent measurement methods that converge on the same timescales.

You have not offered an alternative model — only disbelief.

4. Plate Tectonics Is Not “Against Basic Physics”

You claim:

No intelligent reason to believe that claim, which goes against basic physics.

Plate tectonics is built from basic physics:

• Thermodynamics.
• Material stress and strain.
• Mantle convection.
• Seismic wave propagation.

It is not a speculative idea. It is measured daily through GPS, earthquake tomography, and ocean-floor spreading rates.

Calling it “alleged” does not engage with the evidence.

5. Flood Geology Fails Because It Explains Everything — and Therefore Nothing

You repeatedly answer geological expectations with:

• “conditions differed”
• “we can’t know what existed before”
• “no reason to assume uniformity”

But once every missing prediction is explained away ad hoc, the model becomes non-explanatory.

A theory that predicts all outcomes equally well predicts nothing.

That is precisely why a global flood hypothesis is rejected — not because of bias, but because it lacks constraint.

6. Genesis 2 Does Not Rescue Literalism — It Compounds the Problem

You argue that Genesis 2 involves forming, not creating, and that animals already existed.

That interpretation introduces new difficulties:

• It still places animals after Adam in narrative sequence.
• It still depicts direct divine fabrication.
• It still conflicts with evolutionary biology, population genetics, and biogeography.

Reinterpreting verbs does not reconcile the text with the evidence; it merely shifts the tension.

7. The Bible Explicitly Denies the Reality of Other Gods

You ask:

Where in the Bible Yahweh is portrayed as denying their reality?

Examples include:

• “The gods of the nations are idols” (non-entities).
• “They have mouths but do not speak… those who make them are like them.”
• “There is no god besides me.”

These are not claims about worthiness, but about ontological status.

Recasting Zeus as a possible old man on a hill abandons Biblical monotheism and turns Scripture into henotheism — which the Bible itself rejects.

8. “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Believe You” Is a Reversal of Epistemic Burden

Regarding Mark 16 and John 7–8, you say:

I have not enough faith to believe your claims.

Textual criticism does not require faith.

It relies on:

• Manuscript dating.
• Geographical distribution.
• Internal linguistic consistency.
• Citations by early writers.

This is standard historical method applied to all ancient texts — not hostility to Christianity.

Rejecting it requires rejecting the entire discipline of historical scholarship, not just its conclusions.

9. You Confirm the Problem You Are Trying to Avoid

Your final point admits that unbelief is tied to condemnation, even if indirectly.

That returns us to the core issue:

• Finite evidence.
• Disputed texts.
• Eternal consequences.

If disbelief carries irreversible stakes, ambiguity is not morally neutral.

Final Clarification

You are not offering alternative explanations.
You are rejecting existing ones without replacing them.

You are not doing critical review.
You are immunizing a belief system from falsification.

That may be faith.
But it is not knowledge — and it is not an argument.

If you want to continue productively, the key question is this:

What observation, if it occurred, would count against your model rather than being reinterpreted to fit it?

Without an answer to that, disagreement will never be resolved — because nothing is allowed to count as evidence.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #90]

A. Types of Evidence

No — that is not the claim I am making.

I am not claiming that empirical falsifiability is the test for all truth. I am claiming it is the test for empirical explanatory claims — including historical explanations that posit causal mechanisms operating in the world.

Once a hypothesis proposes that an event occurred because of a supernatural agent acting in spacetime, it has crossed into the explanatory domain where evidential constraints apply. If that explanation cannot, even in principle, discriminate itself from error, coincidence, or myth, then it fails as a historical explanation — regardless of whether metaphysics as such is allowed.

This is not scientism; it is domain discipline.

How is my explanation, in principle, not able to discriminate itself from error, coincidence, or myth?

I am not arguing that God must leave no intellectual doubt.

I am arguing the conditional claim you advanced fails:

That perfect epistemic clarity would necessarily undermine freedom.

Your examples do not establish that. Humans frequently act against what they take to be certain truths (self-harm, addiction, cruelty, betrayal). Epistemic certainty does not logically entail volitional compulsion.

If you wish to defend the thesis that moral freedom requires epistemic ambiguity, that requires argument — not intuition.

Where do you think I argued that moral freedom required epistemic ambiguity here? We were talking about your argument:

1. If God is omniscient, He would know exactly what kind of evidence would convince every rational being of His existence and actions.
2. If God is omnipotent, He would be able to produce that evidence without error or delay.
3. If God is omnibenevolent, He would desire to remove unnecessary confusion, doubt, and religious conflict.
4. The actual world shows the opposite: many self-contradictory and mutually contradictory religions, contradictory scriptures, and ambiguous historical claims.
5. Therefore, the hypothesis of an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God conflicts with the observed epistemic situation.

This is about the epistemic situation, not moral freedom. Epistemic certainty does logically entail epistemic compulsion.

This is precisely the asymmetry.

Empirical claims are corrigible by further observation. Metaphysical claims, by definition, are not. That difference matters epistemically.

A claim whose falsification conditions are accessible carries less justificatory burden than one whose falsification conditions are not. This is not bias; it is proportional epistemic risk management.

Why do you think metaphysical claims are incorrigible by definition?


B. Historical Facts

1. Jesus historically existed

Suspension of judgment is not an “alternative theory” that carries the same burden as a positive claim.

The burden lies with the claim that:
• a specific individual existed, and
• a specific sequence of extraordinary events occurred (e.g. resurrecting the dead), and
• a specific supernatural explanation best accounts for them.

Epistemic restraint is not vagueness; it is refusing to over-infer beyond what the evidence warrants.

My point was that suspending judgment after hearing the evidence that convinces all but a handful of scholars that look at it is not epistemic restraint unless one has a very good case and carries that burden to dismantle the case that Jesus did historically exist. It seems that your comments here seem to fall back on just saying the evidence isn’t that strong without support for that.

I grant that Paul alludes to teachings attributed to Jesus. That strengthens the case for early belief about a historical figure.

It does not convert Paul into an independent biographical source. His knowledge is mediated by tradition and revelation, not personal observation. That matters when weighing evidential independence.

This again supports a plausible minimal Jesus, not a high-confidence reconstruction.

Independent attestation is not the same thing as eyewitness attestation. I talked about the former not the latter in favor of Jesus historically existing. Some of those are or draw upon probable eyewitness testimony.

Agreed — and degrees of independence exist.

But partial independence does not equal multiple independent eyewitness streams. Shared narrative frameworks, theological motifs, and literary dependence still limit the weight that can be placed on convergence.

The point is not “worthless” vs. “valuable,” but how much confidence is justified.

Partial independence does equal multiple independent attestation, which draw upon various (but unknowable how many) eyewitness accounts. That is enough confidence to justify belief in a historical Jesus along with the other supports I’ve offered.

Tacitus reports what Roman authorities understood — which itself likely derives from Christian claims circulating by the early second century.

He provides valuable corroboration that:
• Christians existed.
• They were persecuted.
• Christians believed in Jesus, who was allegedly crucified and resurrected.

He does not provide independent archival confirmation. That distinction is standard in historiography and does not require assuming bad faith or gullibility. Tacitus and Josephus never met Jesus, and never witnessed any of the alleged miracles of Jesus.

Again, we are talking about independent attestation, not just eyewitness attestation.

No — I am saying that once inversion theology exists, embarrassment loses discriminatory power.

The criterion does not vanish entirely, but its probative force weakens significantly in a movement that explicitly valorizes shame, suffering, and reversal.

That is a methodological caution, not a blanket dismissal.

Caution is fine, but please support why embarrassment loses discriminatory power just because a movement is centered on one embarrassing detail. That doesn’t mean the movement will just freely make up and provide all sorts of other embarrassing details.

I feel we still have some things to come to agreement on above before moving on to the next facts as it may affect those future discussions.

Possibly still to come…

2. Jesus was buried in a tomb
3. Jesus' tomb was later found empty
4. People claimed to experience post-mortem appearances
5. The Christian movement originally focused on the resurrection as its centerpiece.

C. Explanation of the facts
D. Implication of the explanation of the facts, especially concerning God's existence.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #92]

How is my explanation, in principle, not able to discriminate itself from error, coincidence, or myth?

Because the explanatory work is being done by an agent whose intentions, constraints, and causal signatures are unspecified.

A historical explanation discriminates itself when it:
• predicts what we should observe rather than something else
• constrains which kinds of evidence would count against it
• allows us to say “this would not be expected if the hypothesis were false.”

Appeals to a supernatural agent, i.e. an immaterial soul that could act silently, selectively, ambiguously, or indistinguishably from chance, lack those constraints. They do not tell us why this pattern of evidence occurred rather than another equally compatible one.

That is what makes the explanation explanatorily underdetermined — not its supernatural content per se.

This is about the epistemic situation, not moral freedom. Epistemic certainty does logically entail epistemic compulsion.

I agree this is about the epistemic situation — but “epistemic compulsion” does not entail doxastic inevitability in the way your objection requires.

Agents routinely:
• deny propositions they regard as overwhelmingly supported
• resist conclusions for motivational, emotional, or identity-based reasons
• hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously by using compartmentalization.

So even perfect clarity does not guarantee uniform belief or eliminate conflict. The inference from “God could make things clearer” to “therefore the current ambiguity counts against omnibenevolence” requires an additional premise: that increased clarity would reliably achieve the goods in question.

That premise has not yet been established.

Why do you think metaphysical claims are incorrigible by definition?

Not incorrigible in principle — incorrigible by the methods that correct empirical error.

Empirical claims are corrigible via:
• further observation
• replication
• instrumental refinement.

Metaphysical claims are corrigible only via:
• conceptual coherence
• explanatory integration
• comparative plausibility.

That asymmetry matters when the metaphysical claim is being used to explain concrete historical events. The evidential bar must rise in proportion to the explanatory reach.

B. Historical Facts – Jesus’ Existence

Suspending judgment… is not epistemic restraint unless one dismantles the case.

Suspension of judgment does not require dismantling the case — only showing that the case does not warrant the confidence level claimed.

I am not arguing “Jesus did not exist.” I am arguing:
• the evidence supports a minimal historical core,
• it does not justify high-confidence reconstructions that carry heavy theological or supernatural weight.

That is standard historiographical caution, not skepticism-for-its-own-sake.

Independent attestation is not the same thing as eyewitness attestation.

Agreed — and I am not conflating them.

My point is about degrees of independence. When later sources:
• share narrative frameworks,
• depend on earlier traditions,
• arise within a tightly connected movement,

their convergence increases plausibility, but not linearly. The evidential gain diminishes with dependence — especially when the claims are extraordinary.

That supports probable existence, not confident detail.

Partial independence does equal multiple independent attestation.

It equals some independent attestation — not enough to bear all the inferential weight often placed on it.

Historians regularly distinguish between:
• “More likely than not.”
• “Historically secure.”
• “High confidence reconstruction.”

My position places Jesus’ existence in the first category, not the third.

Caution is fine, but please support why embarrassment loses discriminatory power…

Because once a movement explicitly valorizes:
• shame
• reversal
• suffering
• humiliation

then features that would normally count against fabrication can become theologically motivated inclusions. The story of the alleged crucifixion and resurrection is the story of God's victory - certainly not an embarrassing story.

This does not eliminate the criterion — it weakens its evidential leverage. That weakening is widely noted in the historiography of martyrdom and inversion movements.

Again: not dismissal, but calibration.

Where this leaves us

I think we are closer than it may appear.

We agree that:
• a historical Jesus is plausible
• some early beliefs are well attested
• evidence admits of degrees, not binaries.

Our disagreement is primarily about how much confidence the evidence justifies and how much explanatory work it can bear — especially when moving from minimal history to supernatural explanation.

I am happy to proceed to:
• burial
• empty tomb
• appearances
• early proclamation

— but only once we agree on the epistemic standards that will govern those inferences. Otherwise, we will simply replay the same disagreement at each step.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #93]

A. Types of Evidence

Because the explanatory work is being done by an agent whose intentions, constraints, and causal signatures are unspecified.

A historical explanation discriminates itself when it:
• predicts what we should observe rather than something else
• constrains which kinds of evidence would count against it
• allows us to say “this would not be expected if the hypothesis were false.”

Appeals to a supernatural agent, i.e. an immaterial soul that could act silently, selectively, ambiguously, or indistinguishably from chance, lack those constraints. They do not tell us why this pattern of evidence occurred rather than another equally compatible one.

That is what makes the explanation explanatorily underdetermined — not its supernatural content per se.

First, where did my account for Jesus’ historical existence point to an agent whose intentions, constraints, and causal signatures are unspecified? That’s all we’ve talked about so far.

Second, since you are probably jumping ahead with your thought here, why do you think the supernatural resurrection explanation doesn’t specify things that can philosophically discriminate itself from other suggested explanations, including chance? If it’s not about the supernatural content, per se, then please lay this out.

I agree this is about the epistemic situation — but “epistemic compulsion” does not entail doxastic inevitability in the way your objection requires.

Agents routinely:
• deny propositions they regard as overwhelmingly supported
• resist conclusions for motivational, emotional, or identity-based reasons
• hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously by using compartmentalization.

So even perfect clarity does not guarantee uniform belief or eliminate conflict. The inference from “God could make things clearer” to “therefore the current ambiguity counts against omnibenevolence” requires an additional premise: that increased clarity would reliably achieve the goods in question.

That premise has not yet been established.

Why do you think I’m trying to establish that premise? I’m saying increased clarity can only guarantee acceptance by epistemic compulsion. We aren’t talking about denying something that is overwhelmingly supported, but denying something one is absolutely certain is right and that’s logically impossible. You can’t say A is true and deny it is true in the same sense at the same time.

Not incorrigible in principle — incorrigible by the methods that correct empirical error.

Empirical claims are corrigible via:
• further observation
• replication
• instrumental refinement.

Metaphysical claims are corrigible only via:
• conceptual coherence
• explanatory integration
• comparative plausibility.

That asymmetry matters when the metaphysical claim is being used to explain concrete historical events. The evidential bar must rise in proportion to the explanatory reach.

Yes, the metaphysical parts of a claim can’t be correct by empirical matters. To expect otherwise or fault a view for that is a category error. And to say that empirical correction is the only thing that can give us truth worth holding is self-defeating. Metaphysical claims are corrigible via further observation that goes beyond conceptual coherence and includes things like what logically follows from other premises (scientific, historical, metaphysical, etc.).


B. Historical facts

Jesus’ historical existence

Suspension of judgment does not require dismantling the case — only showing that the case does not warrant the confidence level claimed.

When I say dismantling the case, I’m talking about showing that the case doesn’t warrant acceptance as the most reasonable belief on the issue.

It equals some independent attestation — not enough to bear all the inferential weight often placed on it.

Historians regularly distinguish between:
• “More likely than not.”
• “Historically secure.”
• “High confidence reconstruction.”

My position places Jesus’ existence in the first category, not the third.

Those categories, as far as I am aware, are not formal, standardized categories and I’m not sure they are that helpful as distinctions. I’m interested in what is the most reasonable position to take and I think the existence of a historical individual named Jesus who had a movement arise in his name is clearly the most reasonable position to take (probably closer to your third category than the first, but the first seems like enough for me).

I mean, if you accepted everything else as sound, I don’t think you could come back here and offer this “more likely than not” as a reason to be rational in rejecting the supernatural resurrection explanation.

Because once a movement explicitly valorizes:
• shame
• reversal
• suffering
• humiliation

then features that would normally count against fabrication can become theologically motivated inclusions. The story of the alleged crucifixion and resurrection is the story of God's victory - certainly not an embarrassing story.

This does not eliminate the criterion — it weakens its evidential leverage. That weakening is widely noted in the historiography of martyrdom and inversion movements.

Again: not dismissal, but calibration

How does basing one’s faith on one embarrassing detail (your Messiah being crucified that becomes the victory) mean that other embarrassing details are more likely inventions than support for Jesus’ historicity? For instance, why does that mean that saying John baptized Jesus is more likely an invention than an embarrassing detail that points to the historicity of Jesus in spite of possible later theological inventions?

I agree we are getting close to move on, but we need to clear some above things up.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #94]

First, where did my account for Jesus’ historical existence point to an agent whose intentions, constraints, and causal signatures are unspecified?

The point is not that you explicitly listed none, but that the resurrection hypothesis itself does not specify them in a way that constrains historical inference.

An explanation that appeals to a supernatural agent must still answer questions like:
• Why this timing rather than another?
• Why these witnesses rather than others?
• Why these modes of manifestation rather than different ones?
• What patterns would not be expected if the hypothesis were false?

The resurrection hypothesis, as typically formulated, permits:
• silence or publicity,
• private or public appearances,
• partial or total evidence,
• ambiguity or clarity,

all without tension. That flexibility is exactly what makes it explanatorily underdetermined as a historical explanation. This is not a complaint about “supernaturalism” — it is a complaint about lack of evidential constraint.

Why do you think the supernatural resurrection explanation doesn’t specify things that can philosophically discriminate itself from other suggested explanations, including chance?

Because discrimination requires forbidden outcomes, not merely compatible narratives.

To count as discriminating, the hypothesis must tell us something like:
• “If the resurrection did not occur, we would not expect X.”
• “If the resurrection did occur, Y would be very unlikely not to appear.”

But the resurrection hypothesis is compatible with:
• empty tomb traditions,
• no tomb traditions,
• appearances,
• no appearances,
• rapid belief,
• delayed belief,
• internal disagreement,
• harmonized testimony.

Chance explanations, legendary accretion, visionary experience, and theological myth-making all remain live competitors because nothing is ruled out.

That is the explanatory problem.

We aren’t talking about denying something that is overwhelmingly supported, but denying something one is absolutely certain is right and that’s logically impossible.

Two issues here.

First, absolute certainty is not the relevant epistemic standard in historical reasoning. Historical claims are justified probabilistically, not apodictically. So invoking logical impossibility misfires.

Second, even if epistemic compulsion were achieved, it still would not follow that:
• belief would be motivationally efficacious,
• moral transformation would occur,
• the relevant “goods” would be secured.

So ambiguity can still count against omnibenevolence if clarity would reduce gratuitous error, fragmentation, or harm, even without guaranteeing universal assent.

Your objection assumes an all-or-nothing model of epistemic goods that the argument does not require.

Metaphysical claims are corrigible only via conceptual coherence, explanatory integration, comparative plausibility.

Agreed — but that strengthens my objection rather than weakening it.

When a metaphysical claim is invoked to explain a concrete historical event, it inherits a higher evidential burden, not a lower one.

Conceptual coherence alone is insufficient when:
• multiple metaphysical explanations are equally coherent,
• none uniquely predict the observed historical pattern,
• none rule out rival reconstructions.

At that point, suspension of judgment is not skepticism — it is methodological discipline.

When I say dismantling the case, I’m talking about showing that the case doesn’t warrant acceptance as the most reasonable belief.

Then we largely agree on framing — but not on calibration.

My claim is not that Jesus’ existence is dubious in the everyday sense, but that the confidence often assigned to it exceeds what the evidential base supports, especially when that confidence is then used as scaffolding for supernatural claims.

“Most reasonable” must be indexed to:
• evidential density,
• independence of sources,
• degree of later theological filtration.

On those metrics, restraint is still warranted.

If you accepted everything else as sound, I don’t think you could reject the resurrection explanation on “more likely than not” grounds.

That does not follow.

Historical existence and supernatural resurrection are not evidentially continuous claims. The inferential leap is qualitative, not quantitative.

A hypothesis that introduces a novel metaphysical causal mechanism must outperform naturalistic competitors — not merely tie them.

“More likely than not” suffices for mundane historical claims. It does not suffice for miracle claims that override well-established background regularities.

Why does one embarrassing detail license treating others as less evidential?

It doesn’t license dismissal — it licenses downgrading evidential weight.

Once a movement sacralizes reversal and humiliation, embarrassment no longer functions as a reliable discriminator between:
• reluctant admission of fact, and
• theologically motivated construction.

That does not mean “John baptizing Jesus is probably invented.”
It means the criterion of embarrassment loses force as a standalone argument and must be corroborated independently.

That is not skepticism for its own sake — it is calibration.

We are close to moving on. But the remaining disagreement is not about hostility to the supernatural or metaphysical possibility.

It is about this:

What constraints must an explanation impose in order to count as historical rather than merely compatible?

Until that is settled, the resurrection hypothesis remains underdetermined — not refuted, but not warranted at the confidence level often claimed.

[1213]

...
Correct — and irrelevant.
...
Possibility ≠ justification.

The point is only to say, if there is a possibility, it can't be said "demons are not behind a disease".

Modern medicine works because it produces:
• Dose-dependent effects.
• Reproducible outcomes.
• Statistically measurable benefits.
• Predictive side-effect profiles.

If this were “quackery,” it would not work across cultures, ideologies, hospitals, and generations — including on people who reject the underlying theory.

Placebo and nocebo studies show that many medicines may work only because people believe they work. And because many medicines don't always work, it could be that the healing comes in spite of the medicines. I have not seen enough reason to believe the medicines actually do anything beneficial.

There are many good reasons, including:

• Radiometric decay chains.
• Stratified sedimentary sequences.
• Ice cores and varves.
• Continental drift rates.
• Fossil succession order.

Rejecting all of that requires rejecting multiple independent measurement methods that converge on the same timescales.

Believing those are giving correct results requires faith to the people that I don't have.

Plate tectonics is built from basic physics:
• Thermodynamics.
• Material stress and strain.
• Mantle convection.
• Seismic wave propagation.

The whole idea goes against F=mg, because it basically heavier piece is raising while the lighter piece sinks. Also, if you look at the directions the plates are actually moving on a sphere, there should be tears in plates that are moving to two or more directions. Such tears don't exist, which is why the theory can't be correct.

Examples include:

• “The gods of the nations are idols” (non-entities).
• “They have mouths but do not speak… those who make them are like them.”
• “There is no god besides me.”

None of those is the same as denying the reality of false gods. Idols is not non-entity, they can exist. And if they have mouths, they are some kind of entities. But, it is true, that non of them is besides the true God.

Textual criticism does not require faith.
It relies on:
• Manuscript dating.
• Geographical distribution.
• Internal linguistic consistency.
• Citations by early writers.

It requires faith to believe the dating and those other claims are correct

If disbelief carries irreversible stakes, ambiguity is not morally neutral.

Disbelief is still not the reason for the judgment, only the reason why the judgment remains.

You are not offering alternative explanations.

Even if no alternative explanations, it does not mean your explanations are then correct.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to 1213 in post #96]

The point is only to say, if there is a possibility, it can't be said "demons are not behind a disease".

This collapses the distinction between logical possibility and explanatory warrant.

Yes, it is logically possible that demons cause disease — in the same trivial sense that it is logically possible that invisible leprechauns rearrange molecules at night. But possibility alone carries zero epistemic weight.

If mere logical possibility were sufficient to keep an explanation on the table, then no explanation could ever be ruled out. Inquiry would be impossible. Science, medicine, and history proceed by asking which explanations earn credibility through evidence, constraints, and predictive power — not by keeping every unfalsifiable possibility alive indefinitely.

So the claim “demons cause disease” is not rejected because it is impossible, but because it does no explanatory work.

Placebo and nocebo studies show that many medicines may work only because people believe they work.

This is factually incorrect.

Placebo effects are well-studied precisely because they are limited, quantifiable, and insufficient to explain most medical outcomes. That is why modern trials include placebo controls — to subtract that effect and measure what remains.

Key facts you are ignoring:

• Many drugs work in unconscious patients.
• Many drugs work in infants and animals.
• Many drugs produce dose–response curves independent of belief.
• Many drugs have predictable side-effects tied to biochemical mechanisms.

If medicines worked “only because people believe,” chemotherapy would not shrink tumors in sedated patients, insulin would not regulate blood glucose in comas, and antibiotics would not kill bacteria in petri dishes.

Appealing to placebo here does not undermine medicine — it demonstrates that you are unfamiliar with why placebo controls exist in the first place.

I have not seen enough reason to believe the medicines actually do anything beneficial.

At this point the issue is not evidence; it is standards.

Modern medicine has produced:

• Measurable reductions in mortality.
• Controlled reversal of specific pathologies.
• Predictable pharmacokinetics.
• Reproducible results across cultures and belief systems.

Rejecting all of that is not skepticism — it is global epistemic veto. And that veto is self-defeating, because it relies on selective doubt applied only where conclusions are inconvenient.

Believing those are giving correct results requires faith to the people that I don't have.

No — it requires trust calibrated by constraint, not faith.

Faith accepts claims despite the absence of independent checks. Radiometric dating, stratigraphy, ice cores, and plate motion are independent methods that converge on the same timescales. If one were wrong, the others would not accidentally agree.

To reject them all simultaneously is not neutrality; it is a commitment to radical underdetermination — a position that also undermines every claim you rely on in daily life.

The whole idea goes against F=mg, because it basically heavier piece is raising while the lighter piece sinks.

This reflects a misunderstanding of plate tectonics.

Plates do not move because “heavy rises and light sinks” in a gravitational sense. They move due to:

• Buoyancy relative to the asthenosphere.
• Ridge push and slab pull forces.
• Thermal expansion and contraction.
• Mechanical coupling over geological timescales.

F=mg is not violated because plate motion is not vertical lifting against gravity; it is lateral motion driven by density contrasts and force balances within a viscous medium.

As for “tears,” transform faults, rifts, and subduction boundaries are precisely the tears you claim do not exist — and they are mapped, measured, and seismically confirmed.

None of those is the same as denying the reality of false gods.

Calling something an “idol” while denying it has agency, power, or causal efficacy is denying its reality in the relevant sense.

A carved object may exist physically, but the claim under dispute is whether it corresponds to an actual divine being. The texts explicitly deny that correspondence. To treat that as affirming the existence of other gods is a category mistake.

It requires faith to believe the dating and those other claims are correct

Again, this confuses fallibility with faith.

All empirical claims are provisional — but they are constrained by evidence, cross-checks, and error margins. Faith is belief without or in defiance of such constraints.

If every acceptance of well-supported inference counts as faith, then the term loses all meaning — and religious faith becomes epistemically indistinguishable from ordinary reasoning, which defeats the apologetic point.

Disbelief is still not the reason for the judgment, only the reason why the judgment remains.

This is a distinction without a moral difference.

If disbelief is the condition that determines whether punishment is applied, then disbelief is causally relevant to the outcome — regardless of how you phrase it. Saying “the door was already locked; disbelief just kept it locked” does not absolve the system that set the condition.

If the stakes are eternal and the evidence ambiguous, the moral responsibility lies with the system designer — not the doubter.

Even if no alternative explanations, it does not mean your explanations are then correct.

Correct — and irrelevant.

No one is claiming 100% certainty. I could be living in a simulation or a dream or a hallucination and the universe and you could be part of the simulation or dream or hallucination I am experiencing. It's impossible to know with 100% certainty what is actually real, but we can know what appears to be real e.g. plate tectonics appears to be real, just as the Earth appears to be real and you appear to be real. The claim is comparative: explanations are judged by coherence, constraint, predictive success, and evidential support. I can't prove that I am not in a simulation, dream or hallucination. Just as you can't prove that you’re not in a simulation, dream, or hallucination. The moment suffering is experienced, moral reality switches on — regardless of metaphysical status. Regardless of whether reality is real or simulated or dreamt or hallucinated, we still face only three live options:

1. Ignore suffering.
2. Increase suffering.
3. Reduce suffering.

If you reject every explanation that meets those criteria while offering none that do, you are not practicing critical reasoning — you are suspending judgment in a way that insulates preferred beliefs from evaluation.

At that point, the disagreement is no longer about evidence. It is about whether rational standards apply at all.

And if they do not, then nothing — including theology — survives scrutiny.

[1213]

...So the claim “demons cause disease” is not rejected because it is impossible, but because it does no explanatory work.

If diseases are sent by "demons" to lead you away from God, it explains why people get them.

If medicines worked “only because people believe,” chemotherapy would not shrink tumors in sedated patients, insulin would not regulate blood glucose in comas, and antibiotics would not kill bacteria in petri dishes.

Appealing to placebo here does not undermine medicine — it demonstrates that you are unfamiliar with why placebo controls exist in the first place.

I think there is two ways, heal and destroy. Most, if not all "medicine" that actually does something, is destructive, meaning it works by causing actually damage. I believe it is possible for example to kill in many ways cancer cells and also all other cells. The difficult part is to heal something. I don't think people have developed anything that actually heals. But, in some cases killing something may help healing.

F=mg is not violated because plate motion is not vertical lifting against gravity; ....

So, you think it is not the reason for rising mountains?

As for “tears,” transform faults, rifts, and subduction boundaries are precisely the tears you claim do not exist — and they are mapped, measured, and seismically confirmed.

If plate is subduing in to two different directions with angle that is about 10-20 degrees, there is obviously the two different subduction zones. But, in that case the plate should also be ripped apart like a clothe that is stretched to two different directions the same way. That ripping line should be about perpendicular to the subduction line in that case. This two or more direction pull is what allegedly is happening for example in Philippine Sea, but there is no ripping lines that should happen, if the plates are really pulled. And that is what I meant with tears.

If disbelief is the condition that determines whether punishment is applied, then disbelief is causally relevant to the outcome — regardless of how you phrase it. Saying “the door was already locked; disbelief just kept it locked” does not absolve the system that set the condition.

In a way I think the door is a good parable, needs just little correction. Basically the situation is, you are in a jail that does not have a locked door, you could go free any time you wish, but if you choose not to open the door and go out, you remain in the cell. The reason why you are in the cell in the first place is the crime you did, not that you refuse to open the door and go out. Person who is not in jail, does not need to open the door, because he is already out. Such a person is not sent to "jail", even if he "doesn't open the door". And that is why disbelief is not the reason for the judgment. Hopefully this was not too difficult to understand.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to 1213 in post #98]

If diseases are sent by "demons" to lead you away from God, it explains why people get them.

No — it labels the event, it does not explain it.

An explanation must do more than assign intent. It must answer at least some of the following:

• Why this disease rather than another?
• Why this person rather than someone else?
• Why this timing, progression, and biological signature?
• Why predictable correlations with pathogens, genes, toxins, and dose?

“Demons want to lead you away from God” predicts nothing about incubation periods, transmission routes, mutation rates, immune responses, or treatment effects. It cannot distinguish malaria from cancer, bacterial sepsis from autoimmune disease, or viral load from genetic predisposition.

By contrast, germ theory and molecular biology do explain those differences and allow intervention. That is what “explanatory work” means. Intent without constraint is not an explanation — it is a narrative overlay.

Most, if not all "medicine" that actually does something, is destructive.

This is a false dichotomy.

Yes, some treatments work by destroying harmful agents (e.g. antibiotics killing bacteria, chemotherapy killing rapidly dividing cells). But many treatments are restorative or regulatory, not destructive:

• Insulin restores glucose regulation.
• Thyroxine replaces missing hormone.
• IV fluids restore volume and electrolyte balance.
• Vaccines train immune memory rather than destroy tissue.
• Antidepressants and mood stabilisers modulate neurotransmission.
• Anticoagulants prevent pathological clot formation.
• Bronchodilators restore airway patency.

Healing is not a single metaphysical category; it is a collection of physiological processes. Supporting, modulating, replacing, or inhibiting mechanisms is healing when it restores function or prevents harm.

Your redefinition of “healing” is not grounded in biology — it is a semantic move designed to downgrade medical success.

I don't think people have developed anything that actually heals.

This is simply incorrect.

Bones heal faster with fixation. Burns heal better with grafts. Infections resolve because immune responses are supported. People who would otherwise die survive and return to function.

If your definition of “healing” excludes every intervention that demonstrably restores health, then the problem is not medicine — it is the definition.

So, you think it is not the reason for rising mountains?

Correct — not in the way you are framing it.

Mountains form primarily through:

• Crustal shortening and thickening.
• Isostatic adjustment.
• Orogenic compression.
• Thermal buoyancy differences.

They are not plates “violating gravity” by lifting themselves upward. They are the result of mechanical forces redistributing mass in a viscous system. Gravity is involved throughout — it is not being defied.

Invoking F=mg here misunderstands both the equation and the system it applies to.

If the plate is subduing in to two different directions… the plate should also be ripped apart like a clothe that is stretched to two different directions.

This assumes plates behave like rigid fabric under tension. They do not.

Tectonic plates behave as viscoelastic solids over geological timescales. Stress is redistributed through:

• Plastic deformation.
• Distributed strain.
• Microfracturing.
• Shear zones.
• Rotational plate motion.

The Philippine Sea Plate is a well-studied example of complex rotation, subduction, and transform motion. The absence of the specific ripping pattern you expect does not refute plate tectonics — it refutes an incorrect mechanical analogy.

Nature is not obligated to behave like household materials.

Basically the situation is, you are in a jail that does not have a locked door…

This analogy still fails morally.

If a person is born into the cell, does not remember committing the crime, is given ambiguous instructions about the door, conflicting testimonies about which door is real, and faces infinite punishment for choosing incorrectly — responsibility does not rest on the prisoner.

Moreover:

• Who decided the crime was inherited?
• Who designed the cell?
• Who made the consequences infinite?
• Who allowed sincere confusion to persist?

If disbelief results in remaining imprisoned, and disbelief is shaped by evidence availability, psychology, culture, and upbringing, then the system — not the prisoner — bears moral responsibility.

Calling it “choice” does not absolve the architect of the conditions under which the choice is made.

To be blunt but fair:
Your replies consistently rely on possibility, redefinition, and false analogy, where explanation, mechanism, and constraint are required.

That may preserve theological commitment — but it does so by abandoning the standards of reasoning you rely on everywhere else in life.

And once those standards are surrendered, the discussion stops being about truth and becomes purely faith-based.

[The Tanager]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #95]

A. Types of Evidence

First, where did my account for Jesus’ historical existence point to an agent whose intentions, constraints, and causal signatures are unspecified?

The point is not that you explicitly listed none, but that the resurrection hypothesis itself does not specify them in a way that constrains historical inference.

An explanation that appeals to a supernatural agent must still answer questions like:
• Why this timing rather than another?
• Why these witnesses rather than others?
• Why these modes of manifestation rather than different ones?
• What patterns would not be expected if the hypothesis were false?

The resurrection hypothesis, as typically formulated, permits:
• silence or publicity,
• private or public appearances,
• partial or total evidence,
• ambiguity or clarity,

all without tension. That flexibility is exactly what makes it explanatorily underdetermined as a historical explanation. This is not a complaint about “supernaturalism” — it is a complaint about lack of evidential constraint.

Oh, you are talking about a later step, not the first fact of this step. We were talking past each other a little there.

Yes, the supernatural resurrection explanation has questions to answer just like any explanation will. We can return to these at that later time. To preview my cards, I don't think the supernatural explanation is as flexible as you think it is and that natural explanations of other historical events are as inflexible as you think they are.

Why do you think the supernatural resurrection explanation doesn’t specify things that can philosophically discriminate itself from other suggested explanations, including chance?

Because discrimination requires forbidden outcomes, not merely compatible narratives.

To count as discriminating, the hypothesis must tell us something like:
• “If the resurrection did not occur, we would not expect X.”
• “If the resurrection did occur, Y would be very unlikely not to appear.”

But the resurrection hypothesis is compatible with:
• empty tomb traditions,
• no tomb traditions,
• appearances,
• no appearances,
• rapid belief,
• delayed belief,
• internal disagreement,
• harmonized testimony.

Chance explanations, legendary accretion, visionary experience, and theological myth-making all remain live competitors because nothing is ruled out.

That is the explanatory problem.

We will be able to explore this in more detail at the later step, but I agree that we need to see some discrimination within and between theories. I think we have that with the supernatural explanation.

Two issues here.

First, absolute certainty is not the relevant epistemic standard in historical reasoning. Historical claims are justified probabilistically, not apodictically. So invoking logical impossibility misfires.

You are confusing your contexts here. My invocation of logical impossibility had nothing to do with historical reasoning; it was particular to an argument you laid out seeming to me to claim that an omni-god would be able to do away with epistemic uncertainty in a way that doesn't involve epistemic compulsion, which I think is logically impossible. The only way to guarantee certainty is by compulsion, whether one is talking about epistemology, morality, or something else.

Second, even if epistemic compulsion were achieved, it still would not follow that:
• belief would be motivationally efficacious,
• moral transformation would occur,
• the relevant “goods” would be secured.

God, in Christianity, does not wish to secure everyone to believe He exists and has certain attributes. God does not wish to epistemically force everyone into moral transformation. God wants creatures to have freedom to join Him or not in His project of creating a loving, good world.

So ambiguity can still count against omnibenevolence if clarity would reduce gratuitous error, fragmentation, or harm, even without guaranteeing universal assent.

Your objection assumes an all-or-nothing model of epistemic goods that the argument does not require.

I am not assuming that; I don't even believe it is true. The all-or-nothing was particular to guaranteeing epistemic certainty without compulsion. And I originally objected to your claim that the world contains unnecessary confusion, doubt, and religious conflict that a little more clarity (falling short of compulsion) from God's end would fix. Please support that.

Metaphysical claims are corrigible only via conceptual coherence, explanatory integration, comparative plausibility.

Agreed — but that strengthens my objection rather than weakening it.

I did not say what you quoted me as saying; you did. I said the following in response:

Yes, the metaphysical parts of a claim can’t be correct by empirical matters. To expect otherwise or fault a view for that is a category error. And to say that empirical correction is the only thing that can give us truth worth holding is self-defeating. Metaphysical claims are corrigible via further observation that goes beyond conceptual coherence and includes things like what logically follows from other true premises (scientific, historical, metaphysical, etc.).

When a metaphysical claim is invoked to explain a concrete historical event, it inherits a higher evidential burden, not a lower one.

I'm not saying it inherits a lower evidential burden. What do you mena that it inherits a higher evidential burden and why do you think that?

Conceptual coherence alone is insufficient when:
• multiple metaphysical explanations are equally coherent,
• none uniquely predict the observed historical pattern,
• none rule out rival reconstructions.

At that point, suspension of judgment is not skepticism — it is methodological discipline.

I agree. We will get there and why I think the supernatural explanation goes beyond conceptual coherence and is better than rival explanations.


B. Historical Facts

1. Jesus' historical existence

When I say dismantling the case, I’m talking about showing that the case doesn’t warrant acceptance as the most reasonable belief.

Then we largely agree on framing — but not on calibration.

My claim is not that Jesus’ existence is dubious in the everyday sense, but that the confidence often assigned to it exceeds what the evidential base supports, especially when that confidence is then used as scaffolding for supernatural claims.

“Most reasonable” must be indexed to:
• evidential density,
• independence of sources,
• degree of later theological filtration.

On those metrics, restraint is still warranted.

What a belief may later lead to (whether a supernatural claim or other natural ones) is irrelevant. We can't reject a claim because we don't like where it eventually leads.

And I don't care what level of confidence is "often assigned to it" but what we are assigning to it now. Get more specific in the confidence you are assigning to it.

Either Jesus existed (even if other things were made up and added later) or he didn't. I think we can be as, and even more confident, in Jesus' historicity than just about any ancient figure.

If you accepted everything else as sound, I don’t think you could reject the resurrection explanation on “more likely than not” grounds.

That does not follow.

To clarify my general point here (so strip out the resurrection content). I'm saying that if you say 1a is the most reasonable position to take (out of 1a and 1b), that if you then go on to accept 2a (out of 2a, 2b, 2c), 3b (out of options), 4d (out of options), and 5a (out of options) and all those 5 beliefs lead to 6b (instead of 6a) being true, but you don't want 6b to be true, it's not rational to return and say "Yeah, but 1a, while more reasonable than 1b, I was only like 70% confident, so that since 6b is supernatural (or even leaving that out), I can reject 6b and still be acting rationally.

A hypothesis that introduces a novel metaphysical causal mechanism must outperform naturalistic competitors — not merely tie them.

I agree. And the reverse is true, too. The tie doesn't go to naturalism, it goes to agnosticism.

“More likely than not” suffices for mundane historical claims. It does not suffice for miracle claims that override well-established background regularities.

But that background is part of what goes into "more likely than not" or you are just favoring the metaphysical claim of naturalism by raising background assumptions over particular evidence in a specific case.

Why does one embarrassing detail license treating others as less evidential?

It doesn’t license dismissal — it licenses downgrading evidential weight.

Once a movement sacralizes reversal and humiliation, embarrassment no longer functions as a reliable discriminator between:
• reluctant admission of fact, and
• theologically motivated construction.

That does not mean “John baptizing Jesus is probably invented.”
It means the criterion of embarrassment loses force as a standalone argument and must be corroborated independently.

That is not skepticism for its own sake — it is calibration.

First, I haven't rested my case for Jesus’ historicity on the criterion of embarrassment alone but given a cumulative case from various pieces of evidence.

Second, the Christian movement didn't sacralize the general principle of reversal, but a specific reversal. There are things that they didn't view as reversals. If they sacralized the general principle of reversal, you may have something about downgrading the evidential weight of embarrassment, but without that I don't see why one reversal should downgrade the criterion of embarrassment as a historical tool.