Why favor natural explanations over supernatural ones for the resurrection?

[AgnosticBoy]

I often hear skeptics of the resurrection assert that any natural explanation is more probable than a supernatural explanation. Some even go as far as coming up with theories or details that are not even mentioned in the story, like Jesus's body being stolen or that Jesus had a look alike. Perhaps the disciples also assisted in stealing the body. I question this standard or assertion.

What is the justification for favoring the natural explanations? Is it simply that scientists have only accounted for natural or physical phenomenon? In my view, evidence is evidence. If evidence points to a supernatural explanation, one that simply posits a violation of the laws of nature, then that should be the more probable explanation. It doesn't matter if that evidence goes against pre-existing knowledge.

[benchwarmer]

You keep bringing up that the resurrection is "a story" but what else can we expect from an event that happened 2,000 years ago or of any historical event? Much of the evidence or knowledge of past human events amounts to stories or testimony.

Correct. And when we only have stories about past events, what do historians generally look for to decide how much weight to place on the story being true?

If all we have are written materials from obvious proponents of a religion that weren't even produced at the time of Jesus death, what truth can we attempt to glean from that? Why are there no corroborating written materials from anyone outside this group? Did no one else notice the large scale miracles (dead walking through the streets, thousands fed from scraps, etc) and think to talk about it such that someone else might write something about it?

Yes, we have some evidence. Historically speaking, it's not terribly convincing that all the events in these stories are true. Especially when some of these events are far from mundane, known phenomenon. Does that mean the stories are absolutely false? No, of course not. Everyone complaining about the skeptic's view always seems to forget that.

In the case of the resurrection, I wouldn't even say that the evidence just boils down to stories, but it also is about the actions of early Christians. Their actions go beyond just a story because those actions resulted in tangible things that we can even see like the start and spread of a religion which exists to this very day.

Let me ask you this, how many religions exist today? Are they all compatible? I think this should bring some insight into why argumentum ad populum is not so useful in determining truth.

The stories are unverifiable to scientists today, but again, that is not the standard of history otherwise we'd throw out most history. Perhaps we can even come up with alternative natural explanations for stories that already offer natural world details. We may as well do that given some of the skeptical standards being thrown around here.

Who here has claimed what you are saying? I haven't. History is about looking at what we have and coming up with the best possible theories as to what might have happened. The less corroborating evidence and/or physical evidence we have, the less sure we can be. That is why we have competing religions and historians don't claim Jesus truly did resurrect from the dead.

Getting back to witnessing the resurrection, perhaps the best logic and documented evidence we have for a witnessed resurrection was the fact that Christians believed in it, and that documented belief (or creed) can be placed within a very short time period of Jesus's death. Perhaps you won't like getting that thinking from a Christian scholar or apologist so I'll let a well known skeptical scholar explain it to you:

You entirely missed my point. Not even in the stories do we have a witness account of exact time when Jesus went from dead to alive. What we have are stories about him being crucified and more stories about him being alive after. That is NOT a witness account of watching the life return to a dead body. Even if we take the stories at face value, this still leaves the door wide open for other, more plausible scenarios.

No body in the tomb - someone took it. Why do you think one of the stories mentions guards on the tomb? As pointed out by another user, this seems like an attempt to avoid this obvious plot hole.

Jesus witnessed walking around with wound marks - maybe he didn't actually die. Why do you think one of the stories mentions the spearing of Jesus? Another possible attempt to cover a plot hole.

Note that not all the stories have all the same details. When you look at when the various accounts were written, you can see the progression from less information to more information. This seems backwards and certainly sets off my "this is fishy" radar. How do people writing accounts decades after the fact seem to have more information than earlier accounts? Smells like attempts to 'get the story right' to me. Just a theory. That's the fun with history. Come up with the most plausible explanation. Realize you might not be right.

[Purple Knight]

Not quite like what people might be expecting when they read the word fossils. It's a big step from primitive bacteria-like organisms to sentient beings zooming around the cosmos in spaceships.

Now I believe I did say primitive at the very outset. In any case, in the example, I and my friends were discussing panspermia, not sentient aliens.

However, since sentience evolved here, twice, independently, I personally believe that where there's life, the path to sentient life is wide open, not some bajillion-to-one fluke.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #83]

I personally believe that where there's life, the path to sentient life is wide open, not some bajillion-to-one fluke.

And I think every evolutionist would agree with you on that. It is the "where there's life" part that is the trick ... ie. how did it originate to begin with ... that most people seem to think is a bajillion-to-one fluke (or outright impossible). I'm not in that camp myself and would put the odds of something like abiogenesis, panspermia, or some other mechanism at less than a bajillion to one since life does in fact exist on this planet and it originated somehow. But we still don't have the answer for the starting mechanism.

[Purple Knight]

I'm not in that camp myself and would put the odds of something like abiogenesis, panspermia, or some other mechanism at less than a bajillion to one since life does in fact exist on this planet and it originated somehow. But we still don't have the answer for the starting mechanism.

My friend's argument was that if there is or was very, very basic life on Mars, panspermia is relatively likely, and likelier and likelier the less likely you think life starting up randomly is, because life either originated twice, once on Earth and once on Mars, or one somehow seeded the other (panspermia would be true), or both were seeded from some other source (again panspermia = true).

My only point was that whether you agree with it or not, I don't think that's silly enough to laugh at, yet people did, outright dismissing the evidence of primitive life on Mars as well as equivocating the claim of panspermia with sentient aliens flying around in UFOs harassing military planes.

[AgnosticBoy]

In what sense or to what degree do we not know what they are? When you don't qualify your points, it makes it seems as if we know nothing about the phenomenon. We know that UFOs involve objects that have been observed flying in that some remain stationary in the air, some make turns, some fly in fleets or groups, some zoom off in one direction or another seeming to evade military pilots, some eventually disappear and then reappear. We may not know all of the details about them but we do know enough to say that their flight patterns and other behavior defy current technology and science.

They appear to move, but it is going a step too far to say they fly which implies that there is some intelligence behind their movement. They can only be said to defy current technology when you actually know what they are. We don't know what they are.

Based on the behavior described in this video, especially in connection to military controlled areas, it's reasonable to say that some UFO occurrences (or they may even be drones) involve flight.



Here's an updated report on the incident:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dr ... f-n1263115

[historia]

Can any skeptic here tell me why skeptics ignore the evidence for the resurrection?

Other than perhaps David Hume, which skeptics do you have in mind?

Every skeptic that uses the reasoning that I mentioned above. I'm also referring to every skeptic who dismisses the resurrection evidence as being "just a story".

I think the issue here is that some of the skeptics in this thread are, to varying degrees, overstating their case, which can give the impression that they are just dismissing the evidence out-of-hand.

Difflugia and benchwarmer referring to the historical sources as "stories," for example, gives the impression that they have decided a priori that these sources do not contain historical information -- which, if true, would constitute special pleading. But, had they simply used a less jaundiced term (say, "accounts") instead, they could have still made their overarching points while avoiding that trap.

Likewise, Miles and others are trying hard to disparage the sources -- too hard, in some cases, as they veer into statements that are factually incorrect -- as many atheists on this site are want to do. This, too, gives the impression that they just want to sidestep the evidence. But in most cases they could have made the same point without those errors.

If you take a minute to look past the misstatements and overstatements, though, a more generous reading of their replies I think shows that they are not simply ignoring or dismissing the evidence. Rather, they have just concluded that, in their opinion, the available historical evidence isn't enough to overcome the low prior probability that God raised Jesus from the dead -- or, at least not enough for that hypothesis to far exceed other competing hypotheses.

[AgnosticBoy]

What is the justification for favoring the natural explanations? Is it simply that scientists have only accounted for natural or physical phenomenon? In my view, evidence is evidence. If evidence points to a supernatural explanation, one that simply posits a violation of the laws of nature, then that should be the more probable explanation.

Supernatural just means what we don't understand yet. There's nothing that "goes against the laws of nature" - if more things or spells or phenomena existed there would just be more laws of nature to account for that. That's what the laws of nature mean: They're meant to explain the world we live in.

I can agree with you in the sense that if the supernatural were explained then it would also be explained in terms of laws. But I still wouldn't consider them the laws of nature for two reasons. One reason is that it is an assumption that something supernatural can't also have laws and order. God may just be using highly advanced technology which functions according to laws and limits, but the best the ancients could do is explain it in terms of magic and other superstition. Another reason is there are such things as regularities and limits. I use the term supernatural to simply refer to those phenomenon that seem to defy known natural world regularities and limits. That's at the heart of the distinction, imo. And as I stated before, being irregular or transcending known natural limits does not mean that such occurrences don't have their own set of laws or limits.

With all of this said, I think scientists can work with and explain the supernatural. Now if it's just some magical, anything possible world, then I can agree that that would be hard to work with and explain but that isn't my conception of supernatural nor do I even think it a necessary one for the Christian worldview.

[Purple Knight]

With all of this said, I think scientists can work with and explain the supernatural. Now if it's just some magical, anything possible world, then I can agree that that would be hard to work with and explain but that isn't my conception of supernatural nor do I even think it a necessary one for the Christian worldview.

Right. It can't be a chaos universe. If things don't function according to laws, we'll never make sense of them. But if they do, we potentially can.

A good example is that rats the world over learn a trick faster if other rats have been taught that trick. This has been linked with morphic resonance, and the idea that information doesn't need a vessel to travel. It seems supernatural, but it simply is what it is. Once it's explained better, it won't be supernatural or seem that way. Once we know how it works, or at least have predictability, it'll be natural, not supernatural.

[brunumb]

Once we know how it works, or at least have predictability, it'll be natural, not supernatural.

So does that mean that the supernatural is not really distinct from the natural other than just being a word for "we don't know how it works yet"?

[Purple Knight]

Once we know how it works, or at least have predictability, it'll be natural, not supernatural.

So does that mean that the supernatural is not really distinct from the natural other than just being a word for "we don't know how it works yet"?

That's how I see it, yes. The only other option is that there is no "how it works" because the universe is truly chaotic and not logical, and in that case there's not much point thinking about trying to explain it since we never will. So we have to attack it from the angle of everything that actually happens being a natural, not supernatural, phenomenon.

If there really are ghosts, one of the things that generally goes with the lore is that unfinished business or grudges or whatnot helps create ghosts, so if that (or something else) ends up being true, we'll have some way to start getting a handle on the issue and start to grasp it, bringing it into the realm of the natural.

If somebody shoots Bigfoot, sequences his genes, and stuffs him so he can be put on display in the Smithsonian, he'll come to the realm of the real, in other words, what we do know. The platypus was once considered a hoax, but no more. This is an easy thing to understand; cryptids versus natural and well-documented animals. So it is with unexplained phenomena. Either they really are hoaxes or misunderstandings, or they eventually come to the realm of the real and become natural phenomena.