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.

[AgnosticBoy]

Before I start responding to any particular member, let me say that it is time that we start accepting that we can have good evidence without having scientific validation. For instance, the resurrection has good historical evidence even though it is not scientifically validated. There is very good evidence that UFOs involve intelligence and technology, especially when they've been sighted around military bases. I can post evidence from U.S. government sources upon request. Should we then deny that these things exist?! All of this would mean is that we have enough to establish that these phenomenon exist but we are not a point of scientists being able to explain them. Why should we think that scientists can fully deal with or explain things that go beyond nature or just even beyond our capabilities?!

[JoeyKnothead]

Before I start responding to any particular member, let me say that it is time that we start accepting that we can have good evidence without having scientific validation. For instance, the resurrection has good historical evidence even though it is not scientifically validated.

Argumentum ad populum is as fallacious an argument as me saying the pretty thing loves me for my brilliant mind.

There is very good evidence that UFOs involve intelligence and technology, especially when they've been sighted around military bases. I can post evidence from U.S. government sources upon request.

Please present such for analysis.

Though yeah, we have sound evidence that flying things fly - what we don't have (yet?) is a means to confirm these things are the product of et's doings.

Should we then deny that these things exist?!

Like Bigfoot, ufos are blurry. With apologies to the late, great Mitch Hedburg.

All of this would mean is that we have enough to establish that these phenomenon exist but we are not a point of scientists being able to explain them. Why should we think that scientists can fully deal with or explain things that go beyond nature or just even beyond our capabilities?!

Because words have meanings.

Dead is dead, there's not one confirmable instance of a dead dude hopping up and heading on off to Wally World.

[AgnosticBoy]

There is very good evidence that UFOs involve intelligence and technology, especially when they've been sighted around military bases. I can post evidence from U.S. government sources upon request.

Please present such for analysis.

Though yeah, we have sound evidence that flying things fly - what we don't have (yet?) is a means to confirm these things are the product of et's doings.

My point in bringing up UFOs is that they fit into the category of being accepted by scientific and government experts while not being explainable. In other words, we accept that they exist but we don't understand them nor can we explain them. I would say that some cases of supernatural phenomenon, the ones with some decent evidence behind them, should be accepted in the same way. This is contrary to the way of many skeptics that expect for these phenomenon to be fully explainable or to readily fit in neatly with current scientific understanding or else they don't take it seriously, or they call it fantasy or myth, or they even dismiss it. I've created a few threads addressing the reasons behind this skepticism and I've found that a lot of it is ideological. These types of skeptics are more interested in reinforcing some rigid view of materialism rather than being open to the truth wherever it leads to (materialism or otherwise).

Off the soapbox and on to the UFO evidence. I started taking notice of this evidence because a certain percentage of reports can't be easily explained away when there are government sources involved and when the UFO phenomenon display some technological or intelligent-like behavior.

I assume we can all agree that presidents would've been briefed on UFOs so their words matter:

Former president Barack Obama recently told James Corden in an interview that he had asked questions about extraterrestrial matters when the latest videos of the phenomena had been made public during his administration.

“When I came into office, I asked, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and a spaceship?”

“They did a little bit of research and the answer is no,” he continued. “But what is true and I’m actually being serious here, is there are, there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are.”

He added: “We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.”

Source: Yahoo

Here's a description of a UFOs given by Luis Elizondo, a military counterintelligence officer and former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (a secretive unit of the Pentagon that studied UFOs):

Imagine a technology that can do 6-to-700 g-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and that can fly through air and water and possibly space. And oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing.

Source: CBS News - 60 minutes

Let's get into video footage from government/military sources (leaked by Chris Mellon who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush and had access to top secret government programs):
(The same videos can also be found on NBC news website here.)

Government officials are taking it seriously:

U.S. intelligence agencies are expected to deliver a report on “unidentified aerial phenomena” to Congress next month, sparking renewed interest and speculation into how the government has handled sightings of mysterious flying objects — and if there's any worldly explanation for them.

The unclassified report, compiled by the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense, aims to make public what the Pentagon knows about unidentified flying objects and data analyzed from such encounters.

While UFOs have been part of American mythology for decades, this report is different. Legitimate debates over UFO sightings have gained traction in recent years after several leaked photos and videos from the U.S. Navy appeared to show mysterious flying objects in American airspace.

In 2019, the Navy put together new guidelines for pilots to report “unidentified aircraft,” in a bid to formalize a process to investigate these types of mysterious sightings. The updated guidance came as a response to “a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," Navy officials told Politico in a statement at the time.

In August, the Department of Defense established the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force to investigate and “gain insight” into the “nature and origins” of unidentified flying objects. Earlier that year, the Department of Defense declassified three videos taken by Navy pilots — one from 2004 and two from 2015 — that showed mysterious objects flying at high speeds across the sky.

“The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified,’” Pentagon officials said in a statement at the time.

Should we then deny that these things exist?!

Like Bigfoot, ufos are blurry. With apologies to the late, great Mitch Hedburg.

Bigfoot is not taken seriously by the United States military as far as I'm aware. UFOs have been documented by the U.S. military.

All of this would mean is that we have enough to establish that these phenomenon exist but we are not a point of scientists being able to explain them. Why should we think that scientists can fully deal with or explain things that go beyond nature or just even beyond our capabilities?!

Because words have meanings.

Dead is dead, there's not one confirmable instance of a dead dude hopping up and heading on off to Wally World.

I can agree that we don't have any scientific validation (documentation, tests, and explanations) for resurrections. The closest modern day case that we have is probably what Goose presented earlier in post #13. Other than that there is good historical evidence when it comes to Jesus's post-mortem appearances.

[JoeyKnothead]

My point in bringing up UFOs is that they fit into the category of being accepted by scientific and government experts while not being explainable. In other words, we accept that they exist but we don't understand them nor can we explain them. I would say that some cases of supernatural phenomenon, the ones with some decent evidence behind them, should be accepted in the same way. This is contrary to the way of many skeptics that expect for these phenomenon to be fully explainable or to readily fit in neatly with current scientific understanding or else they don't take it seriously, or they call it fantasy or myth, or they even dismiss it. I've created a few threads addressing the reasons behind this skepticism and I've found that a lot of it is ideological. These types of skeptics are more interested in reinforcing some rigid view of materialism rather than being open to the truth wherever it leads to (materialism or otherwise).

I reject the implication sceptics are being anything othern sceptics. That folks can't show they speak truth is their fault, not the fault of them that don't believe em.

We know things fly, we've yet to confirm a single instance of a dead dude hopping back up.

Also, there's just not a lot of folks going about restricting the rights of others based on what the ufos are telling em.

Off the soapbox and on to the UFO evidence. I started taking notice of this evidence because a certain percentage of reports can't be easily explained away when there are government sources involved and when the UFO phenomenon display some technological or intelligent-like behavior.
[Snip a bunch for brevity, y'all fetch back to the referenced post for it, please.]

"Unidentified" and "dead" are two separate concepts.

All I see here is a conflagration. Yes, these things seem to change direction, and fly near fast as pretty thing changes her mind. That's a technological leap, not a biological leap.

Now, if you can show it was dead folks aflying these things around, well boy howdy.

Bigfoot is not taken seriously by the United States military as far as I'm aware. UFOs have been documented by the U.S. military.

The US Military doesn't take resurrection seriously either.

That something cant be identified beyond "well how bout that" is no reason for us to throw rationality and logic to the winds, and start prepping for a coming zombie apocalypse.

You're trying to tie one belief to another, but theyre fundamentally different.

Things fly, and things die.

All of this would mean is that we have enough to establish that these phenomenon exist but we are not a point of scientists being able to explain them. Why should we think that scientists can fully deal with or explain things that go beyond nature or just even beyond our capabilities?!

Yes, there's stuff flying, and we aint quite sure what it is.

But we danged well know it ain't dead poeple.

I can agree that we don't have any scientific validation (documentation, tests, and explanations) for resurrections. The closest modern day case that we have is probably what Goose presented earlier in post #13. Other than that there is good historical evidence when it comes to Jesus's post-mortem appearances.

Please see my previous post in this thread where the definition of death was put forward, along with medically practical tests to confirm death has occurred, then get back to us all when Goose's reference shows such tests occurred.

A stopped heart, alone, does not mean death has occurred, only just to call the family in and get the praying ones of em to crank up the prayers.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #44]

Imagine a technology that can do 6-to-700 g-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and that can fly through air and water and possibly space. And oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. That's precisely what we're seeing.

Photons meet all of these except the 600-700g forces (because they have no mass). Of course, we've built plenty of rockets that can fly at 13,000 MPH (Earth escape velocity is about 11.2 km/s = 25,000 MPH), subs that can launch rockets from underwater, etc. There's no doubt that UFOs exist as that acronym just describes anything observed to be flying that can't be identified.

The first UFO I ever saw was in a hotel room in a tiny Texas town about 1985 when something relatively large and brown passed in between me and the TV one evening. Upon further investigation it was a giant flying roach called a Palmetto bug and I'd never seen one before. So technically it was a UFO, which quickly became an IFO (identified flying object), then subsequently a dead object.

My guess is that a lot of these UFO sightings are optical effects of some sort, especially the filmed ones (or digital camers using CCDs) due to either reflections or refractive effects that may pop in and out of existence or appear to change very rapidly much like a Fata Morgana, or the refractive effects that make distant points on a flat road on a hot summer day appear to be black water that moves ahead with the car. Camera effects like missing pixels or bad film spots in the "old" days, or in CCDs where "blooming" can occur where the light intensity at a pixel "bucket" is sufficient to fill the bucket and spill over into adjacent pixels can also create weird effects that vary quickly depending on pointing of the camera, reflections into the lens that can move as the camera moves, etc. These blooming events can create strange effects in the image that appear to move randomly:

https://hamamatsu.magnet.fsu.edu/articl ... oming.html

And of course there can be combinations of these kinds of things, especially when filmed from a moving aircraft during the day when the sun angle and cloud reflections are all varying quickly. I'd argue that effects like these are a more likely explanation than some sort of alien space craft, especially for the descriptions like in the quoted section at the top where the speeds and other behavior may not be within modern capabilities for Earthlings. For others I can imagine spying craft around military bases or things like that where the movements are more in line with what we know is possible. Of all the UFO sightings attribute to possible alien spacecraft, you'd think that at least one would land or be positively identified.

Finally, there's the question of where they could come from if they were extraterrestrial. The closest star to us is 4.2 light years away, which is about 25 trillion miles. If we could build a craft ourselves big enough to hold a couple of humans, and get it to 40,000 MPH (about the speed of the recent New Horizons probe to Pluto, or the Voyager probes), it would take 71,000 years just to get to the nearest star to Earth. And we are pretty sure there are no advanced civilizations associated with that star system (Alpha Centauri star system).

So these "alien" craft would have to come from civilizations so far advanced technically compared to us that they had literal Star Trek speeds and capabilities. To get from Proxima Cenaturi to Earth within a human lifetime the craft would have to move at 40 million MPH ... 1000x faster than the New Horizons probe that was nowhere near large enough to hold a human and supporting food and equipment.

It just seems way too far into the realm of science fiction to imagine that any observed UFO was actually an alien spacecraft, even if it originated from the closest star system to Earth. Go farther out still, and it is even more unlikely. It is possible of course given that we have no idea if there is intelligent life out there somewhere, or how advanced it might be, but the speeds and technology necessary to get a craft to Earth from even the closest star system would have to be orders of magnitude above us mere Earthlings, and if there were such civilizations that could build craft to reach Earth you'd also think we might have detected at least some kind of electromagnetic communication from them at some wavelength. But (as we've discussed before here) SETI and other efforts have seen nothing and this adds to the general unlikleiness of these UFO signtings being alien craft. Too many wild assumptions have to be made to justify that explanation.

[Purple Knight]

There is very good evidence that UFOs involve intelligence and technology, especially when they've been sighted around military bases. I can post evidence from U.S. government sources upon request. Should we then deny that these things exist?!

People do deny they exist and for exactly this reason. This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about with people being intellectual cowards.

[JoeyKnothead]

There is very good evidence that UFOs involve intelligence and technology, especially when they've been sighted around military bases. I can post evidence from U.S. government sources upon request. Should we then deny that these things exist?!

People do deny they exist and for exactly this reason. This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about with people being intellectual cowards.

What are "intellectual cowards" are those trying to declare the thoughts or motives of people they've never met.

There's little doubt that intelligence and technology are involved in flying craft, and I've yet to meet anyone who declares such as, "No, I don't belive that object there, that hasn't been identified, ain't it really there."

It's just some folks don't accept claims that can't be shown to be true. And others prefer to insult, slander, and disperage em for it

Maybe we'll just call them folks "intellectually honest".

And we'll call folks who are incapable of showing they speak truth "liars".

[Purple Knight]

People do deny they exist and for exactly this reason. This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about with people being intellectual cowards.

What are "intellectual cowards" are those trying to declare the thoughts or motives of people they've never met.

I can only speak for who I have met, but overall they haven't given me a very good impression. They're quick to cough up labels like conspiracy theorist just to avoid having to weigh in on what something unexplained might be or join with the many to make fun of the few. They reflexively sit back in their comfortable position of easy dismissal while never thinking about what something might be themselves. They would rather dismiss it, because when you're actually trying to figure something out, you might be wrong.

[Tcg]

People do deny they exist and for exactly this reason. This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about with people being intellectual cowards.

What are "intellectual cowards" are those trying to declare the thoughts or motives of people they've never met.

I can only speak for who I have met, but overall they haven't given me a very good impression. They're quick to cough up labels like conspiracy theorist just to avoid having to weigh in on what something unexplained might be or join with the many to make fun of the few. They reflexively sit back in their comfortable position of easy dismissal while never thinking about what something might be themselves. They would rather dismiss it, because when you're actually trying to figure something out, you might be wrong.

Is anyone claiming that UFOs are supernatural? If they aren't, what do UFOs have to do with this thread?


Tcg

[AgnosticBoy]

There is very good evidence that UFOs involve intelligence and technology, especially when they've been sighted around military bases. I can post evidence from U.S. government sources upon request. Should we then deny that these things exist?!

People do deny they exist and for exactly this reason. This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about with people being intellectual cowards.

Correct. I've met those who deny that UFOs exist but then again they were most likely referring to those captured on videos by ordinary people (those not part of science, government, or who aren't trained pilots). Videos that are from trained pilots and government personnel who have the knowledge and resources to rule out obvious things (like Satellites, weather balloons, and other technology) are harder to dismiss. Reasonably speaking, none of them should be dismissed without evidence. It seems that it takes a national security threat or risk for the government to take these UFOs seriously.

Keep in mind, I'm not claiming that these are ET technology, but at the same time I can't dismiss that either. Some photos/videos can be ruled out as being nothing more than ordinary causes and others may not. DrNoGods offered an interesting explanation regarding the optical effects of cameras (refer to post 45). It certainly meets some criteria for these UFOs but not others, esp. those can be seen with the naked eye.

What are "intellectual cowards" are those trying to declare the thoughts or motives of people they've never met.

There's little doubt that intelligence and technology are involved in flying craft, and I've yet to meet anyone who declares such as, "No, I don't belive that object there, that hasn't been identified, ain't it really there."

It's just some folks don't accept claims that can't be shown to be true. And others prefer to insult, slander, and disperage em for it

Maybe we'll just call them folks "intellectually honest".

And we'll call folks who are incapable of showing they speak truth "liars".

Or do you mean that skeptics tend to insult, slander, and disparage those who express views that might go against their established worldview? There are pilots that are afraid to come out with their stories and there is a stigma to UFOs when they are brought up to the intellectual or government community. That's now changing, but we can't pretend that skepticism is all about the perfect picture that you're trying to paint it as. Skepticism can also hinder and restrict knowledge.