Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

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Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #1

Post by bluegreenearth »

Is the method reliable?

If a method (i.e. systematic procedures, qualifying criteria, bias mitigation techniques, line of reasoning, etc.) being used to investigate and affirm the claim of Jesus's miraculous resurrection is unreliable, it is my understanding that it would be expected to produce competing or contradictory results when applied consistently in the investigation of other claims about paranormal or supernatural events from non-Christian sources (For the purposes of this thread, the Book of Mormon is considered to be a non-Christian source). Should there be other detectable indications of a method's unreliability, those will not be the primary focus of this thread but are welcome in the discussion for consideration nonetheless. Accordingly, I am challenging interested and capable forum members to provide a detailed description of a method an apologist used to investigate and affirm the resurrection claim and then proceed to apply it consistently in the investigation of comparable, competing, or contradictory claims about paranormal or supernatural events from non-Christian sources.

After consistently applying the identified method in the investigation of non-Christian claims about paranormal or supernatural events, does it produce:
  • compatible results
  • competing results
  • contradictory results
  • indeterminate results
  • ________?
*Note: Admittedly, part of my motivation for initiating this thread is because I don't have the time or resources to conduct this type of detailed analysis independently. So, please pardon me for not initiating this discussion with my own example. Of course, I'll try to offer appropriate input as my schedule permits. Thanks.

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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

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Post by Difflugia »

bluegreenearth wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:17 pm Is the method reliable?
I'm going to do this is a couple of posts to make it easier to hopefully separate things a bit more clearly. First, I'll describe one apologetic method that's reasonably clear-cut, then I'll do a similar write-up of the Book of Mormon.

I think a good benchmark is William Lane Craig's argument for the resurrection. He's laid it out a number of times and is consistent. It's available most briefly online at his Reasonable Faith ministry website. A slightly more detailed treatment can be read as chapter 9 of his book On Guard and a much more detailed, book-length presentation is Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

Here's the framework of his argument:

Three facts:
  1. The empty tomb is historical.
    • Scholars agree that Jesus was buried.
    • Christians wouldn't have made up Joseph of Arimathea being a member of the Sanhedrin, therefore Jesus was buried in a tomb.
    • If Jesus was buried in a tomb, everybody knew where it was.
    • If skeptics knew where he was buried, they would have checked to see if his corpse was still there.
    • The empty tomb was discovered by women. Who'd lie about that in first-century Palestine?
    • The "earliest Jewish response" to the empty tomb (Matthew 28:11-15) was to bribe a guard to lie.
  2. The resurrection appearances are historical in some sense.
    • "Virtually all New Testament Critics agree that Peter saw an appearance of Jesus alive from the dead."
    • Jesus appeared to the Twelve in Christian tradition, according to Paul who "had personal contact with the Twelve," and is described independently by Luke and John.
    • Paul said that Jesus appeared to five hundred people. Since he "knew some of them died," they must have been personal acquaintances of his and "he could never have said this if the event had not occurred."
    • Jesus appeared to his brother James, who was skeptical and then converted. Because it's embarrassing if James didn't believe Jesus before the resurrection, it must have happened.
    • Jesus appeared to the apostles. Paul knew them personally, so it must have happened.
    • Jesus appeared to Paul. Because Paul himself wrote about it, it must have happened.
  3. The disciples believed in the resurrection.
    • "Even skeptical New Testament scholars recognize that the Christian faith owes its origin to the belief of the earliest disciples that God had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. In fact, they pinned nearly everything on this belief."
Features of a viable hypothesis (Not explicit in the online version, but it is in the longer formats; list from page 244 of On Guard)
  1. The best explanation will have greater explanatory scope than other explanations. That is, it will explain more of the evidence.
  2. The best explanation will have greater explanatory power than other explanations. That is, it will make the evidence more probable.
  3. The best explanation will be more plausible than other explanations. That is, it will fit better with true background beliefs.
  4. The best explanation will be less contrived than other explanations. That is, it won’t require adopting as many new beliefs that have no independent evidence.
  5. The best explanation will be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than other explanations. That is, it won’t conflict with as many accepted beliefs.
  6. The best explanation will meet conditions 1–5 so much better than the others that there’s little chance that one of the other explanations, after further investigation, will do better in meeting these conditions.
Competing Hypotheses
  • The disciples stole the body of Jesus and lied about His appearances (a conspiracy).
  • Jesus was only mostly dead when placed in the tomb, but revived and escaped.
  • Joseph of Arimathea moved Jesus' body from the tomb to a coommon grave without telling the disciples.
  • In their grief, the disciples hallucinated the post-resurrection appearances.
  • Bodily resurrection—The clear winner, according to Craig.
For reference, I want to point out a few of the perhaps less obvious bits of rhetorical sleight-of-hand that Craig employs here. First, a common tactic of his is to make a statement that if understood in a broad way, would have the support of scholars, then redefine it later in a much narrower way with a more Christian understanding.

The most important one here is to slide from "virtually all" scholars accepting some form of post-resurrection experience by the disciples to claiming that it was a physical, bodily appearance without acknowledging that he's left "virtually all" scholars behind. That makes it a bit difficult to judge whether we're being fair or not when trying to apply similar standards to another work. Do we assume that Craig has simply made a mistake in his reasoning and call it a failure or do we consider it a valid way to treat evidence?

Arguably less important, but the same kind of equivocation is shifting from "scholars agree that Jesus was buried" to "Jesus was buried in a tomb" by asserting that the existence of Joseph of Arimathea is certain. Though there are scholars that believe this, Craig's once again left the comfortable majority of scholars without acknowledging that he's done so.

His second tactic is to accept particular details as historically reliable when it suits him, but isn't justified by his starting methodology and assumptions (primarily "God is real" and "we're going with the scholars"). Examples are Matthew's guard at the tomb and the details of Paul's conversion in Acts.

A final interesting feature of his apologetic argument, which I'm sure will serve us well in applying it to other supernatural stories, is that discrepancies in detail are completely unimportant:
So minor discrepancies don’t affect our case. Historians expect to find inconsistencies even in the most reliable sources. No historian simply throws out a source because it has inconsistencies. Otherwise we’d have to be skeptical about all secular historical narratives that also contain such inconsistencies, which is wholly unreasonable. Moreover, in this case the inconsistencies aren’t even within a single source; they’re between independent sources. But obviously, it doesn’t follow from an inconsistency between two independent sources that both sources are wrong. At worst, one is wrong if they can’t be harmonized.—On Guard pp. 141-142
If anyone thinks I'm being unfair to Craig or misrepresenting him, that's obviously fair game for debate.
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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #3

Post by Difflugia »

Depending on level of interest, there are lots of official Mormon sources of information available for download.

Mormon Scripture

For anyone that doesn't know:
  • Book of Mormon—The story of Israelites that travelled to prehistoric America in two waves, had some wars with each other, and the survivors were transformed into the dark-skinned aboriginal Americans as punishment. It was written on "golden plates" that recorded a history written by successive historians, the last one being a guy named Mormon. The angel Moroni told Joseph Smith where to dig them up, conveniently buried under a hill on his family's property in New York State.
  • The Doctrine and Covenants—A series of events, anecdotes, and doctrinal decisions (some delivered by God) involving Joseph Smith and the early Church.
  • The Pearl of Great Price—A number of additions to LDS Scripture, most of which came from papyri found on a mummy that a rich Mormon guy bought from a travelling sideshow. He brought them to Joseph Smith, who translated them.
  • The King James Bible—Probably not particularly relevant to this conversation, but it includes a Bible dictionary with cross references to all of the Mormon Scripture, making certain comparisons easier.
Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—LDS history in narrative form, drawn from official sources, including writings of Joseph Smith himself.

Church History in the Fulness of Times [PDF]—A history of the Church in the form of a textbook for a Mormon seminary class. If you're interested in Mormon (or Utah) history, this is incredibly detailed.

This page has download links for a number of official publications in a variety of formats. I linked it specifically because it includes the recent, two-volume story of Mormon history, Saints, written in an updated and contemporary style.
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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #4

Post by Difflugia »

I think that using similar criteria to William Lane Craig's defense of the Resurrection, we can show that the Book of Mormon was undoubtedly sent by God to Joseph Smith. I haven't fully worked this out, so it might be a bit disjointed.

Here are some facts and some reasons we might trust them:
  • Joseph Smith, Jr. was visited by the angel Moroni when he was 14.
    • We have the direct testimony of Joseph Smith himself.
    • According to Craig, one "can’t plausibly deny that the earliest disciples at least sincerely believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead with so much conviction that they were willing to die for that belief." Since Joseph Smith later died for his conviction and at no point recanted any of his testimony, we can at least trust that he was sincere in reporting the visit by Moroni.
  • The golden plates themselves were undeniably real.
    • "The testimony of the three witnesses" and "testimony of the eight witnesses" are the statements by eleven people other than Joseph Smith to have seen the golden plates.
    • Joseph Smith knew all eleven people personally.
    • All eleven not only saw the plates, but were able to handle and examine them. To have eleven people verify that they were real means that it's extremely unlikely that they were forgeries.
  • In addition to Joseph Smith, several other Saints were martyred for their faith during the first generation of the Church.
    • Hyrum Smith, Joseph's older brother.
    • David W. Patten, who had previously expressed his desire for martyrdom.
    • Patrick O’Bannion.
  • Since the days of Joseph Smith, there has always been a "Quorum of the Twelve Apostles," of whom each speaks directly to God. There have been 102 Apostles since the Restoration, which means that if they couldn't speak to God, all 102 must have been liars.
That's not a terribly long list at the moment, but neither is Craig's and that's probably enough to get started with.

Am I being more credulous than Craig?
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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #5

Post by bluegreenearth »

Difflugia wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:51 pm I think that using similar criteria to William Lane Craig's defense of the Resurrection, we can show that the Book of Mormon was undoubtedly sent by God to Joseph Smith. I haven't fully worked this out, so it might be a bit disjointed.

Here are some facts and some reasons we might trust them:
  • Joseph Smith, Jr. was visited by the angel Moroni when he was 14.
    • We have the direct testimony of Joseph Smith himself.
    • According to Craig, one "can’t plausibly deny that the earliest disciples at least sincerely believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead with so much conviction that they were willing to die for that belief." Since Joseph Smith later died for his conviction and at no point recanted any of his testimony, we can at least trust that he was sincere in reporting the visit by Moroni.
  • The golden plates themselves were undeniably real.
    • "The testimony of the three witnesses" and "testimony of the eight witnesses" are the statements by eleven people other than Joseph Smith to have seen the golden plates.
    • Joseph Smith knew all eleven people personally.
    • All eleven not only saw the plates, but were able to handle and examine them. To have eleven people verify that they were real means that it's extremely unlikely that they were forgeries.
  • In addition to Joseph Smith, several other Saints were martyred for their faith during the first generation of the Church.
    • Hyrum Smith, Joseph's older brother.
    • David W. Patten, who had previously expressed his desire for martyrdom.
    • Patrick O’Bannion.
  • Since the days of Joseph Smith, there has always been a "Quorum of the Twelve Apostles," of whom each speaks directly to God. There have been 102 Apostles since the Restoration, which means that if they couldn't speak to God, all 102 must have been liars.
That's not a terribly long list at the moment, but neither is Craig's and that's probably enough to get started with.

Am I being more credulous than Craig?
So far, you seem to be fairly and consistently applying Dr. Craig's methodology to the Mormon claims. Given the outcome, would you conclude that Dr. Craig should enroll himself as a member in the Church of Latter-day Saints lest he be accused of not applying his methodology consistently?

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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #6

Post by Difflugia »

bluegreenearth wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 6:18 pmSo far, you seem to be fairly and consistently applying Dr. Craig's methodology to the Mormon claims. Given the outcome, would you conclude that Dr. Craig should enroll himself as a member in the Church of Latter-day Saints lest he be accused of not applying his methodology consistently?
The big problem apologists have is how to make their favorite supernatural thing acceptable while somehow filtering out the stuff they don't want. One of my favorite gotchas was when Michael Behe was on the stand in the Dover trial. He redefined "science" so that it included Intelligent Design, but then on cross examination, had to admit that his new definition also included astrology.

William Lane Craig is in that position with his historiography. If he defines away all of the difficulties that his religion has, like by claiming that miracles are acceptable explanations for things, then Christianity is no longer special:
To be perfectly candid, the only grounds for denying the physical, bodily nature of the postmortem appearances of Jesus is philosophical, not historical: Such appearances would be miracles of the most stupendous proportions, and that many critics cannot swallow. But in that case we need to retrace our steps to think again about the evidence for the existence of God. If God exists, there’s no good reason to be skeptical about miracles.
Exactly. And if aliens exist, there's no good reason to be skeptical about the Rothschilds being extraterrestrial lizards. Garbage in, garbage out.

The elephant in the room is the likelihood that, in one way or another, the whole thing is made up. The fun thing about Mormonism is that it's almost tailor-made to debunk Christian apologetics aimed at avoiding that conclusion. Early Christians wouldn't have made it up because they seemed sincere and were martyrs, but that's exactly what Joseph Smith did. Of course he seemed sincere; that's what makes a con-man a con-man. He died for a lie? Short-sighted people die for stupid things all the time.

The Book of Mormon is half the reason I'm an atheist. When I could no longer see any truth behind Christianity, the lingering doubt was always how so many people could still think it was true. I thought that maybe there was still something that I was missing. I read the Book of Mormon with some missionaries and realized that not only was it absolutely transparent as fiction (the King James-esque language itself is enough), but it was the Scripture behind one of the fastest-growing religions in the world. The secret is that, for whatever reason, lots of people will believe things that should be unbelievable. I still don't understand all of the reasons why, but I know for certain that they do.

William Lane Craig is in the position of arguing that somebody was supernaturally recalled from the dead when that never happens. Leaving that aside, though, opens the floodgates to everything else that never happens.
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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

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Post by Purple Knight »

bluegreenearth wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 4:17 pmAccordingly, I am challenging interested and capable forum members to provide a detailed description of a method an apologist used to investigate and affirm the resurrection claim and then proceed to apply it consistently in the investigation of comparable, competing, or contradictory claims about paranormal or supernatural events from non-Christian sources.
Here's one such claim that those methods could be applied to.




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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

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Post by Mithrae »

Difflugia wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 9:27 pm William Lane Craig is in the position of arguing that somebody was supernaturally recalled from the dead when that never happens. Leaving that aside, though, opens the floodgates to everything else that never happens.
To be more accurate, the problem is with the claims of Craig and others that the resurrection is certain or highly probable. Claiming high probability in a case where the available evidence is extremely weak obviously opens the floodgates to everything else. But by the same token, claiming impossibility or extremely low probability in cases with more robust evidence would be equally problematic.

The alleged 'miracle of Calanda' is a useful example in both cases, a report of a regrown amputation with formal sworn testimony from dozens of named observers, notably including 3-4 medical workers involved with the amputation itself. For non-Catholic Christians loathe to attribute miracles to a shrine of Jesus' long-dead mother it's a good example for the OP question, since the evidence is unquestionably far better than the anonymous propaganda sources of the NT. But that very fact that the evidence for this alleged miracle (among numerous others) is far better also raises the question of whether we can really use "that never happens" as a basis for dismissing such reports time and time again... or even more troubling, whether the same scepticism should be applied to all of what we thought we knew.

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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #9

Post by Difflugia »

Mithrae wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 7:42 amTo be more accurate, the problem is with the claims of Craig and others that the resurrection is certain or highly probable. Claiming high probability in a case where the available evidence is extremely weak obviously opens the floodgates to everything else. But by the same token, claiming impossibility or extremely low probability in cases with more robust evidence would be equally problematic.
You are exactly right. I was being sloppy.
Mithrae wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 7:42 amThe alleged 'miracle of Calanda' is a useful example in both cases, a report of a regrown amputation with formal sworn testimony from dozens of named observers, notably including 3-4 medical workers involved with the amputation itself. For non-Catholic Christians loathe to attribute miracles to a shrine of Jesus' long-dead mother it's a good example for the OP question, since the evidence is unquestionably far better than the anonymous propaganda sources of the NT. But that very fact that the evidence for this alleged miracle (among numerous others) is far better also raises the question of whether we can really use "that never happens" as a basis for dismissing such reports time and time again... or even more troubling, whether the same scepticism should be applied to all of what we thought we knew.
For me, the question is under what circumstances and to what degree we can rely on testimony alone. These discussions always remind me of the entry for inadmissable from Ambrose Bierce's The Cynic's Word Book (which later became the better known The Devil's Dictionary for marketing purposes). The entry ends with these words:
Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there are no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
While I wouldn't say that they're destitute of value, I would say that the value assigned to them is often misplaced. Between the Gospels, Book of Mormon, miracle you discussed, and the Salem witch trials, there are as many important differences as similarities. In the case of the miracle of Calanda, though, I expect that the biggest confounder of the testimony is that people's minds fill in missing details when they're needed. Broadly, I expect the guy with the "new" leg really had gone to the hospital for treatment and had his broken leg set without it having been removed. Thereafter, he took up the occupation of a one-legged beggar, neglecting (perhaps crucially) to tell his mom that he was fibbing a bit about the count. Three years later, the doctors, nurses, orderlies, and whoever else were asked about one specific patient and told that it involved an amputated limb. This was in the middle of a war and amputations weren't that uncommon. They all knew how they would have dealt with an amputation, remembered details from real amputations, and their minds created and filled in the details about one more.

These techniques for personally evaluating stories about the past usually work pretty well. Most people are honest most of the time, so if someone offers their own recollection, one can usually safely incorporate it into the narrative (that's why gaslighting works so well). It's a heuristic process that we as people have come to trust, but it only takes one or two bad actors (or even sincere mistakes) to completely subvert the process. If the beggar was telling the truth, then a miracle happened. If Joseph Smith, the "three" and the "eight" were telling the truth, an angel of God delivered the golden plates.

I'm starting to digress a bit here, but I think the New Testament is more interesting from several points of view.

First, it would take a lot of work at this point to convince me that any of the Gospels were intended by their authors to be read as nonfiction. The tradition that they weren't seems to be primarily a response to early forms of gnosticism that may ironically be closer to the intentions of the authors. The alternative to too much allegory was the dogmatic assertion of no allegory at all. Once this was entrenched in the Christian tradition, the apologetic machine worked to reinforce it.

Second, I've come to think that there was at least one person in the early church that forged a career out of claiming to be the Apostle John and it may have been a sort of cottage industry. John had a reputation for having lived a really long time, for one thing. For another, the "Church Fathers" couldn't seem to agree on exactly who knew him when or even how many Johns there were. Instead, they recounted a series of second- and third-hand stories about people that heard him preach once or to whom he expounded on some interesting bit of doctrine.

I've mentioned both of these books before, but I think they're important to evaluating Christian apologetic arguments that hinge on the reliability of personal testimony:

Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens by Susan A. Clancy and, more recently, Bart Ehrman's Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. Both deal with the malleability of human memory and how open we are to even unintentional manipulation.
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Re: Applying Christian Apologetic Methods To Non-Christian Claims

Post #10

Post by bluegreenearth »

This is the second time I've started a thread that most theists seem inclined to ignore. I wonder why that might be the case? Credit goes to the few theists who have chosen to participate.

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