Why isn't the standing still of the sun and the moon not recorded by other cultures?

[Compassionist]

I am quoting from Joshua 10: 12 - 14, the Bible (English Standard Version)

"At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,

Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.”
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.

Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel."

Why isn't the standing still of the sun and the moon not recorded by other cultures that had invented writing?

The event described in Joshua 10:12–14, where the sun and moon are said to have stood still to allow the Israelites more time to defeat their enemies, would - if taken literally - constitute a global astronomical phenomenon. If the Earth’s rotation truly stopped or slowed (which is what "the sun stood still" would physically mean), it would have had catastrophic global consequences, including massive earthquakes, tsunamis, and changes in atmospheric motion due to sudden deceleration.

Such an event could not have gone unnoticed by other civilisations and would have been recorded by other literate cultures that kept astronomical or historical records.

At the time (around 13th to 15th century BCE, depending on the dating of the conquest narratives), several advanced civilisations with writing and astronomical records existed, including:

Egyptians
Babylonians
Chinese (Shang Dynasty)
Minoans/Mycenaeans
Sumerians
Indus Valley remnants

Yet none of these cultures, despite their meticulous sky observations, record a day when the sun and moon stood still or behaved abnormally. I conclude that this is because the Bible is lying about the Biblical God making the sun and the moon stand still.

[1213]

Regardless of ancient mythology, does anyone actually believe ... ("sun stood still overhead for a day")?

I believe sun stood still, or at least it appeared to be so.

[RBD]

[Replying to RBD in post #70]

Direct vs. Independent Evidence

You’ve clarified your framework: eyewitness testimony counts as “direct evidence,” and you regard independent corroboration as unnecessary unless contradiction arises. The problem is that this reverses the standard epistemic hierarchy.

False.

The standard historical and legal definition of eyewitness testimony is direct/firsthand evidence. Without contrary proof, corroboration is not needed to accept it for historical analysis and legal verdict.

In epistemic hierarchy, corroboration can help strengthen and establish it, but is not necessary to accept it.

Ex: The resurrection of Jesus Christ has the recorded firsthand direct testimony of several writers. If He does come again in Person with clouds, as prophesied, then He Himself will corroborate His own resurrection as established undeniable fact.

Rev 1:7
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

There will be no more possible objective skepticism, nor deniers accusing of His eyewitnesses of lying.

Your framework asserts that the Bible is direct, self-authenticating evidence, and that spiritual discernment confirms its truth.

Your natural framework asserts that the Bible is lying, self-manufacturing evidence, and that spiritual discernment is self-evidently not true.

The Bible is direct evidence by eyewitness record. Knowing what the record says, confirms spiritual intelligence, that can discern if it is true or not. Spiritual discernment is just spiritual acknowledgement of what is said, not necessarily agreement with faith.

Any objective critic can discern spiritual things, without accepting them, nor denying them. Only the natural man exempts himself from knowledge of spiritual things:

Eze 12:2
Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.

All people are born with spiritual intelligence to discern spiritual things. Only the natural man rebels against his own spiritual intelligence, which rebellion itself requires spiritual intelligence in the first place. Rebelling against one's own eyes to see, proves having eyes to see...

The Category Error of “Spiritual Knowledge”

You invoke 1 Corinthians 2 to argue that the “spiritual man” perceives truths inaccessible to the “natural man.”

False. The spiritual man acknowledges spiritual truths, that any person has access to by birth of spiritually intelligent human beings.

Spiritual discernment and knowledge is only inaccessible to brute beasts, that have no spiritual intelligence.

Philosopher J. L. Schellenberg formulated this problem clearly: a perfectly loving God would ensure that every sincere seeker has unmistakable awareness of His existence.

Which is the natural philosopher using spiritual intelligence to formulate spiritual things, who then insists his own spiritual intelligence be confirmed by natural observation. I.e. I can spiritually discern it, but I want natural proof to believe it.

The God that is love says, no.

Jhn 20:27
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Mat 16:4
A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

Luk 16:31
And he said unto him, If they hear not (their own spiritual intelligence), neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Philosopher C. A. J. Coady (in Testimony: A Philosophical Study, 1992) and historian R. G. Collingwood (in The Idea of History) both emphasize that testimony is valuable only when embedded in a reliable network of causal and institutional constraints. Lacking those, the evidential weight remains minimal.

According to the natural man's personal standard of epidemic hierarchy, not according to standard historical and legal review of evidence. But, at least this natural philosopher reasonably reserves some minimal faith in things not natural, that are not seen, touched, smelled, nor observed by sight...

Luk 17:20
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

[RBD]

Inconsistency Regarding Other Scriptures

You state that you “do not reject supernatural accounts simply because they are supernatural,” yet you reject non-biblical ones if they “contradict Bible records.” This is precisely the circular privileging that critical scholarship seeks to avoid.

False. Only if there is no objective review of the recorded evidence.

You persistently overlook, or dismiss the necessary caveat of critical analysis, that intelligently demand objective acceptance vs rejection of contradictory records.

The natural man's reasoning runs as follows:
1. Only natural things exist.
2. There are no supernatural things.
3. Any recorded testimony of a supernatural event, is a foolish lie.
4. Foolish events and records cannot be critically reviewed as evidence.
5. Opposition between foolish events cannot be critically analyzed.

Therefore, the natural man rejecting all supernatural things as foolishness, does not allow for, nor mention, any kind of critical analysis between opposing records of supernatural events. You do not acknowledge necessary caveat of critical analysis, when accusing a believer in one recorded supernatural event, having objective reason to reject another contradictory record. Hence:

[quote=Compassionist post_id=1179522 time=1762379807 user_id=3518
1. The Bible is inerrant.
2. Therefore, anything contradicting the Bible is false.
3. Therefore, the Bible remains inerrant.[/quote]

The reasoning of the objective spiritual man runs as follows:

1. The Bible is proving itself inerrant, by critical analysis of the Book.
2. Therefore, anything contradicting the Bible, can be critically rejected as false.
3. Therefore, so long as the Bible remains provably inerrant, then any contradictory record can be rejected.

This is not evidence-based reasoning but self-validation by prior commitment.

Exactly correct. The unobjective natural man does not and cannot allow for critical objective analysis of recorded evidence, that he assumes is foolish in the first place.

The natural man with prior commitment to not validate any supernatural record, in order to self-validate his own personal faith in natural things alone...

It treats the Bible as its own standard of truth - the very thing you accuse skeptics of doing when they rely on methodological naturalism.

I accuse objective skeptics of nothing, but only people pre-committed to natural things alone, that accuse the Bible of lying without objective proof. But only by their own their own natural faith alone.

If an angel appears to Muhammad or Joseph Smith, you dismiss it because the Bible predicts “false angels.”

Once again, a false assumption and accusation based upon your own natural faith, that recordings of supernatural events, cannot be objectively reviewed and analyzed between one another, as with critical scholarship.

Here is the literary review of the spiritual man, and objective critic:

1. The author of the Bible says the God of Abraham begets a Son. The author of the Koran claims to speak for the God of Abraham, but says He cannot possibly beget a Son. Therefore, by grammar alone, one or the other must be lying about the God of Abraham.

2. The author of the Bible says that the Son and Lord Jesus Christ does not have any other Testament, than that which is written in the Bible. The author of the book of Mormon claims to speak for the Son and Lord Jesus Christ, and says He now has another testament not written in the Bible. Therefore, by grammar alone, one or the other must be lying about the Son and Lord Jesus Christ.

The natural man, that rejects any God and Son of God, will of course say all the authors are lying, and if any one of them is accepted, then all must be accepted, since it's all foolishness anyway. However, personal natural faith alone, cannot dismiss literary analysis itself.

Conclusion: A person's own subjective faith, cannot historically nor legally forbid literary review by standard objective grammar of certain books, that claim to speak of the same things, but literally contradict one another. A standard literary analysis compels accepting one and rejecting the other.

The Gospels are theological stories. Their narrative function is to inspire faith, not to document forensics.

False again by personal faith in nature alone. Document records are forensic, which can and are analyzed forensically.

Saying, the Gospels are only theological stories, with narrative that cannot be forensically tested, is saying that they are only oral, not physical documents.

When you say “John wrote I, John,” that proves authorship no more than “I, Sherlock Holmes” would prove Sherlock Holmes’ existence in reality,

Another presumed accusation based upon personal rejection of any critical analysis between the documents.

Reasonable critical analyses proves that, “I, Sherlock Holmes”, is never meant to be an non-fictional eyewitness account. It's a later adaption fictional book, with words that the original author never himself used...

Comparing the two different documents as the same in purpose, is only by rejecting standard critical analsys.

Standards of Historical Verification

You contest the principle of “multiple independent attestations,” arguing that even one confirming account suffices. But independence is the very key: multiple copies of the same tradition do not count as independent witnesses.

This is another manner of commitment to personal faith, that produces an unproven noncritical revision: The authors are not independently confirming the same things, as they themselves say, but are only 'copying' one another...And so natural faith alone accuses the authors of lying about their accounts, but also about their own stated independence.

Matthew and Luke draw from Mark; John is theologically distinct but not demonstrably independent in source material.

And so naturally, we see how prior-commitment to personal faith alone, pre-rejects the written evidence, any critical review of the evidence, prejudicially revises the written record, accuses the authors of lying about their records, and finally lying about themselves and their own purpose...

Such circular extremism is indeed entirely understandable, from a person who has sole commitment to their own personal faith alone, and must reject anything to the contrary. I.e. To the natural man anything supernatural is foolishness, and therefore any written records of it are foolishness, and anyone writing about it is foolishly lying about the events and themselves.

Rev 22:8
And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.

The problem of course, is when an author writes an independent document, that no other author writes of. How then can he possibly be copying from others? Not possible. And so, the natural man must declare the writer is simply an independent fool...

Therefore, we have literary amplification, not new witnesses.

Therefore, we have literary revision, not critical analysis.

When you say that “Revelation was written during and after the events recorded by John himself,” you assume both authorship and event.

When you say that “Revelation was not written during and after the events recorded by John himself,” you assume both authorship and event are lies.

[RBD]

[Replying to RBD in post #70]

Objective Skepticism vs. Faith Commitment

You conclude that I must “drop the objective skeptic role” because I “accuse the Bible of lying.”

Correct. By definition, you are no longer an objective critic withholding confirmation or denial.

Once again, when someone declares themselves an accuser of fraudulent documents. Why try to play the role of objective skeptic? Why would anyone declaring war on another, try to play the role of conscientious objector?

But distinguishing false claims from false claimants is essential.

Which is the critic's right to prove.

However, once the claim is declared a lie, the accuser is not an objective skeptic. Objective skeptics by definition are not accusers.

To say “the Bible is wrong about the sun standing still” is not to say “its authors lied.”

To say “the Bible is lying about the sun standing still” is not to say “its authors lied.” Is to say the Bible has no author when lying.

Determining authorship is objective critique, but dissociating the author from the record, is dissociative identity disorder.

It is to note that pre-scientific cosmology generated a mythic narrative, later revealed to be false by observation.

It is to note that pre-committed natural believers assume, that all supernatural records are pre-scientific cosmology generating a mythic narrative, later revealed to be false by natural observation alone.

Circular argument by faith in natural things alone.

Objective skepticism is not hostility; it is procedural humility.

Objective skepticism awaiting proof is not hostile. Subjective accusation without proof may not be hostile; but it certainly isn't humble.

It says: “Until a claim is publicly verifiable, I will withhold assent.”

So says the objective skeptic.

The committed accuser says: “Until a claim is publicly verifiable, I hold it's a lie.”

By contrast, the believer applies one standard to their text e.g. the Bible (acceptance by faith) and another to others e.g. the Vedas (rejection by contradiction). That asymmetry, not skepticism, reveals bias.

By contrast, the believer in natural things alone, applies one standard to any text e.g. the Bible (as foolishness) and the same to others e.g. the Vedas (also as foolishness). That asymmetry, not skepticism, reveals natural bias.

Ontological Modesty: To label an unexplained phenomenon “supernatural” is not to expand knowledge but to rename ignorance.

Ontological Hubris: To label an unexplained phenomenon “supernatural” is not by definition, but by foolish ignorance.

I.e. to the natural man, even giving 'supernatural' things a name, is foolishness.

The scientific stance does not exclude the supernatural by dogma; it simply refrains from asserting what cannot be tested.

By definition, the natural science stance does not include the supernatural by dogma; it simply rejects anything that cannot be naturally tested.

However, not all natural scientists are subjective natural men, that only trust in natural things alone. Some do objectively reserve possibility for the unexplainable supernatural things. Including natural philosophers like J. L. Schellenberg.

Where you see divine revelation, I see the natural evolution of belief systems shaped by environment and culture.

Where you do not see divine revelation, I see the natural evolution of spiritually blind belief systems shaped by natural environment and culture alone.

Where you find confirmation in Scripture, I find the human longing for order, meaning, and transcendence - powerful, yes, but not proof.

Where you confirm Scripture is lying, you find a decieved human longing for order, meaning, and transcendence - powerfully deceptive, yes, but not proof of anything spiritual at all.

Which is self-contradictory, spiritual things are proven by having spiritual intelligence to be decieved by them. Natural brute beasts have no spiritual intelligence to be decieved by...

b]The Question of Divine Communication[/b]

Philosopher J. L. Schellenberg formulated this problem clearly: a perfectly loving God would ensure that every sincere seeker has unmistakable awareness of His existence.

He confirms the possibility of that God, by formulating the manner of that God. By formulation, he therefore confirms such spiritual things by the spiritual intelligence to discern them.

The natural man that believes all supernatural things are foolishness, also confirms those things, by arguing against them with their spiritual intelligence.

The Expected vs. the Observed

If an omnibenevolent deity genuinely wanted everyone to understand the truth, it could communicate through universal means:

By encoding moral and theological truths into the very constants of nature, visible to all observers;

Mat 19:17
And he said unto him, If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,...

By renewing revelation periodically in every language and culture through direct perception;

Mat 24:14
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

By providing replicable, empirically testable miracles rather than unverified ancient anecdotes.

Luk 16:31
And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

The Inconsistency Summarized

A truly omniscient being would know every person’s evidential threshold; an omnipotent being would have the power to meet it; and an omnibenevolent being would have the desire to do so. Yet allegedly divine revelation appears limited, inconsistent, and dependent on fallible human messengers.

2Pe 3:3
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Rev 1:7
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

He's promised to do what you demand, so that even the natural man trusting only in natural observation, will see and believe.

2Th 1:6
And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:


The only problem is whether He is welcomed with open arms, or fled from in wrath. The difference is simple: Spiritual intelligence has a price of personal responsibility for choosing to do good or evil, to keep the great natural commandments, or transgress them.

Conclusion

The reliance on fallible human texts instead of universal divine revelation undermines the claim of divine perfection.

The reliance on revising recorded texts instead of objective study and analysis, does not disprove nor dismiss the unerring divine perfection of those texts.

The ambiguity of scripture and the absence of unambiguous cosmic communication are precisely what we would expect if the stories are human creations seeking moral meaning in a silent universe.

The unerring clarity of scripture and the self-evident unambiguous cosmic communication of spiritual intelligence, are precisely what we would expect from the revelations of the Creator, Who declares spiritual righteousness and true holiness is eternal, not a naturally deaf and dumb universe.

Rev 20:11
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

[Zzyzx]

[Replying to RBD in post #82]

You say: "The resurrection of Jesus Christ has the recorded firsthand direct testimony of several writers."

Kindly cite the "firsthand direct testimony of several writers" and tell where they can be found.

The 'gospels' that tell the tale of 'resurrection' were written half a century (40 to 60 or more years) after Jesus is said to have died -- written by people whose true identity is unknown to theologians and scholars -- and who cannot be shown to have personally witnessed anything that Jesus may have said or done.

There are claims that 'many saw him' -- but those are only part of the tale being told and are NOT eyewitness reports.

NO original documents exist for any of this, and the earliest bible available telling the tale dates from the fourth century.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #76]

Clarifying the Epistemic Error — Acceptance ≠ Justification

RBD, thank you for the careful engagement. The disagreement here is not over whether eyewitness testimony can ever be considered evidence. It is over what epistemic work testimony can do on its own, especially when the claim is extraordinary.

You keep collapsing three distinct notions into one:

• Admissibility.
• Acceptance for consideration.
• Justified belief.

They are not the same.

Without corroboration, the Bible evidence can be accepted as true. Without contradiction, the Bible evidence cannot be rejected as a lie.

This is the core mistake. All religious books make claims. All of them have the burden of proof to prove using evidence that the claims are factual. Until the claims are proven to be factual, they are nothing more than claims. The Bible has not yet proven its claims to be factual using evidence.

1. Absence of Disproof Is Not Justification

A claim not being disproven does not license accepting it as true. That is textbook argument from ignorance.

In both history and law:

• Testimony may be admitted without corroboration.
• But its probative weight remains low until independently supported.
• Courts and historians do not move from “not disproven” to “true.”

If your rule were correct, then any ancient text asserting miracles would be epistemically on par with mundane reporting simply because we lack contradictory evidence. That is not how rational inquiry works. Do you accept the claims in all religious books to be factual just because they have not been disproven? I bet you reject the claims of all religious books (e.g. the Quran, the Vedas, etc.) except for the Bible.

2. Legal Analogies Are Being Misused

The defense' job is to find error, and possibly disprove it. Without doing so, it remains direct evidence for trial by jury.

This confuses procedural rules with epistemic standards.

In court:

• Testimony is aggressively tested for reliability.
• Cross-examination, context, motive, and plausibility matter.
• Jurors are instructed to weigh credibility, not presume truth.

Most importantly: courts deal almost exclusively with ordinary events within well-understood causal frameworks. They do not treat miracle claims as presumptively credible merely because someone said they saw one.

History is even stricter than law, not looser.

3. Extraordinary Claims Alter the Burden — Inevitably

When a text claims that the sun and the moon stood still, then testimonial standards rise accordingly. This is not “naturalism” or “faith in nature”; it is proportional reasoning.

Eyewitness testimony that conflicts with everything else we know about reality does not get a free epistemic pass simply because it is old or sincere.

4. You Are Reframing Epistemology as Spiritual Defiance

Demanding natural evidence of spiritual things, is a non-starter

This is not a rebuttal; it is a withdrawal from shared standards of reasoning.

If a claim makes assertions about the physical world (sun, moon, time, motion), then it enters the domain where intersubjective evidence applies. Labeling the cause “spiritual” does not exempt the claim from evaluation. You have not yet proven that souls exist.

Otherwise, any claim becomes unfalsifiable by definition — which removes it from the category of knowledge entirely.

5. Testimony Can Be Sincere and Still False

This is the crux you keep sidestepping.

No one is required to say “the Bible is lying” in the moral sense. But sincerity does not equal accuracy. Human beings misinterpret, embellish, mythologize, and theologize events constantly — especially across centuries.

Thus the conclusion is neither “proved false” nor “accepted as true,” but:

• Epistemically weak.
• Historically uncorroborated.
• Incompatible with well-established physical understanding.

6. Final Clarification — Your Forced Dichotomy Fails

Do you agree the Bible supernatural evidence is minimal? Or do you disagree and say it's just a lie?

This is a false dichotomy.

The correct position is:

• The testimony exists.
• It is not demonstrably fraudulent.
• It is insufficient to justify belief in a literal suspension of celestial mechanics.

That is not hostility to Christianity. It is epistemic restraint.

If faith wishes to go beyond evidence, that is a separate category entirely — but it should not be smuggled in under the banner of historical or legal justification.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #77]

Where the Disagreement Actually Lies — Method, Not Motive

RBD, I’ll respond point-by-point and only to what you have explicitly stated. Where I paraphrase, I will make that clear.

1. “Spiritual Intelligence” Does Not Solve the Epistemic Problem

You write:

All people are born with spiritual intelligence, and therefore spiritual truth is accessible to all people.

This is a metaphysical assertion, not an epistemic method. There is no credible evidence that souls or spirits exist, let alone people having spiritual intelligence. You keep making assertions without proving them.

Even if granted for the sake of argument, it does not follow that spiritual claims are reliably distinguishable from error, imagination, cultural conditioning, or contradiction. Accessibility ≠ verification.

The problem is not whether people can believe spiritual claims.
The problem is how competing spiritual claims are adjudicated without circularity.

2. The Angel Test Case Exposes Circular Validation

You state:

Muhammad and Smith's testimony of inspiration by angels, can be true. But the Bible also reveals there are angels of God and lying angels.

This is precisely the circularity being identified.

Your rule is effectively:

• The Bible defines which angels are true.
• Any revelation agreeing with the Bible is validated.
• Any revelation contradicting the Bible is dismissed as deception.

This is not a critical evaluation; it is internal consistency policing.

A Muslim or Mormon can apply the identical structure with their own text as the filter. No neutral criterion is being applied.

3. “Natural vs. Spiritual” Is a Category Shield, Not an Argument

You say:

The natural man only has faith in natural things.

But this reframes epistemic critique as spiritual deficiency, which ends rational dialogue rather than advancing it.

The question is not whether one has faith in “natural things,” but whether claims about the world — including angels, voices, or miracles — can be distinguished from false positives using shared standards.

If they cannot, then they do not function as knowledge claims.

4. On Eyewitnesses and Historical Fact — Agreement, With a Crucial Difference

You state:

Only when there is sufficient corroborating evidence, can the recorded eyewitness be called historical fact.

On this point, we actually agree.

Where we diverge is here:

• You treat Biblical miracle testimony as epistemically acceptable absent corroboration.
• I treat it as epistemically insufficient until corroboration exists.

That is not calling it a “lie.”
It is refusing to promote it to historical fact.

5. “Written as Direct Evidence” Is Not the Same as “Being Direct Evidence”

You write:

The Bible record is written as direct authentic evidence, by being recorded eyewitness accounts.

Something being written as eyewitness testimony does not make it epistemically equivalent to contemporaneous, independently constrained eyewitness reporting.

Historians care about:

• Temporal distance.
• Transmission history.
• Authorial identity.
• Genre.
• External constraints.

None of that is resolved by asserting that a text presents itself as eyewitness testimony.

6. Spiritual Discernment Cannot Authenticate Itself

You argue:

It takes spiritual intelligence to argue in the first place.

This equivocates between:

• Basic cognitive capacity (reason, language, abstraction).
• Theological discernment (correctly identifying divine truth).

The former does not validate the latter.

If spiritual discernment were self-authenticating, there would not be mutually exclusive religious systems all claiming spiritual confirmation.

7. Final Clarification — No Misrepresentation Required

I am not claiming that you said:

• “The Bible is proven true.”
• “Eyewitness testimony is always sufficient.”

What I am challenging is the method by which spiritual claims are insulated from falsification while still being treated as knowledge.

That insulation is doing the real work here — not evidence.

If you want to continue, the productive next step is simple:

What non-circular criterion would allow two sincere, intelligent people to distinguish a true angelic revelation from a false one?

Until that is answered, the epistemic gap remains — regardless of sincerity, intelligence, or faith.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #78]

Where the Circularity Actually Enters — and Why Calling It “Critical Review” Doesn’t Fix It

RBD, the central problem persists because you repeatedly describe something as “critical review” while never specifying a non-circular criterion by which that review operates.

I will address your points in order.

1. You Keep Attributing to Me a Position I Do Not Hold

You repeatedly construct a caricature of “the natural man” whose reasoning allegedly runs as follows:

1. All things supernatural are foolishness.
2. All evidence of supernatural things are lies.
3. Reviewing evidence of supernatural things is not critical scholarship.

That is not my position, and I have never stated anything resembling it.

Rejecting insufficient evidence for a supernatural claim is not the same as declaring all supernatural claims foolish by definition. You are substituting a theological anthropology for an epistemic critique.

2. “Critical Review” Cannot Mean “Agreement with the Bible”

You say repeatedly:

Only if there is no critical review of the evidence first.

But when pressed, your “critical review” reduces to this structure:

1. The Bible is proving itself inerrant.
2. Therefore, anything contradicting the Bible can be errant.
3. So long as the Bible remains proving itself inerrant, then anything contradicting the Bible can remain errant.

This is circular — not because it involves the supernatural, but because the conclusion is already embedded in the premise.

You never specify how the Bible “proves itself inerrant” without presupposing its authority. Internal coherence, narrative confidence, or claimed eyewitness status cannot do that work. Every major religious text has those features.

3. Internal Coherence ≠ External Verification

You assert:

Internal literary coherence aids accepting the stated eyewitness record.

It may aid plausibility within the belief system, but it does not establish historical fact.

Fictional, mythological, and theological texts are routinely internally coherent. That coherence cannot distinguish history from legend without independent constraints.

This is precisely why historians insist on:

• Independent attestation.
• External corroboration.
• Contextual plausibility.
• Known authorial practice.

Calling the absence of these “invented revisionism” does not make them optional.

4. Eyewitness Claims Are Not Self-Authenticating — Anywhere

You object to my analogy involving “I, Sherlock Holmes,” as if the point depended on Conan Doyle literally writing that phrase.

It does not.

The point is this: a first-person voice or claimed eyewitness stance does not authenticate itself. Ancient authors routinely wrote in authoritative voices to confer credibility. That is a documented literary practice, not an insult to the Bible.

To say otherwise is to apply a standard to Scripture that you do not allow for any other ancient text.

5. You Are Still Confusing Rejection of a Claim with Accusation of Lying

You write:

So, the Bible has no author. It's just a lying 'Book'.

This is a rhetorical move, not an inference from anything I said.

A text can be:

• sincerely written,
• culturally meaningful,
• theologically motivated,
• historically mistaken,

without anyone “lying.”

When I say that the sun did not literally stand still, that is a claim about physical reality, not about the moral character of ancient authors. A claim can be sincerely believed to be true by an author even when it is actually false.

6. The Core Issue You Have Not Addressed

You insist that “critical review” is possible — yet every example you give uses the Bible itself as the final arbiter of truth.

So the unresolved question remains:

What non-circular standard allows two sincere, intelligent readers — one Christian, one Muslim — to adjudicate between competing angelic revelations without presupposing the truth of their own scripture?

Until that question is answered, invoking “critical review” does not solve the charge of circular privileging. It merely restates it.

7. Final Clarification

This debate is not about whether spiritual belief is permitted.
It is about whether spiritual claims are being treated as knowledge or as faith commitments.

Once those categories are blurred, disagreement becomes impossible — because dissent is reclassified as blindness rather than evaluated as argument.

That is the methodological fault line here.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #79]

Why This Still Reduces to Faith Assertion, Not Knowledge

RBD, your reply makes the underlying divide unmistakably clear — and it confirms rather than resolves the core problem.

1. Competing Worldviews Are Not a Rebuttal

You write:

Where you see the natural evolution of belief systems shaped by environment and culture, I see pseudo-social philosophy, instead of seeing divine revelation.

That is not an argument; it is a declaration of allegiance.

You are entitled to interpret reality theologically. I am entitled to interpret it naturalistically. But merely citing Scripture to dismiss the alternative framework does not establish that yours corresponds to reality — it only shows that your framework self-authorizes.

Quoting 1 Corinthians against “worldly wisdom” presupposes the very authority under dispute. That cannot function as evidence in a shared inquiry.

2. “Unqualified Revisionism” Is Not an Answer to the Claim

You object to my claim that divine communication, if perfect, should be clear and universal:

Unqualified revisionism, and unproven accusation.

But no revisionism is involved. This is a straightforward inference:

• A perfectly loving, all-knowing, all-powerful being
• who desires relationships with humans and obedience
• would not rely on ambiguous, culturally contingent, disputed texts.

That is not an accusation; it is a logical expectation.

Responding by quoting miracle stories does not address the structural issue: those stories are themselves mediated by the very texts whose adequacy is in question.

3. Omnibenevolence Is Not “Stopping Arguments”

You ask:

So, you want God to come and stop you from arguing against Him?

No. That is a strawman.

Omnibenevolence would plausibly involve ensuring that sincere, morally serious agents are not left in radical uncertainty about matters carrying eternal consequences.

Clarity is not coercion.
Understanding is not compulsion.

A teacher who explains clearly is not “forcing” belief.

4. Persecution Does Not Establish Truth

You argue that Jesus’ crucifixion despite doing good shows the inadequacy of “natural proof.”

But moral exemplarity and martyrdom are found across mutually incompatible religions and ideologies. Suffering for a belief may demonstrate sincerity; it does not authenticate the belief’s metaphysical truth.

If it did, every martyred cause would be equally validated.

5. “It’s God’s Fault You Disagree” Is Not a Defense

You write:

It's God's fault, for not coming and Personally stop you from arguing against Him.

Again, this reframes epistemic disagreement as moral rebellion.

But disagreement is precisely what requires explanation if a perfectly loving God desires universal recognition. Appealing to future apocalypse (Revelation 1:7) merely postpones the problem; it does not resolve why confusion is permitted now.

6. Faith as the Condition of Evidence Is Circular

You respond to divine hiddenness by saying God reveals Himself to those who seek by faith. This is not evidence for God's alleged existence.

That collapses into this:

• You must already believe in order to receive the evidence.
• If you do not receive the evidence, it proves you did not believe.

This structure cannot distinguish truth from self-reinforcing belief.

Every religion can — and does — make the same claim.

7. Eternal Stakes Magnify the Problem — They Don’t Solve It

You say the real issue is judgment by works and eternal consequences.

That makes the epistemic problem worse, not better.

If eternal outcomes depend on belief, allegiance, or discernment, then ambiguity is not a neutral feature — it is a moral liability. A just system does not impose infinite consequences under finite and disputed evidence.

8. The Final Admission Changes Nothing

You conclude:

Agreed. Which is why I don't argue fallible human texts for Scripture of God.

But in practice, every argument you have made depends on:

• Scriptural authority.
• Scriptural interpretation.
• Scriptural boundary-setting.

You deny fallibility verbally while relying on fallible human mediation substantively.

That is the contradiction.

Final Clarification

At this point, the disagreement is no longer about evidence.

It is about category choice:

• I am asking what can be known using shared standards of justification.
• You are asserting what must be accepted by faith under divine authority.

Those are different enterprises.

Faith may motivate, console, or command — but once it replaces epistemic justification, it ceases to function as an answer to philosophical critique.

That is not hostility.
It is simply intellectual honesty.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to RBD in post #82]

Why This Still Fails as an Epistemic Framework

RBD, your latest reply helps clarify the position — and it also makes clear why the disagreement is not terminological, but structural.

I’ll respond in order.

1. “Acceptance” Is Not Epistemic Justification

You keep insisting on this distinction:

Corroboration is not necessary to accept eyewitness testimony.

That is true in a narrow procedural sense — but irrelevant to the epistemic issue under discussion.

Historians and juries may consider uncorroborated testimony, but they do not thereby treat it as established fact, especially when the claim is extraordinary.

The epistemic hierarchy is not:

• testimony → truth (unless disproven).

It is:

• testimony → provisional consideration → probabilistic weighting → belief proportional to evidence.

Your framework quietly inserts “accept as true” where critical inquiry inserts “hold as tentative.”

That is the reversal being identified.

2. Future Miracles Cannot Retroactively Justify Present Claims

You write:

If He does come again in Person with clouds… He Himself will corroborate His own resurrection.

This is not an argument; it is an eschatological promise.

Appealing to a future event as retroactive confirmation does nothing for present-day epistemic justification. Every religion can — and does — appeal to future vindication.

Until such an event occurs, the historical claim stands or falls on present evidence alone.

3. You Are Still Conflating “Eyewitness Record” with “Eyewitness Event”

You repeatedly assert:

The Bible is direct evidence by eyewitness record.

A written claim to eyewitness status is not itself eyewitness evidence.

Between the event and the modern reader lie:

• unknown authorship (in multiple cases)
• oral transmission
• redaction
• theological shaping
• manuscript variation

No historian treats a text as “direct evidence” merely because it presents itself that way. Doing so for the Bible but not for other ancient texts is special pleading.

4. “Spiritual Intelligence” Does Not Solve the Disagreement — It Explains It Away

You now say:

All people are born with spiritual intelligence… Only the natural man rebels against it.

This is not an epistemic explanation; it is a theological diagnosis of dissent.

Once disagreement is framed as rebellion against an allegedly innate faculty, rational adjudication ends. Any counter-argument becomes evidence of spiritual failure rather than a challenge to the claim.

That move does not establish truth — it immunizes belief.

5. Discernment Without Criteria Is Not Knowledge

You say:

Spiritual discernment is just spiritual acknowledgement of what is said.

But acknowledgement is not a truth-tracking mechanism.

If spiritual discernment:

• does not generate testable expectations
• does not discriminate reliably between conflicting revelations
• yields mutually incompatible conclusions across cultures

then it cannot function as a method of knowledge.

It may function as faith, conviction, or identity — but not epistemic warrant.

6. The Schellenberg Problem Is Not “Natural Proof Demands”

You reframe the problem of divine hiddenness as a demand for “natural proof.”

That misstates the argument.

The issue is not how God reveals Himself, but whether a perfectly loving God would permit sincere, morally serious seekers to remain in reasonable non-belief.

Your answer — that God prefers faith without evidence — concedes the point rather than resolving it.

If ambiguity is intentional, then disbelief is no longer culpable in the way your theology requires.

7. Scripture Quoting Presupposes the Very Authority in Question

Throughout your reply, biblical citations are used to settle philosophical disputes.

But citing Scripture to validate Scripture is not evidence — it is internal consistency within a closed system.

That may sustain faith.
It cannot establish knowledge across worldviews.

Final Clarification

At this point, the disagreement is fully exposed:

• I am asking for publicly accessible standards that distinguish truth from error.
• You are asserting that truth is spiritually accessible but morally resisted.

Those are incompatible epistemologies.

Once disagreement is reclassified as rebellion, the conversation ceases to be about evidence at all.

That is not a criticism of faith.
It is simply an acknowledgment of what faith is — and what it is not.