Is eye witness testimony enough?

[Justin108]

The whole Bible basically relies either on claims of divine experience or eye witness claims. But are these enough?

If you willingly accept the claims made by these men, then on what grounds do you reject the claims made by people who believe they were abducted by aliens? On what grounds do you reject the claims of people who hear voices? On what grounds do you reject the claims of Bigfoot sightings?

How do you choose which eye witnesses to believe?

[Student]

Lets test fuzzies little fallacy shall we.

A woman comes into a police station covered in bruises. She writes out a statement that he husband just beat her (which is clearly in evidence by the bruises), and she claims that her husband also threatened to kill her by placing a gun to her head.

A neighbor also comes in and details the same beating and death threat. However, there is no gun registered to the owner, a search turns up nothing, and the husband denies both the beating and the threat, despite having a long record of domestic violence.

Would it be logical to assume that the wife and neighbor are telling the truth about the beating, which is evidenced by the bruises and general disarray of the house after the assault, but lying about the death threat because we cannot independently verify the statement with physical evidence?

According to fuzzy, it would be a logical fallacy to assume that the death threat took place.

Indeed the courts, based on such fallacious use of evidence, should deny a restraining order because the threat cannot be individually verified and is thus fallacious.

Is there a way to use eye-witness statement to arrive at conclusions or not?

The aptly named fuzzy test for you.

The difference is that death threats and owning a gun both conform to reality. In this case I would believe the woman's claim. However if she claimed he held a light-saber to her throat then I would not believe her. Now I know you're going to write this off as "absurd" again but then you'd just be dodging the point. The point I am making is that the claims in the bible are no mere claims. The claims in the bible are radical and radical claims (like the light-saber and the earlier mentioned dragon) require radical evidence.

So does the historical narrative of Jesus. And it relates directly to the question of how to treat the eyewitness statements of human beings .. particularly multiple eye witness accounts.

Either the standard is, if we can verify parts as honest, we can assume that the remainder in most likely true. Or the standard is tat we can only trust eye witness statement in any circumstance unless we have corroborating evidence.

If the subjective opinion, quite possible born of your own bias, is used to reject claims simply because you declare them untenable or unrealistic ... then we have no standards for evaluation at all.

Indeed, as I have proven repeatedly, miracles continue to happen today and are documented, so why is the claim of miracles in the past 'so fantastic as to violate the standards of judgement?'

It is your faith looking for a reason to exclude evidence.

Simply put, we can always rationalize away that which we do not wish to deal with ... The fact remains we have eye witness accounts that detail a series of miracles and they appear to be substantially genuine.

So it comes down to that question: Are honest men lying about these things, or telling the truth?

1. The standard varies from situation to situation. And I want you to answer this scenario to prove my point. In your scenario of the abused woman, I would believe her statement about the gun. This is because it conforms to reality. But I would not believe her claim that her husband threatened her with a lightsaber. Would you? I need you to answer this. If a woman who was assaulted by her husband claimed he had a lightsaber... would you believe her?


2. I have responded to your "proofs" of miracles and explained why they are wanting. Cancer remissions are not miracles. The odds of a cancer remission is more likely than winning the lottery yet you do not consider winning the lottery to need supernatural explanation.

Once again, if miracles are happening now:

http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2009 ... acles.html

And someone claims in a eyewitness statement (several actually) that a miracle occured, we either assume that they are lying or telling the truth.

If the ONLY reason we doubt them is because our preconceptions tell us that there are no miracles, then we will never be convinced will we.

You have basically put your own subjectivity into and objective process. Indeed, people being threatened with a gun, and I say this as a combat veteran, is relatively rare, most people throughout the course of their lives will NEVER be threatened with a gun.

Yet solely because we have subjective familiarity with 'guns' a story naturally become plausible ... the integrity of the claimant isn't even a part of the process?

Now, how do you apply that 2,000 year old documents in an entirely different culture? You don't.

You HAVE to evaluate the character of the claimant. If an eye witness claims Hannibal went right rather than left, we would never allow, "Well, in MY tactical sense going left is fantastic, therefore the statement is clearly false."

Yet we should accept it for Jesus?

I think these claims of “miraculous� cures might be credible had they appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the British Medical Journal or The Lancet. As it is, anyone can publish spurious claims on an internet blog or in a book produced by an overtly Christian publishing house, such as Logos International, where academic rigour is a poor second to evangelical zeal.

[Star]

There is a known, defined, and sourced definition of an argument from absurdity, which has been repeatedly provided.

Care to provide it again? I don't know what an argument form absurdity is. Are you using that term as synonymous with appeal to ridicule?

Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to absurdity") is a common form of argument which seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial, or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

He basically thinks we're being absurd by denying the validity of scripture, therefore we're guilty of this fallacy, which of course given the definition, doesn't make any sense.

[Student]

The history is well tested, and the best you can claim of the synoptic gospels is that they are eye witness statements whose authorship cannot be fully verified.

Are the gospels eye witness accounts?

The attitude towards history in ancient times was different to our own. For example, if an ancient author was convinced that Jesus was truly Christ and the Son of God, he might well tell the stories of Jesus earthly life in terms of his having claimed, and been accorded, these titles, even though there was no explicit tradition to that effect. Indeed our ancient author might well feel that it would be wrong to do otherwise; for if Jesus was in fact the Son of God, then any account of his earthly life which did not make that clear would be misleading and would not covey the “true meaning� of the events it professed to describe.

Similarly, since the Old Testament was considered accurate in every detail, it followed that everything it predicted[regarding the Messiah] must have found fulfilment at some point in Christ’s ministry. Hence the Old Testament could become a source of information about the events of Christ’s earthly life. To the early Christians, with their deep conviction of the inerrancy of the Old Testament, it may well have seemed a safer guide than the fallible memories of human witnesses, however well informed they might have been. Consequently it is impossible to be certain whether a particular story rests on a tradition derived from witnesses or whether it represents a deduction from Old Testament prophesy about what “must have� happened when the Messiah came.

Even where it is possible that a story rests upon an actual event, as perhaps told by Jesus earliest followers, it appears devoid of the wealth of detail, often strictly irrelevant detail that is associated with eye-witness accounts. This is as a consequence of these stories being told, translated and retold in a public setting, by people who had not personally known Jesus, who were not even Jewish, who did not speak Aramaic, or had no first hand knowledge of Palestine. Sheer ignorance of the details mitigated in favour of a streamlined account that contained only what was of practical religious significance.

And once a story achieved its most economical form it became more or less stereotyped and circulated in that form with relatively little further change with little or nothing to distinguish between what might actually have transpired with what the author thought “must� have occurred either to satisfy Messianic prophesy or Christological necessity.

[Goat]

Generally speaking, when witnesses give an account, we can rarely verify ALL of it, but if we can verify some of his account, then its generally considered that the remainder is accurate, though issues of humanity give rise to further questions.

So if a shop owner who was robbed says "a man came in with a gun and took all the money from the register then he ran out and climed on his pet dragon and flew away".

Since this is clearly an argument form absurdity and deals with nothing written about how historians and lawyers deal with eye-witness statement, I am simply going to ignore it.

It's the same level of absurdity as someone claiming 'Jesus died and got resurrected'. Or 'I saw Elvis after he died', or 'I got abducted by aliens.'.

Once again, a simple dismissive one liner devoid of evidence or argumentation.

Projection?? Can you show that any of those other things are possible , reasonable or rational?? I can SHOW that Elvis was reported running around after he supposedly died. . I can SHOW that there are people that claimed to be abducted by aliens. I can't show that Elvis WAS actually seen, or that people HAD actually been abducted by aliens, or i can't show that jesus was resurrected.
They are all in the same category of 'unsupported claims that are extraordinary'.

There is a known, defined, and sourced definition of an argument from absurdity, which has been repeatedly provided. It is in reference with the serial denial of atheists who simply look for any excuse to deny, much like ardent Creationists deny Evolution.

Just because someone mocks a claim for being absurd doesn't mean that the claims ISN'T absurd. There are lots of people who claim to be eye witnesses for things that ARE absurd. That is why eye witness testimony is acknowledged to be the weakest of testimony is court, because people make mistakes very easily and can make absurd statements.

Now, when it comes to the eye witness claims in the bible.. well ,, none of the writings are FROM eye witness, as demonstrated quite completely at at that web site you provided to try to prove the exact opposite

For some reason, denial of evolution drive you batty but the denial of religious claims is rationalism itself - please reference earlier comments about the proliferation of double standards in modern atheism.

This statement appears to show a deep misunderstanding between supporting a claim, denying a claim, and an unsupported claim, as well as the nature of 'what is evidence'. A large part of evidence is 'independent verification', which there is for the evidence provided for evolution. . yet is sadly lacking for the vast majority (if not all), religious claims.

Now, I am afraid that you will have to meet your same requirements, wherein you have to prove that Jesus was not resurrected. Certainly it is an extraordinary claim, but it is one that is referenced by many eye witnesses ... and although its not conclusive, its no more logical to doubt them than it is to affirm them ...

That's the point now isn't it. I DO meet my own requirements.

now, when it coems to those 'Many eye witnesses'.. .. why don't you point to the actual stories from the eye witnesses directly in the bible. Let's go back to the writings on the New Testement, and why don't you show, using the link you provided, the statements that show any of it was written by an eye witness.

In that early christian writings web site, extract the exact paragraph , and provide a link to that paragraph, that shows ANY of the writings were done by an eye witness to the event.

That WAS the claim you made, and that you pointed me to the raw link http://earlychristianwritings.com to prove, yet, for some reason, you can't extract a single paragraph out of that entire site that supports your view. Amazing, isn't it? I extracted paragraphs for each of synoptic gospels that showed they weren't written by eye witnesses. .. from you very own source (which you then complained about random google, even though you provided the source).

It's really past time for you to provide evidence of your very own claims.

[stubbornone]

Lets test fuzzies little fallacy shall we.

A woman comes into a police station covered in bruises. She writes out a statement that he husband just beat her (which is clearly in evidence by the bruises), and she claims that her husband also threatened to kill her by placing a gun to her head.

A neighbor also comes in and details the same beating and death threat. However, there is no gun registered to the owner, a search turns up nothing, and the husband denies both the beating and the threat, despite having a long record of domestic violence.

Would it be logical to assume that the wife and neighbor are telling the truth about the beating, which is evidenced by the bruises and general disarray of the house after the assault, but lying about the death threat because we cannot independently verify the statement with physical evidence?

According to fuzzy, it would be a logical fallacy to assume that the death threat took place.

Indeed the courts, based on such fallacious use of evidence, should deny a restraining order because the threat cannot be individually verified and is thus fallacious.

Is there a way to use eye-witness statement to arrive at conclusions or not?

The aptly named fuzzy test for you.

The difference is that death threats and owning a gun both conform to reality. In this case I would believe the woman's claim. However if she claimed he held a light-saber to her throat then I would not believe her. Now I know you're going to write this off as "absurd" again but then you'd just be dodging the point. The point I am making is that the claims in the bible are no mere claims. The claims in the bible are radical and radical claims (like the light-saber and the earlier mentioned dragon) require radical evidence.

So does the historical narrative of Jesus. And it relates directly to the question of how to treat the eyewitness statements of human beings .. particularly multiple eye witness accounts.

Either the standard is, if we can verify parts as honest, we can assume that the remainder in most likely true. Or the standard is tat we can only trust eye witness statement in any circumstance unless we have corroborating evidence.

If the subjective opinion, quite possible born of your own bias, is used to reject claims simply because you declare them untenable or unrealistic ... then we have no standards for evaluation at all.

Indeed, as I have proven repeatedly, miracles continue to happen today and are documented, so why is the claim of miracles in the past 'so fantastic as to violate the standards of judgement?'

It is your faith looking for a reason to exclude evidence.

Simply put, we can always rationalize away that which we do not wish to deal with ... The fact remains we have eye witness accounts that detail a series of miracles and they appear to be substantially genuine.

So it comes down to that question: Are honest men lying about these things, or telling the truth?

1. The standard varies from situation to situation. And I want you to answer this scenario to prove my point. In your scenario of the abused woman, I would believe her statement about the gun. This is because it conforms to reality. But I would not believe her claim that her husband threatened her with a lightsaber. Would you? I need you to answer this. If a woman who was assaulted by her husband claimed he had a lightsaber... would you believe her?


2. I have responded to your "proofs" of miracles and explained why they are wanting. Cancer remissions are not miracles. The odds of a cancer remission is more likely than winning the lottery yet you do not consider winning the lottery to need supernatural explanation.

Once again, if miracles are happening now:

http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2009 ... acles.html

And someone claims in a eyewitness statement (several actually) that a miracle occured, we either assume that they are lying or telling the truth.

If the ONLY reason we doubt them is because our preconceptions tell us that there are no miracles, then we will never be convinced will we.

You have basically put your own subjectivity into and objective process. Indeed, people being threatened with a gun, and I say this as a combat veteran, is relatively rare, most people throughout the course of their lives will NEVER be threatened with a gun.

Yet solely because we have subjective familiarity with 'guns' a story naturally become plausible ... the integrity of the claimant isn't even a part of the process?

Now, how do you apply that 2,000 year old documents in an entirely different culture? You don't.

You HAVE to evaluate the character of the claimant. If an eye witness claims Hannibal went right rather than left, we would never allow, "Well, in MY tactical sense going left is fantastic, therefore the statement is clearly false."

Yet we should accept it for Jesus?

I think these claims of “miraculous� cures might be credible had they appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the British Medical Journal or The Lancet. As it is, anyone can publish spurious claims on an internet blog or in a book produced by an overtly Christian publishing house, such as Logos International, where academic rigour is a poor second to evangelical zeal.

So, it WOULD have been acceptable if these statements had appeared in a professional medical journal (and there was no professional medical anything in the time and place) that did not exist at the time?

So, to be clear, you will only accept these things if time travelling medical examiners happen to verify the claims?

IN THE MEANTIME, historians will just have make do with critical assessment tools and objective standards ... until such time as we have time travelling medical examiners. Gotcha.

[stubbornone]

Generally speaking, when witnesses give an account, we can rarely verify ALL of it, but if we can verify some of his account, then its generally considered that the remainder is accurate, though issues of humanity give rise to further questions.

So if a shop owner who was robbed says "a man came in with a gun and took all the money from the register then he ran out and climed on his pet dragon and flew away".

Since this is clearly an argument form absurdity and deals with nothing written about how historians and lawyers deal with eye-witness statement, I am simply going to ignore it.

It's the same level of absurdity as someone claiming 'Jesus died and got resurrected'. Or 'I saw Elvis after he died', or 'I got abducted by aliens.'.

Once again, a simple dismissive one liner devoid of evidence or argumentation.

Projection?? Can you show that any of those other things are possible , reasonable or rational?? I can SHOW that Elvis was reported running around after he supposedly died. . I can SHOW that there are people that claimed to be abducted by aliens. I can't show that Elvis WAS actually seen, or that people HAD actually been abducted by aliens, or i can't show that jesus was resurrected.
They are all in the same category of 'unsupported claims that are extraordinary'.

There is a known, defined, and sourced definition of an argument from absurdity, which has been repeatedly provided. It is in reference with the serial denial of atheists who simply look for any excuse to deny, much like ardent Creationists deny Evolution.

Just because someone mocks a claim for being absurd doesn't mean that the claims ISN'T absurd. There are lots of people who claim to be eye witnesses for things that ARE absurd. That is why eye witness testimony is acknowledged to be the weakest of testimony is court, because people make mistakes very easily and can make absurd statements.

Now, when it comes to the eye witness claims in the bible.. well ,, none of the writings are FROM eye witness, as demonstrated quite completely at at that web site you provided to try to prove the exact opposite

For some reason, denial of evolution drive you batty but the denial of religious claims is rationalism itself - please reference earlier comments about the proliferation of double standards in modern atheism.

This statement appears to show a deep misunderstanding between supporting a claim, denying a claim, and an unsupported claim, as well as the nature of 'what is evidence'. A large part of evidence is 'independent verification', which there is for the evidence provided for evolution. . yet is sadly lacking for the vast majority (if not all), religious claims.

Now, I am afraid that you will have to meet your same requirements, wherein you have to prove that Jesus was not resurrected. Certainly it is an extraordinary claim, but it is one that is referenced by many eye witnesses ... and although its not conclusive, its no more logical to doubt them than it is to affirm them ...

That's the point now isn't it. I DO meet my own requirements.

now, when it coems to those 'Many eye witnesses'.. .. why don't you point to the actual stories from the eye witnesses directly in the bible. Let's go back to the writings on the New Testement, and why don't you show, using the link you provided, the statements that show any of it was written by an eye witness.

In that early christian writings web site, extract the exact paragraph , and provide a link to that paragraph, that shows ANY of the writings were done by an eye witness to the event.

That WAS the claim you made, and that you pointed me to the raw link http://earlychristianwritings.com to prove, yet, for some reason, you can't extract a single paragraph out of that entire site that supports your view. Amazing, isn't it? I extracted paragraphs for each of synoptic gospels that showed they weren't written by eye witnesses. .. from you very own source (which you then complained about random google, even though you provided the source).

It's really past time for you to provide evidence of your very own claims.

Two things:

#1 - If the ONLY thing you can do is mockingly deny something (as opposed to saying, this is my claim and this is my support for said claim) why should anyone treat your argument as ... an actual argument rather than just childish mockery?

#2 - Your evidence is deeply flawed, and consists, as usual of excuplated evidence that leaves off major portions of the record you claim to have read:

"Like the other Gospels, Mark is a story or narrative. Story does not mean only fiction. Mark intends to write a true story. It makes sense that he would use narrative strategies to show and tell the life of Jesus."

http://bible.org/seriespage/eyewitness- ... 99s-gospel

Please feel free to reference the remainder of the proof.

You claim evidence, while simultaneously claiming that I am not doing what I just did again (odd that), and yet I get the distinct impression you are simply using google to find and paste anything that butresses your claim and ignoring everything else.

That is why you have a DUTY to, like the source I just sited, make a case and support it ... as opposed to just googling and dumping any random thing Goat - especially while claiming OTHERS don't understand, and are indeed not using, evidence - which I just did again.

[Goat]

Two things:

#1 - If the ONLY thing you can do is mockingly deny something (as opposed to saying, this is my claim and this is my support for said claim) why should anyone treat your argument as ... an actual argument rather than just childish mockery?

#2 - Your evidence is deeply flawed, and consists, as usual of excuplated evidence that leaves off major portions of the record you claim to have read:

"Like the other Gospels, Mark is a story or narrative. Story does not mean only fiction. Mark intends to write a true story. It makes sense that he would use narrative strategies to show and tell the life of Jesus."

http://bible.org/seriespage/eyewitness- ... 99s-gospel

Please feel free to reference the remainder of the proof.

You claim evidence, while simultaneously claiming that I am not doing what I just did again (odd that), and yet I get the distinct impression you are simply using google to find and paste anything that butresses your claim and ignoring everything else.

That is why you have a DUTY to, like the source I just sited, make a case and support it ... as opposed to just googling and dumping any random thing Goat - especially while claiming OTHERS don't understand, and are indeed not using, evidence - which I just did again.

You don't seem to have read much of what I have written if you think I am 'only mocking'.. although I have to admit that there are certain amusement at the difference between what you claim things say, and what they actually say.

Now, let's look at what you actually wrote.

Yes, Mark is a narrative, and Mark is presenting a story. And, it might be true that Mark intends to write a true narrative (maybe, maybe not, I think it is hard to tell without confirmation bias). HOWEVER, that isn't the point in question , now is it. The question was 'Is Mark eye witness testimony'. Did you notice, your blurb did not address that ?? Nor, did it address 'How do we know the Gospel of Mark was written by someone named Mark'

I find it very amusing that you call my evidence 'flawed', since it is the evidence you provided! I find that to be very ironic actually.

So, when it comes to the issue 'Who wrote the Gospel of Mark', and 'Was Mark an eye witness', the article you wrote is silent. And you call this 'evidence'. The article you quoted, and the section you quoted does not address this. It give the opinion (without show WHY that opinion should be considered true) that it was supposed to be a 'true story'.

Now, the rest of it tries to make the point that the "THEY" are Peter and Jesus. However, if you read the passages quoted, it does not SUPPORT the idea that THEY are Jesus and Peter.

Now, while this could be a reasonable assumption given Church tradition of the Gospel of Mark, .. the Gospel of Mark is STILL not an eye witness. At the VERY best, it would be stories given to the writer of the GOM after the supposed eye witness passed away (according to tradition). Guess what.. The BEST case scenario for the GOM is hearsay. Not only that, the GOM does not identify who is doing the writing within itself, but we have to make the assumption that the early church fathers got their facts right for that.

Sorry, but twice told tales aren't very good evidence.. not when you have so much .. miracles.. added on the story.

Even your own source .. if you read the entire passage, will admit that the writer of the Gospel of Mark was not an eye witness. According to tradition, he was relaying what his teacher said.

Personally, after reading that essay, I am not particularly impressed with it's reasoning. He is making too many assumptions, and not backing up his claims. While written just the way I would expect someone with a PHD in literature to write, from a scholarly piece looking at something from a historical perspective, it falls short in supporting it's claims. It is great for someone who already believes, but supporting the arguments?? Not so much.

[stubbornone]

Two things:

#1 - If the ONLY thing you can do is mockingly deny something (as opposed to saying, this is my claim and this is my support for said claim) why should anyone treat your argument as ... an actual argument rather than just childish mockery?

#2 - Your evidence is deeply flawed, and consists, as usual of excuplated evidence that leaves off major portions of the record you claim to have read:

"Like the other Gospels, Mark is a story or narrative. Story does not mean only fiction. Mark intends to write a true story. It makes sense that he would use narrative strategies to show and tell the life of Jesus."

http://bible.org/seriespage/eyewitness- ... 99s-gospel

Please feel free to reference the remainder of the proof.

You claim evidence, while simultaneously claiming that I am not doing what I just did again (odd that), and yet I get the distinct impression you are simply using google to find and paste anything that butresses your claim and ignoring everything else.

That is why you have a DUTY to, like the source I just sited, make a case and support it ... as opposed to just googling and dumping any random thing Goat - especially while claiming OTHERS don't understand, and are indeed not using, evidence - which I just did again.

You don't seem to have read much of what I have written if you think I am 'only mocking'.. although I have to admit that there are certain amusement at the difference between what you claim things say, and what they actually say.

Now, let's look at what you actually wrote.

Yes, Mark is a narrative, and Mark is presenting a story. And, it might be true that Mark intends to write a true narrative (maybe, maybe not, I think it is hard to tell without confirmation bias). HOWEVER, that isn't the point in question , now is it. The question was 'Is Mark eye witness testimony'. Did you notice, your blurb did not address that ?? Nor, did it address 'How do we know the Gospel of Mark was written by someone named Mark'

I find it very amusing that you call my evidence 'flawed', since it is the evidence you provided! I find that to be very ironic actually.

So, when it comes to the issue 'Who wrote the Gospel of Mark', and 'Was Mark an eye witness', the article you wrote is silent. And you call this 'evidence'. The article you quoted, and the section you quoted does not address this. It give the opinion (without show WHY that opinion should be considered true) that it was supposed to be a 'true story'.

Now, the rest of it tries to make the point that the "THEY" are Peter and Jesus. However, if you read the passages quoted, it does not SUPPORT the idea that THEY are Jesus and Peter.

Now, while this could be a reasonable assumption given Church tradition of the Gospel of Mark, .. the Gospel of Mark is STILL not an eye witness. At the VERY best, it would be stories given to the writer of the GOM after the supposed eye witness passed away (according to tradition). Guess what.. The BEST case scenario for the GOM is hearsay. Not only that, the GOM does not identify who is doing the writing within itself, but we have to make the assumption that the early church fathers got their facts right for that.

Sorry, but twice told tales aren't very good evidence.. not when you have so much .. miracles.. added on the story.

Even your own source .. if you read the entire passage, will admit that the writer of the Gospel of Mark was not an eye witness. According to tradition, he was relaying what his teacher said.

Personally, after reading that essay, I am not particularly impressed with it's reasoning. He is making too many assumptions, and not backing up his claims. While written just the way I would expect someone with a PHD in literature to write, from a scholarly piece looking at something from a historical perspective, it falls short in supporting it's claims. It is great for someone who already believes, but supporting the arguments?? Not so much.

If you are worried about confirmation bias there are a couple of ways to deal with it:

#1 - you could stop making claims without support:

Personally, after reading that essay, I am not particularly impressed with it's reasoning. He is making too many assumptions, and not backing up his claims.

Those assumptions would be? And they are invalid why?

Those unsupported claims are?

the unevideced statements you make indeed lead directly to confirmation bias do they not?

#2 - You could submit to an expert examination of the record, to document it and then submit the procedure to a professional multi-faith peer review process. If that process finds it compelling, there is a good chance we have eliminated confirmation bias from the product (at least to the extent possible).

Of note, that EXACT process produces STRONG confirmation of Jesus, and that SAME PROCESS thoroughly rejects the attempts to discredit that record.

I'd say that if we were worried about confirmation bais, it would be best to rely on the decisions that arose from that process ... rather than go in the opposite direction of them ... which, one again, seems like confirmation bias does it not?

As in, "All the Ph.D's on the subject say this ... but not me!!!!"

Sorrta sounds a LOT like confirmation bias does it not?

[stubbornone]

There is a known, defined, and sourced definition of an argument from absurdity, which has been repeatedly provided.

Care to provide it again? I don't know what an argument form absurdity is. Are you using that term as synonymous with appeal to ridicule?

Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to absurdity") is a common form of argument which seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial, or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

He basically thinks we're being absurd by denying the validity of scripture, therefore we're guilty of this fallacy, which of course given the definition, doesn't make any sense.

Is there some reaosn that atheists have a problem actually quoting me?

I think denying scripture for no reason, while claiming you have no burden of proof, and demanding that everyone provide YOU with information, for which you have set no standards of evaluation and clearly intend to reject ad infinitum with one random excuses after another ...

THAT would be an argument from absurdity.

Rejecting Scripture? So do Jews. Muslims. Hindus. Scientologists. And all them, if asked can provide you with a reason why.

You however, ascribe to a faith that accepts ONLY conclusions that have been proven correct? And yet you claim WITHOUT EVIDENCE OR EXPLANATION, that the scriptures are fake ... hmmmmm.... odd that.

[Nickman]

The whole Bible basically relies either on claims of divine experience or eye witness claims. But are these enough?

If you willingly accept the claims made by these men, then on what grounds do you reject the claims made by people who believe they were abducted by aliens? On what grounds do you reject the claims of people who hear voices? On what grounds do you reject the claims of Bigfoot sightings?

How do you choose which eye witnesses to believe?

Most people are not converts these days so it boils down to indoctrination. If one accepts claims made by bible authors then they should give the same creedence to anything anyone says based on faith. The bible gives no evidence to believe. That is why it is called faith. You have to take the word of some people who you don't know and who lived thousands of years ago. Most rational people (religious included) wouldn't accept such hearsay in today's world, but if you add in indoctrination and bias then anything is believable. If only we use the same standard of evidence for everything.