Evidence and the Burden of Proof

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Don McIntosh
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Evidence and the Burden of Proof

Post #1

Post by Don McIntosh »

Ever since Antony Flew introduced the concept of "presumption of atheism," it has become a more or less accepted rule of Christian-atheist debates (like the ones that take place here) that the Christian bears the burden of proof. On the definition of atheism as a mere "lack of belief," this seems fair enough: the burden of proof lies "on the proposition, not the opposition." Flew himself was careful to point out that this should be a procedural rather than substantive principle, so that when properly applied in a debate, the presumption of atheism presupposes nothing about the strength or weakness of the Christian position.

To my knowledge, however, Flew never mentioned what should happen to the burden of proof once a Christian undertakes to not only accept that burden but to meet it (or claim to meet it) by providing various forms of evidence. It seems to me that once evidence is brought in for examination, the burden of proof shifts. An atheist at that point can no longer claim to simply lack belief because there is "no evidence." To rationally maintain lack of belief (or continue to assert irrationality of belief), good arguments have to be made against the evidence that has been provided.

I take it that evidence confirming Christian theism includes:

1. Cosmological evidence suggesting an absolute beginning (of both space and time) of the universe.
2. The apparent fine-tuning of life-permitting physical constants regulating the universe.
3. Numerous instances of specified complexity (or "functional complexity" or "irreducible complexity") in nature.
4. General human awareness of transcendent or "objective" moral rules.
5. The historical origin, worldwide dispersion and persecution, and subsequent physical restoration of the nation of Israel, in keeping with the prophetic message of the Old Testament
6. The miraculous ministry of Jesus Christ, historically attested in thousands of early manuscripts, derived from originals dated to within a generation of his death and purported resurrection.
7. The birth of the early church, in Jerusalem, on the preaching of the resurrection, and in the face of violent persecution.
8. The remarkably sudden, complete conversion of Saul of Tarsus, formerly a leader in the earliest efforts to destroy the Christian movement.

It should be noted further that by "evidence," I mean the stuff of inductive inferences: objective data that increase the probability of a belief or proposition being true. I do not mean a sound deductive proof (though such a proof would amount to extremely strong evidence that Christian theism is true!).

Questions for debate: When Christians are challenged to provide evidence for their beliefs, and in response they freely provide various forms of evidence, do they still bear the sole burden of proof in the debate? Or do skeptics rather take on a burden of proof of their own, to show that the evidence provided is not "really" evidence, or for some reason is not admissible, not strong enough to warrant serious consideration, etc.?
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Post #2

Post by ElCodeMonkey »

That is a great synopsis. I don't think the term "burden of proof" applies to the response toward the evidence proposed, but clearly if there is a burden to supply evidence and the evidence is supplied, it would then change to a burden to analyze and deduce. I like that you explained in the form of probabilities. This is why few conversations get anywhere. Few evidences can be standalone proofs. We have to take the whole into account. It's not "proof" that my wife is cheating on me if she takes a call outside. It's not "proof" if she doesn't smile when I come home. You start adding the stuff up, however, and it might start seeming more likely. It is still never proof, but I might reach a threshold of belief for me to be convinced. To claim I know it is true is still ridiculous though unless I see it with my own two eyes. The most honest thing is to express one's belief toward the probabilities as actual beliefs.
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Re: Evidence and the Burden of Proof

Post #3

Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 1 by Don McIntosh]
Questions for debate: When Christians are challenged to provide evidence for their beliefs, and in response they freely provide various forms of evidence, do they still bear the sole burden of proof in the debate?
Yup, pretty much. Just going off your list, it's not enough to merely say these things or to rattle them off in list form.
One needs to demonstrate that they are in fact true, that they are reflected in reality.
For example - fine tuning. If one is using scientific based observations of the universe, saying "The universe is fine tuned for life!" what then on the scientific based projections that say the universe will end in a Big Rip, Big Crunch or a Big Freeze? Is THAT fine tuning? What about the (as of yet) complete absence of any evidence of life existing other than on our rock? How is it "fine tuning" for one's supposed supernatural hyper-intelligent creator god to create the entire universe, with trillions of stars and planets, but get only the one "success" (besides, the fine tuning argument is just the water-in-a-puddle argument being used unawares)
Or do skeptics rather take on a burden of proof of their own, to show that the evidence provided is not "really" evidence, or for some reason is not admissible, not strong enough to warrant serious consideration, etc.?
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Re: Evidence and the Burden of Proof

Post #4

Post by Divine Insight »

Don McIntosh wrote: Questions for debate: When Christians are challenged to provide evidence for their beliefs, and in response they freely provide various forms of evidence, do they still bear the sole burden of proof in the debate? Or do skeptics rather take on a burden of proof of their own, to show that the evidence provided is not "really" evidence, or for some reason is not admissible, not strong enough to warrant serious consideration, etc.?
I would agree that when presented with actual "evidence" then there is a burden of proof for those who don't accept the evidence to explain why it is that they reject it.

Let's take a look at your so-called "evidence".

1. Cosmological evidence suggesting an absolute beginning (of both space and time) of the universe.

This isn't evidence for Christian or Biblical theology. There are many religions that claim their gods created the universe. So if this is "evidence" for Christianity then it's also evidence for Judaism, Islam, Hindiuism, and many other religious tales of "Creation".

Also, it basically boils down to a 50/50 chance. One one of two things were possible. Either the universe existed forever, or it had a beginning. So one of them is true. That's hardly evidence for an specific religion.

In fact, we can't even say that the universe "began" at the Big Bang because no one knows what caused the Big Bang. For all we know the Big Bang itself was just a transformation of something else that is eternal.

2. The apparent fine-tuning of life-permitting physical constants regulating the universe.

Life-permitting? That vast majority of the universe is extremely hostile to life. Especially human live. In fact, the earth itself contains many natural hazards to human life. To say that the universe if fine-tuned for life is not "apparent" at all, as far as I can see.

Life appears to be extremely rare in the universe. Possibly a totally freak accident that might have only occurred once. That can hardly be called a universe that is "fine-tuned" for life.

So I reject the very idea that this is evidence for anything. There's basically nothing here to even discuss much less requiring any burden of proof. It's simply not sufficient evidence to begin with.

3. Numerous instances of specified complexity (or "functional complexity" or "irreducible complexity") in nature.

No one has ever shown that anything in nature is irreducibly complex. If you can show that you could easily win a Nobel Prize and then you've have a compelling argument. Until that happens this isn't evidence. It's nothing more than a "God of the Gaps" argument.

4. General human awareness of transcendent or "objective" moral rules.

This is easy to debunk. It a proven false claim. Not all humans agree on what moral rules should be. Therefore it's a false claim to say that there is a general human awareness of "objective" moral rules.

Moreover, how could this ever be used as an argument for the Biblical God? Even theists recognize that the moral laws of the Old Testament are today considered to be highly immoral, as well as even illegal. When people adhere to the laws of the Old Testament we call them criminal terrorists.

Even in the Christian New Testament Jesus himself rebuked the OT Testament Moral Laws while simultaneously falsely claiming that he did not come to change the laws. Although, in fairness to any actual historical Jesus that might have existed we can't even be sure that Jesus ever supported the immoral laws of the OT. Matthew is the only one who ever made the claim that Jesus has said that he supported the OT laws.

5. The historical origin, worldwide dispersion and persecution, and subsequent physical restoration of the nation of Israel, in keeping with the prophetic message of the Old Testament

I'll grant you that from all your arguments this is without a doubt the strongest one. However, even this one can be explained by "self-fulfilling-prophecy". Let's not forget that much of Jewish persecution was done by "Christians" who had been taught that the Jews not only rejected Jesus, but according to the Christian Gospels the Jews are the ones who demanded that Jesus be crucified. Remember, that Pontius Pilate exonerated Jesus and washed his hands of the whole affair. The crucifixion of Jesus is squarely on the Jews according to the Christian Gospels.

So the Jews have been viewed by Christians as heathens who had rejected Christ, the Son of God. Even Adolf Hitler used Christianity as support for his persecution of Jews. One could argue that Adolf Hitler was not a "Christian", but what they can't argue is that Christianity can indeed be used to support the killing of heathens. And it portrayed the Jews who rejected Christ as being precisely that.

So the Jews being heavily persecuted is actually a result of Christian theology. The persecution of the Jews is a self-fulfilling prophesy, and easily explained as such.

The only place you have a point worthy of consideration is the fact that the Jews were reestablished back in Israel. But then again, should we really consider that to be such a big mystery? After all, where else would they be reestablished other than in the place that was considered to be their original homeland?

So thus far, this is the only "evidence" on your list that even remotely warrants further discussion.

The other thing I should point out also, is that it is precisely because these three major religions from the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all view Jerusalem as their ultimate Holy City that causes them to focus on what happens at Jerusalem to be paramount to their "prophesies"

For example, Christians believe that the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem is required to bring the "Final Days" and the "Rapture" to fruition. So there are large groups of believers who are working toward having this temple built just so they can bring this prophesy to fruition.

In other words, these are ancient myths that, because so many people believe in them, they become "self-fulfilling-prophesy"

And when viewed this way it no longer appears to be "evidence" of the truth of those ancient prophesies.

6. The miraculous ministry of Jesus Christ, historically attested in thousands of early manuscripts, derived from originals dated to within a generation of his death and purported resurrection.

I easily dismiss this because every culture has similar accounts of the "miraculous mysteries" that had been performed by their gods as well. Greek mythology comes to mind, and almost no one takes Greek mythology seriously anymore.

So there's nothing here. Superstitious claims of miracles are not evidence for anything more than superstitious claims of miracles. They abound in all religions.

7. The birth of the early church, in Jerusalem, on the preaching of the resurrection, and in the face of violent persecution.

People face violent persecution for all manner of what they believe in. Also, just because people are convicted to what they believe is no evidence that what they believe is true. You can find Christians all over the world today who claim that they are willing to die before renouncing Jesus as the "Christ". Is that evidence that what they believe must then be true? No of course it isn't.

In fact, look at the Muslims. They are willing to go out and blow themselves up in the name of Allah. Is this evidence that Islam must then be true? No of course it isn't. It's simply PROOF that people are willing to die for what they believe in whether its true or not.

So this isn't even worth discussing when presented as "evidence". It's not evidence for anything other than humans tend to become overly-passionate about what they believe in.

8. The remarkably sudden, complete conversion of Saul of Tarsus, formerly a leader in the earliest efforts to destroy the Christian movement.

We don't even know if this is a true story. The author of this story may have made up the entire thing just to convince the Christians that he had been converted to Christianity by Christ himself in-person.

In fact, there are actually good reasons to believe that the writings of this Saul/Paul character were written by an entire committee of authoritarians who wanted to take charge of the Christian movement and reform it into what they wanted it to be about.

After all, look at what this Paul does. He writes letters to the current leaders of the Christian movement telling them what they must believe and chastising them for what he doesn't like about them. All the while claiming that he is in direct contact with Christ.

Sounds pretty fishy to me.

I don't see this as evidence for Christianity. I see this as an explanation for how Paul (or some authoritarians) was able to reform Christianity into becoming followers of his doctrines. And apparently that's precisely what happened.

Much of Christianity became based on the teachings of Paul rather than on the teachings attributed to Jesus.

I see no reason to naively believe that Paul was someone who was chosen by Jesus to speak for Jesus. Why would Jesus have done that in the first place?

Did Jesus feel that he had failed in his own ministry and needed to have Paul explain what Jesus failed to make clear?

Even from a purely theological perspective I don't see where Paul makes any sense.

Jesus didn't prophesize the coming of Paul to speak on his behalf. Instead Jesus warned that false prophets would come and preach in his name. Therefore based on what Jesus had said it would seem to me that anyone who follows Jesus would reject Paul as clearly being a false prophet that Jesus had warned people about.

So I would reject Paul even from a theological perspective. So I'm certainly not going to accept this argument about Paul as "evidence" for the truth of Christianity.

As far as I can see Paul taught against many of the teachings of Jesus, twisting those teachings into what he wanted them to be.

I highly suspect the writings of Paul to have been the writings of a whole organized religious movement that wanted to purposefully create a religion they wanted to create.

Let's not forget that Paul preached that God has established all people who are in positions of authority and that we are to respect and obey those authoritarians.

Jesus neither taught that, nor provided any example of it. Jesus was extremely rebellious to those in authority calling them hypocrites and sinners of the highest degree.

So I see the writing of Paul as being an attempt by authoritarian to take control of a religion. And they did. The writings of Paul became "Holy Scripture" and later it was decreed that anyone who argued with "Holy Scripture" would be in danger of hell fire (or simply be serious chastised by authoritarians or even killed_

Paul represents authority taking over a religious movement in the name of Christ.

So I don't even agree with your conclusions about Paul on theological grounds, much less seeing this as evidence for the truth of Christianity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So on your list of "evidence" I don't see any evidence that needs to be rebuked. It's all just assumptions, save for #5.

I'll grant you that #5 is somewhat interesting. And I'll even confess that it is one of the things that has always been somewhat suspicious from my point of view. However, it was precisely because this approach seemed to have some potential that I have often discussed this very idea with others. And the results of those discussions have always been explained by "self-fulfilling-prophesy". Along with some not-so-strange coincidences. Like the Jews being officially reestablished in their original homeland. But why should that be such a surprising coincidence? Where else would we expect them to be reestablished?

So #5 is not overwhelmingly compelling.

Also, nothing on your list addresses the fact that the descriptions of the OT God contain serious self-contradictory claims. And what I consider to be utter absurdities in how a supposedly infinitely intelligent benevolent God would behave.

So it's going to take quite a bit to explain why the original God myths make no sense at all.

I don't see the original OT standing up as a viable theology. Never mind the idea of Jesus being the virgin born Son of that original mythological God.

And there are also many self-contradictions in the NT as well. Not the least of which is that Jesus didn't even die permanently. He was resurrected and floated off to heaven to be granted eternal life. Therefore to claim that he paid the wages of sin which is death is utterly absurd. He didn't. Instead he was awarded the prize of saints which is eternal life in heaven.

So this theology has major problems. You're not going to repair a broken theology by listing 8 unimpressive claims of "evidence" that don't even amount to actual evidence.
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Re: Evidence and the Burden of Proof

Post #5

Post by Don McIntosh »

rikuoamero wrote: [Replying to post 1 by Don McIntosh]
Questions for debate: When Christians are challenged to provide evidence for their beliefs, and in response they freely provide various forms of evidence, do they still bear the sole burden of proof in the debate?
Yup, pretty much. Just going off your list, it's not enough to merely say these things or to rattle them off in list form.
One needs to demonstrate that they are in fact true, that they are reflected in reality.
For example - fine tuning. If one is using scientific based observations of the universe, saying "The universe is fine tuned for life!" what then on the scientific based projections that say the universe will end in a Big Rip, Big Crunch or a Big Freeze? Is THAT fine tuning? What about the (as of yet) complete absence of any evidence of life existing other than on our rock? How is it "fine tuning" for one's supposed supernatural hyper-intelligent creator god to create the entire universe, with trillions of stars and planets, but get only the one "success" (besides, the fine tuning argument is just the water-in-a-puddle argument being used unawares)
Would a Big Crunch be an example of fine-tuning? No, probably not. Count that as evidence against fine-tuning if you like. A large set of extremely precise (in terms of statistical significance) life-permitting physical constants, on the other hand, would still count as fine-tuning, or evidence of fine-tuning, and fine-tuning (for most observers) still counts as evidence favoring theism. Thus the fine-tuning argument can be spelled out in Bayesian terms of prior and posterior probabilties:

1. Numerous physical constants and quantities in the natural world appear to be fine-tuned for life.
2. The prior probability of this fine-tuning is very low or negligible.
3. The probability of fine-tuning, given theism, is very high.
4. The prior probability of theism is significantly higher than the prior probability of fine-tuning.
5. Therefore, the probability of theism, given fine-tuning, is very high.

As for the vast stretches of uninhabitable space that constitutes most of the observable universe, think of it like this: There is only one observable universe. Even if there exists an infinity of external universes they are unobservable in principle. That being the case, we have no reference class or sample space against which to actually measure the logical or theoretical probability of fine-tuning. In other words, even though fine-tuning appears a priori improbable, against the theoretical range of possible values of the constants in question, those parameters are not well defined.** However, vast stretches of uninhabitable space present an immense backdrop against which to measure the probability of fine-tuning of life on Earth empirically. The larger our universe appears to be (and it's expanding all the time), relative to the one tiny planet on which life does in fact flourish, the more improbable the flourishing of life appears to be apart from the deliberate design work of some external agent.

So, while the fine-tuning of physical constants seems extremely improbable a priori and inarguably essential for life to flourish, it's still only a necessary (not sufficient) condition for life to flourish. That's why item two on my list is "Numerous instances of specified complexity (or "functional complexity" or "irreducible complexity") in nature." My thinking is that the fine-tuning argument needs to go further to address not only physical constants and quantities, but the intricate complex biological systems that permit life to flourish on Earth and nowhere else.


** Or something along those lines. I don't claim to be a statistician or a cosmologist.
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Post #6

Post by StuartJ »

Here's an Eighth Grade chart to apply to the topic.

Christianity fails.

Image

Here's a Bible class text to apply to the topic.

Christianity wins.

Image

As DI clearly demonstrated, the points in the OP are NOT evidence.

They go nowhere without the IHS (Indwelling Holy Spirit) in your head to convince you they're real.
No one EVER demonstrates that "God" exists outside their parietal cortex.

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Post #7

Post by Don McIntosh »

StuartJ wrote: As DI clearly demonstrated, the points in the OP are NOT evidence.

They go nowhere without the IHS (Indwelling Holy Spirit) in your head to convince you they're real.
I don't think DI clearly demonstrated any such thing. But to his credit, what DI did manage to demonstrate is a willingness to engage the arguments.

Continually cluttering the board with memes and snarky one-liners, to the contrary, demonstrates a refusal to engage the arguments.
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Re: Evidence and the Burden of Proof

Post #8

Post by Don McIntosh »

Divine Insight wrote:
Don McIntosh wrote: Questions for debate: When Christians are challenged to provide evidence for their beliefs, and in response they freely provide various forms of evidence, do they still bear the sole burden of proof in the debate? Or do skeptics rather take on a burden of proof of their own, to show that the evidence provided is not "really" evidence, or for some reason is not admissible, not strong enough to warrant serious consideration, etc.?
I would agree that when presented with actual "evidence" then there is a burden of proof for those who don't accept the evidence to explain why it is that they reject it.

Let's take a look at your so-called "evidence".

1. Cosmological evidence suggesting an absolute beginning (of both space and time) of the universe.

This isn't evidence for Christian or Biblical theology. There are many religions that claim their gods created the universe. So if this is "evidence" for Christianity then it's also evidence for Judaism, Islam, Hindiuism, and many other religious tales of "Creation".
Right, it's evidence for theism (of which Christian theism can be considered a "subset"), at the same time that it's evidence against scientific naturalism and every other worldview on which an absolute beginning of the universe would not be expected. And the fact that it's "also evidence," as you say, for other religions gives it away that it's evidence for Christian theism. Bear in mind that evidence is not truth-functional in the way deductive logic is truth-functional, so it doesn't hold exclusively for one claim against another. Evidence for one claim may be called in as evidence for a competing claim.

2. The apparent fine-tuning of life-permitting physical constants regulating the universe.

Life-permitting? That vast majority of the universe is extremely hostile to life. Especially human live. In fact, the earth itself contains many natural hazards to human life. To say that the universe if fine-tuned for life is not "apparent" at all, as far as I can see.

Life appears to be extremely rare in the universe. Possibly a totally freak accident that might have only occurred once. That can hardly be called a universe that is "fine-tuned" for life.

So I reject the very idea that this is evidence for anything. There's basically nothing here to even discuss much less requiring any burden of proof. It's simply not sufficient evidence to begin with.

See my reply to rikuoamero in post #5 for my answer to all this.

3. Numerous instances of specified complexity (or "functional complexity" or "irreducible complexity") in nature.

No one has ever shown that anything in nature is irreducibly complex. If you can show that you could easily win a Nobel Prize and then you've have a compelling argument. Until that happens this isn't evidence. It's nothing more than a "God of the Gaps" argument.
A design involves specifying elements in a certain arrangement or order to achieve a particular function. There are a host of highly complex biological structures whose particular functions are entirely dependent on their being arranged in a certain way, to the point that removal of one of the parts in the arrangement disables the function completely. (That's what "irreducible" means; it doesn't mean "could not possibly have evolved" or "could not have had some other function in the past.") Because design is a very good explanation for an arrangement upon which a specifiable function depends entirely, such an arrangement is evidence of design.

Every inference is an attempt to rationally fill the gaps between observation and explanation. An inference from specifiable complexity to design by God is no different on that score.

4. General human awareness of transcendent or "objective" moral rules.

This is easy to debunk. It a proven false claim. Not all humans agree on what moral rules should be. Therefore it's a false claim to say that there is a general human awareness of "objective" moral rules.

Understand that there is no contradiction between "general" and "not all." There's a reason I said "general human awareness" and not "universal human awareness." Moreover, humans may have awareness of there being transcendent or objective moral rules and still disagree on what exactly they are and how they should be applied. Consider two college students arguing about how to interpret the First Amendment. Does their dispute mean that the founding fathers are mythical beings?

Moreover, how could this ever be used as an argument for the Biblical God? Even theists recognize that the moral laws of the Old Testament are today considered to be highly immoral, as well as even illegal. When people adhere to the laws of the Old Testament we call them criminal terrorists.

Even in the Christian New Testament Jesus himself rebuked the OT Testament Moral Laws while simultaneously falsely claiming that he did not come to change the laws. Although, in fairness to any actual historical Jesus that might have existed we can't even be sure that Jesus ever supported the immoral laws of the OT. Matthew is the only one who ever made the claim that Jesus has said that he supported the OT laws.

You argued above that moral rules were arbitrary and subjective (because not all humans agree on what they should be). Now you're saying that the OT laws are "highly immoral." Decide what you actually believe and then maybe we can discuss further.

5. The historical origin, worldwide dispersion and persecution, and subsequent physical restoration of the nation of Israel, in keeping with the prophetic message of the Old Testament

I'll grant you that from all your arguments this is without a doubt the strongest one. However, even this one can be explained by "self-fulfilling-prophecy". Let's not forget that much of Jewish persecution was done by "Christians" who had been taught that the Jews not only rejected Jesus, but according to the Christian Gospels the Jews are the ones who demanded that Jesus be crucified. Remember, that Pontius Pilate exonerated Jesus and washed his hands of the whole affair. The crucifixion of Jesus is squarely on the Jews according to the Christian Gospels.

So the Jews have been viewed by Christians as heathens who had rejected Christ, the Son of God. Even Adolf Hitler used Christianity as support for his persecution of Jews. One could argue that Adolf Hitler was not a "Christian", but what they can't argue is that Christianity can indeed be used to support the killing of heathens. And it portrayed the Jews who rejected Christ as being precisely that.

So the Jews being heavily persecuted is actually a result of Christian theology. The persecution of the Jews is a self-fulfilling prophesy, and easily explained as such.

The only place you have a point worthy of consideration is the fact that the Jews were reestablished back in Israel. But then again, should we really consider that to be such a big mystery? After all, where else would they be reestablished other than in the place that was considered to be their original homeland?

So thus far, this is the only "evidence" on your list that even remotely warrants further discussion.

The other thing I should point out also, is that it is precisely because these three major religions from the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all view Jerusalem as their ultimate Holy City that causes them to focus on what happens at Jerusalem to be paramount to their "prophesies"

For example, Christians believe that the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem is required to bring the "Final Days" and the "Rapture" to fruition. So there are large groups of believers who are working toward having this temple built just so they can bring this prophesy to fruition.

In other words, these are ancient myths that, because so many people believe in them, they become "self-fulfilling-prophesy"

And when viewed this way it no longer appears to be "evidence" of the truth of those ancient prophesies.
Like most people, I don't have all the time and energy in the world, so I have to look at these debates in terms of cost-benefit analysis. The fact is that I would rather not trouble myself with a detailed rebuttal to a long but weak argument. And it's pretty clear to me that your conclusions don't follow.

Your being able to construct, for example, a scenario in which Christians engineer not only WWII and the Holocaust, but the Germans then losing the war, the decimated Jews surviving and returning to Palestine, and those vastly outnumbered Jews then defeating the Arab nations surrounding them in countless conflicts, hardly means that the restoration of Israel is not evidence of divine activity. LOL

6. The miraculous ministry of Jesus Christ, historically attested in thousands of early manuscripts, derived from originals dated to within a generation of his death and purported resurrection.

I easily dismiss this because every culture has similar accounts of the "miraculous mysteries" that had been performed by their gods as well. Greek mythology comes to mind, and almost no one takes Greek mythology seriously anymore.

So there's nothing here. Superstitious claims of miracles are not evidence for anything more than superstitious claims of miracles. They abound in all religions.

Calling miracle reports "superstitious claims" is just begging the question. Miracle reports are evidence of miracles whether miracles abound in all religions or not. In other words, if a resurrection was epistemically not probable at all before the time of Jesus, it became epistemically at least slightly more probable when reports of a resurrection were issued by intelligent, credible witnesses with nothing to gain and lots to lose (their lives for example) by making up the reports.

7. The birth of the early church, in Jerusalem, on the preaching of the resurrection, and in the face of violent persecution.

People face violent persecution for all manner of what they believe in. Also, just because people are convicted to what they believe is no evidence that what they believe is true. You can find Christians all over the world today who claim that they are willing to die before renouncing Jesus as the "Christ". Is that evidence that what they believe must then be true? No of course it isn't.

In fact, look at the Muslims. They are willing to go out and blow themselves up in the name of Allah. Is this evidence that Islam must then be true? No of course it isn't. It's simply PROOF that people are willing to die for what they believe in whether its true or not.

Right, but the Muslims are making no claims that are readily falsifiable. If Jesus had not resurrected, Christians in first century Jerusalem were running the terrible risk of the Jews or someone else digging up his body and completely falsifying their claims. Worse, many of them were suffering persecution for a claim they could easily falsify themselves, if indeed it were false. Was it really just too much trouble to go take a look in around the tomb before subjecting oneself to a stoning or being run out of town?

The fact that the body of Jesus was buried in or near Jerusalem and yet was never found counts, again, as prima facie evidence for his resurrection and coheres well with the apostles' belief that he had risen and appeared to them.

8. The remarkably sudden, complete conversion of Saul of Tarsus, formerly a leader in the earliest efforts to destroy the Christian movement.

We don't even know if this is a true story. The author of this story may have made up the entire thing just to convince the Christians that he had been converted to Christianity by Christ himself in-person.

In fact, there are actually good reasons to believe that the writings of this Saul/Paul character were written by an entire committee of authoritarians who wanted to take charge of the Christian movement and reform it into what they wanted it to be about.

After all, look at what this Paul does. He writes letters to the current leaders of the Christian movement telling them what they must believe and chastising them for what he doesn't like about them. All the while claiming that he is in direct contact with Christ.

Sounds pretty fishy to me.
Again, your ability to construct relatively coherent but comparatively complex and speculative conspiracy theories and counter-scenarios to explain the facts at hand does not somehow make those facts less than perfectly valid evidence for the claims of Christianity.

But I appreciate your taking the time and trouble to answer my post.
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Re: Evidence and the Burden of Proof

Post #9

Post by Divine Insight »

Don McIntosh wrote: 1. Numerous physical constants and quantities in the natural world appear to be fine-tuned for life.
2. The prior probability of this fine-tuning is very low or negligible.
3. The probability of fine-tuning, given theism, is very high.
4. The prior probability of theism is significantly higher than the prior probability of fine-tuning.
5. Therefore, the probability of theism, given fine-tuning, is very high.
To begin with this entire argument rests on the value of premise 1.

And notice that this premise merely suggest that these natural world "appears" to be fine-tuned for life from the perspective of human thinking. But that appearance is not evidence that it was intentionally fine-tuned for life.

But let's ignore this and accept your conclusion 5. Therefore, the probability of theism, given fine-tuning, is very high.

What then? Should we all run off and worship Zeus?

Obviously not. And why not? Because it's pretty clear that the fables of Zeus were nothing more than superstitions created in the imagination of the Greeks.

So now what? Should we all run off and worship Yahweh?

I would so no for the same reason we reject the superstitious rumors of the Greeks. The superstitious rumors of the Hebrews aren't any better. In fact we even know from the Greeks and Egyptians and many other Mediterranean cultures that creating superstitious theologies is what these cultures do.

So even if we are compelled to seek a theistic explanation for our world the Mediterranean religions would be best avoided. This would then point to religions like Taoism, Buddhism, Pantheism, etc. Those would be far more credible theologies.

However, what's actually true is that your entire argument presented above isn't really compelling evidence to conclude that any theism is likely. You might think that it is, but when you start talking about "probabilities", you seem to forget to consider the probability that an eternal entity would exist who would get his jollies off by creating a physical world containing humans just so he can sit there and watch the humans argue over whether or not he exists.

What's the probability of that happening?

This is where theistic arguments fail so miserably. The refuse to apply their own criteria of probabilities to the existence of their proposed God. Who finely-tuned God?

What's the probability that a finely-tuned God would exist?

According to theists their God is not just merely finely-tuned, but he's Perfectly Tuned to the point where he can do no wrong or make no errors.

What's the probability of a perfectly-tuned God existing? :-k

After all, you entire argument above appears to be based on concerns over how probable something is. How probable is it for a perfect God to have simply always existed without having been perfectly-tuned himself?

If you claim that a universe that contains life is evidence of a universe that's been finely-tuned for life. Then how could you not also claim that the existence of a perfect God is evidence for a perfectly-tuned God?

You seem to be more than willing to toss probabilities right out the window when it comes to your God.

What's the probability of an eternal infinitely intelligent and complex God existing?

Apparently you are more than happy to accept that the probability is 1. Or 100%. You're apparently not interested in applying probabilities to the existence of a complex God.
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Re: Evidence and the Burden of Proof

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Don McIntosh wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:
Don McIntosh wrote: Questions for debate: When Christians are challenged to provide evidence for their beliefs, and in response they freely provide various forms of evidence, do they still bear the sole burden of proof in the debate? Or do skeptics rather take on a burden of proof of their own, to show that the evidence provided is not "really" evidence, or for some reason is not admissible, not strong enough to warrant serious consideration, etc.?
I would agree that when presented with actual "evidence" then there is a burden of proof for those who don't accept the evidence to explain why it is that they reject it.

Let's take a look at your so-called "evidence".

1. Cosmological evidence suggesting an absolute beginning (of both space and time) of the universe.

This isn't evidence for Christian or Biblical theology. There are many religions that claim their gods created the universe. So if this is "evidence" for Christianity then it's also evidence for Judaism, Islam, Hindiuism, and many other religious tales of "Creation".
Right, it's evidence for theism (of which Christian theism can be considered a "subset"),
Wrong, I did NOT say that this is evidence for theism.

I simply said that IF this is evidence for theism, then it would need to apply to all theologies, not just Christian theology.
Don McIntosh wrote: at the same time that it's evidence against scientific naturalism and every other worldview on which an absolute beginning of the universe would not be expected.
Again, this is a misrepresentation on your part. Science has never said that the Big Bang was the "absolute beginning of the universe". It was simply the event that became the universe as we currently know it. In fact, I can't even think of a scientific hypothesis that doesn't include ideas of how the Big Bang came to be. The most popular current idea (insofar as I am aware) is that our universe began as a quantum fluctuation in a preexisting quantum field. So according to that hypothesis the Big Bang does not represent an absolute beginning. Other scientific hypothesis include many other ideas, from "branes" colliding with each other in M-theory, to a single universe that continually bounces off itself eternally. In fact, there are no scientific hypotheses that I am aware of that claim that the universe began from nothing at all.

So it's a misrepresentation on your part to claim that scientific naturalists need to work with a universe that had an "absolute beginning". That's simply not true.
Don McIntosh wrote: And the fact that it's "also evidence," as you say, for other religions gives it away that it's evidence for Christian theism.
Again, a misrepresentation of my position on your part. I never agreed that this was evidence for theism. I simply pointed that that even IF it was evidence it wouldn't point to Christian theism.
Don McIntosh wrote: Bear in mind that evidence is not truth-functional in the way deductive logic is truth-functional, so it doesn't hold exclusively for one claim against another. Evidence for one claim may be called in as evidence for a competing claim.
I never agreed that this amounts to evidence in the first place. I simply pointed out the fact that IF it could be considered to be evidence for theism it could be used by all theologies, and it wouldn't be favoring any one of them.
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