Revelation vs Reason

[AgnosticBoy]

In another thread, I recently explained that I could not become a Christian because I don't see it being compatible with the processes of reason and verifiable evidence. Of course, Christians can use reason and evidence, but they often do so after the fact by trying to validate their preconceived conclusions (the details in the Bible). A rational person would use reason before reaching a conclusion.

In response to this, LittleNipper seemed to have used revelation as justification for his beliefs. That line of thinking ties into the discussions on faith vs reason - here's one such perspective in regards to the faith side:

A conflict between knowledge derived through natural human faculties and knowledge derived from divine revelation occurs only if an apparent contradiction arises.
...
If we are going to understand better the relationship between faith and reason, we must have a clearer understanding of these two words. The word faith is used in several different ways by Christian thinkers. It can refer to the beliefs that Christians share (the “Christian faith”). The word faith also can refer to our response to God and the promises of the gospel. This is what the Reformed Confessions mean when they speak of “saving faith” (for example, the WCF 14). This faith involves knowledge, assent, and trust. Finally, many philosophers and theologians have spoken of faith as a source of knowledge. As Caleb Miller explains, “The truths of faith are those that can be known or justifiedly believed because of divine revelation, and are justified on the basis of their having been revealed by God.”

- Ligioner Ministries

Here's what I want to know:
1. Why is Revelation better than reason or even on par with it?
2. If revelation is useful and reliable, then why are there so many different Christian denominations and Bible canons throughout history? Why did the Church wrongly condemn Galileo for his heliocentric theory?

[TRANSPONDER]

If the Bible is true, my Pig can fly
My pig can fly,
Therefore the Bible is true.

Classic affirming the consequent fallacy you've got there.

Thank you. Then you Ought to understand that your propositions are also fallacies unless you can validate the claim that Jesus did resurrect.

You are revealing a profound misunderstanding of correct argumentation with these posts where you put up clearly fallacious arguments and say incorrect things like “propositions are also fallacies.” Propositions themselves are not “also fallacies”. Propositions are truth bearing statements, i.e. they are either true or false. Propositions form the premises of arguments and it’s those arguments which can be fallacious, not the premises. And if the argument is fallacious it is invalid. Your flying pig argument is fallacious because it quite blatantly commits the formal fallacy of affirming the consequent. Both of my arguments that you responded to (in this post) are valid. The first argument takes the valid form modus ponens and the second argument is modus tollens. The first premise of the second argument is the contrapositive of the first premise of the first argument. Both those arguments I gave are valid and they would remain valid even if I could not completely establish premise (2) or if premise (2) were shown false. If a premise were false the argument would be unsound.

I have given other possibilities which you have ignored.

Where did I ignore these? You posted this to me before I had a chance to even respond as far as I can see.

I elaborate:

(1)The stories are made up, which is why they contradict. That is the claims of resurrection are not reliable.

What is the evidence they were made up? Contradictions themselves do not necessarily imply “made up.” You and I have been over this ad nauseam. Remember this exchange? Indeed the contradiction argument seems to be your favorite. Your position, as I showed you starting here, is untenable as it leads to the absurdity that virtually all of ancient history can be dismissed as made up since so much of it contradicts. You couldn’t even properly defend your belief in the Siege of Jerusalem in that exchange without committing a blatant double standard. In the end, your argument boiled down to the subjective position that the contradictions in the Gospels are really bad. Even though I showed you how other events you consider historical have contradictions that are just as bad. Do we need to revisit that thread?

(1a) Jesus died and his body was taken away, or he didn't die and he was taken away alive.

What is the evidence for this? Who took his body away? Where did they take it? Why did they take it? How does this explain the conversion of Paul?

Such 'natural' explanations are at least as likely as the supernatural miracle, even if the Bible -writers didn't consider them.

Such explanations not only lack evidence they do not explain all the facts. Further your appeal here to probability is based on what?

I'm sure you are wrong. A philosophical rule is - A valid logical construct when one of its' propositions is invalid will also be invalid. The structure of a proposition may be valid, but if it contains an invalid parameter, it will be invalid.or fallacious. You had given an example. I give another.

"My father and mother are humans
My father and mother are penguins
Therefore humans are penguins."

You know these don't work and the god - claim as a parameter won't be valid as it is a matter of faith not of validated evidence.

I may not have posted the alternatives to you but I posted them. I repeat, the accounts are made up (they do contradict)
Jesus died and was taken from the cave or wasn't dead and was taken from the cave.
Jesus died and was left in the tomb.

These are debatable of course and rely on the accounts in the gospels not being reliable but the contradictions make a good case to claim that they are unreliable.

No, your position on history is untenable as it means that stuff like Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bhaghavad Gita are all taken to be true (Hindus of course do believe the last one) and clearly we don't do history like that. History itself is not all either accepted or rejected. We evaluate and even possible claims may turn out to be false: "The guard dies; it does not surrender" is known to be false, but passes as history here and there. The battle of Milvian Bridge is for sure a real event, but the claim about "In this, conquer" is on evidence, dubious. The Boudiccan revolt is history, but the speech ("They create a desolation and call it peace") is thought by many historians to be untrue.

History is not "Believe - or not"; it is evaluated, and that's what we should do with the Bible, much of which looks either as much story telling as Beowulf or as false as "Do you know the brand of whisky? I'll send some to my other generals".

I'll give you another fallacy "I refuse to accept your evidence" is not No evidence.

Explain? Glad to.

The resurrection accounts contradict (that can be gone into) and Mark didn't originally have one. Thus I argue there never was one. Just the claim that Jesus resurrected (I'll do that later, too). This was evidently originally 'The tomb was empty' and Mary Magdalene (John) Mary Magdalene plus the 'other' Mary and in Luke a whole hen party of girls found it open (there are problems with the women, too).

That wasn't enough as it could have been taken away (in John that's what Mary thinks) so in the synoptics (but not in John) an angel is posted to explain everything. You don't see a problem with contradiction and signs of concocted story? Of course you don't.

Who would have taken the body out of the tomb? The ones who put it there, of course. Either to make room for Joseph in time or because the body had to go to Galilee (which the angel says happened) or Jesus wasn't dead as indeed the very short crucifixion suggests he wasn't (swoon theory or induced swoon) and the spear thrust that was supposed to prove Jesus was dead is not in anyone but John.

You will argue this is fanciful, but it fits the facts (or claimed facts) without the need for anything magical. And the contradictions show story -fabrication.

You will disagree, but I'm saying it's why I have a case. So what about the disciples saying there was a resurrection? I've done it before but again, the list in I Cor. records visions of Jesus (Paul's being the last and for sure after the 5000 has visualised Jesus and he had ascended. That is a vision in Paul's head and he equates it with the visions to Peter, then to the 12, the 500 and to James and 'all of the apostles'. Whatever is going on there is plainly not the resurrection -night appearances.

This is not only debunking the gospel resurrections but could be a spirit resurrection as much as a risen body. Thus the body could still be in the tomb and it was the spirit that would come back in some other form. Remember that the synoptics say that Elijah could have came back in the form of the baptist. The idea of a spirit coming back as someone else is a Biblical thing.

So essentially, whether you dismiss or deny it, the gospel resurrection claims are invalid, as they contradict and the visions of Paul and the apostles do not really relate to the gospel account. Probability is that a natural explanation is preferable to a magical one and it explains the problems rather than ignoring them.

[alexxcJRO]

On the contrary it’s not me who is whining. You are complaining about the argument because you think someone might use it (incorrectly) to justify atrocities. That’s not an argument against my argument, it’s a complaint about the argument. In short, it’s whining. Indeed, that seems to be about all you can muster. Your complaint is duly noted and filed.

Q: Can you make the nuanced distinction between a valid complain and a Karen like complain dear sir?

Such logic: “Revelation is better than human reason because it originates from God" can be used to overturn any human rational and has happened already. This is true and not just imagined.

Key point: People already did so. Holy wars. Inquisition. Jihadism.

People committed atrocities in the name of religion thinking the revelation was from an infallible source. Even though deep down they probably had a small sense it was wrong if their affective empathy and PFC was functioning correctly.

Religion and such logic can make good people condone and commit atrocities. This is not something trivial that we can just shoved it in the closet.

Your point was that “A 5 days embryo is not the same with a baby.” I showed you logically that’s incorrect, that a five day old human embryo is a baby. That you arbitrary draw the line at sentience is irrelevant.

You cannot make this up.

Q: Really a 5 days embryo-a blastocyst is sentient? A clump of cells?

"on day 5 At this stage of growth, the embryo is referred to as a blastocyst. A blastocyst consists of two types of cells, those that will develop into fetal tissues, and those that will develop into the placenta."
https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... XM&vssid=l
Religious people will say the most moronic thing in their desperation to defend the undefendable.

Yes you certainly did. Your premise was that:
“human reason(punishing and killing babies and animals, committing genocides is wrong).”
And that premise is patently false.

Off course is false. Psychopathy is a thing.
But when I said human reasoning I did not mean all humans reasonings clump together.
I meant the human reasoning as in the human reasoning of some of our brightest members: highly intelligent and professionally specialized, trained people: philosophers, human/animal rights specialists, scientists not morons or psychopaths/sociopaths.

You aren’t answering my question. And yours is malformed. A rat is a non-moral agent and I don’t think killing a rat is immoral. You are also conflating immoral with illogical. Killing in self defence, for example, would be immoral but not necessarily illogical or moronic.

It may not be wrong now for you and the rest of simpletons because it is socially acceptable to killing on mass in factory farming sentient beings to stuff ourselves or animals we deem pests like its the most trivial thing. In the future will surely be viewed as barbaric.
Everybody deep down knows is wrong to kill billions of animals but they choose to ignore it because it is socially acceptable.

If a very advanced alien species comes and harvest us or kills humans on mass because they see us only as pest or food or some resource humans will surely cry in outrage and deem such actions barbaric, evil, genocide and so on.

Logically and per meaning of the words, concepts it is evil, malevolent and wrong, immoral to punish, inflict suffering and kill non-moral agents.

The fact that some find excuses, ignore it or simple fail to understand because they are simpletons is another matter.

[otseng]

It may not be wrong now for you and the rest of simpletons because

The fact that some find excuses, ignore it or simple fail to understand because they are simpletons is another matter.

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[AgnosticBoy]

I don't claim that God wasn't involved, but rather there's no evidence for that.

The arguments I’ve given are evidence. Here’s some more.

"[Jesus] you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him from the dead..." - Peter, Acts 2:23-24

"if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead" - Paul, Romans 10:9

"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes." – Jesus, John 5:21

"I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back." – Jesus, John 10:18

Jesus’ own self understanding is that he had the divine authority to raise himself, an act only God could do.

The problem with your argument is that it is justified only by definition, and it's a definition that you made. Just going by definition doesn't show that it applies in the real world, otherwise, all I gotta do is say that God AND akdjflkajflkdj can raise people from the dead. Based on that, I doubt anyone would accept that God and akdjflkajflkdj can raise people from the dead just because I defined it that way. What I'd want is for there to be verifiable evidence (not just a definition) that God exists and that he can raise people from the dead.

In the absence of evidence, I'm open to all of the above - advanced aliens, some unknown natural ability, God, etc.

But what evidence is there for these alternate propositions?

(i) If Jesus did resurrect, then advanced aliens exist.

(ii) If Jesus did resurrect, then naturalism is true.

(iii) If Jesus did resurrect, then the devil exists.

(iv) If Jesus did resurrect, then God exists.

We have quite a bit of evidence for (iv) and it creates a necessary condition for Jesus to resurrect. What reasons do we have to think (i), (ii), or (iii) are true? Further (i), (ii), and (iii) do not create a necessary condition for Jesus to resurrect. Naturalism can’t explain Jesus’ resurrection. If Jesus' resurrection was the result of some unknown natural ability, then resurrections would be common. Assuming advanced aliens exist, why would they raise a crucified Jew? Why would the devil resurrect Jesus? What evidence is there that the devil has the power to even raise the dead?

At the least, what I can accept in history are things that were objectively observed, whether it be first-hand or a second-hand. As I brought up before, this at least brings in some reasonable grounding (going based on objective observation) and it is able to accommodate supernatural events (the observable ones, at least). Of course, this should be used along side other methods, like looking at literature type (is the writing or story meant to be taken literally?), historico-cultural context, etc. The alternative has led to the problem of all supernatural events, even if there were well documented (having many different people documenting it through various writings), being ignored or rejected just because they are not part of our current observations/common experience.

Based on that standard, I'm open to advanced aliens and the other alternatives simply because God's involvement isn't based on observation type evidence/testimony. It is not established so I'm open to different explanations. I dismiss the naturalistic explanations (e.g. stolen body, Jesus never died, hallucinations, etc), because they conflict with the observatory type evidence in the Bible. Sure, we can say that people can hallucinate, but I think once Jesus was examined physically, which is what's reported, then that rules out hallucinations.

You agree the best explanation of the historical facts is that Jesus did resurrect and accept premise (2). But here on premise (1) you take a neutral position and won’t accept God as the best explanation for the resurrection. For some reason you are open to ideas that have little to no explanatory power. I think this position you hold of accepting premise (2) but rejecting (1) is untenable.

Ironically, the same questioning you have for advanced aliens, unknown natural ability, and the others are some of the same questions I would pose to the claim that God was involved. I would even consider that God is an advanced alien being of some sort.

The resurrection itself is not observable by us today nor was it directly observed by any of the witnesses. No one was in the tomb with Jesus. You accept it as the best explanation of basic facts such as Jesus was dead, buried, then seen alive. Yet, you won’t accept the explanation that is was God who raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation weighed against other explanations such as advanced aliens.

Mark 15:37-40 details witnesses to Jesus's death. That's a start. Then of course, there are plenty of details of people seeing him alive after his death.

[TRANSPONDER]

That's where I see half the problem: accepting the gospel account as reliable. I argue it isn't even factually based but was concocted (just like the Nativities) to flesh out a pure doctrinal claim.

The other half of the problem is that, IF the resurrection account was true, the (induced) swoon theory (despite vehement Theistic dismissal) explains such an event better than a magical resurrection from death.

[AgnosticBoy]

That's where I see half the problem: accepting the gospel account as reliable. I argue it isn't even factually based but was concocted (just like the Nativities) to flesh out a pure doctrinal claim.

The Gospels definitely have a theological aim, but that doesn't automatically make them false nor historically useless. Scholars rely on the gospels to get details on Jesus's life and teachings.

Here's one perspective that explains that:

Critical scholars have developed a number of criteria to evaluate the probability, or historical authenticity, of an attested event or saying represented in the gospels. These criteria are applied to the gospels in order to help scholars in reconstructions of the Historical Jesus. The criterion of dissimilarity argues that if a saying or action is dissimilar to, or contrary to, the views of Judaism in the context of Jesus or the views of the early church, then it can more confidently be regarded as an authentic saying or action of Jesus.[18][19]

Source: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/29465

Here's more from Bart Ehrman accepting the details of the Gospels based on the criteria mentioned in previous exerpt:

The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans is one of the most secure facts we have about his life.
...
There are lots of reasons for thinking that this really was the charge against Jesus. It is completely credible contextually since the Romans did not execute people for no reason at all or for offending the religious sensitivities of other Jews. Moreover and even more important, the charge is multiply attested in our various sources (Mark, John, at both trial and crucifixion scenes). More than that, it is not a charge Christians would have invented and inserted into these stories (i.e., it passes the criterion of dissimilarity).

Source: https://ehrmanblog.org/why-was-jesus-crucified/

The other half of the problem is that, IF the resurrection account was true, the (induced) swoon theory (despite vehement Theistic dismissal) explains such an event better than a magical resurrection from death.

I also don't buy that theory. The most obvious point is that there is no record of anyone having to revive Jesus. The swoon theory would most likely involve ignoring details in order to make it work when the goal should be to explain the details as is, unless there is evidence that the details are inaccurate, and further evidence of how the details should be taken. One convincing point against the swoon theory is that Jesus's body was wrapped in linen (Mark 15:46), so if he didn't die from crucifixion, then he likely would've died from suffocation after being wrapped.

[Goose]

If the Bible is true, my Pig can fly
My pig can fly,
Therefore the Bible is true.

Classic affirming the consequent fallacy you've got there.

Thank you. Then you Ought to understand that your propositions are also fallacies unless you can validate the claim that Jesus did resurrect.

You are revealing a profound misunderstanding of correct argumentation with these posts where you put up clearly fallacious arguments and say incorrect things like “propositions are also fallacies.” Propositions themselves are not “also fallacies”. Propositions are truth bearing statements, i.e. they are either true or false. Propositions form the premises of arguments and it’s those arguments which can be fallacious, not the premises. And if the argument is fallacious it is invalid. Your flying pig argument is fallacious because it quite blatantly commits the formal fallacy of affirming the consequent. Both of my arguments that you responded to (in this post) are valid. The first argument takes the valid form modus ponens and the second argument is modus tollens. The first premise of the second argument is the contrapositive of the first premise of the first argument. Both those arguments I gave are valid and they would remain valid even if I could not completely establish premise (2) or if premise (2) were shown false. If a premise were false the argument would be unsound.

I have given other possibilities which you have ignored.

Where did I ignore these? You posted this to me before I had a chance to even respond as far as I can see.

I elaborate:

(1)The stories are made up, which is why they contradict. That is the claims of resurrection are not reliable.

What is the evidence they were made up? Contradictions themselves do not necessarily imply “made up.” You and I have been over this ad nauseam. Remember this exchange? Indeed the contradiction argument seems to be your favorite. Your position, as I showed you starting here, is untenable as it leads to the absurdity that virtually all of ancient history can be dismissed as made up since so much of it contradicts. You couldn’t even properly defend your belief in the Siege of Jerusalem in that exchange without committing a blatant double standard. In the end, your argument boiled down to the subjective position that the contradictions in the Gospels are really bad. Even though I showed you how other events you consider historical have contradictions that are just as bad. Do we need to revisit that thread?

(1a) Jesus died and his body was taken away, or he didn't die and he was taken away alive.

What is the evidence for this? Who took his body away? Where did they take it? Why did they take it? How does this explain the conversion of Paul?

Such 'natural' explanations are at least as likely as the supernatural miracle, even if the Bible -writers didn't consider them.

Such explanations not only lack evidence they do not explain all the facts. Further your appeal here to probability is based on what?

I'm sure you are wrong. A philosophical rule is - A valid logical construct when one of its' propositions is invalid will also be invalid. The structure of a proposition may be valid, but if it contains an invalid parameter, it will be invalid.or fallacious. You had given an example. I give another.

I'm not wrong. Take some time to understand the difference between an argument’s validity and soundness.

"My father and mother are humans
My father and mother are penguins
Therefore humans are penguins."

You know these don't work and the god - claim as a parameter won't be valid as it is a matter of faith not of validated evidence.

The argument is invalid because the form does not guarantee the truth of conclusion if the premises were true.

All humans are penguins
My mother and father are human
Therefore my mother and father are penguins

That argument is valid. It is, however, not sound because the first premise, the major premise, is false.

I may not have posted the alternatives to you but I posted them. I repeat, the accounts are made up (they do contradict)

Repeating an assertion doesn’t make it true.

Jesus died and was taken from the cave or wasn't dead and was taken from the cave.
Jesus died and was left in the tomb.

These are debatable of course and rely on the accounts in the gospels not being reliable but the contradictions make a good case to claim that they are unreliable.

Argument by assertion.

No, your position on history is untenable as it means that stuff like Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bhaghavad Gita are all taken to be true (Hindus of course do believe the last one) and clearly we don't do history like that.

Beowulf, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Bhaghvad Gita all fall into the genre of epic poetry (the Bhaghvad Gita is literally translated the Song by God). The genre of epic poetry is prima facie sufficient reason to not treat those three works as having the same historical weight as the Gospels which fall into the genre of ancient biography. That’s not to say those three works do not contain history or are necessarily false, but it is to say I have a good reason to not give them the same historical weight as the Gospels (and letters of the NT). If you would like to argue epic poetry has the same historical weight as ancient biography you bear the burden to establish that.

History is not "Believe - or not"; it is evaluated, and that's what we should do with the Bible, much of which looks either as much story telling as Beowulf or as false as "Do you know the brand of whisky? I'll send some to my other generals".

I am very happy to evaluate Christian texts the same way we evaluate other non-Christians historical texts. I’ve never argued otherwise.

I'll give you another fallacy "I refuse to accept your evidence" is not No evidence.

What on earth does this even mean? Your statement here implies "I refuse to accept your evidence" is evidence.

The resurrection accounts contradict (that can be gone into) and Mark didn't originally have one.

False.

But he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; see, here is the place where they laid Him. 7 But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” – Mark 16:6-7

Just the claim that Jesus resurrected (I'll do that later, too).

That's a resurrection! You’ve contradicted yourself in the span of one sentence. Mark didn’t have a resurrection, Mark claimed that Jesus resurrected.

This was evidently originally 'The tomb was empty' and Mary Magdalene (John) Mary Magdalene plus the 'other' Mary and in Luke a whole hen party of girls found it open (there are problems with the women, too).

That wasn't enough as it could have been taken away (in John that's what Mary thinks) so in the synoptics (but not in John) an angel is posted to explain everything. You don't see a problem with contradiction and signs of concocted story? Of course you don't.

Correct, I don’t. I don’t see this as evidence the resurrection was concocted for the same reason I don’t see the assassination of Julius Caesar as concocted because the accounts contradict and Plutarch has a phantom visiting Brutus.

Who would have taken the body out of the tomb? The ones who put it there, of course. Either to make room for Joseph in time or because the body had to go to Galilee (which the angel says happened) or Jesus wasn't dead as indeed the very short crucifixion suggests he wasn't (swoon theory or induced swoon) and the spear thrust that was supposed to prove Jesus was dead is not in anyone but John.

So Josephus of Arimathea (or whomever buried Jesus) buried Jesus in his tomb, then moved Jesus’ body the next day to make room for himself? Even if this were the case, all it explains is an empty tomb. The stolen body and swoon hypothesis do not explain the disciples sincere belief Jesus appeared to them or the conversion of Paul. You need separate ad hoc improbable explanations for those facts whereas the resurrection explains them all. The swoon theory in particular has been virtually abandoned by modern scholarship.

You will disagree, but I'm saying it's why I have a case. So what about the disciples saying there was a resurrection? I've done it before but again, the list in I Cor. records visions of Jesus (Paul's being the last and for sure after the 5000 has visualised Jesus and he had ascended. That is a vision in Paul's head and he equates it with the visions to Peter, then to the 12, the 500 and to James and 'all of the apostles'. Whatever is going on there is plainly not the resurrection -night appearances.

This is not only debunking the gospel resurrections but could be a spirit resurrection as much as a risen body. Thus the body could still be in the tomb and it was the spirit that would come back in some other form. Remember that the synoptics say that Elijah could have came back in the form of the baptist. The idea of a spirit coming back as someone else is a Biblical thing.

This interpretation of 1 Corinthians is highly strained and ignores where Paul speaks of bodily resurrection elsewhere. Further, even if Paul was implying a spiritual resurrection, this isn’t argument against a resurrection. It’s just an argument against a bodily resurrection. Even an immaterial resurrected Jesus would still be a supernatural event.

So essentially, whether you dismiss or deny it, the gospel resurrection claims are invalid, as they contradict and the visions of Paul and the apostles do not really relate to the gospel account.

The contradiction argument, that contradictions imply “made up”, has been shown to lead to absurd outcomes. Thus it’s fallacious.

Probability is that a natural explanation is preferable to a magical one and it explains the problems rather than ignoring them.

You’re talking about prior probability. That’s an incomplete probability argument. Where’s your calculation for the posterior probability given the evidence and background knowledge?

[Goose]

On the contrary it’s not me who is whining. You are complaining about the argument because you think someone might use it (incorrectly) to justify atrocities. That’s not an argument against my argument, it’s a complaint about the argument. In short, it’s whining. Indeed, that seems to be about all you can muster. Your complaint is duly noted and filed.

Q: Can you make the nuanced distinction between a valid complain and a Karen like complain dear sir?

Such logic: “Revelation is better than human reason because it originates from God" can be used to overturn any human rational and has happened already. This is true and not just imagined.

Key point: People already did so. Holy wars. Inquisition. Jihadism.

People committed atrocities in the name of religion thinking the revelation was from an infallible source. Even though deep down they probably had a small sense it was wrong if their affective empathy and PFC was functioning correctly.

Religion and such logic can make good people condone and commit atrocities. This is not something trivial that we can just shoved it in the closet.

You are saying the same things over and over. You’ve offered no argument against my premise.

Your point was that “A 5 days embryo is not the same with a baby.” I showed you logically that’s incorrect, that a five day old human embryo is a baby. That you arbitrary draw the line at sentience is irrelevant.

You cannot make this up.

Q: Really a 5 days embryo-a blastocyst is sentient? A clump of cells?

What is that “clump of cells”? That’s right, it’s a very young human. What’s another word for a young human? That’s right, baby. Instead of laughing, deal with the logic.

1. All very young humans are babies
2. A five day old embryo is a very young human
3. Therefore, a five day old embryo is a baby

"on day 5 At this stage of growth, the embryo is referred to as a blastocyst. A blastocyst consists of two types of cells, those that will develop into fetal tissues, and those that will develop into the placenta."
https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... XM&vssid=l
Religious people will say the most moronic thing in their desperation to defend the undefendable.

It's not religious people saying it. In my last post I provided quotes from medical and health care organizations that use the term baby interchangeably with other medical terms such as embryo and fetus.

Yes you certainly did. Your premise was that:
“human reason(punishing and killing babies and animals, committing genocides is wrong).”
And that premise is patently false.

Off course is false.

Finally. Was that so hard?

But when I said human reasoning I did not mean all humans reasonings clump together.
I meant the human reasoning as in the human reasoning of some of our brightest members: highly intelligent and professionally specialized, trained people: philosophers, human/animal rights specialists, scientists not morons or psychopaths/sociopaths.

Many of those very people do not reason abortion is wrong. If all you are saying is that some humans reason that abortion is wrong, well, okay. But what’s your point then? How does that overturn my premise?

[Goose]

I don't claim that God wasn't involved, but rather there's no evidence for that.

The arguments I’ve given are evidence. Here’s some more.

"[Jesus] you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him from the dead..." - Peter, Acts 2:23-24

"if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead" - Paul, Romans 10:9

"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes." – Jesus, John 5:21

"I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it back." – Jesus, John 10:18

Jesus’ own self understanding is that he had the divine authority to raise himself, an act only God could do.

The problem with your argument is that it is justified only by definition, and it's a definition that you made. Just going by definition doesn't show that it applies in the real world, otherwise, all I gotta do is say that God AND akdjflkajflkdj can raise people from the dead. Based on that, I doubt anyone would accept that God and akdjflkajflkdj can raise people from the dead just because I defined it that way. What I'd want is for there to be verifiable evidence (not just a definition) that God exists and that he can raise people from the dead.

I think this is a misunderstanding of the argument. God is not merely a definition. Nor is God some unknown gibberish such as “akdjflkajflkdj.” We have no reason to think “akdjflkajflkdj” exists in reality or can raise people from the dead whereas we have many reasons to think God does exist and can raise the dead if he does. The characteristics and attributes of God are knowable through the field of Natural Theology (also see here). Moreover, you are back to demanding verifiable evidence (whatever that may mean) for the existence of God yet you accept other propositions (e.g. the resurrection of Jesus) without verifiable evidence.

In the absence of evidence, I'm open to all of the above - advanced aliens, some unknown natural ability, God, etc.

But what evidence is there for these alternate propositions?

(i) If Jesus did resurrect, then advanced aliens exist.

(ii) If Jesus did resurrect, then naturalism is true.

(iii) If Jesus did resurrect, then the devil exists.

(iv) If Jesus did resurrect, then God exists.

We have quite a bit of evidence for (iv) and it creates a necessary condition for Jesus to resurrect. What reasons do we have to think (i), (ii), or (iii) are true? Further (i), (ii), and (iii) do not create a necessary condition for Jesus to resurrect. Naturalism can’t explain Jesus’ resurrection. If Jesus' resurrection was the result of some unknown natural ability, then resurrections would be common. Assuming advanced aliens exist, why would they raise a crucified Jew? Why would the devil resurrect Jesus? What evidence is there that the devil has the power to even raise the dead?

At the least, what I can accept in history are things that were objectively observed, whether it be first-hand or a second-hand. As I brought up before, this at least brings in some reasonable grounding (going based on objective observation) and it is able to accommodate supernatural events (the observable ones, at least). Of course, this should be used along side other methods, like looking at literature type (is the writing or story meant to be taken literally?), historico-cultural context, etc. The alternative has led to the problem of all supernatural events, even if there were well documented (having many different people documenting it through various writings), being ignored or rejected just because they are not part of our current observations/common experience.

But the resurrection wasn’t objectively observed yet you accept it. You can’t get away from this blatant inconsistency.

Based on that standard, I'm open to advanced aliens and the other alternatives simply because God's involvement isn't based on observation type evidence/testimony. It is not established so I'm open to different explanations. I dismiss the naturalistic explanations (e.g. stolen body, Jesus never died, hallucinations, etc), because they conflict with the observatory type evidence in the Bible. Sure, we can say that people can hallucinate, but I think once Jesus was examined physically, which is what's reported, then that rules out hallucinations.

You are offering no evidence for these alternate propositions that you remain open to. Whereas I’ve offered evidence for the premise that If Jesus did resurrect, then God exists. Jesus’ own testimony that his resurrection would be an act of God is first hand testimony for the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead.

You agree the best explanation of the historical facts is that Jesus did resurrect and accept premise (2). But here on premise (1) you take a neutral position and won’t accept God as the best explanation for the resurrection. For some reason you are open to ideas that have little to no explanatory power. I think this position you hold of accepting premise (2) but rejecting (1) is untenable.

Ironically, the same questioning you have for advanced aliens, unknown natural ability, and the others are some of the same questions I would pose to the claim that God was involved. I would even consider that God is an advanced alien being of some sort.

But I can answer those questions in regards to God. I’ve given evidence for God’s involvement in Jesus’ resurrection. God would raise Jesus because he was the unique son of God and God wanted to validate the claims made by Jesus. Why would advanced aliens want to do that?

The resurrection itself is not observable by us today nor was it directly observed by any of the witnesses. No one was in the tomb with Jesus. You accept it as the best explanation of basic facts such as Jesus was dead, buried, then seen alive. Yet, you won’t accept the explanation that is was God who raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation weighed against other explanations such as advanced aliens.

Mark 15:37-40 details witnesses to Jesus's death. That's a start. Then of course, there are plenty of details of people seeing him alive after his death.

Agreed. But the point remains that no one observed the actual resurrection of Jesus (aside from Jesus himself) yet you (correctly) accept it as the best explanation. It seems on the one hand you will accept an explanation if it is the best explanation but in other cases you will not. There’s not much I can do with that kind of inconsistently aside from point it out. I can’t help but think it may due to a prior commitment to agnosticism?

[TRANSPONDER]

That's where I see half the problem: accepting the gospel account as reliable. I argue it isn't even factually based but was concocted (just like the Nativities) to flesh out a pure doctrinal claim.

The Gospels definitely have a theological aim, but that doesn't automatically make them false nor historically useless. Scholars rely on the gospels to get details on Jesus's life and teachings.

Here's one perspective that explains that:

Critical scholars have developed a number of criteria to evaluate the probability, or historical authenticity, of an attested event or saying represented in the gospels. These criteria are applied to the gospels in order to help scholars in reconstructions of the Historical Jesus. The criterion of dissimilarity argues that if a saying or action is dissimilar to, or contrary to, the views of Judaism in the context of Jesus or the views of the early church, then it can more confidently be regarded as an authentic saying or action of Jesus.[18][19]

Source: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/29465

Here's more from Bart Ehrman accepting the details of the Gospels based on the criteria mentioned in previous exerpt:

The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans is one of the most secure facts we have about his life.
...
There are lots of reasons for thinking that this really was the charge against Jesus. It is completely credible contextually since the Romans did not execute people for no reason at all or for offending the religious sensitivities of other Jews. Moreover and even more important, the charge is multiply attested in our various sources (Mark, John, at both trial and crucifixion scenes). More than that, it is not a charge Christians would have invented and inserted into these stories (i.e., it passes the criterion of dissimilarity).

Source: https://ehrmanblog.org/why-was-jesus-crucified/

The other half of the problem is that, IF the resurrection account was true, the (induced) swoon theory (despite vehement Theistic dismissal) explains such an event better than a magical resurrection from death.

I also don't buy that theory. The most obvious point is that there is no record of anyone having to revive Jesus. The swoon theory would most likely involve ignoring details in order to make it work when the goal should be to explain the details as is, unless there is evidence that the details are inaccurate, and further evidence of how the details should be taken. One convincing point against the swoon theory is that Jesus's body was wrapped in linen (Mark 15:46), so if he didn't die from crucifixion, then he likely would've died from suffocation after being wrapped.

I agree with Ehrmann on the crucifixion because they broadly agree and because there is no reason to invent something Christianity has to excuse. The Resurrections are different., They disagree in just about everything and serve to validate a theological requirement.
I agree that one can possibly go to the gospels for some details of Jesus' life, but not the parts that seriously contradict, make no sense or are just wrong. I would like to see any scholar or expert argue for the Passover release when the evidence is that there was no such custom. Nobody but a Bible apologist looking for excuses to keep believing.

I agree there is no sign of anyone reviving Jesus, but there is no record of Jesus reviving at all. There have been posts I recall on why Jesus didn't resurrect in front of witnesses. We get the indirect evidence and are expected to jump to a conclusion that Jesus recovered from death.

I say that examination of the indirect evidence together with the evident fabrication or diddling of the resurrection stories better suggests (like other miracles) that they were faked. I'll be happy to explain if you want.