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Author Topic:   The Barrier
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(3)
Message 37 of 67 (848685)
02-13-2019 5:47 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by WookieeB
02-13-2019 4:48 PM


WookieB writes:
Well, if there was an objective test, it doesn't matter what the particular thing is. Having a differing test dependent on a particular thing would be subjective then. But maybe you didn't mean any objective tests.
It should be obvious there are thousands of different ways of scientifically testing stuff - the test for blood is different from the test for semen which is different to the test for age, which is different from microscopy, etc etc etc. All repeatable, all objective.
I wasn't thinking of any "modern day miracles", or perhaps I don't know what that would constitute.
There are stacks of claimed modern day miracles all baloney of course. For example, Catholics believe in transubstantiation - the literal changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The daily miracle. Provably wrong.
But what about historical reports, like the resurrection of Christ? Or perhaps fulfillment of prophecy in the Bible?
Science requires evidence; there is no evidence for the resurrection. What you have is a collection of 2,000 year old, often contradictory stories. You don't even know who wrote them, it appears none of the anonymous authers were eye witnesses and there's virtually no evidence that the main charcter in them even existed let alone raised himself from the dead. It doesn't just fail objective testing, there's nothing there to test.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by WookieeB, posted 02-13-2019 4:48 PM WookieeB has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 39 of 67 (848700)
02-14-2019 2:57 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by GDR
02-13-2019 8:08 PM


GDR writes:
Essentially I agree but it seems to me that a great many scientific theories are as much a belief as is religious belief.
We have to be careful with words here. 'Theory' is banded about a lot both within science and without and usually it doesn't mean what we mean here. The sort of theories you're probably thinking of such as multiverses and branes and so on that are usually termed theories are really well constructed hypotheses. They have mathematical validity but await empirical confirmation.
They're certainly not beliefs though because they have scientific, evidential support
Well I contend that the evidence is stronger than you believe it is,
And yet there is none! None. Not even poor evidence. If there was evidence we could discuss it, but all you've got are some anonimous stories.
The question really is to ask if scientific laws are absolute, or is it is possible that the laws exist because of an intelligence that brought the laws into existence in the first place, and is capable of suspending them.
All you're asking is 'does god exist'? You have no evidence for that belief either.
Yes, evil exists
So you have uncontroversial evidence that your god is not omnibenevolent and is, in fact, evil. You can't even deny it, all you can does is make excuses for it.
but at the same time there is goodness, beauty, love and joy. Actually it is just as difficult to rationalize that fact that the goodness in the world exists for an atheist, as it is for a theist to rationalize evil.
But it isn't hard at all! And it's got nothing to do with atheism. But we've done this and it's not for here. Here is about how belief prevents objective thinking.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by GDR, posted 02-13-2019 8:08 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by GDR, posted 02-14-2019 3:07 PM Tangle has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 47 of 67 (848769)
02-14-2019 4:59 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by GDR
02-14-2019 3:07 PM


GDR writes:
As we have for virtually every historical record from 2000 years ago.
Don't be silly; we have various amounts of evidence from zero to lots depending on the subject. As far as this Jesus guy is concerned there is almost nothing.
The accounts were complied to be believed.
Not evidence. (And, just for interest, so was the book of Mormon)
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians tells how he was writing this while there were still eye witnesses alive.
Hearsay.
He obviously had contact with the eye witnesses.
He may have met people who say they met Jesus. Paul never met the man he wrote about. Terrible evidence.
Intelligent life exists. Why. You can detail how we evolved but so what.
Not evidence. (And certainly nothing whatsoever to do with resurrection and all the rest of that stuff.)
You have no evidence that God doesn't exist.
That's just desperate and you know it.
We both have our beliefs that aren't answerable by the scientific method.
Irrelevant (and wrong).
If you were God and had the choice between bringing about life as we know it or shelving the whole project what would you do?
False choice. What's wrong with creating heaven on earth? Or heaven in heaven? Why torture your entire creation?
We at least have a world where God's created creatures have the capacity to mitigate some of the suffering.
You just can't answer why this all loving, all powerful god has to create death and suffering can you? (It's an unfair question of course, no believer ever could.)
Also the Christian message is that ultimately this world will be renewed and suffering won't be a part of it, which makes all of this a work in progress.
Your god is no better than a bad programmer releasing faulty software that takes thousands of upgrades to get almost ok? You're kidding?
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by GDR, posted 02-14-2019 3:07 PM GDR has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by WookieeB, posted 02-14-2019 6:24 PM Tangle has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(2)
Message 54 of 67 (848792)
02-15-2019 3:28 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by WookieeB
02-14-2019 6:24 PM


wookie8 writes:
LOL! So, let's ignore all the Christian writings of the first century.
They can be ignored as evidence because they're simply anononymous stories of fictional events that have nor independent corroboration.
Why again? Oh, cause you don't like them. Great reason.
I like many of them, they contain some good ideas. Though none of them are original. But whether you or I like them or not is irrelevant to whether they are discussing real events that actually happened.
Fine, don't like Christian writings?
See above.
Then contemporaries Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny all attest to him being a real person.
Did you think I didn't know about these people? To save you time, here's the full list with the reasons why they provide insifficient evidence
quote:
Writers mentioning Jesus
The following is a list of common evidence provided by apologists[70] in an attempt to provide historical evidence for Jesus. It is generally evidence for the existence of early Christianity, and none is evidence for Jesus per se. All of the writers were born after the Crucifixion and could not have been eyewitnesses to Jesus. Moreover in many cases our oldest copies of their works are centuries after they were supposedly written, allowing ample time for copyists to "improve" them. It should be noted that Pliny the Younger was good friends and regularly corresponded with Tacitus and Suetonius so any thing one reports that the other two don't know about is suspect.
Josephus (ca. 37 - 100 CE; oldest Greek copy is 11th century though there is a 5th century version in Latin): The Jewish historian Josephus is claimed to be the earliest non-Christian to mention Jesus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (ca. 93-94 CE) with the two references being referred to as the Testimonium Flavianum and the "Jamesian Reference". However, there is much debate regarding how much of the Testimonium Flavianum (if any of it) was written by Josephus[71] as there is no reference to it before the 4th century.[72][73] Moreover all of the experts who say some part of the Testimonium Flavianum is genuine are basing that conclusion on information way out of date (being 10, 20 or even 50 years old) despite discoveries that invalidate those sources.[74] [75][76] While Carrier uses Bayes’s Theorem to argue that both passages are not from the hand of Josephus the consensus is that some part of the Testimonium Flavianum and all of the "Jamesian Reference" are genuine,[77] but based on Carrier's examples of Ned Ludd and John Frum even if the entire passage as we have it was written by Josephus it still would not show Jesus existed as a human being simply because it is too brief and there is no consensus on exactly what parts of the Testimonium Flavianum are actually from Josephus. Moreover it has been shown that the passage as we have it has a 19-point unique correspondence between this passage and Luke's Emmaus account.[78]
Tacitus (ca. 55 - 117 CE;oldest relevant copy is from 11th century): In his Annals (ca. 109 CE) Tacitus gives a brief mention of a "Chrstus" (generally read as "Christus" but in reality it could just as easily be read "Chrestus"), in a passage that shows evidence of tampering and contains no source.[79] Also, the entire section of the Annals covering 29-31 CE is missing: “That the cut is so precise and covers precisely those two years is too improbable to posit as a chance coincidence.”[65] His account is also at odds with the Christian accounts in The apocryphal Acts of Paul (c. 160 CE) and "The Acts of Peter" (150-200 CE) where the first has Nero reacting to claims of sedition by the group and the other saying thanks to a vision he left them alone.
Pliny the Younger (61 - ca. 113 CE; oldest copy is 5th century and only 6 of its 218 leaves still exist; next oldest copy is from 9th century[80]): Pliny the Younger was a Roman official who wrote innumerable letters. In one (ca. 112 CE), he references "Christians" (but not Jesus), and his "Christ" could have referred to innumerable other "messiahs" that various Jews were following. Furthermore non-Christian Jews would also fail Pliny's test[81] so at best Pliny didn't know the difference between Judaism and Christianity and at worst the passage has become corrupted.
Suetonius (ca. 69 - after 122 CE;earliest copy is 9th century): Suetonius, a Roman historian born in 69 CE, made two statements (ca. 112 CE) that are often presented as evidence of Jesus. The first falls into the Chrestus category; the second merely references Christians, not Jesus.
Thallus (unknown lifespan, claimed to be active in 2nd century CE):Thallus supposedly references (date unknown) a solar eclipse at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. This reference is, at best, third-hand quotation of a summary, and is not recorded in other historic records.
Phlegon (unknown lifespan, 2nd century CE; no works survive): Phlegon was a writer who recorded (date unknown) an earthquake, which apologists interpreted as referring to the horrors on the day of the crucifixion. Other apologists rightly trashed this interpretation.
Christian apologists mostly use the above sources for their evidence of Jesus because they believe they represent the best outside sources. "Every other author is much too late to be relevant--Celsus, Lucian, and Mara bar Serapion, e.g. all wrote in the 150s or later, and no other non-Christian text mentioning Jesus predates them."[82]
Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ - RationalWiki
That's the sum of all the available 'independent' evidence for simply the existence of someone called Christ. It's entirely unpersuasive but tells us nothing at all about whether the things he's supposed to have done or said are true.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by WookieeB, posted 02-14-2019 6:24 PM WookieeB has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by WookieeB, posted 02-18-2019 2:22 PM Tangle has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 63 of 67 (848936)
02-18-2019 5:32 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by WookieeB
02-18-2019 2:22 PM


Wookie writes:
That they were fictional stories is merely your opinion, which is not surprising since you "already had the answer and therefore anything that seems to contradict it is wrong".
I'd call it a conclusion having considered the evidence but if you have any evidence you regard as conclusive why not educate me? There's nothing you've presented so far that is anything more than extremely weak simply for the existance of the main character let alone his antics, is that all you have?
Umm, no, that is not the sum of "all the available 'independent' evidence' It rather is just the evidence that is restricted to a particular time period. You seem to want to ignore all the evidence in history after a particular point (which is voluminous) just because you think it is too 'old'.
I'm fairly keen to see real, contemporaneous evidence from people that were actually there and witnessed the things that are claimed. That's the normal way of knowing that things are true. Accounts many decades later by anonymous people made from hearsay are not normally regarded as good evidence.
Frankly, I would love to see you apply the same amount of hyper-skepticism you hold to any other non-Christian historical accounts. By your standard, we could not know anything about ancient history.
That's a bit silly isn't it? But never mind, all we're discussing here is the evidence that Jesus actually existed. If it helps you, I think it more likely than not that someone called Jesus did exist, but that's just a guess - the evidence barely supports me.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by WookieeB, posted 02-18-2019 2:22 PM WookieeB has not replied

  
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