I'm also not convinced that falsification is the be-all, end-all to deriving meaning. I think it's a very useful tool, but it has its flaws.
Looks like we will have to agree to disagree that Christian Apologetics is merely about defending Christian doctrine. It does that, but it does so by encompassing historical, reasoned, and evidential bases. Is it proof? No. Is it a body of evidence that people can examine and decide for themselves if the message is plausible? Most certainly yes.
I have the same open door, if anyone can give me a rational basis that supports their truth claims (without opening the door to claims they reject), then I'll change my view. I have, once. I was an evangelical, I'm not now.
> we will have to agree to disagree ... it does so by
Why is that disagreeing? I've argued from the outset that it uses tools of rationality in its defence of doctrine. My point has been that it begins with the certainty of the truth of its claims. And you haven't said what else apologetics does other than defend doctrine, just said we disagree on that point. You've not been forthcoming on examples, so far, here's another example. To be clear, it isn't a problem for me that defence (apologia, 1 Pet 3:15) is the point, just that you seem to think I'm missing something, but haven't given an example.
The bible predicts the earth is set on pillars (Job). But it is not.
The bible says man was made in gods image, etc. So it is really surprising we can find fossil records from monkeys to humans, and find lots of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Jesus never heals any mentally handicapped people, as a matter of fact, they seem to be left out of the bible. But he does drive out demons. Is that god misdiagnosing people?
The bible shows us two places where the religion changes: 2 Kings when Jeshua finds an "old scroll" and Jesus bringing a new message. Actually when you look deeper there are at least 5 different god views in the bible, I challenge you to find them.
Imagine the god is like Kim Jong il (North Korea), could it be the bible is propaganda? It is more a bend then truth? How would you know the difference? (Go watch some German, or North Korean propaganda, then you know how that feels.) I can safely say, you are a better person than god, since you have certainly killed fewer innocent people. So all that love, that perfectness and goodness, propaganda ... I bet god never has to take a shit either.
There are great answers to your questions above and more, but in my experience those questions are usually not asked in earnest because once I've given an answer more questions are thrown at me.
Let me pick out the last question I asked in earnest before becoming a Christian. There were many before it, but this was the last one I had:
http://bibviz.com/how-did-judas-die-sab.html
This is what's called a paradox. It appears to be a contradiction. A reasonable explanation that resolves the paradox is Judas hung himself and died. The body decomposed, fell on the rocks and his bowels gushed out. This is reasonable because in the following verse it explains why the property is called "The field of Blood".
So what do you think? Is that reasonable? If I fork that website, I would turn the red line indicating a contradiction to blue, meaning that there is a reasonable explanation.
Virtually every argument I've even been thrown I've been able to find an answer, but most people don't even know the questions little alone the answers.
Broadly speaking, I think people can be somewhere on the following line:
1. The bible is the perfect word of the creator
2. The bible is inspired by a god
3. The bible is bronze/iron age people writing down their myths and beliefs.
But let me know how you think, I would guess you are somewhere between 1 or 2, but perhaps you would want to word it differently?
When the bible talks about a soul, heaven, hell, judgement, angels, demons. How can we know that that is reliable? The only parts of the bible we can test for reliability is when it talks about things in our reality. But where it does, it shows a very naive view of reality. How then can we conclude its view of the spiritual world is any better?
The question "how can we know that the Bible is reliable?" is an excellent question. As for Christianity, the Bible itself explains how to kill it: 1 Corinthians 15:14 "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."
So all you have to do is explain away the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many have accepted the challenge and failed. I failed. I couldn't do it.
> archaeological & prophetic evidences
Nothing that somehow moves away from 3: humans writing down their myths and beliefs. The bible talks about an exodus of 1 million jews from Egypt, zero evidence. The bible prophesied the destruction of Damascus, still here. The drying up of the Nile, didn't happen. The biblical reason for why Nineveh was destroyed is different from the archaeological reason.
The one prophecy (Ezechiel) might be argued is Israel becoming a nation again in 1948. But it requires quite a bit of handwaving. The chance of something happening to Israel that fits some prophecy is high, by the amount and vagueness of those.
> with over 6 billion copies
So by your measure, the quran also has answers, it is number 2 book by far.
> explain away the resurrection of Jesus Christ
Humans writing down myths, a very simple explanation. I would suggest you read how one of the first martyr explains it to the Sanhedrin (Acts 7). But it is not about explanations. It is about knowledge. Many things might be true, but we will never be able to know those things.
No body no crime. But also the positive version, no receipt no reimbursement. Nobody can disproof the resurrection. But nobody can proof it either. Therefor we cannot know.
I respect a person's right to believe whatever they want. All I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want. I used to believe the Bible was a collection of myths as well. If you want to believe that, that's certainly your right.
But I don't buy it. Not after reading the entire narrative, which IMHO currently is best done through the Read Scripture app for iPhone/Android (http://readscripture.org/). Not after I made an honest attempt to explain away the resurrection.
So just to be clear, do you think Jesus Christ was a myth, or that His death and resurrection was a myth?
People are free to belief what they want. But people behave according to their beliefs. And sometimes when people think they know the truth, they feel justified in limiting other people their freedoms. More so if they think the creator of the universe agrees, and others are sinners.
So I look for that "liberal" spark in believers. You clearly have it, and that number is growing, but many christians do not. Many others who belief in unknowable and invisible things are even worse. (Non religious people can also lack it.)
As for what I believe:
Was Jesus a real person existed, likely. Did he rise from the dead, no. Was his message misunderstood, yes. Part of Jesus his message was, it is not about what you do, but why you do it. It is about your heart. An eternity in heaven or hell are exactly the wrong motivation.
I think Jesus meant humanity can go much further if we all follow the golden rule, and are less biased towards foreigners and outcasts. More grace more forgiveness, less judgement. When two or more people cooperate in that way, they can do more. That is the holy spirit, not some supernatural force. And that will bring the "kingdom of heaven" here on earth.
It might not feel like it, but we are getting closer to that. How many lepers did god heal? 50 total? Science has healed 5 million.
Only after our thinkers had the "liberal" spark, and were less bound by the dogma of religion, did we finally start to make strides into removing human suffering.
People forget, but in the time of Jesus, over 50% of children died before they were 15. In the rich areas of this world, it is less then 0.2%, in our poorest countries, it is less then 10%.
Here's a summary of the evidence I'm talking about. Tell me what you think: http://www.josh.org/wp-content/uploads/Evidence-For-The-Resu...
And that is our disagreement, my bar for evidence is a lot higher. Literally the doc itself says: "the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked [..] hoaxes [..] or it is the most remarkable fact of history." If we had proof, it could be only one thing, not two things.
And we can rule out one of the two, because we have no evidence of anything supernatural and no indication that people can come back from the dead. (If you can proof either, you can collect a million dollars at the JREF.)
So we would need to go with option number one. And how unlikely is that option? I mean people have died for Marxism. Clearly Jesus his teachings were a good message that people thought was important, even at high personal cost. And willing to bend the truth for and exaggerate quite a bit. All very normal human behaviour.
Back to Stephen. He did not even try to convince the Sanhedrin. He could have made is story legitimate with proof: remember when Jesus died and the temple veil was torn in half? Remember the sudden darkness? Remember the dead walking in the city? Remember that despite the Roman guards, the grave was empty? See how we can heal the sick and so could Jesus. But he doesn't, because it wouldn't convince the Sanhedrin, because it did not happen.
When it comes to the supernatural, we have no grounding, we cannot evaluate the difference between people writing down myths, vs a god spreading misleading propaganda, vs a loving god that you wish to belief in.
If belief gives you comfort and perspective in life, good, go for it. But in Saudi Arabia, people kill each other for not wearing headscarfs. And their proof for their beliefs is as good as yours. Namely ungrounded and still at 3: all explained by iron age people writing down their myths and beliefs.
And even if there is a supernatural, the biblical descriptions of it are as accurate as when it describes the earth resting on pillars.
Thanks you for the discussion. If you have any questions or think I was inaccurate, please let me know. If you have proof, please show me by winning the JREF price. Barring proof, I would suggest you read the bible but cut out anything supernatural. It is still a nice message.
Plus just ceasing to exist when you die after having tried to live well is not so bad. Probably preferable to an eternity with a god who, by his own admission, has committed genocide and has no respect for human rights or humane treatment of prisoners.
At this point, you seem to be saying "coming back from the dead is impossible, therefore it didn't happen". I think that's the wrong mindset. I think it's more correct to say, "coming back from the dead is impossible, but did it happen?"
See, if God exists, if He's really there, how would we know? Well, a historical instance of the impossible happening might be pretty good evidence that He's actually there. And the resurrection of Jesus is the big, flashing neon sign that says "Look over here. God actually did something."
So the question is, how good is the evidence for the resurrection? Well, there's an account of him appearing in a roomful of his followers (who at that time didn't believe in his resurrection), telling one of them "Look, here's the holes from the nails from when they crucified me. You can stick your finger in them. It's really me." This was written down for us by a guy who was in the room when it happened. That's... pretty good evidence.
To not believe it, you have to believe that it wasn't written by who it says it was, or that he lied about what happened, or that he was mistaken.
If you think the evidence indicates that one of those options is true, fine. But I suspect it's more likely that your position is really going to boil down to "God doesn't exist, therefore the resurrection didn't happen, therefore the story has to be mistaken." That is, your presupposition is determining how you view the evidence. I think it's more rational to give the evidence an honest look, even if the conclusions destroy your presupposition.
"This was written down for us by a guy who was in the room when it happened." It is extremely unlikely the author was in the room that day.
Again, why did Stephen not even attempt to convince the Sanhedrin? "flashing neon sign" ... apparently it was not back in those days, let alone today. Imagine if early christians had such good evidence, how much faster and more broadly would it have spread if the Sanhedrin would adopt Jesus his views. Muhammad would have been devout christian.
"[..] That is, your presupposition is determining how you view the evidence."
That is true. But it is called the null hypothesis. Innocent until proven guilty. It is the number one "invention" that launched humanity into modernity. But that should not be misunderstood as not giving alternative hypothesis an honest look.
But the claim of something supernatural is quite a strong one, it should come with an equally strong signal before it becomes credible. As things stand today, the conclusion is, god is unlikely and unprovable. Moreover, belief in invisible unknowable things does not do the world any favors.
For the bible or christianity to exist, we do not need a supernatural explanation, it falls well within normal human behaviour.
But people choose different lines of argument for different reasons. Stephen clearly touched a nerve with the Sanhedrin; it's hard to say that his approach was ineffective (unless you define "effective" as "they agreed" instead of "it hit them where they lived").
"It is extremely unlikely the author was in the room that day."
A bare negation is a pretty weak argument. Do you have evidence, or just a presumption?
Even if the bible is the most coherent book ever, makes sense at ever line and grand plot. And says to be an eye witness account of supernatural things. Still that would not count as proof of the supernatural. If it made testable predictions, or has information truly unknowable to those who wrote it, that would warrant further investigation.
So no, I do not talk about proof. However if "roman soldiers at the grave got scared" is the "evidence", then this is a nice contrast. If you cherry pick, put everything in the best possible light, and ignore other important things and contexts, then maybe it can come out looking this way.
Biased people writing a biased account of things long ago is a very likely explanation. As an exercise, write down why there were roman soldiers guarding the grave in the first place? Write it down twice, once in the best possible light from the christian perspective, and once in the best possible light from the other perspective.
The bible does make testable predictions, I wrote a few at the start of this thread, but may I suggest we put Mark 16:17-18 to the test. Are you volunteering? ("And these signs will accompany those who believe:[..] and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all [..]")
Ozy, if you're interested I'd be willing to keep corresponding with you. Drop me an email at immortal@coderpath.com
I'll leave you with an old apocryphal story that I hope drives the point home that matter how much we achieve as human beings, it will never be enough:
--------
A scientist approaches God, and says to Him, "Look, God, we don't need you anymore. Nowadays, we can do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous. We can transplant organs, giving new life to a dying man, we can cure almost any disease, and we can even clone animals. It won't be long, and we'll be able to clone humans, too. So, I'm sorry, but you are just outdated".
God listens patiently to the scientist and says, "I can see that you believe you don't need me, and I understand. However, I love you, and I don't want to see you make a big mistake, so why don't we make sure? I say we should have a man-making contest, just to be sure."
The scientist replies, "I'll take that challenge".
So, God says, "Ok, let's do it the way I did it in the old days, with Adam and Eve". The scientists says, "No problem", and reaches down to scoop up a handful of dirt.
"Whoa, hold on there a minute", God says. "You get your OWN dirt".
-----
:)
I have shown you why I think there is basically no reason to move the needle from 3: people writing down myths. You seem to disagree, but have not commented on Stephens defense. Or for instance what makes you think god is loving and good, seeing how he admits to genocide and cruel and unusual (eternal) punishment. I am really interested in your thoughts here. Why do you think the needle moves up?
In the other comment you said "you probably don't believe me, but it's because He lives I can face tomorrow". And I know many people fall back to nihilism if they contemplate the thought god does not exist. I think though in day to day it does not work that way, people cope just fine. But for me, when I think about the christian god, I just replace it with the best of humanity, and the best society has to offer, that we can all try to strife for.
You've made some points that I need to chew on for a bit, which means I don't have a response for you just yet. I'm not fully understanding your points about Stephen, so I need to flesh it out a bit more until I at least get the gist of what you're saying. I prefer an inductive form of learning and reasoning, which takes time and effort. Hacker News is a great way to start conversations, but it's terrible for continuing them (this thread will eventually lock and not permit further comments).
Hope to hear from you (and anyone else who is reading this and would like to chat about the top of Maslow's hierarchy (which, by the way, he later criticized his own views and added a 6th's peak. Of course, we being sensible beings, we added a seventh at the very bottom: Wifi :D )) email me immortal@coderpath.com
Was Jesus a real person existed, likely.
Did he rise from the dead, no.
Was his message misunderstood, yes.
Part of Jesus his message was, it is not about what you do, but why you do it. It is about your heart.
An eternity in heaven or hell are exactly the wrong motivation.
I think Jesus meant humanity can go much further if we all follow the golden rule,
and are less biased towards foreigners and outcasts. More grace more forgiveness,
less judgement. When two or more people cooperate in that way, they can do more.
That is the holy spirit, not some supernatural force.
And that will bring the "kingdom of heaven" here on earth.
It might not feel like it, but we are getting closer to that.
How many lepers did god heal? 50 total? Science has healed 5 million.
Just keep asking yourself that question "then what". You are born. Then what? You go to school. Then what? You get a job Then what? You (get married | stay single | become successful | etc) Then what? You get old. Then what? You die. Then what?
Then what? No, seriously, then what? My atheist friends say "nothing, you just cease to exist". Okay, so why bother? Before I am born I am insignificant, and after I die I am insignificant, but somehow between life and death I have significance?! The Bible talks about our lives as being a vapour (James 4:14). When you made your tea/coffee this morning, and a vapour 'birthed' from the surface, rose up then disappeared, was that event significant? Without meaning and significance life is a cruel joke! It is absurd! You may have superficial meaning between birth and death, but _ultimate_ meaning? No. Been there, done that. Just keep asking yourself those two words "then what" and you'll reach the end of yourself and your reasoning in complete despair.
But there is hope. To know Jesus, personally! I do! I know you probably don't believe me, but it's because He lives I can face tomorrow. Because He lives all fear is gone. And I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.
If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, then my hope dies too. The great mathematician Blaise Pascal condensed it into a simple wager: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
It would. But maybe he is crying for humanity as we slowly start yet another religion, costing us yet another two centuries to recover from. Why would a god even need a sacrifice? A very human notion I think.
"although this is generally covered in the Old Testament as well"
Jesus said pretty much the same thing, he says the golden rule is what the law of moses comes down to. But you don't have to look far to see that that is a bit too generous. I mean, stoning a woman if she is not a virgin at her wedding night? Stoning homosexuals? Allowing slaves? There is some horrible bronze age thinking codified in the old testament. Not to speak of the genocide and promise of more genocide in the future when Israel will rule and drink the blood of its enemies.
"The Holy Spirit is a person"
I would like to meet that person. Or watch him/her give a presentation on youtube. But I suppose you mean he is not flesh and blood, so not an actual person. Around 1900 there were many claiming to have an (heavier than air) airplane. You proof that by inviting the media and flying one. Not by handwaving or reasoning.
"Jesus died for our sins, and He gives us power to live new lives in freedom."
How? I mean that literally. How does he deliver you from sin? You mean here on earth? Or only in heaven? If it has an impact here on earth, then isn't that just an idea that delivers you from sin? The idea that you can be forgiven, and that others will forgive you? Just because we sin sometimes, doesn't make us sinners. If that were true, than doing good sometimes would make us all saints. It is a mix of both at the same time. And we can be forgiven, by others and by ourselves. Start over, learn, try to do better.
"Without meaning and significance life is a cruel joke!"
I understand the sentiment. But it is not about the destination, it is about the journey, it is about who you meet, what you learn, what you teach. We are connected to so many people, and in our connectedness, we are more then the sum of our individuality.
Some people are born in poverty, suffer for lack of food and health, and maybe abusive people around them. Their lives are short and brutal, like so many lives in the past. Will there be some cosmic justice? It is a nice idea but it is unlikely. The only faint flicker of hope is that they have ceased to exist, that their suffering is now over.
We should take their lives to heart, make sure it happens the least amount of times possible. By living the way Jesus told us, not because something supernatural exists, not because then you go to heaven, but because that ends cruel joke of life, and turns it into something worth living.
As to Pascals wager, he was a mathematician, and the chance is good he is spending eternity in hell. Around 2 against 1. Just not the christian hell, but the hell of any of the other religions.
Or maybe he is now in heaven, but it is hell to him, because by believing he signed his life away in the service of god and his army. And god is indeed this cruel dictator, the North Korea of the heavenly realms. An ending that fits the old testament much better ... a cruel joke indeed.
And that brings us full circle. How can you know the difference between bronze age thinking, dictatorial propaganda, or a loving god?