Define Evidence

[inocente]

I don’t think God made mud and rocks ‘physically with His hands’ for want of a better phrase. God is not human and thus does not have ‘hands.’ Explaining what is not human in human terms I believe is called anthropomorphism. We use anthropomorphism as human language often fails us when it comes to articulating certain ideas and beliefs. In limited human language devoid of anthropomorphism the best way I could explain God is cosmic energy. I believe God is the source and power of all that is natural and all life, and that all that is natural and all life thus has it’s own generative power.

We cannot deny there is evidence of cosmic energy. Should we call this energy God, personify and worship it? Obviously some would argue no.

No, I didn’t mean you believe that, I said there are a number who do. They divide things into those they say are designed by God and those not designed. We and kittens, designed. Dandruff and rocks, not designed. They don’t invoke God where there’s a more mundane explanation. They like intelligent design and other such god-of-the-gaps notions.

Not sure where you’re going with your cosmic energy. There was a disaffected Catholic here who proclaimed that God is made from a mixture of dark energy and consciousness. I’m hoping you’re not .

 

[Randy_Carson]

According to our judicial system, there are two types of evidence, direct and indirect, and both are to be weighed equally in a court of law.

“Both direct and circumstantial evidence are acceptable types of evidence to prove or disprove the elements of a charge, including intent and mental state and acts necessary to a conviction, and neither is necessarily more reliable than the other. Neither is entitled to any greater weight than the other. You must decide whether a fact in issue has been proved based on all the evidence.” (CalCrim, Section 223)

Further, the courts recognize that inconsistencies in testimonies are to be expected:

“Do not automatically reject testimony just because of inconsistencies or conflicts. Consider whether the differences are important or not. People sometimes honestly forget things or make mistakes about what they remember. Also, two people may witness the same event yet see or hear it differently” (Section 105, Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury Instructions, 2006).

Two eyewitnesses, Matthew and Mark, may record an event differently but both may still be considered to be credible witnesses despite these differences.

Thus, while the names of the women present at the crucifixion or the sequence of events on the morning of the resurrection may be recorded differently, the common elements of Jesus’ death by crucifixion and His resurrection from the dead are present in both accounts.

It is a beginner’s error to assume that the Gospels may be summarily dismissed because of these alleged “contradictions”.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Sure, but you do agree that no other religion has such a historically well-attested event and as such Christian particularism can be defended much more successfully than pre-Christian biblical monotheism - right?

Yep!

 

[Lion_IRC]

Whether you claim atheism must be false until it is proved true, or that theism must be true until proved false, it’s still an argument from ignorance.

No I’m sorry! It’s not a matter of “whether” I claim it.
I NEVER claimed that. I never have.

Hence I never committed the fallacy of which you accused me.
Go back and read my post.
Please use the actual quote function if you want to try and show someone their alleged logical fallacy.

Put it like this. If you’re right and it’s not a fallacy…

I beg your pardon!
I don’t claim that logical fallacies aren’t logical fallacies. The argument from ignorance/silence IS a logical fallacy. You’re still missing the point.
Please listen. I do NOT (and did not) claim that atheism is false until it is proven true.

What I did claim, and what is necessarily true according to logic is that if any tiny part of any type of theism is even partly true then atheism is completely false. They are mutually exclusive.
It is a statement of the obvious not an argument from ignorance.

…No, your claim for “the likelihood that parallel planes of existence (possible worlds/multiverse) where there is every reason to believe there will be Higher Beings” is a tenuous justification which does not appeal to evidence, rationality, or reality. By definition that’s wishful thinking.

The statistical probability of alien life forms on life-permitting ‘goldilocks’ planets is NOT wishful thinking.

And the possibility of an infinite number of possible universes (multiverse) containing a Higher life form is almost a statistical certainty.

…The only person famous for turning water into wine is Jesus. And you capitalized “Higher Beings”, a practice usually only ever done out of reverence. And you called them higher beings rather than just beings.

I think we should revere Higher Beings. (Like the angel Gabriel) I also think it perfectly reasonable to think that they can do stuff we find miraculous/supernatural. The problem is that some folks think claims about Higher Beings are “wishful thinking”.

…He was saying it to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Oh well in that case what he said was none of our business. And therefore you ought not to have quoted him here. Since he was speaking solely to them - and about them. Strange then that he would mention the word magic when talking TO them and about them.
Hmmm?

Do you think it’s remotely possible that his message could, maybe, just maybe, have been aimed at a wider audience? And that part of his message is that God (and associated supernatural biblical fact claims) should NOT be put into the same category as magic?

 

[Bradski]

According to our judicial system, there are two types of evidence, direct and indirect, and both are to be weighed equally in a court of law.

“Both direct and circumstantial evidence are acceptable types of evidence to prove or disprove the elements of a charge, including intent and mental state and acts necessary to a conviction, and neither is necessarily more reliable than the other. Neither is entitled to any greater weight than the other. You must decide whether a fact in issue has been proved based on all the evidence.” (CalCrim, Section 223)

Further, the courts recognize that inconsistencies in testimonies are to be expected:

“Do not automatically reject testimony just because of inconsistencies or conflicts. Consider whether the differences are important or not. People sometimes honestly forget things or make mistakes about what they remember. Also, two people may witness the same event yet see or hear it differently” (Section 105, Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury Instructions, 2006).

Two eyewitnesses, Matthew and Mark, may record an event differently but both may still be considered to be credible witnesses despite these differences.

Thus, while the names of the women present at the crucifixion or the sequence of events on the morning of the resurrection may be recorded differently, the common elements of Jesus’ death by crucifixion and His resurrection from the dead are present in both accounts.

It is a beginner’s error to assume that the Gospels may be summarily dismissed because of these alleged “contradictions”.

So you are on a jury. And the defence states that there are two witnesses to an event, a Matthew X and a Mark Y. There is written testimony from both. There are differences in the accounts but the defence says that this in itself doesn’t disprove the event. It is tendered as evidence.

Sounds reasonable, you think. Eye witness accounts from two people.

The prosecutor stands. He says that the testimony of one of the witnesses was, in all probability, written after reading the other account.

Hmmm, you think. That puts a different complextion on things.

He then goes on to say that the event that is being described did not happen recently, but some time ago.

Hello, you think. I thought we were talking about a current event.

In fact, the prosector continues, it wasn’t a few weeks ago. Nor even a few months. Would it surprise the members of the jury that the event being described was a number of years ago.

Gasps from the jury. Murmurs from the gallery.

In actual fact, he exclaims, the event is claimed to have taken place sometime in the middle of the last century!

What? That can’t be right, you think. Council for defence calls for an objection. The prosecutor ignores him and raising his voice declares: And I shall prove beyong any reasonable doubt that the two witnesses claimed by my learned friend to be Matthew and Mark, did not, in fact, actually write the witness accounts!

How’s the case for the defence looking, Randy?

 

[Lion_IRC]

Scientific ‘evidence’ sent Ronald Keith Williamson to death row last century. 1988 to be exact.
There’s actually a lot people wrongly convicted based on empirical science.
How’s the case for the prosecution going in those instances?

 

[Bradski]

Scientific ‘evidence’ sent Ronald Keith Williamson to death row last century. 1988 to be exact.
There’s actually a lot people wrongly convicted based on empirical science.
How’s the case for the prosecution going in those instances?

So you agree that contemporary scientifically garnered empirical evidence is not to be trusted. Yet 2,000 year old accounts, written by people other than those noted as the authors, after what can only be described as collusion, who had an obvious agenda, is OK?

Case dismissed. You’re lucky I’m not pushing for damages.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Case dismissed? By you?
LOL
Lots of folks want to be the judge and the jury.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Scientific evidence ruled that Pluto was a planet.
…whoops.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Scientific evidence said that thalidomide was safe.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Scientific evidence gave us a cane toad plague in Australia.

 

[inocente]

No I’m sorry! It’s not a matter of “whether” I claim it.
I NEVER claimed that. I never have.

Hence I never committed the fallacy of which you accused me.
Go back and read my post.
Please use the actual quote function if you want to try and show someone their alleged logical fallacy.

I beg your pardon!
I don’t claim that logical fallacies aren’t logical fallacies. The argument from ignorance/silence IS a logical fallacy. You’re still missing the point.
Please listen. I do NOT (and did not) claim that atheism is false until it is proven true.

What I did claim, and what is necessarily true according to logic is that if any tiny part of any type of theism is even partly true then atheism is completely false. They are mutually exclusive.
It is a statement of the obvious not an argument from ignorance.

No, here you’re just giving an example of the law of non-contradiction, but in your original post you argued that “in order for atheism to be true EVERY single individual claim of EVERY religion going back for tens of thousands of years must ALL be comprehensively refuted”. I asked you to cite a few philosophers or popes who have made that argument, you’ve not done so. Reason you can’t is it’s a fallacy and they don’t do fallacies.

*The statistical probability of alien life forms on life-permitting ‘goldilocks’ planets is NOT wishful thinking. *

No, you didn’t talk of life in our universe but of “parallel planes of existence”.

And the possibility of an infinite number of possible universes (multiverse) containing a Higher life form is almost a statistical certainty.

Fiction.

I think we should revere Higher Beings. (Like the angel Gabriel) I also think it perfectly reasonable to think that they can do stuff we find miraculous/supernatural. The problem is that some folks think claims about Higher Beings are “wishful thinking”.

Fiction. You invent fictional parallel planes of existence, populate them with fictional “Higher Beings”, give these beings fictional powers. And then say we should revere them. Very comedic.

*Oh well in that case what he said was none of our business. And therefore you ought not to have quoted him here. Since he was speaking solely to them - and about them. Strange then that he would mention the word magic when talking TO them and about them.
Hmmm?

Do you think it’s remotely possible that his message could, maybe, just maybe, have been aimed at a wider audience? And that part of his message is that God (and associated supernatural biblical fact claims) should NOT be put into the same category as magic?*

Here again is the link w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents/papa-francesco_20141027_plenaria-accademia-scienze.html

Click it. It’s a record of the Pope talking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Published by the Vatican on vatican.va for the world to see.

Scientific ‘evidence’ sent Ronald Keith Williamson to death row last century. 1988 to be exact.
There’s actually a lot people wrongly convicted based on empirical science.
How’s the case for the prosecution going in those instances?

Scientific evidence ruled that Pluto was a planet.
…whoops.

Scientific evidence said that thalidomide was safe.

Scientific evidence gave us a cane toad plague in Australia.

If you don’t like science, just give up your scientifically developed electronics and internet, stop using electricity, and go back to nature.

But realize that the Pope was talking to Catholic scientists, just a few of hundreds of thousands of Catholic scientists. These are the guys you blame for these things.

You have the last word, I can’t take you seriously.

 

[minkymurph]

The prosecutor stands. He says that the testimony of one of the witnesses was, in all probability, written after reading the other account.

Hmmm, you think. That puts a different complextion on things.

He then goes on to say that the event that is being described did not happen recently, but some time ago.

Hello, you think. I thought we were talking about a current event.

In an actual case it would be more likely to be a panel of experts and not a jury on the ground it is an historical case and historical evidence is being considered. The panel would know it is an historical inquiry.

Where historical evidence is being considered accounts of the same event do not necessarily have to be written at the same time to be considered credible.

And I shall prove beyong any reasonable doubt that the two witnesses claimed by my learned friend to be Matthew and Mark, did not, in fact, actually write the witness accounts!

No one has committed a crime, no one is being prosecuted. In the case of an historical inquiry the standard of proof is the balance of probability.

Here say evidence cannot be accepted in criminal law but may be admitted in civil cases and historical inquires under certain conditions. It does not have the same standing but is categorized as evidence.

It is true Matthew and Mark did not actually witness some events they describe and we cannot say conclusively Matthew and Mark actually wrote said Gospels, but based on scholarship the majority opinion is they did. The literary construction of Matthew and Luke suggest Mark was used as ‘template.’ The authors then added to this ‘template’ details specific to their respective communities. The Gospel of John is considered to have been written by John the presbyter and addressed to the Johannine community that by tradition focused on the Spirit - hence the focus on the Sacraments.

In short, a knowledge of the historical backdrop and critical analysis of the literary genre can explain many things. If we applied the rules of criminal evidence to historical inquires all history would be invalid.

 

[Bradski]

In an actual case it would be more likely to be a panel of experts and not a jury on the ground it is an historical case and historical evidence is being considered. The panel would know it is an historical inquiry.

In short, a knowledge of the historical backdrop and critical analysis of the literary genre can explain many things. If we applied the rules of criminal evidence to historical inquires all history would be invalid.

I doubt very much that the evidence would be allowed under the rules of criminal evidence in the first instance, but that’s irrelevant. The question is: would any person consider the evidence convincing beyond any reasonable doubt.

And the fact that you put the word ‘template’ in scare quotes is telling. Can you imagine a journalist admitting that she’d used someone else’s work as a ‘template’? Sounds like a Trumpism to me. Perhaps the correct term should be plagiarism.

Notwithstanding that the evidence is not an eye witness account but a record of oral tradition passed down over many decades and is a copy of a copy at the very minimum of a collation from various sources with all the opportunities for mistranslation, error, exaggeration, hyperbole and even wishful thinking.

If one starts with a belief in God and the resurrection, then I can understand a desire to search for any credibility that these gospels might have. If one doesn’t, then they have none.

 

[minkymurph]

And the fact that you put the word ‘template’ in scare quotes is telling. Can you imagine a journalist admitting that she’d used someone else’s work as a ‘template’? Sounds like a Trumpism to me. Perhaps the correct term should be plagiarism.

I think the correct literary term is redaction.

Anyone who writes and academic essay essentially engages in plagiarism, or in fact any academic work but it is considered acceptable if what they ‘copy’ is referenced. Perhaps it could be argued plagiarism is the correct term in that neither Matthew or Luke referenced Mark, but I guess they didn’t consider that in years to come someone somewhere would consider what they were doing plagiarism.

Notwithstanding that the evidence is not an eye witness account but a record of oral tradition passed down over many decades and is a copy of a copy at the very minimum of a collation from various sources with all the opportunities for mistranslation, error, exaggeration, hyperbole and even wishful thinking.

That’s a fair criticism - and one that should apply to many historical texts.

If one starts with a belief in God and the resurrection, then I can understand a desire to search for any credibility that these gospels might have. If one doesn’t, then they have none.

Perhaps today, but in the first instance what was believed was the inspiration for the Gospels. The message contained in the Gospels was believed before anything was committed to paper. In fact to my knowledge and I stand to corrected, the ‘average Joe’ did not have anything in writing until the printing press was invented around the 16 century? The point being credibility and authenticity was not something that came into play much later and sought in hindsight, and not foremost in the minds of those who wrote the Gospels would have had no need to question what they were committing to paper.

 

[Vonsalza]

So you are on a jury. And the defence states that there are two witnesses to an event, a Matthew X and a Mark Y. There is written testimony from both. There are differences in the accounts but the defence says that this in itself doesn’t disprove the event. It is tendered as evidence.

Two old men with punched tickets to Superbowl 1 will write slightly differing accounts of the game since they experienced it uniquely. You take this as proof they didn’t attend?

The prosecutor stands. He says that the testimony of one of the witnesses was, in all probability, written after reading the other account.
Hmmm, you think. That puts a different complextion on things.
He then goes on to say that the event that is being described did not happen recently, but some time ago.

Again, two old men writing about Superbowl 1…

Hello, you think. I thought we were talking about a current event.

Perhaps that’s your assumption. I knew from childhood that the gospels were written by older men about events that transpired when they were young.

In actual fact, he exclaims, the event is claimed to have taken place sometime in the middle of the last century!

Eh? The first gospel was probably written three or four decades after the crucifixion was witnessed as teenagers.

I find it interesting that you imply men in their fifties and sixties can’t be relied upon to describe their early-adulthood with any accuracy.

And I shall prove beyong any reasonable doubt that the two witnesses claimed by my learned friend to be Matthew and Mark, did not, in fact, actually write the witness accounts!

I’ve studied these things for years and I’ve yet to see proof of that. Perhaps you could provide it?

And the fact that you put the word ‘template’ in scare quotes is telling. Can you imagine a journalist admitting that she’d used someone else’s work as a ‘template’? Sounds like a Trumpism to me. Perhaps the correct term should be plagiarism.

So when the second survivor to write about the 1970s plane-crash in the Andes finally published, he was surely plagiarizing the first? Irrational and absurd, Bradski.

If one starts with a belief in God and the resurrection, then I can understand a desire to search for any credibility that these gospels might have. If one doesn’t, then they have none.

From a purely secular perspective, they have the same problems of historicity as any other ancient text, but perhaps to a lesser degree, given the zeal to copy and spread them. We are reasonably more certain that the current contents of Matthew’s gospel resemble the original than we are present copies of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey matching their originals. Heck, just about everything we know about Socrates was recovered from the personal musings of one Greek Mercenary…

Give me a break.

 

[Lion_IRC]

No, here you’re just giving an example of the law of non-contradiction, but in your original post you argued that “in order for atheism to be true EVERY single individual claim of EVERY religion going back for tens of thousands of years must ALL be comprehensively refuted”.

That IS the law of non-contradiction writ large.
Atheism and theism are mutually exclusive.

I asked you to cite a few philosophers or popes who have made that argument, you’ve not done so. Reason you can’t is it’s a fallacy and they don’t do fallacies.

If I cite “a few philosophers” who have made that same argument, you will do the same thing and accuse them of making a logical fallacy. And then you’ll label it an appeal to authority fallacy and try to teach me about the argumentum ad populam fallacy and that just because lots of people think a certain thing doesn’t make it true. etc. etc. etc.
Yeah, We all know the list of logical fallacies.

No, you didn’t talk of life in our universe but of “parallel planes of existence”.

See, there you go again.
You’re not reading what’s actually there in my post, you’re reading stuff into it. And, when it suits you, you are presumptively excluding stuff - presuming that this universe is the only universe in which goldilocks planets exist.

Fiction.

No it’s not.

Fiction.

No it’s not.

You invent fictional parallel planes of existence,

LOL. Multiverse theory is not my invention.
And I’m told it is supported by tested modelling and apparent evidence.

…fictional “Higher Beings”, give these beings fictional powers. And then say we should revere them. Very comedic.

The angel Gabriel “comedic”?

Here again is the link w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents/papa-francesco_20141027_plenaria-accademia-scienze.html

Click it.

I’ve read it.
According to you the pope is telling them not to think of God (God’s miracles) as magic.
My contention is that the pope is speaking to the outside world and all those scientistic folks who DO think sceptically of miracles and every other supernatural claim as being in the category magic.

It’s a record of the Pope talking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Published by the Vatic on vatican.va for the world to see.

Make up your mind.
When I said the pope was talking (more widely) to people who think religion and magic are the opposite of science, you insisted that he was speaking directly to and about the Pontifical Academy off Sciences. But if you are right then he must think they are the ones in need of correction. (Which is highly unlikely since they very likely share the popes view that science and Christianity are entirely compatible)

If you don’t like science, just give up your scientifically developed electronics and internet, stop using electricity, and go back to nature.

I love science.
I love the way it corrects it’s own mistakes.
Contrast that with the the book of Genesis which doesn’t change every time science comes up with new (cough) ‘evidence’.

But realize that the Pope was talking to Catholic scientists, just a few of hundreds of thousands of Catholic scientists. These are the guys you blame for these things.

I beg your pardon!
I don’t blame the Pontifical Academy of Science for thalidomide.
You shamelessly put false words into my mouth.

You have the last word, I can’t take you seriously.

Oh well.

 

[Bradski]

Two old men with punched tickets to Superbowl 1 will write slightly differing accounts of the game since they experienced it uniquely. You take this as proof they didn’t attend?

We are not trying to decide whether the people who wrote the gospels were actually there but if what they wrote is accurate. I say ‘people who wrote the gospels’ because the authorship of both Matthew and Mark are anonymous. So there is zero guarantee that your ‘two old men’ who wrote the accounts were even the two you claim were there. Neither gospel is written in the first person so whoever wrote them is not even claiming attendance in any case.

And we are not talking of an event seen by millions, with film, photographic and written evidence and with access to people who were actually in attendance. We are talking about an event that was claimed to have been experienced by a handful of people with no material evidence or records whatsoever – just a claim of oral testimony which is presumed to have been passed on through who knows how many people before been transcribed.

And it was not just oral stories that were meant to have been transcribed, but information from a number of sources, including traditional stories. And it stretches credulity to think that any oral information was simply transmitted along a single line. The stories would have been told and retold any number of times, each iteration removing any possible facts of the matter further and further from any possibility of accuracy.

So how many times was this story retold? We have no idea. How accurate was each retelling? We have no idea. How much license can we allow for exaggeration, hyperbole, wishful thinking, readjusting the story to present in a better light? We have no idea.

It’s not even assumed to be written as a historical record in any case, but more an exercise in passing on a theological message. And I assume that you are aware that if the veracity of two so-called witness accounts is being debated, in that we need to check how closely they match to ensure a degree of individual accuracy, the fact that one writer has actually read the other account before writing his own, renders the second worthless.

From a purely secular perspective, they have the same problems of historicity as any other ancient text, but perhaps to a lesser degree, given the zeal to copy and spread them. We are reasonably more certain that the current contents of Matthew’s gospel resemble the original than we are present copies of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey matching their originals. Heck, just about everything we know about Socrates was recovered from the personal musings of one Greek Mercenary.

I’m glad you brought Socrates up. His life and times are another historical ‘event’ that we simply do not know if it occurred or not. That’s a reasonable assumption. But we can assume that he did and read Plato’s account on that assumption because, and this is the important part, it doesn’t matter if he actually said what he was reported to have said or not. It doesn’t matter if he took hemlock. None of it matters in the slightest. We can simply read what he was reported to have said and treat that on its own merits.

Just the same as it doesn’t matter to me in the slightest if Jesus actually did everything that is written about Him. But we can take what was reported and treat it on its own merits. But then you need the resurrection to have actually taken place so you are hardly going to treat these stories with any degree of scepticism.

 

[Vonsalza]

We are not trying to decide whether the people who wrote the gospels were actually there but if what they wrote is accurate… …So there is zero guarantee that your ‘two old men’ who wrote the accounts were even the two you claim were there…

Guarantee? As in “indisputable proof”?

Good heavens, man. Is there any guarantee that any ancient text (or even those not so ancient) was written by the person we generally assign authorship to, even if they supposedly self-identify in the prose?

That said, we are more certain of the authorship of the NT than we are virtually any other book due to the existence of an organization associated with those writings that had an interest in authenticity from the start - as to avoid the inherent problem of any valuable ancient text in antiquity. Fraudsters.

And we are not talking of an event seen by millions, with film, photographic and written evidence and with access to people who were actually in attendance.

You’re spot on. We experience that history just like literally any other pre-20th century human history…

And it was not just oral stories that were meant to have been transcribed, but information from a number of sources, including traditional stories. And it stretches credulity to think that any oral information was simply transmitted along a single line. The stories would have been told and retold any number of times, each iteration removing any possible facts of the matter further and further from any possibility of accuracy.

You were referring to the Gospels of the Christian bible. If we were referring to the Pentateuch, you’d have a point. But we weren’t. Please don’t widen the scope to better fit your preexisting argument/views. The oldest extant bits and bobs of the gospels date to the second and third century and describe events that allegedly occurred a third of the way through the first. Surely, surely, you don’t argue that the oldest extant copy of any ancient text likely represents the approximate date of authorship?

And I assume that you are aware that if the veracity of two so-called witness accounts is being debated, in that we need to check how closely they match to ensure a degree of individual accuracy, the fact that one writer has actually read the other account before writing his own, renders the second worthless.

It’s been debated since they were written. Your insistence that two old men who write their accounts of a historical event that occurred decades before they wrote it should be expectantly free of conflicts in sequencing is laughably irrational.

It also firmly and authoritatively rebuts any claim of out-right plagiarism. What? The writers didn’t have the where-with-all to copy correctly?

It should also be pointed out that the existence of conflicts in sequencing relies 100% on the similar events being described between the texts are indeed the same event. This is an assertion that cannot be made with perfect certainty for many of the conflicts mentioned.

Naturally, thematic differences are easily attributed to the perspective of the writer. John experienced the ministry from a different perspective than, say, Luke. Similarly, Donald Trump experienced the last US Presidental election in a different way than Hillary Clinton.
This interpretive range is probably the most fundamental benefit from having the Gospel told from more than one view, obviously.

…But then you need the resurrection to have actually taken place so you are hardly going to treat these stories with any degree of scepticism.

There has been, nor likely ever will be, undeniable and material proof of the metaphysical. This includes religion, among a plethora of other things. I imagine you already know that.

 

[minkymurph]

It’s not even assumed to be written as a historical record in any case, but more an exercise in passing on a theological message. And I assume that you are aware that if the veracity of two so-called witness accounts is being debated, in that we need to check how closely they match to ensure a degree of individual accuracy, the fact that one writer has actually read the other account before writing his own, renders the second worthless.

I don’t think it can legitimately be said if a writer reads an account of an event and then writes another account the latter is ‘worthless.’

If we apply this rule of thumb to the Gospels, then surely we would have to apply it to other writings? If the rule of thumb is applied to the Gospels and only the Gospels, would this not suggest bias? Bias towards anything written about God, gods or religion?