Proving The Resurrection By the "Minimal Facts" Approach

[PRmerger]

Let’s be a little clearer. I said no-one dies knowing something is a lie. They may well die/sacrifice themselves/kill others if they believe it’s true. Whether it is true or not is totally irrelevant.

Hence, one cannot use an example of self sacrifice to claim the veracity of someone’s belief.

Right.

But we have established that the witnesses of the (alleged) Resurrection weren’t lying.

They may have been mistaken.

But they weren’t lying.

So we can summarily dismiss that as one of the ways to explain away the Resurrection.

 

[Bradski]

Yes. I would.

In that case, if all information about religion was presented equally to children, with no preconceived bias and no pressure to accept any of them as being true, how do you think that would affect religious demographics?

 

[PRmerger]

In that case, if all information about religion was presented equally to children, with no preconceived bias and no pressure to accept any of them as being true, how do you think that would affect religious demographics?

I am naturally against preconceived bias.

But I am not against presenting as true what is true, and as false what is false.

I wouldn’t present to my children: sweetie, you can look at the races of the world and decide for yourself if you think one race is superior to another…

No. I would start with teaching this premise to my children: all human beings have equal dignity and worth.

(If you want to call that a preconceived bias, ok…)

… and I would continue: “If you come across any study that declares that one race is superior to another, use your critical thinking skills and I assure you that you will end up rejecting that study. Why? Because I have already given you a standard–all human beings have equal dignity and worth”.

 

[PRmerger]

So tell me, how is your religion reason-filled, but theirs, the most logical, not so?

What an odd question, vis a vis our anti-vaccine parallel.

So tell me, how is your view that vaccines are safe and effective based on logic, but the anti-vacciners not so?

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t think anyone is saying that no miracle has ever occurred.

Excellent. Because even just one miracle proves God exists, no?

Just the same as no-one is saying that God definitely does not exist.

So no one here is an atheist?

We’re talking with agnostics here?

I’m pretty sure poca has identified himself as an atheist, so…

All you have to do is find one that is totally convincing and that would be the end of it. As you say, you only need the one. But, and this is obviously the point, there isn’t even one.

Well, that’s in direct contradiction to what you just stated above.

The problem that you have is that for every claimed miracle that is shown to be spurious, the less convincing are any of your arguments. If I keep turning up for every claim and spend time investigating it and every single claim is found to be invalid, then it is only reasonable to start to think that ALL claims are going to have the same outcome.

Wouldn’t it be a great mistake to turn over 50 different buried coins that are counterfeit and conclude, “Therefore, no real coins exist!”

Perhaps you haven’t looked hard enough, eh?

 

[Bradski]

Right.

But we have established that the witnesses of the (alleged) Resurrection weren’t lying.

No we haven’t. We have simply said that IF anyone died for their beliefs, then you can’t use that as an indication that the belief must be true.

We have zero evidence that the reports of the alleged witnesses are true or not.

If I say: ‘My brother saw a ghost 40 years ago’, then you have absolutely no idea as to whether he was telling me the truth, whether he was lying, whether he was simply mistaken, whether I misunderstood him, whether I am repeating someone else’s understanding of what he might have told them, whether I am lying, whether I misunderstood what someone reported to me, whether it is me reporting third or fourth hand information, whether I am accurately reporting it, whether I have a reason or not that I want you to believe it, whether my brother had a reason for me to believe it or not, whether anyone who told me what they said my brother said had any reason for me to believe it or not, whether he was drunk or hallucinating, whether his memory from 40 years back is any good, whether he actually dreamt it and now thinks it might be real etc etc etc

Was there a ghost? Well, you’d say, why would Bradski lie? There must have been…

 

[PRmerger]

Yes, I am an atheist, however, I don’t remember demanding anything. I merely ask for evidence of the magic that’s so happily described in the book you guys follow.
I ask the same of every religion that claims to have magic.

Fair enough.

So I am asking for evidence for your belief.

“Someone lied about the Resurrection”.

Give me the name of this person. How you know he lied. Where it’s written that he lied.
Who witnessed his lie. Something he wrote where he says he lied.

And if there are witnesses to his lie, it needs to be written within 40 years of his lie.

I don’t think I’m asking for anything that hasn’t been asked of Christians.

NB: this is all really an academic exercise because we’ve already established that no one dies for lie anyway so…

 

[PRmerger]

No we haven’t. We have simply said that IF anyone died for their beliefs, then you can’t use that as an indication that the belief must be true.

We have zero evidence that the reports of the alleged witnesses are true or not.

You’re going to step 2.

Let’s go back to step 1.

We are agreed that people will die for what they believe to be true. They will not die holding on to what they know is a lie.

Yes?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Let’s be a little clearer. I said no-one dies knowing something is a lie. They may well die/sacrifice themselves/kill others if they believe it’s true. Whether it is true or not is totally irrelevant.

Hence, one cannot use an example of self sacrifice to claim the veracity of someone’s belief.

Well, I would contend that whether or not you could “use an example of self-sacrifice to claim the veracity of someone’s belief” depends entirely upon the quality and integrity of the person doing the self-sacrificing. AND I would contend that “whether it is true or not” is totally relevant if the question is hinged upon the person doing the sacrificing.

No we haven’t. We have simply said that IF anyone died for their beliefs, then you can’t use that as an indication that the belief must be true.

We have zero evidence that the reports of the alleged witnesses are true or not.

The personal qualities and characters of the individuals providing the eyewitness reports and the internal integrity/consistency of those reports does, itself, constitute evidence. It never amounts to “zero evidence” unless the witness is an inveterate liar, an irresponsible or irrational jerk and/or completely oblivious to the world around them AND never left anything at all by way of written record.

Take your example…

If I say: ‘My brother saw a ghost 40 years ago’, then you have absolutely no idea as to whether he was telling me the truth, whether he was lying, whether he was simply mistaken, whether I misunderstood him, whether I am repeating someone else’s understanding of what he might have told them, whether I am lying, whether I misunderstood what someone reported to me, whether it is me reporting third or fourth hand information, whether I am accurately reporting it, whether I have a reason or not that I want you to believe it, whether my brother had a reason for me to believe it or not, whether anyone who told me what they said my brother said had any reason for me to believe it or not, whether he was drunk or hallucinating, whether his memory from 40 years back is any good, whether he actually dreamt it and now thinks it might be real etc etc etc

Was there a ghost? Well, you’d say, why would Bradski lie? There must have been…

Actually, Bradski isn’t the person I would refer to, my focus would be on the brother, unless, of course, he was totally unavailable/unknowable, in which case Bradski would carry the burden of providing evidence.

Suppose we found out through independent inquiries into Bradski’s brother that he was mentally unstable and an alcoholic who hallucinated frequently. We would, then, have reasons to doubt the ghost story.

Suppose, on the other hand, we found that Bradski’s brother was, like Bradski, a convinced atheist who never told an untruth in his life, didn’t believe at all in the supernatural and held multiple PhDs in applied mathematics, philosophy and physics. Suppose further that he left a detailed account of his ghostly visitor which matched perfectly with a number of otherwise inexplicable perturbations in the set-up of the house, and, additionally, described a prolonged low-pitched moaning sound that was corroborated by four or five neighbors who could provide no other explanation for it. Also suppose that Bradski’s brother was found shaking, heart palpitating and white as a sheet after the neighbors entered the house to find out about the sounds.

Wouldn’t we ask, “Why would Bradski’s brother lie?” AND really mean it? Suppose that everyone who talked to him in the days or weeks following the event were absolutely convinced of the “Gospel” truth that he must have seen a ghost because they knew him personally, held his story to be authentic and could not imagine any other explanation for what he was absolutely convinced he saw.

I would also suppose that if Bradski’s brother was rigorously interrogated, tortured and killed to make him recant, he might, indeed, do so, but if he held fast to his story THAT would be additional evidence that he was telling the truth, since his character was unimpeachable and he went to his grave insisting that his account was true.

It is revealing that you would frame the question as, “Why would Bradski lie?” It seems an attempt to make the Gospel testimonies out to be hearsay as if we are necessarily getting the accounts second-hand from Bradski rather than directly from Bradski’s brother.

No, we have first hand accounts in Mark, Matthew, John and Paul and compiled accounts from Luke. This is more like having direct access to Bradski’s brother than through Bradski.

At least, let’s accurately depict what we are dealing with rather than what you want us to think we are dealing with.

 

[Bradski]

I am naturally against preconceived bias.

But I am not against presenting as true what is true, and as false what is false.

Religions aren’t presented as either in comparative religion. They are all treated equally.

Well, that’s in direct contradiction to what you just stated above.

No, it’s not. I said that miracles might occur. It is literally impossible to say that they don’t. What I went on to say that no miracle has been found that is in any way convincing.

Wouldn’t it be a great mistake to turn over 50 different buried coins that are counterfeit and conclude, “Therefore, no real coins exist!”

Again, it would be literally impossible to say that no real ones exist. No-one is saying that and you are misrepresenting the argument.

I ask you to help me dig for what I believe are valuable coins in my garden. We find one and declare it be be genuine. You check it’s history, it’s metal content, you date it and it turns out to be counterfeit. I say we carry on digging. We find another. It turns out not to be real. Then another and another. I urge you to keep digging. But all the coins we find are counterfeit.

At some point you are going to suggest that the latest coin that we have just found is, in all likelihood, going to be counterfeit. If dozens have been found and all are fake, then that’s a reasonable assumption.

Eventually you are going to say: thanks, but I really have better things to do with my time. If someone asks you if there are valuable coins in my garden, your reply is likely to be: ‘Let me put it this way. We’ve checked dozens. They are all fake. I’ve given up expecting anyone to find a real one.’

The personal qualities and characters of the individuals providing the eyewitness reports and the internal integrity/consistency of those reports does, itself, constitute evidence.

Oh, I forgot to mention. There’s no guarantee I actually wrote the report. And there is no original. And you can’t check with anyone. All you’ve got are a couple of reports that might have been written about the same time perhaps by my contemporaries but which differ in their facts. And most of the people involved already believe in ghosts, including yourself, so there’s a degree of bias to contend with in any case.

Why wouldn’t it be true!

 

[pocaracas]

LOL

It almost sounds as if he has convinced himself that he knows intimately what he talking about, at the same instant as he virtually admits he hasn’t a clue.

But, of course, this is quite consonant with everything coming from a vacuous, clueless, nothing.

Time for some humility, I suppose, rather than the “conclusion” that we’ve figured it all out.

Barely scratched the surface, more like. I’m good with that.

Yup, Brad, we are “beginning” to understand and that is barely all that any of us (including Lawrence Krauss) can conclude.

“Therefore, No God,” is a ridiculous overreach.

Maybe, if you try to read what other people are writing, you won’t say such ludicrous things…

No one is saying “therefore, no god”. We say, “therefore, no god seems to be required for that particular task”. Move on to another argument. Argument from change, the Kalam, or any cosmological argument all trip on this - we can imagine ways by which the Universe comes about without the requirement of a god.
We’re not saying that’s how it happened… we can’t really tell how it happened.
But it is possible that no god was involved.
Thus rendering those arguments bunk - there is another way of thinking, so, no matter how logical the arguments are, their conclusion is not solid, hence they must have some flaw… possibly at the level of the premises.

 

[pocaracas]

Good morning, PR!
I’m starting to think that, in the end, we’ll have to agree to disagree… but, in the meantime, I hope we can learn something from each other!

Indeed. It is trying to control the minds of others—pointing them to reality.

So, again, you can’t have it both ways.

You can’t like having your mind directed and then object to having your mind directed.

You just have some peculiar criteria for what’s ok and what’s not ok.

I presume you think that science, literature, mathematics = good to have your mind pointed in the right direction.

But for religious things, education = bad to have your mind pointed in the right direction.

I’ve asked this before… how can we tell which religion is right, if any?

Well, we can agree that any teaching that is skewed away from truth is a bad thing.

But if being educated is a good thing, then religious education can’t be a bad thing.

I agree. Religion has played a major part in humanity’s evolution. It needs to be featured… all of it.
Not just the present-day religions, but also those from old times - Egyptians, classical Greeks, Sumerians, Shamanism, Animism, Druidism…

That you have had bad education doesn’t equal “therefore religious education is bad”.

Clearly, there is bad logic going around but that doesn’t translate to: therefore, it is bad to appeal to logic.

Bad logic is one that reads what was not meant…
I meant to point out that even the standard education, based on “facts”, can be skewed. I was actually throwing you a bigger bone that the one you caught! Where did you get that bone?

It took you some time to get those statistics, and put them in hyperlinks here, but I fear that it was a bit of a waste o’ time.

I like to present my sources when I give numbers, or some other non-obvious bit of information. It’s a courtesy, in case you doubted my numbers.

For I think that you would agree that even there were no good ways to convince people about God’s existence…that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist.

Or, to put it without so many negatives: absence of any good arguments STILL doesn’t prove God couldn’t exist.

God could exist even if no one knew he was there, right?

As the atheistic philosopher Kai Nielsen acknowledges, “Even if all the proofs for God’s existence fail, it may still be the case that God exists”.

This is a man of integrity and honesty I can respect. :clapping:

I agree. God is possible to exist. More than one God is also a possibility.
One Universe per God is also possible.
More than one Universe per God is also possible.
One Universe for all Gods is not impossible either.
It is also possible that no gods exist, at all.


Thus far, no “evidence” brought forth by believers has been able to convince me (and many others) that any god actually exists.
In fact, the very notion of “having to believe” is a bit detrimental to that process.
If something exists, it is real. If it is real, we can gain access to it. If that access is solely psychological, then we may have a conflict with our very well known ability to conjure up fictional characters, to dream, to mix false memories with real ones, to misremember, to convey as true that which has no bearing outside one’s mind.
I await evidence which doesn’t fall on this pit of human fail… My request may be another pit of human fail, but I think it’s, at least, a shallower one.

###############

No. Suicide is not the unforgivable sin. Nor is not believing.

Nor is abortion.

And now you know more than most of the Catholics you’ll ever encounter, who, sadly, have an abysmal knowledge of the faith.

It gives me great amusement to know that you will be correcting some lump-in-the-pew Catholic in the near future.

You’re welcome.

Thanks… now I know what is not… but you didn’t say what is “the unforgivable sin”…

##########

That’s interesting that you bring up the term “fringe minority”.

If you want to talk about “fringe minorities”, there’s nothing more fringe, and minority, than…atheism.

When you look at the history of humanity, from our first beginning 200,000 years ago, to modern times, Belief in God has been a constant.

It is only the atheist who has been a wee, miniscule minority.

So I don’t think you want to pooh-pooh the anti-vacciners because of their being a “fringe minority”, for it certainly invites indictment of your fringe minority status as well.

10% of human population is not exactly a wee miniscule minority.
And this number grows for the so-called western world - some European countries, like Sweden, are reported to have as high as 80% of non-believers.

In the past, yes… with all the persecutions by the religious powers and the social pressures which abounded, it is natural that atheists would be shy.
Also, they didn’t have the wealth of information we have nowadays to counteract all the arguments put forth by the believers, so they’d largely yield to “belief”… still, in 1811, a brave student at Oxford published a pamphlet entitled “The Necessity of Atheism”… this got him kicked out of the University… but the message was out.

Well, yeah.

I don’t want to ride in a plane with a pilot who’s accepted parts of the pilot manual, while not accepting other parts.

Would you?

Is the bible a manual for an airborne transportation vehicle? For any vehicle?
Or is it a compilation of tales pertaining to the God that some people in the world believe exists?
Why the flawed analogy?

 

[pocaracas]

“I won’t believe in the Bible because it contains miracles”

“I don’t believe in miracles therefore the Bible can’t be true”.

#herewegoagain

Round and round he goes!
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!

You also see it in atheism.

The universe came from nothing!

Nothing. POOF! Now there’s something. A great. big. universe.

We can’t know how things happened way back then.
There’s something blocking that information… that something is called Big Bang.
What we have are theories that attempt to provide an explanation for it, based on physical phenomena that can be demonstrated to be accurate.
If this is what you consider magic, then I think you need to review your concept.

Something coming from nothing certainly looks like magic to me!

It doesn’t to you?

Do you have any examples of something coming from nothing…ever?

And Lawrence Krauss’ assertion doesn’t count. You don’t get to re-define “nothing” as “a vacuum state”.

Can you assert that there is true nothingness?
Nothing, no particles, no fields, no nothing?

The theory, if you had listened to the three minutes of that Nobel Laureate’s little interview that I linked earlier, is that the fields extend to infinity. Hence, no part of space-time is absent of these fields… true nothingness is impossible.
So… where’s the magic in this view?

###########

Yep.

Is there some reason that we should exclude it?

It’s a biggie, after all.

It Is a biggie, yes…
But a bit moldy… let’s try to establish some clearer miracles, before we proceed to that.
You need to take me through the baby steps process

It’s kind of like your saying, “I don’t have any examples of a competitive sports game that involves lots of countries. I can’t think of a single one.”

And I say, “Ummm…the Olympics?”

And you respond, “Really? That’s the best you can do?”

Yep. Pretty much the Big One. Can’t discount it for no reason can we?

Oh my… you’re full of flawed analogies, today…

There are Olympics every 4 years, widely publicized, televised and viewed by millions of people.
You can even go on to the World cup (football, or soccer), again, every 4 years, even more viewed than the Olympics (in some countries).

On the other hand… miracles reported by ancient people… people starving for a prophet, yearning for release from the Jewish traditions and laws.

Yes.

Oh… so why not Islam?
Why not Hinduism?
Why not Jainism?

That there are hokey claims to miracles doesn’t equate to: therefore no miracles have ever occurred, ever, in the history of the universe.

In fact, since you like to appeal to probabilities–what seems more likely–that you know with 100% certainty that no miracle has ever occurred–ever, ever, ever–or that in the 14 billion year history of the existence of the universe, a miracle has occurred…and you just weren’t aware of it.

Now, really, poca, look at what I’ve just written and think about what is more probable.

Your 100% certainty that no miracle has ever occurred…or…what I just said.

And remember, poca, in order to prove God exists, one miracle is all that needs to have occurred.

One. Miracle.

In 13 billion years.

If there is a God, then yes, it is very likely that some miracle occurred at some point… even more than one.
If there is no such thing as God, or gods, then it is very unlikely that such a thing ever happened.

Weren’t we trying to do it the other way around?

• Prove that miracles happen ->> reason that there must be some god…?

#############

So here’s the thing, poca. Extrapolation is absolutely fine. I love extrapolation. I breathe extrapolation. My job depends upon my ability to extrapolate.

But what I would like to point out is this SCREAMING double standard that exists with atheists.

Atheist says: “I get to extrapolate and make conclusions, even though there isn’t exactly any empirical data or hard evidence to prove my point. But we can certainly extrapolate legitimately to my conclusion”.

But Believer says, “Let’s extrapolate from these 20 Arguments that…there is a God. Maybe 1 argument by itself isn’t compelling. Or 2 or 3…but we have 20 Arguments (PLUS!). Certainly we can extrapolate that given all the data, it’s more probable for God to exist than not”…

and you’re all “Nope. There is no extrapolation for you, Believer! There is no probable. There is empirical data only! Hard facts only! Reproducible results only!”

Do you see why there’s such a cognitive dissonance here for us Catholics?

The trouble is that all those 20 arguments seem to have some niggling faults.
Faults that, from a believing point of view, may be difficult to spot… that’s why you provide them.
Also, at best, those get you to a deist god - the disinterested creator god who then moved on to greener pastures and forgot about this Universe. What then?

################

Regardless of whether everyone lies or not…Bradski has already conceded that no one dies for a lie. Even calling it “plainly obvious”.

So someone on Team Atheist has already seen the wisdom of what we’ve been trying to present to you.

Yep, and he then went further… keep an eye on that, you should.

 

[pocaracas]

He also had slaves, so…

https://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9ohb3w7GL1qa6ipw.gif

Where do you get all these cool GIFs?

So?

“In 1778, with Jefferson’s leadership, slave importation was banned in Virginia. It was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to ban the slave trade. Jefferson was a lifelong advocate of ending the trade and as President led the effort to criminalize the international slave trade that passed Congress and he signed on March 2, 1807; it took effect in 1808. Britain independently made the same move on March 25, 1807.”



##################

So tell me, how is your religion reason-filled, but theirs, the most logical, not so?

Odd question? “Why not Islam?” “what is wrong with Islam?”
Certainly, there are many more independent reports concerning the prophet Mohamed than there are for Jesus.
If the prophet was not talking to an angel receiving information and orders straight from God, then what?.. all those people lied? Mohamed lied? Why would they lie?

What is this?.. the fourth flawed analogy of the day?

 

[pocaracas]

So no one here is an atheist?

We’re talking with agnostics here?

I’m pretty sure poca has identified himself as an atheist, so…

It seems you have a slight confusion of concepts here.
I identify myself as an atheist - a person who does not believe in the proposition, bought forth by some people, that gods exist.

I also identify as agnostic, for I am aware that we cannot know for sure whether gods exist or don’t exist.

The majority of atheists I’ve talked to on the net tend to fall under this “agnostic atheist” category.
Some would go further and declare that some religions, christianity included, are outright false, for they claim falsehoods. However, that would still not disallow the existence of some god… hence they remain agnostic atheists.

##################

Fair enough.

So I am asking for evidence for your belief.

“Someone lied about the Resurrection”.

Give me the name of this person. How you know he lied. Where it’s written that he lied.
Who witnessed his lie. Something he wrote where he says he lied.

And if there are witnesses to his lie, it needs to be written within 40 years of his lie.

I don’t think I’m asking for anything that hasn’t been asked of Christians.

NB: this is all really an academic exercise because we’ve already established that no one dies for lie anyway so…

I have told you that I have no direct evidence that a lie was committed at that time.
However, I can provide writings by other people from that same time period, claiming the existence of other gods. All that region, broadly identified with Semitism, was a collection of city-states, each with it’s own governing deity, so such writings can’t be hard to find.
Israel had Yahweh at the top. Yahweh, according to the prevalent notions was not the original god of Israel… it was El.
El, or Elohim (the most high), also came to be a generic word for “god”.
El, in aramaic was ʾAlāh… from where the arabic Allah also comes.
In Canaanite mythology, El was the Father God.
In Mesopotamia, the Father God/King o the gods was called An or Anu and was a part of the main 3 gods, comprising of Enlil (“the only god who could reach An”) and Enki (or Ea - the virile god which provides a “metaphorical link between the life-giving properties of the god’s semen and the animating nature of fresh water from the abzu” - abzu being the subterranean ocean where Ea lived).

Can you spot the parallels to your own religion?

All these had people believing in them and writing about them.

If your religion is the absolute true one, then…Who lied? Where did these themes crop up from?

 

[thistle]

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/resurrection-evidence.htm

 

[GaryTaylor]

If your religion is the absolute true one, then…Who lied? Where did these themes crop up from?

Good points, I’ve read the thread and while I find it interesting I am uncertain about the position on a few issues.

Am I to understand its concrete evidence with you that this guy Jesus died on a Cross and we are yet to confirm any further evidence?

What would you consider to be a accurate definition of a miracle?

Which accounts of the NT do you consider historically accurate? Also we would have to admit the same paradigm of all parallel thinking thus concrete evidence for secular history, would you agree? For example so we could understand what we are talking in relation to evidence what would you say about this book?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthias

As to the above quote of yours. I don’t agree its a matter of lying. Perhaps all have some degree of truth but in fairness at this point we would have to admit the same for Christianity? Also as to strict non believers of the supernatural as opposed to believers, comes back to the above definition of miracle? Would you say its fair to admit both as the possible truth for the moment. Seems to me both have a good case and its rather meaningless to insist one is delusional the other misinformed etc. I mean we would be calling what percentage of the world delusional and the other simply un blessed misinformed not elected or whatever wording is appropriate to what avail to create disharmony.

Just saying its seems on this thread the idea Jesus existed and died on a Cross is established or no?

Peace

 

[GaryTaylor]

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/resurrection-evidence.htm

I was thinking about him not specifically the article above, but for example I think again it gets back to what I’m saying above in relation to concrete evidence as above supports his position with other verse such as John.

 

[PRmerger]

Suppose we found out through independent inquiries into Bradski’s brother that he was mentally unstable and an alcoholic who hallucinated frequently. We would, then, have reasons to doubt the ghost story.

Suppose, on the other hand, we found that Bradski’s brother was, like Bradski, a convinced atheist who never told an untruth in his life, didn’t believe at all in the supernatural and held multiple PhDs in applied mathematics, philosophy and physics. Suppose further that he left a detailed account of his ghostly visitor which matched perfectly with a number of otherwise inexplicable perturbations in the set-up of the house, and, additionally, described a prolonged low-pitched moaning sound that was corroborated by four or five neighbors who could provide no other explanation for it. Also suppose that Bradski’s brother was found shaking, heart palpitating and white as a sheet after the neighbors entered the house to find out about the sounds.

Wouldn’t we ask, “Why would Bradski’s brother lie?” AND really mean it? Suppose that everyone who talked to him in the days or weeks following the event were absolutely convinced of the “Gospel” truth that he must have seen a ghost because they knew him personally, held his story to be authentic and could not imagine any other explanation for what he was absolutely convinced he saw.

I would also suppose that if Bradski’s brother was rigorously interrogated, tortured and killed to make him recant, he might, indeed, do so, but if he held fast to his story THAT would be additional evidence that he was telling the truth, since his character was unimpeachable and he went to his grave insisting that his account was true.

It is revealing that you would frame the question as, “Why would Bradski lie?” It seems an attempt to make the Gospel testimonies out to be hearsay as if we are necessarily getting the accounts second-hand from Bradski rather than directly from Bradski’s brother.

No, we have first hand accounts in Mark, Matthew, John and Paul and compiled accounts from Luke. This is more like having direct access to Bradski’s brother than through Bradski.

At least, let’s accurately depict what we are dealing with rather than what you want us to think we are dealing with.

Yeah. This. ^^

 

[PRmerger]

Religions aren’t presented as either in comparative religion. They are all treated equally.

As they should be in a comparative religion course.

No, it’s not. I said that miracles might occur. It is literally impossible to say that they don’t.

Then there should always be this quiet little voice in the back of your head that’s bothersome to you as an atheist…

What I went on to say that no miracle has been found that is in any way convincing.

There’s billions of folks who’ve found at least 1 miracle to be convincing.