Skeptic Michael Shermer: Skepticism shaken to its core

[PRmerger]

Then someone else would have made the discovery.

Great faith, this ^^

But you are correct. Someone who DID NOT follow your paradigm which is: I will only follow the answers if they fall within my arbitrary criteria…would have made this discovery.

A scientist who actually has no biases or preconceived rejections is the only type of inquirer who should claim the name of Scientist.

Been there, done it, had a t-shirt to prove it.

Apparently it was a t-shirt with lots of misinformation.

Kind of like this, perhaps?

http://www.founditemclothing.com/it...ploads/2013/08/t-shirt-fail-cage-travolta.jpg

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Here is the third of three posts about the die for a lie argument.

Part 6

The word Christ as listed in the text that says “who was called Christ” comes from the Greek word khristos meaning “the annointed” In Levitius 4:3 the high priest is referred to as mashiyach. In the Septuigant (the Greek translation) he is called khristos. That’s done 4 times in Leviticus and once in Numbers. It makes sense that the James being spoken of was the brother of Jesus, son of Damneus, since he was the high priest – the anointed one. Also if Josephus was talking about Jesus of Nazareth it doesn’t make sense that the people would protest since he was from the heretical sect of Christians that was also politically troubling. Ananus killing the brother of a rival seems much more likely. Also the stories of James’ martyrdom differs greatly from that of Josephus’ story.

Andrew - He was said to be crucified in Greece based on the 3rd century apocraphyl work called The Acts of Andrew. He wasn’t martyred for his message but because he converted the local procouncil’s fiancee and after she wanted to end the relationship with the procouncil (who had him arrested and executed).

Matthew - Clement of Alexandria said that Matthew died an old man about 90 C.E. Those who say he was martyred say he was killed in Ethiopia, or Macedonia, or Parthia, or on his way to India. They say he was killed by being stabbed, or beheaded, or stoned, or crucified then set on fire. There is no conclusive evidence.

Bartholomew/Nathanael - Depending on the story he was beaten then crucified, or beheaded, or flayed by a whip, or flayed by a knife.

Part 7

Peter - Tradition says he was crucified upside down in Rome, but there was no evidence he ever went to Rome. Also it reportedly took place during Nero’s persecution of Christians, which had nothing to do with theology but an attempt to scapegoat Christians for the Roman fire he caused. If he did die then, it had nothing to do with whether Jesus was raised from the dead.

In sum, the three points show that the argument fails and can not be used to prove that Jesus rose from the dead.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Ok. For the sake of this discussion you’re going to have to concede a few points:

God exists.
Jesus of Nazareth existed.
Jesus had a body of believers who started a Church which worshipped him.

Are you good with this? Then we can dialogue.

The whole point is to ask what makes Christian divine communication different from that of others like Baha’i.

Since you can’t, you’re asking us to be non-skeptical about a point of contention in a thread about skepticism.

Who was the silly-billy that said you couldn’t dodge a question?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Apparently it was a t-shirt with lots of misinformation.

Kind of like this, perhaps?

http://www.founditemclothing.com/it...ploads/2013/08/t-shirt-fail-cage-travolta.jpg

Apparently you never saw Face/Off. The shirt is intentionally humorous.

 

[PRmerger]

And one more observation. Debunking the nonsensical propositions does not lead anywhere. James Randi and his foundation has exposed many con-artists, but the hoaxers usually just change their names, and continue to exploit the believers. Peter Popov and other faith healers, Uri Geller and his ilk are fine and dandy, since the believers do not use their brain, they just blindly follow whatever “authority” they happen to trust.

Yes. You are absolutely correct.

Blind faith in Catholicism is a heresy.

However, just as an exercise, can you think of any situations in which it would be the absolute right thing to do to just blindly follow whatever “authority” happens to appear?

I can.

Imagine that you are in a theater and an explosion occurs near the only visible exit to the outdoors.

An authority figure appears (here, read “usher”) who says, “Go out this way!” and directs you to what appears to be another exit.

I and my family would blindly follow this guy.

It seems to be the smart thing to do, eh?

 

[PRmerger]

So, Tony. If this was indeed a miracle, then you have no free will to decide if it’s true or not.

What a peculiar thing to say.

Of course we can decide if it’s true or not.

We can ignore it, too.

We can believe, not believe, be an agnostic regarding Mary’s appearances at Zeitoun and be a good Catholic.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

sigh

I had great hopes for you and me to dialogue.

Alas.

Buh-bye.

I wasn’t as optimistic. You can’t honestly be mad if someone is a bit harsh in their interactions with you considering what harshness we receive from you at the get go. I’m certainly not the only one who feels this way.

Also I’m still waiting for you to explain from that other thread how God calling slaves property doesn’t mean he thinks they’re property. You seem deathly allergic to a little bit of exegesis.

Alas.

 

[Bradski]

Of course we can decide if it’s true or not.

We can ignore it, too.

We can believe, not believe, be an agnostic regarding Mary’s appearances at Zeitoun and be a good Catholic.

Let’s look at the strength of the purported evidence for the two miracles.

One one hand we have second hand reports of a one off event which a number of people claimed to have seen nearly a century ago. Zero hard evidence at all.

On the other hand we have millions of people watching numerous appearances of the mother of Jesus over a period of three years (3 years!) for hours at a time. Reportedly filmed and without a shadow of doubt, photographed thousands of times. There are no doubt people still alive today who actually saw it that we could talk to.

You are quite willing to bring up Fatima as a bone fide miracle. But with comparable evidence off the scale when it comes to Zeitoun…nothing.

It seems that the more evidence there is, the less people want to associate themselves with it. So how’s your skepticism regarding these two events? Not sceptical at all re Fatima. And I say it’s because you can use Fatima as an example of a miracle, not because of the strength of evidence, but because of the lack of it. Nobody can prove you wrong.

But with Zeitoun? All you can say is that you’d accept it if the church said it was OK. You are ‘not obliged’ to believe it. You can treat yourself to some skepticism in this regard. You can nominate as an agnostic in this case.

So somebody didn’t check a radio because it started working. Big deal. If you think it’s amazing no-one checked to see if someone’s grandad had sent a message via a transistor radio, what could possibly describe your shock if you discovered that no-one from the Vatican could be bothered investigating the mother of Jesus making regular appearances over a three year period.

I’ll tell you why neither were investigated. Some people are simply not that gullible to waste their time.

 

[icamhif]

Three problems with the wouldn’t die for a lie argument

1. It ignores the tremendous and demonstrated power of cognitive (or psychological) dissonance management among religious believers.

…

Point 1: After 50 years of study we know that when religious believers experience significant disappointment (such as a failed prophecy) religious believers try to neutralize the cognitive dissonance caused by such a disappoint and reestablish cognitive consonance without sacrificing their religious beliefs. The best writing on this is an article called “When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview” by Lorne L. Dawson.

Part 3

One of the common modes to deal with religious disappointment is to deny failure. Jesus wasn’t defeated by death, he was victorious over it. The description of how Jesus defeated death was developed over time. Early on in the scripture Jesus is depicted after death as a spirit, but later scripture gives him a physical body. People who use these kinds of dissonance management tools tend to feel more united with one another. Persecution can also increase their beliefs.

I must admit, the cognitive dissonance argument sounds reasonable. Can anyone here point me to a Catholic (or any Christian) counter-argument?

 

[tonyrey]

The regeneration of a lost limb is an excellent example of a coercive miracle.

You have evaded the point. Would the regeneration of a lost limb compel you to believe a miracle has occurred? If not why not?

 

[tonyrey]

A classic example of evading an argument by denigrating one’s opponent:

Yet another evasion. Euphemisms have no place in a rational argument.

When confronted with such power you would be a trembling wreck

.

Your prediction is incorrect. (Oops! I am guilty of another “ad hominem” attack on po’ wittle tony… woe is me!)

Unsubstantiated assertion + irrelevant remark.

The regeneration of a lost limb is an excellent example of a coercive miracle because not only is it scientifically inexplicable it has never happened to a human being.

Coercive in what respect? Is actual knowledge coercive? When I learned that the area of a circle is r2pi, it certainly “deprived” me of the erroneous “belief” that the area of the circle is 2r*pi… that is true.

It would compel you to believe a scientifically inexplicable event has occurred in answer to prayer.

It also demonstrates the absurdity of the claim that the motive is irrelevant - when it is unquestionably compassion.

You said that a miracle should be compassionate (not just display raw power), and having a limb regrown would be a sign of “compassion”, and now you argue against yourself…

Would the regrowth of a limb in answer to prayer be a sign of compassion or not? If not why not?

Walking on water is not only scientifically inexplicable but understandable if the alternative is being drowned - and only ludicrous to some one who fails to understand the motive. It would be ludicrous if it lacked a rational explanation but of course science is impersonal and cannot take humanity or morality into account…

What kind of rational explanation do you have in mind? I know now… there were some prepared steps right under the surface of the water, so Jesus SEEMED to walk on water, when he was simply cheating.

An evasion of the fact that science is impersonal and cannot take humanity or morality into account + a ludicrous hypothesis.

BTW Do you believe science is in principle capable of explaining everything? If no why not?

 

[tonyrey]

I must admit, the cognitive dissonance argument sounds reasonable. Can anyone here point me to a Catholic (or any Christian) counter-argument?

It is an excellent example of the genetic fallacy.

 

[tonyrey]

Let’s look at the strength of the purported evidence for the two miracles.

One one hand we have second hand reports of a one off event which a number of people claimed to have seen nearly a century ago. Zero hard evidence at all.

On the other hand we have millions of people watching numerous appearances of the mother of Jesus over a period of three years (3 years!) for hours at a time. Reportedly filmed and without a shadow of doubt, photographed thousands of times. There are no doubt people still alive today who actually saw it that we could talk to.

You are quite willing to bring up Fatima as a bone fide miracle. But with comparable evidence off the scale when it comes to Zeitoun…nothing.

It seems that the more evidence there is, the less people want to associate themselves with it. So how’s your skepticism regarding these two events? Not sceptical at all re Fatima. And I say it’s because you can use Fatima as an example of a miracle, not because of the strength of evidence, but because of the lack of it. Nobody can prove you wrong.

But with Zeitoun? All you can say is that you’d accept it if the church said it was OK. You are ‘not obliged’ to believe it. You can treat yourself to some skepticism in this regard. You can nominate as an agnostic in this case.

So somebody didn’t check a radio because it started working. Big deal. If you think it’s amazing no-one checked to see if someone’s grandad had sent a message via a transistor radio, what could possibly describe your shock if you discovered that no-one from the Vatican could be bothered investigating the mother of Jesus making regular appearances over a three year period.

I’ll tell you why neither were investigated. Some people are simply not that gullible to waste their time.

Why not consider the effect of a regenerated limb?

 

[tonyrey]

Bradski

One event is supposed to deprive a person of the power to choose anything!

 

[tonyrey]

Logically speaking it really doesn’t help anyone’s case because you first have to assume that the criteria for a reasonable case for or against God’s existence is based on whether or not God had a hand in some particular physical event in space-time.

And yet you don’t have the courtesy to realize that the case for God’s existence is not dependent on whether events are naturally controlled or supernaturally controlled.

Based on what? Science is limited to measuring physical events. It cannot explain why physical things exist rather than not exist. Why do physical laws exist. There is no physical explanation for that. It’s a Just-so-story.

:clapping: Science is supposed to explain not only itself but the scientist as well!..:whacky:

 

[Bradski]

You have evaded the point. Would the regeneration of a lost limb compel you to believe a miracle has occurred?

In a human? Yes it obviously would. Because it is physically, medically and biologically impossible. That is why it is used as an example of an incontrovertible miracle. You can’t fake it.

As opposed to all the miracles where there are no hard evidence or where it is obviously faked.

Cards on the table, Tony. Do you believe in Fatima or Zeitun? We can work from there.

 

[icamhif]

It is an excellent example of the genetic fallacy.

How so?

 

[tonyrey]

Would the regeneration of a lost limb compel you to believe a miracle has occurred?

If you substitute “coercive” for “incontrovertible”, Brad, you will understand what I’ve been trying to explain. It wouldn’t compel you to believe in God but at least you would have to admit there is an unknown source of energy that responds to prayer.

Cards on the table, Tony. Do you believe in Fatima or Zeitun? We can work from there.

Thousands of people witnessed an extraordinary event at Fatima which has no scientific explanation. There is no reason to believe it was not supernatural unless one is a dogmatic materialist and rules out miracles on principle. Thank God I don’t believe in the blind Goddess - Chance - who is supposed to explain why we and everything else exists…

 

[tonyrey]

How so?

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to **the discomfort felt **at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation.

learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm

The argument is based on a person’s mental state rather the relevant facts:

Genetic fallacy: The alleged mistake of arguing that something is to be rejected because of its suspicious origins.

oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199541430.013.1360

 

[icamhif]

learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm

The argument is based on a person’s mental state rather the relevant facts:

oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199541430.013.1360

Okay, but how do we know that the Apostles did not make up the Resurrection out of cognitive dissonance from the idea that they expected their Messiah to rule, but ended up dying? The quotes from Jesus saying that He will die and resurrect could have been made up.