What is the difference between believing...?

[Peter_Plato]

If you think it’s inappropriate of me to frame my analogies in terms of the legal system, then perhaps it’s best if you don’t refer me to websites operated by ex cops who examine biblical evidence like cold case criminal files.

Credit where credit is due, though. It took you longer to abandon discussion of the issues and instead focus on me and your faulty perception of my views and motives than I thought it would. Since that’s a pattern that I’m not willing to keep repeating, however, please don’t be offended if I don’t respond to your posts in the future.

Have a good one.

I don’t think my perception of your views has been faulty. Let me explain…

The reason I brought up Cold Case Christianity in the first place was to demonstrate that in the view of an expert on evidence, J. Warner Wallace, the evidence for Christianity remains compelling even today and leads to the conclusion that the basic claims about Christ are reasonably considered to be true.

My point is that an unbiased judge or jury would be persuaded, given all the evidence.

Your position is more antagonistic and seeks, not a NEUTRAL weighing of the evidence, but, rather, using every means at your disposal, no matter how far-fetched, to cast doubt. You seek, not a preponderance of evidence that leads to a reasonable conclusion, but rather evidence that is beyond any possible doubt. What you demand is that everyone take the view of the prosecuting attorney rather than the unbiased judge or jury.

You start from the position of guilty until absolutely proven innocent rather than the more reasonable neutral one of what is the most rational conclusion to be drawn.

I would never read your silence as offensive.

 

[Peter_Plato]

How are we to know that outside of pure faith?

I am not sure what “pure faith” is.

I don’t think anyone believes anything without good reasons, albeit, often VERY personal ones, that are not always amenable to explication in a mode that will be convincing to others.

When you say “to know” I suspect what you are getting at is, “Can we depict what we believe to be true, and the reasons for believing it, in a way that others will be likewise convinced?”

I am not sure that is a reasonable demand to make on oneself.

The challenge to enunciate any of our beliefs, even non-religious ones always faces us. There are many things that I know to be true that would be impossible to convince someone else about and many of these I would not even try because I, likewise know this fact, i.e., that some realities and truths defy objectification, also to be true. Of course, most of those would be personal and inherently subjective realities (internal “facts” if you wish) that are not susceptible to objective presentation without a corresponding loss of meaning and integrity.

Since many religious truths are personal ones, the danger is in convincing oneself that only those that can be “objectified” are worthy of assent. The reason that is a dangerous presupposition is because it assumes only quantifiable “facts” are valuable and important. Effectively, that would mean anything uniquely personal is valueless and unimportant.

For me, it is more important that I live and think to a standard of personal integrity than jettisoning much of what is meaningful and valuable for the sake of demonstration or objectification. “If it can’t be objectively demonstrated it can’t be true,” is a ridiculous notion that presumes personhood is meaningless and illusory.

I don’t deny some beliefs can and should be demonstrated publicly, I merely deny that all beliefs or “internal facts” can or should be. There are “internal” means by which beliefs and one’s own internal integrity can be weighed and assessed which need not and, indeed, should not be subjected to objective methods for quantification or verification.

The important thing, as far as maintaining personal integrity is concerned, is to recognize the difference. Eliminative materialists and many atheists seem to have lost the capacity to recognize the difference and presume that “knowledge” is simply reduced to what can be objectified and demonstrated - a very shallow view of existence, truth and reality.

It is like holding that any written material should be taken at face value. That an author would not “write into” the text any more than what appears literally on the page, so “reading into” text or reading “between the lines” is forbidden, no matter how cogent or meaningful such a rendering is. Even when the literal meaning pales, falters or cannot explain the rest of the text.

If we begin with the same presupposition - that all truth is literal and “objectively” present - we have effectively conceded that to “know” something is essentially identical to demonstrating it and the content of knowledge becomes reduced to and identical with the demonstrable object (the “text”) itself.

So your question (How are we to know that outside of pure faith?) would seem to be asking - if by to “know” you mean “demonstrate” - is: "How are we to demonstrate THAT to anyone who thinks “TRUTH,” by definition, means only that which is amenable to objective demonstration?

Perhaps by convincing them that no one truly lives by that belief, otherwise they would simply toss everything they “know” to be true about themselves. As Socrates would observe, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” A move to accept only demonstrable facts would effectively make everything about every “self” unexaminable and, hence, according to Socrates, at least, EVERY life not worth living.

 

[NovusAugustus]

Since the Patristic writers were committed Christians who had access to the gospels, I don’t find it remarkable that they affirm the gospel stories. If you’re interested, here’s an article by Earl Doherty detailing some of the surprising things that some of the earliest Christian apologists write – and don’t write – about Christianity.

And shouldn’t the fact that they do affirm the Gospels be something that grants credence the the Gospels? I am far more likely to trust the Gospels based on the fact that people who lived just a few decades after their completion trusted them and considered them a valid source and inspiration for their work. I would be less likely to trust someone who unearthed an ancient American work and decided to build a religion on it hundreds of years later than someone who did so at a time almost contemporary to its events.

cornbread_r2:

Who would take the time, energy and expense to investigate events that were alleged to have occurred in the distant past just to debunk a minor Palestinian religious sect?

By the time the gospels were in wide circulation, possibly not until the first quarter of the 2nd century, would it even have been possible to investigate and debunk events that were alleged to have happened nearly a hundred years previously?

Why would we think that any such disconfirming evidence would not be destroyed (or allowed to perish) by Christian zealots?

So the hypothetical situation you propose goes something like this:

I am a citizen of the Roman empire in the East and I attend a meeting where readings are recited from a book that discusses the life of a man called Jesus Christ in the province of Palestine. I have a basic knowledge of the religion of the Israelites who worship one God. I find it hard to believe these accounts, so I pack up and head to Palestine where I proceed to investigate. What do I do exactly? Perhaps I ask around the sites where Jesus supposedly lived and worked, and try to gather testimony about him from the Pharisees, Roman authorities, and commoners. I check with the government in Jerusalem to see if there is any record of Jesus’s crucifixion and perhaps try to find his purported tomb, which, if the Gospel is to be believed, is empty and may have been bought and used by now.

From this investigation, I ask, what has been gleaned that is not already gleaned from the Gospel accounts? The Gospels are accounts by eyewitnesses or the scribes of eyewitnesses or even the scribes of the followers of eyewitnesses. They have attempted to assemble an account of Jesus’s life from their memory’s and what they heard from the other Christians. What do I gain, exactly, by simply blindly discounting their accounts and scouring the Palestinian countryside in an attempt to “disprove” what they are claiming? What exactly, am I, the 2nd century skeptic, trying to achieve that isn’t achieved by the accounts set down by the Christians?

Furthermore, what is my basis for flatly assuming that the Christians would lie? Not only would doing so be against their moral code, but it seems to me that they would have no motive. I have heard that many of the Christians have been killed or jailed for believing the Gospel accounts. Why would anyone make up a fake story just to be persecuted for it?

Finally, what “evidence” would convince you? Signs, dated to the time of Christ, that, like modern national parks say: “Here Jesus cured a sick man,” or “This is the hole where Jesus was buried.” We already have the most likely to have been preserved historical evidence: records indicating the execution of John the Baptist and Jesus at around the time claimed by the Gospels and the early Christians. What other evidence is needed and what evidence would have been destroyed?

 

[cornbread_r2]

And shouldn’t the fact that they do affirm the Gospels be something that grants credence the the Gospels?

No more so than having a copy of A Canticle for Lebowitz and repeating that story makes A Canticle for Lebowitz a true story.

I am far more likely to trust the Gospels based on the fact that people who lived just a few decades after their completion trusted them and considered them a valid source and inspiration for their work. I would be less likely to trust someone who unearthed an ancient American work and decided to build a religion on it hundreds of years later than someone who did so at a time almost contemporary to its events.

If that’s your criteria for belief, then why aren’t you a Mormon? Not only did people believe the story of the Book of Mormon almost immediately upon its release, but it can even be argued that Mormonism spread faster than did Christianity initially.

So the hypothetical situation you propose goes something like this:

I am a citizen of the Roman empire in the East and I attend a meeting where readings are recited from a book that discusses the life of a man called Jesus Christ in the province of Palestine. I have a basic knowledge of the religion of the Israelites who worship one God. I find it hard to believe these accounts, so I pack up and head to Palestine where I proceed to investigate. What do I do exactly? Perhaps I ask around the sites where Jesus supposedly lived and worked, and try to gather testimony about him from the Pharisees, Roman authorities, and commoners. I check with the government in Jerusalem to see if there is any record of Jesus’s crucifixion and perhaps try to find his purported tomb, which, if the Gospel is to be believed, is empty and may have been bought and used by now.

Not exactly. I hold that your Roman citizen wouldn’t have bothered to go to Palestine to either confirm or debunk the story of Christianity because I think he wouldn’t have cared all that much. However, we seem to be in agreement that he wouldn’t have found much by way of evidence either way if he went to Palestine after 70 AD or so.

From this investigation, I ask, what has been gleaned that is not already gleaned from the Gospel accounts? The Gospels are accounts by eyewitnesses or the scribes of eyewitnesses or even the scribes of the followers of eyewitnesses. They have attempted to assemble an account of Jesus’s life from their memory’s and what they heard from the other Christians. What do I gain, exactly, by simply blindly discounting their accounts and scouring the Palestinian countryside in an attempt to “disprove” what they are claiming? What exactly, am I, the 2nd century skeptic, trying to achieve that isn’t achieved by the accounts set down by the Christians?

Church tradition agrees with your characterization of the Gospel authors, but there’s no way around the fact that we don’t know who they were. I’ve already addressed why their identities are important.

Furthermore, what is my basis for flatly assuming that the Christians would lie? Not only would doing so be against their moral code, but it seems to me that they would have no motive.

There are Christians today who do not believe that the stories of the Great Flood or Jonah are factual. Do they think they’re"lies"? Of course not; they see them as allegories. Why couldn’t the earliest Christians have believed the same about much of the Gospel stories?

I have heard that many of the Christians have been killed or jailed for believing the Gospel accounts. Why would anyone make up a fake story just to be persecuted for it?

Were those Christians persecuted for believing the Gospel stories or for refusing to cooperate with the Roman State and its official religion?

Finally, what “evidence” would convince you? Signs, dated to the time of Christ, that, like modern national parks say: “Here Jesus cured a sick man,” or “This is the hole where Jesus was buried.”

Primary sources are always good. Apparently there was no tradition of venerating the holy sites in the Gospels until the 4th century and that seems more than a little odd.

We already have the most likely to have been preserved historical evidence: records indicating the execution of John the Baptist and Jesus at around the time claimed by the Gospels and the early Christians. What other evidence is needed and what evidence would have been destroyed?

If you’re referring to Josephus and/or Tacitus, there are any number of reasons why those sources are problematic.

We know for a fact that there was a variety of Christian beliefs from very early on and we know for a fact that those heretical writings were officially suppressed from at least the time of Constantine. Who knows what else was suppressed along the way?

 

[cornbread_r2]

Back at it, eh Cornbread?

Done your reading yet?

As I indicated previosuly, unless Mr. Hagan has actual quotes from ancient secular sources referencing the deaths of the 12 Apostles (which I take he doesn’t), then I have no intention of reading his book.

You think that the people of 2000 years ago were ignorant savages when it comes to assessing ancient events and an appreciation for the basics of critical analysis. Nothing could be further from the truth. The average human 2000 years ago was probably far stronger and smarter than the average person today.

They had to survive, and no one was handing out government money (much).

Of course I’ve never referred to them as ignorant savages, but I do think think they were more credulous than people are today (though maybe not by much judging from the popularity of ghost hunter and psychic shows). As I understand it, the Jewish authorities in the Gospel stories didn’t deny that Jesus performed miracles. What they questioned was where he got his authority to perform them.

To your point, look at the Gospels themselves, Luke specifically. A rich man, perhaps a Christian convert, named Theophilus, paid or otherwise encouraged Luke of Macedon to travel the ancient world in order to find out the truth about Jesus. Wherever he lived, Theophilus knew there was a lot of nonsense out there about Jesus, and that when talking about religion or the supernatural people will confabulate. So he had Luke, apparently a respected physician who presumably lived in a rational world, to get the real story.

…]

If Luke died with Paul in A.D. 64, that meant that Theophilus sent Luke out on his assignment probably in the 50’s A.D., only 20 years after Jesus’ execution.

…]

To quote another user of these forums: Conjecture upon conjecture upon conjecture.

I really and truly don’t care if you or anyone else has faith in the Christian traditions surrounding the composition of the Gospel stories. What I object to is when that tradition is presented as confirmed history when it isn’t.

 

[Randy_Carson]

How many of the stories of the apostles deaths are based on hearsay themselves?

Since neither you nor I witnessed the deaths of the Apostles, wouldn’t the correct answer be, “All of them”?

How many apostles died for refusing to recant, per se, as opposed to dying for merely refusing to participate in the official Roman state religion or for preaching that there was only one god or for other reasons not directly related to their beliefs concerning Jesus’s life?

Were Jews regularly martyred under Roman occupation? Or were they exempt from certain Roman laws regarding worship of Caesar? Didn’t the Jews teach that there was only one God?

It seems to me that the Romans made a distinction between Jews and Christians even though they both held to monotheism.

Since the majority of early believers were Jews, what made them different under Roman law? Why were Christians killed for refusing to participate in the state religion when Jews were not?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Which historians?

Which historians hold that the Apostles left Jerusalem after the Jewish leaders began persecution of the Christians?

All of them.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Whenever I read about an alleged historical consensus, my first question is: Why do those historians think that? Sometimes it’s just because they’re going along with what has been presented as “the consensus”.

Similarly, when one finds a skeptic who doubts things long settled, it may simply be because he’s going along with what has been presented as “fact” by the lastest batch of atheists such as Hitchens, Dawkins and others.

One important piece of information missing in all of this is how many Christians did recant their beliefs rather than die and what penalties (social, economic, etc.) they might have suffered for recanting. Without that data, we only have part of the story.)

Obviously, some believers did deny their faith in the face of death or torture. This is unfortunate, but the Church does not condemn these people for recanting under these conditions, and the fact that they did does not detract from the value of the witness of the martyrs in the least.

I also agree that the two examples aren’t quite analogous for a couple of reasons. Christian martyrs also believed that they would enjoy an exalted place in Heaven for all of eternity by their deaths – a belief so strong that some martyrs actually volunteered to die.

Well, I think we can stop right here because you have made the case for Christianity very nicely. Christians DO believe that they will enjoy eternity in heaven and that it is an honor to die for that faith. They do so because they believe that Jesus of Nazareth died upon a cross for the sins of the world and that He rose again that we might be raised with Him. Powerful stuff.

Christian martyrs may have also been more afraid of eternal punishment for denying Jesus than they were of a physical death.

Afraid of eternal punishment? Yeah, that’s why they went to their deaths singing, praying and forgiving their tormentors.

Perhaps reading the Martyrdom of Polycarp or the letters of Ignatius would provide you with better understanding of the mindset of those who would rather die than deny their Lord.

newadvent.org/fathers/0102.htm

 

[Randy_Carson]

Again, how many of the stories of those martyrs come down to us solely from Christian sources sometimes many years after the alleged events?

Perhaps none. Does the fact that a source is “Christian” make it less reliable? Christians were interested in their own history whereas the rest of the world took no notice (at least for awhile). So what? How much does anyone outside of Bill Gates really know about the early days of Microsoft when he was still working in his garage? Only later did people begin to notice this tiny little company. So, do we discount histories of Microsoft simply because they were written many years after the alleged events?

But again, why don’t you actually read the eyewitness account of the death of Polycarp as a starting point?

How do we know that those martyrs died strictly because of their religious beliefs and not because they: 1) refused to support the official state religion or, 2) taught that there was only one god and that that god was not the emperor or, 3) aggressively proselytized the slave and peasant classes thereby threatening the entire social order or, 4) any number of reasons that had nothing in particular to do with their belief that Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead?

Since you have raised this question more than once, I gather that you are quite pleased with what you think is a valid argument.

Let me ask this in response: Why would Christians risk death by doing any of the things that you describe above? What did they have to gain by doing so? Death? Exhile? Taxation? Persecution?

When a group of people behave in a certain way, wouldn’t it most logical to listen to what they themselves have to say about their motivations rather than trying to ascribe some that suit your own presuppositions?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Do you not see that these alternative reasons you give are in fact dying for your faith? The question is why would they do those things knowing they would be killed if caught unless they truely believed.

:clapping:

 

[Randy_Carson]

The Jews were officially exempt from emperor worship (source). They also didn’t proselytize.

I don’t deny that belief that Jesus is God is a religious belief. My point is that the Romans apparently didn’t persecute people just for believing in different gods than they did (e.g. the Jews). The Christians were persecuted, among other reasons, because they refused to support the official state religion – which included paying a tax – and not because they believed Jesus was God, worked miracles and rose from the dead.

The Romans had already fought at least one war with the Jews (see the Maccabees), and although they had won, I suspect they did not welcome another fight in Palestine. It was easier for the Romans to grant an exemption than it was to risk further interruption of trade and taxation.

Christians, on the other hand, were fewer in number, and they were being persecuted by the Jews, also. There was not much risk to the Romans for putting a few Christians to death.

Finally, in the spiritual battle, Satan had everything to lose by the spread of Christianity. He did everything he could to stamp out the fledgling Church.

But, of course, you don’t believe that.

 

[Randy_Carson]

IIRC, the Apostles’ deaths aren’t addressed in the bible.

The Bible tells us that James was martyred, and Peter and Paul were arrested on numerous occasions.

Peter probably would have been executed in Jerusalem, but he was rescued by an angel.

Reliable sources tell us that both Peter and Paul were executed in Rome.

 

[Randy_Carson]

All ancient Roman historians were Romans. All ancient Greek historians were Greek. You don’t find Greeks writing about Persia, except when Persia tries to invade Greece.

ALL history is this way. By your criteria, you don’t accept any history at all.

Heck, by your criteria, you don’t accept what you see on the news. Why should you believe what some Greek reporter in Greece says about the Greek currency crisis?

I was told in school by a teacher (an American) that Abe Lincoln (an American) once gave a speech that started, “Four score and seven years ago…” That’s hearsay testimony (my teacher did not hear the speech firsthand) about something that happened 150 years ago, about an American leader, and an American was telling me about it, so I suppose I shouldn’t believe that.

:clapping:

Sometimes you have to wonder whether people really believe the stuff they write or whether they are just trolling on a slow night.

 

[cornbread_r2]

Regarding the use of sole sources:

I don’t hold that accounts of events that come from only one source must be summarily rejected just because they come from only one source. I do think it’s reasonable, however, to take accounts of events that come from only one source with a grain of salt – especially if that source is an invested party.

---

As I’ve already gone fairly far afield of the reason I first began commenting in this thread and seeing how it seems I’m being asked questions that I think I’ve already addressed with one person or another, I’ll be withdrawing at this point.

Have good ones.

 

[NovusAugustus]

Regarding the use of sole sources:

I don’t hold that accounts of events that come from only one source must be summarily rejected just because they come from only one source. I do think it’s reasonable, however, to take accounts of events that come from only one source with a grain of salt – especially if that source is an invested party.

---

As I’ve already gone fairly far afield of the reason I first began commenting in this thread and seeing how it seems I’m being asked questions that I think I’ve already addressed with one person or another, I’ll be withdrawing at this point.

Have good ones.

Sorry I didn’t have time to write up a response yet to your last post. Thanks for discussing and you have a good one too.

 

[wanstronian]

On the other hand, you contend that verification is the only means of arriving at truth, a proposition that cannot be verified by the very method you propose as the ONLY method. So, it is you who AVOID the conclusion that verification cannot be the de facto method for assessing truth.

I merely contend that there is no other reliable and objective method for determining “truth.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

I merely contend that there is no other reliable and objective method for determining “truth.”

The point being that you can’t contend that without going beyond the very method you claim is the ONLY method. The claim is self-refuting. By making the claim you refute the very claim you are making. So it can’t be true.