They believed in demonic possession, talking snakes and donkeys, witchcraft, and astrology.
They still are today, and we’ve got news papers, cameras, television, and the internet. I don’t believe there has been any significant psychological evolution in the human species since the bronze age.
@Rumraket and @John_Harshman (and everyone else), I encourage us to consider what the point of this conversation precisely is for each of us. We understand that skeptics are not convinced. We even accept that you find our assessment ridiculous. You do not have to agree with us. In fact, @dga471 goes out of his way to acknowledge the evidence is not definitive (and I agree, and have said as much).
No one is claiming to have boxed you into belief.
How can all of us understand those with whom we disagree? That should be our goal here, understanding, not agreement.
I don’t need to know that.
Best not to base decisions based only on statements by people who might be too gullible to be relied upon.
How do you know they might be too gullible to be relied on - and how do you know the people you do rely on are not similarly gullible?
You are right on the point. As I meant to convey in my article, you have the free choice between an implausible, contrived naturalistic hypothesis, or a supernatural one, which some people might regard as even more implausible. As Josh has been saying, the point of this exercise isn’t to force you to choose the latter. God gives people free will to disbelieve and reject Him. That’s the limit of intellectual debate.
I do feel, however, that I’ve written and responded enough to many of the possible weaknesses of my arguments. They might not be convincing to everyone, but I think I’ve shown that my overall framework of beliefs are sufficiently well-thought through that someone with my background can realistically believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.
I don’t believe there has been any significant psychological evolution in humanity since the bronze age either. What really is your point? You are incredulous about the supernatural, therefore, all people who believe in the supernatural are gullible? Fallacious argument.
I’m baffled as to why you think that being tied to the cross rather than nailed would somehow help the situation. The flogging alone was enough to insure severe blood loss and the quick onset of serious dehydration and infections. The body weight being suspended from the arms was meant to produce exhaustion and slow asphyxiation. That doesn’t require nails.
Especially in mass crucifixions (such as those following slave revolts), the Romans “economized” and didn’t bother with nails. Rope was cheap and just as effective for attaching the condemned to a cross.
Your “staged crucifixion” scenario has surprised me. And as to Islamic commentators, there are at least three major views among them as to Jesus’ crucifixion. However, considering that the Quran was written many centuries after the event and reflected Mohammed’s limited information about Isa/Jesus and not scholarly investigation, I’m not sure why you are rejecting the conclusions of both secular and Christian historians and bringing up the Islamic scholars instead.
In any case, Dr. Swamidass is trying to bring this thread back into a tighter focus so I will conclude my comments accordingly.
We must all make our own decision as to what and whom we trust. And sometimes we trust people where we have good reason to doubt that they are trustworthy. These are decisions that we make for ourselves. Nobody else can make these decisions for us.
I entered this discussion to disagree with your dismissal of someone else’s comment about gullibility. I do not challenge your right to make your own decision on these questions.
In my opinion, the road to understanding leads through argument.
Maybe, but let’s have the argument that leads to understanding. Not all arguments lead this way. Some arguments are just nihilistic.
You are wrong. One muslim scholar I have heard on this actually tries to skirt around the Koran’s claim that Jesus didn’t really die because as a scholar, he knew it didn’t add up. He said the Koran didn’t obligate Muslims to believe this.
I do agree that if God doesn’t exist, then this claim is ridiculous. But if God exists, I think it’s the best explanation of what we know.
Actually, I don’t want to be too hasty. I think it was Shabir Ally, and I remember he didn’t take the traditional muslim position, but I don’t remember what he DID say.
Looking through Craig’s debate with him now. This is certainly relevant:
“Perhaps the single most egregious error found historically in the Qur’an is its claim that Jesus was not, in fact, crucified (sura 4:157) [7]. Not only is there not a single shred of evidence for this remarkable hypothesis but the evidence supporting Jesus’ crucifixion is, as Johnson says, overwhelming. No historian believes that Jesus was not crucified. The crucifixion of Jesus is recognized even by the most radical critics as – to quote Robert Funk – “one indisputable fact.” [8] Indeed Paula Fredrickson, a skeptical critic, declares flatly, “the crucifixion is the strongest single fact we have about Jesus.” [9]”
If God exists (and is the Christian God), then sure. But what it it’s the Muslim God? In that case, the probability of Christ’s resurrection is zero. Anyway, I’ve already said that the prior probability of God (your version) is crucial to the posterior probability of the resurrection.
You can regard any “naturalistic” hypothesis for a claimed miracle as “contrived” or “implausible” if all you have are the accounts of the people who are convinced it is true.
But the same is of course the case for the supernaturalist account itself. We are to believe that a a divine being took the fleshy form of a middle-eastern human carpenter, foresaw and in essence orchestrated it’s own flogging, crucifixion, torture, death, and burial, only to later supernaturally resurrect it’s fleshy form, and ascend into an alternative spirit dimension. Just so we can explain the fact that there is a collection of old mythical texts dating to approximately bronze-age palestine that asserts the claim that a group of people saw him die, his tomb empty, and later alive again.
As Josh has been saying, the point of this exercise isn’t to force you to choose the latter.
I understand. I’m not here to force you to disbelieve either.
God gives people free will to disbelieve and reject Him.
God performing miracles before my own eyes would still leave me with my free will intact to disbelieve and reject him, would it not? You seem to be saying, essentially, that the people before whom God performed his purported miracles were robbed of their free will to deny and reject him?
Do you know anyone who believes that the two halves came back together again after they were separated?
Would you kindly answer the question posed in my previous post?
Thank you.
The historical evidence supporting Muhammed’s claims are quite paltry. I try to be fair, and to be fair, the Koran’s claims are perhaps a little more reliable than the claims of Genesis 1-11, or the book of Daniel, Job, or Jonah. In other words, there just isn’t much reason to believe the events it is describing happened on much of a literal level at all.
But muslims believe it. That’s my point. Evidence is more convincing from the inside, and you should try to remember that.
No. How did you get this from what I said? There were many who saw Jesus’ miracles with their own eyes and refused to follow Him, as the Bible testifies. As Jesus himself said, lack of evidence isn’t the problem. “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 10:31, ESV)
What do Muslims believe John? Islam, like Christianity, is not a monolithic religion where they all agree.