# The Resurrection of Jesus and the Martyr Argument

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-resurrection-of-jesus-and-the-martyr-argument/13103>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Created:** [January 29, 2021, 7:22pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-resurrection-of-jesus-and-the-martyr-argument/13103 "2021-01-29T19:22:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![Tim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/tim/32/9381_2.png) [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 7:43am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-resurrection-of-jesus-and-the-martyr-argument/13103/92 "2021-03-21T07:43:26Z")

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I have come to the conclusion that Andrew is incapable of treating _any_ criticism, except with the most high-handed dismissal. So, although this comment is _ostensibly_ a reply to his comment, it is more aimed at the wider audience of participants in this thread.

> [@Vincent Torley’s response to Andrew Loke on the Resurrection](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/vincent-torley-s-response-to-andrew-loke-on-the-resurrection/13425/3):
>
> I had read it a few days ago, and thought that it is badly written.

🤣 Andrew ‘the pot’ Loke calls Eric ‘the Kettle’ Bess black.

This is particularly risible given that Andre replied to Eric’s first criticism with:

> Being repetitive does not affect the quality of the arguments, however, and may be helpful to remind the reader the points which they may have missed.

_Overuse_ of repetition is however a sign of _bad writing_.

I will note that Andrew is _yet again_ playing the “too busy” card. I would note however that Andrew was not too busy to spend six hours in babbling ramble on a minor Youtube apologist’s channel, most of it complaining about an even-more-minor Youtube counterapologist.

Much of Andrew’s reply comes under the category of the all-too-familiar _argumentum ad_ read-my-book/watch-my-video. This become even more absurd, given that the level of detailed engagement Andrew seems to expect would seem to necessitate a whole article to respond to any single point, and a whole book to review Andrew’s own book to his satisfaction.

> After misrepresenting my book multiple times, Bess concludes that my ‘overconfidence is evident’ because I assigned a minimum 99.4% probability to the resurrection’s historicity (Loke, 186, 201) and considers it a “historical certainty” (Loke, 201, 203f.) that should redefine history (Loke, 205). But why think that it is overconfident given that the six alternative hypothesis are evidently and demonstrably absurd such that assigning a 0.1% probability to each is already overly generous (see p. 186)?

I would like to address the _hubris_ of this claim, whose perfect embodiment of the label would appear to approach a Platonic ideal. It also implicates what I was discussing on [this thread](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/what-is-a-reasonable-assumption-and-what-are-the-limitations-of-the-concept/13401/14).

If each alternative hypothesis has only a 0.1% chance of being true, it has a 99.9% chance of being false. Each of Andrew’s arguments against a hypothesis involve a number of assumptions, each of which would need to be true for his argument to be valid and the hypothesis false. I cannot be bothered to spend the time to count how many assumptions are involved in each argument, so will assume five (if somebody can be bothered I’m happy to redo this maths). This means (assuming for the sake of simplicity that the probability of each assumption being correct is independent), that each assumption would have to have a probability of 99.98%, or a one in five thousand probability of being wrong. I have to wonder how many of what we view as _uncontested facts_ about history have a lower chance of being overturned.

Given this, the paucity of hard evidence supporting his speculations (well below the level of evidence supporting many of the “uncontested facts” I mention above), and the presence of contrary views (no matter how quick Andrew may be to dismiss them) I would suggest that it is Andrew’s own confidence that is “demonstrably absurd”.

The benefit of this line of thinking is that it avoids “getting into the weeds” of having to engage Andrew’s demands that address _each and every one_ of his myriad speculations, no matter how absurd _we_ may find them, in sufficient detail to satisfy him.

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**Author:** ![AlanFox](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/alanfox/32/3495_2.png) [@AlanFox](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AlanFox)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 10:55am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-resurrection-of-jesus-and-the-martyr-argument/13103/93 "2021-03-21T10:55:42Z")

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> [@Tim](#):
>
> I have come to the conclusion that Andrew is incapable of treating _any_ criticism, except with the most high-handed dismissal.

I’ve been following along (my social life is still limited with Covid) and… well, the verbosity generated by isolated line in a text having no other connection to history or even reality is bizarre in the extreme. I guess others are similarly restricted in their social activity currently.

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**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 12:25pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-resurrection-of-jesus-and-the-martyr-argument/13103/94 "2021-03-21T12:25:34Z")

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> [@Vincent Torley’s response to Andrew Loke on the Resurrection](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/vincent-torley-s-response-to-andrew-loke-on-the-resurrection/13425/3):
>
> Hi Vincent, thank you for this message, and for alerting me to Eric Bess’ review. I had read it a few days ago, and thought that it is badly written. While the abundance of details in his review may impress some people, on closer reading they are filled with misrepresentations and fallacies.

OK, anyone here interested in a group purchase on irony meters, since all of ours just blew up?

> [@AlanFox](#):
>
> I’ve been following along (my social life is still limited with Covid) and… well, the verbosity generated by isolated line in a text having no other connection to history or even reality is bizarre in the extreme.

Yes. This is the game the apolgists like to play. If I may make an analogy to my own profession: In addition to being a psychiatrist I am also a psychoanalyst. As such I am well aware of the consensus that has arisen in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and related fields that the various psychoanalytic models do not provide an account of the functioning of our mind and brain that is scientifically sound (a consensus, I will add, that I accept.)

Now, if someone wished to defend psychoanalysis, how would one do so? Would he insist that the neuroscientist intimately familiarize himself with the enormous and highly abstruse psychoanalytic literature that has accumulated over the past century before the analyst will deem neuroscientist sufficiently informed to have an opinion on the subject worth taking seriously? I think the neuroscientist would be quite justified in calling the psychoanalyst out on this blatant ploy to avoid addressing the issue directly.

The situation is similar here. I have no problem with those who have decided to accept Christianity is true engaging in abstruse internal debates regarding the minutiae of the texts they hold sacred. But if they want to engage in the outside world, they need to do it on the terms of that world. And here, the problem is quite simple: There is no epistemic system which can determine that something which violates the laws of physical science has occurred, particularly not in the distant past, other than science itself. History, textual criticism and all the rest are subservient to science. That’s just the way it is.

If we were _completely 100% satisfied_ there were 500 people who sincerely believed that yesterday they saw a unicorn, we still would not consider that sufficient to decide that unicorns actually exist. The empirical evidence against the existence of unicorns is just too strong. Same with resurrections.

Loke and his fellow apologists can spend as many millions of words they want engaging in special pleading. It won’t make special pleading any less a fallacy.

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**Author:** ![dga471](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dga471/32/5233_2.png) [@dga471](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dga471)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 12:20am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-resurrection-of-jesus-and-the-martyr-argument/13103/95 "2021-03-23T00:20:57Z")

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Closed on March 23, 2021, 12:20am UTC



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