Really, Vocab? Maybe we should look at the definition of prejudice again.

prejudice |ˈprejədəs|
noun
1 preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience

On the contrary, my view that miracles do not happen is based on over 32 years of first hand experience with reality, combined with a complete lack of evidence for any clearly miraculous events from anywhere else, and a rich tradition of known miracle hoaxes inside and outside of Christianity.

My personal experiences also include numerous specific instances of the failure of Christian healing and prayer despite Jesus’s numerous promises of its efficacy in the Bible, as well as the failure of any god to respond to my repeated open and honest requests to know them if they’re out there (which Christians often tell me that Yahweh will definitely answer).

Like Tim said, I am not claiming that miracles are absolutely impossible, just that they go against what I know about the universe, and I see no sign of them in the world today, so I find no reason to believe in them.

As for my “circular” argument, I fail to see how it is circular. It is built on a firm enough premise, that miracles do not happen. If miracles do not and did not happen, then the miracle of the resurrection did not – could not – happen.

If this is circular, then how do you disprove anything? What would you say if I told you this:

The CIA is getting tricky! They paid the Sirens to try to lure my yacht into a reef so they could kill me and steal the plans for the perpetual motion machine that I use to run it!

It’s possible that I have a yacht, it’s even conceivable that the CIA is after me, and anyone could draw up plans for a perpetual motion machine, however, my story would fall apart when it came to the Sirens, since they are mythical creatures whose existence is extremely unlikely, and the use of a perpetual motion machine since it would violate the laws of physics as we know them.

You could rightly disbelieve me based on the small chance that any of these things is true, but you could not state with any real certainty that I did not have a yacht or that the CIA was not after me. The others though, are much different.

It is quite reasonable to assume that Sirens do not exist, and hence are not being paid by the CIA to entrap me.

It is also not wrong to say that because perpetual motion machines violate the laws of physics as we know them, and because no one has yet created one that works or even demonstrated that it is possible to create one, I do not have a working perpetual motion machine.

Neither of these is circular. They are both built on a firm foundation of knowledge, and they are the most reasonable responses to that outlandish claim.

You know this, and although you probably think that I’m mentally ill, you simply say:

Some of what you said seems possible, if unlikely, but the mythical creatures we call Sirens do not exist in reality, and perpetual motion machines are not possible according to the laws of physics as we know them. That makes this all a bit hard to swallow without evidence, so I’m sorry but I don’t believe you.

Oh no, now you’ve done it, assuming you have a reasonable grip on reality and that your experiences, observations and knowledge about the way the universe works and how human minds work actually counts for something…

That’s just your anti-Siren prejudice and your bias against perpetual motion!

Since you know perpetual motion does not occur, in the case of my boat’s engine, a perpetual motion machine is not present. How simple! How convenient! How circular!

When Vocab says “Sirens do not exist in reality”, he is really saying this: his own personal prejudice masquerading as all of reality is contra Sirens, regardless of the evidence before him. This is why he doesn’t really feel the need to do any historical investigation … I’m envious.

Why would the ancient Greeks have made Sirens up? Isn’t it possible that they are real? Shouldn’t we accept their existence as a strong possibility since there have always been many unexplained shipwrecks?

If you would just accept that it is possible that Sirens exist, then you would see that it is clearly the most likely reason that I keep wanting to steer my boat into a reef, and if you would only believe in perpetual motion, you could see that it’s the best explanation for why I don’t have to fill up my boat with gas.

By the way Vocab, you seem to be getting a little touchy. Could it be that your piqued defense of miracles belies your own doubts about them?

As I say already in my opening statement, I need strong evidence that an event like the resurrection occured. It could be historical or consequential, but it needs to be a lot stronger than a passage in 1 Cor 15. If not, I’d have to accept just about any miracle claimed to have happened. If there are more likely explanations (and a myth-formation is more likely to me after looking at the presented evidence in this debate) then it’s special pleading to insist that, in this case and this case alone, the less probable cause was true anyway.

I have no problem thinking outside the box of my own assumptions. I do, however, try to avoid thinking outside reality.

I hope everyone can see the way Kazz is trying to smuggle in an unfounded assumption in his “case” against miracles. He is basically saying that since he knows miracles do not occur, in the case of the resurrection, a miracle did not occur. How simple! How convenient! How circular!

When Kazz says “reality is against miracles”, he is really saying this: his own personal prejudice masquerading as all of reality is contra the miraculous, regardless of the evidence before him. This is why he doesn’t really feel the need to do any historical investigation … I’m envious.

vm

Not only is the existence of all of the subjects in serious doubt, but the miracle is by definition beyond natural laws, and hence (from what I have seen) likely impossible.

Nohm was right though, the fact that thousands of ancient Egyptians worked for many years building pyramids in attempt to give their god-king a physical afterlife (another example of a belief in physical resurrection predating Christianity) does not mean that the Pharaohs actually lived on. People have done many extraordinary things based on false beliefs, so the things that Christians have done are hardly unique in motivation.

As I said before, it is not me who has the bias against miracles, it seems to be reality that has the bias against miracles.

If you want to be taken seriously, then perhaps you could show evidence of even a modern miracle? At least that should be possible, if they happen at all. I have never seen any evidence of any legitimate miracle in my entire life though.

I have, however, seen a multitude of fake “miracles” that have been exposed as frauds, and heard of many that are completely unverifiable, just like the resurrection.

Oh, and since you didn’t address the more important parts of what I said, I guess we have to assume that you accept those as reasonable alternatives, and that would leave your “6 fingered man” as far from the most likely explanation…

Imagine a detective investigating a murder case. This detective has been on this case for some time and knows all the relevant facts. In fact, the detective knows the facts so well that he has narrowed the possible murderer down to one individual – a man with 6 fingers on his right hand. The detective has ruthlessly chased down any remotely possible leads and eliminated every single possible option. Now, there is one choice left – only a man with 6 fingers on his right hand could have committed this particular murder – no one else could have possibly done it.

But there is a problem – the detective does not know anyone with 6 fingers on their right hand. The detective has not even seen or heard of any people in the whole world who have 6 fingers on their right hand. In fact, the detective is confident that there are no people with 6 fingers on their right hand anywhere. Since the detective has this belief as a presupposition, he has ruled out the only answer to the question before him.

So what does the detective do? The most reasonable thing to do would be for the detective to change his initial assumptions about men with 6 fingers on their right hand and then to find the particular man with 6 fingers on his right hand who did this. But we are dealing with an unusually stubborn detective here. He would rather go with a less likely suspect, even if there is not any solid evidence to make the case. He would even rather do the unthinkable, actually deny that the murder even occurred. Despite all the evidence before him, this particular detective is more willing to say the crime never happened than he is to say that a man with 6 fingers on his right hand did it.

And so it is with the person with an unbending naturalistic bias. If such a person looks at all the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and realizes the most plausible explanation that fits all the facts is that God did indeed raise Jesus from the dead but this person either A) does not believe God exists, or B) if God does exist, he would not act in such a way, then what does this person do? He either goes with a less likely (even improbable) explanation or simply rules the event out of bounds before he does any further investigation.

It should be clear, then, that we are not so much talking about philosophical objections but rather brute philosophical presuppositions of the naturalistic (and often deistic or atheistic) variety.

vm

Did they really change? As far as I know Christianity did not have a major effect on Judaism, but if you mean the Jews who converted, perhaps their ideas of resurrection weren’t changed?

I’m not sure where the verses are, but not only are other people near Jerusalem supposedly raised at the same time as Jesus, but Jesus claims that this is only the beginning. I’m sure you interpret it as something other than him saying that the end was nigh and the big resurrection they were waiting for was beginning, but I think that is the most reasonable interpretation.

As for other things like accepting Gentiles and dropping restrictions on diet and place of worship, I think that these are easily explained by the new testament’s authors having an audience that was largely not Jewish.

I doubt that the authors themselves were Jews, but even if they were they were writing in Greek to an audience largely consisting of Gentiles who would not have taken the dietary restrictions well, and with the poor probably being the bulk of the converts, there would not have been a lot of resources to build synagogues, etc.

Question: “If the narratives are legendary, why then would the authors include testimony by people (women) who were not seen as credible by their peers?”

There are many possible explanations for this, but I’ll give just a couple.

It’s possible that at least some of the new testament authors were more progressive and interested in improving the lot of women that the old testament had not treated too kindly.

It is also possible that they did not intend for the women to seem credible, but for the story overall to seem more credible.

In the oldest manuscript we have, Mark ends at 16:8 with the women seeing the empty tomb, running away and not saying anything to anyone. Multiple more satisfying endings seem to have been subsequently written for it, but the author may have been trying to explain why no one had heard of this miracle before, or to encourage people to go out and spread the story, or just to write in a specific style (“closet drama”) which tended to end without resolution and in a shocking way.

There are a multitude of other possibilities as well, but those are more than enough other reasonable (and more likely) possibilities.

By the way, what’s this “simplistic and unstudied bias against miracles” about? Reality has a bias against miracles, not Nohm. I would be very surprised if you believed in the supposed miracles of other religions, so why would you expect us to believe in yours?

In my entire life I don’t believe I have ever seen an actual miracle, so at least in my case I don’t think it’s an unfounded bias.

Those questions I asked either *are* or *aren’t* important questions.

Maybe the reason you don’t think they are is perhaps you aren’t familiar w/the
religious and cultural context of the time? The reason I say that is b/c
your comments demonstrate a simplistic and unstudied bias against miracles
and therefore a brute and blanket rejection of historical evidence in
favor of the resurrection. If I’m wrong, please tell me I’m jumping the gun.

Still, I do give you props for saying Jesus’ resurrection is a “historical
mystery” because that’s exactly what it is if one offers no contrary and
compelling explanation – which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming from your side.

vm

vm

Why did the egyptians build pyramids? Because the pharaohs came back from the dead, obviously.

Yeah, that doesn’t work.

You see those as important questions. I don’t, as I’ve seen the same issues with Muslims.

You would have to show that *the only explanation* for first century Jews changing their eschatological views is the resurrection, and I doubt that you can do that. There are far too many other options, as we’ve seen with other religions.

Secondly, again, you would have to show that *the only explanation* for authors including testimony from women who were not seen as credible by their peers is the resurrection. Considering that this same thing has been used in other religions, in cultures where women were not considered as credible as men, I find it difficult to accept that “oh, because a dead guy came back from the dead… and oh yeah he was God” is the *only explanation*, or even the best one.

Burden of proof and all that.

You’ll find Vocab’s rebuttal to my opening statement on that site as well.