Attn: harmonizers

[kaufmannphillips]

kaufmannphillips wrote:
Accordingly, what is the "most likely" possibility concerning Jesus' resurrection? Do people get resurrected more often, or do people perpetrate frauds or become deluded or get caught up in fantasies more often?

steve wrote:
You made this point on another occasion, and I thought it to be less incisive than most of your arguments.

Is this, perhaps, a left-handed compliment ?

steve wrote:
I believe you have made two errors here:

1. One cannot estimate the likelihood of any historical event having occurred by appeal to the question of how many times such a thing has or has not happened. How many times did Alexander conquer the Persians? How often does Rome fall? How many parallels are there in history to the bombing of Hiroshima? Yet we know that all these things happened, because people with first-or-second-hand knowledge have reported them. Frequency of occurrence has nothing to do with the likelihood of some historical event having taken place. The likelihood of a report being true hangs more heavily on the credibility of the sources.

We have a difference of opinion on this point. I think one can gauge the likelihood of an event, based on frequency of occurrence. This estimation is not infallible, admittedly; and an estimation should be made in as literate and sensitive a way as possible in order to have greater significance as a speculative tool.

Let us consider your examples:

(a) On one hand, we have the Alexandrine conquest of Achaemenid Persia and the fall of Rome. If one were to look at these events with too narrow a perspective, one might consider them to be singular events. But they should be considered generically: how often are empires conquered? The answer would be: frequently enough, and especially so in pre-modern history. For an empire to fall is noteworthy, but hardly surprising in light of recurring cycles in human history.

(b) Turning, then, to the bombing of Hiroshima, it might appear that we have a nearly unique event in this case. Except for two things.

On one hand, more than two thousand nuclear weapons have been detonated – and this within roughly sixty years’ proximity of Hiroshima. Such demonstrates the technological accomplishment behind Hiroshima to be far from unique. On the other hand, we have the human willingness to apply horrific and devastating force on a grand scale against other humans. This has been evidenced amply throughout human history. And so, neither the means nor the will behind an event like Hiroshima are all that unusual.

As such, your examples – though historically significant – are not terribly curious.

Beyond this – it would be an incomplete representation of the facts to say that “we know that all these things happened, because people with first-or-second-hand knowledge have reported them.” We are not wholly dependent upon human witnesses in such cases. We also have material evidences – e.g., archaeological finds and lingering radiation.

steve wrote:
2. In comparing, on the one hand, the frequency with which men rise from the dead with the frequency with which men lie and perpetrate frauds, you propose a false comparison, because you compare the likelihood of God doing something (raising the dead) with that of men doing something (perpetrating fraud).

{and}

Of course, an inquiry into God's actions does not correlate with any data about the behavior—fraudulent or otherwise—of human agents.

I fail to see how this is a false comparison or a difficult matter to correlate. It is simply a matter of comparing one probability with another. I can compare the likelihood of Vijay Singh hitting a hole-in-one with the likelihood of a bird soiling my car. They are different sorts of events, but the math provides the common denominator.

steve wrote:
Yet no one can say how "likely" it is that God would do a certain thing that is not inconsistent with His character—even if the thing would be an event unique in history. Thus, He may raise a man from the dead, heal a leper, give sight to the blind, etc., at will, and no one could (without first establishing that God's will would be contrary to such actions) give any estimation at all as to how likely it would be for Him to do so.

It may be extremely likely or extremely unlikely that God would raise a particular dead man. It would depend upon what God wants to do—and that would be determined by the question of what may be consistent with His purposes.

Well, here we have another difference of opinion. I consider that G-d’s potential activity may be estimated by his past activity, just like anyone else’s.

I have never been skiing – despite the fact that within my lifespan I have had plenty of means and opportunity to do so. An observer may estimate, given these premises, that I am not terribly likely to go skiing this winter. Of course, their estimation may or may not be borne out in the developing facts of this coming winter. But it will probably hold quite reliably.

One may think likewise when it comes to G-d. G-d has never turned my shoes into solid gold, though one might suppose that he has had the means and opportunity to do so. Based upon this, I can estimate the likelihood of my waking up tomorrow to find that G-d has turned my shoes into solid gold. May I be surprised? Of course. But will I be surprised? Probably not.

steve wrote:
When we turn to the consideration of the likelihood of men perpetrating fraud, we are certainly not on solid ground in saying that any given set of men are more likely to be con artists than to be honest men. There are many con artists, and there are also honest men. In deciding whether a given school of thought is the fruit of fraud or of honest reporting, one must know something about the character of those who are the sources of the foundational claims.

In a given circumstance, it would be nice to have more data to base one’s estimation upon, rather than less. More data (if germane and accurate) would seem to increase the reliability of one’s estimation.

But one does not always have such a luxury. This does not preclude one from making an estimation. Rather, one must make do with what one has – often, working from generic and non-specific bases. If we do not know the specific character of a sample of witnesses, then we must make do with an estimation based upon a more general range of human character.

steve wrote:
We might think it likely that the majority of people who attend the Fed Ex employees Christmas party will get drunk there—and we may feel confident of having our predictions materialize. However, if we want to establish the likelihood that Fred Jones, a Fed Ex employee, will get drunk at the party, we would have to consider factors about the man himself. Is he a drinker? Is he habitually moderate? Is he a teetotaler? The prediction of one man's behavior cannot be made upon the basis of statistical analysis of mankind in general.

You are mistaken. A prediction can certainly be made, based upon generic human behavior. This prediction could become more reliable, with the availability of accurate data on Fred Jones. But we do not always have the luxury of additional information; and life is filled with estimates of probability that are made, quite practically, based upon less-than-ideal data.

Will this new brand of soup burn if I leave it unattended and play a hand of Texas Hold’Em online? Will somebody let me borrow their wireless phone if my car breaks down? Will my front door need to be locked when I leave in the morning? Though I may be without specific data, I need not be paralyzed when faced with such questions. Rather, I can attempt a broadly-based estimation, and then hazard onward.

steve wrote:
I realize that your whole argument on this thread has been to undermine the credibility of the Christian sources, but the particular argument you made above strayed from that line of inquiry into illogic.

I am not trained in classical logic. But my argument is not unreasonable.

A great extent of human understanding is based upon the expectation that present and future phenomena will follow the pattern of previous phenomena. Is this tool of human reasoning to be considered infallible? No. But generally speaking, it is quite reliable.

Another basic tool of human reasoning is strategy based upon general trend and probability. When the nearby high school lets out at the end of the school day, I may be especially cautious in the resulting traffic. Is this based upon my understanding of particular drivers – say, this gal in a black Jetta, and that guy in an ’83 Chevette? Almost never. But is this reasonable? Yes.

Now, the gal with the Jetta and the guy with the Chevette might object that I am unfairly profiling them. After all, not every teenager is a less competent driver. But my insurance agent would consider my generic caution to be not only reasonable, but commendable.

steve wrote:
As for your seemingly gratuitous persistence in skepticism about the integrity of the gospel stories as they have come down to us, I have also addressed that in a previous post. I think the most you have been able to propose is that Christians do not have adequate evidence (in your estimation) to trust the records. I would counter that no one has sufficient evidence that the gospels misrepresent the essential story of Jesus, so as to allow anyone comfortably to reject their witness.

Once again, you employ the term “gratuitous.” Such an assessment is profoundly in the eye of the beholder, depending in part upon their tolerance for liability. Is it gratuitous to be concerned about x ppm of a substance in a gallon of water? Or y ppm? Or z ppm? Is it gratuitous to be doubtful of a witness with 20/30 vision? Or 20/40 vision? Or 20/60 vision? Different persons may have differing assessments.

Now, you have said that “no one has sufficient evidence that the gospels misrepresent the essential story of Jesus, so as to allow anyone comfortably to reject their witness.” It is ridiculous to say this, inasmuch as many persons have comfortably rejected the witness of the gospels, based on the evidence available to them. Their evidence may not seem “sufficient” to you, but your personal sensibilities cannot be extrapolated to include “anyone.” Sufficiency, too, can be profoundly in the eye of the beholder.

Beyond this, the “essential story” purported by the gospels is quite extraordinary to the usual realm of human experience; as such, the natural challenge for many audiences would be to comfortably accept their claims. As I have said before (in a previous discussion of ours), extraordinary claims warrant extraordinary evidence. And hearsay from premodern sources does not compellingly rise to the level of extraordinary evidence.

steve wrote:
After all the evidences have been weighed, it is true that we are left to choose one belief or the other. There is the belief that the gospels give us a substantially historical picture of the life and teachings of Jesus—a belief for which there is considerable evidence of exactly the same kind as we have for many other historical accounts. Then there is the belief that the gospels are mere legends, lacking any very close connection to actual historical events—a belief for which a case can be made only by subjecting them to a more rigorous degree of criticism than scholars are accustomed to applying to other historical claims. Both beliefs can find some justification, but neither can prove its case beyond the shadow of a doubt.

You may feel that the gospels receive an unusually “rigorous degree of cricticism” at the hands of scholars. On one hand, it would be interesting to know which recent scholarly works you have been reading on other historical figures, so as to inform your opinion on this matter.

But on the other hand, you should not make the mistake of thinking of the gospels as simply historical documents, for manifestly they are not – they are also religious documents. Even more so than secular historiography, religion is conventionally a province of imagination, interpretation, and invention. It is also a province where subtlety wields extraordinary influence, so that high thresholds of precision become relevant. Accordingly, these documents warrant a rigorous degree of criticism.

steve wrote:
You obviously delight the study of source materials, but when it comes to the gospels, your belief that they are untrustworthy is a mere intuition. They may seem sketchy to you, but no grounds exist for certainty that anything in them is false.

I would like to know what kind of evidence would be sufficient in your eyes as “grounds ... for certainty that anything in [the gospels] is false.” In this sort of discussion, there are a thousand ways for a partisan to cavil at a matter that challenges their allegiance.

This touches upon a basic difficulty in our discussion: you approach the evidence with a predisposition in favor of the gospels; as such, you require a (probably unattainable) level of certainty to divest you of your trust in them. You do not approach these documents as an impartial assessor. Indeed, can you honestly say that you approach other religious documents with the same sort of credulous generosity? What grounds are there for “certainty” that other religious witnesses are not substantially true? What shortcomings of theirs cannot be brushed aside as inconsequential details, or as excusable by appeal to genre?

No objective person would approach the gospels with a predisposition in their favor. Why? Because a general survey of human behavior does not recommend their sort of document as reliable. On one hand, even simple eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable – a factor which you perennially disregard. But on another hand, these documents are not merely eyewitness testimony, but religious artifacts; and human religious productivity is rife with imagination and innovation. If one is to approach the gospels with a predisposition, it should be one of caution, not credulity.

But this is a basic crux to our dialogue, and it may be insuperable. Given the general nature of human behavior, I require extraordinary evidence to believe the extraordinary claims of the gospels; and for whatever reasons, you require extraordinary evidence not to believe their extraordinary claims.

steve wrote:
What I find perplexing about you, in particular, is that you used to identify yourself as a Christian, and even pastored a Christian congregation. Something obviously influenced you subsequently to apostasize, but nothing you have posted provides sufficient explanation for your actions.

{and}

I am trying to understand the psychology of a man who once believed in Christ, and then defected from him on such a subjective basis.

{and}

Therefore, the decision lies in the individual. What I don't understand is how someone who had previously made a decision in favor of Christ (if that's what you did when you were younger) could, upon so scant evidence against the gospels, choose to become an opponent of Christ (after all, you have suggested, without providing any evidence whatsoever, that Jesus might have deserved capital punishment). I cannot discern what psychological kit guides a man in this direction. I can imagine certain controlling motives to be present, but I will not suggest any, since none of them are flattering. My guess is that you see your motives in the matter very differently than I am able to imagine them. Therefore, I would be interested in hear from you what happened to you and how you perceive your own psychological journey.

I’m willing to address this line of inquiry, but would prefer to do it in another thread, lest it hijack this line of discussion. Let me know which subforum you would like for me to respond in.

[kaufmannphillips]

steve7150 wrote:
Emmet, I respect your knowledge but i certainly disagree on your logic in using the word "partisan" although it is an adroit word for you to use in the sense of "clever."
Why would "bias" be commonly expected from followers of Jesus when everything they would have been taught would be contradictory of who Jesus was and is. They even could not comprehend what his real mission was after spending years with him, thinking he was setting up an earthly kingdom because that was what they expected from their Messiah. Their is nothing in the NT that makes Jesus followers sound like partisans in fact they often sound confused with shifting loyalties as can be seen by who was not at the cross.

(a) We can hardly say that "everything [followers of Jesus] would have been taught would be contradictory of who Jesus was and is." On one hand, there are various precedents and/or parallels for some elements of Christian thought that may be found in the literature of Second Temple Judaism. Judaism(s) of the period were varied and could be tremendously creative in their religious thought.

But on another hand, we can hardly speak to the previous religious formation of many of Jesus' followers. From gospel accounts, it would seem that some were not especially pious people prior to their encounters with Jesus; this does not so much telegraph a strong or careful theological upbringing for such individuals. Many other followers would seem to be commonfolk - what in Jewish tradition would be referred to as the am ha'aretz. These persons might not have received a strong religious education, yet might have been acquainted with a kaleidoscope of Jewish and non-Jewish notions that swirled in the marketplaces.

(b) Our sources were not written by the vacillating deserters at the cross. Our sources were written by persons who were committed to Jesus. Now, some of these people may have been vacillators, in their past. But this was not their mindset when writing our sources. And the NT clearly portrays followers of Jesus in the early church (say, post-Pentecost) who were unvacillating in their commitment to Jesus.

It is, of course, worthwhile to explore why vacillators might have reoriented to become partisans. But this does not change the fundamental orientation of our sources as partisan.

[steve]

Hi Emmet,

I wrote:

1. One cannot estimate the likelihood of any historical event having occurred by appeal to the question of how many times such a thing has or has not happened. How many times did Alexander conquer the Persians? How often does Rome fall? How many parallels are there in history to the bombing of Hiroshima? Yet we know that all these things happened, because people with first-or-second-hand knowledge have reported them. Frequency of occurrence has nothing to do with the likelihood of some historical event having taken place. The likelihood of a report being true hangs more heavily on the credibility of the sources.

To which you replied:

We have a difference of opinion on this point. I think one can gauge the likelihood of an event, based on frequency of occurrence. This estimation is not infallible, admittedly; and an estimation should be made in as literate and sensitive a way as possible in order to have greater significance as a speculative tool.

I stand by my original statement, your intuitions notwithstanding.

You wrote:

Beyond this – it would be an incomplete representation of the facts to say that “we know that all these things happened, because people with first-or-second-hand knowledge have reported them.” We are not wholly dependent upon human witnesses in such cases. We also have material evidences – e.g., archaeological finds and lingering radiation.

But, unless you or I have been present at the archaeological digs, or have measured the radiation ourselves with a Geiger counter, we remain dependant (as I said) upon others who have done so and who have reported their findings. Thus, we do in fact believe these things (until we do the experiments ourselves) upon first-or-second-hand testimony. This was my point. When reading the gospels, in my judgment, we are looking at first-or-second-hand testimony. We can also experiment with their thesis, if we wish. Many of us have done so, and found that Jesus is indeed alive and miraculous in His workings.

What I, and people close to me, have witnessed and regarded as miraculous can be doubted or explained away as coincidences by anyone who has a prior commitment to unlimited skepticism. But then, so can the historicity of the Nazi war crimes be doubted by one determined, against all evidence, to be a holocaust denier. My evidence for believing as I do is, I think, greater than any evidence in support of your denial.


I wrote:

2. In comparing, on the one hand, the frequency with which men rise from the dead with the frequency with which men lie and perpetrate frauds, you propose a false comparison, because you compare the likelihood of God doing something (raising the dead) with that of men doing something (perpetrating fraud).

{and}

Of course, an inquiry into God's actions does not correlate with any data about the behavior—fraudulent or otherwise—of human agents.

To which you replied:

I fail to see how this is a false comparison or a difficult matter to correlate. It is simply a matter of comparing one probability with another. I can compare the likelihood of Vijay Singh hitting a hole-in-one with the likelihood of a bird soiling my car. They are different sorts of events, but the math provides the common denominator.

In these examples, as in all the others that follow in your response (e.g. the likelihood of your going skiing this winter; whether God will turn your shoes into gold; whether a given teenager will have an auto accident, whether a stranger will lend you her cellular phone if your car breaks down, etc.), you miss the point of what we are discussing. You are speaking of the likelihood that a given event will occur. Our discussion is over the likelihood that a reported event actually did occur—an entirely different matter.

I have never played golf. The likelihood that I would get a hole-in-one on my first time on the course is vanishingly small. However, If I were to return from my first day on the course exclaiming in astonishment that I had gotten insanely lucky and had gotten a hole-in-one on the first hole, the likelihood of my story being true could not be measured by the same set of calculations as would the prediction about this beforehand. The mathematics of one calculation to not apply to the other.

The fact that you have never skied previously may render it unpredictable whether you will do so any given future occasion, but your history has no bearing on my willingness to believe you, if you were, next spring, to tell me that you had been skiing for the first time during Christmas break.

If we were to ask, while boarding a plane, what the likelihood would be of the plane losing its engines due to geese flying into the turbines, and then having the plane successfully land on the surface of a crowded river, without losing one passenger and without colliding with any boat on the water, we would have to say that, since probably 100,000 plane flights occur every day, and only one known such occurrence has been heard of, that the likelihood of such a thing happening on our particular itinerary is negligible.

On the other hand, if we are asking whether the reports of such an incident happening in the past are true or false, we are dealing with very different considerations. In this case, we must inquire whether the news services that carried the story are reputable or not. If so, and if there are multiple independent accounts of the incident, then the likelihood of the reports being true are greatly enhanced, regardless how unlikely such a thing might have seemed when projecting the likelihood of its future occurrence.

You and I may be willing to bet a million dollars that you will not awaken tomorrow to find gold shoes where you left your Nikes the night before, however, if you were to tell me that you had found just that upon your arising, I would have to ask two questions: 1) are you either delusional or a liar? And 2) Is there anyone in your circle (whether known or unknown to you) who might have some reason for wishing to replace your real shoes with golden ones while you slept? If the answer to the first question seemed to be “no,” and the answer to the second did not seem demonstrably negative, I would probably be inclined to tentatively accept the story as a very bizarre singularity. If I later learned that a number of people in your town were beginning to report similar occurrences in their bedrooms, I would be even more inclined to believe that you were an honest reporter, regardless how unlikely it would have seemed prior to the event.

The likelihood that a given singularity will predictably happen is not the same as the likelihood that an honest man will report such an event if it actually does occur.

You write as if these are the same kind of considerations. They are not. I am talking about (alleged) historical occurrences which were reported well within the lifetime of many living witnesses, the reporters of which were apparently sincere enough to live as paupers and prisoners and to be tortured and die for the integrity of their reports. The same men were enabled to perform miracles that were sufficiently convincing as to persuade a huge number of their contemporaries that an otherwise-unheard-of event had taken place in their city only a few weeks earlier. It is true that there is a possibility of all these things being so and yet the story they told being totally fabricated. However (forgive me), I am not a gratuitous skeptic.

You wrote:

Well, here we have another difference of opinion. I consider that G-d’s potential activity may be estimated by his past activity, just like anyone else’s.

Then faith in the resurrection of Christ seems very much the more to be a reasonable belief, since the same God has many times in history been reported to work similar and dissimilar supernatural feats.

You wrote:

In a given circumstance, it would be nice to have more data to base one’s estimation upon, rather than less. More data (if germane and accurate) would seem to increase the reliability of one’s estimation.

But one does not always have such a luxury. This does not preclude one from making an estimation. Rather, one must make do with what one has – often, working from generic and non-specific bases. If we do not know the specific character of a sample of witnesses, then we must make do with an estimation based upon a more general range of human character.

Now we are talking the same language! This is precisely why I have always found the apostolic witness to be credible.

I wrote:

We might think it likely that the majority of people who attend the Fed Ex employees Christmas party will get drunk there—and we may feel confident of having our predictions materialize. However, if we want to establish the likelihood that Fred Jones, a Fed Ex employee, will get drunk at the party, we would have to consider factors about the man himself. Is he a drinker? Is he habitually moderate? Is he a teetotaler? The prediction of one man's behavior cannot be made upon the basis of statistical analysis of mankind in general.

Here I definitely made a mistake in framing my illustration as I did. I joined you in restricting the assessment of probabilities to matters of future occurrence. I should have said something like the following:

Fred Jones returned from the Christmas party and informed his wife, who had not attended, that he had not been drinking there, even though most of the people were doing so. The likelihood of his report being truthful will no doubt be assessed by his wife by criteria such as: “Do I know my husband to be a teetotaler? Has he ever lied to me about such things? Does he even have any motive for misleading me about this (suppose she has no objection to his drinking)?” These are the factors that will determine a reasonable wife’s estimation of the likelihood that Fred has or has not been drinking—not the question of whether most people at the party were drinking.

You wrote:

Now, you have said that “no one has sufficient evidence that the gospels misrepresent the essential story of Jesus, so as to allow anyone comfortably to reject their witness.” It is ridiculous to say this, inasmuch as many persons have comfortably rejected the witness of the gospels, based on the evidence available to them. Their evidence may not seem “sufficient” to you, but your personal sensibilities cannot be extrapolated to include “anyone.” Sufficiency, too, can be profoundly in the eye of the beholder.

I will have to grant you this point. I often forget how unreasonable otherwise-intelligent partisans can be when their bias is being challenged.

You wrote:

Beyond this, the “essential story” purported by the gospels is quite extraordinary to the usual realm of human experience; as such, the natural challenge for many audiences would be to comfortably accept their claims. As I have said before (in a previous discussion of ours), extraordinary claims warrant extraordinary evidence. And hearsay from premodern sources does not compellingly rise to the level of extraordinary evidence.

The affirmations that God visited this planet in a unique manner and that Jesus arose from the dead do indeed represent extraordinary claims. As I have pointed out, a great number of historical occurrences are extraordinary—in that they are unique, and often not exactly like any other known event. Ripley’s Believe it or Not is a good source for documentation of many such things (I do not say it is a 100% trustworthy source, but many of its anomalies can be documented).

However, the assertion that such things happened is not inconsistent with such a worldview as the Judeo-Christian scriptures put forward—a worldview at least as credible as any conflicting one, it seems to me. Again, the credibility of the specific miraculous claims rests upon the integrity and competence of the witnesses—not the frequency of documentable similar occurrences.

You wrote:

I would like to know what kind of evidence would be sufficient in your eyes as “grounds ... for certainty that anything in [the gospels] is false.” In this sort of discussion, there are a thousand ways for a partisan to cavil at a matter that challenges their allegiance.

As we have both demonstrated equally. The question is, which partisan has the more open mind?

You wrote:

This touches upon a basic difficulty in our discussion: you approach the evidence with a predisposition in favor of the gospels; as such, you require a (probably unattainable) level of certainty to divest you of your trust in them. You do not approach these documents as an impartial assessor. Indeed, can you honestly say that you approach other religious documents with the same sort of credulous generosity? What grounds are there for “certainty” that other religious witnesses are not substantially true? What shortcomings of theirs cannot be brushed aside as inconsequential details, or as excusable by appeal to genre? … No objective person would approach the gospels with a predisposition in their favor.

We are arguing this matter in two different psychological environments. You argue strictly from the logical standpoint of default skepticism (because your experience apparently has not afforded you any other options), and assume, by default, an uncharitable stance toward the apostolic witness. Many do this, and it does not allow much opportunity for correction, if wrong. By contrast, I am approaching the evidence as I would approach any other testimony from credible, competent and apparently honest witnesses. My default is a judgment of charity toward these reporters, as it is toward most other witnesses in any field. My judgment of charity may not always prove to be justified, but in the present case, I certainly have nothing to lose in making it.

In addition to this, however, I (and thousands of other reasonable people) seem to have something that you sadly lack—and that is a lifelong acquaintance with the Subject of the Christian testimony. This obviously biases me in its favor, but not blindly. It is my conviction that the God I serve would have me believe the truth, whether that truth lay in the Christian belief system or in some other. I have demonstrated, in the past forty years, an unending search for truth, and an uninterrupted policy of changing my mind—even about things that I have publicly taught—when the real evidence is compelling. However, I will not betray a lifelong Friend upon such scant arguments as those you have provided. That you would have done so is what I find astonishing. I have to conclude that you have never really known Him.

I don’t think that you would appeal to any experimental knowledge of the things you now believe (though I may be surprised, when you take up my invitation to explain your journey away from Christ). Also, I do not know how many times you have been willing to change your mind in the face of evidence (though I know of one case, in your defection from Christ). I don’t know whether self-correction is habitual with you, as it is with me, but I am not encouraged to think so by your responses in dialogue.

You wrote:

If one is to approach the gospels with a predisposition, it should be one of caution, not credulity.

But this is a basic crux to our dialogue, and it may be insuperable. Given the general nature of human behavior, I require extraordinary evidence to believe the extraordinary claims of the gospels; and for whatever reasons, you require extraordinary evidence not to believe their extraordinary claims.

I wrote:

I am trying to understand the psychology of a man who once believed in Christ, and then defected from him on such a subjective basis.

To which you replied:

I’m willing to address this line of inquiry, but would prefer to do it in another thread, lest it hijack this line of discussion. Let me know which subforum you would like for me to respond in.

Perhaps you can do so in the “Essays” section. I look forward to hearing your story.

[steve7150]

It is, of course, worthwhile to explore why vacillators might have reoriented to become partisans. But this does not change the fundamental orientation of our sources as partisan.








The essence of this discussion is that vacillators transforming into disciples who were willing to give up their lives for Jesus lends itself to a limited choice of reasons.
The truth AKA the resurrection and it's implications or,
A conspiracy for the purpose of personal gain.

For me to consider the second i would need to calculate the odds of a conspiracy and knowledge of what the gain could have been? As for the first it is not difficult for me to believe that God would move at some point in time to reveal himself and his kingdom to his creations. I find it logical and not unexpected considering how inconclusive the OT is with regards to a resolution of the difficulties between man and God. As far as i see the bible is written in a style of progressive revelation from beginning to end.

[kaufmannphillips]

steve wrote:
One cannot estimate the likelihood of any historical event having occurred by appeal to the question of how many times such a thing has or has not happened. ... Frequency of occurrence has nothing to do with the likelihood of some historical event having taken place.

kaufmannphillips wrote:
We have a difference of opinion on this point. I think one can gauge the likelihood of an event, based on frequency of occurrence. This estimation is not infallible, admittedly; and an estimation should be made in as literate and sensitive a way as possible in order to have greater significance as a speculative tool.

steve wrote:
I stand by my original statement, your intuitions notwithstanding.

Stand wherever you like. But most rational persons will gauge the likelihood of dubious events based upon their frequency of occurrence. This is not abstruse or uncommon reasoning.

Beyond this – you may go ahead and add “intuition” to “gratuitous” in your sack of rhetorical cudgels. But where proof is lacking, one must either intuit or abandon further pursuit. Now, your intuition draws upon charitableness and mysticism. Mine draws upon comparison with parallel phenomena. A third party may estimate which of these modes for intuition is more reliable.

kaufmannphillips wrote:
Beyond this - it would be an incomplete representation of the facts to say that “we know that all these things happened, because people with first-or-second-hand knowledge have reported them.” We are not wholly dependent upon human witnesses in such cases. We also have material evidences – e.g., archaeological finds and lingering radiation.

steve wrote:
But, unless you or I have been present at the archaeological digs, or have measured the radiation ourselves with a Geiger counter, we remain dependant (as I said) upon others who have done so and who have reported their findings. Thus, we do in fact believe these things (until we do the experiments ourselves) upon first-or-second-hand testimony. This was my point. When reading the gospels, in my judgment, we are looking at first-or-second-hand testimony.

In my examples, we can go behind the first-or-second-hand testimony and engage primary evidences themselves. We need not be dependent upon first-or-second-hand testimonies in such instances.

Part of my limited florilegium of virtues is that I make an unusual effort to go back along the chain of testimony. I have learned from experience that it is inadvisable to depend upon intervening hands. My shelves hold original-language editions of Dead Sea Scroll materials; Philo; the Apostolic Fathers; Targums Onqelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, and Neofiti; the Samaritan Pentateuch and Samaritan Targum; the Mishnah, Tosefta, and both Talmuds; the Midrashim Rabbah and Tanchuma; further rabbinic classics that probably would be gratuitous to enumerate here; and sundry works by classical and ecclesiastical writers. The Tanakh, Septuagint, and New Testament are in my car, at the moment; I like to have ready access to them.

As you may imagine, pursuing these sources has involved some effort and expense. But it is worth it, to be less dependent upon translations of this or that source. Even better would be to have access to manuscripts themselves, but there are {sigh} limits to my means.

So you do not need to advise me of dependency on intervening hands. I am quite sensitive to such things, and it is not only the evangelists’ hands that I am wary of. (I’m skeptical of my own hands, too – but I can’t very well escape them .)

But the bottom line: though we may be so impoverished as to depend upon intervening hands in some circumstances, this does not mean that we are beholden to depend upon every set of hands that proffers “data.”

steve wrote:
We can also experiment with their thesis, if we wish. Many of us have done so, and found that Jesus is indeed alive and miraculous in His workings.

What I, and people close to me, have witnessed and regarded as miraculous can be doubted or explained away as coincidences by anyone who has a prior commitment to unlimited skepticism.

Not all of those things that have been “witnessed” and “regarded as miraculous” are necessarily coincidences. But then again, not all of them are unique. Persons of varying faiths will have their testimonies, and their supernatural and/or miraculous anecdotes.

I attribute much of this to the personal psychological filter. If I may resubmit a favorite passage of mine: "Everybody has his filter, which he takes about with him, through which, from the indefinite mass of facts, he gathers in those suited to confirm his prejudices. And the same fact again, passing through different filters, is revealed in different aspects, so as to confirm the most diverse opinions. ... Rare, very rare are those who check their filter [Henri deLubac].” So Hindus experience Hindu miracles and field Hindu testimonies, and Hasidim experience Hasidic miracles and field Hasidic testimonies, and Catholics experience Catholic miracles and field Catholic testimonies, etc., etc.

I also hypothesize some of this to be attributable to the promiscuity of G-d. I think that G-d is gracious and willing to interact with persons despite their theological misconceptions. Regrettably, this graciousness can contribute to the entrenchment of some of these misconceptions.

And beyond this, I do not consider it impossible for some supernatural and/or miraculous phenomena to derive from sources other than G-d. Some such may involve human engagement of unknown natural phenomena, which we wrongly consider to be supernatural. And it is not utterly impossible for some of these sources to be entities other than G-d.

steve wrote:
In these examples, as in all the others that follow in your response (e.g. the likelihood of your going skiing this winter; whether God will turn your shoes into gold; whether a given teenager will have an auto accident, whether a stranger will lend you her cellular phone if your car breaks down, etc.), you miss the point of what we are discussing. You are speaking of the likelihood that a given event will occur. Our discussion is over the likelihood that a reported event actually did occur—an entirely different matter.

Before we attempt to estimate the likelihood that an event actually did occur, it is worthwhile for us to estimate the likelihood that such an event might occur. For that estimation, tense is irrelevant.

steve wrote:
The likelihood that a given singularity will predictably happen is not the same as the likelihood that an honest man will report such an event if it actually does occur.

There is more than one variable in play, Steve. We are dealing not only with the likelihood of honest reporting, but also with the “if”ness of occurrence. Our comprehensive estimate must factor in the likelihood of occurrence - gauged on its own merits, apart from other factors. Once that is done, then we can correlate our estimations.

Let us imagine that we estimate a one-in-ten chance that a certain event would occur. And let us imagine that we estimate a witness to have a 99% factor of reliability. When the witness tells us that this event occurred, we would naturally estimate their report to be pretty reliable.

But let us imagine that we estimate a one-in-a billion chance that a certain event would occur. And let us imagine that we estimate a witness to have a 99.98% factor of reliability; thus there would be a one-in-ten-thousand chance that our witness might be wrong.

In the first scenario, it would be rather more likely that the event occurred than that the witness was unreliable. But in the second scenario, it would be rather more likely that the witness was unreliable than that the event occurred.

It would seem that you wish to devolve the entire estimate to the reliability of the witness alone. But this is myopic, and flatly inadequate as a means of estimation.

steve wrote:
You write as if these are the same kind of considerations. They are not. I am talking about (alleged) historical occurrences which were reported well within the lifetime of many living witnesses, the reporters of which were apparently sincere enough to live as paupers and prisoners and to be tortured and die for the integrity of their reports. The same men were enabled to perform miracles that were sufficiently convincing as to persuade a huge number of their contemporaries that an otherwise-unheard-of event had taken place in their city only a few weeks earlier. It is true that there is a possibility of all these things being so and yet the story they told being totally fabricated. However (forgive me), I am not a gratuitous skeptic.

I’m going to have to start making a drinking game out of your use of “gratuitous.” Find me some sort of “Silver Bullet” lining...

You must acknowledge that the sincerity you ascribe to these reporters is hardly unique. Many religions have witnesses and martyrs, but surely not all are to be deemed reliable. Even in our own milieu – how many witnesses of decent character and passable intelligence might we adduce in support of (alleged) miracles performed by dubious characters? And how much more so in the pre-modern context of the first century?

But beyond this – would you not acknowledge that miracles are not necessarily guarantees of truth? If you were to meet a Hindu mystic in a public venue, and if you were to witness with your own eyes his creation of a lotus flower out of thin air – would you then follow a new guru? Or if you were to watch a Catholic invoke sudden and inexplicable healing through appeal to Mary – would you become a devotee of the Blessed Virgin?

And if you were to decline to follow these wonderworkers – would this make you a “gratuitous skeptic”?

kaufmannphillips wrote:
Well, here we have another difference of opinion. I consider that G-d’s potential activity may be estimated by his past activity, just like anyone else’s.

steve wrote:
Then faith in the resurrection of Christ seems very much the more to be a reasonable belief, since the same God has many times in history been reported to work similar and dissimilar supernatural feats.

Please supply examples of “many times in history” where G-d has resurrected the dead after extended periods in the grave.

Also, please keep in mind the methodological principle articulated by Jacob Neusner, “What we cannot show, we do not know.” So we should be looking at reports that can be substantiated in a reasonably demonstrable way. Mere hearsay will not suffice.

kaufmannphillips wrote:
In a given circumstance, it would be nice to have more data to base one’s estimation upon, rather than less. More data (if germane and accurate) would seem to increase the reliability of one’s estimation.

But one does not always have such a luxury. This does not preclude one from making an estimation. Rather, one must make do with what one has – often, working from generic and non-specific bases. If we do not know the specific character of a sample of witnesses, then we must make do with an estimation based upon a more general range of human character.

steve wrote:
Now we are talking the same language! This is precisely why I have always found the apostolic witness to be credible.

This is precisely why I don’t find the apostolic witness to be credible. Must be a dialect thing.

My linguistic intuition suggests a softened sibilant in your pronunciation of “general range of human character.”

steve wrote:
Here I definitely made a mistake in framing my illustration as I did. I joined you in restricting the assessment of probabilities to matters of future occurrence. I should have said something like the following:

Fred Jones returned from the Christmas party and informed his wife, who had not attended, that he had not been drinking there, even though most of the people were doing so. The likelihood of his report being truthful will no doubt be assessed by his wife by criteria such as: “Do I know my husband to be a teetotaler? Has he ever lied to me about such things? Does he even have any motive for misleading me about this (suppose she has no objection to his drinking)?” These are the factors that will determine a reasonable wife’s estimation of the likelihood that Fred has or has not been drinking—not the question of whether most people at the party were drinking.

The operative issue here is not so much the tense of the hypothetical event, as it is intimate knowledge of the witness.

One basic problem in our inquiry is that neither you nor I have intimate knowledge of the early Christian witnesses. And we can’t even interview their wives!

kaufmannphillips wrote:
Now, you have said that “no one has sufficient evidence that the gospels misrepresent the essential story of Jesus, so as to allow anyone comfortably to reject their witness.” It is ridiculous to say this, inasmuch as many persons have comfortably rejected the witness of the gospels, based on the evidence available to them. Their evidence may not seem “sufficient” to you, but your personal sensibilities cannot be extrapolated to include “anyone.” Sufficiency, too, can be profoundly in the eye of the beholder.

steve wrote:
I will have to grant you this point. I often forget how unreasonable otherwise-intelligent partisans can be when their bias is being challenged.

Now, Martin Luther said about Reason, “by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore.” Just because somebody thinks differently than you, Steve, does not mean they are without reason. The tramp turns different tricks for different customers. Surely you don’t think she saves all her skill for you?!

That being said – I will file away your admission of “how unreasonable otherwise-intelligent partisans can be when their bias is being challenged.” Might come in handy.

kaufmannphillips wrote:
Beyond this, the “essential story” purported by the gospels is quite extraordinary to the usual realm of human experience; as such, the natural challenge for many audiences would be to comfortably accept their claims. As I have said before (in a previous discussion of ours), extraordinary claims warrant extraordinary evidence. And hearsay from premodern sources does not compellingly rise to the level of extraordinary evidence.

steve wrote:
The affirmations that God visited this planet in a unique manner and that Jesus arose from the dead do indeed represent extraordinary claims. As I have pointed out, a great number of historical occurrences are extraordinary—in that they are unique, and often not exactly like any other known event. Ripley’s Believe it or Not is a good source for documentation of many such things (I do not say it is a 100% trustworthy source, but many of its anomalies can be documented).

If extraordinary events never occurred, then there would be no call for evidence; such a case would be moot. On the other hand, if extraordinary claims generally turned out to be reliable, there would be little call for evidence.

steve wrote:
However, the assertion that such things happened is not inconsistent with such a worldview as the Judeo-Christian scriptures put forward—a worldview at least as credible as any conflicting one, it seems to me. Again, the credibility of the specific miraculous claims rests upon the integrity and competence of the witnesses—not the frequency of documentable similar occurrences.

It is quite appropriate for witnesses’ credibility, integrity, and/or competence to be called into question by the infrequency of substantiated similar occurrences.

When Howard and Mathilda claim to have seen a Bigfoot, is it unreasonable to question their integrity and/or competence? Or should their claims be charitably accepted, without compelling substantiation?

kaufmannphillips wrote:
I would like to know what kind of evidence would be sufficient in your eyes as “grounds ... for certainty that anything in [the gospels] is false.” In this sort of discussion, there are a thousand ways for a partisan to cavil at a matter that challenges their allegiance.

steve wrote:
As we have both demonstrated equally. The question is, which partisan has the more open mind?

I revisit the question of Jesus’ authenticity, time and again. On one hand, I have held wrong perspectives in the past; on the other, I learn things over time that afford new perspectives. It is prudent that I not be content to let my past appraisals of the situation rest.

You, however, have stated: “Given the lifelong experience that I have had with the living Jesus, I would say that perhaps I could be moved from my beliefs by the same kind of evidence that could convince me that my whole life and existence is a fantasy being dreamed by a rock. Mental hospitals have such people living in them. If I should ever so lose touch with reality as to come to disbelieve in Jesus, please have me committed to such a place...I might be a danger to myself.”

My response at that time was : “A person who is not seriously receptive to re-evaluation of their beliefs and to the possibility of correction is a person who holds a high opinion of their own infallibility, or who lacks adequate regard for truth. Such a person is not only a danger to themselves, but to others as well.”

A third party may estimate “which partisan has the more open mind.”

steve wrote:
We are arguing this matter in two different psychological environments. You argue strictly from the logical standpoint of default skepticism (because your experience apparently has not afforded you any other options), and assume, by default, an uncharitable stance toward the apostolic witness. Many do this, and it does not allow much opportunity for correction, if wrong. By contrast, I am approaching the evidence as I would approach any other testimony from credible, competent and apparently honest witnesses. My default is a judgment of charity toward these reporters, as it is toward most other witnesses in any field. My judgment of charity may not always prove to be justified, but in the present case, I certainly have nothing to lose in making it.

A default posture of charitableness may be “nice,” but it is not a virtue in the investigation of truth. Regular encounter with human behavior will recommend a default skepticism when it comes to every human activity.

Now, you may consider this to be “uncharitable.” But it is no charity to extend credence to an unworthy source. It is no charity to conduct a life based on a falsehood; and to influence others to do likewise; and to inflict disapprobation upon those who refuse to follow along; and to rob G-d of what is rightly his, by setting up an idol in his place.

You certainly have something to lose in your “judgment of charity.” Should you be wrong, you will have lost the opportunity to apply your life toward the greater service of truth. You will have lost the opportunity to guide others into true, healthier ways. You will have lost fellowship with those whom you wrongly deride. And you will have lost the blessings of a life interacting more authentically with the true G-d, as he truly is.

steve wrote:
In addition to this, however, I (and thousands of other reasonable people) seem to have something that you sadly lack—and that is a lifelong acquaintance with the Subject of the Christian testimony. This obviously biases me in its favor, but not blindly. It is my conviction that the God I serve would have me believe the truth, whether that truth lay in the Christian belief system or in some other. I have demonstrated, in the past forty years, an unending search for truth, and an uninterrupted policy of changing my mind—even about things that I have publicly taught—when the real evidence is compelling. However, I will not betray a lifelong Friend upon such scant arguments as those you have provided. That you would have done so is what I find astonishing. I have to conclude that you have never really known Him.

And do you believe, then, that there have not been non-Christian persons who have lived their lives in “an unending search for truth? Or that G-d’s desire for you to embrace truth is a guarantee that you will recognize it?

As for your “lifelong acquaintance,” there are many persons who will testify to their longtime relationships with Krishna, etc. I do not find this sort of mystical testimony to be terribly compelling; its kaleidoscopic forms would suggest that human mystical activity is not terrifically reliable.

Now, in a previous discussion I wrote: “You speak of your ‘experience ... with the living Jesus.’ I would welcome some more information about the nature of this experience. Have you seen ‘the living Jesus’? Had verbal conversations with him? Or is your experience primarily a matter of inference, as in the case of your financial providence?”

You never responded to me on that occasion. Perhaps you will now.

steve wrote:
I don’t think that you would appeal to any experimental knowledge of the things you now believe (though I may be surprised, when you take up my invitation to explain your journey away from Christ). Also, I do not know how many times you have been willing to change your mind in the face of evidence (though I know of one case, in your defection from Christ). I don’t know whether self-correction is habitual with you, as it is with me, but I am not encouraged to think so by your responses in dialogue.

My forthcoming essay will engage these subjects.

[kaufmannphillips]

steve7150 wrote:
The essence of this discussion is that vacillators transforming into disciples who were willing to give up their lives for Jesus lends itself to a limited choice of reasons.
The truth AKA the resurrection and it's implications or,
A conspiracy for the purpose of personal gain.

This does not exhaust the spectrum of possibilities. We may also consider mistakenness or delusion, and a combination of conspiracy and credulousness (since not all disciples would necessarily have been in on a conspiracy).

steve7150 wrote:
For me to consider the second i would need to calculate the odds of a conspiracy and knowledge of what the gain could have been?

There are many possibilities for “the gain.” I favor psychological possibilities – e. g., desire to compensate for deserting Jesus at his fatal hour, desire to sustain the experience of being involved in the Jesus movement, desire to validate the costs of having followed Jesus, desire to avoid shame as associates of a disgraced figure. Of course, such motives might or might not have been recognized by the disciples themselves. But such motives could have led the disciples to misconstrue or even misrepresent experiences in the wake of the crucifixion.

steve7150 wrote:
As for the first it is not difficult for me to believe that God would move at some point in time to reveal himself and his kingdom to his creations. I find it logical and not unexpected considering how inconclusive the OT is with regards to a resolution of the difficulties between man and God. As far as i see the bible is written in a style of progressive revelation from beginning to end.

(a) One could argue that the OT features G-d revealing himself time and again, and the nature of his kingdom in the stipulations of the Torah.

(b) I fail to see “how inconclusive the OT is with regards to a resolution of the difficulties between man and God.”

(c) Progress is in the eye of the beholder. In my perspective, there are vectors of degeneration to be found in later materials within the bible. This is a normal trend in human religious history.

[steve]

Emmet,

Most of the points you make have been discussed between us sufficiently for you and others to weigh the arguments and to reach satisfying conclusions. There is little, on most points, for me to say beyond what I have already said. I believe my arguments stand up to your counterarguments, but if you, or others, do not think so, then I probably have no further means of convincing you.

Nor do I count it among my responsibilities to to convince you, or anyone else, of anything at all. I give honest answers to questions that people ask, and I testify to what I know. I have no reason to believe that what can be expected of me extends beyond these things. Some people will be convinced, and some will not.

I will answer a few of the new points you have made in your post above.

You wrote:

Now, in a previous discussion I wrote: “You speak of your ‘experience ... with the living Jesus.’ I would welcome some more information about the nature of this experience. Have you seen ‘the living Jesus’? Had verbal conversations with him? Or is your experience primarily a matter of inference, as in the case of your financial providence?”

You never responded to me on that occasion. Perhaps you will now.

I have not seen the living Jesus. Nor does this surprise me. Since His ascension, few have seen Him. My conversations with Him are not such as I have with others sitting across the table with me at coffee, but there has been much communication over the years. My experiences of financial providence are among the most astonishing (and regular) confirmations of His intervention in my life, but there are other forms of intervention, answers to prayer, revelations, etc. which have happened too frequently for me to discount. Most memorable has been the grace and fellowship with God that I have known in the midst of overwhelming grief. There are few individual items in my experience with God that a committed skeptic could not chalk up to psychological factors or to amazing circumstantial coincidence—but, as I said, I am more reasonable than to maintain a stubborn commitment to gratuitous skepticism (since you are so charmed by my use of that word). Taken together, my experiences fit remarkably well into a tried-and-true worldview which has served thinking and trusting Christians for thousands of years. They do not fit so admirably with any other—so I am not inclined to seek another for which no evidence calls.

You wrote:

Now, you may consider this to be “uncharitable.” But it is no charity to extend credence to an unworthy source. It is no charity to conduct a life based on a falsehood; and to influence others to do likewise; and to inflict disapprobation upon those who refuse to follow along; and to rob G-d of what is rightly his, by setting up an idol in his place.

I am not sure if you think you are describing my position here. I do not know upon whom you feel I inflict disapprobation (unless you mean only that I think certain people's beliefs to be wrong, which makes me no different than you, who think my beliefs wrong). I have no idols. Jesus only encouraged the worship of His Father, the one true God. He is not "an unworthy source"—or, in any case, you have not demonstrated Him to be such.

You wrote:

You certainly have something to lose in your “judgment of charity.” Should you be wrong, you will have lost the opportunity to apply your life toward the greater service of truth. You will have lost the opportunity to guide others into true, healthier ways. You will have lost fellowship with those whom you wrongly deride. And you will have lost the blessings of a life interacting more authentically with the true G-d, as he truly is.

I can not imagine that, if I were to adopt your form of skepticism, I would thereby be equipped for greater service of truth, nor to guide others into true, healthier ways. I am not aware of any beliefs that have better served believers to live healthier or more useful lives than those that center around the claims of Christ. I am not aware of having derided anyone, nor of having done things as a Christian that should inhibit my friendships with unbelievers. I tolerate them in their beliefs. Some of them do not tolerate me in mine. I do not count this to be my deficiency, but theirs. If they require me to change my beliefs before they accept my friendship, I am not prepared to accommodate them in this. As for losing "the blessings of a life interacting more authentically with the true G-d, as he truly is," I do not desire any blessedness more authentic than that which the beatitudes of Christ pronounce. They are in full agreement with the teachings of the Psalms and the Prophets of the Tanakh, so, unless "G-d, as he truly is" feels more kinship with one of the other major world religions than with Judaism or Christianity, I do not feel that I am in danger. He knows that, if He were to unmistakably reveal to me that He is the God of another faith, I would pursue Him there.

As for your “lifelong acquaintance,” there are many persons who will testify to their longtime relationships with Krishna, etc. I do not find this sort of mystical testimony to be terribly compelling; its kaleidoscopic forms would suggest that human mystical activity is not terrifically reliable.

To you, my experience would not be compelling, of course. If I were trying to compel you, this would possibly disturb me. If you were a happily married man, and told me that you and your wife were deeply in love because of the many intimate things that had been shared between you through the years, I might not find this compelling. But would you give a rat's rear-end whether I felt thus compelled?

[steve7150]

There are many possibilities for “the gain.” I favor psychological possibilities – e. g., desire to compensate for deserting Jesus at his fatal hour, desire to sustain the experience of being involved in the Jesus movement, desire to validate the costs of having followed Jesus, desire to avoid shame as associates of a disgraced figure. Of course, such motives might or might not have been recognized by the disciples themselves. But such motives could have led the disciples to misconstrue or even misrepresent experiences in the wake of the crucifixion.





Very vague and highly speculative rationals Emmet that would be unlikely for one person much less dozens of people who chose to risk ridicule and torture and financial loss and family security for the reasons you list. As far as mass delusions or mass conspiracies , there were to many people and Jesus was here for to long a period of time for these scenerios to be viable. No disrespect meant but excluding the Talmud and judging the relationship between man and God in the Torah alone , it seems to me a form of behavior modification given to sinful man as if man was a little child and must sit in the naughty seat when he is rebellious. This can not be the final fully developed relationship between man and God, for God would not leave us in this undeveloped condition IMHO, hence Jesus came with the much fuller revelation of God as our "Abba."

[steve7150]

Very vague and highly speculative rationals Emmet that would be unlikely for one person much less dozens of people who chose to risk ridicule and torture and financial loss and family security for the reasons you list. As far as mass delusions or mass conspiracies , there were to many people and Jesus was here for to long a period of time for these scenerios to be viable. No disrespect meant but excluding the Talmud and judging the relationship between man and God in the Torah alone , it seems to me a form of behavior modification given to sinful man as if man was a little child and must sit in the naughty seat when he is rebellious. This can not be the final fully developed relationship between man and God, for God would not leave us in this undeveloped condition IMHO, hence Jesus came with the much fuller revelation of God as our "Abba





Another reason i believe the NT Emmet, is that if only the Torah is true or only the OT is true that would mean God only spoke to the jews , and simply left out the gentiles who constitute 99.7 % of the population of the world. Does'nt add up to me amigo.

[kaufmannphillips]

kaufmannphillips wrote:
Now, in a previous discussion I wrote: “You speak of your ‘experience ... with the living Jesus.’ I would welcome some more information about the nature of this experience. Have you seen ‘the living Jesus’? Had verbal conversations with him? Or is your experience primarily a matter of inference, as in the case of your financial providence?”

You never responded to me on that occasion. Perhaps you will now.

steve wrote:
I have not seen the living Jesus. Nor does this surprise me. Since His ascension, few have seen Him. My conversations with Him are not such as I have with others sitting across the table with me at coffee, but there has been much communication over the years. My experiences of financial providence are among the most astonishing (and regular) confirmations of His intervention in my life, but there are other forms of intervention, answers to prayer, revelations, etc. which have happened too frequently for me to discount. Most memorable has been the grace and fellowship with God that I have known in the midst of overwhelming grief. There are few individual items in my experience with God that a committed skeptic could not chalk up to psychological factors or to amazing circumstantial coincidence—but, as I said, I am more reasonable than to maintain a stubborn commitment to gratuitous skepticism (since you are so charmed by my use of that word). Taken together, my experiences fit remarkably well into a tried-and-true worldview which has served thinking and trusting Christians for thousands of years. They do not fit so admirably with any other—so I am not inclined to seek another for which no evidence calls.

Another “gratuitous”? Ahh – now you are trying to dull my chops with drink! Very shrewd...

(a) It is interesting that you start your discussion here with “the living Jesus,” but segue into your experience of G-d. Some Christians might readily conflate the two. But without resorting to the theological equation of one with the other – how much of your experience has been of the living G-d, and how much of “the living Jesus” per se? And how do you recognize when what you are experiencing is “the living Jesus” in particular?

(b) For the majority of your life, you have engaged G-d and the universe rather exclusively through a Christian filter. And beyond this, you have spent a large quotient of your life within the context of Christian environments. So it is hardly surprising if your experiences “fit remarkably well” into a Christian worldview.

Billions of people find the universe to fit their varying filters. On one hand, this is testimony to human nature, for it is a practice of the human mind to impose order upon the experience of phenomena. (One may consider here the Rorschach test, and the appearance of Jesus on toast.) But when it comes to G-d, there is the additional factor of his patience toward our filters. G-d reaches out to us and interacts with us, even if we imagine him to be a large pink bird named Frank.

(c) As for “evidence” – evidence hardly “calls” for acceptance of the Christian filter. Basically, we have mystical and miraculous testimonies, the likes of which can be found in various religious quarters; and hearsay from a handful of persons, most of whom we know very little about. You may persist in regarding skepticism toward this evidence as “gratuitous” {drink!}, but then again, we have engaged only a fraction of the overall evidence in the course of this discussion; more will be dealt with in my forthcoming essay.

kaufmannphillips wrote:
A default posture of charitableness may be “nice,” but it is not a virtue in the investigation of truth. Regular encounter with human behavior will recommend a default skepticism when it comes to every human activity.

Now, you may consider this to be “uncharitable.” But it is no charity to extend credence to an unworthy source. It is no charity to conduct a life based on a falsehood; and to influence others to do likewise; and to inflict disapprobation upon those who refuse to follow along; and to rob G-d of what is rightly his, by setting up an idol in his place.

steve wrote:
I am not sure if you think you are describing my position here. I do not know upon whom you feel I inflict disapprobation (unless you mean only that I think certain people's beliefs to be wrong, which makes me no different than you, who think my beliefs wrong). I have no idols. Jesus only encouraged the worship of His Father, the one true God. He is not "an unworthy source"—or, in any case, you have not demonstrated Him to be such.

(a) You may be unaware of “inflict[ing] disapprobation.” But is being “uncharitable,” “unreasonable,” and “sadly lack[ing]” a matter of compliment in your social circle?

(b) One difference between you and me would be that I have not been trying to make hay here from a stance that charitableness is superior. Short-sighted charity can redound to an uncharitable outcome. Probably you would agree, when it comes to taking a charitable approach to the claims of other religions.

(c) It may be correct that “Jesus only encouraged the worship of His Father, the one true God.” But as for you – your faith statement is that the “one Sovereign God” is “existing and made known to us as three persons: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit.” Your statement continues: “Jesus of Nazareth is the Word made flesh.” Theological algebra here would yield that {meshugaas} Jesus of Nazareth is God - at least, to the same extent that the Father is God.

Now, if one’s charitableness leads one to wrongly engage Jesus of Nazareth as G-d, then one has indeed set up an idol. When one sets what is not G-d in the place of G-d, this is idolatry.

(d) As for Jesus being “an unworthy source” – I have scarcely engaged Jesus himself yet. For the most part, I have been engaging persons talking about Jesus. One must engage the mediaries before attempting to “demonstrate” anything about the subject these mediaries speak of.

kaufmannphillips wrote:
You certainly have something to lose in your “judgment of charity.” Should you be wrong, you will have lost the opportunity to apply your life toward the greater service of truth. You will have lost the opportunity to guide others into true, healthier ways. You will have lost fellowship with those whom you wrongly deride. And you will have lost the blessings of a life interacting more authentically with the true G-d, as he truly is.

steve wrote:
I can not imagine that, if I were to adopt your form of skepticism, I would thereby be equipped for greater service of truth, nor to guide others into true, healthier ways. I am not aware of any beliefs that have better served believers to live healthier or more useful lives than those that center around the claims of Christ. I am not aware of having derided anyone, nor of having done things as a Christian that should inhibit my friendships with unbelievers. I tolerate them in their beliefs. Some of them do not tolerate me in mine. I do not count this to be my deficiency, but theirs. If they require me to change my beliefs before they accept my friendship, I am not prepared to accommodate them in this. As for losing "the blessings of a life interacting more authentically with the true G-d, as he truly is," I do not desire any blessedness more authentic than that which the beatitudes of Christ pronounce. They are in full agreement with the teachings of the Psalms and the Prophets of the Tanakh, so, unless "G-d, as he truly is" feels more kinship with one of the other major world religions than with Judaism or Christianity, I do not feel that I am in danger. He knows that, if He were to unmistakably reveal to me that He is the God of another faith, I would pursue Him there.

Quite the oration. But if a person can’t acknowledge that if they were wrong about something, that it would be better if they were not wrong – then their credibility is rather dubious.

Should one imagine that what you believe in is so important that it can mean the difference between eternal life and death - and yet so unimportant that being wrong about it would be insignificant?

Beyond this, “friendship” is not the same thing as “fellowship.” And please tell – what would it take for G-d to “unmistakably reveal” himself in such a way that you would abandon a Christian worldview?

kaufmannphillips wrote:
As for your “lifelong acquaintance,” there are many persons who will testify to their longtime relationships with Krishna, etc. I do not find this sort of mystical testimony to be terribly compelling; its kaleidoscopic forms would suggest that human mystical activity is not terrifically reliable.

steve wrote:
To you, my experience would not be compelling, of course. If I were trying to compel you, this would possibly disturb me. If you were a happily married man, and told me that you and your wife were deeply in love because of the many intimate things that had been shared between you through the years, I might not find this compelling. But would you give a rat's rear-end whether I felt thus compelled?

You invoked your “lifelong acquaintance,” Steve. If you were not willing to treat it as real evidence, open to evaluation and debate, then why waste my time with it? But if we are transitioning into flat declarations of our feelings, then I should hear no more carping about my “intuitions.”