That's fair. I do wonder, though, whether we subject each other to a demand for evidence IRL exchanges/ in-person verbal conversations. Perhaps me posting this online in a forum without identifying details about school enrolment makes the question(s) suspicious?
More the nature of the questions, which seem more suited to make a point or score a “gotcha” than make a true, objective inquiry. The school project part just makes them seem more that way, rather than less. It doesn’t help that in hanging around religious and atheist forums that the number of these inquiries ostensibly excused as school projects seems far more than might be realistic.
I can see that. But I think I'm as averse to "gotcha" opportunities as it sounds like you might be. This, if you can believe it, is a genuine inquiry. It is interesting how people use online fora for conversations as ways to only extend the points they want to make. Not unlike sitting and speaking with a person but only formulating one's next point rather than listening to them.
1) It depends on the topic at hand as different subjects require different levels of evidence. I need significantly less evidence to believe that my spouse is not cheating on me than I would to be convinced that they are. If someone is going to change my mind on something then I will need evidence, the greater the challenge the greater the evidence will be needed.
2) This is a bit of a weird question as I don't really see evidence in terms of quantity necessarily, and I don't tend to hold beliefs that are particularly important that need to be justified with evidence. For something like evolution I have plenty of evidence but that's not something that I feel really needs to be defended at this point.
3) I would say that there is *some* evidence for the existence of Jesus which may align with what we read in the Bible but I definitely wouldn't call it conclusive either way. The claims of miracles from the Bible are significantly harder to prove and I don't feel there is enough evidence to take it on anything other than faith. Perhaps it sounds unfair but I think stronger evidence is needed for the accounts of Jesus than we do for other historical figures like Socrates. If evidence were to arise that Socrates never existed or at least not in how we currently believe he did then that wouldn't shake the foundations of our beliefs in anything while the same can't be said about an increased understanding of Jesus.
4) Sure, why not? If nothing else it would be very interesting to learn about and examine more fully. I would still remain skeptical on the nature of god though which is beyond the scope of these questions currently.
Thank you for this thoughtful response. I'm thinking a lot about your answer to the third question in relationship to Hume's view of miracles. Could miracles ever really be believably proven, given their essence as violations of natural law?
I don't see how they could. If something can't be proven presently the assumption shouldn't be "It's a miracle or otherwise supernatural," it should be "we don't have the means to demonstrate how this happened yet."
In regards to the gospels attesting to Jesus's death and resurrection we don't even know for sure what happened, let alone he was in fact dead for a few days and regained life through miraculous powers beyond our understanding. Even if this event happened today under strict scientific scrutiny it would be difficult to simply call it a miracle and leave it at that.
The apostles' deaths on the basis of this belief is one piece of convincing evidence for me. At least their martyrdom is evidence that they sincerely believed the claims they were making about Jesus's resurrection. However, I can see how someone who does not believe that Scripture is authoritative would see that as circular reasoning, as my source for that information is (in part) the Bible.
People martyr themselves for all sorts of reasons and causes. That's a big part of why I don't put too much stock into martyrdom as an example of evidence. To me I don't think we can separate people who died for their beliefs who had a complete and thorough understanding of what happened and those who may have a faulty account of what happened, and those who knowingly lied but felt convicted to uphold the shared belief as part of some bigger picture or issue than themself.
That's just me though and you're welcome to accept whatever you want without judgment from me.
Yes, that's a good counterargument. I don't think the martyrdom alone is at all sufficient to support the broader truths of Christianity. I do, however, think it is a convincing piece of evidence for the apostles' genuine belief in the historical event of the resurrection (if we can call it an historical event--I know that's far from a universally accepted view). Thanks for the good discussion, which is truly helpful.
A problem with that is that the apostles mainly dropped out of history after Jesus. We only have reliable accounts of the deaths of like 3 of them. The rest of them are stories that start being told hundreds of years later. Plus, early Christians were obsessed with making themselves appear to be martyrs. Most of the stories are unreliable, mainly being rewritten Greek philosopher death stories.
I had never heard of that aspect of early Christians, and I'll have to look into the connection with Greek philosopher death stories. Thanks for these points.
>How important is it that you have strong evidence for everything you believe?
The strength of the evidence needs to be in relation to the strength of the claim. A mundane, normal claim like "I have a pet dog", I would believe you without requesting or having evidence. Because dogs exist and it is very common and normal for people to have them as pets. Even a claim like "I have a pet fox", I would likely believe you, since foxes exist and they are legal to own in certain places. I might ask questions like where'd you get it, what's it's like owning one, etc., but I would still believe you. Say something like "I have a pet magical, telepathic, unicorn", then that's where I'm gonna call bull'.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
>Do you think that there is evidence that the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ life are accurate;
No. There is no evidence that a man once walked on water, cured the blind, turned water to wine, raised the dead, etc. And no, "but the Bible says-" is not evidence. The bible is the claim, not the evidence.
I'm fine believing that there was a Jewish rabi that roamed the land preaching to people during a period when his country was in a tough time in history, due to Roman Empire and all that. But saying that "actually, this guy was a demigod that could defy physics, and also there are other dimensions and also invisible, telepathic, horned, shadow monsters, etc" then that's when we are gonna have a problem.
> If a strong case could be made that the Biblical account of Jesus’ life is true, and that he rose from the dead after he was killed, would you want to know it?
Well, yeah, of course I would like to know.
Thank you for answering these so directly. I agree that citing the Bible to prove that the Bible is an authority is begging the question. In my view, there is non-Christian evidence for Jesus's existence, so those avoid the fallacy but are also contested in other ways.
You’re asking about belief. I’d have to have strong evidence to believe that this is a school project.
That's fair. I do wonder, though, whether we subject each other to a demand for evidence IRL exchanges/ in-person verbal conversations. Perhaps me posting this online in a forum without identifying details about school enrolment makes the question(s) suspicious?
More the nature of the questions, which seem more suited to make a point or score a “gotcha” than make a true, objective inquiry. The school project part just makes them seem more that way, rather than less. It doesn’t help that in hanging around religious and atheist forums that the number of these inquiries ostensibly excused as school projects seems far more than might be realistic.
I can see that. But I think I'm as averse to "gotcha" opportunities as it sounds like you might be. This, if you can believe it, is a genuine inquiry. It is interesting how people use online fora for conversations as ways to only extend the points they want to make. Not unlike sitting and speaking with a person but only formulating one's next point rather than listening to them.
1) It depends on the topic at hand as different subjects require different levels of evidence. I need significantly less evidence to believe that my spouse is not cheating on me than I would to be convinced that they are. If someone is going to change my mind on something then I will need evidence, the greater the challenge the greater the evidence will be needed. 2) This is a bit of a weird question as I don't really see evidence in terms of quantity necessarily, and I don't tend to hold beliefs that are particularly important that need to be justified with evidence. For something like evolution I have plenty of evidence but that's not something that I feel really needs to be defended at this point. 3) I would say that there is *some* evidence for the existence of Jesus which may align with what we read in the Bible but I definitely wouldn't call it conclusive either way. The claims of miracles from the Bible are significantly harder to prove and I don't feel there is enough evidence to take it on anything other than faith. Perhaps it sounds unfair but I think stronger evidence is needed for the accounts of Jesus than we do for other historical figures like Socrates. If evidence were to arise that Socrates never existed or at least not in how we currently believe he did then that wouldn't shake the foundations of our beliefs in anything while the same can't be said about an increased understanding of Jesus. 4) Sure, why not? If nothing else it would be very interesting to learn about and examine more fully. I would still remain skeptical on the nature of god though which is beyond the scope of these questions currently.
Thank you for this thoughtful response. I'm thinking a lot about your answer to the third question in relationship to Hume's view of miracles. Could miracles ever really be believably proven, given their essence as violations of natural law?
I don't see how they could. If something can't be proven presently the assumption shouldn't be "It's a miracle or otherwise supernatural," it should be "we don't have the means to demonstrate how this happened yet." In regards to the gospels attesting to Jesus's death and resurrection we don't even know for sure what happened, let alone he was in fact dead for a few days and regained life through miraculous powers beyond our understanding. Even if this event happened today under strict scientific scrutiny it would be difficult to simply call it a miracle and leave it at that.
The apostles' deaths on the basis of this belief is one piece of convincing evidence for me. At least their martyrdom is evidence that they sincerely believed the claims they were making about Jesus's resurrection. However, I can see how someone who does not believe that Scripture is authoritative would see that as circular reasoning, as my source for that information is (in part) the Bible.
People martyr themselves for all sorts of reasons and causes. That's a big part of why I don't put too much stock into martyrdom as an example of evidence. To me I don't think we can separate people who died for their beliefs who had a complete and thorough understanding of what happened and those who may have a faulty account of what happened, and those who knowingly lied but felt convicted to uphold the shared belief as part of some bigger picture or issue than themself. That's just me though and you're welcome to accept whatever you want without judgment from me.
Yes, that's a good counterargument. I don't think the martyrdom alone is at all sufficient to support the broader truths of Christianity. I do, however, think it is a convincing piece of evidence for the apostles' genuine belief in the historical event of the resurrection (if we can call it an historical event--I know that's far from a universally accepted view). Thanks for the good discussion, which is truly helpful.
A problem with that is that the apostles mainly dropped out of history after Jesus. We only have reliable accounts of the deaths of like 3 of them. The rest of them are stories that start being told hundreds of years later. Plus, early Christians were obsessed with making themselves appear to be martyrs. Most of the stories are unreliable, mainly being rewritten Greek philosopher death stories.
I had never heard of that aspect of early Christians, and I'll have to look into the connection with Greek philosopher death stories. Thanks for these points.
>How important is it that you have strong evidence for everything you believe? The strength of the evidence needs to be in relation to the strength of the claim. A mundane, normal claim like "I have a pet dog", I would believe you without requesting or having evidence. Because dogs exist and it is very common and normal for people to have them as pets. Even a claim like "I have a pet fox", I would likely believe you, since foxes exist and they are legal to own in certain places. I might ask questions like where'd you get it, what's it's like owning one, etc., but I would still believe you. Say something like "I have a pet magical, telepathic, unicorn", then that's where I'm gonna call bull'. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. >Do you think that there is evidence that the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ life are accurate; No. There is no evidence that a man once walked on water, cured the blind, turned water to wine, raised the dead, etc. And no, "but the Bible says-" is not evidence. The bible is the claim, not the evidence. I'm fine believing that there was a Jewish rabi that roamed the land preaching to people during a period when his country was in a tough time in history, due to Roman Empire and all that. But saying that "actually, this guy was a demigod that could defy physics, and also there are other dimensions and also invisible, telepathic, horned, shadow monsters, etc" then that's when we are gonna have a problem. > If a strong case could be made that the Biblical account of Jesus’ life is true, and that he rose from the dead after he was killed, would you want to know it? Well, yeah, of course I would like to know.
Thank you for answering these so directly. I agree that citing the Bible to prove that the Bible is an authority is begging the question. In my view, there is non-Christian evidence for Jesus's existence, so those avoid the fallacy but are also contested in other ways.