this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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Sorry for the late reply, I've been too busy with school to set aside a block of time to address this yesterday.
I understand that you want a high standard for proof, and I agree that, if it's available, you definitely want the highest quality proof available before you make a commitment that's going to alter your life and eternal destiny. But if all you have is medium-low quality proof for a god and a "we can't be sure" for there being no god, it doesn't make strictly logical sense to default to no god. I know Pascal's wager isn't going to save souls, but if the risk of getting it wrong is being tortured by some other deity, then it's better to take n-1 risks of eternal torment than n risks, especially if the only evidence available points towards a god. For a mundane comparison, if you're in a burning building and a helicopter lowers a rope ladder to get you out, while the burden of proof would be on them to demonstrate that the ladder is strong enough to hold you, if all they can offer you is a "Billy said it should work," you're still better off taking the ladder (with a risk of falling back into the fire and dying) than staying in the fire and certainly burning to death.
If I were you, I would have made the case about life on Earth instead, because when it's about choosing your lifestyle, there's little risk of the ultimate bad time in the equation, so it makes more sense to be picky about the quality of evidence. You're not going to commit 10% of your income, half a day a week, and obligate yourself to study a book just for a "Billy said it's true."
If you do want to make the case about life on Earth, I'd be happy to meet you on that front, but I don't want to put words in your mouth and then immediately punch them back out without waiting for you to respond. I mean, I'm not planning on throwing punches anyways, I'm more just talking about fair debate principles.
It's historically confirmed that Jesus existed at least as a human. The disciples were, at least after Acts, prominent enough that if one of them made a statement that they never actually saw Jesus resurrected, word would have gotten around and been recorded somewhere. To me, that means there are one of three possibilities:
No worries, take your time to reply. I appreciate the detailed post. Let me get into it the best that I can to see if I can articulate my position on what you presented here.
I don't know if it's worth getting into Pascal's wager too deeply. If you're going to buy into that reasoning I think the logical thing to do is not to believe the bible, but to believe in the religion with the worst possible hell. Either way it's not a method for determining what's true or not.
I actually disagree with you when you say we have medium to poor quality evidence for a god and no evidence of no god. Once again it comes back to the burden of proof. We don't have evidence that there are no dragons, because that's not something you can prove and the burden is to provide evidence of the positive claim that there are dragons. I'd also like to clarify my position, I don't claim to know that there's no God, I actually don't make any claims as an atheist, I'm simply not convinced that there is a god because I don't think there is any evidence to warrant such a belief.
Hopefully that helps to clarify my stance a bit. Now as to why I don't find your reasoning there compelling, it seems like you are using the bible to prove the bible. Or in other words assuming the bible is true, and basing your arguments on that at least when it comes to the resurrection claims. As far as I'm aware and please do correct me if I'm wrong here, we don't have any first hand accounts from disciples of the resurrection, with the possible exception of Paul. The gospels themselves are anonymously written texts claiming that these people witnessed a resurrection, and I find it far more likely that they are inaccurate rather than someone rose from the dead and ascended to a heaven which requires quite a lot of assumptions.
To summarise, I believe you are missing another possibility which is that the bible itself is a fictional work even if some of the people may have existed historically, and as such does not count as a claim from the disciples of Jesus because they did not write it. To be honest I even think aliens is even a more plausible explanation anyway than a god existing, but I think what I outlined here is the much more likely explanation unless I'm mistaken in any of my assertions.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by making a case for life on Earth. Maybe it comes down to what I said in an earlier comment about some God's being logically inconsistent and therefore actually in a way disprovable because the claim is not internally consistent. Personally I believe the Christian god falls into that category along with any other claim of an all knowing, all loving and all powerful God. That said, I'm not claiming anything, simply rejecting the claim that a God exists which is why I didn't go down that line if reasoning.
As I said, I don't find the evidence to be satisfactory, in fact for me personally it's pretty far from satisfactory for such a huge claim but I'm also happy to dig more into my specific criticisms of why I don't think the Christian God is logically consistent if that's of interest to you.
Yeah, I agree Pascal's wager isn't a good way to frame your life. I was just using it as a counterpoint to your explanation on why the standards for proof are so high. If it is because you're trying to avoid the risks of a bad afterlife, you're already doing Pascal's wager, just with the wrong approach. The only way I can see that being the best approach is if you're actively evaluating all the known religions to weigh the odds of each against how bad their hells are. But then there also better be reason to suspect that the ideal religion might gatekeep you for having once been part of a different religion, yet not gatekeep you for having been an atheist or for going in with the motivation of Pascal's wager. Otherwise you might as well sign up with the best you know of right now and keep looking. But don't do that because the wager is not a good : )
When I mentioned life on Earth, I was referring to having high standards because it's going to affect your mortal life, rather than because of the risks of a bad afterlife. I think that's a more sensible approach because it doesn't require you to start from the assumption that an afterlife is possible, and the costs can be empirically measured instead of going off whatever the holy texts claim (outside of miracles, of course.) If the cost is 10% of your money and a day a week, then yeah, you probably want to be pretty sure before you commit, but if there are clear benefits, it might be worth it even without a rock-solid proof of a deity. Does that make sense?
Yes, I see what you mean about using the Bible to prove itself. I hadn't noticed that the earliest manuscripts of Mark's gospel didn't have the account of Jesus appearing to the disciples, so that raises the possibility that when Mark (or whomever wrote that) was collecting notes of the stories around Jesus to spin a narrative, he decided to fabricate the idea of Christ appearing to all 11 at once in order to make it seem more credible.
The gospel of Mark is believed by scholars to have been written around 65-73 AD^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible#Table_IV:_New_Testament], predating the other gospels, but it's not the first book of the New Testament to have been written. 1 Corinthians, which scholars are sure was written by Paul, is believed to have been written around 53-57 AD, and it explicitly says that Christ appeared to the twelve disciples^[https://www.bible.com/bible/111/1CO.15.5.NIV].
Now it's not exactly clear how many of the disciples were still alive by then, and at least one of them had died, but there were still some of them around. Seeing as they were still kicking, it wouldn't make sense for Paul to make up an eyewitness testimony on their behalf, and if he did, they would have heard about it. His letters weren't exactly kept secret. So even though we don't have a direct claim from the (probably illiterate) disciples that they saw Jesus resurrected, it's safe to conclude that they did make that claim.
EDIT: Though I suppose this brings up a fourth possibility (or fifth if you count aliens) that Paul was a chessmaster who made up the appearance to the twelve, and arranged to have any disciples who disagreed with his plan executed before he wrote about it... I think that's pretty far-fetched.
It's not necessary about how to frame my life. I just want to believe true things. If someone can make me believe in things that aren't true then they can limit my ability for self determination and making good decisions with my life. That's why a lot of our conversation has revolved around evidence and what would be a good enough standard of evidence to accept an extraordinary claim like someone rising from the dead after 3 days and ascending to a place called heaven which is supposedly a paradise.
I think the fundamental difference we have and why we seem to be reaching different conclusions is in his much stock we place in the bible. To me as a non believer it's just a collection of anonymously written stories. Maybe some of the characters in those stories are even real but I have no more reason to believe the extraordinary claims of the bible than the stories of King Arthur who may well have been a real king but I doubt be had a magical sword pulled from a stone.
I'm not saying everyone one should have the same standard of evidence but I hope I've at least managed to convince you that I am being quite reasonable in not accepting such an extraordinary claim. I definitely appreciate your willingness to engage and have an interesting discussion either way though.
Yeah, I understand where you're coming from, which is why I'm citing historical analysis of the Bible. Most scholars don't think King Arthur was real, and if he was, the stories weren't written when he was alive, so you can't put any stock in the story because no witnesses were around to verify nor dispute it. On the other hand, even if you believe the Bible is a book of myths, there are still historical facts that have been independently verified, like:
Because the early church was significant and the disciples were real people, I conclude that they were famous.
Because they were famous, I conclude that if they said anything surprising, word would have gotten around.
Because Paul's letters were written while the disciples were around, and the disciples were famous, I conclude that if he said anything surprising about the disciples, they would have heard about it.
If the disciples heard a story about them that never happened, they would have confirmed it, denied it, or evaded the question.
If they confirmed a story, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true, but it does mean they wanted people to believe it's true.
If they denied a story, that would have been surprising, and word would have gotten around, so there would have been some mention somewhere.
If they evaded commenting on a story, that means they wanted people to believe it's true (and hints that it was untrue, but that part doesn't really matter for my purposes here.)
Thus, if Paul wrote something about the disciples while they were around, and there's no mention anywhere of them denying it, that indicates that the disciples wanted people to believe it's true.
Paul wrote about Jesus appearing to the disciples after resurrection, and there's no mention of them denying it. This doesn't necessarily mean that the resurrection was true, but it does mean that the disciples were at least complicit and refused to deny it even in the face of persecution. As for conclusions from there, see my earlier comment.
Is that line of thinking solid enough, depending on historically verified facts instead of taking the Bible as an accurate account at face value?
Also, something that bugged me about your earlier comment: You say you make no claim as to whether a god exists, you just aren't convinced. And you say there's no proof for a lack of a god. Yet you also said that you think aliens causing the resurrection (or appearance thereof) is more plausible than a god existing.
Aliens having the technology, knowledge, and motivation to cosplay as God is already highly unlikely, whether in a world with a real god or not. Jesus being the real deal is fairly likely if in a world with God, but impossible if in a world with no god.
So if you're telling me that Jesus being the real deal is less likely than aliens cosplaying God, that tells me you think there being no god is significantly more likely than God existing. In the absence of evidence in either direction, they should be treated as equally plausible (though not equally valid, as burden of proof is still a thing.) The fact that you don't tells me you actually do lean towards the lack of a god.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm definitely biased towards God existing. I'd just like you to introspect and examine your bias so you're aware of it. Though I'd also appreciate it if you adjusted your parameters and leaned a little more this way ; )
The King Arthur analogy was definitely not perfect, and to be totally clear, I'm willing to grant that Jesus was likely a real person and even his disciples and that he was crucified. I don't have a problem with those particular claims because they are fairly ordinary and I understand there is at least some evidence of Jesus which is about as good as you can get for a random carpenter that lived at that time (as opposed to an emperor or something who would have a lot more evidence).
My problem is solely with the claim that God exists and Jesus was resurrected. These are quite extraordinary claims I think you will agree, so I need a much higher standard of evidence. What you've presented here is not strictly evidence, but an assumption that because the claims weren't denied by the disciples specifically (as far as we know) that these extraordinary claims are likely true. I disagree, as I don't think that lack of recorded denials counts as evidence otherwise we might believe all kinds of things. To me it reads as a number of assumptions leading to an extraordinary conclusion.
In terms of the aliens being more plausible, my comment was a bit toungue in cheek and hyperbolic. May main point is they are more likely to exist in my mind because we already have examples of intelligent life. Sure they might not be interested in us but aliens by definition have alien motivations so who knows? It's at least possible but if someone made that claim I would also likely reject it due to lack of evidence.
I also have to disagree strongly with the idea that there are two unprovable hypothesis and therefore a 50/50 chance. The number of competing hypothesis doesn't mean they are equally strong and therefore equally likely. I could just as easily claim that, once again, there is an invisible dragon under your bed and given you can't provide evidence to disprove it and I can't provide evidence to prove it, we have to conclude it's a 50/50 chance which is clearly wrong.
You are correct though that I think the possibility of God existing is far far less than the possibility that there is no God. That's why I'm an atheist after all. Everyone has their own standards of evidence though and reasons for believing or not as I said before. It's ok for us to keep our respective positions but with more understanding of each other.
Makes sense. I guess I'm not so much demonstrating that the resurrection is true as that, if it's not true, the accounts surrounding it are still very extraordinary and probably worth looking into.