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Case Against Faith
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Lenardos Debate - Round 1

After some prodding, I was able to engage with Mr. Lenardos in an e-mail debate on our respective Extraordinary Events papers.  In the response below, he says that he'd just as soon not publish our conversation, and keep it between ourselves.  However, I requested that I go ahead and publish our debate here, and he agreed.  At the bottom of each page is 'Prev' and 'Next' buttons to traverse our debate.

Round 1 - Lenardos:

Hi Paul,

Here are some thoughts on your rebuttal I think it is remarkable on how much you and I agree. Let’s look over some of our agreements: 

1)

2)


3)
We both agree that the atheist must avoid at all cost the use of historical method.

We agree that there is no way for the atheist to objectively qualify or quantify what he means by,    “extraordinary evidence.”

We agree that the demand for “extraordinary evidence” by the atheist is absurd (for different reasons, but we agree on the conclusion). 

Now let’s look at some things we don’t agree on.

First, let's talk about the objective/subjective criteria. In any conclusion there is always a subjective involved. That is because there is always a subject drawing a conclusion. But when we talk about subjectivity or objectivity we are not talking about the one drawing the conclusion, but the way the conclusion is drawn.  Was "I feel this way or that way" part of the process in drawing the conclusion (or perhaps the whole basis for the conclusion)? Was the conclusion based on a set standard of comparable data? This is the difference between subjective and objective. What we mean by an objective conclusion is one wherein different people in different parts of the world, regardless of their philosophy, when given the same criteria and the same facts, come to the same conclusion.

I think you and I can agree on one thing: I don't care if you don't happen to like the resurrection and you don't care if I do like it. I would hope what we both want to know is, did it happen? If we want to know if an historical event happened, what do we do? Do we interject personal biases and presuppositions, or do we look to the means and methods used in historical investigation that have brought us other sound conclusions? In your paper you simply try to swipe historical investigation aside by saying it is all subjective. Perhaps, unaware, you have taken the only possible position an atheist has in regards to history. You see the evidence for the reliability of the NT and the Resurrection of Jesus is so strong that any position in regards to history that allows for reliable objective conclusions will have to admit the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead. At thi s point your rejection of the resurrection is not based on any objective study of the subject. In other words, your position is nothing more than a statement of faith. It will remain a statement of faith as long as you depend on your subjective presuppositions rather than objective critera..

Your illustration of the Chevy and Ford fans illustrates how people will use the objective to try to bolster their presupposed subjective view. It reminds me of the old saying, "Statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics." This is an example of special pleading. I talked about this in my paper. But, if the atheist loses special pleading and subjective conclusions, he loses the argument.

In your paper you write:

"Also, since Lenardos has asked for an objective measure for determining whether the Resurrection happened, I'd like to ask him, okay, what is your objective measure? What objective measure do you use to validate the Resurrection? Also, have you applied this same measure to other religions? Have you studied Islam? Have you put the claims of Islam up to the same objective measure? Though I don't personally know Lenardos, I must confess that I suspect he would have no better answer for this question than the atheists and skeptics he criticizes."

Let me point you to a link that outlines the case in detail:

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocont.htm

As regarding my looking into the claims of other religions, the answer is yes.

You continue:

"He says, "the Christian position only asks that we use the same reasoning and rational thought that we use to derive what are considered good conclusions in historical investigation, and apply those same means and methods to the New Testament and the resurrection of Jesus." Is this really what the Christian position is? Lets say, for the sake of argument, that there is roughly the same amount of evidence for the Resurrection as there is for Constantine having once been Emperor of Rome. Supposedly, by Lenardos' logic, we should consider them both equally proved. Okay, so lets say we do consider them both equally proved. Now, I don't have any particular reason to doubt that Constantine was indeed Emperor of Rome. But, would I bet my soul on it? Would Lenardos? Would Lenardos get up on Sunday mornings, and go to church and give hi s confession, "I believe that Constantine was Emperor of Rome, so help me God." Would Lenardos consider it a reasonable criterion of eternal salvation to be whether someone has correctly concluded that Constantine was indeed Emperor of Rome? (For the purpose of the paper, I'm not going to debate whether such a thing as a "soul" exists. That topic is beyond the scope of this paper. I assume that Lenardos believes in the existence of the soul, and will simply assume he is correct for the remainder of this paper.) "

If both conclusions are based on a preponderance of the evidence, then rejecting either is irrational, regardless of whether or not we like it. What we mean by" irrational" is, "going against the evidence." Going against the evidence is a subjective conclusion. It is also a form of special pleading: With events we like or don't care about we have one set of criteria, with events we don't like we have a different set of criteria (This second set of criteria is usually, “I don’t like it, so it didn’t happen.”). Can you see the basic logical fallacy in that? If not, let me continue. Whenever I have these discussions with atheists, they always bring up these “hypothetical examples.” Why? Why don’t they bring up a real example of some outrageous supposed event that have all the evidence that the NT has, yet the criteria shows it to be false? Could it be that there are none? O h yes, there are myths and fables, but once again the level of evidence for these myths is Zero. This is not the case with the resurrection.  It is my experience that the average atheist has no idea of the extent and depth of the case for the resurrection. They have never studied any historical methodology nor have they looked at the evidence compared to a baseline of evidence for other events from the same period. When one examines the evidence for the NT and resurrection compared to other events of the period, it becomes obvious that the amount of evidence is extraordinary and the quality of the evidence is extraordinary. But most atheists would rather bury their heads in the sand and say, “I don’t like it, so it didn’t happen.”

You write: 

“Lenardos says that if a skeptic says a "different kind" of evidence is needed compared to validating ordinary events, then the skeptic should have to explain just exactly what "different kind" would be needed.  Which brings up an interesting point.  All we humans have for validating events are our naturalistic senses.  That's all we got.  Of course we do have ways of finding things that are beyond our senses.  Such as we can find radio waves even though they are beyond our senses.  But the way we find them is to build naturalistic devices that can detect them and present them to our senses.  For example, a radio converts radio waves to sound.  Supernatural events, by their definition are beyond our senses, and even beyond measurement and quantification by naturalistic devices.  Therefore, validation of supernatural events requires a "different kind" of validation--it requires supernatural validation--which we fundamentally just don't have!”

Let’s take a look at the premises given above.

1)      All we humans have for validating events are our naturalistic senses

2)      Supernatural events, by their definition are beyond our senses.

I would agree with the first premise. Our senses are all we have to work with. I would disagree that supernatural events are by definition beyond our senses. The problem is your attempt to set “naturalistic” and “supernatural” in opposition to each other. There is no necessity that prevents God from acting within our universe with detectable actions. If you believe there is such a necessity, then please show it. You do not do that in your paper, you just tell us this is true. I sure you will forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.

At least for the time being, I am not going to publish this on my web site. I don’t see any need to. We can keep this between us.

Paul, I really suggest you go through the above link on the historical case for the resurrection completely before replying to this. 

Regards,

Brady 

Round 1 - Jacobsen

I appreciate Mr. Lenardos having taken the time to respond to my rebuttal article to his Extraordinary Events article.  However, in my view, his response isn't very good.  So, here is my response to Lenardos response:

Lenardos says,

1) We both agree that the atheist must avoid at all cost the use of historical method.

You say "avoid at all cost" as if we are running away from it. What I said was, that to my understanding, the "historical method" summarily dismisses supernatural events, primarily because the are not verifiable. Therefore, I argue that by your own insistence on using the "historical method", you instantly loose.  But, if you insist on trying to use naturalistic methods to analyze the supernatural, it is like trying to use a voltmeter to measure the age of the universe. I'm not "avoiding" historical methods, I'm simply recognizing that naturalistic methodologies aren't applicable. (I'll return to the issue of measuring supernatural forces in a moment, when you address this issue.)

3) We agree that the demand for "extraordinary evidence" by the atheist is absurd (for different reasons, but we agree on the conclusion).

That is not an accurate summation of my argument. I make these two claims:

1.  The more implausible the scenario, the more evidence to justify rational belief.

2.  Supernatural events are inherently unverifiable.

Though I can see some room for argument on claim 2, but I see no room at all on claim 1.  Surely you must agree that the more implausible the scenario, the more evidence required--no?  If I said I walked to the store, or I said I flapped my arms and flew to the store, would you not want a lot stronger evidence for the later? Come now, answer this honestly. If you say that you would want more evidence to believe I flapped my arms and flew to the store, then you would be affirming the premise that extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.

What we mean by an objective conclusion is one wherein different people in different parts of the world, regardless of their philosophy, when given the same criteria and the same facts, come to the same conclusion.

You'd be amazed how differently people from different cultures think. Should we have gone to war with Iraq? Lots of people look at the evidence of what Sadam did and come to very different conclusions. What percentage of people throughout the world, given the same facts, would have to agree with a conclusion before we could consider it an "objective" conclusion? 90%? If so, you might even have trouble coming to an "objective" conclusion on the Earth being round, let alone the Resurrection.

You see the evidence for the reliability of the NT and the Resurrection of Jesus is so strong that any position in regards to history that allows for reliable objective conclusions will have to admit the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead.

Oh baloney, I don't see any such thing.

At this point your rejection of the resurrection is not based on any objective study of the subject. In other words, your position is nothing more than a statement of faith.

The penchant of the theist to claim to be able to read the minds of atheists is most annoying. I usually try to avoid "reading the minds" of theists, until they do it to me. So, now that you have tried (and failed) to read my mind, I will now look into my crystal ball and read your mind and pronounce, "you really know I have the stronger argument, or you wouldn't be so afraid to mention my article on your site." Don't like me reading your mind, now do you?  But, I have no doubt my mind reading attempt is far more accurate.

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocont.htm

Actually, I had read F. F. Bruce's material before.  It is similar to material that McDowell and Strobel provide.  You seem to be unaware of the difference between evidence that some people believed in the Resurrection, and evidence of the Resurrection itself.  (Of course it's not just you that have that problem, Bruce, Strobel, McDowell, and most other theists seem to also have that problem.)  But I can produce evidence that people believed in David Koresh, Jim Jones, Rev. Moon, the Hale Bot comet, etc. That is not evidence that Jim Jones or Moon or the Hale Bot comet are gods, its just evidence that some people believe it.

People like Bruce and Strobel produce evidence, "look at all these people in the second century that believed in Jesus!". Well, what would you know about, say Jim Jones, 80 years after his death? Actually a lot, because you'd have books, TV, Internet, newspaper, radio, etc. Now take that all away, and tell me what you'd know about Jim Jones 80 years after his death? Not much. Likewise, people living 80 years after Jesus' purported crucifixion just didn't have any real way to know anything about the events. Now, throw in the Jewish War in 62 that killed or dispersed 1/3 of the population. Now throw in the fact that the average person just didn't "get around" in those days. They didn't exactly have cars, trains, and planes. Now throw in the fact that the society was a very mystical society that believed strongly in the supernatural. Then throw in the fact that average lifespan was shorter, and 80 years really was four generations. Then you find evidence from 80 years after his alleged crucifixion just ain't a proverbial pot to piss in.

At the risk of being redundant, I'd like to quote from an excellent, albeit extremely long article by a former Christian turned atheist.  (I'd like to encourage reading the entire article, but be forewarned that it is almost book length.)  But here is the relevant material:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/kendall_hobbs/no_longer.shtml

I used to ask when I was evangelizing, why would the apostles have died for what they knew to be a lie? Okay, so the gospel writers might not have written perfectly accurate documents. Still, they were eyewitnesses or knew eyewitnesses, so they must have gotten it at least largely correct. Also, they were martyred for their faith; why wouldn't they have recanted if they knew it was a lie? Even if their writings are not totally without error, they must have been right in their claim that Jesus was God and did rise again.

There are many problems with this response, however. First, it is hard to take it seriously from someone who is not a Mormon, since the same thing can be said of Joseph Smith and many of his closest disciples who would have known if Smith's preaching was a sham. Yet they faced persecution and even death without recanting. While in jail, Joseph Smith was attacked by a mob trying to lynch him because of his religious teachings. He could have at any time then or before, when he knew his life was in danger, when the crowd was approaching, whenever, recanted his claims and confessed his sins. But he didn't. He held fast to the end. If anyone would have known whether he had been lying about the Book of Mormon, it would have been him. The same could be said for Jim Jones, for the Heaven's Gate cult, and so many other martyrs who would have known the falsity of their claims for which they knew they were about to die. So, if you wonder why the apostles would die for a lie, tell me why any of these others would and you will likely have my answer to your question. Besides, in the case of the apostles, we do not even have eyewitness accounts of their killings, as we do in the case of Joseph Smith and many others. All we have are anonymous traditions, which often conflict with each other (Matthew died in so many ways and in so many places he had more lives than a proverbial cat). So we cannot even be sure they died for their beliefs, as we can with Joseph Smith and many others.

In addition, there are good reasons to conclude that the gospels are not accurate histories written by eyewitnesses in the first place. I have often heard it claimed, and used to believe and claim myself before I investigated the evidence, that there is as much historical evidence for Jesus as there is for George Washington, Napoleon, or Julius Caesar. It should be obvious to anyone with an understanding of how history is done that this is not the case. In Washington's case, we have original documents in his handwriting and with his signature. Even if you want to claim that they are all forged (and there are very good reasons to conclude that they are genuine), we do not even have forged documents that claim to have been written by Jesus. We do not even have copies of copies of anything written by Jesus, as we do in the case of Caesar. There are no photographs of Washington, but there are paintings of him, paintings for which he actually posed in the presence of a painter. Caesar's image is engraved on coins on display in museums around the world. The oldest paintings depicting Jesus are from centuries after his death, with his image reflecting the artists' imaginations. In addition to writings about Washington by his followers and admirers, we have writings about him from his enemies, such as British generals and political leaders, and also writings by disinterested observers reporting the news of their day. For Jesus, all we have are writings by loyal followers already committed to one or another set of beliefs about him.

The historical accuracy of those writings by Jesus's loyal followers are also suspect for a number of reasons. Tradition claims the gospels of Matthew and John were written by actual disciples, and those of Mark and Luke by associates of actual disciples. But that is what tradition claims. The gospels themselves are not signed; they are anonymous. Further, they are not even written as primary accounts. Paul, for example, in his letters writes about "I went there and we did this," as you would expect from a firsthand account.

So, since you wanted evidence why, even using standard historical methodologies, why we should reject the Gospels.  Well, I think Hobbs has provided exactly what you wanted.

In my analogy about a hypothetical legend of Emperor Constantine having jumped over the moon, I asked would you expect the same amount of evidence to conclude he was Emperor as you would to conclude that he jumped over the moon?  I also asked that since we both agree that there is good evidence of him having been emperor, would you bet your eternal soul on it? You responded:

If both conclusions are based on a preponderance of the evidence, then rejecting either is irrational, regardless of whether or not we like it.

Thanks a lot for the "Clinton" answer.  You didn't answer the questions. 1)  Would you find the same amount of evidence of both events equally conclusive?  2)  Would you bet your eternal soul that Constantine was emperor of Rome?

Atheists always bring up these "hypothetical examples." Why? Why don't they bring up a real example of some outrageous supposed event that have all the evidence that the NT has, yet the criteria shows it to be false?

I'm afraid I don't know enough about various supernatural legends to give you a better example than my hypothetical. Sorry, I wish I could.  Besides, what's wrong with a hypothetical scenario?  You can't answer the questions, you just complain that it is hypothetical and therefore you dodge it

It is my experience that the average atheist has no idea of the extent and depth of the case for the resurrection.

I've read Strobel, Bruce, McDowel--and I've read the counter-arguments. You seem to only be familiar with the pro arguments. In fact, from what I've seen, most atheists are actually more versed in the evidences than theists!

They have never studied any historical methodology

True, my discipline is programming and logic, not history. So, say I'm wrong and you're right and someone that really understands history would come to your conclusion. So, my eternal soul is balanced upon my historical analysis skills? So, I die, and God says, "sorry, you didn't study history, I'm afraid that means you get to go to hell"?

Nor have they looked at the evidence compared to a baseline of evidence for other events from the same period.

All that means is that all events of that era are not that well documented, and perhaps lots of things we think happened might not be what really happened. Yes, history is subjective. If the Revolutionary War had been won by England, you don't think the history books today would portray the revolutionists as "heroes" now do you? So what? You say I'm dismissing history as subjective. I'm simply recognizing that it is what it is.

Lenardos summarized some of my arguments into two premises:

1)   All we humans have for validating events are our naturalistic senses

2)   Supernatural events, by their definition are beyond our senses.

And then responds to these premises:

I would agree with the first premise. Our senses are all we have to work with. I would disagree that supernatural events are by definition beyond our senses. The problem is your attempt to set "naturalistic" and "supernatural" in opposition to each other. There is no necessity that prevents God from acting within our universe with detectable actions.

Actually, I suspected you would use this argument, and therefore specifically addressed it already.  I said:

"I suspect that Lenardos would object to my assertion that supernatural events are beyond our senses. Supernatural events, at least those that would concern us, are presumably those that somehow interact with our natural universe. For example, if Jesus was raised from the dead, he then interacted with people after his death. But that is not what I mean. I mean the force that brought Jesus back to life is immeasurable. Naturalistic forces, such as gravity, are detectable and measurable with naturalist devices. Supernatural forces are not detectable or measurable. Which means all evidence in favor of a supernatural event is always circumstantial. "

Since you didn't understand the previous paragraph the first time, I'll try a different wording. Yes, if supernatural events happen, then the results of that event would be detectable. But, the supernatural cause (or force) that produced the results are not. Nobody was inside the tomb. But say somebody was. And say this witness even had modern test equipment with him or her. If Jesus really was brought back to life in front of the witness, the force that brought him back to life would be still be undetectable. And therefore, such a witness would only be able to say, "I cannot explain this event." He or she wouldn't be able to know for certain that something naturalistic happened, but simply didn't have the right test equipment with to discover it.

Admittedly, when Jesus got up, the witness present would probably consider the circumstantial evidence, the awaking of a man that seemed to be dead, to probably be sufficient circumstantial evidence of a supernatural event. But, it would still be circumstantial! There would still be no direct evidence of the supernatural force. Supernatural and natural forces simply are not comparable.  Supernatural forces are not detectable.  If they are, then they aren't supernatural, they are natural.

In conclusion, I confess that I have not studied history, so you may have an edge on me on that subject. But science I have studied. And I do know that supernatural events, even if they do happen, are not of the realm of science. Unless you'd equally believe that I walked to the store as I flapped my arms and flew to the store, then you really know that extraordinary events really do require extraordinary evidence.  Simple as that.


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