Lenardos Debate - Round 12
This is round 12 in the debate between Lenardos and Jacobsen on the topic, "Do Extraordinary Events Require Extraordinary Evidence?"
Lenardos - Round 12
Paul,
You write:
Paul,
You write:
Now, if training in textual criticism leads to exactly one answer, then why the heck do you not get the same answer on the issue of the ending of Mark as other people trained in textual criticism? The obvious answer is that training in textual criticism does not always lead to one answer. Your claim is so obviously fallacious that I’m astonished you would try to assert this!
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Your response here is very naïve and simplistic. But it does goes back to an issue we have talked about before, that is methodology used. If we were just using the texts we have of Mark, we would have to say that the earliest mss. (c. 325AD –350AD) do not contain the last few verses of Mark. However, if we look at what is contained in the documents of the early church that pre-date those mss., we find that the last verses of Mark were in texts as early as 180 AD. Hence the controversy.
Whenever we deal with induction there are only so many conclusions we can come to:
Whenever we deal with induction there are only so many conclusions we can come to:
1) There is sufficient or more than sufficient evidence to affirm a position
2) There is insufficient evidence to affirm a position 3) The evidence for and against a position is borderline and we can’t call it either way 4) There is sufficient or more than sufficient evidence to reject a position. |
But what are you really getting at in your comments? We have already said that we have 99.5% of the NT as was written. By attacking part of the .5% and pointing out we aren’t certain about that, do you think you can get rid of the other 99.5% we are sure of? This is a borderline issue. This is an inductive process; so there are some things that we will never have certainty on. That does not mean the process is flawed or the results on the other 99.5% can’t be trusted. Your problem is, as I have pointed out so many times before, that you can’t come up with an objective methodology that show the other 99.5% of the NT is unreliable and other historical works of the period are reliable. This is because there is so much more and better evidence for the NT than these other works. So, here you are once again trying to throw out historical investigation, just as I predicted that all atheists have to do to try to get around the resurrection.
Regarding the last verses of Mark, yes, I have an opinion on those verses that we are not certain of. Could I be wrong? Yes. That is how the process works. But let’s go on, your next comment continues in this vein and is much more revealing:
Regarding the last verses of Mark, yes, I have an opinion on those verses that we are not certain of. Could I be wrong? Yes. That is how the process works. But let’s go on, your next comment continues in this vein and is much more revealing:
Let me add an analogy to this to make it even more clear. Why do sometimes people decide to get a second opinion from a second doctor? Medical tests have a high degree of objectiveness. A doctor can measure to high degree of accuracy a patient’s medical condition. And despite this, you will not always get the same answer from two well-trained doctors!
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Well this does not make it more clear. First you claim that people using the same standards and methodology can come to equal cogent, but mutually exclusive conclusions. Then you bring up the doctor problem. But why do we go in for a second opinion? If one doctor says we have cancer, do we shop around for one who says we don’t, then wipe our brow and go merrily on our way? Are those two conclusions equally strong? No, we go for a second opinion because we want to make sure that the first opinion wasn’t incorrect. In other words, the first conclusion might have been in error. In other words, the two conclusions are not equally strong; one is wrong; one is a mistake. If all you’re saying is that people can make mistakes using induction, yes, they can, so what? That has to do with the person, not the methodology. But your point was the methodology couldn’t be trusted. If this isn’t your point, why are we talking about this at all?
I think it wise to step back for a minute and take a breath and observe what is happening here. We are no longer talking just about historical methodology, but this is an attack on all of induction. If your attack on medicine holds any water, what are we do with legal verdicts? Isn’t it even more probable that different juries using the same legal methodologies could come to different verdicts? And what about science? If one set of reliable objective tests show that a photon is a wave and another set of reliable objective tests shows a photon is a particle what are we to with physics? Shall we throw it all out as unreliable?
Let’s review where we have come from. In order to get rid of the resurrection, you have had to attack all of ancient history, because there is so much more quality evidence for the NT than any other historical work of the period. In order to attack all of ancient history, you have had to attack all objective historical methodologies, because any of them that vindicate any ancient history must also vindicate the resurrection, if equally applied. In order to attack all objective historical methodologies, you now have attacked induction itself, because induction is the basis of all objective historical methodologies. Where will you go from here? The next natural step is to attack knowledge. For without induction how does one know about the world around us?
Paul, before I respond to the rest of your post, you need to address this issue. You can either recant or dig yourself in deeper. Now, we all know that as an atheist your worldview does not have the necessary elements to support a coherent and consistent epistemology, but you still need to attempt to hold to induction and deduction (even though neither are justified by your worldview) in order to come to any conclusions at all.
So, please tell us are you planning to dump all of induction or keep the parts you subjectively like or accept it all? Inquiring minds want to know.
Regards,
Brady
I think it wise to step back for a minute and take a breath and observe what is happening here. We are no longer talking just about historical methodology, but this is an attack on all of induction. If your attack on medicine holds any water, what are we do with legal verdicts? Isn’t it even more probable that different juries using the same legal methodologies could come to different verdicts? And what about science? If one set of reliable objective tests show that a photon is a wave and another set of reliable objective tests shows a photon is a particle what are we to with physics? Shall we throw it all out as unreliable?
Let’s review where we have come from. In order to get rid of the resurrection, you have had to attack all of ancient history, because there is so much more quality evidence for the NT than any other historical work of the period. In order to attack all of ancient history, you have had to attack all objective historical methodologies, because any of them that vindicate any ancient history must also vindicate the resurrection, if equally applied. In order to attack all objective historical methodologies, you now have attacked induction itself, because induction is the basis of all objective historical methodologies. Where will you go from here? The next natural step is to attack knowledge. For without induction how does one know about the world around us?
Paul, before I respond to the rest of your post, you need to address this issue. You can either recant or dig yourself in deeper. Now, we all know that as an atheist your worldview does not have the necessary elements to support a coherent and consistent epistemology, but you still need to attempt to hold to induction and deduction (even though neither are justified by your worldview) in order to come to any conclusions at all.
So, please tell us are you planning to dump all of induction or keep the parts you subjectively like or accept it all? Inquiring minds want to know.
Regards,
Brady
Jacobsen - Round 12
I wondered how Mr. Lenardos would respond to my last response. Basically, he only responded to a small portion of my Round 11, although he indicates that he agrees it is only a partial response. He says he feels it important that I respond to what he has as a response so far before going on. Okay, fine, I’ll respond to what he has so far.
Lenardos repeats several of his favorite themes, about inductive methodologies, epistemology (what is knowledge and how we know things,) and his familiar claim that the NT is the best attested to historical work of the period. What is new here is his claim that I’m now expanding my “attack”, saying that I’ve first attacked history in general, now induction in general, and perhaps knowledge itself. Well, I can acknowledge that perhaps my choice of analogies last time wasn't the best. I now see that my doctor analogy did not impart the ideas that I wished for. Therefore, I will need to do some clarification herein.
First off, Lenardos repeatedly refers to the NT as if it is some monolith—as if he can find a piece of evidence that supports some part of the NT and apply it globally to the NT. No, you can’t. The NT is many books by many authors, it isn’t a monolith. And even if it was one book by one author, demonstrating that part of it is true doesn’t mean carte-blanche to say it all is true.
Second, Lenardos continues to demand an objective methodology. But he neglects to remember that he has no objective methodology either. He has provided his opinion that Sander’s method is objective, but he has produced no methodology to show that it is objective--nor can he because its not. I will return to this subject momentarily.
Something else that is important here, and that is one gets the impression from Lenardos arguments that only objective measures have value in discerning truth from fiction. I can agree that the more objective measures you have, the better. But ultimately I disagree that only objective measures have value. I am going to employ another analogy, and I hope I have done a better job at picking a relevant analogy for my point this time. Consider a trial, where a defendant is accused of some crime. The prosecutor may be able to produce some objective pieces of evidence. For example, he may be able to produce a bill of sale of a gun that the defendant purchased. But the prosecutor and defense may also produce subjective evidence, such as character witnesses. A character witness has absolutely no objective evidence directly relevant to the crime. A character witness neither confirms nor denies one single fact in the case. And yet the character witness is considered a legitimate piece of evidence for consideration. Therefore, I must conclude that subjective evidence has its place in discernment of truth and fiction. I would agree that objective measures are overall more reliable, but they simply may not always tell the whole story.
As I haven’t done any formal study on epistemology, how we know things, I am at somewhat of a disadvantage to Mr. Lenardos in this subject. However, it is a subject of personal interest and I have informally contemplated these issues at length. So I think I might have something to say on the subject. Basically, we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty. I can’t prove, for example, that God didn’t create the world five minutes ago—complete with memories. Nor can I know for certain that I’m not just a brain in a test-tube being fed fake inputs by some alien experimenter. All that I know, I know through my senses and stored into memory. If somehow my senses and/or memory have failed me, then what I “know” through these failed senses or memories is faulty. So I can’t really know anything for certain, all I can do is to go with probabilities. I can conclude it is probably not true that God created the universe five minutes ago; I can conclude it is probably not true that I am just a brain in a test-tube. I can’t prove it for certain, but I can conclude these possibilities are highly unlikely.
I’d like to now quote from Mr. Lenardos:
I wondered how Mr. Lenardos would respond to my last response. Basically, he only responded to a small portion of my Round 11, although he indicates that he agrees it is only a partial response. He says he feels it important that I respond to what he has as a response so far before going on. Okay, fine, I’ll respond to what he has so far.
Lenardos repeats several of his favorite themes, about inductive methodologies, epistemology (what is knowledge and how we know things,) and his familiar claim that the NT is the best attested to historical work of the period. What is new here is his claim that I’m now expanding my “attack”, saying that I’ve first attacked history in general, now induction in general, and perhaps knowledge itself. Well, I can acknowledge that perhaps my choice of analogies last time wasn't the best. I now see that my doctor analogy did not impart the ideas that I wished for. Therefore, I will need to do some clarification herein.
First off, Lenardos repeatedly refers to the NT as if it is some monolith—as if he can find a piece of evidence that supports some part of the NT and apply it globally to the NT. No, you can’t. The NT is many books by many authors, it isn’t a monolith. And even if it was one book by one author, demonstrating that part of it is true doesn’t mean carte-blanche to say it all is true.
Second, Lenardos continues to demand an objective methodology. But he neglects to remember that he has no objective methodology either. He has provided his opinion that Sander’s method is objective, but he has produced no methodology to show that it is objective--nor can he because its not. I will return to this subject momentarily.
Something else that is important here, and that is one gets the impression from Lenardos arguments that only objective measures have value in discerning truth from fiction. I can agree that the more objective measures you have, the better. But ultimately I disagree that only objective measures have value. I am going to employ another analogy, and I hope I have done a better job at picking a relevant analogy for my point this time. Consider a trial, where a defendant is accused of some crime. The prosecutor may be able to produce some objective pieces of evidence. For example, he may be able to produce a bill of sale of a gun that the defendant purchased. But the prosecutor and defense may also produce subjective evidence, such as character witnesses. A character witness has absolutely no objective evidence directly relevant to the crime. A character witness neither confirms nor denies one single fact in the case. And yet the character witness is considered a legitimate piece of evidence for consideration. Therefore, I must conclude that subjective evidence has its place in discernment of truth and fiction. I would agree that objective measures are overall more reliable, but they simply may not always tell the whole story.
As I haven’t done any formal study on epistemology, how we know things, I am at somewhat of a disadvantage to Mr. Lenardos in this subject. However, it is a subject of personal interest and I have informally contemplated these issues at length. So I think I might have something to say on the subject. Basically, we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty. I can’t prove, for example, that God didn’t create the world five minutes ago—complete with memories. Nor can I know for certain that I’m not just a brain in a test-tube being fed fake inputs by some alien experimenter. All that I know, I know through my senses and stored into memory. If somehow my senses and/or memory have failed me, then what I “know” through these failed senses or memories is faulty. So I can’t really know anything for certain, all I can do is to go with probabilities. I can conclude it is probably not true that God created the universe five minutes ago; I can conclude it is probably not true that I am just a brain in a test-tube. I can’t prove it for certain, but I can conclude these possibilities are highly unlikely.
I’d like to now quote from Mr. Lenardos:
Whenever we deal with induction there are only so many conclusions we can come to:
1) There is sufficient or more than sufficient evidence to affirm a position 2) There is insufficient evidence to affirm a position 3) The evidence for and against a position is borderline and we can’t call it either way 4) There is sufficient or more than sufficient evidence to reject a position. |
Basically, I agree with this, other than I think it a bit too black and white. That list of possible conclusions includes the possibility that there is enough evidence to affirm or reject a position, or there is insufficient evidence/borderline evidence. But what I think is missing from this list is the possibility that the evidence is something like 75% one way or the other; that there is a better than even chance that the position is true, or false. And yet the counter-position still isn’t totally unlikely.
And here is where I think that subjective evidence might play a part in deciding what is probably true. Like in my trial analogy, perhaps a juror might find the objective evidence pointing towards the defendant being guilty. But, the juror might find the character witness, the subjective evidence, to be strong enough to “tip the scale” towards being innocent.
Of course in this hypothetical situation, perhaps the character witness was a good liar, and the juror was taken in. But even if this is true, the juror still had what was to him a reason for having tipped the scale towards being innocent. And if this hypothetical juror would debate Lenardos about finding the defendant innocent, Lenardos might attack the juror for having no objective methodology for having found the defendant innocent. Lenardos might say that given the objective evidence in favor of guilt, the juror would have found other people guilty--and therefore should have found the defendant guilty. Then Lenardos might then say that the juror therefore must have had some irrational bias that caused him to vote innocent.
The simple point I’m getting at is that first, discerning truth from fiction isn’t an easy task. And secondly, it isn’t all cut and dry, black and white, objective methodologies and all that. Now Lenardos might again challenge me and say that I’m throwing away all knowledge and all forms of induction and all that. I’m not throwing it all away, I’m saying that objective evidence is of important value; but it just doesn’t always tell the whole story.
Before I continue, one might get the impression that the preceding paragraphs are akin to an admission that Lenardos has good objective evidence and that my argument is simply that there are other factors that “tip the scale” the other way. In other words, I might be saying the objective evidence is in his favor, but the subjective evidence is in mine and that I have reason to favor the subjective evidence. But, as it so happens, the objective evidence AND the subjective evidence is in my favor! The way Lenardos tries to make it look like the objective evidence is in his favor is by repeatedly trying to present the NT as a monolith and picking evidence that supports any of it and say it supports all of it.
Another “trick” (in my opinion) that Lenardos uses, is to try to limit what evidences I should look at. In round 11, he said:
And here is where I think that subjective evidence might play a part in deciding what is probably true. Like in my trial analogy, perhaps a juror might find the objective evidence pointing towards the defendant being guilty. But, the juror might find the character witness, the subjective evidence, to be strong enough to “tip the scale” towards being innocent.
Of course in this hypothetical situation, perhaps the character witness was a good liar, and the juror was taken in. But even if this is true, the juror still had what was to him a reason for having tipped the scale towards being innocent. And if this hypothetical juror would debate Lenardos about finding the defendant innocent, Lenardos might attack the juror for having no objective methodology for having found the defendant innocent. Lenardos might say that given the objective evidence in favor of guilt, the juror would have found other people guilty--and therefore should have found the defendant guilty. Then Lenardos might then say that the juror therefore must have had some irrational bias that caused him to vote innocent.
The simple point I’m getting at is that first, discerning truth from fiction isn’t an easy task. And secondly, it isn’t all cut and dry, black and white, objective methodologies and all that. Now Lenardos might again challenge me and say that I’m throwing away all knowledge and all forms of induction and all that. I’m not throwing it all away, I’m saying that objective evidence is of important value; but it just doesn’t always tell the whole story.
Before I continue, one might get the impression that the preceding paragraphs are akin to an admission that Lenardos has good objective evidence and that my argument is simply that there are other factors that “tip the scale” the other way. In other words, I might be saying the objective evidence is in his favor, but the subjective evidence is in mine and that I have reason to favor the subjective evidence. But, as it so happens, the objective evidence AND the subjective evidence is in my favor! The way Lenardos tries to make it look like the objective evidence is in his favor is by repeatedly trying to present the NT as a monolith and picking evidence that supports any of it and say it supports all of it.
Another “trick” (in my opinion) that Lenardos uses, is to try to limit what evidences I should look at. In round 11, he said:
Even if you came of with other similar arguments that weren’t fallacious, they still would not be the kind of arguments we use to determine what happened in the past.
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Basically, this is his way of saying that he reserves the right to reject evidence I present to the table if he doesn’t like it. For example, if I were to note that the purported Slaughter of the Innocents is not documented anywhere but the Gospel of Matthew, he might try to say that is an argument from silence and therefore shouldn’t be included in discerning whether it really happened. He’d try to limit what evidence I can look at, and then say, well, all the evidence (that he has allowed) says it happened so it must have happened. But if we were investigating the Koran, he’d want more evidence for things reported in the Koran than the Koran itself. He wouldn’t allow being steamrolled into only looking at one piece of evidence, even if the only other evidence is silence.
In Round 11, in regards to the possibility of different people getting different answers to an objective methodology, Lenardos had said this in Round 11:
In Round 11, in regards to the possibility of different people getting different answers to an objective methodology, Lenardos had said this in Round 11:
But we must understand that for a person to have a different answer using an objective methodology, a mistake must be made.
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I can basically agree with this. But, I’d like to note that even if an objective methodology is used, and everybody using the same objective measure gets the same answer, that doesn’t guarantee it is the right answer! I’ll again make use of a doctor analogy, hopefully better than last time. A doctor might be able to use some medical test, like a pregnancy test, and know that the results are 99% accurate. The pregnancy test has been researched, and has presumably been shown that a pregnant woman will have something identifiable in her blood or urine or whatever to an identifiable degree 99% of the time. It is objective--every doctor will look at the same test results, and see that the results say pregnant or not pregnant. But, due to variations in people’s body chemistry, it is still possible to be wrong.
The point here is, the hallmark of an objective test is this research into the accuracy of the test. For a measure to be objective, we need to know when it is accurate, when it might not be accurate, why, and reliable statistics to demonstrate it. What is also necessary is a step-by-step procedure or formula, so that two different people will indeed get the same result. This is what Lenardos would need to produce to claim that Sanders’ method is objective. And I’m still waiting.
Lenardos concludes Round 12 with his usual, um, wiseass catcall:
The point here is, the hallmark of an objective test is this research into the accuracy of the test. For a measure to be objective, we need to know when it is accurate, when it might not be accurate, why, and reliable statistics to demonstrate it. What is also necessary is a step-by-step procedure or formula, so that two different people will indeed get the same result. This is what Lenardos would need to produce to claim that Sanders’ method is objective. And I’m still waiting.
Lenardos concludes Round 12 with his usual, um, wiseass catcall:
You can either recant or dig yourself in deeper. […] So, please tell us are you planning to dump all of induction or keep the parts you subjectively like or accept it all? Inquiring minds want to know.
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As I said, I may have used to poor analogies last time, but I think I’ve dug myself out. So, can you dig yourself out of this rather deep hole you’ve now built for yourself? Inquiring minds want to know.
Follow the 'Next' link to the next round.