Lenardos Debate - Round 13
This is round 13 in the debate between Lenardos and Jacobsen on the topic, "Do Extraordinary Events Require Extraordinary Evidence?"
Lenardos - Round 13
Paul,
Sorry it has been so long to get back to you. I have started writing a reply several times and just wasn’t happy with it. I guess it was because there are so many minutiae we could get into. So, I have tried to focus on the major points.
Paul wrote:
Paul,
Sorry it has been so long to get back to you. I have started writing a reply several times and just wasn’t happy with it. I guess it was because there are so many minutiae we could get into. So, I have tried to focus on the major points.
Paul wrote:
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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.
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Actually, we agree here. It was my assumption, and perhaps I did not make myself clear, that when we were discussing historical reliability, the NT and the resurrection, we were discussing the historical books and portions of the letters that dealt with that area. I did not mean to imply that any other area was being discussed. If you thought I was trying to apply historical methodology to the end-times visions of John in “The Revelation,” I am not. It is true that some of the NT historical books are better attested to than others. But when we do look at the historical books, it really doesn’t matter which one you pick, every one of them is better attested to than any other historical work of the period. So, we can say that the historical section of the NT as a whole is better attested to than any other historical work of the period. I hope that clears things up.
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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.
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We have gone over this on a couple of occasions before. This again shows that you have no idea what terms “objective” and “subjective” mean. It also shows that your idea of what induction consists of is far different than what logicians understand induction to be. Sander’s methodology is considered objective because its conclusions do not rely on personal likes or dislikes, but on the weighing of evidence. This is why we use a criteria and baseline. We get rid of the personal preference. Your rejection of this objective methodology is based on your personal dislike of the resurrection. That is subjectivism. For you, since Sanders’ methodology verifies the resurrection and the reliability of the NT, therefore Sanders’ methodology must be wrong, because you don’t like the conclusion. But your problem is that Sanders did not come up with a way to verify the NT, no, he was a military historian and his methodology was produced to help affirm or reject the material found in other historical works he came across. The problem you have is the same methodology that verifies other historical accounts also verifies the historical aspect of the NT. But Sander’s methodology is not the only one I proposed. I also suggested another methodology. The same problem lies with that one. Just as with Sanders’ criteria, the other one was not conceived to verify the NT either. It was created to weigh the evidence for or against other historical events. It just so happens that when you apply the same criteria and baseline to the resurrection, it also verifies the resurrection. But I did not stop with this second methodology either. Beginning with my original paper I have continually invited you or your atheist friends to produce ANY objective criteria and baseline of your choosing that is used by historians and does not destroy what we already know to be historically reliable and apply that to the historical parts of the NT. Neither you nor they could produce such a criteria that would show the NT to be unreliable. Why is that? Could it be that any objective criteria you use that does not utterly destroy all of ancient history will in fact verify the NT? Of course, the answer is “yes.”
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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.
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Once again you show that you have missed the whole concept of objective and subjective. First, character witnesses are seldom used as you suggest in your example, but even when they are used, you seem to think they are there to tell how they subjectively feel about the defendant. That is not the case. They are there to testify about what they objectively observed of the defendants character and actions. The demonstration of an objectively observed pattern of behavior by the defendant may have some relevance; someone’s personal, subjective, likes or dislikes of a defendant is irrelevant. In other words, there is no such thing as subjective evidence. Unless, you are trying to determine which flavor of ice cream the general public likes the best, or some such thing, but not as you suggested above.
Paul continues:
Paul continues:
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“I’d like to now quote from Mr. Lenardos:
Whenever we deal with induction there are only so many conclusions we can come to: |
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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. |
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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.”
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That is what we mean by “sufficient or more than sufficient evidence to affirm a position.” What we mean by “rational” is going with the evidence rather than against it. Yes, it is possible that the counter position is correct, and depending on the evidence we can give it a probability rating, but if we are to be rational we must go with the position that holds the preponderance of the evidence. That is what induction is all about. Inductive methodology gives us criteria to weigh out the quality evidence from the irrelevant. The baseline shows us when the burden has been met. You have totally missed this from the beginning. It is the heart of inductive reasoning,
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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.
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We see this theme of “subjective evidence” run through your post. Who told you there is such a thing as “subjective evidence?” “Subjective” refers to your preferences, likes and dislikes. Your preferences are irrelevant to any inductive process (unless, of course, preference is what you are studying, as with advertising and marketing). One of the basic rules of induction is to get rid of your likes and dislikes when trying to reach a cogent conclusion in the areas of history, law and science. In my last post I suggested that you were attacking induction itself. I may have been wrong. You don’t seem to know how it works and you seem to be making up your own version of induction, one, of course that suits your preferences. Given that you are making up your own version of induction, it is no wonder that for you inductive methodology doesn’t verify the resurrection.
So, here we are at an impasse. And I am afraid this will be my last post to you. You see, I can only use the rules of induction that the rest of the world uses, not the special rules you have invented. And it is apparent that you have no intention of using the standard rules of inductive logic. This has been my point from the beginning: the Christian doesn’t have to make up historical methodologies or invent a new set of rules for induction. Given the accepted set of inductive principles and the objective methodologies used by historians, we can simply apply them to the NT and the resurrection, and the NT and the resurrection will be verified.
But, as I pointed out in my last post, your problem doesn’t stop there. You may remembered I mentioned that to get rid of the resurrection, you would have to get rid of all ancient history; and to get rid of all ancient history, you would have to abandon all objective methodologies (which you have done); and to get rid of objective methodologies, you would have to get rid of standard inductive logic (which you have also done); and to get rid of standard inductive logic, you would have to attack all knowledge. Well, here it is:
Basically, we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty.
The first year philosophy student will readily recognize the above as a self-stultifying or self referentially refuting statement. This is because if it is true that we can’t know anything with certainty, how then do we know that your statement is true with any degree of certainty? If your mind is beginning to whirl, let me break it down for our readers:
Paul’s statement about knowledge is itself a statement of knowledge; i.e. Paul is telling us something he knows. So whatever claims he makes about knowledge must apply to his own statement. And when it does, the statement collapses back on itself.
Regardless of that, let’s ask ourselves a couple of questions: do we know with certainty that any and all triangles that actually exist must have three sides? Or is it possible for a triangle to have a different number of sides? Can we really claim that we are not certain about how many sides a triangle has? What about bachelors? Is it with certainty that we can say that all bachelors are unmarried men or is it possible that there are some bachelors that are married? The list of questions goes on and on. This is not to say that we can know everything with certainty, but there is a category, that of analytic statements, that we can know with certainty. However, from an atheistic worldview, Paul is right. This is because the atheistic worldview doesn’t have the necessary elements to support a consistent and coherent epistemology. From an atheistic worldview you can’t really know anything. You can’t have knowledge, you can’t rely on induction or deduction, and you can’t produce objective methodologies. All of these positions we have seen Paul assert and fight for in these posts.
Paul, I suggest you don’t take my word for any of this. Take these last few posts to a logic instructor at one of your local colleges and see if what I have written about induction is true. If you decide to some day use the same rules of logic that the rest of the world uses, let me know and perhaps we can try this again.
Regards,
Brady
So, here we are at an impasse. And I am afraid this will be my last post to you. You see, I can only use the rules of induction that the rest of the world uses, not the special rules you have invented. And it is apparent that you have no intention of using the standard rules of inductive logic. This has been my point from the beginning: the Christian doesn’t have to make up historical methodologies or invent a new set of rules for induction. Given the accepted set of inductive principles and the objective methodologies used by historians, we can simply apply them to the NT and the resurrection, and the NT and the resurrection will be verified.
But, as I pointed out in my last post, your problem doesn’t stop there. You may remembered I mentioned that to get rid of the resurrection, you would have to get rid of all ancient history; and to get rid of all ancient history, you would have to abandon all objective methodologies (which you have done); and to get rid of objective methodologies, you would have to get rid of standard inductive logic (which you have also done); and to get rid of standard inductive logic, you would have to attack all knowledge. Well, here it is:
Basically, we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty.
The first year philosophy student will readily recognize the above as a self-stultifying or self referentially refuting statement. This is because if it is true that we can’t know anything with certainty, how then do we know that your statement is true with any degree of certainty? If your mind is beginning to whirl, let me break it down for our readers:
Paul’s statement about knowledge is itself a statement of knowledge; i.e. Paul is telling us something he knows. So whatever claims he makes about knowledge must apply to his own statement. And when it does, the statement collapses back on itself.
Regardless of that, let’s ask ourselves a couple of questions: do we know with certainty that any and all triangles that actually exist must have three sides? Or is it possible for a triangle to have a different number of sides? Can we really claim that we are not certain about how many sides a triangle has? What about bachelors? Is it with certainty that we can say that all bachelors are unmarried men or is it possible that there are some bachelors that are married? The list of questions goes on and on. This is not to say that we can know everything with certainty, but there is a category, that of analytic statements, that we can know with certainty. However, from an atheistic worldview, Paul is right. This is because the atheistic worldview doesn’t have the necessary elements to support a consistent and coherent epistemology. From an atheistic worldview you can’t really know anything. You can’t have knowledge, you can’t rely on induction or deduction, and you can’t produce objective methodologies. All of these positions we have seen Paul assert and fight for in these posts.
Paul, I suggest you don’t take my word for any of this. Take these last few posts to a logic instructor at one of your local colleges and see if what I have written about induction is true. If you decide to some day use the same rules of logic that the rest of the world uses, let me know and perhaps we can try this again.
Regards,
Brady
Jacobsen - Round 13
I was starting to wonder if Mr. Lenardos was ever going to respond. Well, he has finally responded, and indicates it will be his last response. It seemed obvious to me that I had dealt him a “death blow” in the last round, so I’m not surprised he has decided to withdraw. Even so, he did produce a somewhat stronger-than-expected response for his final entry. Alas, it is--of course--all wrong.
To begin my response, I’d first like to comment on some of the subject matter at the end of his post, where he quotes me saying:
Basically, we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty.
And he responds,
I was starting to wonder if Mr. Lenardos was ever going to respond. Well, he has finally responded, and indicates it will be his last response. It seemed obvious to me that I had dealt him a “death blow” in the last round, so I’m not surprised he has decided to withdraw. Even so, he did produce a somewhat stronger-than-expected response for his final entry. Alas, it is--of course--all wrong.
To begin my response, I’d first like to comment on some of the subject matter at the end of his post, where he quotes me saying:
Basically, we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty.
And he responds,
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The first year philosophy student will readily recognize the above as a self-stultifying or self referentially refuting statement. This is because if it is true that we can’t know anything with certainty, how then do we know that your statement is true with any degree of certainty?
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With all due respect, Mr. Lenardos, a first-year philosophy student would know the difference between “absolute certainty” and “any degree of certainty”. Since Mr. Lenardos loves to show off his knowledge of logic fallacies, I will point out that Mr. Lenardos is making here a “false dichotomy”. A false dichotomy is where a situation is presented as if it is either-or, when there actually are other possibilities. The fact that we cannot know anything with absolute certainty does not preclude that we can know things with “reasonable” certainty. So I will refine my statement to be, "I am reasonably certain that it is a true statement that we can’t know anything with absolute certainty." (Actually, I will refine this claim a bit more in a moment, but it suffices for now.) Lenardos continues,
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Regardless of that, let’s ask ourselves a couple of questions: do we know with certainty that any and all triangles that actually exist must have three sides? Or is it possible for a triangle to have a different number of sides? Can we really claim that we are not certain about how many sides a triangle has? What about bachelors? Is it with certainty that we can say that all bachelors are unmarried men or is it possible that there are some bachelors that are married? The list of questions goes on and on. This is not to say that we can know everything with certainty, but there is a category, that of analytic statements, that we can know with certainty.
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I feel Lenardos is being pedantic, but okay, let’s go there. And yes, there are things that we know “by definition”. We know by definition that a triangle must have three sides. We know by definition a bachelor is never married. We know by the definition of the numbers 1, 2 and 3, and the definition of addition, that 1 + 2 = 3. You’ll notice the questions that Lenardos used as examples (sides of a triangle; married bachelors) are all questions based on definitions.
So, to Mr. Lenardos statement, “there is a category, that of analytic statements, that we can know with certainty,” well, I can basically accept that things that we know by definition, we know absolutely. Unless we redefine mathematics, then 1 + 2 is absolutely equal to 3. BUT WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT DEFINITIONS, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HISTORY! I’m beginning to wonder if Lenardos understands that history is NOT mathematics or philosophy?
Another problem with things that we know by definition, rely upon those definitions. The statement "1+2=3" is true so long as we retain the definitions. If we change the definitions, then it isn’t true anymore. Now, one might argue there is a genuine concept of “1” whether we use that symbol or not. And then one could argue that the statement “1+2=3” represents something absolutely true, regardless of the symbols we choose. And I’m inclined to believe that. Yet proving that to be true for certain is problematic. The problem with mathematics is that it based not just on definitions, but some axioms as well—statements that are asserted as self-evident but not proven. Mathematicians try to define mathematics with as few axioms as possible. But in the end, there are always some axioms. Therefore, even in mathematics, proving something true ultimately requires falling back on assumptions. Even so, I’m willing to say that it is probably true that the meaning of the statement “1+2=3” is true absolutely… <g>
Therefore, to refine my statement, “we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty” (to be needlessly pedantic but to hopefully appease Mr. Lenardos…) I’d have to say, “anything that we do not know by definition (or applications of those definitions such as mathematical formulas) we cannot know with absolute certainty—but often we can know with a high degree of certainty.”
Perhaps Mr. Lenardos would now say that we are making some headway to agreement. Maybe he might say that I am right, we cannot know with absolute certainty about the Resurrection, but that we can know it with a high degree of certainty. I think this is an accurate summation of Lenardos’ position, but I guess I could be wrong. But, I will assume this is an accurate summation for the remainder of this entry.
Now I will return to some of his earlier statements in this round. In my charge that Lenardos seemed to be using the NT as a “monolith,” he responds:
So, to Mr. Lenardos statement, “there is a category, that of analytic statements, that we can know with certainty,” well, I can basically accept that things that we know by definition, we know absolutely. Unless we redefine mathematics, then 1 + 2 is absolutely equal to 3. BUT WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT DEFINITIONS, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HISTORY! I’m beginning to wonder if Lenardos understands that history is NOT mathematics or philosophy?
Another problem with things that we know by definition, rely upon those definitions. The statement "1+2=3" is true so long as we retain the definitions. If we change the definitions, then it isn’t true anymore. Now, one might argue there is a genuine concept of “1” whether we use that symbol or not. And then one could argue that the statement “1+2=3” represents something absolutely true, regardless of the symbols we choose. And I’m inclined to believe that. Yet proving that to be true for certain is problematic. The problem with mathematics is that it based not just on definitions, but some axioms as well—statements that are asserted as self-evident but not proven. Mathematicians try to define mathematics with as few axioms as possible. But in the end, there are always some axioms. Therefore, even in mathematics, proving something true ultimately requires falling back on assumptions. Even so, I’m willing to say that it is probably true that the meaning of the statement “1+2=3” is true absolutely… <g>
Therefore, to refine my statement, “we can’t really know anything with absolute certainty” (to be needlessly pedantic but to hopefully appease Mr. Lenardos…) I’d have to say, “anything that we do not know by definition (or applications of those definitions such as mathematical formulas) we cannot know with absolute certainty—but often we can know with a high degree of certainty.”
Perhaps Mr. Lenardos would now say that we are making some headway to agreement. Maybe he might say that I am right, we cannot know with absolute certainty about the Resurrection, but that we can know it with a high degree of certainty. I think this is an accurate summation of Lenardos’ position, but I guess I could be wrong. But, I will assume this is an accurate summation for the remainder of this entry.
Now I will return to some of his earlier statements in this round. In my charge that Lenardos seemed to be using the NT as a “monolith,” he responds:
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Actually, we agree here. It was my assumption, and perhaps I did not make myself clear, that when we were discussing historical reliability, the NT and the resurrection, we were discussing the historical books and portions of the letters that dealt with that area. I did not mean to imply that any other area was being discussed. If you thought I was trying to apply historical methodology to the end-times visions of John in “The Revelation,” I am not. It is true that some of the NT historical books are better attested to than others. But when we do look at the historical books, it really doesn’t matter which one you pick, every one of them is better attested to than any other historical work of the period. So, we can say that the historical section of the NT as a whole is better attested to than any other historical work of the period.
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My first response to this is, well, I already disproved this bit about the NT being the best attested to--with his help of the example of the grocery list. I demonstrated that the grocery list is a far better attestation to events than the NT. Secondly, while Mr. Lenardos is now saying that he didn’t mean to imply that all of the NT was as well attested to as other parts--but that still didn’t stop him from presenting his evidence “monolithically”. For example, when he presented his manuscript counts, he was all, “come one, come all!” Any scrap of any part of the NT was chalked up as an “NT manuscript”! So, his claims that he wasn’t presenting the NT as a monolith ring hollow.
Next, Lenardos again claims that I don’t understand objective and subjective. Again, referring to the Sanders’s Method, he says:
Next, Lenardos again claims that I don’t understand objective and subjective. Again, referring to the Sanders’s Method, he says:
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Sander’s methodology is considered objective because its conclusions do not rely on personal likes or dislikes, but on the weighing of evidence. This is why we use a criteria and baseline. We get rid of the personal preference.
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What seems to be the crux or our argument lies right here. Lenardos seems to believe that it is possible to perform “weighing of evidence” and simultaneously, “get rid of the personal preference”. THIS IS THE PROBLEM—IT CANNOT BE DONE! It can be reasonably done when you are talking about something that you have a specific formula or procedure to follow. Like in my example of the pregnancy test, there is a specific procedure that the technician follows to determine if the test says positive or negative. But nothing in the Sanders’ Method is anything like that. There is no exact procedure to follow for the Sanders’ Method. If there is no exact procedure to follow, then the procedure that is followed cannot be anything other than what is the personal preference of the researcher!
No doubt, Lenardos would say that this is where "baselines" come to play. The researcher is to use "baselines" in order to "get rid of the personal preference." But again, how do you first validate the baseline? What procedure is followed to validate the baseline? Then, if you manage this, how do you use this baseline to compare other evidences? What is the procedure? How do you know these procedures work? Where is the statistics on validating these procedures?
Removing personal bias from test procedures is an extremely difficult process, for even tests that seem like they were designed with objective measures. Researcher bias is discovered in all kinds of tests—often in surprising and unexpected ways. The only possible way to remove researcher bias is to be certain an exact procedure is followed, and follow it up with a lot of statistics to validate the test. This is what Mr. Lenardos needs to understand, but refuses to. Lenardos likes to make me sound like a naïve fool, and say that I need to go talk to some college professors. So I assume that he will not mind that I request that he go to his local college and discuss researcher bias with someone in the sociology department. He might also find some insight into this with someone that understands applied statistical mathematics.
Next, Mr. Lenardos quoted me saying:
No doubt, Lenardos would say that this is where "baselines" come to play. The researcher is to use "baselines" in order to "get rid of the personal preference." But again, how do you first validate the baseline? What procedure is followed to validate the baseline? Then, if you manage this, how do you use this baseline to compare other evidences? What is the procedure? How do you know these procedures work? Where is the statistics on validating these procedures?
Removing personal bias from test procedures is an extremely difficult process, for even tests that seem like they were designed with objective measures. Researcher bias is discovered in all kinds of tests—often in surprising and unexpected ways. The only possible way to remove researcher bias is to be certain an exact procedure is followed, and follow it up with a lot of statistics to validate the test. This is what Mr. Lenardos needs to understand, but refuses to. Lenardos likes to make me sound like a naïve fool, and say that I need to go talk to some college professors. So I assume that he will not mind that I request that he go to his local college and discuss researcher bias with someone in the sociology department. He might also find some insight into this with someone that understands applied statistical mathematics.
Next, Mr. Lenardos quoted me saying:
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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.
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And he responds,
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That is what we mean by “sufficient or more than sufficient evidence to affirm a position.” What we mean by “rational” is going with the evidence rather than against it. Yes, it is possible that the counter position is correct, and depending on the evidence we can give it a probability rating, but if we are to be rational we must go with the position that holds the preponderance of the evidence.
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Okay, well, perhaps I didn’t spell out my point better than I should have. What if, based on one piece of evidence, a proposition has roughly a 75% chance of being true; but two other pieces of evidence has it at roughly 60% chance of being false each? Well, if those probabilities were exact, we could plug them into a formula and get an exact probability of the proposition. But as I have been saying, we just don’t get exact probabilities of any measure in history. We don’t have any way to say for certain which piece of evidence is stronger. We don’t get numbers 75% or 60%. We can’t plot historical research on a bell curve. That is what makes finding real truth very difficult, particularly in ancient history. And this is why Lenardos' continued insistence that history can be treated like a pure science is wrong-headed from the get-go.
So, now let’s try to get back to what his real evidence is. His evidence that we got accurate copies of the original words, even if he is right, is of low value. Since he says he now accepts that evidence that one part of the NT is true doesn’t mean that he can give carte blanche to everything, basically, he’s given away the store. All his evidence, specifically of the Resurrection, is that some followers of Jesus wrote a book saying it did happen. That’s it. That’s all he’s got. Nothing more. Everything else Lenardos has brought to the table has been evidence for various specific parts of the NT, and applying it monolithically to the Resurrection.
I notice that in this round, Lenardos did not comment on my response on the issue about supernatural events being “violations” of natural law or not. Well, this is an important issue. As I’ve been saying all along, if I read a report from someone from nearly 2,000 years ago that says, “Constantine was emperor,” and I don’t have any notable reason to expect exaggeration, I’d probably believe the report. That doesn’t mean that there is some reason for the report to be in error that I am not aware of. And if so, I might believe a report that is erroneous. But when a report includes very good reason to disbelieve it, such as if the report said Emperor Constantine jumped over the moon, then I do indeed have a good reason to doubt the report. Different claims require different levels of evidence. That was what our debate was supposed to be about, and Lenardos has taken it to all kinds of tangents. But this is the real subject of the debate, and it remains true--extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence!
Yeah, I’m bringing back my “Constantine jumped over the moon” analogy—its an oldie but goodie. Lenardos really knows that if you read a report that said “Constantine was emperor of Rome” you’d accept it with less evidence than you would accept a report that said “Constantine jumped over the moon.” He knows it, I know it. That is what the debate was supposed to be about. And his penchant for dragging in manuscript counts and all that crap was just smokescreen.
To quote some more of Lenardos,
So, now let’s try to get back to what his real evidence is. His evidence that we got accurate copies of the original words, even if he is right, is of low value. Since he says he now accepts that evidence that one part of the NT is true doesn’t mean that he can give carte blanche to everything, basically, he’s given away the store. All his evidence, specifically of the Resurrection, is that some followers of Jesus wrote a book saying it did happen. That’s it. That’s all he’s got. Nothing more. Everything else Lenardos has brought to the table has been evidence for various specific parts of the NT, and applying it monolithically to the Resurrection.
I notice that in this round, Lenardos did not comment on my response on the issue about supernatural events being “violations” of natural law or not. Well, this is an important issue. As I’ve been saying all along, if I read a report from someone from nearly 2,000 years ago that says, “Constantine was emperor,” and I don’t have any notable reason to expect exaggeration, I’d probably believe the report. That doesn’t mean that there is some reason for the report to be in error that I am not aware of. And if so, I might believe a report that is erroneous. But when a report includes very good reason to disbelieve it, such as if the report said Emperor Constantine jumped over the moon, then I do indeed have a good reason to doubt the report. Different claims require different levels of evidence. That was what our debate was supposed to be about, and Lenardos has taken it to all kinds of tangents. But this is the real subject of the debate, and it remains true--extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence!
Yeah, I’m bringing back my “Constantine jumped over the moon” analogy—its an oldie but goodie. Lenardos really knows that if you read a report that said “Constantine was emperor of Rome” you’d accept it with less evidence than you would accept a report that said “Constantine jumped over the moon.” He knows it, I know it. That is what the debate was supposed to be about. And his penchant for dragging in manuscript counts and all that crap was just smokescreen.
To quote some more of Lenardos,
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Beginning with my original paper I have continually invited you or your atheist friends to produce ANY objective criteria and baseline of your choosing that is used by historians and does not destroy what we already know to be historically reliable and apply that to the historical parts of the NT. Neither you nor they could produce such a criteria that would show the NT to be unreliable. Why is that?
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Actually, I did produce exactly this with Tobin's articles, but Lenardos just summarily dismissed them. It is rather annoying for Lenardos to keep making these claims that I haven't produced what he has asked for, when I have. Even Lenardos himself brought to the table the evidence against himself that he has requested, the grocery list.
Since Lenardos finds it necessary to go into his tireless rants about the "atheistic world view" and all that rot, I guess I’ll go into a rant. It is obvious that at least some theists (ie. Mr. Lenardos) refuse to see how obviously flawed their silly “logic” is as they find it necessary to prop up their religious beliefs at all cost. (Hey, I avoided this kind of rant through 13 rounds. I figure that if Lenardos can get in 13 of these kinds of rants, I’m due for one of my own…)
In this debate, I have brought evidence to the table, such as Paul Tobin’s articles. But Lenardos summarily dismisses evidences I bring to the table because he doesn’t like them. The only evidence Lenardos has brought to the table has been his precious manuscript counts, which I’ve shown to be totally faulty. (Although I did in the end I conceded the point and let him have his manuscript counts--they don’t lend him any particular advantage anyway.) The rest of his “evidence” has been nothing more than taunts at atheists, and various attempts at misdirection.
So, now let’s get to the real crux of the matter:
1. Lenardos continues to claim that I don’t understand objective, while he repeatedly shows utter mindlessness when it comes to this topic.
2. Lenardos has yet to produce an objective measure, because he cannot. I’m not faulting him for not being able to produce the unproducable. I’m faulting him for claiming he actually has produced the unproducable.
3. Despite his claims that he understands the NT isn’t a monolith, his supporting evidence for the NT has always been such.
4. This debate was supposed to be about extraordinary evidence, and I have proven my point to reasonable certainty and all we’ve got from Lenardos is 13 rounds of misdirection.
Oh, and don’t take my word for it Mr. Lenardos. Feel free to bring our debate to any philosophy professor at any major university you like, and see if they don’t agree…
So now Mr. Lenardos says he is dropping out. I guess since no formal agreement as to how long it would go on, I can agree he has no obligation to continue. But from my, admittedly biased perspective, my speculation as to why he is dropping out is that he doesn’t want to embarrass himself any further. Really, I don't see how Lenardos could have possibly done much worse of a job at "defending" his position. Thirteen rounds of drivel.
Follow Next button to Informal Round 14:
Since Lenardos finds it necessary to go into his tireless rants about the "atheistic world view" and all that rot, I guess I’ll go into a rant. It is obvious that at least some theists (ie. Mr. Lenardos) refuse to see how obviously flawed their silly “logic” is as they find it necessary to prop up their religious beliefs at all cost. (Hey, I avoided this kind of rant through 13 rounds. I figure that if Lenardos can get in 13 of these kinds of rants, I’m due for one of my own…)
In this debate, I have brought evidence to the table, such as Paul Tobin’s articles. But Lenardos summarily dismisses evidences I bring to the table because he doesn’t like them. The only evidence Lenardos has brought to the table has been his precious manuscript counts, which I’ve shown to be totally faulty. (Although I did in the end I conceded the point and let him have his manuscript counts--they don’t lend him any particular advantage anyway.) The rest of his “evidence” has been nothing more than taunts at atheists, and various attempts at misdirection.
So, now let’s get to the real crux of the matter:
1. Lenardos continues to claim that I don’t understand objective, while he repeatedly shows utter mindlessness when it comes to this topic.
2. Lenardos has yet to produce an objective measure, because he cannot. I’m not faulting him for not being able to produce the unproducable. I’m faulting him for claiming he actually has produced the unproducable.
3. Despite his claims that he understands the NT isn’t a monolith, his supporting evidence for the NT has always been such.
4. This debate was supposed to be about extraordinary evidence, and I have proven my point to reasonable certainty and all we’ve got from Lenardos is 13 rounds of misdirection.
Oh, and don’t take my word for it Mr. Lenardos. Feel free to bring our debate to any philosophy professor at any major university you like, and see if they don’t agree…
So now Mr. Lenardos says he is dropping out. I guess since no formal agreement as to how long it would go on, I can agree he has no obligation to continue. But from my, admittedly biased perspective, my speculation as to why he is dropping out is that he doesn’t want to embarrass himself any further. Really, I don't see how Lenardos could have possibly done much worse of a job at "defending" his position. Thirteen rounds of drivel.
Follow Next button to Informal Round 14:
