Comments on: Peskey burdens of proof

By: jimlad

jimlad — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:02:21 +0000

Before I go writing a post about reasons why it makes sense to believe in the resurrection, I want to make sure that there is some point to doing so in case it misses the point.
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When you say that alot of people die for many beliefs, are you thinking of people who die for beliefs, or people who die because of something they have actually seen? If I died for my faith I would call this weak evidence. I would call it strong evidence if I died for something I must genuinely know about, so that I know whether it is a good or bad reason, a true or false belief. Even at that, if one person died for something they must surely know about I might think that they were simply mad or had deceived themselves. If many people did so, including people who before knowledge was available had *believed* the opposite, I would believe that what they died for was true.
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Our problem is of course that our particular witnesses died because they claimed that some contentious person had risen from the dead, which is something we don’t believe to be true. So I want to reconcile something I don’t believe with something I do believe.
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This brings me on to what you say about “nothing is impossible”. Do you refer to the way in which we cannot explain how a good magician performs some impossible feat, and yet we believe that something we don’t know explains it rather than assuming that it is real magic?
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If so I think I have a handle on what you are saying.

By: teragram

teragram — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:49:08 +0000

I think you have me confused with someone else.

By: qmonkey

qmonkey — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:47:07 +0000

Point conceded – ‘circumstantial evidence’ was the incorrect phrase. I suppose what I meant was unsatisfactory evidence. Loads and loads and loads of people claim to have seen visions of Mary and the like… I assume they are wrong till I get decent evidence – don’t you?

Proof is something to be judged I guess, in the eye of the beholder. Doesn’t sound very fair to me if, lets say, Jesus did actually resurrect…he didn’t appear to people who could have given following generations confident evidence. Even the most adent of you wouldnt claim that it was a slam dunk surely? in fact… only a negligable minority of those jews who cheered him on palm sunday actualy belived the resurection – presumably becuase of the lack of evidence even at the time (never mind through 2000 years of history)

By: jimlad

jimlad — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:26:35 +0000

hmmm..
perhaps you have misjudged my open-mindedness.
I will think about the evidence being circumstantial. I began to see your point but then typed define: circumstantial evidence into google and the first entry on the list was “All evidence except eyewitness testimony”. This confuses me but it may be a pedantic point. I don’t think it is mild evidence anyway and I have enough thoughts to hand on that to merit a post, though perhaps the problem is that mild is a relative term.
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I must consider what is the difference between proof and evidence no matter how strong, and what constitutes proof. This may be your most crucial point for me but it’s going to have to go into my subconsciousness for now as my conscious mind generally thinks about stuff I agree with, not having enough capacity for balanced thought. It’ll pop back out with my perspective in time.
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PS as for Muslims and Mormons, correct me if I’m wrong but I think they rely on the witness of just one person, the person who wanted to start the religion. There were over 500 Christian eye-witnesses included people who were not previously followers of Jesus, so no reason to suddenly turn around and die for him. I’m just comparing Christianity to other religions as you asked here, not ignoring the points you want me take on board.