I Had A Thought On Historical Apologetics, And I Am Wondering If I Might Be Wrong.

[Guest Valk0010]

I sort of fell down the rabbit hole tonight for awhile, so I was reading William Lane Craig and then latter a guy parroting habermas (I know this because he cited habermas ever other line) and I have been mulling over this thought for awhile. I am going to assuming for the sake of argument here, two things, that there is a historical jesus and that the gospels are perfectly reliable historical documents. So the thought becomes the following.

 

Why the hell are we always asked, to do things like, provide a complete naturalistic explanation for every fucking miracle in the book from the resurrection to healing to god helping to find a parking spot?

 

Now to my point. I know their are wildly differing views but both work.

 

A:If there is no god, nor good reason to believe one exists.

 

or

 

A1:Generic theism has been proven...(if things like Kalam, ontological arguement, and the various thinks natural theology provides fodder for).

 

That does not however prove Christianity.

 

Here is why.

 

Say we are discussing, the resurrection of jesus, and we are say talking to habermas, or Craig, and they start saying whatever these facts are, whether they be, he was lain in a tomb, or was born on April 1st, or Paul received what he said from the apostles etc.

 

All of the apologetics arguments for the resurrection or gospels reliability being true(hypothetically) does not mean anything more then, we know what they believed happened. We know what they attributed their subjective experiences too. They saw the feeding of the 5000, they thought, a god man. We see that today and think snake oil salesman. That is just one example of many. They also believed they saw Jesus rise from the dead (if you believe the apologetics arguements at any rate), but that doesn't automatically mean they were correct in their experiences, nor we could glean what actually happened.

 

To put it another way. If all these apologetics arguements are true, we know what they believed, and why they decided to believe it, and what they thought they experienced but nothing more then that. And we are not required logically, even if we may want to be so, to ever know, what exactly caused, their experiences. It becomes then a situation of, I don't know, but you sure as hell don't either.

 

Why I say this is because, if there is no good reason to believe that there is a god, like say from other errors in Christianity or lack of evidence or the problem of evil. Then there is no way historical apologetics could prove more then that.

 

The situation gets more interesting generic theism. Because there is no way you can connect A to B. A being generic theism and B being christianity. Historical arguements for the veracity of the bible may be true but if you can't prove that there is a theistic god willing to do the things needed in the bible, then your still stuck with the same conclusion. One could even go as far to say something like, god made the bible innerrant to fool people. Or god is a maltheist using the bible to fool people. Or its a Deist god that is unwilling or unable. You of course can't particularly prove it either way. But that is more or less the point. If it becomes a matter of faith, then that is about the same as making belief an option and absurd.

 

 

 

The same think applies for more or less the entire bible. Even moses. You got to believe that there is a type of god, willing to part the red sea, before you can say its a historical fact it was done the way the bible described it. If not its a case of we know, only what they think happened.

 

The argument becomes circular because your using your conclusion to prove your conclusion. This is a problem when your premise is either nonexistent in the case of atheism or unprovable in the case of generic theism.

 

Well anyway bust my balls if I made a error.

 

ANd sorry for grammer errors I would have finished this earlier if I didn't find out crtl w closes the tab your working in and it being 2 am.

[Paine]

you must've gone ahead an smoked that Bible page blunt.

 

good on ya...

 

>>>>

 

the historicity of jesus has never been proven---you know this---but the question of WHAT COULD HAVE STARTED THE WHOLE MYTH...Egyptian god men and their legends precede the bible jesus by a couple of thousand years...so to dig any deeper than that, you are into some WAY preliterate societies...think throwing virgins into fire holes...

 

so ask yourself then why do "savages" in the hidden parts of the Amazon TODAY still paint their bodies with mud and dance naked to make it rain (or whatever)? while the other half of the planet has iPads for christsake! Because societies come and go, and before the technology we have to connect us all, there was no meaningful, real time information sharing.

 

the first cause for the myth? lost to time but it is no less myth because someone "feels" its right.

 

and ultimately the burden of proof is on THEM. proving a negative is a false premise and we should not entertain that line of thinking anyway...

 

fuck 'em.

[Kaiser01]

"Is it more likely that, all the natural laws of the universe were suspended, in your favor? Or that you made a mistake?"- Hitchens

 

When it comes to the miracle claims of Christianity its not exactly defined either that those miracles were caused by God, they could of been caused by Satan and for his plan but the Hebrews tried to attribute it to God. Satan is a great deciver, they cant know if their being deceived, especially if this is supernatural.

[micksherlock]

I sort of fell down the rabbit hole tonight for awhile, so I was reading William Lane Craig and then latter a guy parroting habermas (I know this because he cited habermas ever other line) and I have been mulling over this thought for awhile. I am going to assuming for the sake of argument here, two things, that there is a historical jesus and that the gospels are perfectly reliable historical documents. So the thought becomes the following.

 

Why the hell are we always asked, to do things like, provide a complete naturalistic explanation for every fucking miracle in the book from the resurrection to healing to god helping to find a parking spot?

 

Now to my point. I know their are wildly differing views but both work.

 

A:If there is no god, nor good reason to believe one exists.

 

or

 

A1:Generic theism has been proven...(if things like Kalam, ontological arguement, and the various thinks natural theology provides fodder for).

 

That does not however prove Christianity.

 

Here is why.

 

Say we are discussing, the resurrection of jesus, and we are say talking to habermas, or Craig, and they start saying whatever these facts are, whether they be, he was lain in a tomb, or was born on April 1st, or Paul received what he said from the apostles etc.

 

All of the apologetics arguments for the resurrection or gospels reliability being true(hypothetically) does not mean anything more then, we know what they believed happened. We know what they attributed their subjective experiences too. They saw the feeding of the 5000, they thought, a god man. We see that today and think snake oil salesman. That is just one example of many. They also believed they saw Jesus rise from the dead (if you believe the apologetics arguements at any rate), but that doesn't automatically mean they were correct in their experiences, nor we could glean what actually happened.

 

To put it another way. If all these apologetics arguements are true, we know what they believed, and why they decided to believe it, and what they thought they experienced but nothing more then that. And we are not required logically, even if we may want to be so, to ever know, what exactly caused, their experiences. It becomes then a situation of, I don't know, but you sure as hell don't either.

 

Why I say this is because, if there is no good reason to believe that there is a god, like say from other errors in Christianity or lack of evidence or the problem of evil. Then there is no way historical apologetics could prove more then that.

 

The situation gets more interesting generic theism. Because there is no way you can connect A to B. A being generic theism and B being christianity. Historical arguements for the veracity of the bible may be true but if you can't prove that there is a theistic god willing to do the things needed in the bible, then your still stuck with the same conclusion. One could even go as far to say something like, god made the bible innerrant to fool people. Or god is a maltheist using the bible to fool people. Or its a Deist god that is unwilling or unable. You of course can't particularly prove it either way. But that is more or less the point. If it becomes a matter of faith, then that is about the same as making belief an option and absurd.

 

 

 

The same think applies for more or less the entire bible. Even moses. You got to believe that there is a type of god, willing to part the red sea, before you can say its a historical fact it was done the way the bible described it. If not its a case of we know, only what they think happened.

 

The argument becomes circular because your using your conclusion to prove your conclusion. This is a problem when your premise is either nonexistent in the case of atheism or unprovable in the case of generic theism.

 

Well anyway bust my balls if I made a error.

 

ANd sorry for grammer errors I would have finished this earlier if I didn't find out crtl w closes the tab your working in and it being 2 am.

 

I like to look at the meanings of the words used to describe miracles and magic surrounding Christ. Incredible, impossible, etc..

[Ouroboros]

A:If there is no god, nor good reason to believe one exists.

 

or

 

A1:Generic theism has been proven...(if things like Kalam, ontological arguement, and the various thinks natural theology provides fodder for).

 

That does not however prove Christianity.

 

Agree. There is however (in my opinion) yet another option.

 

Let's say this natural world is more mystic and supernatural than we know or think. Let's say there's no God, but that we all are beings with connections to another plane of existence. In other words, spiritual world (in such case it's just as natural as the physical), but no God-source. Think of witchcraft or some tribal pagans pray to ancestors but not gods. People with the ability to pull from this spiritual world using mystical powers can make it look like monotheism or polytheism or God/gods doing miracles. This would mean that all the stories in the Bible could be true, but it wouldn't prove God/Yahweh/Jesus at all. Call it "supernatural magicians" perhaps.