'Jesus was not the messiah'

Originally posted by TacDavey
Well, unless someone can give reasons why not.

Really, I haven't done much research into this particular point, so I wouldn't be able to have a back and forth debate over it. But the fact that the eye witnesses are now dead is not grounds on it's own to dismiss their testimony.

ok, but if eyewitness testimony is considered useless in most fields, including law, would you agree that it is useless here too?

EDIT: ignore the law thing, I wont be arguing the position from legal precedence

Originally posted by inimalist
ok, but if eyewitness testimony is considered useless in most fields, including law, would you agree that it is useless here too?

EDIT: ignore the law thing, I wont be arguing the position from legal precedence

Eye witness is considered useless in most fields? I find that hard to believe. People are used all the time to identify criminals.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Eye witness is considered useless in most fields? I find that hard to believe. People are used all the time to identify criminals.

they might be, but their ability to do so is much worse than is commonly assumed.

people's perceptions are notoriously unreliable, and courts do tend to take this into account. Eye-witness testimony is not seen as convincing as physical evidence, in theory (a good lawyer trumps all that though, especially in jury trials).

With no physical evidence, use of eye witness data is essentially worthless. you are assuming near omniscience and objectivity in your witnesses, and even then, all you can conclude is that something appeared to have happened, filtered through the knowingly faulty and limited human perceptual apparati.

EDIT: come to think of it, the only field where raw eyewitness data is used to try and conclude things is law, and even then, it is considered one of the least reliable types of evidence. In a subject like psychology, researchers make names for themselves by showing how poor human perception is.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Eye witness is considered useless in most fields?

Do you recognize this image?
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/7/8/29878.jpg?v=1

Guy standing in front of a tank at Tiananmen square, as the tanks rolled in to break up the massive demonstrations there. If I hadn't shown you that image, you probably could have drawn it from memory. The line of tanks, the lone guy who had emerged from the crowd to oppose them, etc.

. . .

Spoiler:
Except that most of that isn't true. There were no other demonstrators in the area when that picture was taken. They've been edited in by a computer. Despite it being a famous image most people are still easily fooled into recalling a new version of what happened.

. . .

There are all kinds of similar errors that the human mind can make.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I find that hard to believe. People are used all the time to identify criminals.

For two main reasons:
1) Anecdotes have strong emotional resonance. Lawyers love being able to humanize a story.
2) Evidence can be hard to find. But consider that when there isn't any other evidence it's called a "he said, she said" trial. One where you can't come to a conclusion because the only thing you have is witnesses and witnesses can lie, be deceived, and make mistakes.

Originally posted by inimalist
they might be, but their ability to do so is much worse than is commonly assumed.

people's perceptions are notoriously unreliable, and courts do tend to take this into account. Eye-witness testimony is not seen as convincing as physical evidence, in theory (a good lawyer trumps all that though, especially in jury trials).

With no physical evidence, use of eye witness data is essentially worthless. you are assuming near omniscience and objectivity in your witnesses, and even then, all you can conclude is that something appeared to have happened, filtered through the knowingly faulty and limited human perceptual apparati.

EDIT: come to think of it, the only field where raw eyewitness data is used to try and conclude things is law, and even then, it is considered one of the least reliable types of evidence. In a subject like psychology, researchers make names for themselves by showing how poor human perception is.

Ah, well of course if it's just one or two eye witnesses that wouldn't hold ground. And like I said I haven't heavily researched it, but as I hear it, it's well over 500 eye witnesses and some of them were unbelievers and some were put in prison for saying it.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Do you recognize this image?
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/7/8/29878.jpg?v=1

Guy standing in front of a tank at Tiananmen square, as the tanks rolled in to break up the massive demonstrations there. If I hadn't shown you that image, you probably could have drawn it from memory. The line of tanks, the lone guy who had emerged from the crowd to oppose them, etc.

. . .

Spoiler:
Except that most of that isn't true. There were no other demonstrators in the area when that picture was taken. They've been edited in by a computer. Despite it being a famous image most people are still easily fooled into recalling a new version of what happened.

. . .

There are all kinds of similar errors that the human mind can make.

For two main reasons:
1) Anecdotes have strong emotional resonance. Lawyers love being able to humanize a story.
2) Evidence can be hard to find. But consider that when there isn't any other evidence it's called a "he said, she said" trial. One where you can't come to a conclusion because the only thing you have is witnesses and witnesses can lie, be deceived, and make mistakes.

Actually, I didn't recognize the image, but I get what your saying.

It's possible that every eye witness was simply mistaken or convinced, but like I said above, as I hear it it was more than a one or two people, and it was more than believers.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Ah, well of course if it's just one or two eye witnesses that wouldn't hold ground. And like I said I haven't heavily researched it, but as I hear it, it's well over 500 eye witnesses and some of them were unbelievers and some were put in prison for saying it.

so the best argument you can say is: 500 people believe they experienced something for which there is little if any physical evidence.

there are additional levels of skepticism here, such as the motivations, cognitive schema and personalities of the observers, things like covariance in responses (do we know these people weren't influenced by other people at the event, or after), false memory, social pressure, etc, and yes, them being dead does make the data less useful, because someone who isn't satisfied with the data cannot corroborate or refute it. We simply have to decide whether we think the witnesses were right or wrong, and that is essentially based on our own beliefs about what is possible.

If your threshold for believing something is true is "a lot of people might have saw something", do you realize how many crazy things you have to accept as true? Like, fine, you want to apply this to Jesus, you do know EVERY religious figure from history has such things. Testimony of seeing angels fight alongside Mohammed, for instance. Or cults. Scientologists experience very similar things with regards to thetans and engrams, does that experience alone convince you these things are real?

Originally posted by inimalist
so the best argument you can say is: 500 people believe they experienced something for which there is little if any physical evidence.

there are additional levels of skepticism here, such as the motivations, cognitive schema and personalities of the observers, things like covariance in responses (do we know these people weren't influenced by other people at the event, or after), false memory, social pressure, etc, and yes, them being dead does make the data less useful, because someone who isn't satisfied with the data cannot corroborate or refute it. We simply have to decide whether we think the witnesses were right or wrong, and that is essentially based on our own beliefs about what is possible.

If your threshold for believing something is true is "a lot of people might have saw something", do you realize how many crazy things you have to accept as true? Like, fine, you want to apply this to Jesus, you do know EVERY religious figure from history has such things. Testimony of seeing angels fight alongside Mohammed, for instance. Or cults. Scientologists experience very similar things with regards to thetans and engrams, does that experience alone convince you these things are real?

I never said these eye witnesses ALONE convinced me. But it adds to it when a vast amount of people, some who were imprisoned for saying it, held this to be true. Why go to jail for a lie? Especially those who weren't even believers.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I never said these eye witnesses ALONE convinced me. But it adds to it when a vast amount of people, some who were imprisoned for saying it, held this to be true. Why go to jail for a lie? Especially those who weren't even believers.

I'm not saying they were liars

EDIT: one can be convinced of something, through their limited senses, that is not absolutely true. sensory illusions are a great example of this. Because of how the touch receptors are spread out over your arm, I can touch you with two objects and you would never experience the sensation of more than one. The fact that you might go to jail over believing there was only one says nothing about how many objects you were touched with.

Originally posted by TacDavey
It's possible that every eye witness was simply mistaken or convinced, but like I said above, as I hear it it was more than a one or two people, and it was more than believers.

Ever heard of urban legends or even Poe's Law? Large numbers of people are constantly convinced of things that are blatantly untrue or meant to be impossible to believe.

Originally posted by inimalist
I'm not saying they were liars

EDIT: one can be convinced of something, through their limited senses, that is not absolutely true. sensory illusions are a great example of this. Because of how the touch receptors are spread out over your arm, I can touch you with two objects and you would never experience the sensation of more than one. The fact that you might go to jail over believing there was only one says nothing about how many objects you were touched with.

I agree people can be tricked into thinking something, but its still incredible that there were so many. I think it's rather unlikely that that many people were just mistaken. At any rate, my original point was that you can't just pass off eye witness testimony because the person is dead. That doesn't sound logical to me.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ever heard of urban legends or even Poe's Law? Large numbers of people are constantly convinced of things that are blatantly untrue or meant to be impossible to believe.

I've heard of Urban Legends. I don't know what Poe's Law is. I've not heard people go to jail over an urban legend. But if there was that many people saying something and some where even going to prison for it. I would think it is at least worth a look into. If you can disprove what they are saying then there it is. As far as I know, Christianity hasn't been refuted as of yet. But that's another discussion entirely.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I've heard of Urban Legends. I don't know what Poe's Law is. I've not heard people go to jail over an urban legend. But if there was that many people saying something and some where even going to prison for it. I would think it is at least worth a look into.

Are you seriously arguing that people being really sure of something is reason to believe that it's true?

Originally posted by TacDavey
If you can disprove what they are saying then there it is. As far as I know, Christianity hasn't been refuted as of yet.

Christianity has yet to be proven in the first place.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I agree people can be tricked into thinking something, but its still incredible that there were so many. I think it's rather unlikely that that many people were just mistaken.

do you extend this to people who believe they have been abducted by aliens? people who believe they have psychic powers? what about modern "prophets" who have thousands of followers who report seeing them perform miracles?

why would these eye-witnesses be any different. if we accept eye witness testimony from the bible is true, you have no reason to suggest these are not.

Originally posted by TacDavey
At any rate, my original point was that you can't just pass off eye witness testimony because the person is dead. That doesn't sound logical to me.

well, as I said before, there are numerous reasons why testimony from living people is superior to that of dead people, but even if we assume you are right for the sake of argument, being "as good as living eyewitnesses" is not a very good standard anyways. it is no better than a story a friend tells you about a guy

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Are you seriously arguing that people being really sure of something is reason to believe that it's true?

No. I thought I was very clear that was NOT what I was saying. But if all we knew about something was that there were a vast group of people who claim to have seen it, and even some who were unbelievers and went to jail for it, then it becomes more logical to believe in such a thing than it was without them. It ADDS to it, I never said that alone was all you even need to prove that something is true.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Christianity has yet to be proven in the first place.

That's rather irrelevant to what I was saying.

does the fact that Jewish people were burned for their beliefs make it any more true? does the faith of those in concentration camps mean Judaism is true?

what about Muslims in guantanamo?

Originally posted by inimalist
do you extend this to people who believe they have been abducted by aliens? people who believe they have psychic powers? what about modern "prophets" who have thousands of followers who report seeing them perform miracles?

why would these eye-witnesses be any different. if we accept eye witness testimony from the bible is true, you have no reason to suggest these are not.

Well, there are some reasons. There are reasons to believe that aliens and those prophets are false. If it could be debated adequately that both of those things are true, then such eye witnesses would only strengthen their case. Like I said, it adds to it, but doesn't fully prove anything. I disregard eye witness accounts of aliens and psychics not simply because they are eye witness accounts, but because it has basically been proven that both of those things are fake. The same cannot be said of Christianity.

Originally posted by inimalist
well, as I said before, there are numerous reasons why testimony from living people is superior to that of dead people, but even if we assume you are right for the sake of argument, being "as good as living eyewitnesses" is not a very good standard anyways. it is no better than a story a friend tells you about a guy

I fully agree that a living person would be a better witness to your cause than a dead one. But we don't have any living ones. And the fact that there is the possibility for a better piece of evidence does not discredit the evidence that we have.

Let me try and explain that better.

Say you have evidence for the existence of fairies. A better piece of evidence would be actually faeries showing up to the person you are debating and saying "I exist". But that doesn't mean all the evidence you have compiled is meaningless simply because that would be better than what you have.

Originally posted by TacDavey
No. I thought I was very clear that was NOT what I was saying. But if all we knew about something was that there were a vast group of people who claim to have seen it, and even some who were unbelievers and went to jail for it, then it becomes more logical to believe in such a thing than it was without them. It ADDS to it, I never said that alone was all you even need to prove that something is true.

Okay, it's a reason to look into it but that's where the relevance ends. So who cares?

The only reason I can see for you to push this point (besides thinking it is evidence in and of itself) is that you believe I haven't put thought into my beliefs. Frankly, that offends me.

Originally posted by TacDavey
That's rather irrelevant to what I was saying.

No it's not. You said "Christianity hasn't been disproven" but why should anybody have to disprove something that hasn't been proven to begin with? Otherwise we'd have to laboriously disprove any claim anyone ever made no matter how crazy. That's not a reasonable way to live.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Okay, it's a reason to look into it but that's where the relevance ends. So who cares?

The only reason I can see for you to push this point (besides thinking it is evidence in and of itself) is that you believe I haven't put thought into my beliefs. Frankly, that offends me.

That's not what I was saying at all.

Let me try and put it another way. If a man put a gun to your head and asked you a simple question: "Does X exist?" (X being a place holder, not the letter before you decide to say something clever).

Now, say you know absolutely nothing about X. You wouldn't know one way or the other.

Now let's modify the situation. Say that there were over 500 people from all over who have not met each other and some who were going to jail for saying that X does, in fact exist. Also take into account that some of these witnesses were previously unbelievers in X.

NOW, what is your decision? Does that prove X exists? No. Does it make it more likelier than it was before? Yes.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
No it's not. You said "Christianity hasn't been disproven" but why should anybody have to disprove something that hasn't been proven to begin with? Otherwise we'd have to laboriously disprove any claim anyone ever made no matter how crazy. That's not a reasonable way to live.

Well, some would argue that point, but like I said that's another topic completely.

My point is that Christianity hasn't been shown to absolutely be untrue. It's still debatable. Aliens and psychics, as far as I'm concerned, are not the same in that respect.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Now let's modify the situation. Say that there were over 500 people from all over who have not met each other and some who were going to jail for saying that X does, in fact exist. Also take into account that some of these witnesses were previously unbelievers in X.

that is entirely historically inaccurate though. The people who spoke of Jesus came from a community that met and discussed with eachother, and if the Bible is to be taken as truth, Jesus was a pretty talked about guy at the time. It is unfathomable that these eye-witnesses wouldn't have known and talked amongst one-another. You can't control these things entirely in well designed social psychology experiments ffs.

I already covered your jail analogy too

Originally posted by TacDavey
My point is that Christianity hasn't been shown to absolutely be untrue. It's still debatable. Aliens and psychics, as far as I'm concerned, are not the same in that respect.

thats not true at all

in an absolute sense, none of those things can be "disproven", they can only have evidence brought up to support or refute them.

Given christianity brings no real evidence to the table (as, in fact, psychics HAVE done, it is just weak evidence), it is hard to refute it.

"A guy told me" is not evidence, no matter how much it supports what you believe

Originally posted by TacDavey
Well, there are some reasons. There are reasons to believe that aliens and those prophets are false. If it could be debated adequately that both of those things are true, then such eye witnesses would only strengthen their case. Like I said, it adds to it, but doesn't fully prove anything. I disregard eye witness accounts of aliens and psychics not simply because they are eye witness accounts, but because it has basically been proven that both of those things are fake. The same cannot be said of Christianity.

that is the definition of special pleading. also, try bringing up this "psy is totally disproven" with deadline. tbh, there is a far better argument, in empirical terms, for psychic powers than there is for any aspect of Christianity.

This is moot though. you are considering what is the same type of evidence as more convincing because it falls in line with your preconcieved notions of what is true, rather than evaluating it with the same critical eye you give to other things.

Originally posted by TacDavey
I fully agree that a living person would be a better witness to your cause than a dead one. But we don't have any living ones. And the fact that there is the possibility for a better piece of evidence does not discredit the evidence that we have.

you are correct, eye-witness evidence discredits itself

Originally posted by TacDavey
Say you have evidence for the existence of fairies. A better piece of evidence would be actually faeries showing up to the person you are debating and saying "I exist". But that doesn't mean all the evidence you have compiled is meaningless simply because that would be better than what you have.

If someone told you "500 people think they saw a fairy", you would believe in faries?

in fact, i am telling you this, no word of a lie, in all seriousness, over 500 people think they have seen faries. Hell, I bet I could find 500 people who think they are faries.

and yes, I do think the evidence is meaningless. Fault me for having a high standard of evidence for things if you want, at least I'm consistant.

Originally posted by TacDavey
Well, unless someone can give reasons why not.

Really, I haven't done much research into this particular point, so I wouldn't be able to have a back and forth debate over it. But the fact that the eye witnesses are now dead is not grounds on it's own to dismiss their testimony.

but just saying "there were tons of eye witnesses" doesn't really do anything for me. i could say there were tons of eye witnesses who saw allah protect the kabah from an invasive force in the 'year of the elephant,' yet i doubt you'd accept that as a documented factual event.

Originally posted by inimalist
that is entirely historically inaccurate though. The people who spoke of Jesus came from a community that met and discussed with eachother, and if the Bible is to be taken as truth, Jesus was a pretty talked about guy at the time. It is unfathomable that these eye-witnesses wouldn't have known and talked amongst one-another. You can't control these things entirely in well designed social psychology experiments ffs.

Like I said, I'm not that well researched, but as I heard it they weren't all from a selected group. Indeed, there were many people from all over claiming the same thing.

Originally posted by inimalist
thats not true at all

in an absolute sense, none of those things can be "disproven", they can only have evidence brought up to support or refute them.

Given christianity brings no real evidence to the table (as, in fact, psychics HAVE done, it is just weak evidence), it is hard to refute it.

"A guy told me" is not evidence, no matter how much it supports what you believe

Like I said, the evidence supporting Christianity is another topic all together. I disagree that there is no evidence supporting it, but that isn't really important to the point I was making here.

Originally posted by inimalist
that is the [b]definition of special pleading. also, try bringing up this "psy is totally disproven" with deadline. tbh, there is a far better argument, in empirical terms, for psychic powers than there is for any aspect of Christianity.

This is moot though. you are considering what is the same type of evidence as more convincing because it falls in line with your preconcieved notions of what is true, rather than evaluating it with the same critical eye you give to other things. [/B]

No I'm not. The eye witness testimonies of UFOs have the same weight as Jesus's Eye witness testimonies. The difference is that as I have seen it UFOs and psychics have been pretty well proven false. Christianity has not.

Like if there was a debate about Big Foot and Aliens. And lets say we all knew for a fact that aliens weren't true, but we were still deciding if Big Foot was. Eye witness reports on aliens can be ignored, where as they are still valid for Big Foot.

Originally posted by inimalist
you are correct, eye-witness evidence discredits [b]itself [/B]

I disagree. I already gave you a hypothetical in which eye witness reports would directly influence your decision. They do not prove anything. I have never said they did. But to say they have absolutely 0% impact on a subject is just untrue.

Originally posted by inimalist
If someone told you "500 people think they saw a fairy", you would believe in faries?

in fact, i am telling you this, no word of a lie, in all seriousness, over 500 people think they have seen faries. Hell, I bet I could find 500 people who think they are faries.

No, I have been over this many times now. I don't understand where you are still getting confused. Eye witness reports alone don't prove anything. I have said this in post after post after post. Why are you so intent on labeling this as my argument? Eye witness reports alone do not prove anything. But you are claiming they have absolutely 0 relation to a subject and I am saying that is simply not true.

However small their contribution, they DO contribute.

Originally posted by inimalist
and yes, I do think the evidence is meaningless. Fault me for having a high standard of evidence for things if you want, at least I'm consistant.

What do you mean? The fact that there is the possibility for better evidence doesn't discredit the other evidence. It's still evidence. Otherwise, you could say ANYTHING we have not seen is meaningless, because the best evidence for it would be to see it ourselves, and since there is the possibility for that evidence, that means all the evidence we DO have is meaningless.

But we all know that isn't true at all.