On Why Liars Lie

_{Barry Arrington

September 15, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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In a previous post, I exposed yet another of eigenstate’s outrageous lies. Then I asked:

The real question is what motivates him to engage in such insane denials? I have to admit that I am utterly flummoxed by it. He knows he is lying. I know he is lying. Everyone else who reads his comment knows he is lying. What in the world motivates such outrageous conduct? If I did not see it myself I would not believe it.

Commenter Charles replies:

He can’t help himself. It has become his nature. I have watched liars lie for years, and I have noted their inability to admit even the simplest of truths. I have observed their self-destructive behavior (as a consequence of losing the trust and charity essential in routine communication and cooperation) over matters both mundane and mission-critical.

This fellow suggests a mechanism for something I have suspected for years:

Dishonesty reduces applied intelligence: re-wires the brain

What I am suggesting is that, although the fundamental efficiency of neural processing is an hereditary characteristic which is robust to environmental differences and changes (short of something like destructive brain pathology – encephalitis, neurotoxin, head injury, dementia etc) – habitual dishonesty (such as is mainstream among the modern intellectual elite) will generate brain changes, and a long-lasting (although probably, eventually, reversible) pathology in applied intelligence – such that what ought to be simple and obvious inferential reasoning becomes impossible.

I would add impossible not only in communication with others but equally impossible when alone and merely analyzing (rationalizing) information they find disagreeable.

UPDATE:

After observing Carpathian’s hi-jinks in the comment thread to this post, Charles adds:

Carpathian demonstrates the corollary, why liars lie badly.

A consequence of chronic, pathological intellectual dishonesty is a narrowing of ones sphere of influence to other liars. A further consequence of which is the positive reinforcement from other liars that their lies are credible and compelling. But when those lies are trotted out to an informed and experienced audience, those same lies don’t pass muster and are recognized as vapid and vacuous.

Comments

kairosfocus, What's happening here is that the "Darwinist" side can no longer make any statements which do not contain the entire content of one side of a debate. If an evo makes a statement X, there is no possibly of adding any detail later. In this case, Barry has fixated on semantics, to the point of calling someone a liar who tried to simply better explain his position. I believe this should apply then to your side also. If you make a statement, make sure it contains the complete ID position on biology. Do you think that's workable in a debate?Carpathian_{September 17, 2015
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Barry Arrington:
Is it your position that a statement in which a person says he cannot do a particular thing means the same thing as a statement in which he says he can indeed do that very thing?
I might be too stupid to understand so let's analyze it together.
LH before: I cannot therefore be logically, absolutely certain of anything—not even that A=A.
1) Example 1: A = 2 2) Example 2: A = my current body temperature 3) Example 3: A = the slit that an electron passes through
LH today: Defining A as equal to A is defining A as equal to A; the proposition is not fallible if the only metric is its own definition.
Whoops! We cannot assign anything to A here since the statement is not about something we have assigned the label A to. Thanks to the qualifying portion of the statement, we see that this statement is not about A but rather a logical definition of which A is but an example .Carpathian_{September 17, 2015
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Carpathian, recall that what is on the table now is that not even undeniable self evident truths are strong enough for the ilk of objectors we have been seeing. In that context the issue cannot be strength of evidence but reasonableness of objectors. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Carpathian at 130: Is it your position that a statement in which a person says he cannot do a particular thing means the same thing as a statement in which he says he can indeed do that very thing?Barry Arrington_{September 17, 2015
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Barry Arrington:
Carpathian is having none of it. It is my problem if I don’t understand how opposites mean the same thing.
Of course it is your problem if you don't understand something. The thing you claim you don't understand however, is a statement that is totally made up by you.
I can’t believe he is stupid enough to believe what he writes. Therefore, he must know it is false.
I tend to be more respectful than you so I'll use the term intelligent. You are far too intelligent to believe the two statements mean the same thing. You implied as much when you made the effort to take the qualifying portion of the text out of the second statement.
What’s more, he must know that everyone knows it is false. That is the really amazing thing. He is not deceiving anyone with his falsehoods. Yet he insists on them anyway. Why does he do it? Can someone please explain that to me?
Desperation on the part of the losing half of a debate leads to a strategy of painting the winner as some sort of villain or tragic figure. This is why IDists attack the messenger. They don't have a strong enough message.Carpathian_{September 17, 2015
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Here you go Roy http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible/Andre_{September 17, 2015
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And there are countless * countless ^ countless events which are not documented at all, which makes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history.
Most people learn the difference between comparatives and superlatives at an early age. But not Mung. He probably thinks that tortoises are one of the fastest organisms on the planet because they're more mobile than plants and plankton.Roy_{September 17, 2015
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Don't have enough time Bob? You are right about that only about 70 years to make your choice. I hope that you will find such time. Take it from a from a former atheist. The truth will set you freeAndre_{September 17, 2015
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Onlookers, it is worth pausing to note why it is worth the while to address this seemingly off-topic matter. We are seeing the mindset of the skeptics of design theory. This is an ilk that is resistant to self evident truth and first principles of reason. The weight of primary source historical documents does not budge them, nor the weight of expert scholarship when it does not go where they want. So, when we see the very same objectors dismissive of the significance of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, that should give us context. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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BA, Mark -- mainly reporting Peter's testimony -- was also an eyewitness (remember whose house was being used by early Christian leaders and that young man who ran naked from the Garden when they tried to grab him), and some argue Luke may have been in the circle too. Add in the official summary in 1 Cor 15 dating to 35 - 38, gives some twenty identifiable witnesses that can be reckoned co-authors from the 500. And of course the appropriate standard is historiography. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Bob O'H: You seem to forget that the first place and for a full generation the central place where the Christian gospel was preached, notoriously, was Jerusalem. As in the headquarters of the first centres of opposition, among the Sadducean and Pharisee parties. Where you can rest assured, the officials knew the right tomb. In addition, remember the women who found the tomb empty included near relatives of Jesus who had assisted at the burial and were going about its completion. Obviously, in ignorance of the seal and guard put on it. They did know there was a rather large stone and were concerned as to how to get in, but where it was was not their concern. Next, remember, this is a point of embarrassment in C1. The men were in hiding, it is the women who show courage and diligence. It is women who -- never mind that such were not going to be accepted as credible witnesses in that time and place -- then found the empty tomb. And, they assumed the officials had removed the body. Nor did the officials dispute that the body was not there, the record is that they spread the report that the disciples had stolen it while the guards slept. Oops. An obvious cover up. Then, for decades, the disciples were based right there, teaching a gospel pivoting on the resurrection, with the empty tomb a key factual point. And obviously, Saul of Tarsus would have known the facts. He plainly knew no such fact as you and others of your ilk imply or he would never have become the lead Missionary of the C1 church, having previously been its arch persecutor. Finally, 1985 is thirty years ago. I can recall very well and speak to events of that era, and would know many people who were also present as witnesses. Sorry, the attempt to dismiss eyewitness lifetime record fails. The wrong tomb hypothesis is an example, not of the cleverness of skeptics, but of how desperate they are to construct any narrative that avoids where they are so determined not to go. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Bob:
At the very least point out the documentation that would not be thrown out of court for hearsay.
OK, Matthew's and John's accounts were eye witness accounts. Neither would be thrown out of court as hearsay if they were to say the same thing on the witness stand.
At least give me the chance, Barry.
Of course, that is what the rich man said for his brothers. And you have the response. I truly hope you change your mind Bob. But if you don't and you suffer the consequences of unbelief, it will not be because there is insufficient evidence, and it will not be because the quality of the evidence is low. There is sufficient high quality evidence to convince any reasonable observer. I like you Bob. In the years we have exchanged thoughts, we have usually disagreed, but you have been unflaggingly courteous. In this thread, for example, Orloog mocks and scoffs, but your tone is genuine and civil. So again, I hope you soften your heart. I hope you respond to the gentle tugs of the Spirit. I hope you prepare yourself for eternity. Barry Arrington_{September 17, 2015
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BA, I believe that Havel's Greengrocer example illuminates the imposition of politically correct falsehood that the prudent man will allow to pass. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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F/N: Someone above needs to be acquainted with historiography, and with the Ancient Documents Rule. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Andre @ 109 - I don't have time to go through it all, but for a start the section about the tomb being empty claims that the tomb was well known (because someone writing at least 3 decades later knew the name of the guy it belonged, and thus it could be checked. Of course, someone could gave removed the body in the mean time. Then there is the bizarre claim that the claim that the tomb was empty is reliable because the people who found it empty were considered unreliable.Bob O'H_{September 17, 2015
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Don't worry, KF, nature and the products of their own purblind machinations are making darned sure they're going to be regarded as the insane blip in the course of the history of science and indeed of the world, that they, in fact, are. And science itself, with its metastasized, totalitarian, corporate-driven, atheist cancer will suffer with them in the eyes of mankind - though not terminally, presumably, as will be the case with atheism.Axel_{September 17, 2015
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F/N: I think I will clip from the 101, on the twelve minimal facts widely acknowledged by scholarship on Jesus across the past generation: ________________ http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-1-biblical-foundations-of-and-core.html#u1_grnds >>The method, in a nutshell -- and Greenleaf's remarks are also highly relevant, is:
The minimal facts method only uses sources which are multiply attested, and agreed to by a majority of scholars (ranging from atheist to conservative). This requires that they have one or more of the following criteria which are relevant to textual criticism: Multiple sources - If two or more sources attest to the same fact, it is more likely authentic Enemy attestation - If the writers enemies corroborate a given fact, it is more likely authentic Principle of embarrassment - If the text embarrasses the writer, it is more likely authentic Eyewitness testimony - First hand accounts are to be prefered Early testimony - an early account is more likely accurate than a later one Having first established the well attested facts, the approach then argues that the best explanation of these agreed to facts is the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . . . [Source: "Minimal facts" From Apologetics Wiki. Full article: here. (Courtesy, Wayback Machine.)]
Why is that so? The easiest answer is to simply list the facts that meet the above criteria and are accepted by a majority to an overwhelming majority of recent and current scholarship after centuries of intense debate:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion [--> which implies his historicity!]. 2. He was buried. 3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope. 4. The tomb was empty (the most contested). 5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof). 6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers. 7. The resurrection was the central message. 8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem. 9. The Church was born and grew. 10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship. 11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic). 12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic). [Cf. Habermas' paper here and a broader more popular discussion here. NT Wright's papers here and here give a rich and deep background analysis. Here is a video of a pastoral presentation of a subset of the facts. Habermas presents the case as videos here and here, in two parts. Here is a video of a debate he had with Antony Flew.]
The list of facts is in some respects fairly obvious. That a Messiah candidate was captured, tried and crucified -- as Gamaliel hinted at -- was effectively the death-knell for most such movements in Israel in the era of Roman control; to have to report such a fate was normally embarrassing and discrediting to the extreme in a shame-honour culture. The Jews of C1 Judaea wanted a victorious Greater David to defeat the Romans and usher in the day of ultimate triumph for Israel, not a crucified suffering servant. In the cases where a movement continued, the near relatives took up the mantle. That is facts 1 - 3 right there. Facts 10 - 12 are notorious. While some (it looks like about 25% of the survey of scholarship, from what I have seen) reject no 4, in fact it is hard to see a message about a resurrection in C1 that did not imply that the body was living again, as Wright discusses here. Facts 5 - 9 are again, pretty clearly grounded. So, the challenge is to explain this cluster or important subsets of it, without begging questions and without selective hyperskepticism. The old Deist objections (though sometimes renewed today) have deservedly fallen by the wayside . . . . We may briefly compare: [table of ten alternatives is at the linked] . . . . (I have given my scores above, based on reasoning that should be fairly obvious. As an exercise you may want to come up with your own scores on a 5 - 1 scale: 5 = v. good/ 4 = good/ 3 = fair/ 2 = poor/ 1 = v. poor, with explanations. Try out blends of the common skeptical theories to see how they would fare.) Laying a priori anti-supernaturalism aside as a patent case of worldview level question-begging closed mindedness, the above table shows that there are two serious candidates today, the resurrection as historically understood, or some version of a collective vision/hallucination that led to a sincere (but plainly mistaken) movement. The latter of course runs into the problem that such collective visions are not psychologically plausible as the cultural expectations of a resurrection would have been of a general one in the context of the obvious military triumph of Israel. Nor, does it explain the apparently missing body. Moreover, we know separately, that the culturally accepted alternative would have been individual prophetic visions of the exalted that on being shared would comfort the grieving that the departed rested with God. So, an ahead of time individual breakthrough resurrection -- even, one that may be accompanied by some straws in the wind of what is to come in fulness at the end -- is not part of the mental furniture of expectations in C1 Judaism. Where, hallucinations and culturally induced visions are going to be rooted in such pre-existing mental "furniture." Where, also -- tellingly -- the women who bought spices and went to the tomb that morning plainly expected to find it occupied by a dead prophet, one unjustly judicially murdered as so many others had been. (And if you doubt the account that reports how these women became the first to discover the tomb and to see the risen Messiah, consider how dismissive C1 Jews were to the testimony of "hysterical" -- that very word in English is rooted in the Greek for womb, hustera (reflecting a very old prejudice . . . ) -- women. Such an embarrassing point would only be admitted if the reporter was seeking to tell the full truth as best as he could, regardless of how poorly it would come across to his audience; a C1 audience, not a C21 one.) The Easter event cuts across all reasonable cultural expectations, and obviously forced a much closer -- transforming -- look at messianic prophetic passages such as Isa 52 - 53 which plainly led to an aha moment. Moreover, the visions suggestion also runs into the problem of the empty tomb; hence the skeptical resistance to that otherwise quite reasonable fact. (Remember, the NT record is that the women disciples who went to the tomb that first Easter Sunday morning to complete the burial rituals that had been hastily begun just before the Sabbath, on finding the grave open and the body missing at first thought the authorities had taken the body. These primary documents subsequently record the Sanhedrin's official talking point as that the disciples stole the body while the guards slept. Oops. The point of agreement is obvious: the body was missing, and neither group seemed to be responsible for it. [Cf below for more.]) You may think that this sort of balance of evidence should be well known and that educated, responsible and reasonable people would at minimum be willing to accept it as well-grounded that Jesus of Nazareth was a significant Galilean Jew and teacher who had clashes with the Jerusalem authorities which cost him his life. Whereupon, his followers then proclaimed to one and all across the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean and beyond over the next several decades, that Jesus was the prophesied Jewish Messiah, and that though shamefully (though unjustly) crucified -- blatantly true by the criterion of admitting an utterly embarrassing claim -- he was risen from death as Lord and eschatological Judge; until Nero would find it convenient to divert suspicion be falsely accusing Christians of setting fire to Rome in 64 AD. But, sadly, that is not the case. For instance, we can find the dean of the New Atheists, Dr Richard Dawkins (late of Oxford University) in an interview with the September 2012 Playboy magazine (HT: UD News):
DAWKINS: The evidence [Jesus] existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real. Even if he’s fictional, whoever wrote his lines was ahead of his time in terms of moral philosophy. PLAYBOY: You’ve read the Bible. DAWKINS: I haven’t read it all, but my knowledge of the Bible is a lot better than most fundamentalist Christians’.
Of course, this confident manner, breezy and contemptuous dismissal is the very opposite to what Paul wrote c. 55 AD, to the Corinthians regarding the core facts of the gospel transmitted to him through the official testimony communicated by Peter, James, John and other leading witnesses in Jerusalem, c. 35 - 38 AD . . . . So, Peter -- contemplating an impending martyr's death -- makes it clear that we have not followed cunningly devised myths, while Paul identifies the factual status of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection as the ground on which we are confident of salvation by trusting in him. He goes so far as to state that if Jesus has not risen, the gospel is futile and we have no hope of forgiveness in it. So, whose report do we believe, the eyewitness lifetime record of the apostles or dismissals by the likes of professor Dawkins et al, 2,000 years later? Plainly, the two are not even comparable as historical sources, so that is not a hard choice. Unfortunately, the sort of cavalier dismissiveness and -- frankly -- irresponsibility we see from latter-day skeptics has swept up all too many in its meshes. Nor is the problem confined to laymen. To see this, it will be helpful to excerpt Wikipedia (a known to be generally hostile popular reference), from its article on Bishop J A T Robinson [acc: Aug 23, 2012], on the dating of the NT documents, as it remarks on his well known 1976 work, Redating the New Testament, not least because this is revealing of the climate that confronts Christians who take the NT documents seriously as primary historical materials. C H Dodd's response is particularly revealing:
Although Robinson was within the liberal theology tradition, he challenged the work of colleagues in the field of exegetical criticism. Specifically, Robinson examined the New Testament's reliability, because he believed that very little original research had been completed in the field during the period between 1900 and the mid-1970s. Concluding his research, he wrote in his work, Redating the New Testament,[13] that past scholarship was based on a "tyranny of unexamined assumptions" and an "almost willful blindness". Robinson concluded that much of the New Testament was written before AD 64, partly based on his judgement that there is little textual evidence that the New Testament reflects knowledge of the Temple's AD 70 destruction. In relation to the four gospels' dates of authorship, Robinson placed Matthew at 40 to after 60, Mark at about 45 to 60, Luke at before 57 to after 60, and John at from 40 to after 65.[14][15] Robinson also argued that the letter of James was penned by a brother of Jesus Christ within twenty years of Jesus’ death, that Paul authored all the books that bear his name, and that the apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel. Robinson also opined that because of his investigations, a rewriting of many theologies of the New Testament was in order.[16][17][18] C. H. Dodd, in a frank letter to Robinson wrote: "I should agree with you that much of the late dating is quite arbitrary, even wanton, the offspring not of any argument that can be presented, but rather of the critic's prejudice that, if he appears to assent to the traditional position of the early church, he will be thought no better than a stick-in-the-mud."[19]
This is sadly revealing . . . >> _________________ This gives the bonus of showing the clear movement roots of the dismissive there is no real evidence attitude we see, the so called new atheists. And, it utterly exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of such. It is time that we recognise what we are dealing with, intellectual nihilism posing as brilliance and sophisticated education. Even, as Science. And if we know what is good for us and our civilisation, we will turn from it. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Logic, I confess, I have been spoiled by too much technical pondering and am trying to recover. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Orloog, Sadly, your onward rhetorical drivel simply further shows your lack of judicious temperament and your all too manifest closed minded irrational hostility. That you seem to think it appropriate to equate eyewitnesses peacefully surrendering their lives rather than deny what they knew to be true and eternally vital as they were actually there, to deluded murderous fanatics 1300 years after the time of Islam's founding speaks volumes. We need no further proof that you are not reasonable, you have insistently demonstrated it, then when called on it have doubled down with a strawman caricature. But, we must thank you and those of your ilk who are not rushing in to at least set a balance. We understand. We know why so many cannot bring themselves to acknowledge simple self-evident truths such as, error exists or the import of a bright red ball sitting on a table, or that simply to communicate in text one must likewise unavoidably use distinct identity. Yes, we understand. So, when we return focus to the foundations of the design inference, it will be informed by understanding the mentality we are dealing with. The record is clear, and sadly revealing. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Kairosfocus, I sometimes struggle with your writing style. But what you just wrote in response to Orloog was phenomenal, it was poetry in motion. Thank you.logically_speaking_{September 17, 2015
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Orloog What are you trying to say? Nobody is talking about which is better or worse we are asking are they the same? Yes or No?Andre_{September 17, 2015
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@KF, Andre: A: my cause is better because men died for it. B: men died for my cause, too. A: but my men died for a better cause!Orloog_{September 17, 2015
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F/N: Those playing the hyperskeptical card in the teeth of self evident first truths and principles of reason, historical record and more should pause and reflect what they tell us when we move on to revisit the warrant for the design inference on FSCO/I etc. It is becoming increasingly evident that we are dealing with the closed, hostile, indoctrinated mind, not genuine reason backed by a judicious temperament. In that light the sort of attitudes and agendas long since exposed by Lewontin et al speak volumes. KFkairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Orloog: I think your comparison at 103 is so outrageous that it demands application of the mirror-projection principle. In short, would you like to be read in the way you are projecting there? (Which, is at least one motivation for the principle of charitable reading rather than suspicious reading.) Let me highlight a basic fact: martyr is the Greek word for witness. It is the Apostles, other early martyrs and confessors who -- by peacefully insisting on testifying to what they knew to be true in the face of dungeon, fire, sword and worse, thus literally sealing their testimony with their blood shed by judicial murder or at the hands of vigilantism -- rewrote the proper meaning. In short, solemnly aware that they faced the eternal judgement of God, they refused to recant the eternally freighted truth they knew as eyewitnesses in the first instance. It is an inexcusable insult to their memory, peaceful sacrifice in witness to truth, and common decency to instantly, invidiously compare such to murderous fanatics who may well be deluded but were in no position to personally directly know the truth of the foundation of Islam. The two cases are simply not comparable, and you know it or should have easily known it to the point where a reasonable, civil person would not have written as you did. But, without hesitation, compunction or pause, you projected as above. You have therefore told us much about yourself, that you care nothing to check credible facts, record and scholarship before dismissing what does not suit your convenience. You have shown utter want of judicious temperament. You have shown utter disregard for truth, reasonable warrant and a suspicious sign of willingness to project false accounts and accusations to your perceived advantage. You have shown a depth of hostility to God and those who served him by peacefully standing up in witness at horrific cost. You have shown the sort of potential for exactly the sort of fanatical violence lurking within by your willingness to project utterly unwarranted invidious associations of peaceful martyrs with murderous fanatics as you did. Indeed, you inadvertently reveal a bigotry tantamount to that of racism or the like in the implied stereotyping, scapegoating, unjustified accusation and demonisation in your remarks. In short, you have shown precisely the signs and trends that our civilisation had better wake up to and walk away from before it becomes too late. Bloodily too late. Eternally too late. That same injudiciousness showed itself in your implied demand for arbitrarily high "proof" demanded of C1 events by comparison with C21 ones, in 101 - 102 and 104 above. What is the reasonable context of understanding "best documented" or the like? Ans: in light of the classical times context, bearing in mind the ravages of time and events. In that context to have four eyewitness lifetime record biographies, references in over a dozen other similarly early documents, the foundation of a rapidly spreading unstoppable movement (with 500 core witnesses, not one of whom could be turned by the threats or inducements of state agents determined to uproot what they saw as a potential source of uprisings), and more for the life of a village carpenter cum itinerant preacher from a backwaters hamlet of no account is indeed utterly astonishing. (Though it should be noted that such obscurity was actually sought in the first instance to save the life of one targetted by malevolent authorities from birth, as the account notes.) Further to this, your ignorance about the ability of a community with hundreds of witnesses to an event to control oral tradition for generations, preserving the core accuracy of narratives of key events is on display. An ignorance backed up by the failure to reckon with the record we have from hostile or at least uninvolved witnesses. Where, at least one of such, having been murderously kicking against the pricks, became the leading missionary of the witness he once harried to the death. So much so that his tombstone in Rome reads, Paulo Apostolo Mart. There is a reason why our sons are Paul and our dogs Nero. The verdict of history is in. In the case of Athens, it is no accident that at the foot of Mars Hill a bronze plaque stands with the speech of Acts 17 on it, the speech once dismissively sneered out of court. And the street running by, passing near Hill, Agora, and Parthenon alike, is named after that Apostle, and then picks up with the name of that city's patron saint, Dionysius the Areopagits. Yes, the same who had the courage to stand for the truth when he heard it from the mouth of the Apostle. It is this same Apostle and former arch-persecutor [itself a powerful testimony to the veracity of the message he once made havoc of in the literal sense] who in 55 AD put on record the summary of the common witness of the 500 that we may read in 1 Cor 15:1 - 11. A core testimony that circumstances date to 35 - 38 AD, in the city where events happened, which also happened to be the headquarters for the first circle of official opposition by authorities threatened by the new movement. Such a record is unprecedented, and nonpareil. It is not on trial, we are. I have not bothered to detail the millions whose lives have been transformed for the good by living encounter with God in the face of the living, risen Christ. I will but note that some have played distinguished positively transforming roles in history, and that such are readily to hand all across the world today, if you are but inclined to seriously listen instead of project, demonise and dismiss. In answer to your selective hyperskepticism, I pose the Morison challenge, by the Barrister of that name in his Who Moved the Stone?:
[N]ow the peculiar thing . . . is that not only did [belief in Jesus' resurrection as in part testified to by the empty tomb] spread to every member of the Party of Jesus of whom we have any trace, but they brought it to Jerusalem and carried it with inconceivable audacity into the most keenly intellectual centre of Judaea . . . and in the face of every impediment which a brilliant and highly organised camarilla could devise. And they won. Within twenty years the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish Church and impressed itself upon every town on the Eastern littoral of the Mediterranean from Caesarea to Troas. In less than fifty years it had began to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire . . . . Why did it win? . . . . We have to account not only for the enthusiasm of its friends, but for the paralysis of its enemies and for the ever growing stream of new converts . . . When we remember what certain highly placed personages would almost certainly have given to have strangled this movement at its birth but could not - how one desperate expedient after another was adopted to silence the apostles, until that veritable bow of Ulysses, the Great Persecution, was tried and broke in pieces in their hands [the chief persecutor became the leading C1 Missionary/Apostle!] - we begin to realise that behind all these subterfuges and makeshifts there must have been a silent, unanswerable fact. [Who Moved the Stone, (Faber, 1971; nb. orig. pub. 1930), pp. 114 - 115.]
In short, your selective hyperskepticism and projections speak inadvertent volumes, and not in your favour. Indeed, so extreme is your behaviour, and so extreme in import is the implicit enabling by failure to police among your ilk, that we must take this as a grim warning of what we are up against. In short, your behaviour and what we have a right to infer on what it reflects, is a sobering warning. I would suggest to you and your ilk, that it is time to think seriously again about where you are taking our civilisation. KF PS: Those wanting to understand the sort of irrational hyperskepticism so tellingly on display in this thread will find here on a useful discussion: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Selective_Hyperskepticism.htm#intro PPS: Let me again note as above the 101 survey (which includes a discussion of the minimal facts consensus and also a video) here: http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-1-biblical-foundations-of-and-core.html#u1_grnds and the remarks by Habermas here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0lNXgdbmAkeUWEtNVEyZ0tONmlkdUsxNC15V1Jrc281eXVr/view?pli=1kairosfocus_{September 17, 2015
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Orloog Please don't be obtuse is being killed by others the same as killing others? Did a single Disciple after their conversion lift a hand to hurt anyone? There is not a single person in this world that will die for a known lie, people will do so for a false truth but never for a known lie. Will you lay down your life for a known lie?Andre_{September 17, 2015
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Bob Hope you take the time to read this article, if you can refute it or show it to be erroneous please do so. http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2010/03/31/Is-the-Resurrection-Historically-Reliable.aspx#ArticleAndre_{September 17, 2015
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@Andre 1) Islamic terrorists commit suicide missions, so they intend to be killed by others for what they believe in while killing for what they believe in.... 2) "Do you know anyone that has willingly had themselves killed by others for a know[n] lie?" I assume that there a couple of cases where someone was willing to give up his live to perpetuate a lie, but most martyrs believe their convictions - so, even if they are wrong, they aren't lying. Take e.g., those killed by ISIS out of "religious" reasons: they may have had a chance to "recant", but they didn't - and not only Christians are put to death in horrible ways, but members of other religions, too!Orloog_{September 17, 2015
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Orloog. Have you ever taken the time to research what the Jews said about Jesus? Ever? I'll say it to you again, When your enemies acknowledge you even with scorn and disdain it is another corroborative piece of evidence that is affirming a claim. Jewish antiquity does not deny Christ do they? No they call him names they use scorn and hatred to describe him but they certainly do not deny him. With so much evidence coming from the Gospels, The Roman Historians, Jewish Historians and those that denounce Him as the Messiah can you seriously still say the information about him is unreliable? Honestly?Andre_{September 17, 2015
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Orloog. Can we reason together? Is being killed by others for what you believe in the same as killing for what you believe in? Do you know anyone that has willingly had themselves killed by others for a known lie?Andre_{September 17, 2015
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Barry @ 74 -
Bob:
But I’d still like to see more reliable evidence for what Christ actually did, e.g. contemporary accounts from the time.
And you would probably not believe those accounts either. When someone does not want to believe, no amount of evidence is ever good enough. Learned Hand’s resistance to the law of identity, if nothing else, teaches us that.
At least give me the chance, Barry. What are these contemporary accounts? I'm not aware of any: the earliest accounts we have were written decades later, some over a generation later. Even if we would ultimately disagree about the worth of the evidence, surely it would help your case if you showed us the evidence you considered reliable. You made the claim "[t]he death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history". Now back it up by showing us the reliable documentation. At the very least point out the documentation that would not be thrown out of court for hearsay.Bob O'H_{September 17, 2015
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