Monday, September 11, 2006

Every which way but true

JC: The fact of the matter is, we humans are often in a position to say what didn't happen without knowing what actually happened.”

SH: Yes, that’s true. But unfortunately for you, you need to go beyond a general truism to show how the Resurrection is such a case.

We can sometimes know that something didn’t happen, without knowing what did happen, if we have independent evidence to the contrary.

And how is that analogous to the Resurrection? Where is your argument?

JC: I may be lying or I may be delusional. You may never be sure. But there is one thing you can know with confidence. I really didn't go up into a space ship yesterday.”

SH: And you can only say that because you think such a scenario is near to being impossible. And where is the parallel argument against the Resurrection?

JC: I know you don't like this illustration because you think it is absurd. And of course it is.”

SH: I don’t feel one way or the other about the illustration. That’s beside the point. The issue is not with the cogency of the illustration, per se, but with the cogency of the analogy.

It could be terrific illustration, on its own terms, but fail to illustrate the point at issue.

JC: But it still illustrates the flaws in your reasoning.”

SH: Unfortunately for you, it does no such thing. You are suggesting an argument from analogy minus the argument.

Is the Resurrection on an epistemic par with alien abductions? If so, where’s the argument? If no, the comparison is fallacious.

JC: You are making general statements about how we know things, such as what I've quoted above. I'm taking that general statement and applying it to an absurd situation and showing that it results in absurd conclusions. So your reasoning is flawed. It is absolutely true that you can in some cases know what didn't happen even if you don't know exactly what did happen. I think that's pretty obvious.

SH: You’re attempting to universalize my comments beyond their immediate context, and then disprove my contention by coming up with some counterexamples.

That’s’ beside the point.

I was quite specifically talking about the contributors to The Empty Tomb. About what they were in a position to know.

They have no independent evidence to support an alternative explanation.

JC: You have no reason to assert this. It's not true. They are recognizing that the miraculous explanation for the facts concerning the resurrection is one of many possible explanations.

SH: Now you’re being disingenuous. They do not regard a miraculous explanation as one possible explanation.

Their position is driven by metaphysical naturalism. They don’t believe for one moment that a miraculous return from the dead was ever in the cards.

Hence, for them, any alternative theory, however otherwise unlikely, is more probable than an impossible explanation.

JC: Your view is a lot like the Roman Catholic claim that Protestants prove themselves false by virtue of the variety of opinions among them.

SH:

1.Another flawed analogy. Notice that Jon likes to change the subject. Instead of actually discussing the evidence for the Resurrection, he fishes around for distracting analogies.

The contributors to the ET don’t disagree because they differ over the interpretation of Scripture. Rather, they deny the accuracy or historicity of the Biblical record, and then disagree because they don’t have any documentary alternative, so all they’re left with is boundless conjecture.

Let’s keep our eye on the ball, Jon.

2.What are the contributors to the Empty Tomb in a position to know? They don’t believe in the Resurrection, but they don’t know it didn’t happen.

They don’t have any direct evidence against the Resurrection. And they don’t have any independent evidence for their alternative theories.

They have alternative theories without alternatives lines of evidence.

3.What they think they have is evidence of metaphysical naturalism. And that, if probative, would indirectly count against the Resurrection.

However, they offer no evidence for metaphysical naturalism. They take it for granted. Given that assumption, they then assume that any other explanation, however otherwise implausible, is more plausible than the sheer impossibility of a Resurrection.

JC: What Catholics don't realize is that they in fact are just one denomination among many. Anybody can put himself on one side of the fence and everyone else on the other and say that everyone else is wrong because they disagree amongst themselves. Suppose I think the body was stolen. I can put all other theories on one side of the fence (swoon, space alien, miraculous explanation) and say that they are all wrong and this proves I'm right. That doesn't work for Catholics or for my theory that the body was stolen.

SH: Except that you’re doing what you fault the Catholics for. You are putting the Resurrection on one side of the fence, and every alternative theory on the other side of the fence, as if they add up to an argument against the Resurrection rather than an argument against each other.

JC: It's a rare supernaturally occuring process. Regardless, it is very rare. Therefore any miraculous claim must start with a presumption against it.

SH: How does the rarity of an event create any presumption against its occurrence?

1.I attended my 10th high school anniversary back in 1988. That’s a very rare event for me. Indeed, it’s a unique and unrepeatable event. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend my 10th high school anniversary. I will never have another chance to do so. Other anniversaries, yes. Other But not the 10-year anniversary. Other high schools, but not my high school.

So is there a presumption against my having attended my high school reunion? Must I come up with extraordinary evidence to overcome the crushing presumption that I didn’t go to my high school reunion?

2.You act as if rarity were equivalent to positive evidence against the occurrence of a rare event. These are hardly convertible claims.

3.The underlying issue is one of expectations. What makes a given event frequent or infrequent?

It is the kind of event which, if it happened at all, would happen more often?

Or is it the kind of event which, were it to happen, would be rare or even unique?

4.The Resurrection is supposed to be very specific in its timing and orientation. It serves a particular purpose, at a particular time and place in human history.

It’s a purposeful event, with a strategically targeted position in the history of redemption.

JC: Really? So if a friend of yours claimed to have flown in a space ship and your experience with your friend leads you to conclude that he's neither a liar nor delusional you'd just believe it? You can't conclude that he's been put up to it because a threat that would induce such behavior would be a strange occurrence.

SH: Notice, once again, that Jon is changing the subject. He was originally asking about ESP. Now he reverts to alien abductions.

I have a number of reasons for believing that ufology is false.

I don’t have any comparable reasons for believing that ESP is false. And, indeed, there’s some evidence that ESP is true.

Now, we need to distinguish between evidence for the general phenomenon and evidence for any particular claim.

But for Curry to swap out ESP for alien abductions assumes an equivalence that I deny.

JC: The only point I'm making is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That's a pretty obvious point I think.

SH: No, it’s not obvious.

1.To begin with, it depends on how you define “extraordinary.” To judge by your above usage, you define extraordinary as “rare.”

Does it require extraordinary evidence to prove that I have a rare blood type?

2.You’re also confounding cause and effect. The primary question is not, in the first place, whether we have evidence of an “extraordinary” event qua extraordinary, but whether we have evidence of an event qua event which happens to be extraordinary.

The evidence for the event itself, and the evidence for the classification of the event are distinguishable. We don’t need to classify an event as ordinary or extraordinary before we can identify its occurrence. The interpretation of the event is subsequent to the identification of its occurrence.

Maybe a given event has a supernatural cause. But I don’t have to identify the cause before I identify the effect.

3.In what sense is the Resurrection extraordinary? Christ was alive, then he was dead, then he was alive again.

What we have is an extraordinary relation between ordinary events. Does it require extraordinary evidence to establish life and death?

JC: Not at all. You've asserted that it is irrational to suggest contradictory explanations for an extraordinary claim. My illustration shows you to be wrong. I apply your general principle to a specific circumstance and show that the resulting conclusion is absurd. This means your claim is mistaken.

SH:

1.You’re the one who likes to smuggle in these qualifiers like “extraordinary.” I did not frame my objection in those terms.

2.All your illustration shows is that a silly illustration will illustrate a silly claim.

That doesn’t go any distance towards showing that the Resurrection is silly.

JC: That has nothing to do with it. You didn't say "Contradictory explanations don't make sense when the claim violates a shared assumption." You (and Gene) are saying that contradictory explanations never make sense. But they do as I've shown.

SH:

1.That’s because you’re not being forthcoming about your presuppositions, so we have to smoke you out into the open.

I am answering you at your own level. You chose an illustration that you knew most folks would regard as ridiculous.

Needless to say, it’s easy to contend that an explanation which isn’t ridiculous may be preferable to an explanation which is.

But these diversionary comparisons continue to dodge the Resurrection. You haven’t created any presumption against the Resurrection.

2.Moreover, it doesn’t follow that even if the given explanation is absurd, an alternative explanation is any better.

The alternative may escape the charge of absurdity, but that doesn’t make it plausible or probable.

We can dream up multiply alternative explanations for any event. And we can so do without a shred of evidence that any of them is true or likely to be true.

JC: Really, I'm not trying to prove anything about Bayes' Theorem. I raised it, but my purpose is not to get into a debate about the validity of it.

SH: Be sure to file Jon’s disclaimer for future reference.

JC: I'm simply pointing out a simple fact. It makes sense to have multiple mutually exclusive explanations for events that initially seem improbable. And the fact of the matter is, you should initially be skeptical of any miraculous claim.

SH: That is not a “simple fact.” Rather, it’s simply begging the question.

Why should I be initially sceptical about any miraculous claim?

JC: We both should be able to agree thar miraculous events are rare. I think they are so rare that they've never happened. You think they are a little less rare, but still rare nonetheless.

SH: Once again, this turns on how you define “improbable” and what makes a given event improbable. To say that a miracle is unlikely to happen because a miracle is infrequent is a category mistake.

A miracle is not the kind of event that, if it happened at all, would happen all by itself, or happen on a regular basis.

Rather, a miracle would be the result of personal agency. A personal cause, involving purposeful timing and placement, according to the rational discretion of the agent.

Miracles aren’t more or less likely to happen. They are not that kind of event.

The Son of God wasn’t born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem rather than Rome because he was more likely to be born in Bethlehem rather than Rome. He wasn’t born in the 1C rather than the 21C because one date was more likely than another.

You need to bone up on your theology of miracles.

JC: Yes, it does. If I went out and defended the swoon theory, and asserted that everyone else was wrong and I'm right, then other plausible alternatives (twin, stolen body, myth, miracle) all tend to reduce the likelihood that I'm right.

SH:

1.In that event, you admit that contradictory theories undermine each other. So how do they count as evidence against any particular position? Why should we believe any of them?

2.At the same time, not all explanations enjoy the same evidentiary value. The Resurrection is the only actual evidence we have for the empty tomb. There is no rival record of event.

3.Or are you leaving yourself an escape route by suggesting that your conclusion only follows if you actually committed yourself to one alternative theory, but as long as your noncommittal, the conclusion fails to obtain?

But unless we have some reason to believe that one or another of the alternatives is true or likely to be true, then how do they count against the Resurrection?

JC: Because that's my goal. If my goal were to prove that the twin theory was false, I would array all of the alternatives (stolen body, myth, miracle) against it. This is why I keep pointing out the fact that the authors of the book The Empty Tomb have as their goal to prove the Christian explanation false. So it makes sense for them to offer multiple alternative esplanations. Do you really not understand this point?

SH: It makes a lot of sense if they’re intellectually desperate and dishonest, in consequence of which they cobble together a congeries of absurd and mutually destructive alternatives to throw at the Resurrection.

JC: Which is why I said that generally multiple different plausible alternatives tends to reduce the likelihood of any other particular alternative. The alternatives you offered are so unlikely that they wouldn't move the result much. But they might move it ever so slightly.

SH: And what makes the alternatives plausible? Plausible in relation to what? Not in relation to each other, for they undermine each other. They can’t be equally plausible if they equally negate each other.

Plausible in relation to the Resurrection? This assumes that the Resurrection is the most implausible explanation, such that any alternative theory is more plausible. But, for that, you need a separate argument.

Plausible in relation to the evidence? But there is no independent evidence for the alternatives.

And if there were such evidence, how could the same evidence be evidence for one alternative as well as a contrary alternative?

How is the same evidence picking out the swoon theory and the stolen body and the wrong tomb, &c.

But if, in fact, the evidence can’t point in opposing directions, then the alternatives are equally implausible for lack of evidentiary support or corroboration. Unbridled speculation is not a form of evidence.

24 comments:

  1. This is why I keep pointing out the fact that the authors of the book The Empty Tomb have as their goal to prove the Christian explanation false. So it makes sense for them to offer multiple alternative esplanations. Do you really not understand this point?

    Apparently, Richard Carrier, who contributed to ET did not understand this either, because Mr. Carrier himself, in this book, admits that it is not enough to prove the Resurrection improbable but that one must mount an argument in favor of the other positions as well. So, Mr. Curry, you are, in point of fact, offering a thesis that your hero, Ricky, doesn't believe himself.

    Let's make this a simple example that approximates the relations we are discussing. We'll say we have Event X. There is one record of Event X. This record contains Facts 1 - 4. We'll use F1, F2, F3, and F4 to denote them.

    So, we know, from this that Event X = The sum of F1, F2, F3, and F4
    Record 1 (R1) is the only record.

    Event X is the Resurrection. Record 1 is the gospel narratives. A Resurrection accounts for all F's. In fact, that is also the explanation offered explicitly in the only existing record.

    T 1. Swoon theory may account for F1 and F2, but not F3 or F4.

    T 2. Twin theory does not include F1, F2, F3, or F4. In fact, there is no evidence for this.

    T 3. Stolen body may account for F3, but not the others.

    T 4. Hallucination may account for F1, F3, but not F2, and it contradicts F4.

    T 5. Reburial/wrong tomb may account for F1 and F3, but not F2 and F4. In fact, it contradicts F2 upon closer examination.

    T 6. Resurrection. It accounts for F1, F2, F3, and F4. It is also the explanation R1 itself offers.

    In addition to this relation to the evidence in Record 1 itself, T1 to T5 are also mutually exclusive for each other, not to mention T 6, for which they are suggested in order to contradict.

    So, which of these theories is the most probable one? According to you, It's the alternative theory, or rather their collective weight. Do you see how irrational that is? So, the reason that the alternatives are more plausible for you is not the explanatory power of the other theories individually or together; rather it's your presupposition against the Resurrection itself. You don't go where the evidence itself leads, but to where you, in your unrepentant, sin darkened, hard-hearted, stiff-necked, apostatized mind wish to go. You don't go there because the evidence is insufficient, but because you love your sin more than you love God and because of apostasy's own hardening effects. You need to repent. You need to throw yourself on the mercy of God. If you really wanted to believe, that's what you would do.

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  2. Steve Hays from before:

    "If the contributors don’t know what really happened, then how are they in any position to say what didn’t happen?"

    Steve Hays now:

    "We can sometimes know that something didn’t happen, without knowing what did happen, if we have independent evidence to the contrary."

    Hooray. Looks like progress to me. I would disagree with your claim about evidence though. You may or may not know anything about me, so you may have no direct evidence as to whether or not I'm prone to lying or delusion, but you can still discount my claim to being in a spaceship. But regardless, it looks like you now agree that you don't have to know what did happen to know what didn't happent. Obviously Carrier presents evidences for the stolen body or survival hypothesis, so you should have no objection to what he's doing in principle.

    "They have no independent evidence to support an alternative explanation."

    Wrong again. Carrier presents a lot of evidence. He talks about Jewish law, and how movement of a body is certainly consistent with that. He shows that grave robbery was clearly a problem in that time period, particularly for people that were considered holy. He talked about motive. He talked about opportunity. He talked about how his explanations explained the data. You certainly don't find his arguments persuasive, but to say that there is no evidence is flat out wrong.

    "Now you’re being disingenuous. They do not regard a miraculous explanation as one possible explanation.

    Their position is driven by metaphysical naturalism. They don’t believe for one moment that a miraculous return from the dead was ever in the cards."

    You should support such claims if you are going to make them. I don't believe what you are saying is true at least for Carrier. Carrier has made the point repeatedly that he doesn't discard the miraculous explanation out of hand a priori. He doesn't believe that miracles can't be known historically. I believe he made this point in his debate with Licona and also has written about it.

    "Rather, they deny the accuracy or historicity of the Biblical record, and then disagree because they don’t have any documentary alternative, so all they’re left with is boundless conjecture."

    They disagree in some cases because history is the most inexact of the sciences and probability is the best they can do. There are a number of possible explanations for the data and we will probably never be certain of the facts. Skeptics are comfortable with that state of affairs. So what if we aren't sure? Christians of course are not comfortable with this fact and want the evidence to give them a certain conclusion about what happened. Perhaps you are projecting your need for a confident conclusion about what really happened on to me and to other skeptics. We're OK with the fact that we aren't certain.

    "Except that you’re doing what you fault the Catholics for. You are putting the Resurrection on one side of the fence, and every alternative theory on the other side of the fence, as if they add up to an argument against the Resurrection rather than an argument against each other."

    No. You are the one that has put the resurrection on one side of the fence, then argued that the other contradictory opinions cancel each other out. Here are your words:

    "3.How does a miscellany of contradictory opinions add up to a cumulative probability for a naturalistic explanation?

    Shouldn’t it be the other way around? You have a bunch of mutually exclusive theories which cancel each other out?"

    I have not put "swoon theory" on one side of the fence and argued that everyone else is wrong because they disagree amongst themselves. This is what you have done. You are doing exactly what Roman Catholics do.

    You have also put the miraculous explanation on one side of the fence and asserted that everyone else is wrong (swoon, twin, myth, legend, survival). In that case you have to deal with the fact that all of the alternative explanations will be arrayed against you. If you don't like that, then you need to stop saying that your interpretation of the facts is definitely right and everyone else is wrong.

    "So is there a presumption against my having attended my high school reunion? Must I come up with extraordinary evidence to overcome the crushing presumption that I didn’t go to my high school reunion?"

    Since a 10 year reunion only happens once in a lifetime if I were to consider that it happened yesterday with no evidence (this represents the term in Bayes' Theorem that I'm calling the "initial probability") the presumption would be against it. Later terms start introducing evidence. Perhaps you told me you went. This is not something people typically lie about and we know that people do go to high school reuinions occasionally. You would plug this in to Bayes' Theorem and conclude that it did happen with about a 98% probability. But you are exactly right. The initial probability value would be very low.

    "It’s a purposeful event, with a strategically targeted position in the history of redemption."

    So if I were to tell you that I flew in a spaceship because God had some purpose for it, this would dramatically increase the initial probability value? I don't think so.

    "What we have is an extraordinary relation between ordinary events. Does it require extraordinary evidence to establish life and death? "

    If the resurrection wasn't extraordinary then it wouldn't be evidence of anything. If people died and came back to life all the time nobody would care that Christ came back to life. It is by virtue of the extraordinary nature of the resurrection that people believe subsequent claims about Christianity (such as belief that faith in Jesus saves, etc).

    "But these diversionary comparisons continue to dodge the Resurrection. You haven’t created any presumption against the Resurrection."

    I'm not here arguing for or against the resurrection. I'm merely discussing how we know things and what types of claims might be expected from someone that denies a certain claim. This is why I get away from the resurrection and talk about space ships to illustrate that contradictory explanations are to be expected.

    "Why should I be initially sceptical about any miraculous claim?"

    Suppose you haven't looked in to the miraculous claims reported of St. Genevieve, or Sabbatai Sevi, or Benny Hinn, or Herodotus claim that the Temple of Delphi defended itself with technicolored armaments. How about Marian apparitions, Mary in the clouds, Mary in the toast? Healings by Kathryn Kuhlman, healings by Joseph Smith, healings by Pat Robertson. Aren't you normally suspicious of such claims? I think you are. You should be. Why make an exception for Christianity? Why not approach it the way you would every other miraculous claim?

    "But unless we have some reason to believe that one or another of the alternatives is true or likely to be true, then how do they count against the Resurrection?"

    All of the naturalistic alternatives, though mutually exlusive, have one thing in common. They do not require a supernatural explanation. So the combined impact of them counts against the supernatural explanation. That is why they are grouped as they are. This is perfectly reasonable.

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  3. Gene,

    Can you provide me the citation where Richard Carrier says what you claim he says? You quoted him earlier in a different thread as saying something exactly opposite of what you now say he said.

    With regards to how well the swoon theory or stolen body theory actually fits the data, I'm not arguing that point. I'm merely arguing that it is not irrational in principle to offer multiple mutually exclusive explanations for a certain event. I illustrated that with my space ship example. So your points about T1 only fitting F1 and F2 but not F3 and F4 is all irrelevant.

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  4. Jon wrote:
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    All of the naturalistic alternatives, though mutually exlusive, have one thing in common. They do not require a supernatural explanation. So the combined impact of them counts against the supernatural explanation. That is why they are grouped as they are. This is perfectly reasonable.
    ---

    This is the definition of begging the question.

    You are assuming that naturalism > supernaturalism. You are assuming that arguments must avoid supernaturalism, and therefore those arguments that do avoid supernaturalism are better than those arguments which rely on supernaturalism. Therefore, the weight of those mutually exclusive arguments can outweigh the supernatural argument because you have defined it that way.

    Such isn't very fair.

    How can you objectively determine if a supernatural claim is valid or not if you rule out the possibility of the supernatural from the on-set? All you can do is say, "From my worldview such a thing cannot happen."

    But your worldview isn't a given. (In point of fact, I remain deeply skeptical of your worldview. I think you should be a consistent skeptic and be skeptical of your worldview too. Until then, why should I accept a level of skeptism toward my worldview that you don't accept towards yours?)

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  5. "You are assuming that arguments must avoid supernaturalism, and therefore those arguments that do avoid supernaturalism are better than those arguments which rely on supernaturalism."

    I really don't know why you're reading my comments in this way. When you consider Christianity you group the natural explanations against the supernatural exlanation and see how the supernatural explanation fares. It may be that it fares just fine. I'm not arguing for or against Christianity in this post. But this is how a person would go about evaluating it.

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  6. Ya know, after going back and reading the rules of engagement, it seems to me that many of them are being broken by all sides these last few weeks. Things have been kinda hot and heavy with the last few posts, and I wonder if some of the standards have been pushed aside.

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  7. Jon Curry writes:

    "There are a number of possible explanations for the data and we will probably never be certain of the facts. Skeptics are comfortable with that state of affairs. So what if we aren't sure? Christians of course are not comfortable with this fact and want the evidence to give them a certain conclusion about what happened. Perhaps you are projecting your need for a confident conclusion about what really happened on to me and to other skeptics. We're OK with the fact that we aren't certain....If you don't like that, then you need to stop saying that your interpretation of the facts is definitely right and everyone else is wrong."

    I've repeatedly said that the historical case for Jesus' resurrection involves probabilities, not certainties. Steve Hays has said the same. So have William Craig, Gary Habermas, and other Christian scholars who specialize in study of the resurrection. The problem with Jon isn't that he's accepting something less than certainty. The problem is that he's rejecting the most likely explanation in favor of something much less likely. In an earlier thread, he wrote:

    "Since belief that a miracle occurred has such a low initial probability Carrier burden is very low. If there's even a one in a million shot, this makes Christianity irrational. So he doesn't raise this theory to a level of actual believability, but only to a very low possibility." (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/09/does-vague-appeal-to-visions-overcome.html)

    Jon has failed to justify his claim that "belief that a miracle occurred has such a low initial probability". As Steve Hays explained, an event involving an intelligent agent, such as the resurrection, isn't comparable to something like a comet passing by the earth once every so many years. God, humans, and other intelligent agents can do something they haven't done before or can do something they've rarely done before, and the fact that the event in question is unprecedented or rare doesn't, by itself, result in the conclusion that an alternative explanation is preferable if it even has a "one in a million" chance of being correct. Much more than the rarity of an event has to be taken into consideration.

    Notice that while Jon initially referred to how somebody like Richard Carrier "doesn't raise this theory to a level of actual believability, but only to a very low possibility", Jon is now claiming:

    "Which is why I said that generally multiple different plausible alternatives tends to reduce the likelihood of any other particular alternative. The alternatives you offered are so unlikely that they wouldn't move the result much. But they might move it ever so slightly." (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/09/probabilifying-probability.html)

    So, earlier Jon told us that people like Richard Carrier can offer theories that only have a "one in a million" chance of being correct, and he told us that it's appropriate that Richard Carrier "doesn't raise this theory to a level of actual believability, but only to a very low possibility". But now he's referring to "plausible alternatives", in contrast to "so unlikely" alternatives, like the ones Steve mentioned in his defense lawyer example. What would be the difference between Jon's "one in a million" and "very low possibility" theories, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Steve's "so unlikely" theories? Is Jon saying that "one in a million" is sufficiently higher than "so unlikely"? If so, how does he reach that conclusion?

    What theories did Steve propose in his defense lawyer example? Here's the defense lawyer example he used:

    "A rich man is murdered. The police indict the wife. She has no alibi. She recently found out that her hubby was having an affair. Traces of his blood were found in her bathroom sink. Ah, but the defense attorney has a number of alternative explanations"

    Steve mentioned theories put forward by the defense lawyer involving vampires and aliens, but he also mentioned theories such as:

    "He was murdered by a business rival. The evidence was planted to frame the wife and thereby divert attention away from the real killer."

    "He was murdered by house-burglars, who washed their hands in the sink."

    "He was murdered by jihadis."

    Apparently, then, Jon is claiming that a theory that a man was murdered by a business rival who framed the murdered man's wife is implausible. So is the theory involving thieves. But it is plausible for somebody to propose that Jesus' body was stolen from the grave, followed by hundreds of Christians and non-Christians having hallucinations or other naturalistic experiences that they mistook for Jesus risen from the dead, followed by later contemporaries composing false accounts of touching Jesus' resurrected body and other such physical evidence for the resurrection appearances. Why would murder by a business rival, murder by thieves, etc. be "so unlikely" as to not even qualify as a "one in a million" chance or "very low possibility", yet a theory involving hundreds of hallucinations, widely accepted fabricated accounts of physical evidence, etc. is considered plausible?

    The alternative theories Jon Curry is appealing to are "very low possibilities", to use the phrase he mentioned earlier. The resurrection is a far better explanation of the data. You can't overcome that difference by appealing to the fact that miracles allegedly are unprecedented or rare. Such a rarity of miracles wouldn't give us sufficient reason to accept a "one in a million" possibility over an explanation that's far more consistent with the evidence. Just as Jesus' resurrection isn't a common experience, many events in history haven't been common. How does Jon know that an intelligent agent, God, would be so unlikely to respond to an uncommon life like the life of Jesus with an uncommon event like the resurrection? How does Jon know that a theory that only has a "one in a million" chance is preferable to the resurrection? So far, Jon has failed to justify his framing of the discussion. Saying that miracles are unprecedented or rare doesn't justify Jon's appeals to "one in a million" theories of "very low possibility".

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  8. If someone I knew to be on NASA's active roster of astronauts told me that he had "gone up in a spaceship" recently and I had heard news stories of a launch on that date, my first question for him would not be,
    "How could that have been possible?", but rather, "How was your trip?"

    My point being, the idea of space travel in this day and age is not self-evidently absurd. It all depends on who is making the claim to have traveled in space and what evidence corroborates such an event at the stated time and place.

    Unless, of course, I had some desperate need to deny even the possibility of space travel. In which case I would insist that all manned space flights from the first Gemini missions to the present were hoaxes cleverly orchestrated by the government and news media in collaboration no matter how much evidence there was for the reality of manned space flight.

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  9. Jon wrote:
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    I really don't know why you're reading my comments in this way.
    ---

    Could it be because you said: "[T]he combined impact of [naturalistic explanations] counts against the supernatural explanation" even if those naturalistic explanations are "mutually exlusive." How else could I take it but that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations trump non-mutally exclusive supernatural explanations, and therefore you believe naturalism > supernaturalism?

    Jon wrote:
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    When you consider Christianity you group the natural explanations against the supernatural exlanation and see how the supernatural explanation fares.
    ---

    Why?

    See, the point you're not getting yet is that your assumption of how to determine the "worth" of evidence is anchored in your presuppositions of what ought to be the case. In your mind, naturalism reigns supreme. Everything must bow down to it.

    But you never answer the important questions. Why must a supernatural explanation be subservient to a naturalistic explanation? Your answer: naturalism trumps supernaturalism. Nevermind that you haven't proven this--you just want everyone to accept it by your decree that it is so.

    This works fine and dandy when you're talking to people who agree with your presuppositional baggage, but it is less than appealing to those who do not believe in a materialist universe.

    Jon wrote:
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    I'm not arguing for or against Christianity in this post. But this is how a person would go about evaluating it.
    ---

    No, this is how YOU would go about evaluating it. But you are assuming your evaluation technique is correct without aruging for why your evaluation technique ought to be observed. You are asserting without proving, and as such you convince no one.

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  10. By the way, to tweak Gene's illustration from the first comment, Jon's argument basically becomes this:

    We have a truth claim: T1: 2 + 2 = 4.

    However, others can argue:

    A1: 2 + 2 = 3

    A2: 2 + 2 = 5

    A1 and A2 are mutually exclusive because if A1 is true, then A2 is false and vice versa. Also, we can extend the A's out to eternity (A3: 2 + 2 = 813,751 etc.).

    But according to Jon, despite their mutal exclusivitiy, their combined weight means it is reasonable to reject T1. We have an infinute number of A's. Therefore we have "infinite rejections" against "one theory."

    Because there are an infinite number of mutally exclusive denials of T1, then their combined weight outweighs any notion that T1 is valid.

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  11. "I've repeatedly said that the historical case for Jesus' resurrection involves probabilities, not certainties. Steve Hays has said the same."

    I understand that Steve is not saying that we must know the resurrection with absolute certainty with no possibility for being wrong. What he and you would say is that the resurrection hypothesis must exceed the 50% threshold, with the sum total of the other naturalistic alternatives being less than that. So what I mean by "certain" is that it is head and shoulders above the other alternatives. Maybe 5 other plausible alternatives are at 10%.

    For me, I'm comfortable not being certain what really happened. Maybe I'd assign a .0001% chance that the resurrection occurred, 1% chance of a stolen body, 1% for twin, 10% for real man with a lot of legendary growth, 20% for Early Doherty style myth, 20% chance the facts are unknown to us because the relevant evidence has been lost, etc. Not knowing what actually happened is an acceptable state of affairs for me. Not so for Steve.

    "So, earlier Jon told us that people like Richard Carrier can offer theories that only have a "one in a million" chance of being correct, and he told us that it's appropriate that Richard Carrier "doesn't raise this theory to a level of actual believability, but only to a very low possibility". But now he's referring to "plausible alternatives", in contrast to "so unlikely" alternatives, like the ones Steve mentioned in his defense lawyer example."

    Because we are talking about two different situations it makes sense to say that the likelihood of the alternative explanations can be very different to overturn the hypothesis. Do you understand Bayes' Theorem Jason? You've read Swinburne but you've often made statements like this that indicate to me that you don't understand these things.

    Murders are rare, but resurrections are even more rare. Orders of magnitude more rare. We are all aware that murders happen every day. Some of us know people that have been murdered. None of us know anyone that has been resurrected. None of us have ever heard a credible report of a resurrection in our lifetime. Probably we all agree that there has not been a resurrection for at least a little less than 2000 years. I think it's been quite a bit longer.

    Because of this the value for the initial probability you would use in Bayes' Theorem for a resurrection would be substantially lower than that for murder. Orders of magnitude lower. You say:

    "an event involving an intelligent agent, such as the resurrection, isn't comparable to something like a comet passing by the earth once every so many years."

    But murders involve intelligent agents. And murders are still rare. The initial probability for the report of a murder (this is the value that represents only your background assumptions about murder, not the positive evidence for a given murder) would be pretty low as well. Since we are certain that many millions of murders have occurred in recorded history and equally certain of zero resurrections, the initial probability for the resurrection of Jesus must be lower by at least 6 or 7 orders of magnitude. Now, let's plug that in to Bayes' Theorem and see how it affects things. Here's Bayes' Thoerem as layed out by my brother in his post on ESP.

    P(H | E) = P(E | H) P(H)/P(E)

    Where

    P(H | E) is the probability/plausibility of the hypothesis H in light of evidence E.
    P(E | H) is the probability of observing Evidence E given that hypothesis H is true.
    P(H) is the probability that a Hypothesis is true based upon background assumptions
    P(E) is the probability of observing the evidence regardless of the truth of the hypothesis

    The denominator is often rewritten using an identity in probability, P(E) = P(E|H1)P(H1) + P(E|H2)P(H2) + . . . + P(E|Hn)P(Hn), where H1, through Hn are mutually exclusive hypothesis. In the case of two hypotheses, ~H is considered the negation of the primary hypothesis, P(~H) = 1 - P(H) and Bayes' Theorem is written as:

    P(H | E) = P(E | H) P(H) /(P(E|H) P(H) + P(E|~H)(1- P(H)))

    Since P(resurrection) is 6 or 7 orders of magnitude lower than P(murder) you can see that this means the numerator is likewise 6 or 7 orders of magnitude smaller for an evaluation of the resurrection than an evaluation of a murder. Correspondingly, if you have a certain value for the denominator and it affects your result in the case of murder, you can have a value 6 or 7 orders of magnitude smaller in a resurrection analysis and it would affect the result in the same way. Hence 1 in a million matters in the case of a resurrection, but not necessarily so for the case of a murder.

    So your more outlandish theories become relevant when discussing a resurrection but these might be irrelevant in the case of a murder. Sorry, but when you make an extraordinary, outlandish claim, then extraordinary outlandish theories become good enough as a refutation. That's the way Bayes' Theorem is set up. You seem to accept Bayesian inference, so you're stuck with this. But even if you don't the principle still applies.

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  12. See, the point you're not getting yet is that your assumption of how to determine the "worth" of evidence is anchored in your presuppositions of what ought to be the case. In your mind, naturalism reigns supreme. Everything must bow down to it.

    No, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying that a supernatural explanation must start with a presumption against it. It has a taller hurdle to get over. This doesn't mean that the naturalistic explanation "reigns supreme." It just means the naturalistic explanation has less of a burden. In my view that is reasonable. When people report events that have occurred we automatically assume those events have a natural explanation. Whether we're talking about ordinary events (I bought gas yesterday, I had a ham sandwich yesterday) or claims of extraordinary events (Benny Hinn healed Evander Holyfield and raised the dead to life in Ghana). I'm not ruling out the supernaturalistic explanation from the start. I'm saying that I start by assuming it is extremely unlikely. That's the nature of supernatural claims. If they weren't extraordinary and rare they wouldn't have any force as far as persuading us to follow a religion.

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  13. Jon said:
    ---
    I am saying that a supernatural explanation must start with a presumption against it.
    ---

    Oh, is that how the game is played? I am saying that any of your explanations must likewise start with a presumption against it....

    Jon said:
    ---
    This doesn't mean that the naturalistic explanation "reigns supreme." It just means the naturalistic explanation has less of a burden.
    ---

    In which case it reigns supreme.

    You've already said that you have to start with an assumption against supernaturalism (a term which isn't defined, of course--and I doubt your view of supernaturalism coincides with my view either). You don't start with an assumption against naturalism.

    Furthermore, you have said that a multitude of mutually exclusive naturalistic ideas bears more weight than a supernatural idea.

    In what possible way can your views be taken as anything less than naturalism reigning supreme?

    Jon wrote:
    ---
    When people report events that have occurred we automatically assume those events have a natural explanation.
    ---

    This is obviously not true though. Whether "we" assume a natural explanation or not depends a great deal on what event is reported and whether or not we believe the reporter.

    You, of course, automatically assume a natural explanation irregardless of evidence. But not everyone functions from your same materialistic, naturalistic worldview.

    Jon wrote:
    ---
    I'm not ruling out the supernaturalistic explanation from the start.
    ---

    Except you are.

    Jon wrote:
    ---
    I'm saying that I start by assuming it is extremely unlikely.
    ---

    But there are natural events that occur that are "extremely unlikely" too. What are the odds that a sting ray randomly lashing out would kill Steve Irwin? Does the unlikely-hood of that event mean you're starting by rejecting the naturalistic explanation first and assuming that a supernatural power guided the sting ray's barb? Of course not.

    So, whether an event is likely or not is irrelevant in your worldview. Instead, supernaturalism is impossible and must be explained by a natural event, no matter how unlikely that natural event is. Thus, the most unlikely natural event is more likely than any specific supernatural event in your universe. Thus, your statement "I'm not ruling out the supernaturalistic explanation from the start" is bogus.

    Jon wrote:
    ---
    If they weren't extraordinary and rare they wouldn't have any force as far as persuading us to follow a religion.
    ---

    A) I deny that supernatural events occur to persuade us to follow any specific religion. They don't. They occur because of the purposes the Supernatural Agent needs to accomplish. They're not primarily a persuasion device at all.

    B) Even if they were designed first and foremost for persuasion, this would not imply that they must be "rare." Basically, all you have done is defined the supernatural as the "uncommon." But under that definition, every specific event becomes supernatural. That only serves to refute your position, so you can't go there.

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  14. Eddie Tabash in his debate with Craig refers to a book by Stephen T Davis which is apparently enthusiastically endorsed by Dr Craig. He quotes Davis as follows:

    Anyone wants to argue in favor of belief in the resurrection of Jesus as I am doing now must make a powerful case……it must be strong enough to overcome the bias that all rational people share against highly unusual and miraculous events…I believe Christians need to recover a sense of the shocking absurdity of the very idea of resurrection.

    I'm saying I agree with Professor Davis. I'm saying that a resurrection is a highly unusual and extraordinary event. Though not necessarily false, it must shoulder a significant epistemological burden. I've shown it with illustration, with math, and yet you just keep denying it. There isn't much else to say.

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  15. Jon said:
    ---
    I'm saying that a resurrection is a highly unusual and extraordinary event. Though not necessarily false, it must shoulder a significant epistemological burden. I've shown it with illustration, with math, and yet you just keep denying it. There isn't much else to say.
    ---

    You still refuse to see the point of contention. Let us grant that the resurrection is "a highly unusual and extraordinary event."

    How does that then lead to your idea that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations trump a supernaturalistic explanation? Answer: it doesn't.

    How does that lead to your refusal to accept any supernaturalistic explanation whatsoever? Answer: it doesn't.

    The bottom line is that the rarity of an event is not what determines if it is supernatural or not! Thus, the whole argument that "The resurrection is a highly unlikely event" is completely non sequitur. It has no bearing as to whether one should accept supernatural claims or only naturalistic ones.

    Again, you have presupposed from the outset that no matter what naturalistic arguments must trump supernaturalistic arguments.

    But let's play the "unlikely" shell game for a moment. It is exceedingly unlikely that a man who has been flogged, beaten, crucified, and pierced through the side to only appear to be dead (thus fooling Roman soldiers who had, without a doubt, seen much death in their lives, as well as other witnesses) to make a recovery simply by being placed in a tomb to such an extent that he can roll away a stone, avoid a guard placed at the tomb's entrance, and appear to people seemingly perfectly fine.

    This unlikely event is supposed to be more likely than the resurrection of Christ. Not very appealing on the face of it.

    So you add another unlikely event: over 500 people just hallucinated Christ's resurrection.

    That unlikely event is supposed to be more likely than the resurrection of Christ too. But since that doesn't sound very convincing, we add them together!

    That's right, despite their cancelling each other out, the combined weight of both of these arguments must trump the supernatural argument completely.

    Now, the only thing I can figure is that you're trying to play an odds game here. You're throwing up a bunch of arguments and then claiming, "The odds that one of those seemingly unlikely events being right is more likely than the odds that the specific supernatural event is right." But this, of course, means you must forget the fact that adding or subtracting other possibilities does not change the actual odds of any one event being correct. Likewise, it ignores the fact that we have evidence for the supernatural claim that cannot be accounted for by any of the non-supernatural claims.

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  16. How does that then lead to your idea that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations trump a supernaturalistic explanation? Answer: it doesn't.

    Where have I said it does?

    How does that lead to your refusal to accept any supernaturalistic explanation whatsoever? Answer: it doesn't.

    Where have I said that I refuse to accept any supernaturalistic explanation? Answer: I haven't.

    The bottom line is that the rarity of an event is not what determines if it is supernatural or not!.

    Where have I said otherwise? Man, who are you arguing with?

    Thus, the whole argument that "The resurrection is a highly unlikely event" is completely non sequitur. It has no bearing as to whether one should accept supernatural claims or only naturalistic ones.

    Where have I said that that since the resurrection is an unlikely event one should never accept supernatural claims?

    Again, you have presupposed from the outset that no matter what naturalistic arguments must trump supernaturalistic arguments.

    I have not said that either.

    So you add another unlikely event: over 500 people just hallucinated Christ's resurrection.

    Where have i said that?

    Again, mutually exclusive hypothesis do count against a particular hypothesis. Look at the denominator in Bayes' Theorem that I provided above in my resonse to Jason. It consists of mutually exclusive hypothesis. I'm not making this up here. This is not my thoery. It's not something I invented. It's a standard way to evaluate various claims. If you don't like it that's not my fault.

    But it is clear to me that you are not interested in dealing with what I actually say, but would prefer to deal with a caricature of my arguments, which is why you attribute all kinds of false claims to me and critique them, such as what I refer to above. There isn't much I can do about that.

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  17. Jon Curry wrote:

    "So what I mean by 'certain' is that it is head and shoulders above the other alternatives."

    Then you should have used terms other than "certain" and "definitely".

    You write:

    "For me, I'm comfortable not being certain what really happened. Maybe I'd assign a .0001% chance that the resurrection occurred, 1% chance of a stolen body, 1% for twin, 10% for real man with a lot of legendary growth, 20% for Early Doherty style myth, 20% chance the facts are unknown to us because the relevant evidence has been lost, etc. Not knowing what actually happened is an acceptable state of affairs for me. Not so for Steve."

    As somebody who has rejected Christianity and keeps arguing against it in public forums, why should we trust your motives in judging that the evidence is as inconclusive as you claim it is? Whatever Steve Hays' motives are, one thing that's been demonstrated in your discussions with him is that he knows the evidence far better than you do. He ought to be more confident than you are.

    You write:

    "Because we are talking about two different situations it makes sense to say that the likelihood of the alternative explanations can be very different to overturn the hypothesis."

    Your earlier comments about only accepting "plausible" theories didn't have the qualifiers you're adding now. You didn't say that your theories only had to be plausible in a relative sense. That's a qualifier you're adding now. The term "plausible", like the terms "certain" and "definitely", has an objective meaning.

    You write:

    "Because of this the value for the initial probability you would use in Bayes' Theorem for a resurrection would be substantially lower than that for murder. Orders of magnitude lower."

    I didn't deny that murders are more common than resurrections. You aren't interacting with what I said.

    You write:

    "But murders involve intelligent agents. And murders are still rare."

    I wasn't addressing rarity. I was addressing the fact that more than rarity is involved. The reason why a book like Richard Swinburne's spends more than a few sentences on the issue of prior probability is because more than rarity is involved. If evaluating Jesus' resurrection in light of Bayes' Theorem was as simple as you've been suggesting, the matter could be settled with a paragraph. No book-length treatment would be needed. Resurrections are rare. Therefore, according to you, any theory that has even a "one in a million" chance of being true is preferable to the Christian view. Swinburne and the other scholars who have written on this topic could have saved themselves and their readers a lot of time and effort if they approached the issue in the manner in which you're approaching it. I suspect that they know the issue better than you do, though.

    You keep claiming that I "seem to accept Bayesian inference", but this is something I corrected you about in our discussion on Greg Krehbiel's board last year. As I told you then, I don't claim to know much about Bayes' Theorem. You're the one who brought it up, and I told you that I had read some material on it, but hadn't studied it in depth. You're the one who's acting as if he knows a lot about it, although your comments suggest that you don't know as much as you profess to know.

    As I and others here have told you repeatedly, you need to choose one naturalistic theory instead of appealing to a variety of inconsistent theories. And you need to modify your appeal to rarity with other relevant considerations, like the ones I, Steve Hays, and others have mentioned in these threads.

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  18. wow, calvindude got b-slapped yet again....

    C'mon folks...its easy. Talking snakes, bushes, and donkeys. It says it in a book.

    Case closed.

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  19. As I and others here have told you repeatedly, you need to choose one naturalistic theory instead of appealing to a variety of inconsistent theories.

    Yes, you and others have repeated the same mistake that I've corrected many times. Look at the equations I provided Jason. The denominator contains any number of mutually exclusive hypothesis. This is not something I'm making up to prove Christianity false. This is not my theory. This is Bayes' Theorem. If you think the equations are wrong and you're a really smart mathematician and can offer corrections to the equation then make an argument.

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  20. Jon wrote:
    ---
    How does that then lead to your idea that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations trump a supernaturalistic explanation? Answer: it doesn't.

    Where have I said it does?
    ---

    Oh, I don't know. How about when you said: "All of the naturalistic alternatives, though mutually exlusive, have one thing in common. They do not require a supernatural explanation. So the combined impact of them counts against the supernatural explanation."

    Jon said:
    ---
    How does that lead to your refusal to accept any supernaturalistic explanation whatsoever? Answer: it doesn't.

    Where have I said that I refuse to accept any supernaturalistic explanation? Answer: I haven't.
    ---

    It was a logical deduction from your idea that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations weigh against a supernaturalistic explanation.

    Jon said:
    ---
    The bottom line is that the rarity of an event is not what determines if it is supernatural or not!

    Where have I said otherwise?
    ---

    Let's start with: "I'm not ruling out the supernaturalistic explanation from the start. I'm saying that I start by assuming it is extremely unlikely. That's the nature of supernatural claims."

    Add to that: "I'm saying that a resurrection is a highly unusual and extraordinary event. Though not necessarily false, it must shoulder a significant epistemological burden."

    Jon wrote:
    ---
    Man, who are you arguing with?
    ---

    Obviously not someone who can keep track of his own arguments.

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  21. Oh, I don't know. How about when you said: "All of the naturalistic alternatives, though mutually exlusive, have one thing in common. They do not require a supernatural explanation. So the combined impact of them counts against the supernatural explanation."

    Though the naturalistic explanations are arrayed against the supernatural explanation, this in no way means they "trump" or win the day.

    Jon-Where have I said that I refuse to accept any supernaturalistic explanation? Answer: I haven't.

    CD-It was a logical deduction from your idea that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations weigh against a supernaturalistic explanation.


    How so? How does saying they "weigh against" a supernatural explanation equivalent to saying I would "refuse to accept" a supernatural explanation?

    cD1-The bottom line is that the rarity of an event is not what determines if it is supernatural or not!

    Jon1-Where have I said otherwise?

    CD22Let's start with: "I'm not ruling out the supernaturalistic explanation from the start. I'm saying that I start by assuming it is extremely unlikely. That's the nature of supernatural claims."

    Add to that: "I'm saying that a resurrection is a highly unusual and extraordinary event. Though not necessarily false, it must shoulder a significant epistemological burden."


    These two statements translate to "Rare events are supernatural"? How do you come up with that?

    I don't know what to tell you, CD. I write the word "white." You see the word "black." I write "up." You see the word "down." I tell you I don't hold the views you attribute to me and you refuse to accept that. I would love it if you could come to understand my positions, but it seems you will not.

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  22. Jon,

    I so hoped you would answer the way you did :-)

    You started with:

    ---
    All of the naturalistic alternatives, though mutually exlusive, have one thing in common. They do not require a supernatural explanation. So the combined impact of them counts against the supernatural explanation. That is why they are grouped as they are. This is perfectly reasonable.
    ---

    To this, I responded:
    ---
    You are assuming that naturalism > supernaturalism. You are assuming that arguments must avoid supernaturalism, and therefore those arguments that do avoid supernaturalism are better than those arguments which rely on supernaturalism. Therefore, the weight of those mutually exclusive arguments can outweigh the supernatural argument because you have defined it that way.
    ---

    You then asked me how I came to that conclusion by saying:
    ---
    I really don't know why you're reading my comments in this way. When you consider Christianity you group the natural explanations against the supernatural exlanation and see how the supernatural explanation fares. It may be that it fares just fine. I'm not arguing for or against Christianity in this post. But this is how a person would go about evaluating it.

    To this I asked you, quite reasonably:
    ---
    How else could I take it but that mutually exclusive naturalistic explanations trump non-mutally exclusive supernatural explanations, and therefore you believe naturalism > supernaturalism?
    ---

    YOU NEVER ANSWERED THIS.

    Instead, you ignored this comment completely. I specifically asked you what other way I could possibly take your words than the way that I had already taken them. Apparently, you think I took them wrongly; yet you never offer an alternate meaning for your words.

    As to your methodology, I likewise pointed out:

    ---
    But you never answer the important questions. Why must a supernatural explanation be subservient to a naturalistic explanation?
    ---

    YOU NEVER ANSWERED THIS EITHER.

    I likewise said of your method:
    ---
    No, this is how YOU would go about evaluating it. But you are assuming your evaluation technique is correct without aruging for why your evaluation technique ought to be observed. You are asserting without proving, and as such you convince no one.
    ---

    YOU STILL HAVEN'T ANSWERED THIS POINT.

    Nowhere have you demonstrated why one must presume naturalism, nor have you even bothered to interact with any of the opposing critique of your position.

    For instance, you said:

    ---
    When people report events that have occurred we automatically assume those events have a natural explanation.
    ---

    To which I responded:

    ---
    This is obviously not true though. Whether "we" assume a natural explanation or not depends a great deal on what event is reported and whether or not we believe the reporter.

    You, of course, automatically assume a natural explanation irregardless of evidence. But not everyone functions from your same materialistic, naturalistic worldview.
    ---

    So, as you can see from the above, you have continually insisted on your naturalistic worldview. I have continually asked you to provide argumentation for your worldview. You have responded by ignoring my questions and ended by saying: "I would love it if you could come to understand my positions, but it seems you will not."

    Yet how am I to understand your positions if you never bother to respond to the questions I present on it? You can continue to claim I am ignorant of your view, but of course that implies you're not a good teacher of it.

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  23. Calvindude, you go girl!!!

    I'm with you!

    Supernatural stuff is da bomb!

    talking snakes, bushes, donkeys...its all in the book baby!

    Read it. Believe it. Case closed!

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  24. Well, CD, perhaps I am misunderstanding you as well. What do you mean when you say I think natural explanations "trump" supernatural ones? I take it to mean that I think supernatural explanations are always to be rejected if there is any possibe natural explanation. Is that what you mean? If so, it is not what I believe.

    If you only mean that natural explanations have less of a presumption against them, and hence are in a sense preferred, that is what I mean.

    Why must a supernatural explanation be subservient to a naturalistic explanation?

    What do you mean by subservient? Again, if it means any natural explanation is always preferred to any supernatural explanation, then this is not my view.

    As to my methodology, I haven't attempted to prove Bayes' Theorem. I could if you like. That's not my purpose here. My only purpose is to show that in principle you might expect mutually exclusive alternative explanations for an extraordinary event. This is exactly how Bayes' Theorem operates. Now, I realize I haven't proved BT, but you should ask yourself why it is formulated in a manner that is entirely consistent with my claims. Perhaps there is a good reason.

    Nowhere have you demonstrated why one must presume naturalism,

    This is false. I've shown that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence with my space ship illustration. I've also shown that even with purpose attached to it, a claim such as a resurrection is still extraordinary.

    I don't exactly have a completely naturalistic worldview. I'm not an atheist. I'm not a strict materialist. I'm perfectly willing to grant theism as a presuppostion to an evaluation of the resurrection.

    The bottom line is I do not "refuse" supernatural explanations and logically rule them out from the start.

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