Regarding Holding, you say,

He makes several references to authors, quotes their articles, cites their books, and so forth.

I am not having a blog discussion with Holding; I am having one with you. If not, I could cut you out because you’d just be a middle man.

He [Holding] makes several references to authors, quotes their articles, cites their books, and so forth.

I am bewildered as to why you will not draw my attention to the relevant passages in the relevant books by the cited authors’ that support your point. I wonder if you know how arguments are made.

Do you have anything here, or is “Because that’s what Holding said!” going to be all you’ve got? Because if you’re only point is that someone named Holding wrote an article, and he used footnotes, then I wonder what you’re looking to discuss. (I don’t have much to say against that.)

I think you should take a little break and try to put together an argument that opposes what I’ve said. (Hint: I offered two good options above — I think it should be around where I used the characters “a)” and “b)”.)

News flash: you are on the internet. There are literally dozens of rapid bible search sites. You could have found such a site, copy-pasted the verses given, and seen them, all in less time than it took you to type out that comically immature response.

Or do you prefer that the other readers assume that you’re that lazy; that you can’t even take 60 seconds to look them up? Or, that doing so has inconvenienced you so much that you simply must complain about it?

That’s pretty telling. It gives everyone a reasonably clear indication of how much effort you actually put into thinking about these issues. If looking up a handful of Bible verses is such a herculean task, we can safely assume you’re neither well-informed nor interested in becoming so. You set the bar awfully low on your threshold for effort.

You haven’t demonstrated the slightest intention of considering what is being presented. Everything that has been mentioned has been met with drivel like “crackpot nonsense”. You so badly mis-state the claims you’re trying to refute that it’s almost embarrassing. References to – gasp! – books are dismissed, since anything you have to get out of your chair to examine is not a substantive answer, in your universe. (Second news flash: the internet is not the only source of information in the world, and having access to Wikipedia does not make you informed.) You’re more interested in whining about how hard it is to look up specific sources in the easiest book in the world to get your hands on. And in the mean time you’re actually trying to complain that the dialogue on our end isn’t “substantive”.

I too, have better things to do, which don’t include risking the assumptions that arise when you argue with a certain kind of person.

I don’t believe you have offered me a single citation regarding what I have asked for.

Now I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. I’ve pointed you towards quite a few resources that discuss the social and cultural composition of Judea. Two books, plus the Bible, plus the citations offered by Holding. You’re expressing doubt about whether or not we really know anything about a certain topic, and I’m directing you towards sources that indicate otherwise. To ask for anything more would be nonsensical – what do you want me to do, copy-past an entire textbook for you since you’re too lazy to check and see if it even exists?

Then again, here’s the crux of your problem:

Why should I go search for material that supports your argument when I have already expressed my skepticism about it?

Ahh, yes. You’ve already decided that it’s not true, so you have no reason to investigate further. At least we’re being more open, now. Tony does not agree with my conclusions, therefore he has no reason to read anything contradictory. He can’t even read the citations listed on a page one click away. And if I quoted it here verbatim, he wouldn’t read it anyway, it seems.

This is a blog discussion, not a book club.

Then why in heaven’s name are you expecting? That’s precisely the reason I pointed you towards comprehensive sources. You’re doubting the extent to which we know something about ancient culture. What other appropriate response is there than to offer sources that contain that very information? It’s not a topic you cover intelligently in five seconds, Tony. I think you know that, but you’re trying to cover the fact that you made an extremely weak argument through sophistry.

If you can’t be bothered to support your argument, don’t expect me to try and build it for you.

Let me again ask about the citations from Holding. He makes several references to authors, quotes their articles, cites their books, and so forth. I linked to his summary, and even that brief overview has a large number of such citations. I told you those were there. Are those not good enough? Is anything good enough?

Yes, I forgot. Research is for losers. Only the truly intelligent make up their mind before they’ve read a single sentence of an opposing view. You say we don’t know much about ancient culture, I point you towards resources regarding it, and you think it’s unreasonable for you might look into them. If you can’t even click a link and scan through a document less than 10,000 words long, then you’re even more willingly ignorant than you seem. That’s intellectually lazy, at best.

Explain what you mean by ‘no rational basis for believing’. I hear that phrase a lot and I always interpret it as ‘belief is irrational’ but your comment above doesn’t support that. So what does it mean?

Yes, the belief is irrational. That is, christian apologetic attempts to argue for their beliefs are bad ones. You apologists attempt to employ reason in support of your beliefs….but you employ it very poorly. Using arguments that are obviously weak at best and frequently flat out ridiculous.

I’m getting tired of exchanges that aren’t dealing with anything substantive and won’t respond to anything else not actually dealing with the arguments for belief in christianity.

If you wish to talk about any of the apologetic arguments for your religion I’ll be happy to continue the discussion.

But if you just want to go on and on about the fact that we disagree on whether belief in christianity is reasonable….rather than actually discussing the arguments themselves then you’re conversation is going to be one-sided. I have better things to do.

Acts 2:22, 1 John 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:21

What’s with the christians on this blog? Always putting up the bare minimum, if anything, in defense of their claims.

Here’s a thought. If you want to present a bible verse as evidence: quote it.

Or do you prefer that readers of this blog just assume that those verses provide good support for your position (which they don’t) without looking them up when you know it would look pretty thin if you actually quoted those verses.

I have a better idea, since resources for all of those have been offered, at least in the citations given by Holding. Why don’t you start ponying up the contrary data instead of playing this sophistic game where all you have to do is say, “but I haven’t seen the evidence…show me more!”

I don’t believe you have offered me a single citation regarding what I have asked for.

Why should I go search for material that supports your argument when I have already expressed my skepticism about it? This is a blog discussion, not a book club. If you can’t be bothered to support your argument, don’t expect me to try and build it for you.

Its not my intent to imply that christians don’t employ reason at all.

That’s not the way I interpreted this comment from you: “I’m quite convinced that there is no rational basis for believing the miraculous claims made in the NT are true.”

Explain what you mean by ‘no rational basis for believing’. I hear that phrase a lot and I always interpret it as ‘belief is irrational’ but your comment above doesn’t support that. So what does it mean?

I’m quite well aware of the claims of prophecy that Christians make, of which messianic prophecies are perhaps the most pertinent, so I thought that the way in which they can be interpreted are quite important to the discussion, as many are quoted directly in the NT.

By the time I even track down and read the book, the conversation may not even be worth regurgitating, and I already know many of the arguments. If Wright makes some exceptional points that are interesting, you should quote them or sum them up in response to my arguments.

What Luke thought is absolutely pertinent to a 21st century westerner. If I can’t track the methodology, then I will have trouble affirming a great many things in the sense that I can’t see the logic of his claims. You’re trying to use the logic of what could or couldn’t happen, but I can’t do that if it isn’t there. All I’m left with are the claims, and I have to suppose many things about them. Thus, I find it all wanting. Many historians back then were more thorough with their work.

I understood you quite well. You’re attempting to defend an indefensibly bad argument.

One of your suggestions is that there cannot be a meaningful comparison of the two cultures, so we can’t say that Judeans had it tougher than Mormons. This is foolish. And you’re the one who said you wanted diaries and letters from more than just the literate. You wanted sound recordings from 50 AD. The suggestion that we can’t grasp cultural or social structures without that level of data is ludicrous.

“New Manners and Customs of the Bible” and “The Syrian Christ” are two collections of cultural and social information about that time. There are plenty of citations in Holding’s summary of TIF that you can check for yourself by degreed historians, archaeologists, and researchers. You’re talking about this field as though no one has ever learned anything about the topic.

And, yes, we reject Luke for being stupid enough to believe what he wrote. Agenda or no, I guess we have to reject just about everything we have written from that time.

My sarcasm was specifically intended to point out the absurdity of your approach. I’m not talking about what the popular opinion on blue robes vs purple robes was in the spring of 45 AD among Roman widows. I’m talking about the essential cultural and social makeup of that society, something quite accessible from the materials we have available.

We’ve pointed towards at least some sources. And, yes, I did indicate through sarcasm that much of what you ask for is irrelevant. Breakfast foods? Really?

Your second (contradictory) suggestion was that people can believe all kinds of things without good evidence, like Mormons, so who cares what early Christians thought. That’s completely missing the point of TIF. The whole idea was that the situation in Judea was not conducive to the rapid spread and acceptance of false beliefs. That it can happen under some circumstances is not the point – it’s that it happened under circumstances where it shouldn’t. If you can’t grasp the argument, stop trying to refute it.

Of course, it appears to me that your declaration is based on scanty evidence making your comparison meaningless.

Well, for starters, refute the sources Holding used. Or put a cork in this asinine skeptical habit of claiming no evidence just because you won’t look at any.

It appears to have been received, for decades and decades, with overwhelming indifference.

Yes, so much indifference that within 30 years of the crucifixion, people were willing to die in the arena rather than recant. That people with everything to lose and nothing to gain, like wealthy Romans, were converting. That enough people followed it to give Nero the idea of blaming them for the fire.

I await your listing of the relevant properties, the pertinent details, and the documentation from which you base them. Right now, it sounds like a lot of, “C’mon, we just know.”

I have a better idea, since resources for all of those have been offered, at least in the citations given by Holding. Why don’t you start ponying up the contrary data instead of playing this sophistic game where all you have to do is say, “but I haven’t seen the evidence…show me more!” I can lead an atheist to info, but I can’t make you think. If you can’t provide some counter-evidence, and especially if you refuse to look at what is given, then the only one saying, “C’mon, we just know” is you.

Or, you can just admit that the Mormon analogy was a bad one, and your attempt to defend it was lame, and move on.

Sorry, I guess its my fault for not noticing all those passages in the Bible praising critical thinking…

Proverbs 20:15, Acts 17:11

…and high standards of evidence…

2 Peter 1:16, John 14:11

… and telling potential converts not to believe until and unless they have examined the evidence thoroughly

Acts 2:22, 1 John 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:21

To start with, anyway. So yes, it’s your fault, because apparently the Bible, like just about everything else that might disagree with you, is not something you’ve bothered to take seriously enough to actually read, consider, or think about. You don’t even understand what is being claimed before you start calling it “crackpot nonsense”, so coming for you, this…

…I find the arguments so obviously bad that its difficult for me to consider them anything but after the fact rationalizations for beliefs held for reasons having little or nothing to do with reason or evidence…

…is about as meaningful as Barefoot Bum’s complaining about being spoken inappropriately. You literally have no idea what you’re talking about.

You seem to misunderstand my argument.

On that note, are you really asking for letters and diaries from the illiterate?

I am pointing out one of the vast many of ways that the type (not just the volume) of historical documentation differs between the two 19th Century American and Ancient Judea.

Are you claiming that there were linear drawings in ancient Egypt, but none in Judea a thousand years later?

I am asking you to refer me to the vast collection of such drawings. 1% of the magnitude of what we have documenting the 19th Century in terms of dress, social situations, entertainment, war, public spaces, private lives, occupations, etc would be a start. I await your correction pointing me to these documents.

That a book beginning with the stated intention of collecting facts about a man for use as a reference (Luke) doesn’t count well enough as journalism?

The book of Luke is written by religious zealots for the purposes of conversion. This does not describe journalism. It’s clear to me that the best explanation for the introduction of Luke was inserted later as a way of adding credibility to the story. (I think Craig’s explanation is snort-milk-out-of-your-nose funny. I took two years of college Latin. I don’t remember any ancient writer ever “changing” style to make a meta-cue to the reader about his ability to write to different formats.)

Or are you hoping to find tapes from the Judean News Network’s 41 AD satellite feed before you take this discussion seriously?

I see that you are going to ignore the substance of my point instead of address it. You could have addressed it, by the way: you could have said a) actually, we do have all or some of those things you mention, and here the are, or b) you could have said that the things I listed don’t offer a meaningful difference from the types of materials we do have, and here is why we can get as much meaning out of the documentation that exists. But that would have been engaging the argument.

I understand, of course, that you think: “We know from good, solid, objective science what the people of that time and region felt about cultural, religious, moral, and other issues. We know what the society was like. We have historical documentation and other evidence laying it out for us, for crying out loud.

Further, if your claim that comparison is not possible is true, then what use is your Mormon analogy anyway? You should be retracting it immediately on the grounds that, since we can’t really compare the cultures, you have absolutely no grounds for saying that Mormons experienced what ancient Christians did. Pick one or the other, or pick the assertion up off the table.

I thought it was obvious, but I’ll say it again. It’s in human nature for people to believe in a religion without sufficient evidence. See, the Mormons, or any other religion you don’t believe in that is practicing and growing today. They all do it. In fact, more people are doing it today than there are Christians today.

This was in response to your making an argument that Christianity grew up in a time and place where, unlike today’s religions, or any other prior ones, it was harder than any time prior or since to form a new religion, and that’s because your deep understanding of the culture of that period allows you to make this declaration.

Of course, it appears to me that your declaration is based on scanty evidence making your comparison meaningless.

So yes, as it pertains to the relevant details, we know plenty of what we need to know to consider how something like Christianity was received in ancient Judea.

It appears to have been received, for decades and decades, with overwhelming indifference.

We can compare the relevant properties of the two cultures to make that determination in a reasonable and sensible way. The pertinent details, and even the majority of the points you suggested are actually available.

I await your listing of the relevant properties, the pertinent details, and the documentation from which you base them. Right now, it sounds like a lot of, “C’mon, we just know.”

your claim in the original blog post of fulfilled prophecy rings a little hollow when you utilize the Jew’s belief of the messiah to buffet your point here, for they got their beliefs from prophecy. If they couldn’t even predict the correct messiah, then I question the efficacy of prophecy.

What claims in my original post? That was a bullet point, not a claim. You’re jumping to premature conclusions. Why not pick up a copy of the Wright book?

1 Corinthians was written in the mid-50s, but the consensus of scholarship is that the first several verses go back much earlier than that. I’ll get into that later in this series.

I would be more impressed if he exhaustively provided sources or information that he appeals to.

Are you aware of the terms “temporal chauvinism” or “historical ignorance”? Historians didn’t do that then. He wrote to recount what had happened, not to impress 21st century Westerners.

And each must judge for themselves to the best of their ability which does the better job of making their case.

Furthermore, the claim that Christians don’t use reason is disproved by the fact that we weight the evidence and put forth arguments that the evidence is GOOD enough and STRONG enough to support the conclusion.

Its not my intent to imply that christians don’t employ reason at all. There would not be such a field as christian apologetics if that were the case. I’m only saying that I find the arguments so obviously bad that its difficult for me to consider them anything but after the fact rationalizations for beliefs held for reasons having little or nothing to do with reason or evidence.

I could be wrong. But that’s my opinion.

Sorry, I guess its my fault for not noticing all those passages in the Bible praising critical thinking and high standards of evidence and telling potential converts not to believe until and unless they have examined the evidence thoroughly.

And I guess I forgot all those hymns you christians sing in church exhorting the virtue of critical thinking in matters of religion. Unlike those muslims who sing songs that say things like “you ask me how I know he’s real, he lives inside my heart”

Oh, wait. That’s you guys, isn’t it?

You and others have not given an argument that supports your claim that we don’t use reason or that the evidence is not GOOD and STRONG.

My conclusion is based on how incredibly bad the arguments christians employ are; in those cases where they bother to employ argumentation rather than emotional appeals.

Naturally, you disagree with my opinion. As you are more than welcome to do.

You and others have not given an argument that supports your claim that we don’t use reason or that the evidence is not GOOD and STRONG.

Your claim of being the most rational/reasonable person in the room has so far fallen flat.

It really depends upon what you are referring to when you say expectations. First, I think that there are two points in conflict here: your claim in the original blog post of fulfilled prophecy rings a little hollow when you utilize the Jew’s belief of the messiah to buffet your point here, for they got their beliefs from prophecy. If they couldn’t even predict the correct messiah, then I question the efficacy of prophecy. To that end, Peter’s initial words to the Jewish crowd about prophecy and signs seem to take scripture out of context in order to prove his point. Since the Jesus movement was itself merely a shift from the standard messiah, then it merely requires a shift in thinking; that Jesus suffered and conquered death might be considered a sign of the messiah. The disciples could then point to the whatever scripture they please and say, “See? Jesus was the messiah.” And the Jews that were taken in by it could still believe that Jesus conquered death in the present and in the future would come “soon” and fulfill the final pieces of prophecy to their own ends. In reality, the Jesus movement was still relatively small. That they could get a segment of Jews to go along with this isn’t too surprising. Unless, of course, you were trying to foment a different argument. I don’t quite have access to that book now, although I’ve read similar arguments in other books.

Wasn’t 1 Corinthians written in the mid 50s, a few decades after Jesus’s death?

MedicineMan -

I still don’t think that solves the issue of one appealing to the will of God in order to do something, and it still is contingent on belief in order to be applied ubiquitously. Nor do I think that it answers some of the tough issues – laws, after all, also have to be interpreted and weighed carefully. So we still have the problem of trying to appeal to others, which is supposedly the problem of an atheistic system too.

I also don’t think that Luke is a very critical historian. Many of his arguments are along the line of “you know this to be true”. It’s a rather biased take to begin with, so I would expect a biased recounting. I would be more impressed if he exhaustively provided sources or information that he appeals to.

He said (paraphrasing) that a claim is evidence for a claim, but not evidence in favor of the conclusion made by the claim. However, a second claim that confirms what the first claim said is considered evidence that the first claim is true – or is it not?

A suggestion: don’t paraphrase. Quote. Your paraphrasing doesn’t much resemble what I really said.

What I actually said concerning evidence and conclusions, in the most relevent passage of that discussion was:

“That X is evidence for a claim is not the same thing as X being reasonable grounds for believing the claim. X might be only very weak evidence. Or X might be good evidence in and of itself but not quite strong enough to consider the claim more likely than not to be true. Or other, better evidence, may contradict X (for example, the many cases where a jury convicted a man on a eyewitness testimony but DNA evidence later showed the man to be innocent).”

In legal cases if we have 10 people that claim to have seen Joe at home on the night of the crime, that is considered evidence for the conclusion that Joe did not do the crime. There may be other evidence that counters those 10 claims, but still, isn’t this evidence in favor of the conclusion?

Yes, but depending on other factors and relevent information (like the reliability of the witness, physical evidence contradicting their claim, etc) it may or may not be GOOD evidence for the conclusion. That is, it may or may not be sufficient grounds for a verdict of not guilty.

All of which is clear from what I actually said about evidence and drawing conclusions (unlike your mangled attempt at paraphrasing).

What was that? I don’t recall any source for this claim concerning tens of thousands of converts.

The Bible is another…

Supporting the Bible’s assertions with the bible’s assertions? The whole issue is whether the bible’s claims are true. If we’re just going to stipulate that the bible is reliable then there’s no need to bother with the TIF.

Besides which I don’t think the bible even makes the claim of tens of thousands of near immediate converts. Care to quote where it does?

You could also check out some of the works by Hardy (of Oxford).

I’m not going to spend my time hunting up books by people to see if your claim of tens of thousands of almost immediate converts is true. Its up to you to support your claims. I have no reason to spend my time attempting to refute an unsupported assertion. If you’re content to just make unsupported assertions I’m content to leave them as such.

Steve: I would appreciate a response to my comments in #226 and #227 when you get the time. Thanks.

OK

Actually I answered that question already. in the part of my post immediately following what you quoted from me above:

“There is far too little evidence to support ANY conclusion about what went on with the very early church. There can only be speculation. That you draw firm conclusions on the basis of so little supporting evidence only shows that your position is not based on reason or evidence.”

I think that explains my assessment of your position more than adequately and I see little need to add anything more. You are free to disagree with my opinion.

david: What’s self-contradictory in saying we don’t have enough evidence to know what really went on in the early days of christianity and saying that a religion that makes the claims christianity does could have been embraced by at least some people in the Roman Empire of that day?

You are not one of them – which is fine – but how can you say the conclusion was NOT reached by way of reason? What evidence or argument would you offer to support such an extraordinary claim?

Are you really claiming christians reason their way to their beliefs? Honestly?

From my own experience being brought up christian this isn’t what I’ve found. And when the evidence in support of their beliefs is so paltry I find it impossible not to think that even the few who claim to believe in christianity based on reason are merely rationalizing views held for far less cerebral reasons.

Again, feel free to disagree.