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El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
12:08 AM
Just got Mortarboard for the first time EVER! .....on Programming Puzzles and Code Golf.
Hmm. Maybe I should post ten questions on C.SE in one day.
 
curiousdannii
curiousdannii
1:02 AM
@ThaddeusB Using their as an indefinite/singular pronoun is perfectly natural in all contexts and registers
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@curiousdannii Its not "indefinite" in the answer in question - it is used to mean "his" not "his or hers", which is definitely not normal usage, but as I said it is the OPs call if he wants to use it as such
If you can show me any style guide that says using "their" to mean "his" is natural usage, then I'll eat my words. :)
 
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
1:38 AM
....there was LITERALLY a conversation about this earlier today in PPCG's chatroom.
 
curiousdannii
curiousdannii
@ThaddeusB Which post?
 
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@ThaddeusB Well...I do think that using "their" there (ha!) reads more naturally, and I think it's because even though "husband" is masculine, there is an indefiniteness in which husband, so to speak.
 
curiousdannii
curiousdannii
Ah, well that's a complicated example
> it should be the goal of the husband to do whatever is in the best interest of their wife and family -> his would be more natural here IMO
> even if it is not in their best interest -> this makes it sound like a plural sense is intended - if the best interests of the couple as whole are not what AJ was meaning, then this is infelicitous
> If they honestly feel that it is what is in the best interest of their family -> similarly, this makes it look like a joint decision
> It in no way indicates that a husband has free reign to lord over their spouse or that their spouse must serve their whims. -> this is natural I think
Just based on my native speaker intuitions that is...
I think the last case there is acceptable because a husband is indefinite and it can't be confused for a plural pronoun
Because the first case is the husband, I think using an indefinite they is wrong
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
2:15 AM
I would use he/him/his in all of those instances. The subject is masculine and singular, so there is simply no need to use they/their, regardless of the indefiniteness.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@LeeWoofenden exactly
I wouldn't change someone's gender neutral they, but using it for a man was very odd to me
 
 
11 hours later…
curiousdannii
curiousdannii
1:03 PM
@LeeWoofenden Well it depends what you're trying to mean. If you meant an identified man, then he/him would be appropriate. But until AJ clarifies we can't actually say what he was thinking.
@ThaddeusB He fixed the second case I listed. So it's really only the first one which I think is wrong...
@ThaddeusB What do you think of these? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
A possibly parallel example is "No mother should be forced to testify against their child" which I think is very natural.
 
 
2 hours later…
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
3:03 PM
@curiousdannii That's interesting - had never really thought about a "generic male (or female)" case before but I do agree that "No mother should be forced to testify against their child" sounds natural. However "It in no way indicates that a husband has free reign to lord over his their spouse" sounds very unnatural to me. Not sure why - perhaps the "no" vs. "a", where "a" makes it sound like a specific (male) person is in mind.
 
 
2 hours later…
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
4:53 PM
@curiousdannii To me, that sounds very unnatural. There is no good reason not to say, "No mother should be forced to testify against her child." There's no issue with gender neutrality, because mothers are by nature female. And using "their" just confuses the sentence by introducing an unnecessary element of uncertainty as to who or what, exactly, the pronoun is referring to.
I understand that language changes, and I understand that the English language is changing to incorporate gender neutrality wherever it is appropriate and necessary.
However, introducing gender-neutral language when the subject actually *is* a specific gender seems to me to be not just unnecessary, but to actually cause the language to be fuzzier and more unclear than it needs to be to achieve the goal of gender neutrality for which the new uses of "they/their/theirs" were introduced into the language in the first place.
Are we really not allowed to refer to women as "she," "her," and "hers"? Are we really not allowed to refer to men as "he," "him," and "his"?
 
 
2 hours later…
Does Elisha speak?
Does Elisha speak?
7:09 PM
0
Q: Truth Question- What is truth?

Jrod95I am starting to understand that this site is more than what it appeared on first glance. The second I read "secular site" I about left for good. Anyway, I realize they have particularly specific guidelines here so as to prevent "flame wars" and needless opinionated rants that lead to the equival...

discussion denominations truth-questions
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
7:30 PM
I'm not the right person to judge whether this question is too broad, since I don't entirely agree with site guidelines on this particular point. So I'd appreciate if some of you Christianity.SE mavens would take a look and respond to the questioner:
0
Q: Denominational viewpoints on homosexuality

Jrod95I happened across a website the other day: https://www.gaychristian.net/. I had decidedly mixed reactions after looking over the site. Regrettably, the first thing I wanted to understand is if these people were actually Christians. I went into the FAQ and realized that the format is quite simi...

denomination homosexuality
Same user as Elisha's meta-post-ad highlights--so responses could also be made as answers to the user's meta post.
 
Addem
Addem
7:56 PM
So I'll throw out a really big question if anybody's interested. What is the strongest argument for Jesus having existed? Of course he's referenced in scripture but that scripture was written may decades after his supposed death, and in many cases the original text is lost and we only have copies of copies relayed through scribes who were known to have altered the original text--either by accident or intentionally to seemingly correct inconsistencies that they noticed in the text.
So the scriptures seem not entirely reliable. Parts of what are contained in the scripture seem confirmed by other texts--so I am told, although I haven't read them first-hand. But I also hear that there is no reference (Or just one? I can't remember.) to Jesus outside of scripture by a contemporary source, which you would think you'd find many other references for if the story were of a real person.
 
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
8:15 PM
@Addem The best argument I've heard (if you discard the New Testament texts) is that Christians willingly died for him in the decades following his crucifixion. Tacitus and Suetonius record those events and it's difficult to understand why people would die for a fictitious character. Of course, the evidence is much stronger if you accept the primary sources contained in the New Testament.
 
Addem
Addem
Well, I think we have a lot of examples of people dying for mistaken beliefs. I wouldn't doubt that the people believed he existed, and that is some amount of evidence to suggest that he existed -- but I wouldn't consider it conclusive. Not that I'm in any senses expecting or demanding conclusive proof. I believe plenty of things based on probabilistic arguments.
@JonEricson
 
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Addem Certainly a person might die for the mistaken belief that another person is a god. But who would die for the mistaken belief that the person they believe is a god existed at all? Which is the more likely mistake?
 
Nathan Osman
Nathan Osman
@Addem This question and accompanying answers go into quite a bit of detail:
221
Q: Did Jesus live?

Monkey TuesdayRegardless of whether you believe or not... What is the non-Biblical evidence regarding his existence around the time he is commonly thought to have lived? That is, are there other historically accurate documents from the time period which corroborate the biblical story or falsify it? Again, t...

history jesus-christ
 
Addem
Addem
@JonEricson So do all of these people who died in devotion to his teaching claim to have met him personally? Of those who do claim to have met him personally (and before the time of his death, one would assume) can we safely rule out the possibility of them convincing themselves that he existed and they met him--rather than convincing themselves of a story they're telling themselves?
Er, that wasn't clearly stated, but I think you get my drift.
 
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
8:31 PM
@Addem I don't actually. The first question is a red herring. But I think that Skeptics post that Nathan linked to is a better source than I am on a lazy Friday afternoon. ;-)
 
Addem
Addem
@JonEricson OK, then let me try to rephrase. To my mind, there is the possibility (with significantly non-zero probability) that people who 1) died in devotion to Christian faith and 2) claimed to have personally and physically seen Jesus, did not in fact see Jesus but convinced themselves (out of delusion and desire to believe, and perhaps for other reasons like wanting to be a member of the Christian movement which they found inspiring) that they did see Jesus.
But anyway, currently reading that post.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
8:52 PM
@Addem No serious historian would doubt the existence of a person named Jesus on which Christianity is based. No ancient (or modern) source is perfect - that is not a standard any historian would consider - and of all the ancient sources the gospels are the ones we can most confidently obtain the original words of because there are far more numerous and far older copies of them than any other documents from antiquity.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB I've heard that most historians in some Scandinavian countries believe with a good amount of certainty that no actual person named Jesus existed.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
If you throw those source out because of some scribal errors (which we know are errors because we have numerous manuscripts that allow us to deduce the original), then you have to throw out all of ancient history. You might as well say "we can't prove Julius Caesar" existed
@Addem Then you heard incorrectly. It is extreme fringe theory endorsed by no (in-field) academics whatsoever.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB And keep in mind that I'm not saying Jesus didn't exist. I'm just seeing what evidence there is for his existence, and perhaps also expressing a little skepticism. As of now, as I sift through the evidence, my belief level is around 50%. Not convinced he did, not convinced he didn't.
@ThaddeusB I'm not suggesting that we throw the sources out, but I am expressing something less than 100% (or even 50%) confidence in them. Everything should be evaluated with some healthy question, and the case for Jesus' existence gets substantially more support when it comes from very independent sources.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@Addem Again, it is only a position that can be maintained by asserting we can't really know anything about ancient history. The evidence for other ancient figures is comparable or considerably weaker. Our best sources for Alexander the Great, for example were written several hundred years after his death and come to us from "copies of copies" some thousand plus years after they were written.
7
There is a huge difference between not being completely reliable on all matters and making stuff up wholesale.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB Well of course we can't know anything about ancient history with 100% certainty. Almost nothing can be known with certainty. We build the best case we can and see what the probabilities are. I'm just expressing that, as far as the evidence I have now, my probability is ball-park 50%.
@ThaddeusB If it's true that no historians (or close to no historians) believe Jesus was mythical then that'll substantially bump up my probability assessment. I'm trying to research that now.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
9:02 PM
@Addem The "Jesus myth" idea is such a fringe theory that it very rarely has even been mentioned in academic works... Give me a couple minutes to pull the references to show as much.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB I'd like to confirm or disconfirm how much the idea is considered fringe. Like I said I had heard from another source--one who I believe was a Ph.D. in ancient studies--that certain groups of tenured historians put a lot of stock in mythicism. Of course my memory is insufficient, though, so I'm currently trying to see what I can find which indicates the reality one way or another.
 
Addem
Addem
9:16 PM
@ThaddeusB Hm, from my poking around I can find no survey data or anything of the sort. To my best ability to discern it, I think mythicism is a little more viable in academic circles than you make it out to be, but also a little less viable than I had previously thought.
I've found a few references to scholars, variously people who studied at Oxford and Columbia University, who defend mythicism.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
"These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology." - (atheist) Bart D. Ehrman
 
Addem
Addem
I'm guessing the "99.9%" figure is itself some embellishment, since I've found no studies of this and I've found some quite informed-sounding people claim that no such study exists.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
I'm sure no study exists
But teh number of academics that support the idea can be counted on one hand, I believe, out of the many thousands as relevant experts
 
Addem
Addem
Yeah, I do think the overwhelming majority of scholars agree that he existed, based on what I've found so far. But I'd probably put the percentage closer to 95%. Given that I'm not a historian and cannot evaluate the totality of evidence myself, though, I'll have to weight the expert consensus fairly strongly in my evaluation, and suspect that Jesus did exist.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
Incidentally, Jesus' name and a bit about him appears in the only two (roughly) contempoary non-Christian histories
(well as "Christ" in Tacitus)
> Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, and the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first m…
 
Addem
Addem
9:28 PM
That sounds like it just accounts for the histories, though--that is to say, we're only counting the books written to record and account for the past. A lot of times we verify claims by archaeological or non-historical texts (like people's letters or trade records). How many of those give an indication of Jesus' existence? @ThaddeusB
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
The nature of the passage makes it very unlikely a Christian "added" it to Tacitus
 
Addem
Addem
Again, not to say that the fact isn't significant. Although the same size is small, the fact that 100% of the histories contains reference to Jesus is certainly important information.
*sample size, not same size
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
OK, there is also a personal letter from a father to his son, where he advises his son to seek wisdom, listing Jesus as (one of several) examples. He obviously is not a Christian, based on the content.
In general, very few sources of any kind survive from the period, so three secular sources is quite a lot.
 
Addem
Addem
And sure, the passage in Tacitus probably wasn't changed--it doesn't seem like it is likely to me, anyway. But I've read that Tacitus was not very reliable, getting Pilate's title chronologically wrong, not apparently knowing Jesus' name, and seemingly only repeating what he's heard and not first-hand reporting events. Again, judging things probabilistically, you wouldn't throw out the evidence but you wouldn't necessarily assume its truth either.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
There is also the fact that the Jewish writings against Christianity never even raise the possibility that Jesus didn't exist, but instead just try to discredit his teachings. When an opponent takes a fact for granted, that is considered very high evidence by historians.
 
Addem
Addem
9:33 PM
True, but there are also writings that don't raise the possibility of dragon's existing. In general I know of no writings that argue for the existence of anything, outside of a philosophical context like Plato arguing the existence of the forms. People seem to have just claimed the existence of things in their writing without arguing about it.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
You would think an opponent of a religion based on a recent historical figure would dispute the evidence of that person if it was plausible.
Why argue "yah, we know that guy and he was a bad person" instead of "that guy didn't exist - you are making stuff up"
 
Addem
Addem
I'm not sure people had those kinds of disputes. I mean, do we see Jewish scholars and their opponents debating the reality of local deities in Phoenicia or Greece? I'm not sure if we do but I've never heard of it.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
Of course there is no 100% proof, but the evidence for the existence of Jesus the man is about as close to certain as things get in ancient history
 
Addem
Addem
I would say that, if I were just looking at the direct evidence, my probability estimates would be around half. To me the most compelling thing is that so many modern historians do, as you said, believe in a historical Jesus. I'm not sure what their arguments are about that, but I assume they know more than I do and have good reasons. @ThaddeusB
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@Addem There are certainly Bible passages that imply a rival diety didn't really exist... but that isn't really the same situation. Christians were claiming Jesus was the Messiah, a real human being, which can be disputed a lot eaiser than a diety
 
Addem
Addem
9:40 PM
@ThaddeusB My point is that I don't know of any historical texts ever arguing "x didn't exist" for any x. I think people tended to accept existential claims more uncritically in those times.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@Addem I don't know of any work that says "X doesn't exist" off hand, but I think it is naive to argue that ancient people accepted things uncritically. Certainly some did (as some people do today), but others were just as smart as us (with less shared historical knowledge) and would expect reasonable arguments to be made to accept something.
The writings we have are certainly not the thoughts of common uneducated people, but rather the tiny minority who could afford to engage in scholarship. Just the kind of people least likely to accept something without good reason.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB I didn't say ancient people accepted things uncritically. I said that they, relative to us, accepted things less critically. In fact that seems quite supported. Aristotle believed that a woman on her period who looked in a mirror would turn the mirror red, and this was believed by medievalists. It was a less critical time.
Also note I'm not making a claim about smartness--I'm not convinced smartness is a well-defined concept so I'm not saying we're smarter. But we do have better scientific methods today.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
Fair enough, but "less critically" is just an assumption as far as I'm concerned & in any case would apply equally to any other historical figure - if we can say with enough confidence to call it a fact that Alexander the Great existed, then we can likewise say it is a fact a Jesus existed
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB I wouldn't say I'm assuming people were less critical--but I do propose it as a possible explanation for why people would have failed to challenge the existence of Jesus, had he not existed. That's one possibility, or another is that Jesus existed.
We don't know which is true, and because people seem to have been more credulous (from what I know about historical figures and scholars, that's true--they didn't exercise a scientific method the way that scholars do today) then the one hypothesis doesn't seem substantially less likely than the other.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
9:58 PM
This speaks more to the reliability of the gospel account in general, but another reason most scholars they contain at least some truth (e.g. that there was a Jesus) is that they do not read as being made up. That is, the authors included information that weakens their case, so to speak.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem Empiricism and scientific method as we know them today had not yet developed in the ancient world. Many of the ancient philosophers simply didn't think about testing their beliefs and theories against empirical reality. Today, we assume that empiricism is the primary--and for some people, the only--way to determine whether something is true. That's simply not how it was for the ancients.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Exactly my point.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
However, though that was true of what today we would call science, people of ancient times did have a very well-developed social sense. "Everyone knew everyone." It was less likely that they'd mistake a real person for a mythical one than it is for us today, when whole virtual personalities can be created, and sometimes do masquerade as real people.
 
Bruce Alderman
Bruce Alderman
@Addem If you're really interested in the historical evidence, your best bet is to look at books by historians who are agnostics, for example Michael Grant or Bart Ehrman‌​. They have more of an incentive than anyone else to separate the New Testament's historical information from its theology.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
So even though the ancients did not have the empiricism that we do today, so that they believed many things that to us seem ridiculously simple to disprove, when it came to people it was a different story. They knew very well who did and didn't exist as a real individual in their own times. The possibility that they would refer to someone named "Jesus" as a contemporary when he didn't actually exist is quite remote.
 
Bruce Alderman
Bruce Alderman
10:01 PM
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
And yes, there were fictional characters in ancient writings. I think it's very likely that Job never actually existed as a human being. But the Gospels are not written in the form of a moral tale as the book of Job is. They are written with an assurance, and many assertions, that the things described actually happened, and were experienced by people known to the writers, if not to the writers themselves.
This doesn't necessarily mean that everything written in the Gospels happened exactly as described. The different Gospels themselves disagree on some of the details, and in some cases even on fairly broad strokes. John, in particular, provides a very different chronology of Jesus' ministry and travels than the Synoptics, and the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke are quite different.
So certainly the story was "enhanced" in various ways by the writers. That was not considered bad authorship in the day. Religious writings, especially, were not required to be historically accurate. They were written to convey cultural, moral, and spiritual values.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@LeeWoofenden Yep, this is exactly what I was trying to say. There is a difference between "writing a mythical story" and "attempting to write history" - and the Gospels were written in the style of history.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
And yet, all of the Gospels agree that there was a historical, flesh-and-blood figure named Jesus who is the subject of their story, regardless of what particular elaboration of the story they may have presented. And the rest of the New Testament writings also agree on that point. Some of the Gnostic gospels fudge on whether and how Jesus was really flesh and blood, but they generally accept that there was a figure named Jesus.
@ThaddeusB Not history in our present-day sense as a historically and factually accurate account of what objectively took place, but still, "history" in the sense that they were not writing fictional accounts of a fictional character, but were writing of a man, his followers, and his social and religious surroundings that reflect real figures and real events.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
And the "contradictions" between accounts that @LeeWoofenden refers to enhances their reliability in the eyes of historians - it means that are (at least partially) independent accounts of the same historical events. It is not plausible that 4+ people independently made up different accounts of a fictional character named Jesus, roughly simultaneously.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden That's a fair point, although somewhat speculative. I think it probably counts as much for a historical Jesus as the tendency to be credulous counts against it. Also, I'm not sure how much the relevant "everyone" would have had their voices heard. People of the region might have heard these accounts of a Jesus and said "That's bull" but their claims still not recorded in texts or found their way to rulers.
But all the same, it is a good point to consider.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
10:09 PM
@LeeWoofenden Right, "history" as we write it today is a recent invention. All ancient histories were written to push a point of some sort. People were concerned with the "truths" of a situation, not just the "facts".
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
The Gospel writers were intent on presenting Jesus as a real figure. But their primary interest was not to accurately narrate events (despite Luke's preamble), but to convey the meaning and power of Jesus' life and teachings. As such, their writings were somewhere between today's genres of history and novel. More than a historical novel, but probably somewhat fictionalized by today's standard of history.
 
Addem
Addem
@BruceAlderman I'm seeing Bart Ehrman come up as a particularly vocal anti-mythicist, and he certainly seems like a respected scholar ... but he also seems more anti-mythicist than the typical historian. His points are probably worth considering, but not so weighty as to completely settle the matter.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@Addem Ehrman is the most famous New Testament scholar of any kind - that is why his name comes up a lot.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB I'll certainly see what he has to say, even if I don't take it completely on faith.
 
Bruce Alderman
Bruce Alderman
@Addem The reason Ehrman comes across as more anti-mythicist than the typical historian is because most other historians simply ignore mythicist arguments. Ehrman engages them and explains his reasons for rejecting those arguments.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
10:14 PM
@Addem Many of us here would disagree with much of what he writes (as noted, he is not a Christian) - we would assign much more credibility to the gospels than he does, for example - so I'm not endorsing him per se. :)
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem Jewish writers would have said "that's bull," and they were certainly very literate. But to my knowledge Jewish writers did not and do not attempt to deny that Jesus existed. Rather, they say that he was a false Messiah. That in itself is significant. If there were a credible argument that Jesus never existed, you would think that Jewish scholars, at least, would have a strong reason to assert that argument. But to my knowledge, they do not.
 
Addem
Addem
@BruceAlderman ... I'm not so sure that's the explanation. I could certainly be wrong, but from the sources I've seen, mythicism is at least slightly more accepted in academic circles than is portrayed here. But I would be very happy to see any survey of historians on the matter.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem But to be honest, I consider the debate about the "historical Jesus" to be a side issue, and one that is more of interest to academics from a non-faith perspective than it is to people who look to the Christian scriptures from a faith perspective. It's not that the faith perspective is more "gullible." It's just that physical and historical facts are nowhere near as important as spiritual reality, from a faith perspective.
Ancient writers were nowhere near as concerned about physical fact and historical reality as we are. They were concerned about the moral and spiritual status of humanity in general, and to a lesser extent, of individual humans. This makes their writings less reliable scientifically and historically, but more potent from a moral and spiritual perspective than historical and scientific writings of today.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden There are, though, other books that were taken as truth which claimed the existence of certain things we now know didn't exist. Local deities, dragons. They may have even believed in the existence of certain people who didn't exist, but we can't know. It's hard to actually have a case where the historical record makes it clear that a given individual didn't exist even when popular belief held that she did--so if this kind of thing was common, it would be hard for us to find out.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
It's not that I think science and history are unimportant. It's that I think they occupy a distinctly lower rung on the ladder of knowledge, understanding, and inspiration that are important for human life. Science provides for our physical well-being. History deals with our social well-being. But religion and spirituality deals with our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. And I believe that this last is the most important of the three.
We think we have advanced because we can do science and history far more precisely and accurately than we did a two or three thousand years ago. But that is an advance on a relatively low level of human existence compared to the issues that religion and spirituality deal with.
 
Addem
Addem
10:22 PM
@ThaddeusB True, the contradictions between texts certainly verifies their independence. But it also verifies their imperfection, dare I say inaccuracy. It's not a simple matter.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem Yes, that's certainly the case. In general, there has been a gradual emergence of humanity from mythical times to the present more empirical and scientific times. The earlier the writings, the more mythical they are likely to be. In that arc, the Gospels occupy a pivotal time when myth was giving way to history. And though the Gospels partake of both, they verge more toward history than many writings of earlier centuries and millennia.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@Addem If they were all the same, critics would definitely use that charge against the writers. In court, for example, if all eyewitnesses stories match exactly the attorney will accuse them of conspiracy (and usually be right). When people "make things up", they carefully check their story for "accuracy" - if the Gospel accounts were frauds, we would expect the same kind of (false) agreement.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem However, they all agree on the reality of a human figure named Jesus. That's not one of the points on which their "inaccuracies" cause them to diverge.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Is it impossible that the Jewish writers either 1) would have chosen not to contradict the stories of Jesus out of some possible gain for their belief, 2) would have contradict them but not in writing, or 3) would have contradicted them in writing but the writing may have been destroyed by accident or intent?
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
In fact, the entire New Testament depends on the reality of a human figure who is believed to be in some way the presence of God, or divinity, as flesh among us. Exactly how that occurred they're a bit fuzzy on. But that it occurred is one of the things on which all of the New Testament writings agree.
 
Addem
Addem
10:26 PM
Let's also add a 4) would they necessarily have know the truth either way? Would they have been in contact with people who could have reliably denied his existence, and would those be people they trusted more than the people claiming his existence?
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem All of those are possible. But using them as a basis for argument would be arguing based on speculation rather than arguing on the extant evidence. Even if the evidence may be scant by present-day standards, we still have to base our conclusions on the evidence that exists, and not on evidence that doesn't exist.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Certainly I am only asking this out of academic interest and can sympathize that, for a non-academically involved Christian it may be less interesting than other relevant thoughts.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem It's certainly possible to engage in radical skepticism about Jesus' existence as an actual, historical figure. But why? Why engage in such skepticism with regard to Jesus, when we don't radically question the existence of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Julius Caesar, Buddha, and many other ancient historical figures for most of whom we have far less empirical evidence than we do for the existence of Jesus?
 
Addem
Addem
I would not sympathize quite so much with ranking spirituality on a higher rung than scientific inquiry, but for that I think we can just agree to disagree. :)
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
I strongly suspect that those who radically doubt Jesus' existence do so primarily for anti-religious reasons: they want to deny Jesus because they want to deny the religion and beliefs that have grown up around Jesus. For most of the other ancient historical figures, there are no such anti-religious motives that would drive skeptics and unbelievers to question their existence.
In other words, the drive to deny Jesus' historical existence is actually based on "doctrinal" and dogmatic grounds, not on sound history.
3
 
Addem
Addem
10:32 PM
@ThaddeusB True, if all of the writings were the same then that would be used against the writings because it would demonstrate collusion; and if they contradict each other that demonstrates inaccuracy--so they can't win! You're right. But that's the same standard we apply to everything in history, and it's just a fact that doing history is hard and certainty is never available.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem If you will, substitute "psychology" for "religion." And I think that in terms of human society and history, you would have to admit, or at least strongly consider, that the human mind has a far greater influence on the realities of everyday human life than does our physical environment, which is the subject of scientific study.
 
Addem
Addem
@ThaddeusB In this particular case we are assured of an amount of independence among the authors but for exactly the same consideration, led to at least somewhat doubt the veracity.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
Science can unleash the power of the atom. But it is the human mind that uses that power either to serve and build up humanity or to decimate and destroy humanity. So which is more powerful? The knowledge of the atom or the human mind that determines how that powerful knowledge will be used?
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden True, all of the gospels agree on the reality of Jesus, and that's significant ... but not conclusive. After all, the mythicist hypothesis is that a very large number of people falsely believed in a soup of stories about a fictional person.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem I'm aware of that hypothesis. I just don't think it stands up under scrutiny. And that's why so few credible scholars hold to it--including credible non-Christian and atheist scholars.
If Christians were saying "Jesus was real" and non-Christians were saying "Jesus never existed," then we'd have a problem. But that's not what's happening.
 
Addem
Addem
10:38 PM
@LeeWoofenden True, each of the four possibilities explaining a lack of writing from Jewish scholars denying the existence of Jesus is individually speculative. But then the fifth explanation, 5) Jesus existed, seems like carries water better only in degree. After all, we're trying to explain the lack of a historical finding. On such a thing, if we're to do it at all, we're going to be speculating.
@LeeWoofenden Why engage in skepticism about Jesus' existence? For academic interest in general historical questions. I suppose it's also at least somewhat related to my philosophical and theological interests, although not deeply so.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem The problem is, there are few to no ancient sources that say that Jesus didn't exist. All or nearly all of them either assert that Jesus existed or assume that Jesus existed.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Actually since you brought up Socrates I might mention that my belief that Socrates was a real person hovers somewhere between 50% and 75%.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
Probably the closest you'd get to any ancient sources saying that Jesus didn't exist would be some of the Gnostic gospels that "spiritualized" Jesus and denied that he was really flesh-and-blood. But those texts have clear ideological reasons for saying such things, making them questionable sources about the historicity of Jesus.
And even they seem to think that there was some sort of figure who was "Jesus."
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden I probably have less doubt about Caesar because he, as far as I understand the matter, has more evidence. As for Buddha, while I've not read as much about it because it just tends to come up less for me, I have heard that there is good reason to doubt the historicity of the Buddha. So my confidence is not particularly high on that account either.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem For good measure, I might mention that my belief that everyone from Adam to at least Shelah (Genesis 11:12-15) in the first eleven chapters of Genesis were real people is exactly 0%. I do not believe that any of those earliest figures in the Bible narrative were actual, historical individuals.
For those that follow, right through the "Patriarchs" (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), and the twelve sons of Jacob, if it were somehow to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that none of them existed as actual historical figures, it would have very little impact on my reading of the Bible. I generally think that at least most of them were historical figures, but it's not something that's especially critical to my way of thinking.
 
Addem
Addem
10:46 PM
@LeeWoofenden To clarify, I don't particularly want Jesus to have existed or not existed. But I agree with you, I do suspect that many atheists who hold strong mythicist views do so out of an anti-religion motivation. I'd like to believe, though, that I'm more interested in knowing the truth no matter where it lands.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
By the time we get to Jesus, it does become more critical. And not coincidentally (I think), the evidence for the historical reality of Jesus is much stronger than the evidence for the historical reality of any of those earlier Biblical figures.
@Addem Then I would suggest reading scholars that have no particular ideological axe to grind. Or at least reading a broad mix of scholars who come from different ideological perspectives. What's convincing enough for me is that there is a broad consensus among almost all Biblical scholars, both religious and secular, that there was an actual, historical figure who was Jesus, despite widely differing opinions on exactly who the "historical Jesus" was.
As I'm sure you're aware, you don't have to accept the Gospels' evaluation of Jesus, still less the Christian Church's beliefs about Jesus, to accept that there was an actual figure named Jesus behind all of the beliefs that grew up around him.
By the same token, you don't have to believe that an apple fell on Newton's head, or that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree, or that Johnny Appleseed talked to the animals, to believe that there were actual, historical figures behind the myths and stories that grew up around them.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden I'm not sure what you're claiming about ranking the psychological against the physical in our everyday lives. But for deciding my beliefs I rely as much as I possibly can on rationality.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
We know that Johnny Appleseed was a real, flesh-and-blood human being. And he was certainly an eccentric human being. (He was also a Swedenborgian missionary, by the way.) But many myths grew up around that eccentric human being that never actually happened in reality.
Jesus was certainly an unusual human being who had a powerful effect on his followers and listeners. Who the actual, historical Jesus was, and what his exact life history was, we may never know. But there's far too much smoke swirling around his life and teachings for there to be no fire at all.
 
ThaddeusB
ThaddeusB
@Addem I would definitely disagree with that - the level of disagreement is exactly what we'd expect if the document were real, eyewitness reports (we can study how much different accounts of the same even vary in different scenarios via modern examples). The disagreements are over incidental details, not the big picture, and not anything that "matters" toward belief.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem Well, if you've ever been in love, or you ever fall in love, you'll find out pretty quickly that rationality has to take a back seat if you actually want to have a relationship with your significant other! ;-)
 
Addem
Addem
10:55 PM
@LeeWoofenden You're right, it does seem that all historians regardless of faith place a lot of confidence in the historicity of Jesus and I do find that to be the most compelling argument. Because of it I lean more toward his having existed than I do the other way.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
Science and scientific knowledge are in the nature of tools in the hands of human motives, drives, and emotions. The human will determines what we will do with them. All of our vast technology and industry are harnessed entirely to human wants and desires, whether for comfort, pleasure, knowledge, power, convenience, or anything else. Science serves the human will, because the human will is far more powerful in the human world than science.
Rationality, similarly, serves the human will, even if we might desire that it were the ruler and not the servant. Why else can two entirely rational human beings argue passionately for exactly the opposite conclusions? Scientists themselves commonly oppose one another's theories, and argue strongly against one another, marshalling all of the evidence, logic, and rationality at their disposal in the effort.
And that's just to determine the truth about physical reality.
Once we've settled reasonably confidently on some theory about the nature of physical existence, what do we do with it? We can build semiconductors and we can build atomic bombs. All of that theory and knowledge gets harnessed to do what the human will wants it to do. And our rationality serves our will as well.
Mind you, rationality also has a role in shaping the human will. But ultimately, our will, our motives and desires, will determine the direction we take as human beings.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Certainly science cannot be practiced without values. Perhaps I'm not seeing what your argument is, though--that science is unreliable because of it? That values are more important? I'm not sure we have to be talking about values more elaborate than the value of life. Sure, that's pretty fundamental and important ... but that's not in conflict with pursuing science. Maybe I'm just not sure what you mean here.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
Somewhat related to my above soliloquy:
3
A: Is there any Christian theological model for a non-literal ark?

Lee WoofendenYes, there is a Christian theological model for a non-literal ark. Such a model is provided and developed in great detail by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) in his massive work Secrets of Heaven, originally published in eight Latin volumes in London, 1749-1756. In Secrets of Heaven #554-1059 Swed...

@Addem I'm not saying that science is unreliable. It's not infallible either, but in general, it's an excellent tool for determining the nature of physical reality. To a somewhat lesser extent it can assist in drawing conclusions about human social realities.
I'm saying, rather, that what science does is in the nature of a tool in the hands of higher human realities--at least, in the human world it is.
To use the tool analogy, science is like a well-crafted hammer. That hammer can be used either to build homes for people to live in or to destroy homes and kill the people in them. Science is the hammer. And it's a very good hammer. But it is still human beings, and the human will, that wield the hammer.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Certainly I haven't claimed that science is infallible, but I do claim that good use of its is more reliable than any other method of inquiry.
But I agree, it is a tool.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
11:10 PM
@Addem That depends on what you're inquiring about. If you're inquiring about the nature of physical reality, and about the objective, historical and physical realities of what took place in the past, then science is a very good tool. But if you're inquiring about God and spirit, and their reality (or lack thereof) and influence on human life, then science is almost totally useless.
 
Addem
Addem
And of course, it is not the only tool. Mathematical thinking, philosophical thinking, and even trying to reason about utilities, are all different and important.
@LeeWoofenden Well, on that point, I disagree--I would say that, in all matters of belief about what exists, Science is the best method.
Or perhaps we don't disagree about that, but perhaps we disagree that inquiring about god and spirit falls within the inquiry about what exists.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem Yes, but science and all of these other pursuits lead largely to knowledge, or to use a more modern term, data. As we verge toward philosophy, we can begin to gain some understanding of that knowledge and data. But what we do with that knowledge and understanding trumps both. And what we do with our knowledge and understanding is a matter of the human will, or motivation.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden It sounds like you're claiming that science doesn't lead to understanding, which I don't agree with.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem Science, in my view, is limited to the inquiry about what exists on the physical level of reality. God and spirit, in my view, exist on entirely different and distinct levels of reality, for which science is not the appropriate tool for investigation.
@Addem Science leads mostly to knowledge, which can be put together to form some understanding of how things work. But there's another level of understanding that has to do with why things are the way they are. That, to my mind, goes beyond science at least to the level of philosophy.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden But science does not explain or analyze value, for which we do need to turn to philosophy. It's important, but I wouldn't tolerate a contradiction between my philosophy and my scientific beliefs.
And I'm not sure I'm on board with "what we do with science trumps science". I'm not sure they're in conflict, the way that you seem to portray it.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
11:16 PM
@Addem I don't think there's an inherent contradiction either. But science and philosophy occupy different realms. Those realms can coordinate and support one another, but they cannot be converted into one another.
@Addem Can you at least see that scientific knowledge can be used both for constructive and destructive purposes?
Certainly science puts a lot of power into our hands. But how do we use that power?
That's something science itself can't decide.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Certainly what exists is a primary question in science, although so is "how it exists, how it functions" which you may want to package into the "what" question. But I regard that as true understanding, and while there is room for other kinds of understanding, I don't necessarily rank these. In need them all to cohere.
Ah, I don't think I agree that science answers "why" questions, except for certain types of "why" questions which I philosophically regard as meaningless, like "why is there something rather than nothing".
But I think we will agree that there are non-scientific, philosophical questions that are meaningful. So on that we can find common ground.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem One of the problems I have with the materialist worldview is that it seems to me to flatten reality into one plane of existence: the physical. I think that there are more realms of reality than the physical. At the most basic, I believe there is also a spiritual universe, and I believe that there is a God or Deity that exists at a still higher level.
 
Addem
Addem
Er, I don't think that science DOESN'T answer "why" questions (typo).
Oh certainly, I agree that science can be used for destructive purposes. Hell, I'll go you one more: I think civilization itself is a technology that has for the majority of history been a harmful force. :)
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem In my worldview, the reason there are non-scientific, philosophical questions that are meaningful is that there is a realm of existence that goes beyond the physical universe that is the proper subject for scientific inquiry.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden But I still think maybe I'm not appreciating what you're driving at. It kind of sounds to me like we're still arguing when we agree. :)
@LeeWoofenden Ah, every time it sounds like we actually agree, I hear something that sounds like we don't. I wouldn't say there's a separate realm, but that reality and thought can be analyzed in many ways. There are many aspects of the same reality.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
11:23 PM
@Addem I accept science as a highly valid tool for the study of the physical universe and material reality. I consider genuine science and genuine religion to be entirely compatible with one another. But I think of them as operating on distinct levels of reality. The problems occur when one attempts to impose itself on the other's field of study and usefulness.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden Mind you I'm not a to-the-bone materialist. Materialism certainly sounds like it solves a lot of problems, but it also has a lot of problems, so ... on that account I'm uncertain even if I lean materialist.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
In general, I have no argument with science as long as it sticks to its field. But when scientists start making pronouncements about God and spirit, they start losing me, and start venturing into realms of nonsense on subjects that they are not well-equipped to address.
 
Addem
Addem
Now as for a spiritual dimension of reality, I'm pretty thoroughly unconvinced and downright skeptical. Unless we just mean the subjective, in which case I'm perhaps surprisingly open to a dualism. But like I said, uncertain.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
By the same token, I believe religion in general, and traditional Christianity in particular, have gotten badly off course in attempting to dictate the nature of physical reality, such as how the universe came to be (six days vs. 14 billion years, etc.)
@Addem I'm going to have to take a break and walk the dog soon, but on that subject, you may be interested in this article of mine: Where is the Proof of the Afterlife?
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden I think we will actually, and perhaps surprisingly, agree that scientists often make ignorant pronouncements about religion. Laurence Krauss has just been an idiot when talking about anything other than physics, and even the somewhat careful Neil Tyson has said some things that I regard as not the best argument.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
11:28 PM
And another one: Wavicles of Love. I've been told that some of the science in this article is a bit out of date, but I think the general principles still hold.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden But I still think that science is the best tool for deciding what exists, and the question of the reality of god is within that realm, and that it does not lead to a belief in god.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
And the follow-up article to that last one: Containers for God
These are some of the more philosophical articles on my blog, dealing with the intersection between science and religion.
 
Addem
Addem
@LeeWoofenden But I hate to keep you so by all means I'll let you walk the dog. And thank you for a very helpful collection of information.
 
Lee Woofenden
Lee Woofenden
@Addem You're welcome. Good chatting with you. Over and out!
 

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