tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766213929139682844.post8584583129315018963..comments2023-10-15T08:36:48.841-07:00Comments on A Counter Apologist Blog: David Marshall & The Oppressed Faithless Disciples A Counter Apologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173218521712325250noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766213929139682844.post-80722921527281043482017-07-11T21:01:49.824-07:002017-07-11T21:01:49.824-07:00Here's a point I want to zero in on. You seem ...Here's a point I want to zero in on. You seem to be under the impression that miracles ought to be repeatable. Now, a miracle may be defined as a physical event with a supernatural cause. So here's what I want to ask you: how do we define "natural"? Because if the answer ends up being something like "amenable to the methods of science," then anything we can reliably control will end up being "natural," and thus incapable of being the cause of a miracle. Thus, the idea of "repeatable miracles" or "miracles on demand" turns out to be incoherent.Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297660669717051302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766213929139682844.post-65323240085914718882017-02-20T11:45:05.651-08:002017-02-20T11:45:05.651-08:00I could have learned something? I don't think ...I could have learned something? I don't think so, not by the quality of what you presented initially. But you wouldn't know that, because you won't even read the rest of what I have written where I get to responding to your most outrageous claims. <br /><br />And you don't get to tell me I don't have an open mind when the very next post on this blog is where I talk about how another apologist convinced me to abandon the rationality angle. <br /><br />The argument still works quite well as a rebuttal to the resurrection, but it's not enough to show irrationality of specific religious belief. <br /><br />Don't confuse your bad arguments for my refusing to learn something, it's not the same thing. A Counter Apologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15173218521712325250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766213929139682844.post-79672043865246809012017-02-20T11:05:56.092-08:002017-02-20T11:05:56.092-08:00CA: Frankly, I suspected that the appearance of ob...CA: Frankly, I suspected that the appearance of objectivity or open-mindedness in your initial post was an act. But someone asked me to answer your "questions," so I did. The first few paragraphs in this piece, which I think is all that I will read, demonstrate your insincerity quite clearly. <br /><br />"Lets get into (sic) a number of misconceptions and problems with David's rebuttal. <br /><br />"In responding to my statement about how a theist is supposed to go from mere theism to Christianity we're going to hit on the argument for the Resurrection of Jesus (sic), David writes:<br /><br />"'We're mostly on the same page so far. But I'd include the entire raw data of the gospels and the New Testament, as among the premises for "going from theism to Christianity." And also the raw data of world religions and the nature of man and, while we're at it, of the whole universe.'"<br /><br />"I'm not sure adding the entire raw data of the gospels and New Testament is going to help David's case for Christianity, after all there are demonstrably false additions to the gospel narratives (the ending of Mark 16 and drinking poison, the resurrection of saints in Jerusalem in Matthew)."<br /><br />I wouldn't blame you for not getting my point, because I didn't explain it. But if you don't get something, the worst thing you can do is just take a flying jump at guessing what I might possibly mean, and then attack whatever details you feel you can get a fix on. You're so eager to debunk, that you don't bother to try to understand what you're debunking first (say by asking) -- a sure sign of a closed mind. <br /><br />"Still, why stop at the New Testament? After all Jesus not only claimed he was "God" he claimed he was the son of Yahweh, the Jewish conception of a classical theistic god. So the Old Testament is going to be just as relevant as the New, and there are a ton of thorny problems there."<br /><br />Again, you are not even trying to understand, but are looking for a pretense to dismiss arguments that have not even yet been summarized, let alone given. <br /><br />"Also if David thinks raw data of world religions and the whole universe points specifically to the truth of Christianity in particular, well that's one hell of a whopper. About 2/3 of the worlds population is going to find that laughable."<br /><br />Now you're dismissing my life work, which you know nothing about, while simultaneously pretending to tell us how two thirds of the people on Earth would respond to my arguments! <br /><br />This is the worst kind of presumption. Do you think you know more about, say, China, a big part of that 2/3rds, than I do? Do you really think your opinion on "What the Chinese people would think of Marshall's books on China, if they all read them" is worth anything? <br /><br />I took the time to offer answers to your questions. You respond with nothing but presumption, clearly without knowing anything about my work, what I am referring to, or (I will presume myself) much about the body of facts to which my claims refer. <br /><br />I'm a teacher, and you could have learned something, if you'd been open to listen. But pretending to be open to learning something new was, clearly, merely a game you were playing to amuse yourself and waste my time. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766213929139682844.post-78981889340743684202017-02-20T10:42:18.257-08:002017-02-20T10:42:18.257-08:00Paul: Actually, I did explain why that makes a dif...Paul: Actually, I did explain why that makes a difference, and I gave the same issue, using Law's examples as fodder, several pages in Jesus is No Myth. So it's not true that I "couldn't" explain the logic: I could and I did, more than once. And indeed, the logic is obvious, and assumed (though not verbalized) by many skeptics, which is why they always focus on the most Law-like miracles in the gospels, such as Matthew's "zombie" story. So far from "odd," my basic logic is intuitively recognized by pretty much everyone, including hard-core atheists. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8766213929139682844.post-12692215153635512852017-02-19T01:55:23.049-08:002017-02-19T01:55:23.049-08:00I ran into David Marshall on Stephen Law's blo...I ran into David Marshall on <a href="http://stephenlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/published-in-faith-and-philosophy-2011.html" rel="nofollow">Stephen Law's blog</a> back in 2012, on a thread discussing Law's paper arguing that unevidenced miracle claims contaminate the whole NT story and so give us reason to distrust the NT evidence that Jesus existed (I don't think Law's argument quite works).<br /><br />It seems Marshall still has this odd belief that a miracle which is a more meaningful story or a miracle which has weigher or better consequences is more likely to be true. Back then, he was keen to distinguish Law's hypothetical miracles from those of Jesus (one was magic, the other miracle, one was not morally significant, the other was, and so on), but he couldn't explain why that would make one more likely to be true, or make us more justified in believing it, than the other. (I picked out the thread between David Marshall and myself from the many other comments on Law's blog <a href="http://www.noctua.org.uk/blog/2012/04/29/stephen-law-and-the-existence/#marshall" rel="nofollow">on my own, here</a>.)Paul Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07812075028283068443noreply@blogger.com