With comments like this. It must be a relief to be an atheist! What has this to do with the topic anyway?

Dave, this one's for you.

The resurrection chronology is not linear, as the Western reader expects; e.g., it is not necessary that all the women mentioned had the same experiences together at the same times. This Eastern nonlinear handling of time is quite common in the O.T., where prophecies move back and forth bewteen the present and future.

What a bunch of bullshit!!!!!! This is exactly what I was talking about when I said I used to teach this. I used to use this same method of explaining the contradictions of passages.
If this is the case, that prophecies move back and forth between the present and the future, how can anything in the bible be intepreted?
As a matter of fact, how can we "westerners" understand anything in the bible, since it is from the "east"?
This sounds like a trick of satan. Or maybe god is playing with you.
Dave, why would god write the most important message to the world in an ancient language, then expect people to understand it, when, as you say, we can't understand it? Does that sound logical to you? What you've just admitted, is that a person can't just pick up a bible and understand it, because they would interpret it wrong.
So much for all the bibles in the motel rooms.

The resurrection chronology is not linear, as the Western reader expects; e.g., it is not necessary that all the women mentioned had the same experiences together at the same times. This Eastern nonlinear handling of time is quite common in the O.T., where prophecies move back and forth bewteen the present and future.

Adding onto lpetrich's and Mrnaglfar's comments, I'm reminded of the conclusions of Bart Ehrman where he says that it's a mistake to try and harmonize the gospel accounts as to what happened during and after the resurrection. The accounts aren't meant to be harmonized, but are competing accounts meant to paint different pictures of Jesus to answer pagan critics. Pagans scoff at Jesus because he's not god-like enough, so Luke writes a competing account that portrays Jesus as stoic and god-like in the face of danger, doom, etc. He wasn't trying to simply show another side of Jesus, he was trying to create the legend that would live on.

In discussing Satan's deceiving, I mentioned Korem, not as a proof, but as an expert on deception who had examined the testimony for the resurrection and not found it to be deceptive.

What evidence did he examine? What was his logic behind deciding it wasn't deception (did he read the bible really hard, or perhaps he rigeriously interigated the bible)? I don't care who thinks what, I want to know WHY they think such. If people didn't have any good evidence for it, everyone on earth could believe in the resurrection but me and that still wouldn't constitute proof.

I cited various conditions for judging whether or not a miracle is from God; based on the testimony, judge for yourself whether it qualifies.

I did judge, and it didn't hold up.
For instance, as mentioned above, lets say Jesus actually was the devil in disguise, or that the devil wrote the bible; if that's the case you're shit out of luck.
Why would god even allow such things? Is he not powerful enough to put a stop to it, or maybe does he just want people to get tricked and sent to hell?
What about modern miracles (whatever those happen to be)? Don't you think satan could make the image of a girl miraclously appear on a grilled cheese sanwhich? Do satan's miracles manifest themselves below statistical significance too? Can satan do good miracles, like healing cancer or regrowning a limb (which still has yet to happen by the way)?
Of course, all those questions are redundant because you don't know. You don't know god or satan exists, you don't know miracles have occurred, you don't know any of it. You believe it, and seem to have an uncanny ability for making up any answer you want to fit.

You also never answered any of my questions before, so those still stand as well. You know, all those ones about that evidence for any of this you don't have.

The resurrection chronology is not linear, as the Western reader expects; e.g., it is not necessary that all the women mentioned had the same experiences together at the same times. This Eastern nonlinear handling of time is quite common in the O.T., where prophecies move back and forth bewteen the present and future.

You've got to be kidding me. Are you really claiming that the resurrection happened one way, then went back in time and happened another way to a different group of people, then jumped into the future again with yet another group?

I see through that line of BS like you think you see through satan's miracles. You're simply covering for yourself and your faith because you know, using the bible as your source, you cannot create a timeframe of this because *drumroll please*, it's NOT internally consistent. You'd be trying to make one story from 4 different ones that have radically different details (none of which are recorded anywhere outside the bible). You're don't have a leg to stand on, and by trying to dodge the question, you not doing anything but deceiving yourself.

That's a VERY poor argument, because other religions can make the same claim. Muslims can make that claim about the miracles of religions other than Islam, and a Pythagorean could claim that Xian miracles are caused by believing that 1 = 3.

(Parts of the Book of Mormon cribbed from Isaiah...)

Like how parts of the Bible had been cribbed from other parts, as Ebonmuse points out. In particular, the NT has lots of word-for-word quotes from the Septuagint Greek translation of the OT, and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke have word-for-word copies of much of Mark in them.

(Quotations from Bertrand Russell about David Hume...)

That was only about knowledge in general; Hume's point about the credibility of miracles is still sound. And it is only amplified with what's been learned since then. Where have all the big miracles gone?

DH: The resurrection chronology is not linear, as the Western reader expects; e.g., it is not necessary that all the women mentioned had the same experiences together at the same times. This Eastern nonlinear handling of time is quite common in the O.T., where prophecies move back and forth bewteen the present and future.

Pure special pleading -- is there ANY evidence of that outside of the Bible? Yes, OUTSIDE of the Bible.

I'm reminded of what Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said a month ago about his being behind in delegates: "I know people say that the math doesn't work out. Folks, I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in those, too."

But McCain kept getting delegates, and the score now is:
Math: 1
Miracles: 0

So Mike Huckabee ought to consider converting to Pythagoreanism, complete with believing in reincarnation and swearing off beans.

Obviously, Russell agrees with Hume on many points, but not with respect to induction. You may also wish to order Karl Popper's The Problem of Induction, since he addresses this very position by Russell, and claims to correct Hume's irrationalist consequences.

This would this be the same The Problem of Induction wherein Popper asserts:

To put it in a nutshell, Russell's desperate remark that if with Hume we reject all positive induction, 'there is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity' is mistaken. For the rejection of induction does not prevent us from preferring, say, Newton's theory to Kepler's, or Einstein's theory to Newton's: during our rational critical discussion of these theories we may have accepted the existence of counterexamples to Kepler's theory which do not refute Newton's, and of counterexamples to Newton's which do not refute Einstein's. Given the acceptance of these counterexamples we can say that Kepler's and Newton's theories are certainly false; whilst Einstein's may be true or it may be false: that we don't know. Thus there may exist purely intellectual preferences for one or the other of these theories; and we are very far from having to say with Russell that all the difference between science and lunacy disappears. Admittedly, Hume's argument still stands, and therefore the difference between a scientist and a lunatic is not that the first bases his theories securely upon observations while the second does not, or anything like that. Nevertheless we may now see that there may be a difference: it may be that the lunatic's theory is easily refutable by observation, while the scientist's theory has withstood severe tests.

What the scientist's and the lunatic's theories have in common is that both belong to conjectural knowledge. But some conjectures are much better than others; and this is a sufficient answer to Russell, and it is sufficient to avoid radical scepticism. For since it is possible for some conjectures to be preferable to others, it is also possible for our conjectural knowledge to improve, and to grow. (Of course, it is possible that a theory that is preferred to another at one time may fall out of favour at a later time so that the other is now preferred to it. But, on the other hand, this may not happen.)

We may prefer some competing theories to others on purely rational grounds. It is important that we are clear what the principles of preference or selection are.

You need to appeal to authorities that support your over-arching point. In Knowledge Without Authority Popper has this to say about eyewitness testimony:

As to eyewitnesses, they are important almost exclusively in a court of law where they can be cross-examined. As most lawyers know, eyewitnesses often err. This has been experimentally investigated, with the most striking results. Witnesses most anxious to describe an event as it happened are liable to make scores of mistakes, especially if some exciting things happen in a hurry; and if an event suggests some tempting interpretation, then this interpretation, more often than not, is allowed to distort what has actually been seen.

He then goes on to elaborate a system of empirical enquiry:

(1) There are no ultimate sources of knowledge. Every source, every suggestion, is welcome; and every source, every suggestion, is open to critical examination. Except in history, we usually examine the facts themselves rather than the sources of our information.

(2) The proper epistemological question is not one about sources; rather, we ask whether the assertion made is true - that is to say, whether it agrees with the facts. (That we may operate, without getting involved in antinomies, with the idea of objective truth in the sense of correspondence to the facts, has been shown by the work of Alfred Tarski.) And we try to find this out, as well as we can, by examining or testing the assertion itself; either in a direct way, or by examining or testing its consequences.

(3) In connection with this examination, all kinds of arguments may be relevant. A typical procedure is to examine whether our theories are consistent with our observations. But we may also examine, for example, whether our historical sources are mutually and internally consistent.

(4) Quantitatively and qualitatively by far the most important source of our knowledge - apart from inborn knowledge - is tradition. Most things we know we have learnt by example, by being told, by reading books, by learning how to criticize, how to take and to accept criticism, how to respect truth.

(5) The fact that most of the sources of our knowledge are traditional condemns anti-traditionalism as futile. But this fact must not be held to support a traditionalist attitude: every bit of our traditional knowledge (and even our inborn knowledge) is open to critical examination and may be overthrown. Nevertheless, without tradition, knowledge would be impossible.

(6) Knowledge cannot start from nothing - from a tabula rasa - nor yet from observation. The advance of knowledge consists, mainly, in the modification of earlier knowledge. Although we may sometimes, for example in archaeology, advance through a chance observation, the significance of the discovery will usually depend upon its power to modify our earlier theories.

(7) Pessimistic and optimistic epistemologies are about equally mistaken. The pessimistic cave story of Plato is the true one, and not his optimistic story of anamnesis (even though we should admit that all men, like all other animals, and even all plants, possess inborn knowledge). But although the world of appearances is indeed a world of mere shadows on the walls of our cave, we all constantly reach out beyond it; and although, as Democritus said, the truth is hidden in the deep, we can probe into the deep. There is no criterion of truth at our disposal, and this fact supports pessimism. But we do possess criteria which, if we are lucky, may allow us to recognize error and falsity. Clarity and distinctness are not criteria of truth, but such things as obscurity or confusion may indicate error. Similarly coherence cannot establish truth, but incoherence and inconsistency do establish falsehood. And, when they are recognized, our own errors provide the dim red lights which help us in groping our way out of the darkness of our cave.

(8) Neither observation nor reason is an authority. Intellectual intuition and imagination are most important, but they are not reliable: they may show us things very clearly, and yet they may mislead us. They are indispensable as the main sources of our theories; but most of our theories are false anyway. The most important function of observation and reasoning, and even of intuition and imagination, is to help us in the critical examination of those bold conjectures which are the means by which we probe into the unknown.

(9) Every solution of a problem raises new unsolved problems; the more so the deeper the original problem and the bolder its solution. The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance - the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

@ Dave

I cited various conditions for judging whether or not a miracle is from God; based on the testimony, judge for yourself whether it qualifies.

You appear to be missing my point by several lightyears.

I'm surprised that someone who claims to have read Popper could be so clueless about minimum acceptable standards of proof for empirical claims.

There is no testimony in the example you gave. It's an anecdote, presented on the internet without attribution or corroboration. You've put it in the "win" column and even marked it down as evidence from 3 eyewitnesses.

I cited various conditions for judging whether or not a miracle is from God; based on the testimony, judge for yourself whether it qualifies.

You'll have to do better, because nowhere in your verses from answer 3 (and I looked at them all) did you cite anything that tells you how to tell the difference between a miracle from god and one from the devil. The only passages I know of are in Deut (I believe) that talk about false prophets, where god says that if a prophet says he speaks for god and he's right, then he does speak for god. If he's wrong, then he's a liar trying to deceive and should be stoned. If he says he speaks for other gods and he's wrong, then he's a liar and should be stoned. If he is right, then god actually gave him the ability to prophecy but put him there as a test for others to see if they would follow these other gods and the false prophet should be stoned for being right and attributing it to other gods. Hopefully even you can see the problems inherent in that.

Mrnaglfar got it right and it's such a simple knock-down argument. You can't tell whether god or the devil is involved in any miracle that you assess. You think the Bible was written by god? How do you know it wasn't written by the devil as the greatest deception of all? You don't and you have no way of knowing. Jesus might have been the devil himself - both are referred to as the "morning star". Again, you have no way of knowing. Or, maybe one of the previous immaculately conceived persons that was resurrected that you think the devil made up was the actual Messiah, and the devil made up Jesus to trick people like you. Then again, maybe it's all Loki having a poke at you and laughing at your expense the whole time. Again, you can't ever know or be sure...you can't even provide a shred of evidence.

I understand that this cuts both ways, so I will say that, in the "miracles" I have examined, such as the angel Moroni's revelation to Joseph Smith of the golden plates that formed the basis for the Book of Mormon, I find the evidence much less conclusive than for the resurrection. For example, did you know that significant portions of the KJV translation of Isaiah appear in the Book of Mormon, complete with translation errors (see, e.g., this article)? With regard to Mohammed receiving the Quran directly from Allah, his experience does not compare well with how O.T. prophets respected by Muslims received their testimony (see, e.g., this article). In my opinion, the testimony for the character of Jesus Christ is also superior to that of either Smith or Mohammed.

There's so much wrong with this passage....where do I begin?

How can you assert that the resurrection of an individual in which there are serious doubts that this individual actually existed is better attested to than the "miraculous" actions of people that we know existed? We know Joseph Smith and Mohammed existed, we can't say the same for Jesus. In order to Jesus to have been resurrected, wouldn't we first have to know that he was alive? Also, didn't Moses receive personal communiques with god just as Mohammed is said to have done? Oops.

Despite all the miracles recorded in the O.T., believing in Yahweh does not necessarily translate into accepting that He spoke predictive prophecy through His prophets.

That much is true, but what you are claiming is akin to the claims of creationists that scientists are all lying or denying the obvious evidence for creationism when they accept that evolution is the best explanation we have for the diversity of life on the planet. IOW, your accusations against these textual critics - that they all deny a priori the power of god to have followers prophecy which leads them to a bad conclusion about Isaiah's authorship - is unsubstantiated and so absurd as to be laughable. There are differences in the writing which were picked up by the scholars as well as other pieces of evidence. Your evidence consists of arguments of the type that later Jews were unaware of multiple authors (like the gospel writers) so there must have been only one. This argument is laughable and I can't believe you would seriously use it here.

Regarding young-age creationism, this is not the forum to discuss it, but I'll make this comment in reply to your disparaging remark...Yes, I've read Dawkins' article on "honest creationist" Wise, and would agree that faith is also necessary, but I do not completely agree with his position.

First off, debates don't determine what is or is not science. Second, if faith is required, then it ain't science. Third, creationism, really? You are aware of the overwhelming evidence for an Earth that is about 4.5 billion years old aren't you? You're also aware of the problems associated with the Creation account, right?

Well, to that last one you probably aren't. You seem to be very well read on the apologetic side of things and have swallowed it all hook, line, and sinker. The misarguments in the apologetics side are widely cited and read, but most don't know how bad the arguments can be. For instance, you probably weren't aware that the Exodus didn't happen. If you take Barker's challenge, you probably will use Mark 16:9 and the rest of the story (I hope you are at least aware that that is a late addition). Anyway, creationism has serious problems, like how the Earth repopulated with the diversity present after Noah's flood (which in itself is stolen from ealier mythologies). If you can explain that bit, then maybe you'll have a chance, but that's a knock-down argument that is insurmountable for creationists.

It is obvious you are never going to see the light of reason, logic, or clear thought and therefor it accomplishes nothing to talk with you further.

By all means, stop reponding to my posts, since your practice of logic appears limited to ad hominem attacks, which are a waste of everyone's time. In discussing Satan's deceiving, I mentioned Korem, not as a proof, but as an expert on deception who had examined the testimony for the resurrection and not found it to be deceptive.

heliobates,

So the "hand of Jesus" that fed the "scholar's" wife and daughter—was that a real or a counterfeit miracle, and how, specifically, do you know?

I cited various conditions for judging whether or not a miracle is from God; based on the testimony, judge for yourself whether it qualifies.

This is discussed nowhere online. Even the Stanford archives are silent on this issue and I strongly doubt that if Russell really took aim at Hume then the apologists would be the only ones who noticed.

To the contrary, check your search engine again; there are many references to that quote. See more context below. Obviously, Russell agrees with Hume on many points, but not with respect to induction. You may also wish to order Karl Popper's The Problem of Induction, since he addresses this very position by Russell, and claims to correct Hume's irrationalist consequences.

Ebon,
The quote is from Russell's discussion of Hume's problems with induction (Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin: London, Second Edition, reprint, 1993, pp.645-646). Here's some more following the quote I previously gave:

Even in his most sceptical chapter, in which he sums up the conclusions of Book I, he says: 'Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous: those in philosophy only ridiculous.' He has no right to say this. 'Dangerous' is a causal word, and a sceptic as to causation cannot know that anything is 'dangerous'. In fact, in the later portions of the Treatise, Hume forgets all about his fundamental doubts, and writes much as any other enlightened moralist of his time might have written; he applies to his doubts the remedy that he recommends, namely 'carelessness and inattention'. In a sense, his scepticism is insincere, since he cannot maintain it in practice. It has, however, this awkward consequence, that it paralyses every effort to prove one line of action better than another.

Regarding the Zechariah misquote in Matthew, possibilties are a copyist's error in transcribing the name, or that Matthew is seeing Zechariah's prophecy as a continuation of Jeremiah's prophecy in chapter 19. However, the the exact recording of the KJV translation errors into the Book of Mormon is not a case of mistaken translation by Joseph Smith.

I'll read Barker's essay, but expect he doesn't raise any new objections which have not been answered already. The resurrection chronology is not linear, as the Western reader expects; e.g., it is not necessary that all the women mentioned had the same experiences together at the same times. This Eastern nonlinear handling of time is quite common in the O.T., where prophecies move back and forth bewteen the present and future.

If your quote is an accurate representation of Russell's position, then Russell was simply wrong: Hume obviously does believe that one can learn things from observation.

I've ordered A History of Western Philosophy so that I can read that passage in context. I'm not suggesting that an apologist would ever "quote mine" [cough cough], but I find it hard to accept that this would be Russell's final word on the philosopher who had such a massive impact on him.

This is discussed nowhere online. Even the Stanford archives are silent on this issue and I strongly doubt that if Russell really took aim at Hume then the apologists would be the only ones who noticed. I suspect that this apparently damning paragraph will turn out to be something like Darwin's supposed admission that the human eye could not have evolved. Seen in context the quote probably intends to convey a completely different message.

I continue to mention the Biblical record, because it is valid internal evidence for those who do not accept only the extreme view espoused by Hume.

Hume's "extreme" view is simply that a lesser quantity of evidence cannot outweigh a greater quantity of evidence. Granted, I can see why this would be a problematic view for a theist who believes in miracles to accept.

Even atheist Bertrand Russell, often lumped with Hume as a skeptic, wrote this in his History of Western Philosophy:

If your quote is an accurate representation of Russell's position, then Russell was simply wrong: Hume obviously does believe that one can learn things from observation. I quoted a paragraph written by him in which he explained the kind of evidence it would take to persuade a reasonable person that there had been a miraculous darkness over all the earth. In a different part of the book, he also explains how the existence of ice could be proved to a person who lived in a tropical climate and had never experienced conditions cold enough for water to freeze.

For example, did you know that significant portions of the KJV translation of Isaiah appear in the Book of Mormon, complete with translation errors (see, e.g., this article)?

There's nothing unusual about that: the New Testament likewise quotes significant portions of the Old Testament, but in some cases misinterprets them or otherwise gets them wrong. For example, the author of Matthew makes an erroneous claim about who wrote a particular OT verse:

"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me." (27:9-10)

But the verse Matthew was referring to is actually in Zechariah, not Jeremiah:

"And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." (11:13)

None of us have studied every miracle that has been reported, but I stand with former skeptics Dr. Simon Greenleaf, Gilbert West, Frank Morison (Who Moved the Stone?), and C.S. Lewis as one who finds the testimony for the resurrection to be credible.

If that's really your position, then I have a simple challenge for you. Dan Barker's essay "Leave No Stone Unturned" explains what it consists of:

In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.

It seems to me that, for the resurrection to be credible, one of the most basic conditions is that the accounts which we have of it do not contradict each other. Do you think you can do this? If so, I'll create a new open thread for it.