On eye witnesses testimony as evidence

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^^^

The article presupposes naturalism (that nothing outside of the universe exists, though there are other definitions, it's pretty subjective). From there it centers all of it's epistemological (how we can and do justifiably know things) argument on naturalism. However naturalism cannot itself be grounded in itself. So the argument against theism, in this case, becomes circular. Basically the article assumes itself to be correct and proceeds from there.

For a crude example. If you are convicted of an offense and all of the evidence is against you, but you happen to be innocent. Under the vereficationist view, you are required to believe that you are guilty, since belief in your innocence is not properly basic. This is a bit of an absurdity, since obviously, you are allowed to believe yourself innocent, without any evidence aside from your faculties, should you have no reason to doubt them.

Naturalism to me is a bit like a bricklayer concluding that houses cannot be made from wood. It assumes it's own instruments to be exhaustive and sees any evidence of things that are untestable as illusory.

The author clearly said he's willing to believe in a supernatural God if God does this and that. I don't see how that would be naturalism if he's ready to accept that supernatural things do happen in this world.

And about your example, unfortunately, if all the evidence that the jury sees is against that innocent person, then there's nothing the innocent person can do about it. But I disagree that the innocent person is not allowed to believe that he's innocent. But then again, I don't see how the article suggests either verificationism or naturalism.

For a quite spcific example of naturalism, look at what the author says about rising from the dead. His comments, essentially state that since man has never spontaneously risen (he then cites some info about how brain death tends to be the end) that there for it is unlikely that Christ would have. This is essentially comparing apples to oranges. A Christian theist has no problem beleving and accepting that bodies do not spontaneously revive when the person is dead. This is almost certainly Impossible. However the answer is restricted essentially to the naturalistic position. An omnipotent God would have no problem raising someone from the dead. One does not need a demonstration of the fact, in order for it to be rationally believed. If one believes in God and believes that Christ is God, then it is highly possible that he should revive, far more than the alternative.

So unless it can be proven that Christ is not God, a Christian is perfectly warranted in believing innhis resurrection, regardless of eyewitness testimony. Essentially, it approaches the question as if the non-natural answer is always the least likely and that one is not warranted (to a Chrisitan, who has the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, which under Reformed Epistemology, is an objective truth, the idea that Christ being God is the least likely and least warranted position is absurd) in inferring miracles unless all natural answers are logically untenable (see his statements relating to the worm and the fish).

The passage removes the warrant attached to Christian epistemology and instead addresses the question from a logical position of verification.

On eye witnesses testimony as evidence - Well, shortly after Elvis Presley died, it was reported Elvis was sighted by far more witnesses than those in the New Testament who were said to have seen Jesus after Jesus died at the hands of the local Jerusalem politicians. In Jesus's time, eyeglasses weren't invented so who knows how great the vision was of the locals there? In Elvis's time, there can be a lot of sensory overload going on with witnesses such as the present of casinos and gambling tables and slot machines in Las Vegas, so who knows for sure about the sightings of Elvis and/or Jesus Christ? There is only one thing a person can be sure of: if it's reported in writing by a newspaper or in the Bible or appears somewhere on the Internet/www, it's must be true - right? Faux sources for the believed undisputable truth of the previous statements: Saturday Night Live TV show, Mad magazine, the Onion literary magazine, the Rumor Mill, statements given by Homer Simpson under oath, etc. Other words: attempted humor, humor, irony, satire, nonsense, etc.

Even if God exists, we still haven't seen any conclusive evidence that God allows miracles to happen in this world.

And we still don't have conclusive evidence that Jesus is God.

Just because one rejects supernatural acts doesn't necessarily mean he's a pure naturalist. Maybe it's because of a lack of evidence.



Christian epistemology is flawed, man.

Simple epistemology is the way to go. It's not perfect, but it's the most fair and most reasonable position to take.

MCalavera:


Easy. A person who completely dies in front of us and then is supernaturally resurrected in front of us would be extremely good evidence. It'll mean that we should strongly reconsider what we initially thought about the Biblical account of Jesus' resurrection as skeptics.

This is not anecdotal eyewitness testimony? You will rule out all possibility of delusion, substance ingestion effects, or misseeing? AND how are you recognizing the "supernatural"?

AND, by implication, God needs to ensure everybody gets to witness a resurrection?

Your ordinary epistemology is slipping here.

"Simple epistemology is the way to go. It's not perfect, but it's the most fair and most reasonable position to take."

FAIR?

Forget that you do not define the differences between "simple epistemology" and other varieties - is this something every schoolkid knoweth?

I will not take you to task on "most reasonable" - though that is almighty subjective.

But -- FAIR?

Could you expand on how one mode is more fair than another, and to whom?

@MCalavera

On the question of miracles, they are difficult to believe in, that's kind of the point. If they have a separate explanation and are as obviously miraculous as the smiles of children on Christmas day, then the naturalist proclaims, this is not a miracle. In this case, he cannot see the forest for the trees. If however, it does not have an obvious answer, the naturalist denies it exists. The naturalist defines miracles as the things we have not been explained. I myself make no such distinction. I do however quietly smile to myself when they then proceed to attack me over the God of the gaps.

As to your statements about epistemology, an unsupported statement on the subject could be interpreted as a joke.

I suggest you check out some reformed epistemology by Alvin Plantinga before you describe the whole lot as flawed.

Different accounts of the Ressurection were written decades after the event was supposed to have taken place. The testimony is unreliable and there is only one source: The Gospels which were composed by people who definitely had an Observers Bias if they were there at all to see. And if they were not, it is hearsay and not worth anything as direct testimony.

The fact of the matter is that dead, maimed human beings do not rise from their graves three days after they are killed.

So, either Jesus was not a human being or Jesus was not killed or the whole business is a made up story.

ruveyn

Or... do they?

No they don't.

ruveyn

I didn't say anything wrong about what was presented. The only thing I was somewhat critical of was the worm. Even then... I am backsliding on my position on the worm somewhat, so I don't think that point of disagreement is strong. This argument is sweeping, it is solid, but it knocks LOTS AND LOTS of stuff off of the table.

I read it again. There is no verificationism. The author is promoting naturalism, but the author isn't holding it much as a presumption so much as just an outcome of what is experienced by individuals. The author is basically presenting an argument very much like Hume's argument against miracles.

Verificationism is a philosophy focused on verifying something is true. It both requires the idea that we can verify along with the requirement to verify to consider something valid. It has a few problems, but is really quite irrelevant to the discussion. This is really all about Hume's argument against miracles, so any talk of anything else is a bit of a red herring, as Hume's argument is still considered discussion-worthy with people both for it and against. (that being said, we don't even need anything outright like Hume's argument, just a probability assessment of miraculous claims)

Bayesian is a reference to a form of statistical reasoning in which probabilities of something given changing conditions are calculated.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 02 Feb 2011, 8:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The closest the author gets to presupposing naturalism is with the example of the giant worm compared to the standard he used for miracle claims. This is a point where I can see a presupposition existing which is why I had minor issue with that presentation, but beyond that, there is no presupposition of naturalism, but rather this is just a very straight-forward presentation of something very much akin to Hume's argument against miracles. There are regular truths we rely on, and things that violate those accepted truths have to have strong evidence to believe them, and certain evidence is insufficient. This does not really get into your problems with naturalism.


Hunh?? You are deeply confused. Verificationism is not about that kind of a situation, especially given that your experiences would count as a verification of your innocence. Non-verification ACTUALLY opens the door for being required to believe that you are guilty because of the weight of that evidence MORE THAN verificationism does, as with verificationism, you can verify your innocence, but without verification, you have to accept the weight of the facts towards your guilt as valid. (note: You can have verification without verificationism)

That being said, it may in fact be plausible that you are mistaken on your innocence or guilt in a situation. Not bloody likely, but still, we can imagine human beings as possibly being in that position.


Or it may be a bricklayer concluding that houses cannot be made out of imagination. If one analogy is valid then so is the other, at least without presupposing that supernaturalism is true. Naturalism is not absurd, but rather well-founded, and I cannot even begin to imagine what kind of reasoning you employ when engaging the topic. Hopefully something better than your reasoning about verificationism, which was not about what you imagined it was about, as you somehow missed that the root of the idea is "verify".

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 02 Feb 2011, 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd say that the problem is pretty universal actually. You see, all you are creating is a bit of a circle: God is presumed as the requirement for Christ's resurrection, and Christ's resurrection is presumed to be the proof of God, but the issue is that if one isn't presuming God in the first place, one can't even enter this entire circle.

Even though I can see your point on the author's comment here, all that you are contesting is a phrasing issue by saying "Naturalism!!", as the general experience that people don't rise from the dead is still universal, and that does not require a naturalistic scientific basis. As such, because a resurrection violates our background knowledge SO STRONGLY, we have to have very solid evidence.


I am assuming that you are arguing that the resurrection isn't standing on itself as a claim, but rather standing upon a religious experience?

That being said, the internal evidence that Christ is not God already exists. Christ lacks certain divine characteristics such as omniscience. The trinity does not cohere well. The incarnation does not cohere well. Arguments that Christ is not God are found within Michael Martin's book "The Case Against Christianity".

Even further, I actually DON'T think that there is some ability for a person to verify this kind of truth, nor do I think a person is justified in presuming something is true because they feel it to be true. Memories can be false. Perceptions can be false. What makes anybody so certain that their inner-sense is true, especially if that inner-sense is in part a socially constructed experience, and one that has many subjective qualities.



I think you know how to spout off something an apologetic source has written, but I don't think you know anything about what the hell you are talking about in philosophy. There is no verificationism, this is a straight-forward presentation of Hume's argument against miracles. The author's point could probably be restated in Bayesian reasoning, and Bayesian reasoning is not "verificationism" at all, but rather it is statistical in nature. You are just deeply confused.