Posted: Dec 16, 2011 6:41 am
There were a couple of other items from jlowder's blog that I had originally wanted to address but didn't. Now that he's here to address these points in person I thought I'd go ahead and bring up my objections. I'm only addressing 1 and 5 because the others, aside from 10 which I previously brought up, just seem like petty strawmen and not worth addressing.
The problem I have with this claim is that I can't think of a single God claim for which there are only "far-fetched or speculative" reasons to doubt. Every one I've ever encountered all have massive holes and flaws that I can't get past before having to worry about the far-fetched or speculative doubts. Your claim puts the cart before the horse. Even if some atheist focus too much on the minor reasons to doubt God claims that doesn't erase the fact that there are still very major reasons to doubt them. To overlook those major reasons and complain about some people pointing out minor reasons is as I said above just a petty strawman.
My objection to this point is not about whether or not there is reason to think a historical Jesus could have existed. My objection is to the specail pleading for how the NT is treated in regards to empirical claims. The bible is a book of fiction, something even most Christians and theologians accept and acknowledge. There may be bits of historical truth in it, but for no other fiction do we expect empirical claims to be taken on face value without some other source to confirm their accuracy. Tom Sawyer contains many historically accurate empirical claims. Yet you would expect a non-fiction source to validate the historical accuracy of those claims. There very well may have been a historical Tom Sawyer but you wouldn't accept at face value even the most modest claims as being historically accurate without some other source. So why treat the Bible differently?
jlowder wrote:1. Any reason for doubt, no matter how far-fetched or speculative, is sufficient for avoiding the conclusion that God exists. For example, even if we don't have the first clue about physics or cosmology, posit the mere possibility of the existence of multiple universes in order to avoid the theistic conclusion of the probabilistic fine-tuning argument for God's existence. This isn't like an American criminal trial where we expect the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." We expect theists to prove God exists beyond any doubt.
The problem I have with this claim is that I can't think of a single God claim for which there are only "far-fetched or speculative" reasons to doubt. Every one I've ever encountered all have massive holes and flaws that I can't get past before having to worry about the far-fetched or speculative doubts. Your claim puts the cart before the horse. Even if some atheist focus too much on the minor reasons to doubt God claims that doesn't erase the fact that there are still very major reasons to doubt them. To overlook those major reasons and complain about some people pointing out minor reasons is as I said above just a petty strawman.
jlowder wrote:
5. Require extrabiblical evidence for relatively modest empirical claims in the NT such as the historicity of Jesus, as if there were anything extraordinary about the New Testament Jesus being based upon a real historical individual.
My objection to this point is not about whether or not there is reason to think a historical Jesus could have existed. My objection is to the specail pleading for how the NT is treated in regards to empirical claims. The bible is a book of fiction, something even most Christians and theologians accept and acknowledge. There may be bits of historical truth in it, but for no other fiction do we expect empirical claims to be taken on face value without some other source to confirm their accuracy. Tom Sawyer contains many historically accurate empirical claims. Yet you would expect a non-fiction source to validate the historical accuracy of those claims. There very well may have been a historical Tom Sawyer but you wouldn't accept at face value even the most modest claims as being historically accurate without some other source. So why treat the Bible differently?