When Skeptics Disagree Does This Mean Anything Significant?
Skeptics reject the existence of God and the authority of the Bible. But that's where the agreement ends for many of us. Evangelical Christians exploit this to their advantage. They argue that once we reject God's existence we no longer can have a firm moral compass embedded in a firm foundation. They also argue that unless we believe the testimonies to the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament we cannot come to any better explanation of the evidence because there is no better explanation of the evidence. In other words, Christians argue that the reason why skeptics cannot agree with each other once we reject God and the Bible is because there are no better explanations for morality and the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus than what they claim. In fact, they'll go on to argue that unless skeptics can agree on such things then it means any skeptical alternative explanation is accepted by us simply because once we reject God and the Bible then we will embrace any alternative explanation. But this is emphatically NOT the case at all.
When it comes to a proper foundation to morality even Christians disagree among themselves. Catholics embrace Natural Law Ethics whereas Protestants have embraced Divine Command Theories, Modified Divine Command Theories, the Deontological Ethics of Kant, Situation Ethics, and Utilitarianism. Christians have also disagreed with themselves over all of the ethical issues in our day. What's the Christian position about abortion under the law? There isn't one. Never has. So why should skeptics have to agree if Christians can't? If agreement among skeptics is an strong indicator of the truth then shouldn't agreement among Christians be considered likewise? In fact, if Christians have in their hands the very words of God then a case can be made that disagreement among Christians is a much stronger indicator that they are wrong to think the Bible is God's word.
When it comes to the so-called testimonial evidence in the New Testament regarding the resurrection of Jesus, I want you to think of a court trial. The jury may acquit the accused without having any clue who did the crime. The evidence is there to make a decision that someone did not do something, but the evidence may not be there for them all to agree on who did it. Likewise the evidence is there to make a decision that Jesus did not bodily arise from the grave, but the evidence may not be there to for these same people to agree on exactly what happened, if anything happened at all.
That's basically all that needs to be said against this ignorant Christian claim. I'll let others fill in the details below.
When it comes to a proper foundation to morality even Christians disagree among themselves. Catholics embrace Natural Law Ethics whereas Protestants have embraced Divine Command Theories, Modified Divine Command Theories, the Deontological Ethics of Kant, Situation Ethics, and Utilitarianism. Christians have also disagreed with themselves over all of the ethical issues in our day. What's the Christian position about abortion under the law? There isn't one. Never has. So why should skeptics have to agree if Christians can't? If agreement among skeptics is an strong indicator of the truth then shouldn't agreement among Christians be considered likewise? In fact, if Christians have in their hands the very words of God then a case can be made that disagreement among Christians is a much stronger indicator that they are wrong to think the Bible is God's word.
When it comes to the so-called testimonial evidence in the New Testament regarding the resurrection of Jesus, I want you to think of a court trial. The jury may acquit the accused without having any clue who did the crime. The evidence is there to make a decision that someone did not do something, but the evidence may not be there for them all to agree on who did it. Likewise the evidence is there to make a decision that Jesus did not bodily arise from the grave, but the evidence may not be there to for these same people to agree on exactly what happened, if anything happened at all.
That's basically all that needs to be said against this ignorant Christian claim. I'll let others fill in the details below.
16 comments:
Loftus,
Skeptics disagree on vital facts that surround the resurrection. They cannot mount a unified case against it.
Christians agree on much more than they disagree. They are much more unified than the skeptics.
JK
Well, I would hope that skeptics have more diversified opinions than Christians, or else I would worry very much about skepticism.
"Christians agree on much more than they disagree."
I'm not a Christian, so I don't have first-hand knowledge of this.
Perhaps I'll go ask some Christians. Should I ask within Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Nontrinitarianism, or Nestorianism?
I believe that NonStampCollector weighed in on this issue.
"Skeptics disagree on vital facts that surround the resurrection. They cannot mount a unified case against it."
What is needed to mount? The only evidence that supports the resurrection is a story in a book. There isn't even historical evidence of Jesus' existence, let alone his resurrection. No records or accounts anywhere outside of the biblical stories which were written circa 30+ years after his supposed death.
Before you get to talk about mounting something 'against' the resurrection, it might be a good idea to actually explain why we should think it happened at all?
What about Hinduism? Zoroastrianism? The Greek Pantheon? These have just as much 'evidence' as the resurrection - stories.
"Skeptics disagree on vital facts that surround the resurrection. They cannot mount a unified case against it."
Please explain to me how the resurrection story having more, rather than less, points of contention by skeptics makes it more plausible.
"Skeptics reject the existence of God and the Bible."
Who rejects the existence of the Bible?
MKR, aren't YOU cute. Now I am too.
"Who rejects the existence of the Bible?"
Postmodernists?
Wouldn't this be the "tu quoque" ad hom? Skeptics & atheists point out the disagreement amongst the 1,000 or so sects of Christianity as evidence that God isn't quite as omnipotent as advertised (or else he'd be less ambiguous). So the tu quoque would be "Oh yeah? Well youse guyse don't agree either so there!" *raspberry*
My Lady A, in chapter 7 of The Christian Delusion I argue why the lack of agreement among Christians is a far more serious problem than disagreement among skeptics could ever be. So it is not a "You Too" fallacy. If God authored the Bible then the fact that Christians disagree means God is not a very good communicator.
Cheers.
With all the Apologetic arguments about the "Facts" of the Resurrection... Christians can't even agree on which tomb in Jerusalem was actually Jesus' tomb.
Both tombs proposed have historical issues which count against them... so most likely neither one of them are actually the tomb of "Jesus"...
Maybe he did go to India, or maybe James Cameron is right... lol.
But seriously, What is the official Christian answer for where is the Tomb of Jesus?
Skeptics don't have an industrial edifice to pound orthodoxy into their heads, at least nothing close to what believers have. Skeptics don't engage in repetitive rituals in groups, have little fly spaghetti monsters on their yellow pages ads, don't claim to belong to a group apart from the fallen world, don't have an alternative merchandising and retail network to peddle orthodoxy to them, don't receive tax breaks , don't have a specialized language that confirms and protect group affiliation.
Skeptics don't have a system of Pavlovian rewards and punishments set up to maintain orthodoxy, so yeah, it's less likely they'd agree on everything.
As a naturalist of sorts (an eclectic Stoic), I would like to point out that it is hard to see how a mechanistic naturalism could provide an ontological foundation for objective moral values. The issue is not epistemological (how do we know what meta-ethical structure is internally coherent and true), but ontological (does one's metaphysical framework allow for the existence of intrinsic goods?). A Christian might argue that they could provide a metaphysical account of intrinsic goods or at least provide reasons why it would be in one's (very vulgar and base) self-interest to obey God's arbitrary(?) commands.
The fact that skeptics disagree about everything points to the fact that skepticism is an absurd philosophical position which could be a cover for intellectual laziness and lack of integrity. We all know that we have faculties greater than the flesh and that our sensory faculties are generally trustworthy; a skeptic can not provide a metaphysical framework which accounts for these facts.
"We all know that we have faculties greater than the flesh..."
Such as?
"that our sensory faculties are generally trustworthy"
They are?
Greg:
When you eat, do you often stab your eye with your fork? No? Why not?
Do you fall down a lot when walking up and down stairs? No? I guess your sensory faculties work pretty darn well.
If you do not have "reason," there's no point in conversing with a zombie. And if you do, you are simply being intellectually dishonest. What are the metaphysical conditions necessary for us to have this conversation? (Think presuppositional apologetics; Epictetus was way better at it than any Christian apologist.)
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