![\"Wotan\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2015\/11\/Wotan.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWotan chases after Br\u00fcnnhilde.\u00a0Illustration to Richard Wagner\u2019s opera,\u00a0<\/span>Das Rheingold <\/span><\/i>(1910), by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n I wrote the following remarks on an enormously popular atheist thread: Jesus never existed<\/a>. Words of atheist TheMarsCydonia<\/a> will be in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/span><\/p>\n This [denial of Jesus\u2019 historical existence] is a ridiculous position; intellectual suicide; held by virtually no scholars who would be in a position to know. I never bother arguing it with anyone (just as I don\u2019t waste time on equally silly geocentrist or flat-earth arguments), but I have collected man<\/span>y refutations of the position from scholars<\/a>.<\/p>\n [second section: \u201cJesus: Historical Support\u201d]<\/span><\/p>\n It was obviously a timely thing to collect these resources, so I could give the thousands who eat up this nonsense the \u201cother side of the coin\u201d (should they be open-minded enough to examine it).<\/span><\/p>\n Since you have argued a number of times that the difference between a reasonable position and an irrational position is the number of \u201cserious thinkers\u201d that adhere to it, could you answer the question I previously asked but to which you were too busy to respond other than with a \u201cI\u2019m too busy to respond\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n How many \u201cserious thinkers\u201d does it take for a position to go from irrational to reasonable?<\/span><\/p>\n Technically, it requires none, as a thing can be true that is held by one person in the world, or even none. This can quickly descend to the genetic fallacy<\/a> or ad populum<\/em> fallacy<\/a>.<\/span> When Einstein brilliantly conceived the theory of relativity in his head, he may quite possibly have been the only person in the world<\/em> (or even the history of the world) who believed in such a thing. Yet it appears to be a true description of external reality, and was later verified by empirical observation. Wotan chases after Br\u00fcnnhilde.\u00a0Illustration to Richard Wagner\u2019s opera,\u00a0Das Rheingold (1910), by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons] * * * I wrote the following remarks on an enormously popular atheist thread: Jesus never existed. Words of atheist TheMarsCydonia will be in blue. * * * * * This [denial of Jesus\u2019 historical existence] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":4569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,112],"tags":[267,258,328,1459,1460,1458,1410,1457,119,1456,253,1455],"class_list":["post-4568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-agnosticism","category-philosophy-science","tag-agnosticism","tag-atheism","tag-epistemology","tag-fables","tag-fairy-tales","tag-legends","tag-mythicism","tag-myths","tag-philosophy-of-religion","tag-science-christianity","tag-theistic-arguments","tag-theistic-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"\n
But numbers of scholars, etc. believing something is not utterly<\/em>\u00a0irrelevant<\/em>\u00a0as a consideration. I wish, for example, that I had a dollar for every time I have heard an atheist argue that \u201cAll <\/strong><\/em>scientists believe in evolution.\u201d They obviously think that this is some sort of ace-in-the-hole against the creationist (and I am not an anti-evolutionist; I\u2019m a critic of scientific materialism and attempted exclusion of God altogether).<\/span>
That said, when we come to this subject, it is<\/em>\u00a0relevant to note that virtually all historians casually accept the fact of the historical Jesus. Many of those, of course, would or could deny that He claimed to be God or was God, which enters the realm of theology (though the claims themselves are a matter of historiographical research). But they believe He existed. Therefore, for folks to come around and deny it is rather an uphill climb, to put it mildly. The overwhelming evidence (even if we only look at completely \u201cnon-religious\u201d opinions of historians, archaeologists and other academics), lies with His existence.<\/span>
I\u2019ve also appealed to scholars (particularly historical philosophers) pertaining to the question of God\u2019s existence, as you know. That was specifically in reply to the common atheist (ludicrous, asinine) charge that belief in God is no different in kind from belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, leprechauns, unicorns, the man in the moon, Peter Pan (did I leave any of the favorites out?).<\/span>
So when asked, \u201cwhat\u2019s the difference?\u201d I appealed to the obvious fact that there is a huge body of literature in philosophy (again, not even counting religious thought) whereby\u00a0many extremely intelligent people<\/a> have argued within philosophy that the existence of God is quite plausible<\/a>, and the best interpretation of reality.<\/span>
There is no such body of literature for Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, leprechauns, unicorns, the man in the moon, and Peter Pan. And that is a huge difference that cannot, I think, be blithely dismissed or itself ridiculed.<\/span>
But let\u2019s be clear: I\u2019m not\u00a0<\/em>arguing that \u201cx is true because large numbers of smart people believe it.\u201d Baldly stated like that, this would be the ad populum<\/em> fallacy and not persuasive to anyone familiar with classical logic.<\/span>
I\u2019m saying something different:<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cIf <\/strong><\/em>something is believed by a large number of scholars and academics: now and throughout history, it ought not be derisively dismissed as on the level of leprechauns or the tooth fairy. It should be accorded a certain level of respect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
And\/or, another variant:<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cScholars and academics by the multiple thousands ought not be immediately dismissed as idiots and simpletons merely because they believe in something (God \/ Jesus\u2019 existence) that is disparaged by atheists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
Now, elsewhere in this thread you have mocked my positions as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Unanimous\u2019 does not always have the same value depending on the subject. Take Mr. Armstrong on these subjects for example:<\/span>
\u201cHistoricity of Jesus: near unanimous consensus is valid and thus it is irrational to think otherwise.<\/span>
\u201cClimate change: near unanimous consensus is invalid and \u2026<\/span>
\u201cI\u2019ll let you fill in the blank.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
Since my position is much more so that a position (generally speaking) ought to be taken seriously<\/em>\u00a0if many academics \/ scholars hold it, rather than automatically be assumed to be true\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(ad populum<\/em> fallacy or obsession with \u201chead counts\u201d), the climate change thing can easily be explained.<\/span>
I don\u2019t say that the currently fashionable climate change thing is ridiculous, on the level of believing in the tooth fairy, etc. (as atheists say of theism). I say it is simply misguided and wrong.\u00a0<\/span>
I also interpret it within larger<\/em> science, and the history<\/em> of science. Many non-climatologist scientists <\/a>are skeptical of it, and a significant minority within climatology also is. This is nothing unusual in the history of science, as I have argued elsewhere. If one reads the classic, Structure of Scientific Revolutions<\/em><\/a> by Thomas Kuhn<\/a>, or the late great writer \/ paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould<\/a>\u2018s excellent articles and books on the history of science, it is observed that there are paradigm shifts<\/a>, in which the new paradigm gaining ascendancy may have a small minority of adherents at first.<\/span>
Examples would be Copernican heliocentrism<\/a> or relativity<\/a> or Big Bang cosmology<\/a> (the first and third having been initiated by Catholic scientists: one even a priest<\/a>). Others are quantum mechanics<\/a> and plate tectonics<\/a> (which only came to fruition in the 1960s). The present one is string theory<\/a> in physics. All would have started out \u201csmall\u201d but that was no disproof of their truthfulness (or possible truthfulness, in the case of string theory).<\/span><\/p>\n
Gould wrote about Raymond Dart<\/a>, discoverer and early advocate of Australopithecus<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>He was treated like crap because the consensus among evolutionists for much of his life was towards larger skulls, with regard to human evolution. Thus, science at large was taken in by the farcical fake Piltdown Man<\/a> for over 40 years, precisely because it had a large skull, and that was the fashionable belief.<\/span>
Gould himself: one of the originators of punctuated equilibrium<\/a>, had to fight against the overwhelming consensus of Neo-Darwinian gradualism<\/a> in science, and contended that an all-encompassing gradualism was never \u201cread in the rocks.\u201d<\/span>
Those would be some examples of how science proceeds. So yes, I am perfectly justified in being skeptical of global warming fanaticism, as presently fashionable. There have been plenty of precedents before in the history of science<\/a>. Scientists are fallible human beings with bias and capable of great folly and foibles, just like anyone else.<\/span>
When Galileo and Kepler were revolutionizing astronomy and cosmology, they were neck-deep in astrology<\/a>\u00a0(while Augustine<\/a> and Aquinas<\/a> had long since rejected it). Isaac Newton was an alchemist<\/a>. Etc., etc.<\/span>
Thus, in the end (bottom line \/ final analysis), any and every argument must be considered on its own merits. This should be obvious to any thinker.<\/span>
All of the above is perfectly consistent, rightly understood. But atheists so rarely understand serious theistic thought, which is a huge problem. Half the time, they deny that we theists ever have a serious thought running through our brains. And so we can hardly bridge that gap and talk to each other. Prejudices run too deep (on both sides).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"