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Richard Carrier: Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story
The most comprehensive argument I’ve read against the historical plausibility of the supposed Resurrection of Jesus.
(Source: deconversionmovement)
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High Resolution1) Saying “it must have been god” is an argument from ignorance you’re making just to explain something you don’t know.
2) The details of this are way fuzzy and unsubstantiated. Although two of these priests are known to have survived long after the bombing, we don’t know what happened to the others, but it would be a safe bet to say they died due to complications resulting from radiation poisoning. It also doesn’t say where these men were, if they were in a basement or in a smaller building protected by a nearby larger building, like the church, that could have acted as a shield.
3) A guy named Eizo Nomura was way closer, about 100 meters away from the blast and he lived to write about it and he wasn’t using magical jewelery.
4) What kind of dick would God have to be if everything said here were true. He’d be willing to allow the fascist-supporting Japanese regime to rise, to be aggressive, bomb Pearl Harbor killing hundreds and then allow the Americans to design a bomb capable of destroying the planet and watch that technology proliferate and watch the hundreds of thousands die in Japan as a result. Innocent people, children, babies, pregnant women, other Catholics, entire generations of deformaties, just to use his all-mighty power to save six men who mindlessly repeated a prayer everyday. It’s confirmation bias. It’s like saying drinking tea every night keeps tigers from breaking into my house. Hey, I drink tea every night and I’ve never had a tiger break in, so, it works, right?
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Every single fundamentalist religious believer, when they hear the ‘fantastic’ stories of an opposing religion, have no difficulty at all in reaching the sane conclusion that those stories are either the incoherent ramblings of a delirious, water deprived primitive desert dweller, about to pass out from heat stroke…or otherwise, deviously fabricated outright lies…out to snare the gullible…
While at the very same time, consider their own religion’s outright lies…to make perfect sense…as long as no one thinks about them too carefully…and if someone does and critiques the stories as absurd…they become outraged and offended…and declare the critic to be the spawn of Satan (a fabricated character in their own religious stories…baseless…considered an outright lie by sane, rational people everywhere!)
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“GOD EXISTS!” Argument No. 10 - Miracles
- Miracles are events that violate the laws of nature.
- Miracles can be explained only by a force that has the power of suspending the laws of nature for the purpose of making its presence known or changing the course of human history (from 1).
- Only god has the power and the purpose to carry out miracles (from 2).
- We have a multitude of written and oral reports of miracles. (Indeed, every major religion is founded on a list of miracles.)
- Human testimony would be useless if it were not, in the majority of cases, veridical.
- The best explanation for why there are so many reports testifying to the same thing is that the reports are true (from 5).
- The best explanation for the multitudinous reports of miracles is that miracles have indeed occurred (from 6).
- god exists (from 3 & 7).
And here’s why it’s faulty:
- FLAW 1: It is certainly true, as Premise 4 asserts, that we have a multitude of reports of miracles, with each religion insisting on those that establish it alone as the true religion. But the reports are not testifying to the same events; each miracle list justifies one religion at the expense of the others. See FLAW 2 in the Argument from Holy Books (Coming soon).
- FLAW 2: The fatal flaw in The Argument from Miracles was masterfully exposed by David Hume in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter 10, “On Miracles.” Human testimony may often be accurate, but it is very far from infallible. People are sometimes mistaken; people are sometimes dishonest; people are sometimes gullible — indeed, more than sometimes. Since in order to believe that a miracle has occurred we must believe a law of nature has been violated (something for which we otherwise have the maximum of empirical evidence), and we can only believe it on the basis of the truthfulness of human testimony (which we already know is often inaccurate), then even if we knew nothing else about the event, and had no particular reason to distrust the reports of witness, we would have to conclude that it is more likely that the miracle has not occurred, and that there is an error in the testimony, than that the miracle has occurred. (Hume strengthens his argument, already strong, by observing that religion creates situations in which there are particular reasons to distrust the reports of witnesses. “But if the spirit of religion join itself to the love of wonder, there is an end of common sense.”)
The Argument from Miracles covers more specific arguments, such as The Argument from Prophets, The Arguments from Messiahs, and the Argument from Individuals with Miraculous Powers.
(via skepticalavenger)
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High Resolution(Source: spaceduckafterglow, via ummagumma-)
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I wanted to say something clever and funny here, but “crying statues” kind of covers it all, doesn’t it?
(Source: atheistjack, via skepticalavenger)
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Well known party tricks that had already been play out for ages by gods before him.
(via darwinsminion)
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"[The Smell Test] is certainly ubiquitously accepted by historians in every field. It is suspiciously rejected by religious believers, and then only when it’s applied to amazing claims they prefer to believe. They ground this rejection in the claim that we shouldn’t be biased against the supernatural, and God can do anything. Yet if they honestly believed in those principles they would be compelled to concede the miracle claims of every religion “because you shouldn’t be biased against the supernatural, and God can do anything.” This includes all the pagan miracles (incredible apparitions of goddesses, mass resurrections of cooked fish, wondrous healings, and teleportations), Muslim miracles (splitting moons, wailing trees, flights to outer space), Buddhist miracles (bilocation, levitation, creating golden ladders with a mere thought), and indeed every and any amazing claim whatever. Tales “proving” reincarnation? We can’t reject them—because God can do anything. Ghosts confirming to the living that heaven is run by a Chinese magnate and his staff? We can’t rule it out. That would be bias against the supernatural.
Honestly living that way would be impossible. You would have to believe everything you read or hear unless you can specifically present evidence sufficient to discount it: an impossible task. You would be left with a belief system hopelessly frightening and contradictory—and mired in a thousand false beliefs. Such behavior also goes against all established background knowledge, which contains endless examples of miracle claims refuted by fortuitous inquiry (and no good case of any miracle claim surviving such inquiry). In other words, our bias against the supernatural is warranted, just as our bias against the honesty of politicians is warranted: we’ve caught them being dishonest so many times it would be foolish to implicitly trust anyone in politics. Likewise, amazing tales: we’ve caught them being fabricated so many times it would be foolish to implicitly trust any of them."- Richard Carrier (2012. Proving History: Baye’s Theorem and The Quest for the Historical Jesus, p. 114, 115)(Source: deconversionmovement)
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Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku faces possible charges for debunking a “miracle” statue of Christ in Mumbai.
Sanal Edamaruku faces a Catholic backlash after insisting that the “holy” water dripping from a statue of Christ in Mumbai, India, came from a leaky drain. Edamaruku is the founder and president of Rationalist International, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, and honorary associate of the U.K. Rationalist Association.
What was the so-called miracle you recently investigated in Mumbai?
The priest and the very active Catholic laity organizations associated with the Our Lady of Velankanni Church in Mumbai were promoting the idea that water dripping from the feet of a statue of Jesus was a sign from God. Hundreds of believers flocked to the dripping cross, collecting and consuming “holy” drainage water that they believed would cure all ailments.What prompted you to intervene?
I was invited to the Delhi studio of TV9, a Mumbai-based national channel, to comment. During the program, I rejected the possibility of a miracle but of course could not give scientific explanations without an investigation. The channel then invited me to come to Mumbai. The church authorities agreed.What did you find?
I had a close look at a nearby washroom and the connected drainage system that passed underneath the concrete base of the cross. I removed some stones from the drain and found it was blocked. I touched the walls, the base, and the cross and took some photographs for documentation. It was very simple: Water from the washroom, which had been blocked in the clogged drainage system, had been transmitted via capillary action into the adjacent walls and the base of the cross as well as into the wooden cross itself. The water came out through a nail hole and ran down over the statue’s feet.You now face possible arrest. Why?
Leaders of two Catholic laity organizations have launched charges against me under Section 295A of the Indian penal code. This charges a person with “deliberately hurting religious feelings and attempting malicious acts intended to outrage the religious sentiments of any class or community.” It is absurd to claim that I did anything of the sort.What do you fear might happen to you?
If it comes to a trial, I have nothing to fear. I would welcome the opportunity to throw some light on the role that the Catholic Church played and is still playing today here in India. The possibility of arrest is threatening, however.Do you have any regrets about intervening?
Why would one not intervene when somebody gives gullible people sewage to drink? But my reason is broader. The promotion of superstition and belief in paranormal phenomena dulls people’s minds and establishes dangerous misconceptions about reality in our society. Such efforts have to be countered.Why do people so readily believe in miracles?
For many, the regressive belief in superstitions and miracles is an escape from the hardships of life. Once trapped into irrationalism, they become more incapable of mastering reality. It is a vicious circle, like an addiction. They become vulnerable to exploitation by astrologers, godmen, dubious pseudo-psychologists, corrupt politicians, and the whole mega-industry of irrationalism. -
High ResolutionSomething to wonder about
(Source: deconversionmovement)
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Scumbag jesus
More like, Soap-scum Jesus. How the mightily have fallen: from creating universes to bathtub cameos.
(via atheist-overdose)
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And no tip since, you know, he “died” for you and all.
(Source: christiantheatheist, via darwinsminion)
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High Resolution -
High ResolutionMan in India charged with blasphemy for revealing secret behind ‘miracle’ crucifix that drips water (To read the story, visit Boing Boing)
Posted the full story earlier. Only the most pathetic theists, desperate for a ‘sign’, would see this as a ‘miracle’.
Divine Irony
is a rich archive of religious delusions, scientific truths and political implications.
"Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
-George Carlin
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed”.
-Albert Einstein
