Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc Subject: Re: Net Dunce Award, Proudly Claimed by - Mike Huybensz!! Message-ID: <1160@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 11:42:00 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1160 Posted: Wed Sep 24 11:42:00 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 28-Sep-86 23:42:54 EDT References: <5483@decwrl.DEC.COM> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 131 Ken, you are an indian giver. Just when I thought I'd won something, I read your note and saw that you'd snatched back the dunce award for yourself. In article <5483@decwrl.DEC.COM> arndt@lymph.dec.com.UUCP writes: > ...But leave us review the award-winning selection. (I've advised everyone I > know to sell their Cybermation stock!) That's OK: Cybermation is privately owned. However, we've started developing new products here on non-Dec equipment. :-) > ... You reply, "The tree might have been knocked down, ripped up, or girdled > for all the text says." Wow! I said you and Tim walk around the nets with > your mental flys open. You really drop the ole kimono here guy. > > This is the classic argument from silence - which falls of its own weight... > > What you are really saying here, besides "look at how silly I can be in public" > is that Mark and Matthew are either lying about what happened or couldn't tell > the difference between a tree fallen down and one standing up, etc. I think > your clear anti-miracle bias (unreasonable in a 20th C. science educated man) > is showing and showing that it has softened your brain. Both accounts clearly > state that the tree died because Jesus 'cursed' it. They were surprised when > they found it dead the next day - because it wasn't or hadn't been any of the > things you suggest above, or sat on by an elephant or eaten by a giant fig > tree fly. Who's walking around with his mental fly open? Ken is making the classic argument of gullibility: believe the surface of anything you see or read. By this classic argument, if a Voodoo priest cursed someone, and that person was dead the next day, Ken would believe in Voodoo. And if you suggested to Ken that the victim was poisoned or killed in some other non-supernatural manner, Ken would attempt (in his lovable, brain-damaged way) to ridicule you. > Not only that but I would refer you to common 'rules of evidence' when > considering eyewitness accounts of events. As are used in courts of law. > You have no doubt heard the phrase, "Beyond a reasonable doubt." Allow me > to quote from Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by > the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Law, Frederick D. Linn & Co., > 1881. (That's right, 1881! I own a copy - photocopy - ha ha) Greenleaf > was a famous lawyer and law school teacher who 'wrote the book' on rules of > evidence and was challenged by a student to consider the testimony of the > four Gospels about the life of Jesus from the standpoint of his own rules. > He, a Jew, became a Christian and wrote this book.) Golly, Ken! You had to go all the way back to 1881 to find a crank who was goofy enough to make an argument you agree with? > But back to 'a reasonable doubt'. Greenleaf says, "It should be observed that > the subject of inquiry is a matter of fact, and not of abstract mathematical > truth. The latter alone is susceptible of that high degree of proof, usually > termed demonstration, which excludes the possibility of error, and which > therefore may reasonably be required in support of every mathematical > deduction. But the proof of matters of fact rests upon moral evidence alone. > The error of the sceptic consists in . . . demanding demonstrative evidence > concerning things which are not susceptible of any other than moral evidence > alone, and of which the utmost that can be said is, THAT THERE IS NO > REASONABLE DOUBT ABOUT THEIR TRUTH." (italics mine) pp23-24. Well then I ask you, why do you have unreasonable doubts about agnosticism and atheism? You see his fallacy now? Who declares that there is no reasonable doubt? He is merely assuming his conclusion. > What about the 'evidence' given by Mark and Matthew? Greenleaf goes on to > say (about their entire books), "In the absense of circumstances which > generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the > contrary is shown; the burden of impeaching his credibility lying on the > objector. This rule serves to show the injustice with which the writers of > the Gospels have ever been treated by infidels (that's you Mike); an injustice > silently acquiesced in even by Christians; in requiring the Christian > affirmatively, and by positive evidence, ALIUNDE, to extablish the credibility > of his witnesses above all others, before their testimony is entitled to be > considered (how many times Mike have we heard the 'infidel' rabble cry, "Who > ELSE says so?"), and on permitting the testimony of a single profane writer, > alone and uncorroborated, to outweigh that of any single Christian." pp25-26. Yes, in courts witnesses are presumed credible until shown otherwise UPON CROSS-EXAMINATION BY THE OPPOSITE SIDE. Testimony is not admitted unless the witness can be cross-examined. > He goes on to say how 'contradictions' so often cited are merely the > expected differences of testimony one hears when two persons describe their > memory of the same events. And he cites several famous examples. > Also, the Bible is not ONE witness, but the record of MANY!! How empty the > statement, "But who else?". The Bible consists of the carefully selected testimony of a few. There is a purposely fostered illusion of unaminity. > What they are really saying is, "Produce someone > who doesn't believe it happened to say it did." Since there are not eye > witness accounts surviving that say it didn't happen - yea I know, the naughty > Christians burned them all with their texts! As has been frequently mentioned, a small number of contradictory texts has survived. Read "The Other Bible" for examples. > As for your statement that when I said cursing the death of an infant was > similar to that of Jesus cursing the tree, it wan't because such cursing > doesn't cause an infant to die - well I just don't know WHAT to make of > that!!! Poor Ken's gone off the deep end again: somebody else must have made that statement. > Egad, do we have to go on?? (there's more) Someone else spoke to your point > of conjecture that if the tree was barren one year it might bear the next > which demonstrates a "wanton destruction" of the tree you say - which by > the way misses the point that it didn't bear THEN when it was needed > and so was not as it 'should' have been and was worthy of 'cursing'. As I pointed out to the other person, any prophet who could perform raisings of the dead and loaves-and-fishes miracles could just as easily have miraculously caused the tree to bear fruit in profusion. But instead, he supposedly destroyed it, a wonton act. > Hope you don't mind me shooting back at you Mike. I do enjoy reading your > postings. And by Satan, I'll look you up and phone you one of these days! > Be warned! Maybe we can have that beer. Feel free, Ken. I need to learn to drink beer. -- Strephon: "Have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a case brimming with such poetical emotion?" Chancellor: "Distinctly." From "Iolanthe", by Gilbert and Sullivan. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh