A Status in a Group: St Ignatius of Antioch verified with eye-witnesses

HGL

DC, spell out the full circularity you attribute to me, I'll see if I can break it.

And no, speaking to an eyewitness is not hearsay.

"Anyone rise from the dead since 33 ad?"

Rise from completely on His own, no. God only died once. Get risen from the dead by God, more than one. St Genevieve of Paris raised two drowned boys from the dead, so did the corpse of St Martin of Tours. The Blessed Virgin Mary' tomb was opened by St Thomas and empty. I e, she is also risen.

WF

Hans wanted to use the resurrection as evidence. My question is valid

HGL

The resurrection is evidence of God working. So are the resuscitations afterwards. And the documentation is good.

DC

HGL miracles being proof of the divine, and talking to someone who "says" they were somewhere years earlier, recounting the story is by definition hearsay. Like the fact there are a lot more people who attest they were at the Sex Pistols' first gig at the 100 Club than that little venue could possibly held... People lie, for wishful thinking, notoriety, payment. Which is why hearsay is inadmissable in courts.

WF

Drowned boys... I've seen Pamela Anderson give mouth to mouth

HGL

DC, if saying you had been to Sex Pistol's concert might get you hanged by court of law, there might NOT be as many wishful thinkers.

WF, supposing St Genevieve gave mouth to mouth, how come she was the only one there who knew about it? More logic sth like it had already been tried and failed.

DC

HGL "and the documentation is good"? Really?

HGL

Yes, really. Which of the cases are you in doubt of or if all three, which most interested in?

DC

HGL hearsay is hearsay, and therefore untrustworthy by nature, and certainly not evidence.

Look at evidence that is required in a scientific article, the rigour, detail, the different methods that need to be independently explored. A letter by someone talking to someone who "says" they saw a miracle is just no evidence at all.

HGL I've seen no reasonable evidence for a miracle, ever. We could start there.

HGL

"hearsay is hearsay"

Hearsay is not hearing sth from someone you know to be truthful. Hearsay is accepting sth from a stranger or from someone known not to be always strictly truthful.

"Look at evidence that is required in a scientific article, the rigour, detail, the different methods that need to be independently explored. A letter by someone talking to someone who "says" they saw a miracle is just no evidence at all."

If 500 people are claimed to have seen it and you do a gallup poll among everyone of them you can find and each confirms it, that is evidence they all saw Christ resurrected.

St Ignatius didn't get a letter from a stranger, unlike the case you put forth.

DC

HGL and we have no idea of the veracity of the statement. Which is why second hand accounts are meaningless in any rigorous examination.

HGL wrote a letter after a conversation with someone who "claimed" etc... exactly like my comment regarding the gig. Human psychology is a complex Beastie.

HGL

Sorry, we have on the contrary a very clear idea of the veracity of the statement. St Ignatius laid down his life for the Resurrected, after having witnessed to His glory as Bishop of Antioch.

He was certainly making sure not to be fooled into believing sth stupid before he went onto that venture.

If you say we don't know that either, well, in that case we can't know anything about history, which is absurd.

DC, the letters of St Antioch are NOT comparable to a simple letter in the letterbox of a paper. It was his official correspondence.

DC

HGL why do you not understand where the chain of evidence is broken? It's very simple

HGL

Where exactly?

According to you, that is?

DC

HGL and he may well have believed, almost certainly did. BUT the veracity of the account given to him is not verifiable. Your saint believed what he was told because he wanted to believe, the storyteller cannot be trusted as a first hand (actually being there) account can be trusted. Hence accounts such as these are not accepted in courts. They are too unreliable.

DC

HGL argue if you like, but this is really basic stuff

HGL

"BUT the veracity of the account given to him is not verifiable."

It was very certainly verifiable to him.

"Your saint believed what he was told because he wanted to believe"

Who says he "wanted to believe" by wishful thinking? In that risky situation it was the last thing one would want to believe, just for fun.

"the storyteller cannot be trusted as a first hand (actually being there) account can be trusted."

Who says he could not tell the difference between a "storyteller" and a first hand account?

Common sense kind of started being around with you, or sth?

"Hence accounts such as these are not accepted in courts."

St Ignatius kind of WAS the court, deciding to trust eyewitnesses as eyewitnesses. Many others were too.

Plus the miracles they saw along the way - like St Luke seeing the raising of the boy who broke his neck when St Paul raised him.

God would not vindicate false statements by doing miracles for them.

DC

HGL there is a logical doubt regarding the veracity of the storytellers account to your saint. It is hearsay. Your denial of this is precisely the problem I and other people trained in evidence based disciplines have with this whole religious "evidence" stuff. There is enormous suspension of disbelief on your part. It is gobsmacking that you can't see this as a problem, because you believe, your bias has blinded you to the weakness of this so called evidence.

HGL

DC, calling the men whom St Ignatius talked to "storytellers" and calling their witness to him "hearsay" is tantamount to putting ALL historic knowledge in doubt.

[Is there some glitch? I seem to be missing some parts of the debate in between here?]

DC

HGL no avoidance. As I said, the study of history has it's own challenges. I'm just astounded you claim not to see the difference in quality of evidence between moon landings and the Ignatius story. Are you seriously telling me that you think they are of equal quality???

HGL

I see a difference - in favour of St Ignatius' possibilities to examine the eye-witnesses claims over say mine to interrogate Armstrong.

So, you think the opposite, instead of coming with "are you seriously" etc. rhetoric we all have heard, what about giving the serious thought why you find Armstrong's statement better than St John's or St Ignatius' worse than those on earth whom Armstrong knew

What you call NOT avoiding has so far just been displaying your cultural bias in favour of eyewitness accounts and hearsay from 20th C over eyewitness accounts and hearsay from 1st.

C'mon ... don't tell me you are as stumped as Dawkins when asked to name ONE mutation that was positive in the sense of information gain?

DC

HGL and pictorial evidence, eye witness accounts, other astronaut and mission staff accounts? All verifying the same story with physical evidence to back it up. You really are blind to the inadequacy of the evidence in the Ignatius writing aren't you? so very very disappointing

MC

So his entire account is hearsay, in a book that is nothing but hearsay. Why don't apologists learn what standards of evidence is?

Lundhai [sic] I have several close relatives who work for NASA. I can assure you the moon landing was real.

Besides, I dare you to go talk to buzz aldrin and accuse him of faking his experience.

BR

$10 on Buzz.

MC

"C'mon ... don't tell me you are as stumped as Dawkins when asked to name ONE mutation that was positive in the sense of information gain?"

You think that bogus video is real? No wonder you're a moon landing denier. Reality just escapes you everywhere. You are clearly drawn to the ridiculous.

HGL

Pictorial evidence, as in footages of Armstrong on Moon?

Could have been faked. In other words, it is eye-witness and hearsay - the factors you underestimate for 1:st C Christians - that validate pictorial proof, not other way round.

"eye witness accounts,"

St John in his Gospel.

St Matthew in his Gospel.

"other astronaut"

Buzz Aldrin was a freemason, unreliable people those.

"and mission staff accounts?"

Ah, the guys who verified that Armstrong's eyewitness account was correct?

Like St Ignatius verified the one's he heard.

"All verifying the same story with physical evidence to back it up."

For us on Earth and most of us, we must rely on THEM there was physical evidence to back it up.

And the accounts of Jesus risen also ALL verify the same story.

Unless you would add the account on which the Disciples stole the body while guards were sleeping?

If guards where sleeping they were no eyewitnesses to that explanation.

But it was still around when St Luke checked up on the story.

Among those denying resurrection.

Point is, St Luke did his check-up, St Ignatius his, both came to same conclusion. Antichristians like Celsus did no check up on eye-witness accounts that they told us of.

BR

HGL Do you acknowledge that Buzz Aldrin boarded a rocket in view of many people, including TV cameras and that rocket subsequently blasted off?

[Escape from rocket before it blasted off, could it have been arranged? Better than escape from Cross previous to Resurrection faking, if that had been the case, at any rate!]

HGL

"Lundhai [sic] I have several close relatives who work for NASA. I can assure you the moon landing was real."

OK, how do YOU know St Ignatius knew his witnesses less than you know your relatives?

PLUS, what were their positions? Was one of them seeing Buzz and Armstrong walk into the rocket and then seeing the rocket launched?

"You think that bogus video is real? No wonder you're a moon landing denier. Reality just escapes you everywhere. You are clearly drawn to the ridiculous."

Whether it is real or not, it technically could be real. There was no technical obstacle to faking Moon Landing that way. ANY evidence getting us out of this must involve eye-witness and for most of us hearsay insofar as they are not themselves evaluating the eye-witness.

BR

HGL How would objects left on the Moon be faked?

[Not answering immediately, but he will get onto Moon Lazer Experiment, see further down.]

HGL

"is massively greater."

I can take a wild guess at your having a prejudice against miracles.

Which cuts no ice with me. Save the trouble, your real point is not how many eye-witnesses there were, but that it was a miracle they witnessed, so their testimony MUST (somehow!) be unreliable. Idiotic circularity that looks like to me.

DC

HGL for Ignatius's account to be of comparable validity he, along with many others would have seen it with their own eyes, there would need to be testimony from people hostile to the belief too, first hand accounts, and there would need to be material proof... there is none of any of this...

HGL

"Do you acknowledge that Buzz Aldrin boarded a rocket in view of many people, including TV cameras and that rocket subsequently blasted off?"

I was just asking MC if his relatives on NASA included people having seen that.

BR

HGL Well, sure but if we acknowledge that some people got on a rocket and that rocket blasted off, then they were going SOMEWHERE.

DC

HGL your argument over this matter of hearsay, a simple thing, just illustrate the toxicity of belief on critical thought ...

HGL

"for Ignatius's account to be of comparable validity he, along with many others would have seen it with their own eyes,"

No, since I was comparing him to earth based NASA staff who knew Armstrong and Aldrin.

"first hand accounts"

St John and St Matthew.

BR

Pretty sure this would be hard to fake.

Wikipedia : Lunar Laser Ranging experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment

HGL

Material proof = empty tomb.

"there would need to be testimony from people hostile to the belief too,"

A VERY flimsy excuse is such.

DC

HGL and I added about the other astronauts and the other moon landings did I not?

HGL

Material proof = empty tomb.

BR

HGL The authors of those books are unknown and written decades after the purported events. Additionally, there are indications that some of the gospels are the product of piecing together other books.

DC

HGL yes there would... the Russians accepted that the moon landings had occurred too didn't they...

HGL

Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment is none I have seen with my eyes, I have hearsay it is ongoing.

DC

HGL not material evidence if it isn't systematically recorded as being filled then emptied and someone witnessing the event.

BR

HGL You can visit Goddard Spaceflight Center and see it occurring for yourself. Check beforehand to determine scheduling and admissions requirements.

Jac. H

He also affirmed the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, the real presence of the Eucharist, and the efficacy of baptism. What are you, some kind of Papist, OP?

DC

HGL you are just defending an indefensible point just by asserting it is true essentially. That is blind faith, DM't try and dress it up as logic or evidence... You are just taking the word of a man who wrote a letter about a conversation with another man who reckoned he saw a miracle... that is just gullibility, you wouldn't accept that as reasonable evidence in any other aspect of your life...

HGL

"if it isn't systematically recorded as being filled "

It was. [By all involved in the burial.]

"You are just taking the word of a man who wrote a letter"

An official letter.

"about a conversation with another man"

He had sufficient talks with several other men to ...

"who reckoned he saw a miracle"

... be reasonably sure they KNEW they had seen, not reckoned they had seen, a miracle.

"You can visit Goddard Spaceflight Center and see it occurring for yourself. Check beforehand to determine scheduling and admissions requirements."

For my own part, I can't, I am in Paris and broke. So, to me it is hearsay

BR

HGL Observatoire de la Côte d’ Azur also conducts LR experiments.

TO

http://jesusbirthermovement.tumblr.com/.../research...

Research Articles, Evidence and Videos that Prove a Historical jesus, NEVER Existed

by Peter Vidani

KP

^^^hogwash

BR

KP How so?

KP

There are just as many "accepting" or "for" the historocity of Jesus Christ.

What's funny is I could sit down and right about my accounts of the Gulf War (91-92) today for they are still a fresh memory to me. You guys think that Matthew and John could not do the same? Another point you might want to make is there are no "claims" during this period of history that Jesus was a hoax. We call that the law of non-contradiction. It is often how historians verify the truth of historical claims.

RLF

''In ancient times, historical records were often written on stone monuments. These can often be dated by the strata in which they are found''- so each context has its own date-stamp? That'll be handy.

[Often is a clear exaggeration. Most historical records are books that have been copied, not stone monuments - at least after cuneiform went out of fashion.]

HGL

"and I added about the other astronauts and the other moon landings did I not?"

Sure, and I answered that there were others than John and Matthew who saw Jesus risen, didn't I?

Taken together the 12, the 70 (even if some of them were the twelve), the 500 by far outnumber the astronauts so far on the moon?

"The authors of those books are unknown and written decades after the purported events."

Well known by the Church. Suppose someone would deny that LotR was written by Tolkien, it would have been written by Christopher Tolkien after Peter Jackson's work.

Refute that, you must take into account hearsay from people like Unwin or people claiming to have bought their examples of LotR before Peter Jackson's films (that would include me btw).

So, if you accept JRRT is known as author of LotR, why not accept St Matthew mentioned alternatively as Matthew and Levi in Gospels was author of St Matthew's Gospel like everyone back then (or as soon as authorships were mentioned by other authors) said?

"Additionally, there are indications that some of the gospels are the product of piecing together other books."

The scholarship behind those claims is based on denial of accounts given.

KP

BR the onus is on you to prove they are unknown

CB

DC: " regarding your question about science, because of parallel sources of information, because the search continues and because there is no requirement to insert magic/supernatural/inexplicable powers arbitrarily into the mix. "

Your problem DC is that you are unable to see out of the box; everything science for you boils down to naturalism and materialism which is severely limited in scope.

Re' the "requirement to insert magic/supernatural/inexplicable powers arbitrarily into the mix.", this is exactly what you and others do when they assume "naturalistic abiogenesis" as the only possible origin of life: the only plausible explanation of how life began requiring the chemical magic of a primordial soup.

This explains my position more if you care to read it..............

[Quote I]

Methodological Naturalism is the philosophy that in science, we should act as if there is no supernatural. MN not only restricts science to investigating the natural cosmos and explaining its order; it restricts science from even contemplating the possibility of the supernatural.

Sometimes, MN is confused with the scientific method, the process by which science is conducted, but it is not the same thing. The scientific method is the process by which science is conducted, but MN is a philosophy intended to place limitations upon that process.

[Quote II]

The theistic or agnostic scientist has an advantage over the MN scientist. He is free to choose between theistic and naturalistic explanations, depending on which seems the most reasonable. The MN scientist, on the other hand, has restricted himself to naturalistic explanations, even when they appear to be quite improbable, counter-intuitive, or irrational.

Science bound by MN cannot, and does not invalidate religion. Since it is not able to even consider supernatural causes, it cannot rule them out. To rule them out, an MN scientist must step outside of science into the realm of metaphysics, or he must adopt an agnostic approach that is open to the possibility of the supernatural, at least for the sake of argument.

What about when there is no plausible naturalistic explanation available? Should we hold out forever waiting for one when other philosophical disciplines offer attractive explanations? If we restrict science to methodological naturalism, then scientists can never consider ideas from these disciplines and deem such conjectures "scientific."

What if nature is designed and created by a transcendent metaphysical intelligence? What if the evidence in nature actually points to this? Science bound by methodological naturalism must ignore this; it is forever bound to seek naturalistic explanations, no matter how implausible they may be. It is not free to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. Is this healthy? Is this the approach we really want to take into inquiring into the truth? Should the evidence be the standard of truth, or presupposition?........................

Should Only Naturalistic Explanations Be Allowed in Our Science Classrooms?
http://www.creationdefense.org/117.htm

BR

KP Proving a negative? The texts themselves do not identify their authors and no know copies exist with autographs by the original authors.

MC

Hans "OK, how do YOU know St Ignatius knew his witnesses less than you know your relatives?

PLUS, what were their positions? Was one of them seeing Buzz and Armstrong walk into the rocket and then seeing the rocket launched?"

Because I didn't just hear their story and report it as true. I've seen evidence first hand. Things most civilians aren't privy too. We even had original photos of the first Mars surface pictures ever taken.

Plus, the people I have on hand could potentially be called upon to give their accounts, where as ignatious simply stated that these other people said so and I believe it. In s court of law, his testimony would be worthless.

[None of above answers point I had asked about St Ignatius knowing less than he about the matter each has good knowledge of. Which are not the same matter.]

DM

Standards of evidence makes it hearsay? LOLOL...that makes most of your pagan worlds acceptance of non-supernatural history as "hearsay"! The Gospels are probably one of the most attested books in history!

MC

DM relying on experts to provide information on things we DM't wish to be experts on is not hearsay. How about you go look it up and learn something.

HGL

"Proving a negative? The texts themselves do not identify their authors and no know copies exist with autographs by the original authors."

St Luke and St John do contain identifications of author.

Copies by authors existed in Constantinople till the time when Iconoclasm either destroyed them or occasioned their hiding.

Point is, this method is not only one available to identify authorship, if they were you would have to ditch nearly or absolutely ALL of ancient literature.

Caesar's War of Gaul was found in ONE manuscript, from so late it was from Carolingian or later monks, first manuscript known.

Cicero, Plato, Demosthenes, etc no better.

"I've seen evidence first hand."

Like you were there when they took off? Will be checking your age now.

Were you born 1978 ... uh, that was like nine years after Armstrong and Aldrin anyway. (Ten years after me)

"Plus, the people I have on hand could potentially be called upon to give their accounts, where as ignatious simply stated that these other people said so and I believe it."

St Ignatius was called up to give his account and he knew the people he had on hand either had been or could be called upon to give their accounts. It is called martyrdom.

"In a court of law, his testimony would be worthless."

In that case any court of law's finding about testimony is equally worthless to the next court of law. In reality, if I were to contest even an assessment of such and such a court of law I was involved it, next court would look at first court and take its even just assessment very seriously.

St Ignatius was taking his task of checking up as seriously as a court of law, or if not he was a fool. He gave his life for what he had been told and what he had trusted. And his mentor presumably for many years was St polycarp whose mentor for presumably also many years was St John of Epheus, disciple, author of Apocalypse, author of Gospel.

He was also succeeding St Eleutherius as bishop of Antioch after this one had succeeded St Peter as such - when the latter went on to Rome.

"DM, relying on experts to provide information on things we don't wish to be experts on is not hearsay."

Oh really? Starting to give some kind of meaningful limitations to the word "hearsay"? Well, if in favour of experts, why not in favour of St Ignatius' assessment of the witnesses he heard?

"Plus, the people I have on hand could potentially be called upon to give their accounts"

If so they reasonably up to now have had less reason to fear from state for sticking to their story than St Ignatius and his sources for sticking to theirs. A big point.