I'll take that as a yes.

Let's do a Bayesian analysis of the supposed resurrection.

The probability of the resurrection given the evidence can be calculated as

P(R | E) = P(E | R) * P(R) / P(E)

First off, there's the problem of the prior probability of resurrection - P(R) is very low - if it weren't, we wouldn't think there wwas anything remarkable about Jesus in the first place. He'd be just another one of those resurrected guys. So right away God is in trouble.

Now how about the probability of the evidence given a supposed resurrection? Some might argue that there would be stronger evidence, some not, but I'll leave this as a neutral 0.5.

Now, what about the probability of the evidence? Here is where God runs into even more trouble, because given the vast amount of religious and mythical works in human history, which even Christians would agree are false - given the tales of other resurrections and other supernatural events which are patently false yet were and are believed - the prior probability of the evidence is quite high. People love tall tales.

So altogether just on the resurrection things look very bad for Bible God indeed - since if Jesus was just a man, a man who died and stayed dead, then the God of the Bible is impossible.

You might argue that this preserves some bare logical possibility for God, but no argument that contains premises known a posteriori is certain. We work with what we have. I mean, it's logically possible that Abraham Lincoln was a woman, but no one would accept an argument that began with that as a premise. Know what I mean?

Chad, do you agree that IF Jesus was just a man, a mere human who lived, died and stayed dead like the rest of us, THEN the god of the Bible is impossible?

If you won't or can't agree with that then I won't bother making my case to you, and I'm sure you can understand why.

2) “Do you believe it is possible or impossible for God to exist?”

I believe it's highly improbable that any God exists and impossible that the God of the Bible exists.

(3) “Do you believe it is possible or impossible for God to communicate through man?”

Given my answer to (2), again highly improbable to impossible.

(4) “Do you believe it is possible or impossible that the Bible is the result of God communicating through man?”

see above.

(5) “Finally, what kind of sincere research have you done on the Bible…More specifically what did you discover?”

I have read the Bible carefully along with commentaries and essays and have decided that Jesus was just a man - an apocalyptic prophet who believed that the world would end within the lifetimes of his followers. Needless to say, his prophecy failed.

The really strange thing here, Drago, is that you don't seem to understand what objectivity means. If it were *objectively* wrong to torture babies, then that would be true irrespective of anyone's feelings or opinions on the matter, and you wouldn't be reduced to appeals to popular sentiment. What if everyone had the intuition that it was good to torture babies? Would that make it objectively good? Your method of deriving objective moral facts suggests that it would, which is absurd.

Just as strange is your argument that "without objective morality there is no rational justification for treating morals in a different manner than that of mere personal preferences." How can it be rational justification, ultimately, when you've attempted to derive the objective fact which you desire as a rational grounding - from subjective popular sentiment?

Chad, it's been three weeks. I'm going to take that as a concession that your argument fails on the unsoundness of premise 2.

I wonder if Charles H. Spurgeon was ever hungry or homeless.

Congrats Chad! Can we read an excerpt or preview somewhere?

So you agree that "torturing children is wrong" doesn't necessarily imply "torturing children is objectively wrong"? That I can agree wholeheartedly and strenuously with the first without assenting to the second?

Because it seems to me that if your strongest argument for objective moral values is that we agree with one another over a value judgement, then calling it objective is little more than laying a compliment at its feet to show how much we agree with it. Otherwise, in what way is it OBJECTIVELY true? By virtue of logic, or by virtue of observation?

There's a difference between descriptive and prescriptive statements. "torturing children is wrong" is prescriptive - it's an ought, an imperative - it doesn't make a statement about what is in the world but about how we ought to behave.

Neither is it true a priori - there is no logically valid argument from which it follows that torturing children is necessarily wrong in a LOGICAL sense. "Torturing children is good", while it is morally repugnant to us both (I would hope), is not logically self contradictory, and does not violate any axiom or principle of classical logic.

So, can you show that objective moral values exist apart from merely demonstrating that you and I agree on some moral values such as the torturing of children? It seems to me that you'd have to cough up some descriptive or a priori facts aside from our consensus. Doesn't objectivity imply something more than mere consensus?

No no, I love Christmas. I'm not one of those "picket the city hall creche" types. ;-)

By the way, have a happy holiday season. Be well, I hope you are with your loved ones. Don't worry about replying in this thread anytime soon, go enjoy some egg nog and Bing Crosby.

:D