Coercion and deterrence and assertions

@fmf said
The Holy Bible is little more than some people telling some other people that some stuff they believe about supernatural things is true.

I take it you know more about evidence than these guys?

<<The Case For Christ

OK, if I'm a lawyer, and I'm viewing the case for Christ through legal goggles, what am I missing? Anything...? Surely, other analytical legal minds have weighed the evidence in "the case for Christ"...

Again, I was truly stunned to find that great legal minds had already done this...

Check these guys out...

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853) was one of the founders of Harvard Law School. He authored the authoritative three-volume text, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence (1842), which is still considered "the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure."

Greenleaf literally wrote the rules of evidence for the U.S. legal system. He was certainly a man who knew how to weigh the facts.

He was an atheist until he accepted a challenge by his students to investigate the case for Christ's resurrection. After personally collecting and examining the evidence based on rules of evidence that he helped establish, Greenleaf became a Christian and wrote the classic, Testimony of the Evangelists.

“Let [the Gospel's] testimony be sifted, as it were given in a court of justice on the side of the adverse party, the witness being subjected to a rigorous cross-examination. The result, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability, and truth.”

Sir Lionel Luckhoo (1914-1997) is considered one of the greatest lawyers in British history. He's recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Most Successful Advocate," with 245 consecutive murder acquittals. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II -- twice. Luckhoo declared:

“I humbly add I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”

Lee Strobel was a Yale-educated, award-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune. As an atheist, he decided to compile a legal case against Jesus Christ and prove him to be a fraud by the weight of the evidence. As Legal Editor of the Tribune, Strobel's area of expertise was courtroom analysis.

To make his case against Christ, Strobel cross-examined a number of Christian authorities, recognized experts in their own fields of study (including PhD's from such prestigious academic centers as Cambridge, Princeton, and Brandeis). He conducted his examination with no religious bias, other than his predisposition to atheism.

Remarkably, after compiling and critically examining the evidence for himself, Strobel became a Christian. Stunned by his findings, he organized the evidence into a book entitled, The Case for Christ, which won the Gold Medallion Book Award for excellence.

Strobel asks one thing of each reader - remain unbiased in your examination of the evidence. In the end, judge the evidence for yourself, acting as the lone juror in the case for Christ...>>

https://www.allaboutthejourney.org/the-case-for-christ.htm

@pb1022 said
I take it you know more about evidence than these guys?

<<The Case For Christ

OK, if I'm a lawyer, and I'm viewing the case for Christ through legal goggles, what am I missing? Anything...? Surely, other analytical legal minds have weighed the evidence in "the case for Christ"...

Again, I was truly stunned to find that great legal minds had already done this...

C ...[text shortened]... lone juror in the case for Christ...>>

https://www.allaboutthejourney.org/the-case-for-christ.htm

Your deployment of the appeal to authority informal fallacy - especially in harness with spammy copy-pasting - is not going to have any traction with me, and this is particularly so when the people being cited ~ like you and me ~ can only speculate about supernatural things.

@pb1022 said
Simon Greenleaf

Sir Lionel Luckhoo

Lee Strobel

More people telling other people about their beliefs.

@kellyjay said
If your truth detector is set up to look at anything said to see assertions are being made, you will never be without things to set assertion finder alarm bells off.

All you have to offer KellyJay are assertions about what you believe to be the truth about supernatural punishment. I don't think you and Romans1009 and josephw realize that, on this thread, you are doing little more than illustrating what my OP and other posts on page 1 are about.

@kellyjay said
For example, if you believe in a common ancestor through evolution, even if true, the declaration is still just an assertion; if false, it is still just an assertion.

But, assertions or opinions about "a common ancestor through evolution" are not intended to have a coercive or deterrent effect on your behaviour, nor do I connect to those beliefs any threats or warnings about supernatural punishment. Your analogy is a dud.

@fmf said
But, assertions or opinions about "a common ancestor through evolution" are not intended to have a coercive or deterrent effect on your behaviour, nor do I connect to those beliefs any threats or warnings about supernatural punishment. Your analogy is a dud.

The only point I was making is everyone who believes something is true and talks about it makes assertions. There was no attempt at getting you to believe anything about a supernatural punishment in what I just said.

@kellyjay said
The only point I was making is everyone who believes something is true and talks about it makes assertions. There was no attempt at getting you to believe anything about a supernatural punishment in what I just said.

As I thought, you were just making assertions. So what about the issues raised by the OP and the subsequent posts which ARE about supernatural punishment?

@medullah said
Are you thinking in terms of eternal punishment for the dead, that kind of thing? In don't personally believe in the eternal torment stuff.

Yes, I am referring to non-believers "being tortured in burning flames for eternity" as a brand new convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity on this forum once put it having only just discovered that the existence and moral goodness of eternal torment was supposedly an "absolute truth".

Your statement that you don't "personally believe in the eternal torment stuff" raises an interesting point.

The nature of the supernatural punishment allegedly meted out by the Christian God figure to people after they die ~ as a form of revenge for their lack of belief, as some here have explained it ~ is the subject of unprovable assertions made by a range of people reciting religious dogma, presumably with great certainty and sincerity.

But the people making these assertions are frequently reciting different and contrasting beliefs. So, intellectually and morally speaking, what coherent coercive or deterrent effect is this supposed to have? And if it isn't clear and coherent, then how can it be morally justified?

As I asked in the OP: Where is the "divine" and moral logic in this arrangement?

@fmf said
More people telling other people about their beliefs.

No, these are experts in evaluating evidence who investigated the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and concluded it happened.

These aren’t pseudo-intellectual lunkheads on the Internet.

@fmf said
Your deployment of the appeal to authority informal fallacy - especially in harness with spammy copy-pasting - is not going to have any traction with me, and this is particularly so when the people being cited ~ like you and me ~ can only speculate about supernatural things.

You seem to think I want traction with you? You’re sadly mistaken.

I know your mind is closed. I’m posting for people who may read these threads and whose mind is open. Like I said previously, as the forum OP, you’re just the doorman.

@pb1022 said
No, these are experts in evaluating evidence who investigated the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and concluded it happened.

Good for them. There are billions of Christians around the world who believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But all any of us can do when it comes to supernatural beings and phenomena is speculate, and the opinions we form are all subjective.

@pb1022 said
You seem to think I want traction with you? You’re sadly mistaken.

I'm just giving you feedback on what you said to me. I am here to discuss things with posters whose beliefs differ from mine. If, by contrast, you are here to preach to the choir, then so be it.

@fmf said
Good for them. There are billions of Christians around the world who believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But all any of us can do when it comes to supernatural beings and phenomena is speculate, and the opinions we form are all subjective.

Wrong.

We can examine the evidence, like the three men cited in that article I posted.

We can investigate the reliability of the Gospels and compare them to historical records and accounts of other people and events.

Or we can be uninformed and ignorant and act as though we’re not,

@fmf said
I'm just giving you feedback on what you said to me. I am here to discuss things with posters whose beliefs differ from mine. If, by contrast, you are here to preach to the choir, then so be it.

Do you know what “preaching to the choir” means? It means the opposite of what I said I was doing,

I’m posting for people with an open mind who may read these threads. That’s not preaching to the choir.

You really shouldn’t be so sloppy in your thinking and how you express yourself.