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[Acerbic]

Faith is a Poor Method for Discovering Truth

Faith as described in the bible:

Hebrews 11:1 Revised Standard Version (RSV)

The Meaning of Faith

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

The assurance of things hoped for is no assurance at all. Imagine that you had faith in your football team. You may hope for your team to win, but your faith has no outcome on the game. It would be the same way with a coin flip. Your hope that a coin lands on either heads or tails is no assurance that it will happen.

As for the line "conviction of things not seen" I assume this extends to all senses because we also can't "feel" god as if he were a hand on your shoulder or the wind blowing. Having a strong conviction isn't going to help that coin flip, just like having hope or faith isn't going to help. The things that affect the coin flip are not your own personal feelings. The things that affect a coin flip are the physical inputs.

Furthermore, faith is used to justify every religion. People feel strongly about their religions. People have hope that their religions are true. They have hope that god cares about them, but none of this proof.

In conclusion, faith is not assurance of your religion just because you hope that you're religion is real. Faith may be a conviction for things unseen, but it certainly won't lead you to truth.

[jimwalton]

You've mangled the text. May I cut in?

It says "faith is being sure of." The Greek word is ὑπόστασις. It means, "Assurance; what stands under anything (a building, a contract, a promise); substantial nature; essence, actual being; reality (often in contrast to what merely seems to be); confidence; conviction; steadfastness; steadiness of mind." The term is common in business documents as a guarantee of transactions. In other words, the author is saying that faith is know the substantial nature of things—the reality—and holding confidently to that reality.

Biblical faith as "making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable." In my opinion, belief is always a choice, and is always based on evidence. When you sit down in a chair, you didn’t think twice about sitting down. You believe (hope for) that the chair will hold you. Faith? Yes. You've sat in chairs hundreds of times, but you can't be absolutely sure it will hold you this time. Things do break on occasion. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you sit down. That's faith, and it was a conscious choice based on a reasonable body of evidence.

Almost all of life works this way because we can never know what lies ahead. Every time you turn a door knob you are expressing faith, because 10,000 times you've turned a door knob, and it opened the door. So you turn the knob and move forward. Does it always work that way? No. Sometimes you turn the knob and the door doesn't open. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you walk forward in faith.

We know chairs hold people. That's past experience and learning. We know turning door knobs open doors. We know that when we turn a key a car starts. But every time we turn a car key, we do it because we believe it will start. The evidence is compelling, and it was a conscious choice. We don't know for sure that the car will start, and unfortunately sometimes it doesn't. Then we use our knowledge to try to figure out what to do about it. We dial our phone (as an act of faith, assuming it will work and help us reach another person), and try to get help.

In the Bible, hope is not just wishful thinking or bright optimism. Paul uses the same term (hope) to refer to confidence and certainty about the things we've been taught, and therefore believe. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, meaning He is the foundation of all we believe, and we know by evidence that He lived, died, and rose again. We have hope about things we know to be true.

But let's continue in Hebrews. Then the writer says, "The evidence of things not seen." What about the word "evidence" doesn't say "evidence" to you? The term is ἔλεγχος, and it means, "Proof; proving; conviction; being sure of.” We take stock of the evidence, and we apply that things we can't see. When I decide to go to the grocery store to pick up more food, I can't see that it is, but I got on the basis of "faith," meaning that I make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make the assumption reasonable. There hasn't been an earthquake in my town, I don't see smoke from a huge grocery-store fire, and there was no indication the store was going out of business, so I go on the basis of the evidence of things not seen. I have faith the store is there and behold there it is! A certainty of things not seen.

That's what the verse is about. Now back to your post.

> The assurance of things hoped for is no assurance at all.

You can now see that this is totally mistaken, and it's the basis of your argument.

> Imagine that you had faith in your football team.

This is just wishful thinking or optimism. It's not the biblical definition of faith.

> As for the line "conviction of things not seen" I assume this extends to all senses because we also can't "feel" god as if he were a hand on your shoulder or the wind blowing.

I hope you can now see that this is not at all what "conviction of things not seen" is. (And I use hope because now you have evidence of the correct way to read the text. And I can logically assume that you've read it if you are reading this. It's all about evidence.) This verse has nothing to do with "feeling God in the breeze."

> Furthermore, faith is used to justify every religion.

Actually, Christianity is both historical and evidentiary. It sets it apart from other religions.

> People feel strongly about their religions. People have hope that their religions are true.

Biblical faith is not just a strong feeling or wishful thinking. Christianity is evidentiary.

> faith is not assurance of your religion just because you hope that you're religion is real. Faith may be a conviction for things unseen, but it certainly won't lead you to truth.

You've misunderstood the verse. The "being sure of what we hope for" is an assessment of reality and a dependence on it. The "conviction of things not seen" is weighing the evidences and making a determination of truth.

Obviously we need to talk more. Let's talk.

[Acerbic]

The chair analogy is clearly poor. Having experienced the chair as sturdy in the past, I have good reason to believe it will be sturdy in the future. You have no such evidence for god.

As far as your hope in Jesus, Hope is merely an emotion. Emotions are no justification for truth. I may hope to win the lottery.

Paul uses the same term (hope) to refer to confidence and certainty about the things we've been taught

Let's just replace hope with confidence and certainty then.

The new verse is: "Faith is the assurance of things we are certain will happen, the conviction of things not seen."

It fits your chair example. If you have certainty of things, like you do with a chair, then you have assurance that the chair will hold you like it has before. But clearly your chair example is faulty.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for your reply and the conversation.

> Having experienced the chair as sturdy in the past, I have good reason to believe it will be sturdy in the future. You have no such evidence for god.

Many people have experienced God, myself included. There are factors of the way the universe is that give evidence of God. There are logical arguments that point far more clearly to theism than atheism. Jesus was on the Earth, and He died and rose again in history. I do have evidences for God, similar to the chair. Having experienced the reality of God in the past, I have good reason on the basis of evidence to believe the reality of God in the future.

> As far as your hope in Jesus, Hope is merely an emotion

This is not the way the Bible uses hope. It's illegitimate to take the way we use hope in our language, time, and culture, and anachronistically transplant that to their writing and intent. "Gay" in our culture is not the same as the way songwriters used it in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Bible uses hope not as an emotion but as an affirmation of a truth.

> Let's just replace hope with confidence and certainty then.
The new verse is: "Faith is the assurance of things we are certain will happen, the conviction of things not seen."

Here's an accurate dynamic translation of the verse: "Faith is being sure of the reality of the object of that faith and having evidence for what we don't see."

In the Bible evidence precedes faith. There is no "close your eyes and jump off a cliff" and good luck to ya! God appears to Moses in a burning bush before He expects him to believe anything. He gave signs to take back to Pharaoh and the Israelite people, so they could see the signs before they were expected to believe. So also through the whole OT. In the NT, Jesus started off with turning water into wine, healing some people, casting out demons, and then he taught them about faith. He didn't expect them to believe until they had evidence to go on. And they couldn't possibly understand the resurrection until there was some evidence. He could have just disappeared and expected the disciples to blindly believe, but that's not what he did. He showed up to give them material evidence. The whole Bible is God revealing himself to us all—and I mean actually, not through some exercise of faith.

When you read the Bible, people came to Jesus to be healed because they had heard about other people who had been healed. They had seen other people whom Jesus had healed. People had heard him teach. Their faith was based on evidence. Jesus kept giving them new information, and they gained new knowledge from it. Based on that knowledge, they acted with more faith. People came to him to make requests. Evidence preceded faith, and more evidence grew faith. That's how it works in the Bible.

[Acerbic]

Okay, but now I have to ask the next burning question, what is this evidence that gives you faith? And if god is open to proving himself to people all the time, why isn't Christianity accepted as the one true religion? When scientists use evidence, they can quickly convince the entire scientific community of something. Religions are frequently dividing into multiple schisms. Nobody can agree on the evidence. It's typically personal and can sometimes even be confused with mental illness. What is your evidence, and respectfully, how do you know it wasn't merely a form of hallucination?

[jimwalton]

> what is this evidence that gives you faith?

That there is something rather than nothing tells us that the universe had a cause. Since it had a beginning, it couldn't cause itself when it didn't exist. And since the laws of nature weren't operative before the Big Bang, and nature itself didn't exist, the cause of the universe had to be something powerful and timeless outside of nature. The evidence of the universe that science gives us leads us to a theistic conclusion.

The fact that so many constants in the universe are very finely-tuned to exact parameters to sustain life gives evidence of an intelligence that planned it rather than to chance occurrences after an "explosive" rapid expansion. The evidences of so many precise components leads us to theistic conclusions more logically than to a natural one.

The evidence of us a rational, reasonable, intelligent beings gives evidence of a rational, reasonable, intelligent source than to a random, naturally selected, genetic mutation source.

The evidence of us as personal (having personality) leads us to a personal source rather than an impersonal one. If we are inferring the most reasonable conclusion, theism has more sufficiency of explanation in all these areas than naturalism.

The evidence of Jesus's resurrection looms large.

The evidence of people's religious experiences has validity.

All these together, and more, are the evidences that lead me to a confidence and certainty in Christianity as truth.

> And if god is open to proving himself to people all the time, why isn't Christianity accepted as the one true religion?

Well, first of all, Christianity is the largest religion on the planet, at 2.1 billion. Second, Christianity is a matter of a relationship with God, not really a religion, per se. It has to be chosen, and it has to be on the basis of wanting a love relationship with God. It's not just a matter of accepting theological or philosophical propositions. Third, people have free will and can choose to believe what they want, even if it's wrong. For absurd examples, there are people who still believe the Earth is flat, that we never landed astronauts on the moon, or that the Holocaust ever happened. Go figure! If the Earth is round, why isn't that accepted as one true scientific fact? Ah, human nature.

> Religions are frequently dividing into multiple schisms.

Yeah, but that's not unique to religion. Republicans can't agree on a lot of stuff. There are right-wing Republicans, moderate, Trumpers and non-Trumpers. There are Socialist Democrats, moderates, Liberals, Left-wing, and conservative Democrats (though those are getting harder to find). Nobody can agree on the evidence.

There are Keynesian economists, classical, neo-classical, monetarists, and behavioral economists. They can't agree on the evidence.

Even science contradicts itself, both over time and at the same time. For instance, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Both are highly confirmed and enormously impressive; unfortunately, they can’t both be correct. Even scientists can't always agree on the evidence.

I could go on: archaeology, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, even doctors about which foods are healthy and which are not.

> When scientists use evidence, they can quickly convince the entire scientific community of something.

This is the ideal, but not the reality.

> It's typically personal and can sometimes even be confused with mental illness.

Now you're dipping into the ridiculous. Confusing religious belief with mental illness? C'mon.

> What is your evidence, and respectfully, how do you know it wasn't merely a form of hallucination?

First of all, logic, science, and reason are not hallucinations. Secondly, there is no such thing as anything but individual hallucinations. It's more than a stretch to think that 2.1 billion people on the planet have all had the same hallucination and the same mental illness—especially when we look at the list of very intelligent and respected scientists and scholars who are Christians: Francis Collins, Jennifer Wiseman, Stephen Schaffner, Alvin Plantinga, and a long long list of many more.

[Acerbic]

So I disagree with a lot about what you said, but I will specifically go into your final paragraph. Thanks for the rest of your reply, but this certainly seems most important.

I do not believe that all Christians have the same hallucination, but I notice that when you go into your personal reasoning, you do not bring up some sort of personal spiritual experience. You list the experiences of others as validating. When I think of a spiritual experience I lean on the experiences that others have told me. I feel as though I've had "spiritual experiences" myself, which I later decided were merely feelings. Some people have feelings; others actually hear voices or see things. The problem, like I said before, is that it can be hard to distinguish between hallucinations and real phenomena. People can have group experiences that are in this category. There is an example from early 1900's where 100,000 people in Portugal saw the sun move freely through the sky. Despite the fact that this seems completely impossible, and the neighboring country of Spain saw nothing.

So it seems unreasonable to question if the mental health of all 2.1B people, sure, but I'm not doing that. I'm questioning the authenticity of the specific people who claim to have such experiences, and there are far less of those people. Furthermore, I do not mean to question their mental health. I mean to question if they had a hallucination. Hallucinations can be had by people with no mental illness. Some people specifically take drugs to experience a hallucination so that they can specifically trigger a religious experience... and that might be completely baseless since they may merely be triggering a hallucination caused by nothing other than the drug. Second, people can be particularly impressionable by the power of suggestion. This is presumably why all people have hallucinations that involve their religion. People who are Hindu for example will hallucinate Hindu gods. People who are Christian will Hallucinate Jesus. UFO sightings with distinct characteristics such as big heads and little green or gray bodies were never reported before that specific creature became popular in movies, but once they became popular, suddenly many people reported seeing them.

So regarding these claims specifically, why should we believe them? And isn't it fair to question how those involved ruled out hallucination?

[jimwalton]

> I disagree with a lot about what you said

That doesn't surprise me. Hopefully it will lead to good dialogue.

> notice that when you go into your personal reasoning, you do not bring up some sort of personal spiritual experience. You list the experiences of others as validating. When I think of a spiritual experience I lean on the experiences that others have told me. I feel as though I've had "spiritual experiences" myself, which I later decided were merely feelings. Some people have feelings; others actually hear voices or see things.

I just didn't bring it up. I certainly believe in the validity of experiences, and that experiences can be true. I also don't see religious experiences as different from other experiences.

Experiences can be the effects of reality ("I think I hear a car outside," and there indeed is one), or effects of sensation ("I think I hear a car outside," and there isn't one). Into which category do religious experiences fall? Rationally speaking, it could be either. There are many witnesses of both public and private religious experiences. The question of the hour, of course, is their legitimacy. I mean, if i walk into the corner of a table and there is a subsequent bruise on my thigh, there is good evidence for both the table and my injurious experience with it. But not all experiences are physical (and therefore scientific). Right now you are experiencing reading what I have written, and that experience is both rational and valid (or why did I waste my time?). Perception is how we process reality.

In the absence of special considerations, experiences can be taken as genuine, and there is no rational reason to isolate religious experiences as being in a different category. Since there are substantial logical and scientific reasons to believe in the existence of God, it is intuitively right to take the way things seem to be as the way they are.

By way of illustration, we know we are not alone in this world because we know there are others persons in it. We also believe that each person, generally speaking, has a mind that can reason, feel, remember, intuit, etc., just as ours can. yet we have absolutely no concrete evidence of anyone else's mind. We can never really tell if they think, what they are truly thinking, what they are truly feeling, if their pain is real (if they just walked into the corner of a table), etc., and yet we suppose it's true. We never really know someone else's mental state (joy, fear, pain). Yet I can reasonably construct a sound inductive argument for the conclusion that I am not the only person who thinks and reasons or has sensations and feelings. How do I know? When it comes right down to it, other people's minds are inaccessible to all other people. I cannot prove by science what you are thinking, or even IF you are thinking, or if you are feeling pain. I go by experiential clues—common sense. As it turns out, the bulk of my commonsense beliefs about these other minds is more probable than not. I have evidence that other sentient beings exist. I don't need scientific proof that they think to rationally assume they feel, think, and hold beliefs.

Using this analogy, it's reasonable for me to assume that, in the absence of special considerations (such as mental illness, the influence of drugs, etc.), experiences can be taken as genuine. Efforts to restrict religious experience from validity have been unsuccessful and are unjustified.

You may say, "Yeah, well a religious experience is nothing like walking into the corner of a table." I'm not sure. The only reason you know what a table is is because of your past experience with tables, and being taught that the letters T-A-B-L-E linguistically symbolize that thing you just walked into, and that you often put your food or your stuff on. How can I scientifically confirm your past experience with the table was a reliable and legitimate experience? I can't. But we use common sense: people's experiences are generally valid in the absence of special considerations.

> The problem, like I said before, is that it can be hard to distinguish between hallucinations and real phenomena.

For mentally ill people or people on drugs, yes.

> There is an example from early 1900's where 100,000 people in Portugal saw the sun move freely through the sky.

Uh, I dispute this reference and event. As far as I know, there is no evidence of mass hallucinations.

> I'm questioning the authenticity of the specific people who claim to have such experiences, and there are far less of those people.

On what basis? Do you have reason or evidence to question their authenticity? I should hope it's not just a priori bias, i.e., the spirit world isn't real (an a priori presupposition), and therefore the experiences of these people could not possibly have been authentic.

> Second, people can be particularly impressionable by the power of suggestion.

Yes, they are. Unquestionably. Even the placebo effect is well-documented.

> So regarding these claims specifically, why should we believe them?

We should believe them because they have evidentiary credibility. Christianity is a historical, evidentiary religion. It's one thing to say, "The grasshopper jumps in the light." It's another to say, at 9 a.m., the high priest Caiaphas called a meeting of the Sanhedrin, after which they sent Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect." When we look at the historical credibility of the Bible, that it places its teachings in history and on the basis of evidence, we have reason to investigate them. Jesus could have just disappeared from the tomb and expected people to accept it by faith, but he didn't. He came out, showed himself, ate food, and invited people to touch his wounds. Now we have to evaluate the authenticity and credibility of the evidence given in the accounts. There is nothing hallucinogenic about it.

> isn't it fair to question how those involved ruled out hallucination?

It's fair, but "hallucination" doesn't fit any of the accounts, any of the movements that came out of their claims, or how their lives were changed both individually and as a community. The quantity of the sightings, to different groups in different places and different times of day (that by itself makes it different from your Portugal example) is not the description of individual or mass hallucinations.

Second, there is nothing else in any of their writings that smacks of delusion, hallucinogenic experiences.

Third, this explanation doesn’t fit James, the brother of Jesus, who was not a believer (and never one of the disciples before Jesus's resurrection). He was not biased in expectation of a visitation. Neither was Saul/Paul, who was an enemy of everything Christian. Neither of them had any desire, inclination or expectation to see a risen Jesus. Moreover, what of the multiple sightings—two people on the road to Emmaus, the 10 disciples at one time, and 500 people at one time? Psychologists and psychiatrists can guarantee that there is no such thing as a group hallucination.

Hallucinations and delusions are individual experiences, like dreams. They happen in individual minds. There are group memories, but not group hallucinations. Five hundred people having the same hallucination at the same time just might be a miracle only one step below that of the resurrection itself!

But even if the disciples were guilty of having hallucinations and causing a great stir, the sure way to debunk all these sightings is to produce the body, which was never done. If people were making it up, and trying to make the hysterical into the historical, bringing forth the corpse silences all the lunacy. That was never done. Mass and multiple hallucinations is not a reasonable explanation.

[Acerbic]

> there is no rational reason to isolate religious experiences as being in a different category.

There certainly is reason to put them into different categories. For starters, religious experiences that are indistinguishable from hallucinations are not testable while scientific claims are testable. Furthermore, even if god were a proven fact, and he walked the earth and at at McDonald's, that wouldn't mean that people couldn't still hallucinate god, so to accept all "religious experiences" as factual merely because god exists doesn't follow.

> I dispute this reference and event. As far as I know, there is no evidence of mass hallucinations.

They never said it was a group hallucination. They believed it was a real thing that happened. There's a news paper story about it and everything. It is not considered a hoax or anything like it. They claim it is a miracle from god. Why are you incredulous of the story of 100,000 eye witnesses but you accept the claim that Christ is god based on four gospels? Furthermore, shared hallucinations are considered a thing according to psychologists. I'm unsure why you are incredulous towards them.

> On what basis? Do you have reason or evidence to question their authenticity? I should hope it's not just a priori bias, i.e., the spirit world isn't real (an a priori presupposition), and therefore the experiences of these people could not possibly have been authentic.

I question the authenticity of all evidence I am presented with, or at least I try to. That is the skeptical approach to life. It winds up producing good outcomes. It is not merely incredulity.

> It's another to say, at 9 a.m., the high priest Caiaphas called a meeting of the Sanhedrin, after which they sent Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect

Christians have no such corroborating evidence, and if they exist please present them as I would like to see them. Furthermore, even if there were such evidence of Jesus as a stamped death certificate with a date and time, I wouldn't find that claim particularly miraculous. It would certainly do a lot to prove that he existed, but it would not prove he resurrected.

Also, I don't think the bible is full of people who hallucinated; maybe there was some, but that's not my claim. I am only talking about the hallucinations regarding people who claim to have personal experiences with god, not including the bible. The bible could be a number of things. It could be that Jesus was a real person and he had a message that people liked, so they embellished. It could be that Jesus was fictional all along. It could be that over a few decades the stories of Jesus were exaggerated. Hell, maybe the guy was an alien. I'm not claiming to know. I'm merely pointing out other potential explanations. Same goes for the supposed witnesses. Perhaps they were fictional or embellished. How can you know? You have four books made from thousands of manuscripts that were copied over centuries. None of them are even dated to the first century AD when Jesus supposedly died. Some of these early manuscripts are in complete tatters and you have only a small piece of paper available to make your case, which, as you can imagine, only covers a small section of the bible. The rest of the bible is older and had even more time to be warped into what it is today.

As far as "bring forth the corpse", it's an unfalsifiable argument. For all Christians know, Jesus's corpse rotted in the ground in the tomb and the disciples made up the stories about Jesus's resurrection decades after the corpse decomposed.

[jimwalton]

> religious experiences that are indistinguishable from hallucinations are not testable while scientific claims are testable.

No hallucination is scientifically testable. It has nothing to do with religion. Religion is not in a different category. Science can tell us what part of the brain is active, but it can't tell us what the brain is doing. In addition, I would assert that most religious experiences are not associated with hallucinations. Someone's awareness that a prayer was answered, that God is "speaking" to them through something they are reading, or feel the presence of God, for example, in a very difficult time (like the funeral of a family member), and bazillions of others have nothing to do with hallucinatory events.

> Furthermore, even if god were a proven fact, and he walked the earth and at at McDonald's, that wouldn't mean that people couldn't still hallucinate god, so to accept all "religious experiences" as factual merely because god exists doesn't follow.

It's true that no amount of legitimacy prevents people from hallucinating illegitimate things. That really has no bearing on valid religious experiences, just as hallucinations of Elvis doesn't impinge upon the historical Elvis.

> to accept all "religious experiences" as factual merely because god exists doesn't follow.

I never said that all religious experiences should be considered factual. What I said is that they are legitimate as any other experience. "In the absence of special considerations (such as hallucinations or drug use, for instance), experiences can be taken as genuine, and there is no rational reason to isolate religious experiences as being in a different category."

> They never said it was a group hallucination. They believed it was a real thing that happened.

It's still a very different kind of situation than the resurrection appearances, which happened to different people at different times and in different places and in different ways. It's was no mass hysteria or group delusion, according to the record.

> Why are you incredulous of the story of 100,000 eye witnesses but you accept the claim that Christ is god based on four gospels?

It's not just on the basis of the 4 Gospels, but on the historical record of the growth of the Church. The Church arose out of Jerusalem weeks after the crucifixion event and grew in the locale of the very center of Judaism—a religion known for strict adherence to particular practices (sacrifice, Sabbath observance, etc.) We have to be able to sufficiently (sociology, anthropology, history) explain that if the resurrection appearances were hallucinations. Such explanations fall short of credible.

Imagine claiming that a new form of polytheism was born in Mecca during Ramadan and it grew rapidly among the Muslim population in the ensuing decades. If it were true, we'd have a challenge on our hands explaining what was able to bring about that religion-cultural transformation.

There are a few indisputable facts: (1) Jesus's disciples taught he was raised from the dead and appeared to individuals/groups, (2) Jesus's disciples intended for us to interpret the resurrection as an actual event; (3) the world was changed.

> I question the authenticity of all evidence I am presented with, or at least I try to. That is the skeptical approach to life. It winds up producing good outcomes. It is not merely incredulity.

We all have a choice about how to approach new material. One is to tend to accept, one is to tend to reject, and the other is to approach it neutrally and to look for evidence before one leans in the pro or con direction. You sound like #2. I'm #3. Yours is "guilty until proven innocent." Mine is "Show me the case."

> Furthermore, shared hallucinations are considered a thing according to psychologists. I'm unsure why you are incredulous towards them.

Statistically speaking, only 7% of grieving people suffer from hallucinations. Hallucinations are individual experiences (https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/what-are-hallucinations#1). There is no single documented case of group hallucinations. Besides, if these disciples were suffering from hallucinations, the body of Jesus would still be in the tomb and it would be producible.

In addition, mass hallucinations of a demonstrably physical person is unparalleled in history. There is no such thing.

If you say shared hallucinations are a legitimate thing, you need to support that.

> Christians have no such corroborating evidence, and if they exist please present them as I would like to see them.

It depends what evidence you're after. We know that Jesus was crucified by Pilate.

• Tacitus: "The founder of the sect, Christus, had been put to death by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, when Tiberius was emperor."
• Josephus: "when Pilate, at the suggesting of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross,"
• Ignatius of Antioch: "[Jesus] was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate."
• Lucian of Samosata alluded to Jesus as "…the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world."
• Saul/Paul of Tarsus, an enemy and antagonizer of all things Christian.

> It would certainly do a lot to prove that he existed, but it would not prove he resurrected.

The evidences of his death and those of his resurrection are different things.

> I am only talking about the hallucinations regarding people who claim to have personal experiences with god, not including the bible.

I've had personal experiences with God, but never visions, dreams, or anything hallucinatory. I've seen answers to prayer, I've felt strength and peace in situations where that is inexplicable, I've had thoughts come to mind at propitious times that were exactly what I needed at the moment, and I've been able to show love to people who have treated me wretchedly. None of these have anything to do with hallucinations.

> The bible could be a number of things.

That's true. That's why we need to look at the evidence.

• Embellishment? Jesus fed 5000 people with a single lunch box of food. There were eyewitnesses. The miracles he did were in public. It's tough to embellish when you do things publicly. Secondly, Palestine in the 1st century, and Judaism in particular, were very skeptical eras and regions. They doubted and questioned everything, as the Gospels record. You can't just assume detriment. If you think it was embellished, support your case! How do you know?
• It could be that Jesus was fictional all along. This is a tough trick to pull off in a public situation. For instance, OK, we're 30 years after Bill Clinton's and Monica Lewinsky's fling. So, make up some story about it and see how well it flies. And then start a whole movement with your position as the central piece and acquire thousands of followers. How well is that going to play on the evening news?
• Hell, maybe the guy was an alien. And you think this is more credible than the historical record?

> I'm merely pointing out other potential explanations.

I get that, but potential explanations have to be evaluated. We are right now evaluating whether Trump abused power to an impeachable offense. Of course there are a variety of potential explanations, but taking the low road isn't the most responsible way to approach the issue. We need to be good scientists, detectives, and scholars. If we're after the truth, we can't just assume Jesus is a hoax and walk away thinking we've done a good job.

> Same goes for the supposed witnesses. Perhaps they were fictional or embellished. How can you know?

We have to assess the credibility of the author and the authenticity of the rest of what he wrote.

• Is he telling the truth?
• Should we believe him, and why?
• Can he be trusted?
• Is he reliable?
• What issues does he have?

And what about the writing. Does the author show indications of mental illness? Does he seem to be a person of integrity? What else in the work is confirmable? What has been proved to be wrong? That's how you decide these things.

> You have four books made from thousands of manuscripts that were copied over centuries.

Actually we have four books that were written as four books, from which we have thousands of manuscripts rolling through the centuries. Hermas, in about AD 100, alludes to the existence of 4 Gospels.

> None of them are even dated to the first century AD when Jesus supposedly died.

As I just mentioned, Hermas alludes to 4 Gospels: "The Church rests firmly on a bench with four feet" (Vision iii.13) Irenaeus and Origen, later, referred to the four canonical Gospels with the same language.

All of the Gospels date to the 1st century.

• Ignatius of Antioch (ca. AD 30-100) quotes from Matthew, as does Clement of Rome. The Didache (100-105) quotes Matthew.
• Clement of Rome quotes from Mark; Hermas makes an allusion to a passage in Mark.
• Ignatius quotes Luke; Clement alludes to Luke. Paul quotes Luke.
• There is a fragment from the Gospel of John (P52) said to be from 125, though some estimate it as early as 100.

All of the Gospels are filled with early theology, early terminology and vocabulary, and address situations that were in the 1st but not the 2nd century.

> Some of these early manuscripts are in complete tatters and you have only a small piece of paper available to make your case, which, as you can imagine, only covers a small section of the bible.

This is correct, and yet we have far better documentation for the New Testament than for ANY ancient document. If we reject the NT manuscripts because of the fragments, we reject all ancient historical documents.

And, by the way, we have 2 complete manuscripts (codices) of the entire NT dating to AD 300-350: Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. By comparison:

• Homer's Iliad was composed in about 750 BC. Our oldest manuscript or fragment is AD 150, 900 years later.
• Herodotus's History was written in 430 BC. Our oldest manuscript or fragment is AD 950, roughly 1500 years later.
• Plato's Republic was written in about 380 BC, and our oldest manuscript or fragment is AD 900.
• Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars? Written in 52 BC, our oldest manuscript or fragment is AD 850.
• Aristotle's Metaphysics? Written in 335 BC; our oldest manuscript or fragment is AD 1100.
• Tacitus's Annals: Written in AD 14-68; our oldest manuscript or fragment is 850.

The NT has FAR better attestation than any other ancient document. We can actually make a very good case for its content.

> For all Christians know, Jesus's corpse rotted in the ground in the tomb and the disciples made up the stories about Jesus's resurrection decades after the corpse decomposed.

This is not true to history. The disciples started preaching the resurrection 7 weeks after Jesus's crucifixion. Were his body still in the grave, it would be simple to produce. If the stories were made up, it would be easy to discredit them. They were being made up in Jerusalem, the place of his death and burial, within a month and a half of his death. It hardly gets easier than that if it's made-up stories.

Paul writes a creed (that was not his vocabulary, so he got it from somewhere else) in 1 Corinthians 15.3-6. It is widely admitted by scholars (even hostile ones) that this creed to which Paul is referring was circulating in the Christian community within 2-5 years of Jesus's death. That tells us that within 2-5 years there was a unified piece of affirmation that had solidified into a formula of faith that was common among churches. We're not talking decades, but only a handful of years. Even the Jesus Seminar (a very anti-biblical group) puts it no later than AD 33. That's like me claiming that Muhammad Ali is still alive. Or Fidel Castro. That's just not a claim anyone would get away with.