“It’s all a matter of establishing credibility of the witness …

Comment on Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith by Sean Pitman.

“It’s all a matter of establishing credibility of the witness – as I’ve already explained in some detail.” – Sean Pitman

Actually it is quite a bit more complicated than that. Look at a legal case for example. Often viva voce evidence, without the corroboration of physical evidence, is very unreliable. Bias plays a huge role in the testimony of witnesses. Ask any lawyer as to the whether ‘visions’ would ever be admitted as proof of their contents in a court of law.

You don’t seem to understand the basis of various historical claims. There is no remaining physical evidence at all that Alexander the Great actually fought the various battles that it is claimed he fought, nor is there any physical evidence of the things that it is claimed that he said. How then are such historical claims supported by “science”? – by appealing to the credibility of the source of such claims. This credibility is established by testing those elements of story that can actually be tested and potentially falsified. That is where the “physical evidence” comes into play. Those elements of the story that are supportable by physical evidence end up provided credibility to those elements of the story that cannot be directly supported by empirical evidence.

And yes, a court of law would most certainly accept the evidence that various historical figures, like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, actually said and did what most historians claim.

The very same is the basis for a rational belief in the claims of the Bible regarding both its historical as well as its futuristic claims.

So, if I have a bit of charisma, intelligence, salesmanship, deep knowledge of the Bible, past knowledge of what others have written, say, on a topic like the Noah’ Ark – how hard would it be to have a vision of being on the big boat and giving a splendid rendition of the event with detailed descriptions of all the beasts? Then my disciples can say it must be true because my vivid accounts are corroborated by the Bible itself. Classic circular reasoning.

It would take quite a bit more than this to establish your claim to be a true prophet – to include some empirical demonstration of your Divine calling that is actually empirically testable and potentially falsifiable.

So the fact that the bible might obliquely refer to sons of God and EGW had visions of same gives no scientific credence whatsoever to extra terrestial life. Where is the evidence? Just because the Bible says it so does not make it so, otherwise we wouldn’t need any corroboration from science wouuld we?

The corroboration from science is in regard to those elements that can be tested and potentially falsified. Again, how are you going to test a historical claim about any historical figure saying or doing this or that when all you have is the account of a witness? The best you can do is to test the credibility of the witness. That’s it. You cannot actually present direct evidence for such historical claims. Yet, it is not unreasonable or unscientific to accept the claims of historians regarding the events of the life of someone like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan…

And yes there is a difference between looking at a physical battle site where a historical battle took place and speculative life on other planets. I’m sure you can understand the distinction.

There is no difference because no physical evidence that a battle ever took place remains at many of these sites. All that remains is the historical accounts of such battles – the testimony of witnesses that was handed down, orally for hundreds of years before it was actually written down. That’s what these accounts are based on. Why then are they believable? Think about it…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
What is interesting is that the older the creation/Flood stories (which are practically universal in cultures around the world), the closer they match the Biblical account. In other worlds, the evidence at hand strongly favors that the Biblical account in the original account from which all other accounts are derived. Also, the details of the Biblical account described in Genesis are supported by archaeological evidence that confirms various details long believed to be in question or even mythical – such as the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities that were catastrophically destroyed (mentioned in the same order in the Ebla Tablets).

In any case, you’re not mentioning anything new here. These attempts to challenge Biblical credibility have been around for a long time. However, the Bible keeps trumping all efforts to undermine its credibility. It has shown itself to be the most reliable historical text that we have. No other historical text or resource comes remotely close.

For a further discussion along these lines, to include a discussion of the origin of the 7-day weekly cycle in history, see: http://ssnet.org/blog/origin-of-sabbath-7-day-week/


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
Thank you for your clarification Bob. I certainly agree.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith

Thanks Bob for your candour in recoznizing the likelihood of redaction in the Bible. What got left out, amended, embellished?

As already noted, the names of places were likely updated over time, but not the historical narrative – information which was lost outside of the Scriptural accounts. In fact, this is one of the best evidences that the authors cited by Scripture really did write these accounts in their own day.


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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!


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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…


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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.