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Naturalism and human faculties...

kelly1

Hello all, long time since I wandered into this den of vipers!

I recently read this book and it prompted me to have a chat with you guys.

Presumably the atheists among you would hold a naturalistic/materialistic worldview, meaning that all of reality consists of nothing but physical matter and energy. OK so far?

If this is the case, I'm wondering how you would deal with questions such as the following:

- How can matter produce consciousness? Is the quark self-aware?

- Where does the faculty of reason come from and how do we know we can trust it if it has a physical origin? So how do we know that chemical/electrical interactions produce coherent, logical, rational thoughts? Is our rationality an illusion?

- Do we have free-will or is it just a convincing illusion?

How do you guys deal with these questions?

Thanks.

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kelly1

robindch wrote: »

A position of the purest - wonky - nihilism which accurately reflects the empty philosophical confidence which one can have in a system in which one believes one can "define" whatever facts you want.

Not so much as a "he might have a point"? Seems obvious enough to me. There is not reason to assume matter results in objective truth since it would have to have the capability to observe itself from outside of itself. Matter would have to be self-aware (like humans).

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

Not so much as a "he might have a point"?

No, the piece you've quoted is word-salad whose constituent parts boil down into one of two broad classifications - sentences which are trivially true, and sentences which are ostentatious nonsense.

As soon as Mr Bush says something which is vibrant, succinct, clear, unambiguous and useful, I can guarantee that I'll be on it like a fruitfly to a banana.

Samaris

kelly1 wrote: »

I just read this passage from an article by Russ Bush (no idea who he is).

"[In the naturalistic framework], reason is not really and independent evaluative process that can critique itself. Reason is only what the chemistry allows through self-arrangement and self-organization, and the shaping of logic and rationality and grammatical language is merely a chance result of an undesigned process that has no necessary relation to truth or meaning. All truth could be merely a pragmatically qualified set of ideas. No intrinsic truth would exist, and yet naturalists claim that naturalism itself is true. But how could that claim avoid the inevitable skeptical conclusion. Nothing can be known for sure to be objectively true, for there is no standard other than the chemical pattern one happens to be using at the time. Why should be reason be trusted? How could naturalism be known to be true? The answer is, it can't."

Short form - everyone sees things slightly differently, so we don't know what's true, therefore nothing can be proven true, ergo existential angst.

By the way, naturalist already has a meaning, don't co-opt it for some other ism!

His language critique is just plain wrong as well.

Inevitable corruption to show just how meaningless it is;

"[In the theistic framework], belief is not really an independent evaluative process that can critique itself. Belief is only what the ideology allows through self-enforcement and self-organization, and the shaping of belief and rationality and societal laws is merely a chance result of an undesigned process that has no necessary relation to truth or meaning. All truth could be merely a pragmatically qualified set of ideas. No intrinsic truth would exist, and yet theists claim that [their] theism itself is true. But how could that claim avoid the inevitable skeptical conclusion. Nothing can be known for sure to be objectively true, for there is no standard other than the scripture one happens to be using at the time. Why should be scripture be trusted? How could [any] theistic mythos be known to be true? The answer is, it can't."

If you combine enough interesting words together with enough vague existential angst, it sounds a lot deeper than it is.

kelly1

robindch wrote: »

No, the piece you've quoted is word-salad whose constituent parts boil down into one of two broad classifications - sentences which are trivially true, and sentences which are ostentatious nonsense.

Personally I think he's a bit wordy but I think it's a fair point to make that the sort of mind which comes from chemical and quantum processes, cannot be expected to be able to observe it's own conclusions and assess their rationality. Why trust that mind at all?

When your mind criticizes Mr Bush's words, how do you know you mind is not producing garbage? The fact that you can critique your own thoughts must count for something.

robindch wrote: »

As soon as Mr Bush says something which is vibrant, succinct, clear, unambiguous and useful, I can guarantee that I'll be on it like a fruitfly to a banana.

I seriously doubt that

Your kind of fruitfly would find every banana wanting in some respect and would die of hunger!

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

When your mind criticizes Mr Bush's words, how do you know you mind is not producing garbage? The fact that you can critique your own thoughts must count for something.

It's not my mind which is criticizing Bush, it's I who am criticizing Bush using my mind as a channel to bring the message to the wider world.

I hope this clears it up.

Mark Hamill

kelly1 wrote: »

I just read this passage from an article by Russ Bush (no idea who he is).

"[In the naturalistic framework], reason is not really an independent evaluative process that can critique itself. Reason is only what the chemistry allows through self-arrangement and self-organization, and the shaping of logic and rationality and grammatical language is merely a chance result of an undesigned process that has no necessary relation to truth or meaning. All truth could be merely a pragmatically qualified set of ideas. No intrinsic truth would exist, and yet naturalists claim that naturalism itself is true. But how could that claim avoid the inevitable skeptical conclusion. Nothing can be known for sure to be objectively true, for there is no standard other than the chemical pattern one happens to be using at the time. Why should be reason be trusted? How could naturalism be known to be true? The answer is, it can't."

If reason can't be trusted then how can we trust Bush's reasoning here?

kelly1

robindch wrote: »

It's not my mind which is criticizing Bush, it's I who am criticizing Bush using my mind as a channel to bring the message to the wider world.

In a naturalistic framework, what is this 'I' of which you speak? Is it physically locate somewhere in the brain? Or your heart?

Mark Hamill wrote: »

If reason can't be trusted then how can we trust Bush's reasoning here?

Coming from a theistic perspective, my claim is that God has endowed us with reason so I can validly make a claim for genuine and true reason. I cannot see how the naturalist view can have any claim for reason.

The more I think about it, Mark, the more I think atheists have a blind-spot when it comes to thinking outside the naturalist box. It's scientism, isn't it? You can't demonstrate it scientifically, ergo it's not real. I really, really don't get it.

So I'm wondering now if I'm wasting my time. If people refuse to accept any philosophical arguments, then I don't see that any progress can be made. And by progress, I mean an admission that there's more to this debate than scientific evidence.

beefburrito

kelly1 wrote: »

In a naturalistic framework, what is this 'I' of which you speak? Is it physically locate somewhere in the brain? Or your heart?

Coming from a theistic perspective, my claim is that God has endowed us with reason so I can validly make a claim for genuine and true reason. I cannot see how the naturalist view can have any claim for reason.

The more I think about it, Mark, the more I think atheists have a blind-spot when it comes to thinking outside the naturalist box. It's scientism, isn't it? You can't demonstrate it scientifically, ergo it's not real. I really, really don't get it.

So I'm wondering now if I'm wasting my time. If people refuse to accept any philosophical arguments, then I don't see that any progress can be made. And by progress, I mean an admission that there's more to this debate than scientific evidence.

You might be better off debating with someone who has an open mind to this subject.

Most atheist's go by emotive debating rather than intellect.

Agnostics are more easier to have a civil debate with ðŸ˜

seamus

kelly1 wrote: »

When your mind criticizes Mr Bush's words, how do you know you mind is not producing garbage?

What you're actually engaging in here is a common form of reductionism which doesn't seek to prove that your viewpoint is more correct than anyone else's, but rather that everyone's viewpoint is equally awful.

It's usually presented as "atheism is just another form of faith", so this is slightly novel, I'll grant you.

Ultimately what you're saying here is that we can't trust anything, therefore every viewpoint is unverifiable nonsense.

Including your own.

But that's a circular argument really - if every viewpoint is unverifiable nonsense, then so too is the viewpoint that we can't trust anything and everything is unverifiable nonsense.

As Mr Hamill says - if our reasoning can't be trusted, then why should we spend any time considering Mr Bush's reasoning?

Blowfish

kelly1 wrote: »

The more I think about it, Mark, the more I think atheists have a blind-spot when it comes to thinking outside the naturalist box. It's scientism, isn't it? You can't demonstrate it scientifically, ergo it's not real. I really, really don't get it.

I think you have a blind spot yourself. If you are open to believing claims that can't be scientifically proven, then you are open to false claims. You are essentially saying that anything that isn't falsifiable has the potential to be true and should be treated as true, hence your belief system has no reason at all to discount any un-falsifiable claim made in the history of humanity, from every God that's ever been dreamed up, every conspiracy ever invented to Russell's teapot and the flying spaghetti monster.

kelly1

beefburrito wrote: »

You might be better off debating with someone who has an open mind to this subject.

Believe me, I'm coming to that conclusion very quickly.

seamus wrote: »

Ultimately what you're saying here is that we can't trust anything, therefore every viewpoint is unverifiable nonsense.

Including your own.

I fundamentally disagree with this because my claim is that human reason is God-given and can therefore be trusted. Matter behaves consistently but that's no basis for thinking it can by itself, regardless of complexity, produce true reasoning. The physical brain, could have a "bug" that we don't know about.

Atheists here are pointing to consistencies in experiments etc as evidence that reason is genuine true objective reason but I would claim that atheists are "smuggling in unproven assumptions" (to quote David Wood).

[Deleted User]

kelly1 wrote: »

Coming from a theistic perspective, my claim is that God has endowed us with reason so I can validly make a claim for genuine and true reason. I cannot see how the naturalist view can have any claim for reason.

But this is self contradictory. If God gives you reason, how can you know that he gave you reason? Your answer appears to be giving up using reason and going with irrational faith.

Further, if God is the one who creates and controls and grants reason, how do you know that he's actually giving you a complete, unbiased version of it that actually is accurate and usable? Because you have faith he didn't? Cause that is not a reasonable argument. It's again abandoning reason entirely.

Also it doesn't gel with the rest of your outlook. Why would god give people reason, but make it so that reason is entirely inadequate for use in observing and thinking about him and the supernatural?
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me...

Blowfish

beefburrito wrote: »

Agnostics are more easier to have a civil debate with ðŸ˜

Who says you aren't dealing with Agnostics? I'm willing to bet most here (including myself) are agnostic atheists.

kelly1

Blowfish wrote: »

....You are essentially saying that anything that isn't falsifiable has the potential to be true and should be treated as true...

The part in bold is where you went wrong. As I've been trying to argue, my faith is based on reason. But it's not being accepted as reason because there's no scientific evidence, as if that's the only type of evidence that exists.

So for instance I would argue that Jesus is who he claimed to be based, for example, on the finding of any empty tomb, when his disciples didn't even understand resurrection. These same disciples underwent a dramatic change in attitude following Jesus' appearance to them and went on to be killed for their beliefs. St. Paul conversion from a Jewish Pharisee and persecutor of Christians to one who suffered and died for the gospel, is the most dramatic example.

If the apostles were making it up, they wouldn't have put themselves in harms way for nothing.

Now, does *any* of that make sense to you?

Blowfish

kelly1 wrote: »

So for instance I would argue that Jesus is who he claimed to be based, for example, on the finding of any empty tomb, when his disciples didn't even understand resurrection. These same disciples underwent a dramatic change in attitude following Jesus' appearance to them and went on to be killed for their beliefs. St. Paul conversion from a Jewish Pharisee and persecutor of Christians to one who suffered and died for the gospel, is the most dramatic example.

If the apostles were making it up, they wouldn't have put themselves in harms way for nothing.

Are the actions of the characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Mahabharata, Book of Leinster, Prose Edda, Iliad/Odyssey etc. not just as 'reasonable' as those in the Bible?

RichieO

Originally Posted by kelly1 View Post
Coming from a theistic perspective, my claim is that God has endowed us with reason so I can validly make a claim for genuine and true reason. I cannot see how the naturalist view can have any claim for reason.

Faith does not require reason, if your god gave reason to humans, how come it made him disappear, (for so many) not a smart move?

pauldla

kelly1 wrote: »

The part in bold is where you went wrong. As I've been trying to argue, my faith is based on reason. But it's not being accepted as reason because there's no scientific evidence, as if that's the only type of evidence that exists.

So for instance I would argue that Jesus is who he claimed to be based, for example, on the finding of any empty tomb, when his disciples didn't even understand resurrection. These same disciples underwent a dramatic change in attitude following Jesus' appearance to them and went on to be killed for their beliefs. St. Paul conversion from a Jewish Pharisee and persecutor of Christians to one who suffered and died for the gospel, is the most dramatic example.

If the apostles were making it up, they wouldn't have put themselves in harms way for nothing.

Now, does *any* of that make sense to you?

You were asked for historical evidence, kelly1, but you merely posted some links that didn't prove a whole lot.

Show some evidence for Jesus and you'll certainly be given a hearing. I'll forewarn you that this is a fools errand; there isn't exactly a whole lot.

As for the 'putting themselves in harms way' argument, you must surely realise how weak that is? It might, if true, show that they took their beliefs seriously (the faithful usually do, that's why they are faithful). It tells us nothing of the truth of those beliefs.

[Deleted User]

kelly1 wrote: »

If the apostles were making it up, they wouldn't have put themselves in harms way for nothing.

Now, does *any* of that make sense to you?

Why did the followers of Joseph Smith put themselves into harms way for nothing?

Mark Hamill

kelly1 wrote: »

Coming from a theistic perspective, my claim is that God has endowed us with reason so I can validly make a claim for genuine and true reason.

And how can you reason that your God given reason is reasonable? How can I reason that your god-given reason is reasonable if god hasn't given it to me? What about all the other non-christian theists (muslims, jews etc.) who say that their reason is god-given, how can I determine which reasoning is actually reasonable.
If reason isn't actually reasoned, if it is only given by god, then where is my reasoning come from? If I can't get "true" reason without god choosing to give it to me, then doesn't that make "true" reason unreasonable?
Can you explain the reason you believe your reason comes from god?

kelly1 wrote: »

The more I think about it, Mark, the more I think atheists have a blind-spot when it comes to thinking outside the naturalist box. It's scientism, isn't it? You can't demonstrate it scientifically, ergo it's not real. I really, really don't get it.

If something can't be demonstrated scientifically (i.e. shown to have a measurable and predictable effect) then how is it different to not being real?

kelly1

Blowfish wrote: »

Are the actions of the characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Mahabharata, Book of Leinster, Prose Edda, Iliad/Odyssey etc. not just as 'reasonable' as those in the Bible?

What has reasonable actions got to do with anything? The very reason Jesus rose from the dead was to provide *evidence* that He was/is the Son of God. Without that evidence, Christianity would never have got off the ground. The apostles would have admitted to backing the wrong horse and then scattered.

RichieO wrote: »

It would appear all discussions have moved to moot point, which I cannot see resolving any of the original points, we are not in a position to gain a great deal even if we had explanations for what preceded the big bang or the infinity quandary... So far this thread has revealed more about the differences in basic thought approaches...

I have to agree with you on that, Richie.

There's enough evidence for those who *want* to find God, but not enough to force people into a conclusion.

RichieO wrote: »

Faith does not require reason, if your god gave reason to humans, how come it made him disappear, (for so many) not a smart move?

*Blind* faith requires no reason. Rational faith does. And God is hidden so as not to force people to believe. Children show their true nature in how they behave when they think their parents are not watching them.

pauldla wrote: »

You were asked for historical evidence, kelly1, but you merely posted some links that didn't prove a whole lot.

Show some evidence for Jesus and you'll certainly be given a hearing. I'll forewarn you that this is a fools errand; there isn't exactly a whole lot.

Evidence for what exactly? That he existed, that he was God or what?

pauldla wrote: »

As for the 'putting themselves in harms way' argument, you must surely realise how weak that is? It might, if true, show that they took their beliefs seriously (the faithful usually do, that's why they are faithful). It tells us nothing of the truth of those beliefs.

I think it clearly demonstrates that Paul sincerely believed he saw the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. And he was so sure in this belief that he was willing to be beaten, jailed, shipwrecked and finally beheaded.

Jesus used Paul as powerful evidence because Paul, formerly Saul, was a very zealous persecutor of Christians and his conversion would require an extraordinary explanation.

pauldla

kelly1 wrote: »

......

Evidence for what exactly? That he existed, that he was God or what?

Let's start off with evidence that he existed, shall we? When we tire of that we can move on to evidence that he was God.

think it clearly demonstrates that Paul sincerely believed he saw the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. And he was so sure in this belief that he was willing to be beaten, jailed, shipwrecked and finally beheaded.

Jesus used Paul as powerful evidence because Paul, formerly Saul, was a very zealous persecutor of Christians and his conversion would require an extraordinary explanation.

Well yes, but that's just restating the point I have made. If true it certainly suggested he held his beliefs firmly, but it tells us nothing of the truth of his beliefs.

RichieO

---Quote (Originally by RichieO)---
It would appear all discussions have moved to moot point, which I cannot see resolving any of the original points, we are not in a position to gain a great deal even if we had explanations for what preceded the big bang or the infinity quandary... So far this thread has revealed more about the differences in basic thought approaches...
---End Quote---
I have to agree with you on that, Richie.

There's enough evidence for those who *want* to find God, but not enough to force people into a conclusion.

I see the same amount of evidence for UFOs, big foot etc, etc, massive list there...
Many religions have used many things to coerce, force, blackmail people, being threatened with being sent to hell for eternal torture is just one.
A smart god would have given every singe person on the planet the same "spiritual experience" which would be far more convincing than anything that has been given as "evidence" so far... Gods only fill the gaps in knowledge for a limited time...

smacl

pauldla wrote: »

Let's start off with evidence that he existed, shall we?

As per post #93 this was covered in some depth in the Historicity of Jesus some time ago. Perhaps kelly1 could give it a read rather than re-hashing it all from scratch?

pauldla

smacl wrote: »

As per post #93 this was covered in some depth in the Historicity of Jesus some time ago. Perhaps kelly1 could give it a read rather than re-hashing it all from scratch?

Indeed. Perhaps we should put up a 'no bunnies down here' sign at the mouth of that particular rabbit hole. You should check out that thread though, kelly1, it's certainly worth a read.

kelly1

Guys, thanks for the tip-off on the historicity thread. I'll have a read of it.

Blowfish

kelly1 wrote: »

What has reasonable actions got to do with anything? The very reason Jesus rose from the dead was to provide *evidence* that He was/is the Son of God. Without that evidence, Christianity would never have got off the ground. The apostles would have admitted to backing the wrong horse and then scattered.

You are basing your 'reasoning' on actions solely described in a collection of non contemporary and often contradictory documents and claiming this is 'evidence' that what's in the document is true.

Do you not see the issue with taking the actions of people solely described in the Mahabharata as evidence that the Mahabharata is true?

sKeith

kelly1 wrote: »

It's not just about calculations. How do we know the logic we use every day is meaningful? Common logic says you can't have a square circle. But how do we know this to be true?

On this,
I don't agree with your common logic statement above.
A circle is a polygon with 'n' sides. A perfect circle would have n = infinity.
If for some reason, the max number of sides we could use to represent our circle was restricted to 4, then our best representation of a circle would be a square.

smacl

sKeith wrote: »

On this,
I don't agree with your common logic statement above.
A circle is a polygon with 'n' sides. A perfect circle would have n = infinity.
If for some reason, the max number of sides we could use to represent our circle was restricted to 4, then our best representation of a circle would be a square.

Not really though. A circle is the set of all points on a plane that are a fixed distance from another point. While a regular polygon with an infinite number of sides can be considered to be a circle, a square is subset with four equidistant points and cannot. Circles are curved, squares and polygons with a finite number of sides are not.

I suppose if you wanted to be pedantic, and we do love pedantry here, a circle of radius zero and a square of side length zero are the same thing, i.e. a point.

sKeith

smacl wrote: »

Not really though. A circle is the set of all points on a plane that are a fixed distance from another point. While a regular polygon with an infinite number of sides can be considered to be a circle, a square is subset with four equidistant points and cannot. Circles are curved, squares and polygons with a finite number of sides are not.

A perfect circle is only theory like imaginary numbers (square root of negative numbers) In reality, we need to represent a circle as best we can.

oldrnwisr

Despite smacl and pauldla's gracious links to the Historicity thread, I have reiterated below the relevant segments of both that and the Michael Nugent/WLC thread (and some others) so that a) kelly1 doesn't have to trawl hundreds of posts and b) we can move the discussion forward and dispense with this spurious line of argument.

kelly1 wrote: »

So for instance I would argue that Jesus is who he claimed to be based, for example, on the finding of any empty tomb, when his disciples didn't even understand resurrection.

So an empty tomb is evidence that Jesus resurrected? Really? You can't conceive of any other explanation for an empty tomb?

It's much more likely that Jesus' body was removed from the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea or people in his employ sometime after dusk on Saturday evening. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward.

Firstly, when Jesus's body is taken down, it is placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. This raises the question of why. Why would Joseph hand over the use of his tomb to bury Jesus. In Mark 15:43 Joseph of Arimathea is seen asking for Jesus' body:

"Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body."

The passage describes Joseph as a member of the Council (Sanhedrin). Why would such a person commit such a good deed after condemning Jesus to death. Mark 14:55 describes how the whole of the Sanhedrin tried in vain to find witnesses against Jesus.

"Now the chief priests and the whole council sought witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found it not."

Later in verse 64 we are told that the entire council (including Joseph) condemned him to death. So it makes very little sense for a pharasaic Jew who condemned Jesus to death for blasphemy and sorcery suddenly offering up his own family tomb to bury this convicted criminal and all the associated stigma. However, when you consider that blasphemy and sorcery were capital offences in Jewish law, the answer becomes clearer. There are strict rules about dealing with the execution and aftermath in Deuteronomy.

"If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is hung on a tree, you must not leave the body hanging on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse."
Deuteronomy 21:22-23

A member of the Sanhedrin who would have been concerned with obeying the commandments and the law would have been sure to follow every ritual detail to the letter. Having fulfilled his obligation to the law it is reasonable to suggest that Joseph simply had his servants remove Jesus' body once the Sabbath was over and rebury or dump the body somewhere else.

kelly1 wrote: »

These same disciples underwent a dramatic change in attitude following Jesus' appearance to them and went on to be killed for their beliefs.

If the apostles were making it up, they wouldn't have put themselves in harms way for nothing.

The introduction of a second Judas, the son of James by the author of Luke-Acts, not mentioned by either Mark or Matthew but mentioned by John.
The introduction of Nathanael by John, not mentioned by any other source.
The omission of Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus and Simon by John.

If the biographical sources for Jesus and the apostles can't even agree on a coherent list of twelve, this doesn't bode well for the "died for a lie" argument.

In the interests of moving this debate forward, however, I propose the following composite list:

Peter (Simon Peter)
Andrew
James, son of Zebedee
John, brother of James
Philip
Bartholomew/Nathanael, son of Talemai
Matthew
Thomas
James (James the Less, James the Just), son of Alphaeus
Thaddeus/Lebbaeus/Jude
Simon the Zealot/Cananean (Simeon of Jerusalem)
Judas Iscariot (replaced by Matthias)

So, now that we have established a list of apostles, the question becomes what really happened to them?

2. The fate of the apostles

So now that we know who we're talking about, the question is what happened to them? Can we actually be sure that any of them died martyr's deaths? To be clear, according to the apologetic argument the criterion for a martyr's death is to willingly die for their beliefs even when presented with the opportunity to recant.

Peter
Peter according to tradition was crucified in Rome. He was also crucified upside-down so as not to die in the same manner of Jesus. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that prisoners were rarely, if ever, accorded the privelege of choosing their method of execution, let's examine the textual evidence. The bulk of the traditional account of the martyrdom of St. Peter comes from the apocryphal Acts of Peter, an account dismissed as unreliable by historian Eusebius (who isn't exactly reliable himself). Other than that we have early Christian scholars such as Origen and Tertullian describing the method of Peter's death but not the origins. These accounts, however, are a century after the fact and not entirely reliable.

Andrew
According to tradition, Andrew was crucified on a saltire (an x-shaped cross) so as not to die in the same manner as Jesus. However, the source for this tradition is the Acts of Andrew (a work authored sometime between 150 and 200 CE). However, even early Biblical scholars such as Eusebius considered the Acts of Andrew to be unreliable. Modern Biblical scholars such as Francis Dvornik have also questioned the authenticity of Acts of Andrew. We, therefore, don't have any reliable information as to how Andrew died and cannot suggest that he was a martyr.

James, son of Zebedee
James is one of the few apostles who is listed as being killed in the Bible. According to Acts 12:1-3, Herod killed James with a sword. There is nothing in Acts to suggest that this death is anything other than a murder. Clement of Alexandria wrote that James was tried and executed as a martyr but since he was born 106 years after James' death, this account is unreliable.

John
John, even according to Christian tradition, is not considered to be a martyr. He is reported to have died in 100CE of old age.

Philip
Like Andrew, the only suggestion of the martyrdom of Philip is in a later work called the Acts of Philip (dated to the mid-to-late 4th century). However, like John, Catholic tradition holds that Philip was not martyred (or at least that his fate was unknown). The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia describes the Acts of Philip as a "tissue of fables".

Bartholomew
One of the more interesting apostle stories out there. There are many different stories surrounding Bartholomew's fate. One account suggests that he was crucified in Armenia, while another suggests he was beheaded in India. No writings of Bartholomew's fate exist prior to Eusebius and thus there is no reliable account of Bartholomew's death.

Matthew
The accounts of Matthew's fate are even more varied and unreliable than Bartholomew's. Most Christian scholars agree that the fate of Matthew is unknown. The Christian History Institute concludes that "we have nothing but legend about Matthew's death" while Catholic Online states that "nothing definite is known about his later life". Some sources in fact suggest that Matthew died a natural death.

Thomas
Some accounts including the apocryphal Acts of Thomas describe Thomas as having preached in India where he was stabbed to death with a spear. However, Eusebius dismisses the Acts of Thomas as unreliable. Furthermore, modern Catholic consensus holds that "it is difficult to discover any adequate support" to support the death of Thomas in India.

James the Less
The question to answer here is which James are we talking about. James is mentioned differently in different texts. James is identified by some sources with James, brother of Jesus, a tradition not held by Eastern Orthodox churches. This is unlikely since, according to John 7:5

"Even his own brothers didn't believe him."

Some accounts place his death in Egypt as a result of crucifixion while Josephus mentions that James was stoned by Pharisees (more on that later). There are numerous conflicting stories with no evidence to tip the balance in favour of any of them.

Thaddeus
Again it is difficult to know to what real person any of the stories refer. This apostle is named differently in Luke's Gospel than he is in Matthew's. Some accounts report that he was crucified in Armenia with Simon while others describe him being clubbed to death and others still say that he died of natural causes. However, none of these accounts have any corroborating textual evidence to support them and hence we know nothing of the fate of Thaddeus.

Simon the Zealot
No detail of the many conflicting reports of Simon's death seem to agree. His place of death has been reported as Persia, Edessa, Samria, Iberia, Colchis or even Britain. Some reports describe him being crucified while others say he was sawn in half. The source of this uncertainty is again an identity issue with Simon the Zealot being identified with other early Christian figures including Simeon of Jerusalem.

Judas Iscariot
It's nice to finish on an easy one. Judas' death is told twice in the New Testament such that both cannot be true or compatible. In Matthew 27:3-8 we are told that Judas, filled with remorse, gave back the 30 pieces of silver to the Pharisees whereupon he hanged himself. In Acts 1:18-19 Judas, takes the 30 pieces of silver and buys a potter's field and while walking across it:

"and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out"

So, even if we were able to resolve the contradiction in favour of Matthew's account or the one in Acts, neither story would count as a martyr's death.

As far as the apostles go, the only apostle that could even charitably be described as a martyr is Peter. The rest of the apostles were not deemed important enough to merit anything other than passing mentions in history. Even so, if we accept that Peter was crucified (and I'm not suggesting that we do) we only have descriptions of Peter's death. There are a multitude of questions remaining. In particular one question stands out: Did the authorities offer Peter a chance to recant? If Peter, or any of the other apostles for that matter died in circumstances where recanting would have saved them then that would speak to martyrdom but we have no evidence of any such incident.

In conclusion, we don't know how any of the apostles died, and as such cannot say that they died for their beliefs. Without martyrdom, we don't know how the apostles viewed their beliefs, false or otherwise.

3. On the historicity of the apostles.

So we've seen above that the evidence for the deaths of any of the apostles is weak, at best. However, the bigger question which more people are beginning to ask is, were the apostles even real people? In some cases there are apostles named in Paul's authentic writings, leading us to conclude that they were real people such as Peter and John. However, in other cases, there is fairly good evidence that the character is a fictional creation.

3a Judas
Judas is the most prominent fictional character of the twelve. Judas is introduced by Mark, who mentions him by name on just four occasions. His backstory is added to by Matthew who introduces a death story, lifted from the Old Testament in a botched attempt to portray it as a fulfilled prophecy (Matthew quotes from Zechariah 11 while attributing the quote to Jeremiah). However, when we look at the overall story of Judas as a disciple who betrays his leader and is punished, we find that this too is borrowed from the Old Testament. Throughout the New Testament Jesus is portrayed as the spiritual successor to and parallel of Elisha. In the synoptics and John, Jesus and Elisha share numerous biographical details including:

Inheriting his ministry from a previous prophet (Jesus from John the Baptist, Elisha from Elijah); John 1:22-28, 2 Kings 2:7-15
Healing a leper; Mark 1:40-45, 2 Kings 5
Makes something float on water (Jesus makes himself float, Elisha makes an axehead float); Matthew 14:22-33, 2 Kings 6:6
Performs a miracle of feeding the multitude; John 6:5-15, 2 Kings 4:42-44
Raises a child from the dead; Mark 5:22-42, 2 Kings 4:8-37

In the context of the Judas story we find the parallel story in 2 Kings 5:20-27, where Gehazi, a disciple of Elisha, motivated by greed, betrays Elisha by chasing after someone Elisha had commanded to be spared. When his betrayal is discovered he is punished (with leprosy).

Of course, it's not just the Old Testament that provides material for the story of Judas. There is a strange dichotomy in Mark's gospel surrounding Jesus' ministry and his subsequent arrest and betrayal. Right from the outset of Mark's gospel we are told that Jesus began preaching publicly in the synagogues:

" And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons."
Mark 1:39

Jesus attracts large crowds through his preaching and even publicly debates the Pharisees, answering questions designed to trap him. So it's strange, therefore, that the Pharisees need someone to identify Jesus for them. This is where Mark's overall plot comes into play. Throughout Mark's gospel Jesus is portrayed as a hidden hero, someone who has a series of adventures where only the reader knows who Jesus truly is. Even when people (or demons) recognise Jesus they are commanded to be silent. So Mark sets up a dramatic irony leading up to Jesus' eventual fate. The framework of this story is borrowed by Mark from the story of Odysseus as found in The Odyssey. Here too, Odysseus has a series of adventures and upon returning home, disguises himself as a beggar to infiltrate his home. Unlike Jesus, Odysseus is disguised and has been away for 10 years, so the suitors who have thought him dead really do need someone to identify him for them. Although Jesus doesn't really need to be identified, Mark keeps the identification of Jesus by Judas as a tip of the hat to his source material.

Ultimately, Judas is a tool, a plot device borrowed from the Old Testament and Greek literature to have Jesus set up as an innocent wrongfully executed.

3b James & John, The Sons of Zebedee
James and John are brothers, sons of Zebedee, fishermen who are recruited by Jesus to be disciples. However, James & John aren't just brothers, they seem to be completely inseparable. In the synoptic gospels (they only receive one mention in John as the sons of Zebedee), James and John are mentioned together 18 times. In the overwhelming majority of these references (16 out of 18), they are referenced as James and John, not the other way around. Further, in only one place in the New Testament (Luke 22:8) is one mentioned without the other. In any story in the gospels where James & John are mentioned as characters, they are always portrayed as a single character.
So what I hear you ask? Well, the portrait of James and John becomes clear in an interaction between them and Jesus:

"James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory."

Given the prominence of the right hand being the favoured position in places like Matthew 26:64

"Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

it's very odd that neither brother seems to be clamouring to be placed at the right hand side. They seem to be happy with either side. However, when we consider Mark's propensity to borrow material from Greek literature and mythology to construct his gospel, the answer becomes clearer.
In Greek mythology we encounter the story of Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux in Latin) the twin sons of Zeus. As twins, Castor and Pollux rarely feature in stories by themselves. They are known by many names including the Tyndaridae (since Castor was the son of Tyndareus) and the Dioscuri (literally God's boys). Castor and Pollux are born in two eggs by Leda, one egg containing Castor and Clytemnestra fathered by the mortal Tyndareus and the other Pollux and Helen fathered by Zeus. Thus we have a mortal and an immortal brother (like Elrond and Elros in LOTR). Eventually Castor is killed and Pollux decides to share his immortality with his brother. From then on, the brothers really are inseparable (being transformed in Roman myth into the constellation Gemini). In Greek and Roman art, Castor and Pollux are frequently depicted either side of a God as in this depiction of them with Juno:

rc3b6mermuseum_osterburken_derhexer_2012-09-30_038-castores.jpg?w=300&h=243

rc3b6mermuseum_osterburken_derhexer_2012-09-30_038-castores.jpg?w=300&h=243

Similar depictions exist of Castor and Pollux flanking other gods and immortals including Helen, Zeus, Astarte, Serapis, Saturn and Jupiter. The depiction is identical to the request from James and John above in Mark 10:35-37. Mark, as in many other of his borrowed stories can't resist eventually giving his readers a hint as to where the story is borrowed from. In Mark 3:17 Mark makes the following comment:

"and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”);"

As mentioned earlier, one of the names given to Castor and Pollux was the Dioscuri which is literally translated as God's boys but in context is best translated as sons of Zeus or, since Zeus was the God of Thunder, sons of Thunder.

James and John are a tip of the hat to Greek mythology to flesh out the cast of the gospel about whom nothing much seems to have been known.

4. On the unreliability of the gospels

As I have outlined in previous posts on various threads the gospels are not reliable historical accounts for a number of reasons including, but not limited to, internal contradictions, external contradictions, factual errors, anonymity, later additions/changes and the gap between their composition and the events they depict.
However, it bears repeating here that the gospels aren't even intended to be historical or eyewitness accounts. Among the many reasons for this are:

The gospels make little or no attempt to identify the sources they draw upon in writing their stories. (e.g. Luke mentions that he draws on sources but does not name them)
The later gospel authors make no attempt to resolve contradictions with earlier works (e.g. Luke makes no attempt to reconcile his nativity narrative with Matthew's)
The author does not place himself in the story.
The gospels are written for the common man rather than the social and literary elite audience of Greek and Roman histories/biographies.
The gospels contain far too many hagiographical elements to be historically reliable.
There is no attempt to warn the reader that certain events or words may not be recorded clearly. None of the gospel authors make any attempt to identify where they speculate on content.
The interdependence of the gospels makes them unlike the historical writings of the time.
Unusual events disappear from the wider narrative. The aftermath of the graves opening in Matthew is not discussed in any other text.

Moreover, the layout of the gospels themselves align better with fictional novels that of historical accounts. Mark, for example, employs dramatic irony and an omniscient narrator, uncharacteristic of a historical retelling. The gospels also employ dialogue at a much higher level than historical accounts of the day. Acts reports the highest usage with 51% of the overall text being made up of direct speech. The gospels have a slightly lower but similar proportion. This aligns well with Jewish novels of the day (Judith 50%, Susanna 46%) but stands in marked contrast to historical accounts and biographies: (Josephus’ Jewish War I: 8.8%, Plutarch’s Alexander: 12.1%; Tacitus’ Agricola: 11.5%).

All of this has lead a number of scholars to conclude that the gospels are intended to be theological fictional novels rather than reliable histories:

Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (Ronald Hock)
Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (Jo-Ann Brant)
The Ancient Novel and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative: Fictional Intersections (Marilia Pinheiro)
Profit With Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Richard Pervo)
The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel (Michael Vines)
What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Richard Burridge)
The Homeric Epics and the gospel of Mark (Dennis MacDonald)
Direct Speech in Acts and the Question of Genre

5. The real answer?

So, if Jesus wasn't resurrected then what motivated the apostles at all? The real answer is we don't know. It's more than just we don't know what motivated the apostles it's that we don't know what actually happened either before or after the crucifixion.
If Jesus really existed and really was crucified then the best explanation for the apostles remaining faith is cognitive dissonance management. This topic has been discussed in detail by psychologist Lorne L. Dawson here:

When prophecy fails and faith persists

However, given how little of the gospels contain actual verifiable biographical information about Jesus, the alternate idea, that Jesus was a solely mythical persona, someone who people believed was a celestial being but would eventually be incarnated in the flesh must be considered. This portrays the apostles and their preaching in a different light entirely. Originally a fringe theory, the work of people like Richard Carrier, Robert Price, Earl Doherty and to a lesser extent J.D. Crossan, Mark Goodacre and Denis MacDonald, the theory has started to gain credibility. Don't get me wrong, for every piece of persuasive evidence the theory offers it throws up an unanswered question, but it is at least plausible.

kelly1 wrote: »

St. Paul conversion from a Jewish Pharisee and persecutor of Christians to one who suffered and died for the gospel, is the most dramatic example.

Well, not really. Paul's conversion experience is recounted three times and is contradictory in each retelling. In Acts 9 Paul sees a light, is blinded, falls down, hears Jesus and is told to go to Damascus for further instructions. His companions see nothing but hear the voice (or sound). In Acts 22, Paul sees a light, is blinded, falls down, hears Jesus and is told to go to Damascus. His companions this time see the light but hear nothing. In Acts 26, Paul sees a light, is blinded, falls down, hears Jesus but is not told to go to Damascus. This time his companions see and hear nothing but mysteriously fall down.
The experience of Paul on the road to Damascus fits perfectly the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy or a TIA in the temporal lobe. He experiences auditory and visual hallucinations, temporary blindness and hyperreligiosity.
His martyrdom is even more suspect. We don't know exactly when Paul died, it's not mentioned in the NT at all, but is suspected to have been between 64 and 68. The first mention of Paul's death as a martyr's death comes in 95-96 in the First Epistle of Clement which is as far removed from Paul's death as the gospels are from Jesus' death.

Now as for some other points:

kelly1 wrote: »

ok, this is a new concept for me, I must admit. i.e. that the singularity existed, possibly eternally, "before" the big bang. My current understanding is that the singularity came out of nothingness, from the void.

But I still think you're left with the question of the possibility of actual infinities (which I don't accept) and the 2nd law of thermodynamics (assuming laws don't change between bounces).

No, there's nothing to really suggest that there was a nothingness before the singularity.

Secondly, actual infinities cannot be ruled out when talking about the singularity because we are talking about something which is outside our own spacetime where there may not be an arrow of time.

Finally, the 2nd law of thermodynamics has no relevance to this discussion. The 2nd law states that in any closed system, the entropy will tend to increase over time. This creates two problems when discussing the singularity. Firstly, it's not a closed system. Even our own universe is not a closed system as best we can tell. Secondly, the entropy increases over time. However, we are talking about something outside of time, before our spacetime begins. So the 2nd law is irrelevant.

sKeith wrote: »

On this,
I don't agree with your common logic statement above.
A circle is a polygon with 'n' sides. A perfect circle would have n = infinity.
If for some reason, the max number of sides we could use to represent our circle was restricted to 4, then our best representation of a circle would be a square.

smacl wrote: »

Not really though. A circle is the set of all points on a plane that are a fixed distance from another point. While a regular polygon with an infinite number of sides can be considered to be a circle, a square is subset with four equidistant points and cannot. Circles are curved, squares and polygons with a finite number of sides are not.

I suppose if you wanted to be pedantic, and we do love pedantry here, a circle of radius zero and a square of side length zero are the same thing, i.e. a point.

Sorry, can we just clear something up real quick? When kelly1 talks about the logic of a square circle, they are actually misquoting and misapplying the original idea. In Ancient Greece, the idea was that you could not square the circle. This means that you cannot, in a finite number of steps produce a square with the same area as a given circle using only a straight edge. Over time this mathematical problem became a general synonym for something which was impossible and over even longer time this became misquoted as creating a square circle.