http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8478161/cult-leader-ordered-to-return-cash
"In the South Australian District Court on Monday, Silvana Melchiorre was awarded a default judgment against the former Agape Ministries leader [Rocco Leo] after he failed to appear."
If only the perpetrators of Christian apocalypse scams were ordered by law to return the money they've taken when Jesus fails to appear!
A blog confronting pseudohistory, pseudoscience, and other questionable pronouncements of fact
Monday, June 4, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Evidence and the Absence Thereof
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" has become one of the logicisms thrown around in debates over atheism. When confronted with William Lane Craig citing creationists (members of Operation 513included) one is likely to encounter the phrase as a retort, especially if the creationist in question has just been asked why there is so little evidence to back up their claims. The phrase isn't entirely without logic. If one position lacks evidence it does not automatically substantiate the contrary view. This can be demonstrated rather easily with a couple of examples.
Looking back to an earlier post, we see the Atheist Foundation of Australia claiming "there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for [among other things] the supernatural." If pressed for a clarification of what makes something "factually reliable" I would wager the AFA would use 'science' or 'scientific' somewhere in their answer so really that's the same thing said twice. However, science is the study of nature. We would therefore not expect to find "scientific" evidence of the supernatural, because it is by definition beyond nature or outside of the natural world. As such, the absence of the evidence is not cause to doubt the supernatural (there are a lot of those besides science), and not an argument for or against it.
So what is a valid case where the absence of evidence acts against a claim? What we need is a case where we would expect there to be much more (and at least better) evidence if the claim were factually correct. One prime case is the existence of the Biblical Jesus. I say 'Biblical Jesus' to establish that whatever loose historical analogue may have actually been preaching and stirring social discord two thousand years ago, it was certainly not the figure known in the Bible. In fact, he wouldn't have even been called Jesus! That name is an anglicised version of the Greek version of the Hebrew that may have been someone's name but possibly not: (pronounced) Yeshua.
Back to the Bible and how its claims are undermined by absent evidence. The period when Jesus was, according to the Bible, performing his miraculous acts is covered by Roman historians, and other writers from around the time. Do any of them mention the events described in the Bible? No. Would we expect them to? Yes. Some of them wrote on very mundane topics and surely the events of the Bible would have warranted at least passing reference! The best that fundamentalists and Biblical literalists can offer are marginal references to a leader and a group that may have been an early form of Christianity. While these may be (I say may be because it is also possible the fragments were forged) clues to the historical Jesus they lend no credence to the Biblical narrative.
Here's a glaring example of how independent sources and the Bible clash: Josephus (Jewish but captured by the Romans) is one source cited to have mentioned Jesus. His extant work contains two references. It also contains an antipathy to Herod. Herod was the king who, according to the Bible, ordered the slaughter of all first born children when he heard a new kning was born. This secured him a place in the nativity story but despite the other negative material about Herod contained in Josephus's writing there is no mention of this act. That is evidence againts it being a historical event.
Playing Devil's advocate (on behalf of the Bible...) maybe we should consider the possibility that other references to Jesus have simply not survived. Would this be reasonable? No. Early Christian preserved certain texts because of their reference to Jesus and/or Christianity, that much is historical fact. From this we can deduce that material discussing Christianity would have been kept. However, we need to temper that statement because we also know that documents critical of Christianity (including denials of its truth value) are lost to us forever because they are not preserved, and in instances were actively destroyed, by Christians. How do we know of these texts then? Because Christian writers such as the Church Fathers (Augustine and Co.) quoted passages from them in order to criticise of rebuke the authors.
In sum, we can be reasonably certain that other material from close to the time of the Biblical Jesus mentioned Christianity but was not preserved and is therefore no longer extant. We can also be reasonably certain that any positive mention would have been kept for posterity. Given that the independent historical sources fail to substantiate the Biblical Jesus we have cause to doubt the Bible. Hence, we have found evidence of absence.
Looking back to an earlier post, we see the Atheist Foundation of Australia claiming "there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for [among other things] the supernatural." If pressed for a clarification of what makes something "factually reliable" I would wager the AFA would use 'science' or 'scientific' somewhere in their answer so really that's the same thing said twice. However, science is the study of nature. We would therefore not expect to find "scientific" evidence of the supernatural, because it is by definition beyond nature or outside of the natural world. As such, the absence of the evidence is not cause to doubt the supernatural (there are a lot of those besides science), and not an argument for or against it.
So what is a valid case where the absence of evidence acts against a claim? What we need is a case where we would expect there to be much more (and at least better) evidence if the claim were factually correct. One prime case is the existence of the Biblical Jesus. I say 'Biblical Jesus' to establish that whatever loose historical analogue may have actually been preaching and stirring social discord two thousand years ago, it was certainly not the figure known in the Bible. In fact, he wouldn't have even been called Jesus! That name is an anglicised version of the Greek version of the Hebrew that may have been someone's name but possibly not: (pronounced) Yeshua.
Back to the Bible and how its claims are undermined by absent evidence. The period when Jesus was, according to the Bible, performing his miraculous acts is covered by Roman historians, and other writers from around the time. Do any of them mention the events described in the Bible? No. Would we expect them to? Yes. Some of them wrote on very mundane topics and surely the events of the Bible would have warranted at least passing reference! The best that fundamentalists and Biblical literalists can offer are marginal references to a leader and a group that may have been an early form of Christianity. While these may be (I say may be because it is also possible the fragments were forged) clues to the historical Jesus they lend no credence to the Biblical narrative.
Here's a glaring example of how independent sources and the Bible clash: Josephus (Jewish but captured by the Romans) is one source cited to have mentioned Jesus. His extant work contains two references. It also contains an antipathy to Herod. Herod was the king who, according to the Bible, ordered the slaughter of all first born children when he heard a new kning was born. This secured him a place in the nativity story but despite the other negative material about Herod contained in Josephus's writing there is no mention of this act. That is evidence againts it being a historical event.
Playing Devil's advocate (on behalf of the Bible...) maybe we should consider the possibility that other references to Jesus have simply not survived. Would this be reasonable? No. Early Christian preserved certain texts because of their reference to Jesus and/or Christianity, that much is historical fact. From this we can deduce that material discussing Christianity would have been kept. However, we need to temper that statement because we also know that documents critical of Christianity (including denials of its truth value) are lost to us forever because they are not preserved, and in instances were actively destroyed, by Christians. How do we know of these texts then? Because Christian writers such as the Church Fathers (Augustine and Co.) quoted passages from them in order to criticise of rebuke the authors.
In sum, we can be reasonably certain that other material from close to the time of the Biblical Jesus mentioned Christianity but was not preserved and is therefore no longer extant. We can also be reasonably certain that any positive mention would have been kept for posterity. Given that the independent historical sources fail to substantiate the Biblical Jesus we have cause to doubt the Bible. Hence, we have found evidence of absence.
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