Post tagged with testimony

  • I have an interstellar spacecraft in my basement. Come take a look!

    September 06th, 201012:44 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Let’s talk about testimony some more in dialogue with Silver Bullet. In a recent comment SB quotes little ole’ me as I observe: “So it is testimony that wears the trousers (to be politically incorrect) and it is through testimony that we can gain all sorts of properly basic beliefs ... Absent defeaters we are justified in holding those belie...

  • Did fallible human testimony ensure that Jesus would have false beliefs?

    January 07th, 201009:54 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Another reason to think Jesus had false beliefs The debate on whether Jesus had false beliefs usually centers on evidence from scripture. (Hence, my previous token post on the topic.) Here I'm going to shift the ground and offer another reason to think that Jesus probably had some false beliefs. My argument builds on the amply demonstrated fact th...

  • On taking people seriously

    December 06th, 200910:04 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In "Does God speak today? A Case Study" I recounted (or rather, reproduced) Kevin's story in which he reported receiving information from God about future events which later occurred as predicted. Conversational Atheist (henceforth "CA") then commented: "Are you seriously expecting anyone to take you seriously when you seriously propose that God ta...

  • Does the resurrection of Jesus stand up to historical enquiry?

    November 23rd, 200911:33 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In an earlier post, "Were New Testament Christians reliable witnesses, or were they ignorant fools?", I offered a critique of the facile, if common, assumption that the testimony of ancient people is excessively credulous and untrustworthy. On the contrary, we need to test the credentials of ancient witnesses no less than contemporar...

  • Were New Testament Christians reliable witnesses, or were they ignorant fools?

    November 18th, 200903:37 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    The idea is frequently invoked to justify a pretty sweeping skepticism against the New Testament accounts of Jesus, including the miracles and resurrection. People back then were uneducated rubes who would believe anything. And if so then we really cannot trust what they said, leaving the status of the New Testament in doubt. Here's what Conversat...

  • "Would you accept the testimony of a crazy man?" and other thoughts

    October 05th, 200904:28 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    It has been a busy few days, but at last I have some time to return to the bevy of comments on our ongoing epistemology debates. Given the sake of space limits, I shall have to limit myself here to AnAtheist.Net's counter-claim (in the "nailing jelly to walls" thread) that we only accept the testimony of others when we have evidence for their ...

  • When is it rational to believe somebody's testimony?

    July 22nd, 200910:13 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I have argued that it is rational to accept the principle of credulity. This is the principle that, all things being equal, it is rational to accept the testimony of others. AnAtheist.Net would agree with this in some circumstances but not others: "let's use your example of the stranger giving directions. If said stranger tells me to go down the ...
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An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).