Aeneid? Dude. Romulus isn’t in the Aeneid.

And conspiracy theories about the fabrication of thousands of textual traditions by hundreds of authors are trionfoil hat unworthy of reply.

You just ignored practically everything I said. Why?

I am listening to one of your debates:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yFJwPaIxqNQ

In it you compare stories about Romulus and Jesus, yet you don’t clarify that the extant copies of the Aeneid by Virgil date to 400ce. Hmmm

Sorry Richard but there’s no comparison.

I don’t expect you to believe in Jesus nor the Gospel writers claims, but as a Historian you must acknowledge that the ancient writings exist and whether believable or not are older than any of the extant manuscripts revealing virgin born, dying and rising gods.

Your job is to verify the historicity of the writings, not determine whether they are true or not. Bart Ehrman seems to understand that.

You seem to be more intelligent and honest than Robert Price or the late Dorothy Murdock so own up to the fact that the oldest extant manuscripts, other than supposed gods who died and arose with the seasons, are the ones purporting the existence of Jesus.

That is the job of an Historian isn’t it?

Kevin McMillen

You stated the fact that there is a 50% chance that God exists or a 50% chance that God doesn’t exist, no one has denied that.

That fact has nothing to do with my quoted comment that it’s impossible to know for sure one way or the other.

So what, there’s a 50% probability either way, that proves nothing.

Your response to my 3:02 pm comment again didn’t answer my original question, “What was the probability by first century understanding that quarks existed?” I didn’t ask what was the probability that quarks existed in the first century, we know they did because we’ve proven their existence.

I asked, what was the probability based upon their understanding? Just because they didn’t know about quarks, nor were able to prove their existence, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.

So, just because we can’t prove that God exists doesn’t mean that he doesn’t. Again 50/50 chance to which I wholeheartedly agree.

So for anyone to claim that they are atheist is intellectually dishonest, they are really agnostic, for there is no way to know for sure.

But of course we are all free to lie to ourselves and or redefine words.

Kevin McMillen

The epistemic probability that quarks existed in 1 A.D. is as near to 100% as makes all odds. Because we have extensive eyewitness records showing the world behaved the same back then as now. And we have physical evidence that it did (from geology, astrophysics, paleontology, and beyond). And it is extremely improbable that it would do so without quarks, when we know it only does so now because of quarks. Any attempt to explain away that coincidence with alternative theories requires introducing inherently improbable presuppositions on no evidence. Which ensures the epistemic probability of those alternative theories is near zero. Which is why the epistemic probability of the quarks-since-the-Big-Bang theory is near one. See my discussion of the unavoidable logic of this in Proving History, index “gerrymandering.”

The fact is that you can’t say “God does not exist” nor can one say “God does exist”. It’s impossible for us to know.

That’s not true. It’s not true empirically nor even analytically. We have a ton of evidence bearing on the point, that render all gods anyone actually believes in extremely improbable. And even if we hypothesize gods who are perfect Cartesian Demons, which are gods no one worships or believes in and thus not even relevant here anyway, we still know their existence is improbable.

Even if a proposition were truly unknown, we would be saying we know the probability of that proposition being true is 50%. So we always have epistemic knowledge. For example, whether a coin will flip heads or tails is unknown. It is therefore 50%. So we still know something about even the unknown. And the existence of Cartesian Demons is known to be vastly less likely than coins turning up heads. Whether a card drawn from a fresh, shuffled poker deck will be a king is between 7 and 8%. So even when we don’t know what card will be drawn, we know it’s unlikely to be a king. And yet kings in poker decks are known with near 100% certainty to exist. The probability we will draw a “snake suited” card from a standard poker deck is known to be near zero. And yet the existence of Cartesian Demons is known to be vastly less likely than a snake suited card appearing in a poker deck.

Everything has an epistemic probability. Everything. And even when we don’t know anything about the physical probability of some fact or event, that logically entails we know the epistemic probability of that thing or event is 50%. If it’s not, then we must know something about its physical probability. And lo, we usually do. For nearly everything proposed. Including every god ever conceived.

What was the probability by first century understanding that quarks existed?

I’m not saying that this proves God, what I’m saying is that probability is moot.

It’s like finding ancient texts from 600 bce proving that Mithra was worshipped but nothing showing how, and then finding texts from 200 ce showing that Mithra was believed to have been conceived miraculously with a virgin mother, and later crucified and resurrected, and concluding that 600 bce Mithra was conceived the same way. That is dishonest.

Like finding writings from the 1930’s about the Gay 90’s and concluding that homosexuality was the norm in the 1890’s. Total dishonesty.

Kevin McMillen

The fact is that you can’t say “God does not exist” nor can one say “God does exist”. It’s impossible for us to know.

While sitting in church (yes I’m Christian) one Sabbath a couple weeks ago, the guy up front speaking made the claim that “answered prayer proves God’s existence” to which I passed a note to my father which stated, “then unanswered prayer must prove God doesn’t exist”. Pure silliness!

Both statements are ludicrous for a human to make. We don’t know nor can we know without physical proof. Belief in God is 100% faith and anyone who says otherwise is simply lying to themselves.

Actually his existence is no more improbable than our existence, the only difference is that we can prove our existence. “I think therefore I am.”

If it’s possible for us to evolve over billions of years then who’s to say that somewhere a trillion years ago other beings evolved and is now so advanced that they’re seeding the universe with humans?

I’m not saying this is the case, I’m merely saying that scenario is just as probable as our evolution. As of right now we have no way of knowing.

So, your faith that God probably doesn’t exist, is no more based upon factual evidence than mine that God probably does exist.

For atheists and believers to spend so much time arguing over something that absolutely can’t be proven physically is a waste of time.

Kevin McMillen

Because everything is probability. You can’t say “God does not exist” without that actually asserting the probability he exists is very low. Because those literally mean the same thing. Since all statements about the facts are actually statements about probability, the only way to say God doesn’t exist is to demonstrate that his existence is improbable (on present evidence; as all knowledge is constrained by present evidence).

“In a larger context, one has to question whether highly technical issues such as calculations of probabilities have any place in a discussion of religion. Why attempt to “prove” God with probability, particularly when there are very serious questions as to whether such reasoning is valid? One is reminded of a passage in the New Testament: “For if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle?” [1 Cor. 14:8]. It makes far more sense to leave such matters to peer-reviewed scientific research. ”

To which I reply, Why attempt to “disprove” God with probability?

Kevin McMillen