Interbane wrote:

The point here is that as we separate the scientific wheat from the supernatural tares, we should distinguish between the valid messianic message within Christianity and the invalid institutional corruption of the church.

The method you use to separate the wheat from the chaff is a comparison to modern ethical and scientific understanding. You can't distinguish between ideas without a rubric or method or system for comparison, and what you use is modern whether you realize it or not. Why not just appeal to modern ethics or science? You're still not making sense to me Robert.

My point is that modern thinking has lost some core ethical wisdom in its rejection of religion. In terms of the philosophical understanding of the evolution of thought as an ascending spiral, religion is a thesis and science emerged as an anthithesis, and now we need a synthesis. The areas of synthesis include the production of a wholistic worldview, the ability to present messages in the simplified popular form of illustrative myth, the recognition of the value of religion in building community, the apocalyptic vision of the risk of collapse, and the religious heritage of language such as love, truth, faith, grace and salvation. All these can build upon the scientific critique of religion to emerge in a new higher form.

Interbane wrote: Carrier discusses this later in his book, using medicine as a metaphor. It's as if you're still wanting to use willow bark to treat a headache, meanwhile we have a distilled form of the active ingredient on store shelves called Aspirin. Your argument is that we should pay homage to the ancestry of aspirin with every headache we cure. But why is that necessary for curing a headache?

No, it is more like the argument that we should not pretend aspirin is derived from petrochemicals rather than willow. There is no need for ‘homage’ by people who use pills to cure a headache, but greater popular understanding of the origin of aspirin would be good. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin

Interbane wrote:
Distilling wisdom from the bible will never result in a pool of wisdom more profound than what could be found in comparative modern texts. Because modern texts pull from the wisdom of other religions as well, taking the best of each and mixing them into a comprehensive whole, while discarding the chaff. Your efforts will not be able to discard the chaff. You're stuck with it, if continue to use the bible as your source. http://www.amazon.com/Ways-Wisdom-Steve ... 0819133884

This reminds me of Carrier’s argument that we should not read books from more than fifty years ago because their content is better presented in more recent texts. That just ignores the scale of cultural shift, and the fact that older sources have content that has largely been forgotten or misunderstood, and that it is valuable to go directly to older texts to learn from their perspectives, in a modern synthetic way. I agree it is essential to pull from all sources, but the idea that recent ethical philosophy that ignores Christianity must be superior is rather foolish.

I do not by any means accept the Bible alone, in some fundamentalist manner. My point is that in reacting against the religious focus on inerrancy, philosophy has gone to the other extreme, failing to see the Biblical antecedents. If we ask why science and democracy emerged in Judeo-Christian cultures rather than others, there is a very strong case that western culture was primed for this memetic evolution by the presence of these values in Biblical ideas.

Interbane wrote:
Are you saying the original message is that science shall set us free? That empirical method shall set us free?

Science is more than empirical method. Its origins in Platonic philosophy include a philosophical worldview regarding the unity of mathematics, physics and ethics, which were the three subjects offered in Plato’s Academy. The modern empirical method has to some extent cut loose from its origins and moorings, and a recognition of this context of the meaning of truth is valuable. As I mentioned earlier, the role of Plato in Gnostic thought is prominent. This scientific current at the core of Christianity provided the intellectual framework, which was subsequently swept away by the dumbing-down of faith to make it a mass movement.

So yes, I do say the original message is that science will set us free. Christianity emerged from the intersection between Jewish tradition and Greek philosophy, in the broad context of ancient religion, and sought to synthesise the best elements of its contributing factors, including the philosophical approach that truth is revealed through logic and observation.

The value of this idea about freedom today is that science as currently shackled by its anti-religious prejudices is unable to serve as a force for liberation. And liberty as a meme also has a lot of baggage. But putting liberation theology on a scientific basis offers considerable potential as a new integrated philosophy of life.

Interbane wrote: Is that what the biblical authors actually meant? You're left with too much word-wrangling to rehabilitate this. The only way in which the passage makes sense is through a comparison to modern understanding. And once again, why not use modern understanding to build a worldview, rather than running the modern understanding backwards in time, through the bible as a lens, to gain your meaning?

What you call ‘word-wrangling’ is what I call sorting science from superstition. The Jesus story became a comfort and inspiration by being packaged in a false supernatural dogma. Unpacking the box can reveal an original high Gnostic wisdom concealed within the wrappers of faith.

As an ethical axiom, ‘the truth will set you free’ is highly valuable and insightful. But truth is an inherently metaphysical term, in both the modern sense of an abstract concept and in its traditional supernatural usage of divine revelation. I do not believe in revelation, but I do think our modern theories of truth should engage with the history of the idea of truth to gain a deeper understanding.

For example, in An Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger, he presents nature, truth and language as a sort of natural trinity, reaching back to Greek philosophy to interpret truth as uncovering what is really there, as distinct from the narrower scientific meaning of truth as the correctness of representation.

Interbane wrote: The same meaning is already here Robert, in the world around you. You don't need to search the bible to find obscure correspondences. Anything you "find" is only found because the requisite understanding is already in your head, you've already learned it from a modern source.

The correspondence between the Jesus story and ancient astronomical knowledge may seem obscure to those who have not studied it, but it provides a compelling and cogent explanation of Carrier’s hypothesis that Jesus originated as a celestial myth that was subsequently enfleshed as a popular story. This hypothesis does not come from modern sources, but rather from a new reading of ancient sources, to show that the authors of the Gospels were more enlightened than the supernatural tradition of the church can see. I am not simply transposing modern knowledge into the Bible, but analysing the texts to see what was originally there and has been lost and forgotten. Carrier labours from within the invisible chains of the prejudices that delimit scientific belief. These chains can be identified and broken by seeing the high Gnostic wisdom that informed the Christ Myth.

Interbane wrote: By appealing to the bible as the focusing lens for such wisdom is to obscure it beyond anyone else's reach. You may have people who nod their heads when you discuss your ideas, and even a few more who are on board with you. But beyond a small circle, it's simply too convoluted of an approach to pragmatic wisdom.

Your comment here illustrates a deep and pervasive scepticism about the possibility of finding anything of worth in the Bible. But in Newton’s phrase, when we stand on the shoulders of giants we can see further. If we ignore the precedents that show how modern memes evolved, we constrain our vision by attempting to jump down from the shoulders to the ground.

My core idea that you call convoluted is that Jesus Christ connects history to eternity. I simply maintain that a theory of time that ignores the Christian heritage of study of how eternity can be manifest as present in time will fail to adequately place time within the real terrestrial cosmology within which we live and move and have our being.

Interbane wrote:

Evolution is about cumulative adaptation, building upon precedent with new more effective and productive ways. Modern wisdom that ignores its precedents is not wise.

Modern wisdom is not a thing to anthropomorphize. The people who adhere to modern wisdom do not need to know the precedents to gain the full benefit of the wisdom.

That looks to be a very hasty comment. Yes, wisdom can be summarised and simplified for popular use. But the idea that historical antecedents should be ignored is a recipe for error.

The value of anthropomorphising wisdom is to create an accessible symbolic point of entry. So with the Christian eschatology of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, one way to interpret this is to say the Gospels presented Christ as imaginative fiction, and that planetary harmony and repair can be enabled by making the core values of the Christ story, love, grace and truth, central to culture.

Interbane wrote: This is like saying we should know the etymology of every word we use before we can effectively use the word.

That misreads my comments. Etymology is important to gain a deeper appreciation of the meaning of words. Understanding the history of language enhances precision and accuracy and stability and comprehension of discussion. But obviously we get by just fine without worrying all the time about etymology. I don’t need to understand quantum physics to use a computer, but my ability to type now depends on the existence of a whole array of scientific knowledge.

Your idea that modern ethics can just ignore the Bible would be like saying a computer maker can just ignore the physics that enables technology. Technological evolution depends on broad understanding of its contributing sciences. Similarly, ethical understanding should respect and engage with the way similar questions have been discussed in the past.

Interbane wrote: But even then, your analogy doesn't match what you're doing. You're not merely paying tribute to precedents, you're using them in place of modern wisdom, post interpretation. It would be one thing if you had a coherent comprehensive set of modern ethics all your own, with footnotes to the bible. But instead it's the other way around. You use the bible, with footnotes to modern interpretations.

The evolution analogy is a good way to understand the relation between reason and faith. Historically, reason developed within the philosophical framework of Christian faith, but then reacted against the irrationality of faith, with scientific knowledge having no explicit dependence on Christian ideas, and often rejecting church teachings on ontology and ethics. My view that a synthesis of reason and faith is good and possible is entirely respectful towards scientific knowledge, and indeed I have argued that faith can only be ethical when it proceeds from within a framework of established knowledge.

But I accept that you are right that I see Biblical ethics as containing a superior morality compared to modern theories that have cut loose from their spiritual moorings. That is not at all to endorse conventional church teachings, but rather to analyse the New Testament directly as a source, while assessing its views against a modern framework. The core of Biblical ethics is presented in the Last Judgment at Matthew 25, where Jesus says salvation depends entirely on performance of works of mercy for the hungry, the sick, prisoners, strangers, the thirsty and the unclothed. All the dross about belief actually is grounded in this ethical vision.

Another core Biblical ethic is at Revelation 11:18, that the wrath of God is against those who destroy the earth. This directly conflicts with the alienated supernatural error of fundamentalist tradition, showing how a valid modern ethic of respect for nature dates from ancient times.

Evolutionary success is a function of durability, stability and fecundity. The durable, stable, fecund meme within Christianity is the trunk of the western tree of life, while modern science is a great branch of that tree. An understanding of our shared roots is central to the achievement of cultural evolution.

Your idea that modern ethics can just ignore the Bible would be like saying a computer maker can just ignore the physics that enables technology.

A programmer can ignore the physics. A modern novelist can ignore shakespeare and still be more successful than any other author alive. But this still misses the point.

The point is that we don't need to know the life story of Pythagoras to use the pythagorean theorem. There is an abstracted quality to some fields that does not need the surrounding story.

And this is where the case needs to be made on your part. There is an abstracted quality to moral wisdom that does not need past surrounding stories to make sense of it. If you try to make this case, then you need to educate yourself on the "nine noble virtues" of the Asatru religion in order to properly understand modern virtue ethics. Or do you? Give me an example of biblical wisdom that is impossible to come by through other means.

Even if the case your making is that the full breadth of the wisdom can't be reached, try to make that case. It is one thing to know the history of the pythagorean theorem. It is another to know the full scope of how the theorem is used in practice. We do not need the story of how the abstraction first arose in order to utilize it to it's fullest potential.

The biblical stories are sufficient but not necessary to transfer moral wisdom.

Interbane wrote: The biblical stories are sufficient but not necessary to transfer moral wisdom.

I don't necessarily agree with Robert, but to play Devil's advocate for a moment. The Bible may not be necessary to glean the kinds of metaphorical truth that can be found in more modern texts. But you can't easily dismiss the influence of Christian traditions and many people prefer to get these kinds of spiritual ideas from the Bible.

Carrier points out in the first section that many believers regard the Bible as a source of moral truth even if many of them aren't familiar with it. But obviously the converse of that is also true. Some people do read and understand the Bible and find it to be very meaningful. In that sense, Robert's goal to reform Christianity in order to make it accord with modern scientific knowledge is worthwhile. Unfortunately much of the resistance to reform Christianity would come from the fundamentalist side of religion, at least as much as from atheists.

Borrowing from the field of alternate medicine. Studies have consistently shown that acupuncture is no better than placebo. And, yet, it remains fairly popular. Why do people get out of acupuncture if it does nothing (at least no more than placebo) to treat their ailments? i think this is an important question. Some people want that woo factor. Or they might find that the acupuncture treatment addresses some psychological needs—for example, the feeling that they're at least doing something or maybe it's the ritual itself, or it's just the idea that acupuncture is an ancient mode of healing. Mainstream medicine fails along these lines because it disregards the these psychological, often irrational, aspects of treatment.

But you can't easily dismiss the influence of Christian traditions and many people prefer to get these kinds of spiritual ideas from the Bible.

This is true in America, but in the Far East, not so true. The common denominator is that we've had religion for most if not all of our history, and it won't be something we can simply eliminate. What I disagree with is that it is necessary to reference the bible to build a complete, moral worldview.

It may make it much easier for some people to build a worldview based on Christianity, but we know that it's not necessary, from analyzing other cultures across history.

geo wrote:

Interbane wrote: The biblical stories are sufficient but not necessary to transfer moral wisdom.

I don't necessarily agree with Robert, but to play Devil's advocate for a moment. The Bible may not be necessary to glean the kinds of metaphorical truth that can be found in more modern texts. But you can't easily dismiss the influence of Christian traditions and many people prefer to get these kinds of spiritual ideas from the Bible.

This recognition of preference for the Bible as a moral source illustrates my point about moral evolution. A giraffe might seem more efficient with a short neck nerve, but evolution provided no path to enable such a radical mutation, so it has a nerve that goes right down its neck and back up, iirc. Similarly with morality, we may be able to invent a theoretical morality that is ideal, but we have no path to achieve such a morality socially, because it is not grounded in precedent, it is likely to ignore hidden factors in tradition, it will be naturally suspected of having errors, and it will lack the rich symbolic and cultural heritage of existing morality with all its institutional history and resources.

The great example of a failed moral promise is communism, which presented itself as an ideal morality, but in practice produced terror, stagnation and tyranny. Incremental adaptation from existing moral systems, such as Christianity, should be seen as a more viable method to achieve moral progress than construction of a rational philosophy severed from its context.

geo wrote: Carrier points out in the first section that many believers regard the Bible as a source of moral truth even if many of them aren't familiar with it. But obviously the converse of that is also true. Some people do read and understand the Bible and find it to be very meaningful. In that sense, Robert's goal to reform Christianity in order to make it accord with modern scientific knowledge is worthwhile. Unfortunately much of the resistance to reform Christianity would come from the fundamentalist side of religion, at least as much as from atheists.

I have not got up to the part of the book where Carrier discusses the fine-tuning of the universe, but I would like to take this comment from Geo to expand on what a scientific Christianity would look like.

Consider the hypothesis that God is the fine tuning of the universe. What this means is that anything that is not compatible with the finely tuned laws of physics simply will not happen. Within the scientific framework, fine-tuning is actually omnipotent and omnipresent and effectively infinite and eternal, traditionally core attributes of God.

As to whether fine-tuning is omni-benevolent, we can say that our sense of moral purpose is only adaptive when it aligns to fine-tuning. As in the Biblical idea, the path to salvation is narrow and hard, but the path to destruction is broad and easy. Behaviours and attitudes that do not align with scientific reality can exist for a long time, but eventually they are unsustainable and will stop. This means that the emotional comfort of supernatural belief is part of a broad and easy path to hell, while scientific knowledge is the narrow hard way of life.

The universe is in fact remarkably benevolent towards humanity, given that the laws of fine tuning are such as to make human evolution possible. My favourite book on this topic is Rare Earth – Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. The remarkable confluence of factors that has enabled the evolution of intelligence on earth over the last four billion years is like a broad directional river, a flow that we have to align to in order to flourish.

Obviously a river has eddies, areas of current that reverse direction, but the broad flow is one way. Similarly there will be accidents that cause innocent suffering, but the broad context of our planet is entirely conducive for humanity to grow and flourish in peace and prosperity.

My view is that Christianity is all about how humanity has lost contact with this natural intentional structure of the anthropic direction of reality. So when Jesus says he and the Father are one, and that love of God and neighbour are core to law, the underlying allegorical meaning is in fact deeply Taoist – there is a natural way of life in truth, a Tao, which provides the basis for orderly harmonious life. But Western society, corrupted by war, has lost the original natural sense of connection to divine reality, and is putting humanity on a path to extinction.

geo wrote: Borrowing from the field of alternate medicine. Studies have consistently shown that acupuncture is no better than placebo. And, yet, it remains fairly popular. Why do people get out of acupuncture if it does nothing (at least no more than placebo) to treat their ailments? i think this is an important question. Some people want that woo factor. Or they might find that the acupuncture treatment addresses some psychological needs—for example, the feeling that they're at least doing something or maybe it's the ritual itself, or it's just the idea that acupuncture is an ancient mode of healing. Mainstream medicine fails along these lines because it disregards the these psychological, often irrational, aspects of treatment.

Acapuncture can be compared to the ritual comfort and sense of belonging and purpose provided by participation in the Christian sacrament of communion. Obviously the elements of the host do not become the body and blood of our blessed Saviour, as Catholic tradition would have it. But the magical dream of bells and smells transports believers to an imaginary heaven in church, and this perceived psychological benefit of the fantasy of transubstantiation completely outweighs any scientific critique of what is actually happening, when you are inside the faith structure.

It is hard to say what the adaptive benefits of communion may be, just as it can be difficult to see why a bird has evolved its specific plumage. But just saying that communion is false consciousness is a bit like saying a peacock should not have a fancy tail. Like acupuncture, these things have evolved for complex reasons which the superficial appearance does not fully explain.

My view is that there is a deeply accurate cosmology within Christianity that provides an unconscious driver for its popularity. Deconstructing and analysing this cosmology, for example in the symbolism of the chi rho cross, provides a path to rebase faith in reason.

ant wrote:Science does not tell us God exists or does not exist.

if we apply science to a specific God's text it may tell us "this book is not to be taken literally".

if we apply science to specific claims made about a specific God, for example that He answers prayer, we may get an indication if the evidence backs up this assertion.

ie. do the children of believers suffer less physical injuries as a result of all that prayer constantly being offered, or another idea, do the children raised in a specific tradition suffer injury less thus indicating that one god seems to answer prayer more often than another perhaps indicating that one particular god exists more than another, when it comes to answering prayer.

A giraffe might seem more efficient with a short neck nerve, but evolution provided no path to enable such a radical mutation, so it has a nerve that goes right down its neck and back up, iirc. Similarly with morality, we may be able to invent a theoretical morality that is ideal, but we have no path to achieve such a morality socially, because it is not grounded in precedent

This is like saying that in order to evolve further, a giraffe must first devolve. Going forward in time, there is no need for the giraffe to pay homage to his evolutionary lineage. The analogy doesn't hold. The giraffe's current form can still be said to be grounded in precedent, because his is a product of precedent, though not needing to devolve in order to move forward.

The great example of a failed moral promise is communism, which presented itself as an ideal morality, but in practice produced terror, stagnation and tyranny. Incremental adaptation from existing moral systems, such as Christianity, should be seen as a more viable method to achieve moral progress than construction of a rational philosophy severed from its context.

Pointing to a failed political system does not mean Christianity or any other religion offers the best alternative, through incremental adaptation or otherwise. This is a false dichotomy of sorts, ignoring the existence of more modern moral systems that have neither the failings of Christianity nor the failings of Communism. The context of such morals systems may be required by the scholars that develop them, but not by the general populace that follows them.

Within the scientific framework, fine-tuning is actually omnipotent and omnipresent and effectively infinite and eternal, traditionally core attributes of God.

You said that if something is not within the finely-tuned laws of physics, it simply will not happen. Therefore fine tuning is omnipresent. But that's a bald assertion that ignores the possibility of a multiverse. How could fine tuning be omnipresent if it isn't realized in all parts of the multiverse? To maintain this position, you need to fully reject the idea of a multiverse. I agree that we may not live in a multiverse, but this position is not the same as saying the multiverse theories are definitely false.

My view is that Christianity is all about how humanity has lost contact with this natural intentional structure of the anthropic direction of reality.

Modern moral systems rest on the axiom that we should promote human flourishing. They are no different from the ideals you champion - the "anthropic direction of reality". If we have lost contact with this wisdom in modern times, we've done so with Christianity as the dominant belief system. Apparently, something isn't working. Forming one more denomination amongst the tens of thousands that already exist will do no good.

But the magical dream of bells and smells transports believers to an imaginary heaven in church, and this perceived psychological benefit of the fantasy of transubstantiation completely outweighs any scientific critique of what is actually happening, when you are inside the faith structure.

Scientific critique understands the benefit of ritual and sanctified belief, as shown in psychology. If you want peaceful minds and healthy psychology, distill what has worked within buddhism, since it is so much more effective at achieving the ends. Secular group meditation and the sanctification of humanity as a whole is a demonstrably suitable replacement for superstitious ritual. Its effects are profound, but it is not popular because it is not as sticky a meme as Christianity. Christianity is sticky for all the wrong reasons, and the sticky parts will cling to whatever denomination you try to create. It's the evolutionary algorithm applied to information. What you hope to achieve won't spread beyond a few people without the unseemly sticky superstitious beliefs that give Christianity its survival power.

My view is that there is a deeply accurate cosmology within Christianity that provides an unconscious driver for its popularity.

In order to be an unconscious driver, the person must first already possess the knowledge within his unconscious. Meaning, something that has already been learned in his or her lifetime. Most people know nothing of the concepts that dwell hidden in Christian texts, so the knowledge can't be unconscious. You first have to understand cosmology, then turn around and study the bible for it to stir up hidden connections. Not only that, but the cosmology must be specifically related to the instances where Christianity may or may not refer to it, which is specialized education.

Deconstructing and analysing this cosmology, for example in the symbolism of the chi rho cross, provides a path to rebase faith in reason.

I don't see how attaching meaning to a symbol is a way to ground anything in reason. Unless it's already universally understood what the symbol means. Take words or math, for example. Unless you hope to re-educate the entire world on what esoteric symbols in Christianity should mean, you're left with what they do mean. In other words, what most people take them to mean. See Carrier's chapter on the use of words to see what I mean.

youkrst wrote: if we apply science to a specific God's text it may tell us "this book is not to be taken literally".

if we apply science to specific claims made about a specific God, for example that He answers prayer, we may get an indication if the evidence backs up this assertion.

ie. do the children of believers suffer less physical injuries as a result of all that prayer constantly being offered, or another idea, do the children raised in a specific tradition suffer injury less thus indicating that one god seems to answer prayer more often than another perhaps indicating that one particular god exists more than another, when it comes to answering prayer.

The ways and degrees to which varying Christians interpret the bible is one issue here.
I don't need science to tell me that not everything there is literal.I can demonstrate myself that it's not all to be taken that way.One obvious example; the book of Revelation is saturated with symbolic imagery, rooted in the old testament and not pagan myth incidentally. Do I then interpret the "lake of fire" image there, literally? Of course not. But it does represent something or the image is meaningless.
So my approach is determined by context. So what is poetry, narrative history and biography and what is metaphor or literal or symbolism are indicated by various structures of literary norms.
If you reject the supernatural you are indicating an apriori naturalist assumption and worldview.My worldview is Christian theism.

I think you go to the an extreme Youkrst in simply categorising it all as myth.We've had this discussion before and frankly I don't think the pagan parallels view which you and Richard Carrier espouse is one that can be justified when examined by it's critics.
It is the overwhelming view of mainstream ancient historians that an historical person Jesus Christ existed and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
Carrier is out on a limb here.
On science and prayer;
Carrier debated David Marshall. Marshall provided plenty of examples of answers to prayer.I gave the example of Hudson Taylor.These are prima facie natural coincidences so a scientist could interpret them in this way and rule them out on this basis. How explanatory this would actually be is highly questionable in terms of probability and likelihood.
Apart from that,it is clear that guaranteed freedom from sickness,disease and death in this life is categorically excluded in any fair and extensive reading on this subject in scripture, though the possibility of healing is included.

In debating Marshall, Carrier basically attacked Christianity on the basis of what he would do if he were a divine person in Jesus' shoes at the time. Richard is a nice guy,unlike Jesus.
The problem of evil and suffering and how it relates to God is not something that can be glibly decided in a brief debate.

I personally, am very happy that world renowned author and speaker Carrier is not a divine person, as his hostility to Christianity is a troubling aspect of his psyche, and one wonders what he might do given omnipotence.

Do I then interpret the "lake of fire" image there, literally? Of course not. But it does represent something or the image is meaningless.

What do you use to interpret the passage?

Carrier debated David Marshall. Marshall provided plenty of examples of answers to prayer.I gave the example of Hudson Taylor.These are prima facie natural coincidences so a scientist could interpret them in this way and rule them out on this basis. How explanatory this would actually be is highly questionable in terms of probability and likelihood.

Such coincidences are guaranteed under naturalism. You can appeal to something supernatural if you wish, but that'd ad hoc, unnecessary. This is the fifth or sixth time I'm going to ask. What method would you use to determine whether a prayer was naturalistic coincidence, or supernatural intervention? This is at the heart of the matter.

It is the overwhelming view of mainstream ancient historians that an historical person Jesus Christ existed and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Given the armor that Christianity has against any contrary questioning or theses, we should expect most scholars to agree that an historical Christ was real. But that fact should also make us wonder if the consensus is based on truth or on status quo. Until relatively recently, to question Christianity would mark you as a heretic and outcast, especially the heart of Christianity, the historicity of Jesus. Given the social environment, even if I had evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I'd hesitate to bring it to the fore. Not in fear of people such as yourself, but the extremists lurk in the shadows.

Hi Interbane. They are naturalistic events which can be "explained" by theories of possiblity, and probability of extraordinary multiple coincidence or by divine providential working by God as one would expect based on scripture and find experientially in reality.
Given Carrier's, machine gun analogy I infer design from the bullet hole less silhouette.I infer providential design from extremely improbable coincidental events tailored to specific prayer requests.
It doesn't convince you. It convinces me.
"Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire" You tell me if I should interpret this literally or not.

There is a scientific establishment too, and dissenters from neo Darwinism have lost jobs for not toeing the party line.I'm not trying to be inflammatory here, but certainly I hear of such cases.Well ,Tacitus must have been in on the conspiracy.
It doesn't seem to have done Carrier's career and fortunes much harm,except maybe in terms of credibility.The same might apply to his scientific musings.