Seeing is believing?

[CadyandZoe]

I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.

Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!

What is abductive reasoning?

[Athanasius]

What is abductive reasoning?

It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.

This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?

[Oscar_Kipling]

I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.

Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!

What is abductive reasoning?

To my understanding it is essentially applying occam's razor to some observation or set of observations in order to formulate an argument for the most parsimonious explanation for the given observations. Based on your statement and your subsequent question to me, I assume that you believe that abduction cracks this wide open for you somehow and i'm very interested in seeing what you believe a compelling and well constructed abductive argument that proves that your faith is based on objective truth looks like. Do you have such an arguement or no?

[Oscar_Kipling]

What is abductive reasoning?

It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.

This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?

I think at that point the honest answer is that you don't know, although I frequently find that for my money there are prior failures in reasoning  that either exclude the argument from qualifying as abduction i.e. unwarranted and unparsimonious "gymnastics" or there are fundamental distorsions or misunderstandings of "the science" required to give the illusion of coherency. IOW, I don't believe that you (the general you, but I guess probably specifically you too in some cases) actually get to the precipice because there are simpler interpretations that are IMO dismissed for the sake of the conclusion and simpler explanations that mechanically diagnose those simpler interpretations... So I think what is targeted is an argument meant to be in parity with other plausible but unprovable explanations, but what you actually end up with is an argument that is plausible due to a disproportionate accumulation of epicycles & kludge heavily biased at the interpretation stage...very cool, very interesting, very clever but very convoluted and needlessly complex orreries.

[Fenris]

I guess that depends. How are you defining 'Jew'? I know it's not merely a practitioner of the Jewish religion, so I'm supposing that it's a kind of birthright, if you will. If your parents are Jewish, you're Jewish. If your mom is Jewish, you're Jewish, and so forth. Yay or nay?

We've established this elsewhere. But an isolated individual descended from such is not a people. I'm sure there's some direct descendent of the Moabites alive somewhere, but the people are gone.

[Fenris]

The earliest letter of Paul is First Corinthians (c. 53–54) and about a church in full swing.

This doesn't really help us, because Paul was not witness to the events in the Gospels. He never even met Jesus in life.

[Fenris]

Jesus said to Peter : Matt 16:18 - And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it

Happened as predicted and Christianity is still present after 2000 years because of Jesus prediction and promise Christianity will be forever. Following your logic Christianity is falsifiable.

No, this is much more subject to what was said above. Christianity is something internal, you guys will even have debates about who is a "true Christian". Judaism is simpler. If the people are gone, the religion will be proven false.

[Oscar_Kipling]

Jesus said to Peter : Matt 16:18 - And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it

Happened as predicted and Christianity is still present after 2000 years because of Jesus prediction and promise Christianity will be forever. Following your logic Christianity is falsifiable.

No, this is much more subject to what was said above. Christianity is something internal, you guys will even have debates about who is a "true Christian". Judaism is simpler. If the people are gone, the religion will be proven false.

If Jesus doesnt show up for his second coming is that not technically a falsifiable condition for christianity in the same way that you are using it for judaism?

[Fenris]

I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.

Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!

So would I

[Fenris]

If Jesus doesnt show up for his second coming is that not technically a falsifiable condition for christianity in the same way that you are using it for judaism?

No because a Christian will say he hasn't come yet.

[Oscar_Kipling]

If Jesus doesnt show up for his second coming is that not technically a falsifiable condition for christianity in the same way that you are using it for judaism?

No because a Christian will say he hasn't come yet.

it's not about whether or not some Christians might deny it, people could just as easily claim that there are undetected Jews somewhere. If  the earth is completely destroyed by giant space rocks or strangelets or a ronin black hole, I'd argue Jesus cannot come back and go to the places and do the stuff that is claimed in the bible so that would meet your standard of falsification for both Judaism and Christianity, just no one would be around to debate it. If you find that unpalatable then we could spend time constructing a scenario where there is a thriving antiemetic mars colony when the earth is destroyed or something. These jew-hating martian people could surely make assertions about the possibility of secret jewish moon bases or space stations or about Jesus using his powers to reconstitute the earth or that the asteroid was Jesus and that actually fulfilled the ancient prophecies... The long and short is that in principle a destroyed earth would falsify both, which was all to point out that this whole exercise, at least as you've presented it doesn't provide us with anything of pragmatic use most glaringly it does not provide a way to epistemologically distinguish Judaism and Christianity from each other even in principle, like trading 6 giant chicken eggs for a half dozen jumbo gallus ovum.

However I actually do think that both Judaism & Christianity are falsifiable in a way that actually does provide useful distinguishing information. For instance Matthew ~24, "this" generation passed many centuries ago, but good luck finding a Christian that won't tap dance around that and offer apologies for why that straightforward assertion about what will happen on a timescale that has clearly passed is actually an extremely ambiguous and convoluted statement that doesn't conflict with the fact that a couple of millenia have elapsed. I agree that you've correctly predicted that religious folk will frequently dip and dodge when faced with falsifying evidence and frequently avoid the idea that their religion is even susceptible to falsification in any pragmatic way, even in principle. because you know, then someone might actually do it. Maybe it's just me but for me it seems the only thing that really prevents abrahamic religions from being susceptible to pragmatic falsification is the intense desire to avoid being proven false that at all costs....so we end up with threads like this with debates like this where folks like you and Athanasius find it glaringly obvious where the reasoning has or would fail when applied to the other's theological stance, but cannot seem to take the obvious step of applying it to your own beliefs and the effect is fascinating.

[Athanasius]

I guess that depends. How are you defining 'Jew'? I know it's not merely a practitioner of the Jewish religion, so I'm supposing that it's a kind of birthright, if you will. If your parents are Jewish, you're Jewish. If your mom is Jewish, you're Jewish, and so forth. Yay or nay?

We've established this elsewhere. But an isolated individual descended from such is not a people. I'm sure there's some direct descendent of the Moabites alive somewhere, but the people are gone.

The point I'm getting at is both (1) according to arguably an arbitrary definition, and (2) that's potentially only for now. We might imagine some collection of lingering Jews to restart the people should the worst happen. We'd also want to consider anyone who has Jewish ancestry but isn't practising and might not even be aware of such, and are part of the people even if no one is aware of it (going back to: we don't know what we don't know).

[CadyandZoe]

What is abductive reasoning?

It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.

This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?

Where else in everyday human experience to we use abductive reasoning? Hint: the process can be a life or death decision.

[Athanasius]

What is abductive reasoning?

It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.

This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?

Where else in everyday human experience to we use abductive reasoning? Hint: the process can be a life or death decision.

And yet many people confuse thirst for hunger. How does this speak towards the epistemic difficulty I raised?

[Fenris]

it's not about whether or not some Christians might deny it, people could just as easily claim that there are undetected Jews somewhere.

As I've said, I'm sure there are undetected Sumerians or Hittites somewhere. But they no longer exist as a people.

If  the earth is completely destroyed by giant space rocks or strangelets or a ronin black hole,

This is very imaginative. I like it!

I'd argue Jesus cannot come back and go to the places and do the stuff that is claimed in the bible so that would meet your standard of falsification for both Judaism and Christianity, just no one would be around to debate it. If you find that unpalatable then we could spend time constructing a scenario where there is a thriving antiemetic mars colony when the earth is destroyed or something. These jew-hating martian people could surely make assertions about the possibility of secret jewish moon bases or space stations or about Jesus using his powers to reconstitute the earth or that the asteroid was Jesus and that actually fulfilled the ancient prophecies... The long and short is that in principle a destroyed earth would falsify both, which was all to point out that this whole exercise, at least as you've presented it doesn't provide us with anything of pragmatic use most glaringly it does not provide a way to epistemologically distinguish Judaism and Christianity from each other even in principle, like trading 6 giant chicken eggs for a half dozen jumbo gallus ovum.

Ok, how about Jeremiah 31?

This is what the Lord says,

he who appoints the sun
    to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
    to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
    so that its waves roar—
    the Lord Almighty is his name:
 “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
    declares the Lord,
“will Israel ever cease
    being a nation before me.”