Hearsay

I have started reading The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel given to me by a fundamentalist religious colleague who recently left the company i work at to go back to America. We had a really in depth debate about religion a while back and the discussion obviously had an effect on him and I presume he feels that this book is a good source for understating the grounds for his belief. I was quite touched at the thought actually, not sure exactly what it is about the gesture but just seemed nice to know that he cared enough to by me a book on the subject.

Anyway, ever since he gave me the book I've been quite keen to read it and finally got a chance to read the first chapter of it today. I'm always curious as to why people believe things that seem so obviously false to me. After reading the first chapter of this book I can't help but feel a bit disappointed. I was really hoping for a argument that would really test my reasoning and force me to clarify my opinions but I can see from this first chapter that the argument falls apart before the horses have even left the gate.

This book seems to highlight how easily people can be seduced by an idea when they what it to be true. It plays on people who either do not understand or do not what to understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The fact that eye witness testimony does not count as extraordinary evidence seems lost to the writer of this book. In this book however it appears he is not even claiming evidence that is a good as eyewitness testimony. The moment of apparent triumph in this chapter is when the theologian uses somewhat questionable logic to say that the earliest account of Jesus was two years after the fact and so is close enough to eye witness testimony. The so called skeptic protagonist in the story, said to be the books author seems floored by this revelation. That this flimsy case for the claims put forward has such an effect on the author immediately discredits any claim he makes of being a true skeptic or at least someone who understands critical thinking and the scientific method.

I would not be convinced if a hundred thousand people told me that they saw someone rise from the dead an hour ago. The claim that someone rose from the dead is so extraordinary that almost any other explanation is more probable. I flies so much in the face of observed reality that it opens the flood gates of premises that are more probable, some of which have actually be shown to have happened in the past, like mass hallucination or the deception of the masses with slight of hand and misdirection.

I think this book is demonstration of an all too common failure to understand why science trumps personal accounts and how someone can say what they believe to be true and still say something that is false.

I'll continue reading the book as I am interested in how people develop these massive logical blind spots but I'm a bit disappointed at just how weak the argument is.