Christianity’s Difficulties Part 3 - Is God Hiding?
Austin Dacey, author of The Secular Conscience, was once what he has described as a “born again Christian.” He, like so many other evangelical Christians, went off to college and faced the cold hard paradoxes that seem to force Christian belief to its knees. Dacey earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Bowling Green State University, and he currently is the Center for Inquiry’s representative to the UN.
One of the reasons that Dacey lost his faith is that he looked around at the world for God, and in the places where he would have expected to have found God peering back at him, he found nothing. God, to Dacey, seemed utterly hidden, and Dacey concludes that this was evidence that perhaps God was not there at all.
This strikes a familiar chord with me. How many times have I earnestly sought to hear God’s voice, and I have seemed to hear absolute, deafening silence? How many times have I, like Job, looked to the right hand and the left and not found God working there. Should I conclude then, that God is not there at all? On top of that, why doesn’t God provide more concrete evidence for his existence? Surely, it would be supremely simple for God to indicate to humanity in some hard and fast way that He is in fact out there. Shouldn’t God want us to at least know for sure that He is around and then we can decide whether or not we should like to serve him?
If we examine Dacey’s argument for atheism based upon God’s hiddenness, it probably looks something like this:
1.If God exists, we should expect to see adequate evidence for His existence.
2.We do not see adequate evidence of His existence.
3.Therefore, God does not exist.
Notice that, in this series, I am not erecting positive arguments for the claims of Christian theism. Instead, I am only examining the claims of non-Christians for their logical fallacies. The challenge issued to me in this series of posts was to handle problems with the Christian worldview, and in order for me to do this, I don’t have to address positive claims, simply point out inefficiencies in these “problems.”
As we did before, let’s examine these premises on a premise by premise basis. Remember, if even one premise is faulty, the conclusion the premises produce becomes much more unlikely at best and false at worst.
1.If God exists. we should expect to see adequate evidence for His existence.
There are all kinds of loaded components to this premise. There should be a definition given for “adequate evidence.” DaGoodS might ask what God I am talking about, and he might ask me to be more specific (Thor vs. Allah vs. YHWH-they all have unique character traits, and might require a different burden of evidence for His existence). In the general sense, though, I wonder if this statement has any logical merit at all. I think an honest person would, after reading this statement, simply ask “Why?” Why should we expect to see adequate evidence? What does evidence have to do with existence? Perhaps evidence has to do with the verifibility of existence, but I think that we can all agree that it is possible for many to things to exist without presenting evidence to us for their existence.
2.We do not see adequate evidence for God’s existence.
Now, at this point I could rattle off tons of “evidence” for God’s existence, and maybe some of you would be astounded by the Argument from Contingency, the Ontological Argument, the Aesthetic Argument, and then we could get into more direct evidenciary assertions made by Intelligent Design and Teleology. Perhaps this would be adequate evidence for you to substantiate God’s existence, perhaps not. You might assert that all my arguments are not sufficient, because they rely on what we know about the natural universe to define the supernatural, and as such all my talk is meaningless. A clever Verificationist trick, to be sure, but perhaps it does have some legitimacy
Let’s assume, though, as even many Christians do, that there is not adequate evidence to substantiate God’s existence. Let’s completely grant this premise.
3.Therefore, God does not exist.
Even assuming that premise 2 is true, I think it an incredible leap to assume that God does not exist. At best, all this argument substantiates is that we cannot verify God’s existence, but that says nothing about whether or not God exists at all. There are all kinds of things that we cannot verify that we do in fact assume to be real (for example, the existence of physical reality, or of an actual past). Whether or not we can assume God is real is another question, but this line of reasoning is wholly insufficient in establishing God’s non-existence.
The old forensic mantra rings in my ears. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” God may well exist, even if He has provided no evidence for verifibility of His existence.
Tags:atheism Christianity Hiddenness of God theism Share This
Recently
January 8th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
So we now have a second situation. It conforms to my assessment of your method. Continuing to use the same numbering system:
1. The concept, “Why does God not provide evidence of his existence?”
2. The argument: “Dacey looked for evidence of God, and where he expected to find evidence of a God—he did not.”
The first concern. I have not read Dacey’s argument for/against atheism. I don’t know if this is the only reason he has, or what he is looking for, or what he expected to find.
Jeremy Killian: If we examine Dacey’s argument for atheism based upon God’s hiddenness, it probably looks something like this:…
“Probably”? The last argument put forth turned out to be the OPPOSITE of what the people actually said. Do you have a citation where I could look to see what Dacey’s argument “probably” looks like?
3 & 4. The Premises.
The only one responded to was the first Premise, with (as this method provides) “it is possible for many things to exist without presenting evidence to us of their existence.”
Part of the quandary here is that each side is using a different standard of proof. The atheist is arguing, “It is more likely than not God does not exist” whereas the theist is defending, “It is logically impossible for God to exist.” In other words, this response is not responding to what is being said.
Certain claims about God result in expected evidence. (I will leave the qualifier “adequate” alone.) If one makes the claim “God is loving,” for example, we would expect to see evidence for why the theist is making the claim. In short, we would expect “loving” evidence. If we see no evidence of such a thing, we would say, “It is more likely a loving God does not exist.” Possible one still does? Sure. Probable? Nope. Is that the best Christianity can do? Say it is “possible”? What world-view CAN’T say “it is possible”?
Curiously, this backtracking to “possible to exist without evidence” actually destroys your first response to Christian difficulties. It is possible a non-moral God exists. It is possible the God of the Bible is not morally perfect. To stay consistent, by applying your response to Difficulty 2, you lose your response to Difficulty 1.
5. Conclusion is invalid.
So even if we have absolutely no proof whatsoever, it is still possible God exists? O.K. Can you stay consistent with this? It is equally possible, with no proof and all, that God does not exist. It is possible, with lack of proof, that Santa Claus exists. And the Easter bunny. And small, invisible knee-hugging creatures clinging to your legs. And Martians replacing your furniture with exact duplicates.
See, the reality is, we take what evidences we have and make conclusions based upon evidence, or lack thereof. We do not live this life on the premise, “Gee, it is logically possible that _________ [when we can fill in that blank with anything] is true, even though we have no proof.”
What I see are Christians–when fixing their cars, or talking sports or reading the paper–using “what is more likely than not” as their standard, but when defending Christianity, they dip way, way down to “logically possible.” Why is that? Do they think they cannot defend Christianity on the standard of “more likely than not”? Sure seems that way.
Part of an interesting side-effect of this method–by turning these around from having to defend Christianity to responding to non-theists’ arguments–you can lower your standard to “anything possible at all.” As long as you can present any possibility, Christian is defended.
Maybe—but it is not supported either.
Jeremy Killian: The old forensic mantra rings in my ears. ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’
Then there are sewer rats living in your pantry.
Sure, you have never seen a sewer rat in your pantry. “Absence of Evidence is not evidence of Absence.” Sure, no one else has ever seen a single rat in your pantry. “Absence of Evidence is not evidence of Absence.” Yes, I know you have never heard the sound of their scratching, nor have any guests heard the sound of their scratching. “Absence of Evidence is not evidence of Absence.” Yeah, I know you have not seen their…”gifts”…left behind. Never seen a box chewed. Never smelled sewage or urine or stink. “Absence of Evidence is not evidence of Absence.”
I understand you have never seen, felt, heard, or smelled a single solitary possible piece of evidence that would ever indicate sewer rats are living in your pantry. Doesn’t matter—it is true because I say it is possible. “Absence of Evidence is not evidence of Absence.”
Convinced? Buying rat traps? No? Then maybe we can do better than “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Actually, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence UNLESS that absence would be expected in the proposition. Such as…I don’t know…the claim there aren’t sewer rats in your pantry?
January 8th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Dacey’s website used to contain a summary of his view of divine hiddenness, but I can’t find it there anymore. It seems that right now, he is using his website to promote his book, and I’m hoping that he’ll return to regularly scheduled programming over there really soon. You can hear Dacey articulate his view in his debate with William Lane Craig at Purdue. I don’t know if the debate represents his current view, but it is out there. Take a look, and tell me if I’ve misarticulated his points.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I had a chance to hear the opening statements in the Craig-Dacey’s debate. (And after just listening to another Craig debate, too. Ugh.)
To be charitable, Dacey does talk about God’s hideness, and what evidence we would expect to find in light of the claim of a loving, personal God. In the broadest sense, your first premise would incorporate what he says. He is careful to note (as expected) that it is a standard of atheism being “more probable” (his words) than theism. And the issue I previously raised of differing standards of proof appears to be in play here.
Jeremy Killian: I think an honest person would, after reading this statement, simply ask “Why?” Why should we expect to see adequate evidence?
Er…because we use evidence to prove existence.
Dacey also makes the point that the theist is arguing from evidence:
“We see this, so therefore God is _____”
“We see that, so therefore God is _____”
Why is the non-theist barred from looking at the evidence? It seems disingenuous to make all these evidential claims, and when we start to look at them, hear, “Evidence is not necessary to prove God.” Why, then, did the theist just spend 20 minutes presenting all this evidence?
Dacey makes the point it IS reasonable to doubt God’s existence—otherwise there would not be debates (and such interest in debates) such as the one he and Dr. Craig engaged in. There are no debates on the existence of Santa Claus because people do not find it reasonable to argue for his existence. Has there ever been a formal debate on Holocaust Denial? If so—it has been very limited for the same reason—most people don’t find Holocaust Denial to be reasonable.
The bigger problem here is the lack of consistency in your method.
In the first difficulty, you took an anti-Christian claim (for lack of a better term) “The Tanakh God killed innocents” and indicated such a claim is refuted as long as it is possible to provide an alternative.
Now you have taken another anti-Christian claim, “No evidence=no existence” and again indicated such a claim is refuted because it is possible of provide an alternative.
Fine—assume there is no evidence the Tanakh God ever acted immorally. I propose (just like you do here) “it is possible for many to things to exist without presenting evidence to us for their existence. “
Therefore it is possible for an immoral Tanakh God to exist, EVEN IF it never presented evidence to us for its existence!
I have refuted your claim of a morally perfect God using the exact same method you use!
Do you agree?
How come when it comes to anti-Christian statements, an alternative that “possibly exists” is sufficient refutation, but when it comes to pro-Christian statements, an alternative that “possibly exits” is NOT sufficient refutation?
As I stated initially, I cannot find a Christian providing a method they will stay consistent with. I do not find it “open-minded” to grant one’s own position the latitude of refuting the other person’s claim by presenting “any possible alternative” when the other person is not granted the same latitude.
This is why the method of “any logical possibility” so often embraced by Christians is so inconsistently applied. When they discuss with Muslims or Mormons or Hindus or Buddhists or non-Theists, they expect the persons to present evidence, and argument and substantiation that is “more reasonable.” Yet when defending their own claims, all they require is “it is possible.”
Dacey used an example that is appropriate here. What if your roommate indicated they would bake you a cake today? As you come back from class—you would expect certain evidences. An aroma in the air, egg shells in the garbage can, mixing bowls in the sink, empty cake mix box.
But when you came back, you see the same number of eggs in the refrigerator. No used boxes of cake mix, no egg shells, no dirty mixing bowls. No aroma in the air.
That is what Dacey meant by expectation of certain evidences based on claims. We would expect to see certain things if someone said something as simple as “I will bake you a cake.” In the same way, if a theist claims, “I have a loving God” we would expect certain evidences of that. As I pointed out before, if “loving God” has no evidence, or could mean anything—it becomes a meaningless phrase.
If there is no evidence of an immoral God, according to your own method, such a God exists. Is this a sufficient refutation of your first Defense of Christian difficulties?
January 9th, 2009 at 10:29 am
I feel as though you’re getting ahead of me here. I’ve never claimed in this series to establish a positive case for the existence of God. It could be entirely possible that God does not exist, even though this argument does not substantiate that fact. Just because I disprove or make an argument less probable doesn’t automatically mean that the converse it true. I then must erect a positive case of my own, something that I love to present, but not just yet. This discussion is about Christianity’s difficulties, not about positive arguments for Christian theism. So, when you say,
You mischaracterize what I am claiming. I am not claiming that because we see no evidence for something that we can automatically assume that it exists. I am claiming that the “non-existence” of evidence for something does not necessariily refute its actual existence.
For example, what evidence do we have to substantiate that the speed of light is always constant? In short, we have none. The only reason that we assume this fact is because without it, Einstein falls apart (interestingly enough, there are some doubts about this these days). My point is this, the speed of light may well be constant always throughout the universe, and it may be valid to assume such a fact, even though we have no substantiation for that fact. Think of it this way. What if I said:
1.If the speed of light is constant, we should expect to see adequate evidence for its constancy.
2.We do not see adequate evidence for its constancy.
3.Therefore, the speed of light is not constant.
Is this a conclusion that you would accept? I hope not, unless you’ve got a better explanation for Relativity than Einstein. Now, by refuting this argument, have I proven that the speed of light is, in fact, constant? Nope. Absolutely not. Just as, by refuting the hiddenness argument, I have not proven that God exists. I have never claimed that, a fact that you seem to be assuming.
Perhaps because of the insufficiency of my communication, or because of your own predispositions, you assume that I am making positive claims by refuting negative ones. I can assure you that this is not the case. Imagine that I am a defense attourney responding to the case of the prosecutor. I am not presenting an alternative theory of the case right now, only responding to the prosecutor’s case to demonstrate its weaknesses.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Jeremy Killian,
I am not looking at just the claims you are refuting; I am concentrating on how you refute those claims. Remember, the impetus of this discussion is Methodology. How do you “objectively come to terms with the Christian approach to each of these teachings”?
Obviously that partly entails looking at the claims. As I previously indicated, I don’t think picking one out of dozens of arguments against a proposition is the best way to go about this, but you have chosen to demonstrate your method in this way–we can work with it.
Just as your speed of light example admirably demonstrates, simply picking apart one argument out doesn’t prove…well…anything, really.
I have covered questions within this method such as:
1) How did you pick which argument to use against the Christian proposition?
2) How did you determine the premises/conclusion from that argument?
But far and away, the most significant problem I have seen, and have repeatedly addressed is:
3) How do you refute the individual premises?
Over and over, the method you have used is “as long as there is a possible alternative, the premise is refuted.” Or at the least “fatally flawed.” Over and over I have demonstrated the inconsistency between the application of that method between Difficulty One and Difficulty Two.
I understand you are not trying to prove the existence of God. I get you can pick whatever Difficulty and whatever argument you want. You indicate you are not trying to support positive claims by refuting one (1) negative response. (Albeit the question then arises—what ARE you trying to support, then?)
What I am looking for is the METHOD by which you are addressing your position. And the METHOD I am seeing is as long as you can provide some possible alternative; you believe the premise is refuted.
Am I incorrect in that? Am I mis-reading your method? Is there some other standard you are using to refute the premises you have proposed?
If the METHOD is that a premise is refuted by merely proposing an alternative possibility, then there has been an inconsistency between the resolutions of Difficulty One and Difficulty Two. To wit—even if there is no evidence whatsoever the God of the Tanakh is Immoral it is possible that such a God exists (per response to Difficulty Two), and therefore any claim God is absolutely perfect (per Difficulty One) is refuted by the method employed in Difficulty Two.
Would you agree the concept of an absolutely perfect God is refuted? Would you agree, by consistently applying your method one cannot claim an absolutely perfect moral God? Or at least the claim there is an absolutely perfect moral God is “fatally flawed”?
Jeremy Killian: You mischaracterize what I am claiming. I am not claiming that because we see no evidence for something that we can automatically assume that it exists. I am claiming that the “non-existence” of evidence for something does not necessariily refute its actual existence.
Then what ARE you claiming? You said, ”Remember, if even one premise is faulty, the conclusion the premises produce becomes much more unlikely at best and false at worst. “ And in the previous Difficulty: ”I think, however, that this syllogism is fatally flawed; let’s take apart each premise and see if they hold up to scrutiny” and ”…I’ve demonstrated the insufficency of each of these claims,” and ”..each premise must be sound, and if the premises are flawed, the conclusion becomes increasingly improbable. “(emphasis added)
Words like “faulty” and “fatally flawed. “Hold up to scrutiny,” “unsound” and “insufficient.”
These seem a bit stronger than “doesn’t necessarily refute.” Are you saying the first Premise in this Difficulty is NOT fatally flawed?
This is what I mean be consistency. To re-word it a bit: If by proposing an alternative possibility, a premise becomes “fatally flawed”—I propose an immoral God as an alternative possibility and therefore the claim there is a Morally Perfect God is “fatally flawed.” Do you see what I am getting at?
Look, I will freely agree with you we cannot logically prove God does not necessarily exist. In the same way theists cannot logically prove God DOES necessarily exist. We are left with proofs somewhere in the middle. Some point to a certain God; some point away. Some point to a God; some point to no God at all.
And within that middle—that in-between spot—we have to deal with what evidences we have. We reject some supernatural claims; others accept some supernatural claims.
I am looking for a method as to HOW we determine which to accept and which to reject. The only method provided, in response, is that any alternative possibility refutes the claim. If you prefer, any alternative possibility makes the claim “fatally flawed” rather than complete refutation. (Not sure I see the difference)
So…going back to my question, does the possible alternative of an immoral Tanakh God (even if there is no evidence in that direction) make a morally perfect God “fatally flawed” simply because I propose an alternative? Without evidence?
January 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Ok, let’s address your critiques of my methodology. I’ll elaborate on several concerns that you’ve estabilshed.
I can understand this question, because I can see how the problems I’ve presented here might seem a bit arbitrary. The reason that I’ve chosen thense particular objections is that they are the objections that seem most perplexing to me. No atheist is going to be able to convince me that God doesn’t exist based upon biological or physical claims, partly because I don’t understand science well enough to comprehend the nature of the argument, and partly because I feel that there are some fairly big scientific and philosophical holes in every scientitic argument that I’ve heard against God’s existence (i.e. metaphysical assumptions of the natural over the supernatural, etc.). That’s not saying that I don’t find some arguments against that Christian faith troubling. This series seeks to present some of those arguments that I find personally troubling, then it asks, “are these arguments strong enough to convince me to deny my personal experience of God as delusory?”
Now, you might assume that I’m just a hard-headed old fundamentalist that could never be convinced to give up my moorings no matter how absurd a corner I paint myself into, but remember that I’ve already established one criterium which would invalidate my belief. Over at Robert’s blog, I stated that if someone could conclusively produce the actual bones of Jesus, I would be forced to recant my belief in Jesus. I wouldn’t fall back to another, mystical position. That would be the end of it. So, I hope that you can see that I am not quite like one of those members of your Sunday School class.
To determine the premises/conclusion of the argument, in these cases, I simply consider the opposition claims and place them in order to demonstrate the conclusion. Now, you’ve had some problems with my first claim on difficulty one, and I think that perhaps all of that bluster would have been averted if I had expressed the claim this way: “1.If the God of Christian Theology exists, He must, by definition, be morally perfect,” which would lead to the conclusion, “The God of Christian Theology does not exist.” Perhaps, If I’d expressed mysefl this way, which is basically what I meant, we’d be having a much different discussion, so my method does require precise language to communicate understanding.
In that regard, I would say that I have not done service to my method in the previous discussion.
Maybe I’m being a bit thick here, but I just don’t see exactly what your problem is with my method on this point. I take a look at each premise, which are intended to be absolute statements (as absolute as statements about such things can be), and I ask myself, are these statements more probably true or false? If all the statements stand up to this scrutiny, then the conclusion follows. If the premises are faulty, then the conclusion that they lead to becomes much less likely. I don’t see how I’ve been inconsistent in handling the logic of these arguments, perhaps you could explain another way?
Maybe this discussion can help you understand a bit more of where I’m coming from.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Jeremy Killian,
Three points.
One. I think your analogy of prosecutor/defendant is very appropriate for your method. It is fairly typical in a courtroom—the prosecutor attempts to build a case; the defendant tries any means possible to tear down any part of the case, hoping enough “holes” will make the jury believe there is reasonable doubt. If the surveillance video captures the defendant—the defendant claims it was edited or rigged. If the gun was owned by the defendant—the defendant claims his fingerprints aren’t on it. If the victim identifies the defendant—the defendant claims they are mistaken or lying.
Because it is possible videos are rigged, and his gun was borrowed and the victim is lying, the defendant hopes the jury will find his way. Obviously, in real life, “possible” doesn’t cut it and defendants are found guilty all the time.
It seems, under your apparent method, as long as one is a prosecutor–one will always lose. Every single time. Doesn’t matter WHAT a person claims: The Holocaust happened, 9/11 was a conspiracy, plate tectonics—it is always “possible” to bring up an alternative, and therefore, under this method, the prosecutor loses.
It explains why you turned these claims around. Instead of focusing on what Christianity claims, to focus on what those who do not believe Christianity claim. Because if Christianity is in the prosecuting position, it (just like anything else) will lose. Therefore it is imperative to first place the arguments against Christianity as “Prosecutor.” Then—as defendant—all you need do is point out a “possible” alternative and the prosecution case fails.
What I have been trying to do is have you look at it from BOTH sides. What about the claim of a morally-perfect God? What if that was the “prosecution” claim? Would you agree, under this theory, the possibility of an alternative makes that a faulty claim?
Two. When you framed the atheist’s arguments, you indicate they are “absolute statements.” But the atheist does NOT intend them to be absolute statements! Here is where we enter strawperson territory.
We make these claims (as I pointed out Dacey explicitly stated) as “more reasonable given the evidence we have.” We are not making them an absolute.
The reason I see this happening appears to be an attempt to frame the argument. To say, “The prosecutor says the video ABSOLUTELY MUST portray the Defendant, and since we know videos can be manipulated—this “absolute” fails, since videos do not always “absolutely” demonstrate what happened. The prosecution says the Defendant’s fingerprints ABSOLUTELY MUST be on the gun perpetrating the crime, and since we know fingerprints aren’t on guns all the time, this “absolute” fails. The prosecution says the witness ABSOLUTELY MUST be telling the truth, and since we know people can lie, this “absolute” fails.”
Yet the prosecutor is NOT saying these are absolutes. The prosecutor is saying the cumulative evidence makes it true, beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant committed the crime. Not ANY doubt. Not ABSOLUTELY MUST.
I am not trying to be too harsh here, but this framing the argument in absolute premises changes what we are saying. And this method seems to do it on purpose to ease the burden of countering the arguments.
Three. What you say and what we see are two different things. You indicate your method is:
Jeremy Killian: I take a look at each premise, which are intended to be absolute statements (as absolute as statements about such things can be), and I ask myself, are these statements more probably true or false?
Notice the key phrase in weighing the statements—“more probable.” Yet look at the wording you actually used:
Difficulty Two: Premise One.
“…but I think that we can all agree that it is possible for many to things to exist without presenting evidence to us for their existence..”
Here all you say is “it is POSSIBLE.” Not “more probable.” Not only have you turned a weighing claim of Dacey (“it is more reasonable a loving God would give evidence of being loving than a loving God NOT giving any evidence of being loving”) to an absolute (“A loving God MUST give evidence of being loving”) but then all you do is provide a possibility, NOT a “more probably true or false”
Or previously in Difficulty One: Premise Two.
“It is possible then, that a morally perfect being would in fact be authorized to cause the death of an innocent person without sacrificing his moral perfection.”
“As I’ve said, we only need to point out a possible situation in which the premise might not be true to invalidate that premise as an absolute statement, which by itself, destroys the conclusion that the claim rests upon.”
Notice there you said all you need to do is point out a possibility. Not what is “more probably true.” I pointed out an incident—King David’s baby—where I think the evidence points to a story about a God killing an innocent. If your standard was actually “what is more probably true or false” then I would think you would have to presented evidence you weighed on BOTH sides of the issue and came to the conclusion it is more probably true King David’s Baby was not innocent.
Not simply stated, “it was possible.”
Again, I am trying to not be harsh here, but see if you can view the world from BOTH sides. To see it from our perspective. To weigh evidence.
Further, under this point, the obvious question to the method of “more probable” is—more probable to whom? You answer this by saying, “I ask myself.” More probable to you. Doesn’t that scream of subjectivity—the very thing I am trying to avoid in my methodology? Doesn’t this introduce your own bias and prejudices into what is “more probable”?
Finally, with all due respect (I left it alone before) I do not find the idea you would modify your belief upon finding the bone of Jesus very open-minded. Look what this is—an impossible standard guaranteeing you will NEVER have to worry about changing your belief, yet be able to claim you are being “open-minded.”
We don’t have the bones of King Herod, despite having his tomb. We don’t have the bones of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or King David. Under most naturalistic theories regarding the Gospels—we would NEVER have the bones—they would have been carried away and decomposed. If Jesus’ family was too poor for an ossuary—we wouldn’t have the bones either.
But let’s assume by sheer outstanding coincidence, we found a tomb in Nazareth containing an ossuary of “Yeshua ben Joseph.” And it contains bones of a male 30-40 years of age. How do we determine these are Jesus? We have no DNA from Jesus’ family. No lineage. Nothing to compare them to. You can still leave open the “possibility” these are not the bones of Jesus of the Gospels. (“Yeshua” and “Joseph” being common names.)
There is absolutely (gotta like that word! *grin*) positively no way we could ever produce the bones of Jesus. Ever. Therefore to claim you are “open-minded” because you would change for something that cannot occur is not very compelling.
Nor is it “more probable.”
Or look at it this way. If I said, “The only way I will ever believe in a God is if he appears in front of me in the next 5 seconds wearing a pink tutu, dancing an Irish jig and whistling Dixie”—would you consider me very “open-minded”? Just because I drummed up some possibility of changing my mind?
I sure wouldn’t.