Which people are being referred to in your first paragraph? The original people writing down the books? Because there are contradictions in what was passed down.
Or are they counting just anyone who believes what they believe? Because then we have to get into independent evidence vs. non-independent evidence.
The arguments I’m dealing with are fundamentally flawed in more ways that I feel like recounting. There was just one particular area where I wasn’t actually sure what the data said and I wanted to find out for my own purposes.
The debate was about Mass Revelation. The story is that approximately 1.5 million Jews saw God, and told their children that they saw it, who told their children that their grandparents saw it, etc. 800 years of oral tradition pass before the story is written down.
I’m really tired right now and don’t feel like spelling out the argument in detail (it’s flawed in plenty of obvious ways that don’t warrant your valuable time). But the basic idea is that it’s impossible to convince millions of people that they saw something that they didn’t see, and if you tried to sell the story to a younger generation, the older generation would say “um, no, that didn’t happen.” And in particular, the “redundancy” of the oral tradition would prevent errors and falsehoods from spreading.
I just wanted to know what the data said about the reliability of oral tradition, and how easy/hard it is to manipulate memories on a mass scale.
You don’t have to convince millions of people all at once, in one generation, that they saw something, or even that their parents did.
You could, instead, convince a little cult today, and get that cult to grow over several generations until it is millions strong.
Or, instead, you could convince a small priestly caste that thus-and-so is a good legend to write down in what becomes the holy book; and teach millions of followers that everything written down in the priests’ holy book (which they can’t read) is true. Then some generations later, when there is an established tradition that whatever the priests’ book says, is true, when the masses finally do get to read the priests’ book, they will believe it too.
This is all obvious to me. It was pointed out in detail (along with other possibilities) during the debate, by myself and others. It was considered “unpersuasive.”
I actually made headway with one person (honestly he’s one of the most reasonable, fun to debate with guys I know) by saying “look, even if you consider the (fake story gets propogated somehow) idea impossible, divine miracles are ALSO impossible. So until we find more evidence, Mass Revelation can’t possibly be MORE likely than 50%.
Which people are being referred to in your first paragraph? The original people writing down the books? Because there are contradictions in what was passed down.
Or are they counting just anyone who believes what they believe? Because then we have to get into independent evidence vs. non-independent evidence.
The arguments I’m dealing with are fundamentally flawed in more ways that I feel like recounting. There was just one particular area where I wasn’t actually sure what the data said and I wanted to find out for my own purposes.
The debate was about Mass Revelation. The story is that approximately 1.5 million Jews saw God, and told their children that they saw it, who told their children that their grandparents saw it, etc. 800 years of oral tradition pass before the story is written down.
I’m really tired right now and don’t feel like spelling out the argument in detail (it’s flawed in plenty of obvious ways that don’t warrant your valuable time). But the basic idea is that it’s impossible to convince millions of people that they saw something that they didn’t see, and if you tried to sell the story to a younger generation, the older generation would say “um, no, that didn’t happen.” And in particular, the “redundancy” of the oral tradition would prevent errors and falsehoods from spreading.
I just wanted to know what the data said about the reliability of oral tradition, and how easy/hard it is to manipulate memories on a mass scale.
You don’t have to convince millions of people all at once, in one generation, that they saw something, or even that their parents did.
You could, instead, convince a little cult today, and get that cult to grow over several generations until it is millions strong.
Or, instead, you could convince a small priestly caste that thus-and-so is a good legend to write down in what becomes the holy book; and teach millions of followers that everything written down in the priests’ holy book (which they can’t read) is true. Then some generations later, when there is an established tradition that whatever the priests’ book says, is true, when the masses finally do get to read the priests’ book, they will believe it too.
This is all obvious to me. It was pointed out in detail (along with other possibilities) during the debate, by myself and others. It was considered “unpersuasive.”
I actually made headway with one person (honestly he’s one of the most reasonable, fun to debate with guys I know) by saying “look, even if you consider the (fake story gets propogated somehow) idea impossible, divine miracles are ALSO impossible. So until we find more evidence, Mass Revelation can’t possibly be MORE likely than 50%.