I've been dealing with this argument for a long time too.
1. This is trying to apply the rules of formal debate to the issue at hand. That's obviously fallacious. Where's the supporting argument - oh, that's right, there is none, because it's just "obvious."
This claim is so full of mistakes I'm not even sure where to begin.
First, it confuses logic with the "rules of formal debate"--whatever those are. Logic consists of right reasoning--and right reasoning is
always valid and applicable, no matter how formal or informal a discussion.
Second, a fallacy is an error in reasoning--not a misapplication of the rules of debate. There is no such thing as the "fallacy of applying the rules of formal debate to an internet discussion." There are formal fallacies--errors in the structure of arguments. And there are informal fallacies--errors in the use of language.
Third, your opponent
does have a supporting argument: the same one I advanced in my own previous post. There is no need to disprove the NT narrative of the virgin birth. It disproves itself.
When it comes to miraculous claims, the burden of proof rests entirely with the claimant. The skeptic simply has to appeal to the uniformity of experience: the fact that the event reported was a miracle, i.e. an impossible event that violates the laws of nature. That's all the proof the skeptic needs. For as Hume said: "a uniform experience amounts to a proof."
Since my purpose here is primarily to vaccinate our audience against the mind-virus you're trying to spread, I'm going to expand on this point at some length.
Roughly speaking, there are three different types of testimony: untrustworthy; reasonably trustworthy; and absolutely trustworthy.
Similarly, roughly speaking, there are three types of events: ordinary events; extraordinary or marvelous events; and impossible or miraculous events.
Generally speaking, we should not accept untrustworthy testimony, even when it concerns ordinary events. If a person's testimony is usually false, then we would be unwise to rely on them even to tell us the time of day, or the weather outside. A uniform experience amounts to a proof--and our uniform experience of their untrustworthiness amounts to proof that what they say is likely not correct. It's up to the untrustworthy person to provide additional evidence to support their testimony.
But if we obtain reasonably trustworthy testimony to the fact that, for example, the time is noon, or that it's raining outside, most of us would consider the question settled. That's because, once again, a uniform experience amounts to a proof--and in our experience, no reasonably trustworthy person has ever made a mistake or been dishonest when reporting such an event. (Indeed, that's a requirement for being considered "reasonably trustworthy")
But even
reasonably trustworthy people have been known to make mistakes when reporting unusual or marvelous events. In those cases, we require the testimony of an
absolutely trustworthy person--someone who has
never made a mistake, or lied. We believe their testimony, and accept it as proof, because it would be
more unusual or
more marvelous if they were mistaken or lying.
A good example of this would be the case of Phineas Gage. In 1848, the railway worker Phineas Gage was tamping a charge of gunpowder with an iron rod when the charge exploded, blasting the rod right through his head: it entered under the left cheek, and exited through the top of his skull, behind his right eye.
Incredibly, Gage survived this accident. But this story was widely disbelieved when it was reported in the press: people just don't ordinarily survive these types of traumatic injuries, and as we all know, newspaper reporters are only reasonably trustworthy, at best. It took the testimony of Dr. John Harlow, who had treated Gage, and who was considered
absolutely trustworthy, to convince many people that the story of Phineas Gage was true.
Now: I'm sure you consider the authors of the NT narrative absolutely trustworthy. I do not. They may be
reasonably trustworthy--but they do make mistakes. In Mark 2, for example, Jesus talks about how King David "went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him".
The problem here is that, according to 1 Samuel: 1-6, David did this in the days, not of Abiathar, but of his father, Ahimelech. So it seems that either Jesus made a mistake, or Mark made a mistake. A small mistake, to be sure, but enough to disqualify them from "absolutely trustworthy" status.
And in any case--it doesn't matter: for
not even the testimony of an absolutey trustworthy person would be sufficient to prove a miracle. Even people who would ordinarily be considered absolutely trustworthy have been mistaken in such cases.
A virgin birth is not a freakish event that almost never happens, like a man surviving an iron rod being blasted through his head. If it were simply a marvelous event, then the testimony of an absolutely trustworthy person would be sufficient. A virgin birth is an
impossible, miraculous event that
never happens. "How shall this be," Mary asks the angel, "seeing I know not a man?"
To be considered reliable, reports of miracles must provide
stronger proof of their own trustworthiness than the proof provided by the uniformity of experience.
It's not even sufficient that they provide
miraculous proof of their own trustworthiness--for in such a case, the proofs would be equally balanced, and the only rational response would be to suspend judgment.
No--to be considered reliable, the NT narrative would have to provide proof of an
even more miraculous nature than a virgin birth.
This it simply does not provide. And in the absence of this miraculous proof, the stronger proof--the uniformity of experience--must prevail.
To quote Hume once again:
There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person, than those, which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of Abbé Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were every where talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary; many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world. Nor is this all: a relation of them was published and dispersed everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation.
Emphasis added.
If you're going to claim that the VB did not occur, then it is incumbent upon you to provide a competing explanation. It is also incumbent upon you to address the historicity and reliablity of the relevant NT texts and the claims of the Subapostolic Fathers.
No, actually: it isn't.
If
you're going to claim that the Virgin Birth
did occur, then it's incumbent on
you to prove the miraculously trustworthy nature of your sources.
Good luck with that. As we have already seen, the Gospel writers can't even be relied upon to cite the Old Testament with absolute accuracy.
the evidence is mounting - someone found something I wrote humorous.
