This paragraph caught my attention:
Thomas' answer is more revealing of his attitude than his evidential requirements. He says to his 10 closest friends, whose word he doubts, "Unless I see the nail marks in the hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it" (Jn 20:25). Notice how strident Thomas' evidential ultimatum is. One thing that should be clear is that one's expectation for verification must match the entity under question. What if I stated, "I will not believe in the existence of Saltine Crackers until I eat one and it makes a sweet taste in my mouth"? This would be absurd. I would be requiring verification that is not and could not be accessible to me -- verification inappropriate to the entity under question. Suppose Jesus had come back with a non-scarred side and non-scarred hands. Suppose he appeared to the ten and then decided to re-enter heaven. Thomas' requirement for verification would be unreasonable. As it turns out, Thomas may not have even fulfilled his stated evidential standards before he believed. When confronted with Jesus personally, Thomas can do nothing but declare "My Lord and my God!" (v 28). Jesus' response is perhaps where Dawkins and the rest of the atheistic or so-called "freethought" community have received their impetus to use Thomas as the poster-child for Enlightenment rationalism and Baconian empiricism. He says to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (29). In context, this quote is easily understood to be speaking of a different kind of belief required in the post-apostolic era. In the Gospels are recorded many miraculous acts of Jesus. Many who witnessed these events with their very eyes did not even believe! Some did, however. Now that Jesus is returning to heaven, there will be no chance to believe based upon sight. One must believe based upon the testimony of the apostles. Thomas' brand of faith is inappropriate for the apostolic era and beyond. Analogously, I must believe in the assasination of Abraham Lincoln based upon the testimony of witnesses. I cannot demand to see the event personally in order to believe it. Such a requirement is inappropriate for this time in history. Thomas, likewise, is held up to be an example of one whose brand of faith was too crude for the coming era. The question is not faith versus evidence, but what kind of evidence! If believing the testimony of witnesses is a kind of faith that scientists are not to embrace, then why are there scientific journals? (Dawkins here may well respond that scientists often include their data in journal articles, and thus their experiments can be checked. But who is to say that the scientists are honest in the reporting of their findings?)
If somebody tells me that there is a product at the supermarket that is somewhat similar to bread in its makeup but is flat and crispy and more salty, that's not an outrageous claim. So of course it would be absurd for me to insist to the person that I absolutely will not believe it until I see and taste one for myself. Likewise, the historian's claim that Abraham Lincoln was shot to death is not an outrageous one. I've seen similar things happen to political figures in my own lifetime. OTOH, my "evidential requirements" for believing that somebody was raised from the dead would be considerably higher. I wouldn't believe it on testimony even if it was my most trusted friend telling me. Why should it have been any different for Thomas? And what does this have to do with the subject at hand anyway?
Am I missing the point?
Jesus' response is perhaps where Dawkins and the rest of the atheistic or so-called "freethought" community have received their impetus to use Thomas as the poster-child for Enlightenment rationalism and Baconian empiricism. He says to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (29). In context, this quote is easily understood to be speaking of a different kind of belief required in the post-apostolic era. In the Gospels are recorded many miraculous acts of Jesus. Many who witnessed these events with their very eyes did not even believe! Some did, however. Now that Jesus is returning to heaven, there will be no chance to believe based upon sight. One must believe based upon the testimony of the apostles. Thomas' brand of faith is inappropriate for the apostolic era and beyond. Thomas, likewise, is held up to be an example of one whose brand of faith was too crude for the coming era. The question is not faith versus evidence, but what kind of evidence! If believing the testimony of witnesses is a kind of faith that scientists are not to embrace, then why are there scientific journals? (Dawkins here may well respond that scientists often include their data in journal articles, and thus their experiments can be checked. But who is to say that the scientists are honest in the reporting of their findings?)
:so-called "freethought"
Alert: WTS style ad hom.
The analogy of a Christian's faith in the resurrection based on testimony and Dawkins reliance on what is published in scientific journals is excrutiatingly bad. The data published in scientific journal is observational data taken from experiments or other methods of scientific inquiry that -- key point -- can be reproduced or verified independently.