After an imperial Rome-style “interrogation”, waterboarding sounds like a goddamn spa package with a Pom Pom girl and a flute of prosecco. 
That’s actually a fair point and I think you’re right that a theist invoking fine-tuning isn’t being incoherent, because you’re not committed to scientism in the first place. Granted.
But I think that actually strengthens what I was saying rather than answering it.
The critique I’m making isn’t really about your worldview being internally inconsistent. It’s about a specific rhetorical move that shows up a lot in apologetics, where the multiverse gets dismissed specifically on scientific grounds, untestable, unfalsifiable, not real science, and then in the same argument fine-tuning gets used as evidence for a designer, which is a philosophical inference not a scientific one. If you’re not committed to scientism then the move shouldn’t be “the multiverse fails because it isn’t science.” It should be “the multiverse fails as a metaphysical explanation, and here’s why.” That would be consistent. But that’s usually not how it goes.
And honestly your reply kind of concedes the bigger point. If you’re saying rational belief doesn’t require empirical verification, okay, I actually agree with that. But then both sides are doing metaphysics with different priors, which is kind of exactly what I was arguing. The problem isn’t that theists do metaphysics. The problem is when either side pretends they’re not.
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No no wait a second I get where you are coming from but I can give that answer to someone that doesn’t talk about the multiverse as if it was a scientific fact that will most likely be proven in the future.
They often talk about the fine-tuning as a fairy tale and then they describe the multiverse as a rather serious scientific hypothesis even if not yet conclusively proven. This is unacceptable and hypocritical.
Exactly. The problem is that materialists don’t admit that they are doing (obscenely bad) metaphysics; they claim they are merely following the evidence and that materialism is what emerges from honest scientific inquiry.
Yep. The problem is that materialism is bad metaphysics disguised as science and most of the general public today thinks that materialism is what “people who know things” believe.
Actually, most of the general population fails to even aknowledge that metaphysics is just a philosophy among many, they actually think materialism is what science presupposes and where science leads to, even if they themselves somehow have non materialist beliefs (I’m talking about the general population) they recognize an authority to materialism that it doesn’t deserve in the slightest. And said authority is only recognized because materialists have hijacked science and, especially in Europe after the enlightenment, won the cultural war (and, I dare say, the broader and more important spiritual war for the souls of the europeans).
When talking to someone who is committed to scientism the answer has to be exactly that: “the multiverse fails because it isn’t science”.
Just like the materialist usually dismisses everything that cannot be “proven” with strictly scientific criteria.
I’m sorry but he cannot have his cake and eat it.
There certainly was persecution of Christians in Rome after the great fire. That does not establish “all the disciples died for their beliefs.” Pliny talks about something 50 years later in modern day Turkey.
Crossan thinks Trajan’s response here might have helped pave the way for Christianity to become the official religion of the Roman Empire later on. He writes, “That imperial reply established three principles that would guide 150 years of official imperial policy toward Christianity. Do not go searching for Christians. Do not punish them if they repent. Do not accept anonymous accusations. When, in the middle of the third century, that policy was changed to investigative persecution, it was far too late for Roman paganism.”
Peter, Paul and James are the most secure apostles we can historically argue were martyrs. James was stoned not by Romans but under the direction of the Jewish high priest Ananus during a gap in their leadership I believe. The Jews couldn’t even capitally punish anyone while under Roman rule as far as I know:
A. N. Shwerwin White writes, “The limitation of the early persecutions is thus partly the result of official policy, a determination not to take the matter too seriously, as evinced in Trajan’s and Hadrian’s rescripts, and to confine the issues to real offences (flagitia,contumacia). But it results also from the Roman system of jurisdiction, the wide latitude allowed to the provincial governor, and partly again from the checks imposed by the Roman system of private delation. To bring a capital charge was both dangerous and difficult, dangerous because the calumnia process enabled the wrongly accused to turn the tables on his accuser, difficult because of the practical limitations on the frequency of capital charges. The calumnia process may have checked the prosecution of members of an unobtrusive and even secretive sect about whom evidence to justify prosecution must have been rare, and who only had to take the oath in order to expose the accusation. The difficulty arose because in each province there was only one man who had power to pass capital sentences. This power, unlike the civil jurisdiction, could not be delegated. To bring such charges one must either visit the provincial capital or else await the governor’s visit on assize to the regional capitals of the province. Such visits were not always annual. Pliny in Bithynia-Pontus took two seasons to work through a rather small province. This forgotten factor, calling for leisure and money, acted as yet another check on the extent of the early persecutions. It is no accident that the known cases outside Rome occur in the great provincial cities, Lugdunum and neighbouring Vienna, Antioch, Carthage, Smyrna, Pergamum. The number of ‘hanging judges’ in all Asia Minor would hardly exceed five in the mid-second century.”
White writes, “In addition to Pliny’s letter and Tertullian’s instances, Lucian’s account of the acquittal of Peregrinus, Eusebius’ description of the trial of Polycarp, the early Acts of the Scillitan martyrs, and the Acts of Apollonius, all show the remarkable reluctance of Roman officials to condemn Christians.”
The opposite is actually the case at times. Some early Christians actively sought out and demanded martyrm. Un 185 AD, the proconsul of Asia, Arrius Antoninus, was approached by a group of Christians desiring execution and while I believe he obliged some, he sent the rest away telling them that if they were so eager to die, surely there is rope or a cliff around.
And of course, in a more recent work, Candida Moss writes this, “When we look at the data things are clearer. Between the death of Jesus around 30 CE and the ascension of Constantine in 313, Christians died as the result of active measures by the imperial government only (1) immediately following the Great Fire of Rome in 64, (2) around 250, during the reign of Decius, (3) briefly during the reign of Valerian in 257–58, and (4) during the “Great Persecution” under the emperor Diocletian, which lasted from 303 to 305 and was renewed by Maximinus Daia between 311 and 313. These dates represent the largest time span for active persecution in the period before Constantine. As we will see, not all of these episodes can reasonably be called persecution, and their implementation was often limited to specific regions and to months rather than years. Even putting these caveats aside, we are talking about fewer than ten years out of nearly three hundred during which Christians were executed as the result of imperial initiatives.”
This is for state-sponsored persecution. There was plenty of Christian persecution on a localized scale due to mob violence and local governors responding to complaints. The idea of a Roman gestapo hunting Christians who were hiding out in catacombs, seeking to toss them to lions-- for 300 years is just made up.
Vinnie
Some versions of inflation lead to a multiverse. Many would consider that science. I’m honestly personally opposed to viewing inflation as science. Not having that discussion again (we did a while back).
Vinnie
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I’ve examined the document you’ve provided, I’ve found it very interesting.
The most interesting part is this one
“Limits are clearly set but we cannot be completely dismissive of state-sponsored Christian persecution before the middle of the third century. Pliny clearly represents evidence such actions preceded him in the Empire and that the mere designation Christian was punishable. We have a lot of solid evidence of persecution outside of this letter and admittedly a lot more that is legendary which is not equivalent to completely non-historical. Wolfram Kinzig writes, “However juridically questionable, Trajan’s principles appear to have been deployed by most governors until the middle of the third century. This meant in practice that the name of Christ as such was punishable and that the governors could prosecute Christians nearly at will, as indeed they did whenever there were tensions between the Christian and non-Christian populations. A simple named accusation with the authorities sufficed to activate the machinery of justice against the Christians. The legal situation was thus resolved de jure but remained de facto extremely uncertain. At the same time, if the extant reports about trials against Christians are to be believed, imperial officials generally had no interest in wholesale death sentences against Christians. On the contrary, we know numerous cases in which they repeatedly offered the defendants the opportunity to disavow their Christianity. However, they were motivated in many cases not by humanitarian concern but by a political calculus: mass executions were liable to entail unforeseeable political consequences and were for this reason distinctly out of favor.”
Now, it stands to reason that a recant from either Peter or Paul (the “two columns of the Church”) would have killed Christianity in the cradle. So they had absolutely every reason to offer them the possibility to recant.
I am opposed as well.
But we don’t need to. Isn’t the fact that the two pillars of the Church Sts. Peter and Paul, the great pillars of the church | Global Sisters Report , Two Pillars of the Church - St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church - Chino Hills, CA , St Peter and St Paul – Pillars of the Church | Revd Ian's blog , died for their beliefs more than enough? I also believe that most of the other disciples faced martyrdom (except John), but even if for the others (except James) it’s not historically demonstrable , the fact that most scholars recognize the martyrdom of Peter and Paul is neither a minor thing nor something irrelevant, as one of the most common rebuttal from non-Christians is “we don’t even know if all the apostles existed, let alone their fate, we barely know that Christ lived and was crucified, everything is, at best, hearsay, at worst complete fabrication”.
Their martyrdom is not irrelevant in the slightest.
Which is when the two pillars of the Church were killed (kind of: Paul just a few years later).
If there’s never been any persecution, what’s the motivation to become one? 
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