Abraham Lincoln was the first President of the United States

[Silent3]

What does that have to do with religion? I'll get there in a moment...

What was your first reaction to the title of this post? Most likely your first thought was that the claim is wrong. Flat out wrong.

Why I'd say something wrong like this, however, there are a number of different possibilities people are likely to consider. That I said it to grab attention. That I'm leading up to discussing something I think is so special about Lincoln that I think he should be considered the first "real" President by some (likely questionable) meaning of "real". Particularly unkind or dense people might first and foremost think, "What an idiot!", immediately assuming that I really meant what I said, not considering any of these other possibilities.

Of all of the thoughts that might come to mind when I declare Lincoln the first President, I strongly doubt the following would be ranked highly among them:

• If it makes him happy to think Lincoln was the first President, who am I to judge?
  
• I don't have the vast stretches of time it would take to consider whether this claim is right or wrong.
  
• I have way too many other things to worry about to worry about this.
  
• If believing Lincoln was the first President makes him a good person who is kind to his neighbors, good for him!
  
• It's not my place to judge if this is right or wrong.
  
• Lincoln being the first President might be right for him, even though it's not right for me. It's a personal matter!

Change the claim from something about Lincoln to something about the resurrection of Jesus or the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, however, and thoughts like the above thoughts suddenly percolate to the top.

Curious, isn't it?

I consider the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus from the dead about as unlikely as the idea the Lincoln was the first President. I consider transubstantiation about as unlikely as the idea the Lincoln was the first President. I consider the idea that the Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, and the Dalai Lama before him, about as unlikely as the idea the Lincoln was the first President.

Yet...

I don't spend vast amounts of time "running around worrying" about any of these things.

I don't think I need to be anyone special, or that I need to earn some special dispensation, for it to my "my place" to have an opinion on these matters.

What the people who believe these things get out of believing in them doesn't have the slightest bearing on the factuality of these things for me.

Whether the people who believe these things are kinder to others by believing in them doesn't have the slightest bearing on the factuality of these things.

I don't think the historicity of any of these things is a personal matter. Why should I when I don't think about the historicity of Lincoln and the Presidency a personal matter?

[rug]

1. John Hanson was the first President of the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson

[Silent3]

2. I actually did wonder...

...if anyone would bring up the presidents under the Articles of Confederation. I specifically avoided saying Washington was the first to avoid that potential smart-ass counter claim. :)

[rug]

3. A votre service.

[Indydem]

4. There is a substantive difference between these things.

One is empirical. Measurable by the scale of time and knowledge. Easily provable or disprovable by the evidence at hand.

The other is faith. Unempirical. Impossible to prove or disprove.

Arguing the latter is a waste of time and breath for both sides and I have NO idea why people bother.

[Silent3]

5. The only substantive difference...

...is that people choose to put these matters into different categories where one type of claim is subjected to different standards than the others. There is special pleading to treat religious and "spiritual" matters differently, but I've yet to see that well justified.

I can add more to that, but it will have to wait until later.

[MineralMan]

7. The difference is clear. One thing is disprovable. The other is not.

Sorry, but your comparison is an invalid one.

[Silent3]

9. Most issues, including matters of science...

...aren't completely provable true or false. Preponderance of evidence and rational consistency give you varying degrees of certainty or doubt.

Whether or not a man rose from the dead three days after being crucified either did or did not happen over the course of human history, just as Lincoln being or not being the first President of the United States is a matter of human history. It's only special pleading to treat religious matters differently that makes a difference.

Besides that, I'm also getting into the defense mechanisms people use when they want to protect religion from scrutiny or criticism. Suddenly "time" and "worry" and "bother" are issues that gain curious importance. Suddenly the motivation of the person voicing doubt is an issue.

[Indydem]

11. Prove that Jesus of Nazareth was not buried and later appeared alive.

I dare you.

People are pronounced dead and later are found to actually be alive - even to this day.

[Silent3]

13. Prove that I don't have a leprechaun in my closet

"You can't prove me wrong!" is an incredibly, incredibly weak argument.

There are an endless number of claims that can't be proven wrong (either because they're carefully defined to evade matters of proof, or, like the purported leprechaun in my closet, simple impractical to check into for yourself). Why, other than its cultural popularity, should the resurrection of Jesus have special stature among the many things that can't be proven false?

People are pronounced dead and later are found to actually be alive...

That's not resurrection, that's misdiagnosis. Could the Jesus story have arisen from a mistaken declaration of death? Sure. But even entertaining that possibility is a way of doubting the resurrection, not supporting it.

[customerserviceguy]

14. Agreed. Succinctly put, MM. n/t

[Silent3]

15. Succinct, but simplistic and besides the point

This is just rolling over and accepting the unfair rhetorical advantage that's set aside for religious issues over all other kinds of issues. Unproven and unprovable non-religious matters aren't given such leeway.

[customerserviceguy]

16. Then come up with a better example

of an unproven and unprovable non-religious matter than Lincoln being the first President of the United States.

If you talk about quantum physics theories, you get just the sort of questions that your OP contained, especially as science starts to prove something decisively one way, but is not there yet.

Here's an example for you: Global warming. Many people have just the same reactions as you cite in your OP when they come across a climate change denier.

[cleanhippie]

18. It is the burden of the one making the claim to PROVE the claim.

Not for someone to disprove it. Especially when it comes to extraordinary claims.

[Deep13]

21. Either Jesus was born of a virgin or else he was not.

Granted there is no way to ascertain the truth directly, but there is still only one right answer. It is still a question of fact. So we are left with circumstantial evidence. Parthenogenesis does not occur in humans. Unless the Holy Spirit has DNA, one has to wonder where Jesus got his Y chromosome. Many myths involve impossible birth scenarios to avoid the supposed pollution of sexual reproduction. That makes this myth more than a bit derivative.

So absent something pretty compelling to the contrary, we can safely say it never happened.

Did Jesus rise from the dead? Again, he either did or did not. It's a question of fact. Again, there is no way to know directly. But people do not spontaneous stop being dead. The whole definition of death is its permanence. If he came back to life, he was no really dead. If that's true, then it rather takes the wind out of the story's sails.

[MineralMan]

6. Unfortunately for you, you're not comparing equivalent things.

We have actual physical evidence, contemporary with the events, that Abraham Lincoln was not the first President of The United States. There is zero physical evidence that the Biblical Jesus had any godlike powers or supernatural existence at all. That is because no such evidence is possible. Further, we have no actual existing accounts that the person mentioned in the New Testament even existed as a human being. The probability is that there was such a man, although not bearing the name "Jesus" who lived at that approximate time. But there is no evidence contemporary with that time that demonstrates it.

2000 years from now, it may be difficult to actually prove the existence of George Washington from actual physical evidence, but that is not the case today. It will never be possible to prove that some guy in what is now Israel was any sort of deity come to earth. It is equally impossible to disprove that. That is the difference.

Your argument is a weak one, indeed.

[Silent3]

10. When a historical matter becomes more distant in time...

...or for other reasons proof one way or another becomes difficult to obtain, the rational response is to simply state what doubts exist, lay out the possibilities and probabilities, and move on until more evidence comes to light or better analyses of existing data are developed.

The response is not to give people who want, without evidence, to devout themselves to a particular viewpoint a special dispensation that removes them from criticism or questioning, so that criticizing these things suddenly invokes extraordinary concern about time and worry and bother expended by the critic... unless of course you slap the label "religious" or "spiritual" on the matter in question.

[struggle4progress]

8. It is my impression that most posters in this forum already agree that theological

discussions are not at all the same as historical discussions, and so I expect that there is general agreement here that it would be grossly inappropriate (say) to teach the stories about Jesus of Nazareth as historical fact in a public school classroom

Of course, if you want me to concede that the Resurrection is a glaringly and scandalously implausible story, that contradicts all our everyday experience, then I shall concede that point immediately: almost everyone has been aware of that problem for nearly two millennia now. I will also agree that critical historical methods can shed some useful light on Christianity, although I also consider that the root-content of Christianity does not really depend much on the results of critical historical investigation

Nor do I do not think your philosophical analysis can shed much light on history. Did you wish to make a particular historical point?

[Silent3]

12. This is not about history, it's about defense mechanisms

I'm comparing historical events to matters of religious doctrine (many of which can certainly legitimately be viewed from the standpoint of history, regardless of how often people steer clear of doing so) to highlight the often ingenuous ways people use to deflect questioning and criticism of religion.

Of course, if you want me to concede that the Resurrection is a glaringly and scandalously implausible story, that contradicts all our everyday experience, then I shall concede that point immediately: almost everyone has been aware of that problem for nearly two millennia now.

Recently a few R/T posters have stated that they view the Resurrection as an historical fact.

Merely saying this last sentence, when coupled with knowledge that I doubt the above myself, would be enough to produce an almost irresistible urge in some people to ask me, "Why should I care?", a question which is really less a question than a brush-off or a dismissal, a question highly unlikely to arise if the issue at hand was the order of the terms of American Presidents.

[laconicsax]

17. Rec'd to zero.

[cleanhippie]

19. rec'd to +1

[laconicsax]

22. Looks like it's back to zero. n/t

[Deep13]

20. More "advanced" believers would resort to equivocation.

The statement CAN be true IF we redefine "United States" to mean the restored Union with the threat of secession removed forever. Of course that is not what "United States" means and even that is problematical since Lincoln did not survive the war.

God can exist if we essentially redefine him out of existence. But that's not what "God" means.