Kuzari: Belief and Evidence (and Bias, Oh My!)

Per the discussion in the latest Kuzari post, I’ve agreed to provide greater detail about how the Sinai story in Exodus—that is, the story of a divine revelation before the masses—began and developed. I'm still working on developing that content, so it will come in one or more future posts.

Nevertheless, I want to respond in the meantime to Dovid Kornreich, who says:

I commend you on your bravery and honesty. I’m glad you acknowledge that there is a need to provide a (probable!) alternative explanation to the mass revelation belief in order to justify ignoring it.

Thanks for the commendation, Dovid. I do acknowledge the need to explain my opinion and to justify it as well as I can.

However, let me be very clear on several critical points:

1. I am not “ignoring” belief in a mass revelation and I never have. Indeed, my entire series on Kuzari seeks to pay extraordinary attention both to the belief and to what inferences can reasonably be drawn from it. 
2. I also acknowledge that people do believe and have believed that a mass revelation occurred at Sinai. At the same time, I reject the idea that there was an actual divine mass revelation because (a) we don't have sufficient evidence to support such a claim, and (b) divinities are fictional.
3. Dovid, if you think I'm going to provide an "alternative" explanation for the mass revelation belief, as if your explanation is the "default" or "standard" one, then I must protest. There is no default or standard explanation. 
4. We are better served by dropping the idea of "probable," at least for now. Our focus should be on accounting for the evidence we have. We have evidence of the Sinai story: the Bible relates the story. Later commentators discuss it. We have evidence that in some historical periods the story was believed to be historically accurate. Let's talk about the evidence first and then think about which explanations seem more probable than others

It's not biased or prejudicial on my part to reject the actuality of the divine mass revelation when we don't have sufficient evidence of it. All that we have is the Torah and later commentaries. What we don't have but need is one or more first-hand accounts written for the purpose of communicating a reliable description of real events as they occurred. Even in a case such as having an account, the reliability of the writer and text must be scrutinized.

It's also not biased or prejudicial on my part to reject the idea that deities (deliberately plural) are real-world entities. To my knowledge, no one has shown that they are. I accept that they could be real in the sense that counts; that is, I am open to the possibility that . But until we get a clear demonstration of what a divinity actually is and does in a real-world context, I don't see how it's reasonable to assume they exist (or ever have).

The questions asked of me concern belief in Sinai. When did it start? Why? How did it develop? I will try to answer these questions as best I can. The question is not whether Sinai is true. If this latter question means something like "Did Sinai happen exactly as reported in the Torah I read today?" then I must answer "no." Now, the modern incarnation of "traditional" Judaism takes it as foundational that the answer to the question is "yes." To his credit, Dovid Kornreich expresses willingness to explore this foundation:

Please be aware that this is a two-way street. I myself admit that I too have the burden to justify ignoring all the thousands of religions' claims to the truth in favor of the one I was born into.

I appreciate this. Truly, I do. Indeed, I would be most interested to learn why you ignore and/or reject the following claims, as I assume you do (please forgive me if I am incorrect on this):

Claim 1: Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of the Jewish God. Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Claim 2: Muhammad was the messenger of God, and the Qu'ran is the eternal and uncreated speech of God.

Claim 3: Mahaguru Parthasarathy, and Indian man, proves the existence and divinity of Vishnu by being an avatar of the god.

I am mostly interested in the underlined parts and the basis upon which you ignore/reject these claims. I thank you. As I said, I'll post further discussions on early Jewish belief in the Sinai story as soon as I can.