Originally posted by KellyJayAs you see your faith is blinding you from the independent point of view. If you say there's evidence for you being wrong, you should really admit you can be wrong. But as I understood, you admit you can be, but you have faith you are not... Your position seems very odd to me. I am sure if you study about science a little more you can be moved of your position. I knew someone who was just little like you. It took almost 10 years of argumentation to move the guy out of his misconceptions. Now he says "how could I be like that for so long?".
My saying something is a matter of faith is not saying it isn't true,
only that it cannot be proven to be wrong or right at least cannot
be at the moment. I believe in God, I believe God is real and the
ultimate reality that does not mean I can say to you God is a fact
though I believe that to be true, I cannot prove it to you, I cannot
show how I can ...[text shortened]... see this in ourselves it is due to the wisdom you have,
not a matter of fundamentalism.
Kelly
I can always be moved of my position is someone presents arguments to convince me. I guess I am fundamentalist in being open minded, can it be wrong?
Originally posted by serigadoKellyJay, like most Christians, has faith in the evidence of scripture. We have good reason to believe scripture is the word of God and completely reliable. The manuscripts are the most reliably preserved out of antiquity, written within one generation of Christ's ministry by people who knew Christ and were martyred as believers in Him. What are your reasons for not believing in Christ? Perhaps because He gave sight to the blind and raised the dead? Or perhaps because He says that He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one can find forgiveness except through Him?
As you see your faith is blinding you from the independent point of view. If you say there's evidence for you being wrong, you should really admit you can be wrong. But as I understood, you admit you can be, but you have faith you are not... Your position seems very odd to me. I am sure if you study about science a little more you can be moved of your posit ...[text shortened]... arguments to convince me. I guess I am fundamentalist in being open minded, can it be wrong?
On what authority do you deny His miracles or His claims? How reliable are your sources? Not very. It is well established that the senses, theoretical science, and the opinions and ideas of learned men are impossible to validate beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is rational to believe in scripture; we do not do so by blind faith -- our faith rests in evidence. Is the text trustworthy? Yes. Does faith in Christ demonstrably bring freedom from sin and peaceful fellowship with God? Yes.
If you are going to ask a Christian to be open-minded about the possibility of a godless world devoid of hope, then you ought to be open-minded to the possibility of a world created by a God to whom you may be held accountable. Find a place of neutrality or indifference and honestly and sincerely approach the good book and judge it on its own merits. Does faith work? Is Christ Who He says He is? Is He righteous? Does He reward your sincere and diligent seeking of Him?
Christians are those who have honestly and genuinely investigated the data, and have found the good book to truly be the word of God.
Originally posted by epiphinehasAnother fundamentalist. The Bible reliable? Where? I doubt the preservation of the original text of the Bible. But it doesn't matter. Let' assume it's 100% equal to original and 100% well translated.
KellyJay, like most Christians, has faith in the evidence of scripture. We have good reason to believe scripture is the word of God and completely reliable. The manuscripts are the most reliably preserved out of antiquity, written within one generation of Christ's ministry by people who knew Christ and were martyred as believers in Him. What are your ...[text shortened]... and genuinely investigated the data, and have found the good book to truly be the word of God.
Who guarantees you whomever wrote it spoke the truth? Maybe they just wrote what they thought to be necessary to endure their beliefs. My reasons to not believe in Christ are: there's no evidence besides a doubtful book who contradicts everyday reality. Healing blind? Raise dead? Walk waters? Turn water to wine? All these are IMPOSSIBLE.
You could say "not to a God", but that would be circular logic.
I can have faith in the real world: i can experience it everyday. On an old book written by some people with their own agenda... It may have a good intention, but it's asking a little too much from someone minimally intelligent.
It is rational to believe in scripture
ARE you crazy? No it is not. It's completely irrational. Explain to me how can it be rational. BTW, faith is not rational. What evidence of faith? Altered states of mind and deluded states can lead to physical alterations (like fake pregancies). This should be evidence that god didn't intervene with those deluded folk.
I have no sources to deny Christ as a God. I don't need none. I can do it on my own reasoning.
I'm open minded to the possibility God exists and created everything. Just waiting for some evidence. And currently all evidence provided is simply ridiculous. I'm completely open to all possibilities, but I'm not the average american idiot who was raised in a fundamentalist community.
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Originally posted by serigadoThe Bible reliable? Where? I doubt the preservation of the original text of the Bible. But it doesn't matter. Let' assume it's 100% equal to original and 100% well translated. Who guarantees you whomever wrote it spoke the truth? Maybe they just wrote what they thought to be necessary to endure their beliefs.
Another fundamentalist. The Bible reliable? Where? I doubt the preservation of the original text of the Bible. But it doesn't matter. Let' assume it's 100% equal to original and 100% well translated.
Who guarantees you whomever wrote it spoke the truth? Maybe they just wrote what they thought to be necessary to endure their beliefs. My reasons to not belie ut I'm not the average american idiot who was raised in a fundamentalist community.
Wrote what they thought was necessary to endure their beliefs? What you are saying here is that the disciples of Christ died for a lie, which they knew quite well was a lie. No sane person would do that, and the disciples do not act like insane people.
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I recently explained why the biblical text is reliable in another thread and I will reproduce it here for your perusal:
In a book where truthfulness, honesty, righteousness, and wholeheartedness are held with such genuinely high regard, it is hard to imagine the authors purposefully misleading listeners (i.e. lying) about the ministry of Christ. If it is a lie, however, who invented it and why? Christ's apostles? What did they get out of it? Martyrdom--hardly an attractive temptation. A liar always has some selfish motive.
And why did thousands suffer torture and death for this lie if they knew it was a lie? All the enemies of Christianity needed to do to destroy this new religion from the beginning was to produce one confession from one of Jesus' disciples that it was all a lie, a hoax. They used many forms of torture and bribery. None succeeded.
What force sent Christians to the lions' den with hymns on their lips? What lie ever transformed the world like that? What lie ever gave millions a moral fortitude and peace and joy like that?
If it was not a deliberate lie but a hallucination or a myth sincerely mistaken for a literal truth, then who were the naive fools who first believed it? There isn't another idea a Jew would be less likely to believe than the divinity of Christ. Imagine this: the transcendent God who for millennia had strictly forbidden his chosen people to confuse him with a creature as the pagans did -- this Creator-God became a creature, a man -- a crucified criminal. Hardly a myth that arises naturally to the Jewish mind.
And if it was not the Jews but the Gentiles who started the myth, where did the myth come from in the New Testament? Of the twenty-seven books of the NT, twenty-five were written by Jews.
Whether Jews or Gentiles started the myth, they could not have done so during the lifetime of those who knew the real Jesus, for it would have been publicly refuted by eyewitnesses who knew the facts. But the "myth" of Jesus' divinity goes back to the very earliest time and documents.
If the same neutral, objective, scientific approach is used on the NT texts as is used on all other ancient documents, then the texts prove remarkably reliable. No book in history has been so attacked, cut up, reconstituted and stood on its head as the NT. Yet it still lives -- like Christ Himself.
The state of the manuscripts is very good. Compared with any and all other ancient documents, the NT stands up as ten times more sure. For instance, there are 500 different copies earlier than A. D. 500. The next most reliable ancient text is the Iliad, for which there are only fifty copies that date from 500 years or less after its origin.
The point being, if the books of the NT did not contain accounts of miracles or make radical, uncomfortable claims on our lives, they would be accepted by every scholar in the world. In other words, it is not objective, neutral science but subjective prejudice or ideology that fuels skeptical scripture scholarship.
If Jesus' divinity is a myth invented by later generations, then there must have been at least two or three generations between the original eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus and the universal belief in the new, mythic, divinized Jesus; otherwise, the myth could never have been believed as fact because it would have been refuted by eyewitnesses of the real Jesus. Both disciples and enemies would have had reasons to oppose this new myth.
However, there is no evidence at all of anyone ever opposing the so-called myth of the divine Jesus in the name of an earlier merely human Jesus. No competent scholar today denies the first-century dating of virtually all of the NT -- certainly Paul's letters, which clearly affirm and presuppose Jesus' divinity and the fact that this doctrine was already universal Christian orthodoxy.
The texts are well-preserved, and the witness reliable. Therefore, Christ needs to be taken quite seriously.
Healing blind? Raise dead? Walk waters? Turn water to wine? All these are IMPOSSIBLE. You could say "not to a God", but that would be circular logic. I can have faith in the real world: i can experience it everyday.
What are your sources? On whose authority do you pronounce miracles such as these impossible? Can your sources be proved utterly reliable, beyond a shadow of a doubt? If not, then how are you so sure?
On an old book written by some people with their own agenda... It may have a good intention, but it's asking a little too much from someone minimally intelligent.
Really? Is it really asking too much from someone minimally intelligent? So, I'm assuming that you are implying that only unintelligent people believe scripture? I'll provide a list of extremely intelligent individuals who all believed in Jesus, and you tell me if this doesn't blow your theory out of the water:
Paul of Tarsus, John the Evangelist, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, John Damascene, Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Boethius, Erigena, Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, Bonaventura, Scotus, Ockham, Nicholas of Cusa, Cajetan, Luther, Calvin, Kepler, Ignatius Loyola, Dante, da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Berkley, Copernicaus, Chesterton, Dostoyevsky, Isaac Newton, T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis.
ARE you crazy? No it is not. It's completely irrational. Explain to me how can it (belief in scripture) be rational.
It is a reliably preserved record of Christ's ministry by all reasonable standards. The evidence of Christ's miracles and His resurrection attest to the authority of His words. Therefore, it is indeed a rational decision, since it is a decision based on evidence, to believe that Jesus Christ is Who He claimed to be.
I have no sources to deny Christ as a God. I don't need none. I can do it on my own reasoning.
Your reasoning is not a source? Is your reasoning infallible?
I'm open minded to the possibility God exists and created everything. Just waiting for some evidence. And currently all evidence provided is simply ridiculous. I'm completely open to all possibilities, but I'm not the average american idiot who was raised in a fundamentalist community.
I don't think you're an idiot, but you might want to consider that you may be quite prejudiced.
Originally posted by epiphinehasWrote what they thought was necessary to endure their beliefs? What you are saying here is that the disciples of Christ died for a lie, which they knew quite well was a lie. No sane person would do that, and the disciples do not act like insane people.
I'm not saying that happened. I'm saying it's possible they somehow distorted or exagerated some of the things they experienced. Maybe they had an intention to gather more believers. The purpose would be great: the unite the world under Christ's philosophy. A sane person would to this. They knew people wouldn't unite simply under arguments and a good philosophy. They needed a religion, a punishment system for those who don't follow it, and a reward for those who follow it. Is it so hard to believe it's possible the apostles or someone else added somethings to manipulate posterior events? Everyone does this, I bet it wasn't that different 2k yrs ago.
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Originally posted by serigadoPerhaps this says it all.
I can have faith in the real world... BTW, faith is not rational.
Note to all Christians, This thread has become somewhat pointless. We cannot convince him that God exists or of anything else, as we all should know by now only the Holy Spirit can show him these things.
Besides there are no atheists in hell, they know God exists.
Originally posted by serigadoBut you fundamentally misunderstand the significance of Christ which the disciples taught. The "punishment system" was already in place, i.e., the Mosaic law and the Prophets. They weren't out to create a new one. On the contrary, Christ came to die and set man free from law and the punishment of the law -- to supersede the "punishment system" already in place; in fact, that's why Christ and His followers were deemed so dangerous by the ruling elite. The Gospel of Christ is reconciliation with God not through religious works, but through a simple childlike faith in Christ. The Gospel is always new and radical, no matter how people try to "religify" it.
[b]Wrote what they thought was necessary to endure their beliefs? What you are saying here is that the disciples of Christ died for a lie, which they knew quite well was a lie. No sane person would do that, and the disciples do not act like insane people.
I'm not saying that happened. I'm saying it's possible they somehow distorted or exagerated some o ...[text shortened]... ipulate posterior events? Everyone does this, I bet it wasn't that different 2k yrs ago.[/b]
After Christ died the apostles were downtrodden and assumed that Christ was only a man, but then Christ appeared to them -- on numerous occasions, and once even to a congregation of five-hundred. If they had not witnessed His resurrection, they would not have had the confidence to be crucified, tortured and burned for His sake. They knew He was the Truth. Christians today gain that same courage and conviction by believing their testimony, because God gives whoever believes His Son the power to become children of God.
Originally posted by epiphinehasIn a book where truthfulness, honesty, righteousness, and wholeheartedness are held with such genuinely high regard, it is hard to imagine the authors purposefully misleading listeners (i.e. lying) about the ministry of Christ. If it is a lie, however, who invented it and why? Christ's apostles? What did they get out of it? Martyrdom--hardly an attractive temptation. A liar always has some selfish motive.
By that logic, all religious book would be true. I don't say it's a lie. I say it's possible someone added /exagerated some stuff. Other lost in translation. Some other misinterpreted. It's not hard to imagine this. It's highly possible, or are you so naive as to think the apostles were perfect? Some may even have misinterpreted christ's message.
And why did thousands suffer torture and death for this lie if they knew it was a lie? All the enemies of Christianity needed to do to destroy this new religion from the beginning was to produce one confession from one of Jesus' disciples that it was all a lie, a hoax. They used many forms of torture and bribery. None succeeded.
They didn't know it was a "lie" (I never used this word) or because they believed in it.. or wanted to believe. People wanted a new, superior belief system. Christianity came in the right time in the right place. The message was pure and great, the rewards were great, it makes sense Christianity spread.
After, this all arguments you used are useless to validate the Bible.
500 copies before 500AD ? How about the Conclaves in ~400? Where the "illuminated" decided what would be in and out? 4 centuries, that's a lot of time.
Jesus divinity wasn't invented by later generations. Original eyewitness are the not reliable sources. They may NOT be, how can you be so sure? Do you really believe in turning water to wine? That's impossible. Walking over the waters? Not even by doing so in the Dead Sea, where water density is greater.
What are your sources? On whose authority do you pronounce miracles such as these impossible? Can your sources be proved utterly reliable, beyond a shadow of a doubt? If not, then how are you so sure?
I'm not 100% sure of nothing, but if these miracles are possible, physics and science are wrong. Everything we know is wrong. We can't ultimately know nothing for sure, it's true, so I can't say there can't be something we yet do not know that might validate those "miracles". It's possible, but it would destroy everything science has achieved and that is verified any day, any time, for the last centuries.
Really? Is it really asking too much from someone minimally intelligent? So, I'm assuming that you are implying that only unintelligent people believe scripture? I'll provide a list of extremely intelligent individuals who all believed in Jesus, and you tell me if this doesn't blow your theory out of the water:
I didn't imply that. I say intelligent people are on average not-religious. The correlation exists. There are many intelligent, religious people. It has to do with education, fear, need to be something more. People are afraid of the possibility of Hell, and are not willing to go against society, friends, only to make a point. It's easy just go with the flow and accept the eternal joy and love in the afterlife. I'd say that is quite smart. But times are changing. Religion starts to be a cancer.
It is a reliably preserved record of Christ's ministry by all reasonable standards. The evidence of Christ's miracles and His resurrection attest to the authority of His words. Therefore, it is indeed a rational decision, since it is a decision based on evidence, to believe that Jesus Christ is Who He claimed to be.
It is not reliable!! Saying evidence is the Bible is enough for you? You don't need very much in your beliefs, then. So, it's not rational. But we can reduce the debate on the Veracity of the Bible, that I tried to debate in other threads. Your whole fate lies in a thin wire and in what you want to be evidence.
Your reasoning is not a source? Is your reasoning infallible?
Epistemology. My reasoning is infallible, yes. I'm quite good, you can trust my reasoning. I regret my english is not very fluent to make my points clearer, but the general message I try to give you is true:
You can't be sure the Bible is correct.
You can't be sure God exists.
Philosophically we can't be sure of anything, but this is a "can't be sure" a little stronger then the philosophical meaning.
I don't think you're an idiot, but you might want to consider that you may be quite prejudiced.
I have no prejudices.
_____
May I ask you why aren't you a muslim?
Because by your line of argumentation, you should be one.
Originally posted by SourJaxOf course you can convince me. It's only highly unlikely ,because I doubt you have something new I never heard about. Holy Spirit.. the one who impregnated Christ's mother? Please... How did it do it? Created a spermatozoid from thin air and added it to the ovule? Does Christ have a DNA? Do Christians ever question all these small things? You do you all believe that "evidence" so strongly? I guess the "Holy Spirit" is synonymous to "unconscientious will".
Perhaps this says it all.
Note to all Christians, This thread has become somewhat pointless. We cannot convince him that God exists or of anything else, as we all should know by now only the Holy Spirit can show him these things.
Besides there are no atheists in hell, they know God exists.
If there is an Hell, if course there will be no atheists there. But I'm no atheist. I'm a scientist and a free thinker.
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Originally posted by jaywillOf course you can't! Now you start to get it. But you can agree to it or debate it using logic.
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[b] Philosophically we can't be sure of anything,
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So philosophically we can't be sure that your whole line of rationalization about the unreliability of the Bible, is true.
Thanks.[/b]
In logic you can ALWAYS trust.
Originally posted by serigadoDo you believe in the existence of God, any God at all other than yourself? If not you are an atheist.
Of course you can convince me. It's only highly unlikely ,because I doubt you have something new I never heard about. Holy Spirit.. the one who impregnated Christ's mother? Please... How did it do it? Created a spermatozoid from thin air and added it to the ovule? Does Christ have a DNA? Do Christians ever question all these small things? You do you all bel ...[text shortened]... ere will be no atheists there. But I'm no atheist. I'm a scientist and a free thinker.
a·the·ist : One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
Why do I believe? I have all the evidence I need, there are events in my personal life (and the lives of others that I have personally witnessed) where God has showed up and fulfilled what he promised me.
You ask for evidence of the existence of God, the entire universe shouts the existence of God. Your life shouts the existence of God but you deny Him still, so no I nor anyone else on this forum or any where else can convince you of God's existence. The simple fact is you are looking for reasons to deny God's existence and no amount of "proof" or argument can change that.
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Originally posted by serigadoIt's highly possible, or are you so naive as to think the apostles were perfect?
In a book where truthfulness, honesty, righteousness, and wholeheartedness are held with such genuinely high regard, it is hard to imagine the authors purposefully misleading listeners (i.e. lying) about the ministry of Christ. If it is a lie, however, who invented it and why? Christ's apostles? What did they get out of it? Martyrdom--hardly an attractiv se by your line of argumentation, you should be one.
After Christ's ascension, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and through the Spirit spoke with the authority of God (see Acts chapter 2).
The message was pure and great, the rewards were great, it makes sense Christianity spread.
How can a message be pure if it isn't true?
Do you really believe in turning water to wine? That's impossible. Walking over the waters? Not even by doing so in the Dead Sea, where water density is greater.
Yes, I believe Christ had the authority to turn water into wine, and many other "impossible" works. You say it's impossible, but that's only because you've never seen it happen. I've never seen it happen either, but neither do I take my senses to be the absolute arbiter of what is possible and what isn't. You trust theoretical science to say it is impossible, but theories are called "theories" precisely because it is impossible to disprove beyond a shadow of a doubt that observable phenomena may -- even if only once -- one day contradict otherwise incontrovertible conclusions based on those theories.
Educated guessing is all it is, and you cannot prove the reliability of your sources.
I'm not 100% sure of nothing, but if these miracles are possible, physics and science are wrong. Everything we know is wrong. We can't ultimately know nothing for sure.
Not wrong exactly, but incomplete. Would you say that science is complete?
I didn't imply that. I say intelligent people are on average not-religious. The correlation exists. There are many intelligent, religious people. It has to do with education, fear, need to be something more. People are afraid of the possibility of Hell, and are not willing to go against society, friends, only to make a point. It's easy just go with the flow and accept the eternal joy and love in the afterlife. I'd say that is quite smart. But times are changing. Religion starts to be a cancer.
The principle that by and large educated people scorn religion is a culturally conditioned bias, not a universal truth. In certain East Asian countries the correlation between education and atheism is reverse what it is in the West. In Singapore, someone with a doctorate is many times more likely to believe in Jesus Christ than someone with a high school degree. Methodological naturalism in the west has germinated into a kind of buttress against the existence of miracles, even though it is in no way "universal experience."
It is not reliable!! Saying evidence is the Bible is enough for you? You don't need very much in your beliefs, then. So, it's not rational.
My point is, the sources which you rely on for your conclusions (e.g., your senses, your reason, methodological naturalism, and the views of scholars) aren't perfectly reliable either. Can you prove that your senses are infallible? Your reason? Scientific theories? Or the opinions of educated people? No, you can't. If uncertainty is the basis by which we claim that someone is irrational, a charge which you are leveling at Christians, then by that logic you are equally irrational.
But you aren't irrational. You are sticking to what you have a good reason to think is true, in light of the difficulties. I am doing the same, in light of the difficulties.
My reasoning is infallible, yes. I'm quite good, you can trust my reasoning.
How do you prove the reliability of your mind? It isn't possible. You can only attempt to prove the reliability of the mind with the mind itself, which is a logical fallacy.
Already you have discouraged me to trust the infallibility of your logic.
I have no prejudices.
Methodological naturalism is the most easily discerned prejudice which you have (which is not uncommon).
May I ask you why aren't you a muslim? Because by your line of argumentation, you should be one.
It does not follow according to my line of argumentation that I should be a Muslim. I admit, it does not exclude me being a Muslim, but not that I should be one.
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Originally posted by epiphinehasBut you aren't irrational. You are sticking to what you have a good reason to think is true, in light of the difficulties. I am doing the same, in light of the difficulties.
[b]It's highly possible, or are you so naive as to think the apostles were perfect?
After Christ's ascension, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and through the Spirit spoke with the authority of God (see Acts chapter 2).
The message was pure and great, the rewards were great, it makes sense Christianity spread.
How can a m not exclude me being a Muslim, but not that I should be one.[/b]
The difference is that you believe that serigado is condemned to eternal hell for sticking to what he has good reason to think is true, while you will be rewarded with eternal paradise for “doing the same.” And you apply such words as “loving” and “just” to that outcome. And my poor brain just says, “Does not compute!”
How do you prove the reliability of your mind? It isn't possible. You can only attempt to prove the reliability of the mind with the mind itself, which is a logical fallacy.
Now you're starting to sound like me! 😉 The grammar of our consciousness is all we have to try to decipher the syntax of existence; and that grammar itself is part of that larger syntax. Whatever lies outside the bounds of that grammar cannot be understood; whatever can be understood can only be understood within the bounds of that grammar. That is why I do not eschew the word “transcendent”, and only insist that whatever is transcendent to that grammar cannot be presumed to be extra-natural.
Originally posted by SourJaxI can admit the existence of an abstract God, never related to the Judaic God or any other God made by men.
Do you believe in the existence of God, any God at all other than yourself? If not you are an atheist.
a·the·ist : One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
Why do I believe? I have all the evidence I need, there are events in my personal life (and the lives of others that I have personally witnessed) where God has showed up and ...[text shortened]... ng for reasons to deny God's existence and no amount of "proof" or argument can change that.
Where you see evidence of a God in the Universe, I see evidence of the Judaic-Christian-Muslim God to be invented by men. The ultra-small miracles related to men's need/beliefs, the morale system adapted to what men dreamed to be just at that time, every small details stinks of men intervention. And all the extremely stupid rituals... Internal incoherences, impossibilities with everyday reality... it's too much stupidity to match an all powerful, all knowing God.
The entire Universe shouting God? I can't hear it. I study the Universe, I should know. My life doesn't shout anything. Your needs come from your genetics plus your education. It's perfectly normal for someone growing in a religious environment to need God. Luckily I had an independent education and I'm not afraid to criticize.
As I understand the word atheist, it's a person who believes God does not exist. In that sense I'm not an atheist. I only look at what's more likely or realistic with the evidence I have. I do it quite well. With all the data we have, the greatest possibility is: God does not exist. Maybe I'm wrong, but the whole Universe shouts God non-existence.