Why so friggin' confident?

The religious have only themselves to blame for this one. It was often the case that in a debate somebody would press a question like "What evidence is there that Mary was a virgin?" and after 'It says so in the Bible', and the follow up 'What evidence is there that the authors of the Bible never lied?", the fall back for theologians was "This is not something we require evidence fore, it is simply a matter of faith."I am glad to see that more and more people are conceding that this is an intellectual dead-end. Incidentally 'Judeo-Christian' is a silly term, you just mean 'Christianity', don't you?So, since you are thankfully not going to use 'faith' as a get-out of answering the question for free card, what evidence suggests that I should trust all the accounts that are related in the canon edition of the Holy Bible?Let us take the account that Mary was a virgin. I am assuming the only evidence upon which you base this belief is Biblical in nature. What evidence should compel me to accept this as a true?To provide counterpoise I will also be holding up the Glorious Qu'ran. So if your evidence is 'Well there is extra-Biblical evidence of the existence of Jesus, Joseph and Mary.' as a starting point - I will point out that the Qu'ran also includes these characters, and it includes the character of Muhammad, the extra-book evidence for whom is much more compelling than for Jesus and I would then point out that there are claims in the Qu'ran that you do not believe.So let's play:
"What evidence is there that Mary was a virgin?"
if you don't like that one we can try the much more important:
"What evidence is there that Jesus was actually a deity in human form?"Now most people I have asked questions like this of have eventually collapsed back on some variation of the 'faith' based argument we are deriding here (where faith based essentially means, 'no evidence needed, I just believe it because I do' or something along those lines).As you can see from the nature of the questions, I am not asking broad questions about 'Why do you believe the universe has a Creator', but specific questions unique to the Christian religion. What evidence compels you to believe those tenets and why does similar evidence from other religions not compel you? I appreciate you might be busy with replies - but I'd be grateful if you could give it a try, thanks.

Poking around on the net reading Christian apologetics about Mark 10:15, they don't agree with you. They talk about faith and about giving up adult ways of knowledge, about offering prayers to God and following the guidance of the holy spirit.If spiritual beliefs could really be supported by material evidence then there would be no faith involved and there would be only one major world religion, just like there's only one theory of relativity and only one theory of evolution.--Percy

Hi Percy, Percy I would like to explain how I understand this child like faith to be. I use it as an example all the time.I don't know if you have ever tossed a child into the air and caught them or not. But I have and they love it. I had one nephew that he just did not want me to quit.I would put him down and he would come right back and put those little arms us in the air and say do it again.He had total trust in me that I would catch him everytime I threw him into the air.Never a thought entered his mind that I would not catch him.That is the kind of faith it takes to get to heaven. This says man must believe that God Is.This says man must trust God to do what he says He will do.This is the only way to come to God.Once a person has come to God in this manner God will give him all the faith and evidence he needs.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Percy writes:Notice the Lord does not say that we must have faith in the kingdom (Church) as a child. He says we should accept it as a child. Here is under consideration the idea of living and dwelling in the kingdom, it also describes the nature of the kingdom,"the lion shall lay down with the lamb", etc."except you become like one of these little children, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom"."there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond or free, male or female all are one in Christ.Humility and innocence in character is his intimation in thisand the other context.Jesus said at one point "I want you to be as gentle as lambs and wise as serpents". Certainly no one would gather from this that we should be these things in reality, but that we should imitate certain characteriscts od those creatures, same, same.Here is an illustration from life. And yes if you are wondering it is real. While in my youth standinng in line (back in those days that what we did) for entrance into college,waiting to present all the things I needed for qualifications to that shcool, myself and a couple of other knotheads were acting up in line. Now I know its hard to imagine me doing anything of the sort but I was, nonetheless, you know acting stupid, eye balling all the smoking hot ladies and making comments as they passed. Dean Brumley walks up and pops me in the head with his ruler and states:"If you fellas dont stop acting like children you will never get through this line, do you understand me".The attitude which I was displaying had nothing to do with entrance requirements, but they could greatly affect my standing once I entered the school. On a side note I recieved numerous beatings by that ruler in the first two years before I fianlly got a clue. It would only really hurt when he used both hands to crank that plastic ruler back and let it fly. The other guys would laugh and I would say "shut up man that thing really hurts", then ofcourse they would laugh harder, morons. Its funny I dont remember a whole lot of specific details about the school, but isnt it funny I can remember his name and every detail about him. He had one of those hair cuts you could set your watch by. Later in life he remined me of Mr. Hand, in "Fast times at Ridgemont High".In this instance, it was the reverse example and the actions of children that were a problem. In Christs example he wishes us to display the cahracteristics of children while standing in line, after we are in and during our habitation in Heaven or the Church. His is just an illustration.Entering the kingdom is an intellectual or mental involvment initially, believing in God from the available evidence,this produces the respect and love we then have for the Lord and his sacrifice and our need for him. Children cannot do this.So, since children cannot and do not exercise the mental process to exercise faith or belief, what were the qualites that Christ was speaking about, humility, innocence, FORGIVENESS and simple love. Yet the adults are told Acts chapter 2:36-37. "Men and brethren what shall we do? Peter said unto them repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins and you will recieve the gift of the holy Spirit" One must BELIEVE That Jesus is the Son of God, Believe, repent, etc. Again, you are making faith something different than simple belief. That is like saying if the spiritual world could be demonstrated with absolutely proof, there would be no need to BELIEVE in it.Belief is faith and faith is belief. We believe (have faith) in the existence of God due to the evidence of the material, its design and finite existnce, which ofcourse implies the infinite. In ohter words its material equivolent.If I were to ask you to choose an alternate word to describe faith, what word would you choose? Any other word you choose will be desribed as belief. Then belief is supported or unsupported.I am not a expert on evolution but I believe you guys have 2 camps, Gradualist and the big jumpers correct?, or something like that. You guys disagree on what transpired correct?D BertotEdited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.

Mod writesGreetings Mr. Spock, I have not seen you since the "Is logic scinece", thread.If your intimation here is that i believe this is an intellectual dead end,you are dead wrong. Watch this contrast. While the religionist you speak of are absolutely correct in accepting it on faith, thier faith is supported by comprehensive evidence that supports the entire book itself. Yet thier trust is enough and is all God requires, even though they have not explored all the available evidence. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in God, that he actually exists and is omnipotent in character and person? Please be honest and dont answer yes for sake of argument. So, Lets play, lets start with this one first, ok? Its obviously vital to the questions you asked. Wouldnt you agree?D BertotEdited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.

ICANT writes:This is a very good exmple and in the example it is already established that the father is present and real, then the belief or evidence that the father can accomplish this task is established by his confidence in material evidence.Dont get me wrong, I am not saying we can demonstrate every point of Christianity, only that there is good reason to believe overall or accept the things stated, having been estalished by reliable material evidence. there are alot of specifis that I and others are not exacally sure about. The date and time of his return., etc, etc.Actually we do this in all walks of life. We proceed on good evidence not knowing that the bridge will not collapse once we start driving across it. Sometimes it does collapse,God will not.D Bertot Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.

Yes, yes, yes! This is why Jesus declared this in John 16, Hang on to Jesus. There's no place else to go.Blessings

Rahvin writes:As I had read your very lengthy post it became very obvious I had already responded to most if not all that you had to say in your response. It comes down to what you consider as evidence for a thing and to a simple statement of "no it is not" or Yes it is between us". Further, if you are not mature enough to choose you verbage more carefully, then I would suggest that you find another thread or person to discuss matters with. In other words drop the venacular (bullshit) or try and act like an intelligent adult, agreed? There is no need for you potty mouth.The following quotes above are the only thing I see that we have not discussed thus far. Faith is not a belief that is not supported by proof or objective evidence. Faith is nothing more than a supported belief and belief is nothing more than a supported faith.If I were to ask you to choose another word for faith or another word for belief what would they be? This is where the break down occurs. In our estimation only a fool would look at the nature of material things, the fact that they exist and thier finite character, then conclude that there is no objective evidence to the conclusion that God exists. This itself is beyond any sort of rational thinking.So your contention that faith is unsupported belief or unobjective is complete nonsense to us.Again a supportable belief should have a material equivolent, otherwise it is just a thought pattern or an imagination, lie fairies or Santa claus. Becuse his understanding of the word faith and its connection to the word belief is faulty from the outset, therefore his conclusion is unwarrented and the OP statement is invalid as a premise.D Bertot

Hello again, has it been so long? No. No. I look forward to hearing your answers to the questions I asked you. I am not sure what you mean by starting with 'this first one' so I wouldn't know to what I am agreeing.You spoke earlier that the evidence suggests that the sun will rise tomorrow and not explode and so you believe the former over the latter. I could ask "Why so friggin' confident?" and we could go into a discussion on the power of induction, and some astrophysics like the way stars work according to well tested laws of nature etc etc. We won't do that of course, but we know how the answer would look.So that people who are reading won't get lost as to what my questions were, here is a brief summary of my Message 151, tempered by some things you replied with:Is it your position that the evidence suggests that the Jesus was God in human form and not that Jesus was the penultimate prophet of God? If so, "Why so friggin' confident?" You suggest that you have faith that is supported by comprehensive evidence. What do you mean by 'comprehensive'? Do you mean that all evidence that could possibly support the Godhood of Jesus exists and you have gone through it all? Do you mean that the evidence inevitably leads to the conclusion that Jesus is God?

If the events of Acts 1 & 2 did not happen to me, then you would be correct.But when they happened to me as a result of believing in Acts 2:38, then my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is verified by the substance of the promise He made in John 14:16-17.You and others at this forum call this circular reasoning. I call it cause and effect. When sinners truly submit to the truth of Acts 2:38, then the truth of John 14:16-17 becomes reality in the lives of those who call Jesus Lord.Blessings

Discussions of what does and does not qualify as evidence are most definitely not simple "yes it is," "no it's not" blather. It would, however, be outside the scope of this thread. If you'd like to discuss it, feel free to create a new one where it would be on-topic. Unfortunately I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this particular thread - you believe your religion is based on evidence, and Percy has already ruled that evidence is out-of-bounds in this thread. If you stop making bullshit arguments, I'll stop calling them bullshit. Until then, if you're threatened by "naughty words," you can feel free to ignore them, or even me. Explitives are not indicative of immaturity - rather, complaining about the sort of language used in an argument is indicative of attempting to avoid responding to an argument. You don't get to dictate the sort of language I can use. Language is irrelevant. Only the argument matters. If you would like to respond to my arguments, please do so. If you fell horrifically offended and threatened by specific words to the point where you are unable to address my arguments, then feel free to say nothing at all. That goes completely against the dictionary definition. Do you use the word "faith" out of attachment to the word despite its actual meaning? Clearly you think your beliefs are based on evidence, which would make them not "faith" but "knowledge," and yet you continue to use the word "faith."The definition of "faith" was provided at the beginning of this thread. If you don't feel the definition is appropriate, feel free to take it up with Mirriam-Webster. But the definition given is the "faith" we are discussing. If you feel it doesn't apply to you, why are you posting? Redefining the key term of the thread certainly counts as shifting the goalposts. Don't ask me - I'm perfectly fine with the definition for "faith" given at the beginning of the thread. Why would I choose a different word? I don't dictate the English language, though you seem to believe that you do. Obviously you don't realize how fallacious such a train of though is. You're making an argument from incredulity - you are incredulous that "material things" can exist without a supernatural agent. Argumetns from incredulity are logically fallacious. "Common sense" is neither common nor has anything to do with the veracity of claims as they pertain to the Universe as a whole. Quite frankly, the Universe is not required to make sense to you, and your "gut feeling" is typically going to be wrong. That's why we investigate such things with the scientific method, and it's done pretty well so far by avoiding such intellectual failures as arguemnts from incredulity. It's not my contention. it's the dictionary's definition fo the word. Again, take it up with Mirriam-Webster, and if you disagree with the definition in use in this thread then there's really no reason for you to continue posting. The dictionary definitions of the words "faith" and "belief" apply perfectly to Santa Claus and Fairies. You're simply trying to dispute that definition because you don't want such a connotation associated with your faith-based beliefs. Again, if you have an issue with the definition, take it up with Mirriam-Webster. Since your definition of the word "faith" is the one that differs from the English dictionary, I would suggest that it is your definition of the word that is faulty, and not the OP.I wonder what other English words you'd like to redefine?

Partially right. I will not discuss the Bible with those who will not take the time to even read the Bible for themselves, yet will talk infinitum about what they have heard others say about what the Bible says.Those who will take the time to read the Bible for themselves, especially the words of Jesus as recorded in the Bible, then I'm ready to discuss portions of the Bible with unbelievers.

Saul thought he was right about Jesus, until He met Jesus on the Road to Damascus in Acts 9. After his experience in Atcs 9, Saul, whose name was changed to Paul, never doubted he had met the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.Until I met the Lord Jesus Christ for myself throught the truth of Acts 2:38, I had many doubts. But after I met the Lord Jesus Christ for myself throught the truth of Acts 2:38, I have no doubts that Jesus is Lord. I have questions about other portions of Scripture that I don't fully understand, but that doesn't keep me from continuing to walk with the Lord, and ask for more understanding when I have questions.

These are the definitions of faith available to you: So what you're saying is that you're not using definition 2, but definition 4. But the faith of definition 4 is still not something supported by material evidence. It just makes the questions raised by this thread more specific, for example, how can you trust that God's will is best without evidence?But if you want to talk about beliefs backed by evidence then propose a new thread.--Percy

You don't seem to be able to say the word "no" but no is the answer” yes? Do you recognize that people have the capacity for delusion? My old chum sea gull Jesus for example. Do you think yourself immune to delusion, therefore your faith in your own judgment is unquestionable. Delusion is a reach, but it must be considered if ones is so friggin' confident in their faith that they can't say there is a possibility that they could be wrong.I ask again, should I have follow sea gull Jesus? And if not, how do you know?

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.