"Evidence and Faith"

Are you serious?You're talking about a passage written decades after the event by someone who wasn't even there saying "oh, sure, 500 people saw it."That's an extraordinarily easy claim to make falsely, because there's a difference between claiming eyewitness testimony by 500 people and actually having eyewitness testimony from 500 people.Do you see? Look, I claim that I can levitate right up out of my seat. Sure, I'll do it right now.Did you see? No? Well, 500 other people did. I swear it.I've never understood why people find claims of "eyewitness testimony" from anyone but the eyewitnesses themselves credible. There's a very good reason that testimony about what someone else said they saw isn't allowed in courts. If you don't have the eyewitness right in front of you, or at least that specific person's testimony, no, it's not an observation of any kind.

I assume you meant to say "No, I can't." Right. And that's why I was suggesting that the message for your pastor should be that creation science shouldn't be included in his pulpit apologetics because it is misrepresenting itself as science and is not accepted as science by the scientific community.I think what you're going to find is that the opening you think is there isn't really there. The mission of evangelical ministers is to bring souls to Christ, and the importance of this crucial mission usually overwhelms their judgement to the point where the ends justify practically any means, including the propagation of falsehoods. After all, what is the significance of a few lies about something that isn't that important anyway when weighed against the saving of souls.--Percy

Crash already hit this point, but it deserves a second whack.You're a car mechanic. A man has his car towed to your garage. He tells you it won't start and that 500 mechanics have completely checked the car over and haven't been able to tell him what is wrong with it.You attempt to start it. It turns over but won't start. You start checking the obvious, beginning with the gas tank. It is empty. The man tells you that is impossible, that 500 mechanics have already checked the gas tank and found it full.You tell him it's nonetheless empty, add some gas to the tank, and start the car. The man tells you this is impossible, that 500 mechanics observed a full gas tank, but you pay him no mind, fill his tank, and send him on his way.The point of this story is that it never crossed your mind to give any credence to the man's story of 500 mechanics. In fact, the story of the 500 witnesses from 1 Corinthians 15:6 is the kind of exaggerated boast children make, and there is no possible way to show it right or wrong. And of course, as pointed out earlier, the negative claim that there were never 500 witnesses can never be proven. But consider this - there is as much hard evidence for 500 witnesses of the risen Jesus as there is for pink unicorns in Andromeda.The central question of this part of the discussion in this thread is how you can be so credulous concerning accounts in the Bible, and in ways that you would never be in real life, say, as an auto mechanic, while exhibiting perfectly good judgement in the rest of your life. The rules for assessing credibility of evidence shouldn't be suspended simply when the topic shifts to the Bible and religion, not if you're doing science.But of course, you aren't doing science, you're doing religion, in which case suspending any skeptical attitudes is just fine, as long as one understands that faith is one thing and hard scientific evidence another. They shouldn't be mixed, and your instincts regarding your pastor's tactics seem right on the money.--Percy

Well my reference to the 500, was Jesus rising from the dead.

Well nator, I have to disagree with you, and let's leave it at that, because I do not want to get off-topic. The references to Santa all the time, are poor taste too, as I used to believe in Santa, and I now believe in God, and the two are strikingly different. (it can be another topic one day if you like, but not now, I really need to get through this)I am in the middle of some sort of dilema though.

Which we have no eyewitness testimony of. None of the people who said they saw it wrote any part of the Bible. None of the people who wrote the Bible even spoke to any direct witnesses.The claim of "500 witnesses" is not credible. It's a false claim.

1) Depicted as a big man with a long white beard.
2) Held to be observing your actions at all times, sleeping or awake, and judges your moral suitability for reward or punishment accordingly.
3) Held to respond to supplication for specific rewards or actions.
4) Does not age or die.
5) Has a legion of supernatural servants who perform his will.
6) Can break the laws of physics any time to accomplish his will.C'mon, RR. They're identical. God is Santa for grown-ups. You never stopped believing in Santa - you just changed his name.

I never felt as if Santa was speaking to me when I was a kid. I never felt anything about him at all, despite cultural indoctrination. I knew that the department store Santas were phonies.

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When I believed that I was saved, I first felt an extreme inner change---even before I realized what had happened. The change was exactly as strong if not stronger the next morning...and the next...and the next. I didn't even seek to want to believe as strongly as I ended up believing.

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In conclusion:

No, I cannot provide any evidence externally to others, aside from my behavior. Additionally, I won't claim myself to be different from anyone else.

Yes, there was a change.

The change was a onetime thing. Good behavior does not change anything any further.

I want to behave better, not because any church or religion tells me to. I just feel good about myself when I do the right thing.

Humm society today doesn't indoctrine kids believing in santa, they do for God though. So if you can't provide any "external evidence" then you shouldn't be shocked to learn that when you refer to your religion as a fact (jesus existed and walked on water and God hates fags) you may hit a wall of skepticism... Me too!! actually I even have a higher moral standard then some very religious people I know.IE : I'm not homophobic, nor intolerant toward homosexual, nor do I think women are inferior.And i'm agnostic.

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Well my reference to the 500, was Jesus rising from the dead.

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I guess you don't know the Bible that well. THe Bible doesn't say that anybody saw that happen.The only reference to 500 witnesses is 1 Corinthians 15:6

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After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep

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Interestingly it does not seem to refer to any event in the Gospels.So all we have is a claim that 500 unidentiifed people saw something - a claim which apparently was not credible enough to make it into later accounts of the story. If the Gospel writers didn't believe it, why should we ?

ask a drug user how their first experience went.

One minor point to add to the discussion of the 500:I agree that we have nothing but hearsay on this one, (Paul wrote what he heard, even if it was original to Paul's letter - our earliest manuscript of 1 cor 15 is from around 200, leaving around 150 years for some scribe to write that in, or embellish 5 to 50 to 500 or whatnot).In addition to the hearsay issue, the number itself sounds like hearsay. I doubt the crowd was exactly 500, but the writer, even if he had a first or secondhand account (no reason to think he did), didn't bother to find out actually how many?Just some thoughts. Have a fun day-

You got presents, didn't you? The gifts just changed when you got older.I don't think there's a kid in the world who was fooled by the department store guy; implicitly we understood that those guys were sort of like Santa's priests, that they were there to intercede with Santa on our behalves. I know. I felt it too.It's the feeling of belonging. I converted at a Billy Graham conference and the feeling was made even stronger by the fact that while we were in the conference (at the Metrodome) the folks that earlier had so helpfully charged us 10 bucks to show us where to park the church bus came back and robbed it.So I know exactly the feeling you're talking about, how it's rewarded by adversity, nurtured by fellowship. How it's a self-perpetuating myth that turns what should be disconfirming to otherwise reasonable people into "evidence" that never fails to confirm the faith. Well shit, Phat, even the Cult of Santa has the same effect. Parents perpetuate the Judgment of Santa because it frickin' works. It's a great tool for getting your kids to behave, especially because the rest of society plays along. Parents aren't idiots. Kids aren't idiots either, but when they look around and see "independent confirmation" that Santa exists and is a real thing, not just something their parents made up, they believe it.

If I could add a little to the other comments, there's nothing unique about your God experiences. For example: In other words, you can find nearly identical testimonials for all faiths and many cults and fads around the globe.--Percy

To crash and phat, and others, stay on topic. If you would like to start a santa vs God thread, then be my guess. Apparently I know it well enough.Why, is because it only says it once, then it is not valid?
The bible is in many ways a condensed version of what really happened. IT sums up years into one small book.You have to respect the fact that a huge religion was started based on those eyewitness accounts, and the power of the Holy Spirit.Maybe this cannot be proven through science, but it cannot be dis-proven. So I will not go there.Listen, the main thing about religion, Christian religion, is the two greatest commandments, Love God with all your heart, and love others like yourself. It is simple, yet difficult to do.All this creation science, and gems, and orbs, as well as mixing science with religion, just doesn't fall into that category.If I am to present this to a church, and the leader of that church, then I must make good sense, while still believing in God, and miraculus power.No onw should be trying to take away the subjective miracles of believers, or the "cause unknown yet/never"There are probably many things that science will never reveal to us.Science focuses on what is seen (observed)
The bible/Jesus tells us to focus on what is unseen.