Is faith the answer to cognitive dissonance?

I think that faith leads to cognitive dissonance. Those who base their views on faith start with their conclusions and abuse reason to try and rationalise those conclusions. They do not care about consistency or evidence - they often do not bother to investigate or understand the subjects the discuss and they care so little for consistency that some will even change their arguments in the middle of discussion - apparently without realising that they are doing it.In fact this happens so often and so obviously here that I can't believe that any serious participant in this forum could possibly be unaware of it.

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Knowing he had been a bit 'played', Dawkins proceeded to explain that religious faith cannot be the same. But the issue is of course that it is the same, or at the very least it should be. CHristians are not asked to have blind faith, they are asked to have a rational faith. (PS The debate is online I think, and I paraphrased by memory here so it might not be perfectly accurate quotes)

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But it isn't. Dawkins' can directly see his wife, directly see her actions and reactions, directly hear the words she says and read the words she has written with her own hand. Even if you want to claim a few rare exceptions, that cannot be said of God for the vast majority of people. Worse, love is an internal mental state and cannot be expected to be directly accessible to us, but God is not an internal mental state, so surely it shoudlbe easier for God to demonstrate his existence to us than it would be for Dawkins' wife to demonstrate her love for him.So religion is not like that, no matter what it should be.,And often it is far worse. Biblical inerrantists frequently allow their faith in Biblical inerrancy to dictate their interpretation of the Bible - as we see in these forums - placing their blind faith in the doctrine that denies the existence of contradictions above any sensible reading of the text. If I recall correctly, you yourself essentially dismissed a disagreement between Luke and Matthew on the grounds that you had the two Gospels exactly agreed on all other points - a clear example of blind faith as they do disagree and anyone who has truly studied them would know that.So I have to say that many christians not only place their faith above the evidence, they place it above even their sacred scriptures.

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The principle of multiple witnesses is very clear in the Bible and clearly exemplified in its accounts. So much of Moses' accounts is testified by multiple others there is no reason to doubt it when he gives a singular testimony as well.

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Are you REALLY claiming to have the testimony of multiple witnesses to lsignificant parts of the Pentateuch? If so, I want to see them. If not, then you're not really meeting the standard required by the Levitical Law.

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But deny any particular instance if you like, there are hundreds more that are extremely well attested, about miracles among other things. My original point was about the need for multiple witnesses and the Bible's supplying them, and that remains true

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That doesn't seem to be true either. Leaving aside the Gospels (since you ought to know that the authorship is traditional and not well supported by evidence) how many examples can you cite ?

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The point I've made a few times here is that BECAUSE witness testimony is notoriously unreliable Levitical Law required two or three witnesses to validate a claim, and many more than two or three are given for the great events such as the miracles in the Bible.

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Doesn't it require the testimony of multiple witnesses? How many of your miracles reach that standard?

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Yeah, well since millions of people didn't write down what they witnessed, or we don't happen to have those millions of individual reports, we do have to believe those who wrote down that millions witnessed it.

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Even if we had to believe it (and we don't) if we don't have their testimony we don't have their testimony. And that's what the Biblical standard demands, the TESTIMONY of multiple witnesses.So why try to pretend that you can meet the Biblical standard for cases where you can't ? Even where you believe that you have the testimony of multiple witnesses the Bible doesn't do a lot to support that claim. So the idea that the Bible was written to meet that standard is frankly dishonest. It just isn't. And you ought to know that.

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Then believe the w4riters of the books, duh.

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I guess you miss the point completely. The point is that you claim. that the Bible is written to meet the standard prescribed in the Levitical Law was false, that you should have known that it was false, that the Bible doesn't even try to meet that standard.So why pretend ? Especially as it gives the impression that the Biblical standard is in fact lower than it is - where the mere assertion that there were witnesses would apparently be sufficient. Which is silly. It seems to me that you're doing more to insult the Bible than support it.

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I haven't said anything I don't believe. If you don't believe me that's your problem.

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Believing the truth rather than what you say is a problem ? And you really BELIEVE that ? Even when it means knowing the Bible well enough to see through your false assertions ? Think about the implications of what you say, Faith.WIth regard to your earlier assertions, I see three possibilities.First: You don't realise that the Bible calls for the TESTIMONY of multiple witnesses, and think that the mere assertion that there were multiple witnesses is sufficient - and you think that this is a good standard. That would mean that you don't know the Bible, and that you can't tell a good standard from a bad one. That would be your problem.Second: You think that there actually is the testimony of multiple witnesses for much of the Bible. But you can't actually point to any of it save for the obvious examples (which are likely wrong anyway) and you aren't aware of the problems of making that claim even for the Gospels. That would also be your problem - not only the ignorance but making assertions you can't support.Third: You know damn well that the Bible doesn't really match up to the standard set in the Levitical Law. But you decided to pretend otherwise. And you don't really care that the simple assertion that there were witnesses is such an absurdly low standard that falsely attributing it to the Bible makes the Bible look stupid. And you somehow thought that you could get away with it here. Which would make you foolish, dishonest, and a lot less respectful of the Bible than you would have us believe. That would also be your problem.

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Perhaps it is not so important who wrote it as it is to determine the motive behind the writings as well as the message being told through the writing. Why was it important to not bow down (figuratively or literally) to things---or our interpretation and/or understanding of the significance of things?

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Isn't that bit part of the nationalist/monotheist agenda ?
(I say "nationalist" but there are huge overtones of racism in it, too)We know that the Hebrews originally were a Canaanite people with Yahweh as their patron in a polytheistic culture where all the peoples had their own patron. This (slowly) morphed into the belief that Yahweh was the one-and-only-God - but still the special patron of the Hebrew people. Along with this there were moves to radically separate the Hebrew people -and their religion - from the other Canaanites and their faiths, which were (so far as we know) still similar to the earlier Hebrew religion.Banning Canaanite religious practices would be a part of that.

So basically all your "evidence" relies on a strong bias in favour of your preferred conclusion to get to the conclusion you want. Isn't it odd that your God has so much trouble providing good evidence ?1) Miracle stories are hardly unique to Christianity. Do you believe all miracle stories or just those that your religion claims to be true ?2) What you call Providence, but which I would consider more likely coincidence, confirmation bias and fallible human memory. At the least we would need something more rigorous than anecdotes to turn this into good evidence.3) Assuming your religious dogmas to be true. Which isn't evidence at all.

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REAL miracles ARE unique to Biblical Christianity. You can't come up with a real miracle from any other source.

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In other words you assume that the miracle stories you approve of are "REAL miracles" and the others aren't. You can't expect any non-Christian, or anyone who cares about honestly evaluating evidence to use that assumption.

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Actual fulfilled prophecy is also unique to the Bible.

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But there are no demonstrable examples in the Bible. This forum has gone through that enough times.So really you don't have any good evidence at all.

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By redating the scriptures past the events prophesied you eliminate prophecy. Clever of you. Not so clever of you to believe such a ploy of course.

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I'll point out that questioning the dating of the prophecy is a reasonable objection and one you need to counter with evidence. However, it is not an all-purpose ploy as you claim and I am not aware of any case where the dating is based solely on the presence of "fulfilled" prophecy.

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I don't know if there are even reports of actual miracles outside the Bible. I've read a lot of religious and occultic lore and can't think of any. Miracles defined as the suspension of natural laws. There are some kinds of phenomena that are mistaken for miracles, such as Providential occurrences as I said, and there are some shoddy imitations, there are Hindu tricks and demonic tricks for instance, but there are no REAL miracles as I've defined them.

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Are you saying that there are no miracle stories outside of the Bible or that there are but you dismiss them as not being about "REAL" miracles ? It's really not clear. I'd also add that dismissing miracle stories from other faiths as "demonic" would just be another example of your prejudice at work.Again, this discussion is supposed to be about evidence. If you're compalining that other people don't share your prejudices you're admitting that you don't have the evidence you claim.

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I'm asking for even a CLAIMED miracle that really is a miracle -- which is the suspension of natural law, such as water to wine, thousands of fishes and loaves of bread out of a few, instant healing of paralysis, lameness or blindness, bringing the dead back to life, etc. -- outside the Bible. As I said, I don't know of any.

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I'm sort of surprised about that. I can remember stories of Hindu statues drinking milk, Chrisitans claiming that gold fillings had miraculously appeared in their teeth, Catholics claiming miracles for their saints. Really, you've heard none of these ?

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Demonic "miracles" are not demonic false because they're demonic but because they are not real miracles. NO RELIGION OTHER THAN BIBLICAL RELIGION CLAIMS REAL MIRACLES OR REAL PROPHECY.

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Ever heard of the Sybilline Oracles?

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The evidence of prophecy is in the scriptures themselves, accepting the traditional dates given for them. Just read it, it claims to be prophetic. The traditional dates were in place up until the 19th century, at which time Liberal Christianity and Higher Criticism came along and reinterpreted it all, sticking on dates that were SUBJECTIVELY determined. They have NO OBJECTIVE grounds for their late dating.

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The traditional dates aren't objective either - probably less objective, since the dates you don't like are actually based on evidence. Remember YOU are the one claiming genuine prophecy, so YOU have to support your dates. If the date is in question and all you have is tradition then that's your problem.Of course, I should also point out that there are plenty of alleged prophecies where the dating isn't the issue, and even quite a number of alleged prophecies which don't even claim to be prophecies.

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ABE: That's also how they determined that there were different authors of different books of the Bible, by their own subjective judgments about style and so on. STUPID STUPID STUPID excuse for "scholarship" but this kind of stupidity reigns today in academe. /ABE

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Yes Faith, we know that you hate people who dare to disagree with your idols. It' some of the ways that you prove that you're only a Christian in name.

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Now perhaps you think the subjective vaporings of a bunch of men sitting around pondering things is sufficient evidence to change the traditions of thousands of years, traditions that established the canon we have today as authentic and the prophecies as prophecies. But the burden of proof is on you and all those who recently decided their own mental vaporings were authoritative over the work of thousands over all those millennia.

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To my mind that is evidence enough, but I'm sure it won't be for you.

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Yes, imaginary "work" that you can't produce is enough for you. But unfortunately the burden of proof is on you. If you can't make a good case that's your problem. I'm under no obligation to take your views as the default and your record of error and prejudice is more than enough reason to distrust your opinions anyway.

Firstly I am glad that you bothered to try to write off the claims as fakes or demonic tricks, because I'm always (almost always) happy to be proved right. It's completely irrelevant, of course, since we're only talking about claims of miracles.I don't think that my examples are any worse than the floating axe head you've used as an example in earlier posts, and all the claims are of things contrary to natural law, as required. If Christian (in the broad sense) miracles count, how about the resurrection of Daniel Ekechukwu, supposedly dead for two days?

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I've "heard of" the Sibylline Oracles. What are you claiming about them?

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That they're claimed to be prophecies, when you said that no Non-Biblical religion made such a claim.

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But Daniel prophesied also of empires that would arise and described them quite remarkably clearly, from the Babylonian through Medo-Persia, then Alexander the Great's Hellenic empire, the fourth to be the Roman Empire during which time the Messiah was to come. Which He did. Now THAT is prophecy.

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Ironically you have to rely on a lack of clarity in Daniel to claim that the book refers to the Roman Empire at all (although there is a brief reference to the Roman Republic). In fact there's pretty strong internal evidence that the 4th Empire is the Diadochi Kingdoms (possibly including Alexander's Empire, possibly counting it as separate - it isn't clear!)

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As I already said, they are not based on evidence, they are based on the ridiculous subjective judgements of unbelieving scholars.

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Repeating a false assertion does not make it any less false.

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I've made a very good case, though I know it's lost on you because you refuse to believe in such things.

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Now that is an outright lie.

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What I've been trying to say is that the Bible is the only religious revelation in which miracles and prophecies are intrinsic to its revelation and theology rather than merely sources of amazement or amusement or personal experience. They are given to prove the nature of God, and I think if you give it some thought yourself you'd have to agree that those claimed in the Bible are on a much higher plane of quality than those I've called demonic manifestations. They have real significance for one thing, they aren't there just to entertain and wow or move your emotions.

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A floating axe head is of higher quality than a resurrection? I don't think so. And to be honest, I chose the miraculous dental fillings as an example because they were ridiculous, and yet spontaneously-appearing gold fillings violate natural law, which was the criterion you set. I nearly used medium Daniel Dunglas Hume floating out of a third story window, and in another one.

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Most of the prophecies point to and define the coming Messiah, but also world events including the rise and fall of empires, culminating in a grand finale on a worldwide scale in the Book of Revelation

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Not even you can claim that the Revelation is clear!

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The miracles are of a kind that only the true Creator God could do. Manifesting gold dust or bloody tears on a statue is a bit paltry by comparison with making the sun stand still or move backwards, parting the Red Sea, filling empty vessels to the brim with oil, turning large pots of water into (really really good) wine, turning a few fish and loaves of bread into enough to feed thousands, healing usually incurable infirmities, and raising the dead. I just can't see statues drinking milk as comparable. And I doubt you can either.

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And most of those come from legendary material. I could come up with impressive examples if I used legends. I thought about it and chose not to.

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I agree that the floating ax head is a more trivial event, but on the other hand I'm not sure the demons could produce that one either. And it also had a purpose, to return the ax head to the man who had dropped it in the water, which was a great loss to him. Again, not just a magic trick to wow us, but a demonstration of God's provision and power. 2 Kings 6.

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Humans could manage it with a trick axe head, for instance.

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Daniel is a huge study but every commentator I'm aware of agrees that the Roman Empire is the fourth kingdom prophesied in the vision of the great and terrible beast, the legs and ten toes of the statue and so on.

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If you choose to trust commentators over the Bible that's your problem. Read Daniel 8 carefully. And, since you claim that Daniel is clear, can you really find an absolutely clear reference to the Roman Empire there? I assure you, except for the one reference to the Republic, there isn't one.

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You DON'T refuse to believe in such things? I simply thought you did. You don't seem at all inclined toward belief but only toward finding reasons against it. I wasn't lying, and now I'm surprised to hear that I'm wrong about this

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Oh, I don't believe things I know to be false, nor do I uncritically believe the unsupported opinions of someone who is very often wrong. But I don't consider either to make a good case. And I don't think that any rational person would disagree with me.