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Author Topic:   The Tension of Faith
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 534 of 1540 (823320)
11-09-2017 9:11 AM
Reply to: Message 532 by Faith
11-08-2017 11:24 PM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
Faith writes:
That definition is just a silly idea about what faith is, that grew up over the last century.
And where did you get that fiction? Here is the definition of faith from the Oxford Dictionaries website:
quote:
Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.
If you think you can prove it, it isn't faith.
I see it expressed here a lot but it isn't faith, nobody would have faith in anyone or anything that has no evidence whatever.
Well, since your religious beliefs have no evidence, I'd say your beliefs are based upon faith.
This notion of a blind leap that became popular in the last century out of "liberal" Christianity was always a false idea.
Yeah, sure. If you could prove your beliefs with evidence you wouldn't be using the word faith, you'd be using the word proof. You'd be talking about the your proven tenets instead of the tenets of your faith.
John clearly says he intentionally wrote about Jesus' doings in order to persuade people to believe in Him, in His fulfillment of the prophecies of the Messiah, in his nature as God, etc. etc. That's certainly evidence he's talking about.
John described events for which there is no evidence. There are many non-canonical Gospels that have just as much evidential support as John, i.e., none. Stories are not evidence.
But as I keep saying, once you have faith in Christ then you can have faith without any additional evidence in things He tells us. That is unevidenced faith in the thing itself, but it's based on solidly founded faith in Christ Himself.
There you go with the two types of faith again, one evidenced, one not. There is really only one type of religious faith, the kind that comes from within and that stands firm no matter the evidence from the real world.
Faith is putting trust in "things unseen"...
That is correct.
...but it has to be grounded in good reasons for believing in those things unseen.
That is incorrect.
And everybody here knows that.
That, too, is incorrect.
If someone says there is a large pink but invisible unicorn suspended over your head you aren't going to believe it because out of the blue like that you have no grounds to believe it. but if Christ tells us He is going to prepare a place for us in heaven those who trust Christ based on what the Bible reveals about Him believe that He is preparing a place for us. If you don't believe in Christ's trustworthiness you won't believe He's preparing a place for us either, but the first is necessary to believing the second.
But Christ didn't "tell us He is going to prepare a place for us in heaven." The Bible says he told us that. It's a story that you've chosen to accept based upon faith, not evidence. And believing in the trustworthiness of Christ, indeed that such a person ever existed, is something you also accept based upon faith, not evidence. If you had evidence you'd produce it, but you don't. All you have is a book that you keep claiming contains evidence but is just a collection of stories, many of them fanciful, fantastical, impossible.
Name ONE thing or person you have faith in that is not founded on some kind of evidence of his or its trustworthiness.
You're confusing two different definitions of faith. When you say, "I have faith in our company's management," you're using the definition of faith that reads, "confidence or trust in a person or thing." When you say, "I have faith in God in heaven," you're using the definition of faith that reads "strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof."
Our minds don't work that way. John's writing down evidence in order for us to believe is needed.
John was not writing down evidence. He was writing down stories that had been passed down to him from others. When you write, "The car went down the road," you are not writing down evidence. Words on paper are not evidence. You are merely recording your observations, which may or may not be accurate.
In fact the whole Bible was written to convince us of the reality of God and His character.
Sure. In that sense it's a work of persuasion. It isn't a collection of evidence.
Christianity is never based on a blind leap of faith.
Since you have no evidence, what else could it be but a blind leap of faith. That's what all religions are.
Why would Jesus have bothered doing all the miracles He did? ALL traditional mainstream theology says He did it all to validate His claim to be the Messiah promised throughout the OT. Or why did God do the miracles in the OT either? The burning bush, the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea etc etc etc. It's utter nonsense to think faith is possible without evidence that convinces we are right to have faith.
How do you know any of these miracles really happened? How do you know they're not just stories in a religious book designed to convince people to a particular set of religious beliefs?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 532 by Faith, posted 11-08-2017 11:24 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 540 by Faith, posted 11-09-2017 3:41 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 557 of 1540 (823429)
11-10-2017 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 535 by NoNukes
11-09-2017 9:43 AM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
NoNukes writes:
You don't consider, for example, newspaper articles described contemporary events to be evidence? Because that kind of evidence is frequently cited here. Yet your current description does not distinguish the Gospel According to Luke, from a story in the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps a little more care in explaining why Bible stories are not evidence, or at least are not reliable evidence may be in order.
I've been distinguishing between information (newspaper articles, Gospel stories) and evidence. Just scribbling words on paper doesn't turn it in to evidence. A Gospel story about turning water to wine? That's information. Evidence that the story is true? Completely lacking. A WSJ article about Trump's meetings in Asia? That's information. Evidence that the story is true? Completely lacking. A WSJ video with a timestamp and a watermark of authenticity of Trump addressing an audience in Asia? That's both information and very strong evidence.
But we can also look at this more from Faith's point of view. We read and trust the WSJ article because the WSJ has a long history of reliable and accurate reporting, and there is corroborating reporting from equally reliable sources, and so we trust the information they provide. But the articles themselves are not evidence. And if the articles disagree on some points, settling the differences isn't a matter of deeper analysis of the articles (though that might be helpful, depending upon the nature of the differences), but of going back to the original evidence. Which isn't descriptions on paper, or today descriptions on a screen.
We do frequently refer to newspaper articles and scientific articles here, but they are not evidence, and if challenged then we must respond by tracing back to the original evidence. We tend to trust news articles from the mainstream media because they mainly report nearly identical information, and they've built a trustworthy reputation over time, and so most news articles are not challenged. Usually we all believe what they say. For example, no one rational is challenging the reported events at the church in Texas, but if someone did then we could go back to the video actually shot in the church and to ambulance, hospital, and morgue records and to eyewitnesses, which is where the evidence lies. In fact, had the perpetrator survived and there was a trial, this is the sort of evidence that would be presented in the courtroom, not newspaper articles.
All I'm really saying is that there's a difference between original evidence and descriptions of the original evidence. Original evidence is all that really counts. So when we have linked to an article and say something like, "I linked to the evidence of what Trump tweeted," we all know that the article didn't really contain evidence. All it contained was one of those tweet-formatted things. That's not evidence. It's probably pretty reliable information that few would challenge, particularly since multiple sources probably reported the exact same thing, but it isn't evidence, and consider the number of joke tweets that have been produced using the identical format. To prove it was an actual Trump tweet we'd have to dig deeper and find the original evidence. Maybe finding the tweet in Trump's twitter feed would be sufficient evidence, I don't know, this electronic era with URL redirections and fake websites and photoshopped images and so forth confuses the issue of what constitutes reliable evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 535 by NoNukes, posted 11-09-2017 9:43 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 564 by GDR, posted 11-10-2017 2:05 PM Percy has replied
 Message 575 by NoNukes, posted 11-10-2017 10:03 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 558 of 1540 (823458)
11-10-2017 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 540 by Faith
11-09-2017 3:41 PM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
Faith writes:
True stories can be evidence, and John described miracles performed by Jesus as evidence of His deity so that people reading about them might believe in Him.
Stories can be accurate or wrong or lie somewhere on the spectrum in between, but they cannot be evidence. They don't present newspaper articles about crimes in court, they present the actual evidence likely described in the articles, like fingerprints and hair analysis and blood analysis and DNA analysis and photographs and weapons and ballistic reports and eyewitness accounts and so forth. The articles might be accurate, they might not be accurate, but the determination of what actually happened will depend upon the evidence and it's analysis, not what someone wrote about it.
Just as reporters writing newspaper articles about events are not evidence, John writing stories about miracles is not evidence.
There you go with the two types of faith again, one evidenced, one not. There is really only one type of religious faith, the kind that comes from within and that stands firm no matter the evidence from the real world.
There is no such thing. Human beings need to have some reason for believing anything.
You are undoubtedly wrong. Many are like me with a personal inner faith little influenced by the teachings of any religion.
Once we believe that Jesus is the Son of God/Messiah then we also believe all the things He tells us and don't need evidence other than His saying them in order to believe them. That is faith in things unseen, based on our knowledge that Jesus is God and Lord.
But you believe Jesus is the Son of God/Messiah based upon faith, not evidence. There is no evidence, only claims in a book whose reliability is self-evidently broadly inconsistent.
As John said, he wrote about Jesus' miracles as evidence that He is deity. It's evidence I believe. John produced tons of evidence. It's evidence if it's true.
No, it is not evidence if it is true. It is accurate reporting if it is true, but not evidence. And there is no evidence it is true.
You dismiss it as false so it can't be evidence for you.
But I don't dismiss it as false. I dismiss it as unevidenced supernatural claims of a religious nature, the kind of claims religious people are prone to making. John's claim that Jesus asked the servants to fill jars with water is something people did every day back then, so no one particularly cares (from a religious standpoint) whether it really happened or not. But John's claim that Jesus turned the water to wine is an unevidenced supernatural claim. There is no evidence for it.
It is evidence for me because I believe the writers are honest reporters of what they actually witnessed.
Did John believe what he wrote? Who could know, and what difference does it make? There's no evidence for any of it.
I think it takes a very strange kind of blindness to deny the reality of Jesus or John, but in any case I have evidence because of their reality that you don't have.
In reality, real evidence can be seen by everyone. Only in religion is there evidence seeable only by believers.
John was not writing down evidence. He was writing down stories that had been passed down to him from others. When you write, "The car went down the road," you are not writing down evidence. Words on paper are not evidence. You are merely recording your observations, which may or may not be accurate.
Have you personally performed the experiments and observations Watson and Crick [corrected from "Francis and rick"] performed, or Newton or Einstein? Or do you believe their conclusions as written down?
Well, there's a solid failed argument. In science the experimental procedures and the resulting evidence are carefully documented and distributed for peer review, and the results are not accepted until the experiments are repeated by others. I can, for example, actually see some of Crick/Watson's evidence, like this X-Ray crystallography image that revealed the double helix structure of DNA:
Where's John's evidence that Jesus turned the water to wine?
"The car went down the road" may very well be evidence, say in a trial as reported by a witness to the events the defendant is being tried for. It may be very important to know that the car went down the road in this case, rather than standing still or going off the road etc. If another witness says the same thing it becomes even more trustworthy evidence, and of course John in many of his accounts is describing the same events the other gospel writers also describe.
You've changed the context from mine, where someone merely writes, "The car went down the road," to a courtroom context where an eyewitness is testifying. While eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, in part indicated by the number of people convicted on eyewitness testimony later being freed from prison based upon DNA evidence, it *is* a form of evidence. But some reporter writing, "The eyewitness said, 'The car went down the road.'" is not evidence. At best if there's written evidence of what the eyewitness said it's in the trial transcript.
John was not repeating stories told by others, he was an eyewitness of what he described, and his presence with Jesus is confirmed by the other gospels.
You have no idea who John was or whether he was an eyewitness. There is no evidence of who he was. Even among sincere Christian believers the identity of John is debated. From Wikipedia on the Gospel of John:
quote:
The Gospel of John is anonymous. Traditionally, Christians have identified the author as "the Disciple whom Jesus loved" mentioned in John 21:24,[15] who is understood to be John son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. These identifications, however, are rejected by many modern biblical scholars.[1][16][Notes 5] Nevertheless, the author of the fourth Gospel is sometimes called John the Evangelist, often out of convenience since the definitive name of the author is still debated.
Anything you believe about the identify of John and whether he was an eyewitness to the events he describes you accept on faith, not evidence.
The Bible is evidence, just as the written reports of Francis [actually Watson] and Crick's studies of the DNA molecule are evidence of its double helix form.
The Watson/Crick paper contained evidence, see above image for an example. The Bible does not contain evidence.
Nobody makes a blind leap of faith in anything whatever. You have to have reasons.
So now you speak for everyone in the world. How interesting, but not entirely unexpected given your history. I offer myself up as someone who has no reasons, no evidence, for what he believes, his beliefs just are. Since like everyone I'm in part a product of my culture, likely that had a heavy influence (I do, after all, believe that God exists, just like everyone I knew of in the culture I was raised in), and I do believe the universe has a purpose, but I can offer no reasons, no evidence, no arguments for my beliefs. They are simply what I believe. I can't explain them or defend them, they just are.
And by the way, the word "faith" really properly only belongs to Christianity.
Gee, how did all the dictionaries miss this? The Online Etymology Dictionary begs to differ. This part is particularly informative:
quote:
From early 14c. as "assent of the mind to the truth of a statement for which there is incomplete evidence," especially "belief in religious matters" (matched with hope and charity). Since mid-14c. in reference to the Christian church or religion; from late 14c. in reference to any religious persuasion.
Modern dictionaries disagree with you, too.
It is its central tenet, that we are "saved by faith and not by works lest any man should boast." By believing that salvation comes through Christ's death on the cross we are saved. That is faith, and it is faith in "things unseen" based on our being convinced that Christ has the power and the will to do this for us.
This reads like a very nice statement of faith. Not evidence.
That is an active faith that accomplishes salvation. In reality there is no faith required in any other religion. Allah didn't do anything one has to have faith in, one just believes he is God and can tell us what to do. Pretty much the same with other religions. Faith is specific to Christianity, we have an actual Person whose character is presented on every page, in whom we are to have faith, meaning trust for salvation, trust to guide us, trust to protect us where promised, and so on. Allah doesn't promise such things so there is no need for faith. Hinduism says if you're good enough you may escape coming back as an animal. Where's faith required in that scenario? Buddhism says if you are adept at meditation you may achieve Nirvana and the extinguishing of the bad karma that would have you come back as an animal or put you in one or more of the Buddhist hells. If you have to work for your salvation faith is not involved. But we are to give ourselves up completely to Christ as the sole cause of our salvation. That's faith, total dependence on Him.
You have a record of poor accuracy when commenting on other religions, you've ignored the errors I pointed out that you've made about other religions earlier in this thread, so given the unlikelihood of a meaningful response from you about this I judge that it would be an unwise investment of my time to respond in any detailed way. I'll just repeat again that faith does not require evidence.
Because I recognize the truthfulness of the reporters and all those who have believed they really happened. They're very convincing if you pry yourself loose from your baseless prejudices against them.
I have no prejudices against the anonymous (excepting Paul) Biblical authors whatsoever. I just reject your claim that what they wrote is literally true and without error.
I think for most Christians answering that would involve describing our daily experience of evidences that it all works together in amazing ways, all of it mutually confirming.
Any objective evidence for this claim?
This idea that anyone could have the ability to design such a book is really so ludicrous it's beyond explaining.
A book with the qualities you've imbued in the Bible would indeed be amazing, but no such book exists.
People write what they know or believe with sincerity.
Welllll, sometimes yes, sometimes no, most times probably some combination. What we do know is that much persuasive writing has an agenda, and what we know of human nature tells us that most people involved in persuasion are flexible with the facts.
Even the Satan-inspired Mohammed...
And the evidence that Mohammed was Satan-inspired is...?
...was convinced of what he was writing.
Maybe. How would you know?
Nobody has the ability or the desire to invent such stuff, but especially the Bible.
Oh, yes, I'm sure a talking snake and a woman turning into a pillar of salt and a man spending three days inside a giant fish could not possibly be invented.
Only God would know enough to write the Bible.
The Bible was written by men. There's no evidence of contributions from anyone else, including God.
Anyway don't you think we've done this to death by now?
No, not really, mainly because you haven't yet mustered a rational defense of your position, but if you want to abandon yet another discussion that is something not under my control.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 540 by Faith, posted 11-09-2017 3:41 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 562 by Tangle, posted 11-10-2017 1:18 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 559 of 1540 (823459)
11-10-2017 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 544 by Faith
11-09-2017 11:15 PM


Re: how faith is based on faith, not evidence
Faith writes:
They aren't believable miracles and I don't even know if they are miracles. The comparison with Biblical descriptions of miracles is too pathetic to bother with.
Given the nature of your God for whom all is possible, there should be no such thing as an unbelievable miracle. You're dismissing rather than addressing the miracle of the split moon simply because it's non-Biblical and is not from your preferred religious book, in other words because of prejudice, not because you have any actual reasons.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 544 by Faith, posted 11-09-2017 11:15 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 560 of 1540 (823462)
11-10-2017 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 549 by Faith
11-09-2017 11:36 PM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
Faith writes:
Which of course is ridiculous if one is far and away of higher quality in every conceivable category of believability and sheer greatness of thought as Christianity so obviously is.
The only argument you've offered so far, if I may paraphrase, is "This religion does not have the same precise qualities as Christianity and so is a false religion."
Worse, most of your criticisms of other religions have been inaccurate or untrue.
So believe as you will, I've said all I can think of to say and failed to convince you so there's no point in continuing to beat my head against this wall.
How can you hope to convince people of the impossible, that there's a book called the Bible that is literally true and inerrant and that contains evidence of its truth and inerrancy, including the miracles and that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God who died to save us from our sins and to provide redemption and salvation?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 549 by Faith, posted 11-09-2017 11:36 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 561 of 1540 (823463)
11-10-2017 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 552 by Faith
11-10-2017 12:04 AM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
Faith writes:
Words written in an ancient book, certainly do not qualify for that.
That is just plain stupid, sorry.
Really? You're resuming with the insulting one-sentence content-free posts again? If religion is truly making you a better person, I'd hate to see the person you'd be without it.
Have you considered the possibility that your failure to persuade is due to the poor quality of your evidence and arguments and is not the fault of your audience?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 552 by Faith, posted 11-10-2017 12:04 AM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 569 of 1540 (823478)
11-10-2017 3:35 PM
Reply to: Message 564 by GDR
11-10-2017 2:05 PM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
GDR writes:
I think that you are showing that your point is invalid. What you call is information is evidence. If it wasnt there would be no longer the need to look for further information to either verify or discount the original account. Once again, it is about the strength of the evidence.
I couldn't make sense of this paragraph, but let me take another stab at it by rephrasing it. Would it be an accurate paraphrase to say, "I think your argument disproves itself. What you call information is evidence. If the information wasn't evidence then there would no longer be the need to look for further information to verify the original information."
Hmmm. I thought rephrasing would help me understand what you were saying, but I still can't make sense out of it, at least not as a response to what I said. I'll try explaining again.
A newspaper article that says, "The fingerprints at the crime scene matched the suspect's," is presenting information, not evidence, and wouldn't appear at trial. Images of the fingerprints at the crime scene and the fingerprints of the suspect is both information *and* evidence, and would be introduced as evidence at trial. The Bible contains information, not evidence.
As far as supporting evidence for the Gospel accounts there is actually quite a bit. For example here is a quote from Pauls first letter to the Corinthians written between 20 and 25 years after the crucifixion. Many of the eye witnesses would still be alive.
quote:
15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born,...
What in this passage resembles evidence to you? For example, what is the evidence of the "five hundred of the bothers and sisters"? Where is the evidence that tells us it was 500, not 400 or 600, and definitely not made up? What form would that evidence take? In a similar situation when Trump claimed the largest inaugural crowd in history, the evidence that he was wrong was made through the estimates of park police and photographs.
For another example, where is the evidence that "he appeared to Cephas"? It's just a statement of something that may or may not have happened. And if the earlier part of the story about Jesus is true, that he died on the cross, then most certainly the statement that after his death "he appeared to Cephas" must be false. Anyway, the Gospels disagree that Cephas (Peter) was the first to see the risen Jesus.
I don't have to go through each part of the passages to show that it is just describing a series of events without including a single bit of evidence. Stories are not evidence. This particular story contains a number of details (information) that are, at this point in time and even when Paul wrote them, unverifiable, and given their supernatural nature and religious connection, unlikely in the extreme to be true.
There was enough evidence for Paul that he gave up a life of privilege to serve Jesusmessage to his ultimate death after spending considerable time in prison for it.
A life of privilege? I thought he was a tentmaker. Anyway, Paul may have believed everything he said, maybe not. If he had evidence for what he believed then he never mentioned it, though he, like you, seemed to find that claiming (sic) "Lots of people saw it" was a very effective form of persuasion.
There were numerous messianic movements in the 200 year period after the Maccabees and all of them, failed when their leaders were put to death. Some of those failed messiahs had achieved some military success. Nobody later assumed that their messianic movement should continue. In Jesus we see a messiah who not only didn't achieve any military success but suffered the most shameful, humiliating death possible at the hands of not only the Romans but His own people. Paul is very aware of that by saying that he is not ashamed to preach a crucified messiah.
Again, you keep expressing this sentiment. We get it. You're saying, "What nut in his right mind would begin a religious movement by saying their leader had been humiliatingly crucified by the Romans." My own understanding of Paul's message, and I thought it was a common one, was that a return of the kingdom meant a kingdom not of armies and territory but of the spirit, and that the first victory was when Jesus overwhelmed the Roman's mere crucifixion by returning to life, reassuring and reinvigorating his followers, and then ascending to heaven. It seems a great and very effective story, not an unlikely one that proves itself true by its very unlikelihood, which seems to be your position.
Obviously something happened post resurrection, otherwise there is no reasonable explanation for the rise of the church.
What happened post-resurrection (a resurrection for which there is no evidence) is that Paul began his ministry with his message of a victory of the spirit over armies.
So, not only do we have the evidence of the Gospel accounts but we have supporting evidence in the Epistles and in the rise of the early Christian church.
I still see only unevidenced stories.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 564 by GDR, posted 11-10-2017 2:05 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 572 by kbertsche, posted 11-10-2017 5:08 PM Percy has replied
 Message 621 by GDR, posted 11-13-2017 3:44 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 571 of 1540 (823481)
11-10-2017 4:41 PM
Reply to: Message 567 by Faith
11-10-2017 3:25 PM


Re: Real faith, real knowledge
Faith writes:
When I said the concept of faith is really only a Christian concept, I supposed that it isn't even mentioned in the writings of other religions, certainly not in the same kind of context.
Your underlying premise, that other religions must be like Christianity in order to claim any legitimacy, is still false. There are no set of standards or criteria that religions must meet before claiming legitimacy (unless they're seeking tax-exempt status, but that's a completely different set of criteria ). I'm sure everyone on this thread is willing to grant that different religions are different, so you don't have to keep finding differences between Mormonism and Christianity, and between Islam and Christianity, and between Hinduism and Christianity, and all the rest. We get it. Different religions are different from Christianity.
But different doesn't mean illegitimate. Again, Christianity is not the standard by which all other religions are measured. There are no standards. Even if we grant for the sake of discussion that not a single other religion in the world encompasses the Christian concept of faith, that grants no religion any more or less legitimacy. At heart you're just revealing your prejudices against religions that hold beliefs different from yours, deeming them illegitimate just for not being Christianity. Of course, your prejudices extend beyond the realms of non-Christian religions and into the realms of Christianity itself, deeming whole classes of Christian religions to be non-Christian. If anyone has let intolerance be their guide, it is you. It's like you have some kind of religious xenophobia.
Faith is central to Christianity, it's all over the New Testament, we are to put our lives on the line if necessary for faith in Christ's gift of eternal life.
I hadn't heard this claim before. Where does the Bible say this?
I would, however, point out that Islam began in the seventh century after Christ and is known for incorporating parts of the Bible, weirdly twisted however.
How do you know which has it right, Bible or Koran? And please don't reply with your stock answer, "No other religion combines Christianity's unique qualities of...etc..." As I said above, we know religions are different, and we know "not-Christian" is not a synonym for wrong.
Yes I do get very impatient when unbelievers carry on as if they know better than Christians do what Christianity is all about,...
You get very impatient with everyone who disagrees with you, whether unbeliever, believer in God, or other Christians.
...and say stupid things as if we never thought of them ourselves and know they are false.
So if you "know" they are false then you must have the evidence showing that they are false. Yet when asked about evidence all you could do was point to unevidenced stories while repeatedly claiming they somehow represented evidence. Yet the thing we have the most evidence for in this thread is that you don't have any evidence for all the claims you make, particularly the claim that the Bible is full of evidence. The closest you came to making a religiously true statement was when you spoke of having faith in things unseen.
Yes I've already said all I want to say so far on this thread, barring something new that catches my attention.
So is this your way of announcing that you'll not be responding to the detailed responses to you that appear above, that you're basically resetting the thread and abandoning all the currently active lines of argument? How...consistent of you.
I took something like five years of reading about all kinds of religions before I became a Christian in my forties, and since then I've read hundreds upon hundreds of books on the subject and heard probably thousands of sermons, and in my old age I'm getting very impatient with know-nothings...
Ah, there's another display of Faith's good old Christian tolerance again.
...who feel free to pontificate against my accurate statements,...
If you do say so yourself.
I suppose I'm getting impatient with debate as such, what a waste of time in an atmosphere where so many are determined to kill the truth.
No one's trying to kill the truth. Probably what many of us are trying to do is discuss with you without setting off your hair trigger.
To get back to where you started your message, this thread is about faith. As long as you continue to insist on a definition of faith that claims it must be backed by evidence, then the main question is, "Where's the evidence?"
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 567 by Faith, posted 11-10-2017 3:25 PM Faith has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 574 of 1540 (823488)
11-10-2017 6:20 PM
Reply to: Message 572 by kbertsche
11-10-2017 5:08 PM


ting Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
kbertsche writes:
I think GDR is correct here. You are treating "evidence" in a Boolean fashion, and further are giving "evidence" a very restrictive definition. But in reality, there are different types of evidence and different strengths of evidence.
I remain puzzled that GDR is arguing the point. I at first thought he was supporting Faith's position that faith is backed by evidence, but he says no. But he also says that he believes the Bible *does* contain evidence, citing Corinthians 15:3-8. So I'm, as I said, puzzled. Why is he arguing that evidence exists in the Bible if his faith has no need of the backing of evidence?
So what's your position about faith and evidence? Does faith require evidence, otherwise there's no reason to believe, as Faith would argue the point? Or is faith something believed without evidence or perhaps without sufficient evidence?
I'm treating the word "evidence" the same way the dictionary treats it. There isn't an ounce of difference between us. Here's the Corinthians passage GDR gave as providing supporting evidence for the Gospel accounts:
quote:
15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born,...
Where do you see evidence in this passage?
A written record such as the gospels is indeed "evidence".
Well, let's get a little more accurate in characterizing the Gospels. They're not so much "written records" as they are religious works, and there are many religious works of great variety across all the world's religions. We're all very familiar with the nature of religious works.
So when you say the Gospels contain evidence, by which I assume you mean evidence of the details in their stories, then I have to ask, "Where is this evidence?" That census, for example. Where in Luke is the evidence for this census? All it says is that there was a census and that it was the reason for Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem. Where is the evidence for this census in any historical records of the period? Where is the evidence of a census anywhere and anytime in the history of the world that requires people to return to the town of their birth?
At the very least, it is evidence of what someone wrote at a specific time in history.
Yeah, I'll give you that, while keeping in mind that large numbers of scribal errors and insertions have been identified.
Most of us would agree that it is also evidence of what the writer and his followers believed.
Sure, but I don't think that's GDR's argument.
Whether or not the gospels are evidence of actual history is a separate question which must be evaluated on separate criteria.
It was my understanding that both Faith and GDR are arguing that the Bible contains evidence of the truth and accuracy of its own content, and it is this position that I am arguing against.
But this thread is really about faith, so there's no need to argue about evidence unless some want to insist that faith requires it.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 572 by kbertsche, posted 11-10-2017 5:08 PM kbertsche has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 576 by Faith, posted 11-10-2017 10:18 PM Percy has replied
 Message 579 by PaulK, posted 11-11-2017 2:06 PM Percy has replied
 Message 586 by kbertsche, posted 11-11-2017 10:42 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 589 of 1540 (823541)
11-12-2017 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 575 by NoNukes
11-10-2017 10:03 PM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
Sorry for the delay. Yesterday was a travel day and we're home now. What a shock, 80° yesterday morning and 22° this.
NoNukes writes:
All I'm really saying is that there's a difference between original evidence and descriptions of the original evidence. Original evidence is all that really counts.
Is that how you evaluate, for example, claims that Jews were tortured during World War 2? Do you think it is important that your descendants require the same kind of original evidence?
After this paragraph I'm going to leave this advance into near-Godwin territory because it tends to be a topic distraction (though I'm curious why you used the example of torture instead of mass murder), but my answer remains the same. Even books by Primo Levi, that most sincere of Holocaust survivors, contain only information or descriptions or whatever you want to call them whose accuracy can only be assessed by evidence. How else do you tell the difference between a work by Primo Levi and a work by a Nazi apologist but for evidence? Levi says Auschwitz was a Nazi extermination camp, the apologist says it was a work camp contributing to the war effort. Where in either's writing is there any evidence of which account is true?
I think you are expressing a hard line that nobody actually uses for anything and insisting that we apply it to the Bible when we don't apply it to anything else.
I think I'm applying the standard we apply frequently. How else does one distinguish between fact and fiction but for evidence? In this discussion some are claiming that the mere act of writing something down, or of something haven been written down, represents evidence. It doesn't, because people can write literally anything. What they normally can't do is fabricate evidence.
There is a difference between the accounts of Jesus ministry, his death, and his resurrection, and a story of Lincoln's life and death,...
You're covering a lot of territory here, both Jesus' and Lincoln's entire life and death. All these many, many accounts contain some things of undoubtable fact (e.g., perhaps a Jesus or Lincoln historian wrote at some point, "The sun rose each morning"), to some things that are easily possible but unevidenced (e.g., Jesus asked the servants to fill the jars with water), to some things that are clearly impossible *and* unevidenced (e.g., Jesus turned the water to wine).
So I'm asserting two things:
  1. Written material does not contain the evidence of its own truth or accuracy (beyond the trivial, like the example of the sun rising each morning).
  2. You can't judge the truth or accuracy of written material without evidence.
Some people are trying to turn it into a vote, where the more people who share an opinion the more likely it must be true, but this is the "50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong fallacy," plus we know how just during our lifetimes the course of the events of history have been reinterpreted. The recent Burns documentary on Vietnam is a good example, where our knowledge of events was hindered not just by the cloud of war, but by the flat out lying of our leaders. How many articles in the New York Times archives contain blatant falsehoods provided by the then administrations?
...but I sincerely doubt that you have accepted one account and rejected the other account based on anything like the line of reasoning you've used here.
While we haven't actually discussed Lincoln in this thread, I think you'll find that in this thread about faith that I would apply the same standards. For example, did president-elect Lincoln on his way to Washington D.C. really get whisked through Baltimore on a secretly scheduled train to avoid hostile crowds? If so, what is the evidence for this that has survived until today? Is it just words on paper? For the most part yes, and so how do you evaluate their truth and accuracy? It isn't actually an easy problem.
We read and trust the WSJ article because the WSJ has a long history of reliable and accurate reporting, and there is corroborating reporting from equally reliable sources
I am personally suspicious of stories I read in the WSJ.
I continued with the example of the WSJ that you introduced in your Message 535 just to be consistent. I don't actually read the WSJ myself because it's behind a paywall. Now I'm confused why you referenced a source you don't trust.
I think there is a tendency to give the stories in our modern publications more credence primarily because they are describing ordinary events. If I read an article in the WSJ or Scientific American about a perpetual motion machine, I would be extremely skeptical.
Agreed. Accounts of the miraculous *should* be viewed skeptically.
In short, the stories in the Bible are descriptions of extraordinary events, and you rightly or wrongly require stronger evidence before you will believe them. I believe that such behavior is completely logical.
Here we agree, but only because you didn't include the claim that the Biblical passages are their own evidence of their truth and accuracy.
A WSJ article about Trump's meetings in Asia? That's information.
I have no idea what point this statement makes. Is there something more here than an expression that you would accept such an account as factual? Should someone reading the same story 1000 years from now make the same assumptions that you make about the stories credibility, or would he simply say that the story is a statement of what people of that past millennium believed to be true?
Here you bring a key point to the forefront: the past is delicate and begins decaying the moment it forms. As much as we would like to preserve history, it isn't possible. A multiplicity of forces work against its preservation. For example, we would like to tear down the monuments to Southern heroes because they were erected long after the war as symbols of white supremacy, and this is something I now agree with, but it cannot be denied but in changing their locations or destroying them altogether that we are destroying the evidence of the history of the period when they were erected. Some may argue the damage is minor, some great, but it can't be denied that it is the destruction of history.
The march of the destruction of history proceeds through all facets of life. It happens whenever we change anything, because everyplace is a record of what happened there before. When you install your backyard swimming pool you're probably not destroying any history of note, but when we built Hoover Dam to create Lake Meade we destroyed a great number of archaeological sites. History is disappearing all the time, and how much we can trust the words left behind will always be a subject of argument.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 575 by NoNukes, posted 11-10-2017 10:03 PM NoNukes has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 595 by Phat, posted 11-12-2017 1:42 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 590 of 1540 (823542)
11-12-2017 10:29 AM
Reply to: Message 576 by Faith
11-10-2017 10:18 PM


Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
Faith writes:
And the gospels are clearly written records, description of actual events,...
And your evidence for this is?
...and your calling them "religious works," whatever that is, makes discussion with you impossible.
You're denying that the Gospels are religious works? Whatever else could they be? Will you next deny that Christianity is a religious faith? Will you next argue that the tenets of Christianity don't comprise a religion but a set of facts?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 576 by Faith, posted 11-10-2017 10:18 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 600 by Faith, posted 11-12-2017 5:53 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 591 of 1540 (823543)
11-12-2017 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 579 by PaulK
11-11-2017 2:06 PM


Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes:
I see evidence that Jesus was not physically resurrected.
Okay, I think you're saying you see evidence of a spiritual rather than physical resurrection. You contintue
The passage tells us that at the time of Paul - still quite early - the main line of argument for the resurrection was that various people claimed to have - in some sense - seen Jesus after his death, at various times. While the claims may have been (and likely were) exaggerated by the time of writing down, it seems likely that there was some basis for it.
So would I be correct in summarizing this as that you see words about claims of seeing Jesus after his death (whether spiritually or physically) as some kind of basis of evidence that such things actually took place?
Since one of these sightings was a visionary experience the qualifier in some sense is certainly needed. The passage gives no real details of any of them, so we can’t be sure what any of the other appearances actually were.
I'm glad you noted that Paul's experience was visionary, because in that Corinthiians 15:3-8 passage Paul makes no distinction between the way Jesus appeared to everyone else and the way Jesus appeared to him, not to mention that it occurred after the ascension.
Also, it is certainly odd that if Jesus were physically resurrected his followers would only know of it through scattered sightings.
Yes, that struck me, too.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 579 by PaulK, posted 11-11-2017 2:06 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 592 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2017 12:35 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 593 of 1540 (823545)
11-12-2017 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 586 by kbertsche
11-11-2017 10:42 PM


Re: ting Re: How Faith is based on evidence and yet a gift
kbertsche writes:
Likewise, evidence can be amassed both for and against the basic tenets of the Christian faith. I believe that the evidence for the Christian faith is strong and compelling. The atheists here believe otherwise.
I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a Christian, either. But isn't there a great deal of significant variation about what even Christians accept as "the evidence for the Christian faith"?
In the creed, Jesus' burial is presented as evidence that he really had died, and his appearances are presented as evidence that he had risen from the dead. Yes, there is certainly evidence presented in this early creed.
Where is there any evidence that Jesus existed, let alone that he was dead and buried and arose and appeared to many? Where you see evidence I see only words. If words are evidence then, "Jesus never existed, the miracles never took place, and Christianity is the invention of Paul," is evidence contradicting your claims.
(Sorry to be so brief in my reply; I am on vacation with little time and only an iPhone for internet access.)
What a coincidence! We just returned from vacation yesterday, and GDR is on vacation, too.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 586 by kbertsche, posted 11-11-2017 10:42 PM kbertsche has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 624 by kbertsche, posted 11-13-2017 10:15 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 594 of 1540 (823546)
11-12-2017 1:23 PM
Reply to: Message 592 by PaulK
11-12-2017 12:35 PM


Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes:
quote:
Okay, I think you're saying you see evidence of a spiritual rather than physical resurrection. You continue
If I had meant that I would have said it.
Okay.
I said and I meant evidence against a physical resurrection. In fact the reason I didn’t mention a spiritual resurrection is because the case against it is necessarily weaker than the case against a physical resurrection since it predicts far less.
Why does there need to be evidence against either a physical or spiritual resurrection? Doesn't the burden lie in the other direction to produce evidence that one or the other took place?
I take it as evidence that some people thought that they saw Jesus after he died. Not necessarily the exact list as given here (the 500, for instance is very likely an exaggerated number, even if that part is original, which is not certain)
How is it evidence rather than just a story with no supporting evidence?
The Ascension is only significant in the context of Christian belief (I don’t believe it had been invented at the time 1 Corinthians was written).
That's a significant detail I hadn't heard of before. If you're arguing that the Ascension is an invention, then why aren't you also arguing that the other events, like a resurrection and and appearances to individuals and to 500 or some number, are also inventions? What is different about these accounts that makes one of them seem like evidence to you that they may be based upon real events (even if the people were mistaken in some way and didn't really see Jesus), while the other seems unevidenced and an invention?
But yes, we know that the appearances don’t have to be physical - although cases of mistaken identity would be and it would hardly be surprising if there were some in there.
Why do there have to be any actual events forming a basis for such accounts? Why couldn't they just be invented?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 592 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2017 12:35 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 597 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2017 2:09 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 598 of 1540 (823565)
11-12-2017 4:44 PM
Reply to: Message 597 by PaulK
11-12-2017 2:09 PM


Re: The Evidence Of 1 Corinthians 15:5-8
PaulK writes:
quote:
Why does there need to be evidence against either a physical or spiritual resurrection? Doesn't the burden lie in the other direction to produce evidence that one or the other took place?
There doesn’t need to be, but the fact that the evidence is there, in their own scriptures really does undermine the Christian position.
Okay, I think I understand what you're saying now. When you look at this passage from Corinthians 15:3-8:
quote:
15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born,...
In this you see evidence against a physical appearance of Jesus? If so, I'm not seeing it myself. I know you said earlier that Paul's version of the appearance was visionary, and that the scattered appearances were odd, but where is the evidence against a physical appearance? Whatever it is you're looking at, calling it evidence, even negative evidence, implies, well, evidence. I just don't see any evidence, only stories. You say a bit more about this in the current message:
quote:
How is it evidence rather than just a story with no supporting evidence?
There has to be some reason why they said it. That it is based on something that did happen seems to me more likely than that it was a complete fabrication.
Why? Some argued that even if Clinton wasn't actually running a pedophilia ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor, that it is based upon something true seems more likely than that it was a complete fabrication. Why?
Or it could have been based upon some existing religious mythology.
If they were going to make something up, I would have expected something a bit more detailed and more impressive than people thinking they saw Jesus.
I understand your argument, but others might have different opinions (Faith, for example), and this isn't evidence.
Well, I’m hardly suggesting that there was a real resurrection. But the main reason for suspecting Luke/Acts to be full of invention and elaboration is that after Mark and Matthew go for a low key approach to the appearances in Galilee Luke/Acts follows on with more impressive and detailed stories which move the action to Jerusalem - with a story that seems to me to be aimed at denying the Galilee appearances - and the Luke/Acts Stories don’t agree that well with 1 Corinthians. Also consider that 1 Corinthians is notably earlier (and even then I think that the number 500 is an exaggeration, as I have already said)
I of course agree because it fits with my own characterization of the Bible as part truth, part fallacy, part internal or external contradictions or both, part unverifiable, part impossible.
There don’t have to be, but it seems more likely to me that something happened to spark the belief in the resurrection (it wouldn’t take much).
Sure. Throughout human history ideas have spontaneously arisen that captured people's imagination.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 597 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2017 2:09 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 599 by PaulK, posted 11-12-2017 5:22 PM Percy has replied

  
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