The Tension of Faith

This is the kind of preacherish, made-up, wishful-thinking twaddle that turns people off religion.I used to be able to laugh this sort of nonsense off, but these days it just makes me angry - particularly when it's targeted at children.

I think you need to be clear about what atheists are saying.There's no equivalence in an atheist saying that they can't prove that god doesn't exist, or that there's nothing that isn't simply natural - that's a simple statement of objective fact - and you believing in a risen Christ.No atheist would agree that there was even a theoretical chance that Christ rose from the dead. Nope, that for you to prove. You have an active belief in something, atheists just don't.

This sentence shows all sorts of hidden prejudice.What is the crime that I am admitting to? And why is it some form of honesty to do it?

Under the circumstances, it's difficult to imagine it was directed at anyone else.....But I'm not bothered whether it was at me, at a different atheist or at all atheists generally, your language betrays an interesting prejudice. Atheists apparently are guilty of something and are hiding it. What is it? Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

It odd then that you keep repeating the claim. That's because such a claim needs evidence to support it. And not just any old evidence, really strong evidence because it flies in the face of all our knowledge of our physical world. And you have none at all. Which you admit next: Your entire belief system depends on the writers of your antique book being correct - and you don't even know who the authors were!

Well I think you just disproved the existence of god.If what you say is true, then I would believe what you believe. His message has not been conveyed has it?In fact it's been so unsuccessfully conveyed that the various interpretations of it have have created believers that have killed each other over its meaning for centuries.
Your God must be the poorest communicator the world has ever seen.

Can't you see what might be wrong with that? Or that?Was it God's desire to only give a message to only those he wanted to get the message or to those who already believed? If so how could anyone believe?

It seems that this god of yours that loves us so much only loves a few of us enough to give this gift to. This is a really, really bad father that is not only incompetent at communication but also has favourite children to whom he gives valuable gifts whilst eternally abusing those he's decides he doesn't like.That's one horrible god you've got there Faith.

How revolting is that? Your father's love is conditional. Yeh, you know that eternal damnation you're always talking about and that you are saved from? Well obviously not. Can you work out why? You and your kind say that, god himself is mute. Right so the whole enterprise is totally random I just watched an eleven year old child die of bone cancer. It took almost 2 years. It almost destroyed everyone around them. Don't give me that shit Faith. Just don't.

Just to add to the 'what is evidence?' bit, John's writings would not be allowed into a court of law as evidence because it is hearsay.Unless John actually witnessed the events he is describing - and probably also making contemporaneous notes of it - it can not be included as evidence.Hearsay is remarkably close to heresy......

It's shorthand. The bible is evidence that someone wrote some stories known as the bible.Beyond that you have to specify the claim and the evidence that it's trying to support.So is the story in the bible of the feast of Cana evidence that water was turned into wine? Obviously not, it's evidence only of a claim. The story requires corroboration before it can be taken seriously.If this was a crime we'd call the claim an allegation. The police would then investigate the allegation for corroborating evidence. No further evidence, no prosecution.

And as you observe every creationist that comes her lying through their teeth and being and remaining wilfully ignorant it must only reinforce this obvious truth. Our very own Faith is a great example of how dangerous irrational belief and certainty is and how it flies against everything Jesus himself taught.If you want further proof watch a few atheists, you'll find them to be perfectly normal people just as capable of 'resisting selfish motives,' as you put it as anyone else. (Of course they would never use that kind od masochistic language.)

I think you and Percy are just going round in circles.It's clear that the bible is not evidence that any of the things written in them are/were real, just that someone - we don't even know who - wrote them. Not if we're following any modern-day scientific or legal evidential standards anyway.The existence of some historical artifacts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls are real evidence that those stories existed at the time.But to be properly evidential, the accounts really need to be written by eye witnesses contemporaneously - and even then you'd need to have other corroborating evidence to justify accepting the stories as anything but mythology similar to the Norse legends.The miracles in particular, would necessitate a quantity and quality of evidence that's just impossible to create in a iron-age social system.

I must have missed that. Scientific enquiry has evidential standards and the bible doesn't meet them by a country mile. What we're left with would be of only passing interest to a few niche historians if it wasn't for the whole edifice errected on it. But that's exactly all it can do. Without further corroberation, it's just another book of fables. The world is full of them. Well of course, it's stuffed full of folk knowledge recycled from generations before.And of course it's also riddled with inconsistencies and stuff that these days we call utterly immoral. But none of it meets any evidential standard whatsoever.

History is definately the discipline that applies, but only because there's nothing else. It's the best we have but it's still zip as far as evidence for the stories within them. We have some writings which we can all accept are historical and tell us something about a few people and their mythology at the time. But it's only evidence of somebody writing some stories at the time. And that's cobblers. The flood story in the bible is just a story. And it's obviously preposterous with vast amounts of real evidence proving that there was never any such thing as a global flood which is it's entire meaning. It doesn't provide the evidence that the story it is meant to support.But when you add it to other similar stories from other cultures around the time it becomes more interesting because it creates an alternative hypothesis - a local flood - but that's all, there still needs to be actual evidence to support the stories. (Which there is.) It would be absolutelty staggering if stories about the Middle East didn't contain something non-fictional about the Middle East. In fact, if it didn't it we'd call it pure fantasy. But that is totally beside the point, the point is whether the events happened the way they are described or not. For that we need something beyond the stories. Actual evidence.