The Tension of Faith

You are pointing out things that in your curmudgeonly imagination are likely to happen; in other words you are making it all up.

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You are pointing out things that in your curmudgeonly imagination are likely to happen; in other words you are making it all up.

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Of course you are just lying as usual.In reality it would be quite amazing if the stories in the Gospels had not undergone considerable development (and in fact there are places in the Gospels where we can see development happening, even with written stories).Assuming that any of the Gospels is a simple and exact eyewitness account - as if it were recorded at the time of the events - is simply wrong. To say that any of the miracle stories has to be a full and accurate account is speculation indeed.To disagree with that speculation - to point out that there are more plausible alternatives is not speculation. Only if those alternatives were claimed to be fact would it be speculation.

It's hard enough having a discussion of views within one theological system but now you are creating the debate not just within Christian orthodoxy or even different Christian systems but between Christianity and Judaism. Christian orthodoxy doesn't recognize Judaism. The Old Testament is all about God's plan of redemption through the promised Messiah. Now that He's come many things are understood differently. But also, the Jews never did get it right anyway as the New Testament clearly shows in Jesus' conflicts with the Pharisees, so they aren't getting it right now either. You are wrong about the meaning of the commandment against adultery and the deeper meannig was in force in the OT as well as the NT, because Jesus is God who inspired all that too. Jesus is the God of both Old and new Testaments so of course the commandments always had the broader and deeper meaning He reveals in the NT. Giod unfolded His revelation in stages because people couldn't absorb it all at once. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Now that has to be among your silliest posts yet Faith.Of course Christianity recognizes Judaism; hell, Jesus was a Jew not a Christian.

This assumes that there is a right teaching distinct from all others. I have believed this to be true in the past but will throw the belief away for the purposes of this discussion.There may well only be one way to GOD, but you won't find it on TBN or the 700 club. You may successfully argue that it is found in the pages of the modern compilation of the books of the Bible, but critics here at EvC will test your character on this point and you won't be able to claim infallibility.

This is exactly what I was taught also. jar suggests that in order to sharpen my perspective, I should question it and even throw it away(suspend my belief) and examine it. My fundamentalist Christian friends urge me to be careful or I will commit the error found in 1 Timothy 4:1. My guess is that you likely agree with my friends.

Perhaps you should have titled your thread "The Tension of Christian Faith, a Discussion Limited to Christian Texts Only and Where Input From Other Faiths is Excluded". Gee, that's funny, many sermons I've heard about Jesus seem to mention something about him being a Jew. Plus there's the evangelical love affair with Israel. The OT is mostly about anything but. The NT is mostly mythology, while the OT includes a great deal of history. There can be no doubt that much OT history has evidential support, which is true of almost no NT mythology. There is evidence that John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate and Herod and Paul were real people, and obviously the gospel authors were real people since the words didn't write themselves, but anything else in the NT has to be taken on faith. Restating your position from scratch is neither argument nor rebuttal. If for you Jesus said it, you believe it, and that settles it, then that's fine, but unless you're merely preaching then there is a discussion that lies beyond your mere statement of position. That's an interesting take. Or maybe Jesus had nothing to do with the OT, while the NT merely tried to piggyback on the integrity and respect possessed by an existing religious text.--Percy

That's history for you.
Would you like me to present the argument in algebraic notation if specific quantities are bothering you? Its not contradictory to admit that there can evidence for and against a hypothesis, but to think that the evidence one way is strong enough to overcome the evidence the other way and thus to form a belief. The fun part about mathematical arguments is that they can actually be rebutted. So when you are prepared to move beyond describing things and move towards rebutting, please proceed. Can you provide an example of anything that for you isn't evidence?Remember, in this trivial perspective where a cat is evidence of lots of things - you have also conceded that John is evidence for things too.I've been talking about it being evidence for specific things. And my reasoning for this isn't 'because everything is evidence'.

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But you agree with Faith about John and evidence, and only because you think everything is evidence.

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This remains a false statement. Very certain, perhaps. Not 100% certain.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

History quantifies the unquantifiable? How very interesting. That's a rationalization, and not a very convincing one, for the fact that you believe both that miracles aren't real and that John contains evidence of miracles. If you enjoy making up "mathematical arguments" unconnected to reality then have fun, by all means, but why drag other people into your fantasies? Can I use my definition of evidence: "that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof"?
If so then I first have to ask what is it that you're trying to prove? Whatever it is, anything unrelated to it isn't evidence. To use our earlier example, nothing in Evidence Box A is evidence for Trial B. And nothing in the judge's robes is evidence for either Trial A or B.This is the way you yourself argue at times. Where you run adrift is when you start talking about John and how its mere existence is evidence of miracles, or when you say that any spoken or written words are evidence. Once I start tracing through the implications of such statements it doesn't take long before the conclusion that you believe everything is evidence becomes inescapable. Yes, I've conceded that *your* definition of evidence has those implications, but I don't agree with you that everything is evidence. I fully understand your denials that you believe everything is evidence, and I appreciate the patience with which you've treated my adamancy on this point, but what you truly don't believe is that everything is evidence of everything. You do believe everything is evidence of something. Not that you've shown so far. 100% certain.--Percy

Perhaps one of our sticking points revolves around the concept of evidence, the definition, and the idea that evidence is grounds for belief.That last point grinds on me for some reason. I always thought that belief was due to lack of evidence. as tangle may have said, if something is evident, it is a fact and not a belief.and nothing unevidenced is ever 100%.This reminds me of crashfrogs favorite argument...that Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence. I never agreed with that premise.

It is the attempt to build varying degrees of confidence about historical events. The probabilities are not strictly quantifiable and thus debates occur. So you say. Can you show it is true?Are you telling me that conflicting evidence for certain hypotheses doesn't exist in a variety of different fields, including science?Are you saying people can't believe one hypothesis over another in light of conflicting evidence? Still not ready to rebut the arguments? Show they are unconnected to reality if you can. Your assertions are getting us nowhere - tackle the arguments by showing them to be false or unconnected. Exactly what I said. So do you think everything is evidence too? If not, then neither do I. But not everything is evidence.John is a claimed witness account. This makes it evidence for the things attested to. Or reported as true. Or whatever. But I don't agree that everything is evidence for a given hypothesis.Everything is evidence in the trivial sense (my cat ownership is evidence I am crazy, John is evidence for early Christian beliefs...), which I had thought we had agreed was not worthy of discussion but you seem to insist on coming back to it. Well so do you, don't you? I mean its a trivial point, unrelated to any point I've been making in this thread but if you insist on bringing it up I'll clamber down the rabbit hole with you.

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My owning a cat may not be evidence that I own a dog, but it is evidence of many things cat-related, so my owning a cat *is* evidence.

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The cat ownership is evidence of something, right?

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Calling religious works like the Gospel of John evidence of what an early Christian community believed seems fine, or calling it evidence that Jerusalem existed at the time seems fine,

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So John is evidence for something.So is there anything which, in this ridiculously trivial sense, is NOT evidence for *something* according to you? I am saying John is evidence for miracles because it is my position that the witness accounts made by people that claim to be eye witnesses are evidence for the the things accounted for.I am not saying John is evidence because everything is evidence.So yes, it is a false statement. Your mere assertion doesn't elevate it truth, I'm afraid. And since that last statement is the central pillar of your argument, you can't really deny it can you? Well you can settle this whole thing right here. Prove it. Show how you achieved this 100% certainty.

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This reminds me of crashfrogs favorite argument...that Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence. I never agreed with that premise.

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It is true when used correctly. When evidence that should be present is not. The absence of any significant evidence for the Flood story in geology, archaeology and genetics is pretty good evidence that the Flood story is not literally true.To use an example where I clashed with Crashfrog:If the records of crucifixions under Pilate were preserved then the absence of a record for Jesus would be evidence that Jesus didn’t exist. However that is not the case. The fact that those records are completely missing is only evidence that they were lost. Since we shouldn’t expect to have an official record of Jesus’ crucifixion, the absence of the record isn’t evidence against Jesus existence in any way.

Hi Mod,I want to do justice to your post, but I notice our messages are getting longer again, so I'm going to boil this back down. Can I show what is true?That it's a rationalization of a contradiction? That's what a contrived explanation of an obvious contradiction is.That's it not very convincing? I think I'm on pretty firm ground in not finding convincing an attempt to explain away an obvious contradiction.That you believe both that miracles aren't real and that John contains evidence of miracles? That just repeats things you've said. Right. And when I said, "I just got back from Mars," you said that was evidence, too. Conspiracy theories were evidence. Beatrix Potter books were evidence. To you, everything is evidence, including the fictional and the impossible. I believe you. How would you prove Santa Claus doesn't exist? Prove miracles don't exist the same way.--Percy

.Edited by Percy, : Accidental dup.

Let's start with the contradiction. I've given my argument why there is none. You have not given an argument as to why there is. No. I've said eyewitness accounts are evidence {for a given hypothesis}. Not everything.Your Martian claim, taken as a witness account would be evidence.I did not say conspiracy theories were evidence {for conspiracy theories}. I said there was evidence for conspiracy theories.I did not say Beatrix Potter stories are evidence for the Beatrix Potter stories. It's your claim, so show me.