You say a lot here, but the main point seems to be that the term "supernatural" is misleading because it implies that the supernatural is not of this universe, when the reality is that it is very much part of this universe, just unmeasurable.
Something like that. It's not outside natura as the term implies, there is nothing outside nature except God Himself.
Miracles ARE physical, of course. There's a problem with talking about the supernatural in general which includes a lot of nonphysical realities, beings or entities anyway, that are nevertheless natural and not supernatural, because they are part of the the created order. It's just hard to get all this said clearly, and some of it is also just beyond our understanding.
But a miracle could occur where it can be measured and analyzed. There is nothing in the Bible prohibiting God from performing a miracle in a laboratory. I understand we should not test the Lord our God, but he could do it if it chose, right? And isn't that proscription just a bit too convenient?
God does not want you to know, He wants you to believe, and as Jesus said to Thomas, He wants you to believe the witnesses He has provided. He has no interest in proving anything to everybody, all the God haters and scoffers. There's enough evidence to persuade you if you had an honest desire to know these things. For we "walk by faith and not by sight." Make use of the actual evidence given, He's not going to give anything more.
ABE: What exactly would be accomplished by God's performing a miracle in a laboratory anyway? It's still a one-time event that would be evidenced only by witnesses. Photos? YOu think that would persuade anyone?
I guess you just can't trust anything I say. Nothing I can do about that.
You could learn good judgement and demonstrate it.
Or in the short term you could actually discuss the issues and provide real evidence.
But if you are going to go on trusting people who say things you like no matter how untrustworthy they are, and go on claiming to have good evidence and good arguments when you obviously don’t - then of course your unsupported assertions aren’t going to be believed. It is the only sane response.
Well, it IS the evidence, the only evidence there is, I have nothing else to offer you, and you accuse me of bad judgment etc. just because you don't like that fact and there is nothing I can do about that. It's all there is, sorry. It's been enough to persuade millions, but you and Percy can be holdouts if you like.
Well, it IS the evidence, the only evidence there is, I have nothing else to offer you,
So? That doesn’t make it good evidence. If that's all you have,
The evidence available, all witness evidence, is quite sufficient, even, yes, good evidence. The witnesses are trustworthy to anyone able to make such judgments, and Jesus says so anyway.. Your judgment is seriously lacking, and of course that I cannot help.
if you can’t answer the reasons why it is poor and inadequate evidence - and you certainly haven’t - then that is your problem.
I don't have a problem at all because proving anything to you is impossible. Your reasons are just a lot of hot air out of a prejudiced mind. The manner of the writers of the NT and the quality of the witnesses are unimpeachable to anyone who can think clearly.
Just insisting that it is good evidence despite that and blustering and bullying as you always do is neither honest nor productive.
As I said, I'm sorry I have nothing more to offer. And your accusations don't amount to an argument.
Millions have been persuaded by religions you regard as false.
No, millions have NOT been "persuaded" by other religions. People are either born into them, or as in the case of the original "converts" to Islam, dissenters were murdered by Mohammed until those remaining were intimidated into accepting his demon-inspired religion. At first he couldn't get any followers at all, but the sword does work wonders. Only Christianity actually persuades, because of its inherent attractiveness and believability.
According to the Revelation many people are supposed to be persuaded to worship the Beast.
Well, that's easy. The Beast represents ordinary fallen human nature under the influence of demon "gods," it's the default position for those whose minds have been poisoned against the truth.
Aside from the fact that you give no credit to the persuasive efforts of the proselytisers - itself a big omission - that’s not a good argument. It doesn’t say anything about the actual quality of the evidence.
The evidence is wonderful, a matter of appropriate facts in human context and besides, according to Christian theology, it is God who chooses anyway.
Reality doesn’t have to be the way you want it to be.
Imagine that!
We don’t have to pretend that reality is the way you want it to be.
I wouldn't dream of it!
We don’t have to accept that your evidence is good evidence just because it’s the only evidence you have.
It never occurred to me that you would.
If you can’t rationally answer the criticisms of you evidence then you lose. Too bad.
Losing a debate at EvC is pretty much evidence in itself of being right.
The evidence is more than sufficient, and further evidence is that Christianity turned the western world from a demon-run superstitious nightmare that left newborn babies and the sick and elderly out to die from exposure, mistreated women and slaves among others, into a nearly rational compassionate civilization.
= FaithThere have not been MILLIONS of converts to Islam or any other religion even over the long centuries, as there have been to Christianity.
That is a really stupid false assertion Faith.
Islam began with a group even smaller than Christianity
It didn't even begin with a "group," it began with Mohammed, period. He'd been sitting in a cave listening to a demon that called itself "Gabriel," whose doctrines he then combined with his very inadequate understanding of the Bible to create the Koran. When he tried to get people to accept it he got a few family members but that's all for some number of years, until he got the bright idea of killing people who wouldn't accept it. That sure speeded things up.
and expanded rapidly to include most of the civilized world and over an area far larger than Christianity. It expanded by add new converts.
Converts t the point of the3 sword, jar, not people who were persuaded by the message. And what it did was displace the Christianity that had covered the Middle East to that point. Which was probably God's judgment on Chrsitianity for its deviation into the false doctrines of Roman Catholicism, which was formally created about the same time though it had been devolving in that direction for a few centuries. See History of Romanism by John Dowling.
For a brief history of Islam see this quick video presentation, or even just a few minutes at the beginning, by Brigitte Gabriel who has studied the history of Islam:
That's the one where she did the blitz history of Islam, but there are lots more videos of her at You Tube.
Dr. Bill Warner is another who exposes the realities of Islam but most of his videos are much longer and I couldn't pick out one I thought was the very best for an overview, but HERE'S the You Tube page for your perusal.
Buddhism began like Christianity with one teacher and students yet expanded by adding converts.
To be a Buddhist adept at meditation like the Buddha himself is way out of the range of most people's abilities. If you are depending on reaching Nirvana for your salvation, you have to be one of the very very few. but Buddhism has a basic cultural side too that involves worship at shrines, and converting to that is mostly a matter of exchanging one cultural religion for another. If you know any actual historical facts about its spread please describe them.
Christianity spread on the other hand by persuading people of all cultures to the salvation offered by Christ, through the revelation of His deity and character.
Those are facts Faith, not your fantasies.
I've given no fantasies and as far as I can see you've given no facts.
If there are more than a million Muslims or a million Buddhists then once again reality shows you are wrong.
Islam was spread by the sword, that can rack up an enormous number of "converts" in a very short period of time, certainly not by persuasion. And then of course it multiplied from generation to generation in families because unlike Christianity it doesn't require any special true conversion like being born again.
AbE: An interesting aside is that there are currently about twice as many Muslims worldwide as Protestant Christians and many Protestant Christians are active opponents of teaching Biblical Inerrancy, Creationism, Young Earth and Special Creation. It seems Faith does not represent a major religious force in the world.
I do indeed represent the historical beliefs of orthodox Christianity, especially as laid out in the Protestant Reformation after the centuries of Roman Catholic deviation from the truth. And I have pointed to various organizations where the orthodox faith is still carried on in great numbers. But Islam and Catholicism both outnumber us, as hereditary systems would be expected to do.
As I reminded Faith, Jesus appeared to people after the resurrection time after time, so obviously miracles are not "one time events".
Each appearance was a one-time event, Percy, that didn't leave anything but witness evidence. You can't study something that leaves only witness evidence. At least according to you. If you took that evidence seriously you could indeed study it, but you don't.
Besides that, things that actually happen leave evidence behind.
What evidence would you expect to see after the Red Sea had closed over again, that actually would demonstrate that a miracle had occurred? Or after the pillars of cloud and fire that had guided the Israelites were no longer present? Or after the manna had all been consumed. Or after the wet sacrifice was consumed by God's fire on Elisha's altar? Or after the poor widow's pots of oil had all been used up that had been miraculously filled? Or even the full pots of oil for that matter? What would you see that would prove to you that a miracle had occurred? Wouldn't you need to believe the woman herself? Or have been there to witness it yourself? Likewise with all Jesus' miracles. Can you name even one that would have left any kind of physical trace, as opposed to merely the witness testimonies, to tell you a miracle had occurred? Say you saw the wine Jesus had turned to water. Would seeing it prove that miracle had occurred? Or say you saw Lazarus alive after Jesus had raised him, and even the smelly cloths he had been wrapped in. Would that prove to you he had been brought back to life from death? Can you think of even one miracle that would leave a trace that would convince you that a miracle had occurred?
Most evidence from 30 AD hasn't survived until today, but it is claimed that miracles continue to happen and that they are witnessed by millions. Fine. Where's the evidence of these miracles, the recent ones? I gave you a list of contemporary miracles at Religion's Top 10 Astonishing Miracles, so select one of those and let's see if science has anything to say about it. Or select any other contemporary miracle you like.
I guess I missed that. Why don't you select one and explain how it wouid have left the traces that would prove to you there had been a miracle?
Under Roman Catholicism a few European tribes were converted at swordpoint or by the conversion of the tribe's king, but it was very rare, not the standard operating procedure we see in Islam's history.
Everything about Islam contradicts Christianity. Gabriel was a demon because God would send no true angel to contradict His once and forever revelation.
None of the writers of the New Testament are "anonymous," all are identified in many ways. And orthodox Christianity does not recognize any contradictions, sorry, they're all the failure of careless readers to make the accurate connections.
As I said, telling the supernatural from the natural is no harder than telling when you are experiencing something while awake or dreaming. It takes no superpowers at all. Even you could do it.
Really. It's that easy. Like when Mary Magdalene gazed upon the resurrected Jesus and supposed him to be the gardener in John 20:14-15?
She knew she was seeing an actual man, Percy, He was no apparition and she knew she wasn't dreaming. Recognizing Him is something else, having to do most likely with her complete inability to imagine Him still alive so simply assuming He was someone else, a gardener being the most likely guess in that setting. And she saw her mistake right away when He spoke anyway.
But he was a real man in any case, which was perfectly clear to her, not even an apparition that one can tell is external and real and not a dream even if it isn't physical. Jesus was fully physical though changed.
And you say this as if you have a lot of experience recognizing the supernatural. Pardon me for, well, let's just say you're talking through your hat.
I've had a fair amount of experience as a matter of fact, most of it during the period when I was avidly studying religions and the occult before I became a Christian, including conversations with other people who had had such experiences, in other religions or just spontaneously. There is no confusing any kind of supernatural event, apparition or whatnot, with a purely mental event such as a dream.
The apparition I saw was an impersonation of a mentally disturbed homeless man who had threatened me on the street one day. My best guess is that the man was demon possessed and it was a demonic impersonation that appeared in my room threatening me again. He disappeared in a flash when I invoked Jesus Christ. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end.
I did once have a frightening vivid dream I suddenly woke up from. I knew it was a dream, it was not an apparition, it was a dream of a threatening furious monster of some sort, but it was frightening to the point of my knees actually knocking together, which had never happened to me before. I stopped feeling frightened when I prayed. But there was no doubt this was a dream in my own mind, while the apparition was actually in the room with me.
"Not been established." How many times do I have to point out that you can't verify the existence of something that occurs once and leaves only the evidence of witnesses. Well, you COULD establish it by accepting that witness evidence, as Chrsitians do, but since you wont', no supernatural for you.
This is, again, a Tinkerbell argument. Things that are real are real for everyone, not just for those who believe.
Yes and if you saw an apparition as I did you too would know it was real. The reason I think I had such experiences is that I was heavily involved in reading about religions and the occult, and even practicing some occultic oracles. That sort of thing will open a person to such experiences. I actually felt the atmosphere around me to be sort of electrically charged at times during that period. Believe me, well no don't bother since you would rather believe your own theories than anything any witness has to say, but I do know the difference between the real physical world and intrusions from some other world, and dreams and other phenomena my own mind produces. And I wasn't even doing drugs.
Actually no. They really do merely believe it because they are habituated to it, they really have no evidence for it at all, they just grew up in it, they've learned its rituals, but that's it. Sometimes demons may manifest in other religions but all thqt proves is the supernatural, not anything like Christianity's claim to be the revelation of God.
This is a paragraph full of nonsense and self-serving unsupported assertions.
And yours is a paragraph full of ignorant prejudice.
The reality is that Christians are as "habituated" to their religion as adherents to other religions are to theirs.
Some are, but it's not how one becomes a Christian, though people may deceive themselves about that. You have to be born again to be a Christian, whether you grew up in it or converted later as I did.
They have the same kind of evidence you have. There is no evidence of demons. Christianity's claim to be the revelation of God is nothing more than a claim, let alone evidence of the Christian God, or any God or gods at all. You and all the other religionists of the world are merely doing whatever it is you have to do to fill a need that many (most?) people have for a higher purpose in life.
How certain you are of your absolutely unevidenced unexperienced purely theoretical prejudices, and you apparently even think you are a mind reader. People who know about all these things might as well not bother explaining any of it to you. It is at points like this when the futility of discussion here leads me to think it's over, and more than that to wish it was over, sometimes causing me to declare that it's over. But I'll not do that this time since who knows what nonsense I'll be called upon to answer next.
Your next paragraph just declares your beliefs without support. I'll comment on a few.
Christianity does have evidence and not only evidence for the miracles in the Bible,...
You have words in a book, not evidence, and true faith doesn't demand evidence.
Comparing Christianity to the other religions is beyond ludicrous. What are you afraid of? That a comparison might reveal Christianity a religion like any other?
Christianity IS the yardstick by which all other religions SHOULD be judged,...
There are no yardsticks. How could there be any yardsticks since there are no rules for what makes a religion? You're really just cheering for your team, which has no effect on the action on the field.
...and it gives an explanation for all of them as the work of demons because of the Fall;...
You're getting deep into woo now.
...and ARE judged by Christians,...
Ah well. See, this discussion SHOULD be over. It should never have been started.
I'm sure there are equally rigid adherents of other religions who judge Christianity.
Of course there are. But a careful, honest and literate study should reveal the huge differences. I won't hold my breath.
Yes I keep making claims. Christianity is not built on the kind of evidence you are all insisting on here although as I've said I consider its witness evidence to be quite sufficient, and it has lots more of that than any other religion has.
Huge differences include the fact that it's mostly history intended to demonstrate the reality and character of God.
You will not find that in any other religion. And you certainly won't find the very human accounts given there, that do not whitewash the character of the people but honestly report on their achievements and failures, the people in both Testaments.
The histories were written by many people over many centuries too, continuing the accounts of God's doings in the world in different cultural contexts and historical eras. I don't know how many witnesses Buddha had, but we know Mohammed was the sole author of the Koran, the whole thing was based on his own experience with "Gabriel" and his own bad readings of the Bible. The Bible requires two or three witnesses to establish any case, and the Bible itself gives us many more than two. One single man who gets the Bible all wrong and produces a bunch of instructions from the moon god Allah is not exactly a trustworthy witness beyond any of the attempts you all are making to discredit the good witnesses that wrote the Bible\.
The Bible describes many miracles that only God could do, that are described in context sometimes with much detail, and reasons given for them, as one would expect for something real, and all of them for the purpose of demonstrating the character of God Himself, which is the main purpose of the Bible, and of course His plan to save us from sin and Satan's rule.
You came up with two unlikely miracles, and you suggest no context whatever for the split moon, why it happened or anything to validate it. Far as you go it seems like a perfectly gratuitous meaningless event. The cobra to shield Buddha is interesting in contrast to the miracles Jesus did which were done BY Him and not for Him, miracles He did out of compassion or kindness for others. Did Buddha do any miracles? Did Mohammed? Did they die to save you from your sins?
All in all the Bible teaches us about God Himself, enough to learn to love and worship Him, enough to learn what His laws are, how He judges people and nations, what righteousness is, how we fall so short of it which is why we would all go to Hell if He hadn't sent us Jesus to save us from that.
The Bible is also notable for its prophecies that begin back in the Garden of Eden with the promise of sending a Redeemer to save us, through the woman, who would crush the head of the serpent, who is later revealed to be Satan. The interwoven historical and prophetic complexities of the biblical revelation over many centuries are enough to distinguish it from the other religions.
And Christianity did just about singlehandedly transform western civilization from a motley bunch of violent pagan tribal cultures with their pagan tribal religions to a civilization that formulated its laws for the general good of humanity because of the goodness of God that it taught. The Bible is presented to be believed. Repent and believe, we are told. The message of the Bible is to be preached, preached in all the world.
It has nothing in common with myths and legends but of course that's a matter of personal judgment so all I can say is that anyone who thinks it does has warped ability to judge such things.
"A demon-run superstitious nightmare" seems just as descriptive of Christianity as what came before. You know, I bet the Romans echoed much the same sentiments as you: "Boy, those Greeks, what a superstitious nightmare of a religion they had - we're so much ahead of them what with Jupiter and the rest."
Actually, no. The Romans were quite happy to copy the Greeks, or any other culture for that matter, if they had something they wanted. Jupiter was their name for Zeus, and all the other Greek gods had their Roman counterparts. They had no problem with Greek religion. But they DID have a problem with Christianity since Christians would not bow down to any of their many gods, only the one God of the Hebrew scriptures.
But I believe you are right that this discussion has been over for some time. The problem is that I keep being drawn to answer further enormities you all post here long after it's over by any reasonable \measure.
ABE: The context of the growth of the religions I've had in mind is the early years when they spread out, Christianity predominantly by the preaching of missionaries, through its inherent appeal, Islam by the sword, and others probably just by cultural accommodation in their own part of the world. By now the anti-Chrsitian forces have been hammering so long at the only true religion they've succeeded in convincing people of all the lies about it that are promoted here. But the Church has been deteriorating as well under this onslaught and lost much of its moral and intellectual power, And meanwhile Islam keeps growing because of its high birth rate. The main point I was making was that Christianity is inherently appealing, and it is, in its early years it spread rapidly by preaching alone across the Middle East and Europe. Now the world is sliding back into the paganism Christianity supplanted, much of Europe has given up the religion that made it great. The Antichrist is on the ascendant.
Truly I'm not just defending Christianity because it's my religion. I believe that objectively it is the one true and only religion, the only one that presents the one true God, is based on historical realities and written by men guided by God. I saw its superiority early on in my study of religions and was drawn to it. I happened to be interested enough to continue reading about it over the years, so I learned a lot that just kept building on that.
It reveals among other things that all the other religions are man-made with the help of the fallen angels who have ruled this planet since the Fall of Adam and Eve. Jesus calls Satan "the prince of this world" because he won the right to rule us at that time. His mission as Savior was to defeat Satan which He did at the cross, saving from his clutches all who will believe in Him. "To save us all from Satan's power" says the Christmas carol that starts out telling merry gentlemen not to dismay because Christ has come. Another says "The Lord is come, let Earth receive her King" and says His salvation extends "far as the curse (the Fall) is found. Another says "Long lay the world in sin and error pining till He appeared and the soul knew its worth." I love that line, there is nothing about the worth of the human soul in other religions. "A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious Day." You will get nothing remotely like this in any other religion.
Other religions simply aren't true, only Christianity is given to us by God Himself. Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life, and no-one comes to the Father except by Him." And at the risk of offending people who insist the religions must all be valid paths to God, or that theirs is right and Christianity is wrong, all I can say is that the others will not save you but Christ can and will if you wish Him to.
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