Creation, Evolution, and faith

You are correct. It is hard to get Christians to be able to defend their faith through reason and/or apologetics. It's pretty sad really. Most Christians go to church on Sundays, hear a sermon, go home, and never open their Bible, let alone a commentary, and study. Same can be said for allot of evolutionists though and by that I mean the layperson on the street. Obviously this board is a rare case of both sides trying to learn the others arguments and increase their knowledge in both the area of evolution and creation.Now, as far as evidence goes, if you're looking for laboratory tested evidence for the Bible, you won't get but there is more then enough historical evidence that validates many parts of the Bible. If I can believe that C was written X amount of years ago by Y author, and that fact can be validated through archaeology, the fulfillment of prophecy, the structure of scripture, and ancient history, then I can logically and reasonably believe other parts of the Bible. One small example, for a couple of thousands of years, many doubted the real existence of Pilate. Ultimately, in 1961, his name was found on an archeological inscription confirming from an outside source that indeed, Pilate did in fact exist and was a real person.http://www.biblehistory.net/Pontius_Pilate.pdfIf you read this link, you'll see that other things have been found, such as written letters confirming that Pilate had Jesus crucified just as the Bible says. Is this a scientific proof such as confirming that mutations occur?? Yes, and no. Yes, archeology is a science, no, it's not mixing chemical A with chemical D to get a result in a lab. This is just one small example where you can see that LOGICALLY and without "blind faith", one can believe the Bible (this part at least for the sake of the example). Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Just for clarification, I didn't throw out McDowell's name necessarily because he's famous, but because he came to Christianity through what he says is reason and evidence. If you don't believe that, take it up with him. I know converts from both side claim reason and logic and in the case of the Christian to Atheist convert, usually science. I apologize on my ignorance, I can't comment on Strobel. I just made a post before I read yours on just one of the archeological finds, one of hundreds, maybe thousands that independently validate parts of the Bible. I'm not going to list them all here as book upon book has already been written on the subject. My simple point is, it isn't blind faith for me at this point. Maybe it is for some who just don't care to study these things and have to be able to defend their faith. I have logically but A, B, C, D, ect together to come to the conclusion that the Bible is believable. Do I have to take certain things on faith? Of course, but because I, and it can be proven through the things I listed in my previous post, have evidence of much of the Bible, why should I not logically believe all of the Bible.

Because there are parts of the bible, the Noachian Flood for example, that are contradicted by massive amounts of physical evidence showing that it could not have happened without suspension of known physical processes.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Now, as far as evidence goes, if you're looking for laboratory tested evidence for the Bible, you won't get but there is more then enough historical evidence that validates many parts of the Bible.

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And plenty to contradict other parts.

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If I can believe that C was written X amount of years ago by Y author, and that fact can be validated through archaeology, the fulfillment of prophecy, the structure of scripture, and ancient history, then I can logically and reasonably believe other parts of the Bible.

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Except that there are NO convincing examples of fulfilled prophecies from the Bible. There are quite a few failed prophecies, though.

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One small example, for a couple of thousands of years, many doubted the real existence of Pilate. Ultimately, in 1961, his name was found on an archeological inscription confirming from an outside source that indeed, Pilate did in fact exist and was a real person.

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http://www.biblehistory.net/Pontius_Pilate.pdf

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You will note that the page you link to does not claim that Pilate's existence was doubted. Instead it lists evidence that was already known that he DID exist (most notably Philo). Do you have any evidence that this evidence was ignored ? Because there seems to be real reasons to doubt it.

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If you read this link, you'll see that other things have been found, such as written letters confirming that Pilate had Jesus crucified just as the Bible says.

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No, you won't find any such thing. You will find a claim that there WERE such letters, but they have not been found. (The "Acts of Pilate" we have today are known to be a forgery).

There is zero evidence that would validate the Bible as the inerrant word of God, and there is more than enough evidence to contradict that.There is plenty of evidence to validate the Bible as a compilation from Jewish folklore and tradition, and to validate that some of it reflects history.We need to be clear about what is and what is not validated by the available evidence.

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Just for clarification, I didn't throw out McDowell's name necessarily because he's famous, but because he came to Christianity through what he says is reason and evidence.

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One of many that falsely make that claim. The quality of his arguments says otherwise. I'm surprised that you haven't heard of Strobel, his Case For.. series of books seem to be quite popular.

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I just made a post before I read yours on just one of the archeological finds, one of hundreds, maybe thousands that independently validate parts of the Bible.

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I'm aware of much of the archeological evidence and it does very little to validate the religious claims of the Bible. It's not difficult to get a few things right. On the other hand - to name a few examples, we can be pretty sure that there was no literal Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood didn't happen, the Babel story is a myth and that if the Exodus had any basis in fact at all it was a much smaller event.I have to say that apologetics are one of the most convincing arguments against Christianity. The falsehoods and the open displays of bias and illogic show a desperate need for support that isn't there. Much of it is so phony that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the whole religion is phony, too.

What about the Iliad then? We have evidence for much of that as well. Why do you not believe in Zeus?Note: This is not some cheap shot, Flyer, think the implications through. You claim you believe the bible because "much" is evidenced through the archaeological finds (how much is a debate for another thread), then why do you not believe all of the Iliad on the same principle? We have uncovered the entire city of Troy! Is that not enough right there?Edited by Huntard, : Typo

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I explained that Titus 2:13 claims the deity of Christ,

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What evidence and reasoning was used to reach this conclusion?

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I thought I explained this?? The text is our "data" and its grammatical structure can be considered evidence. We analyze the grammatical structure using reason, and conclude that the GS rule applies to it. We apply the GS rule, and through reasoning we conclude that Paul viewed Jesus as God.

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His rule essentially says that in a phrase like "the God and father" the two nouns form a compound; this could be illustrated as "the (God and father)" For Titus 2:13, this would imply "the great (God and savior) of us, Jesus Christ"

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This does nothing more than define what is being claimed.

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This is the application of a rule. I suppose you could view the logical conclusion as now defining a new claim, but this claim rests on evidence and reason.

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What I am interested in is the evidence and reasoning that leads to the claim. This seems like a repeat of Acts 17, a lot of assertions about God but no evidence or reasoning.

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Perhaps I'm not understanding you? First is the evidence and reasoning involved in formulating the grammatical rule. Second is the evidence and reason involved in application of the rule to any particular example.

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Evidence and reasoning was involved in the development of this grammatical rule.

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I thought we were talking about religion, not linguistics.

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I believe you asked me for an example of evidence and reason in THEOLOGY. Theology involves philosophy, grammar, history, culture, literature, etc. Yes, the example I gave is a grammatical example.

You are correct. I used a poor choice of words. The Roman historian Tacitus (AD 55-117) and the Jewish historian Josephus (in AD 93), mention him by name in connection with the death of Christ, but the stone I mentioned is the only 'hard' evidence of his name dating from the first century. (info from "Nothing but the Truth" by Brian H. Edwards, 2006, pp 402-403). I was referring to the letter by Justin Martyr who wrote his letter around 150 AD claiming there were letters of Pilate in the archives. Will they ever be found? Who knows....maybe, maybe not, but for you, you have every reason to not believe Justin Martyr, I have every reason to do so. It's just the difference of where we stand.I'm not trying to derail this thread by discussing archeology and such. I'm just laying out the logical reasons why one can believe the Bible. You may say there is no logical reason but your definition of what is logical isn't going to be like mine and vice versa when it come to anything really. I may logically say it's warm out when it's 50 degrees, you may say logically it's cold out. We can discuss the archeological finds and what not in another thread at a later date I suppose.

And you are ignoring the most compelling reason not the believe the Bible, that several here have mentioned; the mountains of evidence that contradict it.Question: if dubious confirmation of part of it is enough for you to render it all reliable, why isn't concrete refutation of part of it enough to render it all unreliable? Double standard?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Your whole argument amounts to nothing more than a convoluted version of the words "Titus claims".

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I agree.

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If you want to demonstrate that Christianity is not based on a simple appeal to scriptural authority, you need to show us the underlying basis for believing in, say, Christ's divinity.

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But this is not what I was asked or trying to demonstrate. I was only trying to show that theology involves evidence and reasoning. (This should be obvious, but some in this thread dispute it.)

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Saying "Titus claims" is no use unless Titus has something to back it up, something external to scripture, something tangible, something objective.

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Ultimately, yes. But this is not what I was addressing.

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I was referring to the letter by Justin Martyr who wrote his letter around 150 AD claiming there were letters of Pilate in the archives.

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Except that THAT letter doesn't confirm that Jesus was crucified. The original letter from Pilate if it existed would. Personally I don't think that it did.

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I'm not trying to derail this thread by discussing archeology and such. I'm just laying out the logical reasons why one can believe the Bible. You may say there is no logical reason but your definition of what is logical isn't going to be like mine and vice versa when it come to anything really.

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I realise that you have been fooled into thinking that there are good arguments because of your personal bias. But bias is not logic. The arguments presented by apologists are often objectively bad.

And you are ignoring those who point out that it involves only subjective evidence and appeals to authority. So far as I've been able to tell, that's the argument that people are making here, not that there is no evidence.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I can see that many are missing the point in why I posted (my posts today) what I did. No where did I say that archeology or certain finds prove the resurrection of Christ or the divine creation by God of Adam and Eve. No where did I say that nor will I.The thread started off about faith and moved to logic and reason, which is fine. If anybody here wants to just make the claim (which kb is arguing against, even though we disagree on probably everything else) that there is zero logic in the Christian belief then fine, there's really no sense in me trying to convince you otherwise. All I'm saying, that in my brief studies, there is enough evidence for me to belief A, B, and C, in the Bible, thus I can believe X, Y, and Z. Faith fills in the rest but it's not blind faith. If we want to debate all these other things such as archeology and prophecy and problems that Christians run into in the Bible, we can do so in another thread.I'm of the belief that although I disagree with it, evolutionists believe based on reason and logic and a little bit of faith to fill a few holes. In a more extreme example, those who believe in aliens probably think that do with some reason and logic. They believe the photos they see or the "first hand" accounts of those that have been "probed" (for lack of a better word). Most of us might find this ridiculous but in their mind it's completely true.

And you continue to insist that science isn't based on solid evidence.Please, give examples of "holes" that scientists fill with "faith." The closest thing to holes that I can see are unanswered questions that scientists are looking for answers to, answers supported by evidence. If you see that as well, please tell me why that equates to faith for you.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat