My Beliefs- GDR

Demonstrate to who? But if the faithful knew that the 'grand scale' sacrifice was coming what was the point of all the little sacrifices? (i.e. the animal ones) I'm not rewriting anything. I'm trying to understand how sacrificing animals to atone for sins can be seen as indicative of having faith that a 'large scale' sacifice to atone for all sins is inevitably on it's way. Frankly it seems contradictory.

I agree that this is the most serious question that Christians have to answer, and it can’t be answered with certainty so all I can do is give you my own theory, which is formed from what I believe from the Bible and what we do know from other sources.The world and the universe for that matter has gone through a long tortuous evolutionary process prior to life coming into existence even as single celled life on this planet. That took something like 9 billion years. After that we have gone through a long, and again tortuous evolutionary process until today we have sentient life that is able to make moral decisions. That took additional 4.5 billion or so years.Recorded human history is just a minute portion of the time that it has taken to get to this point. These are things that I think that we can agree on and that there is empirical evidence for.The Biblical message is that there is purpose, direction and a goal that we are moving towards. The message is that at the end of time as we know it, our world will be part of a new creation where pain, suffering, injustice and death will no longer exist.It is my proposal that the evolutionary process is still ongoing and because the period of recorded history is so short it is virtually imperceptible to us. I contend that the pain, suffering, injustice and death in this life are a necessary part of an evolutionary process leading to the final goal of life in God’s renewed creation.

I agree that I didn't make my point well. The Gospels corroborate each other in the sense that they were compiled by different authors using various sources, (pretty certainly the same sources in some instances), and that they agree on the major issues which are the message of Jesus and His resurrection. On the other hand there are disagreements in some of the details which is evidence that they weren't colluding with each other in the accounts.As far as to when the Gospels were written it is all conjecture and nobody has certainty, and frankly, although I see it as interesting I don't see it as being particularly germane.

Yes, well, you have all sorts of problems with this - mostly because you have to retrofit what we now know with what those who wrote the bible couldn't, and obviously didn't, know.The bible doesn't say anything about evolution; it has a childish story of creation which is human centric, puts all life on earth all at once, is recent and puts the earth at the centre of a very small universe.So now you have to rationalise all that and you get something that doesn't actuall make sense. If an intelligence is at work here the waste and risk is enormous - umpteeen trillion stars and galaxies and 14bn years of development. Then JC pops up just 2000 years ago on our little planet. Silly. An inteligence simply would not do it that way, there's just no reason to.Nor is there a reason to create a flawed creation, then have to save it in such an absurd and cack-handed way.It's got to be the most incredible story to ever to have fooled so many people for so long. I have absolutely no idea why grown ups give it any time at all - other than the deep need in people to think that they are important and simply must have a purpose.

When I turned from being agnostic to be a Christian it wasn’t something that happened over night, but it was initially only Christianity that I considered. At that time I just accepted the Christian message as the moral aspects of the faith made a great deal of sense to me and it fit with my life experience. I also noticed that it brought changes to my life, and I believe that I was being nudged by God as to the direction I should take some aspects of my life. On that basis a generally just accepted the whole package without putting a great deal of thought into it.In more recent years I decided I that I wanted to have a better understanding of this faith that I had committed myself to so I began reading extensively about it. I read books that Faith would heartedly approve of to books that totally disavow God. I read and listened to debates on various subjects and found the debates between scholars that rejected the resurrection and those that believed that Jesus was bodily resurrected. It was my view that the affirmative arguments were far more convincing as it was obvious to me that the whole argument against it was based on the idea that it couldn’t possibly happen which meant that any other theory, regardless of how unlikely it was, was obviously more likely than the idea that it did.As part of this study I read most of the Book of Buddha, (which was very similar in many ways to the moral teaching of Jesus), and spent time going through the Qur’an. The Qur’an was interesting in that Mohammed seemed to start out with a message not far off Christianity but then as he gained political power, (power corrupts I guess), he became more and more militant, but that is from a pretty cursory study.I also started reading books on science at the popular level by people like Brian Green, Hawking etc and found that extremely interesting. I also read books by scientists who were Christian or Jewish and who looked at their faith through the lens of their science.So yes, in the end I have studied other religions to a relatively small degree. I have to a larger degree studied the arguments for and against the resurrection. The end result is I am more convinced than I ever was that Jesus Christ was bodily resurrected into a life that is in some ways similar but in other ways very different than what we are experiencing now.

I have a hunch that most - let's call them non-casual - believers have some sort of revelation like this and then go on to rationalise it.This is a psychological trait that is used in marketing - sadly, I forget the term - but people make a decision to buy things after various amounts of research, then go on to confirm that they made a good purchase, dismissing contrary evidence. Quite a lot of advertising for expensive stuff isn't to sell more stuff, it's to comfort the buyer after the sale.Interesting that my revelation was exactly the opposite, now why would a god do that?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Of course you don't. You do not think anything that challenges your beliefs is germane.The dating of the gospels is very germane. Modern scholarship, including textual criticism, shows clearly a post 70CE date for all of the gospels.You have provided no evidence to back any of your claims. All you have are unfounded and unevidenced assertions. It would you do well to read actual scholarly writings about research into the bible, instead of just apologetics. Apologetics is not based on evidence or scholarship. The purpose of apologetics is to shoe horn evidence to fit a preconceived belief.

Is dark energy or dark matter part of a non-material world? Are universes or dimensions part of a non-material world? Are thoughts and ideas part of a non-material world? Is consciousness part of a non-material world. Nobody knows the answer to these questions but everybody who thinks about them probably has an opinion. Yes, I believe that there is a world that is nonmaterial meaning according to this definition from Webster’s.

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not composed of matter

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I don’t agree that morality is group specific in the sense that the so called golden rule is a basic universal standard for morality. I do agree that how it plays out in different societies won’t always look the same. I agree with that. You assume a creator didn’t have a hand in it instead of waiting for conclusive evidence that He does. You may be right that someday your position will be proven but it is highly unlikely to happen in our lifetimes. I don’t believe I will have the luxury of waiting for that to happen, so I have had to make up my mind based on what information I have now. Once you’ve closed your mind to the idea it means that you will only find them by accident. If you don’t believe in the Loch Ness monster you are highly unlikely to go to Scotland looking for one. Sure. Natural forces exist. The question is how did they come to exist. You can argue that it is only an argument from incredulity all you want but when I consider our ability to wonder at the beauty of nature, the marvelous design of everything from an eagle flying outside my window to the human genome and so on, I see as evidence of God. I know that isn’t going to sell with you at all, but I’m sorry, I do see it as evidence.I also agree that the Bible is non-conclusive, and frankly I agree that my entirety of my Christian faith is non conclusive, but then so is the argument against it. We have to form our views on grounds that are uncertain.

Paul claimed to experience Jesus on the road to Damascus but whether he actually saw Him or not isn’t exactly clear but he says this in 1 Corinthians 15.

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7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles ; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

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The term apostle was from what I have read reserved for those who had actually seen the resurrected Jesus. It would appear that Paul is saying that he did see him.It wasn’t that 500 people believed Paul. It was 500 who witnessed the resurrected Jesus according to Paul. Here is the quote again from 1 Corinthians 15.

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After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep ;

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Paul is writing this while there are still many alive who could have disputed his claim. I agree completely, but that does not mean that God can’t exist so we have to form our conclusions on other grounds and as it is subjective people will come to other conclusions just as we have. From the POV of only accepting empirical evidence neither God nor the resurrection can be proven. However it would be unreasonable to believe in the resurrection without believing in God whereas it is quite possible to believe in God without believing in the resurrection. In other words, if you don’t first believe in at least the possibility of God it doesn’t make any sense to even consider belief in the resurrection.

Then the potential for that intelligent life had to exist in those non-intelligent precursors, and if those non-intelligent precursors somehow grew from base elements the base elements themselves must contain the potential for intelligent life. Are we able to discern any potential for intelligent life in base elements as we examine them today? Do we see base elements anywhere combining with other elements in any combination to form any little part of a living cell let alone a complete cell?

I did not say that they shouldn’t be punished. I believe they should and frankly I believe in some cases that they deserve to be put to death. However just because they may deserve it does not mean that I think we should actually do it. I do believe in life terms. I do not agree with capital punishment because firstly I believe that it hardens the heart of whoever it is that actually has to carry out the execution, and secondly because I believe it is unhealthy for the society that carries out capital punishment for roughly the same reason.

You expect this to just happen everyday? You seem to have a a poor grasp on the science involved. Biology is controlled by chemistry. What you want to see in front of your eyes, took billions of years.Let me ask you a question.What do we see more of, chemical reactions that alter the substances or supernatural phenomena from a god?And actually we do see elements combining to produce parts of cells. You might want to do some research on amino acids.

Sure. It is a mythological account based on the world as they understood it at the time. That view is a human-centric view. We even know that at T=0 the universe was unimaginably small if it had any physical dimension at all. Time is simply the way we perceive change and if we travelled at the speed of light it becomes meaningless. In my view the timing makes good sense and when you look at how it all fits into the narrative that stretches from creation to new creation it makes perfect sense. We can see that it did happen at a time and in such a way that the Kingdom that God established through the Christ has spread throughout the world. I think that idea of God’s omniscience is based on the idea that He is so beyond human intelligence that it seems that His capabilities are infinite. We don’t know what is possible and what isn’t. It is an incredible story but then the more we learn about our existence through science and biology the we learn that our entire existence is incredible. We are very ego-centric beings and we do look for ways to make us feel as if we matter and that there is purpose to what we do. We fulfill that needs in many ways such as in our jobs, by creating works of art, music etc that will last past our lifetimes, humanitarian works and probably most of all by leaving a record of ourselves by having children.There are many ways of finding purpose in our lives that can bring results and gratification that we can experience in our life times in such a way that we KNOW the purpose where we aren’t reliant on improvable beliefs. I frankly don’t need Christianity to give my life purpose. I believed that there was purpose in my life before I was a Christian. I wasn’t looking for purpose, I was looking for truth. I believe what I believe as I am convinced, without having certainty, that the fundamental aspects of my beliefs are accurate.

No one knows the answer to a question that is nonsensical - that's probably true. When you say "non-material world" you have no clue as to what that means. It's just a combination of words but it's not anything evidenced.It's like using the term non-reality, or nothingness. Sure they're words, but their meaning is ambiguous and nonsensical. What??? This...I can't even understand what this means. How could you possibly know that? Sure, it's a byproduct of being social primates. You'll find the golden rule in many primate groups.I meant overall morality is group specific. Then your point that a cell should have all the potential in it has been conceded on. I don't start with the premise that an invisible agent, that is unevidenced might exist and therefore magical things can take place. As you have been promoting the whole time. It doesn't make any sense to do so, and you've failed to explain why it does.Your reasoning is very bad in this case. You accept Christianity and believe their is an invisible agent at work ONLY on the basis of the resurrection, and believe the resurrection is possible because you already accept, before having evidence to support it, that an invisible agent, that is unevidenced exists. It is circular reasoning, and a logical fallacy.Is this what faith and belief makes one do? Many scientists have done this very thing and found nothing. You can start off by not accepting something is true then discover it is. Shit, even Einstein did that. If that is in fact the question, then the answer requires evidence. I don't "believe" anything one way or the other. It may turn out that it is unexplainable, but, it may also be answered as a Theory of Everything that theoretical physicist are working on. Who knows. There is no answer at the moment. You see nothing. You imagine god, and really, what do you actually imagine? A force? A person? An energy? What exactly? Just saying the word god doesn't describe anything. The argument against it is the same one you use against mythology.- Oni

No. Physicists are not postulating immaterial or supernatural explanations to physically detectable phenomena. See above. Not unless you are a substance dualist. From Wiki: "Findings in neuroscience that concern the mind-body problem do not support dualism, and the field operates under the assumptions of physicalism"Some "opinions" are more evidentially justified than others. Websters dictionary:

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not composed of matter - Newton's laws explain the effects of nonmaterial forces on bodies

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According to that dictionary definition Newtonian forces qualify as "non-material" If we are going to limit ourselves to online dictionary definitions then the sort of "non-material" that seems to apply to God is this:

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nonmaterial - not consisting of matter; "immaterial apparitions"; "ghosts and other immaterial entities"

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Universes, dimensions, forces, neuroscience wouldn't qualify here. God by most common conceptual meanings would.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.