Summations Only

Who uses inspiration in this sense? If the story of this contest is true, God did not simply inspire Moses. He talked to him directly, told him what to do, and gave him empowered artifacts to work with.If instead there was no burning bush but an inspired Moses who confronted Pharoah, and that none of the frog, river of blood etc actually occurred, why insist on the snake contest?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Let's assume this is true. What should I make of a sermon you offer me that purports to be about the nature of inspiration? How will I know that the sermon is correct. What should I make of a sermon that takes a different position?

Is your current understanding different from your understanding when you wrote that Jesus wrote the Bible. Because you seem to be saying something different here.

I don't see an inconsistency problem at all with the different claims.On a literal level, we can see that the circumstances of the two scriptures are completely different. Ezekiel writes words that he claims God is speaking to Ezekiel in an Ezekiel only event. There were no other witnesses but Ezekiel. In contrast, Luke is writing reports of what witnesses claims God said. Why in the world should those two circumstances require similar or the same type of input from God.More importantly though, I think you make the mistake of conceding interpretation to Bible literalists. Perhaps even in Ezekiel 21, the author is poetically describing inspiration and clarity he feels about his prophesy in terms of direct instructions from God.

Point taken. Probably as close as we're going to get to an exit point for an argument with you on this topic. We already knew that.

You may have noticed that nobody is contesting that point. What people are contesting is that 1) Christians are the only ones who can make such claims and 2) that the claims are indication of anything other than a sincerely held belief. Of course you had this in mind.But we might also recognize Christians that died or submitted to torture rather than admitting to being witches. Because of course, there weren't any witches. This is an extremely weak argument. Even when people are facing an impending quick death, they often get sometime to think about it and they may even have the chance to back out of the situation.

In fact, her rules deny groups that no one could question are willing to die for their belief. She does this by insisting on proxy's like 'willingness to endure slow deaths' rather than accepting direct evidence of sincerity.It's just self serving cherry picking in an attempt to reserve a special place for Christians. And it does not even work, because examples of Muslim's dying at the hands of others for their faith are pretty easy to find.

Surely that's a true statement. But it is more a statement about your own shortcomings than about the sincerity of any Muslim.Virgins are over rated. I suspect that most female Muslim's aren't really that enticed by such.

You cannot be convinced. If a Muslim is placed in the same position as a Christian you will claim that it is all about the virgins, dismissing any other possible explanation and insisting on proof. Yet those after life virgins are allegedly promised by their religion in exactly the same way that eternal life is promised to Christians.I'm not trying to convince you. Just pointing out the holes in your arguments.

What do you think motivated Giordano Bruno? Do you think he was burned for his orthodox, protestant Christian beliefs? Does his death in anyway convince you that his theology was correct. Because quite clearly he did not recant.

If God interacts perceptibly with man's world, than man's experience will include perceptions of God's motivations, power, etc. Surely if God chose to do so, He could reinforce the experiences of people who perceive him correctly and correct impressions that are wrong.

You should check your definitions. Hearsay and indeed all testimony is evidence. Hearsay is inadmissible evidence because it is considered risky to accept it as true, at least for the truth of matters asserted in the statement.In fact, in cases where indicia of truth are present, hearsay statements can be introduced in court. For example business records, defendant's admissions of guilt, and excited utterences and some contemporaneous statements are admissible hearsay.We don't know whether statements in the Bible amount even to hearsay. We don't have evidence that Paul said anything. We don't know in any way that constitutes objective evidence that anything written in the Bible was said by anyone.

Even that much isn't clear.My only point was about Percy's use of the terms evidence and hearsay. Labeling something as hearsay does not make it non-evidence.

I think I understand where you are coming from. Once you accept that the Bible is an accurate record of past events, then statements in the Bible are facts that can be drawn on to prove that depicted events did occur. The idea the Bible can be accepted in such a way is reinforced by a history and tradition of people taking the Bible in exactly that way going back for centuries.On the other hand, a 30000 foot look down at such a process indicates to others that the entire process of accepting the Bible in such a way is completely self-referential. There is no logical reason to accept the truth of the Bible in the way you do without some outside confirmation. Non-believers insist on evidence before acceptance. Further complicating things is that quite a few Bible proclamations are internally inconsistent, and poor matches for what can actually be observed. Also, those long, historical traditions that believers adore include periods of persecution, superstition, suppression of science and playing loose with the text, and denouncing other long traditions, all perpetrated by believers. There are also lots of obviously invalid religions which have left various records behind.I think there are some differences in the definitions of evidence between you and others, but that such differences are minimal and inconsistent on both sides. But generally speaking, when people talk about the lack of evidence, they are referring primarily to the kinds of evidence that would cause someone to take the Bible as testimony despite clear obstacles to doing so.No amount of quoting the Bible is going to get your point across. If you find yourself grabbing at verses discussing the folly of leaning on human understanding, you have probably reached a frustration point.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Hilarious. Asking for and providing evidence is among the most important rules here. Surely you've learned something after more than a decade of participation here. Perhaps a bit of introspection is in order.