Creationists think Evolutionists think like Creationists.

If you or anyone is really interested in the historical evidence for the resurrection I'll post the foillowing link that can explain it far better than I can. In his books Wright goes into far more detail but this talk does give in broad brush strokes the historical evidence for the resurrection.I certainly agree that to date there has just been the one resurrection. NT Wright

I'll try and remember that.

C'mon jar. You didn't have time to read the link. He is an historian and he has written what he considers, (as do I) historical evidence.Why don't you comment on what he's written?

Maybe so, but I would contend that they would represent a relatively small minority of the world's Christians and that they are in denial of the teachings of people from Augustine to Lewis as well as with today's major theologians. I have seen the movie Shadowlands. In some ways his life boardered on the tragic. His mother died while he was young and he had a distant father, and that was for starters. Then of course the tragedy of his losing Joy.I have read and own all of those books you have mentioned. Before I started this thread I had started re-reading "The Abolition of Man" and was about 1/2 way through but due to this discussion I have started, as I mentioned, on "The Problem of Pain". Actually that's pretty easy. I'd rather have a discussion where there are areas of disagreement. I'm not going to learn much in a discussion where there is total agreement. John Polkinghorne talks about God creating a world of becoming. He contends that God in the creation of a world of free will doesn't know exactly how the future is going to look but continues to work with us in time. A reading of the OT shows several instances where this is the case. I have been persuaded by his arguments for this position.Also I don't believe that the majority of people will wind up in Hell. Those that wind up in Hell will be those who choose it. You mentioned reading "The Great Divorce". I think that is a great allegory of how that all works. Another good example is "The Last Battle" where the dwarfs' mantra is that "the dwarfs are for the dwarfs". As a result, there they are in this beautiful new creation and they are all huddled together and aren't able to perceive the beautiful world around them. I agree that it isn't empirical evidence in that it can't be scientifically tested, but it is evidence as much as any other historical text. I don't necessarily disbelieve all other religious texts. I read the first 1/3 or so the "Book of Buddha" in a Japanese hotel room and found it fascinating. What amazed me was how close the teachings of the first Buddha were to the teachings of Jesus. It left me with the sense that he could well have been a true prophet of God.However I sincerely believe that the Bible is written with an inspiration that other holy books lack. As I mentioned earlier Christianity makes sense of the world for me in a way that no other world view does. I agree that is a completely subjective view and in the end it does require a leap of faith. At this point in my life I don't see it as a large leap, but a leap nonetheless.I agree that the idea of the resurrection is something that we don't see every day, but of course I'm only talking about it happening once so far in human history. Even sceptical scholars that I have read agree that the early disciples believed that Jesus had been resurrected, and I believe that they weren't mistaken.Nothing momentous, but there have been occasions in my life that things have occurred that seemed to be of God. I am as well except that there are only so many hours in the day and it can suck up a lot of time. In addition every time I get in these discussions it turns into a debate over the nuances of one word or another, which I find frustrating and time wasting. I love discussing these things, but I'm less keen on a debate just for the sake of the debate. My understanding is that rational means coming to a conclusion by means of reasoning. I'm just saying that when the complexity and fine tuning of our universe is considered it is more reasonable to assume that there is an external intelligence than to assume the lack of one. Once again, that is my subjective view. I believe that you have to be a theist in order to be a deist. Theism just means that you believe in a creator god, which would include the god of deism which is a god that creates and then intervenes no further. Frankly I joined this board to learn about science in general and physics specifically. Sometimes I look at these religious threads and I just can't resist. Usually I wind up regretting it as Christians are in a minority here and it seems that there are also a fairly large group that are interested at having a go at the irrational beliefs of people like me. There are some brilliant minds on this formum and I have learned a lot although there is also a lot that goes over my head. As do I, as I enjoy a discussion more than I do a debate. Thanks for that.God bless

Fair enough in the sense that there is nothing but the material written men from the early church that can be used as evidence.For Jesus to be a complete frabrication would take a complex effort by a large number of people. Also when the majority of the books of the NT were written there were still many people around who would have been alive at the time of the resurrection. These people would have been able to refute what was written, and yet Christianity kept spreading rapidly.

I have no doubt that both Buddha and Muhammad existed. I consider that Buddha was likely a prophet.I accept that the fundamental truth of Christianity on faith and reason.

Of course I accept some beliefs and not others. We all live by faith in something even it is only our own intellect.I along with many others believe Chritian doctrine, (and I fully agree that there is a wide variance on just what exactly Christians do believe), through a combination of faith and reason in the existence, jutice and love of God as primarily expressed through Jesus Christ.Of course I can't prove that what I believe is factual anymore than any of you can prove it isn't, or that any atheist can prove the rightness of whatever code it is that they might live by.

Faith in nothing is still faith. As soon as you make any moral decision it has to be based on something even if it's nothing more than what you decided on the spur of the moment.I have a hunch you would think it wrong to go out and take a hatchet to your next door neighbour. On what basis do you think it wrong? It has to be based on something in which you have some degree of faith.

When anyone makes a moral decision of any kind it is based on what they believe to be right or worng. On what basis do you decide something is right or worng. You have to have faith that you were able to come to the correct conclusion and you have to have faith on the basis for that conclusion.

You have faith in the idea that there is nothing outside of what you decide is right or wrong on which any moral law is based.

When I conceive God I do it through the lens of Jesus. I agree that the God of the OT often doesn't reflect the model that we see in the NT. My views are that the historical aspects of the OT are written from the perspective of the writer in that they tended to justify the horrendous things they did by saying that God told then to do it. (Obviously the moral history of WW II would read very differently if the nazis had won.)The OT of course isn't all like that. Jesus was only quoting the existing Jewish scripture when he told people that the greatest command was to love God and neighbour. I haven't read Pilgrims Progress but I should. I agree. It is about being able to take the focus off of ourselves and being able to focus on goodness purely for the love of that goodness. I agree, but you can also look at how something is written. The gospel accounts aren't written in the manner the way things were written at the time, they aren't what a 1st century Jew would have written based on the OT, they exhibit all sorts of failings by the main characters in the narrative etc. In the end it is nothing like anything that we would have expected if somebody were fabricating the whole account. Actually it was only after the resurrection that Son of God came to mean that Jesus was one aspect of a triune god. Prior to that it was considered as a messianic term and a messiah was never expected to be anything more than a human anointed by God. It was after the resurrection and the meaning of the resurrection through the interpretation of some of the prophetic statements in the OT that the use of the Son of God came to mean something more than messiah. Of course. It's just a statement of my personal belief or faith if you like. C S Lewis said; "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. "I believe that there is a lot to that. Does it constitute evidence? Not in the sense that you are meaning but just the same we are able to sense love, beauty, longing, fear etc. and I can't bring myself to believe that all just comes from a chance combination of atoms that just happened to exist in the first place. I think that Christianity does the most coherent job of answering the big questions. I understand what you are saying. I can't speak for anyone else's experiences but my own. (And thanks for not lumping me in with that crowd. ) I don't expect my own experiences to mean anything to anyone but myself. I know that. I contend that one of the reasons for that is that so much of Christianity is a watered down, often self-serving caricature of the real thing, but again that is my subjective POV. Christianity then becomes very easy to reject. I admit that I may be all wrong. Just the same, he is often very good at making incredible concepts credible. He certainly is knowledgeable. Actually I find the quality of the majority of the posts on this forum humbling.Thanks for the discussion.GDREdited by GDR, : No reason given.

The bible was written by many different folks. It's more of a library than a book. I think it has to be sorted out. I think there are huge philosophical truths in the book of Genesis. I think that God chose the Jews as the tribe that was given the job of bringing his message of love, truth, mercy, justice, forgiveness etc. to the world. Much of the OT then is the history of the early Jews written from the their perspective.I agree with you that God as expressed through Jesus, who told us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek, is not likely to being telling his people to go down and kill every living man, woman, child and beast in some town.I think that the Bible should be read as a meta-narrative to come to a real understanding of what God's message is for us. My point was only that the message of loving your neighbour is found in the OT along with some of the atrocities that were committed. In "The Abolition of Man" C S Lewis write about the "Tao" which comes I believe from Buddhism. He talks about a natural law of morality which is part of our world in the same way that natural laws of our world such as gravity exists. In other words morality is one aspect of the creation except of course that it is more easily broken than the physical laws. IMHO the miracle that is central to Christianity is the bodily resurrection of Jesus. As Paul writes, if this isn't true then we are wasting our time. If Jesus isn't resurrected in my view Christianity is either a Jewish sect or a social movement. If Jesus was resurrected then the other miracles can be looked at in a different light. I'm not a deist as I do believe in an interventionist god and I do believe that God's dimension is a part of the universe that is outside of our 4 dimensional existence. I suppose the major difference between myself and a fundamentalist is that I don't believe that the Bible should be read literally. I think by trying to read it literally the message that we are supposed to take away from gets lost in the clutter. My point in that is that I believe human emotions, (or for that matter my retriever’s emotions) are unlikely to come from purely physical processes. I think that they are indications of there being something outside of the physical world. I'm not saying though that this necessarily leads to the God of Christianity. Of course. I think that there is a fundamental truth to Christianity. I think that the problem with Christians, is the same problem that all people have. I believe that we are made in the image of God but as humans we keep trying to make God in our image. In other words we bring our biases to our views and as a result our faith becomes distorted.We can see this in the actions of the early Jews in the OT and frankly we can see it in the military applications by so called Christian nations in the world today.In the end though I believe that there is a fundamental truth and as far as I know I'm the only one who has it completely right. In the end though, it is the most important question that we can face as humans. As Pilate said, "what is truth?". Actually the search for it is what this forum is about.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

It seems to me that science uses the term "infinity" quite often. I realize that it is a mathematical expression, but can it actually be used as an expression of anything that truly applies to the material world. If science found that things in the material world pointed to an answer of infinity wouldn't that be evidence of something beyond the natural?

I just suggesting a way that science might bump up against the metaphysical. We live with 3 spatial dimensions. It seems to me then that an infinite solution to a sceintific question would be evidence, (not necessarily conclusive) of the metaphysical.It would also seem to me that the same would hold true for scientific questions regarding time. We know that the universe had a beginning and we also seem to think that it will have an end.I don't see how something that is infinite could exist a wholly material world.

The following is a quote form Brian Greene's book "The Fabric of the Cosmos".

quote:

---

In practice, the incompatibility between general relativity and quantum mechanics rears its head in a very specific way. If you use the combined equations of general relativity and quantum mechanics, they almost always yield one answer: infinity. And that's a problem. It's nonsense. Experimenters never measure an infinite amount of anything. Dials never spin around to infinity. Meters never reach infinity. Calculators never register infinity. Almost always, an infinite answer is meaningless. All it tells us is that the equations of general relativity and quantum mechanics, when merged go haywire.

---

It seems to me that Greene may very well be right, and that eventually a natural solution will be found but it seems that right now the science seems to lead to an infinite or a metaphysical answer. Certainly it isn't anywhere near conclusive but this seems to me to be evidence for something metaphysical.