Creation, Evolution, and faith

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Let's see if we can get to the core of this one. We have two possibilities; "Titus 2:13 claims x" and "Titus 2:13 claims y". Suppose we resolve the linguistic conundrum that is the subject of your reasoning; let's say it's "x". Where do we go from there?

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Working out exactly what the text says is all well and good, but at best, it leaves us with "Titus says x". What are we to do with this statement? Appeal to it's authority as holy writ? What else might we reasonably do with it?

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The simple example that I gave in Message 141 is a theological/grammatical argument to determine what Paul meant in Titus 2:13. Yes, this reduces to "Paul claims x in Titus 2:13." Other theological arguments are more complex, correlating topics and concepts from various parts of the Bible to systematically explain biblical teaching. Yes, these complex examples still reduce to "the Bible teaches x." Christian faith rests on Christian theology, on what the Bible teaches. This is all dependent on evidence and reasoning.

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Throughout this thread you have attempted to show that the reasoning employed by religion is equivalent to that used in science.

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I claim that it is similar or analogous, but not equivalent. The type of evidence used in each field is different.

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I believe this is false. With your example of religious reasoning, all we can do is ascertain what the opinion of the author of Titus was. At best. It leads us nowhere, except to a bald assertion, with no data to back it up. This is wholly different from scientific reasoning, which always leads back to an original set of empirical observations.

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In theology we apply evidence and reasoning to the Bible determine what it teaches. In science we apply evidence and reasoning to nature to determine how it functions. These endeavors are analogous, not "wholly different." There is a close analogy between the "theological method" and the "scientific method". (In fact, some would claim that the scientific method was historically derived from the theological method. I think this claim goes too far. But it IS true that modern science developed from a Christian worldview, and that its main developers were devout Christians.)Questions of the truth or reality of either endeavor are a separate category of question. In science, this becomes the metaphysical questions that I mentioned in Message 25. Is cosmic history is real or illusory? Are our physical models are real or not?

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You have demonstrated that theists can apply reason in interpreting a text. That is all. Anyone can do that, it's nothing special.

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Exactly. So why is there so much opposition to this? Why do so many here still want to claim that religion has NO basis in evidence or reason?

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What your sparring partners on this thread are trying to get at is that the central claims of religion are not of the same nature as some matter of linguistic interpretation. We are talking about some of the defining beliefs of religions. In the narrow case of Christianity, we're talking about things like the resurrection, original sin, the afterlife, the divinity of Jesus, etc. These are the kind of truth-claims that Christians make, often with a startling degree of certainty. These are claims of great magnitude, yet they appear to the outside observer to be wholly unevidenced.

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As mentioned above, here we are talking about the truth or reality of the claims. Yes, these are much more important in religion, and are "defining beliefs." One cannot be a Christian without accepting these claims. The analogous claims are much less important in science. A friend of mine doubts the reality of quarks, but is still a good particle physicist.But are these claims "wholly unevidenced" in either endeavor? These truth-claims are not provable, of course. A step of "faith" is involved in both endeavors. But I would claim that these truth-claims ARE evidenced. Quarks are much better evidenced than phlogiston. The standard model includes quarks and has been verified. it is more reasonable today to believe in quarks than in phlogiston. Likewise, the foundational claims of Christianity are based primarily on biblical evidence (but also on other types of evidence as well). It is more reasonable to believe in the Trinity than in a flying spaghetti monster.

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If there truly is any similarity between scientific and religious reasoning, you should be able to either;

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a) provide examples of reasoning and evidence for these kinds of claims, such as might be accepted in scientific circles, or;

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But the types of evidence are different in the two endeavors. You seem to be asking for scientific evidence for religion, which doesn't make sense.Further, you seem to be asking me to compare two different categories, which can't be done. I have showed that the type of reasoning applied in doing theology is analogous to that used in doing science. Further, I claim that the truth-claims of each endeavor are analogous, in that they are evidence by the reason and evidence, but not proved; they require a step of "faith." But you seem to be asking me to compare the truth-claims of religion with the everyday doing of science; these are different categories.

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b) provide examples of extremely important ideas within science that are as unfounded as the religious ideas I have outlined.*

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The actual, real existence of quarks, as I've mentioned numerous times. They may only be a mathematical artifact of our models.

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Note that I'm not talking about foundation assumptions about reality and objective observable universe; those assumptions underpin all philosophies, by necessity. I'm talking about big important ideas, equivalent to the risen Christ or such.

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Unfortunately, I can't avoid this. When we start talking about the truth-claims of religion, I believe we are in analogous territory to these metaphysical questions (which is why I raised them back in my original post, Message 25).

All I was answering to was the claim ''Paul never met Jesus''. Since I thought it very plausible that they did, I was asking how you could the person affirm such a statement. But instead of having back a reason for this, I was fed the 'well I can't prove a negative, so I can't give you a reason duh ...'. All the while I had never affirmed that they DID meet, only that they could easily have.In the end, it's all a side argument, since even if they didn't meet does prevent Pul from being contemporary. As I said, I am contemporary of Obama even if I didn't meet him. This line of reasoning has much more weight. Of course someone could say that since he believes he had a supernatural encounter of Jesus after his resurection, Paul would just be using this as his example of his encounter with Jesus rather then any previous and unconsequential one.Of course, if he had been part of Jesus's persecution, I also think he would have mentioned it. But if he just met Jesus randomly around Galilee, with nothing special coming out of it, then maybe not.But as I said, it's a side issue (albeit an interesting one for me since I had never looked into it before)

Well, there are 4 gospels in the Bible, plus lots of other gospels, which aren't part of the bible, who speak of the event.Are you saying that there are no truth to the story of Jesus's death ?

Again I ask do you have any non-biblical contemporary corroborating evidence?I have no belief that Jesus existed as a person. There is no evidence other than the bible. All later evidence goes back to the biblical writings. There is nothing in the Roman or Jewish records of the period. Nothing.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Hi kbertshce, Assuming Paul is truly the author of Titus, yes This is disputed in some circles. I don't want to derail the topic into a debate on this, but basically, we are in agreement here. And there you have it. Christian faith depends on what the Bible teaches. Christian faith is based on a set of ancient texts.Science is not based upon any text in any comparable way.Frankly I see little reason to continue. You have admitted that here that all Christian faith is based on the Bible. You cannot make any such assertion about science. Science has no central text, no scriptural authority.Nonetheless, let's look at some of your other claims. How similar? 1% similar? Because I might be willing to go for that. !00% similar? You say not. So how similar? Yes. One field accepts only logically valid evidence, the other accepts logicically invalid evidence. No, I think you are completely wrong here. the two are not comparable.Science uses reason and evidence to study nature. Agreed.Religion uses reason and evidence to study alleged holy texts as a proxy for nature.Both are attempting to describe reality. The difference is that science tries to study reality as directly as possible, it cuts out the middle man (and to paraphrase Bill Mahr, when I say man it usually seems to mean someone with a penis). Religion seeks to study reality through a murky lens, that of it's chosen scripture (which it invariably places on a pedestal, another notable difference with science). The fact that in the case of Christianity, the scripture in question is written by multiple, often anonymous authors, that it is frequently in error and internally contradictory, undermines any attempt to study reality through this method. It also fatally undermines your comparison. I have to say, I find it pretty sad that you bring this up. It's pathetic.Religion also must assume that reality is consistent, that we are not in the matrix, etc. Without such an assumption, none of its claims would be meaningful.In truth, you have only uncovered another yawning gulf between the two methods. Science does not make these kind of assumptions, except as methodological assumptions. They are not philosophical assumptions, scientists do not need to assume that solipsism is false, they only need take it as a working assumption from which further assumptions follow. Religion, by contrast, is blas about making claims of philosophical truth.This difference can be clearly seen in the distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. There are many scientists who believe in the supernatural, yet they work as though there were no supernatural when they're doing science. They need not disbelieve the supernatural to do valid science.The answer to solipsism works the same way; the scientist need not believe or disbelieve in a consistent reality. they only need use it as a pragmatic working assumption. Because there is nothing intrinsically religious about interpreting a text. Anyone can do this, whether religious or not. It's just reading comprehension. It is not religion itself. You are not even applying it to religious beliefs themselves, you are applying it to a text. The alleged sacredness of the text is irrelevant.Analysing what a book says has nothing whatsoever to do with why we should believe it. Again, this is far more of a difference than you are trying to imply. Your friend may doubt the existence of quarks as much as he likes, he's still a scientist. It doesn't matter. This is not the case when it comes to the existence of god(s) or the resurrection of Christ. Religions have many such beliefs, science has none. Worse, many theists hold the entire spectrum of their beliefs to be absolutely true, with any variance amounting to heresy. No scientist thinks this way, it is alien to science. False. There is a major difference. It's about the framework within which each claim is judged.Science can prove it's ideas to a very high degree - within the framework created by the assumption of a consistent observable reality.Religion cannot do this. Religion cannot prove the reality of the Trinity, even with the framework of an observable reality.Science can prove its claims within the framework created by methodological naturalism.Religion must, almost by necessity, cast this aside when making claims about supernatural entities (like the Trinity). This leaves it open to the possibility of supernatural outside interference, even within the framework of a consistent observable reality.The only claims made with any degree of confidence by scientists can be demonstrated within the consistent reality world view. religious claims very often cannot, yet they are made with a much greater degree of certainty. The contrast is clear. Scientists may take reality itself on faith (although to a lesser extant than most theists), but religion takes many more claims on faith on top of this. Feel free to mention them. Why exactly? I'm asking for logically valid evidence for religious claims, something that you have conspicuously failed to provide. Meaningless. Analogy is not reality. Again, meaningless, since I have already explained how religion makes many more and greater assumptions than science and does so with a degree of confidence that need not exist in science. They are not! they are claims about reality, about whether certain things exist or not. The existence of God is a claim about reality. It is not supported by any logical evidence. Where science makes a claim about reality, it is supported by logical evidence. But no scientist need believe in quarks, not even physicists.Quarks have been experimentally confirmed (albeit indirectly) many times, and the predictions which they make have been experimentally confirmed. This cannot be said of the divinity of Jesus or the Trinity, which make no predictions and cannot be verifiably observed, not even indirectly.Further, mathematical models underpin the idea of quarks. This provides a strong internal logical consistency to the idea, which can then be compared to the external world, where it is validated. The same cannot be said of the Trinity, where there is no initial observable, verifiable and measurable observation upon which any such mathematical or logical proof can be based or checked against.Further, the existence or non-existence of quarks is basically irrelevant to most scientists. Does a biologist studying the social lives of badgers need to believe in quarks? Does a particle physicist need to believe in them? Or need he only assume their existence as a useful part of his model?Now let's try that again, with a religious example. Does a Christian need to believe that Christ died for our sins? Does a Christian need to believe in God? I think that most theists would answer yes to these kind of questions. I have addressed this already, but frankly, I suggest that you grow a spine and stop taking refuge behind solipsistic nonsense.Mutate and Survive

Hi slevesque, Dude, I'm not sure where you got that from, that was not what I was trying to say. It is merely my view that before we make a statement about history (and let's be clear, any statement about history must be at least a little tentative) there should be some reason to think that in the first place. Evidence should always be our starting point, not our destination. Still, the fact that Paul is contemporary is not relevant in the first place, unless we can show that he had some meaningful knowledge and some basis for that. This is not really the case with Paul, whose sources for the life of Jesus must almost certainly have been second hand.We are all contemporaneous with Obama, but that doesn't stop people making up lies about him. I realise that you only bring this up in answer to criticisms of Paul for writing after the event, but it is important to remember that just because a text is contemporaneous does not suggest in and of itself that it is accurate. Perhaps, but it strikes me as unconvincing. Paul was an evangelist. If he had met Jesus, he would surely have mentioned. That would always be a more convincing sales pitch than a supernatural vision when talking about the life of Jesus and his works. The vision is good for convincing an audience that Jesus is Christ, is divine, but that was not all that Paul had to say of Jesus. He also wrote of his life and works. These arguments would be far more convincing if Paul was able to cite himself as an eye-witness. It just seems like a really weird omission. Again, perhaps, although it seems out of character for him to withhold it. Also, it strikes me that Paul's arguments would have even more rhetorical weight had he been an active persecutor of Jesus. He could say "See, even I, who persecuted Jesus, have been forgiven of my sins. Even I have been convinced of his holiness.". That seems like a good angle to me.You're right though, it's a side issue. I suggest that you switch to admin mode and ban the pair of us for being so grossly off-topic. Mutate and Survive

A curiosity, please.If the gospel stories are true should there be contemporary corroboration outside biblical writings?Are there records of other contemporary Roman crucifixions in the Judea?Was Pilot known to have crucified others without leaving a record?I understand Herod's scribes recorded most everything happening in the palace including grocery orders, visitors and meetings. Does the biblical meeting between Herod and Jesus appear in those records?I do not believe it does. Why not? Is it likely this meeting could have been missed?Are there other known occurrences where Herod's records are incomplete?Would the scribes at the temple have recorded Jesus' actions/teachings/outbursts?Are there temple records of other such events not involving Jesus?Are there any Roman, Judean, Royal, administrative records that coulda, shoulda, woulda recorded such events at the time?Is it plausible that there could be no civil (and to be absurd about it, the contemporary equivalent to tax forms, contracts, records of sale, the "flogging" logs of the Romans, Temple visitation records, anything) records at all recording/attesting to the presence of Jesus, the disciples, their lodging, their heroic entrance into Jerusalem, presence in other cities, outside the biblical record?Is there anyone familiar enough with Roman and Judean society of the time to shed light on the types of records that were recorded?Is there a plausible explanation why such records (if any) would not have evidence of the biblical events other than the "it didn't happen" one?

CS, I appreciate where you're coming from and I think I understand your argument, but (surprise!) I can't quite agree with you. I agree that there is a distinction. Person B's belief is certainly more reasonable, but it is still not very reasonable. The claim of ghosts is so extraordinary that it requires some pretty strong evidence. Seeing one apparent apparition does not seem sufficient to me. Personally, I would suspect that I had seen a hallucination. An insubstantial ghost certainly bears much similarity with a hallucination. The possibility that I was hallucinating seems at least as strong as the possibility that I saw a ghost. Clearly, there is still a very large element of faith going on here. I don't think that one person seeing something is very strong evidence that it exists, even if that person is me. At least, not in the case of extremely unusual claims.Another important distinction is that in your example, the person sees the ghost, in the sense of vision. People don't normally claim to have actually seen Jesus or God. Placing the experience in the realm of physical sensory perception already gives the experience more validity than one that takes place entirely in the theist's mind, with no reference to the commonly acknowledged senses.Overall, I don't think that the example is a very good fit. Seeing what appears to be a ghost might provide evince for the narrow claim that ghosts exist (excluding the obvious possibility that the sighting could have been valid, but not a ghost). What it does not provide evidence for is the whole panoply of supernatural thought. If the person saw a ghost and then used this as evidence for vampires, werewolves and leprechauns, this would be invalid. Nonetheless, this is exactly ho many theists behave. The "experience of the divine" that we have been discussing is used to back up a much wider spectrum of claims than can really be justified from it. It ought not, for instance, be used as evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus, but frequently, Christians will use these experiences as a kind of catch-all answer that backs up the whole raft of Christian thought.Ultimately, it's all about what we consider to be valid evidence and what we consider invalid. I don't consider these kinds of experiences to be valid evidence of anything. They are too vague, entirely subjective and indistinguishable from fantasy. I think that any belief so poorly founded is effectively faith-based. Whether you want to call this blind faith or not becomes a matter of personal preference, but I feel that it is justified.Mutate and Survive

Amusingly, I;ve had almost exactly the experience CS described in his ghost scenario. Around a decade ago, I was quite convinced of the existence of ghosts, astral projection, "auras," and all manner of other nonsense.I believed these things because I saw them.And that, right there, is why the individual human brain is untrustworthy. Confirmation bias and false pattern recognition ruin everything.I saw "auras." I still can - and so can basically anyone else. Stare at a person against a solid background with your eyes unfocused for a minute or two and you'll see the "aura," which is nothing more than an afterimage produced as your eyes move slightly. If you're looking for an "aura," you'll find one.I took photographs and saw things that I could not directly explain that I immediately attributed to ghosts and demons. Shadowy, foggy pictures where there was no fog; a "feeling" of a "presence" corroborated by other individuals and an aberrant "light" on a photograph along a dark path in the woods well known for past trauma (in this case, sexual assaults).I even saw a dark shadow directly "attack" a person.Part of what broke me out of it? We were all convinced that there was a "malevolent presence" in a crypt in a nearby cemetery. All of us "felt" it.Then one day, we saw the crypt with the lights on. The lights were inside the crypt...because it wasn't a crypt at all. It was a storage room for the groundskeeper.Is it reasonable for a person to believe their own eyes? Somewhat. But even with regards to our own senses, we need to remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. My beliefs were nothing more than the recognition of patterns that didn't, the validating influence of a like-minded group, and our collective confirmation bias. Not a bit of it was real.I'll admit, a belief based on those sorts of things (which I think very closely matches religious belief) is different from basic blind faith. There is at least some personal experience behind it.But it still traces back to a blind faith belief that (insert religious text here) is authoritative; the beliefs of the religion are what is projected onto the observed events, just as I automatically attributed every unexplained phenomenon and "feeling" to ghosts without any rational reason for doing so.

Okay. I get what you're saying and my disagreement is a matter of personal preference.But, I think that the only person who really knows whether the faith is blind or not is the person holding the belief and that you can't really tell a person that their faith is blind just because you don't find their evidence as convincing, or valid, as they do.

Wud up, dude... Wouldn't person B still have to accept on blind faith that ghosts are non-physical enitites of decesed people, animals, etc.?In other words, what lead to the determination that the vision, whatever it was, correlates to what people have described as ghosts in stories and folklore?The way I see it, person B has only added one step between them and blind faith, and that was the vision. But instead of stopping at the vision itself, they've gone one step further have made a determination that it was a ghost, which means they've accepted on blind faith that the stories and folklore define accurately what ghosts should be.They could have just said, I had a vision of a person. But they didn't. They said, I had a vision of a ghost.It wouldn't be blind faith to say I had a vision of a person. But I think it is blind faith to add a characteristic to the vision like that of "ghost" when the only bit of evidence is that you had a vision.It's like when someone says they saw a UFO. Ok, you saw a UFO. But then they add, it was a spaceship from a far off galaxy or another universe. Ok, now how on earth was that determined? You would have to accept on blind faith that (1) intelligent life exists in other galaxies, and (2) that they have mastered the ability of galactic space travel. Two things that not one single shread of evidence exists for.This to me is what separates faith from blind faith.- Oni

Most likely yes but not necessarily. They could speculate about its properties from what they have observed. Say, the ghost they saw was wearing clothes and spoke english and was somewhat transparent. They could believe that the ghost they saw was not one of a chinese dragon without the need for blind faith. Ya know what I mean? Or it could be the observations themselves that lead to it. As in, its a possibility. I get it, and that would be blind faith, but I don't think it must be that way every time. Its possible for it to be another way. It depends on what they saw and what they're claiming.I'm with you that seeing a shadow and saying you saw grandma's ghost takes a lot of blind faith. But you can't take that across the board.Actually, I just heard a funny story about just this from a friend this weekend:They had thier grandma staying the night and they have one of those automatic air fresheners that sprays every 15 minutes or so with a somewhat audible "psshht". The grandma woke them up in the middle of the night telling them they had a ghost and it was calling her name. She actually heard her own name from a psshht noise. (I forgot what her name was)But she was convinced from the evidence she gathered that there was a ghost there. I don't think she had any blind faith in the sense that people use the term when discribing beliefs in god.Now, I can see calling it that when a bunch of other information is thrown in to the mix. But its not like those are taken to be true, or even actaully believed to be true, but are more like some simple speculations. Like I said, if the ghost you saw looked like a transparent person, then saying that it looked like it was a dead person is not blind like seeing a UFO and claiming that it is most certainly true that they had used type-x propulsion systems.I don't think you're allowing for as much distinction as there can be.

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To start with let it be noted that you do not answer the point that your "acid test" is widely rejected by Christians - either implicitly or even explicitly. That in itself kills your claim of a parallel.

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I don't understand what you are trying to say here?

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I am aware of the view that we should not accept even a scientific view of reality and even the proper name for such a view (Instrumentalism), I am not aware of any Christians, even the most liberal, who would go quite so far, even if we include the Sea of Faith and their "non-literalist God"

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I see the reality of our scientific theories as analogous to the truthfulness of the biblical message.

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Indeed, it seems that the view of Christianity you are putting forward is not one that many would take seriously.

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I don't understand?

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Many object when a liberal Christian says that it is not necessary to believe in the Virgin Birth or that the literal resurrection of Jesus is of no real importance.

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Correct.

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Indeed, it seems that I am almost a Christian in your view, lacking only the faith commitment that the Bible is consistent. I don't believe in God, I think that Jesus was a failed wannabe messiah and I reject the whole concept of salvation. How many self-styled Christians here would accept me as one of them ?

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I have neither said nor implied anything of the sort. No, this does not make you almost a Christian. With a LOT more training in Bible, Greek, Hebrew, biblical history, biblical exegesis, etc, you could almost be a theologian or a biblical scholar. But to be a Christian you would need the faith commitment as well.The Christian faith rests, depends on theology and biblical studies, which involve reason and evidence. All of these are parts of Christianity. But the Christian faith is not equivalent to theology and biblical studies.

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Christianity is based on the teachings of the Bible. The Bible must be studied to understand first what it says and then what this means. This study involves evidence from many different disciplines (grammar, history, literature, etc.) This process clearly involves evidence and reason. I don't understand why you and others find this claim objectionable and try to deny it?

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Understanding what the Bible is claiming does is not the same ans understanding the logic and reasoning that was used to reach those claims. Don't you understand the difference?

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Of course I understand the difference. But you are trying to "move the goal-posts" (as someone accused me earlier).Here is my original claim from Message 25 which you and others strongly disagreed with: Note that I spoke of "biblical evidence," i.e. evidence from the Bible. Establishing what the Bible says and means involves logic, reason, history, language, culture, etc.

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If you seriously think that the objection that rational people have to religion is based on hermeneutics, you either haven't been paying attention or you're irretrievably stupid.

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No, this IS the objection that I've been fighting in this thread. I've been making the simple claim that religion involves reason and evidence. I believe this should be patently obvious, but many have disagreed and argued against this statement. (Look back at the thread and you'll see that this is what I've been saying since Message 25.)

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Faith in religion has little to do with whether someone's particular interpretation is accurate or not, but whether the claims made by the religion are accurate.

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In any religion with a "holy book," the claims stem from the text. The text must first be correctly interpreted to know what the claims of the religion are. The text and its interpretation are crucial for faith in the religion.

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Would you care to try to defend that territory, or will you concede that, in that regard, religion is based on subjective evidence and appeals to authority? Or will you simply ignore this question?

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I have mentioned the truth-claims of religion a number of times. They are analogous to whether or not scientific theories are "real." Is faith in these truth-claims (whether Deity of Christ or quarks) well placed? This is a good and important question. But it is a huge topic, and there are many threads on EvC forum that already deal with it (with no agreement or resolution). I see no point in sidetracking this thread into yet another repetitive, endless argument. I suggest that we ignore the question for this thread.