Summations Only

Yes, precisely, you "know" without evidence. How do you reconcile what someone else "knows" (also without evidence) that contradicts what you "know"?You're using the word "know", but you really mean faith.--Percy

Yeah, I originally covered that, too, but decided to boil it down to a single point. The way I think I phrased it before deleting it was something like, "How can what you "know" that can't be proved compare with what other people know that can be proved?"Since she's using the word "proved" again, it's probably also worth reminding her that it involves testable claims, the precise definition of "proved" she endorsed at her blog (Let's Bring "Proof" Back to Reality).--Percy

I called it faith, you called it spiritual knowledge, seems like the same thing. Whatever you call it, it isn't the same thing as something you know from evidence, and the evidence says the Bible was written by men and is not inerrant.Faith expresses doubt that other religions make similar claims of truth, which seems a silly thing to doubt given the nature of many religions. Here's the Quran on the truth about Jesus: --Percy

There's no reasoning in that quote from the Quran, and it's precisely like the Bible: bald declarations without evidence. Yes, you're an unbeliever. Until you accept Allah you'll never know the spiritual truth.If there's anything you know about the Bible being the inerrant Word of God that is based upon evidence instead of faith, this is the time to start talking about it. Any religion can make the bald declaration that it is the one, right and true religion, and many do, but without evidence all such declarations are meritless, and as the basis of an argument are useless.--Percy

I don't think your willingness to make unsupported disparaging comments carries much weight as evidence. If you have evidence for anything you believe then now is the time to start talking about it.--Percy

If prophecy is your evidence that the Bible is the literally inerrant Word of God, then prophecy is the evidence you have to present. By the way, Islam claims fulfilled prophecies for the Quran as evidence of divine origin just as you do for the Bible. As I said before, your willingness to make disparaging comments, first about that passage from the Quran and now about both it and me, carries no weight as evidence. If you have evidence for the positions your arguing then now is the time to introduce it into the discussion.--Percy

First you say that you "know" it but can't prove it, and now you're claiming you can prove it through the evidence of prophecy?Anyway, in previous discussions of prophecy all you offered were declarations of belief, and they were shown wrong by evidence from both the Bible and the real world. How long have you been here? Here's rule 5 of the Forum Guidelines:

5. Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided. Make the argument in your own words and use links as supporting references.

But let's look at just the first prophecy, Jeremiah 50 that prophesizes that Babylon will be conquered and laid waste. The claim is that the prophecy was fulfilled when Cyrus the great conquered Babylon, but the bulk of Cyrus's empire lay to the east, not the north, and according to the Wikipedia article on Babylon the city flourished over the next couple centuries: So much for prophecy.Naturally there are prophecies sufficiently vague or unspecific that they can't be considered wrong, but they're scant evidence. Even if you do find a correct prophecy you still have to draw a connection between correct prophecy and divine and inerrant authorship. How does one imply the other? To clarify, if Jeremiah did issue some completely correct prophecies, how does someone recounting those prophecies while composing a book that later became part of the Bible make the entire Bible into something inerrant and authored or inspired by God.--Percy

If you're going to ignore the topic and the Forum Guidelines then you shouldn't be surprised when you're called on it. You shouldn't be introducing subtopics (in this case prophecy) you're not willing to discuss. It's like you think no rules apply to you.If you do not intend to reply to the responses to your prophecy post or at least to something about the topic then there's nothing more for you to say.--Percy

Yes, of course, this is what we've been saying. Faith's claim is that her truth is the one and only truth and that it should be everyone's truth or we'll be dealt with in the hereafter. She can't prove it but she knows it anyway, except that prophecy is the proof but she won't discuss it.--Percy

Mike, you have just got to stop working off that fallacy crib sheet you found a while back.You didn't quote a thing and your message was a single short sentence. If you had some "specific problem" in mind, how would anyone know? When people begin assuming you know what you're talking about it will be because you've earned it.If you have evidence proving your truth over everyone else's truth, now's the time to present it.--Percy

Mike, if you're going to make claims about yourself you have to expect responses. Respect for one's writings must be earned, not demanded, claimed or compelled.Your analogy was currency. To continue your analogy, evidence for the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of a piece of currency can be easily obtained. What is the evidence for your personal truth over anyone else's personal truth.--Percy

Here's how the current discussion began: Faith later said: So according to Faith there are a couple required conditions for one's death to be considered a testimony of truth:

1. The death must be horrendous and torturous. Instant or painless death cannot be considered a testimony of truth.
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2. The death must be at the hands of others, not at one's own hands.

Applying these same conditions to the recent Al-Shabab bus attack in Kenya, the deaths of those murdered (presumably many Christians among them) was not a testimony of truth because death was not horrendous and torturous but instant and painless. I presume that if a Christian had lingered on a few days in a hospital in horrendous and torturous pain that their death would have been considered a testimony of truth.Applying these conditions to the recent Taliban suicide bombing at a volleyball game in Afghanistan, the deaths of those murdered (presumably all Muslims) was not a testimony of truth for those whose death was not horrendous and torturous but instant and painless. Some were horribly injured and died minutes, hours and days later. More will die as time goes by. According to Faith's conditions, those Muslim deaths that were horrendous and torturous would be considered a testimony of truth.Is this analysis correct? I'm just trying to understand the rules right now.There's one important element I don't understand about Faith's rules: they contain no requirement that one be demonstrably willing to die for one's beliefs, which would seem an essential prerequisite for a testimony of truth. There's no evidence in either of these incidents that the victims were willing to die for their beliefs, but they both follow Faith's rules. If one dies involuntarily having never been presented the opportunity to compromise one's religion's beliefs, then how is that a testimony of truth?--Percy

Okay, I'll try to rewrite the conditions to take this into account. Not just hard but impossible, right? A Muslim suicide bomber strolls into a caf frequented by Christians and sets off the bomb. There's no testimony of faith and truth for Christians here - all these victims did was go to lunch. How could that ever be considered a testimony of faith and truth?But the suicide bomber walking into the caf to die for his faith in Allah, now that's a testimony of faith and truth, is it not?So now I'll try to rewrite the conditions for a death to be a testimony of faith and truth. I think they become simpler:

1. The death must be a voluntary self-sacrifice motivated by one's religious beliefs.

If this still isn't right then just give me feedback, I'll go through more revisions.But the more important point is one NoNukes keeps touching on: How is willingness to die for one's religious beliefs connected to religious truth?--Percy

Reformulating your question: If the Bible *was* written by men who didn't know God, how can we know God?Well, if there *are* spiritual ways of knowing, then one can know God spiritually. The men who wrote the Bible may have known God spiritually, in which case the Bible is more than just "human agenda and human opinion/belief."Conversely, if there *aren't* spiritual ways of knowing then unless He consents to present himself in a way that produces actual evidence, there is no way to know God.--Percy

Hi Faith,Here you say that God can only be known spiritually: And here you say that in the past God could also be known through physical evidence from the real world: This kind of evidence is called hearsay. It's evidence described by someone else, not evidence we can examine ourselves. Evidence of Biblical miracles is as elusive as evidence of Koranic miracles or Hindu miracles or Buddhist miracles.--Percy