Blaire: There is no reason to assume existence in god without evidence.Quite correct. If there is no evidence of any dog meat in your fridge, why would there be any reason for you to assume its existence?
Blair, I think you need to explain to someone why an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being that existed before time and lets babies die while helping people find their one true love (that they later divorce), is less likely to exist than dog meat.
@ Sree
You are awkward indeed ?
People should not reference Richard Carrier as an authority on Jesus or the New Testament.People should respond to the merits of an argument, not who made it.
The atheist Richard Carrier (a mythicist) admitted that this passage is the strongest evidence for the historical Jesus.And if drops off in strength real fast after that. You can go to his blog for any details, for me, the most convincing part of his argument is that Paul makes no other mentions of a Jesus interacting with real people, any of the "feed the 5,000" stories or anything else. There is no birth, no family, no meeting with Pilate, no one at the tomb. All this was written closer to the first half of the first century, then followed by the gospels over the decades to come. Sure seems like people were adding to the mythology Paul started, not recounting real events.
Out of all the pages you reference in posts above, you can’t just pull out some compelling argument? You don’t even have consensus. The consensus is that Jesus existed as a man, and that’s it. Beyond that, any miracle, his death on the cross, his family, any parable, you can’t get agreement on any of it among scholars. You have factions, there have always been factions, but no consensus.
Blaire wrote: Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Speare Paine Professor of Religion and Theology at Princeton Divinity. She is regarded in biblical acadamia as the Elite! She does Not believe in supernatural Jesus."
My Response. First of all, like Richard Carrier, Elaine Pagels is not a credible source. She is not a New Testament scholar or Jesus scholar. Second, Princeton is liberal.
Blaire wrote: Think about this. Why is it your job to defend God? Isn’t he large enough to defend himself? He can’t even prove his existence on his own
My Response. I reject your assumption that he can’t prove his existence. He never made the claim he was trying to. He has given enough evidence to stimulate faith. (See Romans 1 and 2). Without faith it is impossible to please him (Hebrews 11:6). We defend the faith because Scripture commands us to.
Blaire wrote: There is no reason to assume existence in god without evidence. You do not get to imagine possibilities.
My Response. We do have evidence, that’s the point.
3Point13rat said about my comment: That’s a tautology that explains nothing. It is true, but so trivially true that it has no explanatory value.
My Response: I have to disagree. If an all-powerful theistic God exists, then miracles are possible. What is trivial about that? The conclusion follows logically from the premise.
3Point13erat wrote: You are, in effect, saying, “If a god that could do miracles existed then it could do miracles.” Replace the word “god” with any other noun and the statement is exactly as true. (Try it with ‘raisin’, ‘star’, ‘octopus’ or ‘poster of Justin Bieber’, to see what I mean.)
My Response: That’s a category error, since a raisin, a star, an octopus, and Justin Bieber are not deity. If God exists, then he can do a miracle. The other things you mentioned cannot. Why should I replace the noun “god” with another noun? You gave no argument for this.
3Point13rat wrote: I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying that the fact you’re right is irrelevant. [If you already knew this, sorry for stating the obvious.]
My Response: No, it’s very relevant. if I’m right, then you are wrong. Miracles, and consequently resurrection become possible. You’re making things complex when it’s actually quite simple.
Blaire wrote: There is no reason to assume existence in god without evidence.
My Response: I agree, but I reject your assertion that there is no evidence. I would argue that the Christian God is the best explanation for the origin of the universe, for the design and fine tuning of the universe, for objective moral values and duties, and for the resurrection of Christ. Read “On Guard,” by William Lane Craig, for detailed information on these four points.
@Al
Regarding Miracles:
Why do Christians pray (and have others pray for them) when a person is diagnosed with a terminal illness? Shouldn’t you be jumping for joy to meet Jesus and be in eternal bliss? Why is it a miracle when you are only delaying your time to meet your maker?
According to Psalms 139:16 You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. So, if Jesus has a divine plan for everyone, then why pray?
Do you thank God for child molesters, murderers, world hunger, war and cancer? Afterall, your god is omniscient and does not make mistakes according to scripture.
Genesis 19:8 See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man by lying with him. Please, let me bring them to you and you may do to them as you wish. Only do nothing to these men for this is the reason they have come under my roof.
According to the bible, rape is OK ?
Because Pagels went a libal college she’s not credible? Seems to me that’s bias. There is no evidence for any deity.
Al, usually I use my own words for a while in a discussion, then, if it’s not going well, I say “go read a book”. You opened with that. We’re done before we started.
AI said; for the design and fine tuning of the universeYou have this backwards.
There is no Intelligent design or Irreducible complexity. In a quasi-intelligent mathematical universe patterns emerge spontaneously dependent on the available relative values and mathematical functions.
Self organization
Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on the study of chaos—states of dynamical systems whose apparently-random states of disorder and irregularities are often governed by deterministic laws that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.[1][2] Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary theory stating that, within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization.[3] The butterfly effect, an underlying principle of chaos, describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state (meaning that there is sensitive dependence on initial conditions).[4] A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas.[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
There is no fine tuning of the universe to accommodate the things within it. The things within the universe are fine tuned to the universal conditions. The universe existed for several billions of years before any living patterns emerged as allowed by the extant universal values and functions.
It is life that is fine tuned to the universe, not the other way around. If the universe had different values and function, any emergent patterns would be fine tuned to those conditions. There is no such thing as “something could not exist”. The universe itself was an emergent self-organizing pattern (geometry) and is causal to all subsequent patterns in accordance with relative values and mathematical functions of constituent matter and continue to self-form into greater complexity.
In a mathematical universe, God is superfluous and all man-made artifacts are a direct result of evolutionary processes.
Flight (aeroplane) is often cited as an irreducibly complex system. Well, the lowly insect conquered flight some 200 million years before the first bird took flight and another 150 million years before man looked up and said, “I wish I could fly”, and proceeded to copy the aerodynamics of bird wings.
Natura Artis Magistra (nature is the teacher of the arts and sciences), no God was ever necessary or “could exist as depicted in scripture”.
As to moral purity, God has been responsible for the bloodiest wars in history, because each God told His people it was a good idea. And that immorality still exists in the real world today.
You should question why you believe the New Testament at all?
If you read it closely you can discover how many men met their future wives at the well.
Lausten
But you haven’t. You’ve done nothing but talk about how you have convinced yourself to believe without reasonAnother reason I decided to participate in a forum like this is to learn how to express myself more clearly in writing. Please let me know where I talked about how I have convinced myself to believe without reason.
I am trying to say that I believe Yeshua rose bodily from the dead, not without having used reason, but rather, I believe, after exhausting my reasoning ability and discovering that I can still believe something that my reason tells me is impossible. Not despite or without reason, but beyond reason.
I just reviewed a few of your posts. Here’s what you said;
The claim that Yeshua rose bodily from the dead is physically impossible. It seems logical to me that if the impossible is somehow True, I will only be able to experience it via some way that is beyond my physical reasoning abilities. Metaphysical.You make up this idea that “going beyond physical reason” is something you can do, and somehow better than using what you know. Of course you should know more, but you are making up some way of knowing that doesn’t exist.
CS Lewis saying, “it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths” is just complete BS. I’m sure I could find some more intellectual way of saying that, but it’s not worth it.
So, here is where I am at; after I have satisfied the current limit of my reason, I feel that it is valid, useful, and perhaps essential to use relational trust to influence my very high, even ultimate consequence, decisions. I can always reconsider my choice if following the relational trust leads to dead ends or violates reason.But you gave no reason for why relational trust is better. You gave no evidence that it works, no mechanism for how it works. You just picked something, said you’d go with it, then started defending it.
What you might be struggling with is, you decided what you wanted to find before you went looking for it. So you “satisfied the current limit of your reason”, and it didn’t give you the answer you want. Maybe, you should have first used reason, collected evidence, then come to a conclusion about where that all led you.
@Seth
Jesus is not the only one who has died and come back to life. In the article listed below, it cites 10 other examples of resurrection. For example, Hindu’s worship Krishna and believe JUST LIKE YOU, that their god is the one true god.
Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that we all seem to have the same religion as our families?
“Please Help Me Continue to Examine Why I Believe Jesus Rose Bodily from the Dead”. Why would I do that? Why would you beg for help. I believe the Christian bibles were written over the span of about 1500 years by about 40 authors. In the days of the Biblical character Jesus, the Greek Septuagint Bible was used.
The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the Greek Old Testament.
Perhaps I can help you with your examination of reasoning. One of my favorite reference books is schwab-writings.com
“Please Help Me Continue to Examine Why I Believe Jesus Rose Bodily from the Dead”.
Hal, note the request is to “help examine”. That’s exactly the mission of CFI. If you aren’t on board with that, maybe this isn’t the forum for you, or at least not this thread.
Lausten you are reading the title without the word continue. You also might review the CFI MISSION as you misrepresent the mission in your post.
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization dedicated to defending science and critical thinking in examining religion. CFI’s vision is a world in which evidence, science, and compassion—rather than superstition, pseudoscience, or prejudice—guide public policy.
To make a better world, we need to use our heads and our hearts. To confront the challenges that face us as a planetary civilization, we need to use the tools of science and reason guided by compassion and respect for the dignity of every individual.
To move forward, we need to discard old superstitions, prejudices, and magical thinking and embrace facts, evidence, and critical thinking.
It’s about more than whether or not God exists. It’s about more than whether ghosts roam among us, aliens hover above us, or psychics can see within us.
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) strives to foster a society free of the dogmatic influence of religion and pseudoscience; a society inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment, the wonders of science, and the limitless potential of human intelligence and creativity; a society in which beliefs are not granted the same rights as people, where the freedom of expression is enjoyed by all, and all ideas are open to the scrutiny of reason.
Secular government. Free inquiry. Critical thinking. Humanist values.
This is the Center for Inquiry.
“Please Help Me Continue to Examine Why I Believe Jesus Rose Bodily from the Dead”.
Hal, note the request is to “help examine”. That’s exactly the mission of CFI. If you aren’t on board with that, maybe this isn’t the forum for you, or at least not this thread.
Help Me Continue to Examine Why I Believe Jesus Rose Bodily from the Dead is the antithesis of of the CFI mission.