Is the Whole of Apologetics Merely a Facade?
- Thread starter cvanwey
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I just posted a new thread, partially in your honor
Where's the link?
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Being so cynical won't help your search, don't put every christian in atheist-like thoughts.
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How you know it was fuzzy feelings and nothing else? atheist always try to accomodate christians experiences with euphoria, drugs, hallucinations mental sickness etc.
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No, you are being hasty.
I said I met Him person to Person. (That's my paraphrase of what I said).
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I never called you mentally sick. Quite the contrary. I contest that most feel like you do. However, what else you call it besides some type of felt emotion, in some capacity? And does it really matter what generic label I slap upon it? Your conclusion still essentially results into the same exact thing. (i.e.) You read the Bible, or you hear another reading the Bible to you, or some other relevant stimulus - and you feel warm, tingly, excited, euphoric, elated, happy, or (inject more adjectives here)....
Is this a sound meter-stick for the veracity in it's claims?
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What did He tell you? How did you know it was Him? Was anyone with you? Did they hear and see the same exact thing? Do you have evidence of this occurrence? Did He contact you because you asked to speak with Him? If so, can you replicate this? Did He give you any sound advice, or pearls of wisdom not already known by humans?
etc....?
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"Etc..."?...now you sound like a character in this movie I'm watching.
He told me that He forgives me and loves me and to seek His Face.
I knew it was Him because of what I said already.
Many people were with me. Others heard and responded as well.
Yes, the evidence is my testimony afterwards, which included a public profession and baptism. I seek His face over 20 yrs. later.
I believe that He contacted me because of the toil of others on my behalf, which, of course, ultimately, was His doing.
Prayer is communicating with Him.
The Bible is overflowing with sound advice and pearls of wisdom, it is His communication to us.
I pray that He gifts you with the faith to believe this. Amen.
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"Experiential apologeticsEdit
Experiential apologetics is a reference to an appeal "primarily, if not exclusively, to experience as evidence for Christian faith."[41] Also, "they spurn rational arguments or factual evidence in favor of what they believe to be a self-verifying experience." This view stresses experience that other apologists have not made as explicit, and in the end, the concept that the Holy Spirit convinces the heart of truth becomes the central theme of the apologetic argument.[42"
Christian apologetics - Wikipedia
Experiential apologetics is a reference to an appeal "primarily, if not exclusively, to experience as evidence for Christian faith."[41] Also, "they spurn rational arguments or factual evidence in favor of what they believe to be a self-verifying experience." This view stresses experience that other apologists have not made as explicit, and in the end, the concept that the Holy Spirit convinces the heart of truth becomes the central theme of the apologetic argument.[42"
Christian apologetics - Wikipedia
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This has gotten quite a bit longer than last time I was on here, and I never like being overwhelmed by a large quantity of responses. As such, I'm hesitant even to post this one, but it's something I'd like to share with you, @cvanwey .
You mention intercessory prayer on your behalf, requesting a personal experience. I have been & will continue to do so for you; yet sometimes, it's better that it happens at a later date than we would wish. "God's time" is something that isn't just an idea for me, but a real event.
My first college was largely engineering, and that was what I was there to study. While still in high school, I had my disastrous break-up that led me to turn to God deeply for the first time. This would've been the perfect time for God to reveal to me Himself to me more deeply! I was primed, I was accepting of this God guy I'd heard a lot about but hadn't experienced much, but He waited until I was already at my first college before granting me the personal experience necessary to totally turn towards Him.
It confused me at first, but so often it life, it makes more sense in retrospect. In short, engineering wasn't for me, and the major that was suited for me (Theology, which I'm currently studying), wasn't offered at my first college. Yet it was the people there, and one in particular, that made a massive impact on me & I on them. I had a friend who really needed support than only I could give; she introduced me to a mode of living out faith that I hadn't encountered yet, and likely wouldn't have, if I hadn't met her.
I'm not mentioning details, because details aren't important. All I want to do is display how God can delay His revelation to us, if doing so leads us in a better direction. If God had revealed Himself to me so strongly in high school, I would've gone straight to a college that offered Theology, and I would've missed so much that I gained from being at the wrong school with the right people for 2 years.
Does this make sense? I don't think I'll be saying much else on this thread, but feel free to PM me if I seem like someone good to discuss this all in more detail. Or if you're in the Chicago area, we could meet up over a meal sometime!
In any case, I want you to know that your request for prayers is being honored, and if you wish, I can start a thread on the Prayer Wall on your behalf. Just quote this post to let me know.
Your heart's in the right place; if there truly is a God, I trust that He will reward you in some way.
You mention intercessory prayer on your behalf, requesting a personal experience. I have been & will continue to do so for you; yet sometimes, it's better that it happens at a later date than we would wish. "God's time" is something that isn't just an idea for me, but a real event.
My first college was largely engineering, and that was what I was there to study. While still in high school, I had my disastrous break-up that led me to turn to God deeply for the first time. This would've been the perfect time for God to reveal to me Himself to me more deeply! I was primed, I was accepting of this God guy I'd heard a lot about but hadn't experienced much, but He waited until I was already at my first college before granting me the personal experience necessary to totally turn towards Him.
It confused me at first, but so often it life, it makes more sense in retrospect. In short, engineering wasn't for me, and the major that was suited for me (Theology, which I'm currently studying), wasn't offered at my first college. Yet it was the people there, and one in particular, that made a massive impact on me & I on them. I had a friend who really needed support than only I could give; she introduced me to a mode of living out faith that I hadn't encountered yet, and likely wouldn't have, if I hadn't met her.
I'm not mentioning details, because details aren't important. All I want to do is display how God can delay His revelation to us, if doing so leads us in a better direction. If God had revealed Himself to me so strongly in high school, I would've gone straight to a college that offered Theology, and I would've missed so much that I gained from being at the wrong school with the right people for 2 years.
Does this make sense? I don't think I'll be saying much else on this thread, but feel free to PM me if I seem like someone good to discuss this all in more detail. Or if you're in the Chicago area, we could meet up over a meal sometime!
In any case, I want you to know that your request for prayers is being honored, and if you wish, I can start a thread on the Prayer Wall on your behalf. Just quote this post to let me know.
Your heart's in the right place; if there truly is a God, I trust that He will reward you in some way.
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Meaning you no offence at all, and I'm sure you're as honest as the next person: but no, it means nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Anecdotal evidence carries absolutely no weight here.
To quote Richard Dawkins:
"Constructing models is something the human brain is very good at. When we are asleep it is called dreaming; when we are awake we call it imagination or, when it is exceptionally vivid, hallucination. As Chapter 10 will show, children who have ‘imaginary friends’ sometimes see them clearly, exactly as if they were real. If we are gullible, we don’t recognize hallucination or lucid dreaming for what it is and we claim to have seen or heard a ghost; or an angel; or God; or – especially if we happen to be young, female and Catholic – the Virgin Mary. Such visions and manifestations are certainly not good grounds for believing that ghosts or angels, gods or virgins, are actually there."
and
"That is really all that needs to be said about personal ‘experiences’ of gods or other religious phenomena. If you’ve had such an experience, you may well find yourself believing firmly that it was real. But don’t expect the rest of us to take your word for it, especially if we have the slightest familiarity with the brain and its powerful workings."
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Indeed. The stories about God don't seem to match up very closely with the reality.Of course it does not make sense @InterestedAtheist
- God can present His presence to anyone, at anytime. Heck, the Bible even asserts the following (i.e.) "every knee will bow, every tongue will confess."
- God presented to many directly in the OT, and some in the NT - (whom did not request His contact).
- Furthermore, I do not need to 'prepare' myself in a special kind of way...
- Countless anecdotal claims of God's contact
- He seems to side-step the intercessory prayer issue
Instead, @NBB plausibly looks to be making a typical case of special pleading.
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Nihilist Virus
Infectious idea
Lee Strobel: If your own mother says she loves you, check the sources.
Also Lee Strobel: 500 unnamed people witnessed a resurrection according to a guy who wasn't even there because it occurred before he was born. Dang... no disputing that one!
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Thank you for your response. I gather you too agree that apologetics is really of no concern, as the title suggests. Apologetics neither brought you to your faith. Nor, can apologetics likely lead a non-believer to faith. It's really all about personal experiences.
But to probe more, I have to ask.... And please, I'm not mocking you. I actually believe you when you state you think you really spoke to God. But I have to bring up a blaring point in the video. Please fast forward to minute number (9:02 to 13:00) and (21:25 to 21:35) of the video (
Is it possible that when you are 'in the zone', your emotions can really go to work? I mean, we have to ask ourselves, many of these experiences cannot all be from God, can they? And yet they probably all feel genuine to the person whom experiences them. And many even witness them.
Which ones are real? I gather many will claim a similar story to yours. But it's quite possible some of them, or more, are not 'real'.
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Then prayer is proven even more irrelevant. Can you change God's will? He does not change His mind, does He? Everything He does to you, He was already going to do, and He decides when He is going to do it, to boot.
I'll give you an example, just for something extra.... God states He answers all prayer requests -- ('but only on his time')?.
You are in an airplane to be re-united with your wife and newborn child, the plane suddenly goes out of control, destined to crash. You pray to God to save you, so you can get to your destination, to meet with your newborn for the first time. The plane instead crashes, and you die.
Nothing you have said above points directly to a 'God', let alone YHWH. People like to draw connections, or invoke a 'higher purpose', all the time.
Let's get to the meet and potatoes
You state "God revealed Himself to you". Taking into account "external world skepticism", how are you so sure? Can you please explain how God revealed Himself to you, and why there is no doubt?Thank you, but I really wish that you reconsider.?.? Many posts ago, you stated yourself that this topic is not covered enough. My goal here is to lay down a rather large track record, that others can reference and reflect upon. You are an integral part of that process
What we post here, remains until the site dies, or the administrators decide to remove.Do as you wish, but I do not have access there
For some strange reason, they do not allow non-believers to post there?.?.?Your heart's in the right place; if there truly is a God, I trust that He will reward you in some way.
As I told @NBB ... Seems quite peculiar that a God, whom expresses that He wants nothing more than to obtain a close and personal relationship with His creation, would continue not contacting an earnest seeker for decades?
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I think what Professor Dawkins was saying is that the brain is quite capable of producing (and often does) amazingly realistic experiences that can easily be mistaken for interactions with ghosts, demons or gods. Or God.
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As you wish.Thank you, but I really wish that you reconsider.?.? Many posts ago, you stated yourself that this topic is not covered enough. My goal here is to lay down a rather large track record, that others can reference and reflect upon. You are an integral part of that process
Everything you ask is difficult questions, and I'm not sure if anyone can provide a totally convincing answer. My old roommate was someone who almost made a religion out of External World Skepticism; he was so focused on the possibility of other possibilities that he made an ideology out of rejecting ideologies. We were roommates through my first two years of college, and there were a lot of interesting discussions that came out of our clash of ideologies. Perhaps the most interesting part was on how much we agreed.Then prayer is proven even more irrelevant. Can you change God's will? He does not change His mind, does He? Everything He does to you, He was already going to do, and He decides when He is going to do it, to boot.
I'll give you an example, just for something extra.... God states He answers all prayer requests -- ('but only on his time')?.
You are in an airplane to be re-united with your wife and newborn child, the plane suddenly goes out of control, destined to crash. You pray to God to save you, so you can get to your destination, to meet with your newborn for the first time. The plane instead crashes, and you die.
Nothing you have said above points directly to a 'God', let alone YHWH. People like to draw connections, or invoke a 'higher purpose', all the time.
Let's get to the meet and potatoes
Thank you, but I really wish that you reconsider.?.? Many posts ago, you stated yourself that this topic is not covered enough. My goal here is to lay down a rather large track record, that others can reference and reflect upon. You are an integral part of that process
Do as you wish, but I do not have access there
As I told @NBB ... Seems quite peculiar that a God, whom expresses that He wants nothing more than to obtain a close and personal relationship with His creation, would continue not contacting an earnest seeker for decades?
I have never known the term "external world skepticism" until you mentioned it in this thread, but the idea is something common. My roommate, Nathan, would settle EWS by declaring nothing to be valid; he described his general life philosophy as "cosmic nihilism", the idea that there is no meaning behind anything, and none of it matters anyway. My own philosophy, I describe as "practical religiosity". I also acknowledge EWS, but I settle it by deciding that I have to believe in something, so I might as well submit to the faith that brings so much good out of me, and so much hope for something beyond this world.
Have you heard of Paschal's Wager? Largely because of my many conversations with Nathan, it's become my favorite piece of apologetics. The rest of apologetics, as has been demonstrated quite starkly on this thread, is up to intellectual debate. A basic trait of human intelligence, I've noticed, is that everything can be disagreed with. "Why is there something rather than nothing? If there was ever a time when there was nothing, than nothing could have come in the first place. Therefore, there must have been something that has just always been here, and this something created everything in the universe. Otherwise, we would have to reject so many scientific beliefs of cause & effect, to just say without evidence that things just came into being one day." This is perhaps the strongest logical argument for a Creator God, as it shows that there has to be something beyond the so often divinized science & universe. Yet this will still be met by disagreeing points (as Nathan would always do), and in any case, how does it prove any particular God?
Pascals' Wager plays off this uncertainty. It begins with the admission that we really don't know, can't prove, can't disprove any sort of divine being (hence the reason this resonated well with Nathan). So, it comes down to a matter of choice: what do you choose to believe? God can't be proven or disproven. If he is real, then we need to believe in him for eternal reward; if he is fake, then what have we lost? A little wasted time, perhaps, but what is the risk in that, compared to the risk of losing Heaven?
I'm not sure if this is keeping in line with your thread; perhaps playing the wager patiently, awaiting some sort of personal experience, but hoping for the best & trying to find higher meaning that brings out a better "you", might be the best way to play it. The wager is laid, and you are always choosing, whether you want to or not; what's your gamble?
What do you think?
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I'll interject here. I would agree that NOTHING can be proven 'absolute'? Which kind of contradicts itself also, as I just made an 'absolute' assertion. But I digress... We can only invoke a percentage of certainty. Case/point:
Using logic, what's the likelihood you can produce a married-bachelor? .000001%?
What's the likelihood you exist? 99+%?
We run on degrees of 'certainty'.
Where would you place your specific God, on this barometer - or percentage/degree of certainty?
Yes, I have found it to be a 'fan favorite' among many encountered theistic arguments.
And maybe likely so-to will be this one
See below...Agree
If a philosophy 101 teacher had a nickel for every time they had to talk about this concept
The entire argument could go kaput, if the 'universe' is found to be eternal. Logically, to then invoke a creator, at all, would then become nonsensical or irrational.
And if our 'universe' is finite, it still may not violate all known laws, as maybe our current 'universe' sprung from a prior one, or other, or other, or other.
Maybe infinite regress is a 'thing'????
other........
EVEN IF a God exists, which one, or which ones, and what ARE His moral predicates/requirements? I trust we are in agreements that the path to suggested or asserted 'eternal bliss', even under concluded theism, and even monotheism, is up for MAJOR debate. The existence of God itself gets us virtually no closer to what you state (i.e.) "If he is real, then we need to believe in him for eternal reward"
Aside from the many opposing factions, which exist under the Abrahamic religion alone, who's to say any of them are even what God wants. Maybe God is a 'sadistic voyeur'? Maybe God is indifferent to your worship of Him. Maybe all ascribed canons in current circulation, are incorrect? Maybe God does not contact us at all. Maybe God wants to see how we handle life without knowing for sure. Maybe God does not care. Maybe there exists no heaven. God just created us for his amusement.
You get the picture, Pascal's Wager really gets us no closer to anything. Your 'ideology' is one of a million, just like any one I may choose.
If I am to believe what the BIBLE says, it tells me, or at least strongly infers, that God wants a personal relationship with me. I tried this for years and years. I felt nothing. Logically, what am I to conclude?
- I'm either blocked by sin
- God continues to wait perpetually
- God tells you He will answer prayer, which is a logical contradiction
- Or maybe, just maybe, like the video suggests, many relate personal experience immediately to some external 'cause'
*************
Can you please answer my question now
You state "God revealed Himself to you". Taking into account "external world skepticism", how are you so sure? Can you please explain how God revealed Himself to you, and why there is no doubt?
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