How did you arrive at Christianity?

[Ed1wolf]

The resurrection of Christ has the worst documentary evidence I can think of. It is so flawed that even the evangelists could not get their act together in the Holy Gospels. I have read the different ways apologists have tried to 'harmonise' the contradictions in the Holy Gospels about the Crucifixion and Resurrection stories of our Lord but they have failed totally. Many times, Christian writers have mistaken the bulk of copies in the 14th century as evidence of reliability but they are wrong. Whether the Holy Gospels are reliable cannot depend on how many copies were made by the church many hundreds of years after they were written or even (as is more often the case) more than 1300 years later).

Huh? The written documents for Caesar's Gallic Wars are from 900 years after the events. We have an ancient Christian hymn in I Corinthians 15:3-8 written less than 5 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. All four of the gospels were probably written less than 40 years after the events. Where do you get hundreds of years?

st: There is zilch evidence for God. We think there is evidence because we pick up small fragments which don't even make up the smallest shred of evidence and build a case from there. It's because of the apologists and writers who mislead us. And it's easy for us to fall for their deception because our faith means so much to us and we yearn to see some evidence for the God we worship. But there is no evidence and the extent of our faith will determine whether we continue to worship Jesus despite the absence of evidence. That has a lot to do with how much we love Him.

Cheers,

St Truth

I know many people that became Christians because of the evidence for God. See my first post to you for just a tip of the iceberg of the evidence for God. Even Jesus said don't believe things with no evidence. Why do you think He gave so much evidence, ie miracles, to prove He was who He said He was?

 

[StTruth]

Hi Ed1wolf,

Thanks for your post. I will, with your leave, break it down for easy response.

Huh? The written documents for Caesar's Gallic Wars are from 900 years after the events. We have an ancient Christian hymn in I Corinthians 15:3-8 written less than 5 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. All four of the gospels were probably written less than 40 years after the events. Where do you get hundreds of years?

It is very easy for us Christians to make the mistake of comparing our religious record with something like Roman wars and then we jumble up everything in the process. First it is not correct to say that the first record of Caesar's wars was made 900 years after the event. But I don't want to miss the issue and argue on something quite different. I will leave Caesar's wars aside and concentrate on our Holy Scripture. In the accounts written of Alexander the Great, for example, there are a lot of testimonies of his superhuman abilities. Alexander the Great was born of a virgin too, like some of the Greek gods and goddesses. Pallas Athene, I recall (I may be wrong about the particular goddess), was born from the head of Zeus after he had a massive migraine attack and I'm not kidding. LOL. I learnt that in Classical studies in school. But you see, historians do not take Alexander the Great's superhuman qualities as history. We all know that the ancients have a propensity of seeing the supernatural and mixing it up with reality.

But what Christians want historians to do (and none of them will unless of course they happen to be Christians as well) is to take the supernatural tall tales in our Scriptural record as history. That is not right. If you say the Gospels tell us that there was a man named Pontius Pilate. That's fine. You say crucifixion took place as recorded in the Gospels and that's history, that's OK. But if you say Christ rose from the dead, that's not history. That's religion. Just as Alexander the Great's superhuman abilities and birth are not history but myth.

Another mistake you make is to say that 1 Cor 15:3-8 is an ancient hymn written no more than 5 years after Jesus' death. That is absolutely incorrect. Scholars say that those verse are PROBABLY a hymn or creed that was common at the time. Again this is conjecture but it may be true. But there is NOTHING in these verses alone to lead anyone to the conclusion that it was written within 5 years of Jesus' death. Anyone who entertains such a view does so out of his religious faith and it has nothing to do with fact or evidence. It may be a common creed recited by Christians at the time of writing. I'm not surprised there would be such a creed. The tenets of the creed were formed by that time.

I mentioned hundreds of years to explain one argument Christians sometimes use. They say there are so many thousand manuscripts of the New Testament compared to some other historical document. Ergo, the NT must be authentic and correct. First, the manuscripts that we have are all quite recent. The earliest manuscripts date back to hundreds of years after the actual writing. I've seen some of the earliest manuscripts in the British library. One dated 400AD (that's 400 years after the event!!!) cannot even be called a manuscript. It's not even a page. It's only a fragment of a page consisting of no more than one and a half verses. But Christian statisticians will call that one early manuscript and chalk it up in our arsenal of available manuscripts.

I know many people that became Christians because of the evidence for God. See my first post to you for just a tip of the iceberg of the evidence for God. Even Jesus said don't believe things with no evidence. Why do you think He gave so much evidence, ie miracles, to prove He was who He said He was?

I have looked up all your posts on this thread and I don't see evidence for God. Every single post that you have posted has been answered by me. Perhaps I missed one of them? But the thread is quite short. Which particular evidence are you referring to that I have not been able to show that (a) it's not really evidence or (b) it's unreliable evidence that does not at all support our God proposition. I admit sometimes I can miss posts so it will be great if you draw my attention to the evidence. I have been asking for evidence for a long time and I sure don't want to miss any that is presented to me. It's very hard to get a Christian to present his evidence and when you say you have given me evidence, I welcome it with open arms and I sure don't want to miss it.

Thanks.

Cheers,

St Truth

 

[Dirk1540]

It is very easy for us Christians to make the mistake of comparing our religious record with something like Roman wars and then we jumble up everything in the process...In the accounts written of Alexander the Great, for example, there are a lot of testimonies of his superhuman abilities. Alexander the Great was born of a virgin too, like some of the Greek gods and goddesses. Pallas Athene, I recall (I may be wrong about the particular goddess), was born from the head of Zeus after he had a massive migraine attack and I'm not kidding. But you see, historians do not take Alexander the Great's superhuman qualities as history. We all know that the ancients have a propensity of seeing the supernatural and mixing it up with reality.

In your paragraph, you are lumping Emperor (King/Pharoah/etc) worship, together with the events surrounding a poor Jewish crucified claimed Messiah, together with a mythological figure who never existed as being identical...then you claim that "WE Jumble up everything" LOL. I can write a book on how all 3 cases are not even close to identical.

That is not right. If you say the Gospels tell us that there was a man named Pontius Pilate. That's fine. You say crucifixion took place as recorded in the Gospels and that's history, that's OK. But if you say Christ rose from the dead, that's not history. That's religion.

That is an inference FROM the historical data...you know, kind of like the debates that take place all over the world that you claimed to have watched. Come on bro lol, aren't you a Christian?? Wouldn't it be in your 'Christian' interest to let your fellow Christians know what inference from historical data is, instead of calling it 'Bogus Religion'?

That is absolutely incorrect. Scholars say that those verse are PROBABLY a hymn or creed that was common at the time. Again this is conjecture but it may be true.

The existence of literary formulas embedded within texts that are not a part of the author's original material is not conjecture. The same types of literary criticisms get employed to ATTACK the Bible at times! Consistency now! But again, aren't you supposed to be on my side of this lol.

I have looked up all your posts on this thread and I don't see evidence for God.

You state time & time again that you don't see evidence for God ANYWHERE. But it goes beyond that, you go on anti-Christian dissertations about how Christians are flat out delusional for believing in arguments for God. I think that you overplay the atheism case significantly. I know atheists who will even admit to me that they can at least see descent points for a God, but then they get much more hard lined against me when we get into the Biblical God.

It's very hard to get a Christian to present his evidence and when you say you have given me evidence, I welcome it with open arms and I sure don't want to miss it.

Umm, why not just ask yourself since you're a Christian? Right? Lol.

 

[StTruth]

In your paragraph, you are lumping Emperor (King/Pharoah/etc) worship, together with the events surrounding a poor Jewish crucified claimed Messiah, together with a mythological figure who never existed as being identical...then you claim that "WE Jumble up everything" LOL. I can write a book on how all 3 cases are not even close to identical.

You missed my argument by a few lightyears. What I'm trying to educate Christians in is this. We tend to talk about historical texts and then we want others to also accept our biblical text as accurate about Jesus' resurrection. But historical texts, eg in Alexander the Great may also include stories about him being superhuman. But historians discount the superhuman or supernatural garbage and so do we when we read a history book. Likewise we must expect others to discount the supernatural portion of our religious texts. Where the historical text talks about Alexander's conquest, that's history. But where it talks about Alexander's virgin birth, that's myth and is to be discounted. Similarly, where the Gospels talk about Pontius Pilate, we can say that is history. But where it talks about Jesus rising from the dead or Jesus being born of a virgin (like Alexander), that's religious myth.

The existence of literary formulas embedded within texts that are not a part of the author's original material is not conjecture. The same types of literary criticisms get employed to ATTACK the Bible at times! Consistency now! But again, aren't you supposed to be on my side of this lol.

But nothing in the literary formula has been shown to date it from 5 years after Jesus' death. That is nothing more than speculation. I'm not being inconsistent. It's just that the Christian argument is always loaded with conjectures and he can't see it is so. Show me anything that suggests that the verses must have come from a period within 5 years after Jesus' death. YOu can't because there is no such thing. Craig made this one up as he has made up many other things. Craig is good at inventing stories, don't you know?

You state time & time again that you don't see evidence for God ANYWHERE. But it goes beyond that, you go on anti-Christian dissertations about how Christians are flat out delusional for believing in arguments for God. I think that you overplay the atheism case significantly. I know atheists who will even admit to me that they can at least see descent points for a God, but then they get much more hard lined against me when we get into the Biblical God.

That is because it is true. There is no evidence for God but Christians just can't seem to see it. And when asked for the smallest shred of evidence, they hum and they haw and they refuse to give any. It's happened all the time in other threads too including a current one I just had. And when they do, they usually quote Craig and what we see is it's not evidence at all. It's unreliable conjecture that comes from a highly religious mind.

Umm, why not just ask yourself since you're a Christian? Right? Lol.

You are employing the tactic that is so common among my fellow Christians. When they realise I'm right, they always tell me that I must be a non-believer. But it doesn't work that way. I am an honest believer. I don't lie for God and for my faith. No, I won't tell a single lie even if it's to save my God from the conclusion that he's non-existent. I will be truthful and honest till I die. But I will hold on to my reason-less illogical faith. You don't need reason to have faith. Martin Luther says that reason is the greatest enemy faith has. Christians hate it when I say this but sorry, just deal with it. I am too honest to tell lies. For I am...

St Truth

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I will give two examples of the scientific evidence for Christianity. First, the universe has been pretty much been proven to be an effect and therefore requires a cause and in fact a personal cause because purposes exist in the universe and we know that purposes only come from personal beings. So this eliminates flying unicorns as the creator of the existence because they are not persons they are horses. But of course, we cannot prove that they unicorns do not exist, but we can demonstrate that they did not create this universe. Second, out of all the major sacred books and religions only the Christianity and the Bible teaches that the universe had a definite beginning and was created out of nothing detectable. Both of which have been confirmed by the BB theory. From history, the resurrection of Christ has better documentary evidence than Caesars Gallic Wars. Philosophically, the very nature of the universe, ie that it is a diversity within a unity, point to the Christian God as its creator because we know that most creators imprint aspects of themselves in their creations. And only the Christian God is a true diversity within a unity, ie the Trinity. And these are just a few of the evidences for Christianity in the three areas of science, history and philosophy.

rad: The first part of your statement (primate not unicorn created everything) is so absurd, and it actually sounds like you are joking.

How is logical reasoning absurd? Can you refute anything I stated? Who said anything about a primate? I thought humans were primates? Contrary to Oprah, humans did not create the universe. I was not joking when I typed my statements above because it is a serious statement about reality. Reality is a very serious matter. StTruth brought up the unicorn, not me.

rad: But the second part (more documentation) is just evil. The fact that the Bible was so heavily promoted by a powerful empire for religious propaganda does NOT give it validity. I wouldn't care if you were joking. It's evil.

How is that evil? Umm.. Christianity and the NT was founded and written by a tiny group of poor jews. What powerful empire are you referring to? Yes, 300 years later it became the state religion of the Roman empire but the leadership got corrupted over the next 1200 years and did some very anti Christian things, they kept the bible from the lay people so that many did not realize how much the church leadership was ignoring the teachings of God's Word. Then things started improving when the Reformation occurred and the church started going back to actually following the teachings of the Bible, His Word.

 

[Dirk1540]

Why are you a Christian? Why aren't you a Buddhist, a Muslim, or a Hindu? Why aren't you an atheist? A humanist? Even a Satanist? What about Christianity makes you believe it's true? I honestly cannot understand how people can be so sure of Christianity when they're literally atheistic about every single religion except theirs. So, please explain. For those who don't remember me, you are assured that this is not a trap, though I am eager to discuss.

I used to be a christian, but IMO, people believe or dont believe primarily based on; their upbringing, social environment they live in and their life experiences and how all of this impacts their personal psyche.

I will digress to the OP since I didn't even answer but joined into the derailment party, I have 2 reasons. 1 is internal experience, of which one specific instance trumps all the rest in my life by far. 2nd reason is historical Jesus study. I did not become a Christian on some fixed day, of a fixed year...I went back & forth a whole lot, often left in discouragement because I thought it was false. Over years I slowly started to see the historical supernatural Jesus fit like a glove, yet the mortal Jesus made no sense. Why? If I made a post on why it would be incredibly LONG.

Why not another religion? I really only seemed to care about religion for the sole question of what is on the other side of death. So you have one real figure in history (as far as I know) who convinced a bunch of his contemporaries that he defeated death. Then you had people in history who want to tell me what's on the other side of death, yet they have never even claimed to have beaten death, or you have mythological figures who weren't even real. I didn't see any point in investigating anything other than that which at least claimed to address my concern.

By all means a large part of this forum is about derailment parties, more power to them! This OP does not appear to be.

 

[radhead]

How is that evil? Umm.. Christianity and the NT was founded and written by a tiny group of poor jews. What powerful empire are you referring to? Yes, 300 years later it became the state religion of the Roman empire but the leadership got corrupted over the next 1200 years and did some very anti Christian things, they kept the bible from the lay people so that many did not realize how much the church leadership was ignoring the teachings of God's Word. Then things started improving when the Reformation occurred and the church started going back to actually following the teachings of the Bible, His Word.

I couldn't care less about who WROTE the new testament. What is evil is PROMOTING it as the literal truth.

The original writers could have been writing satire, social criticism, entertainment, fiction, poetry, prose, etc. There is nothing wrong with any of that. But don't blame them for what others have done with their writings.

 

[bhsmte]

I couldn't care less about who WROTE the new testament. What is evil is PROMOTING it as the literal truth.

The original writers could have been writing satire, social criticism, entertainment, fiction, poetry, prose, etc. There is nothing wrong with any of that. But don't blame them for what others have done with their writings.

No one knows with any confidence, who penned the gospels and even christian scholars have consensus with this issue. Also, jesus' followers spoke aramaic i believe and the gospels were penned in greek, which tells you something.

 

[StTruth]

No one knows with any confidence, who penned the gospels and even christian scholars have consensus with this issue. Also, jesus' followers spoke aramaic i believe and the gospels were penned in greek, which tells you something.

I know the answer to that one! I've read a top-notch scholar on this. Apparently, the Evangelists aren't really who Church Tradition says they are. First, it's important to know that there are many textual indications that can prove that they aren't even Jews. They were most probably Hellenistic Christians who wrote the Holy Gospels.

There is evidence for this:

1. Whenever they quote the Old Testament, you get this funny feeling that they didn't know the OT and they made up the quotation. That's if you compare what they say with the actual OT. But scholars say that they actually quoted from the Septuagint which is a ridiculously bad translation of the Hebrew Bible. A real Jew (if they had been really St Mark, St Matt, St Luke and St Jn) would have used a proper Jewish Bible and not a silly badly translated Septuagint.

2. There are instances when they misunderstood OT prophecy because they didn't understand the pattern used in Hebrew poetry. And they write a long story to fit Jesus into the prophecy but the other evangelists who didn't get their reading wrong understood the prophecy and wrote a different story about Jesus -also to get him to fit into the prophecy.

There are a few other reasons but I've forgotten them.

Cheers,

St Truth

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I know the answer to that one! I've read a top-notch scholar on this. Apparently, the Evangelists aren't really who Church Tradition says they are. First, it's important to know that there are many textual indications that can prove that they aren't even Jews. They were most probably Hellenistic Christians who wrote the Holy Gospels.

There is evidence for this:

1. Whenever they quote the Old Testament, you get this funny feeling that they didn't know the OT and they made up the quotation. That's if you compare what they say with the actual OT. But scholars say that they actually quoted from the Septuagint which is a ridiculously bad translation of the Hebrew Bible. A real Jew (if they had been really St Mark, St Matt, St Luke and St Jn) would have used a proper Jewish Bible and not a silly badly translated Septuagint.

2. There are instances when they misunderstood OT prophecy because they didn't understand the pattern used in Hebrew poetry. And they write a long story to fit Jesus into the prophecy but the other evangelists who didn't get their reading wrong understood the prophecy and wrote a different story about Jesus -also to get him to fit into the prophecy.

There are a few other reasons but I've forgotten them.

Cheers,

St Truth

Please cite [or at least directly mention] your sources, or I'm just going to ignore your 'scholarship.' If you can't be a part of the solution, at least don't be a part of the problem ...

 

[StTruth]

Please cite [or at least directly mention] your sources, or I'm just going to ignore your 'scholarship.' If you can't be a part of the solution, at least don't be a part of the problem ...

Certainly. My source is none other than one of the world's most renowned Bible scholar who was Bruce Metzger's right-hand man and who wrote jointly with Bruce Metzger the world's most authoritative advanced textual study of the Bible called
The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th Edition).

The book where he examines this at great length is titled simply The New Testament. The cover says it's suitable for university courses in theology.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Certainly. My source is none other than one of the world's most renowned Bible scholar who was Bruce Metzger's right-hand man and who wrote jointly with Bruce Metzger the world's most authoritative advanced textual study of the Bible called
The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th Edition).

The book where he examines this at great length is titled simply The New Testament. The cover says it's suitable for university courses in theology.

Good start, StTruth.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You missed my argument by a few lightyears. What I'm trying to educate Christians in is this. We tend to talk about historical texts and then we want others to also accept our biblical text as accurate about Jesus' resurrection. But historical texts, eg in Alexander the Great may also include stories about him being superhuman. But historians discount the superhuman or supernatural garbage and so do we when we read a history book. Likewise we must expect others to discount the supernatural portion of our religious texts. Where the historical text talks about Alexander's conquest, that's history. But where it talks about Alexander's virgin birth, that's myth and is to be discounted. Similarly, where the Gospels talk about Pontius Pilate, we can say that is history. But where it talks about Jesus rising from the dead or Jesus being born of a virgin (like Alexander), that's religious myth.




But nothing in the literary formula has been shown to date it from 5 years after Jesus' death. That is nothing more than speculation. I'm not being inconsistent. It's just that the Christian argument is always loaded with conjectures and he can't see it is so. Show me anything that suggests that the verses must have come from a period within 5 years after Jesus' death. YOu can't because there is no such thing. Craig made this one up as he has made up many other things. Craig is good at inventing stories, don't you know?




That is because it is true. There is no evidence for God but Christians just can't seem to see it. And when asked for the smallest shred of evidence, they hum and they haw and they refuse to give any. It's happened all the time in other threads too including a current one I just had. And when they do, they usually quote Craig and what we see is it's not evidence at all. It's unreliable conjecture that comes from a highly religious mind.



You are employing the tactic that is so common among my fellow Christians. When they realise I'm right, they always tell me that I must be a non-believer. But it doesn't work that way. I am an honest believer. I don't lie for God and for my faith. No, I won't tell a single lie even if it's to save my God from the conclusion that he's non-existent. I will be truthful and honest till I die. But I will hold on to my reason-less illogical faith. You don't need reason to have faith. Martin Luther says that reason is the greatest enemy faith has. Christians hate it when I say this but sorry, just deal with it. I am too honest to tell lies. For I am...

St Truth

Maybe Martin Luther got some things wrong. Is reason a 'harlot'?

 

[Adstar]

Why are you a Christian? Why aren't you a Buddhist, a Muslim, or a Hindu? Why aren't you an atheist? A humanist? Even a Satanist? What about Christianity makes you believe it's true? I honestly cannot understand how people can be so sure of Christianity when they're literally atheistic about every single religion except theirs. So, please explain. For those who don't remember me, you are assured that this is not a trap, though I am eager to discuss.

In short i read the Bible and it moved me to believe Jesus and trust in the Atonement He secured for my salvation..

At the time i read the Bible i was a lax catholic who was getting into the New Age belief system.. I also liked a lot of Buddhist teachings.. But once i read the Bible and understood the Way of salvation God had made for humanity to be restored to an eternal relationship with Him as perfected beings in his perfect eternal existence renounced all those inadequacy and false religions and i came to trust totally in the gift of salvation God had worked to secure for me..

I have also have been gifted by God dreams that confirm His existence and that He is the Lord Jesus Christ.. I have seen the future in dreams and observed these dream come true in perfect detail.. God knows the future down to the minute detail.. The future is foreknown.. The God of Abraham is indeed Awesome beyond human imaginings..

 

[StTruth]

In short i read the Bible and it moved me to believe Jesus and trust in the Atonement He secured for my salvation..

At the time i read the Bible i was a lax catholic who was getting into the New Age belief system.. I also liked a lot of Buddhist teachings.. But once i read the Bible and understood the Way of salvation God had made for humanity to be restored to an eternal relationship with Him as perfected beings in his perfect eternal existence renounced all those inadequacy and false religions and i came to trust totally in the gift of salvation God had worked to secure for me..

Hi Adstar,

Thanks for your post. You were a lax RC interested in Buddhism and were about to get into New Age belief when you read the Bible 'and understood the Way of salvation God had made for humanity...'. What made you accept the Bible as correct and not the Buddhist sutras (did you read Buddhist sutras at that time?)? Was there anything that made you decide that the Bible was correct? I'm asking because you didn't say why you chose the Bible as correct.

Cheers,

St Truth

 

[danny ski]

Huh? The written documents for Caesar's Gallic Wars are from 900 years after the events. We have an ancient Christian hymn in I Corinthians 15:3-8 written less than 5 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. All four of the gospels were probably written less than 40 years after the events. Where do you get hundreds of years?


I know many people that became Christians because of the evidence for God. See my first post to you for just a tip of the iceberg of the evidence for God. Even Jesus said don't believe things with no evidence. Why do you think He gave so much evidence, ie miracles, to prove He was who He said He was?

Not true. Bellum Gallicum was penned by Julius Caesar(well, the vast majority of it). We also have supporting, contemporary written evidence plus a good chunk of archeological evidence that matches the written records, like, for example, the digs at the site of the siege of Alesia.

 

[radhead]

No one knows with any confidence, who penned the gospels and even christian scholars have consensus with this issue. Also, jesus' followers spoke aramaic i believe and the gospels were penned in greek, which tells you something.

How could anyone blame the Jews for rejecting the entire New Testament? It wasn't even written in their language, and yet it claims to be a continuation of their scriptures. I think the entire tone of it is mocking, the way it refers to Hebrew scriptures entirely out of context.

 

[Chriliman]

I could probably be considered a Mysterian theist. Mysterianism is a philosophical view that posits cognitive closure--the idea that the human mind is no more equipped to answer questions about the human condition and the ultimate nature of reality than a mouse would be to solve algebraic equations. I suspect that this is true, but feel that it's a self-refuting form of naturalism--you can't claim that human knowledge is limited and then cling dogmatically to a metaphysical position that reduces reality to the limits of scientific understanding. I identify as a strong agnostic in my more nihilistic moments, but due to this particular issue, I reject atheism as an untenable position.

That huge epistemological mess set aside, I have some very, very deep disagreements with modern metaphysics, both in the philosophy of mind and of science, which have led to my brain getting wired Neo-Aristotelian instead. Which means that about half of what Aquinas has to say is rationally compelling (particularly the Third and Fifth Ways), so I fall quite squarely on the theistic side of agnosticism. I'm also fascinated by mysticism, so my theism puts down roots beyond the world of rationalism.

Christianity is... trickier. My relationship with the religion is a tangled knot, and it has been known to chase me down when I run away from it. Other religions don't do that. Christianity is also the only religion with an answer to human suffering and the Problem of Evil that I find acceptable--any god who would not choose to suffer alongside Creation in order to finally redeem it is not good in any meaningful sense, as far as I'm concerned. In the absence of the Christian revelation, I'm pushed to a form of moral relativism, since all of our intuitions about what is right and what is wrong are vindicated in the Resurrection. Without that sort of mirror, we have no way of objectively knowing if our moral compass is pointing north or not. Or if there even is a north. Or a compass!

I would like to be able to quote C.S. Lewis and say that 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 can't, because I'm not actually sure the sun has risen at all, but if any religion is true, I do believe it's Christianity. This doesn't make me atheistic about other religions, though--they'd be like the moon, reflecting a light that's not inherently theirs.

I just wanted to say you have a really good way with words and I appreciate it, keep it up!

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
No, actual astronomers and cosmologists say it also. Read Dr. Donald Goldsmith in the Nov. 2007 issue of the Natural History magazine where he says that the majority of physicists agree that the universe had a definite beginning. According to a basic law of logic, the law of causality anything that has a beginning and is changing is an effect, and the universe has been shown to have both. Also, Dr. Hugh Ross, Arno Penzias, and Keith Ward also agree that the universe is an effect and needs a cause.

st: I see what you mean. Let me correct my earlier wrong perception of your meaning. If you put it that way, yes, the universe is caused by the Big Bang. If you must call it an effect, yes, the universe is the effect of the Big Bang. But that doesn't show anything. Ancient cosmologists with all their flaws can only come up with two speculations - 1. the universe is caused by something. and 2. the universe has always existed. The fact that a monotheistic, God-is-supreme religion chose the first option is no surprise. Neither is it something to go wow over. It's to be expected.

No, you left out Hinduism that teaches that the physical universe is an illusion and that ALL is god. Also the key difference between Christianity and all others is that the universe was created from nothing material. Most all ancient religions believed that the universe was created from some pre-existing material or universe. But only the Christian teaching about it coming from nothing detectable has been confirmed by science.


↑

ed: No, all biologists agree that ears are for hearing and eyes are for seeing and many other biological structures have many other purposes.

st: I'm sorry to contradict you but you are wrong. Biologists don't speak in that pious religious language. A scientist would say the ear has a FUNCTION. It functions well in the hearing domain. 'Purpose' is the language of religious people with their presuppositions.

Actually some biologists DO use the term "purpose". Including atheist biologists. They just think that the purpose of the structures came about by chance but we know of course that is not possible. But you are a little confused about function. How do you determine if a body structure functions? You determine if it functions by determining if it fulfills its purpose. If it does not fulfill its purpose then it is not functioning. So yes there IS purpose in the universe. And most obviously in living things.


↑

ed: Read Hebrews 11:3. Heavens and earth is the Hebrew conjunctive phrase that means the entire physical universe. Look it up in any book on ancient Hebrew.

st: I have looked it up. Read Genesis 1. That will show you how flawed ancient Hebrew cosmology is (which is the same as the idea of the Earth's beginning according to the Bible) and you will understand what they mean by 'heavens' or firmament or sky or whatever translation your Bible uses.

The original Hebrew term translated as firmament can also mean an open expanse.

st: And there is a reason why it's always 'the heavens and the earth'. Ancient Hebrew cosmology which is flawed looks at the earth as flat but roundish and God is said to spread the heavens over the earth.

No, nowhere does the bible teach that the earth is flat.

st: It's like a sheet of canvass that is spread above us. That sheet is called heavens, sky, firmament, whatever. Above this sheet is water. Below this sheet is also water in the form of clouds. On this sheet, God hangs the sun, the moon, etc.

While the bible does use a tent as an analogy of the expanding universe it never teaches that the universe IS a canvas tent or sheet. I think you are confusing some poetic use in the Psalms with the historical narrative of Genesis. Nowhere in the Bible does it teach what you are saying it does.

st: If you think that at all accords with reality, you must be joking. Read Genesis 1 without altering its meaning as many religious people are apt to do and you are sure to agree with me.

We have to interpret correctly using Gods other book nature to better understand what Genesis si teaching. But you can only use the actual definitions of the Hebrew words and when you do, it matches amazingly close to what science has discovered about nature and the universe.

 

[Adstar]

Hi Adstar,

Thanks for your post. You were a lax RC interested in Buddhism and were about to get into New Age belief when you read the Bible 'and understood the Way of salvation God had made for humanity...'. What made you accept the Bible as correct and not the Buddhist sutras (did you read Buddhist sutras at that time?)? Was there anything that made you decide that the Bible was correct? I'm asking because you didn't say why you chose the Bible as correct.

Cheers,

St Truth

The Bible is an overall message and the culmination effect of it just won me over.. I found the Bible accurately revealed the human condition and give a view of a perfect God and How that perfect God was able to overcome in an awesome way the tragedy of the sabotage of His creation..

So i cannot point to just one point here or one verse there in the Bible.. It's the Bible as a whole that moved me..