What if you seek and don't find?

[AV1611VET]

For God to show me He exists...so basically any

Can His children show you on His behalf?

 

[Oncedeceived]

For God to show me He exists...so basically any

You might consider that the reason you are searching at all is that He is calling you. If you are pulled to the pagan beliefs, and are following that pull, you are going opposed to what God is calling you to. Just some thoughts.

 

[AV1611VET]

Mountain Girl, remember John the Baptist?

Sitting in prison, facing death for taking a stand on moral decency (and later beheaded), he had a lapse of faith.

Luke 7:19 And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?
Luke 7:20 When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?

And remember Jesus' answer?

Luke 7:22 Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.
Luke 7:23 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

Today, we see bumper stickers, buildings, have holidays, sing carols and hymns, have time divided up into BC/AD, and many, many more attestations to the existence of God.

Don't give up the ship!

 

[HitchSlap]

Can His children show you on His behalf?

You mean, other mammals who claim god/s exist?

Should we just take you at face value?

 

[Athée]

Yes.

He's a real eye-opener.

So hypothetically if I could somehow show you that the Bible is unreliable and that history does not support the Jesus story and that science has disconfirmed all the relevant parts of your religion (and again I am absolutely not saying I could do this) would you still remain at the 100 percent mark sold on the basis of the holy spirit?

 

[Athée]

Thank you for responding, Kvothe. Can we get a little more specific on the weak evidences? Maybe just one or two to begin. Maybe one of us can offer some insight into some things that you have not heard.

I was a YEC when I first became a believer, but over time I found that position did not have strong evidence to support it, so I have changed my stance on that quite a bit. Sometimes we can be taught something is the only Biblical understanding, and then later discover that we were taught wrong... there are other views of creation that fit well with the evidences and with a more mature understanding of the texts of the Bible.

-------------------edit-------------------
Also, what experiences in church are you referring to?

Hey so it is interesting to hear from someone who was YEC but isn't anymore. Out of curiosity how did you get away from the 24 hour days of creation?

 

[Athée]

What was the problem of the reliability of the New Testament?

Wow that is a really big question (you seem to have a knack for this!). Looking back I think in the beginning it was realizing that we don't really know who wrote the gospels and that even if they were eyewitnesses (which is not at all certain) that eyewitness testimony is among the least reliable forms of testimony.

That said...

Sorry for missing the point... Not intentional I promise.
So looking at some of those criteria I am not sure what you meant by how it is confirmed so I will leave that for now. On the others do you think how a belief arose necessarily determine if it is true or that when a belief arose (first - before another idea or after another idea) is a reliable way of determining it's truth?

 

[AV1611VET]

So hypothetically if I could somehow show you that the Bible is unreliable and that history does not support the Jesus story and that science has disconfirmed all the relevant parts of your religion (and again I am absolutely not saying I could do this) would you still remain at the 100 percent mark sold on the basis of the holy spirit?

Hypothetically yes.

 

[HitchSlap]

Hypothetically yes.

C'mon AV, you're being less than truthful here.

"Embedded age."

 

[food4thought]

Hey so it is interesting to hear from someone who was YEC but isn't anymore. Out of curiosity how did you get away from the 24 hour days of creation?

Well, I didn't really... but some scholars think there is evidence that the Hebrew words translated as "evening" and "morning" originally had a different meaning, having to do with "disorder" and "order". The whole passage of Genesis 1 has to do with God bringing order out of chaos.

My view of Genesis 1 is called the Gap Theory (GT), which hinges on the translation of Gen 1:2. Most translations render the beginning of verse 2 something like "the earth WAS waste and emptiness..."; but the Hebrew allows the verb to also be translated as "the earth BECAME waste and emptiness...", indicating that the earth was once before this NOT waste and emptiness, and so GT postulates a "gap" between verses 1 and 2, perhaps . Also note that the earth is described as being under water (verse 2 and 9), indicating that the land mass of the earth was already existent. Thus the earth and universe are old, but God reformed/recreated in the relatively recent past over 6 literal days. There are other supporting passages, but that is the gist of it.

 

[Athée]

Hypothetically yes.

That is really interesting. So sticking with the hypothetical....in the absence of those other things how would you describe what the holy spirit is?

 

[Athée]

Well, I didn't really... but some scholars think there is evidence that the Hebrew words translated as "evening" and "morning" originally had a different meaning, having to do with "disorder" and "order". The whole passage of Genesis 1 has to do with God bringing order out of chaos.

Would be interested in seeing those papers and any peer review responses if you happen to have them

 

[Oncedeceived]

Wow that is a really big question (you seem to have a knack for this!). Looking back I think in the beginning it was realizing that we don't really know who wrote the gospels and that even if they were eyewitnesses (which is not at all certain) that eyewitness testimony is among the least reliable forms of testimony.

You do realize that there is no question about other "eyewitness testimony" of other antiquities and the only copies we have for them are separated by long long periods of time between the events written about and when they were written down. The New Testament buries other antiquities by the sheer number of copies and in closeness to the events written about. People were still alive when the letters were being circulated and the early churches knew who the authors were and were very cautious about anything other than from the Apostles and their scribes.

That said...

Sorry for missing the point... Not intentional I promise.
So looking at some of those criteria I am not sure what you meant by how it is confirmed so I will leave that for now. On the others do you think how a belief arose necessarily determine if it is true or that when a belief arose (first - before another idea or after another idea) is a reliable way of determining it's truth?

At times yes. If something comes later as in the Quran vs the Old Testament we know that the one is confirmed to be in force prior to the other.

 

[HitchSlap]

You do realize that there is no question about other "eyewitness testimony" of other antiquities and the only copies we have for them are separated by long long periods of time between the events written about and when they were written down. The New Testament buries other antiquities by the sheer number of copies and in closeness to the events written about. People were still alive when the letters were being circulated and the early churches knew who the authors were and were very cautious about anything other than from the Apostles and their scribes.

Well said.
So it follows then that the bible shouldn't hold any more, or less, sway than any other ancient, anonymous, copy of a manuscript.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Well said.
So it follows then that the bible shouldn't hold any more, or less, sway than any other ancient, anonymous, copy of a manuscript.

Are you saying you don't believe that Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Homer were written by who they say they were or otherwise unreliable?

 

[HitchSlap]

Are you saying you don't believe that Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Homer were written by who they say they were or otherwise unreliable?

Yes, maybe, no, who cares?

The point is, these works exist. Does it matter who wrote them?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Yes, maybe, no, who cares?

The point is, these works exist. Does it matter who wrote them?

The point is, these works of the Bible are written and accepted by the early church as authoritative documents passed on by those they knew and who they knew whether or not were present to the events therein.

 

[HitchSlap]

The point is, these works of the Bible are written and accepted by the early church as authoritative documents passed on by those they knew and who they knew whether or not were present to the events therein.

So what?

 

[Oncedeceived]

So what?

So, I was answering Kvothe and if it is nothing to you, it is nothing to you.

 

[Athée]

You do realize that there is no question about other "eyewitness testimony" of other antiquities

Um I am not sure this is true. There are questions surrounding the authorship of Homer and Shakespeare two name two off the top of my head.
As far as numbers of manuscripts do you think that more copies tells us something about how likely a source is to be true?
On your response about the age of an idea, I agree that we can often determine if an idea predates another idea. Does this necessarily mean that the earlier idea is more likely to be true? How would an early idea like a geocentric universe fit into this model of using age of a belief to determine its veracity?