Imagine Pentecost happened today...

[Lost_Wanderer]

Hijack? hehe…nope. While I was having a nice convo with the OP about the resurrection evidence, you are whining about loaded questions. Lol…

Lesee… I give an honest response to a hypothetical situation and you go on a full frontal. I didn’t even address you in my first post and yet you still bared your fangs.

The OP is already apologizing for what it’s caused. Perhaps you should consider joining in.

 

[ialsop]

I apologize if this thread has scandalized anyone or caused feuds between Christians. I think my questions are not legitimate enough to merit a continuing discussion here.

No, I apologize. Some people jump on anything, and I admit I do my share of that. Anywho, no, your questions are excellent questions and this is a great discussion.

 

[ialsop]

Lesee… I give an honest response to a hypothetical situation and you go on a full frontal. I didn’t even address you in my first post and yet you still bared your fangs.

The OP is already apologizing for what it’s caused. Perhaps you should consider joining in.

Well I apologized to the OP.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Well I apologized to the OP.

You do know sarcasm counteracts sincerity right?

 

[ialsop]

You do know sarcasm counteracts sincerity right?

Yes, but I wasnt being sarcastic. I said I apologized, and I DID. The statement was literal, not sarcastic. Now, I am going to stop arguing with you. I will not reply to you anymore, as the Op has been upset by this argument. You should apologize, as I did.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Yes, but I wasnt being sarcastic. I said I apologized, and I DID. The statement was literal, not sarcastic. Now, I am going to stop arguing with you. I will not reply to you anymore, as the Op has been upset by this argument. You should apologize, as I did.

Why? All I did was provide an answer to a question and it apparently rubbed you the wrong way that you felt the need to goad me with a loaded question.

So no, I will not apologize. My answer is quite relevant to the premise that was first being posed: “Imagine Pentecost happening today…”

It’s more than what I can say for irrelevant, confrontational replies that you’re only right to stop giving. Much like the OP, I was very interested in exploring this hypothetical till you came in here rhetorical guns blazing before pointing them at my face.

 

[AlexanderC]

Friends,

Imagine you’re an average citizen walking in your own capital city. A criminal whose name is known to you was recently executed for many reasons, including sedition. You have heard of strange events and miraculous healing associated with him, but never saw these yourself.

As you pass by a large home, a man comes out surrounded by about 100 people, and says that the criminal who died by lethal injection - or electrocution, or hanging - opened His own mortuary and walked out very much alive, and even transformed. You see no signs, miracles, or wondrous things. You do not even see the criminal himself. You only hear this claim about him.

There are no books about him, no public culture built up around him, and no developed idea of what has really occurred. All you know is that this group of about 100 people claim to have started to see him again, beginning more than two months ago. They waited all this time to say anything. How do you react, in all honesty?

I ask these questions because when I personally consider the resurrection-claims, it all comes down to the credibility of the Apostles.

Empty Tombs, Swoon Theories, and other arguments are just sophistry in the end. Can you put yourself in the sandals of a random person standing before Peter on Pentecost? Any claims of miracles are just claims, as much as the claims of resurrection. What on Earth would make me believe this Peter?

I conclude that - without any concept of Faith - it would have to be based entirely on seeing miracles and hearing men speaking in tongues. I myself never witness the blind seeing, or the lame walking. I never see this resurrected one, who ascended to heaven several days before. I see what looks like bread, wine, oil, water… but nothing more.

What is the deepest depth to which we can go in order to find a good apologetic for the Resurrection? It must be human, and real, and alive - not mere philosophy, no?

How would I react? Honestly, I’d probably think they are drunk/crazy until they prove otherwise.

As for that last point, I think I’d have to agree. But that doesn’t seem very far fetched. We have the apostles and their accounts, and of course, the Gospels. They were written by humans, they were real, and were alive. Now, of course I am speaking of the second point from a more present point of view. They obviously did not have the gospels back then. At this point it was probably eyewitness accounts right? Then again, they must have had something convincing besides pure eyewitness accounts in order to get so many converts (but hey, Holy Spirit FTW)

As stated before, It would certainly take some convincing if I was some random person back then with no knowledge of Jesus and/or the events that took place surrounding him.

Does that answer your question?

 

[Gorgias]

Ah, but there WAS a miraculous sign:

It’s the Star Trek Universal Translator. A guy speaks to a linguistically diverse crowd and they understand him. Had they all spoken Aramaic then they would not have realized anything miraculous was going on.

Notice, David, that this isn’t one guy speaking and everyone understanding him (as if everyone were wearing a ‘Babel fish’ in his ear), but a group of people speaking, each in a different language.

 

[TimothyH]

Ah, but there WAS a miraculous sign:

This is exactly the point. There were miraculous signs, both at Pentecost and after.

Before Pentecost the disciples had locked themselves in the upper room for fear of the Jews. The fact that Peter went out to the street and spoke out boldly is itself a sign.

Earthquakes, men released from prison without the guards knowing how, rushing wind, understanding of foreign languages, miraculous healing by touching Peter’s napkin or shadow, the lame able to walk, people raised from the dead, the conversion of Saul, Stephen forgiving his murderers…

All of this and more is in Acts of the Apostles.

-Tim-

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Earthquakes, men released from prison without the guards knowing how, rushing wind, understanding of foreign languages, miraculous healing by touching Peter’s napkin or shadow, the lame able to walk, people raised from the dead, the conversion of Saul, Stephen forgiving his murderers…

So… how do we take all this and translate it into terms that are believable by the standards of a world that has a more rigid scientific method, manipulative mass media, and the wonders of information technology?

 

[TimothyH]

So… how do we take all this and translate it into terms that are believable by the standards of a world that has a more rigid scientific method, manipulative mass media, and the wonders of information technology?

We?

He said to him, `If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’" (Luke 16:31)

-Tim-

 

[Gorgias]

So… how do we take all this and translate it into terms that are believable by the standards of a world

That’s precisely the point, don’t you think? Faith in God isn’t believable by “the standards of the word”, it’s believable only on its own terms. Moreover, if it were provable, it wouldn’t be belief, would it, just ‘tech’…?

 

[ialsop]

We?

He said to him, `If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’" (Luke 16:31)

-Tim-

EXACTLY! He doesnt believe, and if the Holy Spirit cannot convince him, then nobody else can. That is believable to all those with faith. All those without faith do not deserve the title of Christian, because the title “Christian” literally implies that you have faith in this.

 

[Kaninchen]

How do you react, in all honesty?

Looks like it would be a case of watching his followers squabble amongst themselves.

 

[ialsop]

Looks like it would be a case of watching his followers squabble amongst themselves.

Ouch.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

That’s precisely the point, don’t you think? Faith in God isn’t believable by “the standards of the word”, it’s believable only on its own terms. Moreover, if it were provable, it wouldn’t be belief, would it, just ‘tech’…?

I thought the Church wasn’t a big fan of blind faith?

EXACTLY! He doesnt believe, and if the Holy Spirit cannot convince him, then nobody else can. That is believable to all those with faith. All those without faith do not deserve the title of Christian, because the title “Christian” literally implies that you have faith in this.

Wow so terrorist groups and the Westboro nuts are the only real Christians of the world because that’s what religion is all about. Believe. Obey. Or get out and die.

Yet still, the pious wonder why the atheist treat faith as a disease.

 

[ialsop]

I thought the Church wasn’t a big fan of blind faith?

Wow so terrorist groups and the Westboro nuts are the only real Christians of the world because that’s what religion is all about. Believe. Obey. Or get out and die.

Yet still, the pious wonder why the atheist treat faith as a disease.

Sigh. Well, there is no other explanation as to how Christianity started, then the Resurrection. There is no other LOGICAL explanation. So it is not “blind” faith.

The Catholic church is no friend of blind faith, nor is it a fan of apostasy.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

That’s precisely the point, don’t you think? Faith in God isn’t believable by “the standards of the word”, it’s believable only on its own terms. Moreover, if it were provable, it wouldn’t be belief, would it, just ‘tech’…?

I thought the Church wasn’t a big fan of blind faith?

Aah… and there’s the rub, no?

I think that the distinction that I would make is between provability by “the standards of the world” and provability by a more reasonable standard. The world complains that there is not sufficient evidence of Christ’s miracles and resurrection; yet, this seems to ask us to be anachronistic and apply today’s standards to antiquity’s ability to respond to the desires of those who live two millennia later! The world complains about ‘repeatability’; yet, how can we hope to repeat a singular event?

I think it’s more reasonable to ask for a standard that respects antiquity for what it might reasonably be expected to want to produce (personal testimony, for example). I think it’s more reasonable to recognize that ‘repeatability’ only works when we control all the variables: when God is involved, then by definition we can’t be said to be able to perfectly reproduce any set of criteria!

So… am I suggesting that we have ‘blind faith’? By no means! Rather, I’m suggesting only that our faith is tempered by reason… and by realistic expectations!

that’s what religion is all about. Believe. Obey. Or get out and die.

Wow… is that what you got from ialsop’s post? Perhaps it might make sense to talk about it… since that’s not at all what he was suggesting, I think!

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

The world complains about ‘repeatability’; yet, how can we hope to repeat a singular event?

This is one of the things I was trying to point out when I was talking about valuing a personal experience, a miraculous one even, and juxtaposing it to the act of preserving its memory for the world’s collective history.

I can’t ask too much when requesting proof for a particular historical event. Heck, it’s not like I can just take a dinosaur bone and resurrect it to the original creature.

But when you tell me that an actual living dinosaur is in this world, right now. You’re going to have to be convincing by the standards of the age (photographs, DNA, everything). And like it or not, the ‘standards of the world’ and standards that are reasonable tend to overlap.

Likewise, the OP’s scenario should understand that how we demand evidence for a present event and how we rely on something else to prove a past event can be two different things.

So when you tell me it’s a modern Pentecost, I’d like to ask what B16 sorta asked when he visited the ruins of Auschwitz: “Where are you now, God?”

Wow… is that what you got from ialsop’s post? Perhaps it might make sense to talk about it… since that’s not at all what he was suggesting, I think!

It’s one thing for someone to ask for some faith. It’s another to make sweeping remarks that those who lack a certain brand of belief as unwelcome or unworthy.

 

[TimothyH]

EXACTLY! He doesnt believe, and if the Holy Spirit cannot convince him, then nobody else can. That is believable to all those with faith. All those without faith do not deserve the title of Christian, because the title “Christian” literally implies that you have faith in this.

This is so wrong.

Nobody deserves the title Christian. Faith, to bear the name of Christ, salvation and even existence itself is a gift from God and not something anyone deserves.

-Tim-