Moving from Arguments for God to Arguments for a Specific Religion

[Charlemagne_III]

Your claim is also not correct, some forms of Budhism and Hinduism recognize Gautama Buddha (among others) as a deity, which means that some of those religions do actually claim divine inspiration. Its my understanding that Sikhism claims to be divinely inspired as well.

I think you and I are not reading the same histories. My book by Huston Smith … The Religions of the World … (as I recollect) indicates that Buddha despised anyone who spoke of him as a deity.

I’ve been told Huston Smith was about as good a historian of religion as you can find.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

I think you and I are not reading the same histories. My book by Huston Smith … The Religions of the World … (as I recollect) indicates that Buddha despised anyone who spoke of him as a deity.

I’ve been told Huston Smith was about as good a historian of religion as you can find.

So now its ok to reject religions with only this sort of superficial information? Did you join a Rite of Buddhism Initiation Class? Did you attend buddhist ceremonies? What if they don’t actually worship Buddha but revere him as an inspired prophet? Maybe they’ve rejected those texts which claim Buddha reject the deity title.

The point is that if we’re simply trying to make a list of religions that claim divine inspiration, we have to simply take the religions at their word. If they say they are inspired, they are inspired. To do otherwise invites mistakes like prematurely rejecting Catholicism on the grounds that they worship Mary.

 

[inocente]

I’m curious how you might go about convincing the open-minded skeptic, who grants a God exists, that your religion understands what this God is all about.

A fundamental axiom is: any religion which claims to understand what god is all about is false.

“How great is God—beyond our understanding!” - Job 36

 

[oldcelt]

A fundamental axiom is: any religion which claims to understand what god is all about is false.

“How great is God—beyond our understanding!” - Job 36

I agree. That is a warning signal for me with individuals as well.

 

[oldcelt]

There is the testimony of the l2 Apostles, there is also the testimony of St.Paul and his letters, there is the continuity of 264 Popes from the time of Christ, there is the entire history of the Catholic Church, and there is the testimony of many Christians who experienced the truths of the faith to this very day. There are the Archives of the CAtholic Church, and relics of the Saints, and lists of miracles. The is also geographical locations attesting to the areas Jesus traversed. There is also the geographical locations that the Apostles evangelized. There is even testimony from Christianity’s adversaries such as Josephus around the time of Christ. I think it pretty evident that history speaks in behalf of Christianity. Did you represent events you did not witness? The Apostles knew Jesus personally, there are no physical remains to Jesus because He is still alive, and Caesar is dead! Of course you can deny the testimony.

Of that list, only the 12 Apostles are legitimate sources. The rest are the beliefs of people who witnessed nothing, have no physical evidence or had some type of personal revelation. Even the church says that personal revelation is for you alone unless they say otherwise.
BTW, the general consensus is that the Josephus account is at least partially forged.

 

[Peter_Plato]

A fundamental axiom is: any religion which claims to understand what god is all about is false.

“How great is God—beyond our understanding!” - Job 36

I agree. That is a warning signal for me with individuals as well.

Jesus claimed to know “what god is all about.” You two are making an absolute pronouncement, (or at least agreeing to it,) on the basis of ostensibly insufficient knowledge (inocente) or no knowledge at all (oldcelt.) How would you know what others do not know with admittedly insufficient or NO knowledge of the subject?

The best either you can logically claim is that YOU don’t know enough or anything at all to know for certain whether any individual or religion does have a better or full understanding in comparison to yours.

Oldcelt, you, in particular, ought to recuse yourself whenever a discussion of religion or religious claims comes up because, if you are honest and consistent in your claim of not knowing anything about God, you would be in no position to venture an opinion either way about any God-claim.

Inocente, you, on the other hand, have, apparently, no pretensions regarding consistency or the law of non-contradiction. Since you don’t regularly abide by the LNC, you feel safe in making inconsistent declaratives. Meaningless as the LNC is to you, to the rest of us, your inadequate knowledge of God makes you no authority to make claims about religions being false and effectively translates into, “Those religions don’t agree with my beliefs.”

Again, Jesus claimed to know and reflect perfectly “what God is all about” and started a religion (Christianity.) Since, your knowledge (both of you) is inadequate to the task, neither of you are in a position to make absolute claims about individuals or religions.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Of that list, only the 12 Apostles are legitimate sources. The rest are the beliefs of people who witnessed nothing, have no physical evidence or had some type of personal revelation. Even the church says that personal revelation is for you alone unless they say otherwise.
BTW, the general consensus is that the Josephus account is at least partially forged.

So your claim is that there were only 12 who witnessed the works and words of Jesus, no other individuals living in the communities around Galilee and Jerusalem could give testimony because no one else witnessed anything? Apparently they were all sleeping when Jesus walked through their communities and was raised from the dead, then? Actually, it would seem quite reasonable to deduce that if the Apostles were legitimate sources, then, very likely, others, and possibly many others, could also have been, no? The early Church was made up of many of them and their personal and public experiences with Jesus explains why they became part of the early Church.

You have to read Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham to dispel these strange notions you have about public events which you characterize as “personal revelations,” as if Jesus was only a mirage or illusion witnessed to only by the Twelve.

 

[Peter_Plato]

That’s a pretty bold claim. What do you mean by “historically based?” Is it simply that the religion survived a certain length of time? Or is it that the religions beliefs are based on a long series of alleged historical events interpreted in a religious perspective?

I will point out that much of the old testament is a-historical. For example, the exodus never actually happened.

Speaking of “bold claims,” you would know that the Exodus never happened, how?

I suspect what you mean is that you don’t believe the Exodus happened, which is legitimate. However, to claim to definitively KNOW that it never happened would appear unwarranted, given that you could not possibly know that.

Unlike “religious beliefs,” your own beliefs “are based on a short series of autobiographical events interpreted from a non-religious perspective,” hardly a rock solid basis from which to be disputing religious beliefs.

 

[ganonscrub]

Peter Plato, you are still appealing personal experiences that were not recorded by any objective contemporary historians of the time, and even if you could, eyewitness testimony is almost entirely useless when attempting to determine the truth of a person’s subjective experience. Anyone can claim to have had a personal experience with God or Christ, but does that mean their experience was ACTUALLY due to God or Christ interacting with that individual? I don’t think anyone can make that determination with any validity.

For just one example of how a large group of people saying they see something DOES NOT mean it really happened the way the say, I’d invite you to read up on the Miracle of the Sun.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Quite so, this list isn’t even complete.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text

Its also possible that the true religion hasn’t formed yet. All the Abrahamic faiths leave a gap of several thousand years between the start of human civilization and the foundation of their religion. I’m also not aware of any religion that has survived from the dawn of human civilization. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that we are in the same situation as those early humans: God’s “true” revelation to humankind has not yet been made, and we have no way to anticipate it.

There is only one religion (Christianity) that claims, based upon the words of its founder, to be the fullness of truth regarding God. Christ claimed to be the Way, the Life and the Truth. He claimed to be God and to reflect the fullness of God. No other religion makes that claim. They claim to teach about the truth, but no credible individual in history claimed to be God, except Christ.

You have to take that claim on its own merits. Either it is a unique truth claim that sets Christ and Christianity apart from all other religions, or it is determinably false. What you can’t do is take a position that the claim itself is no different than claims made in any other religious tradition. It is a claim that sets Christianity apart.

If you wish to debunk the claim, then do that. However, it doesn’t cut mustard to merely pretend the claim is on par with any and all other religious claims, as if merely being a religious claim makes it reliably false. That would be like holding all scientific claims and pseudo-sciences have the same merit regarding believability merely because they are “scientific” in some sense. To be consistent, you would have to insist that someone study all the sciences and pseudo-sciences AND construct complete arguments against all of them before they could, for example, express their agreement with, say, physics. Why do we have any reason for thinking that claim to be true?

I could, for example, express complete agreement with the claims of Christianity without knowing anything about Taoism. Why would it be necessary to disprove Taoism in order to approve Christianity? That would presume, first of all, that Taoism does promote teachings that are irreconcilable with Christianity, but you couldn’t know that a priori, except by presumption. Which is precisely the problem with your claim.

I don’t have to know (or prove) Taoism is false to know Christianity is true. In fact, I don’t need to know anything about Taoism at all to know Christianity is true because whatever it is that allows me to think Taoism is true or false has to precede and be independent of any knowledge I have about Taoism. It is the metaphysical groundwork of my world view that forms the basis upon which religious beliefs are assessed.

You seem to think you have a sufficient understanding of reality to question, for example, Jesus’ grasp of reality. Your purported knowledge is, in your opinion, sufficient to override and determine Jesus’ purported knowledge to be false.

That is the difference between you and I, I suppose. When I read Jesus’ words (and those of the prophets of the OT, I know for certain there is no accumulated knowledge of mine (or yours for that matter) that gives me warrant to claim their words, thoughts and actions are determinably inferior to mine (or yours.) I bow to their authority precisely because of the undeniable conviction I have that they know what I (and you) do not. Your words have not provided the kind of assurance that you know anything that puts into question the teachings of Jesus and the Prophets (and the Church Fathers) - all of whom were quite consistent with each other.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your authority and consistency on the matter of truth falls far short of the cumulative authority of Moses, the Prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, the Church Fathers, the Saints and the Magisterium of the Church.

You say you don’t know - I believe you. But when you claim your lack of knowledge renders you competent to rebut all of the above, that is when your credibility lapses - well, disintegrates, actually.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Speaking of “bold claims,” you would know that the Exodus never happened, how?

I suspect what you mean is that you don’t believe the Exodus happened, which is legitimate. However, to claim to definitively KNOW that it never happened would appear unwarranted, given that you could not possibly know that.

You’re quite right, the fact of the matter could contradict the evidence; but I see no reason to doubt the evidence against the Exodus. You can believe the Exodus happened, but you can’t pretend that your position is based on any sort of evidence. You also have to admit that your position contradicts some historical evidence.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Peter Plato, you are still appealing personal experiences that were not recorded by any objective contemporary historians of the time, and even if you could, eyewitness testimony is almost entirely useless when attempting to determine the truth of a person’s subjective experience.

Well, no, actually. Eye witness testimony is the bread and butter of our legal system. It is after determining the reliability of witnesses that eye witness testimony becomes the strongest element of any case in the law courts.

Read Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace to get a better handle on how eye witness testimony is the best means of determining the facts of a case.

Besides, the Resurrection, the words and deeds of Jesus and his crucifixion were not subjective experiences, they were undeniably public events.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You’re quite right, the fact of the matter could contradict the evidence; but I see no reason to doubt the evidence against the Exodus. You can believe the Exodus happened, but you can’t pretend that your position is based on any sort of evidence. You also have to admit that your position contradicts some historical evidence.

What evidence against Exodus?

 

[Della]

That’s a pretty bold claim. What do you mean by “historically based?” Is it simply that the religion survived a certain length of time? Or is it that the religions beliefs are based on a long series of alleged historical events interpreted in a religious perspective?

I will point out that much of the old testament is a-historical. For example, the exodus never actually happened.

Perhaps instead you mean religions that are founded by people claiming divine inspiration or personal divinity.

I don’t think that any of those interpretations makes your claim correct.

All I meant was that the three religions I cited were founded upon and concern real people who lived in real places and real time periods. Others, such as the mythologies of Greece and Rome weren’t historically based, but rather legend-based or simply made up to account for the natural forces of the earth and heavens. I happen to love such mythologies because they teach us many useful lessons, but I cannot put my faith in them because they are not real history.

As to what is real and not real in the Bible, that is open to debate. As for myself, I take it that they are true but told from a particular point of view, in their case from God’s understanding of history. There is evidence that the plagues of Egypt did happen, which lends credence to the Exodus story.

Divine inspiration has occured in many places around the world because the Holy Spirit is not limited by what people believe. However, there is a difference between inspiration and a divine calling in which certain persons are chosen by God to reveal his word to man. God chose the people of Israel for this purpose who culminated in the God-man, Christ Jesus, who is the Word of God for the Son of God is God’s Word, his last revelation to mankind carried on in Christ’s Church. This is Catholic belief.

I didn’t make any claims in my first post. I gave a very brief synopsis of what each historically based religion believes. My only purpose was to help the OP get started in his researches not tell others what they must accept as true.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

There is only one religion (Christianity) that claims, based upon the words of its founder, to be the fullness of truth regarding God. Christ claimed to be the Way, the Life and the Truth. He claimed to be God and to reflect the fullness of God. No other religion makes that claim. They claim to teach about the truth, but no credible individual in history claimed to be God, except Christ.

You have to take that claim on its own merits. Either it is a unique truth claim that sets Christ and Christianity apart from all other religions, or it is determinably false. What you can’t do is take a position that the claim itself is no different than claims made in any other religious tradition. It is a claim that sets Christianity apart.

Except if we are starting from arguments from God, then the first step is to establish criteria legitimate religions would meet, and those criteria would have to be: “the religion doesn’t contradict what is proved by arguments for God.” You are already assuming Christianity has made the cut and we have eliminated enough other religions that we can start going in depth into the validity of Christianity’s historical claims. We might have already rejected Christianity; for example we might believe that the Christian doctrine of the trinity contradicts our argument for God’s conclusion that God is one and simple. (We would still have to consider the Unitarians though.)

For example, your “no credible individual in history” quip is exactly the sort of thing you can’t jump to straight after arguments for God.

If you wish to debunk the claim, then do that. However, it doesn’t cut mustard to merely pretend the claim is on par with any and all other religious claims, as if merely being a religious claim makes it reliably false. That would be like holding all scientific claims and pseudo-sciences have the same merit regarding believability merely because they are “scientific” in some sense. To be consistent, you would have to insist that someone study all the sciences and pseudo-sciences AND construct complete arguments against all of them before they could, for example, express their agreement with, say, physics. Why do we have any reason for thinking that claim to be true?

No, we don’t treat it as automatically false. We treat it as a hypothesis that is competing with all the hypothesis from all the other religions.

 

[inocente]

Jesus claimed to know “what god is all about.” You two are making an absolute pronouncement, (or at least agreeing to it,) on the basis of ostensibly insufficient knowledge (inocente) or no knowledge at all (oldcelt.) How would you know what others do not know with admittedly insufficient or NO knowledge of the subject?

The best either you can logically claim is that YOU don’t know enough or anything at all to know for certain whether any individual or religion does have a better or full understanding in comparison to yours.

Oldcelt, you, in particular, ought to recuse yourself whenever a discussion of religion or religious claims comes up because, if you are honest and consistent in your claim of not knowing anything about God, you would be in no position to venture an opinion either way about any God-claim.

Inocente, you, on the other hand, have, apparently, no pretensions regarding consistency or the law of non-contradiction. Since you don’t regularly abide by the LNC, you feel safe in making inconsistent declaratives. Meaningless as the LNC is to you, to the rest of us, your inadequate knowledge of God makes you no authority to make claims about religions being false and effectively translates into, “Those religions don’t agree with my beliefs.”

Again, Jesus claimed to know and reflect perfectly “what God is all about” and started a religion (Christianity.) Since, your knowledge (both of you) is inadequate to the task, neither of you are in a position to make absolute claims about individuals or religions.

Hi Pedro Just before you came in, us miserable ignorant wretches in the back of temple heard from a guy named Paul, reckons he’s some sort of an apostle or something. Let’s see if I remember him right.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

I think he was on about those guys who’ve had a bad day in the office and stride in making disparaging remarks about how the rest of us don’t have a clue or we’d be in sat up front wearing fine clothes and fancy cologne like them. You know the kind.

Anyway, this Paul dude went on:

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

He also said something about how he hoped we could “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge”.

I liked the poetical-ness of it, how God is so great that we can only know a sliver of His divinity. But now you come to mention it, Paul broke the law of non-contraction there didn’t he? And he wasn’t wearing fine clothes and fancy cologne or anything. You’re right, I should stop listening to guys like that.

Oh hang on, Jesus just came in, he likes to sit up back with us, something about those who exalt themselves will be humbled or whatnot. He too talks in riddles sometimes!!! Catch you later, don’t be a stranger now.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

What evidence against Exodus?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Numbers_and_logistics

All evidence suggests that the Israelites split off gradually from the Canaanites; there is no evidence that they all arrived at once from somewhere else.

 

[oldcelt]

Jesus claimed to know “what god is all about.” You two are making an absolute pronouncement, (or at least agreeing to it,) on the basis of ostensibly insufficient knowledge (inocente) or no knowledge at all (oldcelt.) How would you know what others do not know with admittedly insufficient or NO knowledge of the subject?

The best either you can logically claim is that YOU don’t know enough or anything at all to know for certain whether any individual or religion does have a better or full understanding in comparison to yours.

Oldcelt, you, in particular, ought to recuse yourself whenever a discussion of religion or religious claims comes up because, if you are honest and consistent in your claim of not knowing anything about God, you would be in no position to venture an opinion either way about any God-claim.

Inocente, you, on the other hand, have, apparently, no pretensions regarding consistency or the law of non-contradiction. Since you don’t regularly abide by the LNC, you feel safe in making inconsistent declaratives. Meaningless as the LNC is to you, to the rest of us, your inadequate knowledge of God makes you no authority to make claims about religions being false and effectively translates into, “Those religions don’t agree with my beliefs.”

Again, Jesus claimed to know and reflect perfectly “what God is all about” and started a religion (Christianity.) Since, your knowledge (both of you) is inadequate to the task, neither of you are in a position to make absolute claims about individuals or religions.

Naturally, I won’t be stepping aside. I claim not to know anything about God because the particulars are unknowable. This is a philosophy thread and my philosophy and science both tell me that you can’t claim knowledge of any subject that you can’t study.
If what I have to say troubles you, then I would suggest blocking me. That should solve the problem.

 

[ynotzap]

I’d sure like to see that comparison. Repetition of an event that you did not witness is not evidence, it is story telling. There are physical remains attesting to Julius Caesar…I’m guessing that is the Caesar you refer to. Caesars Commentaries are extant, we have busts, coins. writing by those who knew him personally.
Here is a list that I hope puts this nonsense to rest:

When I made the quote by A.Leander on the first half of the quote I realized that I contradicted myself. Oldcelt gave proof of factual testimony of the historical figure Caesar.
The testimony of the existence of Jesus Christ was restricted to the twelve Apostles and some of their companions. I believe that this testimony was so restricted because as I repeated many times, the existence of Jesus Christ is to be accepted by the gift of faith, and not by reason or human endeavor. It’s a condition that is required by God. It is meant to be by the power of the Holy Spirit that give testimony to the reality of Jesus Christ. He was revealed to the l2, and companions, some holy women.

It is the second half of the quotation "It is by the mighty resurrection power in the lives of every true believer that Jesus arose, and still lives in the souls of every believer. This was witnessed to by the many martyrs killed by the Romans. Their names are listed in the Church’s Martyrology. Every apostle was martyred except St.John. This living testimony has been repeated through Church history. These events give testimony to the Power of the Holy Spirit who is still giving testimony in our present day. The gift of faith in Jesus as God-man and Savior of mankind is what made all of this possible. So I thank Oldcelt for helping me to make this distinction possible, and to reinforce the truth of our Faith.

It is not by flesh and blood that this was revealed to you but by the power of The Holy Spirit. We Christians and Catholics have a real relationship with God, in Jesus. He has made a real change in our lives, and has given us Faith, Hope, and Love, He abides in us and we abide in Him. (John l2: 37-40) Although he had performed many signs in their presence they did not believe in Him. In order that the word of Isaiah the prophet spoke might be fulfilled:
Lord who has believed our preaching, to whom has the might of the Lord been revealed?" “For this reason they could not believe, because again Isaiah said: He blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they might not see with their eyes and understand with their heart and be converted, and I would heal them.”

Oldcelt you stick to your historical proof of Caesar’s existence, and I’ll stick to my belief in Christs existence along with the testimony of the Apostles, and thanks for the correction.

 

[Della]

Naturally, I won’t be stepping aside. I claim not to know anything about God because the particulars are unknowable.

Not unknowable, unprovable by purely scientific methods, which do not deal with spiritual realities, but only physical ones.

This is a philosophy thread and my philosophy and science both tell me that you can’t claim knowledge of any subject that you can’t study.

But you can study God. Such study is called theology. Theology is not a matter of guessing, it’s a systematic study of God’s revelation to man. Having said that, God is not a bug to be studied under a mircoscope, he’s a person who we love because he created us in love. It’s about a relationship, not about proving anything.

If what I have to say troubles you, then I would suggest blocking me. That should solve the problem.

Indeed. No one should be excluded from the discussion merely for having opposing views. If the moderators think any member is too much of a disruption to good discussion that member will be informed of it. :yup: