Here’s a crash course on historical research methods: If they can’t decide how someone died, and they can’t decide on a name of the person dying, it doesn’t constitute proof.
The rest of your post is the same old story of claiming that Christians wouldn’t have died if it isn’t true, and it just doesn’t hold up. All it means that you can’t think of reasons that people would martyr themselves. A lack of imagination, or wishful thinking, doesn’t make an argument.
Hi Sideline,
I’m joining this discussion a bit late in the piece, so I’ll try not to raise points that you’ve already heard.
Long before I became a christian, I was a NON-christian, so I perhaps understand a little where you are coming from, and I can ‘relate’ to many of the questions you raise.
Firstly, let me say that believing in God is not ‘rational’, if you define human rationality as something that is completely bounded by the physical and intellectual limitations that come with being human.
I can’t ‘prove’ to you ‘scientifically’ that God exists, although it seems to me there is a lot of suggestive physical evidence in the world and universe around us ( and yes, I’ve read nearly all of Dawkins books so lets not get side-tracked into an ‘evolution’ debate). The universe is a very mysterious place and we know hardly anything about it - This article in Science Today illustrates some of the issues. :
sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5731/78a
Even today, our ‘science’ can’t tell us something as basic as what the universe is made of, and that to me suggests that most likely we can’t even begin to fathom how it operates.
Now, I
could suggest to you, as others have, that you simply ask God a question. along the lines of “God, if you exist, can you prove to me that you do”.
After all, if He does exist He should be able to ‘hear’ you shouldn’t He? And if He knows ‘everything’ then surely He would know what level of “proof” would be needed by you wouldn’t He?. You don’t even need to tell Him what standard of proof you would require
But whether or not YOU get an answer from HIM reaches to the very heart of the issue.
If you think that you can have an encounter with God, ask Him to explain to you why He does or does not do certain things, then say ’ Well, thanks for that - see you later, I’d rather run my own life my way thanks. Goodbye", I 'd think its very likely you won’t hear a peep out of Him.
The New Living Translation puts it this way in Hebrews 11:6
6 And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
So you see, there are a few things needed from you before you can ‘find’ Him. You need to have an initial ‘faith’ that He does exist, you need to be sincere about finding Him, and you need to believe that He will reward you for searching sincerely.
What are your thoughts on this - is it making any sense to you?
