The case for Christianity

[Neithan]

A court will understand if a witness says a blue car hit theirs while the other says it was gray. A court will think something is fishy if one says it was a car that hit them and the other a horse.

That’s not corroborating testimony.

Are there multiple witnesses, or is there a single story that claims there were multiple witnesses? If a part in a Dan Brown story says that thousands of people saw some event as opposed to a few witness does that make his story more likely to be true?

If you’re denying 1. multiple witnesses and 2. multiple authors, then on what basis? What is your countering evidence?

Evidence that shows elements that would have been noticed by others without a stake in the story

What stake did the author(s) have?

Do you find the testimonies of the two groups of witnesses who claim to have seen the Golden Plates of Joseph Smith to be sufficient?

Yes of course it’s sufficient testimony to support the claim that they saw the Golden Plates. Why don’t you think so? How many witnesses do you need? Why?

Anyone who strongly claims even or odd is correct does so without evidence.

If you don’t agree that the New Testament is evidence of the Resurrection, even prima facie , then that’s the end of the inquiry. Why isn’t it evidence? What is your criteria?

Please give a metaphysical axiom exclusive to Christianity that is used in science.

There are three axioms in tension that are unique to Christianity and which are the basis for modern science: 1. reason as transcendent subject; 2. nature as intentional object and 3. human participation in both simultaneously.

Where other religions deny that Muhammed was God’s sole prophet, then they don’t have a truth that Muslims do.

Possibly, but Muslims don’t believe Muhammad is God’s sole prophet. If we have mutually exclusive claims, we can ask: Is there a comparative fact? In this case, the Resurrection, which Muhammad denied. Claiming that Muhammad is a prophet begs the question.

Few things hinder learning like presuppositionalism. There’s nothing wrong with a premise or hypothesis, but it has to allow for disconfirming evidence. Early geologists were looking for evidence of a global flood and found there was none.

You can read the century-old Catholic Encyclopedia article on the flood to see how Catholics accepted the disconfirming evidence.

 

[po18guy]

Mr. Sagan now knows the absolute truth, having died in 1996. Interestingly, I share both diagnosis and treatment center with him. Sadly, he succumbed to Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a marrow cancer and precursor to Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

 

[BohemianBrother]

That’s not a particularly strong argument though. Anything that happens is one thing out of millions of possible things that could’ve happened. Or better put - any outcome out of millions of different possibilities is equaly unlikely (it has already been said here with the roulette example - imagine a roulette with a trillion pockets - the odds of the ball being in a particular one are astronomically tiny, but still it will land somewhere).

It’s almost the same as a lottery winner saying the win is part of a divine plan, because winning a lottery is so unlikely and so it had to be guided from above.

I find the mere existence of universal (and essentially eternal) physical constants to be much more interesting than playing around with seemingy impossible odds and tiny probabilities.

 

[lanman87]

That’s not a particularly strong argument though. Anything that happens is one thing out of millions of possible things that could’ve happened. Or better put - any outcome out of millions of different possibilities is equaly unlikely (it has already been said here with the roulette example - imagine a roulette with a trillion pockets - the odds of the ball being in a particular one are astronomically tiny, but still it will land somewhere).

I understand what you are saying. But to take the roulette analogy further, atheist are saying that we have a trillion roulette tables and the ball hit in the exact sequence on each and every roulette table a trillion times.

All I’m saying is that it takes a lot of faith to believe that happened.

 

[AlNg]

If you don’t agree that the New Testament is evidence of the Resurrection, even prima facie , then that’s the end of the inquiry. Why isn’t it evidence?

Bart Ehrman gives the reasons in his books and videos.

 

[Neithan]

OK so why do you agree with Bart Ehrman?

 

[AlNg]

All I’m saying is that it takes a lot of faith to believe that happened.

The time periods in question are astronomical, possibly infinite.
Take a roulette wheel with 40 positions. the probability that the number 13 does not come up on one roll is 0.975 or 97.5%. in two rolls it is 95.0625% (i.e. .975^2). The probablity that your number does not come up in 100 rolls is about 0.08 or 8%. the probability that your number does not come up in 1000 rolls is 0.975^1000 or about 0.00000000001 or .000000001%, ie. there is a very high probability, almost 100%) that your number will come up in 1000 rolls. Of course, when there are so many more slots than 40, it is going to take a lot longer for your number to come up. But then the atheist assumption might be that matter was always there using the principle of conservation of energy/matter. In such a case, there will be a chance that your number has come up at least once, although certainly not very often.

 

[po18guy]

By many reports, Bart Ehrman has lost his faith and now risks believing in everything. His writings are based on the rock solid foundation of opinion.

Personally, I have found more inspiration in Calvin and Hobbes.

 

[AlNg]

OK so why do you agree with Bart Ehrman?

Who said i agreed with him?

 

[lanman87]

But then the atheist assumption might be that matter was always there using the principle of conservation of energy/matter. In such a case, there will be a chance that your number has come up at least once, although certainly not very often.

Well, I don’t buy it. If I take a million legos and put them in a huge sack and shake the sack for a billion years or 20 billion years the only thing that is going to be in the sack is a million legos. They aren’t going to form themselves into a cool huge lego Death Star or anything else with a precise shape and form, I don’t care how long you leave the legos in the sack and shake it, all it is going to be is a bunch of legos.

The universe in general and the earth in particular is much more complicated than 1 million legos in a sack. Not only do you have to have the million pieces, they have to go together in a particular order, in a particular environment (not to hot, not to cold). If any of the pieces are missing (or you have extra pieces), aren’t put together in the right order, or if the environment if off by a fraction, then the entire thing falls apart.

It takes more faith to be an Atheist than to have faith in a Supernatural God.

 

[Dan_Defender]

The universe in general and the earth in particular is much more complicated than 1 million legos in a sack.

Very true. Also, the standard theory for going from no life to life is that a bunch of chemicals randomly interact and form a cell. Well many scientists have tried to do this and no such luck! so the evidence points to the cell being of irreducible complexity.

 

[AlNg]

If I take a million legos and put them in a huge sack and shake the sack

More is involved than shaking a sack for 20 billion years.

 

[Neithan]

Well many scientists have tried to do this and no such luck! so the evidence points to the cell being of irreducible complexity.

Even if we can some day produce life by combining inorganic elements (and I think we could), that only supports the idea that rational minds can arrange simpler things into more complex things. The difficulty for the naturalist or materialist isn’t reducing all of the existing complexity to the singularity, it’s explaining the singular complexity. Of course there is no explanation. “Why is a meaningless question”; it’s a “brute fact”; “42!”

 

[AlNg]

Of course there is no explanation.

Personally, i don’t see how free will can arise from our current understanding of physical matter.

 

[mcq72]

The difference being that we can say confidently that there is a universe. We can not say the same for God. It’s an added element beyond what we can speak about with certainty.

Yes and no. Agree that physical knowlege and exploration is a given default. Yet even there we go beyond what we can see. We try to see the invisible, micro and macro.

The spiritual is not our default, but is knowable. Like nature, it can be “explored” and known. Just because you have not seen it does not mean it
doesn’t exist. I have not seen a hydrogen atom, nor the most distant star but…I have been told by some and believe.

The spiritual world can be experienced by man just as surely as they can feel the breeze on their face.

Do you really think I am not confident that there is a God? Moreso that I have no evidence and is a purely manufactured experience?

Yet I understand our situation and agree you or I (man) can not have certainty of a specific spiritual realm without faith and being born again,(like given a microscope or telescope). Still bare rudiments of a spirit world are around us all the time. However would agree they can be denied, just like one can deny a hydrogen atom or a black hole.

Faith comes by hearing, and that by the word of God and His preachers.

So let Sagan and others wonderfully teach about this dimension, the natural universe, but let others teach us of the spiritual dimension and its intersecting with said universe.

 

[mcq72]

I don’t thing a naturalist or one who doesn’t believe any gods exist feel it’s prejudicial when asked where the universe came from

Well agree but that is not the prejudicial question. It is why do you pursue the origin of the universe from an only a naturalists point of view when it can not ultimately answer it. Would it not be prejudicial to say a non theistic approach is temporizing ?

It’s a placeholder answer until “God did it” can maybe become “This is how God did it.” If the pattern holds, as science learns more and more cosmology religion will not add much to the conversation.

well, I am afraid many are still stuck on God anything. But for believers , yes the glory and wonderment of discovery. Blessed is the man that has his cosmology and religion are harmonious in truth and spirit.

Just to clarify, your position is that the Earth won the Cosmic Lottery…And that it is possible for other planets to also have won the Cosmic lottery,

Well, with a straight face they say that because it happened on earth so why not elsewhere, and with so much elsewhere why not earth.

More is involved than shaking a sack for 20 billion years.

and more than just time and chance is involved to create something out of nothing.

 

[mcq72]

I would not use the word decision.One can not choose to believe or disbelieve in something, but merely feel they have or lack the needed evidence. Sagan’s quote doesn’t rule out the existence of a supernatural cause for the universe; but demonstrates that inserting a god is not necessary, especially considering the same things that can be said about the origins and knowability of God can be used for the universe.

partly agree in that Sagan does not rule out God, which to me is temporizing, which he ironically only applies to theists

But think about what usually occurs. Christianity demands answers of others what it refuses to ask of itself.

well, we go in circles. it is from your point of view , a prejudicial one (which is ok), that you think we need to ask where does God come from. The answer is given and we move on. You postpone the answer and move on?

You can’t just define something into being true.

Agree, and true for both sides. We defined the world to be flat and the center of the system temporarily.
As to religion, even Jesus said we must worship in truth and spirit. We and He have falsehoods to overcome also.

It’s a placeholder answer until “God did it” can maybe become “This is how God did it.” If the pattern holds, as science learns more and more cosmology religion will not add much to the conversation.

well, I am afraid many are still stuck on God anything. But for believers, yes the glory and wonderment of discovery. Blessed is the man that has his cosmology and religion are harmonious in truth and spirit.

And we can not escape the matter of faith. We will not on this side of life be fully satisfied with naturalist view only. ( for every question answered 100 more will pop up, always, or as a mathematician once said, we will never be more than halfway to the finish line).

 

[Pattylt]

I’ve studied Christianity for years from both a devotional level and a secular one. Most likely I don’t buy the story because of my upbringing in Judaism where God is One and cannot be a multiplication of personalities. To one raised opposed to the Trinity, I assure you the Christian concept makes no sense. To one raised with the Trinitarian view, it does…while also admitting it’s a mystery.

I think many Christians don’t realize just how absurd the Gospel story is to those not raised with it as the norm. Look at how absurd Christians think the Hindu religion is. Or Buddhism. Or Greek mythology. Can some break the absurdity barrier…of course. But most people stay within their home religion. Even Catholics should admit that evangelizing is much more successful amongst Protestants than religions outside any Christian sect.

Once I began studying the NT from a secular perspective, I couldn’t unlearn what I discovered. You have been bathed in Gospel stories from childhood. I wasn’t exposed to it until my 20’s and didn’t get a secular perspective until my late 30’s. The secular information made much more sense to me than the devotional perspective by that point. I do think Christians should remember that to complete outsiders, the Jesus story isn’t logical or reasonable. You can reason to it once it’s been accepted as true but not until that point.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

How many entities did the women see inside the tomb, 0, 1, or 2? Did the women see the angel move the stone or was it already moved when they got there? Did they or did they not tell others about what they saw? Did they or did they not see Jesus outside the tomb?).

1. Where there is two there is always one.
2. The women saw the stone rolled away. Matthew merely gives an explanation.
3. On the way, they told no one.
4. They encountered Jesus, but in different groups. Or, John and Matthew are talking about the same appearance.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

I do think Christians should remember that to complete outsiders, the Jesus story isn’t logical or reasonable

Every Christians ancestors have been outsiders at one point.