BibleForums Christian Message Board
Bible Talk => Just Bible => Topic started by: Sojourner on June 03, 2022, 06:06:11 PM
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"Show me proof of God's existence, and I'll believe in him." Ever heard that one? It's akin to the old adage, "seeing is believing." But these are examples of the distorted thinking that the world has with regard to the things of God. Logic dictates that we cannot truly believe in something that has been proven to us, as once we have the proof, belief no longer applies. At times, we may even have trouble believing what our eyes are telling us is a fact, but once we acknowledge a thing to be proven fact, it no longer exists in the realm of belief. Ultimately, belief in something, tempered by conviction, is faith, which also operates outside the realm of "seeing."
As the Apostle Paul points out, Creation itself declares the existence of God and His glory. “For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.” (Rom 1:19-20)
People see the handiwork of God in the heavenly realm, in the intricate structure of the atom and DNA, and yet reject the idea of a Creator. The design is self-evident, but a Designer is rejected. The universe is happenstance, and it all came from nothing by itself. “The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’” “Professing themselves wise, they became foolish.” They see, yet do not believe.
Consider the numerous miracles Jesus performed during His earthly ministry. The people of that day beheld with their own eyes, awesome, supernatural works of God, wrought by Jesus in the name of God. And it was clear to these people that such miracles could only be explained by the power of God working in Him. Thousands of people swarmed around Jesus daily, mesmerized by the gracious words with which He spoke of God and His kingdom. They witnessed miraculous healing, the casting out of demons, and even the dead being called forth out of the grave. Thousands witnessed all these things with their own eyes.
One can only wonder where they all were when the crowd was shouting, “crucify him!” and “give us Barabbas!” Where were the thousands He miraculously fed with a boy's lunch? Where were all those who filled the streets singing "Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" after Lazarus was raised from the dead? Where were they when Jesus was suffering on the cross, when only His mother, the Apostle John and a few others stood beneath His cross Him on Calvary’s hill? If seeing is believing, everyone that witnessed Jesus’ miracles would have believed His testimony.
Despite all the seeing, most did not believe He was the messiah. He did not immediately throw off the yoke of the Gentiles and establish His kingdom in Jerusalem, so He cannot be God’s anointed one. Of the many thousands that saw and heard Him, we read that about 500 were present to witness His ascension into heaven following His resurrection, and only 120 were present when God poured out His Spirit on that world-changing day of Pentecost shortly afterward.
The religious leaders of that day likewise witnessed all these things. There was no question the power of God was working in Jesus. Yet, they refused to acknowledge it because they hated Jesus for telling the truth about their pomposity and hypocrisy. Choosing the way of Cain, they refused to alter their skewed perception and continued to do things their own way. Like Cain, they resented the faith and obedience of a godly brother whose righteousness and miraculous deeds were apparent. The way of Cain is the way many have since followed—hearing God, but neither listening nor heeding; looking, yet not seeing what is before them. Seeing, but not believing. "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)
The truth is, seeing is not believing. Only believing is believing. And God, in His infinite wisdom, chose faith as the path by which man can find God, and regain the sweet communion with Him lost in the garden of Eden. A lack of faith in His word led to the fall from grace in the garden. And His word manifest in the humanity of Jesus restores us. The failure of a man in a garden to submit to the will of God made us lose communion with God. And it was a man in a garden submitting His will to God that restored it: “Father if it’s possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet, not my will, but yours be done.”
Only by believing what the world rejects as foolishness, by accepting as reality a truth rejected by the intellect, can the inner, spiritual creature be reunited with its Creator. And God planned it so before Creation itself.
No, seeing is not believing, for many have seen without believing, and many have believed without seeing. Contrary to the wisdom of this world, which says "I'll believe it when I see it," only those who believe in God and His Christ will see the glory of God and dwell with Him in His kingdom.
And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that He exists and is a rewarder of those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
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Where's @Oscar
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I'm sure he'll be along soon enough.
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I. Only by believing what the world rejects as foolishness, by accepting as reality a truth rejected by the intellect, can the inner, spiritual creature be reunited with its Creator. - - -
Is there not a single example of someone seeing and then believing? Could we scour the history of humanity and never find a single person that makes such a claim? Or I suppose if we do find such a claimant then surely they must be lying or mistaken. Some Christians really like to hammer home the idea of believe first, and that the intellect and wise men of the world will reject christianity as nonsense. I don't see how it doesn't matter that the intellect and wise men of the world reject a wide gamut of ideas, Phlogiston...rejected , homunculi theory of human reproduction...rejected, Aliens from mars abducting and people and mutilating cattle....rejected. Perhaps the idea is that only the ideas that are universally rejected by the intellect and/or the wise men of the world are the ideas that you can consistently accept as true? Since the intellectuals and wise men of the world seem to be simply defined as people that reject Christianity then I suppose that I can see how a person might think that the assertions you've put forth here aren't gobbledegook....but still in practice it doesn't really pan out like that,
The World and The Intellect rejects all sorts of religious and non religious ideas. One cannot simply catalog the spiritual propositions that the intellect rejects in order to accumulate a list of 100% true not made up spiritual facts. Instead you would end up with a list of assertions from many religions and cults and internet weirdos and only a fraction of that list would contain true and goodly Christian spiritual facts. this looks to me like a bit of verbal prestidigitation, it is presented as if we are being given a metric and method for distinguishing true spiritual information from vile and lowly lies, however it can't actually do that because the intellect and the worldly intellectuals reject all sorts of stuff that has nothing to do with Christianity and that mere rejection does not offer any mechanism for justifying why rejected buddhist ideas should remain rejected and rejected Christian Ideas should be wholeheartedly embraced as the sweet nourishing nectar of spiritual truth. I imagine that if a group of weirdo's believed that the earth was flat they too could claim that you can tell its true based on how rejected it is by "the World" (which is just another way of saying people that don't accept my deeply held beliefs as fact). The rejection tells you nothing and only serves to baselessly confirm a narrow set of rejected beliefs while ignoring all of the other rejects for no discernable reason other than that doing so would immediately collapse the argument in upon itself. Utterly epistemologically useless.
II. Creation itself declares the existence of God and His glory - - -
Well, if Paul the apostle said so then how could I even question this? If this is the case then everyone should qualify for a supernatural visitation or emmanation because we all already know for a fact that God is real and I guess presumably that its the Christian God...I mean that is at least an order of magnitude better than a mustard seed of faith. Honestly If this is true it really makes you wonder why anyone would even bother with the Idea that there are people that reject the existence of God and His glory and that this rejection provides useful information about what the truth of God actually is. At best all you could really say is that people claim to reject this thing that they know for a fact is true. It really punches holes in the idea the people that witnessed Jesus' miracles later came to reject the divinity of Christ because like the miracles didn't even matter, they knew it was true before the miracles and continued to know for the rest of their lives. Does the bible specifically say that these teeming thousands that you are claiming didn't come to the crucifiction because they rejected the undeniable self evident evidence of God that absolutely permeates every aspect of creation and on top of that they rejected the entirely superfluous miracles of Christ? How do you know that they couldn't get that day off of work or maybe just didn't want to see a crucifixion because I imagine its a disturbing event to behold or that since they had all of these spiritual spoilers so they knew that Jesus is literally God therefore wasn't ever really in any danger that matters. Just saying that I'm skeptical of the claims of the bible in general, but i'm especially skeptical of how you arrived upon these numbers and how you know the reasons why more people didn't show up for Jesus' big earthly finale.
On another note why in heaven would God give prophecies and predictions of the messiah that he knew would be incongruous with the apparent earthly activities of Jesus? Like again if Paul's claim is true and righteous and goodly then the prophecies were as gratuitous and unnecessary as the miracles were, but in addition to being completely redundant they were also ambiguous. To what end?? To give people that could not possibly have an excuse or even the option to not know the truth of God/Christ the illusion of an excuse to pretend that they were rejecting deep spiritual truths so that later Christians could really belabor the idea that this rejection that cannot actually be rejection is in fact confirmation of spiritual truth that you don't actually need confirmation for because if you exist in creation then all of the confirmation you or anyone else will ever need is everywhere all of the time and everyone already understands this truth.
I could go on and on and on about how this is foolishness to my worldly intellect, but i'm sleepy and in your mind i must be only pretending that that I don't know that you are correct and goodly and true about God and the mechanics of knowledge and truth because I've seen DNA and atoms and stuff and the hallmarks of their intelligent design is as plain as the nose on this face that heavenly father created. Perhaps my brain isnt working well because I've been awake far too long, but i don't even see how the internal logic of any of this hangs together. Good Night
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Ah, there you are. Just so you know, my first post represents the expression of recent ruminations rather than a challenge to you or your atheism/agnosticism. Not throwing down the gauntlet here. Your feedback (or push back, in this case) is welcome, though I expect little to be accomplished other than a pointless exchange of words. Neither you nor I will influence the other's perspective regarding God's existence--or even find the other's argument compelling. That leaves little room for a meaningful dialogue.
I'm actually more amenable to contending with a rabid atheist than a disgruntled ex-Christian, as I at least know what I'm dealing with. If you gave the Christian faith a spin and concluded you were sold a bill of goods, my advocacy for the faith will fall on deaf ears, which leaves little chance for a meeting of the minds. Then again, to you, any outcome seems incidental to the dialogue itself. Besides, your verbosity and irascible temperament make engaging with you less than desirable. Good night.
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Ah, there you are. Just so you know, my first post represents the expression of recent ruminations rather than a challenge to you or your atheism/agnosticism. Not throwing down the gauntlet here. Your feedback (or push back, in this case) is welcome, though I expect little to be accomplished other than a pointless exchange of words. Neither you nor I will influence the other's perspective regarding God's existence--or even find the other's argument compelling. That leaves little room for a meaningful dialogue.
I'm actually more amenable to contending with a rabid atheist than a disgruntled ex-Christian, as I at least know what I'm dealing with. If you gave the Christian faith a spin and concluded you were sold a bill of goods, my advocacy for the faith will fall on deaf ears, which leaves little chance for a meeting of the minds. Then again, to you, any outcome seems incidental to the dialogue itself. Besides, your verbosity and irascible temperament make engaging with you less than desirable. Good night.
My wordiness and irascibility seem to be beside the point, seems my Ex-Christianess would cause nearly any discussion with me to be pointless even if I were succinct and jovial.
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I often see various non believing types asking for "proof" of God's existence, as though we're in a court of law or something. So I'm inclined to chime with some thoughts that I heard from my son.
In human spheres, there are different mechanisms for proving something, and they all require different levels of evidence.
For example, there's civil court. The level of proof required for a judgement is called "preponderance of the evidence." To non lawyer types (anyone here who isn't RK ;) ) this means 51%. If I have even slightly more evidence than the other side, the judge rules in my favor.
Or move on to criminal court. There the level of proof for guilt is called "beyond a reasonable doubt". Notice that it doesn't say "beyond ALL doubt". Just beyond reasonable doubt. Juries and judges can't take every possibility into account and do sometimes get it wrong. So we could say that's like 90%.
Then we have proofs in mathematics. There, something has to be 100% correct. If some hypothesis has even a single exception then it isn't true.
And then we have religious faith. That doesn't fit into any of the above. It's something that speaks to us on a personal level. It's the sum total of our life's experiences and how we see the world.
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And then we have religious faith. That doesn't fit into any of the above. It's something that speaks to us on a personal level. It's the sum total of our life's experiences and how we see the world.
The other reality about proof of God's existence is that they're no assurance of faith, obedience, a wanting to be in relation(ship) with God, etc. One might talk with God in a garden and still manage to do the very thing that ought not to be done.
Proofs as such also often only make sense on reflection, after one is 'convinced'. Before then, what's to say an intelligent creator is this god or that god, or aliens, or transdimensional beings, or natural processes we don't understand? Pascal and Anselm were clever but short of subjectivity no one can get quite to the point of definitive proof.
And so, Christians like their personal relationships because the subjective witness of the Holy Spirit to the person is what does the trick, and not listening to William Lane Craig debates for a month straight - as entertaining as they might be.
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The other reality about proof of God's existence is that they're no assurance of faith, obedience, a wanting to be in relation(ship) with God, etc. One might talk with God in a garden and still manage to do the very thing that ought not to be done.
That's true I suppose. Although it isn't an issue nowadays.
And so, Christians like their personal relationships because the subjective witness of the Holy Spirit to the person is what does the trick
This is more what it's like nowadays.
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The other reality about proof of God's existence is that they're no assurance of faith, obedience, a wanting to be in relation(ship) with God, etc. One might talk with God in a garden and still manage to do the very thing that ought not to be done.
So true...
I remember in my unconverted state of mind wrestling with faith I concluded that if God was real I would follow and serve Him as a logical act, you are not going to argue with your Creator, 2+2=4 logic. Then at the moment I became aware I had to follow suit and I did although it felt like jumping into the deep without the ability to swim.
In my talks with unbelievers I often proposed the question to them : will you serve God if He reveals Himself to you and you are 100% sure that He exists? And I realized my 2+2=4 logic did not work for others. I got comments like:
1. Well, I have a lot of questions for God first;
2. Maybe I don't like Him.
Which made me conclude, there are hears ready for Him and hearts that are not. Oh wait Jesus already said that in the parable of the sower.
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Christianity seems to me to be one of a few special propositions where the importance of collecting evidence, investigation, falsification and most other mechanisms that people commonly use to get at the truth is minimized or altogether dismissed. To be fair i've encountered other self proclaimed Christians that claim to believe that there are arguments and proofs for God that rely on evidence and reason (I believe WLC has made such assertions). I've also encountered those that will insist that undeniable proof of God is all around us and/or is written on the hearts of every human.
Unlike say the claim that my Toyota Camry hybrid gets 116 mpg/hw, you folks seem to be saying that one must be prepared or motivated to accept the truth of the proposition before they can see the truth of the proposition. There is a sense in which this could be viewed as an innocuous consequence of how arguments work, however I do not think it can be denied that there is a malignant form of this where the conclusion is foregone and the reasoning is motivated. Perhaps it is true that God has so thoroughly entangled the truth of his nature, character and even his existence with subjective expirience that it is futile to approach the question of God as you would gas mileage. I have to wonder though, is it mere coincidence that this approach is very similar to, and perhaps even indistinguishable from the sort of biased reasoning that many of you would likely detect and reject as a reasonable means to justify belief in say the multiverse or even a Toyota that does 116 highway miles per hour.
It is always a little frustrating that for most other propositions many Christians would see how flawed it is to use this motivated reasoning to justify beliefs even to one's self....but it is perfectly acceptable when seeking the Lord. I do not see a good reason to make the exception for Christianity that you guys have and so it goes I suppose that God has disqualified people like me who are unwilling to intentionally use bad reasoning.
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Christianity seems to me to be one of a few special propositions where the importance of collecting evidence, investigation, falsification and most other mechanisms that people commonly use to get at the truth is minimized or altogether dismissed.
Not in Christianity proper, but most Christian practice isn't 'Christianity proper'. Think of this similarly to how a lot of Christians affirm a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, but then provide arguments in favour of Modalism. There are differences between affirming a believe in X, Y or Z, explaining the belief that's affirmed, understanding what's believed, and so on.
When it comes to faith, it's of course important to: collect evidence, investigate, falsify, and so forth. But it's equally important to keep perspective. Faith isn't about propositions like 2 + 2 = 4 and is substantially metaphysical. It's theological, and it's philosophical. But it's also existential. How do engage in what sounds like a scientific endeavour of faith? Just as there are no definitive proofs of God's existence, there's nothing to definitively defeat the proposition that God exists, even if we determine that it's not A, B or C god that exists.
And it's frustrating to grow up in a tradition that emphasises feelings, downplays the evidence of this-or-that, or suggests ludicrous theology or beliefs that are clearly at odds with what we know of the natural world. But as with anything, there are bad conceptions and there are good conceptions, and the good conceptions aren't going to run away from those things.
To be fair i've encountered other self proclaimed Christians that claim to believe that there are arguments and proofs for God that rely on evidence and reason (I believe WLC has made such assertions). I've also encountered those that will insist that undeniable proof of God is all around us and/or is written on the hearts of every human.
It is, but the paradox is that you won't believe so until you believe so. WLC and others can make the case that belief in God is rational, but they can't argue that it's rational therefore you should believe it. You simply can't be compelled in that direction. You can't choose what you find compelling or what you believe.
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Christianity seems to me to be one of a few special propositions where the importance of collecting evidence, investigation, falsification and most other mechanisms that people commonly use to get at the truth is minimized or altogether dismissed.
One point of note is that Christianity is not falsifiable. There's no way to prove it wrong, especially as everything of note is so heavily spiritualized that everything of import that Jesus did takes place in another realm.
In my mind, that's a strike against the faith. It's set up in such a way that it can't be proved incorrect.
Before you ask, yes, Judaism is falsifiable.
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Before you ask, yes, Judaism is falsifiable.
How would one attempt to falsify Judaism?
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How would one attempt to falsify Judaism?
The core belief of Judaism is that God made a perpetual covenant at Sinai with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Furthermore, God promises multiple times in the bible that the Jewish people will never cease to exist.
Some examples
Lev 26 "Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. "
Jeremiah 30:11 For I am with you to save you, declares the LORD. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have scattered you, I will not completely destroy you.
Jermiah 31 This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord Almighty is his name:
“Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, "will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.”
Deut 4:31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers, which He swore to them by oath.
2 Kings 13:23 And the LORD was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them...
2 Kings 14:27 and since the LORD had said that He would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.
etc etc.
How is Judaism falsifiable? If these statements are ever proven wrong, then Judaism will have been proved false. How could these statements be proved wrong? If the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, cease to exist, then God's word as transmitted in the bible will be disproved.
And it's not like people haven't tried to do that.
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That's interesting. Would we take failure to exterminate the Jewish people as evidence for the promise?
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That's interesting. Would we take failure to exterminate the Jewish people as evidence for the promise?
I would. But I think this is one of those pieces of evidence that is more personally compelling than that of a proof that would convince another person.
Similarly, we have God's promise to Abraham that "through your descendants will the entire world be blessed." (Genesis 22:18)
In my personal opinion this is objectively true.
Evidence: Jews make up less than 2/10 of 1% of the world's population. Less than one person in 500 is Jewish. It seems like this should be a people one never hears of. And yet. If we look at Nobel prizes, which are given on a yearly basis to excellence in diverse fields as medicine, physics, chemistry, economics, literature, and so on, we would expect very few Jews to have won. Just by mere statistics. And yet Jews, who make up such a tiny minority, have won around 25% of Nobel prizes. A people numbering less than 1 in 500 winning 1 in 4. I personally see this as an actualization of that blessing, these are all topics that have made the world a better place for everyone.
Christians I have shared this with have found it less than compelling, for their own (obviously theological) reasons.
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I don’t have any difficulty seeing the tremendous blessing to the world through the achievements of Jews through t the millennia
Of course, I personally find a remarkable accomplishment in one Jesus bar Joseph, so there is that
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I don’t have any difficulty seeing the tremendous blessing to the world through the achievements of Jews through t the millennia
Of course, I personally find a remarkable accomplishment in one Jesus bar Joseph, so there is that
Good example of the rational on one hand and the personal on the other.
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Christianity seems to me to be one of a few special propositions where the importance of collecting evidence, investigation, falsification and most other mechanisms that people commonly use to get at the truth is minimized or altogether dismissed.
Not in Christianity proper, but most Christian practice isn't 'Christianity proper'. Think of this similarly to how a lot of Christians affirm a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, but then provide arguments in favour of Modalism. There are differences between affirming a believe in X, Y or Z, explaining the belief that's affirmed, understanding what's believed, and so on.
When it comes to faith, it's of course important to: collect evidence, investigate, falsify, and so forth. But it's equally important to keep perspective. Faith isn't about propositions like 2 + 2 = 4 and is substantially metaphysical. It's theological, and it's philosophical. But it's also existential. How do engage in what sounds like a scientific endeavour of faith? Just as there are no definitive proofs of God's existence, there's nothing to definitively defeat the proposition that God exists, even if we determine that it's not A, B or C god that exists.
And it's frustrating to grow up in a tradition that emphasises feelings, downplays the evidence of this-or-that, or suggests ludicrous theology or beliefs that are clearly at odds with what we know of the natural world. But as with anything, there are bad conceptions and there are good conceptions, and the good conceptions aren't going to run away from those things.
To be fair i've encountered other self proclaimed Christians that claim to believe that there are arguments and proofs for God that rely on evidence and reason (I believe WLC has made such assertions). I've also encountered those that will insist that undeniable proof of God is all around us and/or is written on the hearts of every human.
It is, but the paradox is that you won't believe so until you believe so. WLC and others can make the case that belief in God is rational, but they can't argue that it's rational therefore you should believe it. You simply can't be compelled in that direction. You can't choose what you find compelling or what you believe.
If you believe that Christianity is inaccessible to science then I do not find it difficult to imagine that there are plenty of interpretations that would suit those conditions. I have run across several of those and they effectively parameterize God right out of science's grasp, however frequently those interpretations display the hallmarks of having been constructed as a means to reconcile faith with the steady accumulation of knowledge about the world. Often when Christians have taken the time to explain the metaphysical and theological material provided by something like genesis 1 for instance, I have found it not at all dependant on any apparent factual claims that bring it out of alignment with the sequence , mechanics, scope and/or time-scales we've come to know regarding the formation of the universe, our planet or biological life. IOW the bible can accommodate/tolerate some arbitrary changes to apparent factual claims while remaining metaphysically/theologically intact, and if this is true I think its fair to question why it wasn't written that way in the first place. Of course none of this is a problem if one decides to invoke God's mysteriousness or it could be argued that It only seems to not matter metaphysically/theologically that birds come before insects or whatever. I'm not certain, but I bet if a person wanted to they could systematically go through the bible and create this sort of rationale for every instance of an apparent factual claim that is at widdershins with science, arguing that every instance is literally false but philosophically/ theologically/ metaphysically perfect. This is what I would call torturous gymnastics, but others may call it sophisticated interpretation. I tend to land on my side of the fence because this byzantine trajectory more closely matches things that we know are made up than it does the circuitous trajectory of say our understanding of Gravity. You assert that evidence, investigation and falsification is important, but in science these things are the mechanism of change that is verified through observation, but in Christianity it is the mechanism of change that is verified through an internally consistent interpretation and the goal is to end up with something that is consistent with any observation. For instance an interpretation of Genesis 1 that transposes its claims outside of the realm of science is impervious to any observations about the order of appearance of organisms. There are no observations that necessitates a move in any of it's ideas or the interpretation in any way because even though it is ostensibly about the universe, it is divorced from anything we might see in the universe that it purports to superficially reference. It merely needs to find a way to not be internally inconsistent and not meaningfully describe or be described by anything in reality. This seems difficult, and this seeming difficulty is another thing that is used to praise its divinity, but it's actually orders of magnitude easier than describing something simple like the trajectory of a baseball because any description of baseball physics is limited by what can be observed, which is a strict set of things that must also generalize to golf balls and rocks as well...when compared to the expansive field of things that cannot be observed and have no need to comport with reality or account for the behavior of anything that is observable it is easy to see why this method works just as well for christianity "proper" as it does for Yoga hucksters, Crystal healers, Qi Gong "masters" and Mormonism, which as Sam Harris amusingly likes to point out is just Christianity plus some very stupid ideas.
I don't remember how you initially presented the Plantinga's argument against naturalism years ago, but I did notice that most recently you treated it as merely useful to challenge a person's thinking. From out here it seems that this must be the absolute height of what the very finest Christian argument can accomplish, whereas as Fenris pointed out through mathematics I could create (or really just reproduce) a proof that a machine could be built that could compute anything that is computable while only using a single instruction. You would be right to point out that these arguments are directed at fundamentally different questions, and while I agree I propose that if you cannot be as definitive as the latter then your conclusion should be uncertainty. This is why I cannot agree that WLC, Plantinga or anyone else are actually making the case that a belief in God is rational, at best they can construct arguments that cannot be definitively refuted. For my money this means that all that is ever being done is constructing very impressive and entertaining speculations and then claiming that since this speculation holds together and cannot be outright refuted that accepting this speculation as truth instead of rightly admitting that you have not made a single step away from ignorance is actually a rational position. You should believe that apples grow on apple trees because apples actually do grow on apple trees, It should be a problem that they cannot make a similar claim because the tree is a macchanation and its fruits are conjecture.
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That's interesting. Would we take failure to exterminate the Jewish people as evidence for the promise?
I would. But I think this is one of those pieces of evidence that is more personally compelling than that of a proof that would convince another person.
Similarly, we have God's promise to Abraham that "through your descendants will the entire world be blessed." (Genesis 22:18)
In my personal opinion this is objectively true.
Evidence: Jews make up less than 2/10 of 1% of the world's population. Less than one person in 500 is Jewish. It seems like this should be a people one never hears of. And yet. If we look at Nobel prizes, which are given on a yearly basis to excellence in diverse fields as medicine, physics, chemistry, economics, literature, and so on, we would expect very few Jews to have won. Just by mere statistics. And yet Jews, who make up such a tiny minority, have won around 25% of Nobel prizes. A people numbering less than 1 in 500 winning 1 in 4. I personally see this as an actualization of that blessing, these are all topics that have made the world a better place for everyone.
Christians I have shared this with have found it less than compelling, for their own (obviously theological) reasons.
Most Nobel prizes have gone to Americans, Is that because we mention God on our money? Are Americans even more chosen by God than even the israelites? As a proportion of population the Faroe Islands has the highest per capita nobel prize winners, are they the actual chosen people? Israel is actually 11th per capita in Nobel prize winners behind The Faroe Islands, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Denmark & the UK , shouldn't they be #1? It could be argued that Jewish people are the reason that nuclear weapons exist and have proliferated, what does it say about their blessed status that they arguably cursed humanity with the means to destroy itself?
I feel that because antisemitism is so rampant that I need to clarify that I don't blame the Jews for nukes and If i'm entirely honest I have frequently thought about how impressive the scientific accomplishments of Jewish people have been, however my point is that picking out exceptional metrics and then drawing conclusions is a game that anyone can play regarding any group and frequently people do it to reinforce some racist point about the jewish people, so the obvious flaw in this thought process should be obvious.
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Most Nobel prizes have gone to Americans, Is that because we mention God on our money? Are Americans even more chosen by God than even the israelites?
Abraham Lincoln said that America was the "almost chosen people". So you may be on to something there. But it's one thing to say that Western Civ (America and Europe, primarily) wins a lot of Nobel prizes. Near universal literacy combined with a culture of scientific inquiry will yield dramatic results. It's another thing entirely to explain how a tiny group of people who have historically been persecuted and excluded from society manages to win one out of every four. In an idle moment I have wondered how many Einsteins and Freuds perished in the gas chambers. Their loss was a loss for all of humanity.
Israel is actually 11th per capita in Nobel prize winners behind The Faroe Islands, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Denmark & the UK , shouldn't they be #1?
I didn't say Israel though. I said Jews.
Economics is a particularly weird one. If you look at winners who have at least one Jewish parent (and are not necessarily Jews according to Jewish law) they make up almost 50% of people awarded the prize.
It could be argued that Jewish people are the reason that nuclear weapons exist and have proliferated, what does it say about their blessed status that they arguably cursed humanity with the means to destroy itself?
Yes because until nuclear weapons were discovered, mankind lived in a universal brotherhood of peace and harmony.
I feel that because antisemitism is so rampant that I need to clarify that I don't blame the Jews for nukes and If i'm entirely honest I have frequently thought about how impressive the scientific accomplishments of Jewish people have been, however my point is that picking out exceptional metrics and then drawing conclusions is a game that anyone can play regarding any group and frequently people do it to reinforce some racist point about the jewish people, so the obvious flaw in this thought process should be obvious.
One would think that a tiny minority as productive as Jews are would be protected and cherished. Instead they are hated. The world is a weird place.
People don't hate Jews because they accomplish many things, or because they don't. People don't hate Jews because they're rich, or because they're poor. People don't hate Jews because they dress differently from everyone else, or because they assimilate and it's hard to know that they're Jews. People don't hate Jews because of anything that Jews do.
People hate Jews because they're Jewish.
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Some subset of all people hate Jews.
Some subset of all people do not hate Jews.
Some subset of all people hate any number of other subsets of all people simply because haters hate.
And mean people suck.
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Some subset of all people hate Jews.
Some subset of all people do not hate Jews.
Some subset of all people hate any number of other subsets of all people simply because haters hate.
And this is one of the "personal pieces of evidence" that speaks to me specifically. Antisemitism is, to me and many other Jews, a unique phenomena that is different from other forms of racism. It has endured for a very long time, more than 2,000 years; it has changed in form to always be "justified" according to the leading values of the day; and people who hate Jews hate them because they are Jews and for no other reason.
Let's have a look at Numbers 10:35 So it was, whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, Arise, O Lord, may Your enemies be scattered and may those who hate You flee from You.
Medieval Jewish commentator Rashi asks a very logical question. Why does it say "Your enemies" and not "our enemies"? And then he answers it by saying that Israel's enemies are God's enemies. What does Rashi mean? Why are they one and the same? It seems to me that bad people hate the idea of a God Who judges them and expects them to behave in a moral manner. But they can't reach God to harm Him. But they can reach His representatives in this world, the Jewish people. And they have.
Using this interpretation, Christians can find themselves being hated for the same reason. Unfortunately, Christians have also been on the side of the haters. I guess that's one way to decide if someone is a real Christian.
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As my old Sunday School teacher used to tell a classroom full of rowdy 12 year olds, "If people don't hate you for being a real Christian, then you aren't doing something right."
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What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?
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What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?
Nothing that won't get him accused of being a subjectivist/relativist
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How would one attempt to falsify Judaism?
The core belief of Judaism is that God made a perpetual covenant at Sinai with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Furthermore, God promises multiple times in the bible that the Jewish people will never cease to exist.
Some examples
Lev 26 "Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. "
Jeremiah 30:11 For I am with you to save you, declares the LORD. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have scattered you, I will not completely destroy you.
Jermiah 31 This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord Almighty is his name:
“Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, "will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.”
Deut 4:31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers, which He swore to them by oath.
2 Kings 13:23 And the LORD was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them...
2 Kings 14:27 and since the LORD had said that He would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.
etc etc.
How is Judaism falsifiable? If these statements are ever proven wrong, then Judaism will have been proved false. How could these statements be proved wrong? If the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, cease to exist, then God's word as transmitted in the bible will be disproved.
Good point.
Jesus made a similar statement.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I can not remember one leader / founder of a religion who spoke similar words and became the biggest religion of the world, for centuries.
Also an example is God's timing sending Jesus. Okay, I am a bit biased here. AD70 IMO is no accident with the "terrible day of the Lord" in mind, you might disagree here, I realize.
And it's not like people haven't tried to do that.
Absolutely. Usually people who immigrate are completely assimilated after a century or so. Jews kept their identity, habits, religion for almost 2000 years by now after the big Diaspora in AD 70.
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If you believe that Christianity is inaccessible to science then I do not find it difficult to imagine that there are plenty of interpretations that would suit those conditions. I have run across several of those and they effectively parameterize God right out of science's grasp, however frequently those interpretations display the hallmarks of having been constructed as a means to reconcile faith with the steady accumulation of knowledge about the world. Often when Christians have taken the time to explain the metaphysical and theological material provided by something like genesis 1 for instance, I have found it not at all dependant on any apparent factual claims that bring it out of alignment with the sequence , mechanics, scope and/or time-scales we've come to know regarding the formation of the universe, our planet or biological life.
Speaking of Genesis chapter one, it's obviously written in a Jewish framework (For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.) and symbolic language to make it understandable for all generations as it doesn't make sense for ancient people to talk about the first bacteria and how it came to life in water.
And yet - let's have a look at the order of biological life.
11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind.
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
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How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?
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That's interesting. Would we take failure to exterminate the Jewish people as evidence for the promise?
I would. But I think this is one of those pieces of evidence that is more personally compelling than that of a proof that would convince another person.
Similarly, we have God's promise to Abraham that "through your descendants will the entire world be blessed." (Genesis 22:18)
In my personal opinion this is objectively true.
Yep Jesus a descendant of King David, Savior of the world.
Evidence: Jews make up less than 2/10 of 1% of the world's population. Less than one person in 500 is Jewish. It seems like this should be a people one never hears of. And yet. If we look at Nobel prizes, which are given on a yearly basis to excellence in diverse fields as medicine, physics, chemistry, economics, literature, and so on, we would expect very few Jews to have won. Just by mere statistics. And yet Jews, who make up such a tiny minority, have won around 25% of Nobel prizes. A people numbering less than 1 in 500 winning 1 in 4. I personally see this as an actualization of that blessing, these are all topics that have made the world a better place for everyone.
Or just an evolutionary survival case? Because of all the persecutions Jews had to be smart in order to survive?
Christians I have shared this with have found it less than compelling, for their own (obviously theological) reasons.
Yes, Jesus as first and dominant reason. Nevertheless your interpretation of Gen 22:18 could be true as well.
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Good point.
Jesus made a similar statement.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I can not remember one leader / founder of a religion who spoke similar words and became the biggest religion of the world, for centuries.
Nothing being said here is falsifiable.
Absolutely. Usually people who immigrate are completely assimilated after a century or so. Jews kept their identity, habits, religion for almost 2000 years by now after the big Diaspora in AD 70.
Or the various attempts at genocide.
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Yep Jesus a descendant of King David, Savior of the world.
This is not objectively true. It's also not falsifiable. It's something that Christians believe to be true.
Or just an evolutionary survival case? Because of all the persecutions Jews had to be smart in order to survive?
Other historically persecuted groups don't show a similar pattern.
Yes, Jesus as first and dominant reason. Nevertheless your interpretation of Gen 22:18 could be true as well.
We need a "thumbs up" emoji
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How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?
why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?
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How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?
why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?
What factual inaccuracy?
I would say science got it right 8)
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How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?
why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?
What factual inaccuracy?
I would say science got it right 8)
Science probably did, Genesis almost certainly didn't.
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How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?
why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?
What factual inaccuracy?
I would say science got it right 8)
Science probably did, Genesis almost certainly didn't.
You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.
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How could the ancient author be right of what we only know since 100-150 years ago?
why, revelation of course...God could have told people, presumably. Would Genesis be less metaphysically/theologically/philosophically useful if the order of the appearance of organisms was no more detailed but more chronologically correct? Is some aspect of the bible somehow improved by this factual inaccuracy?
What factual inaccuracy?
I would say science got it right 8)
Science probably did, Genesis almost certainly didn't.
You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.
The odds are what exactly are 1 in 16? I don't agree that the order is correct in the bible, but perhaps i'm reading it incorrectly, what was the order of appearance organisms in Genesis (briefly summarize please)?
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You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.
I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.
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You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.
I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.
Well, yes, I was responding to Athanasius who asserts something similar, and I was attempting to reason within that framework. The meat of my point is that while the bible isn't a science book that does not preclude it from being accurate when it comes to apparent factual information that is contained within it. Would the bible be worse at life instruction if it were scientifically accurate? I think it's difficult to make the argument that in order to be a good metaphysics/ morality/ theology/ philosophy book that any apparently factual scientifically investigable facts must be metaphor or allegory or else the bible will fail to be useful theologically, philosophically etc. If that isn't the case, and it could be scientifically accurate and instructive then it seems it is a fundamentally worse book than it could have been.
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You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.
I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.
True but the subject is also Seeing is believing like your falsifiable argumentation. In Genesis 1 four facts are presented in a particular ordering.
1. creation of vegetation, plants, trees
2. creation of fish and birds
3. creation of the beasts
4. And finally mankind.
Compatible with science.
Now if the Bible had mixed up one of these, for instance God created mankind first, secondly the trees were created the Bible was proven wrong according science. So there are 16 combinations possible and 15 are wrong.
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You would have a point if Genesis had the order wrong, but that's not the case and the odds are 1 to 16.
I don't really understand the point. The bible is not a science book. It's an instruction manual for how to live our lives.
True but the subject is also Seeing is believing like your falsifiable argumentation. In Genesis 1 four facts are presented in a particular ordering.
1. creation of vegetation, plants, trees
2. creation of fish and birds
3. creation of the beasts
4. And finally mankind.
Compatible with science.
Now if the Bible had mixed up one of these, for instance God created mankind first, secondly the trees were created the Bible was proven wrong according science. So there are 16 combinations possible and 15 are wrong.
so, you think birds and fish appeared at essentially the same time, and birds appeared before land animals?
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What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?
Nothing that won't get him accused of being a subjectivist/relativist
You studied this subject yes? I thought maybe. Perhaps my memory is failing me. Do you remember what K said with regard to Lessing's ditch?
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What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?
Nothing that won't get him accused of being a subjectivist/relativist
You studied this subject yes? I thought maybe. Perhaps my memory is failing me. Do you remember what K said with regard to Lessing's ditch?
That's right; Climacus (not K proper) wrote about Lessing's ditch (or ditches?) in Philosophical Fragments and Postscript. It's been a while so I'd need to familiarise myself, but Climacus' answer, if we can call it that, was to do something like properly place the subjectivity of the individual, bring in relevation to overcome any problems posed by historical distance, emphasize faith, make notions of historical belief, etc. As far as I remember.
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Well, yes, I was responding to Athanasius who asserts something similar, and I was attempting to reason within that framework. The meat of my point is that while the bible isn't a science book that does not preclude it from being accurate when it comes to apparent factual information that is contained within it. Would the bible be worse at life instruction if it were scientifically accurate?
I think it's just not relevant. The bible doesn't need to reveal scientific truths to us because we can discover those ourselves. And our knowledge of science or lack thereof doesn't change our standing with God.
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True but the subject is also Seeing is believing like your falsifiable argumentation. In Genesis 1 four facts are presented in a particular ordering.
1. creation of vegetation, plants, trees
2. creation of fish and birds
3. creation of the beasts
4. And finally mankind.
Compatible with science.
Compatible with what science? I don't believe in evolution.
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Well, yes, I was responding to Athanasius who asserts something similar, and I was attempting to reason within that framework. The meat of my point is that while the bible isn't a science book that does not preclude it from being accurate when it comes to apparent factual information that is contained within it. Would the bible be worse at life instruction if it were scientifically accurate?
I think it's just not relevant. The bible doesn't need to reveal scientific truths to us because we can discover those ourselves. And our knowledge of science or lack thereof doesn't change our standing with God.
is it consistent with your beliefs that if a person doesn't have access to the bible then they are essentially doomed because they cannot discover the truths contained within it in any other way? If biblical truth can be discovered elsewise then there it grounds to segregate science and theology/metaphysics in this way, but If there is no other way then you have mooted my point and I concede.
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is it consistent with your beliefs that if a person doesn't have access to the bible then they are essentially doomed because they cannot discover the truths contained within it in any other way?
No, it is not.
A person is judged according to their own individual potential based on their life's experiences and knowledge.
Why were the Jews punished with exile for idolatry when their neighbors were not? Because they had the revelation at Sinai and therefore knew better. Amos 3:2 “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”
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What did Kierkegaard say about the ditch?
Nothing that won't get him accused of being a subjectivist/relativist
You studied this subject yes? I thought maybe. Perhaps my memory is failing me. Do you remember what K said with regard to Lessing's ditch?
That's right; Climacus (not K proper) wrote about Lessing's ditch (or ditches?) in Philosophical Fragments and Postscript. It's been a while so I'd need to familiarise myself, but Climacus' answer, if we can call it that, was to do something like properly place the subjectivity of the individual, bring in relevation to overcome any problems posed by historical distance, emphasize faith, make notions of historical belief, etc. As far as I remember.
I think you will find that K remarked something like this, "For someone who doesn't want to jump; the ditch is infinitely large.
In other words, giving mental ascent to an idea is a matter of the mind, but agreeing with an uncomfortable truth is a matter of the will.
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is it consistent with your beliefs that if a person doesn't have access to the bible then they are essentially doomed because they cannot discover the truths contained within it in any other way?
No, it is not.
A person is judged according to their own individual potential based on their life's experiences and knowledge.
Why were the Jews punished with exile for idolatry when their neighbors were not? Because they had the revelation at Sinai and therefore knew better. Amos 3:2 “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”
so, to be clear, these truths can be discovered without access to the bible? how is this different than the way scientific truths can be discovered without the bible?
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so, to be clear, these truths can be discovered without access to the bible?
That's not clear to me. The values of western civ come from the bible. No bible and we'd still have people sacrificing their kids to their gods. My point was that people who live outside the bibles values while not knowing any better are not completely responsible for their behavior.
how is this different than the way scientific truths can be discovered without the bible?
Because God doesn't judge us by how much science we know, but by how we live our lives.
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so, to be clear, these truths can be discovered without access to the bible?
That's not clear to me. The values of western civ come from the bible. No bible and we'd still have people sacrificing their kids to their gods. My point was that people who live outside the bibles values while not knowing any better are not completely responsible for their behavior.
how is this different than the way scientific truths can be discovered without the bible?
Because God doesn't judge us by how much science we know, but by how we live our lives.
oh okay, I misunderstood, without a bible a person is doomed to ignorance, but not doomed by God.
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Well, if Paul the apostle said so then how could I even question this? If this is the case then everyone should qualify for a supernatural visitation or emmanation because we all already know for a fact that God is real and I guess presumably that its the Christian God...I mean that is at least an order of magnitude better than a mustard seed of faith.
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise, and your premise is weak to start with.
Paul isn't focused on the question of God's existence as such. Rather, he is focused on those who know for certain that God exists. He asserts that the wrath of God is being poured out on those who "suppress the truth [about God] in unrighteousness . . ." He argues that human-kind has discovered the true nature of God empirically, i.e. by observation from the things that he has made. And that among this group of people, some or all of them suppressed that truth.
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Rather, he is focused on those who know for certain that God exists. He asserts that the wrath of God is being poured out on those who "suppress the truth [about God] in unrighteousness . . ." He argues that human-kind has discovered the true nature of God empirically, i.e. by observation from the things that he has made.
I mean Paul is all over the place in Romans 1, but I don't agree with the assertion that God's existence is "obvious" in any way. It is one possible conclusion that an individual may come to, but there are others.
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I'm wondering that with all the reasoning I'm seeing here, that some of you folks feel that faith is a mute point. Not calling anybody out, but if that's the way you believe, then you're probably believing that we can be saved by science. Am I wrong here???
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you're probably believing that we can be saved by science.
Am I the only one thinking of this?
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Rather, he is focused on those who know for certain that God exists. He asserts that the wrath of God is being poured out on those who "suppress the truth [about God] in unrighteousness . . ." He argues that human-kind has discovered the true nature of God empirically, i.e. by observation from the things that he has made.
I mean Paul is all over the place in Romans 1, but I don't agree with the assertion that God's existence is "obvious" in any way. It is one possible conclusion that an individual may come to, but there are others.
Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
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I'm wondering that with all the reasoning I'm seeing here, that some of you folks feel that faith is a mute point. Not calling anybody out, but if that's the way you believe, then you're probably believing that we can be saved by science. Am I wrong here???
We are saved by a person: God. Paul argues that God has made himself evident in his creation. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." If we define science in terms of empirical observation, then yes, science is compatible with faith. Reason is not the enemy of faith; fantasy is.
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Well, before we try to discount Paul for what he said, shouldn't we look at what he read to have him come to that conclusion?
Psalms 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Psalms 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
Aliens.
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
Aliens.
Would that be the little grey variety of aliens, or some other?
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
Aliens.
Would that be the little grey variety of aliens, or some other?
It doesn't really matter since the answer under a purely rational examination isn't utterly compelling in one direction over the other. How would anyone distinguish between God and godlike aliens? This is exactly where faith plays into it. There's no rational, utterly compelling argument that defeats all other arguments that start at a designed creation and points back necessarily and unavoidably to the God of the bible.
And so, faith is essential.
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It doesn't really matter since the answer under a purely rational examination isn't utterly compelling in one direction over the other. How would anyone distinguish between God and godlike aliens? This is exactly where faith plays into it. There's no rational, utterly compelling argument that defeats all other arguments that start at a designed creation and points back necessarily and unavoidably to the God of the bible.
And so, faith is essential.
And without faith it's impossible to please God.
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
All rational people.
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
Aliens.
Would that be the little grey variety of aliens, or some other?
It doesn't really matter since the answer under a purely rational examination isn't utterly compelling in one direction over the other. How would anyone distinguish between God and godlike aliens? This is exactly where faith plays into it. There's no rational, utterly compelling argument that defeats all other arguments that start at a designed creation and points back necessarily and unavoidably to the God of the bible.
And so, faith is essential.
How do you define "faith"?
How is it not compelling? What do mean?
Paul argues that the existence of God is what our rationality delivers to us. He says God made himself evident to the world. He says that his divine attributes can clearly be seen from what he has made. If the natural order is NOT compelling, we have only two possibilities: 1) privation of the mind, or 2) privation of the will.
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How do you define "faith"? How is it not compelling? What do mean?
We could stick with Hebrews 11:1, and the 'it' that is not definitively compelling is reason alone.
Paul argues that the existence of God is what our rationality delivers to us. He says God made himself evident to the world. He says that his divine attributes can clearly be seen from what he has made. If the natural order is NOT compelling, we have only two possibilities: 1) privation of the mind, or 2) privation of the will.
And I would agree with Paul, but also that we exist in a state of privation following the sin of Genesis 3. Anyone who lacks faith will simply turn to Paul and ask, "which of God's attributes do babies who die of cancer attest to?"
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How do you define "faith"? How is it not compelling? What do mean?
We could stick with Hebrews 11:1, and the 'it' that is not definitively compelling is reason alone.
Paul argues that the existence of God is what our rationality delivers to us. He says God made himself evident to the world. He says that his divine attributes can clearly be seen from what he has made. If the natural order is NOT compelling, we have only two possibilities: 1) privation of the mind, or 2) privation of the will.
And I would agree with Paul, but also that we exist in a state of privation following the sin of Genesis 3. Anyone who lacks faith will simply turn to Paul and ask, "which of God's attributes do babies who die of cancer attest to?"
Hebrews 11:1 isn't a definition of faith as many suppose. Rather, Paul is saying that the presence of faith is evidence of the thing hoped for, the thing unseen. What what is unseen? God's approval. In other words, they can gain confidence in what they can't see: i.e. God's approval, based on what they CAN see: i.e. their own faith in action. Paul exhorts them to not throw that confidence away, since all they lack is endurance. As proof of this, Paul forms a list of people for whom God explicitly expressed his approval due to their faith. If I have faith, i.e. if I believe what he says and put that into practice, I can have confidence of his approval even if he doesn't make it explicit in my particular case.
Christians have been tricked into thinking that faith is "believing what can't be proved", which is not true. That definition of faith is foreign to the Bible. Faith is giving mental ascent to a truth claim. That's it.
I don't understand what you are saying about babies.
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Christianity seems to me to be one of a few special propositions where the importance of collecting evidence, investigation, falsification and most other mechanisms that people commonly use to get at the truth is minimized or altogether dismissed.
One point of note is that Christianity is not falsifiable. There's no way to prove it wrong, especially as everything of note is so heavily spiritualized that everything of import that Jesus did takes place in another realm.
In my mind, that's a strike against the faith. It's set up in such a way that it can't be proved incorrect.
Before you ask, yes, Judaism is falsifiable.
So what. Falsifiability belongs to the scientific method, a discipline which is but one among many ways to discover the truth. Lots of true ideas can't be proven wrong using the scientific method.
For instance, I judge the New Testament accounts to be true, not because I was there, but because I judge the witnesses to be reliable and honest. This type of reasoning is the most common, everyday use of our rationality.
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Hebrews 11:1 isn't a definition of faith as many suppose. Rather, Paul is saying that the presence of faith is evidence of the thing hoped for, the thing unseen. What what is unseen? God's approval. In other words, they can gain confidence in what they can't see: i.e. God's approval, based on what they CAN see: i.e. their own faith in action. Paul exhorts them to not throw that confidence away, since all they lack is endurance. As proof of this, Paul forms a list of people for whom God explicitly expressed his approval due to their faith. If I have faith, i.e. if I believe what he says and put that into practice, I can have confidence of his approval even if he doesn't make it explicit in my particular case.
Christians have been tricked into thinking that faith is "believing what can't be proved", which is not true. That definition of faith is foreign to the Bible. Faith is giving mental ascent to a truth claim. That's it.
You've gone through some minor effort to correct a misunderstanding I haven't offered, but I suppose that's why I answered in five words or so. I've noticed that you like to "well, actually...". I'm almost tempted to discuss the definition you've provided but what could I possibly say to someone who seems to ask only rhetorical questions?
I realise this comes across a bit harsh. I'm confused as to why you responded as you did, in assuming that I was offering a popular misunderstanding. I didn't put much effort into my response for the reason already stated, but given that you seem reasonably clever I would have thought that by pointing to an example of faith the definition would be implied (or at least, no one is going to read and then simply stop at Hebrews 11:1 and go no further). Faith is more than merely giving "mental ascent"<sic>, but that is part of it.
I don't understand what you are saying about babies.
What do you think I might be saying?
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
Aliens.
So much this.
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
All rational people.
By "rational" you mean "people who think like me". And yet you don't know how other people think.
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And without faith it's impossible to please God.
I think that depends on your religion.
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So what. Falsifiability belongs to the scientific method
No. Falsifiability is a logical tool, not a scientific one.
Lots of true ideas can't be proven wrong using the scientific method.
For instance, I judge the New Testament accounts to be true, not because I was there, but because I judge the witnesses to be reliable and honest.
I don't even know where to begin with this. Your belief in the NT is not subject to the scientific method because it's not a science experiment? The scientific method doesn't apply to "ideas" but to the laws of nature? That you're saying the scientific method means things can't be proven wrong, and then you say something that you believe to be correct? That you can't "judge witnesses" who can't be cross examined? That the scientific method doesn't apply to witnesses? I could go on and on.
My point remains. Christianity is not falsifiable. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It means it's impossible to prove that it's wrong.
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My point remains. Christianity is not falsifiable. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It means it's impossible to prove that it's wrong.
Do you think that if a definitive body of Jesus were found Christianity would be falsified/defeated?
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Hebrews 11:1 isn't a definition of faith as many suppose. Rather, Paul is saying that the presence of faith is evidence of the thing hoped for, the thing unseen. What what is unseen? God's approval. In other words, they can gain confidence in what they can't see: i.e. God's approval, based on what they CAN see: i.e. their own faith in action. Paul exhorts them to not throw that confidence away, since all they lack is endurance. As proof of this, Paul forms a list of people for whom God explicitly expressed his approval due to their faith. If I have faith, i.e. if I believe what he says and put that into practice, I can have confidence of his approval even if he doesn't make it explicit in my particular case.
Christians have been tricked into thinking that faith is "believing what can't be proved", which is not true. That definition of faith is foreign to the Bible. Faith is giving mental ascent to a truth claim. That's it.
You've gone through some minor effort to correct a misunderstanding I haven't offered, but I suppose that's why I answered in five words or so. I've noticed that you like to "well, actually...". I'm almost tempted to discuss the definition you've provided but what could I possibly say to someone who seems to ask only rhetorical questions?
I realise this comes across a bit harsh. I'm confused as to why you responded as you did, in assuming that I was offering a popular misunderstanding. I didn't put much effort into my response for the reason already stated, but given that you seem reasonably clever I would have thought that by pointing to an example of faith the definition would be implied (or at least, no one is going to read and then simply stop at Hebrews 11:1 and go no further). Faith is more than merely giving "mental ascent"<sic>, but that is part of it.
I don't understand what you are saying about babies.
What do you think I might be saying?
That faith is more than mental assent. It isn't.
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Name another possible conclusion? The only two alternatives are 1) chance or 2) creator. Number 1 is not likely.
Yes, those are the two possible conclusions. As to what is "likely", well, who can say?
All rational people.
By "rational" you mean "people who think like me". And yet you don't know how other people think.
What I mean is this. Those who deny what is self-evident chose to do so for reasons other than a love of the truth.
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And without faith it's impossible to please God.
I think that depends on your religion.
It has nothing to do with religion. Do you think God is impressed with religion?
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So what. Falsifiability belongs to the scientific method
No. Falsifiability is a logical tool, not a scientific one.
Lots of true ideas can't be proven wrong using the scientific method.
For instance, I judge the New Testament accounts to be true, not because I was there, but because I judge the witnesses to be reliable and honest.
I don't even know where to begin with this. Your belief in the NT is not subject to the scientific method because it's not a science experiment? The scientific method doesn't apply to "ideas" but to the laws of nature? That you're saying the scientific method means things can't be proven wrong, and then you say something that you believe to be correct? That you can't "judge witnesses" who can't be cross examined? That the scientific method doesn't apply to witnesses? I could go on and on.
My point remains. Christianity is not falsifiable. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It means it's impossible to prove that it's wrong.
Forget it.
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And without faith it's impossible to please God.
I think that depends on your religion.
Fenris my friend. Pure and undefiled religion before God is this; that you visit the widows and orphans in their affliction, and keep yourself unspotted from the world. Nothing more, nothing less...
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Do you think that if a definitive body of Jesus were found Christianity would be falsified/defeated?
How do we "definitively" know who a 2,000 year old body is/was? It's a meaningless point to raise.
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By "rational" you mean "people who think like me". And yet you don't know how other people think.
What I mean is this. Those who deny what is self-evident chose to do so for reasons other than a love of the truth.
What is "self evident" to you isn't self evident to other people.
What you're saying here is that anyone who disagrees with you is motivated by bad intentions.
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It has nothing to do with religion. Do you think God is impressed with religion?
I don't even know what this means.
You're a Christian, so in your belief system God values faith over all else. Other religions believe that God has other priorities than faith.
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And without faith it's impossible to please God.
I think that depends on your religion.
Fenris my friend. Pure and undefiled religion before God is this; that you visit the widows and orphans in their affliction, and keep yourself unspotted from the world. Nothing more, nothing less...
But one can do all that without faith.
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Okey Dokey sir... I understand you.
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Do you think that if a definitive body of Jesus were found Christianity would be falsified/defeated?
How do we "definitively" know who a 2,000 year old body is/was? It's a meaningless point to raise.
How do we "definitively" know that the person who claims to have killed every Jew, has in fact killed every Jew? The body question is an interesting one, because presumably, Christianity was falsifiable around 33 CE. What's the historical determination?
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That faith is more than mental assent. It isn't.
There's no guarantee that assenting to a truth claim means that one will act in accordance with that claim. Some very bitter person might mentally assent to God's existence yet conduct their life in the vilest and most evil way imaginable -- to spite God, perhaps. As you were saying with respect to Hebrews 11, there is a whole lot of "did", and that follows from mental assent, but it is not itself mental assent.
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I mentally agree that a 1 1/2" rappelling rope specifically designed for mountaineering, if in perfect shape, will more than support my weight to protect me in the event that I should fall from the side of a 100' cliff.
I mentally agree to that fact. it is verifiable, undeniable, bona-fidable.
But I have no faith in the rope unless I go over the cliff.
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How do we "definitively" know that the person who claims to have killed every Jew, has in fact killed every Jew?
This is simpler. It not about a claim of something thousands of years old. The Nazis made up lists of Jews
in countries they hadn't even conquered yet, so that they would get every last one.
The body question is an interesting one, because presumably, Christianity was falsifiable around 33 CE.
I don't believe Christianity even existed in 33CE. The NT hadn't been written yet, and doctrine hadn't been settled yet. By the time NT had been written, let alone when it was decided what was canon, it was already not falsifiable. The NT was written decades later, in a different language, in a different country, by people who hadn't witnessed the events in question. In fact we don't even know who wrote most of it, aside from Paul who was himself not even an eyewitness to the events in question.
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I mentally agree that a 1 1/2" rappelling rope specifically designed for mountaineering, if in perfect shape, will more than support my weight to protect me in the event that I should fall from the side of a 100' cliff.
I mentally agree to that fact. it is verifiable, undeniable, bona-fidable.
But I have no faith in the rope unless I go over the cliff.
Also, there are no atheists in foxholes. Or so I've heard.
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This is simpler. It not about a claim of something thousands of years old. The Nazis made up lists of Jews in countries they hadn't even conquered yet, so that they would get every last one.
The Nazis weren't infallible though. Not even they could know if they had in fact killed every Jew. I think, realistically, we're looking at an 'end of the human race' scenario to defeat the claim. Short of that, we just don't know what we don't know.
I don't believe Christianity even existed in 33CE. The NT hadn't been written yet, and doctrine hadn't been settled yet. By the time NT had been written, let alone when it was decided what was canon, it was already not falsifiable. The NT was written decades later, in a different language, in a different country, by people who hadn't witnessed the events in question. In fact we don't even know who wrote most of it, aside from Paul who was himself not even an eyewitness to the events in question.
Christianity didn't pop into existence spontaneously. The faith communities of the first century would have certainly been undermined by the discovery of Jesus' physical, not resurrected, dead body.
We're now at points where defeating both claims is next to impossible. We're too far divorced from the first century to discover with certainty Jesus' body, and in the case of the defeat of Judaism everyone would be dead anyway.
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The Nazis weren't infallible though. Not even they could know if they had in fact killed every Jew. I think, realistically, we're looking at an 'end of the human race' scenario to defeat the claim. Short of that, we just don't know what we don't know.
Well, it's been tried. Unfortunately.
Christianity didn't pop into existence spontaneously. The faith communities of the first century would have certainly been undermined by the discovery of Jesus' physical, not resurrected, dead body.
We don't know what first century followers of Jesus who lived in Judea actually believed. The NT wasn't written in their lifetime, and it wasn't written in the language they spoke (Aramaic), and it wasn't written in their country.
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The Nazis weren't infallible though. Not even they could know if they had in fact killed every Jew. I think, realistically, we're looking at an 'end of the human race' scenario to defeat the claim. Short of that, we just don't know what we don't know.
Well, it's been tried. Unfortunately.
Christianity didn't pop into existence spontaneously. The faith communities of the first century would have certainly been undermined by the discovery of Jesus' physical, not resurrected, dead body.
We don't know what first century followers of Jesus who lived in Judea actually believed. The NT wasn't written in their lifetime, and it wasn't written in the language they spoke (Aramaic), and it wasn't written in their country.
Perhaps true, perhaps not, assuming you believe the late dating of the NT... which neither I nor many evangelical scholars believe (not that I'm an evangelical scholar)
A similar charge/challenge could be made to the writings of Moses, right?
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We don't know what first century followers of Jesus who lived in Judea actually believed. The NT wasn't written in their lifetime, and it wasn't written in the language they spoke (Aramaic), and it wasn't written in their country.
This is a conspiracy that goes both ways. If it's suggested that by the second half of the first century The Way became something else entirely, then why not also suggest that the priestly writers in Babylonian captivity did the same?
If on the other hand, we accept what Judaism reports about itself, then we ought to accept what Christianity reports about itself in the same way. I think we should. What we have by the latter half of the first century is a continuation of those early years following the crucifixion of Jesus. It's not terribly difficult to look back on Martyr, Clement of Rome, the epistle of Barnabas, the Didache (if you accept an early dating), etc., and from those get an idea of (a) the discussions that informed those works, and (b) the trajectory of the development of Christian theology. If we accept that the gospel narratives are biographical, then that puts us at ground zero. If we think they're pseudepigraphical then they're either still accounts of Jesus' ministry, the early church, etc., or they're writings to which no one has any serious, alternative narratives to compare against. The gnostic gospels, maybe? But then we're still stuck in a 3rd and 4th centuries and I don't think anyone would seriously suggest, excerpt perhaps some fringe lunatic, that these in fact represent the early Christian faith communities.
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Perhaps true, perhaps not, assuming you believe the late dating of the NT...
Even the "early" dating is decades later.
A similar charge/challenge could be made to the writings of Moses, right?
Perhaps.
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This is a conspiracy that goes both ways.
Conspiracy is not the right word. We simply don't know what contemporary Jews who followed Jesus believed about him because we don't have anything from them.
If it's suggested that by the second half of the first century The Way became something else entirely, then why not also suggest that the priestly writers in Babylonian captivity did the same?
But you don't believe that. Or maybe you do?
If on the other hand, we accept what Judaism reports about itself, then we ought to accept what Christianity reports about itself in the same way. I think we should.
It's not that simple. Because Christianity on the one hand is based partially on Jewish writings, yet at the same time seeks to supersede Jewish practice. Christians believe that the first Christians were actually Jews, yet we have no extant writing from those Jews. And we don't know who wrote the NT, but the fact that it was written in Greek and not Aramaic should be a major factor.
What we have by the latter half of the first century is a continuation of those early years following the crucifixion of Jesus. It's not terribly difficult to look back on Martyr, Clement of Rome, the epistle of Barnabas, the Didache (if you accept an early dating), etc., and from those get an idea of (a) the discussions that informed those works, and (b) the trajectory of the development of Christian theology.
None of which were eyewitness to the events in question. Listen, I believe that Jesus probably said most of the things attributed to him. Heck, most of the sermon on the mount can be found in the Talmud! But some of the things he said would mean something different to a Greek than to a Jew, and that's where the disconnect is.
If we accept that the gospel narratives are biographical
That's a big "if". Why should they be accepted as biographical? Again, the language.
If we think they're pseudepigraphical
LOL I hadda look this up!
then they're either still accounts of Jesus' ministry, the early church, etc.,
But that doesn't make them true. The bible isn't CNN. It's a book written by believers for believers or to make new believers. It has an agenda.
or they're writings to which no one has any serious, alternative narratives to compare against.
Why would we need alternative narratives to compare?
The gnostic gospels, maybe? But then we're still stuck in a 3rd and 4th centuries and I don't think anyone would seriously suggest, excerpt perhaps some fringe lunatic, that these in fact represent the early Christian faith communities.
Yet major points of Christian doctrine aren't even decided until Nicaea. Thats 325CE.
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The Nazis weren't infallible though. Not even they could know if they had in fact killed every Jew. I think, realistically, we're looking at an 'end of the human race' scenario to defeat the claim. Short of that, we just don't know what we don't know.
Actually I wanna revisit this.
Lots of peoples have vanished. You'll never meet an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or an Edomite, or a Hittite, or a Babylonian. Those were all contemporary peoples to the ancient Israelites, and they're gone for good. Yet the Jews are still here. Which is curious. In any case, the elimination of the Jews as a people wouldn't require human extinction. It would just require enough Jews eliminated that they would cease to exist as a distinct people. Which has happened to many peoples throughout history. So yes, Judaism is falsifiable.
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Conspiracy is not the right word. We simply don't know what contemporary Jews who followed Jesus believed about him because we don't have anything from them.
That's going to depend on what dates we accept for given writings (are they contemporaneous or not), and whether we trust what the writings report. If we accept early dating then we do know what Jesus' contemporaries believed. If we don't accept early dating then we have to decide if we trust what the later dated writings say. Do those later writings accurately convey the decades prior? We'd also have to proceed in such a way that doesn't undermine the text itself, or else there's no foundation to base any judgments on.
But you don't believe that. Or maybe you do?
I don't, but it seems to me to be the kind of epistemic black hole you might be suggesting.
It's not that simple. Because Christianity on the one hand is based partially on Jewish writings, yet at the same time seeks to supersede Jewish practice. Christians believe that the first Christians were actually Jews, yet we have no extant writing from those Jews. And we don't know who wrote the NT, but the fact that it was written in Greek and not Aramaic should be a major factor.
If we accept that for the sake of argument, why would linguistic continuity be the determining factor on whether we know or don't know what the earliest Christian believers believed? If the extent writings we have aren't continuous then what are you suggesting? Also, though it's somewhat but not entirely immaterial, the best New Testament scholars all operate in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. I'm not sure how hot the Aramaic-source-text theory of the development of the New Testament is as the moment.
None of which were eyewitness to the events in question. Listen, I believe that Jesus probably said most of the things attributed to him. Heck, most of the sermon on the mount can be found in the Talmud! But some of the things he said would mean something different to a Greek than to a Jew, and that's where the disconnect is.
If you accept a later date, then sure. But are you suggesting that the source material wasn't reliably copied and instead filtered through the Greek worldview? Paul was a little too Hellenistic? If we have no extant manuscripts though, how would we know any different?
Were all the authors of the Jewish bible eyewitnesses to the events they wrote about?
That's a big "if". Why should they be accepted as biographical? Again, the language.
Because they claim to be.
But that doesn't make them true. The bible isn't CNN. It's a book written by believers for believers or to make new believers. It has an agenda.
Going back to my cheekiness above -- and books written during a certain Babylonian exile don't have an agenda?
Why would we need alternative narratives to compare?
Because otherwise, we're just saying: they're dated later, they're pseudepigraphical, they have an agenda! But it's not clear where we go from there, or how these points don't prove too much and could be applied to Christianity or, say, Judaism.
Yet major points of Christian doctrine aren't even decided until Nicaea. Thats 325CE.
Doctrine, yes. But there's a world of difference between "Jesus saves" (let's pretend the early believers were Americans) and doctrinal developments purporting to reflect New Testament teaching on the personhood of Jesus, or the economy of the Godhead -- that there even is a Godhead and that it is Trinitarian, and so on.
How long did it take to decide the major points of Jewish doctrine?
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Lots of peoples have vanished. You'll never meet an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or an Edomite, or a Hittite, or a Babylonian. Those were all contemporary peoples to the ancient Israelites, and they're gone for good. Yet the Jews are still here. Which is curious. In any case, the elimination of the Jews as a people wouldn't require human extinction. It would just require enough Jews eliminated that they would cease to exist as a distinct people. Which has happened to many peoples throughout history. So yes, Judaism is falsifiable.
I'm not arguing that Judaism isn't unfalsifiable, but that the falsification would be next to impossible to demonstrate. Jews as a distinct people disappearing from the world doesn't mean that there aren't Jews who don't still exist as a distinct people -- hidden away on a desert isle, maybe. I suppose there's also the genetic question that's been raised: how many generations distance is still Jewish, and not Jewish enough?
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That's going to depend on what dates we accept for given writings (are they contemporaneous or not), and whether we trust what the writings report. If we accept early dating then we do know what Jesus' contemporaries believed.
The earliest date for the Gospels is sometimes between the 60s and the 90s. Given that the average lifespan at the time was something like 30 years, it still doesn't tell us what his contemporaries believed. And then there's the language problem. Jesus's contemporary Jews did not speak Greek. Which means they did not pen the Gospels that we have.
If we accept that for the sake of argument, why would linguistic continuity be the determining factor on whether we know or don't know what the earliest Christian believers believed?
It calls into question the authorship. Jewish writings from the era are all in either Hebrew or Aramaic.
If the extent writings we have aren't continuous then what are you suggesting? Also, though it's somewhat but not entirely immaterial, the best New Testament scholars all operate in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.
And they're not asking these questions? Because they're good questions.
I'm not sure how hot the Aramaic-source-text theory of the development of the New Testament is as the moment.
So far as I know there's none.
If you accept a later date, then sure. But are you suggesting that the source material wasn't reliably copied and instead filtered through the Greek worldview? Paul was a little too Hellenistic? If we have no extant manuscripts though, how would we know any different?
We don't really know much about Paul, aside from what he tells us. Which to a Jewish listener, then or now, strains credulity. Regardless, a simple statement like "God is my father" means something totally different to a Jewish listener than to a Greek one. A Jew would think of Exodus 4, "Israel is my son, my firstborn" meaning He is father to all the Jewish people (which is still used in Jewish prayer today!) or more generally in Malachi 2 "Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? " where God is the father of all mankind. A Greek listener might think of Achilles and Hercules, demigods literally fathered by a god.
Were all the authors of the Jewish bible eyewitnesses to the events they wrote about?
Allegedly. But then again, I don't believe that your salvation is dependent on you accepting my bible.
Because they claim to be.
They don't even have the author's name in the text itself.
Going back to my cheekiness above -- and books written during a certain Babylonian exile don't have an agenda?
Yes, but again, I don't believe that your salvation is dependent on you accepting my bible. Judaism is not a prostyletizing religion. The Jewish bible is written by and for Jews, not the world at large.
Because otherwise, we're just saying: they're dated later, they're pseudepigraphical, they have an agenda! But it's not clear where we go from there, or how these points don't prove too much and could be applied to Christianity or, say, Judaism.
Saying "I don't have an alternative narrative" is not an especially good reason to accept a holy book as true. The same could be applied to the Koran, or the Bhagavad Gita.
Doctrine, yes. But there's a world of difference between "Jesus saves" (let's pretend the early believers were Americans)
Nice!
and doctrinal developments purporting to reflect New Testament teaching on the personhood of Jesus, or the economy of the Godhead -- that there even is a Godhead and that it is Trinitarian, and so on.
And yet I have been told that one has to believe the exact right thing about Jesus to "be saved". But what that exact right thing is wasn't settled for a long time.
How long did it take to decide the major points of Jewish doctrine?
Well, in Judaism faith is a nice thing to have but it's not a deciding factor for one's status with God nor is it sufficient by itself. Jewish law is incredibly complex and many matters are up for debate even today. The difference being that one chooses a Rabbi and follows their opinion. One can't expect more than that.
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I'm not arguing that Judaism isn't unfalsifiable, but that the falsification would be next to impossible to demonstrate. Jews as a distinct people disappearing from the world doesn't mean that there aren't Jews who don't still exist as a distinct people -- hidden away on a desert isle, maybe.
Chilling with some Moabites and Babylonians I guess?
I suppose there's also the genetic question that's been raised: how many generations distance is still Jewish, and not Jewish enough?
I'm not sure I understand, please explain?
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Chilling with some Moabites and Babylonians I guess?
And some nubile young women for all we know.
I'm not sure I understand, please explain?
I guess that depends. How are you defining 'Jew'? I know it's not merely a practitioner of the Jewish religion, so I'm supposing that it's a kind of birthright, if you will. If your parents are Jewish, you're Jewish. If your mom is Jewish, you're Jewish, and so forth. Yay or nay?
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Perhaps true, perhaps not, assuming you believe the late dating of the NT...
Even the "early" dating is decades later.
The earliest letter of Paul is First Corinthians (c. 53–54) and about a church in full swing.
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The Nazis weren't infallible though. Not even they could know if they had in fact killed every Jew. I think, realistically, we're looking at an 'end of the human race' scenario to defeat the claim. Short of that, we just don't know what we don't know.
Actually I wanna revisit this.
Lots of peoples have vanished. You'll never meet an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or an Edomite, or a Hittite, or a Babylonian. Those were all contemporary peoples to the ancient Israelites, and they're gone for good. Yet the Jews are still here. Which is curious. In any case, the elimination of the Jews as a people wouldn't require human extinction. It would just require enough Jews eliminated that they would cease to exist as a distinct people. Which has happened to many peoples throughout history. So yes, Judaism is falsifiable.
Jesus said to Peter : Matt 16:18 - And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it
Happened as predicted and Christianity is still present after 2000 years because of Jesus prediction and promise Christianity will be forever. Following your logic Christianity is falsifiable.
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By "rational" you mean "people who think like me". And yet you don't know how other people think.
What I mean is this. Those who deny what is self-evident chose to do so for reasons other than a love of the truth.
What is "self evident" to you isn't self evident to other people.
What you're saying here is that anyone who disagrees with you is motivated by bad intentions.
I will admit that what I see is not often seen by others. That is true. However, as it pertains to things that are "self-evident", by definition such things stand without proof. Such things are fundamental and foundational and taken for granted. If such things are not evident to other people, the cause is subjective. Some people are motivated, in certain cases, to deny what rationality delivers.
In the NT, (and the Hebrew scriptures) belief is the conviction of the truth of a proposition. But contrary to modern notions of "faith" belief in a proposition is not conviction without proof. Our culture has redefined "faith" or "belief" in terms of some extra-rational process, akin to imagination with a bit of wishful thinking added. But "faith" as the Bible understands it, is accepting as true what our rationality delivers to us.
A man might say, "I don't need proof, I accept the Bible on faith" as if "faith" was another way of knowing. I contend that the NT, and the Hebrew scriptures would not recognize such nonsense. Another man might argue, "Your belief in Jesus Christ is based on your faith (the result of extra-rationality.) And for this reason, it can't be disproven." But this conclusion is based on a faulty premise, i.e. that "faith" is an extrarational function of the brain working with an irrational desire for something to be true. In other words, faith is the result of subjectivity, without any basis outside the mind.
I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.
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I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.
Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!
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I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.
Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!
What is abductive reasoning?
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What is abductive reasoning?
It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.
This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?
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I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.
Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!
What is abductive reasoning?
To my understanding it is essentially applying occam's razor to some observation or set of observations in order to formulate an argument for the most parsimonious explanation for the given observations. Based on your statement and your subsequent question to me, I assume that you believe that abduction cracks this wide open for you somehow and i'm very interested in seeing what you believe a compelling and well constructed abductive argument that proves that your faith is based on objective truth looks like. Do you have such an arguement or no?
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What is abductive reasoning?
It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.
This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?
I think at that point the honest answer is that you don't know, although I frequently find that for my money there are prior failures in reasoning that either exclude the argument from qualifying as abduction i.e. unwarranted and unparsimonious "gymnastics" or there are fundamental distorsions or misunderstandings of "the science" required to give the illusion of coherency. IOW, I don't believe that you (the general you, but I guess probably specifically you too in some cases) actually get to the precipice because there are simpler interpretations that are IMO dismissed for the sake of the conclusion and simpler explanations that mechanically diagnose those simpler interpretations... So I think what is targeted is an argument meant to be in parity with other plausible but unprovable explanations, but what you actually end up with is an argument that is plausible due to a disproportionate accumulation of epicycles & kludge heavily biased at the interpretation stage...very cool, very interesting, very clever but very convoluted and needlessly complex orreries.
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I guess that depends. How are you defining 'Jew'? I know it's not merely a practitioner of the Jewish religion, so I'm supposing that it's a kind of birthright, if you will. If your parents are Jewish, you're Jewish. If your mom is Jewish, you're Jewish, and so forth. Yay or nay?
We've established this elsewhere. But an isolated individual descended from such is not a people. I'm sure there's some direct descendent of the Moabites alive somewhere, but the people are gone.
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The earliest letter of Paul is First Corinthians (c. 53–54) and about a church in full swing.
This doesn't really help us, because Paul was not witness to the events in the Gospels. He never even met Jesus in life.
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Jesus said to Peter : Matt 16:18 - And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it
Happened as predicted and Christianity is still present after 2000 years because of Jesus prediction and promise Christianity will be forever. Following your logic Christianity is falsifiable.
No, this is much more subject to what was said above. Christianity is something internal, you guys will even have debates about who is a "true Christian". Judaism is simpler. If the people are gone, the religion will be proven false.
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Jesus said to Peter : Matt 16:18 - And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it
Happened as predicted and Christianity is still present after 2000 years because of Jesus prediction and promise Christianity will be forever. Following your logic Christianity is falsifiable.
No, this is much more subject to what was said above. Christianity is something internal, you guys will even have debates about who is a "true Christian". Judaism is simpler. If the people are gone, the religion will be proven false.
If Jesus doesnt show up for his second coming is that not technically a falsifiable condition for christianity in the same way that you are using it for judaism?
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I maintain that the concept above is foreign to the Bible and to the faith we believe. Our faith is based on objective truth. And it can be proven using abductive reasoning.
Really? i'd be interested in seeing that!
So would I
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If Jesus doesnt show up for his second coming is that not technically a falsifiable condition for christianity in the same way that you are using it for judaism?
No because a Christian will say he hasn't come yet.
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If Jesus doesnt show up for his second coming is that not technically a falsifiable condition for christianity in the same way that you are using it for judaism?
No because a Christian will say he hasn't come yet.
it's not about whether or not some Christians might deny it, people could just as easily claim that there are undetected Jews somewhere. If the earth is completely destroyed by giant space rocks or strangelets or a ronin black hole, I'd argue Jesus cannot come back and go to the places and do the stuff that is claimed in the bible so that would meet your standard of falsification for both Judaism and Christianity, just no one would be around to debate it. If you find that unpalatable then we could spend time constructing a scenario where there is a thriving antiemetic mars colony when the earth is destroyed or something. These jew-hating martian people could surely make assertions about the possibility of secret jewish moon bases or space stations or about Jesus using his powers to reconstitute the earth or that the asteroid was Jesus and that actually fulfilled the ancient prophecies... The long and short is that in principle a destroyed earth would falsify both, which was all to point out that this whole exercise, at least as you've presented it doesn't provide us with anything of pragmatic use most glaringly it does not provide a way to epistemologically distinguish Judaism and Christianity from each other even in principle, like trading 6 giant chicken eggs for a half dozen jumbo gallus ovum.
However I actually do think that both Judaism & Christianity are falsifiable in a way that actually does provide useful distinguishing information. For instance Matthew ~24, "this" generation passed many centuries ago, but good luck finding a Christian that won't tap dance around that and offer apologies for why that straightforward assertion about what will happen on a timescale that has clearly passed is actually an extremely ambiguous and convoluted statement that doesn't conflict with the fact that a couple of millenia have elapsed. I agree that you've correctly predicted that religious folk will frequently dip and dodge when faced with falsifying evidence and frequently avoid the idea that their religion is even susceptible to falsification in any pragmatic way, even in principle. because you know, then someone might actually do it. Maybe it's just me but for me it seems the only thing that really prevents abrahamic religions from being susceptible to pragmatic falsification is the intense desire to avoid being proven false that at all costs....so we end up with threads like this with debates like this where folks like you and Athanasius find it glaringly obvious where the reasoning has or would fail when applied to the other's theological stance, but cannot seem to take the obvious step of applying it to your own beliefs and the effect is fascinating.
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I guess that depends. How are you defining 'Jew'? I know it's not merely a practitioner of the Jewish religion, so I'm supposing that it's a kind of birthright, if you will. If your parents are Jewish, you're Jewish. If your mom is Jewish, you're Jewish, and so forth. Yay or nay?
We've established this elsewhere. But an isolated individual descended from such is not a people. I'm sure there's some direct descendent of the Moabites alive somewhere, but the people are gone.
The point I'm getting at is both (1) according to arguably an arbitrary definition, and (2) that's potentially only for now. We might imagine some collection of lingering Jews to restart the people should the worst happen. We'd also want to consider anyone who has Jewish ancestry but isn't practising and might not even be aware of such, and are part of the people even if no one is aware of it (going back to: we don't know what we don't know).
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What is abductive reasoning?
It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.
This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?
Where else in everyday human experience to we use abductive reasoning? Hint: the process can be a life or death decision.
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What is abductive reasoning?
It's what most people think of when they think of Sherlock Holmes, despite thinking that they're thinking of deduction. Or maybe they are, but probably they're not.
This goes back to the epistemic difficulty I raised earlier: abduction only gets us so far, and then, how do you distinguish between God and godlike aliens?
Where else in everyday human experience to we use abductive reasoning? Hint: the process can be a life or death decision.
And yet many people confuse thirst for hunger. How does this speak towards the epistemic difficulty I raised?
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it's not about whether or not some Christians might deny it, people could just as easily claim that there are undetected Jews somewhere.
As I've said, I'm sure there are undetected Sumerians or Hittites somewhere. But they no longer exist as a people.
If the earth is completely destroyed by giant space rocks or strangelets or a ronin black hole,
This is very imaginative. I like it!
I'd argue Jesus cannot come back and go to the places and do the stuff that is claimed in the bible so that would meet your standard of falsification for both Judaism and Christianity, just no one would be around to debate it. If you find that unpalatable then we could spend time constructing a scenario where there is a thriving antiemetic mars colony when the earth is destroyed or something. These jew-hating martian people could surely make assertions about the possibility of secret jewish moon bases or space stations or about Jesus using his powers to reconstitute the earth or that the asteroid was Jesus and that actually fulfilled the ancient prophecies... The long and short is that in principle a destroyed earth would falsify both, which was all to point out that this whole exercise, at least as you've presented it doesn't provide us with anything of pragmatic use most glaringly it does not provide a way to epistemologically distinguish Judaism and Christianity from each other even in principle, like trading 6 giant chicken eggs for a half dozen jumbo gallus ovum.
Ok, how about Jeremiah 31?
This is what the Lord says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the Lord Almighty is his name:
“Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
declares the Lord,
“will Israel ever cease
being a nation before me.”
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it's not about whether or not some Christians might deny it, people could just as easily claim that there are undetected Jews somewhere.
As I've said, I'm sure there are undetected Sumerians or Hittites somewhere. But they no longer exist as a people.
Well, I don't see why there cannot be a paranoid assertion that these undetected Jews are secretly still a people that are secretly pulling the strings of martian government behind the scenes...people say all sorts things about jews, worse still they actually believe many of even the most outrageous things...point is that people be saying stuff.
If the earth is completely destroyed by giant space rocks or strangelets or a ronin black hole,
This is very imaginative. I like it!
haha, thanks!
I'd argue Jesus cannot come back and go to the places and do the stuff that is claimed in the bible so that would meet your standard of falsification for both Judaism and Christianity, just no one would be around to debate it. If you find that unpalatable then we could spend time constructing a scenario where there is a thriving antiemetic mars colony when the earth is destroyed or something. These jew-hating martian people could surely make assertions about the possibility of secret jewish moon bases or space stations or about Jesus using his powers to reconstitute the earth or that the asteroid was Jesus and that actually fulfilled the ancient prophecies... The long and short is that in principle a destroyed earth would falsify both, which was all to point out that this whole exercise, at least as you've presented it doesn't provide us with anything of pragmatic use most glaringly it does not provide a way to epistemologically distinguish Judaism and Christianity from each other even in principle, like trading 6 giant chicken eggs for a half dozen jumbo gallus ovum.
Ok, how about Jeremiah 31?
This is what the Lord says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the Lord Almighty is his name:
“Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
declares the Lord,
“will Israel ever cease
being a nation before me.”
So, i'm no bibliographer, so my interpretations of bible things are generally unsophisticated, but by my calculations these verses indicate that the disappearance of israel and/or the Jews could also fail to meet falsification conditions depending on one's interpretation of this verse...so like, yeah what are you saying with this verse....happy fourth!
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Well, I don't see why there cannot be a paranoid assertion that these undetected Jews are secretly still a people that are secretly pulling the strings of martian government behind the scenes...
People having paranoid fantasies doesn't make it so, or that would mean that lizard people also exist and are secretly controlling things.
So, i'm no bibliographer, so my interpretations of bible things are generally unsophisticated, but by my calculations these verses indicate that the disappearance of israel and/or the Jews could also fail to meet falsification conditions depending on one's interpretation of this verse..
The verse says the Jewish people will always exist. Should there be no more Jews, the verse will be proven wrong.
so like, yeah what are you saying with this verse....happy fourth!
And to you. Enjoy!
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Well, I don't see why there cannot be a paranoid assertion that these undetected Jews are secretly still a people that are secretly pulling the strings of martian government behind the scenes...
People having paranoid fantasies doesn't make it so, or that would mean that lizard people also exist and are secretly controlling things.
Yeah that's kind of my whole point, You said Christians could/would assert that Jesus may swing by at a later date, and I added that they could say he'll come to Mars or reconstitute the earth after its destruction, but all of these things are beside the point that in principle if the earth and all of its people are destroyed that would falsify both Christianity and Judaism. Unless you are asserting that the complete destruction of the planet earth prior to the return of the king would not falsify christianity then we have no conflict on this point. Perhaps we disagree that this puts judaism and christianity on equal footing, that is this falsification condition you've proposed for judaism is not in principle equivalent to the one i've proposed for Christianity, in which case i'd ask why not (bearing in mind that we agree that what christians might say has no bearing on anything)? If you agree that they are equivalent then perhaps we disagree on the utility of this condition, in which case i'd ask what it explains or tells us about God or Judaism or Christianity? If you also agree that it tells us nothing of any consequence and provides no means of distinguishing Judaism from Christianity then we are in agreement on this point and I'd like to move on to ask if you believe there are more pragmatic and useful areas of falsification in Judaism similar to the one I pointed out within Christianity in Matthew? I think that my Matthew example is of actual practical value and is a far more fertile ground to discuss notions of abrahamic religions' susceptibility to scientific/logical interrogation.
The verse says the Jewish people will always exist. Should there be no more Jews, the verse will be proven wrong.
well, okay yep that is essentially what I took it to mean too, If the earth and all of its people are destroyed then Judaism is false and so is Christianity. If we agree then I'd like to move on to my other point that this is true but useless, however there are other areas amenable to falsification that actually does influence the truth value of these religions and as such are areas that are voraciously defended via apology and the like because they threaten to veraciously vitiate the verisimilitudinous vagueness that vivifies the validity & veracity of the various values & virtues of their venerated devine visage. I just watched V for Vendetta lol. Anyway I just mean that the falsification condition you present keeps us for all practical purposes in the realm of "stuff we can't actually reasonably or ethically test, but still allows for you to claim that in principle Judaism is falsifiable". Seems again like one of those sleights of hand that I like to accuse religious folks of employing, I'd like to know if you believe that all falsification of Judaism must fall in this category, If so then do you find this to be even the slightest bit suspicious?
so like, yeah what are you saying with this verse....happy fourth!
[/quote]And to you. Enjoy!
[/quote]
Thanks!
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Yeah that's kind of my whole point, You said Christians could/would assert that Jesus may swing by at a later date, and I added that they could say he'll come to Mars or reconstitute the earth after its destruction, but all of these things are beside the point that in principle if the earth and all of its people are destroyed that would falsify both Christianity and Judaism.
Judaism can be falsified without the earth's total destruction though. No Jews means God did not fulfill His promises and hence Judaism is proved wrong.
I'd like to move on to ask if you believe there are more pragmatic and useful areas of falsification in Judaism similar to the one I pointed out within Christianity in Matthew? I think that my Matthew example is of actual practical value and is a far more fertile ground to discuss notions of abrahamic religions' susceptibility to scientific/logical interrogation.
I am not a Christian and am not equipped to defend the premise that you're raising.
well, okay yep that is essentially what I took it to mean too, If the earth and all of its people are destroyed then Judaism is false and so is Christianity.
And probably every other religion. Except perhaps Hinduism. (Everyone has been reincarnated as something not human).
If we agree then I'd like to move on to my other point that this is true but useless, however there are other areas amenable to falsification that actually does influence the truth value of these religions and as such are areas that are voraciously defended via apology and the like because they threaten to veraciously vitiate the verisimilitudinous vagueness that vivifies the validity & veracity of the various values & virtues of their venerated devine visage. I just watched V for Vendetta lol. Anyway I just mean that the falsification condition you present keeps us for all practical purposes in the realm of "stuff we can't actually reasonably or ethically test, but still allows for you to claim that in principle Judaism is falsifiable". Seems again like one of those sleights of hand that I like to accuse religious folks of employing, I'd like to know if you believe that all falsification of Judaism must fall in this category, If so then do you find this to be even the slightest bit suspicious?
All falsification must fall into what category? There's no sleight of hand.
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Yeah that's kind of my whole point, You said Christians could/would assert that Jesus may swing by at a later date, and I added that they could say he'll come to Mars or reconstitute the earth after its destruction, but all of these things are beside the point that in principle if the earth and all of its people are destroyed that would falsify both Christianity and Judaism.
Judaism can be falsified without the earth's total destruction though. No Jews means God did not fulfill His promises and hence Judaism is proved wrong.
nope, you're right no need to destroy the earth, just a complete and utter genocide. From my standpoint Christianity nor Judaism require anything as drastic as the destruction of the earth or even mere genocide, I just used it because it was another practically and ethically untestable proposition like the genocide of the jewish people the you put forth as a falsification condition. It would be sort of like if I proposed that I would gain the ability to see the future if all the dust bunnies were removed from underneath every couch in the world, technically falsifiable but practically untestable and says nothing about the truth value of my claim about my psychic powers or a more relevant absurd example would be if physicists were proposing that general relativity is falsifiable only by bringing a black hole into the solar system and letting the earth fall into it. There are scientific propositions whose falsification conditions are as unattainable as my example but good scientists don't go around touting this "technical falsifiability" as bolstering the veracity of the proposition, in fact without actual observations much less actual proposed achievable experiments you are unlikely to find scientists willing to call it anything more than an interesting hypothesis if that. The long and short is that the falsification condition you've presented does nothing to substantiate the veracity of judaism and nothing to distinguish it from Christianity in regards to its falsifiability.
I'd like to move on to ask if you believe there are more pragmatic and useful areas of falsification in Judaism similar to the one I pointed out within Christianity in Matthew? I think that my Matthew example is of actual practical value and is a far more fertile ground to discuss notions of abrahamic religions' susceptibility to scientific/logical interrogation.
I am not a Christian and am not equipped to defend the premise that you're raising.
That's fine i'm not asking you to, I'm asking if the total annihilation of the jewish people is the only and or most practical falsification condition that you can propose for judaism or is there anything that stands an actual chance of being investigated?
well, okay yep that is essentially what I took it to mean too, If the earth and all of its people are destroyed then Judaism is false and so is Christianity.
And probably every other religion. Except perhaps Hinduism. (Everyone has been reincarnated as something not human).
If we agree then I'd like to move on to my other point that this is true but useless, however there are other areas amenable to falsification that actually does influence the truth value of these religions and as such are areas that are voraciously defended via apology and the like because they threaten to veraciously vitiate the verisimilitudinous vagueness that vivifies the validity & veracity of the various values & virtues of their venerated devine visage. I just watched V for Vendetta lol. Anyway I just mean that the falsification condition you present keeps us for all practical purposes in the realm of "stuff we can't actually reasonably or ethically test, but still allows for you to claim that in principle Judaism is falsifiable". Seems again like one of those sleights of hand that I like to accuse religious folks of employing, I'd like to know if you believe that all falsification of Judaism must fall in this category, If so then do you find this to be even the slightest bit suspicious?
All falsification must fall into what category? There's no sleight of hand.
[/quote]
The category is "stuff we can't actually practically or ethically test, but still allows for you to claim that in principle Judaism is falsifiable".
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But at the end of the day, after we dance around the fire and howl at the moon, isn't the real issue the fact that we are hypothesizing about ways in which to avoid discussing the real issue.
Each of us, Christian, Jew, or none, has to answer this question: Is there a God, and the binary decisions behind that question?
If the answer is "yes," then what are the implications of a "yes," answer, and if the answer is "no," then what are the implication of a "no" answer?
Faith or lack of faith, belief or lack of belief, is not a test-tube experiment performed in the lab or an Einsteinian thought experiment.
Belief or lack thereof is the core of humanity, that which separates us from other primates.
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nope, you're right no need to destroy the earth, just a complete and utter genocide.
First of all, which has been attempted several times in history. Second, it needn't come to that. As I've already said, many peoples have been lost to history. Do I have to go down the list again?
The long and short is that the falsification condition you've presented does nothing to substantiate the veracity of judaism and nothing to distinguish it from Christianity in regards to its falsifiability.
You keep saying this, and I explain why it's not so, and you say it again anyway.
That's fine i'm not asking you to, I'm asking if the total annihilation of the jewish people is the only and or most practical falsification condition that you can propose for judaism or is there anything that stands an actual chance of being investigated?
The issue isn't whether or not it can be investigated, it's whether or not it is possible.
The category is "stuff we can't actually practically or ethically test, but still allows for you to claim that in principle Judaism is falsifiable".
That's still kind of a big deal. And anyway, as I've said, it's not like it hasn't been tried.
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Belief or lack thereof is the core of humanity, that which separates us from other primates.
Which is not, by itself an argument in favor of or against religion.
I think perhaps the most important reason for the creation of humanity is for us to have to opportunity exercise our free will and thus give our existence meaning. If this is true then it has to be possible to believe in anything, including nothing at all.
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Belief or lack thereof is the core of humanity, that which separates us from other primates.
Which is not, by itself an argument in favor of or against religion.
I think perhaps the most important reason for the creation of humanity is for us to have to opportunity exercise our free will and thus give our existence meaning. If this is true then it has to be possible to believe in anything, including nothing at all.
"I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing"
I think perhaps the most important reason for our creation is to share in existence. The terrible weight of freedom is included in that (free will).
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nope, you're right no need to destroy the earth, just a complete and utter genocide.
First of all, which has been attempted several times in history. Second, it needn't come to that. As I've already said, many peoples have been lost to history. Do I have to go down the list again?
Okay yes, I was being cheeky with the genocide point because I was attempting to illustrate how drastic your proposition is for rhetorical purposes, but to be fair you have actually made it clear that there are many ways for a people to become extinct. Not for nothing, prior to 1948 there had been no nation of israel for hundreds of years, but this apparently does not constitute a falsifying condition so there is a drastic & permanent aspect to your proposition that has to be kept in mind when talking about your point.
You keep saying this, and I explain why it's not so, and you say it again anyway.
Okay, lets walk through this. You asserted that Judaism is falsifiable and Christianity is not, but you do not disagree that if the earth is destroyed that Christianity is falsified. This means that this assertion has been soundly invalidated and Judaism is not uniquely falsifiable in contrast to Christianity. Additionally the possibility of the complete elimination of the jewish people and the complete destruction of the earth are neither things that tell us anything about the truth of either religion, we cannot claim that since the earth exists therefore Jesus is going to come back, nor can we say that since the Jews have not been eliminated to date then the promise that God made to them is valid because the fulfillment of such promises are both contingent on a future that maintains the status quo of no existential calamity which we cannot speak to. so, I don't think that you have given an explanation for why the extinction of the jewish people is a falsification condition that distinguishes judaism from christianity or justified any notion that it proves that the promises of God have been fulfilled because there is still time for the jews to disappear just like at least some "peoples" that exist now will probably become extinct in the future because time isn't over yet.
The issue isn't whether or not it can be investigated, it's whether or not it is possible.
If the mere ability to postulate a set of conditions that would in principle allow for the falsification of a religion whether or not it is possible to actually test it is the baseline then again I say sure this is fine,but it is just as possible for Christianity as it is for judaism and in principle it can be done for almost any other ideas floating around out there. You can have this cake but you cannot use it to distinguish Judaism from Christianity or from String Theory for that matter. My problem with the impracticality of experimentally testing this isn't in my disappointment with the fact that propositions like this exist, it's in the fact that many religions and religious thought and theologians seem to live here exclusively imo precisely because there is little chance that they can be challenged here. Even still If this were just the nature of religion then it would be something that I would just have to accept, however I believe that there are many examples and areas where Judaism and Christianity are vulnerable to falsifiability but those areas are those that are patched over and handwaved away with apologies and or assertions of revelation or mystical requirements to read the text with your spirit or some other reason why the words on the page are not obviously and plainly in conflict with reality because the "real" meaning of the words are inaccessible or incomprehensible to the human mind or any of the investigative tools humans have developed. So...yeah it all looks like sleight of hand, it looks exactly like the methods used by pseudoscientists and religious/spiritual charlatans ,Deepak chopra uses the very same methods to place some of his quantum-quasi-spiritual gibberish just outside of the ability of anyone to employ a practical test for his nonsense. He's a liar though, and I think you actually believe what you say, and there are thousands of years of this legerdemain that informs your position which is why it's not really conceivable to you that what you are doing is practically indistinguishable. Anyway maybe i'm wrong, why is it different?
That's still kind of a big deal. And anyway, as I've said, it's not like it hasn't been tried.
If it's a big deal for judaism then why isn't it an equally big deal for Christianity and big bang cosmology because falsification conditions as you've laid them out for judaism are just as possible for all of those things too.
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But at the end of the day, after we dance around the fire and howl at the moon, isn't the real issue the fact that we are hypothesizing about ways in which to avoid discussing the real issue.
Each of us, Christian, Jew, or none, has to answer this question: Is there a God, and the binary decisions behind that question?
If the answer is "yes," then what are the implications of a "yes," answer, and if the answer is "no," then what are the implication of a "no" answer?
Faith or lack of faith, belief or lack of belief, is not a test-tube experiment performed in the lab or an Einsteinian thought experiment.
Belief or lack thereof is the core of humanity, that which separates us from other primates.
Why is "I don't know" not the most prominent option in this area where there is clearly incomplete information. If i'm in a windowless room , why must I decide that it is either Day or Night just because it actually is either day or night? Even if there are implications based on the time of day these implications do not provide additional information that would allow me to distinguish between night and day.
Many religious folks like to say that it's not about determining the truth in a scientific way, but none of you really act like it isn't except when it allows you to maintain your cherished religious beliefs. Many of you seem perfectly happy to employ math and statistics and reason and the scientific method when it can be deployed to rebut ideas that threaten your beliefs, or can be used to bolster some religious interpretation of this or that thing. It is all very inconsistent, If I say that religious people reject reason then 50 christians pop up to talk about how belief in God can be justified through reason and logic, If I then ask what those logical reasons are 50 will pop up to tell me about how its about mystical spiritual connection and reevaluation, If I criticise the idea that faith is just believing what you want to believe because you want to then 50 will pop up to tell me how their faith is reasonable and logical....and around and around and then inevitably there will be a level headed wizened guy like you with a post like this here to propose this artificial binary. if one thing has become clear to me after all these years is that real Christians, people that legitimately believe they have a relationship with the living God Jesus Christ do not agree on what that means, how one gets there and what results from it. maybe its not a test tube, maybe its an arena or maybe its a battleground but I gotta tell you nothing rings more false than you asserting that calling it a simple yes or no means anything of consequence.
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"I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing"
"This video is not available in your country " :o
I think perhaps the most important reason for our creation is to share in existence. The terrible weight of freedom is included in that (free will).
Freedom isn't a terrible weight. It is glorious!
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Seeing is believing but having believing with out seeing is pure faith and we need that more than ever.
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Absolutely, the notion that "seeing is believing" often clashes with spiritual or divine matters. The argument that proof of God's existence would automatically lead to belief overlooks the nature of faith itself. Faith transcends empirical evidence and operates beyond mere sensory perception.
The Apostle Paul, in Romans 1:19-20, highlights how the very creation around us testifies to the existence and divine nature of God. The intricacies of the universe, from the grandeur of celestial bodies to the complexity of DNA, signify a design that points toward a Creator. However, despite this evident design, some still reject the idea of a higher power, attributing the universe's existence to chance.
Even during Jesus' time, numerous miracles were witnessed by many, demonstrating the divine power working through Him. However, despite seeing these miracles firsthand, not everyone believed in His divinity. This disbelief persisted even among those who were initially amazed by His miracles, leading to events like the crowd's shouts for His crucifixion.
The reluctance to believe despite witnessing miracles stems from various reasons. Some anticipated a different kind of Messiah who would bring immediate change, while others, like the religious leaders, were blinded by their own pride and prejudices. Their refusal to acknowledge the truth in front of them echoes the biblical story of Cain, who resented his righteous brother, Abel.
The essence lies in the understanding that belief surpasses mere observation. It requires an inner acceptance and conviction that goes beyond empirical evidence. Faith, as the means to reconnect with God, is the pivotal factor. It was through the disobedience of man in the garden that communion with God was lost, and it took the submission of Jesus in another garden to restore it.
Indeed, faith is the bridge that reunites the spiritual being with its Creator. God ordained faith as the path for humanity to seek and find Him, paving the way for a restored relationship, lost since the garden of Eden.
Therefore, it's accurate to say that "seeing is not believing." Countless have seen but haven't believed, while many have believed without physical proof. Contrary to worldly wisdom, the act of believing without seeing is what leads to encountering the glory of God and ultimately dwelling in His kingdom.
In essence, faith plays a fundamental role. Hebrews 11:6 encapsulates this truth, emphasizing that to approach God, one must believe in His existence and His willingness to reward those earnestly seeking Him. Thus, true belief, rooted in faith, is what truly matters in the pursuit of understanding and connecting with God.
I am new to the bible world and i have to learn more about gods existence. As of now I am using THE ONE Bible app to start my journey to god.
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I am new to the bible world and i have to learn more about gods existence. As of now I am using THE ONE Bible app to start my journey to god.
Hi and welcome.
I am nitpicking of course but still curious to know why in your last sentence you write the name of God in lower case contrary to the full text.