Seeing is believing?

[CadyandZoe]

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.

[CadyandZoe]

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?

[CadyandZoe]

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.

[The Parson]

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...

[Fenris]

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.

[Fenris]

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.

[Fenris]

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.

[Fenris]

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.

[The Parson]

Okey Dokey sir... I understand you.

[Athanasius]

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?

[Athanasius]

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.

[RabbiKnife]

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.

[Fenris]

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.

[Fenris]

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.

[Athanasius]

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.