I of course didn't read through the whole link, but checked out the section on "The case for Faith" be it that it was a book I more recently had read. 

I see his point about weak arguments and the fact that it seems Lee gave in too easily.   when reading through the book I myself thought the same thing and figured no legit person who was actually set out to prove Christianity wrong would just settle on the simple matter of facts that were stated.  I thought though it was really just my own critiques getting in the way.  I'm quite particular about why I believe what I do and would expect a better explanation myself. 

I thought he might have something until I read further.  Turns out he was expecting critiques from both sides entertaining the gaps in each explanation and further explanation into each critique. 

I understand that the book could have been a little more thorough, but it is just a book.  The truth is, each topic brought up in the book, to fully satisfy the critical world would have needed to each be a book themselves. 

It is my understanding (and I could be wrong) that there was a lot more to it than just what was written in the book.  In putting the pages together I'm sure Lee was taking into consideration the general public and how much they could tolerate before tossing the book down in frustration because they got lost or were overwhelmed with too much detail and information.  I'm sure he also considered the idea of sales and other personal factors.

The topics of the book were also very focused.  Lee didn't go into extreme detail about how he analized each and every interview in his own head.  It's not what the book was about.  I'm sure if asked, he'd have a lot to say about each. (again, going on assumptions).  These assumptions are of course taking into consideration the fact that I can't see anyone who is truly bent on disproving Christianity giving in so easily.  I just don't see that happening.  I could be wrong. 

your thoughts?

 

I think we've found, through the vicious inspiration of my drunken haze, where we diverge in plain and simple terms: you believe in good and evil as absolutes, and I do not. You believe, for instance, that there is sin. That there is good and bad, and those two terms are comprehensive for all moral discussion.

I cannot believe that in a world of biological composition that we can have moral absolutes. It cannot be shown that your version of a deity is more valid than those of the Romans and Greeks, or those of the Mesopotamians. Each group has had a claim to ultimate and immutable truth regarding the unknown, and each is regarded by the other as pure superstition.

my belief however is that it can be shown actually.  Read "The Next Christiandom".  So far, from what I've seen, each religion out there that has a percievable history has a single person or group of people behind it's foundation and inspiration. 

The difference with Christ as a single person is 90% of the other single people (that I have seen in my research) never claimed to be divine in any way and usually claimed to be talking to angels or is a prophet. 

If you actually believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you - it's in Brooklyn. I take that Strobel story as seriously as I take McDowell's story about ETDAV.

In the research I've done on religions of the world, there is a tangible point or source of formation.   "the next Christiandom" book. is one source of many.  The references in that book would probably give you more than enough homework for a while.

and behind that group or individual is usually a motive.  What to study is the source of the motive and the reasoning behind the approach. 

that starts going into claims of "a" god versus "The" God.  In the realm of religions there has always been checks and balances.  To claim to be devine in the sense of "the" God, that would mean power over all gods and all things.  It's a claim that doesn't go without challenge.  If you're going to claim to be devine as in "the" God Almighty, you'd better be ready for the tests and you'd better pass them all with flying colors.

This starts going into the stories of each god and their claim too.  We're not there, we still haven't established the idea of spiritual existence.

 

You'll have to explain that - I asked you how your belief was that Christianity is valid above all other religions, and now I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm a student of classics - I'm pretty familiar with the standard literature. If you'd like to discuss anything specifically, I'd love to, but you're being pretty vague.

This is getting weird. Vague statements are just confusing, and don't lead to better communication. Quite the opposite. If you mean to say that there are motives to starting religious movements, I agree, but I don't know why you bring that up.

Checks and balances? In the realm of religions? Again, you're being very vague, and I don't know what you're talking about.

Right, like Zeus had.

We're still talking about Jesus claiming to be divine, right? Minerva punished Aracne for being wrong about being divine. Naturally, she was turned into a spider.

Well Zeus handles lightning, so I don't know if I want to start bothering him, lest he strike me down.

Indeed we have not. That one's an uphill climb.

Sorry.  I'm basing my statement on the same methodology Philip Jenkins used by working backwards from the present.  He would look at a following and go back into how it became, what it is and where the earliest points of history can suggest it's reasoning for coming to be. 

From that point of view, most of what I have researched and Philip's research as well has reveiled that the majority of followings had a Judeo-Christian source.  Either that or a source that would suggest a more like following originally with an individual that either "had a different opinion" or "said a few things that people found significant" and thus inadvertently started a following.  e.g. Confucianism. 

I'm sorry if you feel like I'm being vague.  It's just that your question about why I feel my following is valid above others is a very general question and would take me writing you a book to explain. 

It seems that most people on here expect me to say;  oh, it was a warm fuzzy feeling and I knew God was real, or my church says this and my friends agree, so God is real, or better yet, this phrase in the Bible spoke to me, so God must be real.

It's really not that simple.  There are numerous reasons why I follow what I do and it cannot be answered by just a response on here.  I have done a lot of homework on the subject and have been very harsh with followers and their responses to my questions.  I have never accepted a copout answer which seems to be from the majority unfortunately.   

I now understand that copout answers aren't an excuse to exclaim God can't be real.  It comes down to an understanding that the vast majority of believers are quite ignorant about what they're following and many times also why they're following. 

If you have specific questions about why I believe in certain aspects of my following, I'll answer to the best of my ability and I will let you know if I'm not well versed in that topic.

It's part of understanding the history of the churches "religions" pretty much.  It ultimately leads to a better understanding of why I follow Christ the way I do and why I'm not denominational as well as not a muslim, Jew or an atheist.

There has always been pressure on any following, doesn't matter what or who you follow.  The thing is, it's easy for a follower to negotiate the legitimacy of thier god if their god doesn't claim to be almighty and all powerful.  It's much more difficult for a follower who claims to follow THE GOD or YHWH because there's a much higher expectation.   For those claims to be true, there has to be reasoning for such an almighty label. 

It's getting into the stories a bit, it goes beyond where we are with the whole spiritual world existing or not topic.

claimed...  I'm not very well versed in Zeus.  I guess I'd have to see what you're referencing to and how he backed up that claim.  Zeus from what I understand claimed to be the god of gods, but was he Almighty or was he god of something specific?  Like maybe the sky???

...ok.  Not sure the relevency.... But then again.

So Jesus turned into....???

ya know, many people who've been struck by lightning ended up having enhanced senses and sometimes other random extra abilities!!!  Think of it as a favor from Zeus

It is, but I love hiking and I have some Cliff Bars if you get hungry

Well, further than that if the supernatural explanation were accepted it wouldn't be supernatural, but natural.  The two concepts (used loosely in regard to the nonsense supernatural) are mutually exclusive.  If the supernatural existed and were known to exist it would necessarily not be supernatural.  The word has no universe of discourse as it is negatively defined.  There can be no explanation for anything that wouldn't necessarily be 'natural'.

 

I wouldn't use the word supernatural to mean unknown or unexplainable.  Something that is unknown isn't necessarily supernatural and while something unknown is necessarily unexplainable until it is known, something that is unexplainable isn't necessarily supernatural.  Something that is supernatural, however, would by definition be unknown, unknowable and thus unexplainable.  It's problematic (in fact it's fallacious) to use the words supernatural, unknown and unexplainable interchangeably.  You should probably revise your understanding of the words as it will undoubtedly lead to confusion (perhaps perceived as intentional) if you equivocate them (which you have done in your above post).

 

By the way, welcome to the forums!

And there we go   I couldn't have said it better myself

Thank you Thomathy.  Though we've been through this before, you've explained it probably better than I did.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that because Mohammed claimed that Jesus was just another prophet, then Mohammed is a liar? Surely you must realize that a Muslim would say that Jesus is a liar for claiming divine descent. And who would blame that Muslim? If I claimed to be divine, I'm assuming people might have a problem with that.

But "true prophets"? Are you going to enlighten me as to what a "true prophet" is?

I guess. Of course, you're in Happy Land already, once you're in heaven, aren't you? If your happy just happens to be 72 virgins, I'm guessing that you get that in heaven. It's a weird happy, but whatever.

Zeus didn't really have teachings. I'd recommend reading about ancient religions before reaching any conclusions. Most of the Bible stories you've read have a precedent in earlier religious writings.

I don't think you understand. The Greek stories came before Christianity (and were contemporary to other mythologies). The Jewish mythology has some influence from Zoroastrian traditions, Babylonian, Mesopotamian and Greek. The Greeks and Jews would use largely the same vocabulary to describe YHWH as they would Zeus.

So yes, Zeus was supreme among the gods. But you'd have to get more familiar with those myths to get what I mean by that. Try Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Mandelbaum. Great translation.

Since I'm saying there probably isn't a spiritual realm, I think it's fair to say the ball's still in your court. All I'd need is a way to determine the difference between a spiritual realm and imagination or hallucination. So if there is a spiritual realm, it should be easy to distinguish it from imagination or hallucination.

 

You would follow the reasonable path of inquiry and create some statistics! The ball lightning isn't a great example because of the infrequency of its appearance. I'd tend to believe that the several hundred people who have witnessed ball lightning are seeing something natural that occurs infrequently. I'd say that's a reasonable stance, given that there's a fair amount of evidence that these things actually do happen, and there are reasonable explanations, like the combustion of sodium vapours. Since there are a few methods of making what would be called "ball lightning", it's plausible that those things have happened in front of people. There isn't much evidence, mind you, but there is evidence enough to consider a natural phenomenon, given the consistency of the descriptions of the phenomenon itself.

There are, in fact, quite a number of ways to tell reality from fantasy. Otherwise, we wouldn't know who to put in an insane asylum.

Amen to that.

That's not entirely true as a statement, though. There were many physical explanations, and the infrequency of the ball lightning happening makes the progress to a proper hypothesis slower.

Have these people seen these spirits? Have they looked upon a spirit? See, ball lightning is a flash of blue or white or yellow light. You can describe that to someone. That naturally arouses the curiosity of the naturalist, who would have no problem proposing a physical explanation.

But the vague nature of those reports leave quite a lot to be desired. Did those people see God? Or was it a light or something similar? If they did see God, what did he look like? Did he say anything?

Ah. See, there we're going to run into difficulty because everything used to describe God is physical. Jealousy, for instance, is only witnessed in biological creatures. It is logical to conclude you can't physically explain God. Yes. It's very difficult to observe something that isn't physical, or even attempt to apply logic to such a thing. In that way, it resembles a figment of someone's imagination, which, while in itself is created by a physical process, is not a physical being.

Because they describe something somewhat the same, and something physical: a ball of light. You can explore the nature of a ball of light. You cannot explore the nature of a spiritual world, because it is by definition not physical, and thus unobservable. By extension, it also cannot have any influence upon the physical world, because otherwise it would be physical (in the form of measurable forces).

So even if there were spirits that we're just not perceiving, they would have absolutely no bearing on the physical world. That would include God, who would have no affect on anything physical.

I'm going to give Cap props for stubborness. Is there an award for theists who've never done drive bys, and always come back for another kick? There's a few now. Considering that they're outnumbered a thousand to one, I think we should reward those who stick around and keep trying. Disirregardless of whether or not they've accomplished anything in their eyes or ours.

Yay, I got to use disirregardless.

We love you Cap. You are brave in taking us on, but we simply know you got it wrong. It really is all in your head.

I myself had 3 seperate experiances where I saw "ghosts". All happened when I was a kid. I saw my dead grandmother standing at the end of my bed. Another time I saw my dead father standing at the end of my bed. Another time I saw my STILL LIVE mother standing at the end of my bed.

What was really going on were my neurons were firing off memories to my visual cortex while my eyes were open, while taking in REAL sensories of the outside world.

People who are even awake can have these halucinations that seem real, especially when they want to have them, it is self inducing. But also combined with that there are people who con and scam others into believing that ghosts exist. "Ghost hunters" is one of those scam shows.

The bottem line is that the super natural does not exist and the reality is people are not aware of how powerfull their own brain chemistry and immagination can be.

Cap, we really simply want YOU to recognize that it is all in your head and once you realize it for what it is, you will understand what we are saying.

It's not so much evidence as it is behaviour. We don't always behave in a way that would be considered optimal in terms of an "evolutionary reason". Consider golf. There's no evolutionary reason for golf, except as an extension of our very useful tendency towards play. In the same sense, religious behaviour could be an extension of any number of useful traits, like our ability to imagine. If someone imagines something and then believes it very strongly, you have a "revelation".

 

I would have to disagree with the “it’s all in your head” explanation because that doesn’t explain ghost sightings among multiple people on multiple occasions. My personal belief on this matter is more along the lines that ghost sightings are an imprint or an energy echo if you will. I’ve had a few ghost experiences myself and along with my reading I’ve noticed a common trend with ghosts. They tend to stick to a confined area and they are very repetitive, like a video loop. I don’t believe that these “spirits” are a conscious living entity; you don’t have any more or less chance of communicating with them as you have communicating with your television or radio.

 

Think of this; there are energy waves around us constantly. It’s only been in recent human history that infrared and microwaves were discovered. They have been here all along affecting us yet we didn’t have the natural ability to know that they were there. It’s completely possible that there are many other types of energy waves that science has yet to discover.

 

Nope, no video footage, but lets be honest here, with today's technology in video editing would anyone actually believe video footage anymore. I do have a Bachelors degree in Computer Animation so I could probably come up with some pretty convincing video. I'm not trying to prove anything about ghosts because I'll admit I don't know. I just seriously doubt that it's in a persons head when multiple people have the same sightings. For the record I also believe in aliens and Bigfoot... and no, I don't have any video.

I hate quoting myself Ivon, but ...

 

"... a perfect example of that human tendency, when confronted with perceived phenomena for which only imperfect explanations present themselves, to replace such explanations with absolute assertions instead ..."

 

... and, as in your own assertion, most of these are composed of semantically dishonest and/or inane crap.

 

But at least you were kind enough to set on record that you believe any old crap yourself, so it's no surprise to hear you spouting it. In the old pre-Gates days we used to have a very much used piece of computer jargon - GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Nowadays of course Gates makes money out of garbage, but you probably get the drift of the sentiment.

 

Try improving the quality of what you input. Who knows what your brain could be actually capable of if applied to reality?

okay

oh.... well if the above statement is true, then the Bible HAS to be false.  Though if the Bible is true, then your statement above cannot be. 

We're back to square 1.

well... If I take your first statement into consideration... e.g. gravity is physical because it affects the physical, then the spiritual is also physical.  but just like gravity, you cannot describe what it is, only what it does.  Therefore, it's not physically explainable.

 

Not so much in the languages.  the Christian God has a name.  Not just God or He

Though I don't doubt that person's following, I would have to disagree with their conclusion.   Jesus never said they were decoy stories to deter them from the truth.  He explained that the stories were said in parables for a few reasons.  They would not accept the clear truth if it was told to them anyway and they were not suppose to fully understand it at the time according to OT prophesies. 

If I'm being silly, why should I be specific.  I think I'm being logical in my conclusion.  Do you disagree?  I understand that there are equasions explaining what gravity "does".  I was not disputing that.  What i was disputing is the description of what gravity "is".  It's just as physically explainable (as far as what it "is" not "does&quot as the spiritual is.

There are many examples in the Bible of how the spiritual has "affected" the physical.  Those examples are specific too. 

I just lost everything I was typing as a response to this post, I'll greatly shorten it.

I thanked you for trying to come up with an excuse for me, but it doesn't hold water for my belief. 

Simply put, I'm on here to challenge what i know.  So far the explanations of why I'm wrong have been... well, humorous at times.

I can't fart a car out of my butt... therefore God doesn't exist

You're afraid of the truth... therefore God doesn't exist.

Etc..

To make my original post much shorter.... stop coming up with excuses for me.  I don't need them.  Instead just explain to me why I'm wrong.

Science and at least Christianity go hand in hand.  Nothing in factual science disproves God.  If it did, there would be no debate

It's possible.  I've heard that excuse as well, but there are other sources outside the Bible that coenside with the stories.  the fact that there are many sources that were familiar with each other leads a little more reliability to the stories. 

The fact that the Muslims can accept Jesus as a prophet and yet can deny literally all the historical stories about him shows the inconsistencies.  Even if you get down to the simple idea of Jesus' mission.  Jesus said "follow me".  Muslims do not, therefore go against his teachings just by not following him.