Christians: What's Your Best Evidence?
Offline Carl Sagan famously declared that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This profound truth is a key that frees us from religion’s shackles, since each faith lacks the requisite evidence to substantiate its fantastical claims. Sagan’s oft-quoted observation is self-evident, given humankind’s abundant, demonstrable fallibility. With that in mind, ten simple requests for the Christian faithful follow.
1. Present extraordinary evidence for Jesus' bodily resurrection.
2. Present extraordinary evidence that Jesus was born asexually (of a virgin).
3. Present extraordinary evidence that some Biblical characters, such as Adam and Noah, lived in excess of 900 years.
4. Present extraordinary evidence that immaterial “souls” haunt our carcasses.
5. Present extraordinary evidence that human consciousness survives death, passing to another world of some sort.
6. Present extraordinary evidence that Yahweh exists, to the exclusion of other god characters.
7. Present extraordinary evidence that there was a cataclysmic flood as described by the Bible.
8. Present extraordinary evidence that evolution—the cornerstone of modern biology—fundamentally is incorrect.
9. Present extraordinary evidence that “miracles” are possible, let alone actually have occurred.
10. Present extraordinary evidence that serpents and donkeys can speak in human language, whether by Yahweh’s help or of their own linguistic ingenuity.
Note: I recognize that Christianity is a “wide tent,” as it were. Christians’ beliefs vary widely on the issues I have raised. As such, respond only to those beliefs which apply to you. If, for example, you disbelieve in Jesus’ asexual birth, certainly you are not obligated to defend it.
The road to truth is paved with evidence.
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Mathematics is not philosophy, altho, like science, it had some of its ancient roots there, so Euclid is irrelevant. Mathematical proofs established in antiquity remain valid, of course, within their axioms, but mathematics has expanded vastly since then, with things like non-Euclean geometries being explored, just to name one very fruitful area.
And of course Science has grown out of recognition, with many 'theories' of even a century back totally discarded, or at the very least, their domain of applicability much reduced.
I agree that in many ways, philospophy has not moved very far since then, which is why I believe most of it is semantic games, and that we gain little little knowledge about the real world from its pursuit, altho it is a valuable source of speculation and can be very useful in its logical discipline in governing how we think about things.
Your un-moved mover argument is a perfect example of obsolete ideas that you blindly refuse to acknowledge as such. Because of this, it appears there is no point continuing the discussion, since we have established ad nauseum that this is not valid as a proof of God's existence, merely, on the most chasritable possible interpretation, an admission of ignorance on the ultimate origin of reality.
Before we move on, however, it would suffice to say that "I am who am" is a substantial correspondence to the God we know exists by philosophy.
If you think that makes any sense whatever, on any level, after all our discussions here, there really is no point in continuing, I'm sorry...
EDIT: Actually your response tends to confirm what I suspected, that unless you can 'prove' a whole bunch of attributes of the 'un-moved mover' God, there really IS no way to identify it with the God of the Bible. This has always been the yawning, un-acknowledged logical chasm in the Xian 'Proofs of God' - that lies between some abstract entity such as a First Cause, and Yahweh.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Without philosophy, human knowledge in physical science is irrelevant. It is not semantics and word games. Philosophy is about establishing the nature of reality and truth. If we cannot inquire into being itself, there is no point in discussing physical objects in natural science or mathematics.
You have done no such thing in "establishing" my argument as invalid. All you have done is assert a couple things, concede the point, and proceed to say that you have disproven it. You have not shown, at all, how the unmoved mover argument is invalid. It has nothing to do with time or the Big Bang. It merely lays out the simple fact that we must logically concede as necessary: if there is motion now, an unmoved mover must have caused it.
Lastly, we don't need to prove that the unmoved mover is the God of Scripture because Scripture says so. If we are working from a Christian point of view, there is no argument at all. Scripture and the Church clearly indicate this to be the case. I have no need to justify some correlation based on ulterior facts. I could bolster it by presenting the attributes of God in argument, but it is not necessary to make the identification.
Yours In Christ, Eternal Wisdom,
StMichael
Psalm 50(1):8. For behold thou hast loved truth: the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast made manifest to me.
StMichael, you inhabit an entirely different intellectual Universe from myself. No meaningful communication seems possible, unfortunately.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology