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Post by Josh on Jul 21, 2008 10:39:19 GMT -8
Thanks for the spoiler warning. I am going to wait on that.
But:
I'm arguing that it's also evidence against the "belief-system" of atheism as well, so it's a wash. In fact, all that it proves is that humans (not just christians or theists or atheists) prefer what they're accustomed to. And you're very right that this must be taken into account, but it doesn't mean that none of them are right about anything (christians, theists, atheist, etc..)
This idea is actually quite neutral about the question of whether any of these positions is "correct".
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Post by moritz on Jul 21, 2008 11:02:10 GMT -8
I'm arguing that it's also evidence against the "belief-system" of atheism as well, so it's a wash. In fact, all that it proves is that humans (not just christians or theists or atheists) prefer what they're accustomed to. And you're very right that this must be taken into account, but it doesn't mean that none of them are right about anything (christians, theists, atheist, etc..) I fully agree with you. Maybe I should have said that "evidence against belief systems" includes atheism and agnosticism as well. At least as long as atheism or agnosticism are the predominant belief systems in a region. So, where do we go from here? Everybody has to ask himself honestly in what way his environment has influenced his faith. I for one can honestly say that neither my parents, nor my society influenced me towards non-believing. I stumbled on atheism/agnosticism all on my own. On the contrary, I didn't want to abandon Christianity AT ALL. I was praying a lot asking God not to desert me... What about you? Think about it. |
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Post by b on Jul 27, 2008 21:05:53 GMT -8
So the bottom line on all of this is that my input is only of interest if I was raised as a Chinese atheist?  |
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Post by moritz on Jul 28, 2008 1:38:09 GMT -8
So the bottom line on all of this is that my input is only of interest if I was raised as a Chinese atheist? Hello Brian, needless to say that you are a free man in a free country on a free board. You can put in whatever you like. However, the whole point of this thread has nothing to do with your personal journey towards Christianity. If you have anything to put in on the matter besides your story (which I'm sure is pretty exciting), please do it. |
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Post by christopher on Jul 28, 2008 9:52:31 GMT -8
Hi Mo, you wrote: I, for one, will take Josh’s invitation to give my input as an adult convert. Just FYI, It will be completely unsatisfying and unconvincing to an atheist/agnostic, but I’m going to share it anyway. I’ll try to keep it brief. I strongly disagree with your “intuition” Mo. I grew up in an agnostic/salad bar environment and knew very little about Jesus. The few times the topic of the bible came up, my mom would simply say “It was written by a man”, and that sounded very reasonable to me so I never lent any credibility to its contents (whatever they were). I was quite comfortable and happy not knowing anything about it and leading my life the way I pleased. I even harassed Christians for their beliefs and enjoyed planting doubts in their minds. Maybe it was the exact inverse of your statement here: In my late 20’s, I pursued a degree in Business Management to further my career. I enrolled in a program at a local Lutheran University that allowed me to do it part time and still work full time. About half way through the program, we were required to take a values/ethics course that included the bible (of all things) as one of the text books. Now back up about a month earlier, when I was primed for this with something that kind of forced me to open my mind. I was listening to a talk radio show and a guy called in complaining that his wife had become a Christian and how he felt betrayed by that. He began ranting and waxing eloquent about how ridiculous it was to believe in a God you can’t see, etc., etc., and I was agreeing with him. Then the host of the show dropped a bomb on both him and me. She said, “the truth is….you don’t KNOW”. The weight of that statement hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember thinking that when I get time, I’m going to have to really research this out to justify my present agnostic beliefs so I don’t get caught off-guard like this guy did. Ok, fast-forward again to my values/ethics class. I seized this as the perfect opportunity to discover what Christians believed and poke some holes in this system (since I was going to have to study it anyway). I couldn’t wait to challenge the instructor (a Lutheran minister) with objections he couldn’t answer. I began the reading assignments and after reading about people living 900 years, catastrophic world-wide floods, building towers to heaven etc, I was feeling pretty good about my present position of dismissing the whole thing altogether. I then began to attend churches in my area to see what motivated Christians to embrace this bizarre belief system and lifestyle. I saw some pretty weird stuff, and some stuff that just about put me to sleep. And it seemed that everyone I met wanted my phone number so they could invite me to come back to their club (I found that rather annoying). So far, I was not impressed at all and the whole thing seemed rather pointless to me. But then, something unexpected , strange, and unwelcomed (initially) happened. At some point in reading my biblical assignments, it became real to me. I have no other way to describe the phenomenon other than I was MADE to know that this was the truth. This caught me off-guard because I’m a skeptic by nature. But I couldn’t shake it, and I had to do something with it because I wanted to be honest with whatever “evidence” I found (yes, I consider that “evidence”, albeit subjective and personal I freely admit). Soon after I began to notice that my view of the world was changing. My tastes, pleasures, political affiliation (just kidding ;D), ambitions, etc. began taking a different direction long before I ever started attending church regularly and becoming “brainwashed” as you would say. I began noticing that I wasn’t as able to relate to many of my friends any more. Some abandoned me, and I guess I’d have to admit I abandoned some of them as well. My family thought I was off my rocker and began mocking me to each other behind my back (yes Mo, many Christians, like gays, do suffer isolation and ridicule, whether you believe it so or not). I became addicted to reading the New Testament because I really wanted to know what Jesus was like (he was so cool  ). My poor roommates had to endure the annoying aspects of living with a new believer as well. So here’s the rub, Mo. My intellectual reasons for believing are far more sophisticated now than they were then. I had no compelling logical reason to accept the “outlandish” claims of the bible. I had no fear of death and hell at the time, nobody browbeating me about my eternal destiny, nobody telling me how “wonderful” and carefree the Christian life is (good thing too, because I would have later had to slug that guy). Yet somehow, I became a believer. And that is my point. We can go down every road to prove/disprove the claims of Christianity, but I think it’s impossible to do either. Whichever premise you begin with, you can produce very good evidence to support it either way IMO. Greater minds than ours have been going about it for millennia. I firmly believe that it takes a personal encounter with God for someone to know it’s true. But it always comes down to faith. Not blind faith of course, but faith in the evidence (and I believe personal experience counts as evidence FOR THAT PERSON). I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie "Contact" (based on Carl Sagan’s novel of same name) or not, but there’s a beautiful, and ironic illustration of that in the movie (forgive me if I slaughter the details, it’s been about 10 years since I’ve seen the movie). Jody Fosters’ character (an atheist/agnostic), always quoting (or should I say, misquoting?) Ockham’s razor, had an experience with aliens that took her through some kind of wormhole to another world where she had a contact with aliens. The encounter took many hours (or days, I can't remember which). Yet what the world saw when her space capsule was dropped into the orbitron looking thingy was the capsule going right through it and landing in the sea all in a matter of a second. All the objective evidence pointed against her experience, but her boyfriend (a believer) believed her. I dare say the film played over and over again to Foster would not convince her that what she experienced was a hallucination, because she lived it. It was the most compelling evidence to her. Christianity isn’t simply affirming historical events 2000 years ago, or adherence to an ethic. It’s about a personal relationship with a Person. One which requires an encounter with that Person. I believe everybody has that encounter at some point in their existence and freely decides what to do with it. Call me naïve, simple-minded, or whatever you wish….but there it is. (So much for brief.   ) |
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Post by b on Jul 28, 2008 21:44:26 GMT -8
Very well said.
I can relate directly to some parts of your story.
I also found the book and the film "Contact" to be a thought provoking and memorable look at characters examining their beliefs about the existence or non-existence of God, and what would constitute evidence.
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Post by moritz on Jul 29, 2008 6:07:07 GMT -8
I, for one, will take Josh’s invitation to give my input as an adult convert. Surprise, surprise Just FYI, It will be completely unsatisfying and unconvincing to an atheist/agnostic Surprise, surprise I strongly disagree with your “intuition” Mo. Surprise, surprise ;D Christopher, thanks for sharing this information with me. I think “Christopher’s Journey” would have been a more appropriate folder to post it. As I predicted, your personal story completely missed the point. Even though you were raised in an agnostic salad buffet (  ) I assume all this took place in the USA or another mainly Christian Country. So even though you strongly disagreed with Christianity and knew little about it, you must have known some basics and you must have been well aware that the majority of your country believed in Christianity. Already this is enough to let you drop out as a counter example to my “intuition” (an intuition that concerned Steve and Josh only, by the way). If we remove your story from the Christian country into a new setting, let’s say contemporary Istanbul, and replace the Lutheran College by a Sunnite School and the Bible class by a Quran-class, what do you think you would believe today? Please answer! The correlation between faith and where you were born can’t be disputed by anybody. Then the host of the show dropped a bomb on both him and me. She said, “the truth is….you don’t KNOW”. The weight of that statement hit me like a ton of bricks. …and today you don’t know either. Why doesn’t that fact hit you like a ton of bricks? Ok, fast-forward again to my values/ethics class. I seized this as the perfect opportunity to discover what Christians believed and poke some holes in this system (since I was going to have to study it anyway). You were pretty invidious. I hope you don’t think I’m identifying myself with your former ego. I’m certainly not trying to poke some holes here for the fun of it. I believe the world is better off without religion - not in a symbolic, but in a real-life measurable way. And it seemed that everyone I met wanted my phone number so they could invite me to come back to their club (I found that rather annoying). I know exactly what you’re talking about, lol. (yes Mo, many Christians, like gays, do suffer isolation and ridicule, whether you believe it so or not). I believe it. But these people aren’t alone. Not only do they have their local community but also the vast majority of the country behind them. Poor Christians! I’d like to see what kind of ridicule an atheist trying to run for high public office would have to stand in the USA. And that is my point. We can go down every road to prove/disprove the claims of Christianity, but I think it’s impossible to do either. Whichever premise you begin with, you can produce very good evidence to support it either way IMO I’m not so sure about that. After zillions of discussions with Christians and almost 100 posts on this board I’m sensing something that is hard to put into words. I’ll try to give it a go and let’s see where it leads us: Christians always say there is good evidence supporting their belief. As a matter of fact, they seem to find evidence in a variety of aspects of life. Going down every road could fill more than one book (and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t try that). But at the very bottom of EVERY discussion we find this: The supposed evidence is not only not compelling, but most often merely arbitrary opinion based on assumption. The assumptions can easily be challenged with facts of life and taken to the absurd (I don’t know how many times the word “paradox” already appeared). Christians then practice escapism and refer to their intuition or own experiences or link to a new thread of life where supposed evidence is to be found – and won’t be found in the end. Another great sentence is: the ways of the Lord are unfathomable to the mortal man. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this final evidence of incapacity. The truth of the matter seems to be, that the Christian world view can’t be backed by compelling evidence. It only makes sense within itself. Within the bubble it created. It’s like the story of the werewolf and the silver bullets: you know, werewolves can’t be killed by regular bullets but exclusively by silver bullets. Not gold bullets, or atomic bombs, but only silver bullets. We accept that as a given premise within a story. It’s totally absurd of course (just like the existence of werewolves to begin with) but it’s the way it is. The same goes for Christianity. Jesus had to go to the cross to make God absorbe all sin. You guys find that plausible. But when I ask you “since when did the suffering of one man ever take away the guilt of another man?” you won’t find an explanation. You just accept that as a fact. It’s not rational, it’s not logical, it’s not consistent. Chris, you’ve said something golden here: I had no compelling logical reason to accept the “outlandish” claims of the bible. You’ve had no compelling reason, because there is no compelling reason. You said you’ve had a personal encounter with God. Muslims say the same and Hindus too and probably all other religious people in the world throughout history. Your personal encounter, I’m sure you’re well aware of this, doesn’t mean anything to the truth. It could have been anything. It was nothing but a subjective impression. You’ve had a feeling in your gut and linked it to the Christian God like so many people before you. If you were Turkish, you would have linked it to Allah, if you were Germanic to Odin. If you had met an angel or Jesus or even God himself personally, that is from face to face, alright. That would have been pretty impressive. We would have to check if you’re mental but it would still be impressive. But a mere feeling? Common! All your sophisticated reasons to believe are nothing but the attempt to make it sound all prudential and less wack. You’re invited to prove me wrong. I’m tired of all this talk about good evidence. I like Steve because he once said to me, in simplification: “I don’t care about the evidence; I’m fully relying on my intuition”. That’s by no means reasonable but at least it’s honest. All this talk of being truth seeking and truth loving and then rejecting everything that is in front of your eyes…  Maybe, if I get it right, you’re sentence “I firmly believe that it takes a personal encounter with God for someone to know it’s true. But it always comes down to faith.” goes down the same direction as Steve. The last part “Not blind faith of course, but faith in the evidence” certainly doesn’t. Call me naïve, simple-minded, or whatever you wish I’m not gonna call you simple-minded, but you’re definitely naïve. Anyway, thanks for high jacking my thread. Wait a second, this isn’t my thread, I high jacked it from Steve…   |
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Post by moritz on Jul 29, 2008 6:13:17 GMT -8
apropos high jacking: has anybody seen this movie?
I'd like to know if anybody believes this. I know you guys have children, but give it a look if you can find the time. This seems to be off-topic but it isn't - it has a lot to do with skepticism towards sources. I'd really like to hear all of you comments on this, Brian and Chris included.
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Post by christopher on Jul 29, 2008 9:06:12 GMT -8
Mo,
I'm actually trying to work on the God Personality answsers, but I have to comment on this one real quick:
What are you talking about? The gospels themselves are "evidence". You may not find it compelling evidence, and you're certainly free to try to poke holes in that evidence, but it is admissible evidence just the same because they claim to be eyewitness accounts. You may not call it "good" evidence, but that in itself is subjective based on bias. If someone has an experience that agrees with the gospels, then of course they're going to be inclined towards believing them.
Have you never had an experience where your only evidence was your experience? Did your parents or teachers never accuse you of something you know you didn't do but couldn't prove it? The only thing you had to convince yourself was your experience, even if nobody else could be convinced by it. Surely you have something in your past like that...don't you. Isn't that evidence to you?
Gotta go... but think about it.
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Post by Josh on Jul 29, 2008 9:56:11 GMT -8
Mo, as I said above (which you agreed with)... the same would apply to one who grew up in an atheist household or culture.
This line of thinking doesn't prove any religion or belief system wrong (or even give a strike against any of them)... it's only a corrective reminder about bias.
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Post by moritz on Jul 29, 2008 10:44:54 GMT -8
Mo, I'm actually trying to work on the God Personality answsers, but I have to comment on this one real quick: What are you talking about? The gospels themselves are "evidence". You may not find it compelling evidence, and you're certainly free to try to poke holes in that evidence, but it is admissible evidence just the same because they claim to be eyewitness accounts. You may not call it "good" evidence, but that in itself is subjective based on bias. If someone has an experience that agrees with the gospels, then of course they're going to be inclined towards believing them. Have you never had an experience where your only evidence was your experience? Did your parents or teachers never accuse you of something you know you didn't do but couldn't prove it? The only thing you had to convince yourself was your experience, even if nobody else could be convinced by it. Surely you have something in your past like that...don't you. Isn't that evidence to you? Gotta go... but think about it. Chris, I have an answer for you typed down in Microsoft Word. I'll post it after you found enough time to fully reply to my previous posts. Let's keep things organized. You see, Josh, sometimes I can't escape my German blood either |
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Post by moritz on Jul 29, 2008 13:02:27 GMT -8
Mo, as I said above (which you agreed with)... the same would apply to one who grew up in an atheist household or culture. This line of thinking doesn't prove any religion or belief system wrong (or even give a strike against any of them)... it's only a corrective reminder about bias. No, no no no no no. Wait a second. I agree that it doesn't proove any beliefsystem right or wrong. But it DOES GIVE a major strike against belief systems. Cause they can't all be right. They can, of course, all be wrong. This correlation strongly indicates that specific religious belief is a cultural phenomenon. The probability is high that Christianity is nothing but a religion among thousands of other religions in the course of human history. The correlation furthermore reveals that what you believe is random. There's no getting around that. The same goes for dogmatic atheism, as I said before. But there's a difference between systematic, dogmatic atheism as it is practiced in socialist countries and the kind of atheism I'm talking about. My atheism isn't a religion. It doesn't replace God. The space that God left isn't filled with the next dogma. It remains an open question. I don't know how to express this, maybe i'll find better examples soon. |
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Post by steve on Jul 29, 2008 13:06:41 GMT -8
Wow, I leave town for a few days and the discussion I started has taken a very interesting turn. Moritz, I watched the Video from Dawkins. During the 3 minute comedy clip, I laughed my ass off. I agreed with what Mr. Dawkins had to say. I don't think anybody here is proposing to label there children anything. And I heartily agree with his attacks on organized religion. As far as I'm concerned, the world doesn't need religion; it needs Love and Grace. You don't need to convince anybody here that religion has bathed the world in blood ten times over. We've learned history as well. I don't want to turn anybody into a card carrying member of my religious faith. I believe in the story of Jesus, not in the infallibility the movement which His story set in motion. I believe in the truth which the church has guarded, but not in the institutions which the church has spawned. If you want to criticize religion, go ahead. I'll help you. |
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Post by moritz on Jul 29, 2008 13:58:58 GMT -8
Wow, I leave town for a few days and the discussion I started has taken a very interesting turn. Moritz, I watched the Video from Dawkins. During the 3 minute comedy clip, I laughed my ass off. I agreed with what Mr. Dawkins had to say. I don't think anybody here is proposing to label there children anything. And I heartily agree with his attacks on organized religion. As far as I'm concerned, the world doesn't need religion; it needs Love and Grace. You don't need to convince anybody here that religion has bathed the world in blood ten times over. We've learned history as well. I don't want to turn anybody into a card carrying member of my religious faith. I believe in the story of Jesus, not in the infallibility the movement which His story set in motion. I believe in the truth which the church has guarded, but not in the institutions which the church has spawned. If you want to criticize religion, go ahead. I'll help you. You just made my day, Steve. I love you and I'm glad you're back! |
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Post by christopher on Jul 30, 2008 19:59:26 GMT -8
Hi Mo, I didn’t mean to butt into a conversation that is intended for Steve and Josh only, but I was invited to share it as an example of someone who hadn’t been “brainwashed” or “pre-disposed” to Christianity in any way. In fact, like you, I thought it was nothing more than a fairy tale or ancient mythology taken too seriously. I think that is very relevant to the counter-argument of your assertion. I wasn’t primed to believe it by merely being exposed to it. I honestly believe I would not have become a “Muslim” because I believe my Christian experience to be genuine and from God. But the question is moot because all we can do is guess at a imaginary non-event…don’t you think? I’d agree that there is probably a correlation between where you are born and the tradition of your family or culture, but I wouldn’t necessarily extend that to true “faith” per se. I believe there is a difference. For example: the Catholic who is only a Catholic because his parents were. I’ve known many self-proclaimed “non-practicing” Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, etc. you name it. What does that mean? Non-practicing simply means you don’t believe in the said religion and therefore do not follow it. Actually, I’d say that I DO know…and it does hit me like a ton of bricks…but in a good way.  Granted.  You’ve given me no compelling reason to doubt you yet, but I am starting to wonder.  Such as? And how far are you willing to go with that? For example: do you believe that it would be beneficial if all religious expression were outlawed, regulated, state-approved, etc? Well, more and more, atheism is becoming the state religion here. But you’re right, at this point, an atheist would not likely be elected. Really…that many huh? Then you’ve heard all the arguments then. So what are you doing still discussing it? Still “seeking truth”? Isn’t that kind of a waste of your time? I’ve heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results. Um…doesn’t this cut both ways? Do you not also make assumptions and believe things on faith? You seem to put a lot of faith in what you call “scientific consensus”, but do you validate all the findings yourself? Or do you simply trust the testimony of the eye-witnesses doing the studies and experiments? I’m assuming, of course, you’re not yourself a neuroscientist, biologist, astrophysicist, etc. Maybe you are, I don’t know. Maybe everything you believe you’ve validated for yourself. If so, it’s hard to know how you find (I’m sorry…”take”) so much time to have a zillion discussions with Christians on these discussion boards. So let me get this straight. If someone trusts the eye-witness testimonies of scientists (who are regularly invalidating previous findings….geo-centric universe, spontaneous generation, etc.), then that is intellectual honesty. But if Christians trust the eye-witness testimonies of the gospel writers (who’ve never been proven false), that’s blind faith built on assumptions? Is that what we’re to understand? You seem to cavalierly dismiss experience as evidence, why is that? I don’t mean evidence for other people (although it could be in many cases), but personal evidence. Have you never had an experience you couldn’t prove to others by anything other than your testimony? How do you expect your doctor to believe you when you tell him your tummy aches? I don’t expect you to take my experience as evidence for you. That would be silly…you don’t know me from Adam. But what if it were someone you knew intimately? Someone you knew wouldn’t lie to you just because you know them that well. What if it were your girlfriend that had an encounter with God and became a Christian (don’t laugh that off, I’ve seen it happen many times)? Would you have NO inclination whatsoever to question what you believe and consider she might be telling you the truth? Be careful how you answer that…she may read this someday. Yeah, it’s kind of like love isn’t it? Mo, can you prove to me with compelling evidence that you love your girlfriend? I don’t think so, because if my mind is made up that you don’t, I can rationalize away any evidence you give. I couldn’t prove to you I love my wife either, but that doesn’t make it untrue. I hold that compelling evidence is in the eye of the beholder. More to say…. Again, don’t bring the assumption that there is consensus among theologians on this. There are at least 6 major theories on the atonement and not all of them include a transference of guilt. That’s not to say it’s not the truth, it’s to say that the information given about it isn’t clear enough to make an airtight case about which theory is true. Who says we need to comprehend every aspect of Christianity and wrap it up with a nice neat bow in order to embrace it? Some people are comfortable enough with evidence they’ve been given to trust God for the rest. Actually there is, but the visible church doesn’t demonstrate it nearly enough. It’s called Love, and it has compelled more people to follow Jesus more than any other rational argument for doing so. (see John 13, Acts 2, etc.) Jesus said: John 13:35 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." NKJV Actually, if I’m not mistaken, Muslims don’t claim to have personal encounters with Allah. I think they believe he is completely transcendent and they're just hoping their good deeds outweigh their bad. But you may need to ask one. I’m not sure about Hindus. But to me, most of the other religions are completely falsifiable by examining their founders and conditions of origin. For example, it’s very easy to demonstrate that Joseph Smith was a charlatan, a liar, a false prophet, and a treasure hunter. So the credibility of the Mormon religion can be justifiably dismissed IMO. But I have no doubt that they have some personal encounter. I’m just not sure that it’s an encounter with God. Again, it may not mean anything to you (nor do I expect it to), but it certainly means something to the truth for me. It’s God testifying about Himself in Person (1John 2:27, 5:10) I think I’ve already said that I have no intention to…that’s not my department. By the way, you’re invited to prove Christianity wrong also and you will have won yourself a convert. Wow. Steve said that? I hope you’re not really as angry as your words sound here, there’s really no reason get spun up about all this stuff. But I just want to say that evidence means everything to me. You and I just have different opinions on what to call “good” evidence. Some evidence is more compelling to me than it is to you and vice versa. That’s nothing new and it’s not limited to religious beliefs either. That’s a fair assessment from the stand-point of your world view. I would have said the same thing about me before I became a believer. Likewise, it would be a fair assessment from the stand point my world view to say you are a fool, because the bible (my truth source) says so (Ps 14:1). That’s not meant as an insult at all, but to illustrate that our opinions of each other add very little to the conversation. Actually, the truth is, I like you Mo, you’re feisty and you got spunk. That keeps things interesting. But you could tone down the Ad Hominem a bit, it really doesn't contribute much to the conversations. Perhaps you can recommend a good German bier for me to pick up and we can have a cyber-toast while we’re discussing God (or un-God in your case). Anyway, I’ve made my contribution to this thread and I don’t want to take it over. I’d like to get to some of the others if I can. Feel free to respond to any of this and I’ll again let you have the last word. Prost!! ;D |
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Post by Josh on Aug 2, 2008 15:50:56 GMT -8
I'd like in too ;D
It's funny because I've had a line from a Mark Knopfler song running through my head all week:
"German beer is chemical free/
Germany's alright we me"
Mo/ Steve have you heard this song? It's called Why Aye Man. I think you'd dig it.
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Post by moritz on Aug 3, 2008 2:01:32 GMT -8
Hey Chris, yet another elephant. But since your out of this thread, you can enjoy this one without having to reply ;D I didn’t mean to butt into a conversation that is intended for Steve and Josh only, but I was invited to share it as an example of someone who hadn’t been “brainwashed” or “pre-disposed” to Christianity in any way. In fact, like you, I thought it was nothing more than a fairy tale or ancient mythology taken too seriously. I think that is very relevant to the counter-argument of your assertion. I wasn’t primed to believe it by merely being exposed to it. *sigh* Chris I can only repeat myself over and over. The assertion I made had nothing to do with your story. Nothing. Your story doesn’t fit into the premises I set. Hence it can’t be used as a counter-argument. You may have been born into an agnostic family, but all this happened within a Christian society. Even though you may not have known this as a teenager, you inherited Christian values, biblical sayings, you read literature at school that was influenced by the Bible, you’ve seen movies that had biblical motifs… the list goes on and on. You probably knew more about Christianity than about other religions, and I would guess you also knew more Christians than Hindus or Muslims. This increased the possibilities considerably, that IF you ended up being religious, it would be as a Christian. The assumption I made at the beginning of this thread was, that somebody who is a) an adult, b) learned to take differentiated, skeptical views on things and c) NEVER had heard ANYTHING about the Bible, would probably not believe a word the Bible says. You do fulfil a) and (I hope) b). But not c)! I honestly believe I would not have become a “Muslim” because I believe my Christian experience to be genuine and from God. But the question is moot because all we can do is guess at a imaginary non-event…don’t you think? The question is hypothetical, indeed. But important to consider anyway. Such questions don’t bring us the truth yet they raise awareness. I’d like to ask you why you think that the Christian God, who gave you a genuine “personal encounter” apparently doesn’t do that to the Muslims in Turkey? Or in other words: Why do Turkish people interpret their “encounter” as an encounter with Allah while Americans interpret their “encounters” as encounters with Jesus? Wouldn’t, by your rationality, all of these Muslims who truly believe have to be Christians? Think about it. You can say that you believe you would be one of the 0,2% Christians in Turkey*. And even one of the 0,00xy% of the Christians in Turkey who converted to Christianity without any Christian roots. The numbers clearly speak against you here. I don’t see how anyone could ignore this. *source: msn encarta I’d agree that there is probably a correlation between where you are born and the tradition of your family or culture, but I wouldn’t necessarily extend that to true “faith” per se. I believe there is a difference. For example: the Catholic who is only a Catholic because his parents were. I’ve known many self-proclaimed “non-practicing” Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, etc. you name it. What does that mean? Non-practicing simply means you don’t believe in the said religion and therefore do not follow it. The question of “true faith” is a totally different story. Actually, I’d say that I DO know… The truth is, you don’t know. I’m with Socrates here. Such as? And how far are you willing to go with that? For example: do you believe that it would be beneficial if all religious expression were outlawed, regulated, state-approved, etc? This would deserve an own thread again. I’ll make it short with just one example. To name 9/11 now would be too hackneyed. I’ll give a true example of how religion can cause serious damage. This example is from a discussion I had at another forum with an American Protestant. He said that Hurricane Cathrina was God’s punishment for “one of the most sinful cities in the world”. His suggestion in order to prevent such catastrophes in the future was to “repent and pray”. Now, let’s assume for a second that I’m right and that Cathrina had nothing to do with Jahwe, but with… let’s say global warming. If that premise was true, all the prayers would be futile, the next catastrophe would come sooner or later without any doubt. The real measures against such catastrophes would be improved early warning systems, improved protections for homes and infrastructure and especially a lifestyle of increased awareness for environmental issues. This example shows, how religious thinking gets in the way of real solutions. For the second part of your question: I believe that emancipation from religion can only happen as a result of reasonable, clear thinking. The State has to keep his hands off. Freedom of religion and from religion must be granted. For the record, I don’t believe humanity will ever get to know a world without religion. It’s utopian. Religion will remain the scourge of humanity and the root of all evil until we finally disappear. Well, more and more, atheism is becoming the state religion here. Let’s hope so by goodness. I don’t believe it though. Really…that many huh? Then you’ve heard all the arguments then. So what are you doing still discussing it? Still “seeking truth”? Isn’t that kind of a waste of your time? I’ve heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results. If you’re trying to say that I must be crazy to even discuss with you, you’re probably right Even though there are ever repeating and reoccurring aspects of such discussions, I always end up learning new things and taking new perspectives. Um…doesn’t this cut both ways? Do you not also make assumptions and believe things on faith? You seem to put a lot of faith in what you call “scientific consensus”, but do you validate all the findings yourself? Or do you simply trust the testimony of the eye-witnesses doing the studies and experiments? I’m assuming, of course, you’re not yourself a neuroscientist, biologist, astrophysicist, etc. Maybe you are, I don’t know. Maybe everything you believe you’ve validated for yourself. If so, it’s hard to know how you find (I’m sorry…”take”) so much time to have a zillion discussions with Christians on these discussion boards. You’re missing the point. What you say is correct, but there’s still a difference between believing in what is testable and building everything on an intuition (that’s where trust in the Gospel-authors comes from too). Hence believing in science, though it IS believing, is more reasonable (in the true sense of the word) than believing in God. So let me get this straight. If someone trusts the eye-witness testimonies of scientists (who are regularly invalidating previous findings….geo-centric universe, spontaneous generation, etc.), then that is intellectual honesty. But if Christians trust the eye-witness testimonies of the gospel writers (who’ve never been proven false), that’s blind faith built on assumptions? Is that what we’re to understand? Nobody is supposed to put blind faith into scientists either. I’m skeptic both ways. Unfortunately, there are things in science that are too big for me. I trust then on the CONSENSUS as you pointed out correctly. On the fact that not only one but many scientists dealt with an issue and came to the same result, naively believing that IF there is fraud, someone will discover it sooner or later. Yes, I do believe that betting on the scientific self-purification is a safer guess than trusting on something as fallible as human intuition. By the way, I’d like to hear all about your eye witnesses. They must be pretty impressive if you bought their stories. Meet me in the “Authorship”-Thread! You seem to cavalierly dismiss experience as evidence, why is that? I don’t mean evidence for other people (although it could be in many cases), but personal evidence. That’s not true. I only differentiate between different categories of experience. Example: If I trip and fall on the street I can link that to God and say: that was clearly God, he pushed me, he wanted to hurt me! Meanie! Then I could go to you and say I had an encounter today. Wouldn’t you call that a pretty weak encounter? Not only for you to believe my story but for ME to believe it in the first place? If I had told you that I had seen Jesus with my own eyes, the story would be different. Then we would reach the point where you wouldn’t have to believe me but where you would understand that I believe. I’m not sure if I explained this well. So, what about your story? You didn’t meet God, Jesus or an Angel personally, you just had a feeling of satori and arbitrarily linked it to God. This isn’t exactly what I would call a compelling experience. Neither for you nor for me. I don’t expect you to take my experience as evidence for you. That would be silly…you don’t know me from Adam. But what if it were someone you knew intimately? Someone you knew wouldn’t lie to you just because you know them that well. This reminds me of something. Back in the days when I was a child, there lived a boy next door. We were pretty close friends, we used to hang out on a daily basis and I would say that at a certain point we were best friends. When we were teenagers, he got involved heavily in occultism and stories about aliens. I can tell you, he scared the nuts out of me. He told me of encounters with aliens and abductions and lots of weird stuff. It was just too much to believe him. Yet I told myself that we were so close friends, why would he lie to me? So he freaked me out for a while. At some point he just stopped engaging himself in such things and we stopped talking about it. He never confessed to me that he had made it all up and neither ever asked me to believe him. I haven’t seen him in a century. What if it were your girlfriend that had an encounter with God and became a Christian (don’t laugh that off, I’ve seen it happen many times)? Would you have NO inclination whatsoever to question what you believe and consider she might be telling you the truth? Be careful how you answer that…she may read this someday. Chris, I’ve asked myself so many times if it could all be true regardless all the evidence that speaks against it. You may not believe it. Sometimes I ask myself if I only keep digging all the time because I still hope to find it’s true one day. If my girlfriend had an encounter and become a Christian (God forbid!) I sure would ask myself if she’s telling the truth. I would ask her about the encounter and if she then told me that it was merely a feeling, I would know what to think of it. I can’t put my trust in something like that, Chris. Neither should anybody. Yeah, it’s kind of like love isn’t it? Mo, can you prove to me with compelling evidence that you love your girlfriend? This only depends on how you define love. Love, by the way, is a perfect example of how your senses and clear thinking can be clouded by your feelings. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people around me telling that they “KNOW it’s true love”, that “it’ll last FOREVER” etc. and then? After a couple of days, months or years, the story looks quite different. You know such cases as well I assume. I could bring on a very perfidious example, but I won’t do this for the sake of friendship. Yes, you are right, love is powerful and compelling to many people. But that doesn’t tell us anything about the truth. Again, don’t bring the assumption that there is consensus among theologians on this. There are at least 6 major theories on the atonement and not all of them include a transference of guilt. It’s what you brought up. I never said it was consensus. Who says we need to comprehend every aspect of Christianity and wrap it up with a nice neat bow in order to embrace it? I said it somewhere else on this board. We don’t need to know every aspect. But the main story must be logically consistent. If it’s not, there’s no reason to believe it. Sure, you can close your eyes and your brain and shut your ears and believe what you want to. But don’t pretend that its belief based on reason, when it really is belief based on intuition. Actually there is, but the visible church doesn’t demonstrate it nearly enough. It’s called Love, and it has compelled more people to follow Jesus more than any other rational argument for doing so. As I pointed out above, love is pretty irrational. And what is more important, it tells us nothing about the truth. Love has misled so many people in the past, the testimony of a lover means nothing to the truth. Actually, if I’m not mistaken, Muslims don’t claim to have personal encounters with Allah. I wouldn’t know. All I can tell you is that my Muslim friends seem to have encounters with something they link to Allah on a regular basis. They are sure about their religion beyond the shadow of a doubt. Just like you. But to me, most of the other religions are completely falsifiable by examining their founders and conditions of origin. For example, it’s very easy to demonstrate that Joseph Smith was a charlatan, a liar, a false prophet, and a treasure hunter. So the credibility of the Mormon religion can be justifiably dismissed IMO I hardly know anything about Mormonism. What I’ve heard sounds almost more flapdoodlish than Christianity. Almost. Here’s a hilarious clip, unfortunately in poor quality. But you might have a laugh anyway. Again, it may not mean anything to you (nor do I expect it to), but it certainly means something to the truth for me. It’s God testifying about Himself in Person I’m not only saying that your encounter doesn’t mean anything to me. That’s obvious. I’m going further and say it doesn’t mean anything to the truth. If the real God is Zeus, he won’t cease just because you think you’ve had an encounter with Jahwe. The same goes for me of course. The point of this is that you can’t possibly know, even though you think you know. Kinda. He’s has got his own views. Actually, the truth is, I like you Mo, you’re feisty and you got spunk. That keeps things interesting. But you could tone down the Ad Hominem a bit, it really doesn't contribute much to the conversations. Perhaps you can recommend a good German bier for me to pick up and we can have a cyber-toast while we’re discussing God (or un-God in your case). I always end up liking the Christian wackos too As for beer: Try Erdinger Weissbier if you can get it. I like that. I actually like all kinds of bavarian beer. If only you could ever get to the original Oktober Fest in Munich one day... it's spectacular! Here’s a reply for an earlier post of yours. There might be repetition. Sorry bout that What are you talking about? The gospels themselves are "evidence". You may not find it compelling evidence, and you're certainly free to try to poke holes in that evidence, but it is admissible evidence just the same because they claim to be eyewitness accounts. You may not call it "good" evidence, but that in itself is subjective based on bias. If someone has an experience that agrees with the gospels, then of course they're going to be inclined towards believing them. Hi Chris, there's a lot in this paragraph. 1. You are absolutely right, we gotta deal with the gospel. We have a source and so the source is gotta be heard. Needless to say, that a source doesn't necessarily make the case. We have a lot of sources for other religions too, yet, you claim the Bible source is the true one. Okay. We will have to examine who the authors were, whether they were eyewitnesses or not, what they claim and how these claims fit into the world we can experience with our own senses. D'accord? 2. Whether or not one believes an eyewitness is up to the individual. However, I believe we must be able to agree on a definition of compelling. If a nutter in a pedestrian area tells you that he was abducted by aliens who are going to take over the world with Donald Duck's help, you'll agree that this isn't exactly what we would call compelling evidence. 3. Personal experience counts. But only for the person who had that experience. So far we agree. If you have seen Jesus with your own eyes, not in a dream, but in reality.... congratulation you have a reason to believe. However, I have the impression that most of the personal experiences people bring along, yours included, Chris, haven't got that quality. People are interpreting experiences. They are guessing. You suddenly had the strong feeling that something had been made known to you. I don't know how many times I've heard people speaking like you. Not only in religious matters: A friend you might know because he spent time at your church, told me he knew for certain that God would make his ex-girlfriend return to him really soon. Well that was more than a year ago and she didn't return yet and as far as I understand him, they are totally out of touch. And there are so many other cases. Bottom line: the intuition of a person, even if it goes along with experience isn't the most reliable evidence for the truth. Have you never had an experience where your only evidence was your experience? Did your parents or teachers never accuse you of something you know you didn't do but couldn't prove it? The only thing you had to convince yourself was your experience, even if nobody else could be convinced by it. Surely you have something in your past like that...don't you. Isn't that evidence to you? Of course, but you are comparing apples and pears as we say in Germany. We are talking about the supernatural here. The experience one must have made to know that the Bible is true must be supernatural too. |
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). My poor roommates had to endure the annoying aspects of living with a new believer as well.
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) I assume all this took place in the USA or another mainly Christian Country. So even though you strongly disagreed with Christianity and knew little about it, you must have known some basics and you must have been well aware that the majority of your country believed in Christianity. Already this is enough to let you drop out as a counter example to my “intuition” (an intuition that concerned Steve and Josh only, by the way). 
