Talking to a friend the other day, I don’t understand why Christians feel like they have to deny every miracle or spiritual thing that happens in another religion. Nothing wrong with being skeptical, but as I’m slowly developing/evolving my beliefs, I’m learning that miracles and spiritual expierences in other religions don’t have to make me question my faith but rather really bolster the claim of a transcendent/ spiritual realm overall. For goodness sake, who are we to deny if God want to answer a prayer of a Hindu or a Muslim? It could be demons and that’s a answer my friend also suggested, but it could be God doing God things and I’m okay with that.
Also wanted to respond to this. Yeah I totally agree in any time and place, having a dead person come back to life on its own would be heavily scrutinized in any culture. I think though that the 1st century Jews would at least be familiar with some variety of miracles found in the OT that might have helped them reconcile with Jesus’ miracles. On the other hand, I think in modern times there would be much skepticism across of anything miraculous Jesus would have done. Even as @T_aquaticus said that Christians would be skeptical of other faith claims of miracles and divine action, would we really be any less skeptical as modern people if Jesus showed up for the first time in the 21st century? I think the 1st century Jews knew what they were looking for and I don’t know how translatable would that be to all cultures without us having hindsight of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
I agree completely. I just think the literalists will revert to demons because these people have not accepted Jesus. Personally, I think of religions as ways that bridge between humans and the divine. I think some are more doctrinally accurate than others and some are more moral than others, but crossing that bridge is the important thing. I can’t read Romans 1 or metaphysical arguments for God’s existence and think God is not everywhere. “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet!”
For the (Biblical) record … Jesus did all sorts of miracles for people who “had not accepted him” (much less even knew who he was, apart from the wildfire rumors that “hey - this guy has cured people!”). And his biggest miracles, far from being some sort of supernatural “magic show” for the skeptics, were the transformed lives of his disciples, even while they were still in the throes of learning who he really is, and maybe even more importantly, unlearning what the Messiah is not.
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T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
24
Good point. I think of myself as being reflexively skeptical in a healthy sense. I am skeptical that people have sighted flying craft piloted by aliens, but I would also love to be proven wrong. I have also found that it is really hard to believe in something I don’t believe in without some compelling reason to change my mind.
That is a good example as I dismiss alien piloted UFOs out of hand on account of space being so big and wondering why an advanced civilization with the technology to actually get here is 1) hiding in the clouds or 2) incompetent enough to be seen. I like having my students calculate how long it would take them to get to light speed if they could accelerate constantly at something reasonable for the human body to handle in short doses. I’m at the point where I don’t even entertain the evidence for ufos. Military, drone or swamps reflecting off a weather balloon I suspect some people are that way with my religious beliefs.
Vinnie
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T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
26
Note: the following not meant to dispute the miracles in the Bible . . .
A while back I went down the sleight of hand YouTube rabbit hole. Learning how card tricks were done was pretty cool, and it made me understand how skilled these people are. One video I remember had a card magician performing magic for random people on the street in Romania or Bulgaria, somewhere in central Europe. One woman actually got mad when the magician started to perform because she thought what he was doing was demonic. That was a real eye opener for me. Like any normal human being, I projected my own beliefs of what is and isn’t supernatural and just assumed others see it that way, but (unsurprisingly) that’s not always the case. It may be that we don’t fully appreciate how different our Western worldview may be from how people in ancient times viewed things.
It’s intrinsic to being able to feel. Allowing is meaningless. The most emotionally persuasive, rhetorical, feature of Christianity is the suffering of God incarnate.
I don’t see how you can rationally compare the time Jesus came with any later time since all later times we know are a creation of those events. Besides… isn’t the sane question one of asking the need for any delay?
So there is only the question of why wasn’t any previous time better. But then doesn’t any proposed previous time imply that the previous events in the Bible have no significance? I have a hard time believing that. I would also suggest the answer is right there in the events which the Bible describe to us showing us why mankind wasn’t ready yet. After all, isn’t the whole history of the Bible basically a history of failure of people to have faith?
There are people who have strong faith, people who have misguided faith, and people who struggle with faith. The whole point is that faith in God is not a simple matter, nor is it obvious. The Bible does not always distinguish between what people perceive and understand and what actually happened and whether God did it. There is a learning curve about our knowledge and understanding of God, and a learning curve about human religion.
Yes, the Old Testament is a prerequisite for Christ and the New Testament, but Christ Himself only scratched the surface of it.(Because He was dealing with common people not theologians)
If someone wants to critique the Christian position, then I suggest they critique the Christian position, and that means addressing it on its own terms, as opposed to a caricature of it. I’d suspect you would want the same of someone critiquing or commenting on atheism.
And atheism truly offers no hope to people who are dying/have died of cancer or people who are abused their entire life or any justice for these victims or malicious people who spend their whole life stepping on others. None for them and really none for their families. That is not to say atheists cannot fight these injustices in life, or seek careers in medical fields aimed at alleviating pain, but the philosophy as a whole is “tough luck” at the very end. That is just a brute fact and it is an ugly one, true or not. These critiques people like Gary level at God in lieu of suffering really amount to nothing when their own belief is that an eternity of nothingness is the final result for everyone and no wrongs will be redressed.
Would you say there is no scientific position on evolution because a small handful of scientists disagree? I’m not interested in frivolous nitpicking.
The vast majority of all Christians, starting with Christ himself and the very earliest Church after His death, have always believed in an afterlife. There are certainly differing views on the what and when and hell but it’s silly to say there is no Christian position on an afterlife. There most certainly is one with some diversity.
So afterlife is the alternative to atheism. If you say so. I’m amazed that there are Christian Sadducees. Somewhat less likely than atheists, like Buddhists, who believe in afterlife. Are they silly?
Edited what? You haven’t edited either of the extracts I objected to. They are still caricatures.
It is. Gary is not levelling critiques at God. He is levelling critiques at the idea of God and the people who hold to it.
My input is that atheism is a rejection of religion, not a replacement for it, and should not be expected to offer anything to anyone. Complaining that atheism offers no hope for people with cancer is like complaining that people who don’t support a football team have nothing to do at the weekend. Focussing on what atheists don’t believe and don’t do is missing the point. Look at what they do think and do do instead.
As for ugly brute facts, how ugly is it to give some-one who is suffering false hope? How many people have died because they forsook medical treatment in lieu of prayer? How many people have wasted the only life they have ‘preparing’ for a non-existent eternity? How many people have either not been helped or have been actively harmed because of a belief that they would have a life beyond this one?
What you call an ‘ugly brute fact’ is what atheists call not avoiding reality.
I suspect some people are that way with my religious beliefs.