I am not expecting anyone to know every reason from the opposition, this would be an impossible task. Especially in America it seems to me that Christianity is seen as represented by the fundamentalists and their arguments are therefor the whole arguments for the christian faith. In Western Europe we don´t really have any fundamentalism but it is common belief that Christianity is solely based on faith alone and has no supporting evidence, so they get to the same conclusion. In either case, when confronted with e.g. historical or philosophical evidence it should at least refute the claim, that there is no (good/sufficient) evidence at all. And I agree with your objection that our believes are based on personal experience, but this case is similar to biases, if you are aware of them, it shoud be easier for you to try to change them.
I do have a problem with that belief as you it would raise to me questions about the teachings of such an action as it would imply a God that shares the materialistic view of humans to declare a fine wine to be more valuable than the water of ritual purification. If it were so, why did John - and why do we still - use water for baptism? To me the water if ritual cleansing is the most valuable drink I can ever receive and if the miracle of understanding this valuable first lesson is missed on us we have no chance to understand Jesus at all. Consider if you were at Canaan that day and you were given this purest of waters that you could get ( the only water allowed into those sacred vessels) with the words to honour the groom for not pretending to be wealthy and stretching the wine but serving the most valuable drink at the end, -the water that was born to become wine- you would have a reason to follow that man. I would not follow a teacher for creating a fake reality to hush up the fact that someone could not afford to buy plenty of wine to entertain as if it was something to be ashamed of (realized how he rebukes his mother about it?) because I do not God that would change reality in line with our materialistic expectations, in fact I would warn people who do follow such an image of God to be careful. Perhaps someone can convince me otherwise and explain why wine should be more valuable than the water of purification. So far nobody has given me a coherent reasoning for it.
In a time were resurrection is a scientific cloning procedure to bring extinct species back to life and virgin birth is a service the NHS offers to same sex couples to have their wish turn flesh we should reconsider how we look at Jesus and his role in our understanding of God and what we believe his story means, e.g. if we want to look at it from the point of view of a materialist or from a theological perspective. Unfortunately those two points of view are incompatible.
To me, understanding Jesus is a miracle in its own right, as is the birth of a child or the love we can feel for one another that is not of the physical kind. Miracles that defy the laws of reality would be incompatible with the God of love and logic that I believe in. If a God puts reality under a law that is not good enough that he would want to obey it himself would deny him omniscience and omnipotence. We have plenty of people here on earth unable to follow their own rules, but we refer to that as a mark of impotence, not omnipotence.
An person that only believes in a thing by having proof for it is clearly having a problem, as it is the proof that terminates a belief by turning it into knowledge. If you form a belief based on proof you would be unable to gain knowledge. Calling oneself a the “brights” is really not advised in such situation, but it would be advisable to check if such incoherent argumentation might be the result of an underlying religiophobia.
It is reason that get’s you places, as without it you cannot sustain a cognitive process. Faith is based on reason as it is based on reasoning evidence, because it is evidence that is the cause for a belief to exist. In that context it is useful to have a logically coherent definition of faith. I suggest:
Faith: to trust in something to be true in the absence of proof.
If people confuse evidence with proof they are clearly not intellectually savvy, let alone understand science, as the only proof we can obtain in science is that something is wrong. All the data that I can gather to substantiate my thesis are evidence for it to be potentially true, not proof. It only needs one experiment to prove me wrong, which is why the most important parts of an experiment are the controls.
Dare to explain how you come to faith without evidence, in fact how you entertain any cognitive process without evidence.
Atheism in its modern form is often based on a position of ignorance, and there is no point to debate those who publicly declare their ignorance. If you claim that you can not believe in God because there is no evidence for God you declare that you dismiss all the evidence that exists, be it witness statements or rational arguments.
For any proposition that has not been proven you have no chance than to either form a belief about and either to believe it to be true or false, or to know what the truth position of the proposition is by means of proof or special revelation. If so you would declare either of the two, but to say that you cannot form a belief about the proposition because there is no evidence for it is a claim of ignorance. To debate someone who declares that they ignore you makes no sense. Best to just give them an ironic comment that you accept their ignorance and pray that they may start to see the unconditional love they experience and for healing from their religiophobia.
You’re still calling atheists ignorant here - which as a blanket statement is a falsehood. There are very well-informed atheists who patiently interact here who have seen and discussed all the evidence believers have on offer. They simply don’t think it sufficiently compelling as evidence. Just as we expect them to respect us here by not always attacking our theism at every turn, so they should be afforded the respect of granting they are every bit as intelligent and informed (or more) than many of the rest of us here.
Wine was often the safest thing to drink back then. And Jesus chose wine to represent His blood.
As I said above the biggest threats to my beliefs come not from science but from religion. But to substantiate this as well as examining how something could be a threat, we just need to examine my list of reasons for believing. Though not all of these reasons are equal, so I will follow this list by giving them a percentage importance.
Next let’s rate these reasons with regards to importance by giving a percentage of how much a failure to satisfy this reason would undermine my belief.
- 90%
- 95%
- 65%
- 50%
- 80%
So let’s take these one by one:
- So if religion decides that the observable physical universe is all there is then I wouldn’t see much point to it. This might seem unlikely except someone on the forum recently suggested this very thing, though I am not entirely sure that this was his intention rather than my misunderstanding.
- I am reminded of a book series, “Repairman Jack” by F. Paul Wilson, which has a rather interesting theology in it. The earth is involved in a fight over territory and the current owner (which it calls the ally) doesn’t care anything about us really except how we might be useful in keeping control of this portion of the universe. I cannot say that such a being would inspire much regard on my part, which is not to say that he wouldn’t have my support as the lesser of two evils. So if a religion pushes a God which isn’t good and thus does not provide us with a faith that existence is even worthwhile, then I would certainly prefer even atheism over a religion like that.
- This is the only one where scientific discovery is even involved. Without quantum physics, it is a bit difficult for me to see the relevance of God and religion to the living of our lives or even the meaningfulness of our lives altogether, frankly. Religion could also contradict this in a number of ways such as seeing the future as already written or in a milder way by insisting on interactions with the supernatural beyond what quantum physics would allow.
- This is very similar to number one. The limitations of logic are hard to ignore, so it seems that the only way of conceiving an alternative has to do with the mundane reasons which are defined by the physical necessities. It is conceivable that a religion might suggest something beyond the observable universe but still doesn’t see anything which give us any more than the mundane requirements of physical life and in that case I wouldn’t see much more value in this religion than in the case of number 1.
- A religion which cannot acknowledge or encompass the diversity of religious beliefs in the world and thus has to look at everyone else as deluded, would tend to look pretty far fetched to me.
Fortunately, unlike science, diversity look like an inherent feature of religion. So in reality, these possibilities for religion just become the criterion by which I would reject them and the beliefs that don’t fit the reasons why I believe or see any value in religion at all.
If we could show empirically that there was no specially created Adam or if we found intelligent aliens.
I don’t believe in God as a separate entity, especially I don’t see any reason to believe in any entity which created every thing out of nothing. But I do believe the perception of God is not beholding to that God having been the creator of physical stuff. I can believe in an entity which communes with us and who, in a sense, creates the possibility of our existence. It has never seemed obvious to me why that to which I should owe my form of existence need also be the author of atoms and neurons. I don’t believe the cosmos is a reflection of any being’s plan and neither do I think it depends on any being’s intention.
But somewhere between the mere existence of the cosmos and the surprising way in which we experience consciousness I can believe there are and have been intermediary forms. We are not alone and we did not create ourselves. That which creates us also sustains us as we haven’t the means to do that ourselves. Compared to the Christian account of God my notion of intermediary forms of consciousness will seem like a very paltry thing. But it is more than nothing and it doesn’t leave me in isolation. I am content.
To me, that is the most disturbing thought on the thread. Why do you feel that your faith is based on a particular interpretation of an ancient document? I have really never understood that position.
Is this a request? Because I don´t advocate any kind a fideism and have no idea where you could possibly get that idea from.
To me this question , in general and not in specifics, gets to a point I was trying to make. I can’t answer for HmanTheChicken, but for me the question has no meaning. Because my faith is truly not based on anything that I can pinpoint. And really, I went trough life as an unbeliever until one day as a 30-something, sitting in a PCA church (there just to make my bride happy) I realized, based on nothing that I could verbalize, that I believed. † So if I say (as I did) that definitive proof of a parallel universe would shatter my faith, I don’t think that really means the same thing (although very close) as “my faith is based on there being only one universe.” There is a nuance there that I’m not clever enough to put into words. It is closer to: “My world view would take such a big hit that I would find myself without purchase.”
I probably muddled my point rather than clarifying. Sorry.
† This has often caused me to quip, to the annoyance of many, that the existence of my faith indicates (to me) that either that my beloved Calvinism is correct, or I’m insane. Because I have no other explanation.
No! There is no “scientific” method OR statistical to test for the existence of God and no human way to understand God’s nature even if there is a God.
Statistically, the universe seems to be a-moral and not directed.
That actually makes sense, David. I think we all have times when we have doubts, and whether you call it a crisis of faith, or an existential crisis, it can be a painful and difficult experience. I think what you are saying makes sense, but also think we can “peel the onion” and ultimately as the song says," My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness."
Thanks.The water of ritual purification would have been the safest water you could get in you understand the requirements for it. When it came to that water one could think if early manifestation of OCD with cleanliness, but then they did know quite a bit about hygiene. It could only be taken from the cleanest of wells. They even were aware that you had to use jars carved out of stone, not pottery, as to reduce the risk of spoilage by biofilms that form in the pottery due to it’s open pores.
The reason why Jesus chose wine to resemble his blood should be clear from the passover rite where the wine has not a role of representing a value but to remember the passover blood of the lambs to spare the jews from the death by the promise of the Lord.
you said : " In Western Europe we don´t really have any fundamentalism but it is common belief that Christianity is solely based on faith alone and has no supporting evidence, so they get to the same conclusion."
without hinting at the incoherence of such a belief, however common it might be.
Oh now I get it, but I was hinting on the reason for atheism most commonly offered. The people here are mostly not aware of the historical evidences and philosophical arguments for Christianity which is why it is common belief that religion is based on intuition and faith alone (Of course I don´t agree in any kind with this assumption and think that our faith is built on strong evidence). I´m convinced that the opposition towards Christianity here would get a lot smaller, if people would get aware of it, but I have to blame the silent churches here too, since they don´t act against the notion that religion and particularly Christianity is a relict of the past.
Ignorance is a matter of will, not a matter of intelligence and we all fall for it because of our pride and sinful nature. For what I would describe as populist atheists it is mainly a question of religiophobia, as they fail to engage based on the misconception that belief is a process based on the absence of evidence, a statement preached to the young atheists by their disciples Dawkins and Co. They are at their best when they describe religious beliefs as “bronze age thinking” and describe the bible authors and the people of their time as “primitive goat herders” as an expression of their religiophobia - or bigotry. It is a blessing if you find some that engage in serious debate as it is an enrichment for both parties.
I always have to smile when people laugh about those primitive goat herders and particularly geneticist who claim them to be so stupid that they believed the pattern on the sheep would be transferred by the striped pattern of the rods they were exposed to whilst mating. Jacob was a top breeder and knew exactly what ram he let cover the ewes when they came to the water. To partially debark the rods is a great trick to mark the sheep that lean against them and the sticky zap you exposed them to, thus allowing you to sort them later by the pattern on their chest according to the ram they have been mated with. In modern day farming we catch the ram and put a colour waddle on him to mark the rear of the sheep which they cover because we don’t have the time to observe them by the water hole.
However the brights are just bound to fall over their own pride. They are so easy to be made look like fools for not understanding the text by those “primitive goat herders” 
and so are those fundamentalists who insist on the bark causing epigenetic colour changes and the likes. Guess the simplicity of the story is far to obvious once you debarked some of those branches and try to get rid of the sticky zap
I mentioned it because I read an article about water in biblical times in Scientific American. What are open pores in pottery? Pottery is water-tight and safe if fired and glazed correctly.
whilst the first glazed ceramic tiles appeared in Mesopotamia the first fired vessels appear in the first century BC so at the time of Jesus they were still scarce and really came into prominence in the roman empire in the first century. That is why they still used those stone jars at the time.
Being a nomadic society with goats and sheep they would already have experienced cryptosporidium if drinking the unclean water, so they know wer safe water came from - and how scarce and valuable it was.
Pottery that hasn’t been fired is useless-- it is just dried clay.