Faith-killing questions from the trenches, and answers
Top 10 Reasons to Not Be a Christian
Q & A Session Audio
- “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
- “The Jesus story just is an accumulation of myths of legendary people, all rolled into one über nice guy.”
- “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. Separate realms that should be kept separate.”
- “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
- “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300AD.”
- “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a nice rabbi named Jesus into a god.”
- “Evolution disproves God.”
- “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
- “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
- “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”
This story starts with my brother Bryan, a tough-questions seminary student. He got a Masters degree in theology at a very conservative seminary where they work them real good, and he toed the line and he learned all the stuff that he’s supposed to learn, and he moved to China.
He’s in China for a couple of years and he basically turned into an agnostic and came within spitting distance of becoming an atheist, which really shook me up.
Bryan is a very smart guy, and one of the questions that he asked was this.
He goes, “Okay, Perry, I’ve been to seminary. I know Greek, I know Hebrew, I know Aramaic, and when I read the New Testament I do not see any reason whatsoever from the text why we should not have miracles today. So where are they?
1. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
And I’m like, “Uh…let me ask my sales manager and get back to you.” I hate it when people ask ‘elephant in the room’ questions.
Now, if you’ve been in any strand of Christianity for any length of time, you will encounter miracle stories. For example, “We prayed for my sister Debbie and she had cancer, and all of a sudden she didn’t have cancer anymore.”
Every now and then, I don’t care where you are in Christianity, you will hear those. I’ve heard a few of them, but I was in very short supply of such stories and I hadn’t thought about it much. I had always been taught that those miracles went away and they either don’t exist anymore, or at least never happen “on command.”
And Bryan’s cutting to the chase; he’s like, “Well, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t.” And I knew he was right. So what’s the deal? Let’s start in on this.
I went looking and I’ll teII you that one interesting book that I found along the way was by Richard Casdorph, who is a medical doctor. He wrote a book in the 1970s called Real Miracles. This is an older version of the book. It’s called, The Miracles – A Medical Doctor Says Yes to Miracles.
What this guy did was there was this lady back in the 1970s named Catherine Kuhlman and she would do these healing services. He followed her around and he documented what happened to these people. He documented the “before” and the “after” and he did so with X-rays, medical reports, letters from doctors, all of that kind of stuff. This book is 10 case studies. I’ll tell you what some of the chapter names are:
- Malignant Brain Tumor
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Atherosclerotic Heart Disease
- Carcinoma of the Kidney
- Mixed Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis
And he goes through, one by one, with X-rays, doctor’s reports and everything and says, “This guy had this before and it’s gone now. Here’s the X-ray, here’s the letter from the doctor, and there it is.” This is not by any means the only such book, but they exist.
Another example of this is God and The Sun at Fatima. Catholics will know what Fatima is (probably most Protestants won’t) but I think back somewhere around 1913, just before World War I, some children were playing and they had a vision of the Virgin Mary. She said that something really amazing is going to happen here at this certain date and they told everybody. Everybody showed up and they all saw it.
This book is by Stanley Jaki, who is a physicist and a Catholic priest and a science historian. He goes into 360 pages of interviewing people and documenting all this. This is as close as you can get to a scientific investigation of a miracle.
Another book that I ran across that I found real interesting that isn’t really about miracles but is about the metaphysical world is called Margins of Reality, by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne.
They worked at the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Lab. The lab was closed in 2007, but for almost 30 years there was a lab at Princeton and they would investigate paranormal phenomena. And they proved to five 9’s of statistical confidence (that’s almost six Sigma) that people could deflect falling objects by concentrating. They proved that they could send and receive telepathic messages.
Now, most of the scientific community does not know what to do with this stuff. It freaks them out, but it’s there. This is a fascinating book. So I started investigating this, and I also started looking for personal experiences.
A couple of years ago I was in India with my friend, Jeremy. He has spent a lot of time doing healing and practicing Biblical healing. We were at a little church service and Jeremy goes up to the pastor and says, “Tell these people that if they want healing prayer at the end of the service, I’ll pray for them.” So the pastor tells all the people and everyone was like, “Well, okay, I’ll go over there!”
Jeremy was like, “Perry, Perry, come over here and help me!” I’d never done this before. There was a woman whose whole left arm was paralyzed. She had had brain surgery a year and a half before. She had an indentation in her head from the surgery. She had been having seizures ever since the surgery and she had no feeling in her left arm. She wanted us to pray for her.
So Jeremy’s like, “Okay, Perry, start praising God, start praying for this lady!”
I’m like, “Okay, me Robin, you Batman, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do,” and we started praying. He would poke her on the hand – “Can you feel that?”
“No, can’t feel that.”
He’d pray some more and ask, “Can you feel that?”
“I’m starting to feel something!” So he would pray some more and at the end of 20 minutes, all the feeling was back in her left arm. She was so excited, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
A guy came in with a broken wrist, holding it like that; by the end, he was jumping up and down, he was so excited.
There was another lady who had a severe shoulder injury and she couldn’t move her shoulder past about here. I put my arm on her shoulder and I could feel this crunching going on in her shoulder and we prayed for her for about 30 minutes. The crunching was all gone and she was moving her shoulder and she was all excited.
Then I go home and I’m like, “I wonder if this actually stuck. I wonder if it did.” So I emailed this guy and I asked him, “How are these people doing, anyway?”
He said, “In the glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Mr. Perry Marshall, I am so excited to tell you, they are telling everybody they can’t wait for you to come back!”
I said, “Wow, this is great!”
Now, I’ve got to cover 10 of these things in 50 minutes, which is kind of insane, so I don’t have time to go any more. The church that I attend, a Vineyard Church, we practice this.
I of all people know what it’s like to sit here and pray for someone and go, “I feel really stupid! What if this doesn’t work?” You know, sometimes there’s no obvious result, but sometimes there is. You know what? It’s less risky than going to the emergency room.
I have a few friends who actually go to the emergency room every Tuesday night and they pray for people, and trippy stuff happens sometimes. If you want to read some more of these stories, go here. You can read the whole India story in more detail.
This brings up another thing. You know a lot of the people talk about Christians living by faith. Well, I totally understand and agree with that, but I also think that as you mature as a Christian, you live more and more by experience. That faith leads to results which gives you experience, and there’s kind of an upwards spiral and it’s not just like, “Well, you know, life is miserable, but by and by in the sky, someday God’s going to make the world a better place.”
No, it can be now. I think the Kingdom of God is now. I think a lot of Christians kind of have this, “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the higher gifts, and I guess the question that I’d like to raise for people that want to take that approach is, well, if we took the New Testament and took all of the miracle stories out, what would we have left?
I think my brother was right. I don’t see any place in this book that says these miracles are supposed to stop. There’s a little challenge for you on that.
Note: For more information on documented healing events, see my extensive article on miracles which includes videos of live healings taking place, links to mainstream media coverage and recent reports in scientific journals. Read and watch here.
2. “The Jesus story is just an accumulation of myths of a legendary people, all rolled into one über-nice guy.
Let me expand on that a little bit. People say, “The God and the Jesus that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a virgin birth, a burial in a rock tomb, a resurrection after three days, eating a body, drinking blood, had nothing to do with Jesus.
“All those things were already in other myths and legends before that, so they just took them all and they kind of rolled them into these Jesus stories. So Christianity is a snowball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions and as the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts.”
By the way, I got this verbatim from an email that a guy sent me, so I just went and fished one up, and there you go. This is a very common thing. Well, I would like to reduce this to a question, so let’s look at the logical question behind the question.
I think the question is this:
“If a myth precedes a fact, does that make the fact a myth? Does it logically follow?”
Well, let’s take 9/11 as an example. On 9/11/01, as we all know, two planes flew into the Twin Towers. The Last Jihad by Joel Rosenberg, on the first page puts readers into the cockpit of a hijacked jet, on a kamikaze mission into an American city, but it was written nine months before 9/11.
Does that make 9/11 a myth? Or how about Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy. 1996 – a Japanese 747 crashes into the Capitol, killing most of the top functionaries in the U.S. government.
Or here’s a good one – The Lone Gunman TV series. The pilot episode was about an attempt to crash an airliner into the World Trade Center. It was a government conspiracy to increase defense spending by making it look like a terrorist attack. It aired in March 2001.
So the next time someone tells you that Jesus was a myth, ask them this question: “Name one other resurrection story that stuck. Just one.” I don’t know of any. I think there’s a reason for that.
3. “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. They are separate realms that should be kept separate.”
I’ll tell you a little story. Back in the early 20th century there was a great deal of optimism in the mathematical profession that we were closing in on a theory of everything. What mathematicians were looking for was a set of constructions that made all of the propositions of mathematics form a nice, tidy, complete circle.
Let me explain what I mean by this. How many of you took high school geometry and it was stuff like, “This triangle has three equal sides; therefore, it is an Equilateral triangle.” And then you do all these proofs and you work all this logic from it.
Well, if you take that high school geometry book, there are always four or five things that the book starts with as premises that everybody knows are true but no mathematician has ever been able to prove are true.
For example, “We know this is true, no one has ever been able to prove it. We know it’s true because it works and it’s all consistent, but we can’t prove it.” And they were like, “Someday we’re gonna prove it!”
Well, in 1931 a guy named Kurt Gödel proved that it would never happen. And actually, I think that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is just as important as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Most people have never heard of it, but let me explain what his Incompleteness Theorem says.
This is the kindergarten version. It says, “Anything you can draw a circle around requires something on the outside to explain it, which you cannot prove.” This applies to everything. It applies to a bicycle; if you build a bicycle, the fact that it’s there relies on something outside of the bicycle.
It’s true of a geometry book, a software program, the English language, or the universe. Gödel’s Theorem was a crushing blow to mathematicians. It was as if they realized, “You mean, we’re never going to make everything flow into a perfect circle?” No. Can’t be done.
Actually, the universe is like an MC Escher painting where you climb up the steps and all of a sudden you’re at the bottom again. There’s a book called Gödel Escher Bach, which takes Gödel’s Theorem, Escher’s paintings, and Bach’s music and shows how they’re all basically the same.
For instance, in Bach’s music the notes escalate and they go up and up and somehow all of a sudden it starts with bass notes again and you didn’t even notice. What does this have to do with the question, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking”?
Gödel’s Theorem says that you cannot do science without faith; it’s impossible. You start with a fact – “I know this because of this, and I know this because of this,” you always go back to some fact that you can’t prove.
Now, what does science do? Science says, “If I drop this cup from my hand onto the ground, it’s going to fall every time. Only past experience shows that to be true. I cannot prove that it’s going to fall again. I always have to rely on some assumption that I can’t prove in science.”
One little extra thing I want to throw in here; the statement that, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking, separate ways of thinking that should be kept separate,” is that a scientific statement?
No, it’s a philosophical statement.
Even a statement about keeping science and philosophy separate requires philosophy. And the statement itself presumes that philosophy gets to say something about science.
That’s exactly what Gödel was talking about.
I’ve written a much more thorough treatment of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem here: http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/incompleteness/
4. “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
I want you to think about something:
Where did science come from?
If you study the history of science, you’ll find out that it got started in Greece and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in Rome and it fizzled out and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in ancient Egypt and in China – didn’t really go anywhere there either. It got started in Islam, and every time in those places, it stalled.
Why did it succeed in Europe after failing everywhere else? We all know it launched there and took off like a rocket.
Here’s why I think it happened. In the Apocrypha, the part of the Bible that the Catholics read and the Protestants don’t, Wisdom of Solomon 11:21 says:
“Thou hast ordered all things in weight and number and measure.”
I submit to you that this verse is where science started. That all things are weigh-able, measurable and countable. That there’s a systematic explanation for what goes on in the universe. So far as I know, no one else in the ancient world made a more definite statement about science than Solomon did right here.
Western Christianity believed that the universe was governed by fixed, discoverable laws, and that’s what gave birth to science. The reason that science succeeded in the West and failed in all those other places was that in all those other places, there was no theological basis to believe this.
If you believe that it rained today because Zeus is in a snit with Apollo, how are you going to come up with a systematic explanation that doesn’t invoke some kind of arbitrary, whimsical source?
Christian theology believed that God could create the world and then on the seventh day that He could rest and the universe would continue to do what He told it to do. Therefore, the great scientists viewed the study of science as a way of studying the mind of God.
I would rewrite the question to say this: “The history of science is a story of faith in a harmonious universe being rewarded in weight, number, and measure.”
1,000 years ago you couldn’t take that for granted. Now we all take it for granted, because we figured it out.
5. “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300 AD.”
People make a lot out of this. Constantine got everybody together and they hammered out what they agreed was going to be the Bible. “You know, we just don’t buy these books, we’re going to keep them.” A lot of people have this idea that this is when the Bible that we have today came to exist.
I want to show you a book that will correct that notion. This is called Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens. I have to mention here that this is another Catholic book. I was raised Protestant. I was a preacher’s kid. We were uber-studious Protestants. We took ourselves real seriously. Some of you know what I’m talking about – “Oh, that kind…starchy!”
We thought that Catholics were bad people. You know, “Go tell them how bad they are!” Well, then I grew up and my brother-in-law, Alan, studies church history. He gets a Ph.D. in church history at Iowa State, not some conservative place.
He went to Iowa State because they had the biggest and best library he could find on church history.
It turned out that most of his professors were atheists. To get a dissertation pushed through these guys was a Herculean task. But he and I would talk about theological stuff, and it was kind of funny because every time I would raise some theological question, he would always say something like, “Well, yeah, the first people to probe that question in detail were the monks in Western Italy in 800 AD and what they said was…” and he’d go off on something.
Anything you could come up with, someone had already thought about it and written about 1,200 books on it. I thought Christianity started all over again with Martin Luther after this burned-out period…oh, come on! Heavens, no.
So this is a Catholic book. I have great respect for Catholics and Catholic theologians and all that. I know somebody will probably want to get in a fist fight about that with me at the end, but I’m telling you anyway.
This book is a collection of all of the earliest writings, and actually there’s three of them. I just brought the first one. It starts at about 80 AD and it’s letters from all these guys that ran churches. Letters from pastors to their congregations, and letters to disciples from their mentors, and it ends somewhere around St. Hilaire of Poitier and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. I don’t know what year this was, probably about 400-500 AD, and it starts at 80.
It goes in order, so you can read 80 AD and then you can read 110 AD and then you can read 125 AD and 300 AD and so forth. In every chapter there are footnotes of the Bible verses they’re quoting. It’s exactly the same.
Pastor Bill Hybels at Willow Creek could use this to preach a sermon out of any page in this book and it would be just fine. It would be scriptural and it would be original Christianity, no different than we have today. Most of these early letters sound an awful lot like the New Testament letters that Paul wrote.
Anyone that tells you that Christianity started in 300 AD is just as ridiculous as saying it started in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door.
6. “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a rabbi named Jesus into God. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were just later fabrications.”
Obviously, the book that I just talked to you about does speak to that, because you can go all the way back to 80 AD and you have a whole body of literature that’s already telling a consistent story.
What’s usually said is that Paul wrote his letters in 40-50 AD and the Gospels were written in 60 – 90 AD and that’s too long. All of these myths would have accrued, so yes, Jesus was probably just this radical guy and he had these radical teachings and then they wanted him to be God and so they made the story about Him being God, and the people were so desperate and oppressed by the Romans that they found it believable – well, let’s do a comparison.
Paul Tibbetts was the pilot of the Enola Gay, which was the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He wrote a book in 1998, shortly before he died, called Return of the Enola Gay. How many years after 1945 is that? Fifty-three years after the bomb was dropped.
I found this book at my father-in-law’s house because he’s into World War II. You go over there and he always has The History Channel on. I started thumbing through this book, and the reason Tibbetts wrote the book was to correct revisionist history.
Revisionist history said, “If we had just been a little nicer to the Japanese, we should have just gone over there and talked to them, and they would’ve…”
Tibbetts is saying, “No! Let’s get this straight.” He goes into extensive detail about the political situation and all this stuff that was going on behind the scenes. He tells what it was like to get in that plane, what it was like to let the bomb loose and go into a 135 degree angle and feel the shock wave from the bomb and the brilliant flash of light and think, “Oh my word, what did I just do?” and all that.
Now, does anybody doubt that his autobiography tells you more or less accurately what happened? Is anybody going to reasonably doubt that he doesn’t remember what happened, 53 years later? I don’t think so!
So if Jesus died in 33, what’s 53 years out from 33 – isn’t that 86? That’s like getting to the outside limit of when they said the Gospels were written.
Is there any reason to think that the Gospels were any less reliable?
Considering there are four of them and considering they don’t all perfectly line up or quote everybody verbatim the same way, they don’t all tell stories the same way – four independent accounts – can anyone reasonably think that the Gospels are any less reliable than his story? I don’t think so.
And if you compare it to other things in history, a lot of those things were written even further after the fact than that. I would like to point to the consistency of early teachings about Jesus and raise the question: Why do substantially different teachings about Jesus only appear after 150-200 years? Isn’t that kind of what you would expect?
I rest my case.
7. “Evolution disproves God.”
That’s a good one. I like that one. I have a question for you. Who knows what that is? DOS – how many of you have used DOS somewhere in your early childhood? This is a screenshot of DOS 3.0, 3.3, which is about 1985. You all remember DOS:
C:> dir
C:> dir /w
C:> format c:
When you tried to format the hard drive, did it say “Are you sure?” I don’t remember. Early versions did.
Now here we have Windows XP with Internet Explorer, which is about 2005. Let me ask you a question: let’s say that DOS never got modified by the guys in Redmond, Washington and it evolved into Windows XP all by itself.
Imagine that DOS adapted, that it had a capability built in to where it would sense that it needed an Internet connection and it needed a web browser and it needed Outlook, and that it needed a mouse and updates and antivirus software. And let’s say that it would rearrange its code and then test different versions with some version of natural selection until the pieces started to work.
Did that happen? No. If DOS had actually evolved all by itself, off without any exterior tampering, tinkering or code writing from any software engineers, and it had just done that, would you be more or less impressed with the person who wrote the first DOS program?
You would go, “How did you do that?” You could go to China and for $2 you can buy a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of Windows. All those versions, especially the ones in China, they don’t have the little 3D thing on them. It’s grey and it has Magic Marker on it ‘Windows XP’.
Now, the copies of copies of copies of copies, they all had mutations, didn’t they? And the marketplace had a chance to select them. Does anyone know of copies of Windows that were better because of the mutations?
No.
Now, I just tried to apply the usual theory of evolution to DOS and everybody got a chuckle out of it. First of all, everything that evolves that we have any experience with, evolves because of some ability to do so or some kind of design or something acting upon it.
At the very least, if we’re going to even imagine that DOS could have evolved into Windows XP, we have to imagine that it has some kind of special program inside that’s ready and willing to rearrange all the pieces.
You know what? I am totally open to the possibility that God planted a cell in the ocean and that cell had some kind of magnificent program that could eventually evolve into everything that’s on Planet Earth. I am open to that.
And if that happened, then God is even more impressive than the version of God that says, “Well, OK, now we need apes, so let’s put an ape there, and now we need people, so let’s put a person there..”
I’m not trying to get into some debate about Genesis 1; this is simply an engineering argument. If evolution is true, then God is even more impressive than they thought God was before anyone thought of evolution!
8. “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
Let’s get the most riling questions out on the table. I want to point some scriptures out to you. Little things are kind of tucked in there that are easy to miss.
John 15:22 – Jesus says, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.” Hmm, that’s interesting.
Luke 11:30 – Jesus said, “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom and now one greater than Solomon is here.”
Let’s look at this again. “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them” – so what does this tell you about judgment? This isn’t like some cowering guy staring at God, getting pounded; this is anybody who has anything to say about what he knew, didn’t know, did and what he did not do, and what they did perhaps in a comparable situation.
Let’s look at this one. Matthew 11:21 – “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
Well? That’s a statement about two people, now, isn’t it? “Tyre and Sidon would have believed if they had Me.” Do you think that gets taken into consideration? I think so.
Acts 17:29 – Paul refers to idol worship and he says, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.”
Now, this always comes up, somebody always says, “Well, what about the guy in Africa that never heard about Jesus?” They’re like, “I have to get this guy figured out before I decide if I’m going to go for this Jesus thing. I’m not sure if this is fair. I think this is all a setup. What about all these people?”
Here’s my concern: If you’re that guy, I’m not real worried about him. Not that the missionaries shouldn’t go talk to him and all that. In the Great Commission – “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” – God told us to do that for a reason.
This is just my opinion, but I suspect that guy in Africa, he has no missionary, Bible, or anything, I think if he looks up in the sky and goes, “Somebody made all this, whoever You are, I’d like to know you,” I think God can respect that prayer.
What I’m concerned about is that guy will rise up in the judgment and testify against the guy who used him as an excuse. If you look at all of these verses, the theme is, “Hey, guys, you knew an awful lot. What did you do with it?”
“If Tyre and Sidon had seen what you have seen, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” The people he was talking to saw a lot. They saw the dead raised, they saw the blind see.
9. “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
I’m going to take an interesting approach with this. I brought with me three different versions of the Bible. I’ve got a King James New Testament, a New Living Translation Bible and a New American Standard. I could have brought an NIV, but all you guys probably have one, because that’s kind of the popular Bible translation.
Do they all read the same? No.
I had to sign this thing before I came that I understood that Willow Creek has a doctrinal statement. One of the things in the thing that I had to sign was that I understand that Willow Creek says that the scriptures are inerrant in their original writings. That’s a very common thing that you’ll find in the Protestant church, that scriptures are inerrant in their original writings.
Do we have the originals? No. What we have are thousands of Greek manuscripts and there are slight differences with some of them. You could make a whole little tree of this copying error and that. You could put it all together and we could open all three of these Bibles up to John 5 or Ezekiel 34 or Revelation 12 or any book and we could read them side by side.
And rather than getting 12 decimal places of precision, I think what we get is more like there’s an outer edge on one side or the other on how you can interpret something, and then there’s something sort of in the middle.
Maybe the King James seems to be here and maybe the NIV seems to be here, and maybe the Catholic Bible seems to be here. But they’re all kind of within this range of variation. So there’s some wiggle room, not like 12 decimals of precision, but more like maybe two.
No matter what Bible you read, did Jesus rise from the dead in all of them? Is adultery a sin in all of them? Is it not all right to lie, cheat, and steal in all of them? Is there a debate between predestination and free will in all of them? Yes.
I had this realization one day; “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t have to sit here and nitpick every last verse that some skeptic wants to pick a fight with me about and make me explain everything that doesn’t quite seem to fit together, because you know what? This is like a puzzle that you’re trying to put together and some of the edges are fuzzy and I can’t put it perfectly together. And that’s all right.”
I was emailing back and forth with an atheist and he’s quibbling about the different tomb stories of the Resurrection. I don’t think they contradict each other, but in order to make them fit, you have to make a couple of assumptions before they fit.
He’s trying to duke it out and I said, “I don’t feel like defending the idea that the Bible is infallible. I’ll just say for today that I have four stories that were pretty close! So what do you think?”
He didn’t know what to do.
I said, “Well, Jesus died on the cross, you are a sinner, God created the world, 12 disciples went out and preached. The story’s pretty clear. How many of these little nit picky things from the New Testament that you brought up because you found them on some website do you have to get all straight before you get the big picture here?”
Try this on for size; the Bible is the word of God with a lower case w. But if we’re going to use a capital W, what is the Word of God? Jesus! Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is the written testimony, inspired by the Holy Spirit, testifying to the Word of God. There’s a verse that says, “No one can confess Jesus Christ is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit.”
Let’s not put the Bible above the Holy Spirit.
You realize if you want to sort out all those puzzle pieces, you need the Holy Spirit to help you do it. And a person who does not have the Holy Spirit is not even going to be willing to do that. That’s why they’re arguing with you.
So when I get in these debates, I say, “Let’s just assume that this is like any other piece of history. Someone wrote it down as best they could, and here we have it. Let’s make a judgment from what’s in front of us. So what do you think?”
Did they just make all this up? Like perhaps, Jesus didn’t really die; they pried him off the cross and he was almost dead and then he was in the tomb, and people in the Middle East had these clever ways of reviving almost dead people and then he popped out. He looked so good, he looked like Superman, and everybody said, “Wow! You’re the Son of God!” Yeah, that’s what happened! Sure, that’s what happened!
Guys that are pulled off crosses when they’re almost dead always inspire people three days later to like change the world! That’s what happened!
Sorry, I’m getting a little sidetracked… here’s a fun one:
10. “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”
Let me show you a book, called The Black Book of Communism. How many of you think this is cheery? Oh, yeah, if you’re feeling a little too good today, just read this one. This book documents the genocide of 160 million people in the 20th century alone – mostly by atheist governments.
Remember the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao? Well, that was a great period in China’s history, wasn’t it? How about Stalin? Oh boy, Stalin loved children. Yep, that guy just loved puppy dogs and children. He was such a nice man. 160 million people! Do you realize that’s more people than all the religious wars of the whole history of the world put together?
Some people say, “Well, it was just a coincidence that they were atheists.” All right, well, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but there does seem to be a correlation. Let’s recognize the question behind the question.
First of all, I don’t think you can overstate just how dangerous a worldview atheism actually is. I’m sure there are atheists here, and I’m glad that you’re here and you’re welcome.
When my brother slid into his faith crisis, I wanted to argue with him and he wouldn’t; and I’m not sure that would have been the healthiest thing if we had argued. I think it was probably a good idea that he declined, but I was ready to go. In truth, he was dragging me with him. I was scared because he was raising all kinds of questions.
I started going to Willow Creek 15 years ago and I started leading Seeker Small Groups. Those groups are where people who do not necessarily believe the Bible or Christianity get together at a table, and so every other Sunday for a couple of years I got seekers in there pummeling me with questions, and I thought I’d heard everything. Well, when Bryan and the Internet came along, I had no longer seen everything!
It was intense. Bryan was asking all kinds of penetrating questions and I was going to all these websites and it was like walking into machine gun fire. One of the things that I did was decide that I had to duke this out. So I started this website, www.CoffeehouseTheology.com, and it has emails that you can sign up for and see what it’s all about, if you like. If people replied to the emails, the emails came back to me.
The reason I did that was that I wanted to know if enough people came through the website and sent me emails, if Christianity cannot stand up to the test, I was going to find out! I decided that I was going to take everyone on and I was going to see if someone can punch a hole in this thing. And there were some scary moments. I was like, “Oh my goodness, these are big questions!”
I probably answered 10,000 emails during the last 6 years. There have been a LOT of people and a lot of conversations. The first thing I’ll tell you is that nobody’s punched a hole in Christianity. I think it stands up very well. If you have a question, there’s a book or website or something that has a good answer to it.
Here’s the other thing; nobody comes out swinging like the new breed of atheist like followers of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and all of those guys. These guys are furious! People talk about Muslims being extreme? Well, I get emails from a lot of Muslims and none of them come out swinging like the atheists do. They’re angry. And Richard Dawkins says things like, “Teaching your children that there is a God who would reward or punish you, people that do that are worse than child molesters.” That’s what he says.
It’s a war. What’s the track record? 160 million dead people. Now, this is not a battle of guns, because the pen is mightier than the sword. This is a battle of the pen. This is a battle of truth and belief systems. I think Christians have a moral obligation to know what’s going on, because if you don’t know what’s going on, you’ll get picked off by a skeptic.
The reason we have science today is because Christianity said there is a logical rational universe that was designed by an intelligent Creator. And the reason we have democracy is because Paul said, “There is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free; all are equal in Christ Jesus.”
The most cherished Western values come from Christianity. Don’t surrender them to someone who has an axe to grind.
Perry.
I have another topic to which I am interested in your response.
The ten commandments include a rule to not kill, but even God instructs people to kill, even almost before Moses got the tablets down the mountain. (Some people use this problem to criticize God but I really only see it as some enlightened rules made by people and there is no conflict.)
I interpret the rule to mean; do not kill your fellow Hebrews, but other tribes are sometimes okay to kill. This has historically been a common ethic; out-groups being infidels. Of course fewer people believes that now. I suspect the commandant has come to mean something more universal now than it originally did. Do you agree?
Martin,
This is a pretty complex subject but allow me to attempt to address it briefly.
God promised to give Israel the promised land and said He would drive out the people who were living there. The OT is very explicit that these people were vile, wicked people deserving of destruction. (The word “immolation”, which refers to burning children alive, is derived from the world “Molech” which was a god of the Canaanites. This was a regular practice at that time. An example of how evil those people were. It seems to me it’s less cruel for an Israelite to kill a hittite child by the sword than for that child’s parents to burn him or her alive in a human sacrifice ceremony.) Furthermore God said that if they didn’t kill everyone who occupied the land, they would be corrupted by the morals of those people. They didn’t kill everyone and they were eventually corrupted, as predicted.
God instructed Joshua exactly who to kill and not kill etc, exactly what land Israel was being given etc etc. And God had told Abraham, “Those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse.” God reserves the right to take human life.
Killing foreigners was NEVER an arbitrary, do-as-you-please thing. It had very definite parameters. Within those parameters it was OK to kill. In fact Saul was punished for not killing everything he was supposed to kill.
Outside those parameters it was not OK to kill at all. Whether Jew or Greek.
Most conservative Bible scholars would agree with what I just said. Most would also say that the New Testament does not provide any parameters whatsoever for killing people. The closest you can get to a justification for that would be Augustine’s “Just War” theory which you can easily look up.
The distincing is between murder and death that comes from conflict of war. When Saul was chosen as Israel’s first ruler, rather than having God rule over them, God told the people they would then have their king conscripting their sons to do battle, and all the things that come with a people’s allegiance to a mortal ruler or leader. At least, under God, they had the One Who could judge justly and was just in all His commands according to His Will and purpose.
Thour shalt not kill…the word “thou”…individuals are not to murder or kill out of jealous rage, or for personal vengeance.
a christian missionary goes to the jungle to preach the word of god to a small tribe,one of the tribesmen saids to the missionary “father, if i did not know about sin,would i go to hell?. the missionary saids “no you would not go to hell if you did not know. “then why” asked the tribesman, “did you tell me!”
need i say more.
Which is better: Ignorance or responsibility?
“I told you so that your life can be infinitely richer and have deep meaning; so that you can understand why you might be here; so you can help others.” There’s more to this dance than simply avoiding hell, isn’t there?
I have found that concious contact with my higher Power, who I choose to call God. All those Questions, I no longer debate. As long as I trust in God, clean house, and help others,my days go well. Peace and serenity.
Interesting discourse here. I am a very left wing Catholic who has a lot of problems with the Church (sadly the pedophilia issue, which ultimately is a problem of men as the disorder is generally unique to males, but I digress) but I have great discussions with my Muslim and Jewish and Hindu friends (my best friend is Muslim) and it’s amazing how much we have in common. My Muslim friends ask me about the Bible and we discuss passages in the Koran. What we like about our faiths is the chance to celebrate in community – atheists can brag about their “organizations” but there’s no real gravitas there. As for the fellow saying “I’m a proud atheist and I raised the most for Hurricane Katrina”, big deal. Faith groups have giving to charity as one of their top commandments. A problem with atheists is that they have no real mandate, and by the way, a lot of the real change in the world was motivated by religious belief – no atheists were responsible for abolishing slavery in England! Gandhi was a man of belief, look at what he did. What about Mother Teresa and Archbishop Romero? The Catholic Church didn’t officially do enough for the Jews in the Second World War but individual priests and nuns gave their lives in protesting the horror that was Hitler (Dietrich Bonhoffer for example). The avenging angel who felt it was his duty, motivated by faith, to assassinate the dictator was the charismatic Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a devout Roman Catholic.
Mr. MARSHALL I wish you great blessings from our LORD in the name of his loved son JESHUA, Whom certainly gave his life for our sins. I’m actually a member of QUEILA NETZARITA JERUSALEN, in Bogota Colombia. We are Jews, but believe that JESHUA is the MASHIAJ Who would be back soon. I began my reli gious life seven years ago, in the CHRISTIAN WAY, but I was guided to JEWDAISM for THE HOLY RUAJ HACODESH (Espiritu Santo)
I think I have a “DON” known as “PERCEPCION EXTRASENSORIAL” (spanish) because every day when I sleep, I dream many situations, that happens later in the same day or days after, and I feel, those dreams are supernatural messages, and are invitations to serve in GOD’S KINGDOM, to our lord HASHEM and JESHUA his son, the promessed MASHIAJ. I’m a 58 years old man, and you may probably give some advices to help me to understand much more about this, because I want to serve in the kingdom of our marvelous LORD.
Hey,
I beleive in logic, evidence, eyewitnesses and history.
That has forced me to become a Christian. Everything points that way. The Christian account of Jesus’ life and ressurection is consistent and the most logical. If you have the story of a man coming back from the dead, when he said he would, when prophecy that had been backed up in his life continually (from 600 years before and earlier) also said he would come back to life, is quite logical if God exists.
If you find it impossible to believe God exists please read Timothy Keller ‘The Reason For God’. Excellent read.
Thanks for writing this article, I was skimming it late at night, getting ticked off, because I thought you were attacking Chrisitanity. Haha. I read the whole thing again after.
Thanks!
Thanks for the e-mail.
I listened to the audio presentations today.
You really keep yourself at the front of the battle and I love your common sense and nuts and bolts answers as well as your insight into the big picture Bible concepts. God Bless your ministries.
Thank you for the reference to The Black Book of Communism and the Return of the Enola Gay I run into those atheist statements all the time. It’s strange that atheists can be so blind to the facts of history because they need to attack Christianity. Blinded by hatred perhaps?
The Divinci Code and Zeitgeist have posioned the minds so many.
I know you believe in evolution but have you ever thought of the preveservation of the Bible in the light of God’s other code DNA. You may not have a perfect genome but you alive and human despite copying errors.
I think there is a lot of parallel between the preservation of the Bible and the preservation of DNA. Neither is perfect but the intended message of both is clear enough.
Sue, sadly you have a lot to learn about Atheists and your retort only proves how ego rules your world. Really sad as you sound like a nice person. Atheists do not have an agenda please educate yourself. Atheists do not belong to ANY group we do things quietly without fuss and trumpets.By the way Hitler was religious read your history books (“God with us” on his belt buckle). Religion has been the curse of civilization since the age of dawn, from sacrifices virgins to pulling people hearts out.
Robert,
You are partially right about religion. Does not even Genesis 4 tell us that the first murder in the history of humanity was because of jealousy in regards to religion.
Nontheless, most people on their way to work every day drive past a hospital named after some Christian saint espousing the Christian virtue of caring for the sick and feeding the poor.
Atheism makes no such request of its adherents.
I have to disagree with your statement that atheists do not belong to any group. 2500 people convened in Melbourne for the World Atheist Conference a few weeks ago. Skeptic Magazine has 50,000+ subscribers.
Thank you Mr. Edwards, your explanations could make me open my mind more wide. Let me add a little from my sickbrain. someone that never confess and approve that God was the one to create anything, never realize and trap by them own think.
regards,
Hello, Perrymarshall:
I want to share this with you.
Definitions are from Merriam-Webster online.
TRUTH
1 a archaic : FIDELITY, CONSTANCY b : sincerity in action, character, and utterance
2 a (1) : the state of being the case : FACT (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : ACTUALITY (3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true c : the body of true statements and propositions
3 a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality b chiefly British : TRUE 2 c : fidelity to an original or to a standard
4 capitalized Christian Science : GOD
— in truth : in accordance with fact : ACTUALLY
As you can see, in the definition of “truth” doesn’t occurs the word “faith”
FAITH
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
synonyms see BELIEF
— on faith : without question
As you can see, in the definition of “faith” doesn’t occurs the word “truth”
From both definitions, you can deduce that truth has nothing to do with faith, and that faith has nothing to do with truth.
So, when somebody says “I have faith that God exists” what he is truly saying he is a believer, not that God truly exists
And, when somebody asks you “Have faith, God exists”, what he is truly asking you is you
believe as truth something that may be not truth.
Appealing to faith demonstrates lacking of proofs. And believing when there are no proofs, only by faith, is naïve, credulous and risky.
Greetings.
Carlos
Carlos,
Faith and Reason are inseparably intertwined. One cannot exist without the other. This was mathematically proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931. I encourage you to carefully study Gödel’s incompleteness theorem: http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html
Hello, Perry Marshall:
I answer you:
“Faith and Reason are not enemies”. They aren’t friends, either. At least science is not a friend of faith, religious or not. In fact, the opposite is true: science dismisses faith. It is faith, mainly religious, that expects science to certify its claims. It is faith that today is trying to redefine (accommodate) their old sayings to match with scientific findings. Centuries ago religious faith was enemy of science, as Galileo’s history shows. The religious faith “reasons” opposed to Galileo proofs were the chance of being barbecued on stake. It is now, when science has become the main and profitable way the entire reality is investigated and understood, that faith comes behind saying “It is a metaphor. The intended meaning is…”
“One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist”. Science doesn’t need faith. It needs data or hypothesis, even provisional. Science doesn’t accept a thing by faith. Every affirmation, mostly by faith, science inspects and puts under examination.
“One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist”.
I don’t agree. When has faith asked for scientific verification, contrastation or falsation? By its nature, faith doesn’t worry about objective or experimental facts (Faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof). Science, by its side, exists and depends on constant verification and analysis, rejecting every thing that merely “smells” as faith. Science “fuel” is Cartesian methodic doubt (“Many experiments may confirm my theory, but only one that contradicts it, destroy it.” A.Einstein).
“All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith (faith, or “supposedly true”?) in something ( not always the same thing) that you cannot prove”. But that that science can’t prove is constantly going back, the same the “God of the gaps” do. Now, if always there is something unproven, how was possible for mankind to pass from ignorance to today’s knowledge? After all, no god taught us how to go to the moon, decode the genome, design computers or conceive theorems. As a matter of fact, science is every day getting more and more truths -proven or not- what is that matters. Current scientific models don’t need a god as the only and first reason to explain entire reality: good physics, only.
I am not talking about proofs, but truth, instead. How can I know that what you say by faith is truth? That is pertaining every time you make an affirmation by faith, because an affirmation is necessarily true or false. You don’t say “It seems to me…”, “I would like that god exist”, “I am the opinion that…”. What you say is plainly “That thing exists.”, “That thing happens”.
I can’t prove or demonstrate you how to produce a microchip. But I can give you the evidence of it, so un-provability doesn’t imply inexistence. If I can’t (logically) prove existence, then I have to show factual evidence. But if something is no proven and is no evident, then it is straightly nonexistent.
Science doesn’t hold their models or “faith” when they don’t work any more. Nor it declares wars in their name. When they are obsolete, dismiss them (geocentric system, invariability of species, Euclidean space, absoluteness of time, the ether, causality, etc). Science and many cautious people don’t give “jumps of faith”. When something is confuse, unknown, uncertain, they say “I don’t know” plainly, and wait for a best knowledge. Do you imagine a mathematician saying: -I am faithful this calculation yields this number? Or an engineer: -I am faithful this structure will be strong enough? Or a judge: -I am faithful he is guilty? Or a doctor: -I am faithful you don’t have a tumor, it is only a swelling? Instead of science, faith can’t have its mouth shut and affirm things boldly and blindly. Faith is a primitive kind of thinking. It is archaic and very less sophisticated than reasoning and indagation. Faith is not an achievement neither a virtue to be proud of. Proclaiming things without proofs is childish, primitive, immature, dare, risky and, many times, irrespective or other people’s intelligence. If, besides, there are proofs on the contrary, it is hallucinatory, psychiatric. Being proud of own faith is like an amputee being proud of their prosthesis or crutch. Besides, even if religion explains that faith is about any “spiritual world”, it doesn’t demonstrate the true existence of that “spiritual” world.
Historically, scientific method and their way of thinking are new but more prolific and reliable in find, show, prove and demonstrate truths. Finally: why a young 350 years old science is today the main and the best way to explore all reality, instead of thousand years old religions, worldwide? Science free us from caprices of inscrutable gods and give us the chance of control our lives, free of fear. Instead of many intelligent people, faithful believers are very often unable to “separate” themselves from things they believe in (the “certitude” that is in their head), because they are “merged” to what they believe in. So, they are badly unable to contrast and examine it against things that objectively exist outside of their head. Because faith is “for free” and not engaged or related to objective world, it is “uncompromised” like opinions, preferences, dreams, fantasies, hallucinations, caprices, conveniences, delusions, etc., So, faith and the opposite faith (its negation) are equally “licit” and “permissible”. We have the right to any faith we like. In that case, does any faith mean anything? Facing an unknown and overwhelming universe and ignorant about, life, dead, love, nature and many other things surrounding us, some people choose to pray, to have faith. Some others instead, put themselves to investigate how that things work.
Now, what is faith? Faith is this: Two teams will encounter for a game. Each team has a monolithic and absolute faith they will be the winners. I ask you: Will both faiths on being the winner be fulfilled? And this: Two girls are pure, virtuous, devote, flawless and faithful. Both of them like the same boy. So, with equal, deep and confident faith they pray to god for the boy ask her to be his partner in graduation party, next Saturday. What will happen? I say that one or both team’s faith and one or both girl’s faith will be unsatisfied, unfulfilled, because faith is constrained by objective reality.
Faith doesn’t override reality. How many dozens of cases have you ever known of amputees whose limb had grown again in a complete arm or leg, as a result of a faithful pray to god? Gödel’s theorem doesn’t changes characteristics and limitations of faith.
Here you have some comments on Gödel’s theorem. Please, have in mind I am asking about faith and its values of objective truth, not about provability of all true statements.
“Hence s is true but unprovable”.(Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, by Dale Myers)
“…there is always a statement about natural numbers which is true, but which cannot be proven in the system” (Kenny’s Overview of Hofstadter’s Explanation of Gödel’s Theorem, by Kenny Felder)
And these comments are from http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html where you redirect me:
“The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.” (Jones and Wilson – An Incomplete Education)
“…there are true mathematical statements that cannot be derived from the set…” (Nagel and Newman)
“With his great mathematical and logical genius, Gödel was able to find a way (for any given P(UTM)) actually to write down a complicated polynomial equation that has a solution if and only if G is true. So G is not at all some vague or non-mathematical sentence. G is a specific mathematical problem that we know the answer to, even though UTM does not! So UTM does not, and cannot, embody a best and final theory of mathematics … “
“Although this theorem can be stated and proved in a rigorously mathematical way, what it seems to say is that rational thought can never penetrate to the final ultimate truth …” (Rucker, Infinity and the Mind) ( 1)This holds for “demonstrations” of existence of a god, too. 2) If that happen with rational thought, we still have experimental and observational tools for searching truth. 3) I guess if an ultimate and final truth wouldn’t to be the answer to an ultimate and final question. After all, we are not more than merely humans.)
“Gödel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiom system is involved … “(Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach)
This people are talking about mathematical truths they can’t derivate from axioms, but they know (not by faith) they are true. Gödel’s theorem is about unproven things that are demonstratively truth although. In no way Gödel is saying “Have faith”. So, we are again in the starting point: 1) Faith and truth are by definition not related; 2) Faith doesn’t imply truth.
Greetings for you.
Carlos
In my vocabulary, religious faith, scientific hypothesis and even something like taking a risk and starting a business are all much more alike than different. I’ve done all three.
All three are the testing of hypothesis. This is what faith means in my vocabulary.
Science accepts all of its foundational assumptions by faith. It is inherently impossible to prove that the laws of physics are the same everywhere and for all time.
I have a hypothesis that a percentage of people I lay hands on and pray for get healed. That hypothesis has been confirmed a number of times. See http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/miracles/
The Christian life is lived by both faith AND experience. Just like science.
You are greatly overstating the oppression of science by the church. Yes, there has been SOME of this. It is not the major theme. Christian theology gave birth to science. See http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/equality-technology/
Mathematicians have faith in axioms they cannot prove.
Judges have faith that their decisions, made with incomplete information, are correct.
Every day literally thousands of doctors have faith that the lump is swelling and not a tumor. Or vise versa.
You are grossly misrepresenting the meaning of the word faith. If I defined faith the way you do, I would hate it too.
In your other question, you expressed FAITH that science would find an answer to specific questions about evolution and the origin of life.
Sports teams never have absolute faith that they will win. Once again you grossly misrepresent how people actually behave.
Faith Hypothesis. Same thing. Do a find-and-replace if you want.
I’m confused about something. Are you doing this website to contradict the common lies about Christianity and possibly lead people to Christ, or are you enforcing those lies and trying to pass them off as truth?
Read the articles with care and the answer will become clear.
I like this site perry, i get to listen to all the great, small, black, white, yellow, mix minds and how we think, but my question is this:what is the conclusion of all these minds put together, will we (man) solve all the evil promblems of the world, WILL WE LIVE IN PEACE AND LOVE
In response to Carlos:
Faith is believing in the unseen, without any means of physical proof. God WANTS us to have faith in Him without Him revealing Himself to us in its entirety.
Historical evidence has confirmed that Jesus was a real person. Evidence has also confirmed that Jesus was sent to the cross and he perished on the cross. Again, evidence also confirms that Jesus was buried in the tomb Joseph of Arimathea owned.
Now the only question left is this. What of His resurrection?
Now this is something hard to believe, isn’t it. To you, it may not be true. “Its medically impossible!” some might say. Or to others, they might say that “Its not true. It was faked.”
How on earth can you fake a resurrection? Science?
Resurrection means “rising from the dead.” People then had no clear way of ensuring that Jesus did rise from the dead. As specified, the tomb had a huge stone covering the entrance, and there were guards posted to the tomb. Considering the sheer weight of the boulder, could anyone have shifted it and stolen Jesus’ body/impersonated Him?
Considering that He appeared to approximately 800 people after His resurrection, it would be hard to disprove that Jesus really rose from the dead. How did Jesus’ disciples, who were by nature cowardly and were reliant on Jesus, suddenly become powerful, articulate leaders of the early church, even going so far as to suffer and die for the Gospel? (Jesus appeared to His disciples, by the way).
Jesus’ appearance to His disciples ultimately strengthened them and gave them comfort. His ascension to heaven left us with the Holy Spirit that strengthens us. The Holy Spirit is the one who gave light and strength to the disciples, as He still does today.
Christianity then had only a meager amount of followers. Unlike other religions, Christianity was heavily persecuted throughout its early days in the Roman Empire. And yet, the church thrives under persecution, with Paul, Peter and John writing the final books of the Bible many years after Jesus’ ascension.
They were either lunatics, or what they saw and believed was, and still is, true.
If they were lunatics, would they have honestly fabricated such a massive lie? Think about it. If atheists feel that the Bible is fake, STOP TO THINK – who on earth would even bother to come up with a lie like that.
You might argue that other religions may have the same attitude. Well, let me tell you, Christianity is the only religion where our God sent His Son down to die, and to RISE FROM THE DEAD. No other religion teaches and promotes this.
Anyway, as a side note, humans have found planets and moons which can sustain life, such as Europa and Titan, they have not found life actually existing on them currently. They may have found traces of life on other planets, but definitely not of the scale of humans and aerobic organisms, being limited only to bacteria at the very most. How are we so unique? We are the only planet to be able to sustain life to such a degree!
And regarding the creation of the universe, some might say that the universe was formed by the Big Bang, using the Large Hadron Collide to prove it. Very well, it could be one of the means of how the universe was formed. But the experiment showed that two particles, the “God” particle were required. Fine, these two particles might have collided and smashed into each other, forming the universe. But have you honestly stopped to wonder how the particles actually got there in the first place? How the universe was formed in the first place? Sure, asteroids brought water to Earth. How on earth did water end up in them anyway? How on earth did planets form just due to two particles colliding with one another? How did Earth become so perfect that it could sustain life as advanced as our ecosystem? How?
Do you honestly think that the particles were just “there”? That we just magically “evolved” for no apparent reason? That the universe was just “there” by “default”?
Obviously the universe had to be created, just as how planets were created, just as how the two particles were created.
Created by who?
That is the question.
Hello, Trevor:
About faith:
You said: “Faith is believing in the unseen, without any means of physical proof.”
Well, tell me, please:
Do you have a lock in your door?
Do you have your money in a bank instead that at home?
When you make successive payments for your house or some expensive good, do you ask for a ticket or certification each payment you do?
Do you have a health insurance?
Do you inspect your car, for a safe trip?
Do you save money for your retirement or merely “for the future”?
If you answered “Yes” at least one of these questions, then you are cautious and take safeguards, cares and certainties in domestic and everyday things. Then, how is it possible, about ISSUES-THAT-HAVE-TO-DO-WITH-ALL-YOUR-UNIQUE-LIFE, you put aside all your smartness and intelligence and behave only by credulity, without a very, very deep, exhaustive and rational analysis?
It looks to me like a man who is cautious, self-controlled and wise in every thing each day in the week, but in Saturday night gets drunken and bet his life playing Russian roulette.
About resurrection
I don’t want and I don’t have knowledge enough to engage in an argument on biblical issues, as for the so named “resurrection”. But I want to show you doubts and suspects I have regarding things the resurrected man DIDN’T DO, as follows:
Why didn’t he appear to Poncio Pilatos, for instance? (Imagine: Hello Poncy! Here I am again. How are you?) (A bit of respectful humor, OK?)
Or to Sanedrin? (Surprise guys! I’m afraid I have resurrected, as I said before. But don’t worry, please, I forgive all of you)
Or to those that choosen Barrabas? (Hey, Barrabas’ fans!! Don’t you believe you chosen in the wrong way?)
To me, testimony of resurrection from Pilatos, the Sanedrin, Barrabas’ fans, ex-enemies and ex-skeptics, had been more valuable than that from his believers and followers. Why, if the message of Jesus is SO IMPORTANT, all this stories are so twisted, contorted, obscure, undocumented, contradictory, fragmentary, shocking, weird and almost ridicule; instead of being clear, proved, evident, transparent, skeptic-proof, massively and independently documented and testified, besides of the Bible, by educated and reliable people, too?
Greetings.
Carlos
Carlos, Sirs, please ask and answer yourself first. See whether you can in your lifetime. It’s not written yet in the Bible as the new scrolls, which are still being found from various Middle East’s sites, some undergoing painfully slow gluing repairs and, perhaps, needs spiritual uplifted persons who are blessed like those before who translated the ancient text. Your style of asking is too much for god-fearing experts to even worth reading, not to say, answer which need efforts, work. time, research, etc..(which non-believers cannot understand…ie..enlightenment like Bruce Lee martial skill). Rudeness is wrong. Please be nice, perhaps… To Christians, it is a SIN to give lies in answering, also.
Hello, Thomas:
It is not about asking and answering to myself. What for? It is about my right to ask anything, there were or not an answer, known or not. I guess that a question has one of not less than three answers: “Yes”, “No”, “I don’t know”. If you or your religion doesn’t know it, say it, but don’t you limit my questioning (by the way, that had been the religion-style over centuries). I do so because 1) religion is supposed to be the set of absolute answers and 2) I guess it is asking-proof. Or isn’t it?
If in that process I was unpolite or upsetting, please accept my apologizes.
BUT I will continue asking rude (not uneducated neither insulting), frontal, and difficult questions, ¿OK?
Have a good day, Thomas.
Carlos
http://www.eschernessie.it/
Alla cortese attenzione del Signor d.wilson@highland-news.co.uk
Oggetto: Inedito Quadro dell’Olandese Maurits Cornelis ESCHER 1898-1972 , Opera a carboncino
dalle misure di cm 53 x cm 42 raffigurante Nessie il mostro di Loch Ness che emerge dalle
acque sulle note di un flauto suonato dall’Uomo Nero senza Volto.-
Illustrissimo D.Wilson,
grazie a Lei e al suo articolo, le acque si sono mosse, a seguito di cio’, molti sanno che in
Italia e’ stato trovato l’Inedito Quadro di cui all’oggetto.-
Ci rendiamo perfettamente conto che la NOTIZIA E’ INCREDIBILE, e per questo motivo,
visto che da anni ormai ci siamo accorti che la Fondazione M.C. E. era poco attenta e poco
interessata a questa clamorosa notizia, fino al momento in lui Lei, con il Suo bellissimo
primo articolo non fece esplodere la grandiosa notizia.
Difatti, la Sua notizia portava a conoscenza i suoi concittadini del ritrovamento del Quadro
Inedito di M.C. ESCHER.-
Che sia Opera di ESCHER non lo diciamo noi, lo dice la scritta e le firme e numeri dietro
Il disegno, lo dice uno dei massimi esperti Italiani la Prof. Anna Petrecchia, PERITO
Grafico, iscritto all’Albo dei Periti del Tribunale Civile e Penale di R O M A – Italy
Noti la perizia sul seguente sito :
http://www.irpinianews.it/DaiComuni/news/?news=19596
Se ha ancora dei dubbi, se Lei crede ancora alla Fondazione dell’Artista e alle persone
loro vicine , che si sono espresse sulla non autenticita’ dell’Opera senza vederla, guardi
questi due video che Le segnalo qui sotto. Su questi video Lei vedra’ tra le tante persone
anche Raffaele DE FEO.- Le dice qualcosa questo nome ? Credo proprio di si, si tratta di
DE FEO Raffaele il poliziotto o come dite voi IL POLICE MAN .- Questo poliziotto
NON E’ UN PENSIONATO ma e’ ancora in Polizia e lavora sulle strade della provin-
cia di Avellino – Regione Campania – Sud Italia ed e’ un appartenente alla
P O L I Z I A D I S T A T O G O V E R N O
e presta servizio presso la Sezione Polizia Stradale di Avellino – 83100 Italy telefono
dell’Ufficio 0039- 0825 206408 fax 0039 – 0825 33333.-
In virtu’ di quanto sopra Vi chiedo : CHI VI HA DETTO CHE E’ UN PENSIONATO ?
Avendo 51 anni il poliziotto andra’ in pensione a 60 anni, quindi e’ ancora in servizio.
Ecco i video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQrovNERYfU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYhTzywOYWI
Oltre al DE FEO Raffaele, tra queste persone vi sono giornalisti, poliziotti e un Avvocato.
Se fossero dei truffatori o dei burloni mostrerebbero i loro volti ??? Siamo certi di no,
non sarebbero stati cosi cretini e nemmeno in Italia che e’ un paese liberale e democratico
avrebbero osato tanto.-
Se avete ancora dei dubbi, fateci un’ultima cortesia, adoperatevi tramite la Vostra Polizia
tramite l’Interpool o tramite il Vostro Governo per segnalare queste persone che alcuni
chiamano TRUFFATORI al Governo e alla Polizia Italiana e fateli arrestare, fateli buttare
in una galera a vita perche’avete materiale a sufficienza per farlo e avete anche volti, nomi e indirizzo.- Oltre ai suddetti, potete rivolgervi anche all’Ambasciata Italiana a Voi
piu’ vicina per fare la denuncia.-
Se fate cio’ ci farete una grande pubblicita’ e la notizia del ritrovamento finira’ in una Aula di Tribunale per poi immediatamente dopo esplodere in tutto il mondo.-
State pur certo che in galera non finira’ il poliziotto italiano sapete il perche’ ? Perche’
Questo poliziotto e’ molto conosciuto e rispettato tra i suoi colleghi . Visto che la Storia
di questo Quadro Inedito e’ iniziata nell’anno 2004, anche i Suoi Superiori, anche la Poli-
zia conosce la storia e non lo ha mai ostacolato perche’ hanno creduto al loro poliziotto.
Hanno creduto che la storia e’ vera, altrimenti lo avrebbero gia’ bloccato o fermato.-
Alla fine di questa lettera, Vi forniamo un’altra importante informazione: ANCHE IL
MINISTERO DELL’ INTERNO della Repubblica Italiana e’ a conoscenza del ritro-
vamento di questo Quadro di M.C. ESCHER, cosi’ come lo sa anche il MINISTERO dei BENI CULTURALI E AMBIENTALI di ROMA.-
Quest’ultimo Ministero dei Beni Culturali gia’ e’ a conoscenza della notizia dell’Inedito
di M.C. ESCHER perche’ e’ stato informato dallo stesso poliziotto proprietario dell’Opera in data 13-11-2009.-
L’indirizzo del Ministero e’ ROMA via del Collegio Romano n. 27 telefono 0039 065843
GRAZIE DI TUTTO Signor Wilson
Un cordiale saluto dall’Italia
Primo articolo su Highland- news .co.uk
http://www.highland-news.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/7160/_Nessie_and_the_Black_Man__mystery.html
Secondo articolo su Highland –news.co.uk
http://www.highland-news.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/7224/_Nessie__picture_branded_a_hoax.html
Nessie-Loch Ness Monster.- Unpublished Painting date 18.1.1949.- Artist M.C.ESCHER 1898-1972 Holland.-
Nessie a painting found unpublished by M.C.Escher ( 1898-1972)Holland.-
There is who says the painting of M.C.Escher 1898-1972 is authentic, to
Summon with consideration and respect towards a jurywoman who works
At the court of ROME, done by a professional ,famous and respected
person
The Dott.Anna PETRECCHIA ,dated august 04-2006.
The expert report is made of 51 pages that proofs the authenticity of
this
Works of art,with the opinion of art experts, tv and stamped papers
that represents
NESSIE the Monster Of Loch Ness that appears from under the water of
the lake
With the sound of a flute, played by a black man without a face.
( in my opinion a monster that calls another monster ).-
Local TV and newspapers have brought this notice in several occasions.
ATTENTION
The M.C.escher Foundation of Baarn Holand say their consideration:
This is to let you know that M.C.Escher NEVER HAVE MADE a
Painting and the mentioned paining of Loch Nes is fake.
You should rectify this message. It is absolutely nonsense.
For years this people are trying to get a certificate,but
The never will get, because it is a forgery.
M.C.escher Foundation.
Has far has we know from informations, uptil now the M.C.Escher
Foundation
HAS NEVER SEEN OR CHECKED THE ORIGINAL PAINTING
Neither the handwriting, the date 18.1.1949, the dedication, the
signature and
The registration number behind the painting.
Even though, the M.C.Escher Foundation say such a thing,
NOT EVEN EXAMINATING ( neither by their own experts )
THE ORIGINAL PAINTING .
We will wait for a proofing certificate that this art is really a fake
so we can
Spread it all over the world.
Uptil then the painting is the ORIGINAL.-
About the second point:The Jesus story just is an accumulation of myths of legendary people, all rolled into one uber-nice guy.
You put the 9/11 airplain crashes as example.
There were other stories (fiction stories), similar to this writen before the real crashes hapenned. This does not make 9/11 a Myth.
OK. The other stories writen before were fiction, but they were posible stories, stories about fanatics crashing planes, not stories about a young virgin giving birth to a baby (fertilized by a god), or a man walking on water, or resurrections.
So, I think nothing gets explained with this example.
Hector,
It sounds like your logic then is:
“The Bible describes miracles, therefore it cannot be true.”
You say that it is impossible that God fertilized a virgin. Why is this not possible? Especially if God created life in the first place?
Is it not true that modern science can also fertilize an egg? If so why is it impossible that God could do it?
Does this really come down to you asserting it’s impossible that God exists?
And on what logic would you make that assertion? Do you have proof?
Is it even possible to have proof that something does not exist?
What is the logical basis of such an assertion?
Hi Perry,
You queried whether it is possible to prove whether something does not exist. I have heard that mentioned before i.e. that you cannot prove a negative. Can anyone give a reasoned argument for that assertion?
Also I previously asked someone to explain two things that have always puzzled me.
It is said that Jesus died for our sins. Why would God sacrifice his only son in order to forgive us? Why didn’t he just forgive us? Doesn’t that smack of ritualistic sacrifice?
The question of Adam and Eve. Is there any historical evidence supporting their actual existence, were they real people or just a myth?
You cannot prove a negative by definition: No one can prove that there are no unicorns, we can only say that we have never seen them.
This is categorically different than saying there is no evidence for God, because there are inferences from peoples’ personal experience, from science, from philosophy and morality.
The atheist assertion that “I know God doesn’t exist” has to be the supreme act of arrogance. It’s a claim to know what is definitionally unknowable.
Hi Perry, my argument is about the originality of the Gospels, not about its veracity.
I’m not trying to deny the existence of god in this paragraph.
To explain myself a little better, I thought in the following example.
My neighbor A writes a story about a hero who dresses in black and comes out at night to fight crime.
My neighbor B writes a story about a hero who sees through walls and can fly.
My neighbor C writes a story about a hero who was born on Mars and has super strength.
Some time later, my neighbor D writes a story about a hero who dresses in black, comes out at night to fight crime, sees through walls, can fly, has super strength and was born on Mars.
It seems to me that my neighbor D, is not the most original writer of the world. And the character of his comic, although it’s very cool, does not seem real to me. Why should I believe it’s real?
Your ABCD story doesn’t fit the gospels. I would encourage you to read them. They are 30-70% different and 30-70% the same. Clearly they are not harmonized, yet clearly all four tell a remarkably similar story. This is evidence of both independence and agreement.
I think you need to really study this stuff – it is quite clear to me that you have only read ABOUT the Bible, you have never crawled inside the stories and studied them in depth. I also encourage you to listen to http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/yo-momma – it deals with these issues directly.
To Carlos:
Of course I’d want to be, as you have put it, “cautious and to take safeguards, cares and certainties in domestic and everyday things. ” I’d obviously want to be clear of myself, why I believe in God. Otherwise there’ll be no point. It’ll just be blind faith wouldn’t it?
The very fact that I am believing in God suggests that I am already a careful person who takes safeguards. I know and am utterly and completely convinced in every way possible that God exists and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He has worked in my life in ways that can never be truly seen from the naked eye. As He has with all believers. In my opinion, at least, there is sufficient proof that God exists, from the way He has worked in people’s lives, from the way miracles have happened in my life, from the way how prayers are answered.
You mentioned the risk of believing in a God that doesn’t exist. Well, let’s turn it around: what about the risk of not believing in a God that DOES exist?
Honestly, whatever has been said about science, about how it disproves God’s existence, is in actual fact serving to further acknowledge His existence. Yes, science has proven that evolution occurred. Yes, science has discovered the creation of the universe. Yes, it has proven to us many things that claim that God doesn’t exist.
But think about it. Every time science proves something, it always raises questions on why something happened in that particular way. Why would evolution just…..occur? I mean, we couldn’t just…evolve, right. Like I mentioned, the Big Bang did occur…but it couldn’t have JUST occurred like that, right. The energy and the forces required couldn’t have just been….there.
I find it quite amusing that several people would prefer to believe that the Big Bang, the creation of the universe, and evolution JUST HAPPENED, rather than actually stopping to ponder that perhaps there has been a higher authority at work carrying out all these things in such a mighty and powerful way.
Hello, Trevor.
My answers for you:
“Of course I’d want to be, as you have put it, “cautious and to take safeguards, cares and certainties in domestic and everyday things”
OK, but what safeguards have you token about believing things that have to do with all your life?
“I’d obviously want to be clear of myself, why I believe in God. Otherwise there’ll be no point. It’ll just be blind faith wouldn’t it?”
If your faith is not blind, it is reasoned. If reasoned, you have objective explanations. And this is the point where the ugly face of science appears, sometimes with other explanations or with criticism to your explanations. With a detail to be added: the undeniable achievements science can show without having to ask for any faith from you. Simply “Who have eyes for looking, look at”, etc.
“The very fact that I am believing in God suggests that I am already a careful person who takes safeguards. (What about lacking of proofs?) I know and am utterly and completely convinced in every way possible that God exists and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead”.
But this is no about of being convinced or not. THIS IS ABOUT TRUTH. Can you discriminate your conviction from truth? Conviction doesn’t proof a simple thing, no matter how “deeply in your heart” you feel sure. Have you ever solved an exercise of math or physics, being sure, convinced, you had did it OK until professor demonstrated you had made an error and your answer was wrong? This is the same thing. By itself, conviction is nothing; it speaks about your inner state, but doesn’t carry any value of objective truth.
“He has worked in my life in ways that can never be truly seen from the naked eye. . As He has with all believers. In my opinion, at least, there is sufficient proof that God exists, from the way He has worked in people’s lives, from the way miracles have happened in my life, from the way how prayers are answered”.
Yes. I know that story. It is always the same. But things about god are ghostly, ambiguous, undefined, improvable, subjective, always almost out of your field of vision, the same as dreams, fantasies, fairies, unicorns and inexistent things. In my opinion, there is not a single, scientific, undeniable, universal, certified, proof of god works on people. I wonder why is it that I can’t hear about the great mass of scientific, thinkers, intellectuals, the most intelligent and wise people talking about god. What I find is they maintaining an educated silence about god or instead, plainly denying him. Do you believe all the best today’s brains are wrong?
“You mentioned the risk of believing in a God that doesn’t exist. Well, let’s turn it around: what about the risk of not believing in a God that DOES exist?”
1) The same risk that not believing in Zeus, Wotan, Mama Ocllo, Zoroaster, the Pachamama, Moloch, Vishnu, Manitou, Ala, Mithras, Brahma, Astarte, Isis, Quetzalcoatl, Krishna, Osiris, and dozens and dozens of many others. Or are you going to say those gods don’t exist but yours do?
2) Good answer. This is the extended version of Pascal Wager. As follows: A) You believe in god and 1) god exists or 2) god doesn’t exist. Or B) You don’t believe in god and 3) god exist or 4) god doesn’t exist. If A-1) and B-4), everybody is happy. But if A-2) and B-3), “Houston, we have a problem”. In A-2) you wasted your life in an empty observance, instead of doing funny things. In B-3) I can’t help you. The only hope for you is if god is a cool person, ask him to be forgotten. BUT: How do you decide one from 4 chances? You can’t make a reasonable choose. But your life is in the middle of all. This hasn’t a rational solution. What can we do? Being so, we have to go one level down, to the every day’s level. It is well under the level of theology, but is the level of things you are completely sure of and you can’t deny: pain, life, money, love, hungry, enjoy, dead, sex, war, friends, feelings, etc. By itself, those things don’t point special and undeniably to any god. Instead, today, the 21st century, they point to any physical answer. So, you are living and have to live, so choose your way out of problems you can’t reasonably solve.
3) If the god asks you: Why didn’t you believed in me? you can negotiate with him as Lot did. You can say to him: You always were absent, hidden, all the time, all around the universe. You didn’t left a mere valid proof. You never made a simple, clear and undeniable signal. I call you many times, you know that, but you never came. I asked and preached for you many times “Oh god where are you?” but you never answered to me. I sincerely made my best but I couldn’t find you. And, I was in the world. I am flesh and bones, as you made me, and I had to live the life you gave rise on me. Why didn’t you ever appeared to me in such an undeniable way as things I can’t deny or doubt about, as pain, sick, dead, and others? It wasn’t I denied you in your own face. I denied you because of your constant abandonment, hiddenness and no-benevolent absence.
“But think about it. Every time science proves something, it always raises questions on why something happened in that particular way”.
As you said, science proves things but that proved things don’t turn into unproved because a new question is raised and while it remains unanswered. And, besides, my error or my silence doesn’t make right your sayings.
”Why would evolution just…..occur? I mean, we couldn’t just…evolve, right. Like I mentioned, the Big Bang did occur…but it couldn’t have JUST occurred like that, right. The energy and the forces required couldn’t have just been….there”.
Yes, but happen that many physical data point to energy and forces as have been there, in the very starting point. Not a god. By the way, what means to you the Lavoisier’s law of conservation of energy, (The relativistic law of conservation of mass-energy, today)? Doesn’t it mean to you that mass-energy is constant -then eternal- in both directions of time? So, who needs a creator god?
“I find it quite amusing that several people would prefer to believe that the Big Bang, the creation of the universe, and evolution JUST HAPPENED, rather than actually stopping to ponder that perhaps there has been a higher authority at work carrying out all these things in such a mighty and powerful way.”
1) Because it is the most “economical”, direct and close hypothesis, instead of one depending on a highly improvable, special, undetectable, unique, mysterious, non-physical and unknowable being as a god is. I invite you to read about the Occam’s Razor
2) Because –again and again- there are NO PROOFS of such a higher authority. And FAITH IS NOT A PROOF.
3) Because that supposed high authority created an universe that for every criteria looks as no-created, self-contained and entirely explainable only by simple laws of physics.
4) “…that perhaps there has been…” Don’t you believe it is a bit exaggerated to bet all-your-life on a “perhaps”?
Greetings for you, Trevor.
Carlos
And with regard to the resurrection, why would you expect Jesus to appear to Pilate/the Sanhedrin/the people that sent Him to death?
Jesus clearly told them that He was the Son of God, but they refused to believe it. Him not appearing to show them the truth was the punishment they deserved. It would have led to insincere belief, because they only believed Him after they saw the sign of resurrection.
On the other hand, those who loved Jesus deserved to meet Him, and He appeared to them to strengthen their faith. I mean, how often do you get a Saviour rising from the dead? Their faith was weak, but they believed in the Son of God, and it was this that allowed them to have an encounter with the Lord.
Trevor,
I intuitively suspect that an expanding universe exists like a continuous creation (CC) rather than a big bang (BB). Science has considered both theories and support is gaining for the BB theory, my hunch is probably wrong because of reasons that I hardly understand.
Intuitively it seems that everything was created by a higher authority. But science is progressively able to explain more and more about origins and sees little evidence of God. There are some arguments of logic and philosophy such as Perry makes, like that design implies a designer, but they actually have limited persuasive power over scientists.
Your rhetorical question that the BB could not occur without God does not satisfy a scientist either. This is because God is hugely complex and not explained. The answer contains a much bigger question. Explaining an atom, or energy, (and lots of it) is relatively much easier.
Statements like “people prefer to believe the BB” imply that they choose this belief so they don’t have to accept God. I think most people genuinely believe what they do based on what ‘evidence’ they are given. That is why I find your next quote confusing.
“Him not appearing to show them the truth was the punishment they deserved. It would have led to insincere belief, because they only believed Him after they saw the sign of resurrection.”
Does faith need to be unproven? I thought evidence might remove doubt. Did Thomas the doubter have insincere faith since he got to see Jesus?
“But science is progressively able to explain more and more about origins and sees little evidence of God.”
The ability to explain something, as any good scientist knows, is not the same as the truth. Is string theory true? Read the criticism section on the string theory article in Wikipedia. Yet many scientists work hard to prove it. It may be completely false or true. A question I hope science can one day answer. Yet it does explain things well.
Consider miracles. If you are intelligent enough, as an atheist friend of mine pointed out, you will be able to explain away healing miracles by a combination of psychology and natural causes. Does this mean noone ever gets healed? Realise your assumptions: You assume there is no God, therefore no miracles and thus conclude there are no miracles and therefore no God.
A position on the existence of God is a philosophical one, thus no good scientist will write a scientific paper on it. A friend of mine admitted to me that if I were to command a mountain to move in front of him, and it did, he would still not believe, instead looking for a natural explanation. Chance in other words. At least he was honest.
So, how can we prove God? There is only one way for anyone to be certain of His existence: You have to meet Him.
As for the other question. Why would Jesus not reveal himself to Pilate? You are right, Trevor’s explanation lacks a lot. Well, how do we know Jesus did not? And if He did, Pilate may still have refused to believe, preferring other explanations like ghosts. God can reveal himself to you 100 times a day, but if you refuse to see Him, you never will see Him. Didn’t Jesus say, “There are none so blind as those who will not see?” Thomas clearly saw and believed. As did and do many others. The failure is not with God producing evidence, but with man blinding himself to it…
Have fun!
Andrew,
I am primarily a naturalist, assuming that all things can be explained by natural laws rather than supernatural (non laws?) I look for natural explanations for all events, including so called miracles. Mysteries are not necessarily supernatural. My assumption is that they never are.
My difficulty with supernatural causes is that there are by definition no laws to understand them and they remain a mystery. Inquiry stops. A common method of invoking non inquiry is by saying “God did it”, it’s a divine mystery, we cannot know how. This is counter intuitive for scientists. But God is NOT disproven. God is effectively defined as outside of natural law, and hence rather irrelevant to the scientific method.
So I don’t deny God, it just seems very unlikely that God exists. Bible miracles are hard to check but if the Bible says that the Sun stopped for an hour, and the world was created in a week and Jesus had no earthly father, I really don’t think so. People sometimes believe these things out of loyalty and by faith and I question these are good reasons for believing if we are really looking for truth.
Which is perfectly fine; and I have a lot of respect for your point of view(it is logically fairly consistent, if a little limited), as long as you understand that statements about the existence of God/miracles are philosophical and not scientific, and your judgment upon the unexplained stems from your philosophical conclusion. And yes, I fully agree. God is effectively defined outside the scientific method. It can be no other way.
However, if you choose to speculate on the existence of God, (specifically the Christian view of God) you must do so by the rules I’m afraid. God is “outside” of the universe in which we live, He must be if He created it. God is also able to manipulate and suspend any of said laws. However I suspect He does not break them, I just suspect we don’t understand the laws completely or God’s interface with them.
I’d state that the laws that govern miracles are not “unknowable” and don’t require blind faith or “non-inquiry”. On the contrary, there are spiritual laws that govern what happens, which is one of the reasons people don’t always get healed. Its not non-inquiry. Its inquiry along a different direction, which is knowable, but by definition outside of your naturalistic viewpoint. Non-inquiry is just as offensive to the genuine Christian as to the Naturalist. We want to know our God and everything about Him and the universe He created. And since as Christians we believe God “holds all things together” if a miracle has a natural explanation, that does not diminish the miracle in any way. Though, I submit that not all may be adequately explained scientifically.
I do well believe in those Biblical miracles. Not out of loyalty, but because I believe in God and that the Bible is his word and it is only logical that if there is a God, he would be capable of such things. I believe the bible simply because I have met God. And I do believe my colleagues when they talk about the healings and other miracles that happen in the organization they work for. I have seen the evidence and heard the testimony of the witnesses.
As for the creation, well, I have no strong opinion on the matter apart from God doing it. How is not well defined by the Bible and there is a lot of debate as to whether it is a poem or literal or even a spiritual account having little to do with the physical. We need to understand though, that its original audience was a group of people who probably thought stars were merely lights in the sky. The account is true, certainly, but I’d suspect its actually a spiritual account of what happened. But I won’t debate people on this matter; I don’t think it is a very useful topic until we know a lot more than we do now.
Hi, friend Andrew, please,
please, I beg of you to, drop an e-mail to me, thomas116688@yahoo.co.uk (I will be forever grateful) of your ‘meeting’ with God, Almighty! Was it face to face? How awesome, Where, plse (in sky/clouds?)?
God, the Greatest, our Only, True and Holy ‘Father’ (for info:- Since he created our ancestor, Adam. So, we are called HIS ‘sons’, with Christ chosen as the ‘Only Most Pleased Son’, probably due to his descent from Israel 2nd King David who had a convenant with God Almighty centuries earlier) had chosen many others, including you and me. Funny, our names, Andrew & Thomas belongs to Christ’s disciples’ too! Hmmm…I wonders…but better be humble, due to my past experiences as a young, agumentative person and was duly humbled…as Written in the Bible!
Sir, friend Andrew, we are not even powerful people like Saint Paul, King (David) who are no more around to defend but left well known recorded legacies
to be disputed by a few ‘discoveries’ and formulae (“probably to get more big, easy money for ‘scientific’ work”).
Who are we and further without status? Still, we say the TRUTH to what we Witnessed (could be used against us but no fear, friend), as a token of LOVE and FEAR of SIN in being selfishly QUIET, to save people from continously SINNING. Think SIN is one of the main ISSUES besides a Good God-fearing/believing, Kind, Morally and Sexually Pure with Righteous Heart, isnt it, Andrew? Or is it the PHD knowledged to dispute these with materialistic ‘discoveries’ against our SPIRITUAL discoveries which has no form of which God ‘is’! Yet we can see spiritual forms as written in the Bible! Who says Angels or Ghosts can not be seen? Many, simply, can not see them! Bible says no worries as who can say what tomorrow can brings we are FREE as we will till judgement day. I thus rest my case forever.
I always stupidly asked before why Christ is borned in the middle east not in my place, when the Churches with other places of worship (the problem is too many choices) is right in my doorsteps! Now, any doubts, questions read the Bible which can save peoples from ‘great’ trouble! Though, you read the Bible 1000 times it can have 1000 different meanings! Why? It has so many phrases, warnings, prophesies, proclaimations, experiences which have yet to occurs or ‘discovered’ stretching till who knows when except God, Almighty! Cheers, be happy and God Bless!
Hello, again.
My answers:
“And with regard to the resurrection, why would you expect Jesus to appear to Pilate/the Sanhedrin/the people that sent Him to death?”
If you are a student, it is no important your friends believe you know enough. It is your teachers and hostile “examinators” whom you must show your knowledge and convince. This is the same thing. What I mean is how easy it could have been for us if we have had reliable and undeniable proofs instead of such lot of weird, contradictory, unproved and inaccurate tales. It is no about Pilate and the Sanhedrin believed Jesus was a god. It is about left to us a “stock of evidences”, proofs that facts really happened. Or else: Didn’t knew (the omniscient) Jesus that 2000 years later lots of people would became unbelievers because the lack of reliable proofs? I guess you said “God do what he likes” but 1) In the middle of a region of people used to write almost every thing,(Hebrews besides Romans, Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks,) a messiah appear with a VERY, VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE that writes not-a-single-word-at-all, neither ordered they were written from his mouth in his days? Perhaps he forgotten of us, 2000 years later? To me, it is obvious. Look all around of you. All important things we, mere human, put written: the Constitution, the laws, literature, surgery procedures, discoveries, math, poems, blueprints, and even cooking recipes, songs lyrics, etc. Perhaps THAT wasn’t important enough to be put down on paper by their own hands? 2) As history tells, God himself written Tablets of Law. It seems the message was very important so he want to be sure there was not a simple failure. Then, why didn’t he give to us the bible written by his finger, so avoiding us the chaos and confusion the bible is?
“Jesus clearly told them that He was the Son of God, but they refused to believe it“
Oh, yes, I know it: “Generation of snakes. Not a single proof will be gift to you” But, if a teacher deny proofs and explanations their pupils need, how could he be understood? What’s the sense of that denegation?
“Him not appearing to show them the truth was the punishment they deserved. It would have led to insincere belief, because they only believed Him after they saw the sign of resurrection”.
But perhaps, didn’t he do miracles in order to show he was the son of god? To me it seems like this: I ask you shut your eyes, and ask you say the colour of an object I put in front of your face. What’s the purpose? Why is it virtuous to believe instead of verifying or seeing? After all, what for our brain and our eyes are?
“On the other hand, those who loved Jesus deserved to meet Him, and He appeared to them to strengthen their faith.”
But what for strengthen the faith that those that now were faithful? Why not help to raise the faith of those still unbelievers, instead?
“I mean, how often do you get a Saviour rising from the dead?”
Had you ever heard about the myths of Osiris and Mithras?
Have a good time.
Carlos
To Trevor Tan—
Thank you for your comments –Very Good…
Pilate and and the others would not have believed , no matter what Jesus did………
Luke 16;19-31
Martin – I don’t think considering the Big Bang or other things which are a part of theoretical physics is helpful in trying to understand whether supernatural forces are at work i.e. God. They are so theoretical or hypothetical. Something more approachable is what scientists have discovered about biochemistry and the workings of cells, something Darwin had no idea of. I posted this link earlier but here it is again. Graphically shows the awesome complexity in DNA replication. And that’s only part of it. How it codes for protein synthesis is something Perry has discussed. Lots on youtube etc. worth a look. Of course there might be deep hidden laws of nature we don’t know about but with our knowledge today I think we should have at least an inkling, but nothing, only the Victorians theory of mutation and natural selection.
http://www.wiley.com/college/pratt/0471393878/student/animations/dna_replication/index.html
I do not know of anyone who as ever forced to turn to God prior to offering himself, in true repentance to God. We are beings created in Gods image (We were created with a Spirit unlike animals who only have a soul) and have the freewill or option to chose whatever we wish to do, believe and follow.
Gods Word was given to us as a guide or rule book to what God wants, expects and wishes. Over the Centuries, the devil (Satin now or Lucifer prior to his fall from grace) being the master deceiver and father of all liars has ensured that the Bible has been changed, minipulated and altered to cause confusion in the unsaved mind.
I say this with respect to all reading this reply, as the effects of the acceptance or final rejection of God is the final fact which will either entitle one to everlasting life or damnation and suffering and gnashing of teeth for all of eternity.
For those whose hackles are rising, calm down….. I too was one of you. I debated, contested and argued Gods Word, His plan for our lives, and at some great length everything from Creation to dooms-day and Damnation as recorded by John in the book of Revelations. I only showed how ignorant I was whan trying to argue with others who had studied the facts and understood what I only had an opinon on.
It was like reading an article in Newsweek, forming an unqualified opinion on why the space Shuttle Columbia crashed, then getting angry with the Scientists at Cape Kennedy for not agreeing with my mis-informed point of view. Although my argument was totally irrelevant, unfounded and in fact quite pathetic, it only showed those qualified to comment that I had no idea of the facts. In my own egotistical way, I wanted to stand on the highest rock, shouting louder than all those around me. In fact all I was doing was making a bigger show-piece of myself, proving I was actually a bigger fool than I ever imagined I clould be.
As those in the know turned away in pity for me, I even thought I had gained the victory, but in fact those who I should have been learning from turned from me seeing what I really was, an imbeseale.
We need to understand there are many things we cannot prove. By saying there is no proof Jesus did miracles could be countered with the fact that in those days there was no illness and people only died of old age. Either way there were only writings to record the events. Assumptions need to be made, but much needs to be accepted and left to the un-explainable.
We need to be patient with each other as my biggest opponent in Biblical discussion was. After Prayer for me, and a wonderful attitude was always displayed, my mind finally came around to a annalytical way of thinking. Today like Paul the persecutor of Christains was converted on the road to Damascus, I too was shown the light in a much less dramatic way, like Paul, reach out to the unsaved as an Evangelist to lead them to the Cross.
It is not worth arguing and getting personal, time often is needed to allow those apposesd to an idea to see their mistakes or misundrstanding and once they can swollow their pride (which usually takes most of the time) and accept the truth to admit their mistakes.
We prayerfully wait for those outspoken Big Bang theorists to come around. To those non believers, Give God a chance, being the Gentleman He is, God will never force you, but though Supernatural (not spooky) but unexplained events, will lead you in Spirit and in Truth that you too may understand the truth which Gods Word tells us “WILL SET YOU FREE”
Be Blessed
You seem to accept that there are many things in the Bible that we cannot prove and “assumptions must be made.”
How then can you say that your newly discovered conclusions are true? I admire that you recognize that you were ignorant but it is sad that now you believe things based on assumptions and supernatural events and while admitting that they are unexplained, you feel that you now have the truth.
Please realize that most scientists are not particularly interested in arguing with the Bible and God, or even in being atheists, we don’t reject God as much as just not seeing evidence for God’s existence. Believing in God would be pretending, like you would have to if you tried to become a non-believer. It would be hypocritical and dishonest. We are not egotistical like you suggest. We just follow science, and the facts, wherever they lead, and suspicious of supernatural explanations (non science). Following the assumptions in the Bible, just to get to heaven is a nice promise but a good natural explanation will work much better than your prayers.
to Martin Lagerwey
When one becomes involved in something new and exciting, you tend to put your whole existance into it (if you know what I mean?) and that is where I found myself.
I had a problem believing that Jesus broke the bread and fish and fed the multitude. A year later, when visiting Jerusalem, our tour group visited a church I recall was called the “Church of the Beatitudes”
While there, something happened to draw me from the others, and I walked directly over to the MOSAIC picture (of a basket containing fish and loaves of bread), on the floor behind some barriers. While I was looking at this, I felt strange and somehow I knew that this was to do with my un-belief in that piece of the Gospel. From that point on, I have accepted the entire New Testament as truth, and after several years now have gone on the study Gods Word at considerable length. I have obtained a B.Theology and lecture at Bible College.
I strongly believe that once the Holy Spirit starts to work in your life, and you accept that, youre whole life will change. Should you reject any part of God working in your life, you may never have the opportunity of discovering the wonders of Gods Word again. May sound strange, but many Believers can attest to this.
God is good and I will follow wherever I am sent to spread His Word. I believe that we as Gods creation are the reference and pointer to the truths of His Word. We are told that we need to be Christ-like, growing continually from Glory to Glory.
It is my Prayer that people will see Jesus in me, allowing me to be honest with the world and all those in it, without having to do something outrageous to draw attention to me to enble me to encourage others to learn about the Lord.
Be Blessed
Martin Lagerwey post 1st April –
“Intuitively it seems that everything was created by a higher authority. But science is progressively able to explain more and more about origins and sees little evidence of God. There are some arguments of logic and philosophy such as Perry makes, like that design implies a designer, but they actually have limited persuasive power over scientists”.
Perry – “Yes, science says “someday we will have it all figured out.” And each answer opens up three more questions. It’s endless. Science is further from eliminating God than it was 500 years ago”.
I think Perry’s comment is a very reasonable answer to statements of the kind from Martin. What is the ‘persuasive power of scientists’ when the phenomena and staggering complexity of biology which science has discovered leads us to wonder how it all happened by fortuitous accidents over a period of time? What is it they are trying to persuade? Scientists of Darwin’s time believed the cell consisted of merely a blob of protoplasm, the work of scientist has shown this is a laughable simplification. The cell is a factory of unimaginably complex co-dependent systems and processes. Science discovered it but it hasn’t explained how it happened without intelligence. It’s logical to suppose the greater the complexity the less probability that it happened without design. Scientists have persuaded me of that, not the converse.
Science has discovered the cell, and DNA and atoms and the big bang and galaxies. Of course scientists didn’t make these things but has come a long way to explaining them.
Physicists have explained with mathematics how atoms are held together and how galaxies were (and are still being) formed.
Biologists have explained how simple life evolved into the myriad forms of life today by natural selection. The origin of life is not yet explained, just as atoms were once not yet explained but several possible mechanisms have been proposed. (It’s hard to get cellular evidence from 3.5 billion years ago.) Since Darwin proposed a mechanism for evolution it has become clear that design can come from nature and does not have to be an external intelligent design. Science is much closer to eliminating God now than 150 years ago. 500 years ago science hardly existed and everyone in Europe had to believe in God.
Of course a hugely complex and unlikely universe would require an even more hugely complex and more improbable improbable intelligence. You see philosophical arguments become circular. The complexity argument will come back and bite you in the bum.
Of course I fall into the temptation to dispute God. I have no beef really with God. My concern is that people often believe things for reasons of loyalty, obedience, tradition, revelation, intuition and scripture. All these can easily be counterfeited or abused. Ant of these reasons to believe something is risky. And they are hard to correct because they are taken primarily on faith.
Science has one textbook
“Of course a hugely complex and unlikely universe would require an even more hugely complex and more improbable improbable intelligence. You see philosophical arguments become circular. The complexity argument will come back and bite you in the bum.”
Out of curiosity, why is it you consider this improbable? As you say, an even more hugely complex (perhaps infinitely so?) being would be required. Is this not part of the definition of God? And why do you say improbable? How does statistics enter into it?
Naturalism states that there is no first cause. People who believe in God state otherwise. These are philosophical questions and I really don’t see how “probable” or “improbable” enter into it. The difference I can see is Christians base their statement upon the fact that they have a relationship with the God they talk about, and naturalists base their statement on the fact that they don’t.