Posted on 11/10/2005 4:43:24 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
It is an emotional appeal.
That doesn't make it bad - it just is what it is.
It's not "proof" of anything, but that's what faith is. My only objection comes when that faith gets confused with something else, like scientific evidence.
I'm glad that you feel so strongly that your faith is correct. But everyone has those feelings about their faiths. Those feelings don't make their faith the One True Faith and yours wrong, or vice versa.
You have been polite and friendly. I appreciate that.
Nonetheless, I will point out that this is objective.
It asks you to follow the path, and then you will know.
So Julius and Ethel Rosenberg show that communism is true?!
Or the sodiers who went into hiding and refused to give up (sometimes for many years) show that Japanese militaristic emperor worship is true?!
There were martyrs for Gnosticism, Catharism, and any other heresy you can think of. There were martyrs for the Aztec religion.
Bottom line, the existence of martyrdom shows absolutely nothing about the credibility of the belief.
I respect your beliefs and am glad that you haven't taken offense.
But you're dead wrong - your proof is *not* objective. It's the very essence of subjective - only someone who has decided in advance that your religion is true feels as though it is true. To outsiders, your religion is every bit as false as it is true to you.
Objective would mean that people who don't share your faith could still see its truth. But then it wouldn't be faith.
Don't get me wrong - faith is a wonderful thing. But don't confuse faith with science or facts. Faith concerns itself with things that cannot be proven in the natural world. Science concerns itself with things that can. Confusing the two is downright dangerous.
If martyom was evidence for truth, we should all be converting to Islam.
Allow me to encourage you to take the steps already mentioned.
Highball, I see you have not addressed my post #782.
Clearly, you have no way to explain away why virtually the entire world uses the birth of Jesus as the reference point of all of history.
DUH!
Hire a good archaeologist and do a little remote sensing. Find out if there is anything there in no time! Hardly any digging at all.
You stuck in the last century or what?
Think about it. We are saying that a dead man rose again and stayed that way. That means He's alive according to us, doesn't it?
It is as if I told you that treasure is buried in a local field. How would you prove that I'm telling the truth?
Christ is alive. You and I know Him on a personal basis and are alive in Him and He is alive in us. I've known Him for nearly 46 years now - and I'm sure you've walked with Him a long time also.
His revelations - whether by bringing Scripture alive in us or by His indwelling - are more certain to us than any other kind of knowledge. We trust Him above all our sensory perceptions, His presence is known in every detail of our lives. He takes care of us, we follow Him. We sense being alive in timelessness while yet in the flesh.
But those who do not know Him in this way could not understand Spiritual revelation. To them, the Scriptures can be no more than an ancient manuscript and knowledge derives from sensory perception.
Sorry. :>)
Next time I'll just say, "Check it out." That leaves the method open.
Surely you're not suggesting that the objective truth of an idea may be ascertained by its popularity?
I do not dispute that the remnants of the Roman Empire were sucessful in spreading Christianity, just as the British Empire spead the English language across the globe. None of that addresses the objective truth of Christ's resurrection or serves as proof thereof.
Popularity? Christ was so popular, the Romans crucified him. Even those who hated him and had every motivation to discount or hide the fact of His resurrection did and still use his birth as the reference point for all of human history.
Popularity? There is no historical figure as popular as Jesus Christ; not even close to his. What other reasonable explanation could there be that sets him apart from every other person born in the history of the world. Could it be that he wwas the only one resurrected from the dead?
Christianity was not popular with Rome. They killed virtually all of Christ's disciples and uncounted thousands or millions of Christians until much later.
At the time of Jesus there were half a dozen popular religions claiming a Virgin birth and a resurrection. these were old religions at the time.
Read my post again - I meant that the fact that Christ's birth is commemorated (not the actual date, of course, but a symbolic date) in no way serves as actual evidence that he was resurrected.
Nice try, but it's yet another emotional appeal. Still hardly evidence.
You are now setting an impossible standard. Based on your standard, there was no Jewish holocost, Abraham Lincoln was never the president of the United States, etc.
Indirect and circumstantial evidence is just as valid as any other kind of evidence. Direct evidence is sometimes the worst; such as eyewitness accounts, which can be completely unreliable.
Do you believe in evolution? There is certainly no actual evidence for it.
How about naming just three of them. Even if there was any evidence of them, why is JEsus Christ set apart from all the others?
Krishna, Sakia, Thammuz, Wittoba, Iao, Hesus, Quexalcote, Quirinus, Prometheus, Thulis, Indra, Alcestos, Atys, Crite, Bali, Mithra -- all share similarities to the Christian story. There are others sharing most of the elements, but I don't have time at the moment to research them.
What sets Christianity apart is the conversion on Constantine.
The truth is that there is no evidence against it. While your claim is repeatedly made on these threads, no one has yet offered their evidence.
Do you have a billion year old human fossil? Maybe a lizard?
One of the great accomplishments of evolutionary biology is that the theory is supported by genomics. The objects of genomics weren't even discovered until 100 years after Darwin's proposal.
Yet where are ID's accomplishments? What stirring new discoveries has it led to? It's been around since Darwin proposed 150 years ago as well.
All ID has done so far is take researchers away from work for cures on diseases and sent them searching for the components of flagella. Who has been helped so far by proving that flagella are not "irreducibly complex"?
You are now setting an impossible standard. Based on your standard, there was no Jewish holocost, Abraham Lincoln was never the president of the United States, etc.
That's absurd. I never said that we must witness events to know that they happened. I only said that shared belief in a thing does not make that thing true.
There is plenty of objective evidence to support the Holocaust. There is plenty of objective evidence that Lincoln was President of the United States. Unbiased evidence from uninvolved sources. Physical evidence.
Indirect and circumstantial evidence is just as valid as any other kind of evidence. Direct evidence is sometimes the worst; such as eyewitness accounts, which can be completely unreliable.
I agree - eyewitness testimony is just about worthless. That was one of my original points, after all.
Do you believe in evolution? There is certainly no actual evidence for it.
Silly creationist canard, as bold as it is false. There is plenty of evidence to support the Theory of Evolution, or it wouldn't be a "theory". We don't have to have witnessed it to see evidence for it. Just as I didn't have to personally see Lincoln in office to know that he was the President.
There is plenty of objective evidence to support the Holocaust. There is plenty of objective evidence that Lincoln was President of the United States. There is plenty of objective evidence to support the Theory of Evolution. So far, the only evidence offered to support Christ's resurrection is unreliable eyewitness testimony, records written by his followers and the notion that "if enough people believe it, hey - it must be true."
Don't get me wrong - I'm in no way belittling anyone's belief. I'm only concerned when people start to confuse their personal faith with scientific evidence.
There is plenty of evidence to support the Theory of Evolution, or it wouldn't be a "theory". We don't have to have witnessed it to see evidence for it. Just as I didn't have to personally see Lincoln in office to know that he was the President.
Evidence for it an proof are not the same. Even evolutionists admit that evolution is not a fact. The historical evidence of Jesus Christ is far greater than that for evolution. granted, belief in Jesus Christ does require an element of faith; but so does a belief in evolution; doesn't it?
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