No, FK, I always qualify my statements that this is the a priori basis for all religions. The initial step is an a priori blind acceptance of God as a matter of fact, because there is no objective proof of God.
How does this disagree with what I said? Your attitude towards "a priori" is that it is made up, not supported by facts. That's what I would call baseless. One cannot claim that his faith has a base if it is in "baselessness". :)
The eyes and ears are present in all faiths. It's just that the Jews hear one thing, the Christians another, the Muslims something else, the Hindus something else, the Buddhists something else, the Baha'i something else, etc.
Really? Your argument appears to be like saying that if there is one very bad football team in the NFL, then they all must be bad. IOW, I think that just the existence of false faiths and false texts, by itself, lowers your opinion of the Bible. And, that would be an expected result if one thought that all sacred texts have equal internal authority, meaning none. :)
Monotheism is an assumption. It is based on individual human experience (revelations) in dozens of faiths in the world.
Then you must believe that Christ's resurrection is also an assumption, along with everything else in the Bible. The Church can't help you here since it unequivocally holds to monotheism based upon revelation.
That doesn't mean that all beliefs are equally valid. Just as we have preferences for everything else, we prefer God suited to our image, culture, experience,e etc. It's a choice which religion we will embrace.
In that case it must be in large part luck if any particular person will become a Christian. It would depend on random variables such as where and when a person was born. I mean, by this thinking what chance would you have had becoming a Christian if you had been born in China? Probably almost none, right? Is that how a loving God works, or doesn't work?
Some people find the Zeus-like OT God preferable to Jesus; others find Allah the "true" God; others yet see Christ as perfect God-man, and God as a perfect of union of three Hypostases, all being one and the same God, yet only one of the Hypostases being "without cause." To others this is polytheism; to others yet, the reeks and Latins are "idolaters."
You forgot the others who believe that the OT God is exactly the same as the NT God, such as Reformers and the Latin Church. :)
FK: "For example, without a REAL Fall, in real space-time, then how does one explain the need for Christ? Did Christ come to die for something that never happened? Another example would be Jesus celebrating the fairy tale of the Passover."
I can't answer that. If it is "real" in people's minds, then it shapes their attitudes and beliefs and it may be as "real" as real gets. That's what we call delusions.
That is the classic dilemma with "leap of faithers". There just ARE no answers to these issues. For those who hold to historic Christianity, there are plenty of answers.
What if your parents are not your real parents? What if you were adopted and never told about it? You'd live in a delusion, based on a logical assumption, that your parents are indeed your parents. And even though they are not your real (biological) parents, they are your real parents because they raised you as their son.
I have plenty of evidence that I am the son of who I think my parents were. Besides the documents and the family who has known me since I was born there are pictures of my parents showing strong resemblance. I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. I am even more sure of the Christian God described in the Bible. :)
The death (and resurrection) of Christ is a matter of belief, not of historical fact. There are no verifiable eyewitness accounts of either.
Oh, well, I have to admit, I wasn't expecting that. :) I have no idea what to say. :)
Faith is faith, whether it is a "true" faith or not. The first step in any faith is an a priori acceptance of its validity.
A priori doesn't mean it's "baseless." Every belief, whatever it may be, is based on something. A priori is wholly deductive; therefore it is not mindless, baseless or irrational. But it is not necessarily true. Faith is a belief, not a proof. Just because I believe in something doesn't make it true.
The problem with faith is not the faith itself but when someone claims that his faith is "true." This extraordinary claim demands extraordinary evidence.
Gravity is easy, but when it comes to religion, things get a wee bit more complicated. When asked to authenticate it, the believer offers faith itself as proof! The "proof" that the Bible is God's own word is your belief that it is; but your faith is not a proof that it is!
What proof do you have that your beliefs are true? Your inner feelings? Likewise, what proof do you have that other "bibles' are "false" other than your personal, subjective conviction that they are? In both cases you have an a priori completed belief without any objective proof.
No, Christ's resurrection is a matter of faith. My statement you responded to was that monotheism is an assumption, just as polytheism is.
In that case it must be in large part luck if any particular person will become a Christian. It would depend on random variables such as where and when a person was born. I mean, by this thinking what chance would you have had becoming a Christian if you had been born in China? Probably almost none, right? Is that how a loving God works, or doesn't work?
Funny coming form a Reformed Christian who thinks nothing of the OT God committing genocide that you should ask me is "that how a loving God works!" :) Indeed, priceless.
Yes, where and when you are born has a lot to do with your chances of becoming Christian. Christ left it to His disciples to teach and baptize all nations...so to a large extent it is a task given to the Church.
Perhaps if all the Evangelicals stopped trying to evangelize Christians in Russia and Latin America and instead risked their lives for faith in areas inimical to Christianity, the success rate in China and Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Iran and other places would probably be better.
But doing so they might lose their heads...so rock-solid faith and assurance of salvation doesn't seem to work as well in practice as it does on paper. :)
By all accounts, Islam is doing a much better job of converting people to their "religion of peace" (according to our great leader G W Bush, Jr). Perhaps because it plays even more to egotistic human nature than some 16th century Christian sects, but we won't mention any names... :)
If there is one God, as we believe, then that God is the same no matter whose book you read. It is not that God changes; human perception of God does. Luckily, we Christians don't have to depend on "visions," and "inner voices" and dreams and hallucinations. We have a set of books called the Gospels and they tell us an eyewitness account of our Lord and God as to what He said and did in Person. We take that God to be the true God who is merely prefigured in uncertain terms in the OT.
Yeah, "historic" Christianity (what 16th century?) has plenty of answers such as : "if God wanted man to fly, He would have given him wings!" or "my eyes are green because God made them that way" or "I am poor/rich/stupid/smart/healthy/sick/disabled etc. because God made me that way, for His glory."
That "historic" Christianity (more like Manicheanism) also denies that prehistoric man existed, or that dinosaurs ever existed. When my older daughter, for social reasons, started to attend a Baptist Church in her early teens she told me the fossils were planted in the earth by Satan to deceive us. She learned this from "historic" Christianity. The "historic" Christianity may have plenty of answers, but not all answers are valid answers, FK.
I wasn't questioning if your parents were your biological parents, FK. I am surprised you misconstrued it that way. I was talking about believing delusions and believing they are real. As an example of the reality of our beliefs, I used a situation [using a general "you" and not specifically you]
You completely missed the point of my example. How you could misconstrue what I was trying to say is beyond me, but form your answer it is clear that you did not get or see or understand that I was talking about the reality of believing delusions. You reply
Thank you. I wasn't asking for any proof that your parents are your real biological parent.
And here you just told me that "historic" Christianity has plenty of answers. All the Christians who perished in Roman pogroms did so without ever having seen Jesus. And even some of His own eleven disciples didn't believe in resurrected Jesus when they saw Him [my emphasis]:
Why do you think we are holier than they?