Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop; Dr. Eckleburg; Quix; spirited irish; MHGinTN; Godzilla
Tanks again AG. You write You evidently do not consider my claim of a brother to be extraordinary requiring evidence, but you evidently do consider my claim of God to be extraordinary requiring evidence.

Correct, because brothers are not extraordinary occurrence, but a common one among people; because we have seen brothers and sisters, and because in this particular case establishing the veracity of such a claim is not of extreme importance to all of us.

I have no reason to doubt your claim of having a brother because it is of no particular significance to our existential understanding of the world, what happenes to us when we die, what this is all about, etc. Whether God exists or not, on the other hand, is of extreme imprtance to most if not all people because it touches tot he core of our existence.

Under different circumstances, your claim of a having a brother, however, would have to be scrutinized. Situations in which having a sibling is important, such as inhertance claims and next of kin issues owuld be good exmnaples. In that case your claim could not be taken on your word because the information is of such importance that it must be verified.

With God there is not such thing as relative importance. The existence of God is of afects all aspects of our lives and claims about his existence cannot be taken lightly or casually, so all of them require rigorous evidence.

Now, if you told me that you have a brother who lives on Jupiter and raises pink unicorns on a farm there, I might be a little less inclined to believe you.

It is obvious to me that God the Creator is not obvious to you. Therefore, the passages from Romans 1 above apply.

It applies to you. It proves nothing. You could believe that Snow White really happened, it doesn't prove that it did. Again, universal claims about God are not something one can just hang on "personal experience" and "inner reality" or some proverbial spiritual "eyes and ears" and such nonsense. It's a topic that is too important to all of humanity to be reduced to unverifiable, personal, anecdotal, cultural, tribal and other human variables.

When something is important, you need hard facts, as in the case of blood transfusions, or your siblings in cases of inheritance, or establishing a genetic match for purposes of organ transplants, etc. We can't go on hearsay and anecdotal tales on such issues, as doing would be outright irresponsible and even potentially perilous.

The Creation of the present heaven and earth happened, therefore I used the past tense

LOL, go back to the post and see that you wrote "there was a Creator" and not "there was a Creation."

The Creation of the new heaven and new earth is yet to come

It's irrelevant. The relevant part is that you wrote "there was a Creator." Why not just admit it was typo, an honest mistake, and move on?

As an interesting side note concerning the second death mentioned above:

It's sad that God (or more likely someone pretending to speak for God) has to threaten people to make them believe and that people believe in order to be saved from God instead of by God.

754 posted on 03/09/2010 7:21:29 AM PST by kosta50 (The world is the way it is even if YOU don't understand it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 741 | View Replies ]


To: kosta50; Alamo-Girl; Dr. Eckleburg; Quix; spirited irish; MHGinTN; Godzilla; stfassisi
In that case your claim could not be taken on your word because the information is of such importance that it must be verified.

Verification is evidently important to you, dear kosta. But it is not always possible. Take, for instance, the case of the Italian Franciscan priest Padre Pio, of whom it is said that he received five stigmata of Christ at age 31, and suffered them for over 50 years, until his death in 1968. He was continually being examined by doctors and scientists over this period. And they could verify that Padre Pio did, in fact, have these wounds, and that they bled out daily. But they could not verify the cause of these wounds; the fact that he suffered them and still lived to a ripe old age (81) was a complete mystery to them — and to the rest of us who know Padre Pio's story as well, I'm pretty sure.

761 posted on 03/09/2010 12:55:47 PM PST by betty boop (Moral law is not rooted in factual laws of nature; they only tell us what happens, not what ought to)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 754 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson