Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Matthew

[jimwalton]

Very well written. You get kudos, too. Thanks for your honesty. I hope that the church people continue to treat you lovingly and with courtesy, despite what faith decisions you do or don't make. It's "natural" that they want to talk to you about giving your life to Jesus. The genuine ones in the congregation are anxious to share the wonder of life, peace, and salvation it has brought them, and of course they want you to experience that as well. But hopefully they'll be courteous about it, and continue to treat you as a person and friend, and not a project.

One specific thing you said was that you see nothing divine in Christianity, but you didn't explain that. I've actually been having another conversation here about "How do you verify the God of Christianity?", but I'm not sure if that's the same issue or not. Maybe you could explain, and we could pursue that, if you wish.

I also understand what you mean about the Barnum Effect. Too often, whether religious or not, people tend to see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, interpret their life circumstances and the input around them in conformity to their presuppositions and value system, and bingo, amazingly everything ties together and "speaks to their heart", yadda yadda. I get it. One of the presuppositions guiding that, though, it seems, is the foundational belief that it's all a crock, and people are gullible. Obviously I think there's a reality to spiritual things, and while some people are playing along, others are truly caught up in a reality beyond reality.

[Nameless]

A very well put answer indeed. I do agree with much of this. Scientists can be surprisingly subjective, that’s true—they are human after all, that’s just something we all do. Now you say that evidence is important for a belief to emerge and while I agree as well, I think it’s important to take into consideration what a person considers as evidence.

Miracles and spirituality almost fall under the same issue. There no consistent way to determine whether there is even a real thing or not and even considering them as a real thing for me points more to confirmation bias than the divine. We can look at some of the miracles if you like—there’s no shortage of claims by a long shot. I just find It very convenient that the only “legitimate miracles” are the ones that reinforce that persons belief such as a Muslim believing that The archangel Gabriel visited Muhammed in Hira or that Jesus went to North America for a bit(mormonism). I don’t consider this legitimate claims and I’ll bet you don’t either. Can we prove beyond a doubt that is didn’t happen, no but I don’t have any reason to believe it. Does the amount of Muslim followers determine its truth? no. does the fact that its written in the Quran by Mohamed himself give the claim any more traction? No. Does any of this make it undeniably 100% untrue? No. there’s just simply no good reason to believe it, but Muslims would disagree and they would use many of the same techniques that Christians use in order to make the claims seem viable. You said earlier that evidence was important and that poses problems for Miracles. Now I can understand that when something happens to someone personally and it seems miraculous I can really say that I don’t blame them for believing as I might do the same. If however this happened to me I don’t think I could be indignant to a person’s skepticism if I have no tangible proof and that in and of itself is the nature of miracles, if they could be explained they wouldn’t be miracles.

You said in the bible that people were never asked to believe until evidence was presented and while I think that’s a pretty solid observation even in Thessalonians 5:20 it says to test prophecies, Jesus also said blessed are those that don’t see and yet believe.
I am enjoying this conversation you’re quite knowledgeable and pleasant to talk to I hope I’m coming off as respectful, Atheistzs can be fickle and rather grumpy it would seem and I don’t want to be like that in the slightest. We don’t have to stick to the exodus I see you’ve tried asking some questions to un-believers and got the usual rabble so feel free to ask away if you like, I’m just enjoying the conversation.

[jimwalton]

As far as miracles, a more productive discussion is in the area of logic and science: Are miracles logically and scientifically possible? Scientifically speaking, science can only measure what is repeatable. If a big boom suddenly happens in the sky, scientists can't study it. They can assemble their equipment and hope it happens again, but if it doesn't happen again, they're out. And people like Isaac Newton, and even current physicists will claim that the laws of physics only pertain if the universe is a close causal system, which can't be proved, either by logic or by science. Scientifically speaking, no one can guarantee that the universe is indeed and necessarily a closed causal system, and logically speaking there is no logical sequence indicating the necessity of a closed system. IT can never be proved that Jesus walked on water—that's a "boom in the sky" kind of occurrence. But what cannot be proved is that miracles are not possible and that they are nonsensical. And given that they are then potentially possible and potentially logical, we cannot discredit any such claim except on other grounds (which are tough to come by, by the way).