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[My Frist Post]

Does the bible encourage, discourage or comment at all the matter of believing into things, one has evidence for?

There is a lot about what one should and should not believe but I wondered if there was anything in the bible about believing something, one has evidence for.

I vaguely remember to have once come across a passage (though I might be missremembering it) that non-believers have no excuse, since God has reveald himself. From that I would conclud that if you have proof of something being the case then there is no excuse for not believing it, right?

Now we have strong evidence to believe that the earth is very old and we can observe micro evolution. Micro evolution over a very long timeperiod becomes macro evolution, of which we have even more evidence in fossiles and genetics.

So if the bible would reinforce believing into claims suppoted by evidence, shouldn't one according to God accept evolution? By extension if the bible rejects believing into claims suppoted by evidence, does it give any reasons?

I'm just really curious. I hope them I'm not disrespectful.

[jimwalton]

In the Bible, faith is all about evidence. God appears to Moses in a burning bush before He expects him to believe. He gave signs to take back to Pharaoh and the Israelite people, so they could see the signs before they were expected to believe. So also through the whole OT. In the NT, Jesus started off with turning water into wine, healing some people, casting out demons, and then he taught them about faith. And they couldn't possibly understand the resurrection until there was some evidence to go on.

When you read the Bible, people came to Jesus to be healed because they had heard about other people who had been healed. They had seen other people whom Jesus had healed. People had heard him teach. Their faith was based on evidence. Jesus kept giving them new information, and they gained new knowledge from it. Based on that knowledge, they acted with more faith. People came to him to make requests. See how it works? My belief in God is based on my knowledge of the credibility of those writings, the logic of the teaching, and the historical evidence behind it all. The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it. My faith in the resurrection is an assumption of truth based on enough evidence that makes it reasonable to hold that assumption. Jesus could have just ascended to heaven, the disciples figured out that he had prophesied it, and went around telling people He rose. But that's not what happened. He walked around and let them touch him, talk to him, eat with him, and THEN he said, "Believe that I have risen from the dead."

- In Matthew 8.4 Jesus encourages the man he just healed to go show the evidence that it was true.
- John 14.11 (and also 17.8): Jesus encouraged people to verify the evidences
- Heb. 11.1: Faith is based on evidences
- Romans 1.20 (the passage you mentioned). There are evidences, and we shouldn't be afraid to investigate them.

> So if the bible would reinforce believing into claims suppoted by evidence, shouldn't one according to God accept evolution?

I do accept evolution.