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[Democracy]

> We can run experiments on anything to do with Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar.

But we also can't run experiments on any supernatural claim. So do you think it's rational to reject supernatural claims? Like hey, if Jesus existed or did magic in the past, that's cool, but what does it have to do with living in physical reality today where the supernatural abilities that Jesus claimed to possess just don't exist anywhere? If there aren't any experiments to do around Christianity, what is the point of belief?

> The Bible is evidentiary, and doesn't call for blind faith.

What do you think Hebrews 11 calls for? If God was able to be seen, I'd agree that blind faith wasn't required. But in this case, God isn't even well defined enough to have a conversation about - it's entirely guesswork.

I refuse to consider that there are only two religions in the world. There are several thousand at least.

I really don’t see how there is any evidence for theism. Intelligence is only found in living life forms. You can’t just assign it to immaterial beings and say it’s rational.

[jimwalton]

> But we also can't run experiments on any supernatural claim.

Correct. There are many things we can't run science experiments on. Science has its arena: the natural world. You can't run science experiments to determine guilt or innocence in a courtroom, to decipher the economic picture, the describe the power of Picasso's Guernica, the beauty of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, or to predict the winner of the Super Bowl. Science does science things; it's a terrible mistake to think everything is under the jurisdiction of science.

> So do you think it's rational to reject supernatural claims?

It may seem rational to the rejecter, but if the supernatural claims are true, it turns out to be irrational. Let me try to explain.

I am not sure I would grant that there are valid intellectual reasons to reject supernatural claims any more than there are valid intellectual reasons to deny the reality of the Holocaust. I am so thoroughly convinced that Christianity is true, just as I am convinced that the Holocaust really happened, that in the end of things it will be shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is true and has been true all along.

Now, let's take the Holocaust as an example. Arguments are put forth to show how it's all a hoax. Are they intellectually valid? Their perpetrators would say "Definitely so." Some of those who believe the Holocaust is real may even say, "Hmm, I see your point. You're making sense." Those who know the truth (the Jews who are still alive who were in those camps) would say none of the evidence presented in the form of logically valid reasons turns out to be legitimate, because the Holocaust really happened. In the end, if a rational pursuit doesn't lead us to the truth, was it a rational pursuit after all?

> Like hey, if Jesus existed or did magic in the past, that's cool, but what does it have to do with living in physical reality today where the supernatural abilities that Jesus claimed to possess just don't exist anywhere?

Jesus was God, so of course none of us possess His abilities. He was a unique individual. What it has to do with us is that each us must wrestle with His claims to deity. If there really is a God, then it really matters in our physical reality and in each one of our lives. If there really is no God, then that really matters, too. It's one of the most important questions of humanity.

> If there aren't any experiments to do around Christianity, what is the point of belief?

Not everything is subject to the science lab. What's the point of your education, or your job, or a family? Those aren't "science" things. What does it matter whether you're a Democrat or Republican (but, oh, it DOES really matter about that; but those aren't "science" things either). Maybe you believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and maybe you don't. But if there aren't any experiments to do around freedom of speech, what is the point of belief? There's plenty. Science has nothing to do with ANY of this stuff, but it's all important, critical even. Why are we here? What is our purpose in life? What gives humans value? These are some of the most important questions of life, but they have nothing to do with science.

> What do you think Hebrews 11 calls for?

Hebrews 11 calls for evidence, clear and simple. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for." "Being sure of" is the term ὑπόστασις. It means "certainty about the reality of, the substantial nature of something, the reality (in contrast to what merely seems to be; knowing confidence." The term was common in business documents as to the basis or guarantee of transactions. This "assurance" was the real substance undergirding present and future action.

So what the author is saying is that our faith is a kind of knowledge grounded in the reality of something, based on what is actually there in contrast to what merely seems to be.

He says we can know ("be sure of") what we hope for. "Hope" in the Bible is our confidence and certainty about things we know to be real, even though we haven't experienced them yet (much like sitting in a chair or opening a door). Our "hope" is what we know: things that happened in the past (Jesus's death and resurrection), things happening in the present (our experiences of spiritual reality), and things in the future (what we can't possibly have seen yet). "Hope" is what we know to be true; it is knowledge, pure and simple. Because we have evidence (like sitting in a chair), we know about the future (the chair will hold us).

The second half of the verse: "the evidence of things not seen." What is it about the word "evidence" that your eyes completely missed? The Greek word is ἔλεγχος, and means "proof; conviction about what there is evidence for; certainty." We can have certainty about what can't be seen at the present because of the evidence at hand.

That's what Hebrews 11.1 is saying. There's nothing blind about biblical faith. It's based in knowledge and evidence.

> God isn't even well defined enough to have a conversation about - it's entirely guesswork.

This is completely untrue. There's quite a solid case for theism, and it's based in logic, science, and experience. There's nothing "guesswork" about it.

> I refuse to consider that there are only two religions in the world. There are several thousand at least.

Of course there are. There are plenty of animistic religions, but I would lump them all under animism, not as a separate religion for each individual culture. They are small and fading from history because of their inadequacy and superstitionism. Of the major religions encompassing the vast majority of people on Earth, they are as I mentioned, and really fundamentally only two: Christianity and Hinduism.

> I really don’t see how there is any evidence for theism.

Have you done ANY reading on the subject? There is vast evidence for theism. The arguments are usually lined up as cosmological, ontological, teleological, analogical, axiological, scientific, linguistic, and the evidence of other minds. I would hope you've done some research before you came to the conclusion that there is no evidence for theism.

> Intelligence is only found in living life forms.

Correct, and this is one of the arguments for theism. Science tells us that informational data can only derive from previous informational data, so are we wiser to assume our intelligence came from an intelligent source or an unintelligent one? Are we wiser to assume our personality came from a personal source than an impersonal one? If our intelligence came from "random" processes (natural selection and genetic mutation), can we really trust that our intelligence leads us to mostly true thoughts? Many would conclude "no." But if our intelligence came from an intelligent source (God), then it makes perfect sense that it leads us to mostly true thoughts. If we are inferring the most reasonable conclusion, theism is stronger than naturalism.

> You can’t just assign it to immaterial beings and say it’s rational.

Of course not, but that's not how it works. Did the universe cause itself to come into being when it didn't previously exist? Both science and reason would tell us that's not possible or reasonable. Since the laws of nature and the physical forces didn't exist before the Big Bang, nor did nature itself, then something outside of nature must have been the causal mechanism. And since we know the non-material things truly exist (like time, memories, intuitions, meanings, etc.), it's not a stretch that there are non-material entities. So if some non-natural, non-material entity was the causal mechanism for the Big Bang, we can rationally perceive that causal mechanism to be powerful, timeless, intelligent, personal, and non-material. In other words, God is a rational conclusion. Considering Occam's Razor, since only in God is there sufficiency of explanation, then God is also the simplest explanation.

[Democracy]

It’s not extraordinary that you’re confident a religion is true. Most people are confident and most people don’t believe in the same religious concept so most people are confident in a wrong concept. Why would you be any different?

Strange how no theist has ever presented a convincing argument for a god on reddit, but you’re just absolutely positive that good arguments exist. Well, please link some threads from that subreddit or start your own.

I still consider all religions are superstitious including Christianity and the fact that you have a mindset that ignores how common false beliefs are in the human race makes me curious how much you’ve thought about this because it feels like it’s the first time.

[jimwalton]

I wouldn't knowing hold to a position that I knew was false. That's just idiocy. We all come to a place in our search for truth where we consider that we subscribe to something both logical and tenable, and then we find a place of equilibrium and hold to that position until further information (or dire threat) forces us to desert that position, or at least question it. So of course I'm no different than anyone else, you included.

> Strange how no theist has ever presented a convincing argument for a god on reddit, but you’re just absolutely positive that good arguments exist. Well, please link some threads from that subreddit or start your own.

I've actually had DOZENS of conversations on reddit discussing and debating the arguments for the existence of God. They show up every couple of weeks, sometimes multiple ones in a single week, and I've had this conversation literally dozens of time. I just had one two days ago.

> I still consider all religions are superstitious including Christianity and the fact that you have a mindset that ignores how common false beliefs are in the human race

And what makes you think I ignore that? Just prejudice on your part. I happen to agree with you that false beliefs are very common among humans, but that doesn't mean every belief is false.