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Gold Star for sure, Arq! I admit that my knowledge of the character and nature of God DOES come from my encounters. But it was easy to find those writings that agreed with my personal knowledge in the spiritual fossil record, especially the descriptions of Christ. My standard for vetting the truth in ANY written tome is the agape love of Christ and my experiences. You caught me out, old chum!!
No I didn't really 'catch you out' old mate. I said I don't argue with your theories or with you, and I don't. I merely supposed that they were based first and foremost on a Revelation, shall we say? Because that became clear from your posts and the thread (with mission impossibru, you recall?) arguing for the validity of divine revelation.
We may differ on what that effect was and on how the process of finding the supportive evidence illuminated by the new understanding actually worked. But that this was the basis was pretty well telegraphed through you posts, so I hardly caught you out, after all.
The Bible is a starter for ten, through a glass darkly, foot in the door, to getting to know Someone. Science is generally not used to get to know people - getting to know someone has many twists and turns and takes a long time. When we think someone is 'like this', they show how they are actually like 'that'. Words do require interpretation, but that is where spirit also comes in - words can be tested - is the ecology of what these words are saying, true.
Granted though, you have to believe that other is, before you're going to get to know them. If the 'you're not real' narrative keeps playing over and over one ends up not believing the other is.
Hmm. The analogy breaks down a bit. Of course, we know people exist, if hard evidence counts for anything. But what sort of person they are, we don't know. We don't even know when we talk to them. Eventually, we do get to know them. (1)
The bible is a similar thing. It exists and it tells us about God and Jesus. But are they the real thing or just a presented image? I think they are. Not by the person themselves of course, but by the writers.
The analogy is not perfect of course. The analogy is probably like the Communist Chinese worker hero, and Napoleon's Nicolaus Chauvin (and how many of you knew that Chauvinism was named after him, eh?). Ideal personifications who probably never existed.
Not that we can prove it conclusively, which leaves a good excuse to believe in their reality, if you must.
(1) In fact that is probably one person in the world who really understands me, and when he goes, I will break the strings of my Qin.
Well, the best we do is come up with negative evidence. Using geology, cosmology, palaeontology and archeology. Analyzed logically. To sum up, the world looks like it would be if it came about without a god doing it. Therefore, that really becomes the preferred or default theory. So far as I can see, whether you start out with a god a prori or not, you end up with 'no Spoor' and it is up to the Theists to provide some.
This can range from complexity and design to God -experience, and from archaeological support to healings and answered prayer.
The evidence presented for "God" is what the debates are really about. They are for me, at any rate. I reckon that we double -dammned furnace -fodder are getting the best of it, but then I would.
But it was easy to find those writings that agreed with my personal knowledge in the spiritual fossil record
Confirmation Bias warning there however - given the number of things made up about gods it would be genuinely a surprise if your imagination _actually had_ come up with something entirely original for which you could find not supporting text in supernatural musings from our species. As soon as you start making up something about god or gods - and you do - you are going to find someone who wrote something that fits with your fantasy quiet quickly and easily. The mistake - of course - would be to assume this in any way validates any of it.
'This is the faith -based belief; what evidence can I find to fit in with it?'
This is why no argument that begins from an unvalidated faith -based assumption, can ever be sound, logically or scientifically. Even if it happens to turn out to be right.
... no argument that begins from an unvalidated faith -based assumption, can ever be sound, logically or scientifically. Even if it happens to turn out to be right.
As they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Doing the right things for the wrong reasons or happening to arrive at a right conclusion via faulty reasoning or non-reasoning are all part and parcel of the same thing.
Hence an ardent Christian and my atheist self would both be equally keen to come to the aid of, say, an assault victim. I would do it because allowing such things unchallenged tends toward the kind of society I wouldn't want to live in. A Christian might claim to do it because god says to or because god might punish you for not doing so. My guess though is that somewhere underneath all the theist abstractions beats the heart of a person who sees their own rational self interest even if they don't want to admit it. THEY don't want to live in an uncivil society, either. The rest is just window dressing.
I tend to agree. There is an instinct to help, perhaps brought out by some education in reciprocity. The explanations about God will be pleased or indeed the humanist rationalization that this would make for a better society perhaps predate the discovery of DNA.
That said the humanist view makes better sense than the Theist one.
I am on God's side . . . NOT the Bible or any other revered and idolized book. God actually abides with us but too many seem oblivious to that fact and rely on books.
I have serious questions, since MysticPhd does not believe in the Bible but claims to believe in God within his but thinks that God will save him due to his own philosophical thinking. He appears to have NO belief in the God of the Old Testamant, which Jesus affirms over and over in the New Testament.
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I admit that my knowledge of the character and nature of God DOES come from my encounters. But it was easy to find those writings that agreed with my personal knowledge in the spiritual fossil record, especially the descriptions of Christ. My standard for vetting the truth in ANY written tome is the agape love of Christ and my experiences. You caught me out, old chum!!
. I said I don't argue with your theories or with you, and I don't. I merely supposed that they were based first and foremost on a Revelation, shall we say? Because that became clear from your posts and the thread (with mission impossibru, you recall?) arguing for the validity of divine revelation.
