greyline

Norma, are you sure that purple polka-dot dragons don't exist? Are you sure the earth isn't being carried on the back of a giant turtle with Alzheimer's? If you believe in resurrection of the dead just because a book says so, why not believe *everything* you hear?

Many of us would rather be a bit more discriminating in what we believe. We look for evidence before accepting something. If there is no evidence for it, and plenty of evidence against it (ie. it has not been witnessed reliably, it goes against the most basic laws of nature, etc.) then we don't waste time believing it. Otherwise we may as well believe every piece of nonsense we come across.

Crazy Liz

The difference between the existence of dragons or the world being carried by a turtle and the resurrection is that the former assert present facts, while the latter asserts a past/historical event. There is a difference between falsifying a present fact and falsifying a historical event.

One could certainly say that if the resurrection occurred, it was an extraordinary event that cannot be explained by the laws of nature as we know them. Christians do not deny the laws of nature. Christians merely assert that on rare occasions, supernatural events have occurred.

Clivedurdle

Not quite - they assert the universe only exists because of supernatural intervention and that this God counts every hair of your head and watches every sparrow fall - so that everything is supernatural - God with us is one way of putting this.

greyline

I think this is nitpicking rather than addressing the argument. You can put my examples into the past tense if that helps: dragons used to exist, and until recently the world was carried on the back of a turtle.

If one doesn't require reliable evidence to believe "impossible" things, then why not believe two more impossible things such as those?


I never said Christians denied them. Your description implies that they discard them when required for their doctrine.

Crazy Liz

That's fair. Faith in some supernatural events is part of the Christian belief system.

What you call impossible, Christians would qualify by saying they are naturally impossible, and could only have occurred (as far as we know) if they were supernatural.

The natural and material is all we can predict or explain. That does not either prove or disprove the supernatural.

As far as other religions believing in a different set of supernatural occurrences, they certainly may.

greyline

They certainly do. So when they conflict... who's right?

Diogenes the Cynic

Asserting the occurrence of even a single miracle is denying the laws of nature at least once. One miracle is not less impossible than fifty.

Diogenes the Cynic

Saying they are "naturally impossible" is not a qualification but a redundancy.
The "supernatural" does not have to be disproven. Those who would like to convince others that supernatural events have occurred have the burden to prove they did.
How do you know whose supernatural events are legitimate and whose aren't? Did the Angel Gabriel speak to Mohammed? If not, how do you know? If so, what does it mean that the angel told Mohammed that Jesus was not God and was not resurrected?

norma98026

Sorry for taking so long to reply, greyline. You're right about my trusting a book. But it's a very special book because 1) it was written by people who walked and talked with Jesus, and 2) it is God's message to the world.

Information plays a huge part in our lives, these days more than ever. We're all dependent on second hand information for most, if not all, things in life that we don't understand. For example, I flick on a switch to get light, which not only I don't understand but also which physicists are still trying to make sense of. I put myself at the mercy of pilots, doctors, political leaders, and myself (when I cook!) because I don't know everything I need to know. Scientists have hardly scratched the surface of knowledge in so many areas, but even with what is known, who could possibly master all the main disciplines? So I can't apologize about being dependent on information (a book), even a very old one.

The key is that the information must be reliable. I'm saying the information about Jesus' resurrection is reliable because it was written by men who walked and talked with him. Their credibility, together with the Bible's accurate portrayal of human character and historical events, plus the way the Bible all fits together as an integral whole, parts of which were written over the span of hundreds of years, point to its validity as a historical document. There's no reason to doubt primary sources who are shown to be trustworthy, unless you can prove they were deluded or in some way unable to provide accurate observations.

Without the resurrection, Christianity is personally worthless. With the resurrection, however, there's at least one dimension out there we have yet to experience.

Norma

greyline

No, Norma, the bible says it was written by people who walked and talked with Jesus and that it's God's message to the world. What you need is corroborative evidence before you can make these claims about the bible.


This is largely true, which is why we assess any information based on:

(1) the reliability of the source
(2) the corroborative evidence for the information.

We would be unwise to assess the truth of any piece of information based on only one source. We look for supporting evidence, and we look for bias in the source. Regarding science, there are literally thousands of scientific journals out there, where scientists publish their "information" for all to read so that others can independently replicate those results and provide additional evidence to support (or not support) each piece of information. So while I can't be an expert in all fields of science (or even one), I do know the procedures involved for a scientific theory to become well-supported.

The bible is one source, a self-confessed biased one, and has no supporting evidence that it's the word of God.