@Anonymous: remember that neither group is really homogeneous, despite Catholicism’s theoretically unified doctrine. It’s not like one person moving from an evangelical church to a catholic congregation is necessarily the exact opposite of a catholic moving to an evangelical church. Both could be moving from an empty or abusive spiritual setting to a more positive one.

Lydia-

I just wanted to add that I am one of those Agnostics who truly believed with everything I had before I questioned and let go of my Faith in Jesus. I was raised in a Christian home, had a simple-yet profound conversion through a plain telling of the Gospel and it’s hope of Eternal Life at age 8. You can ask my old Elementary buddies-my most treasured possession was a childrens Bible that I got for Christmas and would tote around school. I began reading the Bible intensely (King James Parallel edition with the Living Bible) and had read most of the Bible by age 12.

Got involved with Young Life (Saranac Lake)-and was a Campaigner and student leader in High school for 3 years. A volunteer Young Life leader all of my 5 college years. After college, I married my college sweetheart (we met at church), helped plant 2 churches and was a worship leader in 4 different churches over the last 20 years. I didn’t do any of this because I thought I was earning favor with God, I truly wanted to know Jesus and share his love and Life with everyone I met. I was a believer….

After a long stint in an abusive church was when I began to question my assumptions and began exploring the Catholic Church and the early church fathers writings of the Great Church before the Schism. Actually sat down with a priest at St. Patrick’s in NYC and had a very honest talk about my mis-givings about the Catholic church, given my anti-Catholic upbringing.

Anyhow….don’t want to hijack a thread, and I’m curious to read more of the story-thanks for letting me ramble!

i can relate to you, Doubtful. My difference is that I tend to cycle from belief through doubt every few months to a year. I will go through serious times of unbelief and then I seem to pop out of it. The point is that most of the evangelical world does not know how to deal with people who go through periods of unbelief, whether long term or short term. Just like they dont know how to deal with people that suffer from depression. In my old church (an SGM church) you would be shunned if you admitted to such doubt, so I learned to keep my mouth shut. And depression…don’t even hint of it or you will be labeled with the “sin of unbelief” and be relegated to the chair or parking team.

The strongest Christian I know, a former high up person at one of those three letter Christian organizations that are so popular these days, regularly and confidently tells groups of people about his extremely serious doubts about the faith, struggles with depression, and difficult times. The fact that he is open and honest about the times when he questions God’s goodness is exactly what allows him to be called when others are struggling with doubt and depression.

The Christians we know of today as fathers of the faith almost universally struggled with depression and doubt. Austine describes his bouts in the Confessions. Katie Luther was known to use humor to try and get Martin Luther out of his depressed funks, once dressing up in funeral attire and telling him that he was acting as if God had died. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain goes through his own doubt in excruciating detail and every person I know who has suffered serious affliction resonates with the experiences he had.

Looking Elsewhere-I spent some time at SGM, so I know exactly what you mean. Even simple questions were seen as sinful, let alone doubting or being depressed. I guess it doesn’t bode well for a church that boasts of being the “Happiest Place on Earth”…

Dee/Lydia-Thanks for the conversation, I feel more than welcome here and I may take you up on the writing bit…..

I wonder if doubt is just like any other problem that people struggle with. Not meaning to be trite, but lots of people struggle with lust, fear, hatred, etc. Just put doubt on the list.

Certainly believers doubt God will do what He says He will do in their lives. So, it would not be unusual, I think, for believers to doubt God’s existence. I believe that’s why the actual practice of confessional theology is a healthy thing.

A bit off topic – have any of you seen the “debate” on C-Span between Christopher Hitches and Tony Blair? It is really unusual.

I was proud of Blair for being the spokesman. He did not do that great a job, but I was still proud of him and glad that he stood up.

I really like Hitchens. But his arguments were very predictable and lacked a great deal of logic, in my opinion. A truly skillful and knowledgeable Chirstian (Blair appears to be a sincere but tradition bound and dependent spokesman), would have a really good showing opposite of Hitchens. Stott, Buckley, Colson, Keller, Dever, Mohler and a host of others who make really good public spokesman but are familiar enough with atheistic lines of thought would have been great to hear.

Doug

Sounds like you came from a good family. I know far too many Baptist families who think that all Catholics are going to hell. Ole Jimmy Smryl down at FBC Jacksonville says Catholicism is a cult. Hmmm, takes one to know one I guess.

doubtful,

Absolutely…dying on a Wednesday is a one way ticket babe, that’s why they call is “hump day”, it’s from the old Latin “umphay ayday” which is obviously related to “hell day” “ellhay ayday.”

Doubtful

Ignore Karl-our resident atheist. He is a good guy and has a unique sense of humor. If heaven were closed to those who struggle with doubt, then heaven would be very empty real estate. In fact, I doubt your SGM pastors would not be there as well.

God is merciful and kind and knows our hearts. He knows that we want to believe and knows we struggle within our beliefs. In heaven, all of our tears will be wiped away and we will not struggle any longer. God loves you and wants you in heaven more than you can ever want to be there.

In fact, I will go out on a limb and say this. The fact that you are even concerned about this issue means you are a true believer. Those who are not saved, and don’t wish to be, couldn’t care less about heaven. So, sleep well tonight!

Numo

Awesome! Thanks. If you ever want to write about your experience we would be happy to post it. Just contact us through our email system under contacts. No pressure. We believe that personal experience speaks volumes.

You will love the post tomorrow. Your thoughts are well mirrored by the experience of these former missionaries. I will be most interested in your thoughts.

We are also going to be writing extensively about spiritual abuse this month and featuring two authors and their research and experiences. Most of our readers will not know these folks. One is in Canada and the other comes to us via Ireland.

BTW- I have just been informed by on of the authors that January is Spiritual Abuse Month-for real.

Doubtful, I must echo what Dee said. The fact you are even thinking about it means something….I won’t say it means “saved” because I don’t know. But there are those who could care less and never even think about it.

My guess is that 90% of what we see out there with the institutions is not the real thing.

Dee,

Here’s the info. confirming that January is “Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month”

http://www.soullibertyfaith.com/2010/09/spiritual-abuse-awareness-month.html

“Out of all the abuse awarenesses there are in the world today, we didn’t have one for Spiritual Abuse…until today. I have personally chosen January to be Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month and have listed it in Wikipedia’s ‘Month Awareness’ directory. You can read a brief overview of what Spiritual Abuse is here. And coming soon will be the Wiki page for Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month.”

Dee,

“…could the dust be DNA? I think so.”, seriously, i think that is just wishful thinking at best or less cordially silly speculation.

Secondly, “God is infinite, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. Who He is is far beyond our limited, three dimensional, finite mind to comprehend.”

The entire idea that God has properties beyond our comprehension is circular because it was man who assigned those properties to Him in the first place.

It’s like deciding that my goldfish is wise beyond my ability to comprehend, then actually believing it is a real property of the goldfish, simply because I assigned it that property.

Exactly where in the Bible is there any evidence that God is omniscient, what piece of wisdom, morality or ethics is there in the Bible that is so far beyond our capacity to comprehend it that it screams of divine origin? All the proverbs, advice, commandments, etc. were not even unique among the religions and philosophies of the world many years before Christianity, and there certainly isn’t anything surprising or stunning there to modern men. The only reason we think God is omniscient is because men declared Him to be and we like believing in our own propaganda.

The same goes for omnipotence, omnipresence, etc. etc.

P.S.: I read the article by the former missionaries and did it ever hit home!

Part of that realization – about poor people and the church – is not an easy or comfortable one, but it is good.

Zeta,

I love rhetoric so much, the bottom line is that we created the concept of God and thereby His attributes. As pointed out earlier there is nothing in the Bible that screams of divine origins. All the parables and tales are fully withing the realm of human comprehension. You said that “a being that is what God must be…”, do you not see that this is simply the creation of the human mind. God doesn’t have to be anything, He doesn’t even have to exist, He is, what we deem Him to be. Look at all the other “Gods” throughout history, all with different properties and attributes and personalities.

Doubtful,

As a former Christian of many years and now an atheist I personally believe that when people have a “crisis of faith”, it is no more than their sub-conscious trying to deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by their trying to believe things that they already know aren’t or can’t be true. It is the brains way of trying to get you to deal with the multiple contradictions you are trying to hold in your head at the same time. I could “advise” you on a course of action that I believe would be correct, but ultimately your decision must come from you and you must be comfortable with what you decide, otherwise that nagging in your head will simply continue.

All I can do is make myself available to answer any questions from the perspective of a former born-again Christian turned atheist, but the decision is yours to make…many people try to continually hold the contradictions in their head and so end up with one crisis of faith after another, constantly doubting…this is probably the worst case scenario. Take some time, look at all sides and when the time is right go one way or the other, but leave the balancing act to the circus performers.

doubtful, your experience believing that “the Bible can be used to believe about anything” is actually one of the leading reasons that some Protestants become Catholic (see Called To Communion, a hang-out spot for those who left Protestantism to become Catholic). In discussing the reasoning Catholics use to talk about Protestant views of the Bible, the blog Green Baggins said recently:

The Protestant position is that only those things necessary for salvation and for faith and life are clear in Scripture. Nor do we mean by this that the clarity that is in Scripture is all on the surface. The believer has to work to get some of those clear things. But we are NOT saying that all Scripture is clear. I own approximately 1500 commentaries on Scripture precisely because I do not believe that Scripture is always clear. Furthermore, even in the clear passages, there is always more to glean. Indeed, 2 Peter 3 tells us that Paul’s letters can be difficult to understand at times. (source).

But does that mean that Scripture can be used without doing some sort of violence to some part of the text to mean almost anything? I don’t think so. Those who twist Scripture to their own ends, who have been around since there has been Scripture, usually have to leave things out, change the meaning of passages, or otherwise mess things up. There’s a reason that there is a general consensus on first-level doctrines amongst most Christians. The continuing discussion over at green baggins promises to talk in a very serious and interesting way about Scripture, dealing with it in all of its complexity.

Karl – you said: “People who believe, start with belief, then fill in more information and qualities as needed, ”

I disagree. Very strongly. I believe because there are things that have happened in my life that to me indicate there is a supernatural being that is God, and that He has revealed Himself in Christ. These experiences are for the most part personal/subjective. But I do not believe in a vacuum. I would have to work fairly hard to convince myself that the things I have experienced as a Christian that indicated to me God exists we simply random chance events of no consequence or meaning. That is a choice you have made, to dismiss those things as having no real meaning. I do not make that choice. But both choices are somewhat arbitrary – you do not accept the possibility they are not random. I do accept that possibility. Neither is ‘rational’ in the sense of being objective, reproducable data for which one can conduct tests to determine which is which.

What I can do is look at the events that point me to God and see elements that are so improbable as to imply to me sufficiently strongly there is a being out there interested in me and in revealing Himself personally to me. And for me they are sufficiently strong as to be able to stand in the face of the kinds of arguments you bring to bear that convince you they are not evidence of a God out there that cares about us.

Zeta

Zeta-

But how is your appeal to personal experiences to confirm your Christianity any different than Mormons who appeal to a testimony of the Holy Spirit to confirm their faith?

Check this out, if you’re unsure of what I mean:
http://www.mormon.org/faq/purpose-of-testimony/

Zeta-

How do you know the story is not simply manufactured?

Thanks-Doubtful

I guess the role of works in salvation is an area in which Paul seems to teach one thing (Grace through faith, not of works), James teaches that works are essential to Saving faith, both use Abraham as an example, and then there is Jesus teaching us that works are essential to the Kingdom of God with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and his teaching that those who disregard any point of the Law will be disregarded. Which in my opinion, looks a lot different than Paul’s teaching on the Law….it’s a murky picture and the church has literally fought (and killed at times) over this essential issue of how one is saved.

Again-couldn’t God have been more clear? Couldn’t he see that the church would shed blood over this and really spell out the issue to avoid the needless death and misery?

doubtful:

how do I know the Christian story is not made up.

well, to start with, I can look directly at Joseph Smith and know he’s the one who made the whole thing up.

So – back at you – who made up the Christian story?

Zeta

Zeta-

Well at least we know who wrote the Book of Mormon. We don’t even know who wrote most of the NT books. Most of them (except Paul’s letters) don’t say who wrote them, and early church tradition is often contradictory about who wrote the different Gospels.

Secondly, I didn’t ask who wrote the Gospels and NT….I asked how you know that it wasn’t manufactured in the same way you dismiss Joseph Smith’s writings…..how do you know it’s true?

doutful,

Yes, Joseph Smith, who read the golden plates, given by the angel Moroni and translated using magical stone glasses. The plates conveniently were given back the the angel when the translation was done and so, are not available for inspection (how convenient)

Not to mention, from my perspective, if the existence of one God lacks any evidence, certainly the Mormon pantheon of Gods is even farther down the ladder of credulity.

Karlton-

I agree that Joseph Smith’s story just sounds ridiculous.

Dee-

I honestly don’t know what you mean….can you elaborate?

Thanks-doubtful

doubtful,

When you say how do I ‘know’ they are true, on what level do you mean? You do realize there are people today who deny the holocaust – right? There are others that will tell you the Sun orbits the Earth. And the truth is – you can’t know (absolutely) they are wrong. The evidence for the holocaust could all be manufactured. The universe could be some massive plank density solid that rotates about the Earth on physics we’ve not yet discovered.

So I can not really know in the absolute sense the stories in the Gospel are true. That is impossible. But I can know they are far more credible that the story Joseph Smith tells, both you and Karlton have already acknowledged that. And that really was my point – you asked me how I would differentiate the morman appeal to experience from my own. And that is how I would do it. The Morman is an appeal to experience on such a level as to overwhelm the obvious incredulity of what Karlton described so well.

I am not asking or expecting anything near that in my appeal to experience.

Further I do believe there are many good reasons to believe the majority of the Gospel story as we have it are real stories told in good faith by those who saw the events recorded and later gathered together into written form by individuals determined to capture the truth of what was known about those events.

Jim

Zeta,

A very nice, heartwarming story, but like you said, it certainly isn’t “evidence” of any kind, events like that happen to people all the time. If that is the basis for your believe in the supernatural, then once again I must say, it is not rational or reasonable, it is wishful, and hopeful…which is exactly how the writer of Hebrews defined faith to begin with, and which I have have maintained from the beginning, is not necessarily wrong and does not necessarily lead to incorrect conclusions, you could always get lucky, but it is not based on a critical, rational thought process.

doubful,

Just so you can hear the other side, and I know many of my friends here would disagree, but having been a Christian for 20+ years I can tell you, that being an atheist and giving up this (to me) nonsensical belief system, will not get you a lightning bolt from heaven, nor will the earth swallow you whole. It is simply a matter of deciding how you want to live your life, based on fanciful beliefs driven either by hope or insecurity and fear, or based on reason, logic, compassion and rationality. No one can decide for you, and if you let someone swing your beliefs by manipulating your emotions then you lack the strength of will and integrity needed to make the decision in the first place and should probably take some time away from the question entirely.

Karlton,

I think your appeal to doubtful:

“and if you let someone swing your beliefs by manipulating your emotions then you lack the strength of will and integrity needed to make the decision in the first place and should probably take some time away from the question entirely.”

is no less manipulative than the ’emotional manipulation’ you criticize.

Zeta

Zeta:

Thank you for your comment. I share the same desire for anyone to come to Christ and willingly open the door of invitation to all.

Please read my post again. Based on the scripture you quoted, which was on my mind when I wrote my post, IF it is possible for those who once believed to fall away from the faith, it is IMPOSSIBLE to renew them to repentence, since there no longer remains a sacrifice. Christ died once for all. There is no sacrifice year by year, as they made in the Old Testament. So I am not making the judgment, I am not trying to dictate the heart of God, I am repeating what God has already determined.

I don’t know where doubtful is, which is why I addressed two possibilities; 1. if he claims to have been a believer and 2. if he was never a true believer.

But, he calles himself an agnostic and said he gave up faith in Jesus. Faith is not the mishy mashy feel good for trying substance Dee talks about. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Doubtful obviously has neither. And it is by grace through faith, (that assurance), by which we are saved. He seems clear to me that doubtful does not have that faith, therefore is not saved.

michael,

While I don’t want to get into some kind of long drawn out theology debate, I still think you are getting caught up in the old once saved always saved vs free will conundrum. There really is no solid answer to that issue – free will/predestination blah blah is one of those things that is at the very least partially paradoxical, and drawing hard lines on what is or is not possible is – I believe – a mistake of the first order. Especially when trying to figure out where someone else is. We aren’t called to figure out where other people are beyond declaring that without Christ they are lost, but in Christ they can have eternal life. The rest is up to God. So while I concur with letting a person know that if they deny Christ they are in danger of Hell, I would never even imply that they are or might be in a state where they can not access Christ’s provision of salvation. I would not want to stand before God and discover that as a result of such a declaration a person that could have accessed salvation in Christ gave up hope and died in their sins.

Zeta

Karlton,

you said: “If 10 billion events in the world can be shown to be of natural origin, and we have 100 events for which we have insufficient information to determine their cause, and may never have sufficient information, it is not logical nor rational to assume their cause derives from anything other than the types of causes you have already observed unless you “insert” the supernatural into the realm of possibilities because you like the idea of it existing. The evidence does not lead a rational person to belief in the supernatural.”

Really? What if one of those events is that in response to pleas for help in your your life you suddenly feel inspired to write a poem that accurately predicts the events over the next month that will give you the help you asked for? Including information about people’s lives you have no privy to?

Or what if the event was a flash of light and a voice from heaven saying “Go to this street in this town and knock on the door and the person there will tell you who I am and how you can know me”.

What you have done is say “God, there is nothing you can do that will convince me you are real”. Nothing physical in this universe can have anything other than a physical cause. If you see an Angel, it’s just a chemical imbalance. If in desparation you cry to God for help with a loved one’s sickness and they get well, it’s just natural remission or blind biological luck.

How then with that view of the world does a God, if He exists, ever make Himself known to you? It appears to me that no matter what He does, you will simply tell yourself that wasn’t God after all and be on your way. Is that rational?

Zeta

Karlton,

“you did not write the poem as a prophecy, you “turned it into” a prophecy once you found a scenario that it matched.”

I don’t mean to be rude, but that is one of the most absurd characterizations of that story I have ever heard! 😉

There are elements of the story I can’t really characterize well. The poem was about Ken. I realized it was about him when I saw him at the church. But at that point I knew nothing about the other correlations. He is the archetype that was lurking below the conscious surface as I penned the song about a ‘man softened by the Lamb’.

But it does point out one thing. God works with us in very personal ways. This story will likely never strike you with the force it holds in my own life because you can never know all the interactions between all the elements, they are all too personal, too unique to my life’s experience. But for me, they are the hand of God in my life, and in a way that is so real as to be inexplicable outside of a loving God who interacts with me personally.

But as for the part you can comprehend: this was not a ‘technique’ used to deceive someone. There was no ‘purpose’ when I wrote the song I was aware of. There was no seeking of a match for the words to the song. And there is no attempt on my part to ‘prove’ the event itself to you. Your mockery is based on what you do not know, on what you do not comprehend, what you do not understand. I understand that – you can’t get in my head and see what is real about this event.

But I can tell you every attempt you have made thus far to box this into an event explainable in the natural is fundamentally flawed. But it does seem that no matter how I try to explain it to you, you will continue to try to force fit it into some natural box explainable without a living God who cares about each of us.

Is that rational?

So back to my original point. How ever could God reveal Himself to you? It does seem clear that no event could ever be from Him as far as you are concerned. As I said before, for you, no matter what the event, you simply will say “I guess that was not God after all” and be on your way.

Is that rational?

Zeta

Zeta:

I have not touched on the once saved/always saved issue. I have merely pointed out that you can’t be saved, then not saved, saved again, then not saved, then saved again, etc. I am simply stating the rules of the game, so to speak. As you said, one can’t be renewed again to repentence.

I do not know whether doubtful ever was saved. I’m not making that call And I used the word, “IF” to not get into a debate about whether one can fall away from the faith.

However, we all know that it is by grace through faith that we are saved. If one doesn’t have faith, they don’t have the grace and are not saved. I am not making the call, I am simply taking doubtful at his own words, his own assessment of where he’s at; without faith.

Michael-

I can’t reject what I’m not sure is real. You make it seem like their is a new car in my driveway that I “reject” to drive-and even deny it’s existence. A car in my driveway could be easily confirmed….with Jesus, I have to have faith in the scriptures in order to have faith in Him who can not be seen.

It’s not exactly the same you know…I let go of my faith because I began to realize that the Formation of the NT was far from inerrant, and the Church in general, has never really resolved what is scripture and how it should be interpreted. I know that’s a very broad statement..you could google Richard Carrier and read his history of the Formation of the NT Canon, if you want to get a feel for the types of study and conclusions I have come to concerning the NT.

just to be clear….faith to me=trust…that’s why I say you have to have faith (or trust) the scriptures in order to have faith in Jesus.

Zeta,

You said “but that is one of the most absurd characterizations of that story I have ever heard”, how many have you heard?

I am perfectly capable, as are most people are of understanding, in general, how you felt, I have had similar experiences as I believe most people have. Regardless, how you ‘feel” about something does not make it evidence.

You also said “But I can tell you every attempt you have made thus far to box this into an event explainable in the natural is fundamentally flawed”. How is it flawed?

And to answer your final statement, it IS logical to explain things without referring to a supernatural force because there is nothing that we observe which needs a supernatural explanation when we have natural explanations available which make sense and when all of the things which we can explain are via natural causes as well. That is what rationality and logic are.

I have a relative in my family who, on the whole, has always acted very selfishly, never considering others, always believing that the world revolves around them (or at least it should). I choose the believe that this person, deep inside, really does care about others, even though the evidence for it is lacking, to say the least. This is my belief, I realize and understand that this belief is irrational and unreasonable in the light of existing evidence, however I am comfortable with that. I believe what I believe about them because I want to believe it, in spite of it being irrational.

No one is saying that belief in the supernatural is necessarily wrong, or that you don’t have a right to indulge in it. All that I am saying is that it not, by any definition, rational or reasonable thought.

I could be convinced of the existence of some sort of god by god doing for me, on demand, a series of “miracles”, which could not be explained via natural causes. You may argue that God doesn’t perform parlor tricks, but that’s exactly my point…if something already has a viable natural explanation, if all of His miracles are something for which we can offer reasonable naturalistic explanations, then there is nothing which should drive us to a supernatural explanation, it’s unreasonable.

Doubtful,

Is this what you are referring to in James?

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[d]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Michael,

Yes, from a Christian theological standpoint you would go to hell, not to mention all the other terrible fates that might await you for not believing in all the Gods of all the religions in the world, most of which have special place of torment waiting for you if you are a non-believer in their religion.

But, for people to actually say “You are going to suffer and be tormented for all eternity” as though it were an actual fact, when clearly you don’t know that to be true is a terrible piece of psychological/emotional pain to inflict on another human being.

People talk about the psychological damage done by cult groups and their overbearing leaders, but has the idea of eternal physical and emotional torment, torment so great that only an all powerful God could create it, become so commonplace in your thinking and vocabulary that you cannot see what kind of pain and damage telling someone that this is their fate unless they believe like you, could do?

That may seem a bit over dramatic, but I wanted to make a point.

doubtful:

I know you can’t collect after you die, but I’d be willing to bet that when you die all that will happen is you’ll be buried in a box underground or maybe cremated if that’s your pleasure, but either way you’ll simply cease to exist. No pain, no suffering and no 72 virgins, angels or life hereafter. Enjoy the life you have, don’t let a minute of it slip by unused and unappreciated, it’s all you have.

But that’s my point, in a fire situation, you know there’s a fire…Belief in a fiery furnace where souls suffer is…well, not so clear cut a case. Don’t try and make a bad thing noble by pretending that you know, as though you had been there and back.

The truth is, that you believe it to be true, but you no more know it is true than you know for certain whether god talking to Moses through a burning bush is a literal story.

Karlton,

We are probably at or near an impasse on this, but I figured I would take one more stab at your questions. From where I sit, what I see is you doing basically what the YEC’s do with evidence contrary to what they believe possible. Hand waving it away. But I know, being a former YEC, how hard getting beyond that can be. So here I go – I’ll address each statement directly:

————————————
Zeta said “but that is one of the most absurd characterizations of that story I have ever heard”,

Karlton: “how many have you heard?”
————————————-

Not too many actually, this is not a story I share with just anyone as I don’t like being unable to get through a story without its emotional impact on me becoming obvious. Nevertheless, characterizing it as:

“you did not write the poem as a prophecy, you “turned it into” a prophecy once you found a scenario that it matched.”

Is patently absurd. There is only one man I have know that would be immediately characterized by the phrase “a man softened by the Lamb”. Certainly there was only one person that phrase referred to in my mind at that time of my life. Further, this man paints (“covered over with lilacs stayed a man” has triple meaning “lilacs stayed” are paintings, “stayed a man” is the man stayed at the cabin, and the man ‘stayed’ (painted) the lilacs)

This was all understood by me about the song before I walked in the door of the church where I saw Ken. The only think that had not come to the surface of my consciousness was that this was Ken in the song. As far as I was concerned it was a person like Ken.

The cabin, the advancement of his painting, the lake, the events which would unfold, all these are simple FACTS described in the song – as you can read.

Finally, I had no knowledge of the cabin, or that he would invite us to it, or that we would sit and talk by a fireplace of grace and our life’s journey. Heck, I did not even know that he would be anywhere near us that weekend – or anytime in the near future, let alone the rest.

This is either an incredible coincidence or an act of God, but it is NOT something manufactured or force fit by wishful thinking. THAT is absurd.

————————–
Karlton said:

I am perfectly capable, as are most people are of understanding, in general, how you felt, I have had similar experiences as I believe most people have. Regardless, how you ‘feel” about something does not make it evidence.
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I am curious what ‘similar’ experiences you are speaking of. It’s not that I would doubt that you have necessarily, you were after all for a time a Christian and may well have had encounters similar to my own with God. But I would like to know you aren’t equating a really good poker hand with what I have just described.

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Karlton said:
You also said “But I can tell you every attempt you have made thus far to box this into an event explainable in the natural is fundamentally flawed”. How is it flawed?
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Specifically you have tried to act as if the correlations I see between the text of the song and the events are somehow force fit together. The song and the events are a perfect fit. There is no forcing. When my wife and I walked into the cabin and saw the ‘lilacs stayed’ on the walls we where overwhelmed. He literally has all the walls of a large room covered with the originals of the paintings he produces! There is no force fit here, not manufacturing, not ‘generalized statements’ that could fit any scenario. There was one man I had known to that point that song could be about, and that one man had every artifact and characteristic described in the song on his land and in his personality. You need to face the fact this was not some psychic mumbo jumbo. This was real. It’s either random or miraculous, but it was real. I still have the sheet of paper I wrote the song down on.

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Karlton said:

And to answer your final statement, it IS logical to explain things without referring to a supernatural force because there is nothing that we observe which needs a supernatural explanation when we have natural explanations available which make sense and when all of the things which we can explain are via natural causes as well. That is what rationality and logic are.
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But Karlton, you are missing the point of my question. You have made it impossible for any natural event to prove to you there is a God. You have made it impossible for any supernatural even to show you there is a God. You said it yourself. If 10 billion events can be explained by natural means and 100 can’t, then it is rational to assume they can as well. So there you go – what miracle can God work that you will not assume was not God after all????

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Karlton said:

I have a relative in my family who, on the whole, has always acted very selfishly, never considering others, always believing that the world revolves around them (or at least it should). I choose the believe that this person, deep inside, really does care about others, even though the evidence for it is lacking, to say the least. This is my belief, I realize and understand that this belief is irrational and unreasonable in the light of existing evidence, however I am comfortable with that. I believe what I believe about them because I want to believe it, in spite of it being irrational.
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Is it really irrational to believe that a man may have something good in him?
Have you not seen and known others who appear harsh yet later you found good in them? There is nothing irrational about hope Karlton. Indeed, it is something incredibly rational – for without hope we do not succeed. Without hope we do not persevere. Hope is rational. It is rational to know there are things that can’t be proven that are real. Because we see evidence of that fact every day.

Indeed – I would make the case that to doubt everything that can’t be seen or proved is itself irrational and stands in the face of the evidence of most of our lives.

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Karlton said:

No one is saying that belief in the supernatural is necessarily wrong, or that you don’t have a right to indulge in it. All that I am saying is that it not, by any definition, rational or reasonable thought.
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I disagree, for the reasons I posted above.

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Karlton said:

I could be convinced of the existence of some sort of god by god doing for me, on demand, a series of “miracles”, which could not be explained via natural causes. You may argue that God doesn’t perform parlor tricks, but that’s exactly my point…if something already has a viable natural explanation, if all of His miracles are something for which we can offer reasonable naturalistic explanations, then there is nothing which should drive us to a supernatural explanation, it’s unreasonable.
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You are contradicting yourself. What miracle can God do for you that you would not immediately assume had a natural explanation based on the 10 billion things shown to have natural causes? And if there were some such miracles, would they not be some of the 100 things you’ve already said you would chose to believe had a natural cause???

Zeta

“Lydia
Thanks for the verse. It clarifies this issue. This has never been a problem for me-one of the few things that has not. That has me worried. Am I missing something?”

No, James is not saying what doubtful claims he is saying. One of the things not taught is that each book is written to a specific audience for a reason. Ironically, Luther had some of the same problems with James that doubtful does. But Luther thought he focused on works too much….keep in mind, Luther was a priest in the Catholic church which was nothing but works.

The only other place we have James speaking is at the Jerusalem Council in Acts. And that was focused on “legalism” and bad works of the Judaizers.

How to Read the Bible for all it’s Worth…by Gordon Fee is excellent. I recommend it to everyone. It will clear up the type of problems doubtful is concerned about.

Here is more of that passage out of Youngs:

17so also the faith, if it may not have works, is dead by itself.

18But say may some one, Thou hast faith, and I have works, shew me thy faith out of thy works, and I will shew thee out of my works my faith:

19thou — thou dost believe that God is one; thou dost well, and the demons believe, and they shudder!

20And dost thou wish to know, O vain man, that the faith apart from the works is dead?

21Abraham our father — was not he declared righteous out of works, having brought up Isaac his son upon the altar?

22dost thou see that the faith was working with his works, and out of the works the faith was perfected?

23and fulfilled was the Writing that is saying, `And Abraham did believe God, and it was reckoned to him — to righteousness;’ and, `Friend of God’ he was called.

24Ye see, then, that out of works is man declared righteous, and not out of faith only;

25and in like manner also Rahab the harlot — was she not out of works declared righteous, having received the messengers, and by another way having sent forth?

26for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also the faith apart from the works is dead.

(We can make scripture say anything if we proof text). Note the last verse….
I would recommend everyone read it in the interlinear…I would post it but my interlinear will not cut and paste.

James is saying if you can’t have one without the other. Faith and works go togehter if we are saved. (Remember, James is writing to those who claim to be believers already)

See verses 18-19. He is using Abraham and Rahab as an example. Abraham had to have great faith to obey God (works) when it came to slaying his son. (A shadow of Christ). Rahab had faith in the God of the Jews so she risked her life (works).

Lydia

I like the book by Fee. I think there were some things that just seemed logical to me early on and continue to be so-the James works thing was one of those.

Salvation comes first, with the imbuing of the Holy Spirit, set as a mark on our soul. The Spirit goes to work with me and I open myself to this new third dimension in my life. Something must change, even it it is small.

Think of the thief on the cross. Even in the short period of time, as he was dying he confessed Christ, understood that Christ would take him into his kingdom. Imagine that…a dying man, tortured, who got the concept of the kingdom and the disciples were still mixed up, hoping for it to be an earthly kingdom.Talk about the Spirit!

In my own life, one week I couldn’t understand the Bible for the life of me. I had an unusual conversion, as you know, alone watching Star Trek. The next week, i went to a little group meeting, I still remember it. We were sitting by the ocean in Salem Massachusetts. The leaders asked us about 1 John1. As usual, everyone in our small group say quiet since we were all confused. Except I raised my hand and expounded on the passage. i understood it for the first time. the leaders looked shocked and asked me if something happened. I told them about the Star Trek conversion.

Once again, it all makes sense. I think people try to make it more complicated or don’t want to understand so they can use it for their political purposes.

Karlton said:

All I am trying to say is that, the leap to a supernatural cause is not a logical leap when what we observe seems to be the result of natural causes and we have never observed anything that seems to be “supernatural” or contrary to the laws of nature as we understand them.
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Karlton – everything we can observe or see or detect or record or be physically influenced by is natural (or can be explained via natural means). Our eyes detect light – a natural phenomena. Our hears hear sound – a natural pheomena. And so forth. Therefore any event we can observe, or see, or deterct, or record, or be physically influenced by will take on a natural form at some level.

For example, even if God talks to us from the sky, there will be either real sound waves, or electical impulses that somehow map into our brains so that we ‘hear’ the words. If nothing else, the chemicals in our brains that record the words spoken will be a physical manifestation of the supernatural event that the astute scientist could postulate ‘happened spontaneously due to some random impulse or chemical imbalance’.

Therefore, there will ALWAYS be the POSSIBILITY there could be a natural explanation behind the (super)natural event we observe. You have defined away the possibility of the supernatural by demanding you observe (natural) something that ‘has to have a supernatural cause or origin‘. That is itself, ultimately, a contradiction in terms. Nothing we can remember observing HAS to have a supernatural explanation!

The most anyone could ever do is show you a natural event which violates the KNOWN natural laws. And even then, all you have to do is postulate some currently unknown set of natural laws must therefore exist.

From my perspective, the specific event I described to you violates what could possibly be expected in the natural unless human beings possess the innate natural ability to somehow foretell the future (something most ‘rational’ folks exclude from the natural). The idea this is a mental forcing of unrelated text and events is absurd. The idea this is some kind of random confluence requires an aligning of random events whose odds are beyond astronomical – but from my perspective THAT is the more likely natural explanation.

But it does have a potentially natural explanation. And so does essentially every miracle described in the Bible. And so would any sequence of on demand miracles you could conjure.

Unless one allows for the possibility there is a God, one can always explain life as simply natural. Because we have no innate capability that can be measured with natural devices that is not itself responding to or the result of natural events.

But statistically most humans look out on the world and universe and innately sense there is more to it that just what is here before our eyes. And once one allows for that ‘god’ or ‘universal intelligence’ and begins to search for the possibility there is more, a ‘supernatural’, the door is open to perceive events whose most likely explanation is that the something more most of us sense is real and out there.

Jesus understood this well 2000 years ago. One has to be seeking God to find God. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. Those are basic principles that simply can’t be avoided or bypassed.

Zeta

“you said “Faith is not the mishy mashy feel good for trying substance Dee talks about. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.””

Yikes. There is nothing mishy mashy about the Holy Spirit convicting one of their sin and need for a Savior.

Karlton.

Admitting all things potentially have a natural explanation in no way implies a natural explanation for all things is sensible.

You yourself admitted that if you could get God to ‘on demand’ do a series of ‘miracles’ you might find reason to believe. My point is that if you really wanted to, you could find a way to explain even that away as being of natural origin.

So I’ve not made your case for you, I’ve made my case, which all along has been that faith is required, but that there are events that are so improbable as to be better explained by God than some natural cause – even though faith is still required.

What we are haggling over right now is how improbable does the event have to be to convince you there might be a God and invoking ‘random chance’ or some other ‘previously unknown natural law’ just does not make sense. Clearly my story is not improbable enough for you. But according to you, a city hovering overhead would be good enough.

Well, I won’t sit here and try to say that really wouldn’t be good enough for you, but as far as I know you have to wait till Christ returns and brings the New Jerusalem to Earth to get a chance to see that. So I think you are kind of out of luck on that front.

But there is in history a really big event. The Resurrection. And that is the main event God wants us to look at as the proof there is the supernatural. The problem, of course, is that unless you are willing to accept something like my story in your own life (but taylored more to you specifically) as evidence of the possibility the Resurrection might be true, you have to take someone else’s word for it that it happened. And there I can’t really help you as my word clearly is not good enough ;).

I can pray though that something will come your way out of the blue that you just can’t stomach shoving it into the box of natural, random chance.

Till then I’m sure we’ll find other things to argue about, or even maybe agree upon.

Zeta

Karl
You have got to read this.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/3820/way_beyond_atheism%3A_god_does_not_%28not%29_exist/

See if you think it is true. This guy proposes the atheists are the direct inversions of the religious persuasion they rejected.

Karl

I don’t get what you don’t get. I say the very fact that almost all men seem to have a need for god built into their very being means there must be a God.Just like hunger means there must be food and sleepiness means there must be sleep.

I meant rise from the dead. I am getting tired.

PS. If I got it wrong, don’t disillusion me. I’ve already affixed the star.

Stunned,

I’ll lick the gold star for you myself, I was about to lose my sanity. What you said was going to be my very next way of addressing the whole thing…if it is rational and logical then what place does faith have?

One GOLD STAR for Stunned!

I think that believers want to prove that believing in the supernatural is rational and logical because they don’t want to be marginalized or dismissed out of hand. What they fail to realize is that there is nothing inherently bad about following one’s intuition or emotions or having faith. It is simply a choice about how you wish to view the world. It is Jerusalem vs. Athens, or faith vs. reason.

doubtful,

I have not meant to leave you hanging in terms of providing a response to the question of why I believe what the scriptures teach that is, this post:

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Well at least we know who wrote the Book of Mormon. We don’t even know who wrote most of the NT books. Most of them (except Paul’s letters) don’t say who wrote them, and early church tradition is often contradictory about who wrote the different Gospels.

Secondly, I didn’t ask who wrote the Gospels and NT….I asked how you know that it wasn’t manufactured in the same way you dismiss Joseph Smith’s writings…..how do you know it’s true?
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The problem here is that this kind of question does not have a simple answer. There is literally no ‘fact’ we accept from ancient history that can be known with the kind of certainty we might know who the most recent president was. As a matter of fact, as I pointed out previously, if one is skeptical enough, even well documented recent events can be called into question. As I pointed out previously, there are a large number of folks that actually think there is sufficient evidence to doubt the holocaust in Nazi Germany – in spite of all the currently living and other high level eyewitnesses and written and photographic documentation. It is actually something fairly widespread in the muslim world – not a small population!

So, if something that well documented which occurred only 70 years ago can be so quickly called to question, what of an event which occurred in a small population that involved unimportant people over 2000 years ago when records where not so easy to preserve when over the intervening years various wars and invasions have destroyed countless original documents?

So to the questions you raise.

A) How do I know the books of the NT were not manufactured in a similar way to what Joseph Smith produced.

B) How do I know they are true.

A is the simpler of the two. We have ample evidence that NT was not produced by any single individual. The Gospels and Epistles are written in different styles and languages, and with very different purposes. We do, contrary to your claims, have evidence of who the Gospel Authors were. Much of modern criticism of the authorship points more to evidence that the 3 synoptic Gospels may have used 1 or 2 sources for at least some of their material. And they indeed may well have. But that does not mean the individuals that compiled them were not Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And indeed, we do have writings that come to us from the Early church fathers that not only confirm their authorship, but help us to understand why the similarities which exist in them exist.

For example, Iranaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul, AD 180 gave us this on Matthew: (Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 28.)

Matthew published his gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his gospel, while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.

There is also a fragment of a text discovered by L.A.Muratori which dates to around 170 AD (based on its reference to Pius I, Bishop of Rome (142-157) as recent) and which says:

. . . at which he [? S. Mark] was present and thus set them down.
The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke . . . He set down the events as far as he could ascertain them, and began his story with the birth of John.

Thus it records Luke as the 3rd Gospel, as we have them today.

The Iranaeus quote makes clear that Mark recorded as much as he could remember, but Luke put down information he had gleaned from Paul. We also know that Luke did more than this, he painstakingly researched his gospel trying to pull as much as he could from available resources.

We also have information taken from a set of commentaries written by Papius that were recorded by Eusebius. He makes reference to gathering information from contemporaries of the apostles concerning the works of Christ

…if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders — that is, what according to the elders Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying

And he also records mention of eyewitnesses of Christ’s works being available to be questioned about what they saw as recorded by Quadratus:

The words of our Savior were always present, for they were true: those who were healed, those who rose from the dead, those who were not only seen in the act of being healed or raised, but were also always present, not merely when the Savior was living on earth, but also for a considerable time after his departure, so that some of them survived even to our own times.

So these men would have and did have access to not just what the apostles were saying, but those other people who interacted with Christ, even in His miracles, and could confirm the text of at least some of what was recorded for us by talking to the people themselves that experienced what we can only read about.

Now, keeping in mind I am only touching the surface, I’d like to move a bit to something I find quite interesting as regards a side correlation between extra-biblical and biblical records that form an unlikely confirming partnership.

There was a letter found from a certain greek man in prison sent to his son and apparently composed in the 3rd century (201-300 AD). It says the following:

For what benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death, seeing that they received as retribution for it famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras, seeing that in one hour the whole of their country was covered with sand? Or the Jews by the murder of their Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them? For with justice did God grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their kingdom, are driven away into every land.

So here we see that at this time a greek man, not of any kind of Christian persuasion himself, regarded Christ as a ‘wise man’ and the destruction of jerusalem in 62 AD as God’s judgment on them for their poor treatment of Him.

So clearly this Greek had knowledge of the events surrounding Christ, knowledge that convinced him what had happened to the Jews was God’s judgement on them. This is not something likely if Jesus was not a historical figure who had been crucified in an unfair fashion – as the Gospels describe.

But the reality there is so many cases I could make for the Gospels not being some made up work that I would quickly exceed both this sites post word limit (if it has one), and the time I have available to communicate them.

But as for you question B – how do I know they are true. Clearly, I can’t know that everything in them is true. There simply is not enough left to sift through and prove Christ rose from the dead. However, I can know that the players in the gospels were real people existing in the real time and that Christ himself was a Jewish rabbi killed by Pontius Pilate. I can know that the Gospels are compilations of stories told my multiple witnesses of the events themselves gathered by different people and recording sometimes very different aspects of those events. I can know that we have at least fragments of text from those books that date back as close as can be reasonably expected, withing 30-50 years of the events.

Basically, I can know that these works record what the people involved though happened. And that though there have been additions/modifications over time, we have access to the most accurate understanding of what was actually written at the time as any generation since 200 AD. Further, that when all that is taken into account, we still have Christ doing miracles, dying by crucifixion, and being observed to Rise Again.

But clearly, no matter how much research I do, or what I can find, the reality of the Resurrection must be a matter of faith – as it has been for all but just a select few who witnessed the events and recorded them for us.

Zeta

Zeta,

You may be able to correct me on this one, I haven’t taken the time to look it up, but if memory serves no one who witnessed the resurrection wrote about it and no one who wrote about it actually witnessed it.

Karlton,

One correction, I defined witnessed the resurrection in my previous post as “say the stone roll away and Christ emerge alive. Mary Magdalene did witness Christ resurrected at the tomb, and John and Peter witnessed the empty tomb, likewise the Roman Guards withnessed the Earth-quake and say the stone rolled away. So I was using the most conservative definition possible in that definition.

But of the writers of the NT, IIRC, only John and Peter saw the empty tomb

Zeta

Zeta,

my bad I thought when you wrote “…the reality of the Resurrection must be a matter of faith – as it has been for all but just a select few who witnessed the events and recorded them for us…”, that you were saying those select few and witnessed and recorded the resurrection itself.

Zeta-

Thanks for your response…the conversation jumps, so no offense taken. I post when I have time…I hope you’ve been having a good weekend!

Anyway, to your points….this is why I doubt the NT and whether it’s really the word of God. Let’s look at some of the early church fathers you quote…

Iraneus believed that the Letter of 1 Clement and The Shepherd of Hermas were scripture. If he can be easily trusted in his reporting on who wrote the Gospel of Matthew (a claim from church tradition-not the book itself) then why aren’t you convinced that he was correct about these 2 books that no longer appear in the New Testament?

Now I find Eusebius even more interesting, he contradicts Iraneus in by calling the Shepherd Of Hermas a spurious writing that is not part of the canon. But Eusebius also calls the Book of Revelation spurious, acknowledging that some of the church think it’s scripture and that others don’t. He also acknowledges that there is still some doubt (he calls them disputed) about whether James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John are to be considered scripture…almost 300 years after the life of Jesus, and there were still many doubts about what is scripture and what is not (according to Eusebius).

And then we have Papias-He is quoted by Eusebius-who also goes on to call Papias “”a man of exceedingly small intelligence” (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.13). It is from this man, not well regarded, that we have the tradition of Mark writing his gospel. But Papias also recorded things that even Eusebius found to be “strange parables” and “fanciful tales”- such as Philip’s daughters drinking snake venom and that Judas had been cut down before dying from hanging and grew so fat and bloated that he could barely walk down a city street without touching the walls on both sides of the lane….interesting….

As for the Muratorian Canon…it is a very interesting document and lists many of the books in the current NT. But it does not include Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 3 John. And even more interesting, it includes The Apocalypse of Peter as Scripture. A book that early Church Father, Clement, also regarded as Scripture.

To be brief, I have examined a lot of the history of the early church, and as seen above, it is confusing at points and contradictory about which books should even be considered Scripture, let alone how they should be interpreted.

Finally you said

“But clearly, no matter how much research I do, or what I can find, the reality of the Resurrection must be a matter of faith – as it has been for all but just a select few who witnessed the events and recorded them for us.”

But the Christian faith is supposed to be a historical faith. A faith whose history is well documented so that we can know our faith is not in faith itself, but our faith is logical, given the evidence of history. That is what I was taught faith meant, it meant trusting that what I read in the Bible was true, even in the historical sense… and when I dig into the story of that history and how we received it (ie-church traditions about Scripture) there are way too many contradictions from the early Church Fathers themselves for me to believe.

I used to believe, but reading the Bible and the history of the Bible, from mostly Christian sources have led me to doubt it’s claims and the claims surrounding it.

Doubtful

Doubtful,

Thanks for your response. I am curious what you expected to find in the Early church history given what we find in the current Church? Did you suppose all would be harmonious, and that say, everyone prior to the establishment of the canon would agree as to what that canon should be? We know that Paul and Barnabas had a falling out over Mark. Did you think the rest of church history would be any more pristine in that sense? There was a constant battle from the very first years of the Church up until today over what is ‘correct’ teaching and what is not. And that conflict would be no less active in the canonization of Scripture. Why even Martin Luther was annoyed with the Canon – he had no use for the book of James.

Our faith focuses first on the Chirst and His Resurrection. We are believers in Him.

It would seem to me someone set you up to fail by giving you false expectations for what the church was ‘back in the day’ as opposed to what it is now.

As for Christianity being a historical faith – it is. But in what sense are you expecting it to be historical? I mean, I know how these things tend to be taught, and I have probably an idea of why you were disillusioned as you studied Church History. We all end up with false expectations on that front I suppose. But I don’t think God wants us to have any false idols before Him, and that would include the church fathers or even the church history. We know about all these issues, we can sift through them and understand them. They are not hidden from us. Is that not how it should be?

Indeed, one of the distinctives of the Judeo Christian faith is that the failings of its great men are put before us for all to see. There is no-one we worship save God alone, no-one we deem more than a man save God alone (keeping in Mind Christ is God in the flesh). We are shown the failures and weaknesses of all our great leaders. We are all but flesh.

But returning to my question, what about our faith is not historical, or what do you think our faith being historical should mean? Certainly, as I pointed out, we know that Christ was a real person, we know that the circumstances of his death are certainly consistent with history, we know that many, many people believed they saw him raised. We are not asked to believe on faith alone, but rather on the testimony of those who witnessed the events. Is that it, you don’t find enough in history to believe their testimony is credible? Why then would so many of that first generation, the generation of the eyewitnesses, die for their faith and/or allow themselves to to endure what they endured at the hands of the Jewish leaders and later the Romans if they did not believe what they told us they saw?

And by told us, I mean what they told the people who recorded their stories and presented them to us in the form of the Gospels and even some of the non-canonized traditions?

Zeta

Karlton,

Thanks for the refresher on Nero. It seems to have been offered as a reminder or rebuttal to Dee on some level. Is that a misconception on my part? Or if I am correct, could you elaborate on what that might be?

Thanks,

Zeta

Zeta,

Nope, no sinister hidden agenda, sorry. 🙂

I just was reading for my own edification and found it interesting, especially how the persecution of the Christians for a fire they didn’t start was the catalyst for it’s growth.

Just like modern movies, the bad guy just doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. He keeps trying to kill the potential witness who would never have spoken out anyway until they are so angry to DO speak out, or a similar theme.

Well, ok maybe there was a little hidden agenda .. can you find it? Let’s call it a treasure hunt!

Oh yea, another thing…I also posted it in the hopes of getting a gold star like doubtful, but this time for longest post. 🙂

Ah – good to know no sinister agenda! As for word count (longest post) – not quite. Yours had 1414 words, my post to doubtful had 1500+

Nice try though …. 😉

Zeta

Karl-

Nero reigned for 15 years or 5 ?

doubtful,

you asked:

“In fact, your earlier response was essentially that same reasoning….you listed early Fathers and picked out certain things they record that bolster your belief in the books of the NT. But why don’t you believe the early Fathers on other books that are not considered Scripture? It seems like cherry picking to me…..”

Well, first of all deciding which books represent Scripture is a very different question that answering whether a book or set of books was recording events based on eyewitness testimony or whether the people mentioned in the scriptures are real people in history.

So what I was going after was evidence to support the latter. I do not assume any given writer is necessarily authoritative on every subject they address. Further, if a writer is recounting information (like who the writer of a gospel was or whether or not eyewitnesses of Christ were still alive), they fill an entirely different position than when they offer their opinion on whether a book should or should not be considered scripture. Think about it. I witness the Space Shuttle blowing up. Do I need to be a rocket scientist to tell you what I saw? Likewise Iraneous or Quadratus need not agree on interpretation of scripture or be capable of deciding the status of a book in the canon if all they are doing is telling us that certain people wrote the Gospels or that there were eyewitnesses of Christ’s life and ministry still alive. They need only be credible reporters of truth.

As to my question, I eagerly await your answer. But take your time – I’d much rather have something thought out a bit as opposed to something hastily composed. I think both of us are interested enough in accuracy and truth that we are willing to wait for it 😉

Zeta

Michael

Would you please look what I said in a subsequent comment. I said I misunderstood what this person was saying. The blog medium can be somewhat difficult and I thought the conversation was going in a different direction. I wrongly perceived that this person was still within the faith, dealing with doubts, as I had done many years ago.

I will state this loud and clear. I believe that one must accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in order to be saved. But cut me some slack. i misunderstood what the person was saying and I am not one to throw people to the wolves because of an internal struggle.

I am sorry that you think that I am irresponsible, I try very hard not to be. I want people who have been hurt by the church or who have had their questions blown off by superficial people to have a place that they can ask in peace.
If I conveyed anything but the unadulterated Gospel, I ask your forgiveness.

I am trying to see where I said we were laughing in NC about this issue of salvation. Could you please point it out so i can apologize for that as well?