it's not like buying a car base on gas mileage. if you think 18mpg is great, it's because you don't know other cars deliver 30. in some sense there is "competition" among belief systems, but Bible truth is ( according to Jesus ) revealed to Man by the Spirit of Truth, or by God, the Father. as Jesus said to Peter, when the latter said to Jesus, "You are the Messiah," “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven." do you need to know that sometime in the past people thought that the Earth was the center of the Universe to know that it isn't? i'm not saying that Christians should not know about other religions, but not knowing about them only matters if Christianity were false and there were another truth that supplants it. since you believe there isn't any evidence to support any religious system, then you believe that everyone is being ripped off. your position is something we could go round and round about, but it isn't relevant to the question of whether it matters spiritually that a Christian not know who Joseph Smith was. it doesn't matter. can a Christian live a life of devotion and obedience to God, as he/she understands God from reading the Old and New Testaments, without ever knowing that there is a Book of Mormon? or Qu'ran, or the Upanishads? or Gitas?, or the Bardo Thodol? that's it in a nutshell.
if it were a study, finding fault with it might be suspect. being a poll/quiz, saying that the design of the questions renders the result far less relevant than somebody -- you -- might claim is reasonable if the design is, indeed, suspect. and the design is suspect. there aren't enough questions about Christianity to say that atheists know more about Christianity than Christians. atheists may know more. ( let's say they do. ) that instrument isn't able to make that claim. and your thinking that it can is an unfortunate lapse in your powers of discernment.
No, it's more like trying to figure out the way to Candy-Land and only asking one guy for directions instead of several. What does that even mean? The spirit of Truth certainly never came down to me in order to reveal to me that the Bible is true. Well, we need to clarify some definitions before I get any deeper into this. Obviously, being human and therefore being restricted to the filters of our senses and our brain means that we can never know any form of absolute truth. We basically only have beliefs. When we colloquially talk about knowledge, we don't make that distinction and simply include everything beyond a certain threshold of perceived probability. But depending on how well you're informed, that probability might look very different indeed. Now to my answer: Of course it all depends on how certain you feel you need to be. For the average joe it doesn't matter what's at the center of the universe. But if you have an interest in astronomy, then in fact you should know about the development of the human perception of the cosmos, because it teaches you not only the things that we know today, but also how we got there, what mistakes were made in the past, why people believed the way they believed and how we overcame those beliefs. In short, it teaches you to reason. That is an important skill, especially once it becomes obvious that there are problems within your own belief system. Just imagine the opposite, imagine a person being raised to believe that the Earth is the center of the universe. He might think: "Why bother looking into alternative theories when I already know the truth?" Everyone who beliefs in supernatural claims that is. I never said that my position on religion was relevant to this. Except that it is, see this Quote: If everybody you asked for directions to Candy-Land pointed into a different direction, maybe the possibility of Candy-Land not existing at all wouldn't sound too strange to you after all. Can I walk into the direction where I believe Candy-Land to be, without ever asking anybody for directions? Sure I can, but I shouldn't expect to actually arrive there.
Christianity isn't C-Land. it's following a person whose faith in what his Father promised allowed him to do everything his Father gave him to do. as soon as you understand that Christianity isn't about a destination but about a process, you'll do better with these kinds of issues. Julius Caesar is reported to have said, "Veni, vidi, vici". Jesus said, "I have overcome the world." So they killed him. I know, I know, too obscure. Here's the deal: you only get the truth revealed to you when your heart ( not your head ) wants to know the truth. Paul says in Romans: "With the heart, man believes..." It's not a matter of thinking something is true because your mind tells you it's true. It's all about knowing something is true because your heart tells you it's true. It's resonance. You're looking for a formula that says A+B+C = Truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." It's in there. a reasonable person might say, "there is a book that talks about a guy who lived 2000 years ago named Jesus. he was killed by the government, but hundreds of people saw him later, fully alive. there is some kind of theory about how somebody stole the body and stuff like that, but nobody ever proved that theory, and the tomb where he was laid was empty. there were Roman soldiers guarding the tomb and they had no explanation for the disappearance of the body. why should i not believe the people who said they saw him alive after he was dead?" nobody has to believe that story, but it isn't contradicted by anything but a theory proposed by people who think supernatural phenomena are either impossible or so unlikely as to be unworthy of consideration. that's not a head process. it's a heart process.
Actually, in my analogy Christianity isn't Candy-Land, it's one alleged path to Candy-Land. Sure, if you turn off your intellect, you'll believe anything. But what good does it do? And BTW, my heart is a muscle that pumps blood through my veins and it doesn't talk that much. Because a) You don't know that these hundreds of people even existed, all you have is 2000 year old hearsay and we all know that even 2 year old hearsay isn't the most trustworthy source... b) Because extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. A story about 100 or even 1000 people seeing a man who seems to have been killed some time before isn't enough to warrant a belief in his divinity. For example: Sathya Sai Baba is a popular Indian guru, spiritual figure and educator. He is described by his devotees as an avatar, godman, spiritual teacher and miracle worker. He has at least 6 million followers today many of whom claim to have seen him do miracles. Does that mean that he is the son of god as well? He's still alive, so you might wanna go there and check him out. Or think about this: Elvis has been seen by thousands of people after he died, so is he the son of god? I've seen a chicken eat a lion yesterday when I was taking a walk to the South Pole. You don't believe me? But there's no evidence contradicting my story...
This, in a nutshell is willful ignorance. Can one live this way? Sure, I suppose, but it's certainly not very intellectually honest to proclaim you have the one Truth without even examining the truth claims of others.
The standard of "evidence", if you're going to attempt to justify your faith with it, must be much higher than simply unverifiable, third party hearsay.
the reason it's unverifiable is that it all happened 2000 years ago. there is no other reason that it's not verifiable. and the spaceman stuff and "evidence"? you would think that if there were no resurrection and the body was still dead there would be some "evidence" of that fact reported back 2000 years ago. the reason that some people don't believe that aliens have visited Earth is the distances involved. 6 light years to the nearest star is a long way. that's an external fact that makes it less probable. there is no external fact that makes resurrection less probable. it's not impossible that resurrection might occur, because if it did, it would be a supernatural phenomenon. if you want to say that aliens visited Earth and their appearance was the result of a supernatural phenomenon, then i think you strengthened my position. but if you maintain that they came here by any kind of vehicular transport, 6 light years is still a long distance.
Nevertheless, it's still unverifiable so trying to use any of it (such as the supposed testimony of witnesses) as some sort of verification of truth is completely laughable. You're wondering why there is no evidence that a dead body stayed dead? Actually no, that isn't the reason that most people don't believe in spacemen having visited us and continuing to visit us, it's the lack of physical evidence. It's not that difficult to travel 6 light years, it's only a question of having enough energy for the job. There is no such thing as a "supernatural" phenomenon, this is an external fact that makes resurrection far less probable. You're saying that you're more willing to believe that aliens come here by a supernatural subway than by traveling here conventionally? This is a pretty astounding insight into your line of thinking. A 6 light year trip (like from our Solar System to Barnard's Star) is a capability that we (humanity) will likely have within our grasp by the end of the 21st century, it's only a question of energy and engineering. And we've only a been a technologic civilization for a few centuries.
like we don't use the testimony of witnesses to convince people of things all the time. the report at the time was that the tomb was empty. why has that report never been controverted. the Roman government/military appeared to believe the tomb to have been empty. obviously, it's a technology issue, if you mean energy. at 59Kmph, a relatively achievable velocity, it would take slightly less than 2000 years to make a journey of a single light year. in order to make the 6 light year journey in 100 years, you would have to achieve a velocity of about 7 million mph. and you have just proved the heart issue. you won't believe that these phenomena are possible. that isn't a matter of thinking or logic. it's a conviction born of human pride. i'm saying that a conventional method of traveling the distance is unlikely because of the technological problems, warp drive notwithstanding. so the only way to look at alien visitation is to assume they must have done it thru supernatural magic. you read too much science fiction.
Wrong. The earliest reports we have (Paul's letters) don't speak of the tomb at all. In fact, Paul isn't concerned with the body, he has had a vision of Jesus and immediately sets off to preach to the Gentiles, not even beginning to validate any empty tomb. The first time we hear of an empty tomb is in the Gospel if Mark, written decades after Jesus's death hundreds of miles away, in Rome. This is typical myth building. For example, the letters we have of Paul don't indicate that he even believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, it rather seems that he believed in a spiritual resurrection only. Also keep in mind that today's basic beliefs (like the bodily resurrection) were only decided upon at the council of Nicaea and the Biblical canon didn't exist even then for centuries to come. At that point it couldn't possibly have been verified any more. If the energy problem is solved, there's no reason a spaceship couldn't constantly accelerate, reaching relativistic speeds at which point even relativistic effects like the stretching of time occur, so such a journey could be done in a rather short time from the point of view of the traveler. If that however turns out to be impossible, they could always send robots, they don't care if they have to wait 2000 years to arrive. No, it's a conviction based on empirical evidence. In fact, it's the hight of arrogance to claim that the laws of nature that are always at work, no matter where or how close we look, have been suspended at times, leaving no traces but a few stories (which are known to pop up without supernatural events occurring). And since you haven't answered my previous question, here it is again: Why aren't Sathya Sai Baba and Elvis Presley also sons of god? Why won't you accept the evidence? Out of pride? Just like I can magically tun on the light in my room with a flick of my finger...at least a couple of centuries ago somebody like you would apparently have had to believe that a light switch is supernatural magic.
Kind of ironic for you to poke fun at him for his extraordinary claims based upon reading some fantastical books written by man.
And we know of course, that eyewitness testimony (nevermind third-hand hearsay written decades after) can be extremely unreliable, and is one of the least meaningful pieces of evidence in a scientific evaluation. For some reason the judicial system still places a high value on eyewitness testimony (a relic of an older era perhaps), but as more become aware of it's unreliability (http://www.innocenceproject.org/) its influence is declining in favor of more reliable evidence. The more likely explanation is of course that the Romans didn't care about some Nazarean they had executed in a small far flung province. Indeed at slower speeds, these trips take a long time, at faster and faster speeds (and there are plenty of engineering concepts that could get us to a significant fraction of C) the trip can be made in a small amount of time. Furthermore, the closer you get to C the shorter the length of time thats experienced by the crew on the trip, so that a longer, one-way, journeys are easily achievable. Any "event" which happens within nature that we can observe is a natural event, the minute something "supernatural" is observed to have happened within our universe, it then becomes a natural event that we can study and theorize about. A "supernatural" event is an event which has not occured, and if did, would become a natural event, therefore the idea of a "supernatural" event is bankrupt. And I'm saying you're wrong, and as much as you know about the Bible, I know about space travel, astronomy, cosmology, and astrophysics. We'll easily have the capability within this century to send our intelligence to other star systems, aless than 200 years ago the fastest speed humanity could achieve was 20-30 mph on a horse or a boat. Again, you're wrong, and it shows in many ways how inclined you are toward magical thinking. Once you have the requisite knowledge, it's simply a question of energy and desire to travel from one star system to the next in a reasonable amount of time for the traveler (relativistic effects mean that stationary observers on the home planet would experience much longer timescales than the travelers).
OK, so out of curiosity, you apparently don't believe the OT to be prescriptive today, but do you believe it to be true? What I mean is, do you believe that there ever was a time when the only godly way to handle an unruly child was stoning it? Or do you believe that this were human beings, projecting the morals of their time onto God? Come on, you know that this is what it all comes down to, so please be a little more specific. To say that "it's fairly obvious to me" is more condescending than the 'atheist arrogance' you claim pervades this forum. The atheists here at least try to make a point. What is it that makes you believe that Allah or Brahman do not exist and what makes your god special in that the same arguments don't apply to him? Of course it's a nice rule of thumb, but a) so what? b) I can think of many cases where either might actually be very damaging
Hypothetical Scenario: Just Say No (to wanking in the van) Sorry, but when a search for "Grant Storms" turns up your post, & it just happens to also mention New Orleans, well I can help but reply! http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ouching_himself_in_public_park_in_new_or.html BTW, God is punishing me, as Chelsea are losing at half-time. (edit: He was just toying with me! )