************************************************** I don't even think if God left behind a statue that was ten miles high and wrote upon the statue "Christianity is the True Religion" that, that fact in and of itself would be enough evidence of the "True" religion. What the hell does a "True Religion" mean? ************************************************* Now that is an interesting question. The best way I can answer that is: when you look through a microscope or look at a sedimentary deposit, you don't doubt that those things exist. The just exist and they just "are". I believe that you should be able to take a religion's holy writings and look at them the same way: they just "are" and they should be true and reliable. In other words, God left behind two scientific records: one written in stone, molecules, atomic forces, etc. and the other written on paper. Neither one is more "true" than the other. Neither one is superior or more reliable, because both were written by God for men.
Oh yea, I've never made any bones about that. I just don't think that the "behind-the-scenes workings" are the work of the Christian God and only the Christian God or whatever God. Here is a posting of mine from page 12.
************************************************ Tell me one thing about the legal field that is truthful? I couldn't define legal and scientific truth if you gave me ten lifetimes. Both are constantly changing. *********************************************** Well, my point was that if you were on a jury you would more times than not be able to come to a verdict based on the evidence. And I personally think that's the state of the universe: God made it possible to come to a "verdict". But I think your point is basically that you feel the evidence is simply too confusing to come to any conclusion. Of course, there is no way for me to really say anything to that without being really annoying, so I guess I'll stop there. Thx for the dialogue.
********************************************** What about the shroud of Turin? ********************************************** I actually know very little about it. Any comments?
Ahhhh, back to the verb to "know". (which we've already established, no one can actually know anything, except for that one little fact). See you don't "know" that God wrote The Ten Commandments upon the tablets, you don't "know" that God had a divine hand in writing the Bible, and you don't "know" that the shroud of Turin was created by the resurrection of Jesus. You think those things to be true, but you don't know it. Furthermore you wouldn't know it, even had you seen all those things happen with your own eyes you still wouldn't know it to be true. None of that has anything to do with knowing.
************************************************ This is not up for debate. It's inherent in the definition of what the word "know" means in our language (and other languages for that matter). I'm not going to give you a lesson on Socrates at 1:00 in the morning. ************************************************ I appreciate that (with all due respect to the old boy). I think I know where you're going though and I agree: there always has to be a certain amount of "faith" in any decision. While imo the evidence for the Bible is substantial, it is not an absolute proof like you'd prove something in mathematics. It's more like you'd prove something in a court of law: "beyond a reasonable doubt". I really believe that if Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. were under trial that an objective jury could reach a verdict even though they might only 99.9% sure. The last 0.1% is faith I guess.
************************************************* Ahhhh, back to the verb to "know". (which we've already established, no one can actually know anything, except for that one little fact). See you don't "know" that God wrote The Ten Commandments upon the tablets, you don't "know" that God had a divine hand in writing the Bible, and you don't "know" that the shroud of Turin was created by the resurrection of Jesus. You think those things to be true, but you don't know it. Furthermore you wouldn't know it, even had you seen all those things happen with your own eyes you still wouldn't know it to be true. None of that has anything to do with knowing. ************************************************** I agree that I've never seen or touched the stone tablets, etc. However, I think that that is not unreasonable to come to conclusions based on, as I mentioned above, a 99.9% degree certainty. For example, the only galaxies that I've seen are from light that was from way before I was born, yet I believe that they still exist even though I've never actually seen a current picture of one. You could say I believe in them with a 99.9% degree certainty as well. Again, I still think it gets down to a question of whether or not you think that God would deliberately obscure or reveal His design and intentions.
Well between you and me, you can throw out the Bible and any other physical reference, because the shroud is more proof of the supernatural than anything else (supposing of course that proving something was possible). The Shroud of Turin is supposedly the cloth that laid on Jesus's body while he resurrected in the tomb. If you look at the shroud closely you can see the image of a man burned into the fabric, which many believe is the face of the man we commonly know as Jesus (although I've now come to doubt that his name was even Jesus, but whatever). The most interesting thing about the shroud is the fact that the image is burned onto cloth, not painted, not dirtied. Even if someone was skilled at burning cloth it is very doubtful that they could so perfectly capture the image of a man on the cloth. But guess what, just like the 10 mile high statue, those are just thoughts and they don't prove anything.
Enjoyed it but gotta sleep now or they're gonna wonder why my eyes are bloodshot and my speech is slurred tomorrow.