Evidence for The Creator: Life

[usfan]

Eye witness testimony is sometimes faulty and there's no eye witnesses of the bible miracle accounts to interview anymore anyway. As for "personal vertfication" that is entirely subjective. The fact is, the possibility of a writer of one of the miraculous NT accounts, many years later, inventing that account, or copying it from an earlier invented account, is FAR more likely than that 5000 people were actually fed from the equivalent of one picnic basket of fish and bread (with leftovers) or than legitimately deceased people rose from the grave one day in Jerusalem and were seen by "MANY".

I am only pointing out the LIKELIHOOD of either scenario. We can't go back in time and prove whether Roman Emperor Vespasian performed miracles either, as there were reports of, but should we believe it because an unverifiable source says he DID? We should only accept accounts of the miraculous based on the available amount of evidence and the unassailable nature of such evidence, if it is MORE difficult to believe such an event DIDN'T happen, than did. IOW, if to believe it didn't happen would be MORE far-fetched than if it did.

That is the essence and the requirement of rationality. Any miracle account that is accepted with LESS stringent standards, would imply some amount of DESIRE TO BELIEVE on the part of the ones that did. If we are honest, a "desire to believe" is very difficult to entirely discount as being present in those who ultimately DO believe.

That is your judgement, based on the information, influences, and the perceptions you have.

Thanks for the civil discussion. I think i will be taking a break.. maybe later.

[SharetheHedge]

You underestimate the Power of God. It is not ostentatious displays of the miraculous, dazzling people trapped in materialism. It can be, and often is, a "still, small voice', guiding, correcting, and chastizing as we weave our way through the maze of life.

God's power is experienced in the Spirit, but it is not for show. For whatever reason, God has chosen to be ..understated.. not ostentatious with fire and brimstone raining down on the wicked.

That day will come soon enough.

I question the integrity of the word, "soon", as it is used in the NT because it was used multiple times in speaking of the return of Christ, and apparently "soon" DIDN'T mean, in retrospect, within around 2000 years of those claims.

So what weight does it carry NOW? We could go another 2000 years or more before it happens, according to the fact that we just DID, and it can't be proven it ever WILL happen. This illustrates the suspicious nature of most bible claims - you can't disprove some because they (supposedly) happened too long ago in the past, and you can't prove some future ones will happen because they haven't happened YET. So believer's 100,000 years from now could still be saying that the return of Christ/Judgement Day is going to happen SOON.

The non-falsifiable nature of all this makes me DOUBT, in general. Am I not being reasonable/rational in a non-biased way? I am not saying it CAN'T be true - just that it all sounds suspiciously like a belief that may have been contrived by man and equipped with built-in philosophical "escape hatches" should someone point out a chink in the armor? Those escape hatches simply place the claims outside of the realm of being tested or proven one way or the other.