Well, for starters God is not a "what". Nature is a "what". God is a "who".
No, I just want to know what it is that people believe in.
There is no actual evidence for the existence of anything. For all we know everything is merely a figment of your imagination so if you are looking for evidence of God, and you are not willing to look for the supernatural outside of the realm of the natural, then nothing anyone can say to you or show you is going to convince you of the existence of God or what it is that he requires of us.
So I will ask you a question. What evidence, if any, would you accept to prove to you that God exists? What evidence would you accept to show that Jesus Christ was God incarnate?
In reviewing your posts, you seem to cast doubt on the eyewitness testimony of Christ's miracles and his resurrection. But there is more evidence for these events than there is for just about any other events in history. Not only do you have the eyewitness accounts, but you have the testimony of the people who knew the gospel writers intimately and who testified to the veracity of the gospel accounts.
Now if you are not willing to believe the eyewitness accounts because somehow they might be biased, then how can you believe anything? Your own experience is nothing more than your own eyewitness account of the things you have seen and done and read. Do you cast doubt upon your own experience? Are you an eyewitness to your own birth? You were there, but then again you still have to take the word of others that you were born where you were and when you were. Do you doubt the birth certificate that you have? Do you doubt your mother's testimony of when you were born?
If not, then why are you so skeptical of the eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus? Did not the authors of those gospel accounts give their lives in defense of their testimony? Doesn't that give them as much credibility as the doctors who signed off on your birth certificate?
Great question P-Marlowe. It seems kosta is very picky about evidence. It seems he dismisses any that does not measure up to his highly abstract criteria. I get the general impression that kosta wants to live in a highly abstract world; i.e., a world that exists only within his mind (like one of Heraclitus' "dreamers," the "private men"). And so I just mention this, because the type of evidence that you pointed to in your absolutely outstanding essay/post is just the type kosta rejects: for it is empirical, experientially-based.
Thank you so very much for your magnificent essay/post!
Well, for starters God is not a "what". Nature is a "what". God is a "who"
Well, for starters I disagree. By dogma, the Trinitarian God is Divine Nature, or Essence in which Christians recognize three personal divine hypostatic realities, each being equally God or divine. Three in one, not one divided into three.
But, that being so, every 'who' is also something that makes him what he is. So, instead of "what is God" substitute "what is divine?"
so if you are looking for evidence of God, and you are not willing to look for the supernatural outside...
First why would I be looking for evidence of God. I am merely asking what is God. How can I look for evidence of something if I don't know what it is?!?
Second, what is supernatural?
So I will ask you a question. What evidence, if any, would you accept to prove to you that God exists?
First I need to know what is God. I can't consider evidence if I don't know what it is I am looking for.
In reviewing your posts, you seem to cast doubt on the eyewitness testimony of Christ's miracles and his resurrection
Because it's a single biased source which a somewhat shady past with an agenda. Becuase there is a conflict of interest, an attempt of monopoly on truth.
Apples and oranges. The Bible is a single source that describes "supernatural" events that cannot be corroborated but must be believed or else you are not "saved." What kind of evidence is that? Besides I don't have to believe uncorroborated historical narratives in order to be "saved." No one in the real world, expect you to believe hearsay, and magical anecdotal tales as absolute truth except in scriptures (not just Christians ones).
Not only do you have the eyewitness accounts, but you have the testimony of the people who knew the gospel writers intimately and who testified to the veracity of the gospel accounts.
We don't know that. How do you know that they are eyewitness accounts? Eyewitness accounts written decades after the fact?
Muslim scriptures fair no better: Allah dictates the entire Koran to an illiterate Bedouin who memorizes it perfectly and then dictates it to a scribe piecemeal later on! Yeah, and I have a great lot for sale in the Everglades...
Now if you are not willing to believe the eyewitness accounts because somehow they might be biased, then how can you believe anything?
Because the eyewitness accounts are not always truthful. Look at the 1917 Fatima "miracle of the Sun" witnessed by 70,000 people! In absence of opposing views, the veracity of any document is compromised, because it "authenticates" itself. There is a conflict of interest.
The difference also is I don't have to believe it; there are no fundamental existential conditions attached to me believing anything. But they are every much attached when it comes to God.
Very much so. Our memory is very unreliable and refuses to yield even when presented with undeniable evidence to the contrary. Some time ago, I illustrated the case of a British reporter in Northern Ireland in the '70's who recounted a decade or so later vividly remembering a British soldier in a red beret aiming his rifle at him.
It just so happens that someone snapped a photograph of that horrifying moment, showing that the soldier had a helmet and not a red beret. The reporter was amazed that – even after seeing the photograph – his mind was still "remembering" the red beret vividly.
Are you an eyewitness to your own birth?
I am not.
You were there,
Just being there is not enough to be an eyewitness.
but then again you still have to take the word of others that you were born where you were and when you were.
Yes.
Do you doubt the birth certificate that you have? Do you doubt your mother's testimony of when you were born?
Neither doubt it nor believe it. Could I have been swapped by mistake? Definitely! Could my mother have adopted me and never told me that she is not my natural mother? Definitely!
If not, then why are you so skeptical of the eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus?
I have no Jesus agenda. I distrust all "supernatural" claims. My distrust is proportional to how extraordinary a claim is in proportion to the evidence offered in support of it. If it is magical I treat it as magic.
Do you have extra biblical evidence of that? No you don't. Again, everything begins and ends in the Bible, and Bible related legends, a priori assumed to be true. How do we "know" that Stephen allegedly prayed to Jesus? Easy, the Bible says so! Of course it does.
How do we "know" that Paul was in Rome? The legend says so. How do we "know" Peter was crucified upside down? How do we "know" Joseph Smith found hieroglyphic tablets? How do we "know" God parted the red Sea? How do we know The Koran is Allah's own word without any errors? How do we "know" Ahura Mazda will defeat Ahriman? Let me guess...
The legend says so. It's all legend and hearsay. We have "eyewitness" accounts written decades after the fact, in copies written and rewritten hundreds of times by hand without any outside corroboration of alleged "supernatural" events.
If the Fatima "miracle" in 1917 occurred before photography, say 100 years earlier, we would have religions zealots "testifying" that the miracle did happen because it was "witnessed" by 70,000 people! And by now it would be a legend accepted as truth (well, it actually is in some circles). Who can argue with that? Well, in this case it was film.
Thankfully, some pointed their cameras to the sun and recorded no miracle. I guess the diehards will argue that it did happen but that the cameras lacked the "spiritual eyes" needed to see the "invisible." Who knows, he may even successfully be practicing law somewhere...