rei_t_ex
Member
This is all based upon the Bible is it not? There are no references to Jesus Christ being the Son of God outside of the Bible, and even very few references to his existence outside of it. Moreover, no one accepts proclaims Jesus to be the Christ unless they accept the Bible to be true, and they proclaim Jesus to be the Christ only because they believe in the Bible. Hence, if it is impossible to determine the Bible to be true to a large degree, belief in Christianity (or any other religion for that matter) is not an ounce more rational than belief in, say, Mother Goose's fairy tales.gop_jeff said:I have history to look at, which tells me that Jesus' followers proclaimed Him as the Christ. I have the church, which (as history says) has been around for 2000 years or so, proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ.
Now, Greek myths have also been around for a very long time, and the ancient Egyptians practiced their faith for several millennia. We now know for certain that the Sun is not Ra. How long a belief is adhered to, is completely irrelevant in justifying that belief. As to non-Christian sources describing the events in the Bible which could be doubted (i.e. the events that one cannot see on a more or less daily basis), I am not aware of them. Perhaps you could point me in their direction?gop_jeff said:I also have many non-Christian references to the Christian faith, showing that the faith has been around for a long time. I also have many arguments for the historical facts that surround Christianity (i.e. facts about Jesus' life, His death, and His resurrection).
Now what you are describing is the epitome of irrationality. It is a clear and blatant logical fallacy to assume a set of highly unlikely things to be true given proof of likely things being true, with those likely things being described in the same work as those unlikely things. Say I tell you that I have been to Australia. I even give you my ticket stubs, and show some pictures of myself in front of the Sydney Oper House. Clearly, it would be rational to believe my claim. Then I proceed to claim that Australia is being run by three-legged aliens from another galaxy, giving you no evidence to support that claim. You could believe me, but that faith would be irrational.gop_jeff said:For example, I have never seen God. But I believe that He exists, based on the evidence on Christianity. I have never seen heaven, or angels, or demons, but I believe they exist as well, for the same reason. So I take these things which I have not (and cannot) observe on faith, because I do have some evidence about some parts of Christianity which causes me to believe.
This irrationality could be shown from another perspective. Rational things can all be arrived at independently. One can argue that specific historical events are difficult to independently discover - that it is as unfair to expect a child barred from all references to Christianity to discover God as it is for said child, barred from all references to WWII to discover Hitler. However, religion is not history. Religion, is very, very current. God still exists right now. If the belief in Him were rational, one could arrive at it independently. One cannot. Different societies that never interacted with one another, have never arrived at a similar religion (even if those societies were contemporaries - the Hindus still existed at the time of Jesus Christ - it is eyebrow raising that God apparently never bothered to tell them of his Son's sacrifice). Moreover, no adherents of a particular religion can make any arguments that would privilege their religion over any other religion.