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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Evidence for Christianity
Message-ID: <1209@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Oct-84 14:37:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.1209
Posted: Fri Oct 12 14:37:15 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 07:58:17 EDT
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> As far as I am concerned, both personal experience and external
> evidence are important.  I wouldn't give a nickel for the evidence
> for Christianity if Christianity didn't promise wonderful personal
> experiences.  

Remember what's been said numerous times about expectations, preconceptions,
and wishful thinking being the cornerstone of why many people choose to
believe?  Here we see another example.

> Conversely, though, I wouldn't have given a nickel
> for Christianity's promises if they hadn't been backed up with some
> evidence.  

Mike Huybensz's followup deals mostly with this, and it is a fascinating
article.  (Bravo, Mike!)  I urge all readers of this newsgroup to look
carefully at it.  His conclusion:  the strongest point in favor of the
"evidence" is that if you believe in its inerrancy, it all makes sense.
Assume that the stories about Jesus were not apocryphal/made-up/exaggerated/
etc. and then it's all obvious.  Mike says it much better than I could.

> When, as sometimes happens, I doubt the truth of
> Christianity (strangely enough, such times seem to correlate highly
> with those times when following Christ requires that I do something
> I would rather not), I still recall the evidence presented to me at
> the beginning, and I still cannot totally dismiss it.

Well ingrained it must be.  These times when you'd "rather not" do something
that "following Christ requires" seem to be times of great sudden insights on
your part.  At times like those, one should look objectively at both the
evidence that is causing you to doubt and the evidence "presented at the
beginning".  Is the former faulty evidence?  Is the latter unverifiable and
self-reinforcing (cyclic) in nature?  I'd hope that you would take a good look
next time this happens.

> Now I must say something about the kind of evidence I am talking
> about.  I cannot make God do tricks for you, along the lines of,
> "If God would only make the stars line up and spell, in my native
> language, 'God did this', I would believe."  Now when I was first
> being presented with Christianity, I asked for something much
> simpler; I said that I would believe if He would make a pencil
> float in midair after I let go of it, instead of having it fall
> as gravity is wont to make it do.  So if you are going to insist
> on that kind of evidence, I am sorry to say that you will continue
> to be disappointed.

Fact is, I'm not "insisting" on ANY level of evidence.  Just because
YOU might be searching for evidence, for a "reason to believe in god"
doesn't mean the rest of us are doing the same.  Even defiantly demanding
evidence from god betrays a presupposition of god's existence, a desire to
believe that a god DOES exist.  If evidence presents itself, then it merits
discussion; but picking up scraps and assuming the end result of your search
for evidence, followed by patching it all up with preconception doesn't cut
it.  And it's purely wishful thinking (projection) to assume that those that
don't believe are demanding evidence.  If it presents it, then it presents
itself.  It hasn't.  Which would mean that those who believe do so based
on presuppositions about the existence of god, including those who are
demanding specific evidence.

> Basically, I think that leaves historical evidence.  Christianity
> is based on the teachings of a historical person, one Jesus (or
> Y'shua or Iesous) of Nazereth, who was born nearly 2000 years ago.
> It is also based on the life, death, and resurrection of that
> same Jesus.  It is the resurrection, as a real event in real history,
> which originally convinced me that Christianity had a basis in reality

A "real event"?  Again, see Mike Huybensz's followup.

> (It shouldn't be necessary
> to be an expert, anyway; God supposedly wants to be found).

Isn't this just more wishful thinking?
-- 
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?			Rich Rosen
WHAT IS YOUR *OLD* NET ADDRESS?		{ihnp4,harpo,allegra}!pyuxn!rlr
WHAT IS YOUR *NEW* NET ADDRESS?		{ihnp4,harpo,allegra}!pyuxd!rlr
ALL RIGHT, OFF YOU GO!                     (AS OF 10/14/84)   -----