Why Do You Believe What You Believe?

A call to all to answer the question, why do you believe what you believe? We want everyone to engage with us.
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Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Do You Believe
• God
• Faith
• Atheism
• Christianity
• belief
• religion
• reason
• faith and reason
• science
• worldviews
• Agnosticism
• Islam

[EstacadoConstantine]

Well i believe in a God and i also believe this God is the father of Jesus Christ but i ahve questioned my beliefs before.

[TheBaraInitiative]

@AtheistTalk99 This is, of course, where we could go in circles around physics and cosmology so we can leave this one, but I would simply note that I'm generally convinced of the cosmological arguments (I say 'generally' because there are several formations of them).

[TheBaraInitiative]

@AtheistTalk99 I have personally witnessed one myself--I will tell of it in a future video. I also know several close individuals who have experienced one. Miracle claims certainly can be fraudulent, but to dismiss all of them a priori and then claim that we have none simply is not fair either. Craig Keener has just released a two-volume series documenting miracles today. We'll be doing some videos with him soon as well.

[TheBaraInitiative]

@AtheistTalk99 3) The contentions of many of these skeptical NT scholars are merely assumptions stemming from a school of thought called Form Criticism. Sitz im Leben has almost exclusively been dismissed and, once again, there is a good deal of support for eyewitness testimony. For example, the fact of Luke's 'we' passages or the conventions of Greek historiography. Or, as Bauckham notes, testimony was best expressed as a 'living voice.' Even by G. Jn, some of the disciples were still alive

[TheBaraInitiative]

@AtheistTalk99 Thanks for the extensive response! If I may offer up a few thoughts of my own.

1) The Bible makes no claim against being intergenerational & having a multiplicity of authors. In fact, it relishes in it.

2) Many OT stories need to be looked at independently. For example, Gen 1 by genre is not scientific but a temple text. Jonah is likely legendary. But Samuel is more historical. While a lot has been proven, for controversial periods see K.A. Kitchen's 'On the Reliab. of the OT'

[AtheistTalk99]

@TheBaraInitiative

(Cont)

Lastly, we've found no evidence that a creator or god is necessary for our universe, so the best one could do is retreat to a deistic position when presented with our knowledge of science and reason today.

I'm sorry but theistic claims are so poorly supported that it's embarrassing to our species that anyone accepts this nonsense.

[AtheistTalk99]

@TheBaraInitiative

(Cont)

In addition we see Christians (for example) who cannot duplicate the miracles of the bible as the bible says they should be able to do. We find no evidence of miracles as described in the bible today even though the bible says we should and where the bible states miracles should be evident, Christians fall over themselves to give excuses as to why the miracles don't occur.

(Cont)

[AtheistTalk99]

@TheBaraInitiative

Take the bible for example. We know it was assembled my multiple writers of many centuries (OT and NT), we know it's mythological claims about creation, world floods, Egyptian plagues and Exodus are historically and scientifically incorrect. We know the gospel writers were originally anonymous, written by people who never met Jesus or anyone who did. We know the NT was changed over time for theological reasons and contains contradictory views. (Cont)

[TheBaraInitiative]

@AtheistTalk99 As one who reads an extensive amount in these fields (especially in philosophy and history), I can say that that was never the intention of the video. Merely an attempt to open up a discussion even in relation to these fields of study.

Why do you suppose religious claims are "insultingly poorly supported" by evidence? What claims in particular do you find so lacking?