Swensson, Thank you for taking the time to compose your comments. You are a Secular Humanist. I have a question for you: On your Secular humanism, , , , {1} CAN ANYTHING EVER BE SETTLED? {2} IS EVERYTHING FOREVER OPEN TO BE CHANGED BASED UPON NEW EVIDENCE? On your Secular Humanism the answer to question {1} is NO and the answer to question {2} is YES So? So THAT is the BIG DIFFERENCE in your Secular System and in my Christian Faith System. Secular Humanism is based upon the false assumption that science, logic, the scientific method, and empiricism is ALL we have to arrive at truth. So? So since scientific knowledge is ever changing and since you are committed to that system, this means that you can NEVER actually KNOW anything in most of the really important areas of life. You MUST always "remain open" to "new evidence." Now , , , and read this carefully , , ,, the Christian Faith System totally rejects that as a principle. We Christians believe that truth can be SETTLED so that truth cannot be changed by what is alleged to be "new evidence." Here are some examples: {1} The Bible is the inspired word of God and is what God wants us to know. {2 Timothy 3:16-17} The Bible is therefore sufficient to tell us how to get to Heaven and how to live to please God while we are here on earth. {2} The Cross of the Lord Jesus has reconciled God and humanity. God has forgiven your sins because His Son took your place on Calvary's Cross. Jesus' death paid for your sins. God loves you. He desires to share His eternal life with you . He now invites you to accept His gift. For God so loved the world that He gave , , , {note the idea of a gift in John 3:16.} {remember Jesus conquered your worst enemy DEATH, You now no longer have to die, "He that believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live" } This is a magnificent gift. Don't turn it down. {3} The Resurrection -- the power of that Empty Tomb. Because He lives, we also can live. Jesus utterly defeated the worst enemy of all of humanity, DEATH. How did He do this? {A} At The Cross {B} At The Resurrection {Easter} Because He lives, so can you. But you have to make a decision to accept what Jesus did for you both at The Cross and in The Resurrection. You have to believe. Belief is a simple test to determine who will, de facto, be God? Will it be the God that created you? Or will it be, , Swensson that is, de facto, the God of the life of Swensson? Which one will you finally choose? Note that word "finally." , , , Right now the door is wide open. Jesus stands at the door of your heart knocking. He is asking you to open the door. If you will choose to open the door He will {He said in Rev. 3:20} come in and eat supper with you -- by which He meant He will bring you joy, happiness, and the peace of mind knowing that you are in a proper relationship with God your CREATOR. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" Romans 5:1 Now back to Christian settled truths , , , {4} The Ascension -- the power of "I go to my Father" {5} The Exaltation -- Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God the Father -- the place of power For the mature knowledgeable Christian {1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, and {5} is forever SETTLED truth and is not open to "new evidence." Best. JAG ``
I use the same tools you do, with regard to the natural world. I know the city of Denver exists even though I have never visited Denver. I trust the evidence for the existence of Denver. I can look it up on Wikipedia, Google Maps, Google Images, You Tube, etc But spiritual truths are not in the same category as Denver. With regard to how do I know spiritual realities are true? Short answer: Personal experience. And THAT is the only way YOU will ever know too. Regarding the supernatural: You have to personally experience it. Its impossible to investigate spiritual truths with physical tools. Physical tools like the scientific method and gathering empirical evidences. How on earth do you think science can investigate the unseen world of the supernatural? Its utterly impossible. Jesus restored the sight to a man that had been born blind. The man knew he had been born blind from birth. He also knew that he now could see. {The account is in John chapter 9.} The people of that day {just exactly like you} did not believe. They said stuff like he was never blind. That it was a hoax. No miracle here, they said. But the man who had his sight restored, he DID believe. Why? Because he experienced it. He KNEW it true from personal experience. It is impossible for you to believe in the unseen world unless you have help from above. You are locked in a prison called Secularism, from which there is no escape, unless you get supernatural help. You must get supernatural help in order to come to believe in the supernatural. What kind of help? Answer: John 3:3 You must be regenerated -- what the Lord Jesus called "being born again." Why do you need that? Because your natural human nature is spiritually dead and it is impossible for you to believe in the reality of the unseen world unless your present dead spiritual nature is made alive. Being "born again" does that for you. How do you get this "new birth"? You simply ask God for it. You pray from the heart a prayer such as this one: "Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your Name. Amen." _________________ By the way, it takes some people decades to grow tired of the spiritual prison house that is Secular Humanism -- and come to realize and know fully in their hearts that Secularism has never truly met the needs of their heart and soul. Secularism is a vast wasteland of coldness and endless searching for answers looking in the wrong places. You were created to be loved. God loves you. He desires to share His eternal life with you. He sent His Son to die for you on the Cross. The Cross sends you a clear strong message: It says God loves you and wants to be your Savior and your Father and your Friend. Give it some serious thought. Best. JAG ``
Do you have any comments on the following? There was once a Christian apologist who thought he could convince an unbeliever to become a Christian by giving him solid historical evidences that Jesus actually rose from the dead. The Christian worked really hard and gathered up tons of solid historical evidences and presented them to the unbeliever who carefully considered all the evidence and after much study the unbeliever told the Christian apologist, "Yes, it is true. You have convinced me. I must admit that the evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead has a solid foundation in legitimate historical evidences." The Christian apologist was overjoyed. He thought to himself, "Ah, at last I have made a convert to the Christian faith" and so he asked the unbeliever "Are you now ready to become a Christian"? The unbeliever replied "Absolutely not." "But" said the Christian apologist, "you just told me that you believed that Jesus actually rose from the dead." "I do believe that Jesus actually rose from ,the dead", replied the unbeliever, "but all kinds of strange and unusual events happen in this Universe. Why don't you send in the Resurrection of Jesus to Ripley's Believe It Or Not"? Comments? Best. JAG PS Remember that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And the people that were eye witnesses to that miracle, plotted to kill Jesus AND kill Lazarus who was the "living evidence" that Jesus had the power to raise dead people back to life. You can find that account in John chapter 11 and 12. So much for "evidences,", er? `` `` ``
Reality does not owe us a way to investigate the "spiritual truths". The idea that science cannot touch spiritual truths does not mean that personal experience can, it is at least as possible that we simply have no way of accessing the information at all. Indeed, the fact that people have wildly conflicting personal experiences means that personal experience cannot be a reliable tool. It seems to me, personal experiences are great for persuading yourself that you're right, but has no bearing on whether something is actually true. Or, you could get your personal experience from Jibril, like Mohammed, or like the oracle of Delphi, from Apollo, or from the Buddha or from Moroni like Joseph Smith. It seems to me, your conclusions of Christianity comes from your biases (the biases that make you choose a Jesus story and a prayer to the Christian God) rather than reality itself. When you're outside of the purview of rational inquiry, personal experience doesn't provide truth, it provides reinforcement of biases, and that's all I see in this part of your post. You have yet to show why any of it has to do with truth. This doesn't resolve my question. How did it become "SETTLED", how did you determine that it should be considered settled, rather than simply wrong? Science includes falsifiability (being open to new information) because it is a verifiable way to actually get rid of things that aren't true, and therefore how you generate legitimate confidence in an answer. It is an integral part in the only way to generate truth that we know. If your method doesn't have it, then it has no way to get rid of false information, and you end up simply being wrong. You don't seem to have any other method that couldn't generate falsehood either (personal experience could give rise to anything). I hesitate to comment, because it seems largely a deflection. I still haven't seen an answer to the central point of my question. It does make a fair point, that the resurrection and Christianity as a whole are two very different claims. Even if you could prove the resurrection, it does not necessarily follow that the source of the resurrection was the Christian God etc. (or at least, that step of logic also requires some justification). There is resurrection in Buddhism, mythology (Greek/Chinese/Norse/etc.), Islam, sci-fi etc.. The idea that the Christian in your story thought that proving the resurrection was enough to prove a Christian resurrection shows how poorly the Christian in question understood what huge and arbitrary assumptions he was making.
because your science cant confirm or deny it is hardly a reason to conclude something like this is untrue. Tammet doesn't need a calculator to solve exponential math problems such as 27 to the 7th power -- that's 27 multiplied by itself seven times -- he'll come up with the answer, 10,460,353,203, in a few seconds. Tammet visualizes numbers in their unique forms and then melds them together to create a new image for the solution. When asked to multiply 53 by 131, he explains the solution in shapes and textures: "Fifty-three, which is round, very round...and larger at the bottom. Then you've got another number 131, which is longer a little bit like an hourglass. And there's a space that's created in between. That shape is the solution. 6,943!" https://abcnews.go.com/2020/autisti...t-solves-problems-blink-eye/story?id=10759598 if someone told you that without his doing it right in front of you, you would never believe it any more than anyone would believe you if you passed that knowledge on without seeing it for themselves, yet it would in fact be true.
Agreed. I haven't said that either, I only ask what his method for concluding it true is. This raises a different question, what should be our relation to a statement that hasn't been investigated successfully at all? The canonical example is Russell's teapot. We have no way of assessing it, we cannot use science on it. Does that mean "personal experience" magically becomes a good method? Is the answer to the statement "I hold it to be true that the teapot exists" "yes"? Note that I intentionally do not use words like "agnostic" or "disbelief" (not because I don't think we could use those words, but because we might disagree on what they mean, so it is unnecessary to take that risk when the point I'm making is well covered by the questions as I phrase them). Sure.
I’d ask why so many people are born into this world only to live a short miserable life filed with pain, hunger, and suffering.
How so? I was asking JAG* specifically about his solution, and in particular about ones which have no conventional ways of assessing them. Tammet's skills, I could assess conventionally if I wanted to, they are not of the kind I was asking about. I understand more or less how to verify things through conventional means.
maybe its a prime directive? the Prime Directive (also known as "Starfleet General Order 1", "General Order 1", and the "non-interference directive") is a guiding principle of Starfleet, prohibiting its members from interfering with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations.
If there was such a thing as a God and you asked it that question, it might ask you why didn't you do anything to help those people? After all, he gave you a brain.
I would be interested to know how he did all of his magic tricks. It is about time he comes clean. Afterall, lying is a sin..
I have not read the Bible myself, but I am sure the 9th Commandment forbids lying and that lying is disencouraged in several places in the book.
The real Ninth Commandment is the first sentence in Exodus 34:26 = https://classic.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus34:26&version=ERV;CEB;CEV;TLB;NKJV
