Re: God is not a cat in Schroedinger's box!

Just an annoying couple of yeh-buts......JimA

Don Winterstein wrote:

> Ed Babinski wrote:
>
> "First you must say how you know that Jesus of Nazareth was "God's
> son?" You rely on your holy book to tell you that, just as Muslims rely on
> their holy book to tell them things. But can either side prove their case
> OUTSIDE of quoting verses from their respective holy books?"
>
>
> The "holy book" is an important witness, but so is history. The
> contrast between the origin of Islam and the origin of Christianity is
> great. In the case of Islam, a man later known for his
> military campaigns got messages in trances.

This sounds a little like Saul/Paul.

> Islam owed much of its success right from the start to military
> prowess. In the case of Christianity, a miracle worker of exemplary
> personal behavior was minimally involved with propagating his message
> outside his own community, but he so profoundly affected his
> unexceptional companions that they set his message well on the road to
> peaceful world domination despite a hostile environment.
>
> The New Testament and the peaceful historical impact of Jesus' message

Interestingly enough, when we've asked observant Jews why they do not
accept Jesus as messiah, they prominently note that peace has not come
to the world as a result of Jesus' message and testimony (being kind in
not usually mentioning the non-pacific and unpleasant events that have
occurred in the name of Christianity).

> are likely to constitute as much objective proof of a religion's
> validity as we're ever going to get. The NT after all, in contrast to
> the Qur'an, contains largely compatible records of
> events from multiple witnesses. As objective proofs go,
> it's still not terribly compelling. Nevertheless, as Howard Van Till
> was arguing earlier, it is possible to come up with objective
> criteria for evaluating religions. Just don't expect them ever to be
> definitive. The power of religion resides not in objective but in
> subjective proofs.
>
> Religions originating since NT times have acknowledged Jesus' virtue
> (e.g., Islam and LDS), and even modern Buddhists and Hindus are often
> forced to take a stand on Jesus. (A Hindu priest on Bali once told me
> that the Hindu trinity was theologically equivalent to the Christian
> Trinity, and all the other Hindu deities only represented different
> aspects of the one God.)
>
> Don
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ed babinski <mailto:ed.babinski@furman.edu>
> To: Glenn Morton <mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net>
> Cc: Howard J. Van Till <mailto:hvantill@sbcglobal.net> ;
> asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2004 12:57 AM
> Subject: Re: RE: God is not a cat in Schroedinger's box!
>
> "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net
> <mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net>> writes:
> >(Christianity: This is my beloved son in whom I am
> >well pleased. Islam: Surah 4:171 "believe therefore in Allah and His
> >apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah
> is only
> >one God; far be It from His glory that He should have a son,
> whatever is
> >in
> >the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is
> sufficient
> >for
> >a Protector. "
> >
> >These are mutually exclusive statements. Please tell us how you
> determine
> >the truth of one of these statements via observational data.
>
>
> ED: First you must say how you know that Jesus of Nazareth was "God's
> son?" You rely on your holy book to tell you that, just as Muslims
> rely on
> their holy book to tell them things. But can either side prove
> their case
> OUTSIDE of quoting verses from their respective holy books?
> >
> >
>
Received on Mon Oct 18 15:24:16 2004