> dmclarne wrote, in part:
>
> "I'm sure you've heard that extraordinary claims demand
> extraordinary evidence. I await this extraordinary
> evidence."
>
> Of course, this is a standard challenge. Generations of
> Christians (but
> not all Christians) recognize it as basically
> unanswerable. This is not
> because it is not true, of course,
How can you be sure? Maybe it is unanswerable *because* it
is not true. Proponents of geocentricity are unable to
coherently answer challenges because geocentricity is not
true.
> but because proof of Jesus is not a matter that science
> can address.
"Proof of Jesus" or, more specifically, unambiguous evidence
of the claims of the New Testament with regard to the divine
nature of Jesus, is certainly a matter that history could
address, but fails to do so in any convincing manner.
> Is there non-scientific proof? Of course.
Given that there is no such thing as scientific proof (in
spite of the efforts of marketing departments and
advertising agencies), I find the prospect of
"non-scientific proof" incredible. It has nong been my
understanding that proof is limited to mathematics and
logic. In any event, I wasn't asking for anything so
difficult as "proof" - only some testable evidence.
What about "non-scientific evidence"? Can any idea that is
untestable by science be more than merely opinion?
> Such is available to anyone who really wants to study it
> sincerely.
It would seem to me that the only way to study it
"sincerely" is to half believe it before you start.
> Not for "head knowledge," of course, but for "commitment
> knowledge."
I don't know about you, but my intellect guards the door to
my commitment.
I am interested in the phrase "commitment knowledge". It
sounds like "salvation history" or "origins science". I see
no need for special types of history, science or knowledge
that are only applicable to Christians.
> I was an agnostic/atheist until age 30 (36 years ago). I
> would be one
> today except that I finally figured out what many people
> were telling me.
I was a Christian once, too. I would probably still be one
except that I never had any personal experience of God, and
I eventually figured something out. If there are millions of
Christians that all believe fervently in the Christian God
and all that such a belief implies, and if there are
millions of Muslims that all believe fervently in Allah and
all that such a belief implies, and if there are millions of
Hindus that all believe fervently in Brahma, Vinshu, etc.
and all that such a belief implies, and if there are
millions of ....... you get the idea - then all of these
fervent believers can't be right, but they can all be wrong.
(Much later I was introduced to the concept that the most
reliable indicator of a person's religious beliefs is their
parents' or community's religious beliefs - not any innate
correctness of the religion itself.)
Now, if all of these fervent believers can't be right, in
spite of the strength of their belief, then it is reasonable
to assume that there is something innately unreliable about
belief, particularly fervent religious belief.
> When I finally decided (1) I could not approach the issue
>
> "scientifically," (I was a physicist), and (2) that if
> God/Jesus were
> "real" they were perfectly capable of revealing themselves
> to me, then I
> finally figured out that I had to do something --- that
> was -- be open to
> their revelation. In essence, I said to them "I don't
> believe in you. BUT
> I AM WILLING TO -- YOU JUST HAVE TO HELP."
I'm sure one could say the same thing to an astrologer,
numerologist, dowser, spirit channeler, etc. and walk away
half an hour later as a firm believer. If I were really
willing to believe in the authenticity of any of these, it
would only take a skilled evangelist to turn my willingness
into actual belief.
Fortunately, I treat all such extraordinary claims with the
extraordinary scepticism they deserve.
> No, I didn't yell it -- and probably didn't even "pray" it
> -- just
> thought about it. One day I suddenly discovered I was a
> Christian. I was
> surprised. I was not at all sure I approved of being a
> Christian. But
> there I was, none the less.
And I have little doubt that if you had been Iranian or
Indian instead of American, your thoughts would have led you
to be a Muslim or Hindu, assuming you managed to survive
your first 30 years as an atheist in either of those
countries.
> C. S. Lewis describes something like my experience in his
> book SURPRISED
> BY JOY. As I remember, he describes his conversion as
> "being dragged in,
> kicking and screaming... ." Worth reading.
I lost interest in CS Lewis when I first came across his
"God, liar or madman" argument, and found the fatal flaw in
30 seconds. (He assumes, without independent evidence, the
historic accuracy of the Gospel stories and the validity of
Paul's concepts of "Christ".)
> Why not "scientific evidence?" I don't know. I guess it
> didn't work when
> it was used (the miracles of Jesus convinced some, not
> others).
It appears as though you also assume the historic accuracy
of the Gospel stories.
> Is my knowledge of God, then, subjective only? No.
If your knowledge of God is objective-public, then everyone
who "knows" God (or Allah or Vishnu or ....) knows the same
God, in the same way that we all "know" the same physics
equations. This is obviously not the case. If your knowledge
of God is objective-private, then how can you testably claim
that everyone else's knowledge of God (or Allah or Vishnu or
....) is not also objective-private? If we have a range of
contradictory items of objective-private knowledge, doesn't
that invalidate your use of the word "objective" in this
context.
> There are three kinds of knowledge,
Are there? I would suggest it is more like one type of
knowledge and two types of opinion.
> objective-public
presumably, knowledge that is, in principle, available to
all and testable publicly
> objective-private
presumably, knowledge that is, in principle, available to
all but is only testable within the confines of an
individual's mind.
> subjective-private
I can't find a definition that separates this from
"objective-private".
> Kitty Ferguson has a fairly good discussion of this in her
> recent FIRE IN
> THE EQUATIONS (chapter 7).
Yes, this is a good discussion, but it does not validate, or
even make a strong case for, the actuality of
"objective-private knowledge" assomething different from
"subjective-private knowledge".
> The philosopher Michael Polanyi wrote on it
> in his 1962 book PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE: TOWARDS A
> POST-CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY
> (U of Chicago Press).
I haven't seen this one, but the title suggests that it
advocates acceptance of ideas without rigorous examination
of their bona fides. I expect that it would have encouraged
some of the woolly-headed thinking for which the 60's was
famous.
Might I also recommend two books to you.
"Belief and Make-Believe - Critical Reflections on the
Sources of Credulity", George A. Wells, 1991, Open Court
Publishing Company
"After God - The Future of Religion", Don Cupitt, 1997,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
> Well -- that's how I see it from this corner.
> Extraordinary claim? Of
> course. Extraordinary evidence? That's up to the
> individual.
This is the central issue. I don't see how assessment of the
evidence can be left to each individual. Very few
individuals have taken the time to study and compare in
detail the claims of the world's major religions, let alone
the claims of the minor ones. On what basis could a person
untrained in comparitive religious studies choose among
religions? There are too many competing, contradictory,
but nevertheless widely supported claims concerning evidence
for the existence, attributes and behaviour of various
deities. The God's of Christians, Jews and Muslims can't
*all* be "the one true God", in the same sense that
Christianity, Judaism and Islam can't all be the one true
religion.
It appears to me that, when such wildly divergent beliefs,
each with many millions of followers and many thousands of
scholars, have existed for so long without significant moves
toward common "truth" on central differences, that the whole
concept of belief in deities is horribly flawed. This is
especially so when one considers the amount of violent death
associated with religious differences.
> For the claim is not one of the natural world, a claim
> which is "neutral." The
> claim requires everything you have, and are, and will be.
> If that sort of
> commitment is one you will not consider, I see no other
> pathway to
> grasping it.
I *have* entered into "that sort of commitment" to my wife
and children. Of course, the evidence of their reality is
wonderfully inescapable.
--RegardsDerek
-----------------------------------------------------| Derek McLarnen | dmclarne@pcug.org.au || Melba ACT | derek.mclarnen@telstra.com.au || Australia | | -----------------------------------------------------