Ashley wrote:Thanks for your information and reply. Before going through your linkage in details, I agreed that the analysis in support of the truth of the religion is more convincing than the analysis attempting to refute them.
I really do recommend Craig's debate. If interested he has many well reasoned articles about God at
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcrai ... icles.html and debates at
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcrai ... bates.html. But such reading is not everyone's cup of tea.
Ashley wrote:Facts interweaving together can't be so perfectly related to lead us to a religion like this, especially over a time span of more than a few hundred years. Sometimes things are frustrating in this real world. I am quite unhappy at times people spread rumours,
TV commercials are exaggerating, lies sound like a game more than a sin, and the world is running in such a way so deviant from what it should biblically look like. Its life that we drift shiftlessly on the sea; we know that something is wrong, but we can't do anything and, are discouraged to do anything for righteousness, simply looking at on the sidelines, shunning the vicious happenings.
Among some people who never believe, to convince them about the biblical truth result only in being talked of as eccentric. It is tiresome to preach and share with people about the good news some time.
...
To me, it is even ok if the bible is a fiction. Even though it is not factually convincing, it is spiritually convincing. Jesus's teachings, St Pauls' laws of spiritual struggle, pharisees' yeast ... all spiritually reflect what is happening now a day. We pray, and we can see how prayers are fulfilled. No we can't put it in laboratory for demonstration, but we know that it is true in our heart. Even if the bible is a fiction, so what? it only indicates that God inspires some one to write such a fiction that inspire people in the past, present and future. They are still God's words, simply in the form of a fiction.
It is true there are many who attack what is in the Bible. In fact, it can be quite deafening and disheartening. You hear something enough times whether truth or a lie, and corrosion begins to happen. Hence why propaganda is so effective. However, whoever has the loudest voice does not equate to being the right voice. Truth can be found in a whisper. And if Christ might be but a whisper, I am convinced when He talks of Himself as being the truth even if I might be shunned or seen as eccentric.
Have you heard the story called "The Magician" by G. K. Chesterton? I only read it the other night in one of Ravi Zacharias' books ("Cries of the Heart") which I will here quote from. It is a story of a magician who visited a town and was performing a number of tricks to entertain the people there. To quote Ravi's words:
- While everyone else was thoroughly enjoying the magicians performance a scholar sitting near the front of the auditorium persisted in finding his own explanation for every trick. The magician was getting rather exasperated and finally came upon a trick that this intellectual would find unexplainable.
He called the analyst over and asked him, "What color was the light outside your home when you left?"
The scholar answered that is was a red light. "Run along home," said the magician, "and even as you are running I will turn it into a green light."
"You cannot do that!" retorted the young man.
"Oh, yes I can, and I will," came the answer.
The young man began to run toward his house, and as he came within a few feet of it he saw the light change color. Completely astounded, he turned around and ran back to the magician. "All right, how did you do it?"
The magician looked at him and said, "I just sent a couple of angels to change the bulb."
"That is nonsense," came the answer. "Tell me how you did it." No matter how belligerently the scholar protested, he received the same answer: "I sent a couple of angels to change the bulb."
The young many retreated to his science laboratory, trying to figure out how a red light can be changed into a green light. He became so obsessed with his quest that he finally went insane. His sisters came to the magician and implored him to give his trick away just this once so that their brother would regain his sanity.
"But I have already told him the truth," he said.
"All right, then, why don't you tell him something that is not true but sounds reasonable? At least it will bring his sanity back."
The magician reluctantly agreed and fabricated an explanation for his trick, which the young man readily accepted. Immediately he regained his sanity.
Having read this story, which do you think is truer of the critical scholar: a) The scholar was more sane when he had no explanation for the red light turning green?; or b) The scholar was, in fact, truly insane when he bought into the lie?
Chesterton believed that the scholar was truly insane when he bought into the lie as being the only suitable explanation. I am inclined to agree. For any explanation outside of the scholar's sensibilities he could not bring himself to accept. He was trapped in his own conceptualised world and viciously held to his own philosophical inclinations to the point of insanity. In the end he bought into a lie in order to keep
his world settled.
Of course it is only a story, however there are many truths which could be drawn from it and I find it very applicable to the "enlightened" climate we as Christians often find ourselves within. Yet, I know I have my sanity with my belief in Christ and I think I have seen many react quite insanely just because I am a Christian.
You say the Bible is fiction on matters about history and so forth, and you believe this is fine because although it is not factually convincing, it is spiritually convincing. You believe in Christ
because of the spiritual truths you see embedded in Scripture. Yet what if what you see as lacking factually convincing power because of "people spread[ing] rumours, TV commercials... exaggerating, lies..., and the world... running in such a way so deviant from what it should biblically look like" is, in fact, the truth as the magicians answer was? Are you not mixing yourself with such insanity just for your own peace of mind?
Do you believe Paul's words in Romans 1:
- 18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing to be wise, they became fools
I think the "wise" here sound a lot like the skeptical scholar in the magician story. Continuing, we find further spiritual truths from Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:20:
- "Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"
And Paul continues further on:
- 27but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong
Perhaps the foolish belief of a personal God who exists dwelling among us in human form of Jesus to live with us... perhaps the foolish belief of Christ who healed many both physically and emotionally... perhaps the foolish belief that he was a rabbi with disciples... perhaps the foolish believe that this rabbi kept all God's commandments... perhaps the foolish believe that he was innocently crucified upon a cross... perhaps the foolish belief that his dying on the cross for our sins is how we can be reconciled to a fully righteous God... perhaps Christ's being risen three days later to prove his identity and claims and as such provide us with an eternal hope... perhaps all these beliefs are foolish to believe because they are not as convincing as a certain type of explanation the world wants?
However, I see the truth in such "foolishness" and I am content that in the end all will be revealed. I do not want the insanity of the world. And if I am wrong, well what will it matter anyway?
Yet, what I find significant is that the foolish beliefs surrounding Christ are not without evidence; evidence we should expect if they did in fact happen. We have writings from witnesses, in the Talmud, historians of the time, archeology, true places and people in history, and even the way wind blows in a particular geographic location. And if a personal God is true than should we not expect such a God would interact with us? I am not ashamed of my foolishness for I have found God through it, and not just that, I think it is rationally justifiable even if the world begs to differ because it only accepts carnal explanations. As Paul wrote: "
the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Ashely wrote:It doesn't mean that I lost my faith. I reacted to this thread because the world that I know is beginning to be discouraged about the truth. It is simply being drowned out by "noises". Got it?
Yes I understand the sound is deafening which makes it hard to uncover and hear the truth. Such sounds of the world are deafening to the point that God's special revelation of Himself as found is Scripture can only be fiction. Yet, who do you want to be? The self-deluded scholar who only accepts particular kind of answers favorable to such deafening cries from the world? Or one who sees and embraces the wisdom found in God's whisper? Could what is fiction to the world be truly non-fiction?
I often find myself reflecting upon this last centuries once greatest atheistic thinkers. I greatly admire this person for his strength in the face of a world which has now largely turned their back on him. Dr. Antony Flew who strongly believes we should follow the evidence wherever it leads, and who as everyone now knows is now a Deist, admits: "
The evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It's outstandingly different in quality and quantity, I think, from the evidence offered for the occurrence of most other supposedly miraculous events." (
The Answer Is the Resurrection [recommend]) Thus, I see there are warranted grounds for my foolishness and fiction of the world. But where others just see foolishness and fiction, I see God and truth, grace and hope.
