tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815187212465418058.post7684668898879769550..comments2023-12-02T08:47:01.256+00:00Comments on To whom it may concern: The Greatest Piece of Evidence (part 2)To whom it may concernhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12606673833737508249noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815187212465418058.post-56767689517306988742012-09-21T20:53:53.062+01:002012-09-21T20:53:53.062+01:00Hi Paul
Glad to see that you are willing to borrow...Hi Paul<br />Glad to see that you are willing to borrow from the thinking of William Lane Craig. It is interesting that you point to pre-suppositions; I have always felt that athiests fail to engage with the resurrection because of their presupposition against the existence of God (for example, NT Wright's supervisor acknowledged the strength of his arguements for the resurrection but admitted that he chooses to beleive their must be another explanation).<br /><br />I don't believe that the arguements are based on the presupposition of God, rather I believe that the arguements point to the existence of God. <br /><br />Regarding your argument concerning tectonic plates etc., I am sure you have seen Craig address that in his debate with Hitchens.<br /><br />With regards to modern miracles: I refer you to my link entitled, 'amazing things God does.' One of these miracles includes an event associated with one of my best friends, David Blevins. I amn certain of his character and have spoken to a neurologist about whether there was any possibility that it was a hallucination (he said that David's profile and circumstances suggested not). I don't make too much of the modern miracle arguement, given that those with an a priori belief that God does not exist will simply say that there must be an alternative explanation.<br /><br />I hadn't realised that Licona had written a book on the resurrection (I don't even know who he is). I think that it is foolish to write off an arguement for the resurrection because you do not beleive in some of the author's points. I recently read a NT Wright article on this topic; I did not argee with some of his attitudes towards biblical inerrency, but nevertheless I believe that he is one of the leading proponents in favour of the ressurection.<br /><br />Are you really saying that there is no point in making an arguement in favour of a given position because of disagreements between propenents of that view?<br /><br />Paul, I hope that I will not call you any offensive names. If you are not a nmaterialist, what are you? I believe that you must do some defending as well as attackking.<br />Yours etc, Paul To whom it may concernhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12606673833737508249noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815187212465418058.post-89477551686110206972012-09-21T18:44:43.296+01:002012-09-21T18:44:43.296+01:00Part Two
With reference to the resurrection, as I ...Part Two<br />With reference to the resurrection, as I am sure you know that Mike Licona has written a 700 page book in defence of the resurrection hypothesis, yet due to the fact that in ‘The Resurrection of Jesus ‘ he suggests that Matthew 27:52-53 might be apocalyptic, the wrath of the evangelical establishment, <br />(including Norm Geisler), had him removed from North American Mission Board and Southern Evangelical Seminary. What I am trying to explain to you Paul by this is, it is too simple to talk about faith, this is not enough for Christians, no matter even if somebody believes in the resurrection, it still has to be the ‘right kind of faith’, as evidenced by the above disagreement with Geisler, this shows exactly why faith is man made. Even if you remove one tiny block from the edifice of their faith, people such as Geisler (I think he wrote-I don’t have enough faith to be an Atheist) are worried that it will fall. This is why Craig has to make such a sick reasoning for God commanding so much genocide in the OT. I would hope Paul that if you had a guest speaker at your church who made such a disgusting statement, that you would not have him back unless he retracted such words. Craig refuses to retract them, and I suppose he can’t, because they are the logical conclusion of evangelical belief.<br />By the way, another evangelical establishment figure Al Mohler condemns Licona when he says “Licona has handed the enemies of the resurrection of Jesus Christ a powerful weapon — the concession that some of the material reported by Matthew, in the very chapter in which he reports the resurrection of Christ, simply did not happen and should be understood as merely ‘poetic device’ and ‘special effects’…”<br /><br />Yet Licona has written a 700pg book in its defence!-it shows the nonsense of even putting forward an argument in favour of the resurrection.<br /><br />While I do not class myself as ‘an enemy’-all I wish to do is try and show how subjective Christian faith (or any other) is, and ask simple questions. The above is a classic example. Mind you, simply because I question the validity of faith, Christians say that “I am a pawn of Satan”, not sure if I am as highly qualified as that though! <br /><br />I was very intrigued by one of your examples for the existence of God, namely “modern miracles”, I would be genuinely interested to hear more from you about this, if you were happy to do so.<br />Best regards,<br />Paul <br />p.s. Just to let you know, I am not a materialist. <br />Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815187212465418058.post-19881369898719091072012-09-21T18:41:13.125+01:002012-09-21T18:41:13.125+01:00Part One
People can argue endlessly about the auth...Part One<br />People can argue endlessly about the authenticity of the claims made in favour for the resurrection of Jesus. I could ream off many points that show the weakness of such a claim, but neither side is ever going to be able to prove it either way. As your much quoted William Lane Craig says (in the context of the resurrection argument), “to believe in the resurrection, you have to presuppose that God exists, because the resurrection hypothesis is related to miracles”.<br /><br />So Paul, while you give arguments and quotes in favour of the resurrection, they are meaningless in and of themselves, because they are based on one huge supposition, namely that God exists, and therefore such a miracle could have taken place. So no matter what is argued or what you try to prove about the resurrection, such attempts will never achieve anything unless the listener assumes that God exists. <br /><br />I know in a previous post you refer to the default Christian points e.g. – how did something come out of nothing? How could ‘creation’ happen without a creator?......etc. <br /><br />If as you believe God created everything, do you not think it is disturbing that he had to design a world in which tectonic plates must move, causing tsunamis; in 2004 one of these killed over 230,000 adults, children and babies, in fourteen countries, some design! How then can Christians sing at harvest time “the wind and waves obey Him” if Christians really believe that this is true, they have a great deal of explaining to do. This is why the words of Craig mentioned in an earlier post are so deplorable, from his Christian view, God was doing all the children and babies a favour, they would be going to heaven anyway, so it would not matter that they were horribly killed by a tsunami. Mind you for nearly 1800yrs, Christians taught that babies/children did not go to heaven if they were not baptised<br />Paulnoreply@blogger.com