Did Jesus really exist?

Originally posted by googlefudge
Hence, you equivocated. You changed the meaning of the word part way through your post.

I don't think he did.

What really happened here was that you changed your definition halfway through his story, and only because his last example of faith targeted a God whom you refuse to believe in.

That's all.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Why would it be a better argument for the existence of Mohammed than for the existence of the Angel Gabriel?

I just believe it would be easier to prove the existence of a Human being than a being that is not human.....

Manny

Originally posted by googlefudge
They are two examples of one phenomena, followed by a third example of a totally different phenomena, that just happens to use the same word to label it.

Perhaps you need to be consistent in your definitions, instead of consulting your own personal bias before accepting the definition.

Originally posted by googlefudge
What makes the difference, is that the first two examples are of trust in the word of
people you had detailed experience with and tons of evidence upon which to base
your trust.

The third example, is of you placing your hope of recovery on a being you have never
met and have no experience of. For which there is no evidence that they exist.
And the ...[text shortened]... hird example of a totally different
phenomena, that just happens to use the same word to label it.

"What makes the difference" is the indisputable fact that I'm reconciled to God by reason of my acceptance of the grace gift Christ purchased at the price of separation from God the Father during the final three excruciating hours of the crucifixion on Golgotha Hill almost two thousand years ago on your behalf and mine. I'll be with God for eternity. Where will you and your family be?

Originally posted by Suzianne
Perhaps you need to be consistent in your definitions, instead of consulting your own personal bias before accepting the definition.

Suzi, I wish and pray he would listen to you or Freaky if not to me....

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"What makes the difference" is the indisputable fact that I'm reconciled to God by reason of my acceptance of the grace gift Christ purchased at the price of separation from God the Father during the final three excruciating hours of the crucifixion on Golgotha Hill almost two thousand years ago on your behalf and mine. I'll be with God for eternity. Where will you and your family be?

I know that you believe that.
However you have absolutely no rational justification for doing so.
Because there is absolutely no evidence that your god exists, or that there is an afterlife of any kind,
or that we have souls [or whatever] that could possibly continue to exist after we die.
Your belief is based upon blind faith. Or simply 'faith' as I defined it.
You hold this belief despite no evidence for it being true, and despite all the evidence that it isn't.

This is not the same thing as trusting your [hopefully] loving parents when they tell you that they will
do something, when you have lots of experience of them telling you they will do things and then doing
them. This isn't blind faith, as there is lots of evidence that you can base your belief that they will keep
their word upon. It's trust, apportioned to the evidence.


The question here is not about whether you believe these things, but whether you are justified in doing so.

There isn't justification for believing Reveal Hidden Content that a god exists without any, let alone sufficient, evidence
to justify that belief. That is what makes the 3rd use of the word 'faith' different from the first two uses.

That is what makes this equivocation, you are trying to justify the 3rd use of the word by showing
reasonable [indeed rational] situations where the same word but with a different meaning applies.

I'll be with God for eternity. Where will you and your family be?

No, you will simply cease to exist, just like everyone else.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I don't think he did.

What really happened here was that you changed your definition halfway through his story, and only because his last example of faith targeted a God whom you refuse to believe in.

That's all.

No, it is not all.

I have explained why the situation is different.

There is evidence in terms of our past experience when dealing with close family members
that is not present [by your own admission] when dealing with god/s.

You frequently claim that there is no evidence for god, and can be no evidence for god.

Thus any belief in god must at best be "despite a lack of evidence" if not "despite evidence to the contrary"
and thus is by definition belief by blind faith.

I have presented a case for why I am right.

Do you have any case for why I am wrong, that does better than Ad Hominem attacks or simple mud slinging?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Suzi, I wish and pray he would listen to you or Freaky if not to me....

I do listen to Suzianne.

I even listen to you for what it's worth.

What I don't do is agree with you, because you cannot muster argument and evidence sufficient to justify your positions.

Originally posted by Suzianne
But I think "portmanteau" is a beautiful word.

But you have to pay extra when you use it 😉

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"What makes the difference" is the indisputable fact that I'm reconciled to God by reason of my acceptance of the grace gift Christ purchased at the price of separation from God the Father during the final three excruciating hours of the crucifixion on Golgotha Hill almost two thousand years ago on your behalf and mine. I'll be with God for eternity. Where will you and your family be?

... is the indisputable fact that I'm reconciled to God by reason of my acceptance...

Indisputable is an often misused term.

It means that something is "established beyond a doubt" and "unable to be challenged or denied."
Reveal Hidden Content

While you may believe that what you claim is true with every fibre of your being...

That does not make it indisputably true.

For that you require verified evidence sufficient to justify this claim after open scrutiny and analysis of that
evidence for long and rigorously enough to be sufficiently confident of it's validity.

And the above, is indisputably NOT the case for the bible god [or Jesus, or any other god/s].


By trying to assert that you have the indisputable truth, when it is clearly both highly disputed and highly
disputable, is dishonest. And is also an attempt to shut the conversation down, and avoid debate.


As a final note. You can ditch the superfluous fluff. I'm not impressed by your religions claims, and don't
need them restated in every post.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I know that you believe that.
However you have absolutely no rational justification for doing so.
Because there is absolutely no evidence that your god exists, or that there is an afterlife of any kind,
or that we have souls [or whatever] that could possibly continue to exist after we die.
Your belief is based upon blind faith. Or simply 'faith' as ...[text shortened]... you and your family be? [/quote]

No, you will simply cease to exist, just like everyone else.

With all spirituality questions
I accept the authority of sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient eternal God...
whose authority do you accept?

Originally posted by menace71
I just believe it would be easier to prove the existence of a Human being than a being that is not human.....

Manny

Yes it would. But that is not what you said. The question was not which is easier to prove, but which is more likely given a particular piece of evidence (in this case the continued existence of a religion). The reason you believe a human being is more likely to have existed than an angel is because we have other evidence that human beings exist.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
With all spirituality questions
I accept the authority of sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient eternal God...
whose authority do you accept?

As I have said many times before [you really need to start paying attention]...

None.

And you are, again, dodging the point.

I know that you believe a god exists.

What I do not know is if you can comprehend that your 3 examples of 'faith' are
not all examples of the same thing.

And please note that by saying they are not all examples of the same thing, is
not specifying if any of them are wrong, it's just specifying that they are different.

I have taken some trouble to explain why the three examples are not the same, and
as yet you have not dealt with this either by accepting my arguments or rebutting them.

All you are doing is stating what I already know about your beliefs in convoluted and
unnecessary ways to avoid dealing with my points.

So I have a simple yes/no question, to which I expect a clear yes/no answer.

Do you understand that the third example of 'faith' you gave is not an example of the same
phenomena as the first two examples of 'faith' that you provided?

With the follow-up if you answer no...
What about my arguments do you either not understand, or not agree with?

Originally posted by googlefudge

I know that you believe that.

I too have been subdued by the words and Person of Jesus.
I believe like Grampy, in the New Testament.


However you have absolutely no rational justification for doing so.
Because there is absolutely no evidence that your god exists, or that there is an afterlife of any kind,

There is rational justification for believing that Jesus is worthy of my trust. I know that the changes wrought in my life since the day I called up the name of Jesus Christ are not having their source in me.

And since the power of those changes coincide with increased and deeper detailed trust in the teaching of Christ, we are pretty sure that we are on the right track to believe Him.

We know that the transformation is coming from within. And we know that if we could have done so ALONE we would have done so ALONE. That is because just like you and every other person on the planet, we prefer to be in the driver's seat of our own destiny 100%.

We are all basically, ALL OF US .... like Frank Sanatra's song - We want to do it MY way. We are really not different from other men and women in that regard.

We found out that the best way is the way that only one Person in the whole universe fully lived and elaborated on - Jesus Who claimed He was the Son of God.

Don't you worry. You will never, never be forced to come to God for life. Your will will never be usurped. Some of us though got subdued by the love of Jesus.

Sometimes, I wonder if some of you atheists are afraid to be loved by God.

or that we have souls [or whatever] that could possibly continue to exist after we die.

The truth of the matter is that no one writing here has experienced death or death and resurrection. Is eternal life a hope? Yes, it is a hope. But we do have the testimony of One who has convinced us of His reliability, truthfulness, trustworthiness in the realm of victory over death.

And it makes sense. It makes rational and justifiable sense coming out of the mouth of Jesus Christ. So though neither Grampy or myself have gone through physical death and resurrection we have seen something like a process of transformation going on within which we are certain is not out from ourselves.

Beginning to experience the Christian life, the pages of the Bible begin to come alive and the believers says "I understand this now. I have experienced this. I think I understand now what the New Testament is saying. This HAS been real to me."

So when such words are read now like - " .. and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him." (John 14:21) eventually we admit - "This makes sense to me now. I have experienced this. These words are true."

Again when it says "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." (John 14:23) Our experience confirms that these statements are true. This explains what I have been experiencing. I know God. I don't just know something about God. But now I know God. And I know Jesus Christ.

Experiences like this accumulate beyond count. beyond are ability to remember each. And these furnish rational justification that we are on the right track to trust what Christ has taught, even about things that we have not YET experienced.

You will not be forced or coerced against your will to have these experiences. You have it within your purview to say "No" to God. You have it within your hands to say "I don't want you Jesus."

But some of us came somehow to receive Jesus. And the confirmation that it was the wisest decision to have done so on ANY rational level is more solid than a rock.


Your belief is based upon blind faith.

No. This faith is a seeing faith. It is not a blind faith. It is a faith with an ever accumulating confirmation that He can be trusted. You will eventually trust somebody.

You will trust perhaps Betrand Russell or Richard Dawkins. Maybe you will trust Madelene Murry O'Hair or Voltaire. You will trust someone and the words of someone. Right now you trust that death will be final and there will be no accounting of your life. You trust that you will cease to exist and you will never answer to a God about your life in its deeds good or bad. You trust that oblivion awaits you.

Not only that, those who have hurt you or committed wrong acts against you, whether you know them or are ignorant of them, THEY TOO you think will never have to account for what they did. You trust this.

I don't trust this at all. I don't trust this because of Jesus Christ personality and words, testimony and deeds. The personality and power of the personality of Jesus of Nazareth have persuaded me that oblivion does not await me. Resurrection and either justification or judgment await me.

And I cannot say this is a "blind faith". It is a faith. That I admit. But it is a faith accompanied with confirmation and evidence which I cannot suppress.


Or simply 'faith' as I defined it.

However, I do recall a time when as an outsider looking in, it appeared to me also to be some people's blind faith or strong act of self will. I looked intently into their faces and asked myself - " Do they REALLY believe that. Are they lying to me? Are they self deceived?"

I went to Christian coffee houses and listened to them argue with people off the street. I looked intently into their eyes to see - "Does he really believe what he is saying or is he just fanatical."

The day came when I saw why they believed the Bible. God became real to me too after a controversy with God.

You hold this belief despite no evidence for it being true, and despite all the evidence that it isn't.

No, I don't think that is the case.
The gospel of Jesus Christ has its hands on too much truth.
Those 12 disciples turned the world upside down.

And as I said, internally the witness of a process going on subjectively and experiencially which we know is not having its source from ourselves persuades us that the words of Jesus Christ are indeed true. What we have not YET experienced are probably also true. We are foretasting something which apparently a full taste awaits.


This is not the same thing as trusting your [hopefully] loving parents when they tell you that they will
do something, when you have lots of experience of them telling you they will do things and then doing
them. This isn't blind faith, as there is lots of evidence that you can base your belief that they will keep
their word upon. It's trust, apportioned to the evidence.

I know that the liberation, the freedom of the power working within me is not from me. If it had been possible for me to live so without God I would have done so. The salvation came totally wrapped up in Jesus Christ, intrinsically and inescapably. Freedom from the guilt and power of sin came with Him. It never came any other way.

And in humbling myself to the Lord Jesus I was lifted.

The question here is not about whether you believe these things, but whether you are justified in doing so.

HIstorically, and by way of subjective experience, I am justified to believe. It is not HARDER for me NOT to believe. It requires far more effort to NOT believe in Christ now.