Summations Only

I didn't say you had. We were talking about whether faith requires evidence, not whether the Bible is evidence. I noted that first you insisted that evidence is the foundation of faith ("You are wrong about faith, it MUST be based on evidence"), then you later contradicted yourself and denigrated evidence ("The way evidence is demanded here is just a sort of odd habit, or like an irrational cultural practice with regard to the Bible and questions about the supernatural in general."). You also denigrated external evidence ("This external evidence that is demanded is not needed but habit /bias makes them think it is.").So since you keep changing your mind, let me ask again: Is evidence necessary for faith or not? If it is, then why in the world are you denigrating evidence?What you've really been saying is, "If you were believers like me you wouldn't be asking these questions."And our answer would be, "If you had answers to these questions you'd be talking instead of dancing."Returning to the topic, do you have any evidence that the Bible is the Word of God and is inerrant? Your last answer was "prophecy", then you declined to discuss it (see Message 566). I'm not that interested in discussing prophecy, either, unless you can first draw a connection between correct prophecy and divine and inerrant authorship. How does one imply the other?--Percy

Hello PaulK. I cannot speak for anyone except myself, but the Tower of Babel story is quite symbolic to me. I see it as showing how humanity seeks to be unified in purpose without God. No Pastor taught me this and it was never presented this way to me from any Biblical Christian newspeak. It was the way that the story seemed to me to be. I'll show you how I interpreted it. So this group of people...who the author sees as being "the whole earth" or all of the people in existence at this point in time...had one language and one speech.The word "speech" in Hebrew is thus: Thus these people had One action. One cause. One concern. One purpose. And apparantly, were all on the same journey. So they find a place to dwell. A place to settle. To marry. To live.So then they get to talking to each other. Keep in mind they are all in agreement as to one purpose,one power, and one provision. So they begin to build themselves a city with a symbolic tower. They do this to make a name for themselves. They want a common identity. a common memorial of individuality,authority,and national or collective character. Why? So that they not become scattered individuals with no name, no character, and no purpose. Sounds logical, right? But as the story says, the Lord came down(descended) to check out what was happening. Personally, I could see a similarity between the symbol of the Tower of Babel and todays modern methods of social cohesiveness. But anyway, getting back to the story...God sees that these people are one. united. Of one spirit. One purpose. And yet they are not of His Spirit. He is not part of the common union. There is no communion between GOD, creator of all seen and unseen...and these people on this mission to create their mark...their memorial...their tombstone epitaph as it were.But of course, one could accuse me of reading my own particular ideology and bias into this interpretation. I wont deny the accusation. That is, however, what the story meant to me. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Note what is said and you even quote.

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6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

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Note that the God character says if people have a common language, common purpose then they will be able to do anything they imagine.Just as in the Garden of Eden fable and the Exodus fable the God character sees this as a direct threat to be dealt with by force.In the GoE fable the God forces the man and women to leave the Garden because he fears that they will become immortal. In the Exodus myth the God character hardens Pharaoh's heart to show how big a dick he has and in this fable the God character screws up everyone's language and scatters them all over the globe.In each of the stories there is one common theme; the God character is not someone to love or like or worship except through fear.OR... the fable can be simply another "Just So" story to explain why there are different languages and not really about God except as a plot device.That is true about all three fables; you have two choices. You can see the God as a nasty, fearsome, insecure asshole or understand that the stories are not about God but rather about the world folk lived in explaining why we fear snakes, why childbirth seems more painful for humans than other animals, why we farm, why we grow old and die, why we create moral societies, why there are different languages in different places or the origin of a "Peoples identity".

If you take it as yesterday's newspaper then you'll never learn anything from it. Yesterday's news is often superseded by new information gathered today. If you stop the clock and insist on believing in "Peace in our time" you're not facing up to reality.

Some things that we learn change with time as new information is added.Other things never change and are timeless truths.

I do have the eyewitness of many. Here are there accounts.Jim Crawford: I saw the same thing as Taq.Frank Jones: I saw the same thing as Taq.Fran Smith: I saw the same thing as Taq.Now you have all the evidence you need.

Evidence is necessary to faith.
Evidence for Christian faith is the Bible, all of it, but particularly the evidence given for the miracles.
It would be nice to have evidence external to the Bible but people deny the claims to that and my argument is that the Bible is sufficient, external evidence is not needed.
Evidence for inerrancy is fulfilled prophecy. People here deny this and I don't want to get involved in another futile discussion.
This is just a summary and to emphasize I believe evidence is necessary to faith.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Okay, let me briefly summarize your position:

• Evidence is necessary to faith.
• Fulfilled prophecy is evidence that the Bible is inerrant (but you're not willing to discuss prophecy).
• External evidence from outside the Bible is unnecessary.
• Therefore the Bible is sufficient evidence for evangelical beliefs and no other evidence is needed.
• In response to challenges to this position you will just repeat this endlessly and not engage in any actual discussion.

Do I have it about right?--Percy

That'll do.

It seems more true to say that your evidence is based on faith.Certainly God hasn't done much to provide evidence to us. Poorly evidenced miracle stories are hardly as good as actual miracles.

DuplicateEdited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Evidence is necessary to faith.
Evidence for Muslim faith is the Quran, all of it, but particularly the evidence given for the miracles.
It would be nice to have evidence external to the Quran but people deny the claims to that and my argument is that the Quran is sufficient, external evidence is not needed.
Evidence for inerrancy is fulfilled prophecy. People here deny this and I don't want to get involved in another futile discussion.
This is just a summary and to emphasize I believe evidence is necessary to faith.

Which is your favorite Quranic fulfilled prophecy? Mine is the one about the restoration of the state of Israel: I think that clinches it. Everyone knows that any book containing a fulfilled prophecy is the inerrant Word of God, so the Quran is it.--Percy

Silly stuff, actually,

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Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed

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What's the point of Jesus words's to doubting Didymus here? Was Jesus actually praising Thomas and mocking those who had simply believed Mary's account?

How would you know? Can you see the future?