A Way to Think About Free Will and God: Open Theism

Percy,addressing GDR writes: I start from the point that the resurrection is unevidenced and just the sort of claim one would expect from religion. That today we also know it's scientifically impossible is just icing on the cake.

While I was looking up articles to support my post to Tangle, I found one that might be interesting to you also.
Religion: why faith is becoming more and more popular In which the following side article caught my eye:

The Guardian writes: Science and religion A key proponent of the incompatibility of science and religion is Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist, who has ridiculed creation and intelligent design theories. But according to Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, efforts to pit science against religion are a “phoney war”. A YouGov poll carried out last year found that only 16% of believers accept the creation myth. Another survey of 3,000 science, medical, technical, and engineering professionals in the UK, Germany and France, commissioned by the Scientific and Medical Network, found that 25% described themselves as atheists, and 45% as religious or spiritual. Professor Eric Priest, a mathematician and a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said the supposed conflict between science and spirituality was outdated, and many scientists had “a more subtle, nuanced view of the relationship, and recognise that questioning, imagination, creativity, reason, faith and community are common features of both science and religion”. In the US, a survey of scientists in 2009 found they were roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. One in three scientists said they believed in God compared with 83% of the general population. Just under half the scientists polled said they had no religious affiliation, compared with only 17% of the public. Jennifer Wiseman, a Christian astrophysicist and director of Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion, a programme of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told ABC News that science was a “wonderful tool for understanding the physical universe” but religious belief provides answers to bigger philosophical questions in life. “We are physically connected to the universe and I think we have a deeper connection as well.”

Note this again:

many scientists had “a more subtle, nuanced view of the relationship, and recognize that questioning, imagination, creativity, reason, faith, and community are common features of both science and religion”.

The issue that we here are discussing specifically is whether a belief can be said to be historical and on what grounds? Also whether a belief, a dogma, and an imagination can be critically examined by science minds without being rejected.

Which leads to the question: Is the Resurrection relevant as a doctrine? Is it necessary? I wwas taught unequivocably yes. That it was a core doctrine.
GDR is attempting to prove this fact and pleads for allowing the belief to stand as valid evidence. Percy is using scientific reason to label it as dogmatic and irrelevant as evidence.

The bottom line? Will GDRs beliefs stand without the Resurrection as evidence?

My argument? Scientific methodology should not shape a creed, belief, or doctrine. Further, such beliefs are the equivalent of evidence for all practical purposes in a believers world view. Though I dont know what the scientists polled would think.

Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Phat writes: I have seen few adults grow out of anything.

It happens, but when views become fixed with age they're harder to change. That's why the Jesuits were attributed with the saying “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.”

A phrase that was desperately worrying even before their abuse scandals.

It happens, but when views become fixed with age they're harder to change. That's why the Jesuits were attributed with the saying “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.”

Scarily true if it's the Jesuits doing the training. But the Bible also says "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." \

However, even cultists CAN be deprogrammed so there is always hope when the childhood training is evil.

GDR writes: OK, but once again there were 66 books written and so they are not all to be evaluated in the same way.

They were all evaluated the same way by the people who canonized them.

GDR writes: Also, the Gospels were compilations and 2 of them claim to be accurate.

Treasure Island was compiled from the accounts of Jim Hawkins and Dr. Livesey, and it claims to be accurate. Both of those traits are quite common in fiction.

Edited by ringo, : No reason given.

GDR writes: It was a physical body but different.

If it was not the same body, it was not a resurrection and the wounds were faked.

I think I already addressed most of your comments when I said to GDR in the message you're replying to, Message 343:

Percy in Message 343 writes: Of course scientific certainty isn't available. Why should it be? This is religious faith we're talking about, not science. Do you have faith in God and certainty in your religious beliefs? You do, right? Why isn't that enough? Why do you need the additional validation of ties to real world evidence? An even bigger question is why you can't see that you're just fooling yourself. Concerning religion and the real world there is no there there. But the spiritual life religion provides is all one needs. Real world evidence is not required to live this spiritual life. You're making the exact same mistake as Faith, and just as persistently, though much more politely.

No answer as of yet. About this:

Phat writes: GDR...pleads for allowing the belief to stand as valid evidence.

You're missing something fundamental. Belief untethered by evidence is about the furthest thing from evidence one could imagine. GDR has abandoned faith as sufficient and embarked upon a mistaken search for evidence for his faith. Finding no actual evidence he has simply declared the NT to be evidence. Then, strangely because it fully compromises his argument, he says he only has faith that it is evidence.

You seem to like reading articles, so you might like this one since it argues for GDR's position: Is Evidence Needed for Faith? What I like about it is that it states the question succinctly (I modified his sentence a little):

quote:

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If you have to have “evidence” to believe, would faith really be faith?

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If you feel like it, try to identify where his argument first breaks down. It's the same place where he diverges from reasoned argument and switches to making bald declarations.

--Percy

ringo writes: If it was not the same body, it was not a resurrection and the wounds were faked.

There is a difference between resurrection and resuscitation. Lazarus or somebody who is brought back to life on the operating table are resuscitated.

Jesus' resurrection is about a renewed physicality, that isn't subject to entropy and isn't limited to the world that we perceive with our 5 senses.

GDR writes: Jesus' resurrection is about a renewed physicality, that isn't subject to entropy and isn't limited to the world that we perceive with our 5 senses.

If you put new tires on your car, few people would say it was a different car. If you move a map from the glove compartment to a new car, few people would say it was the same car. If you copy the scratches and dents from the old car to the new car, most people would say you were faking it.

If your idea of resurrection is just going back to being God, that isn't very impressive.

If you put new tires on your car, few people would say it was a different car. If you move a map from the glove compartment to a new car, few people would say it was the same car. If you copy the scratches and dents from the old car to the new car, most people would say you were faking it. If your idea of resurrection is just going back to being God, that isn't very impressive.

Why is it that you always so aggressively miss the obvious point? If your car underwent a transformation that made it able to drive through buildings without disturbing anything in the buildings or in the car while keeping its dents and scratches intact ("He was wounded for our transgressions") you might have to admit something in its essential nature had changed. Which is what happened to Jesus' resurrected body, and will happen to the resurrected bodies of all believers in the end (in our case without the dents and scratches of course because they would be meaningless in our case).

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He will likely use his classic fallback position of *lack of evidence*. ringo is rarely if ever fueled by belief.

Lack of evidence doesn't apply to this point. My scenario fits the actual scripture, his doesn't.

Faith writes: If your car underwent a transformation that made it able to drive through buildings without disturbing anything in the buildings or in the car while keeping its dents and scratches intact ("He was wounded for our transgressions")...

It would definitely not be the same car.

Faith writes: ... you might have to admit something in its essential nature had changed.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. Haven't you been following the thread at all? A resurrected Jesus is not the original Jesus. There is no need for the wounds to be there; they're faked.

Phat writes: He will likely use his classic fallback position of *lack of evidence*.

Stop trying to predict what I'll say. You're really bad at it.

In fact, it's the evidence of Jesus' wounds that argues against resurrection. If He was the same Jesus with the same wounds, He didn't die and could not be resurrected. If the wounds were faked, there's no reason to think he was the same Jesus. If it really was the same Jesus but in a different body, the wounds are meaningless.

Faith writes: My scenario fits the actual scripture, his doesn't.

What the scripture actually says is that it was the same Jesus in the same body, not some magical new body.

So, it's only by the torture and execution of himself - an erstwhile immortal, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God - that he can forgive the rest of us for something we didn't do.

Having had himself tortured and murdered, he pops-up again as if nothing has happened so that we can die wondering if he saved me, all of us or just that git next door who's apparently going to the right church.

It's more than a tad puzzling.