Choosing a faith

Since reality is defined by evidence and human evidence is the only kind there is I'd say that is a safe assumption.

It isn't an assumption. It's a conclusion.

But you're seeking to support your opinions with evidence, so you can't just keep repeating "IMHO". There is no way to tell truth from fiction without evidence. You won't know if that's true until you present some evidence. No, I never agreed the Bible is evidence of anything you're seeking evidence for. Just for one example, you argued that the many witnesses of the resurrected Jesus constituted evidence that he was real, and I pointed out that wasn't true. It was just stories claiming there were many witnesses. See Message 939.Over and over again people here have shown how your claims of evidence are mistaken. No one, especially me, ever agreed the Bible is evidence. To me proof is a mathematical concept, so it's impossible I'd ever add a disclaimer like this.--Percy

I have no idea why you keep saying something so obviously untrue. I know I've fallen behind in the discussion, but I've been consistently unambiguous in stating that the Bible is not evidence, at least not for the types of things you want it to be evidence for, like miracles and the existence of Jesus. Perhaps you're thinking of things I've said along the lines of something I said in Message 729:

Me in Message 729:

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But they're not evidence because they're just stuff people wrote, not observations. Many religious books do contain legitimate observations in passing, such as of cities and kings and so forth, and since massive amounts of observational evidence exists of Jerusalem and Mecca and Sennacherib and so forth we accept this evidence. But there's every reason to reject as observational evidence the writings that Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha all healed the sick. This is just the standard claims that all religions makes and that we're all familiar with.
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Even today faith healers abound, and they're all charlatans. Why do you believe 2000-year-old faith healing was real, especially since it was a time when many more people than today were susceptible to such foolery.
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Anyone who catches a virus can pray that it will go away and their prayers will be answered the vast majority of the time, if that's the way they'd like to see it, but make the medical issue a bit more serious and see how often prayers are answered. Isn't it strange that the effectiveness of prayer depends upon the seriousness of the medical problem. Prayer remedies a cold every time, but type 1 diabetes, cystic fibrosis and amputation never.

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Maybe you're misinterpreting the above, and so just make it very clear let me unequivocally state that the above is saying that holy books like the Bible are not evidence of the kind of miraculous claptrap that religion is so extremely well known for. I should never again have to read you claiming that I agree the Bible is evidence in a way that implies evidence of anything miraculous. Evidence of cities, kings, ways of life, sure. Evidence of miracles and miraculous people, no. I have no idea why you're not including me with everyone else who says the Bible is not evidence. We could attempt a formal definition of evidence, but I don't think that's necessary for this discussion. All we need to say about evidence is that it is anything observed using one or more of the five senses. First you want a definition of evidence, then you claim inconsistency in the way people are treating rationality and evidence. Sending discussions down unnecessary ratholes of word definitions is a common approach to bringing constructive discussion to a halt. I'm pretty sure we all know what rationality and evidence are, except for you. You seem to think rational thinking includes paragraphs that begin with "IMHO," and you've opened up the door to evidence for not just things observed but even claims of claims of things observed. To claim that both health and plague (for example) are evidence of God is a problem for you, not for Christians in general. The traditional Christian answer is that the place human suffering has in God's plan is a mystery (though possible answers are often mentioned). Your answer is that plague is evidence of God because it represents (you irrationally argue) a choice. You're changing your answer again to stress only the good things. To be true to what you said in previous posts you would have to argue that you see God in those who genuinely want to see the world either a better or worse place, and respond to all those things mentioned with acts of kindness, cruelty, mercy, malevolence, love, hate, etc.You said you could use the bad as evidence for God as easily as the good, but all you've done so far is demonstrate your inability to do this.--Percy

You misunderstand. My intention was to *avoid* diverting discussion onto an evolutionary topic. I only wanted to make clear that the study of the evolutionary origins of altruism has a deep and rich history. You acknowledged the "massive set of links" on the subject, and that's all I hoped to accomplish. We should no longer have to hear you argue that evolution has no answers for altruism. Your rejection of the mindlessness of natural processes is just another of your IMHO's. You have no arguments for this position that have evidence or make sense.All processes we know of are mindless. Whether a process is quantum, nuclear or chemical, it would take place whether we were here or not. Salt added to water dissolves to form sodium and chlorine ions, whether or not any humans were involved. This is true of every natural process.It's especially true of evolution. The reproductive stage of life (which for bisexual species is when gametes form and later combine) is when most evolutionary change takes place. The process is mindless. Selection is also mindless. You will not be able to identify any way in which the processes of descent and selection require intelligence. Concerning an intelligence outside of space and time, you have no evidence, not a whit. Your argument, "But altruism," is answered by the large amount of research done on the evolutionary origins of altruism. Saying "I don't accept that" is a position statement, not an argument, not evidence, and not rational to think it is.--Percy

Your "why" is asking for supernatural answers, and there's no evidence for the supernatural. Why did the bridge collapse when it did with the accompanying innocent deaths? You look to God for your "why". But there is no sign of the supernatural when the bridge is examined, only corroded bolts or cables and such.This leaves people such as yourself, as religious people have for millennia, looking to the outer regions of scientific knowledge where what we know is most recent and hence least certain. This is why you're focusing on behavioral aspects whose origins are more difficult to nail down, and where popular understanding is least likely. A few thousand years ago the religious focus was on things like lightning. Differential reproductive success is still the explanation, as it has been for over a century. I first told you this over a couple months ago in Message 380, and again and again in subsequent posts, yet here you are yet again pretending no one has any idea what drives evolution.Christ Barrigar, like you, is searching for meaning. If he asked why the bridge collapsed he wouldn't be interested in the nuts and bolts but in where it fits into God's plan, just as are you. But there's no evidence for your supernatural causes. No cause has ever been traced to the supernatural. So the religious seek unknown causes and assign them to God without evidence. Yes? And what do you think it means?--Percy

Sorry to have not been replying. I got a bad case of the flu and haven't been at my computer for close to a week. As a result I gonna start answer emails starting with these last one from Percy. I'm still getting over whatever bug I had and don't have the energy to answer all of them. If anyone wants to go back and repeat somthing you brought up before feel free. I did read all of your other posts off line on my email account with my phone. Sorry, if I misunderstood but I believed that you agreed the the Bible was evidence but very weak.I think that we can agree that these books and letters were written in the 1st century buy various authors. I think that the options in regards to them are as follow:
1/They are a complete fabrication with some particular agenda.2/They are based on a man Jesus and then built a legendary account of resurrection around Him.3/They got the stories from others and the legends grew around their oral tradition.4/They wrote of their own accounts of what happened from what either they witnesses or from someone who was an eyewitness.I don't see how it is possible to read the NT without at least written to be believed regardless of which of the 4 options you want to choose. As evidence of that is the fact that many people of the era did believe they were true and and none of the authors corrected them.From there you can look for anything that confirms or negates one view or another but I don't see now you can say it isn't evidence. You can say that it is extremely weak evidence and go with any of the 1st 3 options. However one who has responded here has an opinion on it in which case you and others have examined the evidence of what was written and rejected it. I don't believe that I have ever claimed the plague and things like plague and cancer are evidence for God. I agree actually that it is evidence against God as I believe in him. My only point on this is that if you can't choose evil then you can't choose good either and we are robots. Can you tell me specifically of what the evidence is for the evolutionary origins of altruism? I'm not talking about how you might see that it has grown over time, and maybe even why it evolved, but it origins are something else. It does not deal with abiogenesis had an intelligent or mindless origin. It is a belief. This is a complete misrepresentation of my beliefs. If a bridge comes down I certainly don't even for the briefest of moments look for anything but natural causes such as corroded bolts or cables. I do see God in the people who respond, sometimes risking themselves to help the injured and to a lessor degree to this who work diligently to determine the cause so that it won't happen again. This is particularly true for the aviation industry. ​Dawkins writes of memes as social replicators. We all have numerous memes in our lives from the things are parents taught us, what we observed in others, from what we have read. It is my unevidenced belief that there is also a God meme that calls us to love others sometimes even at the expense of the self which like all the other memes we can choose or ignore.

Good to know, but I'll say it once more. I do not agree that the Bible is evidence for anything supernatural. Not sure where the confusion lies here. Of course you're seeking evidence that would show that what you believe is objective reality. For example, you presented what you believe is evidence that Jesus was a real person. Of the supernatural? Of course the Gospel accounts and the rest of the Bible are not evidence of the supernatural. They're typical holy books. We've been through this. If you've truly forgotten prior discussion I guess we could go through it again. I guess you've forgotten you said this already and it was rebutted already. The intent of the author is not a measure of fidelity to reality, nor is the number of people who believe his accounts. If this were so then many contradictory spiritual beliefs would have to be simultaneously true.--Percy

OK. We just will agree to disagree. The NT writers wrote about things, some from personal experience, of the objective reality of the life of Jesus and His resurrection. This of course is based on the assumption that what they wrote about was historically true. Now all these years later we can subjectively conclude whether or not we believe what was written.It can never be an objective belief for me as I obviously can't witness, or see repeated something that happened 2000 years ago. Nor, for the same reason, can there even be objective evidence for the same reason. This is true of any historical event. It all comes down to how strongly we view what we have recorded in whatever sources are available. You missed my point. I was not arguing for any measure of fidelity to accuracy, (there is a convoluted way of saying accuracy ) but simply to the idea that they were written to be believed regardless of their accuracy.Incidentally, I haven't mentioned him before but all the reading I have done has led me to conclusions that are pretty much bang on with Brian McLaren. Here is a short review of a book that he wrote recently that give a bit of an outline as to what his thoughts are and pretty much those of my own.
Do I stay Christian. The review starts off with the heading 10 Solid reasons to abandon Christianity.

Wash, rinse, repeat.Everything here has been addressed multiple times already.

You have things backwards. You have an anti-evidence way of thinking.Things aren't judged true because no one has shown them false. Things are judged true when evidence is presented that they're true. There is no evidence of the truth of any early Christian claim. This includes all of them. There's no evidence of the Sermon on the Mount, of the feeding of the five thousand, of the apostles, of the last supper, of the crucifixion, of the resurrections, of anything. There's only writers like Josephus and Tacitus passing on reports they've heard, and fastastical but familiarly religious claims in the Christian holy book. Jerome? As in fourth century Jerome more than three centuries after the death of Jesus? Seriously? The forecasting of the destruction of the Temple is an obvious post-facto attempt to make it seem like prophecy. They had to explain his opposition to the Pharisees else his death at their hands (in effect) would make no sense. It was a catastrophic event for Jews in Jerusalem when it happened. To some guy living in the diaspora some decades later not so much. Yes, that's the Christian story, we know. It has as much evidence as the stories of all the other religions.--Percy

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They had to explain his opposition to the Pharisees else his death at their hands (in effect) would make no sense.

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I think that should be Sadducees, Percy. Or maybe the Sanhedrin. Certainly not the Pharisees.

But if there is no evidence we can't automatically claim that any particular view point is correct or not. We will believe what we will believe when it comes to ancient accounts. That hardly makes sense. If it was written after the war then any deception in that area would be obvious to those at the time. I'd be hesitant to call it a prophesy anyway. It was a prediction of what would happen with the direction the Jews of the area were taking. Firstly read PaulK as he got it right. The primary argument was against the Temple authorities and as the Temple was gone so where those authorities. There was no no one left that it would have to be explained to. At the time the destruction of the Temple was huge for Jews everywhere. Sure, over time Jews everywhere adjusted the new reality. There is the fact that there are multiple authors in The bible as oppose to other holy books, but ultimately it does come down to belief. I think also that a lot of what we believe boils down to haw we perceive the world that we live in.
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People are going to believe what they're going to believe only when there's no evidence. That's your yardstick for credibility, prophecies of end times? Do you really believe you can separate the authentic cults from the false by the types of prophecies? In that case science wins because it predicts that in 6 billion years the sun will become a red giant so large that the Earth will be within it's sphere and be burned to crisp, and science has plenty of evidence for this prediction. What evidence do you have for your end times predictions? Something someone purportedly said a couple thousand years ago? Because Jesus prophesied that it would happen soon:

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And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
  —Mark 9:1

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Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
  —Mark13:30

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When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
  —Matt 10:23

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--Percy

I gave you evidence such as why would He tell them to head for the hills if it is about the end of the world. I gave you the reference about stars falling etc to the OT that is being used to make the point that this is about the Roman occupation as it had been to the Babylonians.
Also not that it will matter to you but this is consistent with what N T Wright who is arguably the foremost New Testament scholar in the world and certainly the
best known.You though are blindly going to carry on by holding to the views of American fundamentalists. It is incredible the way you twist what I say. Firstly, as I have said numerous times, Jesus was not supernaturally predicting or prophesizing anything. He was considering the situation in His world and culture and telling them what will happen as a result of a violent revolution.The point of what I was saying is that a messiah was about the overthrow of the Romans in that age, not end times, and as evidence I pointed out that there is no record of any messianic wannabe talking about end times for the world. Once again, He was predicting, not prophesying, the result of the revolution.The quote from Mark is about the Kingdom of God being established in this world as from Daniel 7. It is as in the Lord's Prayer. "Your Kingdom Come as in Heaven With You.And your quote from Matthew is about the "Son of Man" coming to the "Ancient of Days" in Daniel 7. The destruction of the Temple will signify the end of the Temple age and now the Temple movement will see the Temple in Jesus and will exist in the hearts that love and serve Jesus' message of love, mercy, justice and peace.If you are interested here is something short by N T Wright. Farewell to Rapture