Your faith...

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Slinwagh

Can you prove otherwise?

It maybe nicer to believe in the afterlife but how does that help you deal with death?

No one can prove it one way or another. That's why it's called "Faith".

Literal definition of faith:
–noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

Faith is something that can by it's very nature never be conclusively proven. If you're looking for that conclusive proof then you're in for a long wait.

If Jesus was to come riding out of clouds on a burning chariot tomorrow I would no longer have a faith.


If you want to argue that faith is pointless because it's not based in hard scientific fact then you'll never be satisfied. There is nothing anyone can say or do that will ultimately prove or disprove what people have faith in.

Originally Posted by Slinwagh

However I personally have to question the accuracy of the Bible, is it not merely a collection of fictional stories passed down by world of mouth.

Yes and no.. The old testament is a the histories of a people, from the perspective of their relationship with their deity.

The structure and style of the book shows that everything from Moses onwards was written down as well as passed on by word of mouth. The claim (which is disputed by textual analysis) is that Moses wrote the first five books of the bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers. Textual analysis suggests there were maybe a half dozen authors of it. I don't know the truth of the matter, but I don't see it as particularly important. Just as important was the fact that they were writing down the oral history of their nation.

This same concept carries through to the New Testament documents as well: In a major story telling culture it was hard to get away with altering the past. Some exaggeration, sure, but you can't fundamentally change a story because not just you would know it.

In current days we barely even tend to know our neighbours names, let alone their histories or the histories of their family. In those days, however, it would be extremely common and any attempt to alter the past would have been met with derision. That puts us in a position that the writings of the bible are what an entire culture believes to be the truth based on their witness of events; not just what some old biddy made up for a laugh around the campfire. The histories of a nation were very important to it's people.

On a complete side note it seems to me that these day's we're determined to forget where we came from and why.

I do not see any evidence for God or Jesus. Take the virgin birth, at the absolute base level you need sperm to fertilise the egg, thus rendering the virgin birth impossible, there was no IVF etc back then. i would assume I am not to take the virgin birth literally, if that is the case does this not stand for the rest of the bible to?

A God who created the universe, by his very nature would be Omniscient and Omnipotent, right? If he is omnipotent then something like making a virgin conceive a child would hardly be a challenge to him

There are any number of creatures on this planet that reproduce asexually. Admittedly those are generally less complicated creatures than mankind but the evolutionary argument there is that asexual reproduction is great for fast population growth but poor for genetic diversity.

The scientific term for a virgin birth that occurs in a species that is capable of sexual reproduction is "parthenogenesis". The only oddity to reconcile there is that parthenogenesis always results in female offspring when the creature's sex is determined by "XY" pairings.

I need to do some investigation into the accuracy of this claim this is merely something I've dug up online from a quick query about the science of the virgin birth. I can't find corroborating evidence so it may just be weak speculation by someone. I have no idea who this "Davit Pratt" is:

Originally Posted by Davit Pratt, April 2002

There is some evidence, however, that natural parthenogenesis does occasionally occur in humans. There are many instances in which impregnation has allegedly taken place in women without there being any possibility of the semen entering the female genital passage [2]. In some cases it was found either in the course of pregnancy or at the time of childbirth that the female passages were obstructed. In 1956 the medical journal Lancet published a report concerning 19 alleged cases of virgin birth among women in England, who were studied by members of the British Medical Association. The six-month study convinced the investigators that human parthenogenesis was physiologically possible and had actually occurred in some of the women studied [3].... ... It is possible that some cases of human parthenogenesis involve self-fertilization rather than true virgin birth, as there are cases of sperm being produced in women by vestigial, usually nonfunctional, male reproductive glands known as the epoöphoron (parovarium) and paroöphoron, which correspond to the seminiferous tubules of the testicles in males. In some instances, the magnetic influence and nervous excitement occasioned by attempted sexual intercourse may rouse into activity the latent, rudimentary male sex glands so that they secrete semen, resulting in impregnation [6].

But again, a virgin birth is not exactly going to be challenging to an all powerful God who created the very universe

The Virgin birth is never going to be a good point to start the basis of faith on. I have faith the Virgin Birth occurred because I have faith that my God and Creator exists, not the other way around

I am not trying to belittle your faith so please do not take offence.

You can insult my faith or belittle it all you like, I still won't take offense. I might feel sorry for you under such circumstances, but I wouldn't be offended

Faith is the strangest thing. That seemingly rational and intelligent beings would choose to believe in something there is no proof of. As absurdities go it probably seems akin to those that still believe the world is flat and are busy scurrying around trying to produce their own "scientific" proof to explain what physicists demonstrate.