The "Christian" God Hypothesis Vs Others
Christian, let's recap what you need to do and see if you can do it based on faith:
Would you like to defend the existence of the social Trinitarian God (versus an anti-social Trinitarian God) of the Bible (which had a long process of formation and of borrowing material from others) who never began to exist and will never cease to exist (even though everything we experience has a beginning and an end), who never learned any new truths, who does not think (for thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives), who is not free with respect to deciding his own nature, who revealed himself through a poor medium (history) in a poor era (ancient times), who condemns all of humanity for the sins of the first human pair, who commanded genocide, who allows intense suffering in this world (yet does not follow the same moral code he commands believers to follow), whose Son (the 2nd person of the trinity) became incarnate in Jesus (even though no one has ever made sense of a person who is 100% man and 100% divine) to be punished for our sins (even though there is no correlation between punishment and forgiveness) who subsequently bodily arose from the dead (even though the believer in miracles has an almost impossible double-burden of proof here) and now lives embodied forever in a “spiritual” human body to return to earth in the parousia (even though the NT is clear that the end of all kingdoms and the establishment of God's kingdom was to be in their generation), who sent the 3rd person of the trinity to lead his followers into "all truth" (yet fails in every generation to do this), who will also judge us based upon what conclusions we reach about the existence of this God and what he has done (paralleling the ancient barbaric thought police), and who will reward believers by taking away their freedom and punish the dammed by letting them retain their freedom?
Interesting hypothesis, if so. This is such a large claim. The larger the claim is, the harder it is to defend it.
Or, do you wish to defend a different understanding of the Christian God? There are many to choose from because Christians cannot even agree among themselves. That's why anthropology professor David Eller argues there is no such thing as Christianity, but rather Christianities.
You see, all religionists believe in supernatural forces and beings. That is the necessary condition for having a religion. Apologists in one provincial area of the globe think they have earned the right to the debate table by virtue of living in their particular part of the world.
They haven't.
Before you can debate the existence of your supernatural being you must be able to convince other religionists (even those within your own tradition) that yours has more epistemic warrant than theirs.
Hint: You can't. The reason you can't is because all religionists share the same foundation, faith. Faith has no method, cannot solve any problems, makes no testable predictions, nor can its claims be verified. When faith is the basis for what you think then anything can be believed.
Would you like to defend the existence of the social Trinitarian God (versus an anti-social Trinitarian God) of the Bible (which had a long process of formation and of borrowing material from others) who never began to exist and will never cease to exist (even though everything we experience has a beginning and an end), who never learned any new truths, who does not think (for thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives), who is not free with respect to deciding his own nature, who revealed himself through a poor medium (history) in a poor era (ancient times), who condemns all of humanity for the sins of the first human pair, who commanded genocide, who allows intense suffering in this world (yet does not follow the same moral code he commands believers to follow), whose Son (the 2nd person of the trinity) became incarnate in Jesus (even though no one has ever made sense of a person who is 100% man and 100% divine) to be punished for our sins (even though there is no correlation between punishment and forgiveness) who subsequently bodily arose from the dead (even though the believer in miracles has an almost impossible double-burden of proof here) and now lives embodied forever in a “spiritual” human body to return to earth in the parousia (even though the NT is clear that the end of all kingdoms and the establishment of God's kingdom was to be in their generation), who sent the 3rd person of the trinity to lead his followers into "all truth" (yet fails in every generation to do this), who will also judge us based upon what conclusions we reach about the existence of this God and what he has done (paralleling the ancient barbaric thought police), and who will reward believers by taking away their freedom and punish the dammed by letting them retain their freedom?
Interesting hypothesis, if so. This is such a large claim. The larger the claim is, the harder it is to defend it.
Or, do you wish to defend a different understanding of the Christian God? There are many to choose from because Christians cannot even agree among themselves. That's why anthropology professor David Eller argues there is no such thing as Christianity, but rather Christianities.
You see, all religionists believe in supernatural forces and beings. That is the necessary condition for having a religion. Apologists in one provincial area of the globe think they have earned the right to the debate table by virtue of living in their particular part of the world.
They haven't.
Before you can debate the existence of your supernatural being you must be able to convince other religionists (even those within your own tradition) that yours has more epistemic warrant than theirs.
Hint: You can't. The reason you can't is because all religionists share the same foundation, faith. Faith has no method, cannot solve any problems, makes no testable predictions, nor can its claims be verified. When faith is the basis for what you think then anything can be believed.
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