now you have charged me with being passive aggressive.

When I read the followiong:

“in your shoes and know hard it is to convince you of the existence of a living God. But God has a far better way to convince you than I do, and I look forward to that as I bring you before my prayer partners. Your science is no match for the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit so hang onto your socks Muse and get ready to be rocked by a loving God that created you!”

I can say that I find this an aggressive posture of the most peculiar kind. You won’t threaten me, but your “big brother” will.

I have said before and I say it again: I don’t believe in Jesus because God is threatening me with hell if I don’t. I believe in Jesus because I believe that what Jesus is teaching us is critical if humanity is to continue on.

I respond very poorly to threats. I respond very well to a reasoned and well argued message. I suggest that Jesus has made such a reasoned and well argued message.

Do you disagree that Jesus has presented a critical, well reasoned, and well argued message?

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but when you say:

“I was once in your shoes and know hard it is to convince you of the existence of a living God. ”

I do believe in a living God. And I believe that Jesus taught God’s teachings.

I just don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant.

And neither do the majority of Christians.

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so for reference I believe in God and I am a Christian. I do not believe that the Bible is inerrant.

So lets look at your questions:

1) Did Jesus walk the earth?

We have the Biblical acocunts which suggest he did AND we have what is argualby an independent account from Tacitus which argues that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate.

So we have confirmatory evidence that Jesus lived and was crucified and I suggest there is adequate evidence to consider this as true as we can probalby prove any historical statement.

2) If he existed, are the acounts accurate about the life he lived?

We have no way of confirming if these accounts are true or not. Arguing that they are true is speculation.

3) If he existed, and he did all these miracles, then is that enough evidence for him to be who he claimed to be, the son of God?

This is a defective question on several fronts. One we can not confirm the truth of pretty much any of the Biblical acocunts of Jesus, so using them as evidence from an objective perspective is unwarrented.

But there is a deeper problem: what do you mean by the term “son of God”?

This is a non-trivial definitional issue which I have seen take up much space in this blog among very strong believers who believe in inerrancy of the Bible.

I am happy to say yes, that Jesus was the sopn of God But I storngly suspect that you and I have vastly differnet meanings for this same phrase.

4) then were the old testament prophets correct in claiming hundreds of years prior that Jesus would walk the earth?

Since we have no ability to confirm the consistency of the Old Testament texts going back before the Babylonian captivity AND our oldest Old Testmant text is perhaps from 300 BCE or so, AND we do not have objectively supported versions of the events of Jesus life, the answer is of course that we really don’t know.

5) then is the God that claims to have created us for real?

Two problems:

a) all of your previous arguments appear to be faulty after question 2

b) what do you mean by God? This is not an idle question AND one this blog has consistently refused to come to grips with, yet we bandy about the word God with abandon as yet again another of our rubber words

On this point I will grant you:

“I believe all this to be true,”

but remember, you believe this to be true but you can not prove this to be true.

And the difference here is crucial.

Now were you and I to go and relook at these texts and discuss their spiritual and reliigous meanings, based on past discussion with a number of believer of strong inerrancy we would probably agree on a number of things and disagree on a number, but there is room for an honest and meaningful conversation.

If you assert that these are objectively true, yet do not provide th evidence when I challenge you, then of course the conversation becomes very thin indeed.

And indeed we are back to what you termed a set up, but note that you are setting yourself up, I am only illuminating that you are doing so.

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so of course it is a set up:

“is is a set up if I have ever seen one. I bet you can’t wait to rip apart whatever I have to say, so this is “all” I will say…”

But it is the set up you are setting your self up for, I just cut to the quick more rapidly than most. You may duck the question this time, but if you persist in arguments which bring the Bible into scientific questions, then I suggest you will eventually be forced to answer it, so we can answer it now OR you can think about it.

You will not, however, be able to duck it if you persist down this path.

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I am not aware of it being passive.

It is most certainly intended to be aggressive.

But it is a very strong aggression toward the ideas and the foundations for these ideas, not to the poster.

And as I have noted before, this blog tends to use rubber words. One of these words which is rubber is Christian.

So for the majority of Christianity (approximatley 2/3 of American Christianity) Biblical inerrancy is not considered a necessary part of their doctrine.

So Biblical inerrancy is a minority position among Christians.

Christinianity as a cultural melieu is a 90+% common element in American culture appearing in all kinds of forms.

So lets stop using Christinaity in its rubber form:

- Christianity in its general form is the majority culture of America

- Christianity in its evangelical form with an insistence on Biblical inerrancy is a minority position both in Christianity and in America

So there is no persecution nor discrimination nor significant resistance to Christinaity as the general mileiu: just look at the dollar bill and think of how the words “In God We Trust” got there: it was this general form of Christinianity.

There are significant forces arrayed against the strong forms of Biblical inerrancy particularly when these are used in contexts which are not religious.

So when you appear to suggest that Christians are persecuted in this country:

1) you are trivially shown to be wrong

2) it is plausibly clear that you actually mean Christinaity with a storng form of Biblical inerrancy not Christinaity in general

The use of rubber words here both detracts from the discussion AND creates artificial arguments.

So when you note:

“I will agree with you that my position is a minority position. But my position used to be one of more liberality as I endulged in all the world had to offer”

you are actively choosing this minority position. And I suggest that this choice has its own consequences.

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so I have often run down the short and long versions of this discussion in this blog and am happy to do it any time someone wants to dicuss it seriously.

Science is not a body of knowledge.

Science is a process for aquiring knowledge, or more correctly for confirming observations and analyzing data.

The primary intent of science is to make high quality predictions (some may argue this, but then ask what is the purpose of a well tested theouy such as the theory of gravity? ).

One outcome of these scientific efforts is a body of knowledge. But this body of knowledge is an outcome of the scientific process: it is not in and of itself science.

Are you with me so far? Do you have any major challenges to my observations and assertions?

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and why do some childrens stories of the Bible misrepresent the stories?

Perhaps because they were badly written?

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This is a set up if I have ever seen one. I bet you can’t wait to rip apart whatever I have to say, so this is “all” I will say…

Did Jesus walk the earth, is there enough evidence to say yes, there was a man named Jesus that walked the face of the earth 2000 (+/-) years ago that is the bases of the christian religion.

If he existed, are the acounts accurate about the life he lived. Did he really heal the sick supernaturally, did he raise the dead, the the blind see, did he calm the ocean, did he produce enough food to feed 5000 from a couple fish a a few loaves of bread. If the accounts can be trusted, is this enough evidence to support his miracles?

If he existed, and he did all these miracles, then is that enough evidence for him to be who he claimed to be, the son of God?

And if he existed, and did all these things, and his claim to be the son of God is true, then were the old testament prophets correct in claiming hundreds of years prior that Jesus would walk the earth? Are their predictions enough evidence?

If he existed, and did all these things, and he was the son of God, and the prophets who foretold his coming were right, then is the God that claims to have created us for real?

I believe all this to be true, and yes it takes an element of faith to believe this. I was once in your shoes and know hard it is to convince you of the existence of a living God. But God has a far better way to convince you than I do, and I look forward to that as I bring you before my prayer partners. Your science is no match for the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit so hang onto your socks Muse and get ready to be rocked by a loving God that created you!

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Do you see your style Muse, it is so passive agressive. You speak calmly and peacefully but you dig apart. Do you do this in your circles too? It is not a good form of communication.

Regardless, I am thrilled about my “minority Christian perspective” as you describe it. I will agree with you that my position is a minority position. But my position used to be one of more liberality as I endulged in all the world had to offer. But inside I was miserable until I saw the light. Jesus is the answer Muse, find Him and you will find peace and freedom from whatever drives you to such passive agressive tendencies.

Oh thank you for the brief explanation of the differing “christian worldviews”. In my closed little world I didn’t realize there was more than one definition. I’ll clarify my use of the term christian worldview. Perhaps you should contact the editors of Worldmag because I think they use the same terminology.

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I am not a scientist and never claimed to be, so my presentations come from a laymans perspective. This is a blog on a periodicals website, not a sounding board for phd wannabe’s. I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from putting me down even if your evaluation is correct concerning me.

Thank you.

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