It drives me crazy to see this argued over and over in this thread. Sach_F1, and every other deist who attempts this argument, please pay attention to what's being said here.
A 1500-year-old book full of stories is not proof of anything other than man's abilities to write words on paper. Anybody can write anything. In all other areas of your life, I'm sure all of you choose what to believe and not believe based on logic, evidence, reason and facts.
I was done with this tired discussion, but you just accused me of several things that are untrue.
When I said "Really, and why is that?", I was referring to people's personal testimonies. Just because something falls outside of the physical and testable realm of science doesn't mean that it is ultimately subjective and without value. To say otherwise is simply foolish and arrogant. I wasn't referring to your suggested comments regarding the bible.
Yet for some reason, when it comes to this one area of your life, suddenly an ancient book, that has been translated (read: mistranslated) dozens, if not hundreds of times, and shown to be riddled with inaccuracies, is all the proof you need?
Another assumption you are making about myself, also untrue. As an intelligent person who has always had academic success (mathematics in school, language, now music/composition, etc.), and engaged in critical thinking, I can promise you that I have pondered over the validity of the bible on a countless numbers of occasions. I would even wager a great deal to say that I have questioned its validity even more so than the vast majority of skeptics here. You are also assuming that people more intelligent than yourself, or equally intelligent as those whose opinions you do respect, have not also scrutinized the validity of the biblical documents and found them to be trustworthy.
Do you lend the same credence to Egyptian hieroglyphs? I'm sure the people who inscribed them believed what they were writing every bit as much as did the people who wrote the gospels. Do you get up every day and worship Ra? Do you pray to Osiris? Of course not. Your ability to think logically and reasonably allows you to recognize those myths for what they are.
I honestly haven't studied the Egyptian hieroglyphs, so I can't comment. But your comment is a typical insert-here response to encountering someone with faith who claims to know the truth. I would find it empty to worship those 'gods' because they are not gods at all. A critical error that nearly every skeptic makes is to withhold room for the 'super-natural', divine, transcendent, and possibility of an absolute truth.
Any critically thinking person understands that the concept of absolute truth can exist. If that concept can exist, there can also be such a thing as a singular deity that created everything, one who is 'the way', as Jesus said, and that every other god created by man can be false. People criticize Christians for being close-minded, when in fact to deny the possibility of absolute truth and the possibility that they are right is no less foolish.
Because the concept of absolute truth can exist, there can also exist a universal standard of morality. Whether humans choose to exercise their freedom to abide by it or not, and to form their own versions of it, does not change the fact that it can exist, ignored or not. Because a singular God and standard can exist, it is also possible that things are not created around the way that we would have them be, that perhaps we are merely subjects to the predetermined standards of reality, and that God can absolutely be justified in whatever he wants to do. Justification ultimately depends on the standard by which you set it, and if God has the power to create the reality that we use to set this standard, then he is also not restricted by it, and ultimately he can also be the ultimate standard by which all judgment comes.
Now, please, just for one moment, hold off on hitting that "reply" button, and really think about it. What makes your faith any more worthy of your attention and your investment than any of the others that you have chosen to not believe in? Because in the end, they all have the exact same evidence behind them.
They don't have the same evidence behind them. If you knew me 10 years ago we would be side by side in this discussion. Like I said, I have always excelled in my studies, always been regarded as having a strong intellect, was in the gifted class, was considered for skipping 4th grade, was the top jazz musician at my 3 university years after picking up the craft, etc. I am a person that has always enjoyed thinking critically, questioning where everything comes from, and forcing myself to accept the hard truths. I promise you that I am also very selfish with my time and way of thinking while on this earth because I know how short life is, and I did not come to believing in God without years of fierce intellectual battles with myself and ultimately transcendental experiences that proved that things can exist outside of the realm of logic, even physical evidence. And this is not even a surprise when you consider that I believe in a God who has performed miracles. Just consider for one minute, that if Jesus was in fact who he said he was, miracles and things that defy the logic of all sciences would be expected in this reality.
Once you come to the neutral acceptance that a singular truth can exist, you will understand that a God can exist, even in theory, and how a person can come into believing as a Christian. Because that is true, you will either explore the implications that can have or you will not. I know that because it is a valid concept, that a singular God can be the creator of every law in this universe, and does not have to play by the rules of his own design. A work of art cannot argue to any avail with the artist. And this is also what I mean when I quote, "Any man that says he knows does not yet know as he ought to.".
And lastly, if you think that I have just sunk into some static place of deluded acceptance of a set of beliefs over the years, you are also sorely mistaken. Every believer struggles to maintain faith and understand morality, and to balance those with worldly experiences. Every person in the bible did so as well, and this is not a new concept. It is a lifelong series of experiences, full of seasons of doubt and disbelief, and seasons of true understanding of God's nature.
