Christians base their belief system on a collection of stories from 2000+ years ago and the idea of a deity and other planes of existence (edit: “Heaven” and “Hell”) of which no proof exists. Please correct me if any of the above is inaccurate.
We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born as a human despite being divine; ministered to people he encountered, performed many signs, taught profound moral truths (e.g. through parables, small debates with the leaders of the time, or even breaking up angry lynch mobs), and then became a scapegoat who suffered, died, was buried and came back.
Everything else follows from that, at least in Christianity.
I suppose I believe in "other planes of existence" (is this supposed to be Heaven and Hell or something?), but those are contingent upon the truth of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection. I guess I'd say I think we already exist in another "plane" which is immaterial and inaccessible in this life, but is nonetheless real.
I suppose I also "believe in a deity," but not with the connotations you seem to be suggesting. God is not some component of existence or reality or the universe, independent of other things; He is the only source of what it means to exist. I would say I don't even believe that God exists, but that He is below or outside of existence, as He caused everything else to exist that exists. If someone believes in God as a sort of Santa Claus or Jinn granting wishes, then no, I don't believe in that kind of "deity" either. That's just silly nonsense.
> If someone believes in God as a sort of Santa Claus or Jinn granting wishes, then no, I don't believe in that kind of "deity" either. That's just silly nonsense.
Isn't that a teaching of Jesus?
> 9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)
> He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20)
So why don't you believe in that?
I'm an atheist and can certainly see why it'd be silly to think that if you just pray hard enough god will grant your desire, but that's what the bible teaches. Otherwise, what's even the point of prayer?
And before you say "Oh, it was metaphorical" I'd point out the Lord's prayer where Jesus specifically prays for food. (Give us this day our daily bread). What is more good than for god to give a starving person food? Yet plenty of Christians starve, is it because they didn't believe enough?
If God is the source of all that exists, then wouldn't He be the source of "daily bread"? This doesn't imply that the bread magically appears (though admittedly the OT has manna in the desert), nor does it mean that sustenance doesn't derive from human labor. All it implies is that God is all-powerful, the creator of everything, and this is a request that He look after our material as well as spiritual well-being.
Also, I won't concede that things in the Bible are not often rhetorical or metaphorical when they in fact are. The Gospels themselves are full of the disciples having no friggin clue what Jesus is talking about, and asking him to "speak plainly." I think for maybe a child who can only interpret things literally, the concept of God as wish-granter might make sense.
Also, your own citation conditions the grant on "good" gifts. What are good gifts in God's eyes?
Ultimately, this is a matter of faith whether you believe this or not. But I only ask that you reconsider your juvenile straw-man of what we believe.
> though admittedly the OT has manna in the desert
Didn't Jesus split the loaves and the fish to feed thousands? Didn't Jesus turn water into wine? Or were those also metaphors? Why was manna in the desert literal while Jesus miracles metaphors?
The only reason you are saying "Oh, those were just metaphors" is because believing them literally is crazy. You have to insert meaning into Jesus's words because otherwise what he's told you is obviously false (and Jesus can't say something false, right?).
And yet the bible is filled with miracles both in the old and new testament. Miracles that directly contradict the notion that "Oh, they were speaking metaphorically when they said god would do miracles!"
Ultimately, this is a matter of reality whether you accept it or not. I only ask that you reconsider your juvenile beliefs.
> You have to insert meaning into Jesus's words because otherwise what he's told you is obviously false
Jesus didn't describe the miracle of the loaves and fishes, he was described as having performed it. Even if one accepts the traditional authorship of the Gospels (which even modern Christian scholarship doesn't consistently), Christ isn't the traditional author, just the subject (a small percentage of each of the Gospels is words attributed by the author of the gospel to Christ, but that's not the description of any miracles, though it's often the takeaway message associated with a described miracle.)
> And yet the bible is filled with miracles both in the old and new testament. Miracles that directly contradict the notion that "Oh, they were speaking metaphorically when they said god would do miracles!"
This is really only a contradiction if you assume that nothing in Bible can itself be metaphorical.
Biblical authorship is a huge issue all unto itself. Particularly if you are someone that believes the new testament is the word of god. The only sources we have were written 90+ years after the events they describes. It's very likely that Jesus said and did nothing written in the bible. Hell, it's even possible he did not exist as a person (Though, I tend to believe he did, I don't think Christianity would have formed without Jesus existing).
> This is really only a contradiction if you assume that nothing in Bible can itself be metaphorical.
Christianity has this interesting trick where their sacred texts are metaphorical whenever they say something they don't like or impossible. What good is the bible if it's all metaphors yet nobody agrees on which parts are metaphors?
Do you believe god performs miracles based on prayer?
If you do, that's a "Jinn-granting-wishes interpretation of God". If you don't, why don't you? Given the scripture references I gave you (and there are plenty of others), NT and OT are all about performing magic based on spell casters saying the right magic words the right way.
Of course, in modern times there are plenty of examples of failed Jutsus. (Not enough faith! Not in God's plan!) And I'd contend that all the examples of successful spell incantations are no more convincing than a wiccan's spells. The success rate of Buddhism has curing cancer will exactly mirror the success rate of Christianity or the Roman parathion interfering with humanity.
The elders used this logic to mock Christ suffering on the cross for many hours: "He trusted in God; let him deliver him now".
And yes, Christ told us to ask for the things we need, including material things.
Other reasons for prayer: thanking God; glorifying God; offering things to God, like our happiness or our good works but also our misery and our flaws. Contemplation; meditation; or just being silent and inviting Him to do the talking.
> We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born as a human despite being divine
The teachings of Jesus are a collection of stories from ~2000 years ago. That Jesus is/was divine is something which there is very little evidence for. But even if he was, his teaching are a collection of stories from 2000 years ago.
I feel like the Bible constitutes some kind of evidence for the divinity of Jesus. Weak evidence for sure. But evidence none the less. As I see it, even "Jimmy down the bar told me..." constitutes evidence of some kind.
There is no evidence the guy existed, either. They are most likely just stories meant to motivate a movement — nothing wrong with that in principle. Especially given that a lot of the message is “be kind”.
If you really believe that there's no evidence Jesus the man existed, then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in general. The evidence does exist, and it is in fact convincing evidence, at least of historicity (even the Gospels are evidence, though several extrabiblical sources mention the historical Jesus as well, including ones opposed to Christianity like Josephus). IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not solely empiricism.
Also, Jesus said quite a bit more, and quite a bit more often than "be kind," though admittedly that's sort of the Therapeutic Moral Deism version spewed out popularly and in a lot of churches today.
I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
> then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in general.
Without opening up a broader epistemic discussion: the question of the existence of specific people is quite a reasonable question. Because Socrates rejected writing, there is some question as to whether he really existed or was a rhetorical invention of his student plato. On the other hand, say, Sophocles is described by various contemporaneous sources. Caesar, Augustus and Marc Antony pretty definitely existed -- there is a lot of surviving contemporaneous evidence.
On the other hand the existence of a much more recent figure, Shakespeare, as the author of a body of work is still hotly debated in some circles (there is evidence that someone by his name was alive at the same time, but was that the person in question?)
There are no contemporaneous accounts of the life or death of Jesus; even Josephus whom you mention was born after the events described in the gospels.
> I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
That's a particular stance that requires judging terrible people who claim to have religious backing to have not been in alignment with a god. Both sides in a war claim divine support, after all. It's quite possible to live in harmony without any gods.
> IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not solely empiricism
If the evidence of Jesus's divinity isn't empirical evidence, then what sort of evidence is it? I've always thought of faith as meaning "belief despite the lack of evidence".
> I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
In general people seem to be pretty terrible if they lean on religious understanding too. I don't see much evidence that religious people are more moral than others. Personally I'm a big fan of Jesus's vision of living in harmony with one another, but I don't see why this needs to have anything to do with a god.
I'd go as far as Jesus being a collection of stories himself along with his teachings. There's no good evidence he even existed. None of the authors of the bible was even alive when Jesus supposedly lived. The youngest of the authors(cant remember which one) was born a couple of years AFTER Jesus supposedly was killed. Not even 1 text from any historian at the time has any mention of Jesus Christ.
Beyond the narratives in the gospels, Jesus the man is attested to in several extrabiblical sources. See, for example, Eusebius and Josephus. We have more evidence that the historical Jesus was real than, say, Cicero. And of course the gospels themselves and the existence of the apostles (also real) who almost all went to their deaths proclaiming that this Jesus guy was real are in fact evidence that He was.
Very, very few serious Bible scholars, even the atheist "textual criticism" ones, deny that the man Jesus of Nazareth existed. And almost all of them will acknowledge that, for example, the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3 dates to within a few years (possibly months) of Jesus death. The denial of the historical Jesus is more a meme in New Atheist Internet forums, rather than a serious examination. It's about as serious as Ancient Aliens.
The incompleteness theorem proves unequivocally that our formulations that describe the universe are either incomplete (aka wrong) or cannot be proven correct. The question of planes of existence or deities sits at least on equal footing.
The most fundamental question is where everything came from. Even the Big Bang theory requires starting materials. The more generic -1 + 1 = 0 is neither useful nor has any mechanism for initialization.
Is little wonder that so many scientists tend toward simulationism. This is just god(s) with different trappings where unprovable metaphysics are studied through modern math and curves instead of ancient math and geometry.
It seems observational true that humans have an innate desire for god that is not seen in other species.
As a final note, the Bible teaches a final end of the wicked along with the final destruction of Satan along with the wicked (this was the proclamation at the beginning of the Bible telling them that if they sinned, they would cease to exist, through the major prophets like Isaiah’s woes against “the king of Tyre” to the New Testament talking of a final destruction of the wicked. The current tales of hell entered into Christian theology in the 3-400s when the mainstream denomination mixed in ideas from the pagan Roman religion. For this reason, you won’t find eternal torment for a few years of sin anywhere in the Bible.
Likewise, Heaven is simply the place where God resides (being called New Jerusalem). It is told that the city will descend to earth after judgment is complete. People don’t go to Heaven after death as some other plane of existence in the Biblical text. Instead, we see the archangel contending with Satan to raise Moses from the dead. Likewise, we see people raised from the dead when Jesus is raised. This would be unnecessary if they were already in Heaven. In fact, the whole Second Coming would be unnecessary if that were what was actually taught. Once again we see this idea entering from the same pagan sources at the same time.
Putting aside whatever people have told you and reading the book yourself, you’ll find something much different than the interpretations and sophistries people layer on top. This remains true whether you read as a believer or a non-believer (myself having experienced both at different times in my life).
That was the premise that an investigative journalist had in mind when he started an investigation to demonstrate precisely what you said to the rest of the world. Rather than starting with his assumptions and arguing against a strawman, he went to verify every fact he could and went to talk to experts. Instead of proving Christianity is a sham, he ended up converting to Christianity and writing a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Inve... .
TL;DR: Christians wouldn't say that we base our beliefs on a collection of stories. We base our beliefs in the historical fact of the Resurrection. Perhaps we'll find out we're wrong some day, but having considered the best evidence we have (and the book I linked to walks through why that evidence is compelling), Christianity is a reasonable position to hold.
Just because something is unexplained currently does not give any weight to the idea that it was a miracle.
Millions of people saw David Copperfield vanish the Statue of Liberty as well... But I certainly wouldn't be tempted to pretend he actually made it vanish
The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship off the coast of Portugal. Foley recounts an experience in England. He gave a presentation on Fatima at a college in England and was told by one of the teachers that her grandfather saw the miracle from his ship and wrote about it to his wife — “without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.”
And finally, what most convincingly shows that the miracle was not only in the minds and perception of the witnesses is the fact that the crowd at Fatima felt the heat of the sun as it approached them, and their clothes and the ground — which had been soaked by torrential rain — were dry at the end of the miracle.
How does one claim this is just some optical mirage?
One doesn't. At least not only an optical illusion. There is no consistent set of reports. Given that the reports are all wildly inconsistent and contradictory, and many reported seeing and feeling nothing at all, it's clear the reports can not be be taken at face value.
In addition, the default shouldn't be "therefore miracle".
The default assumption should be "humans are easy to trick".
My claim here, is that if we put our brightest minds on this, they will come back with a terrifically mundane explanation for it. In the same way that weeping statues are always just water from a pipe somewhere.
Thousands of people producing wildly inconsistent stories, including many who reported not seeing anything at all, and a wide range of photographers who all failed to get a picture of the purported "miracle".
Get a bunch of people convinced they'll see a miracle and make them stare at the sun, and sure, you'll be able to get a lot of people saying they've seen a lot of things.
