Question on faith

[jlay]

I often see people say that God's word says thus and so, so they will have faith in God's word, not in (insert science, man's reasoning, etc). It is presented as that their take on something is solidly backed up by God's words.

I wonder if it isnt often that they have faith in themselves, as having the sure power to know just what God meant by what is in the Bible.


How would anyone know which is which?

You must be born again by Jesus to understand but I would like to know why you seem to trust man so much?Don't you know how many times man has thought one way for years and thought they had evidence and everything only to later be proven wrong?I cannot understand how you can put your faith in what man says is true,it is very unwise to me.Whole countries have been indoctrinated before and so the truth is very important to me.How do you know man is right this time?

It makes no difference whether man believed in God or not man is sinful,lies,hates,slanders,propagandizes whole societies,man is evil,lies andd needs God's truth for it is the only thing we can put our faith in.I learned this as a Christian realizing all of the doctrines of man and not of God in Christian churches.Imagine a time when Christian preachers were rascists while preaching Satan's lies instead of God's truth.I do not put my faith in what man says is true at all,my faith goes into believing God's word because it is the inspired word of God,and only it to the best of my ability do I put my faith in,I ignore lies from Satan and try to expose them.

Able, please be careful. What do you mean you must be born again to understand? Understand what?

[Audie]

Re Jac



"Thus sayeth the Lord", is of course, what a man wrote. The sourcing is a matter for faith
Objectivity about what the bible means to say is no doubt an art and science and pretty successful.
Whether the correct and objective reading tells accurately of actual events is another matter.

That is where for me anyway, outside sources are important.

The BoM may be internally consistent, but the remains of the civilization it speaks of
are going to have to show up before any objective non lds is going to believe for 2 seconds.

Sorry if that has a predictable aspect, the comparison, but it is reasonably apt as an analogy. Those
guys too presuppose on faith about the holy origin of their story.


IF its really "Amen" or reject, and the bible really means what it plainly and objectively says about
Noah, I cant but take the whole as a house of cards.

How does that seem to you?

[Jac3510]

Then you just reject it, Audie--at least the part about Noah. That's between you and God. I was primarily responding to your original question and then restated to Abel. It isn't as difficult as people make it out to be to figure out what the Bible means. And, having discerned what it means, then the question is, "Do I believe it?" I do. You say you reject it--that it falls like a house of cards. To which I say, "Okay." You are especially right in one thing. It is a matter of faith on the source of Scripture. I take it on faith that God inspired Scripture and therefore it is correct in all that it says. It's not a blind faith. I have what I am persuaded are solid reasons as to why I ought to accept the authority of the Bible, and that's enough for me.

With that said, I wouldn't counsel you to take or leave the Bible in toto. I have adopted a conclusion based on a series of arguments. But those arguments are themselves based on more fundamental arguments, and it is those more fundamental arguments relating to Scripture that I would recommend to you. My suggestion would be (as always here) that you look into the existence of God based on some of the reasoning you have been provided elsewhere. I would then encourage you to look at the historical evidence for the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In light of that, I would advise you to focus on the question, "Who is Jesus?" That's really all that matters in the end. The Gospel of John puts it this way: "I write these things so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." Frankly, I don't really care about Noah or Genesis 1 or talking donkeys or floating axe heads or anything like that. I care about who Jesus is. Everything else is of secondary importance, so secondary that compared to that question, it is absolutely meaningless.

And how would you investigate those claims? Again, reason. And when you find that there are very powerful arguments, then you will finally be presented with the question Peter was: "Who do you say that I am?" Because at the end of the day, after all has been discussed, that's what it boils down to. After all arguments are done and reason has run its course, that question will be one of faith. Not blind faith. But faith all the same. And then when people ask you why you have placed your faith in Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, you will be able to answer it.

And then you can blast me and tell me why I've interpreted the story of Noah or the creation account wrong. Plenty on this site are content to do just that, but since we agree on the fundamental question, it's all good to me!

fakeedit: I agree with your general assessment, though. And the BoM is a good example. I have read it, and having read it, I have rejected it. It is not true. It is not the Word of God. I am fine saying that. The story it tells is plainly false, and therefore I don't believe what it says about Jesus.

[Kurieuo]

All sources that we rely upon for truth (whether some holy book, physical sciences or reason) require faith to believe in them, don't they?

Science does not do "truth", and I dont do equivocation on the word "faith".*

Of course it does. Or are you now saying many who believe in a young Earth aren't wrong or right?

Science does probabilities. The holy book to which reference is made does absolutes.

We've done this dance before.

What is a definition of "science"? And what is the "knowledge" that it's meant to provide?
Without truth how can there be justified belief (i.e., knowledge)?
Without knowledge what is the purpose of science?

Science deals with truths, as does Scripture, as does philosophy.
To prove something is false, you've got to be proving some other absolute.
Right? Or am I going wrong somewhere?

[Audie]

All sources that we rely upon for truth (whether some holy book, physical sciences or reason) require faith to believe in them, don't they?

Science does not do "truth", and I dont do equivocation on the word "faith".*

Of course it does. Or are you now saying many who believe in a young Earth aren't wrong or right?

Science does probabilities. The holy book to which reference is made does absolutes.

We've done this dance before.

What is a definition of "science"? And what is the "knowledge" that it's meant to provide?
Without truth how can there be justified belief (i.e., knowledge)?
Without knowledge what is the purpose of science?

Science deals with truths, as does Scripture, as does philosophy.
To prove something is false, you've got to be proving some other absolute.
Right? Or am I going wrong somewhere?

You are going off the track yes.
No absolutes in science
Science does not do proof either.
If you have a philosophical way to say otherwise, I guess you can.
But science still wont do absolutes or proof.
Or talk about justified belief.
You can if it suits you.

Suture self, as it says on the Dr kit.

[Kurieuo]

Hi Audie,
It's not my intention to derail, but I'm just following my thoughts.
You know me-ish. Best intentions intended.

Just what you are asking (as I see it) ultimately comes down to how we can know any truth.
If you're of the opinion that truth cannot be known, then the crux of your questioning runs much deeper than just faith in some holy book.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding matters here completely.

Re: Science, if it does not deal in truth but only probabilities...
Then I'd be interested to know what the probability of humanity evolving being true is?
Is that probability built upon other probabilities or beliefs that we accept as facts?
These are a side questions, but ones that my mind seems to find interesting to ask.

Ultimately, there is obviously always a possibility that our beliefs may be wrong.
If that is all you are meaning by there being "no absolutes" in science, clearly this isn't just in science but across the board of all knowledge.
Whenever someone makes a claim that "this" is the truth. What they are truly saying is "I believe this is what the truth is, but there is a chance I'm wrong."
In which case Scripture wouldn't deal in absolutes either since there is always a possibility our knowledge might be wrong.

[Jac3510]

Those are fair questions, K, but can I suggest that Audie has missed a more fundamental point? When she says that science deals with probabilities, she is ignoring the fact that the qualified statement is itself still a truth claim. If she says, "There is a 99.85% change that x is so related to y," then she is making a truth claim. That claim is itself either true or false.

Her mistake is to confuse the probabilistic and tentative nature of the conclusions with the ontological fact that the conclusions, however qualified, are still truth statements. So it is the old epistemology/ontology confusion.

[Audie]

Hi Audie,
It's not my intention to derail, but I'm just following my thoughts.
You know me-ish. Best intentions intended.

Just what you are asking (as I see it) ultimately comes down to how we can know any truth.
If you're of the opinion that truth cannot be known, then the crux of your questioning runs much deeper than just faith in some holy book.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding matters here completely.

Re: Science, if it does not deal in truth but only probabilities...
Then I'd be interested to know what the probability of humanity evolving being true is?
Is that probability built upon other probabilities or beliefs that we accept as facts?
These are a side questions, but ones that my mind seems to find interesting to ask.

Ultimately, there is obviously always a possibility that our beliefs may be wrong.
If that is all you are meaning by there being "no absolutes" in science, clearly this isn't just in science but across the board of all knowledge.
Whenever someone makes a claim that "this" is the truth. What they are truly saying is "I believe this is what the truth is, but there is a chance I'm wrong."
In which case Scripture wouldn't deal in absolutes either since there is always a possibility our knowledge might be wrong.

Quick partial response- what would you consider to be an example of a fact on which a theory etc might be built?

Is the existence of a god a matter of probability or an absolute?

If a person does all that ontology and epis. stuff, and comes out the other end
thinking that Noah and his boat was real as rain, then what is the relationship between
that approach and what you might call truth?

[Jac3510]

See, Audie, this is why I think your riff on science doing probabilities and not absolutes is a smoke screen. You seem pretty committed to the truth of the proposition that the Noah story as told by Scripture (and for others on this board, as interpreted by YECs) did not happen. You might go back and qualify it by saying something like you aren't absolutely certain that it didn't but rather that there is just a high probability, yada yada. But that doesn't get around the fact that you seem committed to the truth of the statement in general as well as to the fact that the high probability of the statement is not itself a probabilistic statement but an absolutely true statement. It is either true or false that science can say with x% confidence that there was no global flood that wiped out humanity. If modify that as "science can say with x% confidence that science can say with x% confidence that there was no global flood that wiped out humanity," then that becomes an absolutely true statement. In other words, you are just creating an infinite regress problem.

Look, let me be very clear on this: I am not arguing that science is wrong in rejecting Noah's story. That's not what this is about. What this is about is whether or not science does "absolutes" and what that means. I happen to agree with your broad point. Science does not offer absolute demonstrations. I've critiqued the Kalam Cosmological Argument (a favorite argument from science for God's existence by many) on just those grounds here and here. But that does not mean that it does not deal in absolutes. It just means that the scientific method presents us with an epistemological problem that needs to be understood (not solved!).

Now, K is on your side with the Noah stuff, so I'll let you two discuss the underlying philosophical matters. Just as abel isn't likely to hear anything from you (for what it's worth, he won't hear it from us, either), I fear you aren't likely to hear much from me. But my hope is that K or Rick or Paul Byblos--others who are highly versed in these matters and who agree with you on scientific matters--will be able to get further along.

[Kurieuo]

Hi Audie,
It's not my intention to derail, but I'm just following my thoughts.
You know me-ish. Best intentions intended.

Just what you are asking (as I see it) ultimately comes down to how we can know any truth.
If you're of the opinion that truth cannot be known, then the crux of your questioning runs much deeper than just faith in some holy book.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding matters here completely.

Re: Science, if it does not deal in truth but only probabilities...
Then I'd be interested to know what the probability of humanity evolving being true is?
Is that probability built upon other probabilities or beliefs that we accept as facts?
These are a side questions, but ones that my mind seems to find interesting to ask.

Ultimately, there is obviously always a possibility that our beliefs may be wrong.
If that is all you are meaning by there being "no absolutes" in science, clearly this isn't just in science but across the board of all knowledge.
Whenever someone makes a claim that "this" is the truth. What they are truly saying is "I believe this is what the truth is, but there is a chance I'm wrong."
In which case Scripture wouldn't deal in absolutes either since there is always a possibility our knowledge might be wrong.

Quick partial response- what would you consider to be an example of a fact on which a theory etc might be built?

Is the existence of a god a matter of probability or an absolute?

If a person does all that ontology and epis. stuff, and comes out the other end
thinking that Noah and his boat was real as rain, then what is the relationship between
that approach and what you might call truth?

You answer my questions, and I'll answer yours.

[Audie]

Hi Audie,
It's not my intention to derail, but I'm just following my thoughts.
You know me-ish. Best intentions intended.

Just what you are asking (as I see it) ultimately comes down to how we can know any truth.
If you're of the opinion that truth cannot be known, then the crux of your questioning runs much deeper than just faith in some holy book.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding matters here completely.

Re: Science, if it does not deal in truth but only probabilities...
Then I'd be interested to know what the probability of humanity evolving being true is?
Is that probability built upon other probabilities or beliefs that we accept as facts?
These are a side questions, but ones that my mind seems to find interesting to ask.

Ultimately, there is obviously always a possibility that our beliefs may be wrong.
If that is all you are meaning by there being "no absolutes" in science, clearly this isn't just in science but across the board of all knowledge.
Whenever someone makes a claim that "this" is the truth. What they are truly saying is "I believe this is what the truth is, but there is a chance I'm wrong."
In which case Scripture wouldn't deal in absolutes either since there is always a possibility our knowledge might be wrong.

Quick partial response- what would you consider to be an example of a fact on which a theory etc might be built?

Is the existence of a god a matter of probability or an absolute?

If a person does all that ontology and epis. stuff, and comes out the other end
thinking that Noah and his boat was real as rain, then what is the relationship between
that approach and what you might call truth?

You answer my questions, and I'll answer yours.

When exactly did fair start being fair? Answer me that!

[Kurieuo]

I don't know, when exactly did fair start being fair?

[Audie]

I don't know, when exactly did fair start being fair?

I asked first.

The actual discussion is too much for me right now. Too bad. I will try to find time before it gets stale

[abelcainsbrother]

I often see people say that God's word says thus and so, so they will have faith in God's word, not in (insert science, man's reasoning, etc). It is presented as that their take on something is solidly backed up by God's words.

I wonder if it isnt often that they have faith in themselves, as having the sure power to know just what God meant by what is in the Bible.


How would anyone know which is which?

You must be born again by Jesus to understand but I would like to know why you seem to trust man so much?Don't you know how many times man has thought one way for years and thought they had evidence and everything only to later be proven wrong?I cannot understand how you can put your faith in what man says is true,it is very unwise to me.Whole countries have been indoctrinated before and so the truth is very important to me.How do you know man is right this time?

It makes no difference whether man believed in God or not man is sinful,lies,hates,slanders,propagandizes whole societies,man is evil,lies andd needs God's truth for it is the only thing we can put our faith in.I learned this as a Christian realizing all of the doctrines of man and not of God in Christian churches.Imagine a time when Christian preachers were rascists while preaching Satan's lies instead of God's truth.I do not put my faith in what man says is true at all,my faith goes into believing God's word because it is the inspired word of God,and only it to the best of my ability do I put my faith in,I ignore lies from Satan and try to expose them.

If you read my post you will see I asked how some people can be so sure that they know the exact meaning of "god's word" .
Given that people with the same claim to "born again" understanding read the same passage and get a rainbow of different meanings, it looks to this observer that their faith is in themselves as inerrant readers.

If you have no response on topic, that is fine. Twisting the question around to invent faults in me and make it about me is not fine, Why would you think it is?

Of course people make mistakes in science. Distrust of authority is essential to science. (Opposite to religion, that way) My question had to do with how people can think they cant make any mistakes regarding what they believe "god" is telling them.

You present as very confident in your ideas about science, to the extent of making some rather extreme statements on the
mentality, character and eternal destination of those who dont see it your way.

I asked about football, because I know very little about it, so you know more.
If I started in talking about the rink, the goalie and so forth, you'd soon see I was not in a position to say anything credible
about the game.

It is obvious to me that I know science at least that much better than you; your talk of proving a theory for example is as amateur a bit of ignorance as thinking there is a football net and home base would be to you, if I argued for those things.

And yet you are confident that "god's word" backs the falsehoods that comprise the substance of your posts
trying to denounce science.

Think well who is preaching "Satan's Lies".

I think you are dodging my points that address your question,you seem to imply that truth cannot be known and yet it can,yet you take it as an offense when I point out your faith in what man says is true yet having this idea that truth cannot be known in science and this is all to prop up the atheistic side of science and evolution because it cannot be proven and they know it.I don't understand why you accept this idea,and yet still put your faith in evolution science.

You claim you know more about science than I do and you might but one thing I know is that if you believe in evolution science you cannot prove,show or demonstrate life evolves,you've never seen it happen,you've never observed it and yet know it could be wrong yet put your faith in it anyway.I try to denounce unproven science that is propped up and promoted above all other areas of science.

Meanwhile because I believe there was a former world on this earth full of life that perished I look for evidence to back it up and yet if you'd perhaps stop looking at the evidence of fossils and death in this earth that you know about because of evolution,but if you'd look at it from a former world perspective instead of an evolution perspective,you would see evidence for a former world full of life that perished and since you've never seen or observed life evolving there is no reason to keep looking at the evidence from that perspective.If a former world full of life perished you should expect to find evidence for it in this earth and you do,but you just don't look at it from that perspective.

Also even science teaches that the earth was flooded before the continents rose up and yet you overlook a flood that wiped out the former world,yet it is evidence for Lucifer's flood that caused the former world to perish,plus there is snow ball earth that says the earth was completely frozen at one time which backs up Jeremiah 4:23-28 and Genesis 1:2 inwhich the heavens became black and no sun light which means death to all life,of course though for the sake of evolution before it could be accepted they had to make sure life survived it so it can evolve,you see this is how they interpret everything in this earth and evidence.But it is evidence for Lucifer's flood in which the heavens and earth and all life perished,yeah I know you'll think "snow ball earth"happened billions of years ago but that is because of evolution.

Plus according to NOAA the average depth of the oceans is 14,000 feet but it goes down over 36,000 feet this is deeper than the tallest mountains on land this means if we could level out the earth's surface and fill in the deep trenches that make it so deep,the whole earth would be flooded right now up to the tallest mountains on land,so there is clear evidence for global floods,now read Psalm 104 and tell me how King David could've knew what he did.Did he have scuba equipment,sonar,he could tell by boating or swimming?I don't think so.He was inspired by God.

[abelcainsbrother]

See, Audie, this is why I think your riff on science doing probabilities and not absolutes is a smoke screen. You seem pretty committed to the truth of the proposition that the Noah story as told by Scripture (and for others on this board, as interpreted by YECs) did not happen. You might go back and qualify it by saying something like you aren't absolutely certain that it didn't but rather that there is just a high probability, yada yada. But that doesn't get around the fact that you seem committed to the truth of the statement in general as well as to the fact that the high probability of the statement is not itself a probabilistic statement but an absolutely true statement. It is either true or false that science can say with x% confidence that there was no global flood that wiped out humanity. If modify that as "science can say with x% confidence that science can say with x% confidence that there was no global flood that wiped out humanity," then that becomes an absolutely true statement. In other words, you are just creating an infinite regress problem.

Look, let me be very clear on this: I am not arguing that science is wrong in rejecting Noah's story. That's not what this is about. What this is about is whether or not science does "absolutes" and what that means. I happen to agree with your broad point. Science does not offer absolute demonstrations. I've critiqued the Kalam Cosmological Argument (a favorite argument from science for God's existence by many) on just those grounds here and here. But that does not mean that it does not deal in absolutes. It just means that the scientific method presents us with an epistemological problem that needs to be understood (not solved!).

Now, K is on your side with the Noah stuff, so I'll let you two discuss the underlying philosophical matters. Just as abel isn't likely to hear anything from you (for what it's worth, he won't hear it from us, either), I fear you aren't likely to hear much from me. But my hope is that K or Rick or Paul Byblos--others who are highly versed in these matters and who agree with you on scientific matters--will be able to get further along.

You have yet to prove me wrong biblically and the reason is because you are trying to attack the gap theory based on the false things critics of it have said.You have not researched it yourself to know they are wrong but you believe the critics when they claim the Hebrew does not back it up,this is not true and you can keep ignoring it if you want to as I could show you a translation where Genesis 1:2 has been translated "And the earth became without form and void"and you'd still claim it is wrong but you cannot stick Noah's flood into 2nd Peter 3:5-6 because only the earth was flooded and the sun was shining the whole time and you are still a descendant of Adam and Eve proving this world has not perished jduring Noah's flood yet you do it which is why you overlook the gap Peter reveals.I'!m not trying to derail this thread but since you called me out,I'm just pointing it out.You need to attack the Greek and and English because the gap theory was discovered by reading the NT not the OT,2nd Peter 3:3-7 reveals it if you leave out Noah's flood and look for another flood and we have and it was much more severe than Noah's flood. So explain why it is right to put Noah's flood there.