Scientific Tests Of Christianity

[_Sethbag]

I hope this isn't too much of a derail, but I need to comment on something.

So, a guy in Vietnam hears a voice in his head saying "duck!", he ducks, and a bullet whizzes over him and hits the guy behind him.

Ok, so how do we know God didn't just want the guy behind him dead, and he got in the way, so God was just fixing this problem by having him duck?

What's the deal with the idea that God was so kind and good to one family that he miraculously saved their son/father/brother by giving him a Holy Ghost warning to duck, at the expense of another family's son/father/brother taking that bullet instead? Did God love the one guy more than the other? Was it because one guy paid his tithing, while the other guy was spending all his cash on booze and whores? Or maybe the guy who took the bullet instead was just desperately needed in the Spirit World?

This reminds me of a time I was driving back from Utah to Phoenix and just before evening, as we descended the last little bit of winding highway out of the mountains, there was a bad traffic backup. At one point we were all driving along at like 45 mph or so when I see frantic braking ahead of me. I slammed my brakes on, and could tell I was going to (barely) be able to stop without hitting the guy in front of me, but the instant I started that braking I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that the SUV behind me wasn't going to be able to stop without hitting me. Reacting instantly, before I came to a stop I switched my foot from brake to gas and floored it for an instant as I swerved right off the highway onto the shoulder, and saw in my mirror as the car that was behind me slammed into the guy who'd been in front of me. Nothing the guy ahead of me could have done about it. He got hit instead of me because I got the hell out of the way, and he never had a chance. It always struck me as kind of wierd and uncomfortable that I should be so grateful about being spared the accident, at the expense of having been a pretty direct cause of the other guy's having it instead.

My daughter (a freshman in high school) missed getting accepted to the All-State orchestra, but was made first alternate. So, do we pray that some poor kid gets sick, or that some kid's parents plan something else that weekend, so our daughter can get in? Do we wish misfortune on someone else so that we can benefit from their loss? Those kids undoubtedly worked very hard on their auditions too, and were looking forward to the fun and prestige of being in All-State. Should we wish for their hopes to be dashed, and for them to be disappointed so that our daughter can be happy to get in? I struggled with that, actually. I doesn't sit well with me. In the end, someone did indeed cancel and our daughter's going to All-State as a freshman. Good for her, and we're very happy for her. But I do kind of wonder who dropped out, and why, and wonder how disappointed they must be not to be able to go to All-State, after having earned their way into it.

[_Moniker]

Psst: My Dad didn't attribute it to God. The "DUCK" was something that he's just thankful for, yet, he's not one to look to supernatural explanations. Too bad the other soldier didn't have the same sort of internal warning.

I mentioned it 'cause a religious person would immediately say it was God. Was it? Was there something he wasn't consciously aware of that alerted him to danger? I go with the second one.

[_Moniker]

I think an important distinction to be made between Christianity as a movement and Mormonism as one is that Christianity grew out of a single event that purportedly took place two thousand years ago. Scientific claims go entirely to (1) the historical existence of Jesus Christ and (2) proofs of the resurrection.

Mormonism is just a hodgepodgey religion that piggybacks on Christianity. If scientific claims for Christianity fail, Mormonism cannot be true. Taking some post-1830 approach to something that purportedly took place two thousand years ago doesn't work in the "scientific evidences" department.

There was, reportedly, a single individual two thousand years ago that people claim to have known personally, and an event took place that people claim to have witnessed personally. That was the beginnings of the Christian movement.

Eighteen-hundred years later, someone wants to brand their own version of it in response to reformation theology (voila! a restoration!). But there are no scientific proofs to be made in 1830 or subsequently that have bearing on something that would need to be proven scientifically eighteen hundred years earlier.

(I expect, grotesque as this might seem to some, this is part of the reason that the early Christians hung onto relics, so they could later say they had something tangible as evidence to support their own faith, whether it actually succeeded in doing that or not.)

I never considered that there was a purposeful holding onto evidence. Seems most of the religions of the world are safe from scientific scrutiny 'cause the date being so long ago-- LDS doesn't get that pass. I know this -- yet, I forget! :)

I sort of zone out on a lot of the interfaith battles 'cause I can only watch them hash it out for so long before my eyes start to roll up in my head. I just don't understand why they say they rely on faith and yet, they look for proof of the claims in the Book of Mormon. Of course, I don't understand the apologietics all that much, it just strikes me as odd when you hear LDS Christians speaking of science to support them. Of course mainstream Christians are doing this now, as well, with ID -- I wish they would not do so! ;)

[_Moniker]

I hope this isn't too much of a derail, but I need to comment on something.

So, a guy in Vietnam hears a voice in his head saying "duck!", he ducks, and a bullet whizzes over him and hits the guy behind him.

Ok, so how do we know God didn't just want the guy behind him dead, and he got in the way, so God was just fixing this problem by having him duck?

What's the deal with the idea that God was so kind and good to one family that he miraculously saved their son/father/brother by giving him a Holy Ghost warning to duck, at the expense of another family's son/father/brother taking that bullet instead? Did God love the one guy more than the other? Was it because one guy paid his tithing, while the other guy was spending all his cash on booze and whores? Or maybe the guy who took the bullet instead was just desperately needed in the Spirit World?

This reminds me of a time I was driving back from Utah to Phoenix and just before evening, as we descended the last little bit of winding highway out of the mountains, there was a bad traffic backup. At one point we were all driving along at like 45 mph or so when I see frantic braking ahead of me. I slammed my brakes on, and could tell I was going to (barely) be able to stop without hitting the guy in front of me, but the instant I started that braking I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that the SUV behind me wasn't going to be able to stop without hitting me. Reacting instantly, before I came to a stop I switched my foot from brake to gas and floored it for an instant as I swerved right off the highway onto the shoulder, and saw in my mirror as the car that was behind me slammed into the guy who'd been in front of me. Nothing the guy ahead of me could have done about it. He got hit instead of me because I got the hell out of the way, and he never had a chance. It always struck me as kind of wierd and uncomfortable that I should be so grateful about being spared the accident, at the expense of having been a pretty direct cause of the other guy's having it instead.

My daughter (a freshman in high school) missed getting accepted to the All-State orchestra, but was made first alternate. So, do we pray that some poor kid gets sick, or that some kid's parents plan something else that weekend, so our daughter can get in? Do we wish misfortune on someone else so that we can benefit from their loss? Those kids undoubtedly worked very hard on their auditions too, and were looking forward to the fun and prestige of being in All-State. Should we wish for their hopes to be dashed, and for them to be disappointed so that our daughter can be happy to get in? I struggled with that, actually. I doesn't sit well with me. In the end, someone did indeed cancel and our daughter's going to All-State as a freshman. Good for her, and we're very happy for her. But I do kind of wonder who dropped out, and why, and wonder how disappointed they must be not to be able to go to All-State, after having earned their way into it.

by the way, Sethbag -- glad you survived the accident, I can't imagine missing out on all your posts! They're always succinct. ;)

And congrats on your daughter being accepted to the All-State orchestra!

I too have wondered about those that pray before football games, for their own family at the expense of others, etc... It makes God a personal God and makes him choose one over the other. I don't quite grasp that. Never have. It makes me acutely uncomfortable when I see people using their prayers in that way. Not that the prayers manifest in something tangible -- merely that they apparently don't grasp that this God they're praying for their horse to win, or for their personal gain at the expense of others, is a God they've created to be a personal servant. It strikes me as quite odd.

[_bcspace]

I was guessing that the BCSpace would have us ask God if the claims were true?

That would be only a start. You can't really know unless you live it (John 7:17). Too large a research investment for many of you... ;)

[_Moniker]

I was guessing that the BCSpace would have us ask God if the claims were true?

That would be only a start. You can't really know unless you live it (John 7:17). Too large a research investment for many of you... ;)

If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

Well, how do you know what "God's will" is?! Are you talking about commandments? Following Christ? Certain behaviors? Getting a HG tap on the shoulder and taking a right instead of a left turn?

Can you list some of those things that you think are "God's will" that you live by?

Then we'll see if it's too much of an investment for some of us. Or you might be surprised at how some of us live up to things that are "God's will" without ever being told to do so.

[_Sethbag]

The whole "you can't know until you live it" thing is ridiculous. BCSpace, have you lived Buddhism? If not, then how do you know it isn't true? Have you lived Islam? Have you lived Hinduism?

And then what happens when one of the tenets of a given religion is "enduring to the end"? Must one actually endure to the end to know that it's true? Wouldn't that preclude ever coming to the conclusion, during one's lifetime, that it wasn't in fact true? I mean, if you endure to the end, you'd have to forestall judgment until after you're dead. What good is that?

And then if one does fully embrace and "live" a particular religion, the argument could (and should) be made that one is being attuned to the biases and worldview of that particular belief system, thus making oneself susceptible to conditioning and confirmation bias.

No, I simply don't accept that as an argument. The truth, or untruth, of a particular belief system can be known without fully embracing it, and that's a good thing for us all, because I doubt any of us have the time to fully embrace each of thousands of different belief systems in order to fairly evaluate them all.