George wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 5:01 AM
> No, it would say nothing at all about "divine interaction". It
only would
>only say that the Bible has a few pieces of correct information about a
flood that
>happened long ago. & even if one does believe (going well beyond the
geological &c
>evidence) that the flood showed divine interaction, it still proves nothing
about the
>resurrection, as any Orthodox Jew will tell you.
OK, let me throw the ball into your court. You say we don't have a faith
based upon faith. What exactly is verifiable about Christianity which
actually makes a difference to the main claim of the book.
Jesus' existence doesn't require that he be the son of God
the Existence of crucifiction doesn't require that Jesus was crucified.
The existence of wine doesn't require that he made wine miraculously.
Maybe we all have a faith based upon faith, and if that is the case, so be
it. But at least we should pretend
> I could respond in detail to the errors and distortions of
>my position in
>your statements. (E.g., I of course never suggested that the
>dates of the NT
>documents "automatically makes them true.") But that seems
>superfluous.
And I didn't say that you beleived that. I was using that as a illustration
of the logic. Don't get sensitive here.
The more I
>learn of your arguments, the less sense they make. If it were a
>matter of arguing
>that there has to be historical evidence for the resurrection, OK,
>I understand that
>& am in basic agreement.
If it's a matter of arguing that the
>biblical flood
>narrative must be historically accurate if we're to have
>confidence in the biblical
>accounts of the resurrection, OK, I understand that too, though I
>don't agree. But
>to brush away all historical and literary evidence supportive of
>(N.B. not probative
>of) the resurrection, to say that it cannot be "verified" even
>though it's important
>to believe that it was a real historical event and to refuse to give any
>consideration to what the resurrection would mean if were true,
>and then to claim
>that supposed verification of the flood somehow supplies the
>evidence needed to
>enable people to believe that Christianity is true, is absurd.
Then kindly name one thing that can actually be verified that actually
indicates or supports the claims Jesus made about himself. If you can't,
then we have faith based upon faith. What I am trying to do is find some
way out of merely having faith based upon faith. Maybe the flood isn't it,
but I can't figure out any other way out of this problem either. Can you? I
doubt it so while you claim that you don't have faith based upon faith, you
haven't really provided any confirmation, absent faith, that the claims of
the Bible are true.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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