Sam Olsen wrote:
>As much as I dislike the discovery that the issues you discussed are not so
>easily verifiable, I am left with the realisation of the importance of
>faith nevertheless. The words of Augustine quoted by someone on the chat
>group "Credo ut intelligam/I believe in order to understand" and from one
>of the minor prophets (Hab 2v4): "the just shall live by faith" take on a
>new meaning for me ( have I taken this latter phrase erroneously into this
>context George?). Take Hebrews 6v1and6 ("assurance" = subjective ;
>"without faith impossible to please God") and we once again see that
>systematic reasoned factual foundation is unfortunately not what will hold
>me to Christianity or any world view for that matter.
"Unfortunately" is the key word here. Unfortunately, there are millions hooked
by cults who can't be reasoned with because they have "faith." I talked just
yesterday with a Buddhist friend who, simply because she was born in
Cambodia, is of that faith. Is my faith in Christianity stronger than her
faith? I
doubt it. Could I convince her and her husband because of Christian
love? They
have a family love that I can only envy.
I do have the one thing that can be used to support my religious belief -
data and
evidence - the stuff of science. Christ appeared to the masses after the
resurrection
to give credibility to the apostles, who thereafter would have members in the
audience who had seen the risen Christ, and could testify to that fact.
If we choose to ignore supporting evidence for our faith, and for our
methods of
apology, we are reduced to a shouting contest only that we can either win or
lose simply on the power of our rhetoric. God has given us better ammunition
than that. We ignore it at our peril.
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago."
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