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It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based. To paraphrase the apostle Paul himself: Greeks look for reason and Jews look for mi

It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based. To paraphrase the apostle Paul himself: Greeks look for reason and Jews look for miracles, but I preach the power of Christ (viz., Neither a reasonable nor an evidence-based faith). And elsewhere paul undermines the "wisdom of the wise". Moreover, to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive, since he is most clearly not Orthodox by any commonly-held definition, but only according to a fundamentalist's believe that a "true Christian" is more Catholic than Roman Catholics more Orthodox than the eastern Orthodox and more Jewish than the Jews.

combatentropy 10y ago
> It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based Everyone lives by faith. How can you be sure --- I mean really sure --- that the chair will not collapse beneath you, this time? I guess you don't know, 100%. But nevertheless, you sit in it. Faith != Blind Faith. Blind faith is a particular kind of faith, which has no reason for its being --- in fact has reason against its being. Faith, by itself, is just to go on believing something that you have been given enough evidence for, in spite of irrational fear or self-centered temptation to disavow. There is a reason that sexual loyalty is also called "faithfulness." The Bible is evidence-based because: in the Old Testament God said, believe that I am the one true God because of this or that miracle that I just did; in the New Testament, it keeps talking about testifying, "I bear witness," "believe on the testimony of these witnesses," citing them by name. Here someone will say, but how do we know any of that really happened, just because it's written in a book? That's where manuscript evidence comes into play, whether the people who say they wrote this or that really wrote this or that, and that's where I point you to a book like Josh McDowell's, which will talk about how the Bible has tons more manuscript evidence than any other book on the face of the earth. We know that John wrote John far more than that we know that Homer wrote The Odyssey. There are other books too, like The Case for Faith. I just generally pick Josh McDowell because it is the shortest, and I know your time is valuable, and your patience for contradictory opinions is limited. Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie? > to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive lowercase o orthodox: "conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted" Besides, what in More Than a Carpenter would a Greek Orthodox believer disagree with?
- 3131s 10y ago
  Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie? John may have really believed / perceived what he wrote and simultaneously been wrong about it. Human perception is unreliable, malleable over time, and subject to distortion from a wide range of internal bias and external stimuli. Plenty of people around the world genuinely believe in religious and spiritual experiences that directly contradict the experiences that you hold to be true.
  - combatentropy 10y ago
    Have you read the book of John? He said he was an "eyewitness" to miracles.
    - 3131s 10y ago
      Exactly my point, perception is unreliable. It is easy for the eyes to misinterpret reality, or even for them to be actively deceived.
    - mercer 10y ago
      I said the same thing myself, having witnessed a number of miracles in my Pentecostal world. Once I lost my faith I was shocked to realize that nothing I'd witnessed was conclusive. Far from it, in fact. Having had a lot of 'backstage' access as the son of the pastor, more than one miracle turned out to have not been a miracle at all.
- samirillian 10y ago
  well, i'll admit that orthodox and heretical aren't strictly antonymous, but at least in historical use, 'orthodox' (big-o or no) refers to "adherence to accepted creeds" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy By contrast, there are few concepts more "heretical" (in the literal/etymological sense of the word) than "sola scriptura," i.e., to "become a church unto oneself." It is precisely this implicitly heretical "sola scriptura" preoccupation (and with it, such anxiety to prove the veracity of the physical texts themselves!) that contradicts the very concept of orthodoxy. Sitting in a chair is either a) not an act of faith or b) the word faith itself designates nothing at all.

combatentropy 10y ago

> It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based Everyone lives by faith. How can you be sure --- I mean really sure --- that the chair will not collapse beneath you, this time? I guess you don't know, 100%. But nevertheless, you sit in it. Faith != Blind Faith. Blind faith is a particular kind of faith, which has no reason for its being --- in fact has reason against its being. Faith, by itself, is just to go on believing something that you have been given enough evidence for, in spite of irrational fear or self-centered temptation to disavow. There is a reason that sexual loyalty is also called "faithfulness." The Bible is evidence-based because: in the Old Testament God said, believe that I am the one true God because of this or that miracle that I just did; in the New Testament, it keeps talking about testifying, "I bear witness," "believe on the testimony of these witnesses," citing them by name. Here someone will say, but how do we know any of that really happened, just because it's written in a book? That's where manuscript evidence comes into play, whether the people who say they wrote this or that really wrote this or that, and that's where I point you to a book like Josh McDowell's, which will talk about how the Bible has tons more manuscript evidence than any other book on the face of the earth. We know that John wrote John far more than that we know that Homer wrote The Odyssey. There are other books too, like The Case for Faith. I just generally pick Josh McDowell because it is the shortest, and I know your time is valuable, and your patience for contradictory opinions is limited. Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie? > to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive lowercase o orthodox: "conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted" Besides, what in More Than a Carpenter would a Greek Orthodox believer disagree with?

3131s 10y ago
Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie? John may have really believed / perceived what he wrote and simultaneously been wrong about it. Human perception is unreliable, malleable over time, and subject to distortion from a wide range of internal bias and external stimuli. Plenty of people around the world genuinely believe in religious and spiritual experiences that directly contradict the experiences that you hold to be true.
- combatentropy 10y ago
  Have you read the book of John? He said he was an "eyewitness" to miracles.
  - 3131s 10y ago
    Exactly my point, perception is unreliable. It is easy for the eyes to misinterpret reality, or even for them to be actively deceived.
  - mercer 10y ago
    I said the same thing myself, having witnessed a number of miracles in my Pentecostal world. Once I lost my faith I was shocked to realize that nothing I'd witnessed was conclusive. Far from it, in fact. Having had a lot of 'backstage' access as the son of the pastor, more than one miracle turned out to have not been a miracle at all.
samirillian 10y ago
well, i'll admit that orthodox and heretical aren't strictly antonymous, but at least in historical use, 'orthodox' (big-o or no) refers to "adherence to accepted creeds" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy By contrast, there are few concepts more "heretical" (in the literal/etymological sense of the word) than "sola scriptura," i.e., to "become a church unto oneself." It is precisely this implicitly heretical "sola scriptura" preoccupation (and with it, such anxiety to prove the veracity of the physical texts themselves!) that contradicts the very concept of orthodoxy. Sitting in a chair is either a) not an act of faith or b) the word faith itself designates nothing at all.