Provided facts can be drawn from the Bible, it must be stated that at least these things written in the Bible are not established on "blind faith". Therefore, at least some of Christianity must be said to be based on fact and not "blind faith".

Now, the original debate:

quote:

---

If man was able to comprehend existence without incorporating the boundries of time and limitations of space

---

Does anyone else see this as a contradiction? Firstly, our existence requires the boundaries of space and time. Secondly, provided we exist within the boundaries of space and time, we cannot comprehend existence that does not have such limitations.
It is important to make a distinction between A priori and A posteriori proof. Please make such a distinction, or this debate can progress nowhere beyond its present, blind state.

________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by AKG:
The fact that parts of the Bible are true does not imply that all of it's true, and thus people who accept all of the Bible may be accepting parts of it on blind faith.
_______________________________________
Conversely, the fact that I had only shown some parts of the bible to be true does not also imply that other parts are false either.If parts of it are true, then Christianity has some basis; therefore, it's not entirely blind faith.

Besides, I don't have to prove the accuracy of the entire bible if my aim is to simply show that Christianity is grounded on certain historical foundation and therefore not entirely based on "blind faith".If I were making a claim that Christianity is the one true religion (which is a stronger assertion than the former), then the quantum of proof required may have been stricter.

________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Davdoodles:
Because the Earth is round and Jericho had walls is not evidence that Jesus was/is literally the son of god.

It doesn't even suggest it, not even slightly. It is a complete non-sequitur.
________________________________________
Dav, I did not suggest (explicitly or implicitly) that Jesus is the son of God. This issue remains contentious even among different Christian denominations.Some sects believe that He is not divine but only human.
Granting, in arguendo, that the latter is true it would still not negate the fact that some of Christianity's teachings has some basis.
It stands to reason, therefor, Christianity is not entirely based on blind faith.

__________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by TheTableist:
jun, a statement that christianity is based on blind faith cannot be disproven by stating things from the Bible that are accurate. There might be accuracies in a science fiction book but turning it into a religion could still require blind faith (just look at scientology, yuk yuk).
________________________________________
I have a question for you. Let's assume (hypothetically) that only 30% of Christianity's belief/tenets are true (therefore, not everything in the bible is true), would you still consider Christianity "based on blind faith"?
That same question goes for Dav&AKG.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jun:
__________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by TheTableist:
jun, a statement that christianity is based on blind faith cannot be disproven by stating things from the Bible that are accurate. There might be accuracies in a science fiction book but turning it into a religion could still require blind faith (just look at scientology, yuk yuk).
________________________________________
I have a question for you. Let's assume (hypothetically) that only 30% of Christianity's belief/tenets are true (therefore, not everything in the bible is true), would you still consider Christianity "based on blind faith"?
That same question goes for Dav&AKG.

---

I never said I think it's based on blind faith. I said you can't disprove using the method you were using.

---

I'm the bad guy here, let's not forget that.

quote:

---

I have a question for you. Let's assume (hypothetically) that only 30% of Christianity's belief/tenets are true (therefore, not everything in the bible is true), would you still consider Christianity "based on blind faith"?
That same question goes for Dav&AKG.

---

When did I EVER say that Christianity is based on blind faith?

Let me summarize a few things for you, because, despite all the logical terminology you seem to be familiar with, it seems you cannot grasp a few simple things.

• Your original argument is that Christian doctrine is not founded in blind faith because the Bible reports certain historical facts.
• I pointed out that although the Bible may be correct in some places, this does not necessitate the fact that Christianity does not rely on blind faith. I did not say that Christianity relies on blind faith, I said your argument doesn't prove that Christianity does not rely on blind faith
• You have repeatedly asked me why I believe that Christianity relies on blind faith
• The question you currently pose to me asks that if I would still believe that Christianity relied on blind faith if only 30% of the Bible were true.

I hope, BY NOW, you realize that I never said that Christianity relied on blind faith in the first place. Please withdraw your question, or rephrase it in such a way that does not put words in my mouth. If ONLY 30% of the Bible were true (keep in mind that you used the word "only") then the rest would be false, and if people believed the rest, it would stand to reason that 70% of the Bible is accepted on blind faith.

quote:

---

I have a question for you. Let's assume (hypothetically) that only 30% of Christianity's belief/tenets are true (therefore, not everything in the bible is true), would you still consider Christianity "based on blind faith"?

---

I agree with Tableist and AKG. In any event, I'm not clear what your term "blind faith" means exactly. It sounds like a tautology. I refer for example to the importance the Bible placed on "faith", as illustrated by the parable of "doubting" Thomas found in John 20:24-29. In that parable, Jesus says that those who "believe" in the absence of evidence are "blessed", and chastises Thomas for his pesky concern about evidence. "Faith", it appears, is by christian definition "blind".

quote:

---

Dav, I did not suggest (explicitly or implicitly) that Jesus is the son of God. This issue remains contentious even among different Christian denominations.Some sects believe that He is not divine but only human.

---

The "son of god" example was illustrative only, but it is a good illustration. The principle could equally be applied to any tenet of any sect of christianity. If you prefer: The physical existence of the Sea of Gallilee is not evidence that Jesus walked on it. Ad nauseum.

Christianity is not the worship of walls,is it? I think that is called "architecture", or possibly "interior design" .

My understanding is that christianity is a complex group of belief systems with certain common tenets: christians believe that following the teachings of Jesus, and performance of certain rituals, will lead possibly to good fortune during life and definitely to a pleasant outcome upon the believer's death.

Unremarkable facts ("Earth is round") and ordinary physical objects (some old walls) do not and can not, of themselves, be evidence of these matters nor, more generally, of the numinous.

This is obvious. Completely obvious.

Beyond that, I have no opinion on the matter.

Davdoodles
XXX

_____________________________________

quote:

---

Originally posted by AKG:
QUOTE] :I pointed out that although the Bible may be correct in some places, this does not necessitate the fact that Christianity does not rely on blind faith.
__________________________________________

Does it mean then that in order to prove my point that "christianity is not based on blind faith", I have to prove the entire bible to be true?

_________________________________________
If ONLY 30% of the Bible were true (keep in mind that you used the word "only") then the rest would be false, and if people believed the rest, it would stand to reason that 70% of the Bible is accepted on blind faith.

---

________________________________________

I've been asking you this question time and again. Do I have to show that the whole bible is true to prove the argument that "Christianity is not based on blind faith'?

Let's reverse the hypothetical case: if 70% of the bible were true, would you consider it based on "blind faith"?

__________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Davdoodles:
In any event, I'm not clear what your term "_blind_ faith" means exactly.
__________________________________

DAv, there are different categories of faith, depending on the degree of logical foundation from which it is based. Let me ask you this; An economist saying that he has "faith in the U.S. Capital Markets, based on certain data tha is generally considered sound but not 100% foolproof as what happened in Wall street crash, would you consider his belief based on "blind faith"?

Let's take this scenario. Your friend pays you a cheque; you are not 100% sure if the account has sufficient fund or whether in truth and in fact such account exists since you have to verify to do it, but you accept it nonetheless on the basis of your friendship and knowing that he has a credible reputation. Will you consider it based on "blind faith" or "faith" ( with some basis although not 100% foolproof)?

Jun,
"The Christian faith takes the Bible as word of God & as such, the basis of its faith and doctrine....this cannot be blind faith..."
There is an underlying flaw to your statement above. IF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY IS BASED ON THE WORD OF GOD, AND GOD HIMSELF HAS NOT YET BEEN PROVEN TO EXIST, THEN BELIEVING IN "HIS WORD" IS MOST DEFINITELY BLIND FAITH.
Sure it does not require "blind faith" to believe in the walls of jericho or any historically achaelogical fact. The entire point and definition of "blind faith" (in religious sense) is to believe something WITHOUT ANY "evidence"to support it's existence or validity.
Twister,
Our existence does not require the boundaries of time and and space, because weare the ones who have imposed these boundaries. Time itself is a variable, not a constant. Our calendars and clocks are all based on a false perception of time. Time is -dimensional, it does not move in a straight line. Then if we understand this, or comprehend rather, then we can discuss eliminating our imposed boundaries on space.
TO ALL: IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THE BIBLE IS THE "WORD OF GOD", THEN WHY ALL THIS TALK AND CONSIDERATION TO PARTS OF THE BIBLE BEING RIGHT OR WRONG? BECAUSE THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF A GOD, OR SUPREME BEING, IMPLIES OMNIPOTENCE, MEANING THAT HE, OR HIS WORDS, ARE PERFECT, AND THUS ALLOW NO ROOM FOR UNTRUTHS.

-Nicole

jun, you cannot prove that christianity is based solely, mostly or any other amount, on fact.
"walk be faith and not by sight", god says this in the bible, therefore christianity does not anchor itself on the basis of fact. now, in the present times, christians rely soley on faith. is this faith blind? i beleive when you are believing for something to happen you must have faith that it will come to pass. is this blind faith? yes it is. you can try to prove historical facts from the bibile to be false or true. but either way christianity follows faith whether it's blind or not. not historical fact.
dave, christianity would seem complex to an outsider, i guess. so im assuming you are not a christian? basically it does not matter if you are mother teresa or the pope or buddah, if you are born-again, only then will you go to heaven. so u see it is not like nirvana, you don't get rewarded with everlasting life or prizes just because you are kind or good.
i hope that explains the beliefs of christianity to you, better.

up the stairs to the station where the act becomes the art of growing up.
the fever the focus the reasons that i had to beleive you weren't too hard to sell, die young and save yourself!

quote:

---

Does it mean then that in order to prove my point that "christianity is not based on blind faith", I have to prove the entire bible to be true?

---

"Christinaity is not based on blind faith"

Suppose I tell you that Canada has 10 provinces. These provinces are Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New York. Now, I provide proof that the first 9 provinces mentioned are indeed provinces of Canada. Now, if you believe that New York is a province of Canada because I said so, you would be doing so on blind faith. Let's call AKGism believing everything that AKG says. Now, you cannot believe EVERYTHING AKG says in this case without blind faith. Your blind faith in this case makes or breaks your adherence to AKGism, i.e. there is NO POSSIBLE WAY you could believe me without blind faith. Blind faith is a DETERMINING factor in your belief in me. So, although not you don't need blind faith to believe EACH thing I say, if you want to believe everything, you do need blind faith.

If you don't prove that ALL of Christianity is based on fact, then if you believe EVERYTHING in the Bible, you do require blind faith, and thus your belief is based on blind faith.

And in case you're wondering, Newfoundland is the 10th province, not New York

quote:

---

dave [sic - It's "dav" actually. I know a guy called "dave, but I'm not him ], christianity would seem complex to an outsider, i guess. so im assuming you are not a christian?

---

I wasn't referring to the complexity of christian beliefs, but rather of the world-wide "group" called christians. That is, I was suggesting that there are many different inter-related subsets of adherents, all calling themselves "christians" (coptics, protestants, jews-for-jesus, baptists, pacific island jesus-cults, anglicans, those snake handlin'folks, macedonian orthodox and all the rest). I agree with you that their core/shared beliefs are not all that complex.

quote:

---

basically it does not matter if you are mother teresa or the pope or buddah, if you are born-again, only then will you go to heaven...
...you don't get rewarded with everlasting life or prizes just because you are kind or good.
i hope that explains the beliefs of christianity to you, better

---

Actually there are many, many christians who don't think that that "born again" stuff is correct, and that it is a christian's "good works" which god is interested in. You are possibly describing the Baptist sect of christianity - a fairy recent sub-division of christianity practiced by a few percent of christians in a confined area of the North American continent.

Thanks for the lesson.

Davdoodles
XXX

Live and learn

In the above post, I said that the centrality of attaining "born-again" status was a belief of the baptist christians, which is true in many cases, but is a relatively recent and not yet generally accepted practice within that sect.

In fact however, it appears that the term "born-again" is used more commonly by the evangelical protestant sect of North American christians.

To add to the confusion, "EPs" often refer to themselves as simply "christians" or "born-again christians". Many "EPs" consider many or all "non-EP" christians (commonly eg roman catholics) not to be christians at all, due to minor differences in beliefs...

Here's an attempt to break down the various christian groups, sub-groups and sub-sub-groups just in North America...!

Told y'all it was complex.

Davdoodles
XXX

________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by AKG:
These provinces are Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New York. Now, I provide proof that the first 9 provinces mentioned are indeed provinces of Canada. Now, if you believe that New York is a province of Canada because I said so, you would be doing so
on blind faith.
_________________________________________

If I believe in your statement above, that would be a "leap of faith" i.e. blind faith since I don't wouldn't have a basis for my belief since I don't know your credibility. But it wouldn't be blind faith anymore if I were to believe in you if you were a Canadian lecturer sent to my school to conduct a symposium about Canadian Politics. My belief this time would be based on something, although not 100% foolproof since you could be an impostor. But be that as it may, it could hardly be considered "blind faith".

________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by AKG:
If you don't prove that ALL of Christianity is based on fact, then if you believe EVERYTHING in the Bible, you do require blind faith, and thus your belief is based on blind faith.
________________________________________

I will reserve my reply on my next post. In the meantime, let me ask you this: Do you think "Theory of Evolution" or "Big Bang theory" based on blind faith?

________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by yellowfairy:
jun, you cannot prove that christianity is based solely, mostly or any other amount, on fact.
"walk be faith and not by sight", god says this in the bible, therefore christianity does not anchor itself on the basis of fact.
________________________________________

You better check my post. I did not say "faith", I said "blind faith". These two concepts are different. If I say "i have faith in the U.S. capital markets" because it has survived a number of crises in the past and historical data prove it to be so; it's not based on blind faith although my basis is not 100% foolproof.

Yellowfairy,

Actually dav is right in saying that many denominations (myself included) would disagree with your statement that ", if you are born-again, only then will you go to heaven." Not true. What about someone who has never been able to hear the word of God because he/she lives in an indigenious tribe East Africa. It all depends on whether or not we are "children of God." Anyone who is a Child of God IS GOING TO HEAVEN. And then from the status of a child we can move to "sons of God"-- by being born again. So being born again is not the only way to heaven. And this concept of Heaven brings me to my next question for you, yellowfairy. Why do we always say "go to heaven" as if it were an absolute place in time? God is everywhere, and the goal of heaven is to be eternally in God's presence. What if while this world exists and the Apocalypse has yet to happen, heaven is all around us? --just food for thought---

Nicole <><

jun

If you want to quote something I said, surround the text you want to quote with "quote" tags like this:

[*quote*] .... Your quote goes here .... [*/quote*]

When you do this do it WITHOUT the asterisks (*).

Now, you make a good point. If I have some credibility, then it may not be called blind faith to believe in what I say. But does the Bible have credibility? Just because people say it doesn't, doesn't mean it does. Just because the Bible presents some true facts, it doesn't make it credible. If that did make it credible, then the fact that I named 9 correct provinces would imply that I'm credible, and it's reasonable to think my last claim, that New York was a province of Canada, was a credible statement. So the fact that the Bible has a lot of supporters or the fact that the Bible says some correct statements does NOT make it credible.

We assume the Bible is neutral. If 30% of it gives us historical fact, that means that part of it can be believed without faith. However, if one were to believe all of it, there's no good reason to automatically assume the rest is credible, and thus belief in the rest would require blind faith. Therefore, if you wanted to accept everything, then you would be doing so based on blind faith.

_________________________________________
[QUOTE]Originally posted by AKG:
"We assume the Bible is neutral. If 30% of it gives us historical fact, that means that part of it can be believed without faith.
_________________________________________

If that were the case then at least 30% of my belief is founded on something ergo, not blind faith. I think we're getting somewhere. Let's take another hypotehtical case. Let's assume 99% of bible is accurate (take note it's not 100%) would you still consider christianity based on blind faith?

Please answer the question I have posted earlier regarding Evolution and Big Bang then I'll give my concluding argument after.

quote:
___________________________________________
However, if one were to believe all of it, there's no good reason to automatically assume the rest is credible, and thus belief in the rest would require blind faith. Therefore, if you wanted to accept everything, then you would be doing so based on blind faith."
___________________________________________

Again, if 99% of my belief is well founded would you still consider it "blind faith"?