This one was just randomly inspired while I was doing my monthly shave and the Prince of Egypt soundtrack started to play. It is a lovely sounding sound I think its message is somewhere along the lines of if you believe anything can happen. Knowing my style I doubt the song was hardly taking it so deeply. I am reminded of several of the books I have read in which it addresses logical arguments Humanists use to dismiss the evidence and arguments for our faith. I think it is fair to expand this to a good deal of ancient historians who deny the ancient manuscripts that currently makeup the Bible as historically authentic. The common denominator between the two parties, as to why one group denies the possibility of God and the other of historicity is their disbelief and outright denial of miracles.
David Hume is one of the most notable philosophers who argues miracles are non-existent. From face value it is one of those claims that one does believe in miracles would likely exclaim such a suggestion is outrageous. The funny thing though, in Hume's premises, what is believable is normal or natural occurrences. Things which do not repeatedly occur or cannot be repeated should not be taken into account as having happened. With such premises it is plain to see why the presence of miracles is denied. The nature of miracles defies nature and cannot be repeated upon command. If they could be repeated in nature there would be nothing special about the event, if they could be repeated upon command it would not be forces from beyond this natural world. The "logical" method of philosophy to argue against miracles stands at eliminating their possibility in the premise to arrive at a conclusion which does not include anything beyond nature. It is like asking you to persuade me to vote for a candidate with the premise that the person does not exist. The argument is dead in the water against such bountiful premises. This is the same issue with the Problem of Evil, yet another philosophy question which attempts to disprove the existence of the supernatural using false premises. Then again, this argument is not as ludicrous as Hume's.
The plausible deniability used in philosophy is similar in the historical analysis of the ancient manuscripts we call the Bible. Many historians dismiss those manuscripts, being in greater volume and number than any other manuscript used to figure out the ancient past by more than a thousand fold. The reason they deny the historicity is because they do not believe in miracles, and if the manuscripts, which dictate as something to be literal include miracles then that poses a problem for the "enlightened" ones. Andy Stanley has a good 3 part Sermon series about the reliability of the Gospels called Verdict. Then again, Lee Strobel's Case for Christ, Norman Giesler's I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and Ravi Zacharias' Jesus Among Other Gods, all contain powerful points about the reliability of the scripture as historical documents. I am very tempted to throw out a few of the tip bits about how much ancient manuscripts there are in comparison to other ancient documents, but I encourage you all to read the books for yourselves cause it will stick much better than, "oh I read it in this guy's blog".
I think this kind of ties to CYOB. People get so much of their life views in unrealistic illogical happy thoughts, such as how they want to live and believe what they want to because it is more comfortable. Then in order to secure their comfort, because deep down (Romans 1:18-21) they know there is a Truth they convince themselves there is no Truth. I am in awe constantly every time I read Romans to see how much it completely applies to our current cultural climate. Hopefully you are either familiar with Romans 1 or you looked it up to see what I was talking about, but I would like to conclude this one with a couple choice quotes that I think add to the points I made rather eloquently.
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.” – Richard Lewontin, Billions and Billions of Demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.
“Unless we are born again we cannot see the kingdom of God. A man once stood on a soap box at Hyde Park Corner pouring scorn on Christianity. “People tell me that God exists but I can’t see him. People tell me that there is life after death; but I can’t see it. People tell me there is a heaven and hell, but I can’t see them…” He won cheap applause and climbed down from his “pulpit.” Another struggled onto the soap box. “People tell me there is green grass all around. But I can’t see it. People tell me that there is blue sky above, but I can’t see it. People tell me that there are trees nearby, but I can’t see them. You see. I’m blind!” – David Watson, My God is Real
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