Hey all, I'm writing this from the UTSC library, because I am covering my friend's shift today. Right now I'm on break. Today is a cheerful day for me, because first of all, all my essays are done, secondly, all my depression is gone, thirdly, I am not studying for exams until after Easter, and fourth, it is EASTER TOMORROW!
Happy Easter!!!!
If you don't know what the meaning of Easter is, I really should tell you. Eggs and bunnies don't really have much to do with the Easter Story, it's kind of like consumerism/Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Christmas.
Good Friday commemorates Jesus' death on the cross, and why we make it a holiday is because it is a Holy Day. Holy-day. Holi-day. Holiday. It is a Holy Day because on that day, God gave up His Son Jesus to save us from our sins. We have all done wrong things, called sins, and because of that, we cannot enter into God's holy heaven and our relationship with God was broken...
But to restore this relationship with us, His children, God decided to give His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. The punishment/payment for our sins was laid upon Jesus on the cross, and through His blood we are saved. Sound gory? It sort of was, back then, and if you saw "Passion of the Christ" you were probably grossed out or had nightmares...
But that is NOT the whole point. The point is that God LOVES us so much that He would give up His Son's life for us. And also, the story does not end there. Jesus rises from the dead 3 days later, hence we celebrate Easter Sunday/Monday! This shows that Jesus had the power of God in Him, that he was not just some dude who decided to sacrifice himself.
I like studying the Bible and getting deeper into it, so if you are interested, go to www.biblegateway.com and check out the books of the Bible written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They record the Easter story in a more comprehensive manner than I can type in 10 minutes.
And there are lots of random questions you also may ask... like "How can Jesus be God's son and God at the same time?" OR "How can we know that Jesus really resurrected?" OR "Why is Easter called Easter? Isn't that a pagan name?"
well, www.gotquestions.org or www.leestrobel.com can hopefully answer your questions! :D This is just my little Easter blog post! Ask me in person too, if you don't feel like surfing on the net for answers! :D
Take care and remember, we all need to discover what the truth is for ourselves! I encourage you all to explore!
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Hello Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. You seem like you know a lot, maybe more than I do. I am not a very scientific person, but I tried to read and understand, and judge from what I read. I put those links up so people can read and judge for themselves, and that is what you did. You know, I could be wrong, Lee Strobel could be wrong, anyone could be wrong.
So the important thing is to discover for yourself what is true. And for me, even if some or all of Lee Strobel's arguments are wrong, God is still true for me because my life and my friends' lives bear the testimony.
Of course, that doesn't mean we should just rely on feelings and experience, because that is unreliable. But when I combine what I experienced with other facts and arguments that are proven to be true, then it helps. We cannot prove God. We cannot disprove God. We cannot show anyone that the Bible is flawless but we cannot say that it is totally unreliable either.
You can tell that I don't like to debate and I am someone who likes to discuss in a friendly way about topics such as these. If you are looking for someone who ain't "looking to make money" but is eager to find the truth, check out my friend's website www.theologyinsneakers.com . It is a non-profit website and my friend spends tons of time researching about the topics he posts.
Do you mind me asking, so what do you believe in? I believe that science and faith is compatible, and my Christian friend Jash actually believes in macroevolution as well as the Bible's truth. So... we all have to be open minded!
Re: Anon
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Strobel so I can't in good integrity defend Strobel per se. However, I have studied academic biblical studies, and coming from my social science interpretation background, I want to point out a fairly large shortcoming in your third 'argument'. This shortcoming makes your argument a non-sequitur.
Eye-witness testimony is one of those topics in popular apologetics that few people seem to understand. What is well known is the modern court experience of he-said/she-said. We also know very much about how external factors lead people to say things that they don't actually believe and don't have much reason to think true.
Great, but we're not talking about modern industrialized societies. We are talking about the ancient Near East, and Judean culture in particular with all the particular strokes of its religious and ethnic character. This doesn't in itself make what we know of modern industrialized societies irrelevant, but a fair bit of comparative work is required in order to show that it is--we academics like empirical arguments, eh? This small fact that people like to overlook--the fact that the first century Palestine isn't actually 21st century North America--makes simple mention of "eye-witness testimony" terribly incomplete. Appealing to modern experience as a sure character of ancient Judean culture is anachronistic and generally sure to fail. You will have to show that what applies to modern experience applies in the same way with the same effects to ancient Judean culture. Do your homework! And yes, you need someone to tell you to do your homework because somehow the massive historical and cultural gaps didn't figure into your thinking.
If you are actually interested in seeking truth, as opposed to assuming that you know it all, there are some relatively accessible works by Context Group members -- I find that people need some mental orientation to thinking about an alien culture before they can meaningfully think about particular issues like truth, eye-witness testimony, and the various epistemological issues associated with that. Malina, Rorhbaugh, Neyrey, Pilch, and Esler will open up many new worlds.
I am always happy to discuss epistemological issues relating to Christianity, but more often than not I'm saying, "Well, that's really anachronistic, you need to consider these factors. . ."
As a closing note, saying "eyewitness accounts are..." is actually a claim about the category of eyewitness accounts and such a claim suffers severe empirical problems. Can you prove that eyewitness accounts are ALL x or y? If so, please demonstrate. If not, rephrase the premise.
Happy birthday.
- Some Christian
Hello 'SC',
ReplyDeleteYou had me up until "need some mental orientation".
What I am concerned about are Mr. Strobel's facts. I don't care what ancient peoples thought of as "true" and "not true" and "sorta true" or which direction I have to 'orient' myself to grasp those distinctions.
The fact of the matter is that human perception and memory are, in a word, terrible. Eyewitness testimony is a poor source of "truth" regardless of culture or era for the simple fact that it is subjective. It is based on the observations, perceptions and memories of fallible, imperfect and malleable humans. This trait does not go away when you travel backwards in time.
There is a reason it is considered unreliable in our modern, North American courts.. and it isn't because we're just not Judean enough.
I would, in fact, take all of "eyewitness testimony" and place it in a large bin labeled "empirically null". "Eyewitness Testimony" by Elizabeth Loftus is a good place to read up on the [un]reliability of eyewitnesses. Perhaps more salient for anyone reading this would be a related problem: selective attention. I am sure you have seen videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
My premise is soundly planted on top of the science: eyewitness testimony is unreliable and insufficient to establish fact, or "truth". Guessing at the possible motives or, as Strobel does, invent reasons the writers WOULDN'T 'lie' is so much fluff. The science doesn't support "perfect recollection, perception and recording" of the events... which is what is being claimed.
-Anon
Hello Martinelee,
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in understanding things, which hasn't been aided by the bible or church. Agnostic would be a good term to apply to me, perhaps... or "wussy atheist" :P
"We cannot prove God. We cannot disprove God." ... I'm not out to disprove god... he's "your" (and by that I mean Christians') hypothesis, the burden of proof is on you.
I'm not here to "argue" with you... Strobel is just one of those people that has a quicksilver tongue and never means what he sounds like he is meaning. He talks a mile a minute and is so full of misinformation, it would take an hour to correct one phrase... a herculean task.
I'll take a look at your friend's site.
Best wishes,
-Anon
To my friend Anon, I don't mean "argue" like fight or dispute, but argue as in state arguments for or against something. I didn't say that you were going to try and disprove God, but I was just saying that we cannot prove or disprove God as a point that I am making. Just trying to clear up any misunderstanding here.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think there will ever be any 100% proof, so I don't feel a burden for proof. Although evidence should be sought after, any evidence can be disproved if we really argue from every point of view possible. So for example, courts use eyewitness accounts for proof. But these can be discounted depending on the situation. Eyewitness accounts help, and the more the better... but if let's say we think all of them are lying cuz they just want the money, then it can be disproven.
Evidence that is "concrete" may be things like a surveillance tape, or some DNA testing, or a reoccurring phenomenon (e.g. a repeated offender). But in the case of the Bible, there were no cameras back then, and it's pretty much impossible to test those people's DNA. All we got is the archeological sites that were mentioned in the Bible, and well, miracles still happen today except people say it's not a miracle or that other religions have it too.
So I hope you see what I'm saying... I can try to find proof, but it's subjective whether the proof is credible or not. My friend's Archeological Bible has great "proofs" but it's not like it's 100% proof, although it sure does help a lot.
My dad's an atheist so I do see both sides of the story. But there is something I learned over the years: If you believe something is true, and you come in with the assumption that it is true, then you will find evidence confirming it.
If you believe something is fake, and you come in with the assumption that it is fake, then you will find evidence disconfirming it. This goes for any religion or belief out there.
Seeing is not believing. Rather, believing is seeing. That is just the fact of how people's brains work.
Evidence is not the only thing we should be looking for. And you may wonder why I will leave it at this question, but I just want people to think for themselves...
If evidence is not the only thing we should be looking for, then what else should we be looking for?
I appreciate your feedback and thoughts and welcome you to let me know what you thought of this comment. There could be other points that I could learn from you.
Martine