Christians- How do you know Jesus and the Bible are true?

[Apostle John]

We don’t have hundreds of testimonies.

Testimonies probably run into the tens of thousands, those that have experienced the living God and Holy Spirit.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Yes I have decided that the gospels about Jesus are true and the stories about Krishna are probably made up and Muhammad is a false prophet. But that is not to do with experiences that people have.

I’ve had dreams of meeting all three.

 

[Valjean]

Stop preaching your skeptic folklore as if it is fact.

Apparently you don't know what either preaching or folklore is.

 

[Valjean]

No these historians, like most historians, probably did not meet Jesus. There are writers in the New Testament who met Jesus if you want that. Presumably neither those who met Him nor those who are independent are any use to you.

What New Testament writers met Jesus

And could be subjective evidence of the power of the gospel message and that God was behind it's spread and acceptance.

Subjective evidence is evidence only to the subject experiencing it.
If there's a god behind it why didn't he provide real, objective evidence?

No they could not make the same claims, they would make different claims about whatever belief they follow and would believe those things just as you believe and preach about stuff you do not know for sure.

Their claims would be just as strong, just as well evidenced, just as believable as your claims. Why should anyone believe your claim rather than a hundred other epistemically equal ones?
Why would anyone believe any factually and logically flawed claims?

Preaching? I'm just pointing out problems with what you claim to be evidence.

 

[Brian2]

What New Testament writers met Jesus

You know but deny it.

Subjective evidence is evidence only to the subject experiencing it.
If there's a god behind it why didn't he provide real, objective evidence?

He calls people individually and provides them with the evidence they need. He opens their eyes to the truth of evidence that we all have and can choose to believe or reject.

Their claims would be just as strong, just as well evidenced, just as believable as your claims. Why should anyone believe your claim rather than a hundred other epistemically equal ones?
Why would anyone believe any factually and logically flawed claims?

It is an individuals choice to call the New Testament factually flawed.
It is that choice which leads you to say it is logically flawed.
No other claims are grounded in history as the gospel is. The way that scholars have denied that is to first assume that the supernatural is untrue and then worked with circular reasoning to show that the gospel writers did not know Jesus.

Preaching? I'm just pointing out problems with what you claim to be evidence.

You are preaching against the reliability of the Bible and for the need of objective evidence which everyone can see.
But everyone can see it, and some choose to deny what they see. We all do that, we deny many things in favor of what we believe. If we choose to believe only those things with objective or empirical evidence we are choosing against other things.

 

[CG Didymus]

You are preaching against the reliability of the Bible and for the need of objective evidence which everyone can see.
But everyone can see it, and some choose to deny what they see. We all do that, we deny many things in favor of what we believe. If we choose to believe only those things with objective or empirical evidence we are choosing against other things.

This thread was started by a Baha'i, so if we just look at what you say and what Baha'is say.

Born-Again Christians that take the Bible and the NT very literally believe that Moses parted the sea, Jonah got swallowed by a big fish and survived for three days, Elijah flew off into the sky on a fiery chariot, Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, brought dead people back to life.? Really? Sound very possible they were making things up and just telling stories.

Then we have the "truth" as believed by Baha'is... Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Krishna, Buddha and others were all sent by the one true God and all the religions associated with these people were true. But now God has sent a new messenger, Baha'u'llah. He has brought new teachings for today that, if applied, will bring peace and unity to the world.

Both religions say that they're telling the truth, but each has a very different "truth" that they are talking about. Which one is true? And how would know? Ah, look at the evidence each is presenting. Some people believe one and not the other. Others look at both and think, "Gee, both have things that they claim but can't prove. It would be nice if it were provable... Starting with... Is God even real??

Too many claims that a person just has to accept as true. Each are very different but have similar evidence. For the believer, either one will work and seem true. But they both can't be true, or maybe both aren't really true. But does it matter to the believer? As long as they keep believing.

 

[Valjean]

But how do you prove from evidence that there is not a Supreme Eternal Being ‘beyond mortal man’s comprehension’ because our finite comprehension is incapable of understanding that which is beyond our understanding?

I don't have to. Lack of belief is the epistemic default. The burden's on you to demonstrate your belief. There is no burden to demonstrate non-existence or non-belief.

Q: How would you prove from evidence that Thor or Quetzalcoatl don't exist, or that there are no gnomes living in your garden? Clearly you can't. So, is this evidence that they might exist? Would it be reasonable to treat them as possibilities?
See how it works?

Baha’is believe that God exists but is beyond our intellectual and emotional understanding. So do we deny something just because we do not understand it?

We defer belief because of lack of evidence, not lack of understanding.

We are scientifically surrounded by all sorts of mathematical formulas in the form of things like the laws of physics which work automatically according to a preprogrammed rule which is set in stone and cannot be altered.

Which are all predictable, testable, consistent and productive, unlike theological claims.

Then there’s ‘coincidences’ like the sun being mathematically the correct distance from earth to support life. I cannot attribute kinds of things to ‘luck, chance or randomness’ but intelligent design. The most complex form of life the human body. Just chance again?

But there are at least 100 billion suns, just in our own galaxy, with all that have been observed closely enough to detect planets having them.
What's the likelihood of our Earth, out of probably hundreds of billions of planets, being the only one "the correct distance" to support our kind of life? Why would you think Earth is in any way unique?

Life develops as the surrounding chemistry allows, to fit the particular environment. It evolves fo fit existing conditions. Why would you think the whole world was pre-planned to support our particular form of life?

To me there are just way too many of these kinds of situations for me to deny there is a God, despite me being unable to fathom His Mystery. All the Prophets and Messengers speak of a Supreme Being but admit too that even They cannot understand fully.

"Kinds of situations?" What does that mean? I don't follow.
There are "prophets and messengers" claiming all sorts of things. They're not rare. Mental hospitals are full of them. So, why should we believe any of them on their word alone, without objective evidence? What makes your chosen prophets and messengers more believable than the others, save the fact that they agree with your own views?

The problem here is we are condemning something our minds cannot grasp. I think that is irrational and unrealistic and unreasonable. There is heaps of circumstantial evidence to support the existence of God but we will never ever be able to prove it inconclusively because God is not tangible so He is not here or there and the human mind is incapable of grasping Him. But there are ‘signs’ circumstantial signs which, when all put together add up to more than just blind faith.

No. There is no objective evidence, nor is there any existential need for such an invisible magician.
Theists are always claiming evidence, but when pressed, it collapses like a house of cards.

People who want scientific tangible evidence are being unreasonable because God is incomprehensible to any human and will remain so forever. But even science proves that everything in existence obeys certain scientific and mathematical laws and to me that is a proof that there is an Intelligence behind it.

Natural law and maths proves God? How so? Explain your reasoning, SVP.

But by the same token, religions have often descended into superstition and I agree that at such times that kind of a God seems ludicrous. Christ’s dead body rising out of the grave, dead bodies to come to life on the day of resurrection, the sacraments, wars and other such things have nothing to do with reason or intelligence. So the way religionists have acted full of superstition has led many to believe God is nonsense.

Descended into superstition, or emerged from it?
What religious beliefs are evidently or logically reasonable?

It’s unfortunate but for being so superstitious religions are losing credibility.

If anything religion needs most it is science and reason.

Hear hear!

 

[Valjean]

Your beliefs about the Bible then if that helps.

I go with the disinterested scholars, historians and linguists. My belief that the Bible is full of contradictions and inaccurate folk tales is warranted.

You already have evidence from historians close to the time of Jesus. You already have evidence of those who are witnesses of events in Jesus life. That is not enough?

But we do NOT have these things! Where do you get these ideas?
We have hearsay, from unknown sources, and even this differs from source to source.

I challenge you to name one eyewitness historian or first-person account.

What do you class as empirical evidence in this case?
Why do you think that any witnesses would be uninterested if the stories were true?
"Supernatural history" is the reported supernatural events that happened with Jesus. That makes it evidenced.

Only if verified, or, at least, well evidenced by identifiable, disinterested sources.
Claims aren't evidence. There are thousands of religions, with thousands of different claims and folk tales.

So you think that supernatural claims are not evidence even if there is are a number of witnesses to these events.
What objective reason and logic do you use to reject the supernatural witness reports?

There are claimed witnesses, by believers, with an agenda. Where are the disinterested reports? Where is the objective evidence?

We have first-person claims, by living eyewitnesses, of ghosts, flying saucers, færies, cupacabras, and Bigfoot. That's better "evidence" than any of these biblical claims, yet reasonable people remain skeptical.

The supernatural events are supported by witness evidence and documents written by witnesses.
It is irrational to say that is not evidence.

So are the supernatural events of every other religion in the world. The witnesses are apocryphal; the claims unevidenced. If any of these supernatural events were claimed today by a living eyewitness, would they be believed? What makes claims of claims by unknown, 2,000 year old writers with religious agendas believable?

What we have are folk tales.

When we have different opinions in scholarship and it is all evidence based then it is also all opinion based.
When modern scholarship rejects supernatural history as evidence then it is biased and faith based opinion and that is what you accept.

No. Rejection of supernatural claims, by claimed witnesses, reported by apocryphal authors, with agendas, is not biased or faith-based opinion.
We do not know who wrote most of the books of the Bible. There is noöne to interview. The books make fantastical and unevidenced claims.
There is scant, if any, objective evidence.

We do know that only four, of the dozens of christian gospels, were cherry-picked for inclusion, as propaganda, to further a particular sect's theological beliefs.

People reach conclusions based on evidence that does not fully prove something. It is faith based on evidence. It is rational faith. You have your opinion about faith but it is wrong since I am someone of faith and I know that faith can have evidence for it and is rational.

By this definition "faith" becomes meaninglessly broad. At what point does evidence-based faith become knowledge, or reasonable?
Nothing fully proves anything. Earth revolving round the Sun is not "fully proved." We follow the best evidence; that's the best we can do.

Credence is based on the amount and quality of the evidence. Biblical mythology is not well-supported by objective evidence. Neither is the Gita or Chronicles of Narnia. So why did you choose the Bible over these two, equally evidenced possibilities?

At what point does evidence-based faith become knowledge, or reasonable?

It is no wonder that skeptics, atheists etc don't like it said that they have faith in the truth of something, you make up definitions of faith that are not true.

It's you who use made-up or abstruse, poetic definitions. Our definition correctly differentiates well from poorly evidenced claims. Our definition is useful in epistemic discussions like this. Ours is how the word is actually used.

The problems seem to be with your reasoning and denial of evidence.

The problem is your lack of reasoning and inability to assess evidence.

You rely on your way, your definition of evidence and rationality and you rely on the faith based opinions of modern Bible historians. (faith based because it is based on a denial of any supernatural things written about.

The opinions aren't faith-based, that's the whole point. Acceptance of unevidenced claims, of the physically impossible, is not reasonable.

There are different types of evidence.
You want to impose scientific ideas and presumptions of no supernatural on books that are by definition based in supernatural events.
You aren't trying to lead anyone to belief just out of belief. Same thing imo but using the skeptic twist of words to deny it.
But you are leading people to believe in scientific definitions of evidence and that these apply to the spiritual as well as the physical and so that automatically disqualifies any evidence of the spiritual.
Skeptics use ridiculous reasoning like that on themselves and so you have deceived yourselves personally and as a group.

It is not ridiculous reasoning. It is logic and empirically demonstrable reasoning. It is not we who believe in completely unevidenced and physically impossible events, ie: the supernatural..

Please examine why you believe these things. What is the belief based on? -- certainly not on objective, testable evidence. And why do you believe one set of supernatural claims over another? How did you choose -- or did you choose?

 

[Valjean]

The Bible is true and the Lord Jesus exists because the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible) was written down as Judaism was being practiced 400+ years before the Lord Jesus walked the Earth. A wealth of archaeology proves these historical events and timeline.

A wealth of evidence indicates much of the OT history is flat-out wrong.
I can produce evidence for this claim. Can you produce evidence for your credence?

The Lord Jesus fulfilled at least 200 prophecies, too veiled for a group of humans to back fit and invent a new religion. There’s a wealth of secular documents and other history showing the Lord Jesus was a real person. The average person doesn’t study prophecy but it is remarkable evidence, no other religious book is quite like it.

The prophecies are vague, ambiguous passages, that could be interpreted in any number of ways. Not are such prophecies unique to Judaism or Christianity.

 

[Valjean]

You know but deny it.

Alas, I do not know. Please enlighten me.

He calls people individually and provides them with the evidence they need. He opens their eyes to the truth of evidence that we all have and can choose to believe or reject.

So it's all subjective; all individual. No objective evidence. No reason for anyone who has not experienced this eye-opening to accept it.

It is an individuals choice to call the New Testament factually flawed.
It is that choice which leads you to say it is logically flawed.

No it is reasonable to reject supernatural or unevidenced claims.

No other claims are grounded in history as the gospel is. The way that scholars have denied that is to first assume that the supernatural is untrue and then worked with circular reasoning to show that the gospel writers did not know Jesus.

Do the gospel writers claim to have known Jesus, or did they just write about him?

There are dozens of gospels. Only four are included in the Bible. Why?

They make different claims. They are poorly evidenced. They make fantastical, physically impossible claims. Their authors are unknown.
How are they grounded in history? What does "grounded in history even mean? Anyone can place a story within a historical context.

You are preaching against the reliability of the Bible and for the need of objective evidence which everyone can see.
But everyone can see it, and some choose to deny what they see. We all do that, we deny many things in favor of what we believe. If we choose to believe only those things with objective or empirical evidence we are choosing against other things.

I don't choose what to believe. I try to follow the objective evidence, whether I like it or not.
If there were objective evidence 'for everyone to see', why doesn't everyone see it? Why do different religions see different "evidence?"
Choosing against things without objective or empirical evidence is reasonable, and leads to general agreement, not multiple, different beliefs.

 

[Brian2]

Both religions say that they're telling the truth, but each has a very different "truth" that they are talking about. Which one is true? And how would know? Ah, look at the evidence each is presenting. Some people believe one and not the other. Others look at both and think, "Gee, both have things that they claim but can't prove. It would be nice if it were provable... Starting with... Is God even real??

Yes it would be nice if things were provable, but they aren't and we just have to accept that. No matter which belief we accept (or even if we accept nothing) it not provable.

Too many claims that a person just has to accept as true. Each are very different but have similar evidence. For the believer, either one will work and seem true. But they both can't be true, or maybe both aren't really true. But does it matter to the believer? As long as they keep believing.

The truth and living by it, matters both for this life and for the next.

 

[Brian2]

I go with the disinterested scholars, historians and linguists. My belief that the Bible is full of contradictions and inaccurate folk tales is warranted.

So you go with the scholars who say the supernatural is not true and bring that into their work.

But we do NOT have these things! Where do you get these ideas?
We have hearsay, from unknown sources, and even this differs from source to source.

That idea is a result of your disinterested scholars.
That idea also means saying that Church history on the authors of the gospels is wrong, lying.
The presumption of no supernatural and so authorship after 70AD is more important than Church history and the internal evidence of the gospels.

I challenge you to name one eyewitness historian or first-person account.

But you know the gospels are not written in the first person and that this proves nothing.

There are claimed witnesses, by believers, with an agenda. Where are the disinterested reports? Where is the objective evidence?

So again you suggest that interested reports are lies and you are presuming that any reports from non believers would not be interested and would not be lies.
Luke was a gentile who said He investigated the whole thing from those why had been witnesses and there from the beginning. But Luke ended up believing and so must be lying.

We have first-person claims, by living eyewitnesses, of ghosts, flying saucers, færies, cupacabras, and Bigfoot. That's better "evidence" than any of these biblical claims, yet reasonable people remain skeptical.

Reasonable people also believe those claims. Reasonable people remain skeptical or wait for more evidence also as you say.
Some reasonable people want to show that all those things are false. Some reasonable people don't care much either way.
I think there is probably something there to provoke the reports. It does not bother me much and I don't really want to show that the reports are wrong.
I see the Bible as believable and I'm reasonable imo.

So are the supernatural events of every other religion in the world. The witnesses are apocryphal; the claims unevidenced. If any of these supernatural events were claimed today by a living eyewitness, would they be believed? What makes claims of claims by unknown, 2,000 year old writers with religious agendas believable?

Some people are open to belief in the supernatural and others just deny it until proven.

No. Rejection of supernatural claims, by claimed witnesses, reported by apocryphal authors, with agendas, is not biased or faith-based opinion.
We do not know who wrote most of the books of the Bible. There is noöne to interview. The books make fantastical and unevidenced claims.
There is scant, if any, objective evidence.

We do know that only four, of the dozens of christian gospels, were cherry-picked for inclusion, as propaganda, to further a particular sect's theological beliefs.

Your beliefs are called facts by you.

By this definition "faith" becomes meaninglessly broad. At what point does evidence-based faith become knowledge, or reasonable?
Nothing fully proves anything. Earth revolving round the Sun is not "fully proved." We follow the best evidence; that's the best we can do.

Credence is based on the amount and quality of the evidence. Biblical mythology is not well-supported by objective evidence. Neither is the Gita or Chronicles of Narnia. So why did you choose the Bible over these two, equally evidenced possibilities?

At what point does evidence-based faith become knowledge, or reasonable?

Faith is a subjective thing, but imo the Gita has no evidence for the reality of any stories in it and cannot even be located in history and the Chronicles of Narnia are fictional, like the Lord of the Rings.

It's you who use made-up or abstruse, poetic definitions. Our definition correctly differentiates well from poorly evidenced claims. Our definition is useful in epistemic discussions like this. Ours is how the word is actually used.

OK so faith for you is only in things that can be shown to be true by observation and testing. That is how science is determined and why people believe what it says (up to a point).
Historical faith and religious faith are believed without observation and testing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but a faith can be tested to see if it is true, and people do that all the time, but subjectively.
It does not matter to you I suppose if someone gives a testimony of what Jesus did for them in their life.

The problem is your lack of reasoning and inability to assess evidence.

That is not a problem for me, that is about you.

The opinions aren't faith-based, that's the whole point. Acceptance of unevidenced claims, of the physically impossible, is not reasonable.

So that is why you have no faith,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you are closed to the possibility from the start.

It is not ridiculous reasoning. It is logic and empirically demonstrable reasoning. It is not we who believe in completely unevidenced and physically impossible events, ie: the supernatural..

Please examine why you believe these things. What is the belief based on? -- certainly not on objective, testable evidence. And why do you believe one set of supernatural claims over another? How did you choose -- or did you choose?

I believed before I knew why I should believe. I have since seen plenty of evidence for me and no reason, from the disinterested scholars, to deny my faith. It can come close at times but there are always answers that I am willing to believe but a skeptic would not be willing to believe, especially a skeptic who only believes the empirical, the falsifiable.

 

[Brian2]

There are dozens of gospels. Only four are included in the Bible. Why?

They are the gospels used by the early Church and which can be found in quotes from the early Church and whose authors are named by the early Church.

They make different claims. They are poorly evidenced. They make fantastical, physically impossible claims. Their authors are unknown.
How are they grounded in history? What does "grounded in history even mean? Anyone can place a story within a historical context.

The historical context is from people who were in it, not those who wrote a generation or 2 later.

I don't choose what to believe. I try to follow the objective evidence, whether I like it or not.
If there were objective evidence 'for everyone to see', why doesn't everyone see it? Why do different religions see different "evidence?"
Choosing against things without objective or empirical evidence is reasonable, and leads to general agreement, not multiple, different beliefs.

We all have choices to make about some things, the things that are important and which lack objective evidence.
You choose only things that you say have objective evidence.
So why also choose to not only reserve faith for the others but to deny them in an absolute way when you don't know if denial is correct?

 

[Muffled]

Isn’t that like when the NT claims that the OT is obsolete in areas?

Jesus has a right to make that claim because as God He is the author but the B man does not have that kind of authority.

 

[Muffled]

And yet you believe the author instead of the critics who were supposedly there as well.

I believe the critics were not eyewitnesses and had ulterior motives.

 

[Muffled]

Testimonies probably run into the tens of thousands, those that have experienced the living God and Holy Spirit.

I believe I am one who testifies.

 

[PearlSeeker]

It doesn't take centuries to forge a myth/legend:

Elvis Lives! Investigating the Legends and Phenomena | Skeptical Inquirer

Legendary American singer Elvis Presley is heralded not only as the major innovator, "The King," of rock 'n' roll but also as a godlike ...

skepticalinquirer.org

 

[PearlSeeker]

Yet 10 out of the 11 original Apostles died as martyrs believing Christ rose from the dead.

There is no evidence that the Apostles died for the belief that Jesus was resurrected.

 

[CG Didymus]

Yes it would be nice if things were provable, but they aren't and we just have to accept that. No matter which belief we accept (or even if we accept nothing) it not provable.

Religious beliefs are kind of provable. A charismatic preacher can be very convincing. But some of those charismatic preachers have turned out to cult leaders. All religions have their charismatic leaders, and some charismatic leaders create new religions.

The Baha'i Faith is one of those. They make it easy to accept a watered-down, less extreme, and less dependent on believing things literally version of Christianity and all the other major religions of the world. If a person wants to believe in their version of God and that he sent the Baha'i prophet, the teachings of the Baha'i Faith can be quite convincing. And that becomes the proof. And it is verified by how, in pretty much every religion, that if you do the stuff that you are told to in that religion... it will work.

Christians feel saved, feel like Jesus and the Holy Spirit are guiding them. Some, I'm sure have been healed or experienced little miracles in their lives. And the support of their fellow believers helps give them assurance that what they believe is true.

But believers in any religion feel similar things. And just like some Catholics have visions of Mary, some Baha'i have visions of Abdul Baha'. And both Christians and Baha'is can look at things happening in the world and see things that proves to them that what they believe is true.

So, sure your religion works and seems true, but so does theirs. And, to me, what's the common denominator? Believing it is true. And what's an Atheists or a skeptic to do but say, "But it's all based on things that the religious person assumes are true. And, in each religion, those things are that are assumed to be true, are different. They are only real in the mind and heart of the believer. Which to the believer makes them seem real, but to the skeptic makes it look like the religious person is just believing in made-up fantasies.

The truth and living by it, matters both for this life and for the next.

Maybe, but again, just between what Born-Again Christians believe and what Baha'is believe, we have two very different beliefs that contradict each other. And again, what is it that they have in common? They get people to follow the rules and laws and moral codes of the religion in order to get a reward later in some after-life. Does that reward even have to be real? No, but if the people in the religion believe it, they will make an attempt at obeying the laws of their religion. So, to the skeptic, what is the truth? I agree with them, best stay with only the things we can verify with objective evidence. So, maybe God is real. Maybe your religion is true. But... maybe not.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

1John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

When did John witness the “beginning “ again?