Jesus literalist. What would change your mind?

[Greatest I am]

Jesus literalist. What would change your mind?

 

Many books on Jesus and Christianity have come out of late questioning the historicity and source of both Jesus and the gospels. Most of these come down on the negative side of Jesus being real or of scripture coming from the apostles.

 

 

 

 

All who believe in Jesus and scripture must read the Bible literally, to some extent.

 

After all, what other book give Jesus historicity or literal existence? None.

 

There is not one historical secular document that I know of that indicates that some miracle working Jesus ever existed.

 

The Bible begins with a talking serpent and other miracles that defy nature and physics.. This should be warning enough, for anyone who can think independently that the Bible should not be read literally. Alas, this clear message is lost on some believers .

 

Most scholars know that the Bible is myth and can be read in a variety of ways. As allegory, myth or literal. They choose not to read it literally as that would mean that they would have to believe in fantasy miracles and magic. Most will not take that leap of faith.

 

The Catholic pope and most mainstream Abraham protestant religions say not to read the Bible literally but as stated above, they must read some of it literally to believe that Jesus actually existed. They do not seem to follow their own advise.

 

As a follower of a real historic Jesus, do you recognize that you are a literalist?

 

How deeply do you believe in fantasy, miracles and magic?

 

As an adult, do you see your fantastic beliefs as those of a healthy mind?

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDbesQQi9yc

 

What would it take for you to change your mind about fantasy, miracles and magic being real? These are required for you to believe in a real historic Jesus.

 

Keeping Jesus divine in our minds may discourage some in trying to follow his lead.

 

Is there something that would change your mind or start you seeing Jesus as an archetypal good man that we are to emulate?

 

 

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Marat]

Buddhism has a famous statement that if you see the Buddha on the street, you should kill him. The idea here is that the proper focus for the good Buddhist should be on the idea of what the Buddha represents, not on the person.

 

But what most religions seek is some excuse to worship something other than the human moral order, which is itself known to be historically variable, culturally arbitrary, and often rationally questionable. The desire underlying the religious impulse is to give belief and moral value some independent ontological ground, so that rather than saying I believe murder is wrong because I value human life as my supreme ethical duty, we can say that in addition to our own moral commitment, there is also an independent, all-powerful, infinitely good, infinitely wise God, a perfect divine text or texts (Old Testament, Talmud, for Jews), a sacred tradition, or an absolutely reliable messenger (Mohammed for Moslems) which provides a separate factual warrant for our commitment. Some religions even make up an obviously fake factual warrant for their beliefs, such as Scientology or Mormonism, but the believers all agree to pretend that the clearly unreliable nature of their independent ontological support is not a problem.

 

I think it is more consonant with the modern way of thinking to abandon ontological supports for what we believe and instead just to believe in systems of value or truth in and of themselves, with no external props being necessary. This is what science did in rejecting Cartesian particles in motion and accepting Newtonian action at a distance as the only concept able to account for the observed motion of the planets, regardless of its ontological deficiencies as a causal mechanism. This is also what was done in jettisoning phlogiston, the aether, calorique, and heat matter, replacing them by dynamical theories or abstract structures. So why not give up assumption that we have to believe in an 'Ethics-Endorsing-and-Supporting Thing' and instead just believe in ethics?

[Dekan]

Buddhism has a famous statement that if you see the Buddha on the street, you should kill him. The idea here is that the proper focus for the good Buddhist should be on the idea of what the Buddha represents, not on the person.

 

But what most religions seek is some excuse to worship something other than the human moral order, which is itself known to be historically variable, culturally arbitrary, and often rationally questionable. The desire underlying the religious impulse is to give belief and moral value some independent ontological ground, so that rather than saying I believe murder is wrong because I value human life as my supreme ethical duty, we can say that in addition to our own moral commitment, there is also an independent, all-powerful, infinitely good, infinitely wise God, a perfect divine text or texts (Old Testament, Talmud, for Jews), a sacred tradition, or an absolutely reliable messenger (Mohammed for Moslems) which provides a separate factual warrant for our commitment. Some religions even make up an obviously fake factual warrant for their beliefs, such as Scientology or Mormonism, but the believers all agree to pretend that the clearly unreliable nature of their independent ontological support is not a problem.

 

I think it is more consonant with the modern way of thinking to abandon ontological supports for what we believe and instead just to believe in systems of value or truth in and of themselves, with no external props being necessary. This is what science did in rejecting Cartesian particles in motion and accepting Newtonian action at a distance as the only concept able to account for the observed motion of the planets, regardless of its ontological deficiencies as a causal mechanism. This is also what was done in jettisoning phlogiston, the aether, calorique, and heat matter, replacing them by dynamical theories or abstract structures. So why not give up assumption that we have to believe in an 'Ethics-Endorsing-and-Supporting Thing' and instead just believe in ethics?

 

I entirely agree with your very wise post, but you must accept the fact that 99% of humans are not as enlightened as you.

 

Can you deter a stupid thief from stealing your car, by appealing to his belief in "ethics"? If you said, "Don't steal my car - that's ethically wrong", wouldn't he just laugh at you?

[Marat]

Though the philosopher Immanuel Kant made a good contrary point that if we actually knew that God existed and guaranteed Heaven for those who were good, our good behavior would be ethically meaningless, since it would just represent the ordinary prudence of someone scheming to maximize his chances for eternal happiness. Ethics only first becomes morally meaningful if we act for the sake of goodness with no ulterior purposes of practical self-advantage, so we must not be certain of God or Heaven if we are to hold open our only chance to be morally significant. The way Kant solves this problem is to say that both God and an afterlife in which the good are rewarded have to be just beliefs to give some ontological anchor to the ethical system, but not known realities, which would transform ethics into practical, self-interested prudence.

[Greatest I am]

I entirely agree with your very wise post, but you must accept the fact that 99% of humans are not as enlightened as you.

 

Can you deter a stupid thief from stealing your car, by appealing to his belief in "ethics"? If you said, "Don't steal my car - that's ethically wrong", wouldn't he just laugh at you?

 

I agree. Marat spoke well. Quite the mind there.

 

As to your last, if the thief will laugh away secular moral conduct then he would laugh harder at anyone who would invoke a God watching over him.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Brainteaserfan]

Jesus literalist. What would change your mind?

 

Many books on Jesus and Christianity have come out of late questioning the historicity and source of both Jesus and the gospels. Most of these come down on the negative side of Jesus being real or of scripture coming from the apostles.

 

 

 

 

All who believe in Jesus and scripture must read the Bible literally, to some extent.

 

After all, what other book give Jesus historicity or literal existence? None.

 

There is not one historical secular document that I know of that indicates that some miracle working Jesus ever existed.

 

The Bible begins with a talking serpent and other miracles that defy nature and physics.. This should be warning enough, for anyone who can think independently that the Bible should not be read literally. Alas, this clear message is lost on some believers .

 

Most scholars know that the Bible is myth and can be read in a variety of ways. As allegory, myth or literal. They choose not to read it literally as that would mean that they would have to believe in fantasy miracles and magic. Most will not take that leap of faith.

 

The Catholic pope and most mainstream Abraham protestant religions say not to read the Bible literally but as stated above, they must read some of it literally to believe that Jesus actually existed. They do not seem to follow their own advise.

 

As a follower of a real historic Jesus, do you recognize that you are a literalist?

 

How deeply do you believe in fantasy, miracles and magic?

 

As an adult, do you see your fantastic beliefs as those of a healthy mind?

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDbesQQi9yc

 

What would it take for you to change your mind about fantasy, miracles and magic being real? These are required for you to believe in a real historic Jesus.

 

Keeping Jesus divine in our minds may discourage some in trying to follow his lead.

 

Is there something that would change your mind or start you seeing Jesus as an archetypal good man that we are to emulate?

 

 

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

How is a talking serpent any more defying laws of nature than a talking human? Maybe it was E.T. Besides, if God is omnipotent, than those miracles described would actually support the Bible's message IMO.

 

To change my mind about God, I'd either have to see another religion with at least as much evidence for it, or more evidence against Christianity than for Christianity.

 

How deeply do I believe? I hope that I believe deeply enough that I would give my life for Him, but nobody really knows whether they could do that unless they were in that situation.

 

What do you mean by "Keeping Jesus divine in our minds may discourage some in trying to follow his lead."? Jesus is commonly referred to as the Great Example.

Edited June 25, 2011 by Brainteaserfan

[ydoaPs]

All who believe in Jesus and scripture must read the Bible literally, to some extent.

Not exactly

After all, what other book give Jesus historicity or literal existence? None.

Tacitus doesn't count?

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

This passage is not only secular but it is also early (~115CE, iirc).

Edited June 25, 2011 by ydoaPs

[Marat]

Roman historians report that 10,000 spectators saw the Roman Emperor (almost all the Roman Emperors claimed divine status) fly across the Colosseum. So that is probably better evidence for his divinity than any proof we have of Christ's miracles. In the Ancient world there were countless itinerant miracle-makers, from magical healers in today's Turkey to the two magicians mentioned in the Old Testament as making a staff turn into a snake in front of Pharaoh. So given the context of gullible observers predisposed to believe in miracles, poor record-keeping, lack of a modern concept of the distinction between story and history (even good historians like Herodotus and Thycidides invented a lot of material but didn't seem to think that was cheating), I don't think we can really say that there is any good evidence that Christ performed any better miracles than anyone else.

[Brainteaserfan]

Roman historians report that 10,000 spectators saw the Roman Emperor (almost all the Roman Emperors claimed divine status) fly across the Colosseum. So that is probably better evidence for his divinity than any proof we have of Christ's miracles. In the Ancient world there were countless itinerant miracle-makers, from magical healers in today's Turkey to the two magicians mentioned in the Old Testament as making a staff turn into a snake in front of Pharaoh. So given the context of gullible observers predisposed to believe in miracles, poor record-keeping, lack of a modern concept of the distinction between story and history (even good historians like Herodotus and Thycidides invented a lot of material but didn't seem to think that was cheating), I don't think we can really say that there is any good evidence that Christ performed any better miracles than anyone else.

But woe to anyone that dared contest this alleged "miracle".

[Greatest I am]

How is a talking serpent any more defying laws of nature than a talking human? Maybe it was E.T. Besides, if God is omnipotent, than those miracles described would actually support the Bible's message IMO.

 

To change my mind about God, I'd either have to see another religion with at least as much evidence for it, or more evidence against Christianity than for Christianity.

 

How deeply do I believe? I hope that I believe deeply enough that I would give my life for Him, but nobody really knows whether they could do that unless they were in that situation.

 

What do you mean by "Keeping Jesus divine in our minds may discourage some in trying to follow his lead."? Jesus is commonly referred to as the Great Example.

 

 

Miracles certainly would support any religion that had someone to do them.

Fact is, none do.

Even as Jesus says that anyone with true faith can do miracles but you will note that no miracles are being done.

 

What evidence do you see that makes you think Christianity is not just another scam?

The bible can easily be shown to be man made and full of errors, contradictions and forgeries.

 

Jesus the great example is contradicted by scripture.

Scripture says he is to be our scapegoat, dying for our sins, yet he himself tells us to be the scapegoat for others.

Dogma says that Jesus is the only one whose sacrifice is sufficient to save yet he says we can do the saving ourselves.

All it takes is repentance. Repentance and forgiveness changes your perpective quite a bit.

It does show a universalist God but most Christians are way to tribal in their thinking to allow it.

They love to hate too much to not allow forgiveness and compasion to rule God's thinking.

They must have a hell for all the other tribes.

 

Regards

DL

 

Not exactly

 

Tacitus doesn't count?

 

This passage is not only secular but it is also early (~115CE, iirc).

 

 

Early?

 

85 years after Jesus and all witnesses are dead.

 

Give me a break.

 

Regards

DL

[ydoaPs]

Early?

 

85 years after Jesus and all witnesses are dead.

 

Give me a break.

 

Regards

DL

It's earlier than much of the New Testament, actually. It's on par with the Gospel of John. It's earlier than Timothy, Titus, James, and 2 Peter.

[Greatest I am]

It's earlier than much of the New Testament, actually. It's on par with the Gospel of John. It's earlier than Timothy, Titus, James, and 2 Peter.

 

I realize that but feel the same as when people talk to me about how everyone thought Jesus was divine.

 

I then point out that it took 200 odd years to finally put him as part of the trinity.

 

That is like us trying to put divinity on Columbus based on eye witness reports.

 

The only reason most likely for Jesus joining the trinity was political.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Realitycheck]

How many Jesus literalists are active on this site?

[Brainteaserfan]

How many Jesus literalists are active on this site?

How do you want an answer?

 

I suppose you could count me as one, although I do think that a few of the sections of the Bible are figurative.

[Marat]

Almost everything important and scientifically true is general. The basic laws of physics, for example, were not found by searching through the Amazon Rain Forest to uncover some secret stone with magical properties which revealed them, but rather, by carefully analyzing and measuring large ranges of superficial data and then drawing the best inferences to account for them. Similarly, ethical and psychological principles are normally developed by gaining lots of experience about people and then deriving a few principles which serve as useful guides for treating others well and empathizing with them.

 

But the whole problem with the literalist approach to the significance of one person who lived at one time and in one place is that it pretends that the meaning of the entire universe can be derived from what a single entity is reported to have said and done. Thus the meaning of the entire system is focused just in one tiny point within the system, which is not characteristic of any sort of systematic explanation elsewhere in our experience. Peano's axioms explaining math don't concentrate on discovering the meaning of number by finding the special, magically informative number, say 1139, which reveals all.

 

Rational insight simply doesn't work this way -- or rather, it does, but only in fairy tales, where the Wizard of Oz, the golden fleece, the sword in the stone, the holy grail, the wise centaur Silenus, etc., will explain or solve everything, if it can only be discovered. Such a solution to the mysteries of life is characteristically literary, since it defines a simple quest for the story's narrative, concretizes and unifies the solution of the action, and dramatizes the conclusion. That the whole answer to all the vast and terrible mysteries of life and the universe should be in a single carpenter who spoke Aramaic in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 A.D. seems palpably fictional and rationally disproportionate. How can a single fact account for everything?

[Greatest I am]

Almost everything important and scientifically true is general. The basic laws of physics, for example, were not found by searching through the Amazon Rain Forest to uncover some secret stone with magical properties which revealed them, but rather, by carefully analyzing and measuring large ranges of superficial data and then drawing the best inferences to account for them. Similarly, ethical and psychological principles are normally developed by gaining lots of experience about people and then deriving a few principles which serve as useful guides for treating others well and empathizing with them.

 

But the whole problem with the literalist approach to the significance of one person who lived at one time and in one place is that it pretends that the meaning of the entire universe can be derived from what a single entity is reported to have said and done. Thus the meaning of the entire system is focused just in one tiny point within the system, which is not characteristic of any sort of systematic explanation elsewhere in our experience. Peano's axioms explaining math don't concentrate on discovering the meaning of number by finding the special, magically informative number, say 1139, which reveals all.

 

Rational insight simply doesn't work this way -- or rather, it does, but only in fairy tales, where the Wizard of Oz, the golden fleece, the sword in the stone, the holy grail, the wise centaur Silenus, etc., will explain or solve everything, if it can only be discovered. Such a solution to the mysteries of life is characteristically literary, since it defines a simple quest for the story's narrative, concretizes and unifies the solution of the action, and dramatizes the conclusion. That the whole answer to all the vast and terrible mysteries of life and the universe should be in a single carpenter who spoke Aramaic in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 A.D. seems palpably fictional and rationally disproportionate. How can a single fact account for everything?

 

Yes.

 

We are from a single event the big bang, but not from a single entity.

 

If such an entity wanted us to know of it, I am sure we would be more than aware of it's reality.

 

In the meantime, we have fantasy.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Brainteaserfan]

Almost everything important and scientifically true is general. The basic laws of physics, for example, were not found by searching through the Amazon Rain Forest to uncover some secret stone with magical properties which revealed them, but rather, by carefully analyzing and measuring large ranges of superficial data and then drawing the best inferences to account for them. Similarly, ethical and psychological principles are normally developed by gaining lots of experience about people and then deriving a few principles which serve as useful guides for treating others well and empathizing with them.

 

But the whole problem with the literalist approach to the significance of one person who lived at one time and in one place is that it pretends that the meaning of the entire universe can be derived from what a single entity is reported to have said and done. Thus the meaning of the entire system is focused just in one tiny point within the system, which is not characteristic of any sort of systematic explanation elsewhere in our experience. Peano's axioms explaining math don't concentrate on discovering the meaning of number by finding the special, magically informative number, say 1139, which reveals all.

 

Rational insight simply doesn't work this way -- or rather, it does, but only in fairy tales, where the Wizard of Oz, the golden fleece, the sword in the stone, the holy grail, the wise centaur Silenus, etc., will explain or solve everything, if it can only be discovered. Such a solution to the mysteries of life is characteristically literary, since it defines a simple quest for the story's narrative, concretizes and unifies the solution of the action, and dramatizes the conclusion. That the whole answer to all the vast and terrible mysteries of life and the universe should be in a single carpenter who spoke Aramaic in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 A.D. seems palpably fictional and rationally disproportionate. How can a single fact account for everything?

Is the Bible a single fact? Does the Bible explain everything? Maybe as well as my explanation, (everything happens for a reason; sometimes that reason is chance).

Edited July 9, 2011 by Brainteaserfan

[Dekan]

That the whole answer to all the vast and terrible mysteries of life and the universe should be in a single carpenter who spoke Aramaic in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 A.D. seems palpably fictional and rationally disproportionate. How can a single fact account for everything?

 

As for the single fact accounting for everything - isn't that exactly what theoretical physicists are seeking, in the yearned-for TOE.

A single fact, in the form of a mathematical equation, which will explain the whole of physics, and hence - the whole physical Universe.

 

Won't a physicist eventually find such an equation - or do you think none of them will ever be up to it.

 

Regarding your disparaging comments on the "single carpenter who spoke Aramaic in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 AD" - why should personal circumstances stop a man of genius getting the right answer?

 

Would you dismiss Isaac Newton as just "a single mathematician who spoke archaic English in the County of Lincolnshire ca. 1687 AD" - so the dumb hick didn't know what he was talking about?

Edited July 10, 2011 by Dekan

[Marat]

All science strives to account for the complex by the simple, since only this method yields that type of focused, finite account which amounts to an 'explanation' rather than a mere replication, mirroring, or passive cataloguing of the world which would never explain it rather than just depict it. But the important thing about simple scientific explanations for large amounts of data is that they are ultimately derived from large amounts of data whose mathematical description and relation to the more basic laws of physics is then distilled to yield the final, summary, 'simple' explanation, like e = mc(2), which although simple in appearance and statement in fact develops out of a lot of complicated reasoning going back thirty years to the Michaelson-Morley experiment and Ernst Mach's theories.

 

In contrast, the simple explanations for everything offered by religion and mythology start at the opposite end of the conceptual spectrum, with a single explanatory thing or event -- Jason was able to steal the Golden Fleece, the gods of Olympus ate the apples of immortality, the Olympians defeated the Titans in a Great Battle, Lucifer was cast down from Heaven for his attempted rebellion, Christ rose again after his death -- and from this they purport to derive an explanation of 'how the world is as it is today,' or 'what the world and human experience ultimately mean.' The single explanatory focus, in contrast to science, is not derived from an extensive examination of nature, but rather, it precedes that examination as a mere posit or a mere assumption. Maybe there was some unstated survey of the world and derivation of implications from it which went into inventing the explanatory focus, but the steps rationally connecting that survey to the explanatory focal point are not stated.

 

Although Isaac Newton was a particular person with individual, idiosyncratic characteristics, nothing about his explanation of the world in the Principia and the Opticks turns on that. If either or both books were accidentally written by a monkey who got lucky with his random scribblings, that wouldn't make their truths contingent. In contrast, since the personhood and the miracles of Christ are essential to the Christian explanation of the universe, the peculiarity of this contingency is a real problem for its purported ability to account for the moral meaning of the whole of Creation. If it were discovered that Christ's escape from his tomb -- a cave provided by one of his supporters who might have had an interest in ensuring it had an escape tunnel hidden at the back -- was some sort of stage magic rather than a genuine resurrection (see the book, 'The Passover Plot'), could such a tiny change in what happened to a single person in a single place on a single day change the moral significance of someone committing murder today, or the hope of immortal life for more than six billion people on earth? The disproportionateness seems preposterous.

[chilehed]

Is there something that would change your mind...

A scientific proof that all causes are observable.

A scientific proof that miracles are impossible.

A scientific proof that everything real is demonstrable through the scientific method.

A scientific proof that there is no God.

 

 

or start you seeing Jesus as an archetypal good man that we are to emulate?

It's not possible for Jesus to merely be a good man whom we should emulate, because such men don't claim to be God. If he's not what he claimed to be, then he's not a good man at all. So I see no way at all for me to ever accept that view.

[Greatest I am]

A scientific proof that all causes are observable.

A scientific proof that miracles are impossible.

A scientific proof that everything real is demonstrable through the scientific method.

A scientific proof that there is no God.

 

 

It's not possible for Jesus to merely be a good man whom we should emulate, because such men don't claim to be God. If he's not what he claimed to be, then he's not a good man at all. So I see no way at all for me to ever accept that view.

 

 

 

This speaks quite well to your logical fallacy.

 

Come back, if you understand it, wit a reasonable set of questions and not some wish list you want from science when your wish list for God does not hold the same conditions you place on us.

 

That is not fair play at all.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Brainteaserfan]

 

 

This speaks quite well to your logical fallacy.

 

Come back, if you understand it, wit a reasonable set of questions and not some wish list you want from science when your wish list for God does not hold the same conditions you place on us.

 

That is not fair play at all.

 

Regards

 

DL

I don't have time to debate every issue brought up, however, I disagree even with the last sentence, about how creationists believe that something came from nothing. If God exists, He is not, "nothing".

[Greatest I am]

I don't have time to debate every issue brought up, however, I disagree even with the last sentence, about how creationists believe that something came from nothing. If God exists, He is not, "nothing".

 

 

If the theist position were logical, we would not be discussing them.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[chilehed]

 

 

This speaks quite well to your logical fallacy.

If I had made an argument from ignorance, then you might be correct. I did not do that. I'm familiar with the arguments to which you refer in the OP, that there's no evidence that Jesus existed and all of that, and I find those arguments to be poorly formulated and based on flawed reasoning. I find that the historical evidence is more than sufficient to lead a reasonable person to conclude that Jesus is an actual historical figure, and that the miracles attributed to him did happen.

 

I suppose that I could reject the evidence out of hand on the grounds that miracles are impossible, but that would beg the question.

 

Come back, if you understand it, wit a reasonable set of questions and not some wish list you want from science when your wish list for God does not hold the same conditions you place on us.

 

That is not fair play at all.

 

Regards

 

DL

This is absurd. You asked what would be necessary to make me change my mind, and I told you.

 

You said in the OP that miracles defy science. That assertion can be true only if science has demonstrated one of the four things I mentioned: that all causes are observable, that miracles are impossible, that everything real is demonstrable through the scientific method, that there is no God. It hasn't done so, not can it.

 

If you can provide a valid proof of your positive assertion, then I'll have to carefully reconsider my position on the existance of God. I won't hold my breath, because thus far no one's come up with such a proof and when I asked you for one you complained that I'm being unreasonable.

[Greatest I am]

If I had made an argument from ignorance, then you might be correct. I did not do that. I'm familiar with the arguments to which you refer in the OP, that there's no evidence that Jesus existed and all of that, and I find those arguments to be poorly formulated and based on flawed reasoning. I find that the historical evidence is more than sufficient to lead a reasonable person to conclude that Jesus is an actual historical figure, and that the miracles attributed to him did happen.

 

I suppose that I could reject the evidence out of hand on the grounds that miracles are impossible, but that would beg the question.

 

This is absurd. You asked what would be necessary to make me change my mind, and I told you.

 

You said in the OP that miracles defy science. That assertion can be true only if science has demonstrated one of the four things I mentioned: that all causes are observable, that miracles are impossible, that everything real is demonstrable through the scientific method, that there is no God. It hasn't done so, not can it.

 

If you can provide a valid proof of your positive assertion, then I'll have to carefully reconsider my position on the existance of God. I won't hold my breath, because thus far no one's come up with such a proof and when I asked you for one you complained that I'm being unreasonable.

 

Can you prove the un-provable? No.

 

Neither can I.

 

Regards

 

DL