What is your strongest reason for believing in Christianity?

[bluegreenearth]

What is the single strongest reason that supports your belief in Christianity?

How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?

Note: Discovering you have an unreliable reason would NOT mean your belief is false; only that you require a more reliable reason to justify a high degree of confidence in the validity of the belief.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by bluegreenearth]

My strongest reason that supports my being a Christian is my personal experiences from applying bible principles. They may not be scientifically verifiable to others but they have been enough to convince me beyond the shadow of a doubt I worship the true God, Jehovah and am part of his organization.


JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

[JehovahsWitness]

Actually, the second question is asking the Christian to describe the method she/he used to conclude her/his belief is true; not necessarily requesting the evidence supporting his/her conclusion.

Examination of relevant data, namely ...

1) Natural world and laws to determine if there is a Creator.

Read online: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/lv/r1/lp-e/0/23459

[free download]



Read Online: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/lv/r1/lp-e/0/23467

[free download][/quote]

2) Examine holy books that claim to contain messages from said Creator*.

* surprisingly very few "holy books" actually claim to be of divine origin.



RELATED POSTS


Could life have arisen without an intelligent Creator?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 628#926628

Do all the worlds "Holy Books" CLAIM to be of divine origin?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 728#816728

Who is the AUTHOR of the bible?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 132#885132

How do we know the bible (canon) is the word of God?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 255#840255

What is meant in the bible by the references to "scripture"?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 074#961074






FURTHER READING Notes on historical method
https://fosterheologicalreflections.blo ... es-of.html

[Mithrae]

* surprisingly very few "holy books" actually claim to be of divine origin.

Including the bible for the most part, though of course that hasn't stopped Christians making all kinds of weird and wonderful claims for it. If there were substantial truth in Christianity, I reckon William's image would be much closer to the mark than yours

[Bust Nak]

What is the single strongest reason that supports your belief in Christianity?

The single strongest reason is that I will get to see my loved ones again living in bliss in heaven.

How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?

By checking if it falls into the trap of common fallacies. In this case, appeal to consequences.

Note: Discovering you have an unreliable reason would NOT mean your belief is false; only that you require a more reliable reason to justify a high degree of confidence in the validity of the belief.

Sure, my degree of confidence in the validity of Christianity matches the reliability of the reason above.

[JehovahsWitness]

* surprisingly very few "holy books" actually claim to be of divine origin.

Including the bible for the most part ...

Who do bible writers claim gave them the words they penned?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 508#840508

Do all the worlds "Holy Books" CLAIM to be of divine origin?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 728#816728

[Realworldjack]

What is the single strongest reason that supports your belief in Christianity?

How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?

Note: Discovering you have an unreliable reason would NOT mean your belief is false; only that you require a more reliable reason to justify a high degree of confidence in the validity of the belief.

What is the single strongest reason that supports your belief in Christianity?

I really do not believe this is a legitimate question. In other words, I cannot imagine anyone being able to say, "there is one single reason which supports my belief which would be so strong as to leave little room for doubt". Rather, I would imagine one would have multiple reasons for what they believe, especially in this case, since there are no simple answers on either side of the equation.

My point is, whether one is a believer, or not, I certainly hope no one is under the impression that it is all so simple. Hopefully, all involved here understands this, and has put a lot of time, thinking, and effort into this matter, and there would have to be a lot to consider, no matter which side of the equation you end up on.

At any rate, we do have multiple disconnected sources which report of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not only this, we also have letters written at the time, which were addressed to audiences at the time, and the authors had no concern, nor any idea that what they were writing at the time, would have been read by anyone else other than their original intended audience, and they certainly would have had no idea that what they were writing, would end up in what we now call the Bible, because they would have no way to know about a Bible.

Moreover, the overwhelming majority of letters, were addressed to those who were already believers which demonstrates these letters were never intended to persuade anyone to become a believer, since again they would have been addressed to believers. In fact, it may indeed be the case, that everyone of these letters would have been addressed to those who were already believers.

As an example, the author of the two letters to Theophilus, addresses both of his letters to this one individual, and we know this individual would have already been a believer. Moreover, we know this author spent a number of years traveling around with Paul on his missionary journeys, which certainly demonstrates this author would have been alive during the life of Jesus, and would have indeed known, and spent a lot of time with the original Apostles, and would have known the claims they were making first hand.

We can also know that this author ends his second letter to Theophilus with Paul being under arrest, which would have been well late into the life of Paul, which demonstrates that Paul continued to proclaim these very same things well into his life, even though what he was claiming was causing him much hardship.

We can also know that in one of the letters Paul writes to Timothy, while he was in prison, Paul tells Timothy, "only Luke is with me" which verifies exactly what Luke tells Theophilus.

You see, I could go on, and on, giving you reasons which support what it is I believe, and if I were to do so, it would fill a book itself. Ergo, it would be extremely difficult to simply pull one of these many things out and say, "this is the single strongest reason". I certainly hope the same goes for those opposed as well. In other words, I certainly hope those opposed are not under the impression that it would be all so simple so as one could simply pull one thing out as to be the single strongest reason there would be to conclude these claims must, and have to be false.

So then, the question also becomes, what reasons do I have to doubt these claims? Because you see, it is a fact that we have all these letters which were addressed to audiences at the time. Were all these letters simply lies? As an example, did the author of the two letters to Theophlius, sit down to write, not one, but two long, and detailed letters to Theophilus, out of what he claims is concerned for Theophilus, and all this information would have been lies?

Were all these folks deceived in some way? Were there others behind the scene who may have been pulling strings we are unaware of, who may have deceived all these folks, and this is why we have all these facts, and evidence which points to a resurrection? If so, what would be the facts, and evidence that this would be the case?

You see, we have all of these facts, and these facts, must have some sort of explanation. The authors of these letters, who were not addressing us, give an explanation for these things. Therefore, if one is going to tell us there would be no reason to believe these things, then they must, and have to do far better than to simply say, "these things are not verifiable" because we all believe things to be true that we cannot absolutely verify, but we believe them anyway, based on the facts, and evidence we have available.

The point that I am making is, when one sits down and honestly begins to think through all these other possibilities, they may begin to understand that, these other possibilities would be just as extraordinary, if not even more extraordinary, than if the claims were indeed true.

I am not in any way saying, "there would be no reasons to doubt these claims", but I cannot for the life of me, understand how one can honestly come to the conclusion that, there would be no good, and solid reasons to believe the claims.

How could we determine if that reason is reliable or unreliable?

Well, I do not believe that those on either side of the debate can absolutely determine whether the reasons would be reliable, or unreliable, which is the reason the debate continues. In other words, those who believe cannot demonstrate the reasons would be reliable, but on the other hand, those opposed cannot demonstrate the reasons would be unreliable. If this could happen, there would be no more debate.

However, there are certain facts, among many that we can look at, analyze, and weigh. One of these things would be to ask ourselves, what all would have to be involved in order for all these things to be false? And again, when one sits down to actually think through these things, they may in fact come to the conclusion that, all the other possible scenarios, would be just as extraordinary, and absurd, as a resurrection seems to be.

Unless of course someone would like to give us another possibility, with facts, and evidence in support, that would not be extraordinary?

[Zzyzx]

.

I can have faith in whoever I want.

Of course. One is entitled to believe whatever they want regarding gods, leprechauns, fairies, or whatever they choose.

However, such beliefs constitute a PERSONAL matter (it is just opinion) and is of NO significance at all in debate.

Notice that debates in the C&A sub-forum CANNOT use the Bible as proof of truth. Those uncomfortable with the level playing field may be more comfortable posting in TD&D or Holy Huddle sub-forums.

We believe in a lot of history books,

Some of us have learned that history books provide what writers choose to present – not necessarily truthful and accurate accounts, often biased, often very incomplete.

a lot of them very old and we don't even know if they were written by the ones we think they were ...

Do you assume you are addressing people who believe what is written in history books?

however, our modern historians try to know our past based on those books.

Competent historians realize and acknowledge that their knowledge of past events is far from certain and is woefully incomplete.

The New Testament is not that old compared to many of those books by ancient historians. Probably everything is a matter of prejudice. I don't have any prejudice about Bible writers, why should I?

You have demonstrated a prejudice – believing Bible writers based on ‘faith’ in them.

[Divine Insight]

* surprisingly very few "holy books" actually claim to be of divine origin.

Islam is far more demanding that their Qur'an is the precise infallible word of God than Christians are about the Bible.

In fact, Christian apologists are extremely hypocritical with regard to how much of the Bible can be trusted to be of divine origin. Christian apologists are quick to dismiss anything from the Bible that they see as being unrealistic.

We know for a fact that Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe every word of the Bible because they do not behave in the way they would need to behave if they actually believed what the Bible says. So for them to claim that the Bible is of divine origin is clearly a false claim on their behalf.

In fact, Jehovah's Witnesses are extreme late-comers to Christian theology. They are basically nothing more than protestants who protested again orthodox Christianity as recently as the 1870's.

So why anyone would care what the Jehovah's Witnesses have to say is beyond me.

Either Catholicism is true, or Christianity is false. All the various forms of rebellious Protestantisms including JW's are really nothing more than groups that have rejected Christianity and chose to make up their own version of it.

If you believe in the divinity of the Bible you should know that only Catholicism could possibly be the correct and true version of Christianity and all forms of Protestantism are not.

And if you recognize that Catholicism is clearly false, then there's no point in bothering with Christianity at all. Turning to any protesting organization is would be a waste of time. If Catholicism isn't true, then neither is Christianity.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 36 by Realworldjack]

The questions is written that way to encourage people to identify the reason serving as the foundation of their belief. Usually when people have multiple reasons, there is one that must remain reliable for them to maintain the belief even if all the other reasons were demonstrated to be unreliable. If that foundational reason were discovered to be unreliable, then none of the remaining reasons would be sufficient to warrant a high degree of confidence in the belief. So, I find it is more productive to begin the conversation by examining the reliability of the foundational reason rather than waste time debating the reliability of less significant reasons.

As for your remaining discussion, I have the following questions: What are the counter-arguments to your position that you are aware of? Why are those counter-arguments invalid or at least unpersuasive? What information or experience would you cause you to lower your confidence in the belief?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 39 by bluegreenearth]

Personally someone would have to provide me with convincing arguments that...

# life could arise without an intelligent Creator

# that the bible is not the word of God

# I cannot trust my own mind's capacity to assess information and experiences *.

* Of course once opponents have successfully achieved #3 it would invalidate any information offered by 1-2 which would leave my conviction in tact.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS