Is it reasonable to believe in God?

[historia]

Is it reasonable to believe in God?

Note, the question here is not whether you think it is true that God exists, but simply whether such a belief is reasonable or not.

[JehovahsWitness]

I wouldnt go that far; that is like saying if you have no birth certificate, you were not born.

Not at all. My actual existence is testament to the fact that I was born. Without the Bible we may only know about the gods from other holy books and have one less to choose from for worship.

Exactly, reality is not limited to written or even verbal testimony. If God exists , he would do so, whether or not a book about him existed or not.


Logic,




J W

[brunumb]

I wouldnt go that far; that is like saying if you have no birth certificate, you were not born.

Not at all. My actual existence is testament to the fact that I was born. Without the Bible we may only know about the gods from other holy books and have one less to choose from for worship.

Exactly, reality is not limited to written or even verbal testimony. If God exists , he would do so, whether or not a book about him existed or not.

True, but without the Bible one would know nothing of the god in its pages. In that case one would probably end up being raised to believe in one of the gods for which there is some alleged written evidence.

[JehovahsWitness]

I wouldnt go that far; that is like saying if you have no birth certificate, you were not born.

Not at all. My actual existence is testament to the fact that I was born. Without the Bible we may only know about the gods from other holy books and have one less to choose from for worship.

Exactly, reality is not limited to written or even verbal testimony. If God exists , he would do so, whether or not a book about him existed or not.

True, but without the Bible one would know nothing of the god in its pages ...

I agree ; which was my original point(post #269) Obviously if there were no bible we could not know what the bible has to say in its pages about God. Because there would be no pages. Since the bible would not exist.

[brunumb]

I wouldnt go that far; that is like saying if you have no birth certificate, you were not born.

Not at all. My actual existence is testament to the fact that I was born. Without the Bible we may only know about the gods from other holy books and have one less to choose from for worship.

Exactly, reality is not limited to written or even verbal testimony. If God exists , he would do so, whether or not a book about him existed or not.

True, but without the Bible one would know nothing of the god in its pages ...

I agree ; which was my original point(post #269) Obviously if there were no bible we could not know what the bible has to say in its pages about God. Because there would be no pages. Since the bible would not exist.

There are books about Spiderman.

[JehovahsWitness]

True, but without the Bible one would know nothing of the god in its pages ...

I agree ; which was my original point(post #269) Obviously if there were no bible we could not know what the bible has to say in its pages about God. Because there would be no pages. Since the bible would not exist.

There are books about Spiderman.

Yes, there are indeed books about Spiderman




JW

[TRANSPONDER]

So it seems we have gone round in a circle to where we came is; is it reasonable to believe in God - which is to say, what the Bible tells us about it as otherwise there is no reasonable basis for any religion, even if there is for an irreligious theism. And thus we are back at the real question, which is why should we believe the Bible rather than (say) stories about Spiderman, or indeed, Caesar, Alexander or Achilles?
Assessing old accounts is always tricky, as indeed more recent accounts sometimes get questioned. But the bottom line really is, if there is doubt, the doubt does not somehow lead to certainty but to doubt. It is not, as Theist apologetics appears to argue, deciding to have Faith in this history and deciding to Reject another. It is evaluating each on its' merits and sometimes crediting some parts of a history and doubting others.

That being the case, there are, as time goes on, more and more reasons to doubt the reliability of the Bible and, thus, the God it purports to tell us about. It is not, these days, reasonable to believe in that god, whatever argument can be made for First Cause

[Clownboat]

I agree ; which was my original point(post #269) Obviously if there were no bible we could not know what the bible has to say in its pages about God. Because there would be no pages. Since the bible would not exist.

Therefore, Yahweh is literally non existent without the Bible. Let that sink in...

JehovahsWitness: "Worship is essentially acknowledging the Creator as the source of our life and feeling appreciation towards Him for that fact."
What is being worshipped is a book (it is what is being acknowledged afterall), as it is the only thing informing believers.

As a non believer I note this commonality between all the major religions (making an idol of a book and its claims). Wouldn't it be neat if there was a religion that stood out from the others and didn't seem so man made? That would truly be worth pondering about IMO.

[William]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #279]

The fact remains, without the Bible, there is no Yahweh.

I think it fair to say that there would be no name "YHVH" if the bible did not exist.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #279]

The fact remains, without the Bible, there is no Yahweh.

I think it fair to say that there would be no name "YHVH" if the bible did not exist.

Or at least, we wouldn't be aware of it or any other religious titles, if indeed the Creator needed any of them. I guess we can all get what JW means - God exists even though (if the Bible had never been written) the only God we'd have now would be a Roman God (or possibly we'd all me Muslim). If Paul had tripped and fallen into a land drain, we might all be Mithraists or Isis -worshippers today and the Pharonic 'Book of the dead' would be like our OT..

Or even Buddhist. Suppose the Mongols overran Europe but (if there was no Islam) they converted to Buddhism. Imagine Spain and Britain converting the Americas to Buddhism. What would a Buddhist Bach have written?

[Clownboat]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #279]

The fact remains, without the Bible, there is no Yahweh.

I think it fair to say that there would be no name "YHVH" if the bible did not exist.

There would literally be no Yahweh concept, without the Bible. Your bias is showing if you are trying to point out that just a name would not exist, leaving a gap for your preferred god concept to remain hidden in.

Without a Bible, no human on this planet would even consider that there is a Yaweh. Therefore, more then just a name would disapear as the entire god concept would not exist.