Sunday, June 28, 2009
Respones to Jacob vs Jesus.
Over at the The Good Atheist blog there is a post the author made that argues that he can fulfill the same test for godhood that we Christians believe the Jesus passes. Through several "straw men arguments" the author says things about Jesus with nothing to back up his assertions then knocks the down with extreme prejudice, sarcasm, and condescension. Apparently the author believes that there are 3 tests.
1. Declaring to be God without proof.
2. Performing miracles without proof.
3. Dispensing moral platitudes without having scientific knowledge like the age of the universe and other scientific knowledge.
Why are these straw men? Simple. I want to quote given by many Christians that was summarized by Ben in his comments:
Did you also fulfill 200+ prophecies predicted 700+ years before your birth? Perhaps you died on a cross (as predicted you would, btw), then were resurrected 3 days later?
Ben explicitly challenged the post author's, Jacob's, assertion that there is no proof of Jesus' claim being true, by giving proof. The only way Jacob can answer the above question is by saying "No, but Jesus did." Instead of addressing the proof, Jacob danced around the issue by saying that proof doesn't matter because Jesus' claim is accepted by faith. It is a shame that he thinks faith and reason are mutually exclusive. They are not.
The way Jacob seems to be rejecting the evidence the Bible gives for his miracle working. Fine. Let's look at it a different way. Jesus' enemies had tried to explain away his miracles by claiming Jesus used the power of demons to accomplish his mighty deeds. IF there were no miracles, then why would they need to lie about how Jesus did those things. You can't use the power of demons to fight demons. Remember, "a house divided against itself cannot stand." No, Abraham Lincoln did to not come up with that statement. He was quoting Jesus.
And lastly, Jacob must think he's omniscient. How do we know what Jesus know and what he didn't know. He made the universe, why wouldn't He know what the age of the universe is? You can't argue from silence. We can't know all He did and did not know. The only thing we know he did not know is the date of his coming back. He said He didn't know.
Jacob, if you wanna know if Jesus was God or not, go back to the drawing board and study the evidence.
What Hollywood Believes: John Travolta
John Travolta is a scientologist. He's been with scientology since he was 21 years old. He says that it helps him put things in perspective."A film not doing well isn't a disaster - a plane crash is a disaster,..." He said thast he believes that there is life after death but you get to get to choose to be reincarnated or "just hang out, whatever you feel like." He admits that he prays and when asked to whom he prays he answered, "To the yet-not-fully-understood God concept."I'm real disappointed with Travolta's answers because God is not a concept and I think it is a cop-out to throw your hands in the air and just say we don't know a lot about God because we cannot fully understand Him. We can't know everything about God and how he does what He does and why but we have no excuse for not know what he has revealed and walking in that. If you want to know more about God you can know.