(October 28, 2010 at 2:45 am)Rayaan Wrote: I believe that Jesus and all the other messengers of God have a good character, and they are truthful, because this is how they are portrayed in the religious books and in the narrations of their Companions. That's why I don't believe that Jesus performed any magic tricks to deceive people (as if he was doing miracles).
Yet you believe they are prophets only because the holy books say so, but the holy books are authored by people who already believed they were prophets. It's circular reasoning Rayaan, and you're too smart to be another metaphorical dog chasing it's tail.
Quote:Even though I'm a little bit skeptical about some of the miracle stories of the prophets, because of possible fabrications during the passage of time, I still believe that they would be able to do such things by the will and permission of God. I was not there at the time and that's why I can't confidently say what is true and not true about the life of Jesus.
Skeptical, you mean like Mo riding around on a flying unicorn? Yeah, it's safe to say that's complete and utter bullshit.
Tell me, you admit you are hesitant to make many claims about specifics because you weren't there, which obviously means you aren't an inherentist, so if that is the case and these books cannot by default be assumed to be accurate, for what reasons do you feel it is rational to accept any of it?
Quote:Also, if there are so many people who believe in the same events and connect those events to the same person, and all the separate written accounts match with each other, and they come from trustworthy people, then, I think there's a pretty good chance that what I'm reading are true events.
We have people who believe the same made-up shit as being true, it's no difference to the 10,000,000 Scientologists or the 1,000,000 Raelians or the 1,000,000,000 Hindu's who all believe things that are in direct contradiction to your own claims. It's all an argument from popularity, which is a fallacy.
You've said before that you value logic, so why make argument from population fallacies in an attempt to justify your belief in these tales?
Quote: At the same time, I don't deny that a lot of the stories could be false or misleading also. There could be different versions of a particular event as reported by different people and that would reduce the accuracy of such a thing happening.
How do you determine which ones are true? If you're just assuming some are false without method then you're simply in madness.
Quote:The sacrifice of Jesus is one of those things which contradicts the Quran (in the following verse) which says:
That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of God;" - but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not. [Surah 4:156-159]
And why should we give a shit what the Qur'an says?
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