(July 5, 2016 at 5:06 pm)pocaracas Wrote:(July 5, 2016 at 4:15 pm)SteveII Wrote: First, every belief you hold, you 'chose' to believe it.Steve, my boy... you are wrong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotheology
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sherme...anguage=en
First, you intuitively believe, then you consciously acknowledge that belief.... your "choosing to believe" purports to this second stage... or some other that comes later.
(July 5, 2016 at 4:15 pm)SteveII Wrote: The NT contains multiple attestations of miracles and it is clear that the early church (before any books of the NT were even written) believed them to have happened as well (that would be 2 separate bodies of evidence even before you break the NT into 27 separate documents). I don't have any reason to think they are lying, so I believe they happened, therefore I believe there is evidence for the existence of God.The NT delves in circular logic there, wouldn't you think?
Here's a marvelous tale that happened.... And here's the tale of the people who believed in the marvelous tale.
Certainly, no reason to think they'd be lying... -.-'
Specially, when you know that "the early church" was no such thing... I think Minimalist will eventually lecture you on that, but [spoiler alert] it was mostly made up in the second century [/spoiler alert].
Sure... there were Essenes in the first century who may have seen their long awaited Teacher arisen in the person of Jesus... (note the "may" - there's nothing of consequence written about this).
(July 5, 2016 at 4:15 pm)SteveII Wrote: Why do you 'chose to believe' that the 1) the early church held false beliefs and later 2) the 8 authors of the NT claimed to have knowledge that they did not have? You just admitted it has nothing to do with whether miracles happened or not (because then your argument would be circular).
Tell me, did the authors of the Vedas claim to have knowledge that they didn't really have?
Did the authors of the Egyptian book of the dead claim to have knowledge that they didn't have?
(should I go on for other authors of other religious texts from other religions?.... I'm sure I can come up with a few... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text)
Did/do they all hold false beliefs? How shocking!!
I'm not seeing how either one of those links support your conclusion. Do you "intuitively believe" or have an intuition based on your existing knowledge? If you have to intuitively believe everything prior to a proper belief, how would you ever learn something new?
Believing the NT authors is certainly not circular. By that definition, everything that was ever written about would be circular. I won't see what Minimalist has to say on the subject but are you taking the position that the early church did not exist? Then you must believe in the vast conspiracy theory. On what basis do scholars think that to be the case?
By what logic do you discount the truth of 27 different text because you can find stray texts that were not true in other times and other places? Each text has to stand up to scrutiny on its own merit.