The "Cultural Context" Excuse

[Huggy Bear]

I see no difference in the context of trust...

I place my trust in the Bible.

You place your trust in the explanation of science.

I don't think that is really parallel.  I don't believe in abiogenesis because I trust science will one day show how that transition occurred.  There just isn't any natural alternative and logically I reject 'the supernatural', and that has nothing to do with science.

I didn't write the bible, neither did you come up with the theory of abiogenesis, we are instead both placing faith in someone else's word.

Definitely not.  For me it isn't a question of authority.  It is just a question of making sense, and to me 'the supernatural' just doesn't.

Neither does Christianity outside of the bible, and even that is a mystery.

For the record I find plenty of mystery in the world, and mystery doesn't trouble me.  But for me, mystery doesn't have a 'Twilight Zone' connotation.  I assume that that which is mysterious is also natural.  Doesn't mean it'll make sense to me, but of course it would be natural.  What else could it be .. for me.  I realize of course that you have another alternative you keep open and that is your prerogative.  We just have to disagree over that stuff.  (Doesn't mean I won't eat your smoked salmon .. I mean, if you had any extra.)

When you state that you "reject the supernatural" you essentially are saying that you reject anything that is undetectable with your 5 senses.  Aren't the  senses a product of the natural? If the senses are a product of the natural, then all they can perceive is the natural.

You see the natural, you touch the natural, you hear the natural, you taste the natural, and you smell the natural.

So anything that is undetectable to any of those natural senses don't exist?

You guys ask for proof of "supernatural" (I'll refer to it as the "spiritual" from now on), but how exactly am I to do that when you are not willing to use your spiritual sense?

How would you explain that natural world exists to a person that was devoid of the natural senses? How would you prove the color blue exists to someone that couldn't see?

The only way one has of detecting the spiritual realm is his spirit, and faith is the "spiritual sense", and to the christian it's the "true" sense, the sense that takes preeminence over all the others, hence we "walk by faith not by sight".

So where you reject everything that doesn't agree with the natural, a christian rejects everything that doesn't agree with the spiritual.