RE: Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?
March 21, 2017 at 9:07 am
(March 21, 2017 at 8:08 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I don't disbelieve categorically that miracles do not occur. What I do however do is discount that a bunch of stories written during a time of superstition, credulity, and legend making constitutes sufficient evidence that a miracle has occurred. That's just being plain gullible, and as noteed is a different standard than you hold other religions to account for.
Isn't any belief system a cumulative thing? If we read the stories of the NT in isolation and the followers had died out 1900 years ago, that would be evidence that people's lives were not being changed as Jesus' teachings instructed/predicted. Instead we have an unbroken chain of people testifying to the changing power of God in their lives since day one. I think encountering such people, coupled with a predisposed belief in the supernatural, is the first piece of evidence in a long chain in the cumulative case for Christianity. The evidence of the NT becomes stronger because a Christian has additional evidence (experiential and personal knowledge of other's experiences) that makes more sense in the context of the NT. If one is reading the works of Jesus, Peter or Paul and it matches with what the feel to be true in their spiritual lives, it is not a leap at all to believe the whole message, then the events, and finally the conclusion that God exists (and loves them)--especially in the absence of contradictory evidence.
