(April 14, 2017 at 12:10 pm)SteveII Wrote: [edit]
People come to the place where they are willing to believe in God/supernatural for all kinds of reasons. Most are wired with something. Some are raised that way, some have events happen in their life (bad and good things), some encounter people who's testimony is compelling, and some read and find the person/message of Christ compelling (or a combination of any of these or something else I haven't thought of).
Why is it not pure faith? Well there are good rational reasons to believe. As we have been discussing, the NT events certainly compelled the witnesses of those events to believe (miracles and such) and continue to be compelling to those that accept the evidence for them as true. Another category of rational reasons are the Natural Theology Arguments.
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.
These are NOT the arguments, they are the conclusions of a series of arguments.
IMPORTANT: it is the cumulative case for Christianity that is rational. Atheists like to pick a component and claim--that's not convincing enough...so therefore your belief is irrational. That is simplistic and disingenuous.
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I think muslims here would argue that the Koran provides those same arguments/conclusions, and maybe even better than the NT. Care to comment on why yours is the better belief?
BTW, I find none of those components/conclusions/cumulative case convincing. The fantasy provides an explanation that you seen to need, nothing more.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
