My House Did not have a Builder (or did it?)

[Dan Brooks]

You are right, scientific books are not the same as the Bible in the way you mentioned it. While science can be updated as new discoveries are made, etc, The Bible is a standard. And yes, I would compare what a theologian says to the Bible to see if he was right or not. 
I know I'm not allowed to say that I know the Bible is the revealed word of God because it says so, and it would take hours to explain all the reasons I believe it to be so. But one reason I have other than it saying so, is the spiritual confirmation I get from God that it is true. And as I told someone else, I understand that that is hard to believe, or really impossible to believe by someone who doesn't believe in God or the supernatural. It's not like I could say, "God proves it to me." and you'll say, "Oh, ok, well then that answers that." Because you don't believe He's real. So really it's a difficult question to answer, because there's not really much I could say that would make sense or be believed. But still, that is one of the reasons I believe it. There are literary reasons, prophetic reasons, etc, but the main thing is the spiritual reasons, which is why it's hard to explain and answer.

Well then, how do you propose believers and non-believers should carry on in light of the fact that neither of us can give the other a reason he would accept as valid to change what we believe?

I just need not to be proselytized to in order to help someone win a holy merit badge.  I don't need you to actually lose your belief in god, but I have to tell you that anyone who just believes what they think they're supposed to believe isn't someone I'd be able to carry on a conversation with for long.  My goal for believers is that they think realistically about what they know and what they hope is true.  If someone tells me they can no more prove that god does exist than that I can prove he doesn't but that they choose to believe any how, I can respect that.  You won't like it but that would make you an agnostic theist, just as I am an agnostic atheist.  You wouldn't have to actually be in any doubt that god exists -any more than I have any doubt that one might exist- but if you acknowledge that there is no reasonable way to persuade a fair listener, then you acknowledge that faith does not lie within the provence of knowledge.  Your choice to believe has more to do with who you are, what else you believe and what you need to believe than it does with any evidence.

I wonder how you feel about the idea of uncoupling faith from the concept of knowledge?  To me, I've always thought that someone who believes in the clear light of the absence of conclusive evidence shows more strength of character than the person who psyches themselves up to make the unqualified claim that God just does exist as certainly as the sky is blue, etc.

Well I didn't say that I have no reasons to believe in God. I gave a small list of cursory reasons for it. I'm just simply saying that the biggest reason for me is ore than just empirical evidence. It's spiritual evidence that makes me believe more than anything else, which is difficult to convey to someone who doesn't have a spiritual interest. 

Here are some reasons I believe other than spiritual reasons:
Logic. Now by this I'm not saying that someone by logic could not also come to a disbelief in God as well. But for me personally, it isn't logical that anything, much less an entire universe could spontaneously generate from nothing without it being caused. Nothing, as far as I know, has no generative powers, or any other powers for that matter, which I think would be necessary in order for it to be classified as nothing. So if there was nothing, that is, no material, before the universe, then to me, it is logical that something or someone immaterial had to have caused the instance of the universe. Of course this line of thinking doesn't force me to believe that it must be the God of the Bible, but it does direct me to believe that an inconceivably intelligent and powerful being must have begun the universe. 

Math. Odds of life occurring by chance. Depending on the source, different odds are given. 1 in 4300, 1 in 10390, 1 in 10450, etc. Some scientists have said that under certain conditions, with billions of trial runs taking place, and trillions of amino acids in place, that the chances of producing a hypothetical 32 amino acid long, self-replicating peptide would be reduced to less than 1 in 1040. This sounds much better except that 32 amino acid long hypothetical peptides don't cause life, and also anything greater than 1 in 1030 is considered impossible by most scientists. (I'm sure I'll be ridiculed for this, and people will say the odds I'm presenting are way off, etc. That's fine. I didn't do the calculations myself, obviously.)

Nature. Beyond the fact that there is life at all, but so much of it, and such a wide variety of it, all working together in a near perfect ecosystem marred only by the foolishness and selfishness of man (which I believe is the only physical creature capable of sinning, which is another reason for believing in God). All the food that exists, in such a wide variety also, and ready to be eaten easily. What was responsible for this selection process? The food itself or the living creatures who eat it? And the seemingly impossible combinations of chemicals like certain gases which provide for life. For example, oxygen and hydrogen, both of which are highly flammable by themselves, but together at a 2 to 1 ratio, they are inflammable and conducive to life. In fact, necessary for life. And of course the extreme abundance of these elements, which allows for multitudes of forms of life for an extremely long period of time. The coexistence of plants with animals and humans in that plants exude oxygen and take in carbon dioxide, and we exude carbon dioxide and take in oxygen. That's quite a fortunate happenstance.  

Observation. Although some scientists say that they have been able to observe some level of micro-evolution in a lab setting, I have yet to see any evidence of evolution from kind to kind, or species to species, in a lab or in nature. (If there is a case of this, I'd like to see it.) What I have observed, and assume everyone else has observed, is that everything reproduces after its own kind. This is in line with the creation account in the Bible, and not with evolution, which requires things to reproduce after another kind, even though over a long period of time, adding DNA information and passing it on to the next generation by whatever means, most commonly supposed to be by mutation, which are shown to be harmful rather than beneficial, and reduce information rather than adding it. 

Entropy. The fact that things are not better now than they were before. There is much evidence that earlier man was stronger, healthier, and more intelligent. This evidence includes skeletal finds, archaeological findings of technologically advanced artifacts, ruins, and ancient buildings such as the pyramids, which many engineers admit could not be built today the way they were built back then. Life is short, health is worse, there is more disease, not to mention the obvious moral decay all over the world. Besides, entropy, as far as I know, is still a law of science. Everything left to its own, without intelligent effort and energy being expended, becomes more disorganized over time. (My own top-of-my-head definition.) I know many scientists say that entropy only exists in a closed system, and in a open system, entropy wouldn't occur. But this to me is a moot point, since we are in a closed system. And if we were in an open system, then entropy wouldn't be a law of science, because it wouldn't be observed.

So those are some of my reasons for believing that God must exist, and that evolution cannot have occurred, nor is occurring. 

So from there, then it's a matter of looking for which God it is. 
So why the God of the Bible instead of some other god?
Literary consistency. The Bible was written over a period of about 1500 years by about 40 writers, and yet it is consistent in its portrayal of God, and there is no doctrinal discrepancy in it from start to finish. Other writings aren't like that. The Quran, for instance, was written by one man, and yet has both informational and doctrinal discrepancies and contradictions.
The Sutras of Buddhism were written by one man. (Although there were additions and reinterpretations by others who came later on). But I know Buddhists who claim that their most fundamental unanswered question in life is the problem of suffering. Now this was the one thing that the Buddha claimed to have a remedy for. It was the only thing he taught. Why then would it be that a Buddhist would have their most fundamental unanswered question in life be the problem of suffering? Didn't Buddha answer that for them? Apparently not. 

Extra-biblical corroboration. Not everything the Bible mentions in its historical accounts have been discovered, and not everything that has been discovered is necessarily mentioned in the Bible, but where these things overlap, the evidence corroborates what the Bible says about. A more detailed explanation of this would take an entire post, but there are many names, places, and events the Bible mentions that have been discovered over time as actually being true. There are details about Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, etc, all of which are corroborated by an abundance of evidence. It also mentions specific people whom much evidence shows actually existed. People like Nimrod, Shem, Abraham, Moses, King David and Solomon, Jesus Christ, Paul, Pontius Pilate, a long list of kings of both Israel and other nations, etc. Events like the flood are corroborated by both extant natural evidence, and also written accounts of it found all over the world. Events like the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ are multiply attested by both biblical and non-biblical accounts, and is, by much research, one of the most provable events in history. 

Answers. Other texts may claim to have answers, but really don't have the answers to even the most basic, not to mention the most important questions. The Quran claims to be a completion of the OT and the NT of the Bible. It supposedly tells us more about the God of the Bible yet it just muddies the waters, and makes the way of salvation completely obscured. What's the way of salvation in the Bible? Christ. What's the way of salvation in the Quran? Well hopefully you'll do enough good works and be accepted. Good luck.
And as I said the Buddhist Sutras claim to teach the alleviation of suffering, yet I know Buddhists who don't have the answer to that question. The Bible has the answer to that question. There are several answers for it, but the main answer is that sin is the cause of suffering. And the remedy for it is the redemption of our souls and eternal life where there is no death or sorrow or sickness or hunger or pain. The Vedas are claimed to have been written down by sages, who heard their words from the gods. They are claimed to have supernatural authorship, yet they have questions in their texts such as "What is the origin of the universe? Do even the gods know the answer?" And this question is left unanswered. That's a pretty basic question, that a supernatural author should have the answer to. Ask the Bible that question, and you have an answer in the very first book, in the first chapter. (Now of course you may not agree with that answer, but you do have an answer.) I could ask more and more questions and find the answer in the Bible. I know it's probably possible to come up with a question that the Bible may not have a direct answer for, but there is an answer for every question we really need an answer for.
Claims. I know of no other god who has given a detailed account of the creation of everything, along with the reasons for the things that were made. And I know of no other god who claims to be sovereign over every single thing; the heavens and the earth, Heaven and Hell, nature and all creatures, servants and enemies, good and evil, life and death, and the souls of men. And I know of no other god who gives us such a detailed law of what He expects from us, so much so as it is impossible to keep. This speaks to His absolute righteousness and holiness. The myths of other gods have them committing fornication and other sins, and sound like a cosmic soap opera. The God of the Bible isn't portrayed that way. 
Also, I know of no other god who provides a remedy for the problem of sin. If God is really is holy and righteous as He claims to be, and we're really as sinful as He says we are (which I think is readily evident), then we have a big problem. Even man has laws against things that are universally accepted as wrong. Even in the corrupted system we have in America, we still have laws against theft and murder, etc. Why? (Well in this country in particular, things are legal or illegal mainly because of money, but that's another issue.) But why is it that in general that man has laws against such things? Because we know it's wrong, and it harms the one that the crime was committed against. So even corrupted sinful man still recognizes certain things as wrong, and implements punitive actions against those things. How much more then should God impose punitive actions against people who do wrong, and especially if He is as holy and righteous as He claims to be, and we are as sinful as He says we are, and not only that, but if He also made us, and gave us life? If all this is true, we're in a lot of trouble. 
And none of us can help or save another, because we're all in the same condition. The only one who can save us from the anger and punishment of God is God Himself. And God has no obligation to do so. But He did. Only a man can save men. And only one who is sinless can save those who are sinful. And only by blood can sins be remitted. So the only way to save man is for there to be a sinless man who sheds His blood on our behalf. So God became a man and lived in this earth, and kept His whole law, which none of us could do, and provided Himself the blood sacrifice on our behalf for the remission of our sins. And what does He require from us in order for this to be applied to us? Believing it. That's all. One of my sayings I used to say is, The world says, "I'll believe it when I see it." But God says, "You'll see it when you believe it."

So those are some of my reasons for the God I believe in being the God of the Bible. Reasons other than the spiritual ones that I already mentioned in the other post. And even though as I said it's difficult for me to explain the spiritual reasons, they are the main reason why I apply all the reasons above to me personally. God has spoken to my spirit many times since I was a child, and either told me things I wouldn't have otherwise known, or reminded me of something I needed to know at the time, or convicted me of doing something wrong, or given me specific answers to prayers, etc. And how do I know it's the God of the Bible speaking to me and not some other god? Because He confirms the truth of the Bible to me. Another god wouldn't do that.

Oh, and I don't say these things and tell people about God to get some sort of heavenly brownie points. I don't care if I get a little shack to live in in the next life. I just want to be with Him. I know He has given me eternal life after this one, even though I don't deserve it, and the reason I tell others about it is so that maybe at some point they might end up having it too.