(June 28, 2018 at 9:59 am)polymath257 Wrote:(June 27, 2018 at 7:46 pm)JairCrawford Wrote: I actually greatly respect and commend your aversion to being dogmatic. It's something I am working on in my own Christian faith.
As for what I would recommend? I... how do I do this without getting preachy? I don't wanna get all stereotypical preachy on y'all. I guess I'll just honesty share from my viewpoint and experience. I'll start of bluntly; the scientific method isn't involved at all. I am very charismatic and revivalist, which means I believe that healing, miracles, signs and wonders, speaking in tongues, up and to even the raising of the dead, can, and still do happen today. Not scientific at all. Completely and utterly supernatural. So my honest advice to anyone seeking God is, look in the mysteries and the supernatural places, not within the realm of logic and understanding.
Now I know that this is like, the absolute ANTI-THESIS of rationality and skepticism. And believe me there are many denominations of Christians that even disagree with these views, but this is honestly my worldview, and thus an honest answer to your question from the lens of my worldview.
If those healings, miracles, signs and wonders are *real*, they can be documented and studied. The method of such study is the scientific method. If nothing else, science would be able to show such events do occur and that we have no current explanation for them.
Sorry, logic and understanding are what it requires to believe something.
Naturally we will disagree on the conclusion for we look at the same information with completely different worldview lenses. Nevertheless, I find your response highly intriguing, because, I've heard it before! Only not from an atheist, but from fellow Christians with a cessationist viewpoint. (Don't get me wrong here I'm not by any means saying you're acting like the religious or anything like that, just making an observation and thinking out loud.) When I debate with cessationists (Christians that are fervently sure that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased after the Bible was completed), they make the same argument that miracles are not documented therefore there is no evidence.
This is legitimately intriguing to me!
All differences aside, I am loving the discussion so far.
