3 Questions For Believers (A work in progress.)

[The Grand Nudger]

In science, once we establish one fact, we can use that as a point for determining other facts.

I won't speak for others here, but for me it's a leap of faith.

Snipped by me for relevance.

In this response Itrrational you made allusions between faith and science. I have to point out that "taking a leap of faith" is in no way interchangeable with "starting with a fact"

This invalidates the rest of that response by itself. I understand that you may feel that the two are somehow similar, I would love to hear about why you think that - but again, right from the outset, I can't call that anything but dead wrong from the ground floor to the penthouse.

Before I believed as I do now this would not have been sufficient evidence for me to think that it was anything but chance. I was raised as a catholic, but it never clicked, and I was living against how I was taught. Once I believed in God working in my life, then it gave me another option to consider about these experiences that I didn't have before. This is probably not the greatest analogy but I think it will work. When I was younger if I wanted to know what kind of fuel a certain car runs on I would consider gasoline or diesel. If it was now, because I'm now aware of alternative power sources, I'd also consider electric, solar or whatever. So I'm not believing these experiences are directly from God solely because I believe in him, but that is a factor I consider. Also, I don't believe in God because these things occurred, but rather because I opened myself to him and he came to me. This may be textbook christianity, but it's true textbook christianity.

Meh, I can easily accept that all christianity is "true christianity" as "christianity" is just a name for a group of claims. Whoever makes the claim is giving me their "true christianity" or "textbook christianity".

Now, with the analogy about power sources - what does your new understanding have to say about any of those experiences you had in the past? Nothing. You now know that there are electric cars, but that doesn't mean that you saw one as a kid, and it certainly doesn't even increase the possibility of any of those cars having been electric cars. If you walked through the countryside circa 1920 - considering just how many of those cars might be electric- I;d call you a loon..and I;d be right. I don't think you would though, because again you are making a special pleading argument. I doubt that a special pleading argument can convince you of anything.

Here, let me try:

There is no god, I don't have to prove it or give any evidence, because in this special case none of the normal rules apply. I know this because I started believing it was true, and then realized that it was true, ad infinitum.

Do you concede?