The real religion?

[SteveII]

It's actually Plantinga. 

This is not specific to Christianity. One cannot know vast amount of details intuitively (properly basic).  The fact that different cultures flesh out the intuition differently does not undermine the basic premise. Both the intuition and the details can be defeated simply by showing they are false.

Reformed epistemology IS specific to Christianity though...so like Crossless was saying, how do you intend to bridge that gap between specific Christian beliefs and all other religious beliefs?

Revelation, reasoning, and experience provide the information to develop systematic theology. You would have to look at what other religions individually provide.

[KevinM1]

1. 27 documents of the NT that survived. 
2. The fact there were churches across the Roman empire with 20 years of Jesus' death
3. The fact that the gospel writers (still within the lifetime of eyewitnesses) seemed to have even earlier writings available to them (putting those writings even closer to the actual dates.) 
4. The fact that we have late first century and second century writers who believed and referred to both the earlier documents, people, and events. 

Why are you assuming that these documents are unbiased and thus objectively truthful? These people were trying to build and spread a religion, correct?

[The Grand Nudger]

You can apply all the reason and experience you like to what you get from a crystal ball..............you're not going to get anything rational out of it. Only justifying rationalizations.

[purplepurpose]

Reformed epistemology IS specific to Christianity though...so like Crossless was saying, how do you intend to bridge that gap between specific Christian beliefs and all other religious beliefs?

Revelation, reasoning, and experience provide the information to develop systematic theology. You would have to look at what other religions individually provide.

[SteveII]

I see those fairy tales up above..are you implying that this is evidence?  How about this...they are a combination of non-specific, and untrue things..assertions upon which you will build a non-sequitur ultimately ending with "therefore god".  This is why it's not evidence....evidence is evident, not asserted, and reasserted ad naus.

Why are they 'untrue'? At most, all you have the grounds to conclude is that 'we don't know'.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because you have failed to make them so.  This isn't the first time that these things have been asserted on these boards, or by you.  I'm not going to humor the weekly reset Steve. As ever, the drums sound retreat immediately, and the plebs burn the fields on their way out. "Well, we don't/can't know". OFC we can, don't be ridiculous....you're the one who decided to bring godman down to earth, after all.

[LadyForCamus]

Right...

"It is tempting to raise the following sort of question. If belief in God can be properly basic, why cannot just any belief be properly basic? Could we not say the same for any bizarre aberration we can think of? What about voodoo or astrology? What about the belief that the Great Pumpkin returns every Halloween? Could I properly take that as basic? Suppose I believe that if I flap my arms with sufficient vigor, I can take off and fly about the room; could I defend myself against the charge of irrationality by claiming this belief is basic? If we say that belief in God is properly basic, will we not be committed to holding that just anything, or nearly anything, can properly be taken as basic, thus throwing wide the gates to irrationalism and superstition?"

At any time, you can offer defeaters for a properly basic belief to show that it is not true. Go ahead, what is the defeater that shows that God does not exist? A 'properly basic belief' is both a belief that does not rely on inference and may be true. If it is not possible to be true, then it is not a properly basic belief.

I am under no obligation to offer any defeaters regarding anything not existing, as I'm sure you know. "The Great Pumpkin" objection demonstrates that falling adequately within the criteria of "properly basic beliefs" (as I understand them explained) is just about any other wild thing the human imagine is capable of drumming up. Plantinga's rebuttal: 'well, you can't prove there AREN'T other criteria that might exclude all these other things,' is not a rebuttal at all. It's a logical fallacy, which is a problem for reformed epistemology, not for me.

[SteveII]

1. 27 documents of the NT that survived. 
2. The fact there were churches across the Roman empire with 20 years of Jesus' death
3. The fact that the gospel writers (still within the lifetime of eyewitnesses) seemed to have even earlier writings available to them (putting those writings even closer to the actual dates.) 
4. The fact that we have late first century and second century writers who believed and referred to both the earlier documents, people, and events. 

Why are you assuming that these documents are unbiased and thus objectively truthful?  These people were trying to build and spread a religion, correct?

Why would you want to build and spread a religion that was based on what you knew to be false? Is there any evidence or hint that might be the case in the 8-9 authors of the NT? The core belief of Jesus coming back from the dead is hardly an event to be mistaken or 'biased' with.

[FatAndFaithless]

And we're back to the "they really really believed it" excuse.

[LadyForCamus]

Reformed epistemology IS specific to Christianity though...so like Crossless was saying, how do you intend to bridge that gap between specific Christian beliefs and all other religious beliefs?

Revelation, reasoning, and experience provide the information to develop systematic theology. You would have to look at what other religions individually provide.

What you actually mean: "The Bible"