What are some top unexplained Biblical events whose explanation, if given, would make you a believer, and in what, then, would you believe? I am looking for a challenging list and also a vague idea of any impact an explanation of some of the challenges on the list may have.
Why would 'explaining' a biblical story make someone a believer? It's the idea that biblical events and stories are inexplicable that calls for faith, isn't it?
If, for example, you 'explain' feeding the multitude by saying Jesus made the most of the loaves and fishes by creating canapes and other party snacks, how would that create 'belief'?
I think you'd best stick with the believers, tsaeb. It would take more than an explanation, however novel, for me to give up my freedom from myth and superstition. Once bit - twice shy!
There are several ways to explain the loaves and fishes, I guess.
One would be to say it was a miracle. That would be the believer's explanation, wouldn't it?
Another would be to say that it wasn't a miracle but that the story is a poetic way of saying Jesus prompted people to share food they'd been keeping to themselves - the lesson being relevant today in that there's enough food for everyone on the planet and we should share. This 'naturalistic' explanation is the kind of thing that's splitting the Anglican church, however - taking the spooky religion out of scripture and replacing it with broadly left-wing, rational ideas.
A cynic wouldn't explain but might ask why, able to feed that multitude, God sits on his hands during famines. He must be evil.
One atheist explanation would be that various stories of amazing deeds and events came to be associated with the figure of Jesus (which may or may not have some historical basis), much like the tales of Robin Hood.
I can't think of an explanation that would prompt belief in someone who doesn't believe already, though.
What are some top unexplained Biblical events whose explanation, if given, would make you a believer, and in what, then, would you believe?
Nothing. But don't make the same mistake as the preacher at the Anglican church I used to attend. On explaining the virgin birth, " We have to accept that it happened, and that there are things beyond our understanding."
" We have to accept that it happened, and that there are things beyond our understanding."
I truly am amazed this old chestnut still floats. It's a roundabout way of saying "Put your brain in cold storage, you won't be needing it." Or, as Sun Myung Moon told his devotees, "Don't think, I will think for you."
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And that is what I find amazing: check your intelligence at the door, and believe the supersticious claptrap iron-age people took as truth. Let's close the hospitals and find healers to cure us all. We have to exorcise those demons!
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I don't really believe that one can dismiss the people who believe this "supersticious clap-trap" as always lacking in intelligence. I am sure that we have all met a few very intelligent people (including here on AP) who, nevertheless, are very devout members of some religion or other. I tend to think that the reason is often that some people haven't really devoted much thought or reasoning to whatever it was they learned at an early age. "Why bother ? I haven't really the time or inclination to question this stuff. I'm too busy learning medicine, or law, or whatever." seems to be the attitude on the part of people who "should know better" but don't. And, of course, some people have a very limited intelligence and/or education. and some are just too lazy to think. IMHO.
If you are religious, then miracles are supposed to be inexplicable, aren't they? If they were anything else, they wouldn't be miracles. That's why I'm confused about Tsaeb's idea that explanation will promote faith.
In Buddhism (as I understand it) people put a whole lot of effort into arriving at the ineffable; "it's inexplicable" is not a question of laziness, but of working hard at coming face-to-face with things beyond human comprehension.
Still, I'd like to hear Tsaeb's explanation of the loaves and the fishes, just to find out what she's getting at.
Originally posted by frankvan: I am sure that we have all met a few very intelligent people (including here on AP) who, nevertheless, are very devout members of some religion or other. I tend to think that the reason is often that some people haven't really devoted much thought or reasoning to whatever it was they learned at an early age.
I agree. There have been, and still are, some very intelligent people here, that have never paused to question their faith.
I don't really believe that one can dismiss the people who believe this "supersticious clap-trap" as always lacking in intelligence.
So what do you call it, Frank. I know there are intelligent people here. So, as Gar said above, when it comes to talking snakes, or asses, or floods and magical fruits, and virgin births, and demons...why does all that get suspended?
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It's simple step for a believer to accept that God had his own son perform acts which defied the laws of physics or went beyond the medical knowledge of the day, and that he confined to his son the ability to perform these impressive tricks as a way of proving to cynical and disbelieving locals (and to us now) that his son was indeed his son. Saints are also said to perform miracles,but not miracles of this calibre, and for the same reason of proving their credentials.
Why, incidentally, are there so few real miracles nowadays? There seems to have been quite a number in the early days of the Church and a great number over the centuries but in recent times there seem to be few. The word is,however, often applied strangely to events. After a recent tornado, a boy was found alive many metres from the remains of his home. Christian locals declared this a 'miracle' without seeming to wonder why others, including the boy's mother, were killed and God had not thought fit to miraculously save them.Some might call that good and bad fortune, or look to the physics and medicine involved, without bringing God into the explanation.
What is certainly contrary to our current knowledge and experience seems also to have been a gift of God, but a gift which he is no longer giving.The Patriarchs of the Old Testament had a longevity running into hundreds of years (and, apparently, produced unsurpassed numbers of children throughout). No other human known since has come close to either achievement.
So what do you call it, Frank. I know there are intelligent people here. So, as Gar said above, when it comes to talking snakes, or asses, or floods and magical fruits, and virgin births, and demons...why does all that get suspended?
I don't actually believe it gets suspended. In some cases it wasn't there to start with. In others, as dg says, they just don't question these things. I suspect that the majority are just too damn scared to question what they've been warned against "doubting" since childhood. That's the main reason I was a nominal christian until the age of twelve. After 74 years of having avoided being struck by lightning, I feel fairly comfortable and liberated in my atheism, and my reasonably conflict free marriage of the past 64 years to a devout catholic. I doubt that she believes in talking snakes or asses either.
If any of the unexplained stories from the Bible were to be explained other than by supernatural means, I assume you mean. Though, really, their explanations are already supernatural just by virtue of being in the Bible. If they received scientific explanations, they would no longer be stories of faith, but stories of history.
Do you mean, if I experienced one of the unexplained events from the Bible, would I then believe?
I suppose that if suddenly all of the “true believers” were raptured off to Heaven, I might start re-examining my priorities (though, is that actually even in the Bible?), but other than that there isn’t a thing in the Bible that I can think of that would make me believe in any of the Bible. A talking snake or a voice from the clouds would just lead me to make an appointment with a psychiatrist, and loaves and fishes I would suspect slight of hand.
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juanruiz: I am surprised to learn that you believe anything at all in the Bible.
GarColga: Proof. That's what I am getting at. What would constitute proof?
newnickname: You wrote: "Why would 'explaining' a biblical story make someone a believer? It's the idea that biblical events and stories are inexplicable that calls for faith, isn't it?"
What if the explanation showed that milleniums ago they were talking about things which they could not see but which we now with advanced technology can see? How did they see what was impossible to see? More than faith was working!
As for explaning the loaves and fishes, that's an easy one for me, but it is one which I am saving for a future book.
frankvan: What do you mean that you haven't been struck by lightning in 74 years when you are, I think, 82 years young? What got you at age 8 or thereabouts?
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