Originally posted by ANDY-J2
Finally there is testimony from spiritual teachers (Yogis) who claim to have a recollection of their former incarnations and therefore have some insight into the workings of Karmic law. Of course it is a matter of personal choice how much credence one attaches to the testimony of an eastern mystic but given that they eschew all material possesions and live an ascetic lifestyle they have no reason to lie-they cannot profit materially from giving a false testimony.
I would make the same argument as to why we should accept the testimony of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus' disciples. They did not benefit materially from proclaiming God's Word. In fact, they got nothing but persecution and death.
The obvious answer to that would be that there is a world of difference between accepting the testimony of literally hundreds of people who are very much alive today and the testimony of a text which was written two thousand years ago.As a historian if I were studying any text from antiquity I would want to know by whom it were written and why and if it were a religious text I would want it to be supported by contemporary secular sources and while certain parts of the bible conform to the above criteria there is no denying that not all of it can be regarded as wholly credible.I would always value the first hand testimony of living people over any text of dubious origin.
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Originally posted by ANDY-J2
Christians base their beliefs solely on the third of the above mentioned criteria-testimony and that is the testimony contained in a holy scripture which was written over two thousand years ago and is largely of uncertain authorship.
Not quite. Christians base their beliefs on all three. The personal experience comes from prayer. Christians feel the Holy Spirit working in their lives, and God's laws written on their hearts. Christianity is also a logically and philosophically coherent belief system. Much of it is non-rational, but none of it is irrational. That's where reason comes in.
If you allow for the possibility of the existence of an omnipotent God, it follows that said God would interfere in the natural order every once in a while, for the purposes of demonstrating His existence and rewarding His followers(miracles). Is there evidence of this interference? Absolutely! While none of it meets David Hume's standards for evidence, most of it meets the norms of historical evidence, if not the norms of legal evidence.
You say there is evidence of interference by an omnipotent God but as you well know if I asked you for definitive and indisputable proof that this God existed you could not provide me with any.In fact given that the world we inhabit tends to be characterised by wastage and brutality on an enormous scale surely it is more plausible to believe that there is in fact no God or if there is one must question his moral goodness.
http://www.geocities.com/meta_crock/other/Miracles.htm
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"Pure religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." (James 1:27)