The argument from testimony applies to any mystical religion. Can you really affirm one experience and deny another? What if your experience in church is consistently negative?
I would say the testimony "argument" is not a one-and-done slam-dunk argument. It is one part of a whole collection of apologetic tools that can help people understand Jesus in our time. It might not be a good one to use if your church experience is consistently negative, and that's ok.
Thanks for sharing this. To me, the history of "arguing for God" seems illustrative of important lessons about the limitations of our human knowledge and the danger of conforming reality to our expectations. So many of these arguments are reflective of an individual's wishful thinking (including certain facts to the exclusion of others, bending reality to meet expectations, etc.) and the worldview quirks of those living in specific historical contexts. If you expect these arguments to buttress your faith, I think there is always a level of paranoia about what you might discover and what might not "fit" into the paradigm. This isn't to say there isn't any value in these kinds of arguments, but I think for too long Christians have treated the body of arguments for God as a sort of closed case, where the "arguments for" outweigh the "arguments against." I haven't been able to share that comfort - arguments for God can never really bear the weight that I want them to, and on a strictly logical level, I think there are arguments against the existence of God that are actually stronger and more convincing. It'd be nice to see Christians embrace and wrestle with this tension and try to show a path forward for faith instead of trying to build a castle on the sands of philosophical arguments for God.
Long ago someone challenged me to the ultimate debate to prove God exists or doesn't exist. I thought about it for a bit. I thought about the Triune God and how it's just a contradiction. I thought about Jesus who is God and not God at the same time. A contradiction. And how communion bread is Jesus' body and not his body at the same time. A contradiction. So I summed it up as God is X and not X is true 0 && 1 = 1. It's a contradiction. That is the proof that God exists: the contradictions. So if you reject contradictions then you won't accept that God exists. When the rich give their wealth to the poor. That's God. When we give up something we want so someone else can have enough. Jon Stewart made the astute observation: if Christianity doesn't change you, what's the point? When we go against our nature to love others, that's God.
This can and should apply to the BIBLE'S version of Jesus Christ and in BOTH cases the ACTUAL, REALITY based answer is, " i just do, " aka FAITH aka believing something or in something or someone that there's ZERO REAL evidence for said belief. This reasoning in NEARLY 💯 of human life would cause you to look cock eyed at the person. YET when THIS symptom of mental illness is applied to religion, oh it's all good. I could see this occurring BEFORE that pesky thing called SCIENCE. AFTERWARDS, given the limited things that are 💯 unexplainable or partially, I find it FAR MORE LIKELY that EVERY religion comes from our PATHETIC need for meaning, reason and/ or explanation for certain things, USUALLY but NOT always centered on human existence, creation, life's meaning/ purpose, right and wrong and death. The most RIDICULOUS thing I hear from believers is that for some reason people wouldn't know right from wrong or CARE if what they're doing is right and wrong WITHOUT religion. So they need a make believe, never seen, heard or felt, all knowing, infinite and everywhere entity to know how to or care to act right? Ya just don't naturally WANT TO? You DIDN'T, like me and 90+% of American citizens, go to that rare, advanced, sparsely attended place called Kindergarten? Where i argue, i learned 90+% of what the believer is getting from make believe man, in terms of how to and why to act right.
The argument from testimony applies to any mystical religion. Can you really affirm one experience and deny another? What if your experience in church is consistently negative?
I would say the testimony "argument" is not a one-and-done slam-dunk argument. It is one part of a whole collection of apologetic tools that can help people understand Jesus in our time. It might not be a good one to use if your church experience is consistently negative, and that's ok.
Thanks for sharing this. To me, the history of "arguing for God" seems illustrative of important lessons about the limitations of our human knowledge and the danger of conforming reality to our expectations. So many of these arguments are reflective of an individual's wishful thinking (including certain facts to the exclusion of others, bending reality to meet expectations, etc.) and the worldview quirks of those living in specific historical contexts. If you expect these arguments to buttress your faith, I think there is always a level of paranoia about what you might discover and what might not "fit" into the paradigm.
This isn't to say there isn't any value in these kinds of arguments, but I think for too long Christians have treated the body of arguments for God as a sort of closed case, where the "arguments for" outweigh the "arguments against." I haven't been able to share that comfort - arguments for God can never really bear the weight that I want them to, and on a strictly logical level, I think there are arguments against the existence of God that are actually stronger and more convincing. It'd be nice to see Christians embrace and wrestle with this tension and try to show a path forward for faith instead of trying to build a castle on the sands of philosophical arguments for God.
Wow,that was beautifully put.
This was a great discussion that I ask myself often.
Long ago someone challenged me to the ultimate debate to prove God exists or doesn't exist. I thought about it for a bit. I thought about the Triune God and how it's just a contradiction. I thought about Jesus who is God and not God at the same time. A contradiction. And how communion bread is Jesus' body and not his body at the same time. A contradiction. So I summed it up as God is X and not X is true 0 && 1 = 1. It's a contradiction. That is the proof that God exists: the contradictions. So if you reject contradictions then you won't accept that God exists.
When the rich give their wealth to the poor. That's God. When we give up something we want so someone else can have enough. Jon Stewart made the astute observation: if Christianity doesn't change you, what's the point?
When we go against our nature to love others, that's God.
This can and should apply to the BIBLE'S version of Jesus Christ and in BOTH cases the ACTUAL, REALITY based answer is, " i just do, " aka FAITH aka believing something or in something or someone that there's ZERO REAL evidence for said belief. This reasoning in NEARLY 💯 of human life would cause you to look cock eyed at the person. YET when THIS symptom of mental illness is applied to religion, oh it's all good. I could see this occurring BEFORE that pesky thing called SCIENCE. AFTERWARDS, given the limited things that are 💯 unexplainable or partially, I find it FAR MORE LIKELY that EVERY religion comes from our PATHETIC need for meaning, reason and/ or explanation for certain things, USUALLY but NOT always centered on human existence, creation, life's meaning/ purpose, right and wrong and death.
The most RIDICULOUS thing I hear from believers is that for some reason people wouldn't know right from wrong or CARE if what they're doing is right and wrong WITHOUT religion. So they need a make believe, never seen, heard or felt, all knowing, infinite and everywhere entity to know how to or care to act right? Ya just don't naturally WANT TO? You DIDN'T, like me and 90+% of American citizens, go to that rare, advanced, sparsely attended place called Kindergarten? Where i argue, i learned 90+% of what the believer is getting from make believe man, in terms of how to and why to act right.