Hinduism is an ancient religion, and the concepts of salvation and grace are present. Isis was the god of salvation, wasn’t she? Friend of slaves and sinners. Sound familiar?
So you’re basically ignoring the old testament?
Scientific understanding does factor into the historicity of Jesus. If he never lived and taught then his teachings were made up. If his teachings were made up, then what use is faith other than as a puerile justification to believe in anything that takes your fancy?
Agreed.
If it can be observed, it’s not supernatural.
Give us an example of something that is supernatural that is beyond the pervue of science.
So I guess that’s a nail in the coffin for any argument that claims the Bible is true because it is a series of witness accounts. When Jesus walked on water, that was not a miracle because people saw him do it?
IF mankind actually tried to observe this idea that the supernatural was beyond the pervue of science, then we never would have advanced. At one time the whole world was supernatural to us.
Is it considered an ancient religion? It’s old, but not THAT old.
It’s not the emphasis of Christianity, no.
Minus the “peurile”, that’s what faith is. It’s up the individual to decide if anything has sufficient merit to be worthy of faith.
Divine grace.
That’s not an arguement I’d make, no.
But that contradicts your point that Christianity is based on faith. If faith is so important to Christianity, why is it that every important Christian figure had to be shown evidence?
That could be the case. I’m a big fan of science, myself. I am unable to generate the faith required to call myself a Christian, but many are. And it needn’t be justified with scientific claims.
Such evidence is one cause that can give rise to faith, but it is not the only one.
Its a concept in Indian religions dating back well before Christ.
Isis is an Egyptian goddess by the way. She was the friend of sinners thousands of years before Jesus tried to claim he was. Christianity brought nothing new to the table, apart from a whole new mythology.
These two statements contradict one another.
Christianity is wrong because it’s irrational, illogical and factually incorrect. It cannot be true; it doesn’t hold together logically. And until relatively recently, Christianity was an explanation for the natural world; it just turned out to be a false one.
And the one and only real purpose of Christianity is to convince as many people as possible to say “I’m Christian”. Everything else about it is subordinate to that and subject to change as tactical needs dictate.
Nonsense. That’s just something the defenders of the supernatural say to try to defend their fantasies. If the supernatural existed science would study it just like everything else.
I mostly disagree with this. Divine grace doesn’t have any observable effects to us in our current state, but supposedly it will after we die. Assuming we can observe anything after death, we would be able to observe heaven/hell.
I don’t know what you mean by this.
Was it un-Christian for Doubting Thomas to doubt? His situation doesn’t seem any different to me than the situation of people trying to prove miracles like Alexandrina Balasar.
I know what grace is, and it certainly isn’t supernatural.
I’m not up on Isis, I’ll have to do some reading.
You’re right, poor phrasing on my part. Faith is the only way, and it may or may not be accompanied by evidence.
Irrational, yes. Illogical, to some degree. Factually incorrect? Unknowable, see below.
It was used for that purpose, but wrongly so.
The purpose is clear: spiritual salvation. Anything run by humans, however, is flawed and easily corrupted.
Not all claims are falsifiable, are they? If something cannot be tested by the scientific method, is there another term you’d prefer?
And if such observation is not possible?
Yes, it was.
What is it?
Not unknowable, Christianity makes false factual claims all the time.
No; the purpose like any religion is to convince people to follow it. Talk about “spiritual salvation” is simply one of its many tactics used to persuade people. If that stops working it’ll be discarded and something else will replace it.
I’m not sure what you are getting at, but religious/supernatural claims aren’t unfalsifiable because they are profound or any such nonsense; they are unfalsifiable because they are carefully tailored that way to avoid outright disproof by science. Blatant frauds.
Then we don’t even know it exists and the issue doesn’t arise.
Then it would meet your definition of supernatural. Though, I would question it’s relevance to Christian theology. It seems like needing divine grace to get into heaven is an important point in Christianity.
It’s that old. Partly for that reason it’s much less standardized than newer religions, but its roots are thousands of years older than the other major religions.
Getting back to the main question, what you’re saying is logical. But I think it overlooks the way people behave. People have trouble keeping aspects of their beliefs separate and they want to know how things work. You can say science and faith have nothing to do with each other, but (as other posters noted) that hasn’t been true at all historically and I think from a psychological perspective people want the world to obey one set of rules. They can accept a certain amount of mystery, but they don’t want a world that’s half science and half religion.
If “grace” falls under your definition of “supernatural”, then so do a number of other emotions..and your definition is totally useless as it pertains to this conversation.
Supernatural-that which sleeps in the shadows before light is brought forth.