That wasn't your first statement. You didn't say "That's what God wanted it to do," you said "mandated by God". I read that as meaning "Part of God's overall plan" not "God specifically told these people to do these things". If you meant the latter, that might be a different story. Certainly the immediate, emotionally charged reaction would be that God would never endorse such a thing. But, apparently He at least tacitly approved of hurricanes and Pauly Shore movies, so maybe more thought is required.
Anyways, my real point is that a person need not have any solid opinion of things like the Inquisition in order to be a justified Christian.
All of that is possible. Nevertheless, I consider the fact that Jesus’s actions lead to the formation and preservation of such a massive Institution to be evidence in favor of the story.
Because for the first several centuries of it's inception, the teachings had the exact opposite effect, and still do to this day in most places and most situations. Also, because there were already plenty of institutions in place for a motivated person to accomplish those goals- Judaism was in large part exactly the way you describe above in Jesus' time, and that was the first thing they spoke out against. So, I suppose the imaginary evil people could be extra-super-duper devious, and had this all worked out in advance, but then, there's no actual evidence of that. Taking things at their face is simpler.
Islam is another one of those religions that has a lot of truth in it, and actually, people being willing to martyr themselves for it IS evidence in their favor. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm going to say that all of these points favor Christianity[i] exclusively[/i]. Is there a difference in people allowing themselves to be killed passively for proclaiming what they believe, vs. people blowing themselves up to kill a few infidels? I'm not sure.
I just bet you would. I wasn't referring to people who 'fought and died' in that point, however. I was referring to people who allowed themselves to be imprisoned for years, tortured, and ultimately fed to wild animals while alive. I would submit that people would be willing to *fight* for many things they would not be willing to be tortured for. The psychology behind 'fighting for an ideal' and 'being tortured for sticking to what you know to be a lie' are two different things, I imagine. This is another difference between suicide bombers and martyrs- suicide bombers choose the time, conditions, and methods of their death.
I said neither. What I said was, I have no pre-existing bias against them. In other words, a claim to the miraculous is not something I disregard reflexively.
What do the sacrements have to do with anything at all? They come at the very end of the belief structure- First, I see that the morality/instution is good, then I evaluate the claims and find them sound, then I evaluate the philosophy and internal logic and find it coherent, then, after already becoming convinced that Christianity is true, I come to respect the sacrements. After going through the above process, it would be rather ludicrous to just ignore or revoke sacraments without a darned good reason, wouldn’t you say so?
I’m not Catholic by the way, so I have precious few ‘sacraments’ to defend in the first place.
There are people here who will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Muslims would cut your head off or whatever it is they do to infidels if they caught you praying to Mohammed. They pray to Allah. Have I tried praying to Allah? Well, since I consider Him to be the same Being as what I call God, I guess I would say so.
Of course it's [i]possible[/i]. But then, if my own brain is working against me in such a way, I guess I'm pretty screwed no matter what I believe, eh?
That must be why John Edwards isn't making any money...
You don’t need 20th Century science to know that people can’t walk on water or come back from the dead as a rule. Now, I’m not faulting you so much, the idea you express above that ancient people were ignorant and we know so much better is a very popular misconception.
This is a question of history. What percentage of people fighting in the Crusades were peasents, vs. professional soldiers (knights and so on)? I don’t know, do you? From what I’ve heard, a great many of them were actually landowners themselves, with a great deal to lose.
As far as being manipulated, yes you could say that- Crusaders were manipulated into fighting because Islam was conquering all their lands and threatened to make Christianity extinct. That is a very strong incentive to fight, yes.
Well, the first thing that makes my sources more credible is that they are MY sources- the things I have been exposed to. If there are sources and evidences that point towards the truth of something else, such as Islam, I haven't been exposed to them yet, and as such, I am a Christian.
But, you aren't really asking an evidential question above. If you were, the only way to answer such a question would be for me to list every religious and anti-religious standpoint on earth, all of the evidence ever presented for them, contrast it to all the evidence ever presented for Christianity, and declare Christianity the victor. Under the presumption that you aren't asking for that, what are you [i]really[/i] asking?
If I provided a substantial answer to this, you would immediately move on to Judaism, Hinduism, or something else wouldn’t you? Like I said, what are you really after?
