Dear Pericles,

<<Which is why any discussion with you is completely impossible.>>

Did you mean "undesirable"? I can discuss credible evidence just like anyone else - my lack of interest in it does not render it impossible.

It's not only religious people who tend to be uninterested in evidence (credible or otherwise), but practically everyone. Yes, there are those who like evidence and for them it's either a hobby or their livelihood, but nobody in fact lives by it. In fact, it is impossible to live by evidence because evidence doesn't tell us how to live. Surely you would agree that politicians do not stick to their Left-Right sides due to evidence, nor football fans cheer their team for any evidence.

If you only talk with people who like credible evidence, you would find yourself pretty isolated.

Of course there are those who use evidence as pretext: first they already decided how they are going to live, then they look for and find the evidence to justify it, it's a case of "Aunty, say 'Yes' because we're going to get married anyway"...

No, Yuyutsu, I said impossible and I meant impossible.

>>Did you mean "undesirable"?<<

This doesn't wash either...

>>I can discuss credible evidence just like anyone else - my lack of interest in it does not render it impossible<<

Yet you choose not to. Fair enough. But that just underlines the first point: impossible.

Not helpful, Dan S de Merengue.

>>For Christians today, evidence too is important. I've listed several categories of evidence in a posting above.<<

Categories of evidence are not actually evidence in themselves. If I stood up in court and said that I would give evidence that I was not at the scene of the crime, that identifies the category of evidence that I would proffer: absence of opportunity. However, to have any validity at all, I would actually have to produce evidence that I was not there.

You offer two excerpts from a book that you believe represents your religion, as evidence to support your belief in that religion. That is akin to my saying "I was not there", without third party corroboration, and expecting instant exoneration.

Belief, on its own, does not constitute evidence, however much you may believe in it.

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Dear Pericles & Yuyutsu,

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Pericles wrote to Yuyutsu:

« At least you are able to accept that "existence" substantially pre-dates religion, of any kind »

And Yuyutsu replied:

« What a perfect chicken-and-egg question! I can't tell which concept consciously arose first in the history of the human mind …»
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You may both be interested in the following :

Man separated from his common ancestor with the chimpanzee about 5 to 6 million years ago :

[ Nature. 2006 Jun 29;441(7097):1103-8. Epub 2006 May 17.

Patterson N, Richter DJ, Gnerre S, Lander ES, Reich D.

Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees.

Speciation appears to have been unusually drawn-out, with an original divergence as much as 7 to 13 million years ago, but with ongoing hybridization during several millions of years, with the final separation dating to as late as 5 to 6 million years ago. ]
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Whereas the earliest precursory signs which may possibly be interpreted as “religious behaviour” date from 300,000 years ago :

[ Paleolithic religion is the set of spiritual beliefs thought to have appeared during the Paleolithic time period. Religious behaviour is thought to have emerged by the Upper Paleolithic, before 30,000 years ago at the latest, but behavioral patterns such as burial rites that one might characterize as religious — or as ancestral to religious behaviour — reach back into the Middle Paleolithic, as early as 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. Religious behaviour may combine (for example) ritual, spirituality, mythology and magical thinking or animism — aspects that may have had separate histories of development during the Middle Paleolithic before combining into "religion proper" of behavioral modernity.

There are suggestions for the first appearance of religious or spiritual experience in the Lower Paleolithic (significantly earlier than 300,000 years ago, pre-Homo sapiens), but these remain controversial and have limited support. ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_religion

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The journey believers take, from unbelief to commitment. What is there more than just upbringing? Fearing we'll be retracing ground already covered I'll attempt an answer.

It's obviously more than just upbringing. Otherwise there'd only be Christian believers coming from Christian backgrounds. There are countless counter-examples to this. CS Lewis was one who had declared himself an atheist at one point as a young person. I understand that he became convinced by certain evidences to become a reluctant theist, and then later someone of Christian conviction. So I notice a sort of progress or development.

I think people advance through steps or stages towards belief. For example, from one stage of never thinking about or considering God, to mild reflection upon spiritual things, more seriously acknowledging the relevance of God, first hearing the gospel message, more understanding, a revelation of Jesus as the Son of God, then to finally a full conviction and belief of the Christian faith.

Some move through stages quicker than others as they come to seek and understand the truth. Each will hear, and account for, and be convinced or otherwise by different evidence along the way, as all are individuals. Those beginning in Christian homes will have some advantage in their progress as they will have accessed spiritual knowledge from a young age.

So people come to faith after acceptance of the significance and cohesion of the gospel message in the light of the consistency and integrity of the evidence they perceive.

Why is it that two people of similar background, when presented with similar argument and evidence, one accepts the message and the other does not? I cannot say. This is to enter into the mystery of the question of human free will. Some people do not want to accept certain ideas.

Yet Pericles, you asked earlier, am I missing something? It could be you are leaving God out of the accounting. Without including the possibility that God is making himself evident in people's lives, then understanding how faith figures in human history is made more difficult.

"The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

As for the various evidences for what it is that convinces people about the Christian faith, I've given a few categories of these types of evidences. These or perhaps others are for you to research to your own satisfaction. Choose a topic and dig into it as deep as you like with whatever strength you have.

I can tell you a little of my experience, why I have come to faith, and what I find convincing. But I am only one person. I can't speak for all believers. I suspect I know what it is that unites all true Christian believers. It has to do with being convinced that Jesus really did come in the form of a man, he lived and died, a perfect life, rose again from the dead. He is the Lord of life and offers new life and forgiveness for those who believe in him. It's a deeply impacting message to many, but I know not to all. Some still remain unconvinced, opposed or indifferent. Different people are going to be convinced and persuaded by different types of arguments and evidence.