Not-Now Soon,
That you must trust material evidence is a sign that you only trust in the flesh that does not avail. Moreover, that "evidence" if understood as evidence that the events in the bible actually did happen as told lies is on very shaky ground as biblical scholarship over the last hundred years has shown. Only the spirit counts. Scripture points to things of the spirit, that is why it uses parable, metaphor, analogy because it is not talking about what we now call "facts". Again, I must insists that your approach to the bible is a modern one that the premodern or informed scholarship in our own time does not recognise it as a proper approach. It is time for solid food!
Peter

My atheism is often challenged by believers who tell me to read the Bible. My reply to them is that among other things, my atheism is a result of having read the bible without influence of others who would seek to interpret it for me. One of the "other things" which makes me believe that the bible was not written or influenced by a mythical god was my close relationship with a schizophrenic for several years.
David

To Peter.

Be very careful yourself of your own view. Because the criticism you hold of me, applies more so to you. Unless You can correct me on this, you don't believe several parts of the bible because the evidence of such things being impossible. At least they seem impossible to you. Miracles must be exaggerations or added on later, or somehow something else then as they are written.

I've seen this perspective before, but your version of it goes further to even deny that Jesus rose again in his body. I trust what the New Testament says about that. That's all the evidence I need. It's the foundation I can be satisfied with. If that is shaky ground to you, then we will part ways on what we think of as solid foundation, and what is shaky ground. You can trust scholars who might not even believe in God. I will trust the Bible.

There is no reason to think the bible teaches spiritually only, but that it was never intended to be true historically. That reasoning is not based on anything that makes sense. Now a days we have several scholars run an idea of reinventing history from their modern views of ancient interpretation. There's even a view calling for the historic Jesus, which is a term of rejecting Jesus as being history except for parts that the scholars who use that term, they say may have happened.

(Continued)

(Continued)

Don't you see it Peter? The smoke and mirrors on interpretation? They say this is an older way of understanding the bible as non literal, when they made it up recently to justify not believing it themselves. I would love to see justification on their view of historical interpretation, because it is quite the claim. Until there is justification then this is a just a shaky concept that many other concepts and perspectives are built around.

Where I agree with you is that the Spirit counts. There are deeper lessons in the history, and in the teachings. We're we disagree is that you think the bible is only spiritual lessons with deeper meanings. I think the bible is also practical. What is written can be used for our application, as well as read with the simple foundation of it being true.

plantagenet,

<<What I wanna know is what all this inconsequential religious mumbo jumbo has to do with First Fleet How to Invade Australia for Dummies Day?>>

There are people on this forum who don't accept that the OT and NT are reliable historical documents that can be trusted. I presume you refer to my comment about Captain Cook.

The facts are that for those who engage in historical science, when we try to determine anything that happened in the past, distant past, whether Captain Cook, Jesus' resurrection, Joshua's life or the life of Albert Einstein use tests to determine authenticity of any document.

Historians, as I am, use certain criteria to discern whether a document is authentic or not. My use of Captain Cook was to show that if we check out the criteria historians use to discover what happened with Captain Cook, we have to have to do the same with historical investigations in the OT and NT.

So, there is no inconsequential religious mumbo jumbo with my mentioning Captain Cook in association with Jesus' resurrection.

As an historian, I use the same criteria for discerning whether the resurrection is an historically accurate account or whether Captain Cook sailed in the Endeavour up the east coast of what was to become Australia.

VK3AUU

<<One of the "other things" which makes me believe that the bible was not written or influenced by a mythical god was my close relationship with a schizophrenic for several years.>>

David, would you give up eating tomatoes if you found a rotten one in a bag of them? Labelling the God promoted by Christianity through the Bible as 'a mythical god' demonstrates a presuppositional bias.

At least Richard Dawkins, one of the world's pre-eminent atheists, was honest enough to admit in a public discussion at Oxford University with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams:

"There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

"The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did" (Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist, The Telegraph, 24 Feb 2012) at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html

I have a question for you: Two gases are important for life on earth. I breathe in oxygen I can't see. I breathe out carbon dioxide I can't see. Plants absorb the carbon dioxide for their own food and release oxygen for me to breathe. What causes you to reject the Creator God who caused this system to happen with the first human beings and has maintained this process since the beginning of time?

To what do you attribute the origin of this cycle of life?