#626 | It seems much of apologetics is retrofitting, claiming Christianity is the best answer for past or present events. Science is more about the future. Does Christianity outperform science in predictive power? Shouldn’t it if it reflects reality? How can we test this?
#616 | Since Christians, who still sin daily, have no way of distinguishing between 1) God’s punishment and 2) his trials sent to build our character or 3) an accommodation of Satan’s taunt as found in the book of Job, what actual sense and value could Hebrews 12:8 ever have?
#612 | JWW says high biblical expectations set Christians up for failure. But this is irrelevant. What matters is the degree Christians, who presumably have the Holy Spirit, outperform others on clear metrics of good behavior. What can we expect on criminality, divorce, and obesity? Anything?
#605 | Would a child brought up without reference to a God develop the basic notion of the God found in Romans 1? What is that minimal definition found in Romans 1, and can we not test whether kids outside a theistic culture would arrive at such a notion?
#603 | What is the point of admonishing Christians with “test all things” when there is no clear procedure given, and when unsurprisingly, the proposed procedures tried have been all over the map? And where in Scriptures are found the core elements of critical thinking?
#597 | Greg makes the unsubstantiated claim that the incoherency of disbelief is leading to many coming to Jesus while I might claim the inverse. Is there not clear evidence that would clear this up? Are such claims on either side of any real value? How about anecdotes?
#579 | 2 Thess 2:10 says the damned “perish because they have no love for the truth”. This is entirely testable with cognitive science. I live in Japan and would be happy to test whether Japanese reject Christianity due to a hatred of the truth. Who will work with me on this?
#574 | Is not this quote by WLC easily testable? “[Life without God is] unlivable, that no one can live consistently and happily as though his life were ultimately meaningless, valueless, and purposeless.” Is this notion not quickly falsified by an encounter with the reality of happy people without God?
All that is necessary for purpose is a love for others that leads to the purpose of keeping them safe and happy. This notion of cosmic purpose is a fabrication that does not translate into actual, practical purpose. Enslaving yourself to an alleged deity will only diminish the potential of a fulfilling life of personal purpose, the only purpose that is logically coherent.
#560 | It appears that within Christianity everything noble about humans must be attributed to God, and everything ignoble about humans must be attributed to sin entering the world. Considering this is 100% of the logical space, can this be rigorously tested? Or only asserted?
#559 | Greg correctly posits that the apparent processes attributed to evolution may have a different cause. Yet, he confidently attributes receiving what he asked for in prayer to the act of praying. Why the apparent epistemic inconsistency? Can we not devise a rigorous test of prayer?
#558 | I keep hearing from STR (J Warner Wallace especially) the claim that the resurrection is testable. What would be a satisfactory piece of evidence that Jesus did not resurrect? Does JWW’s view on this reflect the opinion of everyone at STR?
#557 | JWW claims we can test the resurrection. How so? If we were to find a book that claimed 1) a dog sang Ode to Joy by memory, 2) that believing this fact is central to humans’ afterlife, and 3) that this was testable, what would be the appropriate testing apparatus and methods?
#541 | When it comes to Christian miracles, there seems to be an odd inversely correlated X and Y, with X being the degree to which the alleged miracle is extraordinary and Y being the degree of the immediacy of the claim to scrutiny. Why would this be?
In other words, the more the alleged miracle can be scientifically scrutinized, the less remarkable it is, and the more remarkable it is, the more distant it is from scientific scrutiny.
#529 | Is it merely a lucky accident that no biblical promise can be tested? What is the probability that the actual creator of the universe is living within the souls of believers, yet not a single statistical demonstration of the power of that creator is available?
#521 | Christians claim we need a higher power to overcome vices such as gluttony. Is Satan behind the many slimmer non-believers, perhaps to keep the efficacy of the Holy Spirit against gluttony from being evidenced so God’s existence is not overly clear, thus preserving the need for faith?
The point of this post is to assess the following:
Can the presence/absence of God be observed my the prevalence of gluttony among Christians.
Does God allow Satan to make Christians gluttonous and obese to thwart any attempt to test the promises of God for deliverance over sin?
STR Asked... 